Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Defy and Comply ❯ Lesson 20: Defy and Comply ( Chapter 21 )

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Defy and Comply

Lesson 20: Defy and Comply

By: Melissa Norvell

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Kazoo and Tsukimi ran up to the two males, who were talking in one of the corridors of the school. A few moments earlier and the two would have had to explain why they were kissing each other, not that they would have minded. Leonardo and Taiga were comfortable enough with providing an explanation. Kazoo's chest was killing him. He stumbled on his last few steps and bent over, heaving and panting heavily and Tsukimi ran a few paces past him with a worried look on her face.

"Leo! Taiga!" Kazoo huffed out as the two men turned.

"What's wrong with you?" Taiga asked. He had a feeling this was something horrible. Did someone kill someone else again?

"Everyone been killing each other," Tsukimi panted, trying to catch her breath between words. "We can't stop them. There are so many dead students around already. I guess that concert really set them off." The situation was now far beyond their control. The only thing they could do was defend themselves against ongoing attackers and continue to find a way out.

"They were already set off. They want out of here, and we couldn't make them stick with us because we don't even know how to get out of here," Leo knew the truth. He knew how it was going to go, and everyone had already gotten angry because they were taking too long and they didn't find any leads fast enough. The situation was doomed to get out of hand, they had only prolonged it.

"We've got to kill now. Someone is gonna try and attack us," Taiga knew that the inevitable was to come and as much as he didn't like it, he was prepared for the consequences.

"That's not even the worst part," Kazoo's strained voice caught his attention and the architect and engineer stood up slowly, his stitches tugging at his flesh, causing him to grip his chest in pain, "We can't meet in the graveyard anymore."

"What?" Leo wanted to know what he meant by that. Did something happen?

"Tsukimi and I went there to talk and Zoen and two other guys were there. They were talking about something, but hell if I could make out what they were saying," Kazoo explained the events of what happened earlier. He was just glad that he caught them before they were able to go to the graveyard themselves. He would have hated to see them get killed or ambushed, not when they were their only hope.

"How would they know about its location?" There were only a limited number of people who knew about the graveyard and that number was very, very small. The only ones who had knowledge of the graveyard were members of his class and Taiga. This didn't make any sense.

"Maybe they found it by accident," Tsukimi knew that it wasn't exactly something that was hidden from the world. One wrong turn and it was easily found. It was like that door was waiting there, enticing some curious teen to open it and wonder what was down that dark hall.

Blue eyes shifted to the girl as Kazoo frowned deeply. "I doubt it. I think they knew exactly where they were." There wasn't a doubt in his mind that all of them knew where they were. It was far from an accident.

"Are they still there?" Taiga wanted to know.

"I don't know," Kazoo was so busy trying to get out that he didn't bother to check to see if Zoen stuck around. Knowing his luck, they probably left and there would be no way to determine whether or not they had been there to begin with.

"Let's go investigate," Leo wanted answers. He had a feeling something might give them clues. If people were getting into the graveyard, he wanted to know how and why.

Taiga looked to the two worn out teens and turned his back to them. "You two stay here and try not to die."

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They walked out onto the grass of the cemetery grounds and they were instantly met with a gruesome sight. There was blood strung around, smeared on the tombstones and strung across the blades, tainting them a sickening shade of crimson. Not far from the trails laid a girl. She was petite and ghostly white with hair so light blue it could have been mistaken for white. Her hair was matted with blood, her white, spaghetti strapped shirt was soaked to the core, so was her short, pleated, light blue skirt.

"Kokken..." Taiga stopped upon realization of it being the girl. His body jolted and muscled seized in pain. Aqua eyes went wide with horror and he couldn't bring himself to move. His head reeled. The very girl he told he would protect was now dead.

"What happened?" Leo asked in a whisper, then quickly grabbed his weapon in case whoever murdered her was still around to kill the two of them, or anyone else who happened to see what had happened. Green eyes scanned the area, and he paced around, looking through bushes and behind trees and tombstones trying to see if he could find anyone suspicious.

Taiga ran over to the girl and held her in his arms. She was still a little warm and her body hadn't given way to riga mortis. That meant one thing: Kokken was still clinging to life. "Kokken...What happened to you? Who the hell did this? Tell me!" He was frantic to know, and could only hope that the girl could be able to talk.

