"You are saying you… know where the Name-Eater is?"
The woman raised an eyebrow.
"By touching a mask, you know its location, that's what you are saying?"
"I… don't even understand why you are surprised. This, ah, this kind of strange thing happens all the time."
The boy still struggled to find his words. The pain in his fingers was dulling but he knew he couldn't use them anymore unless he was ready to endure all the pain that would come with that.
"These kinds of things happen all the time indeed," repeated his teacher, her tone calm just like when she was about to explain something , "but you couldn't possibly know in advance we would find such a mask here, could you?"
The woman stared at him, her eyes asking for a clear answer. The boy simply sighed in response—if possible he wouldn't have wanted to waste so much time in explanations but it was somewhat evident his teacher was quite the overly prudent person.
"My original plan was to write our name down, run into opposite sides of the building and, once one of our name's letters would disappear, warm the other," he explained. "Normally, the one closest to the Name-Eater would lose their name faster, no? I was counting on that."
The woman observed the boy a moment analyzing what he said.
"Oh…" she said, her shoulders slumped. "So you were planning to proceed by trial and error, huh?"
"Yeah. We, well, you could use Tears to keep us in contact…" the boy said, turning to the man in black costume.
The man grumbled but didn't say anything. His teacher on the other hand didn't bother hiding her problems with his obviously dubious plan.
"We only have two letters left, you know? Maybe even just one by this point. This plan is a bit…"
"I couldn't come up with anything else okay?! Ouch— er, anyway, we don't have the time for this," the boy cut, raising on his feet. "There's a bird in the school's clock…"
He stopped.
"Yes… there's a bird in the school clock… I have no idea what it means but anyway."
He pointed up.
"It is up there. Lead the way, Miss."
"..."
His teacher was still quite incredulous to be honest but there was no room for doubt.
"Follow me. And, oh…"
The woman took the boy's right hand and tied her handkerchief around it.
"It is pointless but mental support is important," she said, pinching his nose. "Now, make those legs move. We can't lose time. You still remember this school's rules, don't you?"
"... Yeah."
Suddenly, Tears pushed the two apart.
"Mistress, W. We should go," he said, coldly.
"Yeah…" she replied.
It seems they lost another letter. This meant they had less than an hour to spare.
"Let's go."
"Yeah."
"As you wish."
With those words, the three quickly made their way to the stairs.
***
As the three left the hall, the masked people on the ground groaned in frustration. That woman in red promised them that, with those masks, they would be able to go against even investigators. They could compensate for their weakness as humans and allow them to finally take down those abominations of nature.
Yet here they were, lying on the ground. Most of them were dead and the few that were left were in pieces, their limbs left on the floor like old ragdoll's.
They had been played.
That cursed woman in red! She played them! They knew it, they should have trusted one of those glowing eyed individuals! Whether they were named investigators or fingers, they were all the same!
"How ugly. This… All of this is so ugly."
A familiar reached their ears. For some, a red dress immediately came to mind as well a burning desire for vengeance.
"You! You @√#*®£! Where have you been?!" one yelled to the woman.
The others, unable to stand and check by themselves, thought that the woman was there in the hall with them. Their repressed anger and anxiety exploded. They called her by every name known to man and even some that were yet to be discovered. Some yelled, some cried but all showed her nothing but hate.
"You… You hurt me. Is that how you intend to thank the one which made you so beautiful?" she managed to ask in the midst of all the insults and complaints.
Of course, her words were ignored. They ignored anything the woman said about how she resurrected their friends or how she planned to make them all beautiful together.
But this wasn't an issue. In fact, this might have been exactly what the woman wanted as the only sentence she willingly forced them to hear was the last.
"Why, thank you! As they said, not responding is the same as agreeing isn't it?"
It was the last thing they heard and the first thing THEY remembered.
***
"A bird?"
The woman raised an eyebrow as she processed the information her disciple just fed to her as they walked through the school's hallway dyed by the dying sun's light.
"A guardian beast," the boy said, nodding. "Wait, no, a… daemon? Anyway, the people from earlier seemed to have entered into a contract with it. This might be why they didn't lose their name."
The man in black costume let out an annoyed sigh.
"What hogwashes," he exclaimed. "Following your logic, anyone with a guardian beast would be protected from this Name-Eater yet my master is still affected just like you are, beastless soon-to-be investigator! How do you explain this? There are three of us! She should be immune three times over!"
"Hm. You might be right," replied the woman.
"Wha— I mean, are you sure, Mistress? Isn't this a bit…"
The man stayed silent, unsure how to express his disbelief without sounding disrespectful.
"I realized when you remembered Tears's name perfectly," the boy continued. "If his name wasn't affected, then it meant something was protecting him just like that Popoloco guy. That's when I realized—the two of them must have been into a soul contract with someone or something else."
"Oh, it makes sense indeed," said the woman crossing her arms. "Seems I was the one who overlooked a detail this time."
"... Could you—"
"So for the one who didn't understand," the boy said, interrupting the blonde man. "When a human and beast make a soul contract, the beast usually becomes the human's servant. The human give them a name and even a form—a human one I mean. You follow me here?"
"I don't remember asking you—"
"I will take that as a yes. So in this kind of contract, the beast servant becomes a sort of subset of the human master. They become linked in such a way that if the master dies, the beast dies. But the inverse is not true. Anyway, what I am trying to say is…"
The boy stopped a moment trying to find the words he needed in order to not convey what he wanted to say as simply as possible.
"This isn't a Name-Eater. This is an Existence-Eater. That is why nobody noticed their name changing—this thing is literally rewriting our very world to fit with what it is doing. It just so happens it needs to slowly need to eat our names first before eating us. You are just a fragment of your master's existence—by eating her name, it is eating your existence too. Your name isn't affected because there's no need—the 'true' you is already being eaten."
"..."
"He is right," said the woman. "Those people from earlier were pretty much in the same situation as you, except they were probably in a Slave-Master relationship with whatever beast they contracted. The masks were probably… a sort of link they had with it? Like with a temporary contract?"
She glanced at her discipline as if to ask him to confirm her theory. The young man nodded in response.
"This is what I think. Well, I didn't expect the visions and everything but my guess wasn't far off I think… Anyway, they were probably contracted with that Existence-Eating bird."
"I… see…" mumbled Tears.
From then on, the blonde haired man locked himself into a long silence. He wasn't sure he fully understood what his mistress and her stupid disciple were talking about, but he at least retained one piece of information: his mistress was protecting him.
Just the thought brought tears to his eyes. What a great mistress he had. Internally, he pledged to serve her until his dying breath and to not decapitate that boy and his face who seemed to yell "what is wrong with you?" as he looked at him.
"I will do my best, mistress. I will do my best..."
"Hm?"
After a little while, the trio stopped in front of a stair.
"I suppose this is where we part ways," announced Tears.
The boy raised an eyebrow. "Hm?"
"Oh! That! You are thinking that, aren't you?!" asked the woman, barely containing her excitement.
"T-That?" asked the boy, his eyebrows furrowed.
"Running in the corridors!!!" the two announced proudly.
"... Ah?"