Chapter 102: Kuchisake-onna!
Hearing the words "exercise," Yukino could not help blinking, her long lashes trembling slightly.
She said in confusion, "Were we not discussing how to improve English? Why should I improve my physical strength? There is no necessary connection between the two, is there?"
Yukinoshita Yukino, whether in appearance or ability, would be described by anyone as a flawless girl.
Not only was she beautiful, her talent in all fields was also extremely high.
So, according to Yukino herself, it was precisely because her talent was too good that she often gave up halfway through things, which led to her poor endurance.
He had quite a few opinions about that explanation.
Other than that, she also had a bit of a poor sense of direction.
She especially liked cats.
She also seemed to like Panda Pan-san.
And…
She had an extremely strong competitive spirit.
So after summarizing Yukino's traits, Luke naturally would not say strange things like fairness or that the club president should take the lead.
When hitting a snake, one struck the vital spot.
"Let's just count it as a club activity. We can hold a competition. My English, Yui's math, and your… physical education can be the competition contents."
Luke looked at Yukino, determined to let her experience just how painful it was to persist in doing something one was unwilling to do.
To describe it this way:
Even when he endured the pain of lactic acid buildup from training inside the Spirit Time Chamber, and the pain of stretching his muscles afterward, he still did not want to endure the pain of studying English.
Also, Yukino was honestly far too frail.
Her legs, clad in black over-the-knee socks beneath a plaid mini skirt, were incredibly slender—perfectly complementing her delicate frame.
He knew he sounded like a creepy old man, but the truth was, he felt he could break them with the slightest effort. She desperately needed to exercise.
"A competition?"
Yukino showed a slight interest.
"Okay, okay!"
And Yui, who heard his suggestion, was the first to agree, impatiently freeing herself from math.
Math was boring, but working hard together with friends made it much better.
"So President Yukinoshita will agree, right? After all, Yukinoshita also said that she is strong. Making up for your weakness is something you should do, right?"
Luke brought up the past.
"And in the last tennis match, no matter how you put it, your lack of physical strength caused the defeat. You embarrassed our Yukinoshita Faction."
Upon hearing about the last tennis match, Yukino's shoulders trembled slightly, and her waterfall-like black hair, which had been casually falling down, swayed with it.
"…Strictly speaking, from the perspective of tennis technique, I did not lose to Miura-san. I only lost to my physical strength."
Yukino turned her head aside and quietly argued.
If the room were not small, if miscellaneous items did not take up space, and if it were not very quiet, he would not have been able to hear her at all.
Because of that, he absolutely had to seize this chance and continue attacking.
"So, Yukinoshita… are you afraid of losing? Afraid of losing to me and Yui?"
He leaned against his chair and cleared his throat.
"But there is no helping it. Actually, I also think you cannot do it."
"My, is this supposed to be provocation? Are you looking down on me?"
A wave of coldness instantly spread around Yukino.
The switch representing her competitive spirit had been turned on.
Under that aura, even Yui, who had been excitedly sitting beside her just now, could not help shivering.
"Don't misunderstand. I am not mocking your talent. It is just that this sort of physical training is unlike studying. It is very hard to see obvious results in a short time."
Yukino narrowed her eyes.
"Reward and punishment."
"What reward and punishment?"
He asked.
"Since it is a competition, there will be wins and losses. Since there are wins and losses, there will be rewards and punishments."
"Then shouldn't we first decide the competition method and evaluation standards?"
Click—!
The clubroom door was quickly and mercilessly opened.
Their voices stopped at once, and all of them turned their gazes toward the entrance.
"Eh? What are you doing?"
Hiratsuka Shizuka was dressed the same as always, and her behavior remained just as fearless as always.
"…Please remember to knock, Hiratsuka-sensei."
Yukino reminded her again, tirelessly.
"Oh, I came in a hurry and forgot."
Before they could ask why she was here, Shizuka directly asked, "I heard you talking about having a competition just now from outside. What is going on?"
Although her tone was calm, they could faintly sense Hiratsuka-sensei's undisguised joy at watching a show.
"A competition? There was one… but we have decided to give up on it."
Luke hurriedly said that.
"Give up? Since when?"
Shizuka widened her eyes and asked.
"Weren't you still discussing rewards, punishments, and competition methods just now?"
"Just now."
He sensed danger and prepared himself.
Shizuka glared at him in dissatisfaction, then shifted her gaze to Yukino.
"You tell me."
Yukino had not realized the seriousness of the situation.
"It is only that my club member, using the opportunity of helping him improve his English, challenged me in terms of physical ability… As the president, I naturally must accept this challenge."
"Oh!"
Shizuka nodded, closed her eyes, and chuckled.
"Hehe. Is the hot blood in your hearts already impossible to suppress? It seems you have already understood the fun of competition…"
"In that case, let this count as an additional question in the contest between you two. The winner can gain extra points from me!"
