AUTHOR'S NOTE :
Another long chapter, yeaaaahyyyyyy~~~~~~~~~
I felt a sadistic pleasure while writing this one. You'll see which character I like the most to harm (it's not bashing at all, don't worry, when I like a character, I tend to harm it) and make suffer. I'm really twisted sometimes. xD
Chapter 12 will be perhaps longer to write. But I'm still enjoying writing such violent things.
WARNING : Contains graphic imagery, and I won't cut off the story because I find it too annoying.
Chapter 11
The houses near the two girls began to flare up. The smoke was rising, darkening the sky even as they saw it, throwing soot in the air and irritating their throats.
"What happens?" Taeko worried, as flames destroyed buildings.
Shinobu didn't answer her. She thought. She looked at Akebi's dead body, then turned her head toward her friend.
"...Come on, back to your home. We can hope there won't be fire."
"Okay... but... and Akebi?"
"We'll go to take her later," the brunette with the ponytail said, her voice trembling. "Here, for the moment, we must save our skin."
They marched in the other direction, and then began to run one next to the other, leaving Akebi's corpse, thinking only of saving their lives.
The destructive fire blazed above their heads on the roof. The sky turned a reddish color. The weather was very cloudy. Thunder rumbled. The wind was blowing, heightening the flames.
They were running to Taeko's apartment. They neared the school. Their journey would make them bypass the school and go through several streets. They hoped to find a safe place.
On her side, Erwin was run off her feet between worrying about Caesar and look after Saemonza and Oryou.
The first one wasn't far from her. She was outside. She looked away, as pensive or worried about time. Lightning was streaking the sky, but she didn't want to go indoors. She hummed a quite melancholic melody, although she was in her normal mood.
The second had been coughing several times during the day and had to stay in the infirmary for the last two hours of class. She was in half-sitting position, leaning against a wall, reading a book on the bombing of Kagoshima.
Besides, where was Caesar? Since their return to school, she had locked herself in her room. There was noise for a while. Noise that had worried the blonde.
She heard laughing hysterically. She had also heard hits, destruction, but had not had the courage to enter the room. She remembered their pact some time earlier. Her heart had broken the instant she heard her friend's laughter.
"It's almost the end," she thought. "I'm going to do what she asked me.. but... but it's so hard to imagine that I will commit a murder. But I would have done my duty, even if it means taking her life away... "
Caesar's room was now silent. Strangely silent. As if she was not there.
At the same time, Erwin chose to knock at her door.
"Caesar?"
No reply.
"Open the door!"
The door slid. The brunette's room was empty.
Everything was in a terrible mess. The walls were covered with marks of nails, as if she had scratched them. Many things were on the floor, the futon was in a corner of the room and the closet's door was smashed. The tatamis also showed signs of scratches.
And the door leading outside was open.
Erwin began to look for her all around the house, suddenly taken over by a terrible fear.
"Caesar... where are you?" she whispered, her stress level increasing.
Oryou, feeling that the atmosphere was getting tensed, turned her head.
"What's happening?"
Erwin turned back, a worried look on her face.
"Caesar has disappeared."
"How so?" Saemonza questioned.
"I don't know, and I can tell you that this is worrying... We should go get her," the blonde continued, her voice strained.
"I stay here, she may come back while you're not there," the brunette with long hair warned. "I'd rather stay here waiting for her comeback."
"I come with you, Erwin", the smaller girl said. "She's not necessarily far away. No time to use the octogram."
"Yes, go for her with me. Sae, we leave you here?"
"Yes, yes, don't worry, I stay here, maybe she's just strolling or something."
"Well, see you later !" Erwin waved.
"Good luck and be careful, girls!"
Erwin and Oryou went out. They advanced in the street, not without concern for Saemonza and Caesar.
The burning smell assaulted their nostrils. Wherever they went, they could see the fire, especially from a distance. And no firefighter around.
Meows, cries were heard. Strange noises. Everything became heavy. It was a real torture.
