I follow a silhouette running along the top of the wall that surrounds the school grounds.
That wall, by the way, is extremely thin, no more than fifteen centimeters wide, and any normal person who tried running along it would fall off within a few steps. And yet that silhouette is running across it at a speed I can honestly only compare to a sports car flooring it.
When I put it like that it sounds exaggerated, but it's what I'm looking at.
...To be honest, I don't have much right to be surprised either.
In front of that silhouette is a building seven meters tall. The chemistry building, if I'm not mistaken. And he's running straight at it without veering off even slightly.
Is he going to crash? No, obviously he isn't going to crash. But from the point of view of the people inside, that's exactly what it looks like.
In fact, I can see through the glass windows how the students in the lab watch a dark blur come rushing at them and stumble back in fright. One of them dropped the flask he was holding.
"Ah... that was probably acid of some kind. Sorry to whichever teacher has to clean that up. Munch~, ah, this karaage tastes incredible."
Meiko made it, so that's to be expected. That girl turned out to be a very good cook.
The silhouette reaches the front of the building and, without slowing down at all, crouches down. The muscles in his legs and thighs bulge so much that the school uniform can barely handle it. Honestly, I'm surprised the fabric held.
—Swooosh!
There's a sound like wind exploding.
The next second, he's already about ten meters above the ground.
"Show-off..."
He plants a foot on the concrete roof, pushes off once more, and clears it easily to the other side. He runs a few more seconds and reaches his destination. And then, without stopping to look at the situation from above, he drops straight down into the back yard.
Ah, that's a mistake. You should look before you jump, you know? Well, not that it matters much in his case.
Right there, the guy who was dragging the girl is only just arriving and starting to talk with the others.
The long-faced guy startles, lets go of the girl's wrist and opens his eyes wide.
"Huh? Izumi... kun?"
The girl, instead of taking the chance to run, stays standing where she is, staring at him with wide eyes.
I suppose being stunned is the normal reaction in this situation. After all, she just watched the guy she's always with, who is technically almost her boyfriend, drop from the top of a building no less than fifteen meters high and land like it was nothing.
The guy is tall. And unlike before, when he had messy hair and wore glasses, which gave him a pretty nerdy look, now he seems like a completely different person, with his hair combed back, which makes him look more refreshing.
When did he change, actually? Mmm... two months ago? Three? Ever since this guy, who has a Parasyte living in his right hand, decided to go for that new look.
I don't know if it was because he accepted his fate of being a monster, or because he'd been through too many things that changed his life.
The girl opens her mouth.
And I slap my forehead, because I already know what she's going to say.
"You're... Izumi Shinichi-kun, right?"
How many times have I heard that line? Or rather, how many of those lines can Shinichi take?
A smile appears on Shinichi's face.
"Who knows?"
...Hey. That's not the right answer. That's a terrible answer, actually. Look, she flinched.
Either way, by that point they're already surrounded by the gang.
The long-faced guy runs at Shinichi and tries to punch him in the face. Shinichi steps aside, positions his foot a certain way, and the other one trips and falls with his face planted into the ground.
"That has to feel humiliating. Ah, this rice is tasty too."
Meanwhile the others shout and throw themselves at him swinging their bats.
...Idiots. Are they seriously using those kinds of weapons on a student?
No, I mean. Shinichi isn't a normal human, so even if they hit him in the head with a metal bat he can't be seriously hurt.
But let's think about it for a moment. What if he weren't? What if he were a regular student, or if he simply decided not to use his strength and stayed in his human version like he did all these past years until his change? Then he would get hurt. A metal bat to the skull is no joke.
And these guys are from another school, and on top of that they're just normal humans. Do they think they'll get away with it?
Mmm... looking at them, they don't seem to have much of a brain. And it doesn't really matter much either, because there's a reason they're delinquents and they'd probably get away with it somehow.
"Izumi-kun!"
The girl shouts his name and covers her mouth when she sees a bat coming at Shinichi's head from behind.