"T-Taiga...You came..." The girl could barely gurgle the words. She hadn't died, despite the fatal blow to the chest; it had not impacted her lungs. If that would have been the case, they would have caused a vacuum that collapsed her chest and would have made her die sooner. Despite her deadly injuries, she was still hanging on, but she was fading fast.

"You'll be alright. We'll get you out of here-" Taiga knew that her wounds were fatal, but he was going to try and save her. He still wanted to be the man who always protected her, the man that was her hero.

Kokken lightly shook her head, staring up at him with glazed over eyes. "No, I'll...be gone soon..."

"Don't say that bullshit! We're a team, remember?" He didn't want to hear it. He didn't want to hear that another person was going to die on him, just like Yuunatsu, and his brother, and all those in the graduating class...

This couldn't be happening...Not again!

"I'm so sorry..." the girl gurgled a little again, "I would have liked to graduate with you...but I can't..."

"I'm tellin' you we're here to save you!" Taiga screamed in irritation at the girl. Surely, there had to be a way to save her. Leo and Kazoo, they lived through their executions and he lived through a lot of tough situations. The human body wasn't as fragile as everyone believed it to be. Surely, there had to be a way to save her tiny life.

"My back is broken, I can't move," Kokken turned her head to the side. Seeing him in so much pain disheartened her. She would have rather him not have found her alive.

"Who the hell was it? I'll fucking kill them!" Taiga raged as tears clung stubbornly to his eye sockets. The yakuza felt a mixture of things: disgust, rage, sorrow and a physical pain that wore on the very fibers of his core. More than ever, the desire to avenge her was strong. He made a promise at that point to restore her honor and make sure her fading spirit would be avenged.

"It...was Santa...He...he's working for whoever is behind this..." Kokken struggled to speak as she felt her senses blacken again it was hard to keep her consciousness, and the grip of death has it's hand around her neck. That final blow that Santa had given her hadn't completely killed her. The force of the blow collapsed one of her lungs but at the rate of her blood loss, she would be dead soon.

"What? That son of a bitch!" At this point, Taiga was seeing red with anger. How could someone who had tried to help the students and motivate them into not killing each other do something like this? It was the worst kind of low.

Kokken smiled weakly at her protector. "I'm glad I could see you one more time...Taiga. I'm so glad. I wished I could have graduated with you, but I tried really hard. I gave it my best shot...I did good...didn't I?" More than anything, she wanted him to be proud of her, to know that she did her best and went out of this world with as much strength and tenacity she had fought her way through it in.

Taiga closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. Such an innocent sounding question ripped his heart apart. "Don't talk. Save your strength. You did more than enough. This is my fault. I should have protected you," his voice lowered on the last sentence. It was at that moment that Taiga felt ashamed. His love confessions with Leo could have waited if it meant that he would have saved this girl's life. He made a promise to her, and now he broke it.

Some hero he was.

It was another person around him that died.

Another notch on the bed post of deaths.

Ice blue eyes, glazed over with the wake of death stared up into the male's chiseled face. "No, you couldn't help it. Please...don't be sad. I want you to look happy one day. You always seemed...so sad..."

It was a shot through his heart. Taiga's eyes widened and all he could do was stare at the girl in shock. "What?" It was the only phrase that escaped his lips. She thought that he was sad? It was the one emotion that he had tried to hide, and only let slide recently on the deaths of his friends, but she had noticed it all along.

"Can you smile? Just once...Even if it's not real, I want to see it. I want...to see you happy." It would be her dying request. Through all of the sorrow, she wanted to see that she had touched at least one person. It would give her purpose in the world.

"Kokken..." Taiga's voice was nearly a whisper. She wanted him to smile? At a time like this?

She honestly didn't know how hard that was.

"I want to see...before I can't anymore..." Her vision had already been fading in and out, and she fought off the urge to sleep.

Mustering up all of the internal and emotional fortitude that he could, Taiga offered the girl a faux smile. "How's that?"

