A month passed.
Throughout that month, Nanami Kira continued using his work hours to track down whoever had stolen the hand. He found nothing.
At one point, he suspected that one or two of Hasegawa Kaede's soul fragments hadn't been fully destroyed in the explosion—that a stray wisp had escaped.
He quickly dismissed the idea.
According to the Daoist classic Baopuzi, the Three Souls are divided thusly: Tai Guang belongs to Heaven, Shuang Ling belongs to the Five Elements, and You Jing belongs to Earth. The Seven Po, however, exist within the material body. When the flesh perishes, the Po perish with it—they do not enter the cycle of reincarnation. Only the life-soul departs.
Hasegawa Kaede's body had been blown apart until nothing remained but a single hand. By all logic, any Po that might have escaped should have died with the flesh.
For the first time, Nanami Kira was stumped.
Even if there were a button that killed anyone I hated, I probably wouldn't press it.
The sun was vicious, glaring into everyone's eyes.
Junpei pressed his palm against his bruised, reddening cheek and thought this to himself.
"Disgusting."
"Weren't you riding high because that salaryman's so tough?"
"Next time that wage slave shows up, I'm not letting him off."
Fist after fist landed on Junpei's body, knocking him to the ground. Blood trickled out.
But if there were a button that killed me when someone hated me—
The last punch caught him in the temple. In the instant before he collapsed, in the instant his eyelids slid shut, he saw their faces—twisted, grinning.
I'd press it without hesitation.
That was his last thought before he blacked out.
A sweltering summer day.
"One movie ticket, please."
Inside a cinema.
Junpei offered a meek, ingratiating smile to the ticket clerk.
She was a woman around thirty, on the phone, the merciless sun souring her mood.
"Excuse me..."
A timid request.
The woman glanced at Junpei, pursed her lips, muttered something into the phone, and hung up. She squeezed out a smile that didn't reach her eyes.
"Which screening?"
Inside the theater.
Earthworm Man was an old film, steeped in the atmosphere of a bygone era—a story recorded on black-and-white film stock.
Junpei loved old movies. They didn't belong to this era. Because they were outdated, because they didn't follow trends, they naturally fell out of step with the present world. Nobody cared about them, nobody discussed them. They existed outside of everything.
Junpei loved that feeling of disconnection—as though by watching an old film, he too could leave this noisy society behind, leave school, teachers, even himself, and step back into the world captured on that black-and-white reel.
In that world, nobody knew him. Nobody hated him, either.
But it's way too loud. The people in the back row...
He thought this silently.
The crunching of popcorn. A phone ringing. Adults who fancied themselves sophisticated, pontificating about the film with unearned authority. Men who thought they were funny, cracking stale jokes, drawing braying laughter from equally vapid women—laughter that echoed through the nearly empty auditorium.
A phone screen lit up in the front row, its glow stabbing at Junpei's eyes. Someone was getting a call.
The man answered without a shred of shame: "Hey, hey! How's it going? Oh, it's Ueda..."
Noisy. Impossibly noisy.
Shut up. Could you please just shut up...
So loud.
Laughter, chatter, ringtones, chewing—a shapeless cacophony swirling around his ears, all blending into a single mass.
Like the sound of a million centipedes crawling across his skin. Skittering. Nauseating.
Suffocating.
What if I killed all of them? Would the world finally go quiet?
Rrrip.
The sound of something tearing.
The theater fell silent all at once.
He didn't know what had happened. Nobody did. They stared at each other, wide-eyed, heads swiveling.
Rrrip. Rrrip. Rrrip.
Boom.
The man in the front row—his phone exploded into fragments, scattering through the air and dissolving almost instantly. Because he'd been holding it to his face, half his cheek was shredded by the blast.
The loudmouth in the back row went quiet mid-sentence, hand clamped over his mouth. He spat a mouthful of blood. A freshly dislodged tooth sat in the puddle.
