Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Defy and Comply ❯ Lesson 23: Roulette ( Chapter 25 )

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Defy and Comply

By: Melissa Norvell

Lesson 23: Roulette

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"Do y'think this'll work?" Masato asked as the two of them gazed upon the scene before them.

"Who knows? But, we don't have much time to worry about it," Ame glanced up to the scene the two of them had created.

High above them, Zoen's lifeless body hung from the ceiling. It swayed back and forth by the chain wrapped around his neck. Lifeless eyes stared back at them, accenting an expression chiseled in eternal agony. The two of them had also managed to put his clothes back on him to lead the suspicion from the crime taking place in the bathroom.

"For now, we have to tell the others what we know," Ame knew there would be no use saving one of them, and they were going to make the best of their time alive.

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Gaz walked into the bathroom, his whole form was covered in blood from his recent slaughter. Copper and mineral was pungent on his form, and he could no longer stand the smell of sweat, death and viscera. It was matted in his hair, and crusted on his skin. Gaz couldn't shed his clothes fast enough. Shedding his leather vest, he glanced down to notice that there was a blood splatter on the ground under his boot.

He blinked a couple of times, finding it a little peculiar. "Huh? Looks like someone fell," Gaz commented before walking over to the sink to see an infamous red bandana. It was shocking to see that particular piece of clothing. "That's weird...Zoen never leaves his bandana lying around anywhere. It's like his good luck charm or something." The rock star ran a blood splattered hand through his tresses of spikes. "Come to think about it, there are a lot of things off about this." Something was wrong. Something happened to him.

The only question was what.

Glancing around the bathroom, he looked for any clues as to why Zoen would simply leave his handkerchief headband laying around. Over by the wall, a soap bar was laying on the tile floor. "How did that get there?"

Walking around the area, he spied the familiar black boots that Zoen always wore laying against the wall. One was lying on its side and they looked virtually untouched from the point of him taking them off. Gaz arched an eyebrow, confusion crossed his visage. "Where is he? I mean, why would he leave without his shoes? That's just weird." Something was definitely wrong but he couldn't put his finger on it. Gaz didn't see Zoen anywhere around the bathroom. Maybe he got attacked in there and had to leave? That would explain the blood and his lack of shoes. After all, everyone knew that dying in the bathroom resulted in a trial.

Then, a thought hit him. 'Maybe someone killed him. They probably lured him outside.' Turning he went to dart out of the door, but his foot was knocked out from under him by the same splatter of blood on the floor he had found earlier. The force of the fall sent him into the bathtub with tinted red water. As he was submerged, his dark blue eye darted back to see the nude body of a male student submerged.

Hurrying as fast as he could, frantic and freaked out, Gaz swam over to the edge and pulled himself out. Water cascaded from his form, washing the blood off and cascading to the ground in a series of splatters. Gaz couldn't believe that someone else had been so stupid as to get killed in the bathroom. It was even more unsettling that the body was in the tub he had just fallen into. Heaving a little from the murky water that got in his mouth the blue-haired rock star coughed.

"There's a body in there..." Then, something hit him. "Wait! What if Zoen was murdered in the bathroom?" Gaz shook the thought from his head. "Surely not, I mean...Look what happened to Prasuna. Well...her sanity was pretty much gone, but she still made that mistake. I need to go find Zoen. Not because I care, but because I want to know if he's alive or not and I want to know who killed him and why."

Leonardo swung his scythe with such force that the blade cut an attacking student in half. Both parts of the body hit the floor with a sickening thud as he darted off and turned the corner, colliding with Gaz. The force of the hit was so strong that Gaz fell backwards onto the floor. Leo jumped back defensively and threw his scythe out of instinct. Hurriedly, the Korean scrambled up and evaded the weapon as the blood-coated tip dug into the once plush carpeting.

"Hey! It's me!" Gaz threw up his hands and shouted. Of all of the people to get killed by, Leo was the lowest on the list.

"Sorry, you scared me. Why the hell are you all wet?" Did Gaz take a plunge in the fountain outside? What in the world happened?

"I fell in the hot bath." That wasn't the point, however. Gaz decided to change the subject. "Hey, have you seen Zoen?"

"No," Leo shook his head after walking over and picking up the handle of his weapon. "I haven't seen him in a really long time. Is he even still alive?" In fact, he lost track of the status of most of the people he was originally around.

"That's what I want to know," Gaz knew something was wrong, right now he was just gathering evidence.

"No offense, but why do you care?" Didn't Zoen send Kageki and Santa to kill Gaz? Why would he be concerned for the person who wanted him gone?

