That evening, a strange electrical disturbance was recorded in the area. Satellite broadcast monitors all went white, computer hard drives were cleared of all data, and a multitude of other similar unnatural phenomenon were encountered. The television stations and newspaper offices were deluged with questions and complaints. There were several investigations launched, with no real satisfactory results. But a number of witnesses said, "About that time, I could swear I saw the sky glow. It was just for a second, but it was like a bright light was launched from the ground into the sky." But these reports were never connected to anything, and were eventually buried and forgotten.
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...I know what I saw.
Echoes changed into light, and that light swallowed the
Manticore.
And a second before it did, Saotome Masami leapt in front of the Manticore, shielding her with his body - I don't know what he was thinking, why he was on the side of the Manticore, and frankly, I don't want to know.
But there was one thing that I did have to admit... He might have killed a number of people for the Manticore, but that casual disregard for life sure included his own.
Saotome Masami was swept up in the torrent of light, his body blown away, not a trace of it left.
He was disintegrated... No, he was erased.
But moments before Echoes had self-destructed, the Manticore had been flung aside by her companion and out of the beam's path.
''...!''
Even as I was flung aside by the shockwave, I desperately struggled to grasp the situation.
But no, I didn't understand anything.
From my point of View, there was absolutely no way for me to grasp the first thing about what had just happened.
What the hell was Echoes? How could something that looked like a human turn into light and explode?! And what 'information' was he 'transmitting'? To whom? I simply had no way of knowing.
(What's happening-?!)
I hit the ground and rolled, screaming with frustration inside.
When I finally managed to stop myself, there was no light left around me.
Grunting in pain, I sat up, looked in front of me, and gasped.
She was standing there alone.
Half of her body was burned black, and smoke was rising off of it. The uniform she'd been wearing had been blown away, and beneath the moonlight, every inch of her slim, limber body was exposed.
She was gazing blankly at the sky.
She didn't seem to be looking at anything.
Her lips trembled. Like they were scrambling to form words that never emerged.
"Ah... Ahh." There was no expression on her face. It had been replaced by emptiness.
The face of someone that had lost something that they valued more than their own life.
As if half of her body had been torn away.
As if her capacity for joy had been pulled up by the roots.
She looked as if she could no longer perceive any meaning, like there was nothing left for her.
"Aaaaaanrrrggggghhhhhhhhh!"
Somewhere, her endless scream turned into a howl.
It was the sound of her heart breaking.
The scream seemed to shake the moon.
"......"
I sat and watched, nailed to the spot.
But then I realized that was the last thing I should be doing.
(G-got to run...!)
As I tried to get to my feet, the gravel scrunched beneath me.
Like a mechanical response, the Manticore's battered face swung towards me.
Our eyes met.
A shiver ran down my spine.
Even by the light of the moon, I could tell her eyes were blood red. The whites were completely soaked in crimson hostility.
"You die...!" she howled. "I'll kill every last one of you!!"
As if her voice had been a trigger, I shot to my feet, and ran for it.
Naturally, she came after me.
I was running, but from the sound of it, she was walking, dragging one leg.
But the sound was getting closer.
(Waaaah!)
At the time, I was convinced that fear had finally driven me round the bend.
I was hearing things.
I could hear a melody coming through the bushes in front of me-an impossible, unnatural melody.
Someone was whistling.
Whistling a tune that should never be whistled, Wagner's "Die Meistersinger von Numberg."
Unnatural or not, at that moment I had no other straws to grasp at.
I ran for my life towards the sound.
When I was almost there, my leg slipped.
"Aah-!" I screamed, pitching forward, falling flat on my face. I smacked my forehead on the ground, and everything went black for a moment.
The whistling stopped.
I could hear the sound of the Manticore's footsteps, several times louder than it had been a moment before.
"...!"
I spun around, and the Manticore's hand was already reaching towards me.
This is it. I'm going to die...
Just as that thought crossed my mind.
Fwsh!
It was the sound of something cutting through the air.
And then... The Manticore's hand flew off, with a grotesque slicing sound...
It had been severed from her body and was now spinning through the air!
(Wha...?)
I saw something flash.
Like string.
It twisted like it was alive, and wrapped around the Manticore's neck.
It tightened.
"...?!"
The Manticore's expression changed. She snatched at her throat with both hands. But she only had one, and the fingers of it tried to get a grip on the string wrapped around her throat. It wasn't a string. It was a horrifically thin metal wire.
'Ah,' I thought. I had my answer. The reason I had suddenly tripped and fallen was because this wire had been strung across my path.
One end of the wire appeared to be tied around a tree.
