Chapter 2

“Class, have you seen Kiyomi at lunch?” asked

Hosoya-sensei after lunch time was over. Most of us gave
exchanged looks, murmuring over the situation. Yuliya
raised her hand.
“Yes, Yuliya?”
“I had seen her going through the 16th corridor in
the fourth floor, but I don’t know where she went and that
was, like, 20 minutes ago…”
“Rooftop,” I replied.
“Is that so, Yoshio?” asked Sensei.
“Uh-huh, I can’t be wrong.”
“Well than, thanks for the information. Class, I need
to report this to the administration, so—“
Someone opened the door. It was Kiyomi, whose
eyes were still red, and she looked more tired than this
morning.
“Kiyomi, where have you been? You don’t look like
yourself today, being late and tired like that.”
“…….I’m sorry, Sensei….I didn’t realize…”
“Pardon?”
“…didn’t realize the bell had rung….sorry…”
Sensei observed her for a while, and he sighed.
“Well, in any case, please go to the health center, I think
you should really need a rest. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“…..yes, Sensei…”
“…Very well then, go back to your seat. Don’t
hesitate to ask permission to go to the health center, okay?”
I had remembered that vision very clearly. When
that ray dissipated to one of the cards, Kiyomi’s face had
appeared. Was it true that that imposter is really involving
my classmates?
I had not realized the answer until one day when
school ended. Until that time, her condition has worsened,
physically, mentally, and academically, at a point that she
was absent for a couple of days. She was present on that
day, but when you look at her, she looks as if she was a
walking zombie, having no interest at anything whatsoever.
She could at best reply with only four words and at worse
ignore you at all.
When school had ended, I had to have a talk with
Nanaho first discussing about the sports festival before
going home, which is really not far away from today. At the
last class meeting, I was assigned to collect data about the
itinerary of the event, so she could plan our sports aces’
training schedules. Being the leader of an information
gathering task force, I love my job and managed to get the
final copy of the itinerary with ease. It really helps being
the leader in the Information Group.
It originally started with Sensei who had suggested
creating a whole class group to discuss about the daily
events that happened or will happen in our school, like
festivals and exams. We were expected to use English as
best as we can to talk over those issues and its okay if we
made mistakes, because Sensei said it’s all part of the
learning process, he said with a smile.
So then our male and female class leaders were
chosen. Nanaho and Masahiro were our best candidates for
their “aura of leadership” (that’s what Mieko said), but
most importantly their ability to make good decisions. After
all, we don’t choose our leaders just like that. And although
Nanaho said she was the only one in her family who has the
worst sense of leadership, she’s enough of a good leader for
us.
It was a strangely redder hue of a sunset that day, as
the sun slowly sank into the west. I strolled through the
public park and into my area of residence. You could see a
couple of boys playing soccer to the right, just beneath the
bridge that connects one side of town to the other, where a
river separates them. And yet in this peaceful surrounding,
something was a bit eerie.
The image of my imposter appeared to me again.
His appearance, which perfectly resembles me, with his
trademark sinister smile as if plotting an evil ploy, it’s like
my doppelganger within me. And all of that happened just
because of the temptation to open that brown dusty book.
Goodness, this really sounds like an anime story the more I
think about it.
The sound of a pickup truck’s loud honking woke
up my senses.
“Shoot,” I cursed. I was heading in the wrong
direction. I was supposed to turn left on the second
intersection, but now I just kept going straight. It was the
way to go to Kiyomi’s residence. Speaking of which, she
can be seen not far where I am now. Maybe I could follow
her a little, I thought. After all, she is acting strangely these
days.
I followed her to a corner, but the moment I turned,
she disappeared. No sign of her going anywhere else. Even
the people who were walking close to her didn’t notice this.
I became suspicious. I headed for her house which was
really not that far away, about 2 blocks down. I saw her, but
she had just entered her house.
 I took a close look at her house. It was the usual 2-
storey family house, nothing special except for a small
bonsai collection further in the front yard. It had a pretty
little cherry blossom tree in the collection, but it was
removed, perhaps because springtime is already over.
However, there is one thing that caught my attention.
Why is her window stained with blood? And on top
of that, it seems like I am the only one who noticed this.
“NOOOOOOOO!!!!”
I fell to my knees. That was clearly her screaming
the top of her lungs out. I couldn’t be mistaken. And it was
loud as a nuclear bomb. Yet again, nobody seemed to notice
it but me. Then I saw horrible things on her window. At
first, nothing happened after the scream. But a while later,
there was blood spurting out from somewhere, onto the
window. And then more blood. And then a saw an object
that was thrown to the window, but it didn’t break. I took a
closer glance. It was a limb. And further on, I heard more
incomprehensible screams, but that limb on the window
was enough for me. I ran scurrying out from that
neighborhood and hastily retreated to my humble abode—
home.
