Sasaki and Peeps - Volume 8 - Chapter 4.4

<The Neighbor’s POV>

Right after lunch, during our afternoon break, an isolated space appears.

I’m babysitting Robot Girl in the classroom when all the lively commotion around me suddenly stops cold. At the same time, all my classmates disappear. The youngest daughter, who I’ve been keeping one eye on, and the blue magical girl vanish with them.

The only ones in the room now are Abaddon and me.

“Abaddon, it looks like a death game just kicked off.”

“Look on the bright side—at least it didn’t happen during class.”

My partner is right. We’re lucky this happened during afternoon break. No matter what action we take, if we move around in the isolated space, our position will change instantly as soon as it dissipates. To any classmates nearby, it will look like I suddenly teleported.

But since we’re currently on break, I have a few excuses I can use.

“We made that promise with my neighbor,” I remind Abaddon. “We shouldn’t take the offensive unless we’re attacked. I don’t feel their presence, either, so I suggest we hide and gather information this time. What do you think? I know you like rushing headlong into things.”

“Actually, I think that’s a pretty good idea!”

I decide to stay indoors for now. We exit the classroom into the hallway and move through the school building, keeping watch out the windows.

That’s when I see several familiar figures near the front gates. It’s my neighbor, Futarishizuka, and Makeup, and for some reason that pink magical girl is with them. There’s a six-winged angel floating right next to their group. She has her sword at the ready; it doesn’t seem like they’re having a friendly chat.

“Abaddon, I take everything back. Reveal thyself, please.”

“Yup! Leave it to me!”

The demon transforms from a young boy into a hunk of flesh in the blink of an eye. Then he expands, pulsing farther and farther outward. When he reaches a certain point, he splits into two separate chunks of approximately equal size. Each one floats into the air. The sight of these two grotesque meatballs lined up in the deserted, silent hallway is like a scene out of a horror movie.

“Please defeat that angel. Your first priority is to keep my neighbor safe.”

“Ah, what a refreshingly bold decision.”

At my instruction, one of the chunks of flesh rushes outside.

It rips through glass windows and reinforced concrete walls like they’re made of paper. The impacts send pieces flying back in my direction, but the other chunk—the one that stayed with me—shields me from them.

With that one protecting me, I lift myself into the air and head outside.

Right before my eyes, my neighbor and the angel begin fighting.

A glow erupts from his hand like some kind of laser beam, and it knocks away the sword the angel was holding. The angel, now unarmed, moves to attack him anyway. She clenches her fist and sends it flying straight toward his head.

It’s on a collision course, and I’m almost too afraid to look. But then the angel’s fist stops an instant before hitting him, as if she just punched an invisible wall. My neighbor takes advantage of the pause, lifting his body into the air and pulling back. Thanks to the maneuver, the angel’s attack only grazes the tip of his nose.

“He’s doing better than I expected.”

“Stop yammering and help him!”

“Right!”

I quickly reach the angel. Meat Chunk Number One, which arrived ahead of me, suddenly expands in midair and tries to engulf the angel’s body. Keeping one eye on it, I rush over to my neighbor and slide myself in front of him. Floating next to me, Meat Chunk Number Two becomes a shield to protect us both. A moment later, I hear Meat Chunk Number One and the six-winged angel start to fight.

“I’m sorry it took so long for me to get here, mister,” I say.

“Not at all,” he replies. “Thanks a lot.”

When I look more closely, I see that the tip of his nose is a little red. It seems the angel’s strike almost got him. My chest constricts just thinking about it.

I look at the others around us; the magical girl has a chest wound. It looks like a sword sliced her. It cut through her clothing, too, and I can see blood seeping from the wound.

The six-winged angel’s fight with Abaddon is brief.

“Ugh. Even with everything set up for us, we still can’t…,” the angel trails off, muttering bitterly before quickly flying away.

Abaddon briefly moves to pursue her, but given how desperately she’s fleeing, he decides to stop. He must have remembered the promise my neighbor made to his boss at work. I didn’t sense any hostility from the angel directed at us, either.

It must be true that there are people trying to control the angel-demon proxy war from the shadows.

