Awright part three of Murder Saga. Let's get this over with hahaha

After Host

Chapter 15: Corporeal Mask: Hormonal Charade (Part 3)

When she released, Sachiko faced him with a snide little grin. "Mori, Mori, I have a question for you.

When she gazed into him, his eyes relented, stormy gray-blue. "Do you want to help me make more art?"

"Would I..." His lips parted, gaze overflowing. "I-I am allowed to?"

"Yesss!" Giggling, she took his hands and squeezed them. "C'mon, you want to, don't you?"

Without another moment to it, a smile split across Mori's face. "Of course I want to."

Sachiko couldn't even put words to the small explosion of warmth in her chest, just dragged him to the edge of the hall.

"Okay, hang on tight. I'm gonna switch us to another closed space. This one—This one's my special one, where I keep all my favorite artworks. I don't let people in here, usually—as it stands, you're the only living being who gets to experience it." She turned back and let it sink in, smiling into his sparkling eyes. "Shifting to another closed space causes the earthquakes. Well—I can make earthquakes too, if I wanna, but moving between spaces always makes it hard to stand. And I don't want you getting hurt, Mori."

He held on, one hand against the wall, the other in her carefully tight grip. As the world split to shudders and shivers, Sachiko saw through the guise and sought after the life-force that bled out of closed spaces like lights in apartment buildings; and the later it grew, the less lights there were.

Aha—A space with only one survivor left. Perfect fodder for practice.

The world grew quiet again, and Mori leaned into her.

She let him onward, down the stairs and out of the second wing. Then they hovered at the edge of the door, and she made sure to shut it as silently as possible.

Now where... the fuck... were they... oh, and damn, who was it? She realized suddenly she couldn't feel the paper scrap of the person who resided these halls on their lonesome no more. No idea if she'd never killed them before, or if she's merely misplaced the charm, grown tired of their sealed fate, or some other reason she didn't care enough to recall.

Stepping carefully through the hall, then re-entering the school, Sachiko listened for every little creak in the floorboards, crack in the walls. "Who... could it be..." she muttered to herself, squeezing Mori's large, warm hand.

"What is it... Shinozaki-san?" he asked, his voice a quiet ghost, her sole companion.

She froze. "Ah... is it..?" Oh, damn, that was right. Too many victims sometimes; Sachiko could forget a few of the ones whose fates she continued to reset when she was so focused on... others. The bewildered Mori to her back, she turned, patted his shoulder and proffered a sneaky little grin. "The girl in this closed space has gotten very boring, so I tried resetting her fate to see if she'd do something more interesting this time around." Always whining about Naho-tan, uh? "Let's see if we can immortalize her in art, shall we~?"

Sachiko led the boy through the halls of the main building, winding corridors she knew as well as old friends—not that she had any. There was that... niggling in her chest—that—that there was something, once, but the curtain closed shut the harder she tugged, so she released and let it fade into the folds of her long forgone memory. Besides, what did she need anybody else for when Mori was holding her hand and calling her cute?

A turn to the back of the first floor, and Sachiko felt the beating of a heart close by. She rushed forwards then drew to an immaculate halt just before a once-red door, its wood skin revealed after years of claws and scissors and bodies striking against it. The hinges squealed when pushed aside, but it mattered not how much noise she made at this point: Ooue Sayaka would be alerted of their presence either way, but she lacked an escape.

The brunette sitting on the floor stood, uneasily, then met their gazes one by one. From behind her she picked up a long, wicked piece of wood, then wielded it like some sort of blade, something that would protect her. Foolish girl. "Wh-Who are you..? I don't recognize your school u-uniforms..." Her voice, a high-pitched chirp, trembled so hard she sounded like she might lose her ability to speak altogether.

Breathing heavily, Sayaka drew her hair behind an ear in the silence. Her mauve uniform disguised most of the stains on her body. Her left leg was done up with a hair tie and another strip of wood, some sort of half-assed attempt at a splint. Bruises blushed along her face like kisses, and her fingers were decorated with splinters.

The weak spots were numerous; her survival, incredibly impossible.

"A-A-A-Are you trapped here... l-like me..? No—No I haven't seen a-a-anyone else in s-s-s-ssssoo long..."

