"Why am I with her..." Aki mutters under her breath and looks at Lethia with a jealous glance. Her already less than favorable chances with the boys in class disappeared completely after the transfer student came and became the school idol. In fact, almost all the boys within the entire school are exclusively fawning over her, so Aki is being completely left in the dust. She has to admit that Lethia's figure is exceptional and her foreign, exotic beauty is something that cannot be found among the Japanese. Her fiery red hair and piercing emerald eyes cannot be replicated even with dyeing and contact lenses, and would never look as natural. Wherever she goes, she stands out. "Haah..."

"What is it?" Lethia turns to the much smaller girl when a sigh escapes the latter's lips, and asks innocently. "Are you afraid of the dark?" In the past three months, her Russian accent has begun to fade noticeably, and while her speech still has a foreign note, it is no longer as jarring as it used to be.

"Huh? No, who's afraid of the dark?" The poorly endowed girl responds angrily, feeling belittled by this busty transfer student who is just so much more superior to her in all regards. Stomping forward, she tries to move faster, so that she will not have to share as much alone time with this girl. However, when she points the flashlight deeper into the hallway, she realizes that it seems to go on forever. The stairs to the second floor were visible from the entrance before, but have now completely disappeared. "Wait, how...?"

"It seems I was right." Lethia says with a vigilant expression, her eyes never resting as she surveys the surroundings. "It's here."

"... what's here?" With a shaky voice, Aki asks in confusion. Turning back, she realizes that the entrance has disappeared in the darkness behind them, and the weak flashlight is unable to illuminate the vast distance into which the corridor seems to have stretched out. "Huh...?" Her knees go weak and she wobbles on her unsteady feet at the sight.

"Don't worry, everything will be alright." With a reassuring smile, the red-haired girl unbuttons her shirt and unzips her skirt, dropping them to the floor carelessly. She is naked underneath, but with a press of a button on her wristwatch, her skin color, except for that of her head, changes to a dark purple - a bodysuit. Picking the flat metal drum from a metal clasp on her waist, she takes the small handgun from a holster on her thigh.

"Wh-what are-" Before Aki can finish her question, Lethia lunges forward and kicks her in the stomach, causing her to fold at her center and collapse to the ground. Coughing violently, she looks up at the transfer student in incomprehension, but is unable to see the glowing pair of garden shears coming from inside the wall, clasped together just where her neck had been a moment earlier. The blades disappear back into the wall.

"You're not getting away that easily!" Aiming her gun there, Lethia presses the button and a perfectly circular hole, almost two meters in diameter, opens up in the wall without making a single noise. Then, a moment later, the sound waves appear to have caught up with the phenomenon, and an ear-splitting roar echoes through the hallways. Right behind the hole is the glowing figure of a girl with disheveled black hair and dressed in white rags. Even though her face is not visible through the long hair that falls over it, it is clear that she is surprised.

"Didn't expect that, huh?" Pressing the center of the metal drum, the red-haired girl throws it at the glowing apparition. It opens up in midair and a whirring sound, accompanied by rays of light, emerge from within. However, the ghost with the garden shears sinks into the floor before it approaches her, upon which the proton pack falls to the ground and ceases its functions after a few seconds. "Damn, she got away after all... Next time, less talking, more doing..." Walking up to the device, Lethia picks it up and presses a button on its interior. It begins to close itself slowly and she attaches it onto the clasp on her waist once again.

"Wh-what..." Aki presses out through the pain as she squirms on the floor.

"Lots of whats, Aki. Don't ask, it's better if you don't know." With a wink, the Russian girl addresses her by her first name casually, even though they have been on a distant last name basis so far. "But this is a strong one, to be able to shape space and move around in it so easily..." Lethia extends her free hand to show that she wants to help the poorly endowed girl up, but the latter ignores it and holds her stomach. Shrugging, she turns away and looks through the hole her immensely destructive gun created. "Seems like the entire school building is under her control."

"It's just an illusion." Senka speaks into her wristwatch while Yasuko helps Akane along, whose eyes are unfocused, with a hint of rising madness creeping into them. She just witnessed several people being killed in gruesome ways, so it is obvious that the mind of a simple high school girl will not be able to withstand such stress unaffected. "I broke through it quite easily."

"Yeah yeah, I'm a weak-minded fool who can't even break through a simple spatial illusion..." Lethia's impatient voice emerges from the same wristwatch. "I'm on the first floor, we just entered the building when it attacked us."

"We're on the third floor, we'll come down, wait for us there." With this, the stitched girl stops the transmission and keeps the proton pack at the ready. Her perfect timekeeping ability suggests that the next pair is just about to enter the school building, so she has to make haste, or more people are going to die. While she does not care about their lives, especially since they are from a world she has no real sense of connection with, not preventing unnecessary deaths whenever it is within her abilities leave a bad aftertaste in her mouth.