Instead of me, they went after my neighbor, Futarishizuka, and Makeup. The thought of those people trying to kill him makes my chest feel like it will explode. In that case, I’d much rather they were just after me.

Right as we were attacked by the six-winged angel, my neighbor and Abaddon rushed to our rescue. Thanks to them, we made it out of the predicament safely.

Incidentally, the speed at which Little Mika withdrew after their arrival made me certain that the agreement I’d asked Mr. Akutsu to make with the death game Office was in effect. If I thought of it that way, I could say we’d gotten something out of all this, at least.

“I thought I was really done for this time,” said Ms. Futarishizuka. “Thank you. I mean it.”

“I’m just glad we could help out,” said Abaddon.

“We might be to blame for this,” my neighbor cut in. “So you shouldn’t be smug about it, Abaddon.”

“Still, you saved our lives,” said Ms. Futarishizuka. “Just let me say thank you.”

We grouped up at the front gates of the school and discussed the situation.

Once he was sure the angel had retreated, Abaddon returned to his human-boy form. The two fleshy chunks smushed together, and the resulting mass writhed and pulsed until it formed the shape of a person. It was quite a thrilling sight.

“If you’d just produced some water for me,” said Miss Hoshizaki, “we probably could’ve handled it alone.”

“Someone really needs to give you a good beating, dear,” commented Ms. Futarishizuka. “Perhaps our resident demon can oblige.”

“May I ask who the angel was after?” said my neighbor. She looked at Miss Hoshizaki. “Was it you?”

“It wasn’t me. They were after Futarishizuka.” My senior coworker quickly turned to glare at our junior.

“I suppose even they wouldn’t be that stupid,” mused Ms. Futarishizuka.

“Wait, are you making fun of me?”

“Please. There’s no need to put yourself down like that. It’s not a good look.”

“Wh-what are you talking about?”

“If they went after you, we might wind up with another crater situation. That robot girl can read the information on any network, remember? Their hideout could get blown up in two seconds.”

“Well, that’s… Uh, I guess that’s true. But still.” Miss Hoshizaki seemed frustrated by how easily our junior colleague had overturned her arguments.

Ignoring her, my neighbor began trading words with Ms. Futarishizuka.

“Is it because you refused their invitation to join them in the proxy war?” she asked.

“I suppose that’s possible,” said Ms. Futarishizuka.

“In that case, we’ve caused you a lot of trouble. I’m very sorry.”

“No, I made my own decision and chose you. You don’t need to apologize for that.”

“Oh, then you were actually telling the truth about it,” I remarked.

“Come now. Why the mistrust? Who do you take me for?”

My stinging comment came out almost automatically, earning a glare from her. I was about to suggest she could have staged the whole thing to get us to trust her and only barely managed to hold in the remark. What’s going on? I’ve been in awfully high spirits all day. My mouth is flapping like it has a mind of its own.

As if urged on by my remark, Miss Hoshizaki raised a question. “Then why would they attack you? What would be the point?”

“That’s unexpected, coming from you,” mumbled Ms. Futarishizuka.

“I mean, you wouldn’t die even if they killed you.”

“Hey. If you encased me in metal and dropped me to the ocean floor, I’d be completely helpless.”

“What? But who would do that? It’s so cruel.”

“Lots of people. In fact, someone tried something similar once before.”

“I, uh, I see…”

With this, everyone close to me, including myself, had been targeted at least once. Under normal circumstances, these overwhelming shows of violence, capital, and authority should have crushed us. But we were just barely managing to hang on, our lives suspended in a precarious balance thanks to our unique individual traits and backgrounds. I was pretty sure that if even one of us was missing, the entire thing would fall apart immediately.

I wished I could just give everything up and become a normal person. But I also felt like things had gone too far to turn back now.

“When the angel girl left,” said Miss Hoshizaki, “she said something about everything being set up, but they still couldn’t do it. What was that all about?”

“My guess is that since Ms. Futarishizuka lives so close to my neighbor and Abaddon, they haven’t been able to find a good time to attack her,” I said. “They probably chose to come after her during the day in the hopes that my neighbor would hesitate to act.”

