Chapter Text
“The Kuchisake-han-akuma?”
It was currently lunch break, and 3 boys sat around a desk, discussing whatever could entertain them in order to get through another boring day in Lagunica High School. And recently a new rumor had been flooding the halls of the school.
“Yes, Natsuki-san, the Slit-Mouth Half-Devil.” Otto spoke with a grim look as he fiddled with his green hat to alleviate the fear he felt, “Recently there have been more sightings of her, this creepy woman who preys on those who are unfortunate enough to encounter her.”
Not buying this, the golden-haired one grunted his suspicions, “How are ya so sure this ain’t just some crackhead causing a ruckus?”
“Yeah, Garf’s right, probably just some crazy person who’s playing pranks to scare little kids.” The other boy with black hair and mean eyes chimed in, not believing Otto and backing up his brash friend. “And the real scary part is that it’s actually working; you’re over here cowering. How are you even going to get a girlfriend if you're pissing your pants over a joke?” He taunted his naive friend.
“Yeah, Ottobro, the cap’n’s right, be a man!” Garf roared, standing up from his chair, causing the other students not involved in their bubble of three to look over at them in surprise and annoyance.
“I’m not making it up!!!” Otto whined, flailing his arms around while Subaru and Garfiel just laughed at him. “Listen, just the other day Gaston, Rachins, and Camberly, from the other class, encountered her, and they’ve been scared straight!”
“Huh, who?” His reasoning seemed to fall on deaf ears, however.
“Tom, Chin, and Kan, Garf. You know, those wannabe thugs who tried to rob us once.” Subaru said as he lazily drew a bad caricature of the trio in order to jog the young boy's memory.
Now being on the same page as his friends, Garfiel opened his mouth, “Oh, those runts. Heh, they’re just wimps making up a story to get attention.”
“It could be, but then why are they not here? Wouldn’t they want to be surrounded by people? Not to mention when they were found, they seemed to be in pretty bad shape, even pissing their pants.” Otto countered.
“Hmmm, that is true. Why would they make up something and not make themselves the heroes?” Subaru wondered, as he knew for a fact that he totally would’ve made himself brave and glorious if he were to stir a rumor to impress people.
“Cause they're stupid.”
“That’s a pretty good point too.” Subaru chuckled softly, his gaze looking nowhere, but the seeds that Otto planted were definitely growing each passing second.
The conversation came to a slow halt, as there was only silence now. The other two looked at Subaru, who was now in deep thought with his eyes closed and his right hand rubbing his chin.
Suddenly his eyes snapped open, and his scary gaze was full of excitement. He slammed his hands on the desk and declared to his friends, as a leader would announce a mission, “Since we don’t know if it’s true or not, let's go check it out!”
Immediately Garfield agreed in support of the genius idea, “Yeah, that's right, cap'n; myself couldn’t have said it better!”
“WHAT?! Wait a minute, that's a horrible idea!” The voice of reason tried to do his duty.
“Why else would you even tell us about it if you didn’t expect us to check it out? This is honestly your fault, Otto; you can’t tell us something so interesting and be surprised when we’re interested.” But it was to no avail as Subaru crossed his arms, firm in his resolve.
“That’s right!” Garfiel smacked his back with furious slaps.
“Ahhh, don’t pin this on me. I just wanted to talk about something fun, just talk, not explore.” The ashen-haired boy reasoned, knowing inside that this would not dissuade the stubborn boys in front of him.
“Well, too late now.” He shot him down as the fire in him to investigate this mystery grew. “Tsk tsk, you should’ve known who you were talking to; aren’t you supposed to be smart?”
“Come on, Ottobro, don't chicken out now. If the bitch is real, we'll just beat her up.” Punching his other palm, Garf offered a not-so-bright solution to his friend's query.
“That's not how it works, you moron!” Otto had to resist the urge to bang his head on his table. Why on Earth did he even become friends with such hardheaded idiots, he wonders.
Subaru slyly put his arm around him and leaned in closer like a devil whispering temptations of going down the wrong path, “Just think about it rationally, Otto, if this demon is fake, then we have nothing to worry about.” He held up a finger and then another. “And if she is, then we can get pretty famous if we manage to get proof of it.”
“What if we end up like those other three and embarrass ourselves? Then what, huh?”
The devil beside him just smirked, “But we are nothing like those idiots, or are you saying that we’re on their level?”
Otto grumbled in his seat before realizing that there was no getting away from this situation and eventually caving in, “Fine, fine, I’ll go, but just know if she’s real and starts chasing us, I'm sacrificing you in order to get away first, Natsuki-san!” He declared with an accusatory finger, which just earned him the chuckle of his 2 friends who knew he wasn’t the type of coward to leave them behind.
And so the school day had just ended, and without skipping a beat, the 3 boys, still in their navy blue uniforms, began their march towards their quest of uncovering the mystery of the Slit-Mouth woman.
“So Cap’n, who are ya texting?” asked a curious Garf as he saw Subaru on his phone, not paying much attention to the way ahead.
Subaru looked up while typing, “Oh, just my lil sis.” He calmly explained while putting his phone back in his pocket as he finished the task, “I usually pick her up on the way, so I had to tell her to walk with her friends since I won’t be with her today.”
“Speaking of sisters, you should tell yours the same.” Otto spoke from Subaru's left to Garfiel.
“Huh? Why, I don’t walk with er?” Confusion was evident in his face and tone.
