The Biter

by Reki Kawahara

  He sunk his massive canine teeth into the crude iron pipe, an abrasive squeal ringing out. Even a large hydraulic cutter couldn’t exhibit this kind of cutting power. He snapped the steel tube apart in only six or seven seconds, just as if it had been a stick of candy.

  Takaesu put the bit-off end of the iron pipe inside his mouth and chewed it a few more times. Each time, the shrill scream of metal resounded.

  What he finally spat out on the plastic sheet at his feet was a torn piece of scrap metal only a few millimeters long. There wasn’t a drop of blood on it.

  “Cattivo,” Takaesu murmured with a sneer, indicating his disgust.

  Striding over the piece of metal and taking one step more, he leaned over right before the girl’s eyes.

  “But your bones seem like they’ll taste great.”

  When he announced this, a muffled scream slipped out from her tape-covered mouth and she jerked her body around like a broken toy. She futilely kicked her legs, which were still bound at the knee, in the air. Takaesu easily caught both of them with his right hand. With no hesitation, he pulled off the running shoes she was wearing.

  “…!!”

  The girl’s screams noticeably intensified. But to Takaesu, it was nothing but background music to increase the enjoyment of the dining experience.

  When he had removed her athletic socks, he admired her exposed bare feet intently. They would surely offer the highest quality of firmness.

  He wanted to bite into her immediately, but it would spoil the fun if she died so easily; first, he had to prepare to stanch the bleeding. He rummaged around in his pack again and pulled out a zip tie. As he went to wrap it around the girl’s calf, Takaesu’s hand froze.

  He heard a faint snapping noise. Probably the sound of a dry twig breaking.

  After a moment, he heard the sound again. There was no doubt about it; someone was approaching the shed.

  “If you make noise, I’ll kill you right now,” he whispered, bringing his strange features near her face and peering into her tear-filled eyes at close proximity.

  He put the leg he had seized earlier down onto the floor, went over to the sliding door, and pressed his ear to the rusty iron. He heard a rustling sound at regular intervals. It was the sound of feet treading on piles of fallen leaves. The person was incredibly close to the shed.

  He wondered if it was the police, but then realized he could only hear the footsteps of one person. Whether a detective or a member of a SWAT team, no police officer would take action on their own. Then was it a park maintenance person? Had the shed only seemed like it had been abandoned for years because Takaesu’s desire to use it clouded his judgment?

  He shook his head a bit and glanced at the LED light he had put on top of the cleaning supplies. He wondered for a moment if he should turn it off but decided to leave it as it was.

  He turned around and stood at the ready, right beside the door. Whoever it was, he would have to kill them the instant they came in. This time he wouldn’t bother with squeezing the person’s carotid artery. He would tear through their neck with one bite. It was a shame that he had to put his first-rate prey on hold and bite this inferior bone, but that was what he got for his foolish carelessness.

  His jaw, protruding like a shark’s, opened wide.

  His front teeth, sharp like razors, gleamed in the glow of the LED light.

  After having walked a few dozen meters, Minoru left the recreation trail and stepped into the dark forest.

  There was no way the foul smell in the air was something he was imagining now. He could identify it clearly, right down to the direction it was coming from. Before he knew it, the light of the streetlamps no longer reached him, but he had no difficulty walking, probably because his eyesight had become more sensitive than before.

  He was aware that he was doing something stupid. Whatever the source of the smell was, it was probably something unpleasant, and he knew he would want to erase the memory of finding it later anyway.

  Although it might be better if he turned back, then he would just be struck by the same self-hatred as always. He’d already come this far because he felt uneasy about the fact that the abnormal smell was coming from the direction Tomomi Minowa had run away in, so if he went back without making sure that it was nothing, he would be hit by his own cowardice and coldheartedness.

  Is everything I do just for myself, ultimately?