"Contest?"
Yui looked at Hiratsuka-sensei in confusion. She still did not know about the contest Hiratsuka-sensei had set between Luke and Yukino before.
Shizuka continued, "For Luke and Yui, let us use passing the next English and math tests as the standard. As for Yukinoshita, let passing the physical fitness test be the standard. How about it?"
This woman had absolutely been eavesdropping for a while.
Otherwise, how would she know about Yui's math?
"I can accept that. I have no problem."
Yukino only nodded lightly.
"What about you?"
Shizuka asked him.
"What about the reward and punishment?"
He made up his mind to look at the most important part first.
"Reward and punishment?"
Shizuka froze.
"Since it is a competition, there will be wins and losses. Since there are wins and losses, there will be rewards and punishments."
He moved out Yukino's words.
"Rewards? Improving your grades is something you students should be doing in the first place, and you still want rewards?"
Shizuka was quite speechless.
"But as for punishments, I can give you some…"
"In short, since you want a punishment, then wait until I decide the loser's punishment!"
…That actually felt somewhat reasonable.
He thought about her words.
"In short, the competition is decided!"
Shizuka gave them no chance to refute, charging straight ahead and quickly slipping out of the room.
And so, inside the clubroom, Hiratsuka Shizuka's voice seemed to linger in the air.
Luke and the two girls looked at each other.
It seemed that ill intentions could only bring bad results.
"Cough, cough."
Yukino cleared her throat and seemed strangely happy.
"Since Hiratsuka-sensei has already decided the competition method and the rew… punishment, let us prepare. I will not hold back."
"…Uh, good luck?"
Yui, who had been dragged into this disaster, still had not understood the situation and looked at the two of them in confusion.
Forget it.
In any case, improving English was something he needed to do anyway.
Yui improving math and Yukino exercising her body were both beneficial and harmless.
It was just that Hiratsuka Shizuka, that troublesome adult, had definitely come to the clubroom for something. Yet after stirring up the show she wanted to see, she had impatiently fled.
Taking the win and leaving.
Damn adult!
He absolutely should not have asked for marriage-fate tools for her.
…
A deserted alley.
Normally, people would still pass through here to save time on their way home.
But recently, for some reason, rumors about the terrifying Kuchisake-onna had spread from here, causing no one to dare walk through it.
A middle school girl passing through the alley covered her mouth, because she noticed something abnormal beside a utility pole.
A woman with disheveled hair and a red mask was standing there.
At this time, in this place, remembering the Kuchisake-onna story from the recently popular Horror Manga Special, as well as the widely circulated story among students about the Kuchisake-onna in the terrifying alley…
A chill could not help running down her back, and she turned around, wanting to flee.
However, a hand had already landed on her shoulder.
"Am I pretty?"
A shrill voice asked from behind her.
Despair spread across her entire body. The broken, rotten fingers on her shoulder stopped her body from moving, and that dry voice made her exhausted legs stop listening to her.
"Am I pretty?"
Her head was turned back.
Only then did she see…
That mask had not originally been red.
It had been dyed red by blood!
"I…"
The answer given in the manga was that no matter how one answered, something terrifying would happen.
She did not know how to reply. Weakness filled her entire body.
"Do you really need to think that long?"
The masked woman took off her mask, revealing a mouth far larger than that of an ordinary person.
Or rather, a mouth that had been cut open by a sharp blade.
The Kuchisake-onna revealed her face. All of her teeth were exposed before the girl's eyes, and that huge mouth, opening and closing, seemed as if it could swallow her head whole.
So scary!
Looking at the Kuchisake-onna's terrifying face, the girl became even more frightened. Her trembling legs could not move at all.
"Hurry up and answer me! Heeheeheehee!"
The Kuchisake-onna kept letting out giggling laughter, teasingly looking at the terrified girl before her.
"Ah—!"
The girl screamed, venting her fear to her heart's content.
"Then it seems you think I am not pretty?"
The Kuchisake-onna's smile disappeared. Anger gradually filled her face, and her two eyeballs bulged with bloodshot veins.
Her rotten nails hooked the two sides of the girl's mouth, and she pulled out from her pocket…
"Stop!"
A loud shout rang out.
The Kuchisake-onna stopped moving and looked in surprise at the group of students running over, all of them glaring fiercely at her.
"Don't worry. We are members of the Occult Club! We specialize in investigating the existence of evil spirits!"
"Kuchisake-onna, we have been watching you for several days!"
This group of middle schoolers stared at the Kuchisake-onna, who absolutely did not look normal, and took out their exorcism tools.
"Oh?"
The Kuchisake-onna looked at their tools with interest.
A baseball bat.
An iron cross.
Brass knuckles engraved with a cross.
"Move!"
Once the students gathered together, they no longer feared her. One after another, they took out their weapons and charged forward.
