Theme: Oldies
Prompt: Historical and Spiritual
Warnings: Plenty of spoilers for recent "Alice War" in the manga, and derpy writing.
Note: This is for the AoGA House Cup 2013 Last Stand. (See profile for more details.) Please rate accordingly (see the footnote).
He's running, running, running.
He isn't sure where he's going, and he's not too sure where he's gone, either. He doesn't know where he is, or who's after him. All he knows is that he has to keep running, not look back, and never stop.
Behind him, the noise escalates, and footsteps thunder after him. For a moment, he thinks he's listening to the rhythm of taiko drums, and he forgets that he's in a warzone.
The realization hits him harder than the rock he trips over in his haste. He stumbles, and his heart beats more erratically than before.
He keeps pushing forward, using the drumming footsteps behind him as his motivation. If he can make their melody softer, if he can outrun them, he can live another day. He doesn't know how he knows this for sure, but it feels to him like common knowledge. It's common sense.
All around him, the world which had seemed to revolve around him and his actions bursts into life and color. He almost bumps into a man with splatters of blood on his green camouflage gear and a haunted look in his eyes. The man, too, is running, but he runs towards the west, as if chasing the setting sun.
He trips over again, and he's forced to look down, only to find that he tripped over a stray arm cut cleanly off the shoulder joint. Other bodies and body parts litter the field, ranging from crimson-dyed legs to bodies full of bullets, and he swears he sees a decapitated head, too.
When he looks up, he sees a red sky. When he looks down, he sees a red sea.
The worst part is, most of the fallen wear the same uniform as his. Most of the fallen are his comrades.
He bumps into another soldier, who wears all white. The soldier turns around, and all he can see are the man's blank eyes, which somehow scream bloodlust. He doesn't know which side the soldier belongs to, but he's not sticking around to find out.
There's only one thing to do, one thing he can do: run.
He runs faster than he's ever run. The footsteps continue to follow him, getting louder each minute. He feels fatigue eating away at him, at his spirit. He can hear his ragged breathing, and his heartbeat resounds in his head. Although more bodies pile up at his feet – he seems to have reached the eye of the battlefield – he manages to keep running.
For a while, he can hear fire crackling over the sound of the thunderous footfalls and his pulse. Only now does he realize that it's everywhere, burning the land and its people to black ash. The footsteps manage to drown out the crackling once again, and he forces himself to pick up his pace.
He allows his mind to wander. How long has he been running for? How many are actually after him? What if they're allies, running in the same direction as him with the same goal: to reach safety? He stops himself from turning around to check, and focuses all his energy into running instead.
As he wipes the river of sweat trickling down the side of and on his forehead, he finds himself praying. He's not a very religious man, but he still prays to whichever god is willing to listen. He prays that he can outrun his pursuers, or at least reach safety before anything terrible befalls him. He prays that he can live another day to see his family and wife.
Her voice, her sweet, gentle voice, echoes in his mind, louder than any noise a marching band or army could create. He can clearly see her, playing with their son with a tender smile on her face. Then he clearly sees her face distort from one of joy to one of horror, and her laughter turns to concerned cries, and he can hear her voice calling his name-
"Sensei!" His eyes open wide, and as he takes in a big gasp of air, he can feel his heart beat erratically again. Jinno knows, without even looking, that his eyes are bloodshot, and sweat covers his skin like a second layer. Through his bloodshot eyes, he can see some of his students looking at him, hovering over him in concern.
"Jinjin, are you okay?" a particular elementary asks with his perpetual smile on his face. Another student, with hair the same color as a pale pink rose, uses her jacket to wipe his forehead.
He shakily gets up onto his elbows, groaning, and the students move back to give him space. Jinno gives the boy a slight glare and tells him to stop calling him 'Jinjin.' If it were any other day, Jinno would have given the child detention and a small warning electrocution, and perhaps even taken away a few of the kid's rights as a one-star student. Fortunately (or maybe not) for the child, it wasn't a normal day – it was an afternoon in the war of Gakuen Alice.
"I'll make you a potion, sensei," another student says meekly. Her bedraggled hair looks blue in the half-light, and he watches her fuss with vials in her pockets. His eyes narrow behind his glasses.
"What for?"
"Oh, oh um, something to calm you down—"
"Save it for another student," he cuts her off, getting up to sit on his bottom. It's not that he doesn't trust Nonoko Ogasawara's abilities to make a fine potion – he's seen her Alice work wonders many times before, in fact. He refuses only because he can imagine a young four- or five-year-old student crying amidst the battlefield, and he can think of many others who need a calming potion much more than he does.
