The World's Strongest Little Brother

by Tsuyoshi Fujitaka

  “Huh?” Yuichi asked. Aiko was clearly flustered, but he didn’t understand why.

  “I was waiting around the corner, and Takeuchi came up to me!” she cried.

  “I told you to go right home...” Yuichi sighed.

  “W-Well, Takeuchi commutes by train, so I thought she’d go the other way, heading toward the station...”

  “So, what’s out, exactly?” he asked, returning to the original question.

  “She took me by surprise and said, ‘Don’t give out my telephone number to people,’ so I said, ‘I’m sorry’...”

  Yuichi covered his face in his hands. He didn’t know for sure that their secret was out, but it did indicate a connection between him and Aiko. Then again, the fact that Takeuchi had even tried to bait her that way indicated that she suspected it. Even if Aiko hadn’t said anything, it may have been a matter of time before she realized Yuichi and Aiko were colluding.

  “...Well, I guess the secret’s out... So, did she just let you go?”

  “She walked off, at least...” Aiko said.

  Yuichi tried to think about how best to put Natsuki off the trail. “For now, let’s go home and sleep,” he said at last. He was exhausted, and his body hurt. Thinking was beyond him right now.

  “Huh? What the heck?”

  “We’ll figure it out tomorrow!” Yuichi declared, with as much confidence as he could muster.

  And then he walked home, leaning on Aiko’s shoulder the whole way.

  Chapter 7: Welcome to the Survival Club!

  “Hey, Sakaki! Did you hear? There’s a delinquent at the school!”

  “Huh?” The day after the mess with the killer, Yuichi came to school, only to be immediately accosted by Shota.

  The label above his head now read “Ball Washer.”

  “Jeez, right to the bottom!” Yuichi reflexively commented.

  “Huh?” Shota suddenly seemed at a loss for words.

  “Ah, sorry. I guess that sounded pretty random. Just felt like saying it,” Yuichi apologized. Maybe Shota had been an ace striker in middle school, but it seemed he would have had to start again from square one now that he was in high school.

  “So, who’s the delinquent?” he asked, trying to swerve the subject away from his bizarre outburst. Knowing Shota, he would be easily distracted... and indeed, he was.

  “He broke a window and took out a door! Look! There are holes in our door, too! Man, I didn’t think people still did stuff like that, but I guess the proof’s right there.”

  Yuichi stiffened. He had completely forgotten about all the things he’d broken while he was trying to escape. He looked at the door to the classroom. There were two holes in it.

  “Oh, yeah, right. It’s like whats-his-face Ozaki, the singer. Talk about retro, y’know?” Yuichi knew his response lacked conviction. He was the one actually behind it, after all.

  “I hear there were shuriken stuck in the wall, too.”

  “Y-Yeah. A ninja delinquent. That’s a new one, huh?” Yuichi was kicking himself for forgetting to clean afterwards. Then again, even if he’d remembered to hide the kunai, there was no way he could have repaired the glass and the door. There was nothing to do, then, but to pray that no one fingered him as the culprit.

  “By the way, what’s up with your bag? I saw it on your desk and figured you’d gotten here before me.”

  “Huh? Oh, yeah, I forgot to take it home yesterday.” As usual, Shota bought the excuse, and didn’t press him any further on the issue.

  “It’s just hard to believe someone at this school would do something like that...” Shota looked around the classroom. There was no one around them, at least, whose appearance screamed “delinquent.”

  “Sometimes the most ordinary-looking people can be holding a lot of stress inside. Maybe it’s the person you’d least suspect,” Yuichi hedged, but it didn’t reduce the guilt he felt inside.

  His anxiety about leaving the killer boy unattended continued to grow throughout the day. After class, he and Aiko immediately went to visit the survival club classroom.

  “I couldn’t think straight all day yesterday, I was so freaked out. What about you, Sakaki?”

  “Huh? I went right to sleep after I got home. Then I woke up, had dinner, and got sleepy again. Next thing I knew, it was morning.”

  “You didn’t think about anything? Like what we’re going to do next?” Aiko asked, dumbstruck.