But it was too late; she had died as she saw his lips curve up. Taiga froze upon this realization and his smile faded away, and his head bowed. He cried out the girl's name in agony and wept, allowing his tears to fall. They hit Kokken's peaceful face and rand own her skin, smearing the blood in pink streams.

"Taiga!" Leo called out and ran over to the weeping yakuza.

"I swear," Taiga's voice shook as his grip on the girl's body grew tighter. "I'm gonna fucking kill him!"

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Gaz darted through the hallway with his only weapon, his black and white guitar, held over his shoulder by the neck. The strings bit his skin but he had other problems to worry about at the moment. There were students after him with the intent to kill. He had to get out of the line of fire before he ended up a casualty.

Immediately, he took a right and darted into a nearby classroom. There were bodies everywhere, and the place was in disarray. It was a complete blood bath. Desks were toppled over and blood splattered the walls like artistic red paint.

Dark blue eyes widened upon taking in the ghastly sight. 'In here too. Man, everyone has lost their minds. One person kills somebody and it's like the domino effect. I barely got out of here alive.'

He remembered the conversations that went around the auditorium, spreading like a wildfire or an infectious virus. The voices of the students haunted him, echoing the terror in his mind.

'I feel like someone is just waiting to kill us, like they won't leave us alone until we do what it wants...' One of the students standing in the crowd said as they laid eyes on the band members, hanging from the crudely made gallows on stage.

A girl nearby held either side of her head. Her eyes were wide and pupils small as fear consumed her. Her voice trembled as she spoke. "It's like a curse has been put on us."

"Since those guys spoke to us," the male student replied, "sometimes I think I see them but then I blink and they're gone, like it's my eyes playing tricks on me. I think we made things worse by trying to look up information."

"My life is hell. We probably will die here." Another short, fat student with glasses replied. His eyebrows were creased in worry.

"We don't have long until we die, too. We have to get out of here!" The female student yelled and turned on the girl standing beside of her, stabbing her in the chest with a kitchen knife. The girl let out a gurgled scream that was like the gunshot to start off the dismal events that began. The students started killing each other and as soon as Gaz noticed, he took off running through the masses, hoping that they would be too side tracked with each other to worry about him.

He was nearly taken out with a knife as a tall, moderately built teen cut him off. Gaz stared up into his malicious face twisted with hatred and bloodlust. "Oh, you're not going anywhere."

"Hey now! You don't want to do that. You can't! It's not your decision to decide whether someone lives or dies!" Gaz shouted, trying to talk some sense into this guy, but his words never reached his ears. He swiped the knife at him again, nearly cutting him on the chest. Gaze side stepped him and bent back, evading the strike.

"I'm going to graduate and get the hell out of here!" The teen came at him again, swiping the knife again and again, trying to put an end to him. Gaz dodged from side to side and made his way around him, taking off towards the exit.

He passed a girl who threw a knife at him from his right. Gaze quickly ducked as it hit another student in the back. He kept running, as fast as his legs would carry him. When he reached the exit, a teenager with a sword busted it down. The door collided with the side of the rock star's body and sent him crashing to the ground.

"Hey man-" He tried to talk but he cut off as the guy lifted his sword over his head and brought it down with a primal yell.

"Holy-" Gaz quickly rolled out of the way as the blade impacted the ground.

"I'm lucky to be alive," Gaz reasoned with himself as the memories faded from his mind.

"You won't be for long." A familiar voice resonated in his ears and Gaz turned around to see himself face-to-face with Kageki and Santa. There was something different about the two of them. They had dark looks on their faces and their clothes were splattered in blood.

"Kageki, Santa..."

"Gazitsu, long time no see," Santa greeted him with an amused tone and a malicious smile on his bloodstained face.

The Korean frowned and looked defensive. Something was definitely wrong here. "I don't think our reunion is going to be friendly."

"You should know what we're here for," Kageki got straight to the point. There was really no use in drawing the whole matter out like that. It was time to cut the bullshit and start the slaughter. Soon, Gaz would be among the corpse count.

Blue eyebrows creased in anger. He couldn't believe this! His own band members were turned against him. It was the ultimate sense of betrayal, and the hardest part about it was the fact that he was going to have to kill the two men who were his best friends for years. Could he commit such an act? It wasn't his place to do so, and he had always believed that but now wasn't the time for his belief system to be implemented. In fact, this incident was forcing him to act in a way he never wanted to.

