Chapter 13:

Me and Mizuhara san went back to the room where I was treated. When we entered the room, we heard the telephone ringing. Mizuhara san picked up the phone and someone started yelling through the phone.

" Chikaaaaa!!!! where were you??? The director was calling for you!! He's totally mad now!!"

" Ah Hana" She started sweating and was confused," I was uh....yeah I fell down the stairs!"

" You suck at lying, don't you?" I told her.

" Shut up!" She blushed.

" Well just come down now" The woman on the telephone sighed.

She cut the phone and I said, "If you're going down, I'll come with you too. I've gotta get home."

" You sure you're gonna be okay?"

We both proceeded down the stairs and the masked police officer was waiting down.

" Ah! Are you okay kid?" He came running and bowed to MIzuhara san and showed his police badge," I'll take this kid home. Thank you for treating his injuries."

I took out a 50 yen coin from my pocket and gave it to Mizuhara san.

" Here. Your payment"

" You know I get more than this." She looked at me with uninterested eyes.

" Then take this as a tip"

" I'm not a waitress!!"

" Then I guess you could keep it as a good luck charm"

She sighed and took it.

" Well okay then. Take care and be careful" She waved her hand as I left the building.

I got into the police car and told him my way home. After that we were silent for a while. I had no intention of speaking so I just looked out of the window. He broke the ice by asking.

" Now.... This might sound stupid, but did you fight that monster?" He looked at me through his mask. Even though it was coming from a hole, I could feel a threatening stare.

" Uh....What monster?" Yeah I sucked at lying.

" I know you didn't get injured because your legs were frozen with fear. All the victims I saw had their flesh cut out clean. But why is it that yours is shallow?" He was driving while looking at me.

I kept quiet and then he looked away.

" Well I don't believe that a brat like you could fight that monster. Tch....why does director Kimura have to listen to that minister. Because of him we can't even protect the people."

I had no idea what he was mumbling about but for now I was safe because he didn't suspect me.

" Are your parents home?" He asked

" Yeah my dad's home. Why? What's the problem?"

" I need to apologize for what happened or else our reputation will go down the gutter."

" There's no need to do so. My dad won't stop worrying if I come home with an injury. He'll get more worried if a policeman is involved."

" Won't he get more worried if he finds his son with an injured arm and there's no one to explain what happened?"

" Then I won't show him my arm"

" How're you gonna do that"

I pulled my sleeves down and he looked at me with a face that read 'seriously?'

He sighed, " Are kids really this dumb these days?"

We reached my house and I got off. I took out a 50 yen coin from my pocket and handed it to him.

" Are you serious?" He asked me.

" Yeah"

Before I could give it to him, he closed the car door and drove away. I knew he was going to go away without taking the coin, so I slipped it into his breast pocket beforehand.

It was 9:30 now and the lights were on.

" Ah! Welcome back. Went for a walk, Daichi?" My dad was sitting on the sofa watching a football match.

" Yeah....something like that" I said.

" There's some food in the fridge, our neighbor left it at the door for us."

I was starving and tired from today's events. I usually eat cornflakes for dinner, but having fried chicken wasn't so bad.

At the Nagashima police station headquarters, same night Sugawara got attacked.....

Makino's dad Sugita Kyoshiro bangs his fists on his director's table.

" Why?? Why haven't you given us the order to guard the town??"

" I told you so! The minister of military and affairs said that he'd handle it by dispatching his own force as the victims appeared closer to his home." Thundered the director of the police station. Kitamura Aoki was a very close friend of chief Kyoshiro.

" Then what is our purpose as policemen?? Didn't we pledge to protect the people 15 years, no matter where we work when we were just young men??"

" I know we said that, but there are many ways to protect the people and leaving this case to the minister is the best way."

" Why does the minister want to do this in the first place? He isn't the type of person to do something so righteous. Isn't there anything we can do?" Kyoshiro looked at his fist in frustration.

The director Kimura looked at Kyoshiro and said

" Nothing. He said that if I make a move.... he'll fire us all."

Kyoshiro gripped his fist in anger and walked out of the room.