The girl stops fussing and hesitantly kneels beside him. Jinno takes the silence as an opportunity to look at his surroundings. He sees a sea of familiar faces, like the girl with a notable perm and the nervous elementary class president with glasses and three stars adorning his collar. Jinno also notes that they're beside one of the many central pathways of the academy.
"Why am I here?" he asks no one in particular. The one to answer him is the elementary class president.
"Y-You were unconscious, sensei," Tobita Yuu says, trembling. "We found you here, and you were having a nightmare…"
A nightmare. That's what Jinno also imagines it to be, what he would like it to be. But he doesn't dwell on it too much; there's no time. He has to separate dream from reality.
"What's the situation?" Only after he asks this does he realize that it's a stupid question. He only has to look at the soldiers fighting the students in the pathway to see that the war isn't yet over, that it's likely to be nowhere near its climax.
"I-I've put up an illusion so that people can't see or hear anyone here. B-but it might not last," the boy answers.
"Is anyone wounded?" he barks. The students around him jerk backwards in surprise, but Jinno can't blame them; he surprises himself many times, too.
"N-No, sensei," Umenomiya Anna, the girl with pink hair, answers boldly – or as boldly as possible for her, anyway. "We all have bruises or cuts, b-but we can handle it."
How could you handle a war like this? he's about to ask, but the mind-reader beats him to it.
"Nonoko has lots of potions," Kokoro Yome says with a grin.
"And Anna's made lots of cakes for us," adds the one who looks identical to Yome and calls himself Kitsuneme.
Jinno chooses not to take their arguments to heart, but he does respect their positivity. He gets onto his feet, and as the students follow suit, he thinks about their optimism. That value is rare, almost lost, in some wars; and here these children were, not giving up hope.
"You can't underestimate Alices, Jinjin," saysMisaki Harada, a girl with hair dyed rose pink, wearing the middle school uniform. She walks towards them from behind a tree, and announces that they have to keep moving lest they should be found by the enemies.
"We'll just kick their butts," Sumire Shouda loudly proclaims with a sideward glance towards Jinno. He doesn't need to think too hard about what the girl with the perm really wanted to say.
"We'll show them what they get for messing with the balance between good vs. evil!" Yome exclaims, his grin widening. Kitsuneme cheers in agreement.
Jinno knew they were… strange, but their peers' reactions of blank stares and tired sighs make the eccentricities of the two pranksters clearer.
"You read too much manga, children," Harada finally says indulgently, ruffling Yome's and Kitsuneme's hair at the same time. When the girl stops, she looks at Jinno. "Now, the question is, will Jinjin join us in being kickass?"
Jinno has many complaints about that single sentence, and of course, he voices them.
"Language, Harada. Do not call me 'Jinjin'," he pauses. "And you most certainly will not be 'kickass.' You'll head to the Hanahime Den's safety immediately."
There's sudden clamor from the group of students, and Jinno swears their groans were perfectly unison.
"N-no!" Tobita, Umenomiya and Ogasawara all exclaim in chorus.
"This is our war, too!" Harada argues.
"We can't head to safety, because-" Shouda stops short.
"-because Good has to fight Evil!" Yome continues for her.
Kitsuneme cheers again, and Jinno sighs. Sometimes, he just hates how students were so rebellious and determined to defend their beliefs.
"Get to the Middle School's Hanahime Den," he barks. "I'm sure Yome and Kitsuneme can lead you to it with ease."
The two males mentioned look at each other, hesitantly at first. Eventually, they share a small grin, and salute at him in perfect unison. Jinno watches as the group of seven scurries away, and he wonders what the two pranksters could possibly up to when they run beside each other and start to whisper. As he runs towards the High School Division door, Jinno hopes that the students will obey his orders.
Along the way, he spots Sakurano coming from another pathway, and with only a nod shared between them, they start running in the same direction. Jinno sees a group of Fuukitai soldiers facing an infamous girl with pigtails and her comrades. Among the soldiers is a student council member, Subaru Imai. Jinno realizes that the girl is walking towards him, an obvious trap set up for her oh-so-compassionate heart. Immediately, he makes the first strike from a distance.
Lightning flashes, and it's as if time has stopped.
Somehow, he managed to outrun his pursuers. That, or they've all died, along with thousands of other men.
