Villain: Your Heroines Were Delicious-Chapter 218 - 6

"Alright, don’t worry. We’ll solve this for you," Seijirou said. His voice was steady, but even as he spoke, the shadows in the corners of the room seemed to stretch and deepen, reaching toward the light like obsidian fingers.

"R-really?" Tamaki stared at them, her eyes wide and glassy, her pupils were so dilated they nearly swallowed the orange of her irises, reflecting a primal hope.

"Yes," Rindou added, her smile not reaching her eyes, which were darting toward the peripheral darkness. "You may not know this, but dealing with these anomalies is almost a normal thing for us. Just don’t go around spreading this, alright? Once this is solved, you must avoid any contact with the other side, after the closer you are to the supernatural, the more the things that dwell there; ghosts, the yokais, and things that have no name will want to feast on your presence. They live off fear, you s—"

Rindou’s voice was severed as the room suddenly darkened.

No, it didn’t just darken; the light was physically smothered, as if an invisible, oily shroud had been dropped over the ceiling lamps.

Then came the sound.

THUD. THUD. THUD.

A violent, rhythmic banging erupted against the heavy oak door.

It wasn’t the sound of a fist. it was the sound of a heavy, wet weight—like a slab of raw meat or a headless torso—being hurled repeatedly against the wood.

With every strike, the walls groaned, and the floorboards vibrated with a sickening, liquid squelch.

Tamaki’s breath hitched into a high-pitched, rhythmic wheeze, jer skin turned a translucent, sickly gray. "Here... Here! They’re here! Help! Help me! They’re coming through the cracks!"

She pointed a trembling finger at the door’s threshold, where a thick, black ichor began to seep inward, bubbling like boiling tar.

Seijirou’s brow furrowed as his silver-gold Ki suddenly flared outward in a silent, explosive pulse.

The divine pressure hit the room like a physical shockwave, and in that instant, the banging ceased.

The black liquid on the floor hissed and evaporated into a foul-smelling mist, and the unnatural shadows retreated, and the flickering lights stabilized into a harsh, clinical hum.

He retracted his Ki, his eyes remaining cold as he turned toward the sobbing girl. "I’m pretty sure Rindou applied some wards in this room, so as long as you stay within these walls, you are safe from those things."

Rindou nodded, though her face remained grim, "Indeed. You can take a moment to rest here, Kusana-san. I promise you, the barrier will hold."

Unlike Seijirou, who had only trained on how to fight, Rindou had actually learned exorcism from her grandfather, after all, as part of the Grand Order, it’s also his duty to ensure no unruly spirits would interfere in the living world.

"But this is only a temporary solution," Rindou stated, her voice echoing in the now-quiet room. "Once you leave this room, the wards can’t protect you. You will be assaulted again. The shadows will wait for you in the hallways; they will hide in the steam of your shower and the darkness under your bed. To truly solve this, to sever the cord they have wrapped around your soul, we need your help."

Tamaki flinched as if struck. "M-My h-help? I... I can’t even look at a mirror anymore..."

Rindou stood up, her silhouette casting a long, sharp shadow against the desk. "Spirits, even the most vengeful ones, do not hunt the living without cause. They are bound by the laws of the unseen. They only attack if a living soul intrudes upon their territory or if they harbor a powerful, obsessive feeling for a particular individual. These feelings... they are rarely kind. They are either a burning resentment or a suffocating, parasitic love."

"T-Then... is it because... I went to that hospital?" Tamaki’s voice was barely a whimper.

Rindou shook her head, her gaze piercing. "That couldn’t be it. If a simple trespass was the cause, the city would be overflowing with people being haunted by ghosts. So normally, those things wouldn’t have followed you all the way across the district to a warded school unless you brought something home... some object, some relic.... Did you?"

"No! I swear! I was too scared to even move my hands!" Tamaki cried.

"Then it can only mean one thing," Rindou said, her tone dropping into a chilling, low register. "The spirit has a particular... fixation on you. Maybe it recognized you, and it has been waiting for you."

"But... how? I... I’ve just arrived in the 24th District! My parents and I are from the 6th District! We have no history here! No relatives! How could a spirit from a twenty-year-old fire even know my name!" Tamaki’s voice rose into a panicked shriek.

Rindou didn’t blink. "I don’t know. That’s why we must go back. We need to find out why that place claims you as its own. We need to walk the halls of that abandoned hospital and find the source of the tether." 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

Tamaki froze and a cold sweat broke out across her forehead, and her eyes rolled back slightly as the memory of the scorched walls and the smell of old, wet ash seemed to fill her nostrils. "N-No! I... I don’t want to return there! Please! I’ll die! I saw the faces in the charred wallpaper! They were laughing at me!"

"Kusana Tamaki!" Rindou slammed her hand onto the desk, the sound cracked through the room like a gunshot, snapping the girl out of her trance. "Look at me! This is the only way! Do you want these things to hunt you for the rest of your life? Do you want to wake up one morning and find your own reflection has been replaced by something else? This ends tonight, or it never ends at all!"

Tamaki flinched, her body trembling with a violent, rhythmic shudder as she stared at Rindou for a few agonizing moments, her breath hitching, before she offered a weak, broken nod. "S-Sorry. I... I’ll help. I don’t want this... anymore."

