((My apologies for the silent hiatus for anyone who happens to have been reading this. I was failing my college course so I had to change my focus to that.))
I was on the floor, holding Nishihara close until eventually she calmed down. Kyouya had gone exploring to see if he could find anything. Eventually, he came back over, looking lost.
"Nothing but holes." He replied. "If we had a way of crossing them, that would be great, but, well, we don't. Is Nishihara okay?"
I shrugged. "She's stopped crying, so I'd assume so..."
Kyouya offered her a hand and she reluctantly accepted. We both stood and she dusted herself off, sighing heavily. "All I can find are dead ends and holes..." He muttered, tone one of heavy defeat. "There's a door, but I can't get it open. It's really shut up tight, annoyingly."
"Locked?" Nishihara asked.
"I think so, yeah."
She gave a nod and we walked on. Kyouya was in a foul mood, and he walked away, snapping for us to follow. Even Nishihara was afraid of him, I could tell. She hung back a moment more before walking after him, and eventually I jogged on behind.
"I wish I could cheer him up..." I admitted as we reached the nearest hole.
"It'd take a lot to cheer someone up in here." I saw Nishihara lean down to search around a body, hands inside the deceased girl's pockets. "Besides, he probably has his mind on...other things..."
"Other things?" I repeated uncertainly.
"Yeah. Things like the girls he has to protect...plus..."
I looked round, then. "What do you mean?"
"Well, I already let slip I'm pregnant. He's probably concerned."
"Wouldn't anyone be? You're, what, fifteen?"
Nishihara shrugged. "I like to think he has paternal instincts. Wouldn't that be cute?"
"Paternal...?"
"You know, he's protective over me and the baby, like a good father. Paternal."
I clenched my fists then. Had Sako been fooling around with my boyfriend or was she just messing with me? Either way, I couldn't explain how much I hated her right then.
I was starting to get real hungry. How long had we been here? I stuck close to Kyouya as we walked, occasionally shooting a glare back to Sako. She would reply with a cheerful grin. Every now and then we stopped to test the doors, see if they would open. Nishihara had something in her hand, but it didn't seem to be anything good. After a while, Kyouya-chan brightened up and picked up the pace.
"I remembered there were loose boards over the room we started in!" He explained excitedly. "We could get across some of the holes in the floor using those, but we have to move carefully and keep our balance."
We nodded firmly, agreeing. He hefted up the biggest board he could find and dragged it back to a wide hole in the floor before laying it across. Arms out, he made his way around to the other side, careful, ever so careful. At least I got a really good view of his backside. Shooting a glare to Nishihara, I went across next, and she read whatever was in her hand while she waited. I tried to glance over to read as I crossed, but I almost lost my balance. Kyouya caught my arm and smiled.
"Careful, Rumie-san." He warned, and I eagerly threw my arms around him, nuzzling my head into his chest. He awkwardly patted my shoulder and I turned my head to stick my tongue out at the bitch behind us. She just smiled bravely and wobbled across the board.
"Read this!" She insisted, grinning and forcing it at us while we were having a moment! Kyouya sighed exasperatedly and took it, skimming over it.
"Naho's notes..."
I tuned him out, walking on a little. I could hear an interesting sound. Like wet tearing, like someone was really digging their fingers into something big and meaty. I stopped, finding a piece of paper with something hurriedly scrawled onto it in what I hoped was red ink.
She...she's gone. She's gone. My beloved Akino, so beautiful, her perfectly sculpted body, and she's gone. The bitch destroyed my last link to my one true love and now I fear I have lost her forever. I feel like I'm just trapped in this reverie, wanting and needing the mere image of my love to sustain my sanity. Then again, if Karina heard me talking this way of Akino, she would insist my sanity was already gone. That I was sick. Here, I am not the sick one. It is her. She, who readily destroys everything I hold dear, and smashes the hopes and dreams of all. I will kill her. I will kill her. She has to die. She took away my last hope and she has to die I have to kill her kill her kill her die she has to die I am going to destroy her just as she has destroyed my hope Karina will die
It trailed off in pretty much the same manner. I felt a presence behind me, and turned to see Kyouya and Sako had caught up with me, and I expected a reprimand. Instead, Sako clamped a hand over her mouth and nose, having gone very pale, and Kyouya looked solemn. It took me a moment to realise they had read the note over my shoulder, and a moment more to catch the smell in the air. The same smell you get on your period or during dissections. The smell of unfiltered blood and gore, still with the wet tearing sound, the occasional grunt and slurp, as though someone were eating the very meat they were tearing into. We exchanged worried looks before pressing forward.
Turning a corner, we were met with a simply awful sight.
A boy in red was crouched over a bloody, torn body that had once been a teenage girl, supposedly the Karina in the note. Of course, there was a Karina in our class, but I didn't dare so much as think that girl could be her. I also knew an Akino. Kiyomizu's little sister, or at least one of them, was called Akino. He came from an exceptionally large family, I remembered. The boy crouched over the corpse was tearing into it with his hands and lifting the lumps of meat to his mouth. I think he was eating them. That was enough to push Sako to throwing up. Ew. We jerked away from her with a quiet yelp and the boy turned. He had purple hair in a long plait, but the plait had been over his shoulder, riding down his chest, where it too was covered in blood. His eyes were a dull blue and everything seemed to make his already pale skin glow an eerie white. The emblem on his breast pocket was difficult to make out, but I already knew what school he was from. It was Youku. Our Youku. Which meant the blue-haired corpse pulled open like a dissected frog was our Karina.
Youku didn't say anything, just stared at us for the longest time. Then, he licked the blood off his hand and off something glinting in his grip. A knife? I felt a shiver run down my spine and suddenly I wanted nothing more than to be home in bed, maybe with Kyouya cuddled up to my side. "Looks like we have some little piggies watching us, don't we, Karina?" He reached over and made her lifeless head move, nodding as though she could agree. "They look like they could make some very tasty morsels." His tongue flicked over his lips and he began to advance on us. I felt frozen in place, but someone pulled me away by my arm. Sako was leading me and Kyouya away briskly, thanking him for his 'offer' and saying they really ought to go find the others. Footsteps followed. He was following.
"Come back here, you sons of bitches." Came the awful rasp. I sped up at once, almost pulling Sako over. I gripped her wrist, practically dragging her after me, and we sped down the hall, frightened out of our wits. We had taken a turn away from the huge hole we'd bridged and now we were bound to get lost. Matters were made far worse when a girl rounded the corner in the opposite direction and we collided, all four of us falling in a heap. I looked up, saw Youku approaching and shut my eyes tight.
A blood-curdling scream pierced the building.
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