  He had to admit it made him sound like a scatterbrain, but he’d just been so sleepy, he hadn’t been able to help himself. Besides, he was feeling a lot better after a good night’s sleep. Almost all the aftereffects of the furukami had passed.

  “...For now, all we can do is talk to her.” Yuichi ran his hand through his hair.

  He had been steeling himself up all day for a talk with Natsuki Takeuchi. He couldn’t deny he’d been a bit relieved when it had turned out she hadn’t come that day. The only immediate question remaining, then, was what to do with the killer they’d left in the club room.

  They walked to the old school building, a creaky wooden structure that was currently home mostly to culture clubs and storage rooms. Parts of it were warded off due to deterioration. It had been scheduled for demolition, but budget issues had caused that to be delayed.

  Yuichi climbed with Aiko to the second floor and headed for the room furthest down the hall. He immediately noticed something amiss.

  There was a female student standing in front of the door. She was fidgeting. Her hair was wavy and dyed chestnut, and she seemed like the soft-spoken type.

  The label above her head read “Isekai Fanatic.”

  She was looking all around in agitation, and made eye contact with Yuichi and Aiko as they approached.

  “Oh! Sakaki’s little brother!”

  “Um... Orihara, right?”

  Kanako Orihara was Mutsuko’s friend. He had met her when she had visited their house before, but didn’t know much about what sort of person she was.

  “Look, it says they’re bug bombing! What will we do? I kept telling Sakaki that leaving all those things lying around would lead to unsanitary conditions...”

  “Um, actually...” Yuichi looked at the door.

  Bug bomb in progress!

  The paper was still up.

  He tried the knob. It was locked, which meant Mutsuko hadn’t been here yet.

  “Stop it! They’ll get out! You know, the... the black things!”

  “Um, you mean cockro—”

  “Don’t say it!” She fixed Yuichi with a glare that shut him right up.

  “Sakaki... Who is this?” Aiko leaned over and questioned him.

  “She’s my sister’s friend, a member of the survival club. Orihara... I think.”

  “Is it okay if she sees the guy inside there?”

  “...Probably, since she’s a member of the club, but...” He cast a dubious glance at Kanako. If the thought of seeing a cockroach freaked her out that badly, what would she do if she saw a boy tied up in shrine ropes?

  “Um, Orihara, do you have the key to the room?”

  “We are not going in there!” she snapped back.

  “Look, I think my sister just put the sign up as a joke. There’s no bug bomb. Nothing’s going to come out.”

  “You mean it?”

  “Yeah.”

  Kanako laid a hand to her chest in relief. She must have truly been afraid. “But I really don’t have a key. I left it at home.”

  “I see. Who all has keys?”

  “Just the president and the vice president. That’s Sakaki and me.”

  “Then we’re stuck until Mutsuko shows up, huh? But we look like fools just standing around here...” Yuichi pulled a toolbox out of his bag.

  He opened it, revealing a row of metal objects that resembled screwdrivers with sharply tapered tips.

  “Sakaki... What is that?” Aiko asked, bewildered.

  It was only natural that she wouldn’t know, so Yuichi answered. “Lockpicks, for un
locking doors. A cylinder lock like this is easy enough to open, so...”

  “You thief!” Aiko reproached.

  “I am not!”

  “B-But look at yourself...” Aiko wrinkled her nose at the lockpicks.

  “It’s not like I’m breaking in or anything. We’d be going in anyway, so it’s just a question of sooner or later, right?”

  “Or we could just wait until your sister shows up...”

  “Fine.” Though rankled by the criticism, he closed the toolbox obligingly.

  “You blame a lot on your sister, Sakaki, but you’re pretty weird just by yourself. Don’t you even realize that?”

  “What was that?”

  “Nothing,” Aiko responded, innocently.

  They didn’t have to wait long for Mutsuko to show up.

  “Sis, you’re late. What were you off doing?”

  “Yes, Sakaki, what were you doing?”

  Now that she mentioned it, Yuichi realized, Mutsuko and Kanako were both in Class 2-A. Why hadn’t they just come together?

  “Oh, see, I heard there was a delinquent at the school! He broke some glass in a first-year classroom! I was all, ‘Whoa, in a nice quiet school like this?’ so I went to check it out! Wonder who did it! Maybe he’s one of those ‘had a dance with hard luck’ types!”

