A Strange Girl
dark heroA Strange Girl
The director leaned back in his chair, intrigued.
“Hmm… a high-stakes bet?”
“Yes,” Nezu replied. “If I win, I want Teacher Hannah removed from our class. That’s my first condition.”
“And if you lose?”
“I’ll have my family make another generous donation to the school.” Nezu paused as if considering the amount. “Let’s say thirty million?”
The director’s eyes immediately moved toward Diana.
She simply nodded, confirming her son’s offer.
“Deal,” the director said. “But you said that was your first condition. What are the others?”
“Second condition. Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, and Applied Technology are a waste of my time.”
The director raised an eyebrow.
“Once a week, I’ll take a test prepared by an impartial teacher. Each week, the test will cover the material of a different grade. If I get the maximum score, I move on to the next grade. Once I’ve proven that I already understand all the material, I want to be permanently excused from those classes.”
The director scratched his chin.
“That’s quite the request. Exempting a student from that much of the curriculum could create some problems. If you lose, what exactly are you offering that makes bending our rules worthwhile?”
“I don’t believe I’m asking you to break any laws,” Nezu replied calmly. “But if I fail, expel me. You receive the thirty million and get rid of a troublesome student at the same time.”
For a moment, the director stared at him.
Then he smiled.
“Correct. I was testing you. We wouldn’t be breaking any laws, merely a few school rules that can be… adjusted.”
He extended his hand.
“I’ll take your bet. Either this school has a genius on its hands, or it receives a very generous contribution. I’m satisfied with either outcome.”
Nezu shook his hand.
And so, a bet unlike anything the school had ever seen was made.
After Nezu left the office, Diana and the director remained behind to formalize the agreement. A contract was signed, and Diana privately agreed that even if her son succeeded, the school would still receive reasonable compensation for accepting such an unusual arrangement.
The results came quickly.
Nezu tore through test after test.
Before long, he was exempt from almost his entire normal schedule.
What he did with the resulting free time was largely his decision. There were only two major restrictions: he couldn’t leave the campus during school hours, and he couldn’t disturb classes that were still in session.
Everything else was fair game.
Nezu spent the first week familiarizing himself with the sixth and seventh-grade textbooks, making sure there were no unexpected gaps in his knowledge.
The following week, he decided to explore.
If he couldn’t leave the school, he might as well learn everything there was to know about it.
He wandered through corridors, inspected common areas, opened every door he was allowed to open, and memorized the layout of every building he could access.
One thing quickly became obvious.
The school was enormous.
Far too enormous for the number of students currently attending it.
Entire sections seemed almost abandoned. There were unused rooms, empty corridors, storage areas that hadn’t been touched in years, and even whole sections of buildings that appeared to serve no purpose whatsoever.
One afternoon, his wandering brought him to a completely deserted floor.
Or at least, he thought it was deserted.
At the far end of the corridor, light escaped from beneath a closed door.
Nezu stopped.
Curiosity immediately won.
He approached quietly, tiptoeing down the corridor so he wouldn’t disturb whoever was inside.
As he passed the door, a voice reached his ears.
“…and this is how you should cross the street safely.”
Nezu froze.
What?
He slowly crouched beside the door.
This time, he was absolutely eavesdropping on purpose.
Who was inside there that needed to be taught how to cross a street?
“Now, let’s proceed to how to use a microwave.”
Nezu’s expression became even stranger.
What kind of lesson is this?
He remained there.
For the next thirty minutes, the lesson continued with things even a five-year-old should have known.
How to cross a road.
How to use basic household appliances.
How to behave in simple public situations.
Things so mundane that Nezu couldn’t understand why they needed to be taught at all.
Was the person inside in a coma for the last ten years or something?
Eventually, curiosity got the better of him.
Nezu stood and carefully leaned toward the door, intending to sneak a quick look inside.
At that exact moment, it opened.
A petite blonde girl stepped out.
