Slap. Slap. Slap.
The frantic friction of indoor shoes against the polished linoleum echoed through the corridor as Mai Sakurajima sprinted. Her lungs burned, the cold air of the empty school hallway stinging her throat with every desperate breath.
Behind her, the nightmare followed.
The Bat Gurongi didn't rush. It moved with a sickening, rhythmic gait, its clawed feet clicking against the tiles like a countdown. It was savoring the hunt. To this creature, Mai was no longer a celebrated icon or a person; she was merely a "Linto" insect, a fragment of a game it was destined to win. Its predatory gaze remained locked on her back, relishing the way her stride faltered as her strength began to wane.
The chase ended in a claustrophobic corner of the west wing.
Mai skidded to a halt, her heels hitting the unyielding concrete of a dead-end wall. She spun around, her back pressed against the cold bricks, the air in the hallway suddenly feeling heavy and thin.
"Kekeke... What's wrong, Linto? Why have you stopped running?"
The Gurongi's voice was a fractured parody of human speech, whistling through obsidian fangs. It drew closer, the scent of rot and old leather filling the narrow space.
Despair, cold and sharp, finally pierced Mai's iron-clad resolve. It wasn't fair. Between the suffocating pressures of the entertainment industry and the recent, bitter fallout with her manager, she was already standing at a breaking point. Now, reality itself had betrayed her, manifesting a literal demon to snuff out her life. The walls she had built around her heart for years finally buckled.
"Help! Someone... please, help me!"
The cry tore from her throat, raw and unpolished, a final, desperate prayer cast into the amber twilight of the school.
"Hahaha!" The Bat Gurongi's chest heaved with a dry, rattling laugh. It drank in her terror, its wings twitching with excitement. The more the prey crumbled, the sweeter the kill. "Yes! That look! Die, Linto!"
The creature lunged. Its right arm, ending in curved, jagged talons, blurred through the air. It aimed directly for her sternum, a single, piercing strike intended to stop her heart.
Mai's eyes snapped shut. She braced for the white-hot agony of the impact, her mind flashing through a thousand unfinished thoughts. I'm not ready. There was so much left to do... Why me? Why now?
The expected pain never came.
A heavy, absolute silence fell over the corridor, broken only by the distant humming of the school's power grid. Is this death? Mai wondered, her mind floating in the dark. Is it supposed to be this quiet?
"Hey. You okay, Bunny-senpai?"
The voice was vibrant, laced with a calm, almost bored confidence.
Mai's eyes fluttered open. A silhouette blocked out the dying sun. A young man in the Shuchiin Academy blazer stood between her and the abyss. His right hand was raised, caught in a deadlock as he gripped the Gurongi's massive, leathery wrist. He held the monster's full killing force at bay with the casual ease of someone catching a falling leaf.
"You... who are you?" Mai stammered, the tears she hadn't realized she'd shed carving silver paths through the dust on her cheeks.
"Me?" Rin Kuga turned his head slightly, the corner of his mouth quirked in a dry smile. "Let's just say I'm an underclassman. And a fan."
Without warning, Rin's right boot shot out. It connected with the Gurongi's chest with the force of a hydraulic press. The impact sounded like a sledgehammer hitting a side of beef. The monster was launched backward, its body skidding and tumbling across the tiles for meters before slamming into a row of lockers with a deafening metallic crash.
Rin turned fully toward her then. He looked down at the legendary Mai Sakurajima—now just a trembling girl on the floor, looking up at him with wide, vulnerable eyes.
"Hang in there, Senpai," he said softly, his presence suddenly filling the hallway with a strange, stabilizing weight. "The show isn't over yet."