There was a “shing” noise of something metal springing outwards. Mutsuko had extended her saber and gone on the defensive.
Yuichi knew he didn’t need to worry about Mutsuko in situations like these. She could take care of herself.
“Now, this was unexpected,” Leader commented. “We can’t fight or we’ll hurt the humans, which is against our policy. We’ll have to be going for today.”
“Yu! Don’t let them get away!” Mutsuko shouted.
Yuichi moved instinctively in reaction to her words.
The darkness around them presented no problem to Yuichi. He remembered the entire layout of the room, and could sense coming attacks through sound and air flow. He leaped over the line of sofas after the retreating monster hunters.
“Idiot! We can see you!” Leader shouted.
They had shut off the lights, after all, so they must have expected to fight in the dark.
The man known as Giant launched a straight punch aimed at knocking Yuichi to the ground. Yuichi dodged it and pressed into his personal space.
Furukami!
It was hard to move with much precision in the dark, so his best shot was to use overwhelming strength to keep the battle short. To that end, Yuichi activated his furukami. It was Yuichi’s ace in the hole: the ability to exceed human limits.
Yuichi thrust his palm forward at point blank range, but Giant reacted, raising his left arm in front of his chest to guard. Yuichi had seen that coming, though — that was what the furukami was for.
He unleashed all his power on the blocking elbow. Despite Giant’s well-honed musculature, Yuichi’s fist broke the elbow and shattered his rib. He didn’t bother to confirm that Giant had fallen before he went straight for Leader.
Leader threw something in his hands at him. Maybe he had just been pretending he didn’t know any martial arts. The object sped towards him, but Yuichi dipped down to dodge it.
Leader shot a low kick at Yuichi’s head, but Yuichi met the leg with an elbow and hit back with all his might.
Leader’s leg let out a nasty snap.
As he fell, Yuichi grappled him, brought his hand around behind his back, and forced him to the ground.
“Sis!” Yuichi shouted.
He could tell the woman known as “Sister” was getting away. Not even someone like Yuichi could stop three people at once.
“Ultraviolet Light Device!” Mutsuko shouted. The device on her shoulders emitted a powerful blast of light.
Sister froze for a moment, blinded. Then Mutsuko, who had gotten up close to her at some point, unleashed her taser.
Yuichi tied up the monster hunters. He put their arms behind their backs and bound their thumbs together with zip ties.
After a while, the lights came back on.
Leader was sitting on the floor with his back against the wall. The masked man and woman lay on their sides, unconscious.
The humans, Yuichi and Mutsuko, ended up sitting across from the monster hunters.
Yuichi was feeling the aftereffects of the furukami, but he wasn’t too badly off — he could still fight.
Mutsuko sat beside him with her saber out, ready for action. (More likely, she still hadn’t perfected the sheathing mechanism. Yuichi was afraid she might stab him by accident.)
Aiko was waiting a little ways away, and Ibaraki had gone off to reset the breaker.
“You really got us. I never imagined something like this might happen,” Leader said, dumbfounded.
“Did you really think I would let a mastermind escape?” Mutsuko declared.
“I don’t even know you... Anyway, I can tell you’re someone to watch out for. Are you always like this? Not just when you’re wearing the mask?” Leader asked.
Mutsuko’s way of speaking was certainly unique. Not even a mask could conceal her identity, Yuichi thought.
“And you, too,” Leader said, turning disbelieving eyes to Yuichi. “What are you made of? You don’t look like the kind of person who could break a leg.” Despite his injury, though, he didn’t seem to be suffering that much.
“It was dark. I had to rely on force,” Yuichi said.
“And here I thought our training to act in the dark was perfect,” Leader mused.
Yuichi also had some degree of night vision, but he had been caught off guard by the sudden blackout. He had been forced to move based on his memory of where things were, a monitoring of sound and air currents, and instinct.
“Oh, but this is really outside of the realm of expectation. This shouldn’t have happened to me. Not in such mundane circumstances, anyway,” Leader complained.
