Chapter 01: Immortal Boy and the killing Devil

“Node Kugito!”

I was surrounded by a couple of guys who knew it. “It” being “that”, which is just your plain old pinch.

They were totally after my head.

I first advised this to the angered bunch. The one and only ability to draw the line between a human and a beast is language, isn’t it?

I was shut down immediately. Darwin was completely ignored.

“Shut up! Take a close look at the situation you’re in!”

-5000 yen per kilo.

Delinquent A raged. In other words, he wanted to say this: You beat up all our guys, so what are you trying to play innocent for now, you crying chicken. Is the term crying chicken a bit too old? Anyways, his speech was a bit misleading. To begin with, these guys started the fight. With the result as it is, the “What did I do” applies to them and the “You did all this” part can be seen as them shifting all the blame on me. Also, technically speaking, he didn’t answer my question.

“Hey, hey, you’re the ones playing dumb. It’s them who started coming at me for no reason.”

Yes.

They all became tired, didn’t they?

“Hey, I’m not at fault here. You guys are just too weak.”

When delinquent A shouted this, delinquent B besides him whispered to him.

“Don’t call me Head! Also, how stupid can you get? That story is obviously all made-up!”

“Hey, Head”

“That rumour you’re speaking of, could it be that one? The one about me—”

“—me being ”.

If they would just run away scared now that would be most favourable, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Quite the contrary, Head stepped forwards with an odd smile, as if their useless pride on the level of dog food was hurt.

Saying that, Head pulled out a knife that was clearly against the law. He’s a dangerous guy.

“Right, what if it really is just a joke. You would become killer, Head!”

“Are you serious, Head?”

“Shut it. Don’t call me Head! And you, don’t join in in the confusion!”

“…Geez”.

“Okay—”

“Die, Node Kugito!”

he stabbed me.

I felt my own body slowly falling. Soon after my back hit the hard floor and after I bounced up a bit, I laid flat down.

Maybe feeling satisfied by his act, Head rose up both his arms.

…..

…….Now then.

“Wha!”

Raising my body, I stood up while putting my hand on my bent knee. It hurt quite a bit, but it wasn’t unbearable.

Head and the other delinquent look at me like I’m a zombie when I asked. Well, to them, I’m probably one.

“I told you.”

“I”

“won’t die, no matter what.”

All those who heard these numbers reacted the same way: stunned. “What are these numbers?” I solved the mystery immediately.

In my short life of 17 years, including even the smallest attempts, I committed suicide easily over a hundred times.

Yeah, without any reserve I can say that I’m .

But otherwise I won’t die. Be it getting stabbed, getting strangled, inhaling gas, jumping from a high building or swallowing poison, my life flame won’t extinguish.

I became aware of my power as a kid. And ironically by the person I hate the most in the world.

It’s not like I have a dying wish.

Maybe I’m already dead and some kind of phenomena is making me believe that I’m still living. I can’t deny that possibility outright.

“…Aw, damn”

“Why is she only coming back at a time like this…”

From all the ruthless pulling and yanking my uniform is a complete mess. Only that won’t recover.

Trying to make as little noise as possible, I opened the front door, slowly took of my shoes and sneaked towards the stairs leading to the 2nd floor.

Right when I thought that, I bumped onto the teddy bear sitting on the shoe shelf, since it was in my blind spot, causing it to fall on the floor. That alone wasn’t anything problematic, but the teddy bear (Mr. Bearzawa) was a popular talking bear doll that had an implanted tape that reacts onto impact.

Go catch some fishes, you damn carnivore!

Fuck! I kicked the teddy bear (Mr. Bearzawa) away. Upon hitting the wall, Mr Bearzawa announced, “My friend is the mini pig, Mr. Beacon!”

I could hear a chair clattering and then the curtain on the door to the living room was drawn aside. Looking at me she said,

“…I’m home, Sis”

“What happened to your job?”

“Not really…”

Please don’t let her notice. Please don’t let her notice. Please don’t let—

“Gya!”

“You—-!”

Without hesitation she came over and grabbed my shoulder.

“I.. I was not.”

“That’s more like a defensive reflex towards an attacking demon.”