"I shouldn't, and I know that. The guy tried to get me killed and turned my friends against me but, in the end we're all against each other. If things fall through, then it'll be your or me. You were right before. It's not about morals, it's about survival," Gaz learned that the hard way. He now knew the cost of a life, and what it meant to try and survive an event like this. However, if someone died that meant there was going to be a trial, and if there was going to be a trial, then he needed to at least gather evidence.

"Do you remember when Karaya died?" Leo asked.

"Yeah, she hung herself," Gaz wondered why he was just now bringing that up.

"Do you know why she did it?" What was with this inquisition all of a sudden?

Gaz put a finger to his goatee and arched an eyebrow. "No one really knew. I mean, the whole school thought it was a freak thing."

"She's connected to the mastermind." Those words hit Gaz like a bag full of bricks.

"What?"

"Below the school is a giant basement," Leo informed him with a serious visage. "Inside of the basement is a corpse factory of sorts."

"A what? Are you serious, man?" The rock star's eyes widened and his blood ran cold. He didn't know exactly what a corpse factory was, but he had a feeling that the answer that was about to come would only plunge him deeper into the abyss of the nightmare.

"Anyone who dies here is submerged in sulfuric acid. It can eat away a human corpse in a couple of days." It was a dark truth that cut deep, but Leo knew that Gaz should know it. He didn't want a similar incident to what happened to Taiga.

"Wait...are you saying that my class mates are..." Gaz was so petrified that he nearly felt his heart stop. Everyone was gone. They weren't gone as in they were dead, they were gone as in the fact that there was no trace of them left. No one remembered them and no one missed them. Their memories lived on in the minds of those who spent their last days with them.

It was a terrible fate to be met with.

Leo's head hit the ground and he spoke with regret, "they are just a memory now."

"Kokken, Aioli...and Prasuna...they're...I think I'm going to be sick..." All of their deaths played through his head. Finding Aioli's body, Kokken's body, and watching Prasuna swan dive to her death in a fiery execution. The bile churned in the pit of his stomach and he felt his joints weaken. Whoever was doing this was a true, sick person.

"It's not just your class, it's mine as well. All of those who graduated Shinjinku Academy for the past six years." This was nothing new to Leo; it was something that was happening long before he was even inducted into the school.

"So...the graveyard..." Gaz could hardly believe the horror story that had been unleashed on him. It was like he had been submerged into some sadistic place that would make anyone in hell happy to be down there.

"Nothing is there but stones. It's just nightmare fuel, designed to scare you," Leo admitted the true purpose of that place.

"Man, I'm going crazy in this place," Gaz put a hand on the side of his head. "It's all I can do to keep my sanity."

"Be glad you still have yours," Leo commented. For him, things hadn't been that easy. For him, his sanity had already been taken from him.

"I can only imagine how you feel. You got balls, man. You guys are my heroes," Gaz thought Leo could have used the sentiment. Others had probably said that to him, or similar things but every little compliment helped in this situation. If it wasn't for Leo, none of them would have made it as far as they did.

"It's not over yet," Leo glanced back up to him. "You can congratulate us if we pull this off." They learned more this time around than they did the last time, but that meant nothing if they didn't find the mastermind.

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In one of the hallways, Masato and Ame stood together. The two had been thinking about what they were going to say to everyone, about what they could say or how they should explain themselves. Both of them knew what was going to await them, it just depended on what the final verdict would be in the trial. Ame and Masato waited in anticipation on which of their fates would fall, and who would end up facing an execution.

"It won't be long before they call a trial," Ame folded her arms over her breasts as she glanced to a beautiful, golden clock on the wall. She counted down the minutes, the seconds of freedom and life she had left.

"I couldn't find anyone," Masato tried to look for the others. Who even knew if they were even alive at this point?

Ame shook her head and closed her eyes with a frown on her face, "neither have I. Let's out Zoen in the trial. Even if we die, we can let the others escape. Maybe they can overcome the obstacles and overthrow that clone." Now was the time for redemption. Before they died, they were going to release all of the information they had found and alert everyone to who the real mastermind was.

"It's been a good life. Too bad I won't get to see anyone else to know if they made it. Gotta tell Tsukimi that I'm sorry I can't be her bodyguard," Masato smiled bitterly at that fact. He might have appeared calm on the outside, but on the inside he was falling apart. Masato felt like an inmate on death row. It was all a matter of time before the reckoning hour came.

"If it's any consolation, you were mine." For the first time, Ame's voice changed from a cold, mechanical tone to something that had a little bit of emotion to it.

Masato's eyes widened as he glanced down at the lolita beside of him. "Ame..."

Ame smiled smugly. "My ruse is up, after all. I must shed my mask and bare it all. Why not bare my feelings so I can die with no regrets? I should tell you the truth." There was no use for masks, no use in putting up a front. It wasn't about playing the game anymore. As of now, she had lost all purpose.

