The scorching spring sun was shining down on us. Me and my two friends were on a stand-off with a group of boys from another high school. We had decided to skip class to beat these punks up since they had harassed Kasai Asumi.
Kasai was 15 years old, she was still in junior high. Although she was shy and rarely talked to anyone since she didn't like to be an inconvenience to others, which she wasn't but for some reason, she thought she was. These guys had been harassing her for a couple of days, her classmates and guys from other schools usually did that to her. Usually, the reason was that Kasai was incredibly cute, without a doubt she was popular, and due to still being young boys her age thought that it was a good way to get her attention.
Kasai was hiding behind a boy with short bleach blond hair and horrendous posture. The blond boy's collared white shirt was visibly too tight which made his built upper body stand out. This boy who was protecting Kasai happened to be one of my best friends. Although our group got into fights fairly often he usually stayed composed and wasn't the first one to throw punches and although he looked like an ill-mannered rebel he, in reality, was fairly polite. That being said this time was different, his eyes were seething with rage and he was ready to charge in and murder each one of the thugs. Me and our third friend could see this side of him from time to time. His madness was unstoppable when Kasai was involved. Not because they were dating, quite the contrary actually. This Raging bleach-blond thug happened to Kasai Renma, Kasai Asumi's older brother and an overprotective siscon.
"Ren, calm down, you don't need to fight," Kasai said while hiding and holding Ren back.
"Asumi, let me go. big bro has some business with those pricks" countered Renma with a soothing tone, which he always used when talking to Kasai.
Ren released himself from Kasai's grip, walked to who seemed to be the group's leader, and said with an assertive and booming voice "Yo! Bitchboy kneel, lick the ground and beg for forgiveness''
I found this exchange funny since excluding Kasai, Ren who was the shortest one in this whole debacle was asserting dominance and demanding the leader who was at least 20cm taller to kneel and beg. The leader ran his fist that had clear force behind it, straight to Ren's stomach, but Ren didn't even flinch. Instead, he glared at the younger yet taller boy with a cold look in his eyes and returned the blow. The leader bowed due to the impact with saliva bursting out of his mouth. This alerted the lackeys to act and one of them landed a right hook on Ren's face making his nose bleed.
I looked to my side where Hoshino Rokuro, the third guy in our small circle of friends, was calming Kasai who was now in tears. Hoshi was the tallest of us and you could say he was the odd one out. Both Me and Ren looked like delinquents, I had longer hair than most boys, I wore my school jacket open, I had bandages on my knuckles and not to brag but most muscle definition out of us.
Hoshi, on the other hand, had a clean bowl-cut similar to all those pretty K-pop stars, he was tall and.. well he was the definition of a pretty boy, model, or some actor who would gather a huge amount of squealing fangirls. Although his appearance was flawless his personality was savage to the core. He was the one who loved our street fights the most and was ready to beat up punks, adults, or for that matter anyone who annoyed or challenged him but this time he had promised Ren to stay out.
I decided to join the fight after seeing Ren bleeding. I knew that Ren would definitely oppose my actions, be annoyed, and probably voice his opinions later, but I also wanted to have at least a little fun before going to school. I ran into the action and began by punching the air out of one of the lackey's lungs, with a clean hit to his diaphragm. The lackey collapsed to the ground from the pain while gasping for air.
Meanwhile, Ren had beaten the leader so badly that he was crawling in Kasai's and Hoshi's direction, completely throwing away his pride. Ren walked behind him while looking down at the person who had been harassing his dear little sister. Once the pair were in front of Kasai, the leader began to apologize frantically and promised that they would stop making moves on Kasai.
After this, we escorted Kasai to her school. Her school's bells began to ring as we arrived at the gates. This obviously meant that we would miss at least a portion of our first class of the day due to the distance between Kasai's and our schools.
***
While on our way to school, Ren decided to smoke a cigarette and asked if I had a lighter on me since he forgot to take his own with him due to being unbelievably angry at the thugs. I gave him my lighter, which was nearly empty. After multiple failed attempts, he managed to light his cigarette. While he was desperately trying to light the cig, I dug my own smokes, and out of courtesy, I offered one Hoshi knowing full well he wouldn't take it. Hoshi absolutely despised the taste and smell of cigarettes yet he never complained when we smoked. After Hoshi rejected my offer, I got my lighter back and began the fight to light my cig.