My sister strongly grabbed my head, which I was adverting, with both her hands and was forcing it to face hers. It’s over. For the next two hours I’ll be hearing her lecture. And afterwards I’ll probably have to pay for the uniform from my allowance. Good-bye my things that I wanted to buy. Adios my luxury lunch. And farewell my dreams and hopes.

“I’m living quite modest. It’s them, who come at me. Also, that criminal part was uncalled for!”

“No, that’s pathetic!”

My sister works at the police station here in Meitou, the town we live in. Her duty is to keep the general security, so if her little brother is having fun in fights every day, she surely will lose face.

“….I’m sorry.”

“I know you’re like , but that doesn’t mean you just go ahead and injure yourself. Don’t make me worry so much.”

The second person to know about my power is my sister. It’s also the reason why we’re living apart from our parents. Because of that I always fear to cause her trouble. Seeing that I really reflected on my actions, she stops crossing her arms and gives me a smile.

“That’s a surprise. What kind of lunch-box will it be?”

That’s because I’m handling all the house chores normally, since you’re always home late from work, isn’t it.

“What did you cook?”

“Really?”

My sister continued in a low voice. “…So, in the end, it’ll be a deluxe pork chop lunch-box.”

“I’m glad. Though I would have been happier if you had said that a bit more honestly.”

“Then try to think how I feel when I was expecting a miracle.”

“Okay”

“…Okay”
I replied crestfallen.

“—The usual exposure of carps at the park gathered a large crowed of parents with their kids, who set the carps free into the river.”

As for me, I died….. She really scolded me for two full hours.

“The world sure is rotten.”

“Your grade of decay is just fine.”

“…Now onto the next news.”

“This morning at dawn, in Meitou, XX Prefecture, a patrolling police officer found the corpse of a man stabbed to death.”

The footage changed and showed a crossroad. Judging by the nearby buildings, it wasn’t all that far away from here.

“The man was cut at various places and the big cross wound on his chest makes the police believe that this case is related to the serial killer case currently occurring all over Japan. The police is continuing their investigation.”

My sister murmured and I just nodded silently.

It was the name given to the serial killer that started killing people in a provincial town a few years ago and repeated his pattern over and over again after that.

But because such a incident never happened before, even a part of the police we full of doubts. Not knowing if all the murders so far were done by a single person, by a group or were just copycats, the investigation made no real progress.

“That’s what’s troubling us. Wait, this isn’t my case. Most likely Investigation Headquarters will handle it. I can’t really come to like these prefecture police guys.”

“You don’t know how the murderer looks?”

“Ah, the “Midnight killing Devil”, huh”

“Yeah. And because he seems to like showing off his existence, he’s thought to be young—HEY.”

“You’re making me spill classified information. What now!”

The report about the murder case wasn’t all that long and finished soon. Guess it’s means they just didn’t have much information yet to make public. My sister works in the department for general security, which includes juvenile delinquency, so this case doesn’t really involve her, but it seems like she’ll still come home late at night. That’s when my brain switched into my hated household mode and I thought how I should prepare a menu for my sister that relieves her stress.

The relaxed atmosphere between my sister and I after dinner froze instantly…..Damn, not good.

My sister was calmly drinking her tea. But on a closer look I could tell. Her hand was shaking slightly, her eyes showed a fierce anger and she was glaring at the TV as if that mother were sitting right there.

“…I’m going to the convenience store for a bit.”

My sister kept staring at the blank TV without saying anything.
I was thinking about saying “I’ll be back quick”, but decided against it.

The moon was out. It was a waxing moon that looked like it cute the night sky in half. With a plastic bag in my hand, which had some random juice and snacks in it that I bought at the convenience store, I walked slowly as drag out my returning as much as possible while looking up at the dark sky.

….As a kid, I was violently abused by my father.

My mother died shortly after giving birth to me. My father deeply loved my mother, his wife, and totally went nuts after losing her. He quit his job, drowned himself in alcohol and didn’t leave the house anymore. At some point, he then starting using violence against me. That was the point where I came aware of my unusual power. My father started getting more violent with me. Punches and kicks were a given. Burning my skin with a cigarette or a lighter was a common occurrence. Sometimes I was also beaten with the wooden sword (ironically I asked my sister to buy for me), which we had at home. The strength of his hits made me bled and the anger in his hits broke my bones. At that time, my sister herself was still young and couldn’t protect me. But I can still remember how she still stood bravely between me and my father in an attempt to protect me.