"What do y'mean?" Ame had always been a mystery to the biker. She was the most elusive person he knew, and even now her words remained cryptic.

"There is a specific reason I chose to go after you," Ame decided that she would finally tell him her plans.

"Besides, the ones y'said to me," Masato knew of her prior reasons, and of their pact, but was there something else that she had been hiding all of this time?

Ame looked down. Her voice was low, and almost held a shy quality to it. "I find you appealing..." Tilting her head back up, she placed a bent finger beneath her chin, as if rethinking her word choice. "No, that's a gross understatement. I wanted to be with you, and I waited for an opportunity to snare you. It was dysfunctional; and abusive of me but it was my way of keeping you alive and spending time with you. If you hate me, I can understand. I just want you to know that I am sorry..." Her visage saddened, breaking its mechanical look by showing the most minor of difference. Glossy, saddened, blue pupils and a small frown. "I am so sorry for the way I treated you."

Masato was taken aback by the way she so openly put her feelings out there. It was like all of the ice gave way and from the frozen doll, the vibrancy of life leaked through. His heart beat quickened and his breath hitched in his throat. "Ame...I dunno what to say..."

"I wouldn't either," in that moment, Ame was honestly frightened of what he would say.

"Y'know, I never thought about the two of us. I just thought y'were usin' me for y'r own benefits. Truth is, I came to like you. I even saw us as mutual partners but I didn't think it could be anything past that." When Masato logically thought about it, he never thought he would hold a light to the girl. Besides Sunoma and Prasuna, Ame was the third most popular girl in all of Shinjinku Academy. She designed all of the school's uniforms, the dresses for those in the Lolita Club, and she was the top judge in the student fashion show. What would she have wanted with a rebel like him?

He was in a bosozoku gang, and the most horrible gang in all of Japan. He's done things that put him in jail. His gang killed people, cops, ran the streets, set things on fire and a long, laundry list of other things. It was the complete opposite from someone who lived the lolita lifestyle.

"I guess it can't anymore, can it?" Her confession came a little too late.

"I woulda said yes," Masato admitted, pointing his head down with a frown on his face. The point of his hair covering one eye. "I don't deserve a pretty girl like you. Y'know, bein' here made me look at life a little differently."

"You shouldn't say that to me now..." It was like a sharp pain in her heart and in that moment, Ame wanted to laugh at how sickening, yet beautiful this whole situation was. "But, what do you mean by made you look at things different?" She was a little intrigued by his train of logic. There were many things to be learned from this situation, but she had a feeling that what he learned to look at differently wasn't something most students did.

"I killed people," Masato admitted. "People who didn't deserve it. People who had less than I did. When I'm put on the other end, I feel like its some sorta sense of divine justice. I probably deserve this." He couldn't help but let out a chuckle at that kind of thing. Karma had caught up to him. "The sick part is, I never got to make things right."

It was an eye for an eye. His life for those who had lost theirs in his turf wars, the cops he'd beaten, the homeless people he killed, thinking no one would miss them and their lives weren't worth grieving, and now, no one would miss him. It was tragic, but sickening and he learned to feel how that homeless man felt that he robbed the life from. It was his turn to die.

"I can't say that I'm exactly a good girl. I am the daughter of a yakuza member, a man who openly committed crimes and killed people. We murderers must stick together, right until the last kill." It was the first person that Ame had told these things to, and knowing it would be the last made her feel a sense of peace. She was able to tell her darkest secrets to this man, and he would listen. Even if she died, she doubted that he would tell anyone.

"That's morbidly poetic," Masato smirked.

"Remember our pact?"

"I do."

"Shall I join you in your conviction?" Then again, going on with his death on her shoulders seemed pointless.

"No, persecute me and graduate!" Masato couldn't think of a dumber thing to flow from those blue lips than that. It was stupid of the both of them to die. It was his job to protect her, and that's what he wanted to do. She could at least honor his last wish.

"No," Ame was firm on her decision.

"What?"

"I live with numberless shadows. I do not need another. Nothing will return the dead. My heart and I wish to end it all. Masato, let us wake up together. With our last breaths, we shall caress each other in the afterlife. Let us bathe in our sins. Hell has a special place for people like us." It wouldn't be right if Masato died and she lived. Her closet was so full of skeletons that she couldn't allow another to be placed in there, and above all, she wouldn't let it be his. To graduate without him felt pointless. To allow him to die in her place when she helped in the crime was wrong. Ame couldn't live with that.

"I don't understand. I'm givin' y'the chance to escape." Why? Why did she insist on dying with him? This hurt, a lot more than he let on.

"I've done enough things at your expense, Masato." Throughout their partnership, she was cruel to him. She made him suffer when she didn't have to, especially when he would have loved her back. For that, Ame didn't feel she deserved to live.