The wooden bat swung into the Kuchisake-onna's back, and fists and feet smashed into her face.
For a time, screams rang out endlessly, blood splattered everywhere, and the sounds of battle did not stop.
Facts proved that as long as ordinary people mustered their courage, they were capable of resisting ordinary evil spirits.
One could even say they had the advantage.
But…
A friendly reminder from exorcists:
Ordinary people resisting evil spirits only applies to ordinary evil spirits. It does not represent evil spirits formed from exorcism tools.
And so—
After the great battle, the alley was covered in bloodstains.
Under the Kuchisake-onna's gentle lullaby, the young bodies of the middle schoolers fell asleep as soon as their heads hit the ground, filling the already narrow alley.
The sun completely sank below the horizon.
Inside the pitch-black alley…
A small flame lit up.
The Kuchisake-onna sat on the pile of students stacked beneath her, holding a lighter in her hand. A flame sprayed from it.
With a cigarette she had found on the students in her mouth, she gently lit the filter.
After breathing out clouds of smoke…
"Haa~"
A cigarette after intense exercise.
She comfortably narrowed her eyes and looked at the layers of students beneath her.
A mob of rabble unfit for conquest.
She was already above everyone, standing at the summit.
"Heh, naive~"
The Kuchisake-onna let out a comfortable sigh and disdainfully sighed at the defeated students beneath her.
After her complete victory, she slipped a finger through the handle of her exorcism-tool scissors and spun them around in the air.
She was a newly born evil spirit, an evil spirit attached to an exorcism tool shaped like scissors.
Perhaps she had been born from the Kuchisake-onna ghost story passed from student to student.
Or perhaps some evil spirit wandering in the realm of the dead had found an exorcism tool it could attach itself to.
In short, she was currently enjoying the beauty of the real world.
Scaring students a little and absorbing their fear was her favorite pastime.
Looking at the girl beside her, who was still trembling and could not stop being afraid, she nodded comfortably.
"Don't be in a hurry. Once I finish this cigarette, I'll make your mouth… eh?"
The Kuchisake-onna looked in confusion at another person who had entered the alley, and instantly sensed that something was wrong.
Heh, there really was a Kuchisake-onna.
Following the clues, Luke lowered his head and glanced at the Horror Manga Special: Scream in his hand.
Mm. Confirmed.
A documentary manga.
The first manga inside, the one about the Kuchisake-onna, was actually real. Even the marked location truly existed in reality.
In that case, he had to say that manga artists these days were very interesting.
The author of this horror manga was actually an action-oriented person.
Truly a giant in both thought and action.
Admirable.
The Kuchisake-onna held the cigarette filter in her mouth and looked in confusion at the person beside the utility pole.
As an evil spirit recently born from a ghost story passed around by students, she did not have enough experience.
She could only sense the faint spiritual power radiating from the newcomer's body like flames.
But she did not know exactly what kind of person he was.
"What are you here for?"
Out of caution, she asked in confusion.
"An exorcist."
Luke slowly approached the headline star of the manga's opening page: Kuchisake-onna.
The Kuchisake-onna's body instantly leapt up, and her face stiffened.
Although she had little experience, she still knew what that profession represented.
However…
"You came empty-handed?"
The Kuchisake-onna grinned, revealing dozens of clean white teeth.
She lifted the scissors in her hand and aimed them at the empty-handed exorcist.
"You seem a little late! These students have already been defeated by me! Also, don't call me despicable. After all, you are the one who came empty-handed."
The scissors radiated a burst of power.
The Kuchisake-onna was about to test the exorcist's ability.
From the manga she had collected from the students, she knew the principle that villains died because they talked too much.
So she directly began to act.
Although her opponent was an exorcist with stronger spiritual power than her, which made this battle somewhat troublesome, she had the enhancement of an exorcism tool.
This time, she…
Would win!
"Empty-handed?"
Luke murmured softly, then took out his tools from the system inventory.
The demon-revealing mirror named [Empty].
An exorcism sword made of peach wood.
A full set of exorcism talismans.
Facts proved that justice might arrive late, but it would never arrive empty-handed.
The [Empty]. Mirror shone on the Kuchisake-onna. The image reflected back was only a pair of scissors.
It was an exorcism tool, just like the mannequin from before.
Luke nodded and picked up the exorcism sword.
Since there was only one, it was still easy to handle.
"Where did you take those from? Uh… anyway, um, I still have things to do… This Kuchisake-onna you mentioned? I don't know her at all. Go ask someone else."
The Kuchisake-onna clearly felt the threat from those things. She hurriedly put her mask back on and turned to leave.
Under that mirror, she had nearly been completely forced back into the scissors. She could only call on her power with difficulty to maintain her body.
What was there to win?
Better run quickly.
A good ghost did not die twice.
…
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