The temperature, cooler three hours earlier, had increased by one or two degrees.
Along the way, they saw two people running to them.
"Matsumoto-san! Nogami-san!" a voice they knew called.
"The volleyball team?" Erwin asked, turning her head.
The ones who had called approached. Breathless, they seemed to have come for miles without stopping as their state of mental and physical fatigue was visible.
"Kondou-san! Kawanishi-san! Are you okay?" the black-haired got concerned.
"We were going to Taeko's, but it seems that it's burning here too, although this is much less than over there," Shinobu explained. "We were looking for a place where we could go without the risk of getting burned."
"It's fine, fire doesn't seem to spread like usual, we just hope that it won't burn our house. Caesar went missing and there's Saemonza who stayed at home because she thinks she will come back," explained the blonde. "But you're only two... where is Sasaki-san?"
"Akebi is dead," Taeko murmured, her voice cracking with sadness. "We couldn't do anything, she couldn't even defend herself."
"Oh... I'm sorry for both of you, I hope none of you will lose her life," Oryou sighed.
Shinobu's eyes flooded when she thought about what she had told her friend before she got killed, but she pulled herself together quickly.
"Well, good luck to find Suzuki-san, and if you need something, we are here," the brunette with the ponytail told.
"Be careful", the blonde said.
While the two sporty girls went away, Oryou and Erwin continued to look for Caesar.
They passed a pile of collapsed beams ; there was a human form below them.
It was Momogaa. She probably didn't feel anything. Her eyes were wide open, as if she had died instantly. Her mouth was open, spilling a little blood, reflecting the internal injuries. The beam had crushed her back, almost severing her body in two parts, blew up her internal organs, which had caused the rise of blood from her mouth. At her side, a gray cat with yellow eyes had died the same way, crushed under a beam.
"This is bad..." Oryou whispered. "How many people are we going to lose?"
"I don't know," Erwin blew. "And I'm afraid of seeing that the next is Saemonza or Caesar."
"I don't even want to imagine what it would be if one of them or both were gone..."
"Same here. I wonder if Yukari is going well. Yeah, she's not always with us, but she's also our friend..."
"I'm afraid for her too. She risks her life by investigating, too."
Erwin nodded, trying not to let herself go of anxiety. They resumed their walk shortly after.
They found nothing. Maybe the girl in scarf came back.
Returning to their home, an unhealthy voice sounded nearby.
"Meeeeoooow... Oryou-saaaaan ... Wheeeeere aaaare yooooou?"
Caesar's voice. The blonde startled. She made a sign to her friend to follow her, then led her into a hidden corner.
"What happens?.. Why does she calls me?" Oryou asked, fear legible in her eyes.
"I... I do not know... I don't feel well about it..."
Erwin stopped talking, trembling, anxious, worried.
"I don't know what could happen, but... I'm afraid. For Saemonza. I'm afraid that something happened to her."
"What could happen to her?" the bespectacled girl continued, a little confused.
"I don't really know... But I'm scared... I have a feeling she is going to die..."
"Caesar would slay her?"
The blonde didn't answer. She couldn't. She worried way too much than usual. She heard again the voice of her friend calling Oryou, always accompanied by meowing.
"Listen, I have one thing to say. Flee. Go away. The farther you can. And hide. I beg you."
The black-haired girl had a start.
"You want me to flee? But I can't leave you!" she opposed.
"Leave me and go as far as you can. If you meet the girls of volleyball team, Nekota, Yukari, Anglerfish or Leopon team, stay with them. Tell them to come here. I'll see what happens, but please, run, go away from Caesar, this is for your good that I ask you to leave me there ..."
"And if she attacks you?"
"Do not worry about me," Erwin said. "I'll defend myself. But you're smaller and weaker and she knows it. Plus, with your coughing problems, you're even more vulnerable. If someone has to die, it's me. You must live. Please, run away."
Oryou reluctantly stood up. She glanced at her friend.
"Survive," she whispered.
"You, survive" the blonde replied, tearing up.