"But-" Masato tried to argue, but he was cut off.

"I will accept my punishment. I want to die with you." Nothing he could say was going to change her mind.

"I don't wanna watch y'suffer," Masato really wished the lolita would reconsider.

"It's not suffering if I welcome it," her words were powerful, so much so that it stopped him from commenting further.

"Will the following students please report to the trial room..." Upon hearing that infamous voice, Ame and Masato looked up towards the intercom. They could feel the gavel being forced down upon them. The final judgment would be made.

"We'll fight to the end," Ame stated.

"Damned straight," Masato's face morphed into an expression of acceptance and confidence. It was time to face their deaths head on.

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Inside of the courtroom, Gaz, Tsukimi, Ame, Masato, Taiga, Kiyomaru, Leonardo, Kazoo and Sunoma all stood at their respective podiums. The courtroom was beginning to look more and more desolate now that many of their classmates who participated in the trials had died. There was nothing at their podiums but a picture of each one, smiling at them. It was an expression that would usually be happy, but now it took on a whole new meaning.

Leo had an annoyed expression on his face with his eyes closed and a vein popped out of his forehead. "Son of a bitch. What happened now?" He spoke between gritted teeth.

Taiga just crossed his arms, closed his eyes and tiled his head down.

"Why am I here?" Tsukimi was clueless as to what happened. Who killed someone in the wrong area of school? Who killed someone at night? Who broke a rule?

"Who the fuck killed someone in the wrong place? Are we really doing this again? I cannot believe you stupid frickers would make another mistake. Didn't watching Prasuna burn put the warning into your heads strong enough?" Kazoo was outraged that they would end up there again. He thought that surely his class mates had more sense than this.

Kiyomaru grabbed his arm and glanced to the side with a look of shame on his face.

"Man, I don't want to do this again." It was hard enough to convict Prasuna and send her to her death. To know that they had to do it to another one of their class mates really stressed Tsukimi out.

"I think I know what happened. Someone killed Zoen in-" Gaz began to explain, but he was cut off.

"You know the drill. Let the nonstop debate begin," the hooded man announced from his seat on the throne-like chair he usually perched in.

"Tell us, Gaz, what happened?" Sunoma inquired as she glanced to the rock star.

"Someone killed Zoen in the bathing area," the look on Gaz's face hardened into a dire expression.

"Now...Why would they do that? That is just stupid? Did you guys not memorize the rules?" Kazoo leaned forward on the podium. He was so outraged that anyone would do something like that.

If they wanted to kill Zoen, they could have done it out in the open where they wouldn't suffer any reprocussions.

"Let's get this over with," Leo frowned and turned sideways. He refused to look at any of his classmates.

"It wasn't Tsukimi, myself, Taiga or Leonardo. We were in the basement. That leaves, Gaz, Masato, Kiyomaru, Ame and Sunoma," Kazoo made a logical deduction.

"Why were y'in the basement? Does this school even legit have a basement?" Masato had never even heard of such a thing. He wanted them to explain just what they were doing, and what this basement was.

"It does," Tsukimi backed him up. "There's a door on the floor of the electrical room. It goes straight down to a basement."

"What?" Just what had they been doing since Masato and Ame were caught up in their unfortunate accident?

"There's a machine down there, it gets rid of the bodies that have been slaughtered," Kazoo revealed the horror before them. Such a revelation earned them a nervous glance from Kiyomaru.

"It's pretty fucked up. They use vats of acid to dissolve the bodies. You can never see anyone who has died there. The vats use sulfuric acid, something that easily eats away metals with no problem," Leo further elaborated on the situation and explained what sinister actions were going on below the surface of their already sick operation.

"What?" Masato could hardly believe what he was hearing.

Sunoma glanced to the green-haired man. "Did you know about this, Leo?"

"I didn't," he shook his head.

"I did," Kazoo admitted.

"Why didn't you tell us?" The lolita asked. It was bad enough that he hid the fact that he wrongfully murdered someone from them, but now he was going to hide the fact that he knew something far more sinister than the mutual killing was happening? Sunoma was beginning to doubt her trust in him more and more.

"That's scary no matter how many times I hear it," Gaz admitted before he remembered something else that was explained to him regarding the basement of horrors. "Oh yeah, did you know Karaya died because her father made that acid machine? The mastermind wanted her to operate it and she refused so they threw her father in. I bet she killed herself because she would rather have died than do the job." It was crucial that they learned this. In fact, Karaya's death was the marking point of the beginning of the end.

"How do y'know that, Gaz?" Masato was confused as to how he acquired that much knowledge.

"Leo told me. I went out of the bathroom after I noticed something was up and we ran into each other," Gaz confirmed the source of the information. This tied their situation together and gave Kazoo, Tsukimi, Taiga and Leonardo an alibi.