The red skies open up, and he half-expects the clouds to pour out blood instead of water. Thankfully, it doesn't, but what it does is put out the fires – both the suppressive fires and the gunfire. Neither side of the war would dare waste gunpowder at a time when visibility is low.
He's still running, surprisingly still alive and bullet-free. He doesn't know how it's possible that out of tens of thousands of men who enlisted into the war, only a few are still on their feet. They should have known, really, they should have.
Something clamps tightly onto his ankle, and for a moment his heart stops, thinking it's an enemy trying to take him down. He catches a glimpse of a brown tunic that blends in with the earth – a part of the uniform of the Japanese army. When he looks down, he sees a young man, barely in his twenties, and barely breathing. Liquid, which he knows isn't water, can't be water, drips down his ankle. He's not sure if the blood belongs to him or the young man clinging onto him for dear life.
"Help," the boy gasps. "Please, help…"
His jet black hair is matted with blood, and the boy's tears and the rain mix with the blood on his cheeks, making it look as if he weeps blood. He crouches down to take a closer look at the young man's wounds. The boy is in position for an army crawl, and he carefully turns him to his side. What he sees isn't pretty.
The boy's ribs have been pierced by sword, and blood is gushing from it, which explains his quick and sharp intakes of breath. It's a miracle that the young soldier is still alive. His uniform is in tatters, and the burns on the boy's stomach are as crimson as the sky pouring down above them.
He might be the best army doctor around, but even he knows a lost cause.
The young man looks up at him, the hope in his eyes plain as day. No matter how much he and his colleagues are told to never give up on a patient, they are also told not to waste resources on a patient that will die anyway, and the decision is left to them.
No matter how many times he's had to make a patient lose hope, no matter how much training a doctor for the army could ever receive for it, it could never possibly feel right.
Either the young man saw the disappointment in his face, or he was quickly losing consciousness, because the grip on his ankle loosens. He tells himself to hope that it's just the former, but a voice in the back of his head repeats, over and over again, that it would be better if the young man passes away before he has to be told explicitly about the odds of his survival.
"You…" The boy's voice is raspy, and when he pushes himself off the ground to lie on his back, the sound that escapes from his lips is more like a wail of pain than a groan. His sharp breaths sound almost like a cat scratching furniture.
It's only a matter of time, he thinks, watching as the rain starts to wash away and combine with the blood cascading from the young man's chest. It looks oddly like a toddler's finger-painting masterpiece. The soldier continues to gasp, and his fingers clutch at his heart.
"I'm sorry," he whispers to the boy, who he knows is on his final few breaths. Only after saying this does he notice the lack of compassion in his voice, and he wonders if he really is as sorry as he thinks he is.
"Curse… you…" the boy whispers with his last breath. The soldier's clasp on his ankle goes slack, and his eyes lose the light in them.
He puts his hands together, and chants a prayer under his breath, which is customary as a doctor. He might not be religious, but he's still respectful to the dead. Slowly he gets up, gently shaking off the young soldier's hand on his boots, and starts running once again.
The rain has let up a little, and is now a small shower. He knows he has to keep moving now, because at any time, the battle will definitely reach him. As an army doctor, he's a neutral party, tending to people's wounds and nothing else. He should be quite safe as long as he has the insignia, but the war is reaching its stage of desolation, and heaven knows what people are capable of in desperation. Being charged of war crimes is the least of their worries.
Despite the rain, someone creates an explosion nearby, and the open battlefield shakes. He's forced to stop, because running any further while the earth quakes is simply begging for a horrible death by concussion – and he should know. It's only a moment before the earth becomes stable again. Once it does, someone nearby, somewhere to his left, shouts a battle cry with a deep voice.
"This is World War Two!" the man yells in English with a heavy Japanese accent. "No one is safe!"
The man stays stock-still, and if it continues, he knows it's only a matter of time before the soldier will bathe in his own blood, like his younger comrade. As he passes by, he shouts at the warrior to run. When the man finally moves, a cry escapes his lips.
They start running at the same pace, while the soldier cradles his bicep. When he shows it to the medic, there is a gaping hole through his sleeve, from which blood is flowing from. The bullet wound is perfectly in line with the man's heart, and if he had started running a mere second later than he did, the soldier would be on the ground instead of on his feet. He would probably be no longer in this world.
But maybe death is an easier solution in this case. There's almost no difference; dying, or fighting for your life and surviving with too many memories to haunt you. Watching the soldier fumbling, trying to rip his shirt while running, however, makes him realize that not everyone believes the glass is half-empty. Some people do want to survive, or at least die trying.