She stopped.
Nezu stopped.
Their eyes met.
Before Nezu could say a single word, the girl’s face turned bright red.
She immediately ran.
Nezu remained beside the doorway, watching her disappear around the corner.
What a strange girl.
The following day, the entire floor was inaccessible, even to most teachers.
Nezu was fairly certain that had something to do with him.
He spent another week exploring the remaining buildings. By the end of it, he suspected that only the director knew the campus better than he did.
Eventually, the strange blonde girl faded into the back of his mind.
There were more important things to think about.
Like a kitten.
“Meow! Meow!”
Nezu and Segu stopped on their usual walk home.
“Did you hear that?” Segu asked.
Another cheerful meow came from somewhere nearby.
The siblings followed the sound until they discovered a narrow dirt path almost completely hidden behind bushes.
Naturally, they followed it.
At the end of the path sat a small black kitten, happily eating from a freshly filled bowl.
Nezu immediately crouched.
“Come here.”
The kitten looked at him.
Nezu reached forward.
The kitten bolted.
“Hey!”
It scrambled up a nearby tree and settled safely on one of the lower branches.
Nezu stared upward.
The kitten peeked down.
Nezu moved closer.
The kitten retreated.
Thus began a battle of wills.
Over the following days, the siblings started taking the same detour on their way home just to visit the kitten.
Slowly, progress was made.
The kitten eventually stopped running the moment it saw them. After a few more days, it even allowed them to approach.
Touching it, however, remained strictly forbidden.
Segu eventually came up with a solution.
“He’s still a kitten.”
Nezu looked at him.
“So?”
“So we bring a toy.”
It was brilliant.
The kitten might have been stubborn, cautious, and determined to resist them…
But it was still a child.
And children could be bribed.
The next day, Nezu spent the entire school day eagerly waiting for classes to end.
Inside his pocket was their secret weapon.
A small plastic mouse.
The moment school finished, the siblings headed toward their usual detour.
But something was wrong.
They heard voices long before reaching the kitten.
Then came a continuous, frightened meowing.
Nezu’s expression changed.
They hurried forward.
“Hiss! Hiss! Hiss!”
“Haha! What are you going to do?”
When the siblings reached the clearing, they stopped.
The black kitten was pressed against the base of a tree, its back arched and fur standing on end.
Standing in front of it was a girl.
A petite blonde girl.
Nezu recognized her immediately.
Her?
Her arms were spread wide as she tried to shield the kitten with her body.
Her tights were torn, and bloody scratches covered her frail legs.
Three children stood several metres away.
One of them picked another stone from the ground.
Then threw it.
The girl flinched as it struck her.
Tears filled her eyes not merely from the pain, but from pure rage.
“Stop!” she screamed. “Are you even human?! How can you treat a defenseless kitten like this?! Why would you do something so horrible?!”
The children laughed.
Another stone flew toward her.
She refused to move.
The girl stared at them as if she genuinely couldn’t understand how someone could be so cruel.
Then something inside her snapped.
“You…”
Her hands trembled.
“You…”
The three children waited.
“You uneducated pigs! STOP!”
There was silence.
Then one of the boys burst out laughing.
“Uneducated pigs?! What kind of insult is that, idiot?”
The other two joined him.
The blonde girl’s face became even redder.
“STOP! Or I’ll make you stop!”
“You?” one of them mocked. “What can a skinny girl like you do?”
Her expression suddenly changed.
The embarrassment disappeared.
So did the anger.
What remained was something far more serious.
“Remember those words,” she said quietly. “They will be your doom.”
Her hand slowly moved toward her backpack.
Nezu watched carefully.
She reached inside.
When her hand emerged, something was hidden within her closed fist.
The girl raised it dramatically.
“Now… repent for your sins!”
Just as she was about to reveal whatever she had been hiding…
Nezu stepped into the clearing.
“That’s enough.”
< Previous Next >