"... what the fuck is going on?" Yasuko mutters, looking around in fear. "What happened to the others?"

"Do you really want to know?" Turning to look at her with a straightforward expression, Senka's gaze appears to bore into her very soul. Shaking in her boots, the girl wearing too much makeup shakes her head nervously. "In either case, I'll get you out of here." Of all people, the stitched girl knows best that it is a promise easy to make but hard to keep.

They reach the stairs and begin to descend them, while Senka takes the quasar gun out of its holster. Ambushes are best in vertically challenging environments, so the apparition that killed all the people earlier will most likely strike again here. With a finger on the button to activate the proton pack whenever necessary, her mind is concentrating to its limits to pick every single interference in the surroundings, even while her eyes are staring forward without really seeing anything.

Suddenly spinning around, she points the gun up the stairs, where the garden shears are emerging from the ground and approaching Yasuko from behind. Pulling the trigger, a coin-sized hole opens up in the wooden board right next to the glowing blades. A moment later, the shears draw back and an ear-splitting shriek resounds throughout the old school building. The girls press their hands onto their ears in response. Apparently Senka's shot hit the target.

However, because of Yasuko's sudden movement, Akane loses her footing and tumbles down the stairs. When she stops at the bottom, she holds her left arm with a pained expression and whimpers.

"Th-that wasn't my fault. The noise... and she struggled..." The girl with too much makeup stutters, trying to justify her inability to keep the glasses girl safe. Rolling her eyes at her feeble excuses, Senka quickly jumps down the last few steps of the stairs to check on Akane's condition.

"Show me your arm." Requesting thus, but without waiting for confirmation, the stitched girl turns the glasses girl over and looks at the place she is covering with her hand. Blood is trickling out from a wound, but Senka's eyes go wide at the sight. "... wait..."

"Wh-what?" Akane asks, intimidated by the seemingly unjustified glare she is receiving.

"How did-" Before the stitched girl can finish speaking, a scream from behind interrupts her. Spinning around, she finds Yasuko being pulled up by her collar, the perpetrator a floating girl in ragged white clothes and long black hair falling over her face. Even though her lips should not be visible, a gleeful grin seems to radiate from her very being. Wordlessly, Senka points the quasar gun at the apparition, but it uses her hostage as a human shield. Olethea would have pulled the trigger unhesitatingly, or so she believes, but she does not want to incur any collateral damage on the job. People on death row are a different thing, though.

"What's going on?! Help me, Ootsuki-san!" Yasuko flails her arms wildly, not understanding what is happening as she is unable to see the girl lifting her into the air. A ghostly giggle behind her makes her skin crawl and she turns her head, trying to see who it belongs to. But then she is dropped carelessly. Even though the fall is not from high up, from underneath her the apparition reappears. Senka quickly aims her weapon at it, but Akane suddenly pulls her back just when she draws back the trigger, causing the shot to miss.

In the next moment, Yasuko is cut in half from the crotch upward.

"Wait for them, she says... but I have a bad feeling about this." Lethia mutters and leans against the boarded up window casually. Aki slowly sits up from the dusty floor boards, holding her stomach and staring at the red-haired girl in the bodysuit cautiously. Her expression is filled with suspicion, but at the same time there a hint of pity at the thought that this otherwise perfect girl seems to have a weird streak to her.

"A-are you a spy?" She asks carefully, trying to discreetly creep away from her opposite at the same time. Not outright saying that she must be crazy is the best way to keep her from becoming violent, Aki's train of thought goes.

"Asking if the Russian transfer student is a spy... how original." Lethia lays on a thick Russian accent demonstratively and rolls her eyes. "I thought I told you it's better if you don't know." Spinning the gun in her hand once, she smiles mysteriously. "Just sit back and you have a fair chance of surviving this."

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

"Wh-what?" Aki's jaw drops.

"Oh yeah, you can't see it, so you have no idea." Pointing at her green eyes, the red-haired Russian begins to explain. "I think it's called a ghost here. But there's a perfectly scientific explanation for that phenomenon." Looking at her dumbfounded classmate, she shrugs and ceases any further attempts at teaching a simple high school girl about the wonders of the universe. "Just think of this as a horror movie. Use your common sense, don't do anything stupid and you should live to see tomorrow."

"Th-this is crazy... y-you are-" Her eyes wide open in fear, Aki points at Lethia and quickly gets up, before stumbling away down the hallway.

"Ah, wait!" She immediately runs after her. "That's exactly what I meant! Did you never watch any horror movies?"