“Yoshio? Is that you?” My mom called from the
back of the kitchen.
“Yeah,” I replied, taking breaths in between.
“Why do you sound so tired? Did something
happen?”
“No, not really….” I said as I drifted to my room.
After a nice hot bath, and a lovely grilled salmon
dinner, I tried to get myself together again. Come on,
Yoshio, you know it isn’t real, one corner of my mind said.
Maybe it’s some sort of a messed up conspiracy, another
voice said.
How the heck can stuff like this be called
conspiracy?
Too many thoughts suddenly rushed to my mind.
The scene was played over and over again. It was too gore
to be true. And yet it was so clear.
“Aaaaargh,” I moaned as I threw myself to the bed,
face covered in my pillow. I paused for a while, letting all
the thoughts flow out of my mind. Yet amidst all this
confusion, a strange feeling of excitement rushed to my
blood. And I asked myself again, could the vision I had in
the library really, really true?
Praise the gods, it is. Why, you may ask?
Something had stabbed me. And it hurts, not like
any other kind of hurt, but that real, physical hurt that
actually kills you, far from just a pinch in your arm. And
what hurts even more, It was a direct hit to the neck.
My world went black.

I woke up shortly after that because I felt as if my

bed was made out of heavy duty steel. But there’s
something a bit odd. I can wake up and even open my eyes.
I was supposed to be dead, you know. Reincarnation, I
guess?
Nevertheless, I got up to my knees. Somehow, my
eyes are still very blurry, although I can open them
completely. I tried to grope something that was right in
front of me. It was an asymmetrical, cylindrical object with
a really pale dark grey hue, but that’s all I could see. It felt
stone cold to the touch, and it has a very rough texture.
Slowly, my vision starts to gain their clarity. The object in
front of me was starting to become clearer as well. After a
while, what I could see that it was a tree that was in front of
me, but it was still vague.
After a while, I can see everything. And what I saw
was feet-numbing. It was a tree, yes, but it was a tree with
blades sticking at the end of its branches. And no leaves at
all, on top of that, as if it is withered. Blades of all shapes
and sizes is all I can see, from the standard sword you see
in video games until ones that has lots of razors embedded
and jutting out within the blade. There’s even a branch
whose blade looks like a question mark. Oh, please, in a
place and time like this, out of all anomalies, a question
mark? Only the gods know of this madness.
The sky was a dark bloody red. A moon, no, make
that, a glaive shines on the sky like a full moon to the west.
I turned my feet around to get a good panorama of the
place. All I can see is a forest of trees that look like the one
I saw earlier, ranging from all shapes and sizes whether it
be small or big, tall or wide, it looks like a botanical garden
gone absolutely wrong.
I looked to my feet, and around 5 centimeters from
me, I saw small little blades that looks like grass. I touched
the tip of one blade with my finger by curiosity’s sake, and
boy, it hurts a lot. It’s sharper than any needle I’ve ever
seen. I wonder how much painful and sharper those trees
are compared to these blades of grass.
Aside from that, trees and grasses are not the only
objects that ext in this otherworldly place. I could hear the
sound of water gushing like a waterfall a bit far from here.
But that’s not what really caught my attention. The matter
of fact is, that I am actually flying the moment I raised my
foot to take one step forward when I want to see what made
the noise.
“How fictitious,” I said, half-chuckling. I was flying
like Peter Pan. And I loved it.
I finally found the source of the sound of gushing
water after I drifted around the forest for a bit while. It was
yet another shocking scene. In front of my eyes, I am
seeing a waterfall of blood. It was a shining dark crimson
red, with blood clots forming at the edges of the pool. It
was pure blood and nothing but blood. And the smell of the
blood was even horrible than the one that we sometimes
smell, it had the more reeking and decaying smell, yet in
this whole forest I can’t find even one trace of flesh around,
just the tools for cutting it and the resultant which was what
I can find in all of this forest.
The pool of blood formed by the waterfall was
continued by a river which ran north of the water fall. I
could not figure out where the river will go in my ground
level vision because firstly, there are lots of trees crowded,
blocking my view and secondly, the branches with their
blades are sticking out all over the place like durians, and
so I had to get a bird’s eye view.