It was forcing him to make a life or death choice.

"It's nothing personal. We just got our own agenda," Santa shut the classroom door and leaned on it. "You aren't leaving this room."

"But why? We used to be friends." If they had their own agenda, then why couldn't they include him in it? Why did he have to die by their hands? He didn't understand.

"Every man for himself. All ties are off," Kageki reminded him of the deal they had all established.

"We're going to kill everyone in this school. We already took care of your little martial artist friend. You're next," Santa's voice was filled with promise as his face marred itself with hatred.

"Kokken..." Gaz whimpered as he realized as he realized just who's blood it was that covered his white-haired friend.

"You look so hurt," Santa taunted him with faux concern, "you should have seen it coming." Honestly, why didn't he expect anyone to die? Was he that stupid? Surely not. That didn't seem like the Gaz he knew.

"We don't have time for this. Let's just kill him and get it over with!" Kageki bolted at him, wielding a wooden sword. He swung the weapon at the rock star, who used his guitar to block it with. The sound on the hollow surface of the guitar made a loud, echoing bong through the room.

"We made our band from scratch. We started from the ground up. I can't believe you would do this," Gaz grunted, as he held the guitar, trying to keep the bokken from coming through it and splitting his head open.

Kageki drew back and delivered a series of swings at the star of the band. He panted out his reasoning. "You don't understand. You can't win, so why not work with them?" Before he could say anything else, he was smacked in the side of the face by the black guitar. The force of the blow caused him to lose footing and fall into a blood splatter on the ground.

"Are you kidding me? You're on their side?" Gaz was shocked. Just how long had they been on the mastermind's side? How long were they just lurking and waiting for this event to unfold? Did they know about it all along? He didn't have time to answer those questions as a small desk was hurled at him. He jumped to the side, evading the desk but his boots landed in a large, red blood splatted that had come from a nearby body. His shoes squeaked and his feet slid out from under him. Gaz was airborne for a few seconds before he hit the ground and his backside was drenched in sticky blood.

Santa towered over him like an ominous shadow, holding the mace in his hand with a devilish smile. "You could say we know what's up."

Drawing back, Santa slammed the mace down, threatening to end his life just as he did Kokken's but Gaz quickly grabbed a steel-legged chair and blocked his strike, bits of plastic broke off as the surface shattered. Before Santa could have a second to react, he threw the chair into the white-haired boy.

"If you knew, why didn't you tell us?" Gaz growled, fueled by anger alone. What sly dogs! What scum! He had never been as disgusted at anyone was he was his former band members at this point in time. They literally made his blood boil.

"We have to make sure there's a graduate, or we lose everything," Kageki explained. They weren't just in it for the pleasure. To them, it was life or death. People like Gaz didn't understand the true magnitude of the situation, but he soon would if he made it out alive.

"We pushed them to make the concert event and we chose who would live and die," Santa frowned. It wasn't as if he had liked doing it, but he had no choice. It was far better to pretend that he didn't care and to cut all of his ties off with his classmates.

"We heard that green-haired guy was a graduate and we learned about his little identity," Kageki reeled back and smacked Gaz across the face as he tried to get up again. His friend stumbled backwards and toppled over a fallen desk.

Santa leaned down to club him with the mace again but he was hit in the head with the guitar. Gaz wasn't ready to die, not yet. Kageki was soon behind his fallen friend and Gaz kicked him in the stomach, lifting him above his head and catapulting him into a dead girl's body before he used the force of the blow to tumble back and stand quickly.

"Who told you this?" Gaz glanced over his shoulder as Kageki ran at him and their weapons clashed.

"Zoen did," Kageki admitted, trying to win the power struggle that was taking place.

"What?" It was a moment of weakness, a moment of realization that caused him to falter. He hadn't paid any mind to Santa, who struck him in the back with the mace. The spikes of the ball dug into his back, causing the guitarist to go to his knees and close one eye in pain. Gaz hissed as the feeling resonated through his body and tried to stand, only to go back to one knee.