Sachiko, dressed up in Mitsuki's body, blanketed in his jacket, stood by his side, unwavering.

"Are you not speaking because your tongues were cut out..? N-N-Nnnaho-tan t-told me not to t-t-trust anyone... she said there were gh-ghosts who would t-t-t-trick me, if I l-l-let them...

As if suddenly registering her own words, an unfiltered gasp escaped through her outstretched lips, and she shrunk back, shuddering. "You're ghosts, th-th-then..!" Swinging the wood into her empty palm, she whispered, "I-I know how... t-t-t-to use this.

Morishige faced the woman who stilled in front of them as if she already knew that she would be overpowered. He'd never learn her name, her story, anything about her once this deed was done—only experience the true effulgence of her soul being wrenched out from her all-too-weak flesh.

The way she shuddered... the way her eyes filled with tears... the way she stood up, the strongest she'd ever been in her life when her appearance suggested entirely otherwise... the way she refused to back down when she knew the outcome was stamped upon her like Death's own personalized tattoo... it was like...

no. no he couldn't think that way.
What had Sachiko-chan told him?

Releasing breath after breath of insecurities, he forced the thoughts aimed at him headlong into the stranger he was about to ki—

transform into a masterpiece.

This was for her good. This was for her own good. He would be saving her from an otherwise disgusting fate of a messy, poorly-done murder.

Reassured, Morishige stepped up to the girl. A mirror reversed, she floundered back, only to hit the wall behind and freeze in fright. Wide eyes met his, and deep within them poured out an onslaught of bright, bright need, like shooting stars in her gaze that frantically reached toward them, only he had nothing to wish for but the slow extinction of their light, to extinguish their fire, soul.

From behind him Sachiko placed something in his hand. He glanced at it—a crude, bloodied knife. Where had she found it? Perhaps her powers were so complete she had access to any and all weapons left lying beneath the floorboards of the school, a personal treasure trove—an arsenal of exciting mediums to articulate a new artwork with.

Her eyes were trained upon him, locked down to his sharp, heavy features, and his eyes were full of the cuts he would slide down the girl's skin.

Once Morishige was in range, the girl swung her gnarled bit of wood, so hard she threw herself onto the ground—but Sachiko's hand lashed out and wrenched it from her splintery fingers, now ripe and dripping of blood from the force. She stared up at Morishige between auburn strands of hair, breathing weakly, already visualizing her paltry existence given away as if a donation to the immortalized beauty that was to come, if she'd only keep damn still—

But the girl swerved back from his fingers, shuddering, quivering, mewling.

In her head was Naho-tan, her best friend. Her best friend who told her that she would save her if anything happened. Sayaka saw it, heard it, lived it, remembered it, savored it for—for so long, but she realized now that this was not the first time she had died, and this was not the first time Naho-tan had broken her promise.

Naho-tan... was never going to save her. She froze, then, and as the boy's hand groped for her she ducked to the ground, frantic, hands up in defense, soon to be bloodied and torn up in ribbons.

There was a boy she once knew. If only—If only that boy were here now. If only she'd told him everything. Trusted him with anything. Never trusted... Naho-tan...

Naho-tan said not to trust anyone... but Naho-tan was the one who couldn't be trusted...

Then, unceremoniously, her wrists were scooped up and slapped against the wall by the scary girl with the wide smile and the eyes only for the boy.

The boy approached, fingers trembling.

Morishige crested his hand beneath her chin, and he felt how perfectly it fitted... just like—

no.

When he froze, he reminded himself that once Sachiko rewound time, this girl would no longer be dead—so was it really murder at all but a fleeting passage of art?

The gash bloomed beneath the girl's eye, a red blush spilling liberally down her cheek. She stared, glassy-eyed, tears intermingling with the blood as the pain left her pale and mute. The rush of pleasure caused him to strike her again, and again, then once more, cutting small articulate strokes across her nose, her lips, her forehead, leaving tendrils of blood to cake what skin remained, trembling into her hair like the fingers of an angel of death.

Her moans came out sharp, then hollow almost immediately—softer, softer, weaker, wheezing, pathetically waiting for him to be satisfied. He slumped her back against the wall and eagerly cut into her chest, raking down rows of red, the angel's fingers like scars along her skin. The red soon dyed what remained of her shredded shirt a violent burgundy.