Meanwhile, Ren was teasing Hoshi to smoke without success. This was our usual batter, so Hoshi didn't get mad since he was in on the joke. These were our golden spring mornings and although nobody could have known it yet, this was the last time we got into some dumb pointless fight, teasing Hoshi while enjoying out.
***
After we had had our fun and messed around before coming to school we were obviously late. The first class had just ended when we got inside the building. People usually glanced at us, some with fear, some in disgust, but in Hoshi's case while blushing. The reason was obvious, we were our school's delinquents so people usually avoided us or thought that we were good for nothing. Although Hoshi was exempt from these views since everyone thought that after school, he would become a model or something similar to that.
When we arrived at our classroom in front of the doorway a girl with glasses and long straight black hair. She wasn't tall nor short and if I had to say pretty average looking. She definitely embodied a stereotypical shy library girl with her appearance. The girl looked annoyed and both me and Ren looked at Hoshi with pity. As soon as we were about to walk past her, she clicked her tongue and grabbed Hoshi from his collar.
"Rokuro where have you been, just how many times do I have to tell you to not skip class!" the girl yelled.
The girl was the shy bookworm type most of the time, but when it came to Hoshi, Ren, and me she was way different. She was the only girl who could drag Hoshi down from his pretty boy pedestal. Her name was Akiba Jun, and most of the girls in our school were envious of her and some time ago some girls even bullied her. All because she happened to date the school's pretty boy Hoshi. Yes, our golden boy Hoshino Rokuro had his own golden lover, in the form of a shy Bookworm.
The bullying of course stopped when Hoshi looked at the culprit with disgust and told her to disappear. The bully at first went on a rant on how Hoshi shouldn't date some wallflower girl and how Hoshi should only date pretty and popular girls like her. Well, as to be expected Hoshi didn't really like the condescending tone, and the bully was and told her that she might as well be some pretty little thing but it doesn't change the fact she is rotten to her core and equal to human waste. Now that I'm thinking back, Hoshi did have a crude way with his words.
***
Both me and Ren wanted to escape this situation since neither of us was fans of getting lectured by Akiba, so when Ren gave me a look, I immediately knew what he wanted to say.
"Let's escape before it's too late"
I nodded and so we tried to sneak past her, but as soon as we attempted our escape Akiba interrupted it and clicked her tongue once more.
"You two, don't even think about moving!"
We looked at each other with despair while stopping and facing the short girl, we prepared for a lecture. This kind of exchange was pretty common in our group, Me Hoshi and Ren being late at school and getting a lecture from Hoshi's girlfriend. Before she began to lecture us she asked.
"Why did you three get into a fight today?"
She had probably noticed that, unlike other days, Hoshi's knuckles didn't have new bruises and Ren looked like he had taken the most damage out of us. Ren explained to her that only two of us had been in the fight and it was to stop a couple of punks from harassing Kasai. Akiba knew who Ren's sister was since whenever we hung out as a group she was usually with us. To her.. and to every one of us Kasai was like a cute little sister. So she of course was happy, but she didn't approve of our methods. And so she finally let Ren and me go.
***
As I was listening to Ren going on and on about how perfect his sister is. Kurogiri Sahime, our class rep, came to us. Kurogiri was a beautiful and dignified girl with long, silky black hair. I didn't know much about her other than some rumors that she had rejected Shirakawa Rin, a popular guy in our class. She didn't talk to anyone in our group unless she had some sort of important announcement to tell.
"Kasai and Kozuki, do you have the permission paper for the incoming school trip with you? Tomorrow is the due date but I'd like to collect them now if possible?"
Ren dug the paper from his bag, but I had forgotten my paper on the table at home. I had left it there so my parents could sign it, but I forgot to take it when I felt this morning. So I just said that I'd bring it tomorrow. After Kurogiri had taken Ren's paper she left.
Soon after, Hoshi and Akiba entered the classroom at the same time as our teacher Ms. Kubo Keiko. Ms. Kubo was a young teacher and overly friendly with our class. Which meant that pretty much everyone liked her. Even I enjoyed her classes since her teaching methods were easy to follow and understand.
As the class was starting she passive-aggressively told our class that a certain trio shouldn't miss classes. This was obviously directed at our little group. But well what can we do when Kasai is getting harassed. After her little jab, she began teaching.
***
The class was nearly over when suddenly I could see the space warping a little, it looked similar to badly photoshopped pictures of girls who are trying to make themselves look curvier than they actually are. I thought I was just sleepy, but it happened again and again, looking more and more obvious. I was sure that I was just seeing things when I heard Ren behind me ask if I also saw that anomaly, I knew that I wasn't just seeing things. As soon as I nodded in response, the warping tore a hole in space, right where Ms.Kubo had been shattering her body into countless pieces.