“Yeah, but you have a curfew, and you don’t want to get in trouble, do you now? Frederica-san is pretty strict when it comes to breaking the rules.” Otto reminded him with a sigh of his forgetfulness. His friend was blessed with strength, but when it comes to brains, well… There's a reason he and Subaru had to be with Garfiel.
The boy in the middle stepped in. “This won’t take that long though, just a quick mission, in and out.”
Otto’s head dropped in defeat. “Natsuki-san, this is a yokai, and if we are to assume correctly, do you really think she’ll show up that easily?”
“She showed up in front of TomChinKan, so it shouldn’t be that hard, right?” Garf laughed in agreement with Subaru’s words.
“Yeah, but she scarred them for life; maybe we should at least get more people.” Truly worrying was the green-hatted boy's greatest trait. “What about Reinhard? I heard he's blessed by the gods; he would be useful.” A glimmer of hope seemed to shine in his eyes.
“No way ya don’t need that prick while my great self is here Ottobro!” Well shucks, Subaru is still rational, right?
“Nah, no way, that handsome prick will get all the credit, and we will be sidelined.” God blessed Reinhard with all that he needed and then cursed Otto with such selfish, moronic companions.
Realizing he didn’t know much about the creature they were after, Subaru questioned their intel, “Wait, so what does this woman even look like? How do we even know it’s her?”
“Well, according to sources, whenever she's nearby, there is this purple haze around her, strong enough to make birds drop dead.” Otto’s pace slowed down, his voice quiet. “She wears a black dress with orange ornaments; from afar it's almost like she's just a shadow, but her most defining feature is this pitch-black veil that covers her face.”
The noise of the world around the three died down, as if they were speaking of something taboo that was never meant to be heard by nature. There was no one else on this lonesome road but them. Them and the strange presence each one of them subconsciously felt behind them.
Trying to ignore the fear of their surroundings, Garfiel and Subaru focused intently, with faint sweat falling down the neck of the latter.
“It is said that she covers it on purpose to hide her deformity, a slit mouth.” Somehow the world got even quieter as Otto’s voice hushed even more, “She creeps up on her victims and asks them one singular question. ‘Am I pretty?’
Subaru gulped, “A-and what then?”
“Then it depends on your answer. If you answer no, she kills you, but if you say yes, then…”
“T-he-en what?” Subaru grew pale as even Garfiel got closer to him in order to find some comfort.
Otto’s face grew dark, his eyes being covered by the brim of his hat. “She then takes off her veil, showing to them her hideous face.” He stopped walking completely, bringing together his friends to abide by his choice.
The audience of two boys waited patiently for their friend to continue, but he didn’t say a word; only silence preceded his words.
“H-ey Otto, what’s after that?” Subaru reached out in worry.
Otto's eyes narrowed in hurt, his brow furrowed, and his hands clenched together. It stayed like that for a few solid seconds before…
“I don’t know.” He shrugged, instantly killing the mood.
“Dude, what the hell!!!”
“Ya what’dya mean you don’t know!?” In a reprimanding manner, he pushed him lightly.
Otto drew a sheepish smile and rubbed the back of his head. “I only got that far into the article.” He pulled out his phone to show them.
“Dude, seriously?” Subaru let out a relieved sigh and grabbed Otto’s phone to check the rest. “You scared us there.”
“Huh! No way, Cap’n, I wasn’t scared at all.” Opting to keep his fantasy, the boy with sharp teeth denied the truth.
“Oh yeah? Why were you clinging on to me then?” Eyes glued to the phone, Subaru questioned nonchalantly.
“I was just comforting you, Cap’n, since ya seemed so scared!”
“Uh huh.” No one believed him, of course. “Anyways, there isn’t really an answer to the question, it seems like. The article just says no one lived to tell the tale beyond that.” He handed back the phone. “The person making this up probably couldn’t think of a proper conclusion to the story. Who wrote this anyways?”
“I don’t know some mysterious user named DDonna who only ever posts about scary urban legends like an eight-foot-tall woman with purple hair or a starved little girl who ate her own mother and became a cannibalistic spirit.”
Subaru couldn’t believe what he was even hearing: “What kind of weirdo is making this stuff up?”
“Probably someone with way too much free time on their hands.” A bizarre person indeed.
“Speaking of which, they seem to really hate this creature for some reason. The words "ugly," "unlovable," and "whore" kept popping up in every other sentence. They must have a bone to pick with this woman." The mean-eyed boy pointed out the oddity in the story. Wondering why there seemed to be this comical level of hate towards this monster.
Otto crossed his arms in response, “Yeah, I don’t know what’s up with that either; nothing like that happened in the other stories. Just this one.” They decided to drop the topic since it seemed insoluble.
“Anyways, aside from the weird jabs at the monster, it's a pretty good story.” Subaru nodded with his hand cupping his chin. He reminisced on the fear he felt at that moment, like the woman actually was there, saying, “Honestly gave me and Garf a pretty good scare.”
Blushing red, the said boy pumped his fist in defiance towards his black-haired friend, “L-like I said, Cap’n, I ain’t some scardy cat!”
THUD
With absolutely zero hesitancy and pure instincts, Garfiel jumped into Subaru's arms, his own latching around him as he held him in a bridal carry.
Looking back at the source of the sound, Subaru let out a sigh, “Calm down, Garf, it's just a rock.” Subaru sweatdropped. “Plus we’re not even there yet, right, Otto?” The cat still in his arms, Subaru turned to their pathfinder for reassurance. However, he was met not with agreement but rather the frightened back of Otto, who was already sweating. About to deliver a sentence that would send chills down their spines.
“N-natsuki-san, we are already at the location.”