Just a Kid
dark heroNezu moved quietly through the school corridors.
Escaping during the initial confusion had been easier than he expected. The armed men had been focused on controlling the students and teachers, shouting orders and making sure nobody tried to run.
Nobody had paid much attention to one missing student.
That had been their first mistake.
Nezu knew the school like the palm of his hand.
He knew which staircases were rarely used, which classroom doors could be opened without making a sound, which corridors could be crossed without being seen from the main hall, and which rooms connected through storage areas most students didn’t even know existed.
He also knew where the security cameras were.
More importantly, after years of wandering around the school with Segu, he knew where they weren’t.
So Nezu watched.
He didn’t try to fight.
He didn’t try to rescue anyone.
Not yet.
He counted.
There were more armed men than he had initially thought.
Some guarded the entrances. Others patrolled the corridors. A few remained with the students and teachers. Their movements weren’t completely random either. They communicated with each other and seemed to have assigned positions.
Nezu watched one patrol pass beneath him while he lay flat on the upper section of a staircase, hidden behind the railing.
Two men.
One rifle.
One handgun.
The man with the rifle kept looking forward.
The other constantly checked behind them.
Nezu waited until they disappeared around the corner before moving again.
He learned their routes.
Their timing.
Which ones stayed together.
Which ones liked to wander away from their positions.
Which ones were nervous.
Which ones were careless.
And, eventually…
He found Segu.
Nezu remained hidden behind the small window of a classroom door, looking across the corridor into the room where a group of students had been gathered.
Segu was there.
She was sitting beside Akane.
Both were unharmed.
Nezu’s shoulders relaxed slightly.
Then he felt it.
That strange sensation again.
Nezu’s eyes slowly moved across the room.
The students.
The teacher.
The armed men.
Nothing.
And yet…
Someone was watching.
Not him.
Nezu couldn’t explain how he knew that.
It was the same uncomfortable feeling he had experienced before at home, like there was someone nearby that his eyes simply couldn’t find.
His gaze moved across the room again.
For the briefest moment, he thought something shifted in the corner behind Akane.
Nezu focused on it.
Nothing was there.
Then one of the armed men approached Akane.
“Enough wasting time.”
Akane looked up at him.
“I already told you, I can’t just—”
“You can.”
The man crouched in front of her and held out a phone.
“You’re going to call the number we give you. You’re going to tell them exactly what we tell you. And then you’re going to ask them for the key.”
Akane stared at him.
“What key?”
The man frowned.
“Don’t play stupid with me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Neither do I, kid. I don’t need to know. I was told you ask for the key, so you’re going to ask for the key.”
He held out the phone.
Akane didn’t take it.
“I won’t.”
The man’s expression changed.
“Don’t make this difficult.”
Akane remained silent.
The man grabbed her arm.
Segu immediately moved.
“Let her go!”
A few students flinched.
The man turned toward her.
Segu didn’t retreat.
“She said no!”
The slap echoed through the room.
Segu’s head snapped sideways.
“Shut up.”
Silence followed.
Akane immediately reached for Segu, but Segu was already looking back at the man, one hand against her reddening cheek.
Outside the room, Nezu stopped moving.
For a moment, even that strange feeling in the room ceased to matter.
His expression didn’t change.
He simply stared.
For a long moment, he didn’t even blink.
Then he quietly stepped away from the door.
A few minutes later, one of the armed men guarding the main corridor suddenly looked upward.
A crackle came from the school’s speakers.
Static filled the corridors.
Then a voice appeared.
Small.
Shaking.
Frightened.
“P-please…”
The man looked toward the nearest speaker.
Another guard raised his head.
“Please let us go…”
The voice trembled.
“I-I don’t want anyone to get hurt…”
One of the men frowned.
“What the hell?”
“Please… we’re just kids…”
The transmission ended.
A moment passed.
Then radios came alive throughout the school.
“Who’s in the communications room?”
“No one should be there.”
“Check it.”
Two men immediately headed toward the room.
They found it empty.
A chair had been pulled toward the controls.
Nothing else.
“Kid must’ve run.”
“Find him.”
The message spread.
There was a student loose inside the school.
A frightened child.
Probably hiding somewhere.
Nezu listened from the other side of the building.
Then he moved.
The announcement hadn’t been a request.
It had been a test.
Three guards had reacted immediately.
One abandoned his position entirely.
Two others moved to cover the nearby corridors.
The man near the students didn’t move at all.
Nezu remembered that.
A few minutes later, the speakers crackled again.
“H-hello?”
Several heads immediately turned.
“Please…”
The frightened voice had returned.
“Please don’t hurt my sister…”
“Again?!”
A guard grabbed his radio.
“He’s back on the system!”
“Find where he’s transmitting from!”
“I don’t know!”
The voice suddenly became quieter.
“I think… I think I saw one of you near the science rooms…”
Two guards exchanged glances.
One immediately started walking.
The other followed.
Nezu removed his finger from the button of a completely different intercom terminal.
He waited.
Ten seconds.
Twenty.
Footsteps.
Exactly as expected.
Nezu left.
The first trap was embarrassingly simple.
A bucket.
One of the men pushed open a classroom door.
The bucket tipped from above it.
A mountain of crumpled paper fell over his head.
He froze.
His companion stared.
The papers slowly floated around them.
“What the—”
Something moved at the opposite end of the corridor.
A small figure.
“There!”
Nezu stood there for barely a second.
Long enough for them to see his uniform.
Long enough for them to know he was a student.
Then he ran.
“Hey!”
Both men followed.
Nezu disappeared around the corner.
The first man reached it and stepped directly onto a handful of pens scattered across the polished floor.
His foot rolled.
“WHOA—!”
He slammed against the wall, barely managing to stay upright.
His companion stopped behind him.
“You okay?”
“That little brat!”
A metallic clatter came from further down the corridor.
They looked ahead.
Nezu’s head appeared from behind another corner.
Only his head.
The moment they saw him, he vanished again.
“There he is!”
They ran.
Nezu could hear them approaching.
Fast.
Too fast.
He smiled internally.
He had already learned something.
The angry one chased without thinking.
The other followed because the angry one did.
Nezu reached the next classroom and pulled a string as he passed.
Behind him, the first man rounded the corner.
An eraser flew across the corridor.
It struck him directly in the forehead.
“OW!”
His companion stopped.
There was silence.
The eraser dropped to the floor.
The second man covered his mouth.
“Don’t.”
That only made it worse.
A laugh escaped him.
“I said don’t laugh!”
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re laughing!”
“You got attacked by an eraser!”
The first man kicked it across the corridor.
“I’m going to kill that brat.”
A noise came from nearby.
Both men immediately turned.
Nezu was standing at the far end of the corridor.
This time he didn’t immediately run.
The angry man pointed at him.
“You!”
Nezu stared back.
The distance between them was considerable.
More importantly, Nezu already knew exactly where he was going next.
The second man looked at him properly for the first time.
Small.
School uniform.
No weapon.
A child.
Nezu took one step backward.
The angry man started forward.
“Come here!”
Nezu immediately ran.
The second man grabbed his companion’s shoulder, still laughing.
“Relax.”
“Let go of me!”
“Look at what he’s doing.”
Another piece of crumpled paper floated out of the man’s clothes.
His companion pulled it free and laughed again.
“Buckets. Pens. An eraser.”
He shook his head.
“It’s just a kid.”
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