The blood eventually made it self, after quite a long
while, into another lake of blood, which on the center of the
lake, was the biggest tree I have ever seen in this forest so
far. Its body resembles an oak tree, large and wide, and it
has lots of branches sticking out of it, but the blades on the
edge of the branches are the most weirdest and most
dangerous out of the whole trees in the forest. Some blades
are even 2 meters long.
 Eventually, I took a closer look on this tree out of
curiosity, but it had quickly killed the cat. I heard the same
scream that I heard in Kiyomi’s house.
“NOOOOOOOOOOOO!” It had the same tone of
agony and spite. I lost my flying ability, plunging
hopelessly to the ground. I fell into a plain space of ground,
but a tiny blade of grass had made a cut in my arm. It hurts
like getting injected for immunization, only this time the
needle’s larger and even sharper. I groaned in pain, trying
to get myself up. My back ached because of the stone-hard
soil that I imagined is fairly impossible to be dug. I tried to
let myself fly like before, but I failed to do so. I was
panicking because all around me was blades of grass and
trees that are clustered very close to one another, so there
was no way out.
What made me panic even more was that I felt a
glare of hatred and remorse which made ice-cold chills
down my body. I couldn’t dare to turn around, so I tried to
escape the glare and tried to fly once more. It finally
worked, and after that, I had the courage to see who was
glaring viciously at me.
I saw a girl wearing a white ceremonial cloth robe
stained in decaying blood, which covers sixty percent of
her robe. Her skin is pale white with her veins showing out,
and her arms and feet sustain many cuts and injuries, some
of them still have blood oozing out and dripping into the
surface below. Her facial appearance is anything but pretty;
it has a scar across her chin down to her neck, teeth stained
with blood, uncontrolled breathings, and the worst
bloodshot eyes I have ever seen. Her hair is a frizzled mess,
out of place, and has a hue of withering gray.
That was not the Kiyomi I knew.
 “You……why do you disturb me…….?” She asked,
taking heavy breaths between words. I was still shocked by
all of these shortcomings, so I only muttered,
“Uh……um….well…..uh….”
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN!?” she screamed at the
top of her lungs. I can sense even more hatred circling
around her. She took even more breaths then spoke again,
“You….came here…..to watch….to watch me
suffer….do you?”
I said nothing.
“Do you? Do you!? DO YOU!!???” She demanded
for an answer.
“No….” was all that I can reply.
“DON’T GIVE ME NO’S! You don’t come here
and LAUGH AT ME LIKE PIGS!” By this time I can
visually see the aura that has been enveloping her; an aura
of deep, murky, wicked hatred and remorse, even gross and
disgusting than sewer waste, and of the most horrendous
colors. Fear was growing inside my heart. Her blind hatred
for me had turned into a chilling fright for me.
Then it happened. It seemed that for her, she had
enough of my ridicule. From a distance, one branch broke
off, but as it fell, it teleported right into her hand, and
immediately she lunged after myself. I dodged, magically,
because I didn’t know for one second that she was going to
attack me. Irked, Kiyomi summoned another blade, making
her wielding double blades and lunged for me again. This
time I had anticipated her attack so I stayed out of harm’s
way.
I was thinking if I could do the same thing she did,
so I tried to gather my focus onto a single-edged tree not far
away and I attempted to make it break and teleport it into
my hand. Slowly but surely, it began to break, but I was
interrupted by more strikes. Getting even irritated by my
evasion techniques, she summoned three more blades, and
this time all of the blades were circling her back like a
windmill. A moment later, they all stopped circling, jutted
out of her back, and faced me, and with bullet speed, it
went out straight for me. One of the blades missed my ear
by 2 centimeters.
I had finally managed to retrieve a blade from one
of the trees, so now I am armed as well. Great, this really
feels like one of those fighting scenes, I said to myself,
somehow feeling excited to battle her. What I had failed to
realize that I was fighting an innocent girl who was
possessed by her own sin of blind wrath.
“Heeeya!” She engaged me once again. She swung
her blades with swift and precise movement. I dodged and
parried some and blocked a few. The clash and cling of
blades was singing and echoing the entire forest beneath
the silver grey glaive moon. Her blade dance was like
nothing I have ever seen before, in those action games or
films, anime, or the like. This was me, putting my life at
stake battling my classmate Kiyomi, for survival or for
death.
“All who live to mock me shall DIE!!” she
screamed as the clashes continue. Certainly I can’t reply,
because it would be useless since she wouldn’t hear me
anyway. She finally decided to knock me down with one
strong blow with both of her blades. Her impact made such
a big knock back force that I almost fell into a porcupine-
like thicket of blades. I stopped at 5 centimeters from the
furthest blades, and flew myself into the air again. Truth be
told, flying is actually an exhilarating but weird experience.
