XCEL

For once, class had actually managed to do Rin a bit of good. There he slouched onto his desk, head propped up by his elbows, his eyes closed. Not bothering to move, barely bothering to breathe, Rin let the sound of his teacher scribbling on the whiteboard and the monotony that spilled out of his mouth fill his mind with an inane static that drowned out any and all wayward thought. Compared to the contents of that notebook, this experience here was bliss.

The screams cut that bliss short, however.

“Hm?! What’s going on?”

Masaru Uchino, a man as wide as he was tall, stopped in the middle of his sentence. No-one interrupted him whilst he was teaching and got away with it. The rest of the class, most of them in the process of dropping off to sleep, some already having done so, abruptly snapped back to reality. All, including Rin, stared at the glass pane in the door, beyond which a flashed the heads of thirty or so students in a hurry.

“What is the meaning of this?”

Mr. Uchino looked around the class with narrowed eyes as though trying to pick up traces of misdemeanour. He got no response. Striding over to the door, he opened it, only to be hit by a wave of terrified noise from the students on the third floor. He stood there for a moment, perplexed. This didn’t seem like the usual excitable rabble of a teacher letting go of their class early. When that was the case, you seldom heard people screaming.

“You there,” he seized one boy, fleeing like a frightened lamb, by the shirt collar. “What’s going on?!”

“Monsters!” The boy bleated, looking back over his shoulder. “They’re attacking everyone! You’ve got to get out of here!”

“Monsters?!”

Uchino released the boy after he wouldn’t stop struggling. Something had to be the source of this distress, not just for him but everyone else cascading towards the stairs at the other end. Rin’s class had already gathered themselves together, and were all silently packed near the classroom’s doorway, trying to heed the warning.

“Let me through, let me through!” Rin, once again painfully reminded of his smaller stature, attempted to squeeze past everyone in front of him for a better look. He had to see what was going on! What else would all this commotion be for otherwise?

Uchino peered down the corridor, only to find his gaze reflected in the eyes of the three Rejects thundering down the corridor.

“What on earth—”

One of the monsters charged forth with a punch the speed of a freight train. A sickening crunch, and Mr Uchino’s head was reduced to little more than a bloody splatter on the wall. The impact made a crater in the wall that shook the whole room.

Silence. The entire class stood stock still. It had all happened so quickly, the shock didn’t have time to even register on their faces.

Then, screams.

Those closest to the front recoiled in horror, colliding with those standing behind. Everyone shuffled back. Desks were knocked over and people fell, desperately trying to put space between themselves and the horrifying monster standing square in the door frame.

“What even is that thing?”

“Mr. Uchino! What happened to him!?”

“What the hell—”

Dentaku Bango was lost for words. He’d backed away the best he could, eyes wide. It repulsed him to look and yet he couldn’t take his eyes away. He retched, the vile taste of bile rising in his throat. He could still hear the stampeding footsteps down the other end of the corridor. Everyone else was heading for the fire exit, most likely. They were trapped in their classroom, with no way out.

Another crash, and a punch from another Reject caved the wall in. Brick, plaster, and other debris shot across the room.

One girl shoved another out of harm's way, only for a piece of brick to hit her in the head. Her skull shattered on impact, her corpse hit against the wall. The room shook again, as more of the wall was destroyed. The screaming continued. The students retreated further, many now cowering as far into the corners as they could, clutching one another, wracked with uncontrollable sobbing.

Whatever they wanted was clearly inside this room. What on earth was their goal? Did they even have a goal? There were too many questions, his survival the most important among them. Bango looked down. Strewn across the floor were some of his classmates. Were they dead? Just unconscious? By the time he taken his eyes off those creatures to check, Bango figured they would bash his head in just like they had with Mr. Uchino.

He had never cared to learn their names. Would he ever get the chance to again? Some tried to rescue the bodies, dragging them to the back half of the classroom. It was no use. The creatures had blocked off all escape routes. Bango looked behind him. The only alternative was a drop from a third story window. Whatever way they chose, it was tantamount to suicide.

A street or two away from Senketsu high school, the screams, so many of them echoing into the distance, caused everyone in the cafe to turn in their direction. Nagora Ibuse [井伏 拏後騾] stopped mid-sip of his coffee, and set down his cup. Nothing good warranted screaming. There must have been an incident.

The screams continued. The sheer number of them, not to mention the sheer terror, sent a chill down his spine. Immediately, he feared for the worst.

Slapping down enough payment for his coffee and then some on the table, the man gulped down the rest of the drink. Soon, he was gone. It seemed he wasn’t able to get a break from work, even on his day off. Back on the streets now, and not a moment too late. Traffic was starting to build on the adjacent road leading towards Senketsu high school, a lone line of agitated drivers voicing their annoyance through their car horns at the delay. As if the screams weren’t enough of an indication that something was afoot, the mass of people running towards him on the street definitely was.

“What’s going on?” He asked one man, grabbing at the lapel of his jacket.

The man stared at Ibuse wide-eyed, too afraid to do anything except run.

“Hey!” Ibuse called again, giving the man a quick shake. “What’s all this about?”

