Bang! Bang! Bang—
Amidst a continuous series of air blast explosions.
Yukino and Asuna watched with their own eyes as the monster had its face gripped by Hayashi. Its flesh and brains were constantly scorched and carbonized.
Finally, it even became somewhat diamond-like... It was truly terrifying violence, but what surprised Yukino and the others equally was how incredibly hard the monster's bones were!
Under such circumstances, its bones hadn't even shattered!
"This monster... truly has 'hard bones' in the literal sense."
Asuna sighed.
"Bones that can resist rules are naturally not ordinary."
Yukino recalled those unkillable anomalies and said coldly.
"Then what should we do? Although Hayashi-san has completely gained the upper hand now, he can't destroy its bones, so he can't kill it, right?"
Asuna asked worriedly.
"It is indeed a bit troublesome..." Yukino pondered with her head down.
"Extraordinary speed, almost invincible defense, and extremely strong regenerative ability. With the capabilities of our Anomaly Management Bureau, there's really no way to contain it..."
"Ordinary containment facilities simply can't stop it..."
Speaking of which, Yukino only felt that it was very tricky.
"Actually, it's not that tricky~"
Just then, Hayashi's voice sounded close by. Yukino looked up and found that the terrifying pounding had stopped.
Hayashi stood before them, holding the monster by its neck with one hand. Noticing Yukino's gaze, Hayashi raised the diamond-covered skeleton in his hand to her, then tossed it at his feet.
Then Yukino and the others saw that in just a moment, the creature's flesh quickly recovered. The charred, diamond-like skin peeled off, and soon it returned to its intact state.
However, at this moment, it did not attack Hayashi again like it had ambushed Yukino.
"Woo woo~~"
Instead, it let out mournful whimpers, whimpers devoid of any anger, only full of grievance, before digging a pit in the ground and burying its face in it.
'So... it's been attacking people so angrily all this time because it doesn't want others to see its face?'
Such an absurd reason flashed through her mind, and Yukino found it somewhat unbelievable.
At the same time, she was still curious about how Asuna had been targeted by this monster.
However, this point of doubt wasn't very important right now.
Yukino's cold, beautiful eyes looked at 096, which was acting like an ostrich, and she said to Hayashi with some uncertainty:
"It's been subdued by you?"
"Halfway, I guess! I believe that as soon as I leave its sight, it will go after anyone who has seen even a single pixel of it."
Hayashi clapped his hands.
It's worth mentioning that while the previous battle was just a warm-up for Hayashi, it was clear that his clothes couldn't withstand his warm-up and had literally burned away during the fight.
Therefore, Hayashi was completely bare-chested at this moment.
Just now, Yukino's and Asuna's attention had been focused on 096 and the battle, so they hadn't noticed.
But now... 096 had turned into an ostrich.
Yukino and Asuna naturally had spare attention, and finally, it fell upon Hayashi.
"Clo... clothes."
Asuna tried to suppress the impulse stemming from her genetic instinct, offering her jacket to Hayashi, but she couldn't control her gaze, which was involuntarily drawn to Hayashi's upper body... It wasn't until Hayashi took the jacket and put it on that she suddenly came back to her senses, her cheeks slightly flushed, filled with shyness.
'Was my gaze just now too infatuated...?'
Just as Asuna was thinking with full shyness, she noticed that a blush also flashed across Yukino's cool, pretty face and her breathing also hitched slightly... 'Yukino-san... blushed!'
Asuna was slightly surprised; after all, Yukino-san was as cold as ice at Shuchi'in Academy.
She had never heard of her having any romantic rumors with any boy... 'But Yukino-san acting like this is probably normal...'
Thinking of this, Asuna looked regretfully at Hayashi, who was already covered by her jacket.
Leaving aside the maidenly thoughts of Yukino and Asuna at this moment.
After putting on the jacket with a girlish scent, Hayashi's attention returned to 096, stroking his chin as if contemplating something.
"Hoo~~!"
Yukino took a deep breath, and with a bit of icy mist, she finally suppressed her wildly beating heart.
—By freezing it.
At the same time, she also wiped away the blush on her face, returning to her cool demeanor, as if she hadn't been attracted by Hayashi's upper body muscles like Asuna and hadn't secretly peeked.
"Is there a good way to deal with it?"
"What else can we do? This guy is very shy, so shy that it wants to kill anyone who sees its face. Even a picture is the same."
"So, it's still..."
At this point, Hayashi showed through his actions what he was going to do. Asuna and Yukino only saw Hayashi's figure suddenly flash.
The next moment, Hayashi pulled a husky head mask from some unknown shop, then, like pulling a radish.
He pulled 096 out of the ground and put the husky head mask on it.
"Just treat it as my dog and keep it by my side!"
Hayashi said with a smile.
096 shook the husky head mask on its head, seemingly quite satisfied with this state, and squatted obediently beside Hayashi.
Of course, if it could kill everyone who had seen its photos, it would be even happier.
After all... because some living-dead task force injected viruses into base stations and servers.
Its photos were still circulating wildly online!
As soon as it sensed that so many people had seen its face and remembered its appearance, it felt uncomfortable all over!
However... 096 looked up at Hayashi beside it, and instantly it became sad and dejected again, not daring to make any moves.
"Keep it as a dog..."
Hearing this, Yukino's eyes, which were always calm like autumn waters, rippled almost imperceptibly, unsure whether it was admiration for Hayashi's boldness or something else.
If she remembered correctly, Hayashi's current power was obtained by gambling his life with the authority of Mad Gambling, and it was time limited.
He couldn't possibly maintain such power indefinitely, yet he dared to keep the creature by his side in this situation.
Yukino opened her mouth, wanting to remind Hayashi of the danger of doing this, but then she thought of how she had been overly confident and almost ambushed by the monster and how Hayashi had saved her.
Yukino ultimately closed her mouth... Overconfidence that backfired was arrogance, but for Hayashi... perhaps he was genuinely confident.
'I've really failed as a senpai...'
While admitting her failure internally, the competitive Yukino also wanted to regain her senpai's prestige in front of Hayashi even more.
People can't always mess up, right!
"Next time..."
Yukino thought to herself.
Editor's notes:
The chapter might be shorter than usual; I deleted so much meaningless praise about MC's upper body (1 or 2 paragraphs' worth).