The other end led into the shadow of the school building.
When I looked in that direction, I felt my brains pour out of my ears.
"It can't be-?!" I shouted.
There was a figure there, leaning backwards, pulling on the wire with black gloves. It wore a cape and a black hat shaped like a pipe. It was the Very creature that all the girls in my class
had been gossiping about.
"The wrist was charred enough for me to cut through, but the neck seems to be stronger," it said.
The androgynous Voice, neither male nor female, was exactly as the rumors said.
But the face... Was...
"M-M-Miyashita-san?!"
Yes, it was clearly that of my classmate, Miyashita Touka.
"Currently, I am Boogiepop," she... No, he said clearly, in a boy's voice.
"Gh...?!" gurgled the Manticore, eyes widening in surprise.
She was no more able to take this in than I was.
The wire was sunk deep into the skin of her throat. She was struggling to loosen it with her fingers, but it was cutting the fingers instead, and they were bleeding.
"Ghh... Ghhhh...!"
"You call yourself the Manticore?" Boogiepop said quietly. "You are much stronger than a human, but I can make free use of the strength that humans unconsciously keep in reserve to avoid exceeding the limits of their flesh. Since I am only borrowing this body."
Then he suddenly shouted, "Now, Shiro-kun! Shoot it!"
I had no time to ponder what he meant. No sooner had the words left his mouth than an arrow pierced the Manticore's chest.
I knew that arrow.
It was a duralumin arrow, that kind that the archery team used.
I spun around, and behind me was Tanaka-kun, who had not run away after all, but holding a sturdy glass fiber bow, aimed at me - no, at the Manticore.
Her head was trapped. She couldn't dodge.
"Agh..."
I wonder what the Manticore thought at that moment, when she knew that she had lost.
She didn't look at the arrow in her chest, or at Boogiepop, or at the archer.
I saw an expression steal over that empty face. To me, it looked like... Relief.
"Shoot her head!" Boogiepop said, showing no mercy.
He killed her when she was at her most beautiful, before she had a chance to grow ugly; killed her without pain... Just us the stories said.
Tanaka-kun let go.
The arrow was flung off the bowstring, and hit Yurihara's face dead center, smashing her head.
For an instant, what looked like cracks ran all down her body, and then she crumbled, changing into a purple smoke.
The smoke drifted in all directions, carried away on the wind.
A little of it drifted past my nose. It smelt of horribly thick, fresh blood.
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I couldn't stand up.
Tanaka-kun came running over.
"A-are you okay?"
"Um... Y-yeah..." I shook my head, trying to recover some clarity.
But Miyashita-san walked in front of me again in that Boogiepop costume, and my thoughts scattered again.
"Wh-what is that?!" I asked Tanaka-kun, clinging to him like a toddler.
He shook his head. "I don't know. He stopped me on way back from practice, offered to help... You know him?"
"I... Kind of know... Of him..."
Boogiepop undid the wire from around the tree, and headed to the bushes where Kirima laid.
"The Manticore said Echoes was surprisingly weak. I wonder why..." he muttered. He (or was it a she after all?) kicked Kirima Nagi.
Kirima had been killed, her throat sliced open... But her body shook, and she sat up.
She'd come back to life.
"He gave you part of his life. You've escaped death again."
Tanaka-kun and I could do nothing but gape.
Kirima moaned and clutched her forehead. She'd lost a lot of blood, and must be anemic.
"Hello, Fire Witch," Boogiepop said.
"You again," Kirima replied, not at all surprised. She sighed.
"If you were out, why didn't you come sooner?"
"Your actions finally allowed me to uncover the nature of the danger."
"I gotta be me all the damn time, but you only bother coming out when the shit hits the fan. You selfish bastard."
"Don't say that," he replied. It sounded like they'd known each other for years.
"Is... is it over?"
"Yes. Thanks to Echoes' sacrifice and the committee president's courage."
"I see..." Kirima tried to stand, but wavered and fell over again.
Boogiepop made no effort to help her, instead coming back in our direction.
"I leave her in your hands. I'll take care of the clean up," he told us.
"......" We made no response.
Boogiepop picked up the Manticore's hand from the ground. He looked up at me, and made a strange expression, narrowing one eye, like he was smiling, but not quite. It was like he was playing dumb.
"Niitoki Kei - you certainly do have a strong will. It's because of people like you that the world manages to remain a halfway decent place. In the world's stead, I thank you."
It was like a speech from a play. I had no idea what it meant.
Leaving me standing there stunned, he fled like the wind, turning the corner behind the gym and vanishing from sight.
And that was how it ended.