You get what you might have always wanted when you
were little, but when it comes down to it, it’s quite hard to
learn to control yourself, especially when doing fights in
the air.
This time, I couldn’t give up, so with all my
concentration, I managed to summon two more blades from
the nearest tree, since my first one was broken after
parrying so many hits by her. I engaged her this time, and I
try to find her weak spot amongst her now increasing
blades, reaching up to six. It seems that I hardly broke a
sweat in this world, and my power is somehow surging
through my body. I stabbed and slashed and spun as I
blocked her counterattacks. I tried mimicking every move I
could from all the games I played, from moon slashes to
repeated stabs.
“You are no match for me, idiot…..nothing can
stand against me!” Kiyomi suddenly said whilst turning
away from me. She rose up her hands and closed her eyes.
Her hands are then covered with the same black aura I saw
before battling me. As they grew larger, the ground shook
slightly. Suddenly, she summoned twenty blades and made
them disappear. This made me worry. If she purposely hid
her blades she just summoned, there was one possibility
about what she was about to do that came across my mind
—
“Stealth blades!” I said to myself. I immediately
moved away from where I was hovering, because I know
she’s going to make a blade close to my position and attack
me. My goodness, that is so classic in RTA games. Each
time a blade attacked it would always have a void in its
starting position, and all I have to do is just keep moving so
I don’t get hit. As I evaded the blades that kept on
appearing, I used this chance to strike her, since she was
supposedly vulnerable when I assumed she stood still
controlling the blades.
As I carry out my attack, and as I was getting closer
to her, the ground shook again and this time, several
branches below me broke off from their trees and lunged
towards me, while there are still those stealth blades
continuously appearing to attack me. I tried to evade them
whilst approaching her, but the amount of branches that
broke off and homed at me kept increasing, so I had no
choice but to stay away from her. Even so, it still won’t
stop.
Kiyomi opened her eyes, and said the ultimatum.
“This insult ends here, now.”
Within milliseconds she had teleported to me at
point blank range and did a subtle attack that I didn’t took
notice off. As I was pushed back by the force, I tried to
regain my control, but then I couldn’t move. I struggled to
move all my muscle, but not one of them twitched. I was
frozen in place. Well, I could still move around my head,
miraculously, but there was no way of escaping.
She teleported to my view, and stared lifelessly on
me.
“I would have forgiven you, but you make me limit
my options,” she plainly said.
I replied nothing.
“SO MUCH FOR THE ENJOYMENT OF MY
SUFFERING! You trampled around me with your jokes
and gossips and you don’t have the even the slightest idea!
Don’t you understand the pain of being ignored!? No, you
can’t, AND YOU WILL NEVER LEARN!”
She raised one hand that emitted a black glow.
 “It doesn’t have to be like this….”I said.
“Enough. This is punishment for people who don’t
understand.”
I heard the ground shook again. Trees were
uprooted from the ground and brought to the sky. Blades
were cut off and trunks were dematerialized. The blades
gathered up in Kiyomi’s back, and made some sort of a
ritual circle with a star that has 7 points. There were
hundreds of them. The circle was at least the size of half a
football field. It began to shine in a bloody red blaze.
Incomprehensible writing was inscribed on it out of thin air.
As the light began to get stronger, a sense of fear was
overlapping my mental state very quickly. Tension was
developing constantly. I was genuinely affrighted.
“Vanquish the vile souls of ignorance with the
torment of the pain of hatred,” she chanted. The next thing
I knew was that I heard many objects were broken, one
after another, sometimes simultaneously. When the sound
had finished, there were shards of blades that were broken
into small, thin, needle-like pieces gathering around me,
and in a matter of seconds, uncountable amounts of them
were surrounding my body. They were small but so many
that my world almost went pitch dark. They were
surrounding me, making a giant sphere. Each and every one
of them had the power to cut wood into half with ease,
putting aside cutting flesh alone.
“So now you have reaped what you have sowed.
Comical remarks are loathsome after all. Ignorance is not
bliss…..Any last words?” She said it like an executioner to
a death-sentenced prisoner.
“You have been blinded by yourself, Kiyomi,” I
replied quietly. She let herself chortle.
 “Blinded by myself? Preposterous! You have been
blinded by your own pitiful sense of humor! You think this
is child’s play and all just a joke?! You, Yoshio, have failed
to live, and I shall make that true to every word!” That was
the first time she called me by name in this world, and her
statements were filled with the most hatred I ever felt. I was
literally chained by the very bonds of horror.