Oryou nodded slightly in acceptance before beginning to run as fast as she could, despite her short of breath and her lack of endurance.
Erwin looked away. Now she was perhaps alone with Caesar.
She could still hear her voice calling for Oryou and meowing. Her own friend was insane. Who knew if Saemonza hadn't got killed by her?
The blonde stood up and ran in the direction of her home. This could not last. She had to return, she had to look if everything was okay. There was already almost an hour she was gone; it could have been enough to kill the brunette with long hair.
She came home, breathless, her heart beating at high speed.
The gate was open. The door, however, was closed.
The blonde walked anxiously. She knocked.
"Saemonza-san!"
No reply.
"Sae... Open!"
Still no answer. Concern grew in Erwin as she opened the door.
She jumped when she discovered the damage.
The panel that defined one of the rooms had been overthrown. Several furniture had been moved and were on the ground, anywhere in the hall.
She went inside. She noticed a wooden bar was broken in the bottom of another room; a cinderblock nearby, blackened by lighting and maybe another thing on a particularly rough side was here too.
Other panels were dislodged and fallen, probably due to an impact. There were scratch marks on the tatami, as if someone had attacked the floor while defending or attempting to struggle.
Erwin felt that her anxiety rose a notch when she saw a spot on the ground. A black spot. No, it was the light that made it black. In fact, it was dark red.
It was blood.
The blonde jumped.
"Something terrible must have happened..."
She continued to tread carefully in the house. There were traces of blood everywhere on the tatami; greater or less, she found even some on the walls.
And when she tripped on a small object, she looked at her feet ; it was the small dagger that Caesar had in her room. And there was also red fluid on the blade.
The more she was progressing in the house, the more the smell of blood was felt in the air. And more the smell was noticeable, less she was reassured.
She came into the room where she had tea with Miho before the battle against Anzio, right next to the stairs. The low light wasn't allowing her to see clearly, but she could discern more traces of blood on the floor, and finally a long, thin red trail. Looking up, she saw in the back of the room a lying, long form after the big track of blood, near the window where the table was laid; it was reversed and appeared to have been launched on a panel, which was cracked.
A thin form, with long, dark reddish-brown hair...
"Saemonza-san!" Erwin exclaimed, horrified.
She rushed to her friend and felt her wrist; she was alive, she was breathing normally, but she was in an horrible condition.
She was lying on her stomach, slightly on the left side, unconscious. Her clothes were stained with blood; someone seemed to have tried to murder her and had probably left her for dead.
She had a gash in her lower back and a few other ones, less deep, on her sides, mainly on her left. Her arms were also injured. Her legs were the least affected.
But when the blonde turned the brunette around, what she saw failed to make her sick.
"Oh no... not that..." she choked.
Saemonza's face, formerly very pretty, was terribly wounded ; on the left side of her head, between the eyebrow and half of the cheekbone, the skin had been torn off, showing her flesh; her left eye, which she closed usually like she was aiming, was reduced to a cavity from which flowed a crimson fluid. She had several deep gashes in the same place ; that reflected her attacker's violence. The other side of her head was almost unscathed, if it was only a scratch mark under the jaw. Signs of struggle were visible; traces of nails on the tatami showed that she had struggled rather violently and reflected the fear she had felt. She seemed to have fought until the end.
"Sae, I beg you, open your eyes..." Erwin whispered, grabbing her friend's less harmed arm.
Saemonza half-opened her good eye, then closed it, opened it again and looked at the blonde.
"Erwin?"
"Yes, I'm here," she murmured.
"I... I can't see anything with my left eye," she gasped before getting up on one elbow, unsure of her movements.
She ran her hand on her injured face and stared at the blood on it when she looked at it.
"And.. Where is Oryou?"
The girl with the cap sighed, looking sad.
"She... she fled..."
"She isn't dead, is she? You're not lying to me, are you?"
"Why would I lie to you?... And no, I told her to flee when I heard Caesar calling her..."
"Caesar called her?..."
