Dead Man's Tales: HSOTD

( More chapters on [email protected]/LordCampione.)

The police officer's voice was still ringing in Kozen's ears. "You're lucky, kid. Could've been charged with battery for assaulting him in a police station, but considering the circumstances, we'll let it slide."

Battery. That's what they would've nailed him for. Kozen held his tongue as he listened to the officer chew him out. Anyone with a pair of functioning eyes could see that Takashi had slapped Rei first. He didn't step in until it was necessary, but the officer didn't seem to care much about that. "Deescalating the situation," he said. Yeah, sure. 

Deescalating my ass, Kozen thought.

After they'd finally gotten Rei's side of the story—especially the part about her being stalked by that same car—Kozen felt the tension slowly easing, but it didn't completely leave. The cop kept talking about how everything had been handled properly. Kozen tuned him out as his thoughts wandered back to earlier.

That car. 

It had followed Rei, waited for the right moment, but… why hadn't they done anything before the movie? They had their chance. 

Why wait until after? 

Kozen couldn't make sense of it, and the more he thought about it, the more his frustration grew. He shrugged it off for now. It didn't matter.

Once everything in the police station was wrapped up, a kind officer offered to drop them off at their homes. 

Kohta, Rei, Hisashi with a knocked out Takashi and Kozen climbed into the back of the car, and as they pulled away from the station, he felt the tight knot of anger still lodged in his chest.

When the car finally stopped at their place, Kozen told the officer he'd walk the rest of the way home. 

"You sure, son? It's late."

Kozen grinned. "Don't worry, in the dark I'm invisible." He pointed to his black skin, and Kohta and Rei laughed at the joke. 

Still, it was nice to see Rei smile, even if it was just for a moment after everything that had happened.

He waved as the car sped off into the night, watching until the taillights faded from view.

But the truth was, Kozen didn't just want fresh air. 

No, he had a different reason for walking. He wanted to see if that stalker was still lurking. Maybe they'd come after him now, maybe they were still out there watching. He was bait, and he wanted to see if they'd take it.

Kozen wasn't just mad. He was furious. Whoever was behind that wheel had nearly run him over, and if it hadn't been for the others, who knew what might've happened. If he hadn't been so focused on keeping it together, he probably would've done more than just throw rocks. He could've chased after that car, caught up with the driver. And then… what? What would he have done?

His fists clenched at the thought. Don't go there, he reminded himself. He'd worked too hard to control that side of him, the side that got a little too comfortable with anger. His breaths came out slow, deliberate. In… out… just like he'd practiced. Still need to get better at controlling that.

Kozen started to jog, the steady rhythm of his feet hitting the pavement helping to calm his nerves. The night was quiet, only the distant hum of traffic breaking the silence. His eyes scanned the street for anything out of the ordinary, but so far, it was just him and the empty sidewalks. Still, he couldn't shake the feeling that someone was watching, lurking just out of sight, waiting for the right moment to strike again.

Come on, where are you? He thought, his anger simmering just below the surface. I'm right here.

Okay, it's just my paranoia, Kozen thought, as the hours dragged on and nothing suspicious had happened. He'd been pretending to be on his phone for the last forty-five minutes, hoping it might bait whoever was out there if they were still watching him. But nope, nothing. He was about ten minutes away from home, and at this point, he was starting to shrug it all off. Maybe the driver was just after Rei for some reason, he reasoned, though the thought still sat uneasily in the back of his mind.

Kozen scrolled through his phone, looking for something to distract himself, and ended up opening YouTube. That's when a video about the Biei incident popped up. Of course, he knew about it. Everyone did. It was all over the news. A whole town missing, just gone. But unlike most people who probably thought it was just a tragic mystery, something about it nagged at Kozen. Not in a conspiracy theory kind of way—he wasn't one for wild theories—but he had a gut feeling that this wasn't a natural disaster. Something about it felt… off.

Maybe it was the fact that I wasn't even supposed to be in this world, he thought. My life already jumped into the supernatural the day I got isekai'd here. Who's to say that his path couldn't take another strange turn?

Kozen paused for a second, then shook his head, smacking himself lightly on the forehead. "Stop watching so many fantasy movies, idiot," he muttered to himself with a smile, pushing that ridiculous thought aside. Still, curiosity got the better of him, and he clicked on the video. He skipped the intro, obviously—he wasn't about to sit through some guy's five-minute plug for his merch. Not today.