"Good." Rindou’s expression softened, but only slightly. "For now, let us return to our class. Stay in the light. Do not go into the restrooms alone. Do not look into any darkened screens. And after school, we will set off."

"But—" Tamaki hesitated, looking toward the door.

"Don’t worry," Rindou said, walking toward her and placing a hand on her shoulder. "I will be with you. I will walk beside you, and my presence will act as a shield."

Tamaki still looked like a condemned woman, but she stood up, her legs wobbly. "A-Alright. Thank you, President."

Rindou turned her gaze toward Seijirou, who had remained a silent, looming presence throughout the exchange. "Seijirou, can I ask you to accompany us? I can handle the exorcism, but..."

Seijirou offered a small, gentle smile as he nodded. "No problem. I’ll tell the others that I won’t be going home with them. They’ll understand."

Rindou nodded, a brief flash of gratitude crossing her face. "Thank you. I feel better with you by my side."

She then turned to the trembling transfer student. "Alright, Tamaki-san. Let us go back."

As they walked out of the room, Seijirou glanced back at the door.

For a split second, he saw a pale, translucent hand with too many fingers slowly retreating back into the wood of the doorframe.

*

*

*

Tamaki walked timidly behind Rindou, and although her eyes fixed on the back of Rindou’s blazer, but she could feel them.

Thousands of imaginary needles pricked at her skin—the sensation of a gaze so heavy it felt physical.

Every time a student passed them in the hall, their footsteps sounded muffled, as if they were walking on human hair instead of tile.

Every shadows she sees felt like it would suddenly moved and drag her towards a deep, dark place.

Finally, she managed to breathe a sigh of relief when they arrived at their classroom, Class 2-A, which was already full of their classmates.

"Don’t worry, I’m here," Rindou said, her voice sounding strangely distant, as if she were speaking through a long, hollow pipe.

She patted Tamaki’s shoulder, her hand feeling unnaturally hot, before peeling off to her seat at the very front of the room.

Tamaki scurried to her own desk at the back.

She sat down, pulling her limbs in tight, trying to occupy as little space as possible as she lowered her head until her chin touched her collarbone, staring at the scarred wood of her desk.

’Just a few hours,’ she whispered to herself. ’I just need to endure for just a few more hours.’

Suddenly, the school bell rang.

It wasn’t the crisp, electronic chime she was used to, but a long, mournful toll—a heavy, metallic CLANG that vibrated deep in her chest cavity, sounding more like a funeral knell than a class signal.

Instantly, the ambient noise of the school, the distant shouting in the halls, the scraping of chairs, the rustle of bags, cut to absolute, dead silence.

Like a vacuum of sound so sudden it made her ears pop.

Tamaki didn’t look up, she didn’t even notice that the sound of the bell was already different.

Even the silence didn’t bother, after all, she knew the rules. Once the teacher arrives, the students fall silent.

It was a comfort, a sign of order.

She gripped her pen until her knuckles turned white, waiting for the familiar sound of the teacher’s footsteps or the scratch of chalk against the board.

One minute passed.

Then two.

Then five.

At that moment, the silence was no longer peaceful, it was eerie.

It began to hum, like the sound of dozens of people breathing in perfect, mechanical unison—a wet, heavy inhalation followed by a long, rattling wheeze.

’Why isn’t the teacher saying anything?’

Confused, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird, Tamaki slowly lifted her head.

The classroom was the same, yet fundamentally wrong.

The sunlight streaming through the windows had turned a sickly, bruised purple, casting long, distorted shadows that writhed on the floor like dying eels.

She looked toward the front of the room and saw that Rindou was there, but she sat perfectly still—too still.

Her back was as rigid as a tombstone, her head tilted at an impossible, ninety-degree angle toward the window.

Tamaki’s gaze drifted to the students sitting in the rows around her, and her breath hitched in her throat.

They weren’t her classmates anymore. Or rather, their bodies were there, but their faces had been replaced by something out of a fever dream.

Their skin looked like gray, wet parchment stretched too tight over bone, their eyes were gone, replaced by dark, empty holes that wept a thick, black ichor down their cheeks.

And they were all smiling.

Every single student in the room had their mouth pulled back into a wide, ear-to-ear grin that revealed rows of too-many teeth—teeth that were long, yellow, and sharp.

The corners of their mouths were split, dripping fresh blood onto their pristine white collars.

Then, the "teacher" at the front of the room turned around from the chalkboard.

It wasn’t a person.

It was a towering, spindly figure wrapped in charred surgical bandages, its face a smooth, featureless mask of skin with a single, vertical slit where the mouth should be.

Simultaneously, as if on a silent cue, every distorted figure in the room slowly turned their heads a full 180 degrees to face her, their bodies still facing the front.

The sound of their necks cracking in unison filled the silent room like the snapping of dry kindling.

Their smiles grew wider, the skin of their cheeks tearing further as they leaned toward her.

"Welcome back, Tamaki..." they whispered, their voices a thousand overlapping rasps that seemed to come from inside her own skull. "We missed your eyes..."

Tamaki’s vision blurred, the walls of the classroom beginning to pulse like a beating heart.

The gray, elongated fingers of the student in the desk next to her reached out, the nails jagged and black, grazing her arm with a touch that felt like ice-cold needles.

And the scream that tore from her throat was the only living sound in a room full of the dead.