  His mouth twisted as he thought this. Right then, his left shoe stepped on a withered branch, making a dry cracking sound. Minoru stopped reflexively and strained to see through the darkness in front of him. He noticed a small shed standing in the clearing a few dozen meters away. It was probably a storeroom or something, but its half-rotted, weather-beaten condition made it seem like it wasn’t in use right now.

  Even so, Minoru just knew that the smell was coming from there. There was no sign that anything or anyone was around the building. Was it inside the shed? If so, that would mean that the strange stench was not the smell of a wild animal.

  It felt like the hair all over his body was standing up. His frozen palms were soaked with sweat. Although he wasn’t moving, the stench seemed to grow thicker and thicker. Even when he used his left hand to cover his nose with his scarf, the smell that pierced his olfactory cells didn’t let up.

  There was something out of the ordinary lurking inside that shed. His right foot unconsciously took a half step backward, and he stepped on another withered branch. His whole body flinched at the sound he had made.

  He wanted to turn around right now and run away from the shed. Barely keeping it together, Minoru grabbed the front of his uniform with his sweat-dampened right hand.

  When he did this, he felt something itchy and painful in the space between his numb palm and his heart, which was pulsing like an alarm bell.

  It was the thing. The small orb that had nestled into his sternum was throbbing with heat. Don’t be afraid. Keep going, it whispered to him.

  Taking a deep breath in and letting it out slowly, Minoru took one step with his right foot, the one that had retreated earlier. Then his left foot. Then his right again. Walking with steps so sure that it surprised even him, he took off his scarf and the bag he wore diagonally across his chest and set them quietly on the ground.

  The shed was right in front of him now. When he looked very carefully at the incredibly thin gap between the closed iron door and the wall, it seemed like there was a faint light seeping out.

  The beastly smell grew stronger and stronger as he moved forward, but mysteriously, he had no trouble breathing. He definitely wasn’t smelling this because the cells in his nose were picking up on some material that had a scent. His brain was taking some sort of information and directly interpreting it as a smell.

  As if he were being drawn in by it, Minoru reached out his right hand, clutched the handle of the door, and pulled it right open.

  Then he breathed in sharply. A blue plastic sheet was spread out on the floor of the dim shed, and on top of it, Tomomi Minowa was bound at her hands and feet with gray tape and gagged. She still had on her workout top and bottoms, but for some reason only the shoes and socks from both feet had been removed.

  “Mi…,” Minoru said in a hoarse and throaty voice as he took one step into the shed.

  At the same time, Tomomi shook her head violently, her eyes open wide, as if to tell him not to come in. Immediately after, a number of things happened in succession.

  The beastly smell, so thick that he could feel even its malice, closed in on Minoru.

  Directly to his left, a black shadow flew at him with incredible power.

  A long, protruding mouth in an inhuman shape held Minoru by the side of the neck. The vicious and extraordinarily huge sharp teeth touched the skin at the back of his neck.

  Male. Young. High school student. He seemed to know the girl. Same school? Was this ragazzo the reason for her tears?

  If so, it would’ve been nice to catch him. What fun it would have been to l
ine them up and take turns biting them. But it was too late. He couldn’t stop his jaws, his teeth, or the thing.

  It was a thin neck. Slender like a woman’s. Takaesu was sure he could cut through to the vertebrae with one bite.

  There it was easy to get it between his teeth.

  Takaesu thought all of this in the 0.3 seconds after this nuisance had come into view. Tilting his head to the side, he put his mouth on the boy’s neck over the stiff collar of his school uniform. The teeth on his right side made contact with the heavy black woven fabric, while the teeth on his left side touched thin white skin. If he bit down like this, he would surely snap right through flesh and bone, revealing a lovely cross section of red and pink and white.

  His jaw muscles were ready. He was going to release all of the pent-up power of a shark in one go—

  That’s when it happened. Something unexpected occurred.

  A strange smell hit him right in the face. It was an artificial, chemical, irritating odor that he had never smelled before.