The video was a compilation of different conspiracy theories, the same tired stuff that always pops up when something unexplainable happens. Oh, it was aliens. Oh, it was an antimatter bomb dropped by the government, and they're going to take revenge on America. Kozen couldn't help but snort at that one. There was no evidence, just some guy rambling. At least the alien guy tried to bring up some "ancient alien" nonsense to make his point. Still dumb, though.

Then, the next theory caught Kozen's attention.

The video showed satellite data, pointing out how all the satellites over Hokkaido had shut down for exactly five minutes before the event. No signals, no data—just a complete blackout. At the same time, there had been reports of a massive earthquake in Biei, but the footage showed that it wasn't like a normal earthquake. The ground didn't shake randomly or with aftershocks. It was more like something had hit the earth—a direct impact. The tremors were too localized, too sudden. Like bombs being dropped. And then there was the image of the hole.

It was perfect. A perfect, unnatural circle in the ground. No fissures, no cracks. Just a giant, clean-cut hole. It didn't look like something nature could've created.

"Whatever conclusion you make from this video is your own," the narrator said. "We personally believe it to be some kind of alien attack… mostly because that's the fun option."

Kozen had to give the guy credit for his honesty, at least. The evidence was interesting, though. It was like something or someone had deliberately wiped Biei off the map, erasing it completely. But what? He wasn't about to dive headfirst into alien conspiracy territory, but he couldn't shake the feeling that something happened there—something big—and whoever or whatever caused it wanted to keep it hidden.

Maybe it was God, Kozen thought with a half-smirk. Who knows?

As he approached his house, he noticed the porch light was on. Oh, Rika must be back.

Kozen opened the door slowly, immediately on high alert. Rika had this habit of throwing her slippers at him whenever he came home late. Something about testing his reflexes, she'd always say. But no slippers came flying at his head this time. Instead, he saw her sitting in the living room, deep in thought, staring at the floor like it held the answers to the universe.

Was she mad at me for being late? He wondered. Rika trusted him a lot, but she still had her overprotective side, especially considering it was 1 a.m. He couldn't blame her for that.

"Sorry, I'm late," he began, trying to sound casual. "Some asshole tried to run over my friends and me, so we had to report it to the police, and you know how long that takes."

Nothing. She didn't even look at him.

What the hell? Now Kozen was starting to get worried. Rika never acted like this, never stayed silent like this. He stood there, awkwardly shifting his weight, unsure of what to do. He puckered his lips, thinking. Is she really that mad?

"You know what?" he said, trying to break the tension. "I'm hungry. Let's make some garlic bread." Rika loved his garlic bread. It was the go-to whenever she came back from a particularly rough mission. It always seemed to cheer her up.

But she didn't move. Didn't react. Instead, she finally spoke up, her voice flat, almost too calm.

"I quit my job."

Kozen blinked, not really sure how to process that. "Oh." That was all he could manage. Do I congratulate her? Do I ask why? His mind was spinning, unsure of what to say.

"I took out a dozen loans," she said again. Her voice was still calm, matter-of-fact. Like she was reciting a shopping list.

What? He blinked again, the words not sinking in fully. A dozen loans? His mouth opened to ask why, but before he could get a word out, she dropped another bombshell.

"You're dropping out of school."

Kozen's mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water. What the hell was happening? Everything was happening so fast that his brain was struggling to keep up. He hadn't even processed the first thing she said, and now he was supposed to just accept that he was dropping out of school? This felt like a whirlwind he hadn't signed up for.

"I'm going to teach you everything I know," Rika continued, her eyes still fixed on some invisible spot on the floor. "And we have three months to do it."

He just stood there, speechless. There were a million questions bouncing around in his head, all fighting for attention. Why? What the hell is going on? Why the rush? What about the loans? But none of them made it out of his mouth.

Instead, Kozen looked at her—really looked at her. Rika had always been like a mother to him, even if she didn't show it in the most conventional ways. If she was going through all this trouble, quitting her job, taking out loans, and pulling him out of school, then something serious was happening. Something she wasn't ready to tell him yet. 

He nodded slowly, meeting her gaze for the first time that night. "I trust you."

The weight of his words hung in the air, and in that moment, Kozen realized he had no idea what he'd just signed up for. Rika wasn't the type to make empty promises or take things lightly. Whatever was about to happen, it wasn't going to be easy.

What he didn't know was that the next few months were going to be hell. Not figuratively—literally hell. Rika wasn't just planning to teach him. She was going to push him beyond his limits, demand perfection, expect nothing less than his absolute best. And he had no idea what that would mean for him.