"Leave me alone! I've never seen any, they're all dumb!" Aki screams and runs with all her might. However, the corridor before her just seems to continue on forever, and the flashlight is unable to illuminate it in its entirety, the light cone disappearing in the darkness before her.

"Well yeah, because the people in them act dumb on purpose! It creates drama where none should normally be!" Shouting after her, Lethia quickly catches up. "And splitting up is one of the dumbest things to do when you're being targeted by an unknown killer!" With a dropkick right into Aki's back, the red-headed girl brings her classmate down once more - just in time for her to avoid the shears cutting through where her neck would have been only a moment earlier.

"Agh, you... you... are crazy!" Rolling on the floor in pain, the poorly endowed girl glares at her busty assailant.

"I just saved your neck, so be more grateful." With an expression that seems to say that this is all just a major bother, Lethia looks around once again, to make sure that the apparition is not trying another attack right after. "Keep this up and I can't guarantee your life. I mean, it's not like I receive a bonus for rescuing your ass or anything." Squatting down next to Aki, she brings her face close to her opposite's, staring into her eyes with an intense gaze. "People die and disappear under mysterious circumstances all the time. If you don't want to become one of them, do as I say." Her expression is serious, no longer a hint of mischief in them. It is clear that she is annoyed.

"I-I understand..." Aki mutters, her whole body shaking in fear, as even the stinging pain in her back from the dropkick earlier seems to fade away under the shiver that runs over it at Lethia's soul-piercing green eyes.

"Great!" Returning to her previous laid back self, the latter points her gun at the wall next to them and pulls the trigger. Once again, a hole opens up without making a single sound, with the boom of an explosion following a split second after. Screaming at the suddenness of Lethia's actions, Aki holds her ears and backs away.

Beyond the destroyed wall is a storage room, and in the middle of it stands a vaulting horse - one that features a small but significant modification; the topmost block ends in a narrow edge rather than a cushioned surface. And straddled atop it is a ghostly figure, her arms tied behind her back and ropes binding her feet to weights meant to pull her downwards, causing the edge to dig into her exposed crotch. This is a wooden horse, a medieval torture device that has found its way into the sadomasochism branch of sexual deviation. However, the glowing apparition is very obviously not enjoying it, tears streaming down her face as she struggles against her restraints.

"Ohhh, nice~ ♡" Lethia grins at the sight, but since Aki is unable to see it, all she knows is that this crazy red-head appears to be happy to have discovered this sexual torture device. "I knew something was in here."

"Wh-what are y-you going to do w-with that?" She stutters nervously.

"Just ask it a few questions... wait, you can see it?" Surprised at this revelation, Lethia turns around to her classmate, just in time to notice the pair of hands holding garden shears coming out of the wall right beside the latter. With a quick motion, the quasar gun's setting is changed and fired at where the apparition's body should be. Just in time, the shears are drawn back, before a basketball-sized hole is punched through not only the wall but also the ground behind it. There is no sign of anything having been hit and Lethia clicks her tongue. "Tch, missed again."

"Ahhh, what's going ooon!!!" Aki screams, not understanding that she just barely escaped with her life for the third time in a row, even as her other classmates are dying one after another.

"Dammit, Akane!" Senka slaps the girl in question across the face to make her let go and activates the proton pack. She does not want to believe it, but this girl's actions have made it clear now. "To think you could fool even me..."

"... huh? Wh-what do you mean?" Akane looks around in confusion and holds her bleeding upper arm, where a coin-sized hole was burned out of the short-sleeved summer uniform. "What happened? Where is Asahina-san?" For a moment, Senka is taken by surprise at her reaction, but that moment of hesitation is enough.

Grabbing the stitched girl's delicate throat, Akane squeezes with all her strength. Under her seemingly inhuman grasp, a wet breaking noise emerges from Senka's neck and her whole body goes limp. Dropping her carelessly, the glasses girl looks down on the small corpse with a victorious smile on her lips.

"Ohhh, I always wanted to know what's under that mask." Akane remarks innocently, squats down and extends her hand to remove Senka's surgical mask. Suddenly, the latter grabs her wrist and twists it with unnatural strength, before snapping her head around and staring into the glasses girl's eyes with her intense blue ones. Pulling aside the mask on her own, the gruesome stitched scars forming an eternal grin are finally revealed. "Ah."

"Do you want to know how I got these scars?" With a low, almost growling voice, the stitched girl asks. Akane is unsure of whether that smile is because of the scars or her true feelings, but that has become irrelevant.

"Ohhh, don't we all have our similar circumstances? Hahahaha!" She laughs in delight and her jaws open farther than they should be able to. Her cheeks rip open, layers of thick makeup crumbling to reveal two jagged cuts reaching all the way up to her molars. Her irises turn corpse-white, their intense gaze meeting Senka's fearlessly. "Hey, tell me, am I pretty?"