“Oh yeah. That makes sense.”

“She did sneak out during the lunch break,” said Abaddon. “I hope nobody saw that.”

“There’s no point in worrying about minor details, Abaddon,” chided my neighbor.

“I’m not sure it’s as minor as you make it out to be.”

Peeps was at Ms. Futarishizuka’s villa, too. The angels and demons at Miyakejima had seen him, so if they viewed him as a threat, they’d stay well away from the villa.

In the meantime, the isolated space disappeared. Noise and commotion returned to the world, and cars began moving down the road beside us again.

“Abaddon, could you—”

“Already on it. Nobody can see us!”

“Thank you.”

Remembering Magical Pink’s odd clothing, a chill ran down my spine, but hearing my neighbor and Abaddon’s exchange relaxed me. Like before, the demon’s strange powers had hidden us from the rest of the world.

Next to me, Ms. Futarishizuka’s attention turned from my neighbor to Magical Pink.

“There was something I wanted to say to you, magic girlie. Is that all right?”

“…What?”

Everyone else present naturally looked toward the two of them. Ms. Futarishizuka’s formal tone had piqued my interest.

“Even if I were to forgive you for selling me out, which I don’t, didn’t you consider what would happen next? If our senior coworker here had been caught up in this little stunt and kicked the bucket, the mechanical life-form would have gone crazy and showered the whole world in laser beams.”

“But nobody died.”

“Sure, you can say that now. But that wasn’t guaranteed to happen. You may be a child, but I know you understand that much, at least. If this hadn’t turned out so well, there would have been a whole lot more orphans like you. Would you have been okay with that?”

“……”

Normally, Ms. Futarishizuka would have prioritized her relationship with the other person and kept all these thoughts to herself. Was this outpouring another result of our morning energy? My junior colleague sounded pretty worked up—wholly unlike her usual detached way of speaking. As a result, her words seemed to carry a lot more weight.

“Take a look at this,” she said.

“……”

A moment later, she had her phone in her hand and was tapping at it. She started a video and then held the screen out for Magical Pink to see. Curious, I went over and peered at the display. It showed a young child from the shoulders up.

Their cheeks were stained with tears, and their eyes were red and swollen. They were making some sort of appeal. “I’ll never forgive the one who killed my family.”

The clip only lasted ten seconds or so. But then another began playing, similar to the first—and then another, and another. All of them were children of about elementary school age. And all of them were facing the camera and grieving the deaths of their family members, each in their own words.

“…What is this?” asked Magical Pink.

“The children of psychics you’ve killed.”

“……”

This was a very harsh thing for Ms. Futarishizuka to do to a child. Were those videos even real?

Actually, it didn’t matter. Even if they weren’t, I was certain that Magical Pink’s actions had created children just like them. It was very hard to imagine that every psychic she’d killed had been single and childless.

“Why don’t you stop hunting psychics already?” Ms. Futarishizuka asked.

“…No,” said Magical Pink.

“I think you’ve hunted enough.”

“No, I haven’t.”

“You’re throwing quite the tantrum over losing your family, you know. Do you have any idea how many other kids out there are in the same situation? If all of them started killing people just because they were sad about their misfortune, the world would come to an end.”

“Ms. Futarishizuka,” I said, “don’t you think that’s a little mu—?”

“It’s an adult’s responsibility to scold children who don’t know they’re doing something wrong. I can’t let her continue like this.”

It seemed my colleague’s remarks were having an effect on Magical Pink. She pointed the tip of her wand at Futarishizuka, not bothering to conceal her anger.

“…I will kill all psychics,” she declared.

“See, you’re doing it again. Taking your pain out on other people,” countered Ms. Futarishizuka. “It’s easy to excuse all this as revenge, of course. Too easy, though, don’t you think? All you’re doing is throwing a temper tantrum—one that’s hurting a lot of people. It’s only gone on this long because no adults wanted to scold you.”

“Shut up! You’re wrong!”

Magical Pink abruptly fired a beam from her wand. The magical middle-aged man hastily put up a barrier spell. Before, that had been enough to stop this attack.