  At the same time, the boy’s neck swelled up—or it seemed to. Takaesu’s teeth, which had cut slightly into the skin, were repelled in an instant by a pressure that surpassed his bite strength. Something unbelievably hard and unimaginably smooth was rejecting his teeth. Pain ran through his masseter muscle on both sides, telling him that the muscle fiber was damaged.

  His eyes wide with surprise, Takaesu looked at his own hugely protruding mouth. Then he got an even greater shock.

  He definitely felt the sensation in his jaw of biting something. Yet his teeth weren’t touching flesh. They were trembling slightly but immobile, separated from the white skin by three centimeters.

  But if that was the case, then what was this terrible firmness he felt in the bones of his jaw? Had the boy outfitted the back of his neck with protection made from strengthened glass or something?

  No, even if that were the case, Takaesu should be able to easily cut any type of glass or resin in his tiger-shark mode. So was it diamond? Could this completely mediocre high school boy actually have something like that?

  Takaesu’s thoughts were thrown into confusion—the material was more solid than anything he had ever encountered before, and incomprehensibly, he couldn’t see it. Still, he didn’t open his jaws. Nothing could exist that Takaesu as a tiger shark couldn’t bite through.

  Ignoring the grating screams of his masseter muscle, he applied as much force as he could. At some point, the mysterious, irritating odor had disappeared, but Takaesu wasn’t aware of it; his attention was focused only on breaking through that transparent something.

  As a result, he didn’t think of trying to avoid it when the boy, who seemed to have recovered from his shock, swung a clumsy fist at him. Since he had allowed the thing to live in his lower jaw, the strength of not only his teeth and jaw but also his physical abilities themselves had skyrocketed. He could take a punch or two from this feeble high school student without feeling any pain. Ignoring the swinging fist, he squeezed with all the strength he could muster—

  Impact. His field of vision grew dark, and white sparks flickered. His right temple grew hot as if it were being burned, and soon after he was overtaken with excruciating pain like a nail being driven into him. Even his sense of balance was thrown off as if his brain were being shaken. Takaesu fought to keep his footing, swearing he wouldn’t fall over.

  He’d been hit. But it hadn’t felt like a bare fist. It was a blow from something hard, heavy, smooth… Just like he’d been struck by a polished steel ball at full force. Did that mean that the boy’s invisible protection wasn’t just around his neck? Was he wearing some kind of glove on his fist that was made of diamond or something else?

  No. Could it be…

  Pressing his reeling body against the wall on his left, Takaesu tried to thrust the fingers of his left hand into the boy’s unprotected stomach. But his fingers didn’t make it. Just as he had predicted, they smashed into something right above the gray Chesterfield coat the boy was wearing. It was an invisible wall, smooth, unbelievably hard, and neither hot nor cold.

  His whole body. This boy’s whole body was protected.

  As Takaesu thought this in a daze, the boy raised his right fist again. His movements were that of a complete amateur. But if Takaesu took another blow of the same force as the one before, he would probably pass out this time.

  Swallowing an indescribable shame, Takaesu opened his jaw and let go of the boy’s neck. He sunk down, the large amount of saliva that had built up in his mouth splashing about.

  The boy’s fist passed through the space where Takaesu’s head had been just a moment ago and crashed into the half-open metal sliding door. There was a thunderous noise as if a large man who took pride in his strength had pummeled the door with an iron hammer. The face of the door was smashed in and pieces of stripped-off paint fluttered through the air. Amid all this, Takaesu struggled to crawl away and rolled toward the outside of the shed.

  He rolled over and over like this for about four meters and somehow managed to stand up. A large amount of fallen leaves clung to not just his new sportswear but also his hair. His skin was smudged with dirt. A single line of blood trickled from his temple, and saliva dribbled from his mouth. His brain was so shaken up that he ended up in a squat with his backside stuck out. It was an intolerably ugly position, but Takaesu had no room to get angry.

