“Nagi…”
“Nagi…”
“NAGI!!!”
A piece of chalk hit me square in the forehead, thrown by Hira Nogai and instantly dragging me out of the little world inside my head where I’d been for the past few minutes.
I rubbed the spot where it had hit me while a few of my classmates laughed.
“I have to admit, that was a good throw, sensei.
You’ve got talent,” I said.
“Quiet, and come up to the board.
You’re going to solve this problem.
If you get it wrong, I’m putting a negative mark on your record.
I literally explained this a few minutes ago.
Try paying attention in class, will you?”
I reluctantly walked up to the board and looked at the problem written there.
It asked me to calculate the final velocity of an object in free fall.
Well, I think I can do this.
Initial velocity is zero, gravity is the only source of acceleration, and then I just have to solve for the values.
Judging by Hira’s expression, she clearly wasn’t expecting me to solve it correctly.
I put the chalk down and returned to my seat.
This time, I sat completely still, staring straight at the board so she’d leave me alone, even though my mind was somewhere else entirely.
Ding-dong.
Ding-dong.
The bell rang, and everyone packed their things and started heading out the door.
At the school gates…
“What are you doing this weekend, Kohaku?”
“A new sushi restaurant opened in the Shimogyō-ku shopping district.
It’s got really good reviews.
I wanted to have dinner there tonight and see what it’s like.
Wanna come?”
I stopped them before they could leave the school grounds.
“Nagi-san?”
The two of them looked at each other, completely confused.
I had probably never spoken to either of them outside class before.
“You’d better listen to me carefully.
Don’t even think about going there tonight.”
“What?
Why not?”
“You don’t have to listen to me, but that place is dangerous.
That restaurant…
don’t trust it.
There’s something weird about it.
Be smart and go somewhere else.
There are plenty of restaurants around.”
After a while, I managed to convince them…
or scare them.
Honestly, if I’m being completely truthful, I couldn’t care less about those two girls.
But I couldn’t afford to have them getting in my way.
My father’s office was in that same district.
I didn’t know exactly how close it was, but the fewer people around the area tonight, the better.
Protecting my family, that was my only concern today.
After class
After spending the entire week thinking about my father’s situation, today, Friday, I’d finally decided to do something about it.
I was going to become an exterminator.
After leaving school, I went straight home.
During the journey, I went over the plan again and again in my head, as if it were a shopping list.
It was a pretty simple plan.
Four stages.
Infiltrate Dad’s workplace.
Annihilate every monster I come across.
Find out why they’re gathering specifically at my father’s workplace and somehow get rid of whatever is causing it.
This is the vague part.
It might be possible, or it might not.
If it isn’t, I’ll figure something else out.
Get out.
All of this, of course, without anyone seeing me, or I’d get reported for trespassing on private property.
The moment night fell, I sneaked out of the house again.
I put on a black hoodie and grabbed a balaclava, both meant to hide my identity in case there were cameras or someone saw me and I had to run.
I also put on a pair of black gloves.
The security cameras didn’t worry me too much; normally, recordings only get checked if something happens that makes it necessary.
Still, if someone did end up watching the footage, I’d rather not leave them my face and fingerprints as a gift.
The important thing wasn’t avoiding being recorded.
It was making sure that, if someone did see the footage, they couldn’t prove it was me.
I also packed my baseball bat, a glove, and a couple of balls into a bag.
And why are you bringing a glove and some baseballs, Nagi?
What good are those going to do?
Everything has a reason, of course.
The bat would obviously be my weapon.
As for the other stuff, if a police officer stopped me, I’d say I was coming back from a game.
If they caught me sneaking into a building, that would already be bad.
If they caught me sneaking into a building while carrying a baseball bat…
I’d better have some kind of excuse, or I’d be in serious trouble.
Having the full set of equipment made carrying a bat look a little more defensible.
Or maybe it didn’t.
Hell if I know.
It was the best idea I had.
My father’s office, in Shimogyō-ku, was pretty far away.
I remembered being there before, but not how to get there, so I used Google Maps and took a train.
The trip took about thirty minutes.
By the time I got off, it was already close to midnight.
The streets surrounding the building were mostly empty: the occasional office worker who had just finished a late shift, a couple of drunks wandering around aimlessly, and a few people inside some nearby bars, including the new and prestigious sushi restaurant.
Looks like scaring those two was the right call.
“Shit…
this place is infested.”
It was like approaching an anthill, except instead of ants, monsters of all shapes and sizes were flying, crawling, or passing straight through the windows of the building where my father worked.
There were even more inside.
I could see them through the glass.
A lot of them.
I was strong enough to kill those things without much trouble.
But this many at once…
“It’s simple, Nagi,” I told myself.
“Very simple.
Shoot your spheres, smash them with the bat.
Nothing you haven’t done before.”
The real problem was getting inside without anyone seeing me.
I’d already studied the possible entrances from outside.
It was a square building with two access points: a rear door, currently locked, and the main entrance, which was still open for the moment.
Through the gate leading to the vehicle entrance, I could see a security guard gathering his things and pulling a set of keys from his pocket, clearly about to lock up for the night.
“All right…
same as always.”
It was now or never.
Chronostasis spheres, of course, worked on humans too.
I peeked through the gate, aimed at the guard, and fired.
The sphere engulfed him instantly, freezing him in place inside my temporal paralysis.
With the entrance secured, all I had to do was get over the wall somewhere no one could see me, find a blind spot on the street.
I couldn’t find one on either side facing the main roads, but one of the narrow side alleys was completely dark.
I jumped over the wall and slowly made my way toward the main entrance, keeping low as I pulled the balaclava over my head and raised my hood, completely covering my face except for my eyes.
I slipped through the main entrance right under the poor security guard’s nose, passing only a few inches away from him while he remained completely unable to move or perceive the passage of time.
Once I was safely on the other side of the door, hidden from view, I deactivated Chronostasis.
The guard resumed his movement as though nothing had happened and finished locking the entrance.
CLICK!
The building was officially empty and locked.
Now I was alone, completely in the dark.
I spotted a couple of cameras in the lobby.
As long as nobody was watching them live, those recordings would most likely sit forgotten until they were eventually overwritten.
Activating the Shinkeigan allowed me to see much better in the darkness, automatically amplifying the little ambient light available and giving me vision somewhat similar to a pair of night-vision goggles.
I already said my eyes were powerful.
And very versatile.
Although with the balaclava on, my peripheral vision was slightly reduced.
Seeing through solid objects was unfortunately not one of the Shinkeigan’s abilities.
There was a strange stuffiness inside the building.
The energy being released by so many monsters had saturated the atmosphere, making the whole place feel oppressive…
Just a little.
I took a deep breath and started warming up my muscles with a few stretches and preparation exercises.
First rule of being an athlete: if you’re about to put your body through some serious effort, warm up first.
Several of those things were already visible from the lobby.
Some looked like worms, others like giant flies, while others had multiple mouths and eyes, long arms, or stretched-out bodies.
All disgusting.
Ugly as fuck, too.
“What the hell happened here for there to be so many…?”
I took a couple of steps toward reception.
I was inside.
Stage one of the mission completed.
Chronostasis and help more people find it!