He had dropped his kit of medical supplies somewhere along the way, and hadn't realized - perhaps because of his endless running, continuously distracting him. Nothing can really be done about a bullet wound without taking it out, and it cannot be done without his medical kit. They both need to reach the medic tent, and he tells this to the man running beside him. The soldier is still fumbling hopelessly, a horrified and traumatized look in his eyes, and he briefly wonders if the man sees or hears or even knows what he's doing.
When he looks up, he sees a white tent in the distance through the slight mist.
"We're nearly there," he says breathily.
The tent tempts him, and the red cross seems to glow more than the blazing fires. Of course, he runs to it, but the closer he gets to the tent, the brighter the light becomes; it's almost blinding.
The lightning fades away, and Jinno blinks in surprise. He doesn't have enough time to think about the (strangely long) vision. Jinno can only regain his stern composure before the girl with pigtails, backing away from a familiar student in high school, looks at him.
"Jinjin," the girl says tentatively. "And Sakurano-senpai! Where have you been—"
Jinno clouts her on the head before she can say any more.
"What are you thinking, doing such a careless thing?" he yells angrily. "How could you fall into such an obvious trap? Idiot!"
The girl brings her hands to her head protectively and whimpers. Mikan Sakura briefly reminds him of her father, who reacted similarly each time Jinno yelled at him. The two were so similar that if he didn't know better, he would think the girl was a reincarnation of her father.
Sakurano starts to answer the girl's question, explaining that they had been assisting the High School Principal's escape. That was before they had to rescue Sakura from Imai Subaru, whose soul is being manipulated. The former student council president tells the other students on the run that he and Jinno will handle the rest, while they take Mikan to the door at the High School Division. While he says this, Jinno watches the Fuukitai, the Elementary School Principal's soldiers, looking for any suspicious movements; but what is more suspicious is the lack thereof.
Sakura starts to argue that she has to steal the soul-sucking Alice inside Subaru Imai, and Jinno feels slightly irritated. The girl thinks too highly of herself, thinking that she is the only one who can solve the problems. He pushes his irritation down, however, to remind her of her true goal.
"The most important thing right now is for you to meet up with Azumi at once," he says. "You have to head for the door now."
The girl shows signs of stubbornness, but he firmly repeats himself, telling her to go.
She's finally readying herself to teleport with her friends, and she's calling for the younger Imai sibling. However, Hotaru Imai doesn't move from where she's standing.
"I'll stay here, Mikan," the child says.
"Imai, what are you saying?" he asks, his irritation slowly bubbling up once again, and Imai looks down at the ground.
"If I leave now, surely, I'll regret it," she says slowly. "I still haven't said anything to my brother. There are a lot of things I want to ask and tell him." Imai looks up, and Jinno can clearly see her eyes water.
"I don't want to make that time the last. I want to take my brother back."
Her voice is shaky, yet strong at the same time. He has heard a similar tone many times before, often from his wife, and many times he has tried to persuade her to change her mind. Needless to say, when women take on this tone, they're as hard to budge as a brick wall.
Imai goes on to explain that she wants to hear the story from her own brother, because she is his younger sister – which seems to Jinno like common sense, but nevertheless, he admires her strong will. It's rare to see children younger than twelve to be so determined and mature about such circumstances, and Jinno thinks that might be part of the package of being a genius like Hotaru Imai.
The girl exchanges a final hug and a kiss with Sakura, before the teleportation Alice finally activates. Imai stays frozen, watching until the last trace of her friends disappear. When they do, she turns to face her brother, who looks straight at her without a sign of recognition whatsoever.
"Even if you stayed, it'll just be a painful memory, Imai," he says. As much as Jinno hates to stomp on whatever hope Imai has left, someone has to give the facts. He tells her that fighting the Fuukitai and students being manipulated by the soul manipulating Alice will only get her deeper into trouble. He tries to persuade her to safety, but the girl, with her strong will and determination, doesn't back down.
The Fuukitai finally begin their attack, and he stops their advance with some lightning – enough to shock, but not to kill. It's quickly followed by thunder, and Jinno is reminded of the vision, of the thudding footsteps chasing him. He still doesn't understand what it means, or even whether it's a memory, a premonition, or something else altogether. Between each lightning strike he creates, he tries to remember a time of war he's been witness of in his many years of life; but he comes up with nothing except the current infighting in the academy. He really doesn't know what to make of it.
