"Ugh, I'm tired," Akihisa complained.
"Maybe it's all the blood loss, you think?" Hideyoshi suggested.
"I know, since we're all tired from hanging out at the beach, why don't we head to the bath house?" Yuuji suggested.
"That's a good idea," the others agreed.
Baths, Cameras, and Demon Scar
"The water's so warm," Himeji sighed, sinking into the steaming hot bath.
"Hey, Aiko," Akira said. "Can I borrow your shampoo?"
"Sure," Aiko replied, handing her the green bottle.
"Today was so fun, huh?" Minami asked Shouko.
"Yes," Shouko said. "Apart from the little… incident, I found spending the whole day with Yuuji quite enjoyable."
"The steam sure feels good, right, Rena?" Minami called, turning her head. She froze in her tracks and gasped. Rena had her back to the others; she was washing her hair over one shoulder, revealing the entirety of the demonic scar on her back. "R-Rena, what happened to you?"
"That's a pretty bad scar," Akira said. "I don't mean to pry, but how did you get that?"
"Dudette, that's intense," Aiko said.
"Forgive me for staring," Shouko said, averting her eyes sharply.
"Rena, what happened?" Himeji asked.
"I'm not going to talk about it," Rena said firmly.
"Sorry," Minami apologized, looking away awkwardly.
What the others didn't know was that a tiny camera was set up in the corner. It was the work of none other than Kouta Tsuchiya, who was waiting patiently on the other side of the wall for the others to leave so that he could collect the footage.
"What's up, Kouta?" Akihisa asked. "You seem intent on something."
"Nothing," the shy pervert lied.
On the other side of the wall, the camera lens buzzed quietly, adjusting to the new level of steam. Rena turned abruptly; her sensitive ears caught the noise. She glared at the little black object and wrapped herself in a towel. She reached into her bag and brought forth a paper clip. She proceeded to bend the paperclip out of shape and gouge it into the lens of the camera.
"Teach you to spy on us, bloody pervert," she hissed, detaching the camera from the wall.
"It was gone," Kouta thought the next Monday. "If Aiko or Minami knew I had that set up, they would kill me."
"Hey Kouta," Rena chirped happily, catching up to him. "I found something that I think is yours."
She held out her hand and Kouta took to object curiously. He tensed. The camera in his hand was mangled horrifically with a paper clip gouged into it.
"Tell me, what kind of pervert puts hidden cameras in a girl's bath?" Rena asked. Kouta looked back up at her; her voice had changed to a dangerous murmur. Rena looked up at him through her russet bangs. "Watch where you put those things."
Kouta nodded slightly, eager to be out of her presence. The girl grinned and turned to walk back down the hallway. Kouta looked back at the camera. The video reel seemed to be unharmed, so maybe he could salvage the video after all….
And so he did. He was scanning the video with his narrow, feline eyes when he saw something peculiar. He paused the video, censored everything else, and brought Akihisa and Yuuji to his hide out.
"What do you want with us, Kouta?" Yuuji asked. "If Shouko finds me here, I'm dead."
"Yeah, what's up?"
"Check it out," Kouta said, pointing to the small screen.
"Why is everything else censored?" Akihisa asked.
"What's that?" Yuuji asked, looking at the demon tattoo.
"It's a scar on Rena's back. What do you think it means?"
"Hey, I've seen that before; it's a demon tattoo," Akihisa said. "See? The number four in the center?"
"How'd you know that the number four stands for demons?"
"Those creepy Inquisition guys tattooed it on my side once," he explained. "Four stands for demon, six stands for the devil. There would be an insignia or character around the number symbolizing what kind of demon."
"The design around it looks like…" Yuuji stuttered.
"The character 'chi'," Kouta finished. "Blood."
"Blood demon? Why would she have something like that on her back?"
"No kidding," Yuuji said. "That's not like her at all."
"This is intense," Akihisa said. "I don't think we should be here."
"Yuuji, what are you doing?!" Shouko demanded in a harsh whisper. She was holding a bloody bat with nails sticking out of it.
"Run," Yuuji barked, bolting out of the dark room blindly. Kouta and Akihisa followed him, whilst Shouko paused to look at the camera feed. She continued the playback until the point where Rena gouged the paperclip into the lens.
"That's my Rena," she purred. She arose and ran after the boys.
"The camera was gone when I went back," Kouta said. "No one's going to get that special album now."
"You're worried about that stupid camera?!" Yuuji demanded. "I'm lucky Shouko spared my life!"
"What are you three talking about?" Hideyoshi asked.
"Usually, we'd keep this from the girls, but I'll let you in on it," Akihisa said, ignoring Hideyoshi's annoyed expression. "Kouta set up a camera in the girl's bath, and he got a picture of a demon tattoo on Rena's back."
"Totally ignoring the perverse intention," Hideyoshi said. "A demon tattoo? Why would she have something like that?"
"We think somebody did it to her," Yuuji said.
"But still, a demon tattoo? That makes no sense."
"I know," Akihisa agreed. "She's so sweet and innocent all the time; how could—?"
"Yuuji, bad news," a student said, running into the room. "Class B wants to declare war on us."
Baka and Test
"He's going to send someone tomorrow," the student finished.
"This is bad," Yuuji said. "Nemoto has to be planning something. Why else would he challenge us?"
"Yeah, and he's pretty desperate to regain his pride after what we did to him," Hideyoshi said.
"Should we engage?" Akihisa asked. "I mean, if we don't know his strategy then…."
"Kouta, can you set up cameras and/or wiretaps in Class B?" Yuuji asked.
"Forget it," Kouta said. "All of my cameras are fried."
"What are we going to do?" Minami asked. "We can't take our normal approach, can we?"
"Maybe he just wants us to think that," Yuuji said. "To trip up our patterns. But even if we win, he'll just come back with a worse plan."