The man stammered, trembling all over. He then wrenched his head back and yelled again. Breaking free of the detective’s grip, the man bolted down the street, as Ibuse could only look on, perplexed.

“Monsters!” Another voice called out, this one female. “Somebody, please help!”

This caught Ibuse’s attention. The woman was on the other side of the road, stumbling with every other step as she tried to both run away and look over her shoulder at the same time. Vaulting over a car sitting at a standstill, Ibuse caught and steadied her by the shoulders, snapping his fingers in front of her face to get her attention.

“Madam, I’m with the police.” He unfurled his badge. “What’s going on?”

The woman looked dead on, straight through him.

“Monsters—they appeared in the middle of the street. They were so horrible, they started to attack everyone nearby!” She broke down in tears, her knees giving out. Ibuse supported her by the shoulders. “The only thing I could do was run!”

“It’s alright.” He did his best to soothe. “The situation will be taken care of, I promise. Where was this?”

“Outside Senketsu High!” She choked on her own tears, gasping for breath.

Ibuse let her rejoin the fleeing crowd. He had to investigate further, identify the danger himself. He waded forth against the sea of frightened pedestrians. What the hell did she mean by monsters? Reaching into his pocket, he retrieved a phone. Within seconds of dialling, he made it through.

“Control? This is Ibuse. I’ve got a situation.”

“What’s the problem?” A woman on the other end answered.

Ibuse paused. He didn’t want to say the word ‘monsters’ over the phone. He’d only look like an idiot.

“I’m next to Gakuen-mae station. Don’t know what caused it yet, but something’s caused a major panic in the direction of Senketsu High.” He manoeuvring his way through the panicked crowds and between stopped cars. “Caused an awful amount of public distress as well as a traffic pile-up outside the intersection. Requesting backup squads to my location immediately.”

“Understood. Police deployment should be with you shortly.”

Ibuse ended the call and jammed the phone back into his pocket. He kept running, until he spotted something distinctive. A man in a black fedora stood atop a building nearby. Ibuse blinked. That silver hair, that grin; he recognised it. It was longer than he remembered, but there was no doubt about it: it was the same. After all this time, he hadn't expected to see him here. Stepping back into the middle of the road, he tried to get second glance. The man had disappeared. He blinked again. Was it just a trick of the light? Ibuse shook his head. Now wasn’t the time to get distracted.

The crowd had thinned. Looking inside the cars, there wasn’t a soul in sight. What the hell was going on? Had there been a terrorist attack? Given the location, he dreaded to think whether or not some Senketsu student was armed. The poor woman likely didn’t know what she was saying. Shock tended to do that to a person. Ibuse had seen too many people that had needed weeks if not months in recovery after witnessing traumatic events. Some never got over that trauma. Still, what did she mean by those monsters? Rounding the corner, what Ibuse saw next answered his question only a few seconds later

Only one had yet to move a muscle.

All three Rejected stood still and silent. Their grotesque eyes trained intently on the boy.

“Harigane!” Bango yelled. “Get away from those things!”

Rinkaku Harigane stood alone at the front of the classroom. He didn’t respond, but wasn’t frozen in fear either—rather, transfixed in meditative focus. The book had spoken about these creatures—the Rejected—not to mention the only way to survive.

Bango noticed the knife in Rin’s hand. It had a strange curved blade, detailed like a relic you'd find behind glass in a museum. Rin and the three monsters were locked in a stalemate. They twitched in place, in equal parts eager to destroy Rin as they were in fear of what he wielded. The infernal aura emanating from that knife made muscles all over Bango’s body tense. Pulses of errant sensation dashing through his arms and legs, nerves firing on all cylinders. Again, he was forced to question everything he knew, and just how little that was.

Rin raised his hand, slowly, deliberately. The blade glinted as it caught the light of the fixtures overhead. The boy started chuckling. If Rin didn’t move now, he’d be killed! Why hadn’t the monsters attacked him yet? They must be after that blade, he reasoned. Perhaps they didn’t want to harm what they were after. Every instinct he had told him to run up to Rin and yank him out of harm’s way, but his body wouldn’t move. He could only watch in horror as Rin’s laughter grew louder still. He was the only one in the room making any noise. Everyone else watched, terrified. Some reached out, some murmured his name, confused. They didn’t know what to fear more: those three terrifying monsters, or their classmate holding a knife, cackling maniacally.

Suddenly, all three of the monsters made a frightened noise and stepped back. Rin now had the knife raised in front of his face, the tip pointed towards him. With a jolt, Bango realised what Rin was about to do.

“Harigane! Don’t!”

Too late.

With a swift motion, Rin plunged the ascension blade into his own forehead up to the hilt. The knife pierced through his skull like paper, embedding the blade deep in his brain.

For a second, everything was still. For a moment, Rin could see everything all at once. The entire world was laid before him, stretching a million miles into the distance. More information than he could handle flooded his mind, paralysing him completely. Images, colourful and perplexing, flashed before his eyes. A cube of perfect proportions, an infinitely diverging pattern, a tower reaching up to the heavens, and an insurmountable staircase. He could see it all. But that was only for a moment. Rin’s vision then tunnelled. Violently thrown back, he soon found himself falling down a deep, dark hole.