Chapter 1: Animal Eyes

## Plot

The chapter opens up with a newsreader talking about recent disappearances. The mother of the main character, Akatsuki Iride tells him to be careful. On the next page, we see Akatsuki's face in the paper, we see his fellow classmates making comments of shock. Saying how he was a kind person and never hurt anyone or anything, going to say how he even befriended a burglar in his house. And how he was popular in online gaming. The man they were telling all this too questioned by what they meant by online gaming.

On the next page, we see Akatsuki finishing up a stream of the game: "The Ones Within- Genome." On his screen is an ominous message saying that they'll come and get him. Akatsuki gets excited thinking it's a hidden stage. He thanks his audience for watching and finishes up recording.

The next time we see Akatsuki, he is lying on the ground. He seems confused and gets up. Thinking it's a dream about nature, he pleasantly takes in the scenery. and says how he'd like to live in a place like that when he's old. He then notices an unconscious girl lying next to him. He then goes through the steps of what to do when you find an unconscious person. 1. Call out to them, this didn't work so he moved onto the second stage which is to check their breath and pulse. And just as he was about to, the girl opened her eyes and as he was saying how relieved he was, she punched him in the face and hid behind a nearby tree. She got the impression that he was a pervert to which Iride calmy says his name and says how he's not a suspicious person. However, as he does this, his nose begins to bleed, which makes the girl think that he is a pervert even more so.

A little later, they both decide to try and find help and walk around the forest trying to find a nearby road or phone box. The girl questions as to why she's in a uniform when she knew she slept in her pyjamas last night. Akatsuki also thinks the same. The girl then thinks as to if Akatsuki was a deceitful kidnapper and mountaineer who liked to dress up then the whole situation would make sense. Akatsuki continues to clarify to not make assumptions. The girl continues to say that she finds him suspicious since he was feeling her up as soon as he met her and nosebleeding. Akatsuki declines the fact of the nosebleeding but the girl says she doesn't care.

The girl then recalls that she's heard Akatsuki's voice somewhere. Since she was confident with her memory and how she never forgot anything she's ever heard. Akatsuki seems to mock the girl for trying and says how she has a stingy voice and a tsun-tsun attitude, and jokingly says, 'Where have I heard it befor-' He is cut off by the girl punching him in the face again. He makes a comment about if she was the captain of the Karate club but she insists that she's the secretary of the Film Studies Club.

They both then decide to head down and hurry up on finding help as it would be terrible if a bear appeared. The girl makes a woeful comment about how not a single decent thing has happened since yesterday. And says, "We look forward to meeting you." It couldn't possibly be this, could it..?" Akatsuki is surprised by what she said as it's the same ominous message from the game. And just as he was about to question her on it, a giant panda appears.

Akatsuki grabs the girl and they both hide in a nearby bush. As the girl began to freak out, he calmed her down saying how they haven't noticed them yet and if they stay quiet they'll pass by. Akatsuki then sneezes and their cover is blown. The giant panda turns towards them and begins walking in their direction. The girl scolds him for not keeping it in longer and Iride says how he has basically all of Japan's pollen allergies. Just as it seemed they were free, a giant rat lands in front of them, and a giant snail behind them. As one of the creatures was about to pounce on them, a mysterious boy comes out of nowhere and slices the rat in half. He makes a statement of why the two of them looked so dumbfounded for and told them to quickly crush their eyes as these guys were easy to defeat.

He then lends his katana to the girl and tells Akatsuki to do his best unarmed. He then runs off towards other creatures, to kill them. We then see Akatsuki climbing a tree and the girl worried about how they need to hurry up and leave this place when a sock lands on her head out of nowhere. As she looks up to where it came from, she sees Akatsuki halfway up the tree. She then begins kicking the bottom of the tree, scolding him for thinking about escaping by himself. Akatsuki insists that it's a misunderstanding. He warns her to hide and to be careful so she's not crushed. The girl questions him about what he's about to do. Akatsuki simply says, "Well... something."

Akatsuki is now at the top of the tree and says how it's a pretty picturesque view and gets excited. This annoys the girl and calls him an idiot for getting so excited in such a dangerous place. Akatsuki then turns around and sees the giant panda. He greets it. It gets closer to him and sniffs him. Akatsuki continues to talk to the panda when the boy from before comes back and stands next to the girl. He shouts at Akatsuki as to what the heck he thinks he's doing. Akatsuki says how he wanted to feel a panda for once, particularly their paws. We see Akatsuki hugging the paws and assures the two on the ground that the panda was just taking a stroll as its eyes weren't even looking at them when they were running. Their two paths coincidentally overlapped. He then happily looks at the panda and calls it, 'Pantarou.'

The panda then opened it's mouth wide open, this made the girl shout at him to get out of there. Then the panda sneezes on Akatsuki. The boy and girl are both grossed out by this. Akatsuki simply wipes his face and asks how the panda has allergies too.

All three of them are now next to a river, Akatsuki is washing his clothes in it. The boy said how that situation showed him a lot, Akatsuki says how it's because he earlier kept talking about the eyes. Akatsuki also says how there are some things you can do before spilling blood. The boy is a bit hesitant to agree with this and simply says, 'Ehh~'

He then turns to the girl whose sitting underneath a tree and asks if she'll stand up yet. She says she needs a little more time. She is confused as to how the two boys are so calm and is questioning it to herself when a giant snail appears next to her. She screams out loud and grabs the katana given to her by the boy. She hesitates saying how the longer she looks at it, the cuter it looks. But then she hit it anyway. The two boys clap their hands, amused at what they just saw. The boy asks her if she also does kendo, Akatsuki says how that's a pity because she's actually the secretary of the Splatter Film Club. The girl gets annoyed at this and scolds them for not saving her.

Then, an unknown voice says, 'Magnificent.'. He says how they cleared the Stage 1 quickly. We find out that he's the one in charge of 13th Avenue, his name is Paca. He rewards Akatsuki with a balloon and says how he was impressed by how he befriended the panda since that's never happened before. Paca then asks them to look at the left wrist. We see a bunch of numbers seemingly pasted onto their skin. Paca tells them how it's a counter that reports the views to them. Akatsuki knows the phrase 'view counts' and Paca says how it must be familiar to Akatsuki as well as the other two. We find out the boy is Sengoku uploader Kaikoku Onigasaki and the girl is horror uploader Karin Sarayashiki. Kaikoku knows he never told him his name so how did he know? He also asks Paca to take off his alpaca mask and to show his face. Paca says how he's too shy to show his face. This makes Kaikoku politely ask for his katana back from Karin. She gives it back to him with pleausre. Paca laughs and says how everyone on 13th Avenue is short-tempered.

Paca then says how he'll cut to the chase. The only thing they need to accomplish to keep the counter running until it hits 100 million views. Furthermore, their playtime is infinite and he asks them to stream as if they're willing to die.

**End of Chapter**