"So what do we do?" Hideyoshi asked.
"Since Kouta's cameras are out, we need someone on the inside," Yuuji said.
"Please don't let it be me," Akihisa mumbled.
"Rena, you're cute and innocent," Yuuji said. "I want you to talk to Nemoto; get him to tell you his plan. Get back to me first thing tomorrow with it so that we can set up a plan."
"Got it," Rena said, beaming.
After school, Rena went to Class 3-B, where Nemoto was straightening some of his homework. He looked up at her, slightly staggered by her charming form right in front of his desk. He didn't recognize her as a Class F student.
"Are you lost?" he asked her, putting his papers in his bag.
"I… I just wanted to talk to you… Nemoto," she kitten-whispered as innocently as she could.
"Oh, alright," he said.
"It looks like she caught him," Yuuji said. He, Kouta, Hideyoshi, and Akihisa had been watching her from out in the doorway. He put his hands behind his head coolly. "Come on, she can handle it from here."
"So, I hear you're going to challenge Class F?" Rena mewed. "Isn't it dangerous? I mean, aren't they stronger than Class B?"
"No, of course they aren't," he growled. "They're idiots; they will never be able to defeat us."
"So you're just going to run in with all you have?" she continued.
Nemoto glared at her from the corner of his eye. He was picking up an under-cover spy vibe from his visitor. He studied her acquitted face, unsure whether to trust her and risk losing the test war, or question her and risk offending her.
"It's not important," he said. "What class are you from?"
"I'm a transfer student," she informed him.
"That doesn't answer my question," he thought. Was she trying to throw him away from the question?
"Did you know that if a body were laying horizontally over one of these desks that it would take three hours for him to bleed out?"
"No," Nemoto replied, trying to hold his composure despite his discomfort pertaining to her violent statistic. It went without saying that she was mentally more advanced than Class F students. "How do you figure?"
"The balance of gravitational force over something as thick as blood is easy to figure; it's common sense. If you cut once across each wrist, once across each ankle, and once in the neck, then the blood will be drawn out of the body in time to bury it before anyone sees it."
"Quite the gruesome topic for a young lady," Nemoto said.
"Oh it is, is it?" she hissed, turning to face him with a dagger in her hand. Nemoto backed up, beads of sweat running down his face. "But, if you lay across two of the desks, but I stab you several times in the chest, I'm sure you'll bleed out in two and a half hours."
"Who put you up to this? Sakamoto?"
"Well, he said to dissuade you from challenging us. He didn't say I had to kill you; he was going more for the idea of collecting information."
"Don't kill me," he said. "I'll cancel the Test War. I'll do whatever you want."
"All I want," Rena said, "Is to watch your blood run down the legs of those two desks."
"You won't get away with this!" Nemoto screamed. "Do you think I'll go quietly? Someone will hear me screaming!"
"That's what duct tape is for," Rena said conventionally, holding up a silver roll of tape.
Nemoto was lying across two joined desks, whilst Rena straddled him, stabbing his chest with the silver knife. Her movements were vaguely angelic as she bent her upper body backward, raising the knife above her head, and threw her body down again, gouging the dagger deeper into the gaping hole in Nemoto's chest. A pair of Hello Kitty headphones buried her ears in the sweet sound of "Triple Baka" by Hatsune Miku. Blood covered the desks, Nemoto's limp corpse, and the front of Rena's school uniform. Outside, the sun was setting, casting a dusty glow over the mechanically moving assassin.
"Did Nemoto declare war yet?" Minami asked.
"Nope," Yuuji replied. "Actually, I haven't seen him all day."
"Do you think Rena did something that made him chicken out?" Akihisa suggested.
"Don't be stupid, Rena would never do something like that," Yuuji said. He looked up as Hideyoshi and Rena walked into class. "Rena, what's new with Nemoto?"
"He wouldn't tell me anything," she said. "But I don't think he'll bother us anymore."
"See? I was right after all," Akihisa said in a childishly defiant way.
"Good work anyway," Yuuji said.
"Hey, Rena," Hideyoshi said. "What did you do to make him back off?"
"It's a secret," she said, winking. She frowned, looking down as she began to scratch at her neck.
And yet, the Vocaloids never get caught for their murders.
The whole stabbing scene and Vocaloid references was a funny reference that I've been dying to write. It's a reference to a YouTube video called "I will show you how I feel," in which Miku stabs Kaito a million times because he cheated on her. I know if I used the song "Love is War" then it would've been a bit more recognizable, but I thought "Triple Baka" was more fitting for this anime. I thought this entire chapter was funny in its own way.
And now it's time for the Dark Wolf Advice Corner! Today's question comes from Miku Miku Forever! (This guy again?) His question is, "How can I write a good story like you?"
First, you need an idea of setting (such as an anime that you want to write a fanfiction off of, or your own setting and characters), then you need to know what you want to do, what you want to accomplish (for instance, in my Fruits Basket fanfiction, I wanted Akito to feel less lonely and for the Sohmas to get along). This story doesn't have a real goal to it; I just thought it would be fun to write these characters in this scenario. The rest is pretty self-explanatory; use good spelling and grammar, keep the readers interested, etc.
Tip: if you write fanfiction, it interests and pleasantly surprises readers if you use references to other series, cool things like Vocaloid, or make sarcastic comments in your author's notes.
Seriously, guys, leave a review or else MIKU WILL FIND YOU AND STAB YOU IN THE THROAT. Just kidding… ish….
Next chapter: Dark Mazes, Love Skills, and Summoned Kitties!
"Of course, the only way to get past that pole dancer is to send two girls in."
"You're not scared, are you?"
"Hideyoshi… would you mind if I held onto your arm?"
"Uh… sure, if you want to…."