  The boy showed himself in the doorway of the shed, and Takaesu scrutinized him again from top to bottom. He was probably seven or eight centimeters shorter than Takaesu, who was 183 centimeters. He was likely on the tall side for his age, but he had a scrawny build and didn’t at all look like he could throw a heavy enough punch to dent an iron door…

  No, wait. The shadow created by the LED light that poured out from inside the shed wasn’t touching the boy’s feet.

  He was floating. The boy’s feet were separated from the concrete of the doorway, albeit by only a few centimeters. Did that mean that invisible shell even went around the bottoms of his feet?

  Armor that wrapped around every single part of a person’s body without leaving any gaps, was completely transparent and stronger than steel, and even expanded and contracted at will. There was no way something like that could be created with existing science and technology.

  As he endured the pain of his swollen, sharply throbbing temple, Takaesu reached a terribly unpleasant conclusion.

  It was the thing. This high school student standing a mere four or five meters away from Takaesu also had that small orb somewhere in his body. Takaesu wasn’t the only human who had been chosen. And the thing gave different powers. Takaesu had gained the power of a shark—and this boy had gained invisible armor.

  …Were there still others? Other humans who had orbs dwelling in them? Did they all have strange and dangerous powers, and were they hiding somewhere in Japan?

  “…I can’t have that,” Takaesu murmured in a hoarse voice.

  He wouldn’t allow something like that. It was unacceptable for anyone other than Hikaru Takaesu to belong to the superior, supernaturally powerful species.

  Gnashing his still-enlarged teeth, he made up his mind. He would eliminate them. All of them. The boy in front of him…and all the others who possessed the eye, if there were any. The thing pulsed madly in the center of his lower jaw. It seemed to clamor for him to hunt them, bite them, devour them.

  He no longer cared about the pain in his left temple or his warped sense of balance. Still bent forward and spurred on by an overwhelming rage, Takaesu managed to keep himself in check somehow. He would bite the boy next time. He would bite all the bones in the boy’s body to pieces through the transparent armor that protected him.

  But before that, he should obtain just a little information. The boy could know something about others besides him who possessed the eye.

  Sucking in dry air through his slightly open mouth, Takaesu cooled his seething teeth just a bit, then turned to face the boy and started to speak to him.<
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  The man before him seemed to be saying something, but Minoru couldn’t hear it.

  Minoru…thought it was male. But he wasn’t convinced about the figure’s humanity. His height was probably more than 180 centimeters. His limbs were long and his shoulders were broad. He was stylishly dressed in black training wear, and Minoru could sense the thickness of his hardened muscles.

  Was he around thirty, give or take? His short hair was styled in a fashionable two-block cut, and everything from his forehead to his eyes gave off an air of intelligence. But the problem was the lower half of his face.

  When Minoru had first seen him, he had thought it was a dinosaur. The strangely long upper and lower jaws protruded forward, teeth of inhuman size peeking out. But the form of the jaws, which tapered off at the end, made Minoru think of a fish more than a reptile. What’s more, it was a large, carnivorous fish able to attack even humans—a shark.

  The enormous triangular teeth were sharp and pointed, and they glistened wetly. Thick bunches of muscle ran down both sides of the face. Those jaws surely hid enormous power, and there was no doubt that one bite from them could easily rip a human body apart.

  Just thinking about how those jaws had been around his neck for even an instant sent cold shivers through his whole body.

  One minute and a few seconds earlier—

  The moment Minoru had opened the door to the shed and found Tomomi Minowa tied up, all his thoughts had stopped. If he had been able to use his head a bit, he probably would have been aware of the possibility that whoever had taken Tomomi was lurking in the blind spot behind the door, but he had just jumped single-mindedly into the shed.

  Just after, a black shadow had sprung at him from the left—freezing-cold teeth and breath that was hot like a flame touched the back of his neck. At that moment, he felt the thing in the center of his chest shake violently. Then that strange phenomenon occurred once again.

  All sound disappeared, his field of vision changed color, and his body floated up just a little. When he felt his attacker’s teeth—which had definitely made indentations in the skin of his neck—being pushed back by some unseen force, Minoru finally sensed what was happening to him.