  “U-Um, uh, about that...” Yuichi stammered. He realized he hadn’t actually told her about that.

  “Oh, and I was thinking about the bug bomb thing! I decided it wasn’t gonna work after all, so I prepared a new sign!”

  “Forget about the signs! We don’t need another one!”

  “I thought someone might get the wrong idea.”

  “...Yeah, we’ve seen plenty of someone here getting the wrong idea, haven’t we?”

  “Also, it felt kind of like lying. So I wrote this!” With that, Mutsuko tore off the bug bomb sign and stuck up a new one.

  Demon Castle Goddamn.

  “That makes no sense! This is the survival club, right? So that’s a lie, too!”

  “Really? I think anyone would be hesitant to come in if they thought Lord Greed might be hanging around. And I refer to this room as Demon Castle Goddamn, so it’s not a lie!”

  “How many people will even get the reference?!”

  “...Good point. How about this for a compromise, then?” Mutsuko took out her felt-tipped pen and wrote directly on the sign to fix it. It now read: Demon Castle Goddaclub.

  “What kind of club is that supposed to be?!”

  Mutsuko unlocked the door and opened it.

  The first thing Yuichi noticed was the smell. The boy was still tied up, and didn’t seem to have moved since yesterday. The fake peach stuck in his mouth was slick with drool.

  He seemed to have regained consciousness, but his eyes were glazed over, and he lay there motionlessly. A puddle on the floor around his lower half seemed to be the source of the stench.

  “I know he’s the one who attacked me, but I still feel kind of sorry for him.”

  “Ah-ha! I failed to account for this possibility! Noro, fetch a bucket and a rag, would you? Yu, give him a change of clothes if you have one!”

  “I have the uniform I wore for gym... it’s pretty sweaty, but better than what he’s got on right now.”

  Aiko obediently went to fetch a bucket and rag while Mutsuko untied the boy. Yuichi watched nervously. He was afraid he might just be playing possum, but even after being freed, the killer boy showed no signs of being ready for a fight.

  Yuichi checked his condition, then took off his dirty clothes and dressed him in the short-sleeved uniform shirt and shorts he pulled out of his bag.

  He waffled for a minute over what to do with the boy’s old uniform, but eventually decided to just stuff it into a trash bag. As he did, he searched it, retrieving some kunai, several makibishi, and a cell phone, all of which he placed on the desk.

  What is this guy, a ninja?

  Kanako walked unsteadily into the room, passed them by wordlessly, then opened the window to stare up at the sky. She seemed to be retreating from reality.

  Yuichi sat the boy, now dressed in fresh clothes, in a chair, and wrapped the ropes around him again.

  They then washed up with the rag Aiko brought, and after a few minutes of ventilation, the smell had vanished.

  “Okay, let’s make it official. Noro, Yu! Welcome to the survival club!”

  Yuichi and Aiko looked around the room again. It had once been a classroom, so it was quite large, but the clutter made it seem much smaller. The most notable items were the bookshelves, lined up like you’d see in a library, which took up most of the room.

  Taking up the next most amount of space were the cardboard boxes — stacks and stacks of them. Yuichi couldn’t even begin to guess what might be inside. They were interspersed with piles of masks, jars, dolls, and other random junk.

  There was nothing on the walls except for a large number of colorful rocks that jutted out of them, spaced out more or less regularly, from floor to ceiling. They were even in the ceiling itself.

  “Hey... What are those?” Aiko pointed to the rocks on the wall.

  “Hmm? Oh, those are bouldering holds. We use them for climbing practice.”

  Bouldering was a type of rock-climbing, done without the aid of tools. To practice, you could stick stones in the walls and use them as handholds.

  “Why do you have that?”

  “Well, climbing is a very important skill for survival! You see...”

  Mutsuko seemed about to start off on a rant, but Yuichi cut her off, worried about leaving the dazed killer unattended for too long. “Hey, Sis, you can tell us all about that later. We should figure out what to do with this guy.” He pointed to the killer.

  “Good point! We can’t leave him like this forever, after all.” Mutsuko walked up to the boy and pulled the fake peach out of his mouth.