"We get a free ticket out. It's orders straight from the man in charge," Santa's voice sounded ominous in those moments. It was like the grim reaper himself was standing at his door.

"Zoen is behind this?" Gaz asked, but his only answer was a sharp punch delivered to his face, then a forceful uppercut by Santa.

"Zoen's father works for the military. He told us about the dome. He told us about everything," Santa informed Gaz of their predicament. It was they who had the upper hand, and that information gave them the ability to act as a puppet master and move their marionettes as they pleased. So far, all of them had done exactly what they wanted.

"You'd kill everyone here and betray me to get out of here instead of helping us?" Gaz was then hit int he back with the blunt end of the mace, which caused him to fall to the ground with a sickening smack. His back pulsated from the lacerations left by the spiked ball and his head throbbed in pain. Blood from his afflicted shoulder rand own his arm. He couldn't believe how much knowledge twisted the situation and the people in it that he used to see as friends.

"You're all like figures trapped inside of a crystal ball. This is a military operation. All you need to do is comply and die," Kageki barked like a drill sergeant.

"I'd rather defy!" Gaz shouted in retaliation as he shot up and swung the guitar with all of his might, hitting both of the males that stood in close distance. Any major league baseball player would have been jealous of a swing like that. Kageki was quick to get up, anger etched on his face as he tried to end Gaz's life by swinging his wooden sword at his neck, but his attack was blocked and he heard a sickening pop.

His uncovered eye looked down to see that the neck of the guitar pierced his sternum. It was the last thing he had seen as he slid from the instrument. Pieces of flesh and organs became tangled in the guitar's cruel strings as he hit the body, leaving a horrified Gaz to stare at the carnage he had created.

"I...I...I just killed-" Gaz cut himself off with tears in his eyes. There he was, his friend dead at his feet. His whole body trembled as he was overcome with adrenaline and his breaths were harsh and quick. He felt like he was going to have a heart attack and sharp pains riddled his body, assaulting him in merciless waves.

Just then, the slam of the classroom door brought him out of his haze and he turned around to see that Santa had escaped. "He got away..." Blue eyes shifted back to the corpse on the floor as a sheen of sweat drenched his body.

Shakily, Gaz went over and sat in one of the school desks, trying to calm his nerves. He felt like he wanted to pass out and he felt his vision swimming before him. Nausea was prevalent. It was like his stomach was doing acrobatics inside of his body. He put his hands over his face, trying to calm himself but he was shaking so bad the entire desk trembled.

'Kageki...'

Memories assaulted his mind. Memories of the three of them playing in Santa's garage, buying each other ice cream, only to have Kageki shove his cone in Gaz's face playfully, and the three of them on stage in front of millions of cheering fans. That was the life he had known. The life that was no longer going to be. Their laughter echoed in the confines of his mind.

"I feel sick," Gaz leaned over the desk and puked onto the floor.

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Taiga walked through the gym, aqua eyes scanning the room for any signs of the white-haired youth. As his eyes scanned over two bodies that had been laying there. One of them was slumped against the wall, stabbed with a sword and the other one was lying on the exorcise mats while the television was playing cardio tapes. Blood leaked from under the boy's chest and soaked into the mats, tainting them into a dark color. Walking towards the glass doors, he glanced into the pool area. The water was a murky color, cloudy with the blood from two bodies that were floating on the surface, bobbing up and down with the small waves. Sliding the doors open, he could smell copper and chlorine. Taiga glanced to his left and saw a body draped over one of the folding chairs, blood dripping onto the ground.

Something shuffled behind him, and the yakuza turned around to see Santa, standing at the glass doors, splattered in blood and holding his mace. Cold, blue eyes stared at him with intent.

"You," Taiga seethed as his mind was assaulted with visions of Kokken's death. What she must have gone through, what she must have suffered. All of her pain, and he couldn't help but be blinded by his anger. "You killed Kokken, you scumbag asshole!"

"I'm going to kill you, too," Santa's gnarly, twisted smile widened, and his voice was laced with hatred and the desire to shed blood.

Taiga's voice darkened, taking on a tone that no one but Santa had ever heard. It was cold and emotionless. "You don't have the balls to kill me."

