Page 143 of Damsel in Disguise

Six hours of no smiling but only shedding tears at a stretch.

Six hours of promising to myself that I’d never allow myself to cry again or stop smiling.

Surprisingly the Kurome mother gifted escaped any blood stains. I pick it up and set it beside the now-dead radio.

Then I open the windows to let fresh air come in with a broad smile.

When the dawn finally hits, I carry that same smile with me, moving back into a world that has no idea what it’s about to accommodate.

On the fourth night, I leave the house not to run but to test.

People move through the world believing they’re safe, believing rules and systems exist to protect them, believing no one’s watching closely enough to notice their patterns.

I prove them wrong.

I study their routines, their blind spots, the predictable paths they follow without ever questioning why. I insert myself into those patterns with quiet precision just to clean this planet of them.

Not once, not twice, but repeatedly, methodically, each encounter refining something that has already begun taking shape inside me.

And then, when morning comes, I return to school.

I take my usual seat, open my books to the exact page I have left them on, and complete my work with the same consistency that has always kept me invisible.

Having the whole house to myself only, it helps me focus on my studies without any unnecessary interruption.

My uniform stays neat, my handwriting precise, my answers correct. Teachers continue to nod in quiet approval, smiling at me enthusiastically, occasionally pausing beside my desk with that familiar expression—the one that suggests I’m something worth noticing, but never quite enough to investigate further.

I became the ideal student of the entire campus.

No one mentions having no new bruises on my skin, and the old ones fading. No one questions why I seem calmer.

I killed those bullies too.

Children still laugh, still push, still test boundaries they don’t understand, and I allow it when it serves me, ignore it when it doesn’t.

Their behavior has become predictable, their cruelty repetitive, their presence no more significant than background noise.

By then, I’ve already learned where my attention is better spent.

The moment the sun dips low enough to blur the edges of the day, something in me changes with it—one that feels more natural than anything I perform under fluorescent classroom lights.

The same hands that turn pages and solve equations are the same hands that take back their axe to haunt worthless, pathetic creatures.

Day offers observation.

Night allows application.

I move through both without conflict, maintaining one existence while perfecting another. The separation between them is so clean it almost feels intentional—as if the world itself has divided into two systems, and I’ve simply learned how to operate smoothly within both.

Some struggle. Most don’t.

It was interesting, at first, to see the people shocked to see a twelve-year-old smiling boy approaching them with an axe.

To watch them struggle to stay alive like worms. To observe the instinctive way their bodies resist the inevitable, clinging to a desperate hope of survival that’s already slipping beyond their control.

There’s a pattern to it, a rhythm in the panic, in the way breath turns uneven and movements grow sloppy. Survival itself follows a structure I can study and understand.

It makes me wonder if my mother fought the same way.