"Wait...you noticed something was up?" Tsukimi turned to the Korean.

Gaz nodded. "Yeah, Zoen's shoes and bandana were in the bathroom, and there was a body in the hot tub. I don't know if it was already there when Zoen came in or if someone dragged it in there. I fell into the hot tub and saw it."

"How did you fall?" Sunoma arched an eyebrow. She had never known Gaz to be completely clumsy.

"I fell on a blood splatter," Gaz scratched his head, then looked as if something hit him. "Oh yeah, and there was something else weird, a piece of soap on the floor way against the wall. It was smashed on one end, like someone stepped on it." He had noticed it when he was gathering clues as to where Zoen might have gone. It was one of the more peculiar parts of the investigation that he had made.

"So, someone slipped and fell besides you?" Leo asked with a hand under his chin in thought.

"Seems that way."

"They must have fallen in the struggle," Tsukimi noted.

"But, who fell?" Kazoo asked.

"It could be either way. He could have fallen and killed someone in the process, or he could have fallen and it could have killed him. If the fall didn't kill him, then he would have fled the scene," Leo tried to figure out what exactly was going on, and which of these scenarios seemed more plausible.

"What if he did fall and die on accident?" Tsukimi brought up an interesting point. If he just fell down and died on accident, then no on essentially killed him.

"We still have to convict someone," Leo knew that it wasn't going to get them out of their situation at all.

"Man, then...Wait...There was blood spatter on one of the stairs. It looked like whoever fell hit the stair hard enough to bust their head open," Gaz had noticed that about the scene. In fact, it was the very blood he slipped on.

"How could Zoen have died in the bathroom?" Kiyomaru wondered if they were still thinking the whole thing was just an accident. He didn't buy it at all.

"What do you mean?" Leo asked.

"I saw him hanging up in the hall. I am very confused." If he died in the bathroom, then how did he end up all the way in the hall. Zoen even had his clothes on.

"That would mean the blood spatter was old or whoever hit their head is in this courtroom," Kazoo glanced around at all of his class mates with suspicion in his eyes.

"If that happened, then they are hiding it well," Kiyomaru noted. He didn't see anyone who even looked as if they had the most minor cranial injury.

"This is bad," Gaz was beginning to get worried. What if they didn't find whoever was responsible?

"He was killed in the bathroom, then moved in the hall and hung like an ornament," Taiga deduced, causing everyone to whip their heads around to him and ask 'what' in unison. It had been the first time that Taiga had spoken since he found out that he could no longer recover his brother's body.

"You haven't spoken the whole trial. You seem upset," Ame pointed out his condition to him. It wasn't like him to act like that.

"You would be too if you were in my position," Taiga had just reason not to add much to this trial. It wasn't even about the fact that he was only working off of assumption, it was the fact that he had done nothing but think about the fact that his brother was completely gone. The yakuza was off reconstructing his goals while everyone else went along their tasks.

"Y'mean someone moved him out to avoid bein' caught. That clearly breaks the rules," Masato said the statement with faux confidence. He wanted to take the situation away from he and Ame, so he was willing to throw out red herrings in order to drive the evidence from them.

"If his stuff was still in the bathroom. That had to be it," Kazoo didn't think anyone would leave anything in the bathroom on purpose.

"Then that means someone was in the bathroom with him," Sunoma pointed that fact out.

"That's a given," Leo agreed.

"Now, we have to figure out who was in the bathroom," Kazoo scanned across his class mates, trying to find some crack in their facades. One of the people in that court room was a murderer. The only question was, who?

"I came in afterwards. There was no one in there when I was there." Well, if they wanted to count the corpse floating in the bath, there was one person. However, Gaz knew dead men told no tails.

"Were there any other clues?" Leo wanted to make sure they didn't overlook anything.

"The shower was still on and the whole place smelled like peonies." Those were the two striking things that stood out to him.

"That's not what Zoen washes with," Tsukimi pointed out to everyone. More than anyone she knew what scents that her ex-boyfriend liked. "I know that for sure. He uses evergreen smelling soap."

"Whoever did it was female," Sunoma deducted. Well, there was another answer to that, but it would have to be an extremely feminine male, or an extremely gay one.

"That leaves three of you," Leo's eyes shifted to all of the female members of the class. Logical deduction would dictate that it would be one of them. If it wasn't, he was going to be shocked.

"Tsukimi was with us. She has an alibi," Taiga defended the bassist.

"Where were you, Sunoma?" Ame asked as she stared at her felllow lolita. It would be a show down of the both of them, fellow lolitas fighting to the death to avoid execution. If she could pull it off, then she would get away with murder and save Masato from dying as well. Everything rested on her shoulders.

