Chapter 18

* Title card
* Cover page

## Chapter Chronology

**Hip Hip Hooray and Heave-Ho: Part 1** (ヤンヤヤンヤでドッコイショ①, *Yan'yayan'ya de Dokkoisho①*?) is the eighteenth chapter of the manga *Choujin X*.

## Summary

Tokio and Ely arrive by train in a particularly crowded station, in fact the 'Hishizume Festival' is held in Yamato in July. Though these days it is just a celebration to have good health it still attracts a lot of tourists from nearby prefectures.
When the two were about to start looking around, Ely notices strange dog shaped paper clinging onto the boy. An instant later Tokio is hit by a barrage of half-dozen knives which lodge themselves in the side of his head, leading to him falling down the stairs.

When the girl runs down to help her friend, she is confronted by a woman who attacks her without hesitation. Extracting a huge pair of scissors from a guitar case, the two prepare for combat.
After picking up the boy, Ely uses her smoke to fly through the air and escape, but the mysterious woman creates a paper airplane and uses it as a vehicle to chase after them.
When the girl's smoke clears and they fall near the tracks, the two are caught up to.

Tokyo, having awakened, remembers that what they are facing is the same woman from the wanted poster "Ririka Umezawa" the Kirigami Choujin, who thanks to her ability 'Paper Moon (October Queen)' is able to create paper clippings that retain the properties of paper objects.
Tokio wastes no time and activates 'Full Beastification' just in time to parry Ririka's scissor strike.

The woman continues to avoid the blows of the two, managing to maintain a constant pressure which pushes the teens to flee, recognizing in her an opponent beyond their level.
After nearly escaping into the station crowd they are joined by a dynamite-shaped paper cutout that explodes directly next to them.

Protecting his friend from the blast with his body, Tokio finds himself out of energy and collapses to the ground.
Ririka takes advantage of the opportunity and with a couple of chains pulls the boy towards her.
When Ely continues to hold him, the woman kicks her in the face, impaling Ely's eye with the heel of her shoe, leaving her incapacitated.
Ririka then turns Tokio into a paper letter and walks away into the crowd.
Meanwhile Azuma, who had arrived at the same station with some friends from school, reaches the freshly recovered Ely and asks where their friend is.

After an indefinite time, Tokio wakes up, compressed in the form of a letter, in the lair of the two mercenaries.
The octopus-faced man is left by Ririka to guard their prey until Noh Mask arrives and the boy realizes he has been kidnapped.

Ely quickly calls the Yamato Mori to warn them of the situation. Sato immediately recognizes their opponents and plans to get information about their location from Nari, still locked up by them.
Suddenly Azuma feels the need to intervene, asking to be able to help them as a friend of Tokio and for his physical strength. However he is quickly cut off by Sato who points out that a normal person would slow them down and his death would fall upon them.
Ely reassures Azuma, saying that even she wouldn't be able to forgive herself if something happened to her friend and the boy apologizes saying he has a bad habit of sticking his nose into things.

When Ricardo hears Tokio's stomach rumbling, he transforms him back into a flesh-and-blood person and suddenly offers to get a pizza.
When he sees the boy hesitate, Ricardo invites him to eat pizza because even if they suddenly kidnapped him and his face isn't exactly reassuring, he can't do much else. Tokio, very hungry, manages to hold back thinking about how his captor works with someone who would have killed people at the station without hesitation. Even if they are kind, they are still bad, thinking about how he used to play heroes with Azuma as a child.

Meanwhile, Sato has managed to get the location of the mercenaries from Nari: the O'Neill Motel in Minami City.
The Keepers' plan is to use Ely for reconnaissance but to flee in case they are discovered before making their move, being up against experts.
As Ely launches into the air with his smoke, Azuma, who has been secretly following them, takes note of his friend's location and prepares to move.

## Characters

* Tokio Kurohara
* Ely Otta
* Azuma Higashi
* Richard
* Ririka Umezawa
* Ichiiro Sato
* Simon Kagomura
* Maiko Momoma
* Nari Tsumuji

## Navigation

 **Volume 6**
 **Volume 8**

 Tower of Mourning Arc