Ch.265If Side Story. Tokyo Slayers: Final Chapter (3)

After that, I couldn’t help but pay attention to that girl.

Souta himself knew best that it might just be unnecessary meddling.

But how could anyone just walk past after seeing something like that?

It was frustrating because even Souta himself didn’t have a solution.

He had impulsively helped yesterday, but Yuka was right. Souta and that girl weren’t even in the same class, and even if they were, he couldn’t keep helping her. They had just met that day, and suddenly approaching her pretending to know her would only frighten her more.

No, would she actually be frightened?

It was a somewhat strange expression, but Souta pondered it alone and questioned his own words.

When their eyes met, she didn’t seem as scared as he thought.

Rather, it seemed like there was no emotion at all… Though he hadn’t properly seen her expression, just her eyes.

Anyway, as Yuka had repeatedly said, there was nothing Souta could do about it. Perhaps the bullying had gotten worse since then.

Out of guilt, he found himself lingering in front of the neighboring classroom after school.

He couldn’t bring himself to look inside directly, but since she wasn’t an inconspicuous girl, he could tell how she was doing even with a sidelong glance.

Class B’s homeroom teacher was male. A middle-aged teacher in his 40s wearing somewhat shabby, worn-out training clothes.

As a physical education teacher, he wasn’t particularly passionate about teaching children.

Come to think of it, wasn’t the female teacher who had been Class B’s homeroom teacher last year on leave?

A student from her class had died. Apparently, the student had been quite kind and popular. The student had good relationships with teachers and was naturally close with the homeroom teacher.

And then they died. Murdered, even.

Though Souta had never seen their face and had only heard the name mentioned in passing conversations among classmates, the incident itself seemed to have been shocking. Even Souta, who deliberately avoided digging into such matters, knew the story quite well.

…Above all, Yuka had mentioned once that the serial cannibal wasn’t human.

“Souta!”

Someone called out to Souta, who was lost in thought.

The voice belonged to someone he knew well. Lately, they had been running into each other more often. Perhaps it was because they had recently been caught up in the same incident. Their already close relationship had grown even closer.

Senior Hagiwara, now in her third year, was seeing them less and less. Maybe that’s why it felt particularly noticeable. Normally, both would have greeted each other happily and rushed over.

Though Shii seemed to dislike both of them.

Nanami, who had quickly rushed over, smiled brightly as she linked her arm with Souta’s, her expression completely natural.

This was the problem.

Lately, as if the walls between them had disappeared, Nanami would naturally stick close to Souta. Being a young man in his prime, Souta found these moments awkward.

But they were childhood friends, so it couldn’t be helped.

“What are you doing here? Were you waiting for me?”

“Ah—”

As he was about to say something, he suddenly wondered if what he had been doing might seem somewhat stalker-like.

Waiting outside the classroom for a girl whose name he didn’t even know could be classified as such. Though the girl didn’t seem particularly afraid of Souta, she was someone who showed no change in expression even while being bullied. She might just be hiding her emotions.

So, he was about to say yes, but—

“As if. Sasaki has never waited for you separately before.”

At Yuka’s sudden interruption, Nanami’s face twisted terribly. Even with her face contorted, she was still undeniably beautiful.

“…What? You didn’t go home?”

“Sorry, but I have business here too. In this class.”

“If you’re waiting for a friend, why don’t you meet them and go home together? Leave the two of us alone.”

At Nanami’s words, Yuka gave a slightly crooked smile. Both corners of her lips turned up, but the right corner was slightly higher, making it look unmistakably like a sneer.

“I’m not waiting for a friend. Besides, it involves Sasaki too.”

“Souta?”

Nanami looked back and forth between Yuka and Souta.

Souta broke into a cold sweat as he watched Yuka making statements that were easy to misunderstand.

“That’s right. Sasaki got involved with another girl issue.”

“Another!?”

Making such easily misunderstood statements in the corridor seemed a bit much.

But thanks to that, Nanami’s linked arm was released.

Unlike Souta, Yuka was openly looking through the window. Inside, that girl remained seated at her desk while all the other students were leaving the classroom.

Perhaps it was because she sat in the front row. No one seemed particularly interested in her. Even as she sat at her desk with her head bowed, the teacher left the classroom without paying any attention to her.

The teacher didn’t even notice the three people peering into the classroom from the corridor window—or rather, he might not have realized they were there—as he turned and ambled toward the staff room.

“…”

Yuka quietly observed the teacher’s behavior, then,

“Hey, Yuka?”

Ignoring Souta’s call from behind, she abruptly entered the classroom.

Three people who had been approaching the girl stopped in their tracks.

Yuka didn’t even glance in their direction, staring intently at the girl with long hair.

As if belatedly noticing Yuka’s presence, the students who had been chatting briefly before heading home one by one shifted their gaze toward her.

Entering another class wasn’t a big deal. Some found it awkward, others found it natural, and many visited during lunch breaks.

However, such dynamics were usually established at the beginning of the semester. At this point, already approaching the middle of the first semester, it could be somewhat awkward.

Moreover, neither Yuka nor Souta had friends in Class B.

“What is she doing?” Nanami said incredulously.

*

“…”

Yuka stared down at the girl.

Yuka’s intuition wasn’t overwhelmingly better than other exorcists.

But while she wouldn’t claim to be the best, she had confidence in her own abilities. Yuka wielded the “Nameless” inherited from her mother and had fought against things that shouldn’t exist in this world her entire life.

Because of this, she usually had a sense about people related to such matters. So far, her intuition had never been wrong.

Especially if she went to a place where yokai truly existed.

In that sense, this girl, with whom she hadn’t even exchanged names yet, was a bit strange.

Literally, it felt ‘strange.’

Like looking at someone who belonged nowhere, completely detached from the world.

Was it simply because she was being bullied?

“…Hey.”

Yuka spoke.

The girl showed no reaction for a while, then, as if she were an extremely slow computer that had forgotten she needed to respond, slowly raised her head to look at Yuka.

“Do you have any other plans today?”

“…”

The girl’s red eyes quietly looked up at Yuka.

The few students remaining in the classroom turned their attention to the two. Especially the three who had been bullying this girl—they were almost glaring at Yuka from a distance.

Normally, Yuka would have followed Souta. While somehow guarding against Nanami clinging to him.

But there are more important things in the world.

If it ended up being just a hunch, that would be the end of it. But if this girl was truly related to yokai, it would be problematic not to resolve her background.

“If you don’t have other plans, would you like to walk home with me?”

At Yuka’s words, whispers could be heard from around them.

“…”

After staring up at Yuka for a long time as if she were some different species, the girl silently stood up.

Then she ignored Yuka and walked out of the classroom.

Or did she ignore her?

Rather, was she a child who didn’t know how to engage in such interactions?

At the very least, she wasn’t a normal child.

Hanakawa High School is a so-called prestigious high school with very high deviation values. Given that she had been admitted and consistently attended this school, that girl must certainly be ‘smart.’

But her appearance, her social skills—

She wasn’t normal at all.

Usually, the emotion one should feel when seeing such a child would clearly be ‘pity.’ Whether she wasn’t loved at home or couldn’t make friends at school, it meant she didn’t know how to communicate with people.

However, in this situation, what Yuka felt was more like ‘foreboding.’

Even though she thought she shouldn’t, Yuka’s senses kept making her wary of that girl.

She must have been in the neighboring class all this time. Why only now?

Why?

For Yuka, that sense of discomfort was something she absolutely had to find the cause of.

That’s how she had been taught all along.