The cackling women froze. An eerie flush crept across their faces, their legs clamped together, breathless little whimpers escaping their lips—none of them understood what was happening.
At last, screams erupted through the auditorium. People leapt to their feet, crying, shrieking, stampeding for the exits. Within seconds, every last person had fled, scrambling out on all fours like panicked animals.
The auditorium was empty again.
A vast white expanse, clean as fresh snowfall.
Junpei hadn't moved. He sat frozen in his seat, shell-shocked, and swallowed hard.
Just moments ago, he'd caught a glimpse of something—a strange silhouette, its shape indistinct, its outline blurred. Just a pink mass, like a large...
...pink cat?
"Can you see it?"
A calm voice came from the back row.
Junpei whipped around.
A handsome blond salaryman sat a few rows behind him.
Seeing Junpei's stare, the man offered an explanation:
"They were pretty loud, weren't they? I finally managed to skip w—ahem—leave work early to catch a movie, and they ruined the whole mood."
Is that really the point here...?
Junpei groaned internally. He shook his head.
"What was that pink thing?"
"Hmm, how do I put this..."
Kira frowned slightly, eyeing Killer Queen where it stood beside him.
Its pink triangular cat ears were perked straight up, twitching faintly—clearly listening intently. Its deep crimson catlike eyes blinked slowly.
"Just think of it as an evil spirit."
Kira brought his right fist down into his left palm.
Killer Queen's ears shot up even straighter. Its normally slit pupils went perfectly round, staring at Kira in disbelief.
"...Oh, so it's an evil spirit."
Junpei nodded as if this explained everything. Right, an evil spirit...
An evil spirit?
He looked at the enormous pink cat-blob beside him and raised an eyebrow.
Killer Queen stared with those perfectly round eyes, swiveling between Kira and Junpei, back and forth, back and forth.
"You seem to have talent."
Kira pushed himself upright and stretched lazily.
"Want to keep watching?"
"I... don't think we can. By the way, Kira-san, do you like Earthworm Man too?"
Oh, so this film is called Earthworm Man. I thought it was The Human Centipede...
Kira felt a twinge of embarrassment. He'd simply ducked out of work, walked into the cinema, and picked a random screening.
"Love it."
He said this with a perfectly straight face.
But the boy's eyes lit up, his pupils dilating ever so slightly—
Wait... why does this feel so familiar?
A month ago, who was it again... right, Aoi Todo. He asked me what kind of woman I liked...
You're not about to awaken some imaginary memory too, are you?
The corner of Kira's mouth twitched. He sighed.
"Kira-san, what did you think of Earthworm Man?"
"Incredibly boring."
Kira spoke honestly.
"I can't believe you feel the same way! This installment really is a step down from the first one. It seems like the director only focused on..."
Kira watched the chattering Junpei with a touch of resignation—the boy looked overjoyed to have found a kindred spirit. He sighed again.
His fingernails hadn't started growing faster. His mood was relatively stable today. Even when those people had been making all that racket, he hadn't snapped and killed anyone.
Slacking off really did make him happy. Even with this chatty brat going on and on, his nails weren't growing.
You dodged a bullet, kid.
"There's a restaurant nearby. I'm going to eat."
Kira straightened his sleeves—which weren't even rumpled—stood, and strolled out of the auditorium.
"Oh, okay."
Junpei scrambled to his feet and followed him like a duckling, trailing Kira out the door.
The film kept playing. The black-and-white reel turned, dragging the grey of the last century forward. The projection flickered, white spots dancing across the screen, making the already grotesque protagonist look even more sinister.
The auditorium was empty. But in one obscure corner—a corner no one had noticed—something squeezed through the gap between two seats. A strip of cloth, bizarre and pale.
It had human features stitched onto its surface, bristling with dense clusters of thread ends.
"Nanami Kira... so you're Nanami Kira..."
"And that kid beside you—is he your friend? Someone you know?"
The white strip's mouth slowly split open, wider and wider, its eyes curving into delighted crescents.
"What if... I destroyed him?"