“We got to see whose story was more robust, yours or mine. That’s all it is!” Mutsuko proclaimed.
“How much do you know?” Leader asked, narrowing his eyes.
“There’s nothing I don’t know!”
“Don’t lie. There are lots of things you don’t know,” Yuichi interjected to Mutsuko’s insinuation.
“Well, never mind about that,” Leader replied. “See, we’re basically playing superhero. We vanquish the monsters running rampant in this world. We have nothing against humans like you.”
“A likely story, after you attacked us!” Yuichi barked.
“You want to make a trade?” Leader said lightly, disregarding his anger.
“You really think you’re in a position to offer a trade?” Yuichi asked.
“Maybe not, but then what will you do? Kill us? Torture us for information?”
“Leave the torture to me!” Mutsuko’s eyes lit up at the mention of the word.
“Please, Sis, just shut up!” Yuichi sighed. “Fine. What kind of trade?” He had to admit he didn’t know what to do with them after this. Handing them over to the police didn’t feel right, but just releasing them could make trouble, too.
“There are two things we want: that you not try to learn more about us, and that you let us go. In exchange, our organization will keep away from the vampires and the oni. I don’t know why you’re working with non-humans, but it seems like you don’t want us attacking them, right?”
“What guarantee do we have that you’ll keep your end of the bargain?” Yuichi asked.
“You’ll just have to trust us. I don’t think I’m asking for anything out of line, personally,” Leader said.
Yuichi looked at Mutsuko. Mutsuko nodded back, silently.
“Fine. But the vampires are the only ones you need to stay away from. In exchange, I want you to answer some questions.”
“Hey! What about the oni?” Ibaraki, just returning, yelled at Yuichi.
“Not my concern. You can fight the monster hunters forever, for all I care. Now, I want to know about the vampire you were after.”
“Good point,” Leader said. “If we agree to stay away from the vampires, things will keep getting worse. Someone needs to deal with them, so if you’re willing to do it, we’ll leave it to you.”
Leader then proceeded to tell them about the vampire. He sounded an awful lot like Kyoya to Aiko. According to Leader, his group had almost taken him out, but he had gotten away at the last second.
“You said he had a second form?” Yuichi asked.
“Yeah,” Leader said. “Some monsters can transform, and we call the transformation their second form. In his case, he grew wings and flew away. There’s nothing we can do once they’re in the air.”
“Wings?” Yuichi looked at Leader as if expecting him to laugh, but he appeared to be serious.
“We were looking for places the vampire might be lying low, and we had two candidates to choose from,” Leader said. “This was one, but it seems to be empty, so it must be the other one.”
The other place was Seishin High School.
Chapter 7: World Domination Starts at Seishin High!
The next day was Saturday. Yuichi picked up Aiko in the morning and headed for school. If vampires really had infiltrated the school, they had to investigate.
As they neared the gate, they saw a bit of a co
mmotion going on.
The gate was closed. Hanako Nodayama stood in front of it, facing off with a group of students. She had the label “Vampire?” above her head.
“Are you kidding me?” Until now, Yuichi hadn’t really believed the monster hunter’s words. He was convinced they couldn’t possibly go after the school.
“Ms. Nodayama is...?!” Aiko said in shock after Yuichi explained the situation to her.
“Hey, Ms. Nodayama. Nobody mentioned anything about this to me...” Shota was one of the students arguing with Hanako.
“The school is closed. Got it?” she said. “I mean, obviously...” She had her usual can’t-be-bothered air, but somehow seemed even more listless than usual.
Yuichi walked up to Shota. “What’s going on, Saeki?”
“Hey, that you, Sakaki? You here for club, too?” Shota asked Yuichi as he noticed him.
Yuichi gave a noncommittal response.
“Our good friend Hanako here won’t let us into the school,” Shota replied. “I don’t get it.”
Shota must have come to school for club activities. He was carrying a sports bag.