"Yes, she was meowing and laughing, I think I'm going to do what she told me to do... kill her... in fact, was it her who did this to you?"
"I don't remember... I think it'll come back to me, I may have received a blow to the head."
"Meanwhile, she didn't half hurt yourself..." the blonde sighed. "Can you stand?"
"Yeah."
"I go searching for something to bandage your wounds, in waiting to take you to the hospital..."
For her part, Taeko wasn't far from her home with Shinobu. Near where she lived, almost nothing was burning. There were only a few piles of leaves or some bins ablaze. It was not likely much.
They were sitting together on stairs and hadn't stopped talking since.
It was one of the only places where they could feel safe, or at least less endangered.
"I asked a question to myself..." Taeko began.
"About?" Shinobu said.
"I wondered if something had happened to Matsumoto-san and Nogami-san..." the girl with the red hairband continued.
"We can't really know, there's so many people who go crazy..."
"What also concerns me is the fact that Sugiyama-san remained home. This is easier to corner her and therefore to kill her, and I wonder if someone did harm her. "
"Do not worry about it, I'm sure she's okay."
Taeko changed the topic before feeling too concerned. She mildly know Saemonza, though.
"You know, Shinobu-chan, I miss our volleyball games."
"So do I. But we lost half of our team and no one else in the tankery club seems to be into volleyball..."
"I wonder if our club will be reformed, eventually. Noriko had died, our movement had died with her. And right after, we had to lose Akebi."
"There's no choice, we must recruit... But wait, because a lot of people from tankery club had died, maybe our club will come back, in fact."
"Yeah, but we have lost two members, we're less now, I'm not very optimistic on that side."
Somewhat destabilized by Taeko's response, Shinobu sighed.
"You're not wrong... But you can't win if you don't play, we should still try to revive our club."
"Oh, maybe girls will be interested in volleyball, everything is perhaps not lost after all. But I don't feel good enough to lead this movement. I haven't the moral strength Noriko had. I don't have the temperament of a leader, I realize now, she really had a strength of character that was what made the thing advance. "
"Nobody should lead it, in fact. We were part of those who followed it, we never tried to lead it."
Taeko was going to respond when both heard someone running, approaching them from the right.
It was a rather short girl, with black hair pulled into a messy ponytail, dark-blue eyes and wearing glasses.
Oryou.
She stopped in front of them, failing to fall down, her legs trembling, panting, struggling to catch her breath, looking exhausted.
"Nogami-san!" Shinobu cried. "What are you doing here?"
"...Erwin told me to flee..." Oryou replied in a terribly hoarse voice, before being seized with a fit of coughing.
"What for?" Taeko asked.
"Caesar is mad... and Erwin asked me to run away and come back to see her with someone... and you were one of the people she mentioned..."
"Here we go, then?" the tallest one questioned.
"Wait, wait, let me get my breath back, okay?..."
Oryou had great difficulty recovering. She was stressed, had run for long and felt more than tired. In addition, she felt oppressed and had trouble catching her breath. She coughed violently.
"This cough is even more exhausting...," she gasped.
"If you want, we carry you," Taeko suggested.
"Yes, you can, carry me until I recover," the short girl accepted. "And then, when I'll say it, you'll put me down."
"Alright," Shinobu ended.
The latter stooped, gripped and carried Oryou on her back. She wasn't too heavy.
They started walking in the direction she gave to them. She gradually regained her breath, then after ten minutes, asked to be put down.
She continued, however, to worry for Erwin, Caesar and Saemonza.
The three girls got afraid when they saw something terrible happening not far from them.
Momo was holding Pazomi by the throat. The poor girl could make no movement; the manager of the Student Council held her firmly. With a cry, she began to stab her a few times in the chest.
Nozomi was screaming in pain. But Momo was way stronger than her. It wasn't long to kill her. And when she had finished, she left the lifeless, bleeding corpse of Pazomi against the wall and walked away ,laughing hysterically.
The trio approached; a dark gray cat with yellow eyes died alongside the member of Public Morals Commitee.