Santa picked up one of the weights that had been lying by his feet and hurled it at the blonde, who jumped out of the way and ran towards him, using the already broken window as a way to get back into the gym. The pieces of shattered glass fell around him like crystal rain, hitting the floor in a clatter.

"Show me what you got, yakuza!" Santa declared as Taiga charged at him like a raging bull.

"Die you son of a bitch!" He shouted as he drew his pick axe and swung, trying to put a hole through his face but to no avail. Santa evaded the attack and moved to the side as Taiga's body flew by him and the end of his pick axe speared through a treadmill with a solid thonk, ripping up the treads. Taiga unlodged his weapon only to see Santa turn on the control to high speed. The piece of exorcise equipment revved up and shot him off onto the floor.

Santa was on him quickly, trying to stomp on his face, only to have Taiga grab his foot and slam him into the ground by knocking him off balance. Quickly, the yakuza got to his feet and drew back his pick axe, trying to split the white-haired man's face open but Santa rolled to the side, then used the force of his roll to pop back up and hit Taiga in the ribs with the mace. Small spots of blood welled to the surface of his skin as the spikes dug in with tenacity. However, this only served to fuel the yakuza's blind rage. Taiga didn't even think of using his weapon as he delivered an uppercut to the rock star's jaw. The pop resonated through the gym and Santa's body hit the ground as he yelled in pain, clutching his mouth as he thrashed around on the ground.

"Next time I'll break it. Dishonorable traitors don't deserve to talk." Hopefully locking his jaw would keep him from hearing Santa's disgusting voice.

The white-haired man paused and took his hands from his bleeding mouth. Santa spit out some of his teeth that had been knocked out and lunged at the blonde with the mace. Taiga stuck out the axe and Santa's mace wound around it and the spiked ball was halted where it stuck.

"How about that? What are you gonna do now?" Taiga taunted him, wondering what was going to come next. He threw the axe with Santa's weapon still attached to it, ripping the end of the mace out of his hands as the pick axe spiraled through the air and its point dug into the wall.

Shock registered through Santa and before he could react, Taiga grabbed him by the throat and slammed him into the wall as hard as he could. Santa gurgled and spit up more blood, his fingernails dug into the yakuza's hands, clawing and prying at them at an attempt to get free but Taiga's grip was iron-clenched.

The yakuza then slammed him into the ground. "You better stay down there, you trash. You like trying to hit people with barbells?" Taiga asked as he lifted up a nearby barbell high above his head with little problem. Santa's eyes widened at the yakuza's strength. Until this moment, it had never hit him just how overpowered he was. "The things you do always come back to you." With that, he slammed it onto the ground with such force that it pinned Santa there by the neck. The bar was pressed against the other male's skin. He gurgled and tried to scream, only to have it sound like a loud gargle. Santa spasmed and convulsed below him. Two black, shined shoes were planted on either side of the bar, pressing it harder onto the other man's neck, restricting his airway as cold, aqua eyes watched him.

It was at that point all of the rage had gone, and Taiga felt nothing at all.

"Now you'll suffer...just like she did. I'm gonna stand here until you die," Taiga hopped down and walked over to a round, disc-like weight used to add weight to the barbell and calmly picked it up and walked back to Santa, who wasn't struggling anymore.

Fueled by adrenaline, Taiga hit Santa with it, over and over again. Blood sprayed and spurted on him, and he continued to savagely beat him until he grew physically tired and Santa's whole head was unrecognizable. His blood-splattered hand dropped the weight and he stood up and exited the gym with his pick axe in hand as the last of one of the work out videos played in the distance.

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Aoili screamed bloody murder as she skidded back on her butt, powering herself with each kick of the leg. Fear and shock reflected in her eyes as she stared at Kokken's corpse in front of her. Tears bit at her eyes as she put her hands to her mouth, staring her friend's lifeless body.

"What happened? Someone...Someone killed K-Kokken...Why? Why would anyone do this? I don't want to be next! I have to defend myself," the tan-skinned girl's eyes darted around the graveyard several times as she held a large, butcher knife to her chest that she had managed to take from the kitchen. She shivered, knees still bent up and body locked in place. "I can't accept this. I just can't! Everyone can be taken away in an instant. I'm falling apart! I can't trust anyone! They probably all want to kill me!" Aoili felt herself losing the war against sanity as her eyes widened in fear. "The thing I can do now...I can't bring her back...She's...really gone. They're all watching me...waiting for my sanity to unravel while I wait for them to make their move. I want out of here!" The girl cried out as tears streamed down her cheeks.

