Chapter 5: Blood Droplet

“Make Yumiko… disappear?”

Yukina mechanically repeated those words and stood there in a daze.

What did that mean.

Was she going to—

“Yes.” Mashiro nodded.

“I can kill her.”

When she said this, her tone was not much different from saying “the bento was a little bland.”

Calm, indifferent, as if stating a perfectly ordinary schedule item.

“Make her silent forever. That way, no one will ever come to disturb us again.”

Those blood-red eyes narrowed slightly. Something moved inside them—something different from her usual coldness. 

A deeper darkness.

A chill ran down Yukina’s spine.

She had seen this look before.

Not in reality, but on a screen.

Shhh—

Suddenly, a harsh noise like a television signal failure filled her ears.

A pitch-black memory began to roll and play in front of her like a videotape, clearer than ever before.

—One morning, Mashiro walked along the road to school. She looked no different from usual, her pace neither fast nor slow.

Only her eyes were different. 

Cold. Extremely cold. Not the cold of someone going to class, but the cold of someone going to finish something.

At the school gate, several figures were waiting for her.

Yumiko stood at the front, surrounded by a few followers.

The moment she saw Mashiro, that playful smile immediately appeared on Yumiko’s face. She walked forward with leisurely steps, mouth opening, about to say something.

But she never got the chance to make a sound.

A streak of white light flashed across her throat.

It was too fast. So fast that no one could react. Yumiko’s mouth was still open, the smile still hanging on her face, but her throat had already split open. 

She looked down at the red that sprayed from her chest and let out a turbid sound like a bursting water bubble.

The first follower turned to run. 

Mashiro grabbed her ponytail and yanked her back as if dragging a wild dog, then raised her hand and brought the blade down.

The second.

The third.

***

Half an hour later, sirens blared from all directions. Red and blue lights flashed across Mashiro’s side profile. 

Her school uniform no longer retained its original color.

【Ending 8: Uncontrollable Killing Intent Unlocked】

Route failed. 

Failure reason: Mood value too low, suppression value too high, too many negative events encountered in a short time, unable to suppress the killing intent toward Yumiko. 

【Blood Moon Disease】 forcibly awakened.

Aftermath: Arrested by police, expelled from school, lost inheritance rights, transferred to a juvenile detention facility, poisoned to death by people from the Family during her sentence. Time of death unknown. No one claimed the body.

…

Flash.

Like a screen powering off, the images before her eyes vanished.

Yukina’s heart pounded. Her palms were covered in sweat, as if she had personally experienced the bloodbath just now.

No.

She had experienced it.

Only she had not been at the scene. She had been on the other side of the screen.

Those memories that had just appeared were all endings she had gone through while playing the game in her previous life.

【Blood Moon Disease】

This was the most critical and most troublesome setting in the game.

According to the plot, it was a curse left behind by the vampire race a thousand years ago.

It could grant the host power far beyond ordinary people, yet at the same time, when the host’s emotions collapsed, it would seize the host’s consciousness, turning them into someone who desperately craved blood and displayed the most primal desire for destruction.

Mashiro had been born with this curse. 

Every time it activated, the game screen would become extremely bloody, the entire display filled with ketchup, with various body parts of the villains flying everywhere. 

This was also the main reason why this game had been rated R18G.

In the early stages of the game, before the male protagonist appeared, once the 【Blood Moon Disease】 inside Mashiro awakened, it meant the game would inevitably enter the massacre route and head toward a death ending.

All along, Yukina had been trying to prevent this from happening. That was why she had found ways to help Mashiro and stabilize her emotions.

But now, what exactly was going on…

Logically speaking, after surviving the bullying in the restroom, all the early crises of the game should have already been safely passed. In the short term, Mashiro should no longer be at risk of going berserk.

Could it be…

Yukina seemed to realize something. Her heart gave a violent jump.

(Is it because… I disrupted the game’s script and rejected her confession, which caused the Blood Moon Disease to be triggered?)

A cold bead of sweat slid down her cheek.

“What do you think.”

Mashiro’s voice pulled her consciousness back.

“How should Yumiko be handled.”

Her tone was light, even carrying a trace of eager anticipation.

“Right now, as long as you give a slight nod, I can make her completely disappear. From then on, no one will ever be able to stand between us again.”

…

So terrifying.

The current Mashiro was so terrifying.

Looking at her face, Yukina actually felt a little unfamiliar.

It was as if something was seeping out from inside Mashiro’s body—not blood, but something darker than blood.

No.

She could not let Mashiro walk down that path.

