Chapter 4 Phantom

The evening streets of Tokyo are as busy as the morning, with people walking with their friends and co-workers for a hang out after a long day of work. Restaurants and shops filled to the brim. The streets are buzzing with traffic and the sound of various trains sounded throughout as well. Shiro leads Haru through the streets to a game store which is about a 30-minutes walk from the school to pick up her new video game. Upon entering the store, Shiro quickly headed toward the counter and asked for her order while Haru took a look around the store.

“Woah… Never knew there’s this much variety of video games,” Haru muttered in curiosity as she looked at the shelf with rows of games.

Above the shelf are display holograms showing different game footage, one of which caught Haru's interest despite her having very limited game experience. The game looks to be an action fighting game where you fight against a monster with different weapons.

“That game looks really fun”

“Oh~? You mean this one~?” Shiro appeared out of nowhere holding a box of the game Haru was looking at

“Yep, can I try it back at our dorm please?”

“Mhm~ “

The both of them were about to walk out of the game store, then suddenly the hologram that was on display went out for a few seconds then turned back on which no one seemed to notice besides Shiro. Her face immediately turns from a relaxed expression into a worried one.

“Haru~ “

“What is it, Shiro?”

“Take this~ Go back to the dorm ok~?,” Shiro said as she gave Haru the game box and started to walk away from her.

“Wait? Where are you going?”

“Just get back ok~?”

“W-wait… Jeez, what is up with her!?,” Haru said loudly.

Before Haru could ask anything, Shiro already ran into the crowd of people and disappeared from Haru’s sight, leaving Haru confused about what's going on.

“Whatever you do, just don’t come calling for me when you fall asleep along the way here,” Haru thought to herself and started walking back to school by herself.

Along the way back to her school, Haru notices that the street lights along the roads are starting to blink uncontrollably one by one, the screen and hologram display of the shop area starting to fade away. People started to notice the lights and blinking screens, starting to step at a quicker pace, rushing back and starting to run.

Haru does not understand what is going on and decides to just keep walking, however, she starts to get an unsettling feeling of danger, the air feels heavier, her skin feels as if there’s electricity flowing through it, at this point, it was too much to ignore.

“What in the hell is going on?! Why do I feel like something bad is going to happen?!”

But before Haru could do anything, a large surge of energy forming a beam of light shoots out of the streets behind her, followed by a field of energy covering the area around it just like a dome. From that surge of energy appears a monster formed from pale white energy and it takes the form of a human with a symbol of the sort on its face, it has strips of clothes around the body that flows behind it.

After the monster appeared it started to walk toward the crowd of people who are in the field of energy.

At this point, every person who is in the surrounding area started to panic and run trying to escape from the field and the monster that just appeared. Haru not knowing anything also tries to run away just like everyone until she notices a girl who has a broken leg trying to escape using her crutch, she falls over and is unable to get back up as the monster is slowly approaching her.

As the monster slowly approaches the girl, it uses its strips of clothes to grab the girl’s crutch that was on the ground and absorb it into itself. Then the monster was about to do the same to the girl herself but before it had a chance.

“GET AWAY FROM HER YOU FREAK!!”

Haru runs in and punches the monster with all the power she can, staggering the monster for a bit, she goes for another punch but this time it was stopped by the monster’s strips of clothes.

“Goddamnit! It got me, is it going to absorb me now??!”

She tried to struggle and pull her hand out of the strips of clothes but it was useless since the strength difference between her and the monster is too much.

Suddenly, a loud howling sound arises followed by a monster with the same pale white energy color which takes the form of a wolf attacking the humanoid monster and cutting Haru free.

Haru falls to the ground and she raises her hand to protect the girl behind her from the wolf monster which stands between her and the humanoid monster.

The wolf monster which holds a pistol in its mouth turns around and asks Haru.

“Haru Raikou, The Phantasm System has determined that you are suitable to become a Linker, ” the wolf monster glares its bright blue eye right into Haru.

‘Huh?! What are you talking about?!” Haru replied

“Time is running short, the field is currently expanding at a high rate and energy level of the phantom is spiking up fast’

“Still don't have any clue what you are talking about?!”

“With the Phantasm System, you can exterminate the Phantom that’s causing the outbreak right now”

“So that means I can save everyone here right?!”

“If that is what you wish then, yes”

Despite everything not making a single sense to Haru, when an opportunity to save a life comes up, she knows exactly what she has to do.

“Yes… I will do it!”

“Wolf Phantasm, Link Confirmed”

The Wolf Phantasm breaks up into particles and recombines to form into a single bullet which then shoots up into the sky and goes directly into Haru’s chest.

Haru let a scream akin to a wolf howling out loud as her body was flowing with energy, in every single cell in her body felt as if it was being electrified. During that process, the energy turns into a uniform around her body with a gun in her right hand and a knife in her left hand.

When she regains her mind she notices that she is wearing a black tuxedo suit, an inner white shirt with blue neckties, lines of blue energy flowing through around the rim of the suit. Her right hand is holding a bulky, clean white handgun that has a wolf logo on its sides, her left hand is holding a combat knife with the same blue energy around the rim.

Haru stands up now in between the humanoid monster and the crippled girl, with her newfound power she raises her gun directly at the humanoid monster.

“I still don’t know what much of this means… but I’m not gonna stand down and let you freak hurt anyone!!,” a loud blast echoes through the field the second Haru pulls the trigger.