She felt something inside of her snap. A piece of her was now gone that had been there all along. Aoili wiped her cheeks. "Last woman standing. I'm going to get out for her. I've got to get out of here. I'm trapped with all these people, and...I have to kill them or I can't get out. If I don't kill them, they'll try to make me do it, or they'll kill them for me," her voice became more erratic and out of touch the more she spoke. "Everyone's waiting for me to crack, feel betrayed, hurt, scared, panicked...I have to get out. What if whoever killed Kokken will try to kill me next?" Her heart pounded in his chest harder than before, and she nearly felt on the edge of a panic attack as a new level of terror shot through her form. "Who killed her? I don't even know. It could have been one of the others. I can't trust anyone. I don't have a choice. Killing them now would be better than hesitating and making it painful to do so later on."

A determined look crossed her face as she tried to reason with herself, justifying her actions. Aoili had never killed anyone, and while the deepest part of her didn't want to do it, she knew that it would only end up in someone's death. Aoili wasn't about to let herself be killed so easily. "Okay, time to do this!"

Just then, she heard someone come into the graveyard, the jingling of a chain and crunch of the blades of grass underfoot signaled her to hide.

"Crap," Aoili said under her breath as she scrambled behind a tombstone.

Leo came into view as she peeked around the gravestone and saw him walk towards her. Her heart slammed in her chest as Leo stopped by the tombstone she was hiding behind and waited quietly.

'It's Leonardo. He's alone, too. If I sneak up on him then I can get him. I can slit his throat if I'm careful. His back is to me.' She thought as she looked at the blade in her hands, then glanced back to the black-clad man.

Steadying herself, Aoili darted from behind the stone and puts the knife to his neck, threatening to end his life. However, Leo immediately reacted and grabbed her wrist, taking her and flipping her over his shoulder. It was only when the girl's body landed on the ground before him did it register in his mind what had happened.

"Aoili!?" Leo was shocked that she just tried to kill him. He hoped that it wasn't a case of mistaken identity.

The girl got up and held her knife defensively. Her chest heaved as she tried to look brave. "I'm...I'm going to kill you."

"You're kiddin' me? Why?" Did someone put her up to this? It wasn't anything that she would have done on her own, Leo was sure of that.

"If I don't kill you, then you'll kill me. We know how this works," Aoili charged at him again with her knife drawn and tried to stab him, but he kicked the girl in the gut. She recoiled and spun around, trying to slash his throat. Leo bent backwards but he felt the blade run across his neck, a small line of red welled to the surface from the small cut that was made above his spiked collar.

"I didn't get into this to get your blood on my hands. I'm trying to help ya-" Before he could finish his sentence, the girl had already tried to attempt to slash his throat a second time. "There's no talking to ya is there?" Leo did the only thing left to do, he pulled out his scythe.

Aoili pulled another knife from her gym coat and pointed both of them at him. She charged at him again with both knives and he held up his scythe, blocking both blows with his long, curved blade. The girl tried to stab him again and he brought the scythe down but missed her as she jumped out of the way.

The gymnast came at him again with both knifes pointed at his heart. Leo dodged out of the way, then moved from side to side evading each stab as Aoili gave him frustrated, wayward strikes. Then, the girl utilized her skills at gymnastics to flip over him and attempt to stab him in the back of the head while he was turned to her but he shifted his scythe behind his back and blocked her with the large blade, holding the weapon backwards.

Aoili back flipped and ran at him again. Lamar drew back and flung his scythe like a boomerang. The spiraling weapon hit her in the chest, knocking her off of her feet as it spiraled in place. The girl crashed to the ground, landing on her side. Leo pulled the chain, commanding his weapon back to his hand.

"Stay down. Don't make me have to ram this through your skull." It was second nature for Leo to kill. Even though he had only been proven to regret it each time, there was that mechanism that still triggered for him to go into a kill mode in situations like that. He had never been as serious as he was in that moment. Leo knew his thresholds, and he was going to kill her if she persisted.