Yuichi looked at Hanako. There were the traces of a scar on her neck, and her eyes seemed empty.
“Has something happened here?” Aiko asked Hanako.
“Look, you really think I know? All I was told was to tell you that it’s closed. I’m just doing my job, so get it through your heads and go.” Even if she was under a vampire’s control, Hanako was still Hanako.
Shota didn’t look convinced, but he must have realized he wasn’t getting in. He left, head tilted, and the other students followed suit. Yuichi and Aiko remained at the gate with Hanako.
He looked past her to the school grounds.
Hanako had claimed the school was closed, but there were Vampire?s wandering around on the lawn. They all seemed to be moving sluggishly; perhaps the sunlight really did weaken them.
It would be simple enough to get inside, but it didn’t seem like that alone would solve the problem.
“Perfect timing, Sakaki. I was told to get in touch with you,” Hanako said abruptly. “Let’s see, what was it again? ‘Come by tonight so I can kill you,’ I think.” Hanako looked up at the sky as she tried to remember.
“Um, that doesn’t seem like the kind of thing a teacher should be saying to a student...” Aiko said hesitantly to Hanako.
“Look, I’m just doing my job.” Hanako groaned in exasperation.
“Ms. Nodayama, what if I try to go in during the day?” Yuichi asked, just to be sure.
“Um, he’ll probably kill all the teachers, so please don’t? We’re not just servants, we’re hostages, too.”
So he had taken all the school faculty hostage...
But that much wouldn’t change just because Yuichi came at night. If it was equally risky one way or another, he had no reason to play into his hands and put himself at a disadvantage.
“Oh, I know what you’re thinking, but he really wants to slaughter you personally, so if you come at night, he probably won’t use the hostages as shields,” Hanako said. “So I’d really prefer it if you’d do that, y’know?” That seemed to be all she wanted to say to Yuichi, and she wouldn’t say any more.
Yuichi led Aiko a little ways away from the gate.
“...I didn’t think my brother would be this stupid...” Aiko said, her expression suggesting genuine disbelief. “Why would he go so far? What’s he going to do next week?”
Once the students came back to school, it would be obvious it was occupied..
“Maybe that’s when he’ll try to conquer the world...” Aiko seemed to be trying to sound cheerful, but wasn’t really succeeding. “He wouldn’t... would he?”
The monster hunter had told him about the powers Kyoya could use now, and one of them was the ability to enslave others. He could suck someone’s blood to get them to do whatever he wanted. It was a power that, if used right, certainly could be used to take over the world.
“You think things will keep getting worse if we don’t do something? Yuichi asked.
“I guess we can’t just call the police, huh?” Aiko said.
“If he has the whole faculty under his control, it probably won’t do any good,” Yuichi agreed. “They probably have some kind of cover story for if the police come asking around.” It was a more serious situation than he had thought. “Still, there’s something weird about all this. Why does your brother want to kill me?”
Yuichi couldn’t remember ever meeting Aiko’s brother, let alone doing something to deserve his resentment. Aiko didn’t seem to have any idea how they were connected, either.
Yuichi decided to go home for now. Mutsuko should be there, learning more about vampires.
“This is really bad!” was the first thing out of Mutsuko’s mouth when Yuichi walked in the door.
“Yeah, definitely,” he agreed. “We’ve confirmed that Noro’s brother is at the school.”
They took a seat at the low table in Mutsuko’s room, and Yuichi explained what he had seen.
“I already knew that!” Mutsuko took out her tablet computer and showed the screen to Yuichi.
Yuichi could see images from their school in a series of windows on the screen. Inside the building, the courtyard, the pool, the gym, the sports fields... Every so often, the viewing angles changed.
He paused. “Okay, I have a lot of questions about this. First off...”
“This is the school, right? Why do you have this?” Aiko just asked right out, with none of Yuichi’s subtlety
“I installed security cameras! You never know when something might attack!” Mutsuko told them.