Shinichi, without even turning around, puts his arm behind his head.
There's a sound of metal hitting something extremely hard.
Not a single sign of pain or discomfort appears on his face. If anything, his eyes reflect nothing but an overflowing level of apathy as he turns his wrist and catches the bat between his fingers.
Gripping the bat hard, he spins his body at high speed and throws a roundhouse kick that connects with the muscular guy's chin and sends him flying several meters.
Another one takes the place of the guy who went flying and lets out a growl as he swings his bat straight down. Shinichi hears the whistle of the wind coming down on him and takes a step to the right. The blow passes by centimeters. Only then does he raise his elbow, driving the guy's nose into his skull.
Oof. That hurt even from up here.
Seeing four more coming to surround him, he grabs the broken-nosed one by the arm before he hits the ground and throws him at the others, who don't manage to get out of the way and all go down together.
The fight continues, but honestly there isn't much to comment on.
It's pretty lopsided. Even though there are more than thirty guys on one side and only one on the other, in the end it's the thirty-plus who lose.
That's the difference between a monster and a human.
Unless they use specialized weapons like the CCG's, they really can't do anything.
Oh?
The long-faced guy, who was already on the ground after getting hit repeatedly, gets up and runs at the girl. He's clearly trying to use her as a hostage to keep control over Shinichi, who is several meters away.
Even as a human evolved thanks to a Parasyte, there's no way he closes that distance before the girl gets grabbed.
But then...
A hand with no arm leaps out of the shadow, catches the long-faced guy by the neck, and slams him into the other side of the back yard.
Then it slides like a snake and disappears back into the shadow.
Not one of the people there noticed it. Apart from Shinichi himself and me.
I look at Shinichi's arm and see that his hand is still attached to it.
Oh? Interesting.
Being able to split his hand into others and control them like clones, so to speak. That gives him quite a few advantages in a fight.
I should ask him how he does it someday. Though he'll probably answer something like "I don't know, I just do it." Those kinds of answers always irritate me a little.
"A clone shouldn't be hard to create."
Either way, I'm not interested. Clones are something I despise.
Maybe because they bothered me in my other life every time I read a webnovel with clones in it, especially when the protagonist uses them in his relationships with his girlfriends. Just remembering it again disgusts me...
Shinichi turns around and starts to leave. But after a few steps he stops and turns his head toward the girl.
"Murano. Shall we go?"
He starts walking again.
But the girl doesn't follow and stays where she is, looking at his back.
Shinichi turns around, sighs, and walks back toward her. When he reaches her, he smiles.
"You asked me earlier if I was Izumi Shinichi, right? ...Yeah. I'm still Shinichi."
He takes her hand. She trembles a little before nodding.
And then the two of them leave together.
"Tsk."
I click my tongue. How should I put this? It's a little strange watching other people's romance from the outside.
I mean... is that how I look when I'm with the girls, from someone else's point of view? Do Touka and I look like that? Rize and me? Saya and me?
Better to stop that thought right there. I don't think it leads anywhere good.
I put my hands behind my head and let myself fall back, ending up lying down looking at the sky. A clear blue sky with fluffy white clouds drifting slowly.
A good day. It really is a good day.
And then the sky is covered in blood.
Thick, heavy drops start falling on my face. The concrete beneath my back turns into masses of pulsing flesh that rise and fall as if they were breathing. And above, in the sky, an enormous eyelid opens revealing a gigantic eye, inside of which there are millions of smaller eyes spinning and looking in every direction at once.
Along with that comes a shrill, distant sound. Like thousands of souls screaming at the same time.
Ugh...
I shake my head and try to chase off the illusion.
For some time now, once again my soul is no longer able to withstand the pressure of my own power. This happened to me before, and back then I solved it by evolving. But...
I still haven't been able to do that.
So for now all I can do is endure the pain and the torment of these visions which, from my point of view, feel completely real.
"Ah, I knew you'd be here."
×××
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