Number One

The gang falls onto the cushioned seats of this underground cinema room, except for Ito, who falls face first onto the hard ground, somehow not hurting for it. He first reacts by yelling all manner of profanities at that fall, next making sure his wooden sword is in his hand.

The room is illuminated only by the cinema’s projector, showing a black-and-white mute movie looped and playing in reverse. The wraith’s influence causes that piece of tech to continue working, and there’s several spots in the room covered in unnatural spiderwebs made of matter one could qualify as ‘living’ were they not produced by the putrefied soul haunting the place.

 Unknown to Ito and the others, this below-ground level cinema was the reason why the art gallery was temporarily closed, as the construction was shown to be unstable and dangerous due to being improperly filled. That was something the wraith used to its advantage, learning from the spiders and bugs thriving in the many otherwise inaccessible nooks of the building. This room that not too long ago was used to show avant-garde independent movies was now the nest of the wraith Shizune couldn’t find, and has also become the last room in the gallery that is fully real and physically stable. The Ito gang, however, can’t confirm that it’s a more dimensionally-consistent space yet, as they’re still trying to discern up from down and trying to get on their feet.

During the short but tense moments the teenagers stumble around to get back on their feet, Ito has already stood up. Out of the four, he is the first one that isn’t defenseless right after falling and is immediately ready to fight or run. The leader looks up reflexively to see where they fell from, and by doing that he gets a glimpse of the monster, illuminated just enough for him to comprehend the bizarre form of the creature.
The multiple ghostly hands that interlock, connect and overlap with each other to produce this spider-like form are all constantly shifting, giving the creature a disturbingly lively texture, and Ito needs a second to process what he’s seeing.

Despite resembling a spider, the monster has no discernible head, and its back is not quite an arachnid’s abdomen, but rather a long tail. As its retrieved from being buried in the ceiling of the room, said tail rearranges itself in place. It now shows its bifid form that fulfills the function of spinnerets, immediately beginning to prepare another batch of that web-like substance.

Ito can’t help but wonder what in the world he’s seeing, but he understands that whatever it is, it’s a danger and it needs to be destroyed. He stands his ground and prepares to react, yet once again the creature’s bizarre form confuses him momentarily, as it reveals that indeed it has a head: eight of the ten hands locked together where a head would be contort and open like a demonic flower, with a horrible eye in the middle of each ‘palm’. With this, the spider-like wraith surveys the four from above from where it remains motionless, but still preparing its web.

-“Oi! Look here! Here! I’m your opponent, freak!” the leader of the gang yells as it notices it’s starting to pay attention to his three friends. The gang members are as stunned from the fall as they are from seeing the wraith face to face. Unlike them, Ito is somehow undeterred by the creature’s disturbing form.

Despite noticing Ito as the biggest threat comparatively, he is easily dismissed by the wraith. Seeing that none of the four is Awakened, the wraith is capable of understanding it can simply focus on immobilizing them to feed later, choosing the isolated Chou as the first target. The disoriented young man, can barely see it coming before being plastered on the ground by the wraith's web. Covered and unable to move under the strength of the thick paste-like material, Chou panics.

Calling his friend’s name, Baku quickly navigates the seats of the cinema despite stumbling and falling a couple of times, reaching Chou and starting to tear off the webs, at the same time that Atsu runs between them and the spider is, hoping that will buy them some time. Rather than changing targets, the wraith leaps past above him and lands in front of the two friends. Immediately one of it’s front ‘legs’ pushes Baku away, causing him to hit the wall and fall on top of other webs that were already placed blocking one of the exits.

The immobilized Chou gets to see the opened ‘face’ of the wraith right in front of him, as he is observed by its eight eye-carrying hands. Below them he can see two additional hands creeping up, with fangs all around the palms and where nails would be, which guide right into the insides of the creature. After witnessing that horrid sight, however, Chou can see how all the hands that compose the head of the monster shake in what seems to be pain. Momentarily ignoring its original prey and looking back, the wraith ends up seeing that Ito has stabbed its posterior part with the wooden sword, alongside throwing a litany of barely-coherent insults. In that moment of looking away, the hands that act as the mouth get kicked and stomped by Atsu, who managed to maneuver around the creature at the right moment, starting his own list of insults and challenges at the wraith.