Their fight continues, and no matter how many times the soldiers are taken down, they get up and keep coming in waves. Jinno fully realizes that they don't stand a chance unless they defeat Imai Subaru and his healing Alice.
So they try to take down the problem at its source. However, just like the soldiers, the older Imai continues to heal himself and get back up. Sakurano concludes that if the situation carries on, the soldiers and Imai himself will wear out and inflict permanent damage to themselves, just as the Elementary School Principal wants it to happen. Soldiers rush forward again in another wave, and when Jinno electrocutes them, Imai Subaru is dragged into the group and affected by the current.
He's not quite sure if it was accidental or on purpose, or if he's supposed to feel victorious or ashamed. However, when the younger Imai foolishly runs towards her brother, Jinno yells at her to stop.
"He's being manipulated!" he explains. "If you think he'll understand how you feel, you're terribly mistaken!"
Still, the girl reaches out for her brother. The latter does the same, and Jinno is expecting a cry of pain from the younger Imai.
Instead, her wounds and bruises are healed by her older brother.
"Brother!" Hotaru Imai yells. Jinno would keep watching and looking out for any bad development, but the new group of soldiers on the attack stops him. He can hear nothing else over the battle cries of the Fuukitai. The girl will have to handle herself, he thinks as he busies himself with the charging opponents. He strikes them with lightning, and Jinno is shocked – literally – by the strong current. Normally, he doesn't feel his Alice, but this particular strike makes itself known on his hand. His palm, the one holding the baton, feels slightly sore.
Thunder cracks all around them, and the earth shakes a little. If the lightning hadn't made the Fuukitai lose their footing, the thunder certainly had. He's briefly reminded of his vision, in which the enemies dropped like flies on the ground near his feet. Jinno hopes to whichever god is listening that the soldiers he electrocuted are not dead, because as much as he wants to defeat their foes once and for all, killing is never an option. His dislike for his Alice is because he can't defend anyone without attacking someone else, and Jinno doesn't know what he'll feel or do if he kills using his Alice without meaning to.
But he stops his thoughts there; he cannot afford them, what with the opponents coming in swift surges, and his mind must not wander at all.
Jinno manages to keep up with the tide, until he has to wipe sweat from his forehead with his sleeve a few times. It scares him slightly, because his Alice is starting to affect him too, and water and electricity never mix. It actually surprises him that he can still direct his lightning to a certain group, and that it hasn't gone haywire yet. However, Jinno is starting to take much shorter breaths, and quicker, because as much as he doesn't want to admit it, he is older than most people in the rebellion. He's spent decades in the academy, seen many people come and go, and it just becomes more difficult each time to match the pace of the younger generations.
The younger Imai sibling is still attempting to stop her brother from healing her, but to no avail. A soldier moves towards her, and Jinno clearly hears him yell, "Traitor!" Jinno groans when the girl doesn't move. He needs to save her, but he and Sakurano both have their hands full at the moment.
To his relief, someone else comes to Imai's rescue. A strong gust of wind blows past him, sweeping up the enemies into a tornado before blasting them away. Jinno looks around, and behind him, he sees two students running towards them. Both are wearing the middle school uniform; he knows the one with navy-colored hair is Hayate Matsudaira, but the other with gray-silver hair is someone whom Jinno swears he's never seen before.
The two students run forward to be a shield between the blown-away soldiers and the Imai siblings. Matsudaira proclaims, quite loudly, that he will protect them. The young man from the Dangerous Ability Class reminds Jinno of his own son: stubborn, strong-willed, and determined. The boy creates another gust of wind, and behind him, Subaru Imai starts to get up. Jinno can barely hear him speak, but whatever he said, it must have meant that the young man has regained his own will, because his sister starts to weep with a small smile on her face. He isn't sure how, but as a teacher, it's the best thing that can happen at that moment.
But that moment is not yet over.
Jinno briskly walks towards the students in a huddle, and Sakurano turns himself slightly to make way for the teacher. The young man sitting on the ground doesn't look too bad, only a few bruises and burns that are starting to mend themselves. When Jinno listens, however, Imai's gasps for breath are dangerously fast and frequent and unhealthy.
"Imai, you need medical attention," he says loudly. The student mentioned looks at him obstinately.
"I can heal myself." His voice is raspy, and Jinno really doubts it; but as if to prove his point, a burn on Imai's hand disappears, and his hand returns to his normal complexion.
"Can you hear yourself?" Jinno says in disbelief. Grunting, he lifts up Imai's arm and places it over his shoulder. Both Imai siblings let out a small cry, and Jinno believes that they might be more similar than they think.