Then as he brought down the knife once more—the girl stilled, all too quickly, all too suddenly gone.

The fight drew from his eyes. "Shit," he winced, covering his lip. "Sh-Shinozaki-san—"

Sachiko released the girl's wrists and sat herself down beside him, head in her hands.

Faintly he sensed her giggle—then he relaxed. "You're so stupid, silly Mori! You got so worked up you cut right into her heart!"

Then the wind was out of his lungs again. "I—Did I really—"

"Yes! Oh my God, silly Moriiiii! You ruined it!

To his downcast expression, she turned, tucking her hair behind her ears. Her bloodstained thumb trekked across his lip, leaving a crimson stain like a lipsticked kiss. "Oh, don't be so sad, Mori. I suppose it's normal to finish too early on your first try~"

"WHHA—S-SACHIKO-CHAN—" he sputtered, his face a red as violent as his actions, actions he realized he had begun to hunger for.

"What? It's true! I... think."

He couldn't look away from her bright innocent eyes, rimmed with a hunger he recognized.

Again, his heart whispered, again, again. He wanted to keep going, to find another cursed soul in the depths of Heavenly Host, already destined for death—and he wanted to finish right. God, it burned, deep in his core, then spreading throughout the rest of his body, he... he needed it.

Cupping his embarrassed face in his shaking hands, he muttered, "It was so... it was so good until I messed it all up... M-My sincerest apologies, Shinozaki-san..." W-Wait, sh-sh-shit, what did he just say! But he glanced Sachiko's way, and she didn't seem to recognize the lustful display behind his phrase. Th-Thank goodness.

"Ehhhh, don't worry about it." Her hand eased behind his shoulder, and her lips met his ear. "Next time you'll get it, I'm sure~

"Besides, I already know the perfect person to go after next! Let me take the lead on this one. I'll show you how to do it."

Somewhere separated by closed space after closed space, somewhere quiet but for the few strangers he had seen and stayed away from, somewhere absolutely devoid of the people he had called his friends, Fukuroi Masato was still alive.

He couldn't remember why. This faint, nagging sensation in his head reminded him that he had died, but clearly he hadn't yet... but how could he have died before? What sort of purgatory had he and his friends fallen into, the type of murderous funhouse that warped seemingly logical conclusions into falsities?

If only he knew what happened to everyone else.

The pale brunette presently settled in one of the stalls of the boys' restroom—the girls' had been quieter, more secluded, but it didn't feel right to hide out in, well, the ladies' room. His head leaned against the wall, and he sat as to leave space between himself and the toilet. There was a faint smell, but there was a faint smell everywhere, and one grew used to it with time and perseverance. In this niche, he could tell by the sound and sight of footsteps when somebody new entered the restroom, and he was well-hidden enough to wait out any sort of provocation.

And he was tired. And he saw no point in wandering the halls any longer when he had already confirmed his suspicions: that he was estranged from reality but for those other strangers. They knew just as little as he, so why bother to keep them company when he'd just be wishing for those he knew?

Kensuke—Mitsuki...

Mitsu..?

For a moment he heard it, the telltale screech of Hellgirl's orders, bossing some of the poor student councilmen about. Or he thought he did. Oh, this damn school was ruining his mind. God, even if he did escape, he'd probably never stand a chance of high SATs at this rate...

To think he used to be the top of his class.

"Fukuroi-kun..."

He shuddered and immediately stood, bumping his head against the wall. "Ah—Mi-Mitsuki-san?" Couldn't stop himself from moving, from escaping the restroom and leaving his careful fort far behind him. Once in the halls, the chill of the atmosphere closed in around him. His gait was quick, punctual, to the point, and he exited down the staircase as speedily as he could manage.

Searching the halls, he found nary a soul but for the moans of the dead in the walls. Furiously he sought for his glasses, only to remember that some time ago they had broken on the impact of a trap supposed to kill him. Squinting, now that he had something important to see, Fukuroi tried to make shapes out of the blackness ahead. Teetering lights offered little substance. "Mit...suki?" he called, tentative, his lips just slightly opened.