His abuse against me got worse by the day.  He thrown me off the roof. He stabbed me with a big kitchen knife. He threw me into open fires. He drowned me in the bath. He forced me to eat cigarettes. He even strangled me at night when I slept.

As soon as my sister graduated from police school and got assigned to the Meitou station, she left the house with me. Running out of my mother’s savings and my father’s pension, my sister raised me while even working part-time. Because of that my father would have trouble in the future, but my sister and me didn’t have the time to worry about that, nor were we that forgiving.

However, the topic of abuse is an ultimate taboo at our house. Whenever the topic comes up nevertheless by some kind of happening, like a report on TV, my sister freezes up. I think that my sister suffered a kind of trauma after only being able to watch me getting abused by our father for over 10 years. As for me, I’m eternally thankful to my sister, who got me out of that hell.

“Guess I’ll drop by the park….”

I changed my direction and headed for the public children park. Around 20 minutes passed. I like lazing around, so it’s not that hard for me to spend time doing nothing.

…That’s when I stopped. I could hear some kind of sound. A strange sound of something hard cutting into something soft. And repetitive at that. Over and over again. Was there someone…? I was wary, but my curiosity won slightly over it. I started to walk on. The blinking street light gave the park an eerie aura.

The person seemed to be a girl. Her age… probably around mine. She had semi-long black-hair that merged with the darkness. I thought she was wearing a thick coat, but I realized it was covered in a rain-coat. A raincoat… Even though there wasn’t a single cloud?

stabbing something?

The girl wasn’t alone.

The girl wasn’t sitting.

My instinct told me it’s dangerous.

CRASH. I froze up and looked at my left hand. Fucking shit! Maybe the store clerk packed it wrongly, but the plastic bag ripped and all the contents fell out. The canned coffee I bought early rolled away. What was that asshole thinking, putting my ice coffee and meat-bun into the same bag! I was now in a crisis because of that!

I stood there frozen like I was glued to the ground.

She swung her arm. In the dim light I saw red blood dispersing. ….Okay, I’ll say it once more. I repeated to myself.

The girl suddenly turned around.

The face of the girl, perfectly divided into half by the light and shadow, was covered in blood. No, it wasn’t just her face. That’s where I finally understood why she was wearing a rain-coat. Bathed in her victim’s blood. Her arms, her torso, her legs, everything was dyed red. And in her hand she was holding a big knife dripping with blood.

No— To be more precise, it was once a man, now it was just a mass of flesh.

The cross-shaped wound carved into his chest.

My memories was stimulated and even though it wasn’t the time for it, I checked the clock on my cell. It was half past ten. Totally different from what the stories say!

Damnit— I gotta run. Every fibre of my body told me so. Run. Run. Run. Run. RunRunRunRunRunRunRunRunRunRunRun! The same word was repeated inside my head like a siren. Even if I can’t die, I still feel the pain. Getting my body messed up like that surely isn’t something I could bear. Hurry. HurryHurryHurryHurryHurryHurry,

“!”

STAB.

I froze up. No way?

The killing devil standing right behind me with her knife plunged deeply into my waist. Inhuman. There was so much distance between us before!

The killing Devil grabbed my shoulder. I tried to resists, but with a power unfit for a girl, she turned around my body. I looked straight into her blood covered face. It was a miracle that I didn’t scream. At the same time, she hit me on the same spot I was stabbed just now. I let out a groan and staggered. This bitch kicked me!

Then the killing Devil started swing her hand with the knife.

StabStabStabStabStabStabStabStabStabStabStabStabStabStabStabStabStabStabStabStab.

The killing Devil was smiling happily and queer. Just like a kid who had gotten a new toy.

After enjoying the stabbing show for a while, the killing Devil stops her hand. I thought she would release me, but I was wrong. While she stood up, she pulled me also up on my collar. The light shone on her face. Looking from close up, she got a good build. Her pointed chin suits her sharp eyes. What the fuck was I thinking.

The killing Devil spoke for the first time.

She rotated her knife and grabbed onto the grip.

I’m pretty sure she engraved a cross on me just now. Now I’m one of the victims of the famous . What an honour. Fucking shit. Inevitability my ass!

“Now then— Farewell”

Just then—–

The knife in her hand deeply pierced into my heart.