“Don’t give me that smug ‘I thought this might happen’ act! This is illegal!” Yuichi shouted.
“Sakaki, I think it’s a little late to be worried about legality...” Aiko ventured.
Aiko was right. Mutsuko had already engaged in more than her share of law-breaking behavior.
“Don’t you worry!” Mutsuko announced. “I put the utmost value on privacy, and I only use it for emergencies like this! So, anyway! As you can see, the school has already fallen into their hands!”
Glassy-eyed people were wandering around the school. Victims of Kyoya, it seemed.
“There seem to be a few different types among those affected. There’s this spaced-out type — their minds seem totally blank — the type that seems to have full autonomy, and the type that just keeps repeating a task they were ordered to perform.”
“That’s all well and good, but what did you mean when you said things were really bad?” Yuichi asked.
What she was showing them was certainly a problem, but Mutsuko’s words had seemed meant to indicate something more.
“Look at this!” Mutsuko used the tablet to call up the image of a classroom. About half a class’s worth of girls were sitting at the desks, staring forward, their eyes glazed over.
“Who are they?” Yuichi asked.
“Well? Notice anything?” Mutsuko asked him.
“Notice anything? Well, they’re all girls... Huh? Wait, that’s Orihara!”
“Ah! What’s she doing there?” Aiko cried, noticing at the same time.
Kanako was one of the girls in the room. She had the same glassy-eyed look as the other students.
Mutsuko just sighed. “Yu? That is true, but it’s not what I meant. You’re looking at the wrong thing! Shouldn’t it be obvious? They all have big breasts!”
“No one cares about that!” Yuichi cried. “Orihara’s more important, right? What’s she doing there?”
“That’s a good question,” Mutsuko said. “It seems they all got a call from the school telling them to come for extra lessons.”
“You mean... my brother...” Aiko stammered. Yuichi completely understood how she felt.
“Yes! By controlling the school faculty, he got access to the students’ personal information! So he chose the cutest girls with the biggest breasts and called them to school!”<
br />
“Big Brother, you dummy!” Aiko shouted.
“Now this is getting interesting! The survival club can’t sit silent while one of our own members is in danger! Call Takeuchi and let’s handle it together!” In spite of the grim situation, Mutsuko really seemed to be enjoying herself.
The group temporarily dispersed, with the agreement that they would meet up that night at the Chinese restaurant Nihao the China near the school.
Yuichi didn’t have much in the way of preparation to do, so he spent his day puttering around, while Mutsuko went off somewhere to “get things ready.”
As night fell, Natsuki arrived at Yuichi’s house in a white minivan.
“I bet that would be great for kidnapping!” Mutsuko exclaimed. It was an extremely rude thing to say, but Natsuki, its owner, didn’t seem to mind.
Yuichi and the others got in, picked up Aiko on the way, then arrived at Nihao the China. Incidentally, the van was driven by “Stalker” Sakiyama.
After they reached their destination, Mutsuko gave Sakiyama a new set of instructions, and he drove off on his own.
The group entered the restaurant and took seats at the round table.
“Oh, you’re all together today! What’s the occasion? Are you worried about us not getting enough business?” Tomomi, in her cheongsam, seemed very pleased indeed. The others were in their school uniforms, as Mutsuko had insisted that it was a club activity.
“What happened to your speech tic?” Yuichi asked.
“Oh, well, I used to do that because not many people came here, but it’s a little embarrassing to keep it up when the same people keep coming...”
“Try to have some actual policy!” Yuichi cried.
Even at night, there were no customers around. Aside from Yuichi’s group and the staff, the only other resident seemed to be a single rat that scurried around here and there.
“You know, it’s pretty gross to have rats roaming around in an eating establishment...” he commented.
“Huh? Well, even though we don’t have any customers, we still do proper cleaning...” Tomomi tilted her head, apparently confident in the shop’s hygiene standards.
The Half-Baked Vampire vs. The Strongest Little Sister?! Page 12