His eyes swam for purchase in the sea of darkness surrounding. "Mitsuki, i-if you're here, please speak a little louder! I, ah, I broke my glasses... so I can't tell if you're here or not. But I thought I heard you..."

Then hands. Sudden, frigid hands cupped his shoulders.

It couldn't be—

But as he turned and she released, he realized that he was looking into Hellgirl's grayish blue gaze.

With a gasp he clutched her, whispered, "Mitsuki-san..." and tugged her into an embrace. "I-I've been alone for so long..." he murmured into her hair, her poor, ransacked hair, knotted and tangled, its hair bands long gone.

He'd never held Mitsuki before, but now she let him. It must have been the fear of the school, the coldness of their surroundings, the fact that one could hardly breathe without a pinch festering the lungs, like Death itself entered with each hopeful breath.

He couldn't tell her. Could he? Now?

Into his chest Mitsuki cried, "I didn't know you were still alive!" and he couldn't hide the faint, sure smile from his lips.

"I didn't know you were either..."

His hand gently brushed her hair, her albeit knotted hair—but it was her hair—and it was her that was with him, not some ghost, not some other stranger. Someone he knew. Someone he... dare he say loved.

Mitsuki, covered in little bruises and scratches, cold as one of the fucking ghosts, couldn't hide the pain from her gaze.

Then he saw her clothes. The jacket—a black jacket. Someone else's school uniform. Kisaragi Academy? He could make out the ID still attached even—Mori...shige... Sakutaro? Who the hell was...

As she watched him read the ID, Mitsuki silently rifled through her skirt pocket. "Mitsuki-san, what is that you have?" he asked, and he tried to follow along, from the jacket to her pocket to the scratches on her skin—to the blood.

Now that he was paying attention, he could make it out, but faintly, against the darkness of the jacket. Wh-Whose blood was that?

"Mitsuki, are you bleeding?" he uttered, and the sudden fear of losing her left him lightheaded.

She turned into him, her eyes wide as if afraid. Slowly her hand rose and she cupped his cheek—and she tilted his head towards her—and she stood on the very tips of her toes—and their noses bumped and their breaths intermingled and their lips were inches apart and he let her do these things to him. He let her grasp his heart in her soft, cold hands, let her hold it, let her care for it, let her have it. As long as she wanted.

"No," said Mitsuki, except it was no longer anything that resembled Mitsuki at all, "you are."

As his lips parted in a wordless gasp, some sort of sharp, foreign object entered his mouth like a kiss from this poisoned Mitsuki. Fukuroi held himself deathly still, his tongue fitfully darting out of reach, burrowing into the pit of his mouth, trying desperately to carve out Mitsuki's intent from her dim gray-blue eyes.

Her name wilted on his lips; anything he tried to say would cause his tongue to flicker, and he had to stop himself before the pain became more than an impending reality.

Mitsuki, his heart ached, Mitsuki...

But he was not in pain yet. Carefully, very slowly, as if the world had stopped all around him and all that had survived was him and this strange, malformed Mitsuki, Fukuroi stepped backwards, his mouth left slightly agape. Mitsuki's fingers twisted, and as the blade slipped out of his mouth, it cut across his lip. The tiny razor left with a thin stream of blood coated along its edge.

The shock of it stunned him, the sting a nuisance that caused his eyes to wet.

Breathlessly frantic, he began to ask, "Mitsuki, wh-why the hell did you—"

Then hands, long-fingered hands clasped him around the arms, pushing against his sides to hold him into place. With Mitsuki angled in front of him, and this assailant nailed to his back, he was effectively surrounded.

Mitsuki, the first of his friends he had found, was—what in the world had happened to her? Why couldn't he have been there for her, when it all...
Why was there this horrible, crawling sensation in his gut, an infection that spread throughout his shaking form, that he wasn't supposed to find and save Mitsuki?

Fukuroi lashed out with a foot, kicking his assailant, interspersing a moment of weakness, then broke out of his shattered chain-like grip and scrabbled away from the girl he once knew and the new boy at her flank. Desperately he threw his gaze against the boy, trying to recognize the shifty face, scrunched expression. He saw his eyes reflected in the glasses of the boy, and he saw—if for but a moment—the tiniest, just barely salvageable glimmer of sympathy.