  “Hey, can you talk?”

  “...What the hell... are you guys?” he croaked. “You’re brutes... worse than oni...” The hoarseness in his voice was only natural. He’d spent a whole day without food or water. Even if he was an oni, he didn’t appear to be all that different from a human.

  “Sorry, but you’re the one who attacked me. Oh, Noro! Bring him some water.”

  “You’ve been sending me out to fetch things an awful lot,” Aiko muttered, but she did as she was told, returning with a cup filled with water. The cup came from the club room, and it looked like a wine glass made of silver. There was surely some story behind that, too.

  Yuichi took it and poured some water into the boy’s mouth. Choking a little, the boy drank it all down.

  “I think I know why you attacked me. Natsuki Takeuchi, right?” There was no point in hiding it now, so he just used Natsuki’s name. Mutsuko already knew about the existence of serial killers, and Kanako wasn’t even listening.

  “Huh? Who’s Takeuchi?” asked the boy.

  “What?”

  After a moment’s thought, the boy put two and two together. It didn’t sound like a ruse; he genuinely didn’t recognize her name. “...Oh, her. So that’s what she calls herself here. Yeah, I made a trade with her. I kill you, I get to use her hunting grounds.”

  “The deal’s been called off, so you won’t get anything by killing me now,” Yuichi said firmly. “Got that?”

  The boy laughed. “Is that what you think, huh? Like hell! I’m gonna murder every one of you!”

  “Yu.” After being silent the whole time, Mutsuko finally broke in.

  “What?” Yuichi asked. He turned back to look at her. She was holding a measuring cup full of dried soybeans.

  “Mind if I try something?” She grinned eagerly, picked out a bean, and held it up.

  “You mean the beans? Sure, knock yourself out.” Yuichi doubted something as simple as throwing beans at him would make a difference just because he was an oni. It was more likely to just annoy him, really.

  The oni laughed again, mockingly. “You think those’ll w
ork on me, huh?”

  “Oni begone!” Mutsuko threw the bean at him, reciting the standard Setsubun phrase.

  It struck the boy’s arm like a bullet, and went out the other side.

  Yuichi heard Aiko’s scream even before the boy’s. He winced at the noise, worried that someone might come to check on them.

  The newspaper club was probably having activities next door, after all...

  That reminded him to check on Kanako, too, but she appeared to have completely severed ties with reality. She was having a conversation with a songbird outside the window.

  “Wh-What the hell are you doing? Why would you do that?” he exclaimed.

  “I’ve never met a real oni before! So the beans really do work, huh?” Mutsuko nodded to herself, as if making a mental note.

  Yuichi plucked a bean from a measuring cup on the floor and threw it at the boy.

  “Ow!” It caused the boy to cry out in annoyance, and left a small red mark on his leg where it hit, but no more.

  “Hey! Quit playing around!”

  “Why did the one you threw have so much piercing power?” Yuichi demanded, ignoring the boy and turning to Mutsuko.

  “Maybe it’s a faith thing? Belief is usually what gives these things their power!” she said cheerfully.

  Mutsuko made it sound obvious, and it seemed likely enough. Yuichi certainly couldn’t compete with Mutsuko when it came to believing in things.

  “By the way, he said he was gonna murder us all. I’m not really feeling that, so maybe we oughta just kill him now!” Mutsuko held up a second bean for the throw. She was aiming at his face. If it hit with the same dramatic force as before, it probably would kill him.

  “Hey! Don’t let her do it!” The boy quickly began to panic.

  Yuichi raised his hand to urge Mutsuko to stop. Mutsuko lowered her hand, but she was still holding the bean, ready to throw it at any minute.

  “Okay. We’re going to make some demands now, got that? First, stop trying to kill any of us.”

  “Fine. But how do you know I won’t go back on the deal?” It was a surprisingly forthcoming response; obviously, he would say anything under threat of bean-bullet.

  “I don’t, but I’m hoping you’ll be too afraid to come after us. Next time, I won’t show any mercy. My sister will gladly go oni-hunting, Shorty over there will suck out all your blood, and Orihara will gaze up at the sky.”