I. AM. BACK. So yes, I've been away for a while. A long while, but I really did need it. I had completely lost my drive for a bit, but it's back now, fortunately, and I don't plan to go away for that long ever again. I apologise so much for my absence, and to everyone still reading, you have my deepest gratitude.

-Thanks so much, Ryan "Kurukaze" McGowan

-Chapter 20

"Tobiichi? Tobiichi?" Miss Okiminae looked up from the register and quickly scanned across the students in front of her, looking for Origami's beautiful streaks of bleached-white hair. "Is Tobiichi here today?" she called out as a few heads started to turn. She sighed and looked back down at the sheet of paper and scratched a neat diagonal line into the box next to Origami's name with a sharp pencil. She traced down to the next name: Tokisaki Kurumi. "Tokisaki? Is Tokisaki here today either?" Tamae had a feeling she wasn't, however, as she hadn't seen that remarkable jet black hair of hers while she was looking for Origami just a moment ago, and she certainly couldn't see it now.

Sam looked round at Shido and Tohka, who were sat just a few desks away. She had only managed to get into Shido's homeroom, however, under the alias of 'Amy', Sam's younger sister, whereas Sam herself had transferred schools. She also had to wear a long blonde wig to hide her wild, short, cyan-dyed mop for obvious reasons. She watched as Shido looked back at her and frowned. "He doesn't know where they are either..." Sam shook her head and turned back to watch the door – which was thrown wide open – and as she did so, Kurumi Tokisaki strode in, staring directly at her. A shudder sparked up her spine; this was the first time they had properly met, and it took all of Sam's self-control not to just charge straight at her or away from her. Instead, she calmly observed as Nightmare bowed low to the teacher and apologised for being late, before taking a seat between Sam and Shido. Sam also noticed that Tohka had shifted ever so slightly closer to Shido.

"She can tell something's up," Sam thought, before slowly coaxing her gaze away from the murderous girl.

She allowed herself to become lost in her own speculations and imaginings as the chattering around her became a distant background noise, like static on the radio.

"Nice hair."

Sam sprung upright at the sound of the voice. It almost sounded like it had come from her own thoughts.

"I wonder how many people here are actually buying it."

She looked around again, and that's when she saw Kurumi smirking at her. "Oh, so this is a thing you can just do then?" Sam asked...

...through her mind.

"Yep! Cool, isn't it?"

"Not particularly."

Kurumi visibly huffed at Sam's disinterest, and turned her body back to face Shido, only sparing one last glance in Sam's direction.

"Creepy girl," Sam mumbled under her breath.

A few minutes later, just as everyone was starting to get up and wander over to lessons, Sam's phone softly buzzed. She put her bag back down onto the floor and reached into her pocket, fishing the thing out and opening the message. She quickly glanced at it, getting the general idea, and put it away again, making a mental note. The message read: "Hey Sam! I've already told Shido, and I need you to come to the chemistry preparation room at lunch today. It's important." She had no idea why Kotori had kept the message so vague, but she was sure she had a good reason for it.

Probably.

Lunchtime arrived quickly, and as soon as the bell rang and her lesson ended (not that she actually needed to learn anything) Sam briskly walked down the winding corridors and halls of the rather large building. For some reason, she couldn't help but think back to that day when she met Tohka, and how the school was in complete ruin. Quite impressive that it was rebuilt so quickly, really.

As her thoughts subsided, she turned a corner and stopped at the door to the room, positioned at one end of the science corridor. She slid the door across, making sure to check if anyone was watching, and swiftly entered, closing the door behind her. She looked around her and squinted her eyes at the dim lighting, and just like she expected, Shido, Kotori and Reine were all watching a monitor in one corner of the room, the soft greenish glow of the screen the only light source. She strode forwards past various bits of lab equipment: flasks, test tubes, Bunsen burners, everything you could expect, until she stopped and peered at the screen over Shido's shoulder.

"Oh good, you're finally here." Kotori said, then added: "Nice hair."

Sam scowled and shook the wig off of her, exposing her blue hair once more. "What did you want, exactly?"

Kotori span around in the chair and tapped something onto the keyboard, and a moment later, a picture of an alleyway appeared on the screen. Sam – and she was sure Shido would too – immediately recognised it as being quite near to his house. She also noticed that at the far end, half concealed in shadows, Kurumi stood in a pool of blood. Dashes of the crimson liquid were also splattered haphazardly along the brick walls, tainting the usual white brick with a sickening red, like some twisted painter's masterpiece. The stains clearly pointed to a very violent death, and Shido subtly gagged beside Sam.

Shido was the first to ask. "Wh-what's going on here?"

Sam nodded. That question was on her mind too.

Fortunately, an answer came quickly as Kotori hit the space bar, and the picture continued into the video that it was. The camera angle shifted, and showed Mana standing at the opposite end, staring down Kurumi, still dressed in the same hoodie and jeans as the evening they met. Sam shivered slightly at the sight of her. She hadn't told anyone else of the...'exchange' they'd had. The feed was fuzzy and skipped every now and then, suggesting that this was all recorded using some old cameras, or that perhaps something else was affecting the quality.

The next camera change confirmed that as the AST, hovering in a tight formation, appeared. Sam couldn't shake the awful feeling in her stomach as she noticed the absence of Origami. Surely she would have been there considering the target, right?

Right?

She shook her head and looked back at the screen, just as the camera jumped again. This time, it showed just Kurumi, now enveloped in a black aura. A second later, she reappeared, dressed in that same red-and-black outfit that Sam had seen her in when she was visited in her dreams, which when Sam told Kotori about it, she was corrected about the design. Apparently, it wasn't a maid's outfit, but a gothic lolita dress, as if Sam cared. She was also made aware that that was Nightmare's Spirit Armour, which was something Sam cared about, but she had already figured as much.

The camera jumped again, and the group was presented with a much farther-out angle. This one showed Mana, who was turned away from the camera and dressed in a suit not entirely unlike the AST's CR-Units, but was also very different in many ways. Sam ended up drawing more parallels between her designs than the AST's. It also showed Kurumi, raising an arm up and pointing her open palm towards Mana, almost as if she was preparing some sort of attack.

Suddenly, four thin beams of light thrust outwards from the forearm of Mana's suit, impaling the Spirit and causing her to collapse to the ground. At this, Shido gasped and recoiled a half-step, bumping into Sam.

"It gets worse," Kotori said without looking away. Sam and Shido looked at each other, nodded, and turned their morbidly-curious stares back to the monitor. Kurumi stood shakily up, before another shot sliced through her. She fell backwards in a hump, and Mana slowly stalked closer, drawing a blade akin the Origami's, but very different in shape. It was pointed like a spike, but also flat like any blade, and it extended from a similarly shaped contraption on her arm. Sam knew what was coming next, and she would have turned away if she could, but that same morbid curiosity locked her vision, and her legs suddenly became like lead. She could only hope Shido was prepared for it too.

Shido, however, wasn't, and when Mana thrust the blade into the collapsed Kurumi, slicing her up again and again and again, Shido surged forwards and slammed his hand on the keyboard, shutting the video down. "Enough!" he shouted, a faint flicker of desperation audible in his strangled tone.

Sam let out a breath she didn't realise she was holding and placed a hand on Shido's shaking shoulder. They both looked towards Kotori, but it was Reine who answered the silent question instead.

"That happened last night. The night you met Mana. As you can see, the video doesn't lie." Reine paused, and Sam could have sworn it was just for effect. Either way, it worked, as Reine's next words sent a chill right through her.

"Kurumi Tokisaki should be dead."