Then one of the hands reached for—

Well, Fukuroi didn't stay long enough to see what that hand was reaching for. He powered forward, fighting for his freedom, his head crunching against his assailant's—not quite breaking the fucker's glasses, but causing a gush of blood to spill out the nose. Red flecked around Fukuroi's face as he lurched backwards and struggled to drag his heart through his lungs—breathe breathe breathe breathe.

His footwork was quick enough to keep the boy from hitting him. A handful of footsteps separated them—whoever struck first would be at a disadvantage.

Then his eyes rolled over to the girl at his assailant's side, and he... and he struggled not to fracture.

He saw in front of him two bloodied human beings, two people leering towards him. The boy pinched his bloodied nose with a hand, and Fukuroi got a shocking look at his nails, rimmed in a frightful crimson. The boy's shirt, splotched in red like Mitsuki's new jacket, his eyes cold and merciless as they tore apart Fukuroi's psyche and sought after any sort of weak point—hovering around his panting breaths which caused his chest to lurch.
They were trying to kill him... then—
Who had they killed last?

The visage of Kensuke's innards exiting his stomach through violent interception suddenly took over his mind, and he shuddered.

Frantically the words spilled out of him, as if to escape before they were left impaled inside of his mangled chest. "M-M-M-MITSUKI-SAN! WHAT ARE YOU DOING? YOU KNOW ME! WHOEVER THIS... THIS FREAK YOU MET IN THE SCHOOL BY YOURSELF IS, HE IS CLEARLY NOT RIGHT IN THE HEAD AND HE'S MUDDYING YOUR—"

At some point in the midst of his shouting, this horrific Mitsuki had sidled up beside him. A smile had violently rippled across her lips like the cut of a blade, and she readied her tiny razor, focusing as his mouth flickered and tongue—

Then splintering agony cut through the tongue and through the lip and down the cheek and spread through his mouth and rendered his voice to a hoarse, pain-provoked yell. Blood dribbled down his lips, and still, even when she took the thing away and even as the throbbing throbbing pain fought for control, he tried to carve out what he needed to say.

"MIHH...KI...SAH..." He tried to pull back, escape from the tight circle they had made in front of him, but his back crashed against the wall all too soon. Then the blood gushed harder, faster, and he found he was no longer standing.

To the sound of his voice, his fast-losing battle against his own self, dehydrating of his senses, Mitsuki stepped up and faced him. For a second he saw it—saw her—in her hard gaze. She was close enough that he saw her, all of her, clearly. "What is it, Fukuroi-kun?"

He gasped, and he could speak again, in spite of pain, in spite of—of anything. "Mi-Mitsuki"—oh god it hurt but he forced himself to forge forward—"Wh-Wh-What ha-happened to you? Mitsuki who is that boy? Who is that boy you—you—you're with? Wh-Why are you doing this?!"

The tiniest, purest little smile blossomed along her pale lips, a sickeningly stark color in comparison to the streaks of crimson that decorated her hair and splatters on her skin. Her voice was so quiet he more read it on her lips than heard it. "Fukuroi-kun, you haven't met yet, have you? This is my boyfriend."

Then the smile twisted and malformed, growing in size until it consumed her once-soft complexion.

"Why are you talking to him?" the boy at her shoulder asked, only for Mitsuki to sidle up close to him, dig her lips into his cheek, and hiss, giggling, "Just look at him..."

The shock hit Fukuroi in his chest like a well-aimed rock. "Mi-Mitsuki.." he whispered, begged, consoled himself, "Mitsuki, why would... but I..."

Deep in his throbbing chest his heart screamed, and it screamed, and it screamed.

BUT MITSUKI, I LOVED YOU THIS WHOLE TIME ALL I'VE FUCKING DONE IS SEARCH FOR YOU AND TRY TO SAVE YOU AND NEVER GET THE GODDAMN CHANCE

She must've known, somehow, far within her grotesque soul, that this was the right thing to say, the perfect way to desecrate everything he'd ever had going for him. He made one last futile attempt to stand and run away, but he couldn't even get his feet beneath him, and by the time he had managed even that, a shadow formed overhead.

