Hazy. Muddled.
Nanami Kira opened his eyes.
Where was this...? He didn't know.
The world around him was loud and chaotic—people everywhere, coming and going—and the irritation gnawed at him. His fingernails began to grow of their own accord.
The midday sun was vicious, leaking through layer upon layer of leaves to scatter across the ground in flecks of light. Nanami Kira rubbed his temples.
An open-air restaurant.
He checked his phone: Monday, 12:35 PM.
"Kira-san, you're a fan of Human Earthworm 2 as well, right? It—"
Nanami Kira looked up at the boy across from him.
His name was Junpei. I don't know who I am, but from the way he's talking I can piece it together—my name is Nanami Kira, thirty-three years old. I came here to...
The memory was incomplete. A chunk was missing.
"Mongrel."
"Eat it."
"A new King of Curses will be born."
Pain—sharp, needling pain—flooded into his brain.
A torrent of information crammed itself in all at once, as if ten thousand demons were whispering in his ears.
Nanami Kira frowned. His fingernails grew another fraction.
"Kira-san? Kira-san?"
Junpei waved a hand in front of him, concern creasing his face.
"Kira-san, are you okay?"
Nanami Kira regarded Junpei calmly. Under the boy's bewildered gaze, he said, slowly:
"Your mother is dead."
Junpei: ???
The summer sun blazed, glaring into everyone's eyes, baking the earth until heat shimmered off the ground.
Junpei sat in silence. A stray breeze lifted the hair from his forehead.
"Kira—Kira-san, what did you just say?"
He was convinced the sun had fried his brain and he was hearing things.
Nanami Kira gave him one last calm look, then turned away.
"Nothing. I was wishing your parents long life and good health."
Junpei might have been timid by nature, but he had his limits. Nanami Kira had just crossed every one of them. He shot to his feet, face flushed scarlet, mouth opening to retort—
"Junpei." Nanami Kira cut him off, his voice quiet. "Go home. That's my advice. Protect the people you want to protect."
He left those words hanging, braced himself against the table, and stood. A glance at his watch: 12:40.
The next screening was about to start.
No time left. What a pain—hadn't even managed lunch.
Squinting against the sun, Nanami Kira slipped his ever-growing fingers into his pockets and walked away at an even, unhurried pace. Birch-tree shade fell half across his body, swaying gently in the breeze, softening his retreating figure into something indistinct.
Mahito-chan. Let's play a game.
Inside the cinema, the next feature was about to begin. Unlike the earlier showing of Human Earthworm, this was a blockbuster. Every cramped seat was taken. The dim overhead lights flickered once, twice, and the screen blazed to life—its harsh white glow eerily stark in the pitch-dark theater.
Ueno sat in the last row with a bucket of popcorn, an enormously fat man who spread across his seat like a puddle of grease. He crunched away, smacking his lips between bites, letting out the occasional cackle when something on screen tickled him.
He was thoroughly engrossed—and completely oblivious to the thing emerging from the narrow gap beside his seat: a slip of white paper bearing a human face, twisted into a grotesque grin.
Mahito split his mouth wide open behind Ueno and whispered:
"Good movie?"
"Great. Yeah, great."
The fat man nodded, glanced over his shoulder, and saw no one.
"Let me show you something even better."
The voice came from behind his head, dripping with undisguised glee—like a child who'd found a new toy.
The instant Mahito finished speaking, Ueno's eyes went wide with disbelief. In the rows behind him—a man in his prime, a girl who'd clearly spent hours getting ready, a child who couldn't have been older than ten...
A dozen people in all. Every trace of color had drained from their skin. Veins bulged. Features caved in, shriveled—like deflated balloons, one after another.
"Hee hee hee. Fun, right?"
Mahito's delighted voice floated over again, giggling:
"There's more where that came from, Ueno-san~ That is your name, yeah? I read it on your ID."
"No..."
He tried to scream, but found he couldn't speak at all. He couldn't breathe. It was as though a massive hand had clamped around his throat, turning his face a bruised purple—the color of liver.
"See that little girl to your front-right? So cute."
Mahito's limbs emerged from the paper. Stitch-scarred arms draped over Ueno's shoulder while his free hand pointed at the girl. He beamed:
"Let me make her even cuter."
The girl's features ballooned outward. Through her piercing screams, she swelled into a ball of flesh.
The auditorium erupted into chaos. People shrieked and scrambled from their seats.
"See that girl next to her? So full of energy..."
Ueno had no idea what was happening. He had no aptitude for Cursed Energy—he couldn't see Cursed Spirits. All he felt was a crushing weight on his shoulder, heavy enough to break him, and a whisper of eerie words at the edge of hearing.
"Ueno-san, why won't you talk to me? Why are you ignoring me? Aren't we friends?"
Mahito's grin stretched to an inhuman angle. His eyes drooped, pupils settling lazily at the bottom of his irises, and he wore an expression of absolute, childlike innocence:
"I get it. The game between us just isn't interesting enough—that's why you're ignoring me."
Mahito mused aloud, speaking in a tone of sudden revelation:
"Then how about this."
He watched the crowd battering at the exit. They pounded on the doors with their fists until their hands were slick with blood, but nothing gave.
He chuckled:
"Let's all play together. Go join them—that's more fun, isn't it?"
He patted Ueno's shoulder. In moments, the light in Ueno's eyes went dead. Lifeless. Flesh sloughed from bone, skin crumpling into folds.
"This is so much fun!"
Mahito smiled with genuine joy, like a child at play:
"What would happen if I turned Nanami Kira into one of these... That boy earlier was Junpei, right? What if I did this to his mother... This is the best!"
He pinched Ueno's desiccated face, laughing with delight:
"Go on, Ueno-kun. Go play with them~"
"Mahito-kun."
A calm voice came from the doorway.
The door sealed with Cursed Energy shattered into fragments, revealing Nanami Kira's impassive face.
Those indifferent eyes settled on Mahito. Not a trace of extra emotion:
"Let's play a game."