Read Boogiepop Returns VS Imaginator Part 1 for Free Online

upper body exposed. Five of the boys stood around her, reaching towards her. One stood to the side, dazed, blood running from his mouth.
    “Well, this is easy to figure out!” Asukai's voice boomed.
    All the boys spun towards him.
    “-- ! Wh-who are you?!”
    “Just to make sure, I'd better ask. You there,” Asukai pointed to the odd boy out, the one who'd clearly been beaten. “Do you want to save this girl?”
    The confidence in Asukai's voice brought the boy out of his daze. He quickly nodded, “Y-yes.”
    “Then take her and run!” Asukai said, walking straight through the boys, taking the girl's arm, and pulling her out.
    “Hey!” The boys said, lurching towards Asukai.
    “Hmph,” he snorted, and did something to one of them, too fast for anyone to see.
    The boy fell over backwards.
    “----?!”
    The others shrank backwards, surprised. Asukai pushed the unresisting girl towards the bleeding boy. “Go! Get out of here!!”
    “Th-thank you,” the boy mumbled, scrambling away. He grabbed the girl's hand, and ran.
    “Wait!” the others shouted, but when they tried to follow, they found Asukai between them.
    “You wait,” he said, a fearless smile on his face.
    “Oh, yeah?!” They shouted, pulling knives from their pockets.
    Asukai didn't bat an eyelash at the blades. “I've got no grudge against you,” he said. “But I need a few more samples.”

    ***

    One minute later --
    Everyone else was sprawled on the ground. Only one of the boy thugs was still standing.
    Strangely enough, all of their injuries were caused by each other's knives.
    “Ah. . . ahhhh. . .” the last boy moaned, his teeth chattering together. Asukai came over to him, waving his right hand over his chest.
    “Wh-wh -- wh -- what did you do to them?”
    “You wouldn't understand. But I haven't hurt them. I've given them happiness.”
    His words, his calm, scared the boy more than anything else in his short life.
    “Wh-what the hell are you?”
    “Mm? Let's see. . . what was that name?” Asukai looked behind him.
    The girl hanging in the sky above him replied, “Imaginator!”
    “Right. .. that ,” Asukai grinned. . . and his right hand snapped out towards the boy.
    There was a muffled scream.

II

    You can fall in love if you like.
All I can do is. . . pray that it does
not destroy you both.

-- Kirima Seiichi ( VS Imaginator )

    Her name was Orihata Aya.
    She had big striking eyes, with large pupils -- though, they almost never looked at you directly. Very beautiful, but an incredibly reckless personality, and she always spoke in a very terse fashion. She was the same age as me, which is, well, fifteen, but there was a sort of sobriety about her that most adults never managed to develop.
    “Masaki, why are interested in me?”
    “Um, I just thought we could. . . I dunno, be friends, you know?”
    “You want me?”
    “Hunh?!”
    “Do you want to have sex with me?”
    “Hey, Orihata -- !”
    “'We can if you want to.”
    Yeah, many of our conversations were a lot like this.
    She seemed like she didn't even have friends at her school, and until she met me, I had my own doubts whether she'd ever had a normal conversation before.
    Oh, right. . . my name's Taniguchi Masaki, and as you can probably guess, Orihata and I. . . we're complete opposites. It's funny, though; Orihata and I met in the most messed up kind of way.
    At the time, I had just returned to Japan to get ready for high school after having lived abroad with my parents for a while, which was in this place called Phnom Penh. I was not really all that comfortable with my surroundings yet, and I'd heard horror stories from my parents about how other Japanese students had this tendency to keep their distance from returnees.
    Luckily, I also have a sister -- who isn't actually related to me -- who's spent her entire life in Japan. She said, “Sadly, that's true. They're all pathetic losers, afraid of anyone who does something different or thinks about crap in a