Kimura looked at one of his old photos and sighed. It was back in his training days where both him and Kyoshiro were grinning on the graduation day. He snorted and looked at the ceiling.

" Rarely seen him smile for a long time. Well no one would be happy after losing their loved ones."

He got up for a cup of coffee and closed his eyes.

" I hope the minister doesn't cause any unnecessary trouble."

Next morning in school....

" You what??!!!! C-Can you say that again??" Keisuke grabbed his own hair in disbelief.

" A-are you okay now though???!!!" Makino looked at my bandaged arm.

" That monster was as strong as a bear. No idea how strong a bear is, but it felt strong." I replied.

Keisuke jumped around in ecstasy and screamed with joy. Someone bashed Keisuke's head with a book. It was the class president. Actually I knew that she was going to be the class President from the first day itself. She was the definition of a studious child. Black round glasses with a plain face and body. Braided twin tails fell from her shoulders.

" Didn't sensei say that this period is for self studying?" She put her hands on her hip.

" Ow.... This is domestic violence, Emiko san!!" Keisuke rubbed his head.

" Domestic violence is justified for idiots. This wasn't even domestic violence in the first place!!"

" Well calm down now.... It's not like we're causing any trouble. The reason why teachers give us a self study period is because they wanna good around and escape from reality for a few minutes." I put my handkerchief on my face and snored.

She got pissed at our attitude and told us

" Look at your classmates! You're the only people who aren't studying!"

We all looked behind her and it was chaos. Some people were playing volleyball with a paper ball while some were throwing paper planes. Emiko san blushed at her false statement.

" Now now.... It's not bad to rest for a while Emiko san. Our exams are still far away and we have plenty of time." Makino said.

" Hmph! I don't understand how you people don't take your studies seriously." She walked to her seat and opened her textbook.

" Sigh....I wonder how someone can be that serious." Keisuke still rubbed his head.

After school we all went to the science room. Haruno, Akira and Narukami were sipping tea, or something like tea. I didn't know you could make tea from chemicals.

I told them all about yesterday's events and Akira was astonished.

" You really survived something like that? I knew it wasn't a bad idea to let you know about it."

Haruno was all fidgety and poured an extra cup of tea everytime I finished.

" I'm so sorry something like that happened to you. It's all my fault, I'm sorry"

She kept bowing back and forth like the first time we met.

" I knew you were amazing but now that you fought with that monster....you've become much more amazing." Narukami looked at me with awe.

" Uh and this monster looked like a wolf....So I'm gonna call it wolf man." I said.

" Doesn't that sound like a superhero's name?"

Damn.... I spent all night finding a name for it....

" By why would you call it a man?" Akira asked.

" Well it was standing on it's two legs that's why?"

" Hmm.... then wolf man it is" Akira said.

I was relieved.

" Are you going to fight it again?" Makino asked while looking at my arm.

Everyone looked at me and I had to reply.

" Yeah, but you all are misunderstanding something. I only escaped from the wolf man. If I had a proper fight, I'd probably get admitted to the hospital."

" So what are you suggesting to do?" Haruno poured another cup of tea. I was seriously full and wanted to go pee now.

" Akira san, will you track down the wolf man? And if you do, how much time would it take?"

" I am planning to track it down and I think.... it'll take a week or so. Or maybe longer."

" That's long enough. I'll be ready by that time."

" Ready? what ready?" Makino asked.

" I need to get healed completely" I lied (I thought of this lie at night too). I had something else to do too.

We all left school. I walked Makino till her street and she asked.

" Are you sure you're going to fight it alone?"

" Yeah"

" You won't regret it later right?"

I looked at my hands and then told her, " No matter what I do, I'll always have regrets. Actually, when someone says they don't have regrets, it's always a lie. That's like a universal fact."

" Then why do you want to fight it?" She asked.

" You might find this creepy but.... I kinda had fun...."

" Fun? How so?"

" I don't know how to describe it but.... I felt like I was flying. It's something I don't understand myself."

" Is that so? I never fought anyone so I won't understand." She shrugged.

" But don't worry about regrets. I won't have regrets about hurting myself. But if something happened to you, I'd have nothing but regrets." I looked at her and she looked away.