He looked up and watched the massive hammer pass by his head and lob his shoulder. Bones warped and crushed and ate into his flesh, and it was all he could stand to not let the trembling tears in his eyes fall. The last thing he wanted, after everything that had tried to kill him—now finally succeeding—in this goddamn school, was for Mitsuki to recognize his pain.

Whatever form she was in now, whatever horrific events had literally altered her from the person she once was, he still couldn't bring himself to upset her.

Somehow he had this vague feeling that he had been here before, countless times, even—and that maybe the next would go better than this one...

Blow after carefully-placed blow broke his body down, and soon Fukuroi would be a mottled corpse on the ground, but not until he had felt and suffered and screamed from each well-timed strike, paced enough that the attacks would not kill him as quickly as the weapon of choice could have.

So his heartbroken, crestfallen, bleeding-out face would retain the slightest edge of its incredible loss, his smashed body parts would lay about him in a slump of defeat, and his bitter eyes would still hold the crystallized formation of tears that refused to be released.

As she told Mori where to swing and pointed the perfect, slowest places to chip away at before Fukuroi's body finally could take no more, Sachiko suddenly halted and told him to stop. She dug into Fukuroi's cheek with her fingers and readied her razor, trying to force their dying victim to pop his mouth open. "Awwwww! Gimme a memento, sweet Fukuroi. For me~" she hummed as her fingers groped with his face, "I'll cut through your cheek if I have to..."

Only when she raised the razor to his lip, beginning the long, slow process of ripping through his face for the prized tongue—her hand began to shake. It shuddered and spasmed and threw down the razor, and quickly Sachiko grabbed her shaking wrist with her other hand, struggling to steady herself, letting Fukuroi's gently-cut cheek slump to the ground once more. She plucked the razor and squeezed her hand as if she had accidentally cut it, then turned to Mori and snarled, "Oh, it's not fucking worth it. Ready your hammer, Mori."

Morishige put down the mallet once he had struck where Sachiko suggested, and he slowly faced her. A—An indescribable buzz had consumed him, and no matter how much air he pushed through his lungs, it wasn't enough. Her eyes were filled with a murderous lust, and her clothes were stained in trophies from their now-two victims, and something about the small frame cushioned in his larger jacket was irresistible.

"What did you tell him, before I hammered him? What... destroyed him?" he whispered in a low, husky tone, his voice worn by soft panting from the exertion.

Sachiko faced him, her hitched breaths matching his own unconsciously, borrowed eyes twinkling. "I told him... that you were my boyfriend."

"Am I?" he asked, unable to answer the question for himself.

Before she'd even given herself the chance to speak, she closed the distance between them. He took her head into his bloodied fingers. He hesitated but for a second, yet it was enough for her to impatiently push forward, her arms sliding around his waist. Her lips met his in a euphoric rush of hunger and want.

Neither of them quite knew how to do it, but it evidently mattered not—enough trial and error and he sensed her gasp of pleasure. This... oh, this was what she didn't realize she had needed for so many long, empty, lonely years: an insatiable desire she could only now comprehend, akin to Morishige's need to finally be understood, for her to be the one person who didn't see him as a freak when normal people inherently did.

When they broke away, Morishige cupped his mouth with his hand and tried to assess their predicament. Wait—Her eyes.

Why was she crying?

"Sh-Shinozaki-san, what's wrong?"

Sachiko gasped and gently patted her cheek, sensing the tears as they twisted over her skin. "I, ah... ah, I must've just been so excited! Ahahahaha..." Her smile was genuine, her gaze was full of warmth.

In her heart she tried to ignore the quiet, quiet voice that cried for the loss of Fukuroi. Then she said, facing her silly Mori, forgetting the voice that did not belong to her, "We should do that again!"

And it hit Morishige—and he was consumed by the way her albeit dead eyes sparkled, the way her body hungered for his warmth, the hair that framed her face and danced with every little tilt of her head, the smiles she gave when she faced him.

"Y-You mean, right now?"

Sachiko paused. "Oh—That gives me a really good idea! Okay—Okay, I'll be back in a little while. Be good, Mori~ Don't kill anybody until I return! Maim if you reeeeeally have to!"

Before he could even ask what the hell she was doing, she had dispersed as if a ghost through her domain, which—well, now that he thought of it, happened to be precisely what she was.