"Sakurano," is all he says, but it's enough for the addressed to understand. The former council president rushes to the other side of Imai, and helps him stand. Imai manages to get on his feet, but not without an audible groan.
"I'm fine," he mumbles when his sister asks him if he's alright. Their pace is slow at first, but they eventually gain some distance. When Imai starts to take slightly quicker steps, Jinno allows Sakurano to let go and lead them.
They make quiet progress for a while, until Sakurano turns around to ask Imai if he can walk. The young man beside Jinno shakes his head.
"Are there enemies again?" Imai's sister asks.
"No," Sakurano hesitates. "Something… at the High School Division… There seems to be some big problem there right now."
Jinno clicks his tongue, and beckons the former president to come closer. He tells Sakurano to take Imai's arm and guide him.
"Can you fight?" he asks. The boy firmly nods.
"Teleport to the High School Division," he orders. "And I'm not coming with you. The less you use of your Alice, the better."
None of the three voice any complaints, so Jinno takes a left towards the Headquarters. A Fuukitai soldier on the pathway to the building attempts to stop him, conjuring up a small tree from nowhere. Unfortunately for the soldier, he messed with the wrong Alice. As soon as Jinno hits the tree with one of his smallest lightning strikes, a burning odor fills the air around him, and a vision intrudes upon his mind.
The temporary hospital is a mixture of white and red. White walls, white sheets, and white clothes do nothing but emphasize the crimson blood that the hospital is blotched with and bathed in. He helps the wounded soldier into the tent, and a nurse immediately takes over.
"I can take care of the bullet wound, doctor," she says to him, but he doesn't walk away. He doesn't understand why he stays to watch the man being attended to; he was a fool of a man, anyway, staying put after making a battle cry like that. If he was in the side of the Allies, he probably would have shot the soldier, too.
The nurse – one of the braver females, to be in war territory – sits the man down beside her table of medical equipment. She checks for his breathing and pulse, ensuring them to be fine, before grabbing her hemostat.
The bullet is in plain sight, and the nurse's work is quick and easy. The man's screams, however, are not.
The soldier lets out a chilling shriek, and his glazed, horrified eyes widen, almost seeming to pop out of his skull. He turns away from the skin-tingling sight, but not before realizing why he stayed to watch.
Guilt. He feels guilty for the young man he didn't save, because in hindsight, he really should've at least tried. He deserves the boy's curse on him, and he thinks that maybe, just maybe, he can redeem himself if he saves other wounded soldiers.
But really, who was he lying to?
As the nurse cleans up the soldier's arm, more wounded and fatally injured soldiers enter the tent in waves. Nurses and medics stride past him in haste to attend to the patients, but one stops in front of him.
"Doctor," the man says, "we have news of more casualties in the field. We have an abundance of medics in the tent at the moment, so would you please help those in the field?"
He looks away. When he looks at the patients, their conditions are brutal, but actually better than he expected. The only patients left resting on the temporary beds are the more severely injured ones, with limbs in makeshift casts and vital body parts covered in bandages. One patient even has burns all over his body. He knows this is his chance to redeem himself, even just the slightest, but he isn't sure whether he should even go outside once more. There was no point if he would only watch the people die, like the young soldier.
Still, he nods to accept his new orders. This time, he definitely had to try.
Jinno doesn't stop running. He definitely had to try, wasn't it?
As soon as he opens the doors to the faculty room, Yamada Serina shoots up from her seat in front of her crystal ball.
"Azumi's… Azumi's dead," she says, her voice cracking in horror. Yamada is in a state of distress that he's never seen before – the lady usually kept her emotions in check – and it shows all too clearly on her face.
Jinno feels his eyes widen, and it's as if all his thought processes have stopped. He's not entirely sure how, but he manages to hiss, "What?"
"There… was an explosion at the High School Division door," the clairvoyant swallows. "Azumi Yuka was… she was caught in the blast."
"No," he growls. Surely he didn't go through all that he did, the entire school didn't suffer all they did, for nothing? "Let me see!"
He walks briskly towards Yamada, who sits down again in front of her crystal ball. When he gets a closer look at the ball, it doesn't have its usual fog; the colors are as vivid as on a peacock. He can distinctly see the people near the infamous door in the High School Division, which is engulfed in flames.
Everyone is motionless. One with shoulder-length hair lies on the floor. Her skin is covered in burns, and her clothes are charred. Sakura cries on the woman's chest, and she isn't entirely surrounded, but it is clear she's the main focus of attention.