She hated to have to do this to a fellow Lolita society member, but these were desperate times and Ame was going to try and preserve her life.

"I don't have an alibi, but I was on the top level. There are doors to the grand ball room there but they were locked," Sunoma gave her exact location, hoping on nothing more than that her friends would believe her.

"I was investigating the lower levels," Ame told everyone of her location. It wasn't a complete lie, since that's what she had been doing.

"Why would you do that? We didn't need to investigate the dorms again. We all agreed to investigate the higher levels," Sunoma thought her story was fishy already. More than anyone, Ame knew what the agenda was and being as intellectual as she was, she didn't need to be reminded of the mission.

"I was trying to find Masato," Ame kept her answers cool and collective.

"Why would you lose him on the lower level?" To Leo, that made no sense, either. Did they run into something out of the ordinary down there on their way up? Did they get ambushed?

Taiga glanced over to the both of them, staring them down with steely accusation.

"You're lying," Leo's voice was cold, so cold that Ame felt the chill of it crack her from the inside out.

"Come on, Ame. Fess up, it had to have been you in there," Tsukimi saw through her now. Ame was cellophane in the eyes of the courtroom.

"I believe you know what happened," Sunoma glared the girl down, and still Ame's facade didn't break.

"Man, I knew you were shady but-" Gaz began, but he was interrupted.

"Let's just get this over with," Masato's voice cut in as all eyes were directed to him. His head was down and he gripped the sides of the podium so hard that his knuckles turned white and a small trickle of blood ran down his hand and seeped into the wood grain.

Ame's eyes shifted to him. She knew that there was no use in fighting this battle anymore.

"It wasn't just Ame, it was me, too," Masato exposed the both of them with one, simple sentence.

"What were you doing there?" Gaz was shocked to see Masato just give in like that. He didn't even try to defend himself, or fight for his life. Did the biker think about his actions and decide to face his death? Maybe he wanted to go out with honor.

"We figured we'd use the time to clean up," the biker explained the reason that they were on the bottom floor so long.

"We formed a team. We were working together. We didn't find anything on the upper levels, so we went to wash and we noticed the body but that's irrelevant." That student was already dead when the lolita and her secret lover walked into the room. There were only three people involved in the altercation: she, Masato and Zoen.

"Did you two kill him?" It wasn't that Taiga could blame them if they did. Zoen was an asshole.

"That's not how it happened at all," Masato at least wanted the truth to be known before he died.

"Then tell us. You're already a dead man," the yakuza wanted answers.

"He slipped on the soap and bashed his head on the step after he tried to kill me," Masato informed everyone of what happened.

"It's true," Ame backed his claim up. "We confronted him as we all got out together. Look, we both know the consequences and we both tried to hide them." Stepping away from her podium, she walked over to the biker and stood beside him, holding his hand. It was in that moment that she realized his trembling. "You all would have done the same thing. You should have tried to put up a fight." To claim that none of them would have defended themselves in court was ridiculous, and she knew that very well. They weren't bad guys, just victims caught up in a series of unfortunate events.

However, there is no redemption for the damned.

They both knew this well.

"We knew we'd have to die," Masato squeezed the lolita's hand and closed his eyes. "Someone's gotta. It doesn't even matter anymore. We knew the consequences. We knew we were dead. There's not enough mental preparation to think about dyin'." Even now, when he had accepted the fate, it scared him more than anything in the world.

"We didn't kill him. It was an accident," Ame continued. "However, someone has to die and we'd prefer it if we were killed together. I want us to die as a team at my special request."

"Yes, I'd like that, too. When I think about it, I probably woulda killed myself anyway." If he had to watch Ame die for the both of them, Masato could never have lived that guilt down. Her death would rest on his shoulders and he would never recover from it.

"Before we're taken away, I wish to tell you our final report," Ame would give them her final contribution to their cause.

"Ame...Masato..." Tsukimi's voice quivered. It wasn't fair that both of them had to die.

"There's no time for that-" The blue-haired lolita just wanted to get it over with. They could all spare her the sentiment. Ame didn't feel like feeling bad before she died, or dying with the regret of her decision.

"This is unfair. Neither one of you killed him. He slipped and fell, then he died," Tsukimi shot. This trial was bogus. It wouldn't have been a trial at all.

"That's the rules," Leo's voice was low. He had never seen a double execution, and he wasn't sure that he wanted to. He knew that the bag-headed man was just brimming with joy over this latest reveal.

"It doesn't matter, even if it's a suicide," Taiga knew very well what was going on. There was no way to get them out of this, and it was futile to struggle against their decision. If he was being walked to his death, that's the way he would want it. The yakuza respected their position.

"Even if they want to die, even if ya kill them and they wanted it," Leo added.