Morishige stayed in place, sharing a blank expression with their latest kill. "Well... what am I supposed to do now? G-Goodness, Shinozaki-san, how long am I supposed to wait before we kill somebody else?" He smirked to himself, idly turning away from Fukuroi and sauntering down the hall.

"Oh, Shinozaki-san... you are divine. Your cuteness is immeasurable." A chuckle escaped through his lips, where he still felt the sensation of her kiss. "I just... d-damn, I want to kiss you again. My God, when you moaned, it..." Another laugh, and he sighed. "I want to make you feel that way again... Shinozaki-san..."

"Shino...

The boy who had wandered into the hallway after an unfortunate earthquake shuddered to a halt. "Wh-What the fuck? Was that Morishige..." Then his friend's words clicked into place. "Shi-Shinozaki! FUCK!"

He threw himself into the hall, then grasped Morishige's collar and slammed him into the wall. Goddamn was he covered in blood.

The blond hesitated.

Was it really Morishige-kun? D-Drenched in blood, breathing heavily, glaring up at him like he was some inconsiderate stranger of all fucking things, trying to get around his hands. Flinching, he released the boy, muttering an apology.

"I just—I didn't expect to see you." Kishinuma Yoshiki flushed hard, then ducked his head. "Sorry. I heard something and I guess I got startled." Why would Morishige be talking about Shinozaki-san like... like that? Everyone knew she liked fucking Satoshi, anyways. Satoshi—

Meeting Morishige's eyes—or, trying to, when the boy looked away—Yoshiki asked, his tone low and sharp, "Hey, did you see Satoshi's..." Swallowed, wincing. "It was down... down that way, somewhere. S-Satoshi's gone. I-I-I don't know who's left, but I recently lost Shinozaki after this fffffreak earthquake, s-so we really need to find her. Can you help me? I don't want anything to happen to her."

Morishige had stayed quiet up until this moment. Then his eyes, his hooded, dark eyes, steadily rose to meet Yoshiki's hopefully bright blue gaze. "Shinozaki-san, huh..." Then something seemed to fall into place. "Pfffff... Ahahahaha, you're not gonna find her, Kishinuma-kun."

"Wh-Why? What's that?" The flush returned to his face, hot and uneasy. "Morishige, what's going on? A-Are you okay? Why the blood? You're not hurt, are y—"

"Ohhhh, no no no no no..." Morishige's head fell into his hand, and he laughed, long and languid. "You'll never find her, Kishinuma-kun. She doesn't want you." From his back pocket, he withdrew a crude hunting knife, crusted in rust-colored blood. "Didn't you hear me before you so rudely grappled me, Kishinuma-kun?

"Shinozaki-san wants me."

Yoshiki tried very, very hard to stay calm. His hands fidgeted and twitched about him, but he managed to keep them from strangling any part of his—his friend's—body. "Where is she, Morishige?"

A bout of relaxed laughter spouted from him. "I can't tell you that, now can I~?" Then he raised the knife and brought it close, oh so close to Yoshiki's chest.

Quickly the delinquent took steps away. "Dude, what the hell? We're friends! What the fuck are you doing waving that all over me?" He couldn't quite get his eyes off of the sore, sharp thing, the way it danced lazily in the dreary hallway's light, the way it managed to gather a shine despite the fact that it was liberally coated in... somebody else's blood.

"Morishige! Where did you... get that?"

The laughter came closer, fell harder, alongside the goddamn knife. "It's a secret, Kishinuma-kun. If you guess right, maybe I'll tell you where Shinozaki-san is~"

Then suddenly Yoshiki knew what it was. With a whole lot more bravery than he felt, he stepped towards the knife and met Morishige's smarmy eyes. "F-FIGHT IT, MORISHIGE! YOU CAN DO IT!" God, what kind of crazy monster-ghost was in his head that he thought he had to kill his closest friends?

The next thing he felt was the knife biting into his neck. Crying out, Yoshiki threw his hand around Morishige's and fought for purchase of the knife, only for the damn thing to scrape across his palm. Wincing, he stepped back, forcing distance between them.