Weird looking being levitated from the hole which appeared to be some sort of portal. The being wore a yellow hooded robe that covered its body and face. Everyone in the classroom was frozen due to the shock and terror. I cannot say how long it lasted but it felt like an eternity of slow and agonizing horror.
Suddenly Goto Beniyoshi, who sat on the front row and was the leader of our school's track team, and a social butterfly jumped out of his seat and ran towards the back row where his twin sister Goto Kobeni sat.
Kobeni was a shy and socially awkward girl who usually was with a boy group every time I saw her. The Goto siblings seemed to be mirror opposite of one another but now Goto Beniyoshi grabbed the girl's hand and ran towards the doorway where his friend Shirakawa was opening the door. Kobeni's friends Hashira Akio and Nishida Musaku followed the Goto siblings. And as soon as Shirakawa opened the door for the group, the entity in yellow brutalized them with black tendrils which came under its yellow cloak.
During this everyone had been paralyzed by fear and could only follow in despair this futile attempt at survival. But now Goto Beniyoshi's, Kobeni's, Shirakawa Rin's, Hashira Akio's, and Nishida Musaku's bodies were just an unrecognizable lump of gore, intestines, and blood, everyone in the classroom either began to panic, stayed frozen or blacked out. I still couldn't even move, when I saw in my peripheral vision one of the tentacles piercing both Hoshi and Akiba, while he was trying to protect her.
Suddenly I felt a splatter of something warm and wet with small clumps on my face. I looked in front of me where one of our class's popular girls, Sakurazaka Suisei, was sitting with her head blown away. Even though she sat in front of me, I didn't know much about her other than that she was friends with Fukuyama Aiha and Kimiko Amari who had bullied Akiba when she began to date Hoshi. Although my experiences with Sakurazaka were short, I think she was a nice girl.
***
"Huh?... Where am I"
Everything around me suddenly went black as I was thinking about my classmate.
"I guess, this is the end. After all, one of the tentacles had just blown Sakurazaka's head up. Apparently, the 'life flashes before death' saying is just that"
Around me was nothing, it felt like I was in some weird dark ocean but at the same time, everything around me felt like a blinding light. Death might as well contradict itself. I could feel my last thoughts slipping away and my consciousness fading.
***
I saw my young self, being kicked near some block store where I had picked up some fantasy light novels. As a kid, I used to read that sort of stuff to escape my miserable life. During those days I failed at school because of the daily kicks and gut punches. The only subject which I succeeded in was history so I used to dream about becoming a teacher. Before middle school ended my family moved away and since I got a new chance at school life. I began to work out so nobody would treat me like a punching bag. In Junior High, I saw some boys in my age range harassing a younger girl and went to help her, and thanks to working out and training in some self-defense sport, I could help her. The girl happened to be Kasai Asumi, that was also the first time I met Renma. He came rushing at me and began to beat me since Kasai was still crying. But after clearing up what had happened he stopped and we became friends.
I met Hoshi in high school when he was being the brawl-loving maniac and beating up anyone who annoyed him. One day he wanted to beat us because we looked tough and in one on one he would have given both of us a proper beating but since back then he was foul-mouthed and cocky he bit more than he found chew. After which our group was formed.
I saw all the important moments of my life, both ups, and downs. I floated in the nothingness with only my memories flooding into my head until I was interrupted by a weird voice. Even if I tried, I could not explain what it sounded like.
[Individual L*** P********* wants to summon Individual Kozuki Tatara's soul]
[YES/NO]
"What was that, what do you mean by summoning my soul?"
[Individual L*** P********* wants to summon Individual Kozuki Tatara's soul]
[YES/NO]
I guess asking won't help me here. This kind of feels like one of those "I got reincarnated as a hero" stories that I used to read as a kid before I got to know Hoshi and Ren.
"Yes"
[Individual Kozuki Tatara's soul has gained the title [Guide]]
[Individual Kozuki Tatara's soul has been removed from its human vessel]
[individual Kozuki Tatara's soul has lost the name Kozuki Tatara]
[Individual L*** P********* has moved the individual nameless' soul to another vessel]
[Individual nameless' soul has gained the vessel chiroptera]
[Individual nameless has gained Innate Chiroptera skills]