"And how can that be?"

"I-I don't know either…"

"Forget about that for a second, how long will your illusion hold on?"

"Uh, about five more minutes ma'am."

"We should clean the mess up now, oh wait, there's nothing to clean...his blood also cleans itself when he does his regeneration."

The teacher checks the other side of the bed.

"We should go already… there's a nurse we need to settle."

She means the nurse who was with them before.

"U-uhm, what are you gonna do with the nurse?"

"Kill her of course."

The teacher said without any guilt. Himiko's eyes widened as she heard that.

"B-but you promise to spare her life don't you?"

Himiko tries to avoid the killing.

"You think she will keep quiet? She is probably already looking for the cops right now. I let her go before because I estimated your illusion will last until I tamed him. And it's enough time to chase her right away. It will be a mess if she disturbs my body when I go to the Region anyway."

"B-but she doesn't do anything wrong!"

"Well, she was in the wrong place at the wrong time…"

"B-but…then, why don't you just kill her before?!" 

Himiko shouted at her. She doesn't find any valid reason to kill the nurse before.

"Why do you get so worked up? You don't feel bad when I say I want to kill this Nightmare…"

"Th-that because he's a Nightmare! And I don't remember in our plan that you will kid other innocent kids too!"

Himiko acts like a kid who gets angry with their parents. Trying to blame everything on the teacher. 

"Ohh...oi, look at me…"

The teacher comes closer to Himiko and stares sharply into her eyes. The difference between their height makes it look like a mom looking at her child.

"If you think the nurse and the human kid don't deserve to die...then what makes you think that the Nightmare deserves to die?

The teacher asked Himiko while looking directly at her eyes looking down at her.

" H-huh...b-because he's a Nightmare...he is dangerous! That's the reason he has to die! If nobody kills him, he will kill innocent people!"

In stuttering, Himiko tries to justify her point.

"Hahaha!"

The teacher burst out laughing before asking a question.

"Do you know how much time I spent watching this Nightmare?"

The teacher gave a little glance at Hiroshi. 

"I-I don't know...three days?"

"Hahaha! How stupid can you be? Don't you remember the exact time you told me about him?"

 

"Uhm… I don't really remember..."

"It's a month ago idiot…we discuss every possible Nightmare that I can tame… I've already surveyed all the possible Nightmares, but I think he is the easiest one to tame, I watched him for almost a week.”

“W-why don’t you tell me this before we execute our plan?”

“Haha...Hahaha! Dumbass!”

“Pak!” The teacher gave a light tap to Himiko’s head with her right hand.

“Auch…”

“I've already told you before, you are the one who can't keep it in your mind sigh…”

“Oh...hehe…”

“Nevermind...what I want to say is he never attacked any human in my watch...not even a scratch of a wound he gave to the human. Not even at night...”

“W-what? Doesn't he become his true form at night?”

Himiko was confused.

“No, never. I only got to see his true form in the Region just now. And for this information, I’m sure I never gave it to you before.”

“Why?”

“I just want to see the difference between your reaction toward humans and Nightmares...of course, you are Daymare… you are supposed to help humans to fight the Nightmare...but what if the human is the one who threatens the Nightmare? Will your view of them reverse? Which side will you help?”

“H-huh…?”

“You see right? That he got beat up by the human? Yet you do nothing…”

Himiko remembers when she watched Hiroshi getting punched by a boy in his class where she just saw beyond the window in her fox form.

 

“Because of what? Because he’s a Nightmare… There’s no reason for you to protect him. Now, what if we reverse the situation? The one who gets beat up is the human, what are you gonna do?”

There’s not a single word that comes from Himiko. She doesn’t find any excuses that she can give. With a defeated expression, she looked to the ground. She does not agree with what the teacher said nor does she want to argue about the point she said. She knows there’s a truth behind her word yet she refuses to accept it yet she doesn't know what to counter it.

“What? Doesn’t have anything to say?”

“Uhm...”

Suddenly Hiroshi comes off from his bed and stands beside it. He doesn’t get the situation he’s in. In his mind, he just wants to bring himself off from there. He already chose the dish he wanted to make for dinner. Now he wants to go to the grocery store to get the ingredients that he lacks.

...Is she a teacher? That must be her child. Uhm, what should I tell them? What did they do to me again? Oh, she brought me from the class... I don’t know the reason though. I should just thank her….what should I say...

“I love cats.”

Hiroshi said the most random thing that he doesn't even think in his mind.

“Huh?”