Free Boogiepop Returns VS Imaginator Part 1 by Kouhei Kadono Page B

their breasts.
    Their transformation was dramatic.
    Simultaneously, the girls flung their heads back, mouths gaping wide like some sort of animal, the air quivering at their soundless howls. The hands resting on each other's shoulders clenched up tightly, nails digging into the skin, drawing blood.
    I swear this was not the kind of transformation that pain or pleasure can cause. It was like they had temporarily ceased to be human, like. . . like something was being torn away from them.
    Asukai Jin quietly stood before them, calmly doing something I couldn't see.
    Every time his shoulders shifted, the girls shook, bodies convulsing.
    Like he was tinkering with them. But near as I could tell, he never touched their bodies directly. What on Earth was he doing?
    “. . . . . . . . .!!!”
    The girls gave one last great spasm, and Asukai Jin moved away.
    Worn out, the girls leaned against each other. They were covered in sweat.
    They were panting. . . but their faces looked human again, reason restored.
    The girls looked at each other. . . and giggled.
    So terrifying was their expression that I felt like something had its hand around my heart.
    They looked exactly the same.
    The features of their faces had not changed. In fact, their expressions were so identical that the resemblance between them that I had noticed before had grown far less pronounced.
    But that expression -- the emotion the muscles in their faces were shifting in reaction to -- I couldn't help but feel like it was identical.
    “How does it feel to be true friends?” Asukai Jin asked.
    “Nice. . .”
    “Completely wonderful.”
    Smiling, the girls stood up, and began dressing each other.
    “That's good,” Asukai Jin replied, and I swear I heard a flicker of a smile in his voice.
    “Asukai-sensei, we're no longer afraid of anything.”
    “We feel like we could change the world for you right now.”
    They came over to him.
    They took his hands, and kissed the back of Asukai Jin's hands like a pair of princesses swearing their allegiance to some heroic knight of legend.
    I was shivering so violently. It took all my self-restraint just to keep my teeth from chattering. I couldn't move for a full three minutes after they left the room.
    (Wh-what was that? What just happened here.. .. ..?)
    Stiffly, I crawled out from under the desk, and spread out the drawing once again as my hands trembled.
    I remembered her now. The girl in the sketch had gone to my high school.
    Her name was Minahoshi Suiko.
    But she had killed herself. She was long gone.
    The sketch was clearly Asukai Jin's, though. . . so how in the world was he connected to her suicide?

IV

    Why are we afraid of the dark?
Even though it is the inevitable
result of living. . .
-- Kirima Seiichi ( VS Imaginator )

    It’s often said that every town has two faces, one for day and one for night. That's true enough, I suppose, but realistically, the difference is not so distinct, not so clear. Sadly, there is really no easily understood line drawn between the territory of safe, happy daylight and the sinister domain of the night.
    For example, right now there's a girl sitting on a bench in front of a train station, sunlight gleaming brightly all around her. She's wearing traditional casual fashion, and anyone who looked at her would think she was a very ordinary middle class girl.
    She appears to be waiting for somebody. She's got a town events guide rolled up in her hand, and she keeps tapping the ground with the toe of her shoe.
    But if you watch the girl long enough, you'll begin to see a pattern hidden in the tapping. There's a rhythm to it, the same spacing between the taps, repeating.
    Wait a little longer, and at last a boy comes over to her. He looks ordinary as well, clothes and hairstyle pretty bourgeois, like he gets a decent allowance.
    “Yo! Waiting for someone?”
    Not the most natural pick up line ever, but not likely to attract much attention if overheard.
    “Yeah, at one o'clock,” the