“You can’t.”

Yukina’s voice was trembling, but the words were very clear.

“You can’t kill anyone. My rejection of the confession has nothing to do with Yumiko. And…”

She swallowed.

“Doing something like this will get you thrown in prison.”

“It’s fine.”

Mashiro did not care at all.

She reached out and once again took hold of Yukina’s fingers. 

Her palm was warm and slightly damp. 

The motion was gentle, as if she were holding something fragile.

“As long as we aren’t discovered, it’s fine.”

She tightened her fingers, completely wrapping Yukina’s hand inside her palm.

“Even if we are discovered, at my current age, they won’t lock me up for too long. As long as I endure a few years, after I get out—”

She raised her eyes. An extremely faint smile appeared at the corners of her mouth.

“We can be together forever. No one will be able to find us.”

In those eyes, a turbid blackness was spreading.

She was not threatening.

She genuinely believed this was a good plan.

Yukina’s hand trembled violently. She wanted to pull it free, but Mashiro was holding too tightly—not the kind of tight grip that used force, but the kind a drowning person used when clutching a wooden plank.

“No. You don’t understand—”

She shook her head desperately.

“If you do something like this, you’ll be expelled, lose your inheritance rights, and the people from the ‘Family’ will—”

Oh no.

Yukina realized she had said the wrong thing.

In an instant, the smile on Mashiro’s face froze.

Those blood-red pupils contracted sharply. Something deep inside seemed to shatter.

“You… why do you know these things.”

Mashiro’s voice changed.

“The inheritance rights. The Family. Outsiders couldn’t possibly know these things.”

She released Yukina’s hand and took a step back. The smile on her face disappeared completely.

“I just…”

Yukina’s fingers stiffened in midair. Her lips still held the shape from a moment ago.

She wanted to take back the words she had just spoken, but it was already impossible.

Mashiro took another step back. This time she bumped into the vaulting box, producing a dull thud.

“As expected—”

Her voice was trembling.

“You are from the Family.”

“I’m not!”

Yukina stood up from the chair, frantically waving her hands in front of her.

“Then why?!”

Mashiro covered her face. Her voice squeezed out from between her fingers—broken, hoarse, as if it had been crushed by something.

“Why reject me. Why refuse to let me kill Yumiko. Why keep helping me?”

Her fingers were shaking.

“I don’t understand. I don’t understand you at all, Takanashi-san.”

Between her fingers, the darkness in the depths of her eyes was spreading.

It was no longer turbidity. It was devouring.

If this continued, Mashiro would break.

There was no other choice.

At this point, she could only reveal that she was a transmigrator.

“I——”

Yukina clenched her teeth so hard her lips turned white.

She no longer cared about anything else.

“Actually, I’m a trans—”

Transmigrator.

Of the three characters, she only managed to say one.

Then her chest felt as if something had suddenly seized it.

As if trying to stop her from continuing, her heart skipped a beat, followed by a violent spasm. 

The pain was so intense she could not even cry out. 

The air was squeezed out of her lungs, and her vision went black for an instant.

Her body lost its balance.

She fell backward. Her fingers grabbed at the air once and caught nothing.

Her shoulder slammed into a rusty scoreboard, then a chain reaction began—the scoreboard toppled, taking the high-jump stand beside it with it. The high-jump stand knocked over the pile of dusty gymnastics mats.

Tin collided with tin. Metal scraped against metal. A clattering crash echoed through the shack.

She fell into the pile of discarded equipment.

Dust rose. The smell of rust flooded her nasal cavity.

“…!”

Mashiro called out something. Yukina could not hear it clearly. Probably her name. Probably.

“I’m… fine…”

She forced herself to take two heavy breaths and struggled to push her body up.

Her back hurt a little, but it did not seem like any bones were injured. 

Only when her palm pressed against some kind of iron frame did a sharp pain shoot through her left wrist.

She looked down.

Red. One drop.

The inner side of her wrist had been scraped, the skin broken. 

The wound was not deep, but the bead of blood was full and plump. 

In the afternoon light it was a crystalline deep red, slowly trickling down along the lines of her skin.

Then she heard breathing.

It was not her own.

That breathing was heavy and slow, as if something was pressing down on the chest cavity. 

Every exchange of air required great effort.

Yukina raised her head.

Mashiro was staring at her hand.

Not at her. At that drop of blood.

Those blood-red eyes had completely changed.

All the confusion, pain, shattering, and struggle had been swallowed by something in an instant.

“Mashiro…?”

There was no response.

In those eyes, she no longer existed.