Jinno believes it's safe to assume that the woman is Yuka Azumi.
"She… She's dead, you say?" he mutters. The woman beside him nods.
"'I'm sorry, Luna,'" Yamada says slowly. "That's what she last said…"
Jinno doesn't know what to think about that. Azumi Yuka used her last words on Koizumi Luna, someone who's hated her for most of her life, instead of on the daughter crying on her chest, or on her lover staring in horror. Only one thought repeats itself in his mind: It's a waste.
Yet the Fuukitai are frozen, too, instead of attacking any further. They are armed with wet towels and first aid kits instead of handguns and torches. Azumi's last words might just have had an impact on Koizumi, the one manipulating most soldiers with the soul-sucking Alice, and it might have been not much of a waste. He's convinced things might have been settled between them.
That is, until the Elementary School Principal enters the scene. Those in the High School Division freeze, as if mystified by the new apparition.
Sakura is one of them, and before she knows it, her arms are locked in Andou Tsubasa's grip. They all soon find out that it's not really Andou, the young man they all trusted, but is in fact Goshima Hijiri, the newly appointed student council president. A small sound comes from the woman beside Jinno. Everyone within the scope of the crystal ball is evidently as surprised – or maybe horrified. He can't quite find a difference.
The principal mutters, and Jinno imagines it to be an order to Goshima. While he and Sakura struggle, Yamada says it was indeed an order, to 'bring her here.' Suddenly, flames, smoke and ashes cover the crystal ball, and he and Yamada both jerk back in surprise. The clairvoyant hastily tries to change the viewpoint of her Alice, and she finds an untouched area from above the principal's head.
"He has a barrier," Yamada whispers. Jinno clicks his tongue. Through the crystal ball, the barrier is clear and almost shining, and it's easy to see.
It's easy to see, especially when it gets destroyed. Both the principal and his traitorous council president halt, and Sakura takes this chance to escape and run back to her friends. They all look towards one direction: at Masachika Shiki, holding Azumi Yuka bridal-style in his arms.
The principal's lips move, and while Jinno thinks it's a shame that the crystal ball is limited to only the sense of sight, Yamada manages to interpret the conversation.
"The principal is saying 'Give me her body,'" she says, narrowing her eyes. "Shiki's reply is… 'I will never… hand her over to you.'"
"How did you-" Jinno cuts off his own surprise, because surprise really doesn't suit him, or so he thinks. This infighting is only a special case.
"Well, he might have said 'I will never endeavor to you,' but that doesn't make much sense," Yamada explains. "Lip-reading comes with experience, and… it's often a long process of elimination."
Shiki continues to speak, while Yamada interprets: "From now on, don't ever think that… the middle school principal… will protect you." The principal's fury is building up, and according to Yamada's lip-reading, he commands the Fuukitai to 'get them,' and to 'not let anyone get away.'
Clearly, the elementary school principal no longer knows his true allies, because none of the Fuukitai soldiers make a move.
The earth suddenly starts to quake. It's not long before a deafening explosion can be heard outside the faculty room, and they don't even need Yamada's clairvoyance to know it's an attack on the barrier. Jinno looks out the window, watching the attackers drop from the hole in the barrier like rain. He takes some of them out while they're in the sky, before they manage to mingle with the students on the ground; but when he attempts to attack more of them, a sickeningly sweet smell fills his nostrils, and the world becomes white.
It's pouring again when he goes out from the safe makeshift hospital into the battlefield. Someone, some playful, godly being, is tampering with nature, he thinks.
He was told to head north for a few hundred meters, but he'll only stop running once he sees an injured soul. He was never trained much in coordinates; the training focused more on speed and accuracy in healing others. Soon enough, he spots militants, about a dozen, barely breathing on the ground. The rain blends with their blood again, and pools of scarlet surround the soldiers on all sides.
He gets down on his knees beside a soldier with more serious injuries, and starts to check where the blood comes from. The man's breathing is raspy, and his eyes are always blinking and never quite open. The rain starts to beat harder on his back, and he doesn't know why, but he looks up. When he does, rain engulfs him – and so does electricity.
It stings but, surprisingly, only a little. The chances of being struck by lightning… he starts to think, but it's over before he knows it, and he falls beside the bloodied soldier. The last thing he sees is the red sky.