"You're not my type." Blue irises become black, before their darkness spreads all across her sclera and then spills onto her face in a pattern reminiscent of a Rorschach image. In the next instant, space rips open and a pair of rusty garden shears snap out from inside it, cutting at Akane's face. Avoiding them by opening her mouth wide, the blades slash through where intact cheeks would have been, and she moves back to gain some distance.

"Ahahaha, Kuchisake-onna against Kuchisake-onna? What a twist of fate!" With an unnatural movement that would make any normal human's skin crawl from the sight, she stands up fully and removes her glasses, tossing them aside carelessly. A ghostly apparition comes out of the wall and hands her a pair of glowing garden shears, which immediately turn material the moment she takes hold of its handle.

"No, I'm not a Kuchisake-onna." Senka gets back up and cracks her neck demonstratively, showing off her teeth to express her feelings at having it snapped just moments earlier. "I'm the Avenger Doll."

"Aww, and here I thought we could have some fun with that. I don't have a doll template, yet." A playfully innocent pout on her lips, Akane responds with her head tilted. "But maybe I should add you, then?" Her face breaks out in a deranged, wide-eyed grin filled with sinister joy.

"Sorry to disappoint, but I'm not a spirit, either." Throwing the proton pack she dropped earlier towards her classmate, Senka grabs the rusted garden shears still suspended from a rift in space and pulls them out from it completely. Just as the portal disappears, her eyes return to normal.

"Then let me dissect you, and find out what you really are!" Swinging her own, new and completely clean weapon, she swats the proton pack out of the air and lunges forward.

"Now..." Lethia begins, but is immediately interrupted.

"Couldn't you help me sooner? You were staring at me for a long time! Did you enjoy the sight?" The ghostly girl is sitting on a gymnastic block after having been freed from the torture device, but she shows absolutely no hint of gratefulness. She is covering herself in a glowing blanket that appeared out of nowhere and looks at her savior with a frown.

"... you know what..." With a false smile, the red-haired girl mutters, an eyebrow twitching in irritation.

"I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!!!" The ghost is on the wooden horse once again, with even more weights attached to her legs than before. She pleads for release, but upon seeing the horse whip in Lethia's hands, her eyes go wide in dread. "No, please don't do this! I'm sorry for getting carried away! I won't do it again!"

"Hm, who knows? You might enjoy it~ ♪" It is clear that she is still angry at the ungrateful treatment of her goodwill, and she smacks the whip against a piece of gymnastic equipment demonstratively.

"Nooo!!!"

"What are you doing?" Aki watches, unable to see the ghost; therefore, all that is happening before her eyes is Lethia seemingly miming all kinds of movements while talking to herself. However, she is too scared to run away, lest she receives another dropkick to her back, or even gets shot by the gun that can blow entire walls away. "Who are you talking to?"

"Like I said, you can't see them, so there's no point in explaining. Just stay away from any walls, or else I'll have to keep my eyes on you all the time." Lethia's lacking explanation is compounded on by the fact that she casually waves at Aki to gesture that she should stop bothering her. "Now, for you."

"Please, anything! I'll do anything you say!" The girl on the wooden horse pleads, struggling against her restraints while trying to push herself up with the strength in her thighs alone. The weights bound to her ankles are too much, and her actions instead cause the edge to be driven deeper into her crotch.

"Anything, you say? Hmmm~ ♡" Looking up and down her body, Lethia licks her lips. "I've never done it with a ghost before, so this could be the perfect opportunity~ ♡" Her bodysuit has a phase adapter that allows her to touch phase-shifted apparitions as if they are within her plane of existence. It is what enabled her to free the ghostly girl and then restrain her again.

Seeing her expression, the girl shudders and squirms her body fruitlessly, unable to fight her restraints. Once again, the wooden edge grinds into her most precious spot and she moans in pain.

"But I don't have time for that right now... some other time maybe." Sighing, the red-haired girl shrugs and her expression returns to a serious one. "Tell me what you know about the one that's haunting this school and maintaining the illusion in the hallway."

"... no, I can't... I... anything but that!" Real fear enters the bound ghost's expression and she shakes her head frantically. "If I tell you anything about her, she'll eat me!"

"Eat you, huh? It would seem not in the sexual sense..." Tilting her head and rubbing her chin, Lethia mutters and frowns. Flicking a finger against the proton pack attached to her waist, she clicks her tongue once again. "Then this is going to be useless. I just hope Senka's not engaging her in a straight battle." A hint of worry appears in her expression as she looks up at the ceiling.