Her face was all red. I didn't know if she was blushing or it was just the afternoon light.

" Th-then I'll try not to add more regrets to you" She covered her face with her palms.

We parted ways and I got on to my cycle. I went to an old abandoned area. It was right in front of a big green mountain. The vegetation was out of control. The buildings and the walls were all crumbled and broken down. The residents living here left a very very long time ago. Some rumors say that there's an evil spirit living here in the mountains. Bad things kept occurring to the residents here, so they decided to leave this place.

Most of the walls were broken by me. I used to blast away all my pent up anger here. But that ended after I met a certain being.

I moved towards a wasteland where there were tractor tires lying around. I brought along two chains and tied them up. I pulled them and headed towards the top of the mountain. It was heavy and the chains which I held, kept on giving me blisters on my palm.

It took me almost half an hour to reach the top of the mountain. The sun was almost down and I reached a small empty patch on the mountain. There was a small river tribute flowing on the ground and this area felt like a miniature paradise. It was surrounded by big and bulky trees. They were probably around 200-250 years old. But there was something older than the trees here.

" Yoo! You still around?" I said it aloud," I can see that you kept the place nice and green, guardian."

I waited for a minute.... I probably got ignored.

The winds got stronger, the trees started swaying and the small river tribute beside started overflowing. A large dark figure that was about 3 meters tall emerged from the dark. It's whole body was covered with a long dark piece of cloth. The cloth wasn't of this world, it gave out fumes that were darker than black. It's face was covered with a veil but you could see that it's face was of the purest of white.

This.....was none other than the evil spirit that people were afraid of. It didn't have legs but simply floated in the air. The air around me became suffocating, but to face a being that is not of this world with fear on your face will only bring you death. I straightened my back and kept my chest high with an emotionless face.

" Long...time... Little savior.... Your face....hasn't changed.... a bit. Same expression.....like always." It spoke slowly with a soft but intimidating voice.

" Same to you, have you been well?"

" A humorous....joke.... I'll be well even after you die.... So what has brought you here.... little savior."

" Heh....There seems to be a monster running wild in my town. I sparred with it yesterday, but our strengths were equal. So I wanted to become a bit stronger."

" Hoh.... A monster as strong as you.... That's rare.... Very well....how will I be of assistance today?"

I tied up the four tires on four tree branches. They were all diagonal to each other.

" I need you to push these. All four of them. Will you help me?"

" Of course....I owe you debt after all."

Four big arms came out from the body of the spirit and it put each of it's arms on every tire. I stood at the center of the four trees and took a deep breath and said.

"Now"

The tires came at full speed and all parts of my body tingled with my danger sense. I was going to punch it back in the air but instead, the danger I was sensing was really strong. So if I punched, I'd probably break my hands. So I pulled up both my hands to block and.....

BOOOMMM

I flew back and hit a tree, all the breath in my lungs came out. I sensed a danger sense on my forehead. I ducked immediately and the tire hit the tree and bounced back. I moved away from the tree because another two tires were heading for me. Sheesh.... The guardian spirit was merciless.

As soon as I moved away, a tingling sensation came up on my face. So I ducked again. Immediately another tire came and I didn't have time to move or block it.

WHAACKKK....

It hit my face and I went flying once again.

"Want to.... stop?"

I coughed up blood and waved my hand signaling to continue. One of my weakness was, when multiple parts of my body are going off with my danger sense, I'm unable to properly analyze how to block and counter.

Another tire came swinging and this time I decided to punch it as hard as I could. Now that I had warmed up, my body was able to cope with the danger.

I stamped my foot on the ground making the dust rise and pulled back my arm back and

ZOOOMM....

I punched it as hard as I could and...

CRACKK

I heard something crack and later found out I was flying. I fell on the ground and everything went blank.

Meanwhile at the masked police officer's house....

"Sigh..... Today I was almost gonna catch that monster. And what was the brat? Somehow I feel like he was lying about the fact that he didn't fight with the monster."

He was undressing and something fell from his front pocket and it made a chiming sound on the floor. He looked at it and it was a 50 yen coin.

"That damned brat!!!!!!!" He threw the coin on the bed and it bounced back and hit his face.