Just then, Kiyomaru was reminded of Leo's sympathetic actions towards Ame and Masato's conviction. There was one important factor that tied them together. His eyes widened slightly. 'That scar on Leo's chest...then that's how...' His eyes trailed to the green-haired male. "Excuse me, but, can't they just be punished instead?" It would have been better if they just would have taken that awful wheel, at least they would have a chance at survival if the sword happened to miss.

The hooded man glared down at him through the holes in the cloth. The pleading visage of the military brat nearly made him crack a smile. "Your request is denied, but I will allow them their last words." After all, it would make the game interesting. He hadn't seen a double execution, and what better way to honor the victims than to let them pour their hearts out before they depart from this world.

"The mastermind is a clone of one of you," Ame started off with the most critical piece of information.

Kiyomaru's body went taught. So, they had managed to find out who the mastermind was, or at least they had a clue as to who it was. The mystery was close to being solved, but could they solve it in time? The fate of many things rested on the answer to that question, and they were more important than any of them could ever fathom.

"What?" Leo arched an eyebrow. Did he hear that right? The mastermind was a clone of one of them? But, who?

"Where did you hear that from?" Sunoma as curious as to how she acquired that kind of information.

"Zoen told us," Ame admitted.

"One of you is workin' for them, too. They did a buncha shit to all of you. They fucked with y'r brains and deleted certain memories," Masato's eyes narrowed. He wasn't sure which one of them was lying and already knew everything, but there was one of them that did. He just hoped that they would find out who exactly it was.

"The only ones with complete memories are Taiga and Leonardo, and even their memories have been botched," Ame continued to divulge what they knew.

"What? What are ya saying?" Leo asked in disbelief. He was shocked that Ame knew something like that about him. What in the hell was going on? How were his memories still altered, despite keeping the memories of his former classmates?

"Not this shit again..." Taiga was sick of bad news. He didn't know if he could take any more bad news.

Green eyes trailed over to the yakuza as the blue-haired student listened to the two converse.

"Y'don't remember the classes before you. That's why y'can't and didn't know how long people have been dyin'. You were just as shocked as we were when they told y'that." It was something he noticed, something that was engraved into their sights. Masato knew that even Leo and Taiga didn't possess all of the knowledge they needed.

"They do it with sound waves. There's no guarantee you'll be able to defeat the clone or find out who among you is the traitor," Ame's eyes panned across the group of students, giving them a final gaze of suspicion. It was a little bit of a letdown that she would not get to find out who the clone was created from.

'My...memories have been messed up.' Slowly, she glanced around at the room, eyeing her classmates as an uneasy feeling ran through her body. Suddenly, it felt like she was surrounded by a room full of deceptive enemies. Sunoma wanted to trust then, but at the same time, if what Ame was saying was true, then someone had been fooling them all of this time. "Any one of us could be the traitor and not even knew it, simply because we don't remember..." She trailed as her eyes went to Leo. Concentrating on the rock star for a moment, she felt a sense of hopelessness overcome her. 'Not even he remembers. When I think about it, how does he remember what he does?'

"Are you bullshitting me? What kind of cockamamie bullshit is this?" Taiga couldn't believe what he was hearing. The whole time, he thought he had escaped the affects of the memory altering sound waves, but it evidently wasn't so. Everything that he thought he knew...was a lie. Slowly but surely, the yakuza was feeling like his life was composed of lie after lie. The amount of pressure that he was being put under right now nearly made him feel insane. His thoughts swam and raced in his mind, swirling together in a surreal discombobulation. It was a maddening sensation.

"Zoen's dad was a bioengineer. People have been trying to clone each other for years. There are three types of human cloning: therapeutic, reproductive and replacement," Kazoo educated them all on the concept and theories behind the such a thing. "Cloning is highly controversial. There have been ethical issues about harvesting organs from clones."

"Are you implying someone made a successful clone?" Leo arched an eyebrow. How in the world did that fly under the news broadcasters? Why did no one hear about such a thing when it happened?

"That's like science fiction!" Tsukimi could hardly believe what she was hearing. It was not long ago that cloning was deemed impossible and unethical, and now she learned that one of their experiments actually succeeded. That in itself was full of frightening possibilities.

"They're gone," Gaz glanced around himself as everything behind them faded to black. He tried to see through the darkness, but his classmates were engulfed in it.

Suddenly, he felt his stomach drop to his feet as the ground below him shot up, jutting into the air. There was so much force behind it that Tsukimi was knocked off of her feet and came crashing down to the ground. Leo stumbled forward and clung to Sunoma for support.

"What's going on?!" Taiga asked as he gripped the podium with a shocked expression.