Jinno feels frozen, like he's lost in time somewhere between now and the past. He feels oddly attached to the man in World War Two. They had too many similarities in the situations they were stuck in, and he feels like the man in the visions was him in a past life. Maybe the visions were memories of a past life, but Jinno is convinced it doesn't matter; the past is the past, and there's no way to change history, only to learn from it.
He blinks, and he watches as soldiers from Z capture more students on the grounds outside.
"… 'It won't matter if I stay or not,'" Yamada is continuing to interpret behind him, and her normally calm tone is slightly panicky. "They're teleporting."
Just as she says this, Jinno spots something black, which looks like a grenade, outside the window, dropping from the sky in the not-so-far distance. He clutches at the window when the earth trembles, and the loud bang which seems to come from all sides convinces him that a grenade did fall from the sky. Screams fill his ears, and even Yamada makes a small cry. Jinno turns around to help, but the lady seems to be capable of keeping herself and her crystal ball safe.
When the shaking ceases, he turns again towards the window. He tries many times, but his hand shakes each time he attempts to point his baton at an enemy below. Jinno can no longer stand it; he has to help and be on the battlefield. He definitely has to try, like the man in his vision, but he certainly must not die.
The door to the faculty room is slammed open. He immediately readies his baton, and Yamada shoots up to stand straight. The one to enter, however, is a certain Akira Tonouchi.
"Sensei!" he puffs. "We can attack… the members of Z… I know a way!"
"Get your breath before anything else, Tonouchi," Jinno commands. The young man complies, and it's only a minute or two before he starts to speak again.
"The elementary school principal and Shiki are making agreements," he explains. "One of the conditions was that Shiki-san would be the new middle school principal and maintain the barrier, and this would protect the elementary school principal as well. Since the principal knows that members of Z are after him, he'll probably accept the offer-"
"What are you trying to say?" Jinno interrupts. He tried to wait, but the wails outside became louder, and there is just no time to lose.
"The students will be protected by the barrier, and we can attack the members of Z with your Lightning Alice, my Amplification and the Lightning Alice stone inserted into me."
Sparks swiftly shoot off his baton. He turns towards Yamada, who is immediately focusing her clairvoyance to a location of the academy where a high number of Z soldiers would be. The fog on her crystal ball clears, and immediately, she says, "Most soldiers are just outside."
Jinno wonders why he isn't surprised, but instead immediately starts running to the building rooftop with Tonouchi.
There's only one thing to do, one thing he can do: run.
No words pass between them, only huffs and gasps for breath. When they reach the roof ledge, Jinno sees the cracked barrier, without interference or anything blocking it, and a grand view of the academy, on which many students are struggling for their lives. The young man beside him leans forward, his hands holding tightly onto the fence.
"Is that Tsubasa?" Tonouchi mutters. "And… that's the others…"
"What?" Jinno says in disbelief. When he leans forward and angles his glasses to see further, he spots the Andou-Harada duo on the tiled pathway, along with the elementary students who he specifically told to head to the Middle School Division.
A bloodcurdling scream comes from somewhere closer to the headquarters, and he's reminded of the wounded man in the tent – the soldier letting out a chilling shriek, his glazed, horrified eyes widening, almost seeming to pop out of his skull - and Jinno knows what he has to do. He has learnt from those visions now, and he knows he has to take matters into his own hands.
He definitely had to try.
"Use all of the Lightning in the Alice stone, and it's up to Shiki for the student's barriers," he says. Tonouchi nods.
"I hate leaving things to chance," he mumbles, but begins to count up anyway. On three, Jinno summons lightning from the sky and his baton, and the electricity strikes the hearts of the members of Z. It wraps around the students, but that's all; it misses them completely.
It's over before he knows it.
This time, no visions come after the lightning, only few wails of agony and thunder roaring in their ears.
Jinno wonders how many were killed by the lightning, and whether their death was quick and painless, like the man in his vision. He also wonders if maybe he missed the point of those visions, but he doesn't even know what the point was. Did he see them just to know that someone else went through a similar thing during a different time period? Did he see them to know not to let anyone suffer the same death? Or did he see them to warn him not to die, so as not to repeat history's mistakes?
Whatever the cause, it makes Jinno feel empty. Sure, he lived, so he didn't repeat past mistakes; but people died with the same death. He didn't accomplish much, and for some reason, it feels like he let the man in the vision down.
The barrier of the academy is being restored. Members of Z are being ordered to retreat, but they have nowhere to run, especially with the crack in the barrier having been closed up. The war is over.
But it feels like the war in his soul is only starting.
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