Sunoma entered the graveyard, and at that moment, Leo turned to see the Lolita walk in, dressed in a black corset and grey lolita dress with white frills. Aoili saw his blind spot and drew her knife, running to him and plunging it into his back. Leo gritted his teeth as pain shot through him. What a fool he had been to take his eyes off of the girl. That was a novice mistake on his behalf.

The lolita was quickly on the situation, thrusting her katana blade through the gymnast's neck as Leo hunched down from the strike. Horror crossed Leo's face as he saw what had just happened. Aoili fell to the ground, releasing her other knife.

"S-Sunoma..." Leo's voice rasped from pain.

The lolita put her sword to her side. "I'm not in a mood to be reprimanded. She just tried to kill you," she pulled out a handkerchief and stuck it down his spiked collar, stopping the blood from his cut. "Thankfully, that one looks better than this one."

She then moved to his back and examined the knife blade that had dug into his skin.

"Ah...ah..." Leo hissed and grabbed at his shoulder.

"Are you going to stand there, or do you want the knife out of your back?" The lolita asked coldly.

"You didn't-" Leo began but he was cut off.

"We all know I did. Would you rather have her killing you again? Whatever all of us were, we aren't now. I'm not going to kill you unless I feel a reason to. I owe you too much for that. Remember, we're all enemies now," Sunoma felt that she didn't have to really tell someone that who had been involved in the past killings. He should have known how the mechanics of the sick game worked.

"This isn't my plan," Leo was disappointed that someone as bubbly and kind as Aoili would have come to such a decision...but when he looked at it in retrospect, that was exactly what happened to his class. Even the gentlest of souls became the most twisted of beasts.

"Your plan is failing. Gathering information isn't working. We'll have to find the one behind this plan and that means we'll have to make sacrifices," Sunoma knew that wasn't what Leo wanted, but the grim truth was upon them. As much as he wanted to believe that things wouldn't turn out like his prior situations, it did. There wasn't a way to let him down gently about the subject.

"I don't want a repeat-"

"If nothing changes you'll get that. You've been through this before," Sunoma's voice turned colder, reminding him that he didn't need to fall apart right now. He was the pillar that held a few of them together and he needed to realize that. She was one of the few people following his lead.

"I know I-"

"You didn't really know her, and neither did I. She was Kokken's friend and as cold as it may seem, they are here together, side by side. They would have wanted that," Sunoma knew that was the most she could offer to the situation. There was no taking back what she had done. Aoili was dead, another casualty to the cause. It was either save her or save Leo and she wasn't about to let one of the keys to getting out of the school die.

"I guess..." Leo closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. He wasn't satisfied with that answer. He didn't want people to die if they didn't have to. In his graduation, he wasn't able to save anyone in his class. He didn't want a repeat of that catastrophe.

Sunoma pulled the knife from his back in one, swift motion and cleaned the blood off with another handkerchief. "We should meet with the others and see who all is left alive," the girl noted and held the blade up. "I'm going to put this in my dorm room. I don't want anyone grabbing these weapons for themselves. I'll meet you in the cafe in an hour," she turned to leave, then looked over her shoulder. "Go fix your shoulder."

'It's happening...All of these emotions from before are flooding my mind. The smell of blood and decay...' His eyes darted to the bodies of the two girls. "People I care about are dead..." His vision blurred, then he slapped himself, hard enough to leave a red mark. "No! I can't go thinking like this! Come on, Leo, pull it together. I've got to be strong. No time to fall apart." He stood straight as the pain registered in his back again. He clutched the top of his right shoulder and closed his eyes. "Damn, my shoulder hurts like hell fire!" The pounding of the affected area shot through his brain and the blood that had hemorrhaged to the surface made his shoulder feel cold. Sweat beads clung to his face and forehead as the ventilation cooled him. "Gotta think, gotta think. It's a race against time and life now...and I don't have time to screw up."

It was a promise that he would make with himself. Above all things, he wasn't going to lose his sanity as he had in the past. It was time to stop blaming himself and start changing the future.

...To Be Continued