“Prepare yourself!” She made her final move. I saw
all the shards of blades going backwards slowly. I can see
her from a distance now. She was crying tears of blood and
even sweated blood. It was a horror watching her in pain as
she tried her utmost power to punish me. I felt miserable
for her. As the shards stopped moving, I can’t take it
anymore.
With energy that even I didn’t realize, I tried to
focus in my mind to get rid of the shards away. A searing
bright light flashed quickly, and all I could see was white.
Pure white. No red, no gray, no black, just white. I was
standing normally when in truth there was visually nothing
below or under me that served as some kind of ground. It
was white all over.
In a distance, I saw a girl crying softly and slowly.
She cried as if she has absolutely no idea what to do but
cry.
“Mommy….Daddy…..stop it……” she muttered
between her tears.
“Hey, are you alright?” I asked, approaching her.
The girl then turned to me.
It was Kiyomi. The Kiyomi that I knew since the
beginning of 9th grade.
“Kiyomi?”
 “I…I couldn’t understand why my dad and mom are
fighting all the time. Fighting over this, fighting over
that….and it seems as if they’re ignoring me….what should
I do?” She cried even more. I would have never thought she
had problems like this. For all I know, she is as normal as
she always was everyday, before I opened that book.
Maybe the book was what caused these things to happen….
I approached her and touched her shoulder.
“Look, Kiyomi, no matter what the situation is, you
don’t have to just lock it away. I mean, share your feelings
with your friends, you know? It’s no good blaming yourself
and others. Especially me,” I added.
“But what if they wouldn’t listen to me? What if
they ignored me?” She asked in fear.
“Oh, come on, I know your friends, they wouldn’t
do something like that….Be more open to them, they can
always help you and stay by your side, even in the situation
you’re facing You can’t call them friends if they ignored
you.” She stopped crying for a moment
“So that means I don’t have to blame myself for all
of this?” she hopefully asked.
“Why do you have to? It’s not your fault. Besides,
you should help your parents too. If you just keep hiding to
the corner and cry all the time, it only makes things worse,”
I said. I felt like a wisecracker.
“Well, that’s the word of the wise from someone
experienced.” I silently thanked Nagata after saying this.
She slowly stopped crying, and her sorrow face turned into
a sweet smile.
“Hehe……thanks. I feel much better now.”
“Like you always should….my pleasure,” I replied.
 She slowly faded away. I stepped back, surprised,
and moments later, my eyes were diving into a white-red
vortex. I was back at the forest again, at the moment where
I had dispelled the shards of blades. The possessed Kiyomi
was still there, but now I see the possessor on her back. It
was in a shape of a sword, bearing the same aura that I saw
earlier, and it was shaking, as if it were empowered by
something evil.
The white, helpless Kiyomi I consoled moments
ago appeared to the right (We were sill floating). She closed
her eyes, transformed into a white wisp, and materialized
into my hands, and I was finding myself holding two pieces
of daggers, shining the color of rainbows all over from
handle to edge. It felt weightless to the touch, and created a
faint trail of colors as I swung it.
Good, time to take out the real troublemaker. My
regards, Kiyomi.
I instantly engaged her at full speed, and with two
moves, I slashed past her, making a loud resonance. A low-
toned voice screamed. As I turned my back, I saw all the
evil inside of her evaporating to thin air. The sword was
evaporating as well, and it vanished moments later.
Any trace of blood that was found in Kiyomi earlier
had gone completely. Her robe was gleaming white, her
hair was straight and smooth, and her skin returned to the
normal light caramel shade she had. A wind of petals blew
out of nowhere, and it circled around Kiyomi. The same
white light flashed again, and everything changed.
No longer did the glaive moon shine its eerie red—a
bright, yellow sun took its place. No longer are the trees
with deadly, spiteful blades, leaves and fruits are all that I
can see that took its place. The ground was filled with lush
greenery; no more signs of sharp blade grasses were
present. No longer did the fountain cried tears of blood, a
ranging surge of pure, white water flowed into a light blue
pool and made its way in to several rivers, flowing ever so
gracefully. It flowed to what was now a big, wide oak tree,
with its roots spreading everywhere on the lake. No longer
did it had blades as well; lots of little white flowers
blossomed throughout the tree. I was truly a beautiful sight.
On one of the roots, I could see someone sitting,
playing with the water with her feet. She looked at me. It
was Kiyomi, who was now wearing a white summer dress
with a straw hat. She turned at me and waved, smiling
gleefully. I waved back
Thank you.
I woke up. I was in my bed, and it was already
morning. I looked around; there was no blood. I was alive.
And I didn’t do my homework last night. But who cares, I
saved a life.