"What, do you think I'm possessed by a ghost, Kiiishinuuummaa?" The chuckles came out loosely like the blood that bubbled around Yoshiki's wounds. Albeit minor, they stung. "No, no no no. I kissed Shinozaki-san out of my own free will." The smile across his lips stretched to fill a monumental gap in his goddamn headspace.

Swallowing hard, Yoshiki sputtered, "Wh-Wh-WHAT? A-And she let you? Or—Morishige! You didn't—"

"Maybe..." Morishige drew closer, and, dumbfounded, Yoshiki couldn't bring himself to get back. "Maybe I did a little more than kiss her, Kishinuma-kun~" Then the knife, again, a hot flash against his cheek, cutting nearly into his eye, and Yoshiki stumbled away.

The amount of blood on the knife proved a detriment—Morishige didn't realize he needed to draw a little deeper if he wanted to kill him.
Yoshiki couldn't think about the other possibility—that Morishige wanted it to go as slow as possible.

Whimpering, Yoshiki whispered, "What the fuck did you do to her, y-you bastard..?"

Morishige giggled. "I can't tell you that. It's a private matter between myself and Shinozaki-tan~" Then he lunged and blood spurted from a new wound in his forehead. Red speckled over his eyes, and he had to keep wiping at his head to force the blood out, but it gathered and it swam and it dyed the hallway red.

Panting, panting, he drew back.

Should he run? No—Ayumi—his heart whispered; he had to save Ayumi. Maybe... if he just got Morishige on the ground one more time, and if he took that fucking knife out of that fucking murderer's hands, and he just... stopped it. Stopped him. Maybe then Morishige would regain himself; maybe then he would tell him where the fuck Ayumi was.

Yoshiki surged into his assailant's slash, then grappled with his hand for the knife. He shoved at Morishige's balance, throwing him to the floorboards, and finally he had the slippery blade in his hands—which he pointed at his own... friend.

God...dammit.

"Please don't make me kill you," Yoshiki wheezed, trying to blink back the blood as more fell, "please please please don't make me kill you, Morishige."

God, he hadn't been keeping up with it. As he frantically fought off a waterfall of blood that rained down his forehead and stung in his eyes, he heard Morishige shifting. "Hmmph."

From seemingly nowhere in the sea of blood, Morishige brought forth a fucking mallet, then threw it with surprising precision to Yoshiki's head—where it hit and he fell.

That wasn't... fair...

Bleeding through his tears, Yoshiki frantically clung to his fading consciousness. He breathed and he breathed and he tried not to die, he tried so fucking hard not to let one more hammer swing to the head kill him.

His eyes rose to his to-be murderer. "You... You..." Over his eyes, something—someone swam... and he took it forcefully. "Mori...sh-shige..." Coughed, shuddered. "What about... Mayu..?"

What would Mayu think, you fucking asshole?

Mayu, who it seemed the school was fully intent on handing over to Yoshiki, like he was her protector, not Morishige, never her Shige-nii—Mayu, who he could never save. Mayu, whose corpse had exploded against the floor just above them, who must see this Shig and feel unimaginable dismay.

Why would he do that to her...

One last time he glanced up at Morishige. The boy had grown silent, still, his eyes glassy and unable to hold much more emotion than whatever it was that her name had done to him.

Slowly his murderer faced him. "Mayu... will be fine."

He crouched down and spoke with such conviction that Yoshiki almost believed him. But then there was no more time to believe him or not, because the knife was slipped from his hands and drawn into his body, once, twice, again, again, again until he lost count and bathed in his own bloodied pain.

His sight had grown misty, weak, scarlet to hell, but he could make out the hovering figure of Morishige working out the ways to hurt him the most and kill him the slowest. And he saw... he saw... as Morishige labored on and he began to distrust his sight... two pale legs. Someone else had taken his side. Someone whose body overlapped with his, someone who reflected his intents and made the pain come faster, harder, Yoshiki's screams more numerous albeit hollower, someone who leaned over and kissed him, someone who met his horrific needs perfectly.

Yoshiki caught himself longing—and he almost wanted it, whatever it was that they had.

But then the pain was too much, and he felt himself slipping, and the world grew darker and darker until there was no world at all.

None, save for the very last words he managed to grasp.

"Glad you could make it back in time, Shinozaki-san."