"We have front row sears to an execution," Leo glanced down to see that they were several stories in the air. The entire floor of the courtroom had been completely separated from the flower level, and below them was what appeared to be a race track with a high jump to nowhere. The only light it provided was a glowing pit at the end of the jump that seemed to stretch an unnatural span and bathed the area in a pale, orange light.

It looked like some sort of demonic lava pit.

"The bottom i filling with lava," Tsukimi pointed out as the molten substance slowly rose below them. She then looked around as the race track rose around them, towering around them, being raised by support structures that looked like large pipes. She instantly felt like something was closing in on her, like some demonic force was looking down on her, watching her and waiting to kill her off.

Just then, a loud honking from a motorcycle's horn echoed through the darkness and a single headlight pierced the darkness. Masato sat on a modified bosozoku motorcycle that was heavily modified. Three tailpipes were pointed up at an angle, extending up to the bottom of the high-backed, light blue hair. Around his torso was a large amount of rope that was wrapped around him tightly, cutting through his clothes. It wound around the other side, where Ame sat backwards, her legs dangling over the back fender. She was bound to Masato and she had an oddly peaceful and resolute look about her.

The blue-haired lolita was staring right at the group, and she seemed oddly accepting of her death. Ame was trying to be noble in her last moments as the revving of the engine filled the darkness. The bike zoomed past everyone, creating a breeze in its aftermath that ruffled clothes and toyed with the hair of everyone in its wake. As the bike sped past, Ame said her goodbye. It was simple, one word that would be the last thing they remembered being spoken to them.

"No!" Gaz shouted in a fit of emotions and ran to the end of the raised program, only to back up to keep from losing his footing.

Wind blew through the air and everything felt surreal as Masato and Ame continued down the lone, dingy, yellow road with no bumpers or railing to keep them from falling off. It was like a lone highway to tell and both of them were speeding towards the fiery pits. The large, drill-like pigtails that were on either side of Ame's head bounced as they were pulled backwards by the force of momentum. Her dress fluttered and her tendrils and bangs tickled her ivory skin.

A small smile adorned her light blue lips. "Well, I always wanted to ride a bike with you." Her voice was oddly pleasant, nostalgic and it struck Masato to the core.

Tears bit at Masato's cheeks and streamed through the air. He sobbed and let out a small, choking noise.

Tears clung to Ame's eyes as well, falling down her cheeks as she kept speaking. "You know, I found those files in an old lock box in the library." It was something she forgot to mention to everyone before. It was silly that she brought it up now.

"I was wondering about that," Masato replied, more emotional than he had been throughout the whole killing incident. His eyes were stuck to the road before them as they began to go up the ramp.

"I have always loved you," Ame said it again. It felt so free and unrestrained to simply say emotions without fear of conviction. It was nice...so very nice.

"How long is always?" Masato wanted to know just how far back did her affections run.

"Since I forced you to have a tea party with me when you lost that bet of who can get the most dance moves to Renai Paradise on Dance Dance Revolution perfectly. It was fun playing it with you," Ame couldn't help but crack a smile at those memories. She remembered how ridiculous he looked, and how angry he was that he had to sit and sip tea like a proper gentleman instead of the ruffian he was. "You were so mad when I beat you in front of your boys. Ever since then, I liked seeing that angry, frustrated and embarrassed look on your face. It gave me a sense of power but it was endearing."

Masato laughed a little. When he thought about it all, that was actually pretty funny once he got over the initial embarrassment. "I can't believe I lost t'you. I felt like a fuckin' pansy."

"I'm shocked you went through with it and drank tea with me," Ame wondered why he would have went through with it, but was happy that he had.

"I'm a man of honor," Masato continued to watch on as the bike ran up the large ramp. He felt his stomach fall to his knees. This was it. Soon, they would both reach the end of the road and be consumed in lava.

After a few moments, the bike shot into the air and the both of them felt weightless and helpless. For once, the two were flying without wings, shining brightly above the orange light as everyone below watched in horror.

"That's what I love about you," Ame closed her eyes as her tears continued to stream down her face. Then, she opened her eyes and shouted one phrase. "I love you, Masato!"

"I love you too, Ame!" Masato shot back, his eyes screwed shut and he clenched his teeth as he felt the direction change. The motorcycle took a nose dive and began to descend into the flames below.

"Let's wake up, together," Ame could feel the temperature rise around her as the orange light glowed brighter and brighter. Beads of sweat ran down her face and yet, she still felt an odd sense of peace. Before she was engulfed in flames, she could hear the distant sound of Tsukimi crying.

Kiyomaru watched as the bike plunged into the pit of fire, exploding on contact as the two teens on it were engulfed in flames and debris, killed on contact. 'This is the end. Nothing good can come from this.' He thought before he felt himself jolt and with a light 'huh' uttered against the abyss and he too, succumbed to darkness.

...To Be Continued