While it seems for a moment that the efforts of the group are starting to work, Atsu’s leg gets grabbed by another set of hands from inside the creature, and he gets his face driven to the ground by one of the legs, pinning him with ease and adding him to the same web agglomeration Chou is trapped in, firmly sticking his upper body there. As for Ito, the back legs also grab him by the head, but instead of pinning him to the ground like Atsu, the wraith opts to inflict as much damage as it can. Without paying much mind to Ito's ineffectual struggle, the creature begins mashing him repeatedly against the cold hard ground until the delinquent stops struggling and has stained a worrying amount of the cinema’s ground with his blood. At that point, the monstrosity releases the young man, assuming him dead.
Were he a normal human, he would definitely be.

Ito can’t even think after that, with so much of his upper body beaten and broken. He had fractured several bones in the past, but never before his jaw, shoulderblades, shoulders, neck, half his skull and most of his ribs all at once. It's a small blessing that he can't even feel the pain due to the shock. 

That same shock makes him unable to process that his impressive toughness he always took for granted had finally been overcome- It’s like time has stopped for the barely-breathing delinquent, and the only thing he can perceive is the taste of his own blood painting his mouth.

Not even this outcome makes Ito feel repentant for the decisions that brought him here. He did whatever he wanted and he paid the price, just like it happened every time he mouthed off or did something he wasn’t supposed to do. He always accepted pain as the inevitable cost of living, emboldened by how strong he always was, and were this the end for him, he’d almost have no regrets.

That was until he started hearing Atsu’s screams and the sound of teeth grinding against flesh, giving way to the sound of bones breaking. Unlike many other times where Ito got hurt, this time he hears something that he could not let be; his friends in danger.

Recognizing that as Atsu’s pain, Ito immediately returns from his fading consciousness, boiling inside with fury at the thought of them dying, deciding to cling to life… or rather, forcefully seize his life back.
Committing the impossible feat of pushing himself up with his arms, he can feel all his broken bones and torn muscles settling themselves into place again, and all the pain being replaced with bursting vitality. Ito raises himself with unblinking eyes and gritted teeth, at the same time his hair starts to react like it was aflame. A burst of power he never felt before explodes from within him, awakening a dormant power he never knew he could have.

-“You…”
Almost mindlessly and half an instant after standing up, Ito launches himself forward and with a newly-acquired strength, he grabs onto the spider’s tail.
“Get away… ”
Tugging it back as if it was natural for him to exert such power, Ito pulls the wraith toward him, and the monster shows signs of shock, all its eyes moving back to observe what is grabbing it with such might. It immediately releases Atsu to react, but Ito pulls with enough strength that the wraith loses its footing before having the chance.
“From… my… FRIENDS!!”
Ito roars as he exerts an explosive force and uses his whole body to pull and throw the wraith in one unrefined but decisive motion, sending the monster violently flying against the screen’s wall. The projector illuminates the wraith , showing that it has just taken significant damage due to the impact, half its form regressing into that of a mass of arms.

The members of the gang are stunned by what they’re seeing. They know that Ito shouldn’t be standing up, and less so with that much strength. They don’t even care about his hair flowing upwards and little wisps of golden energy around him, but as far as they knew, it was clear their friend had just become something incredible.
“Show that thing you don’t mess with us!! You can do it!!”
Chou is the only one that manages to connect the words together and blurt them out with energy after seeing his friend rise from near death and understanding how he is now on a completely different level.

-“Heh…”
The delinquent picks up his bokken and holds it firmly.
“Of course I can do it. I’m Ito Daichi, the goddamn Number One!!”