But today, the magical girl kept firing. Her attacks hit the barrier with a series of thumps. After blocking several beams, my spell shattered, and the next one shot straight through my colleague’s shoulder.

“Ah! Ms. Futarishizuka!” I cried.

“Urgh…”

She emitted a low groan that sharply contrasted with her cute features.

“W-wait a second!” exclaimed Miss Hoshizaki. “We’re not in that special space thingie right now!”

She had a very good point. The beam that struck Ms. Futarishizuka continued past her, blowing through several tree branches before disappearing into the sky. If it had been a few degrees off, it would have hit the school building.

“Abaddon, make sure she’s protected,” said my neighbor.

“Leave it to me! But outside an isolated space, I’m not sure how much I can do!”

Naturally, we were all in a panic, trying to pull ourselves together to confront Magical Pink.

The magical girl, on the other hand, flew up into the air with Magical Flight and put some distance between us. Then, with a ripping sound, a pitch-black void opened up behind her. She’d used her Magical Field.

“I don’t care what you say. It has nothing to do with me,” she said.

Magical Pink glared at Ms. Futarishizuka so hard her forehead wrinkled, then she tossed herself into the void and vanished from sight. A moment later, the black tear closed up, and she was gone.

We waited a few more moments, but nothing else happened. It seemed she’d withdrawn for now.

I’d figured something like this would happen eventually. Any chance of a healthy relationship with her was now on the scrap heap.

“Ack…” Oh, great, I thought. I forgot. If it was going to come to this anyway, I should have asked, even if I had to be forceful.

“What is it, Sasaki?” asked Miss Hoshizaki.

“Never mind. It’s nothing.”

I’d wanted to ask Magical Pink about the mission Blue had mentioned—about gathering Fairy Drops at the behest of messengers from the fairy world. Now that I was firmly established as a magical middle-aged man, I couldn’t think of a good way to slide the topic into our conversation, and I’d hesitated all the way until relations broke down. At this rate, I doubted I’d ever get another chance to speak to her.

“Graaaaah! I’m so frustrated!” shouted Ms. Futarishizuka.

“Um, what is it?” I asked.

A moment later, her attention was on me. “You, me, right here, right now!” she said. Her eyes were bloodshot.

“Excuse me? What are—?”

Before I could complete the sentence, she’d pinned me to the ground. She grabbed my collar and immediately pushed me down onto the sidewalk. Were those judo moves?

“Have you finally gone mad?” I asked.

“I just can’t stand it anymore,” she said. “That magic girlie is one thing, but you have been getting on my nerves, too. Every day, you pretend to be old and withered, always acting so detached and unbothered by everything I say. What are you playing at? I’m gonna tear that mask of yours right off. It’s time you let me have some fun.”

Her eyes were serious.

And her knee was poking persistently into my crotch.

No one had done anything, and yet it seemed her instincts had all but defeated her reason and restraint and were now running wild. At first, I thought she was just overexcited because of the wound in her shoulder, but she’d stayed calm through much worse injuries in the past.

And the same went for me, too. All it took was a little touch, and I felt my mood soaring.

Oh, got it. Carry on. Full disclosure, I almost said that out loud. All my senses were in overdrive.

She was acting strangely, but so was I.

Nothing made sense. Was this some kind of psychic attack? One that affected us mentally?

But how? Why?

“H-hey, Futarishizuka, what the heck are you doing?!” exclaimed Miss Hoshizaki. “Did you finally go senile?!”

“Just stay still. It’ll all be over soon. It won’t hurt much…”

“Abaddon, stop her!” cried my neighbor.

“I could, but I think there’s a more fundamental problem at play here.”

After tossing around the possibilities, I suddenly had a thought. If it worked, I could figure out the rest later. She was pinning me down, and we were so close our noses were almost touching.

So I used my healing magic on her.

“Please calm down, Ms. Futarishizuka.”

In an instant, her body glowed with a faint light.

The wound in her shoulder quickly began to repair itself. A chunk of flesh was missing, and blood was pouring out from the hole. But as I watched, the lost part began to reform and expand, then pale white skin formed over the top of it. Her torn clothes didn’t reform, but her physical injury was completely healed in only a few seconds.