The Great Adventures of 207

by Mind's Odyssey

(AU) Characters are in the real world, and the main characters are school detectives. Nemix (OC), with Zexion, Roxas, Axel, Demyx and Xion, solve every mystery and case like going on adventures. Rated T for some language, some violence. May contain some social/sensitive issues one might be offended by, some very mild suggestive themes. View full picture at DA!

19. Face-Off: Battle of Wits & Valour

DISCLAIMER: I OWN NOTHING EXCEPT A PART OF THE PLOT!

Chapter 19 – FACE-OFF: BATTLE OF WITS & VALOUR

It had been slightly more than a week since we caught Devilish Director and Samara red-handed, and things had finally had a resolution; the director really did report to the police, and she provided a copy of the report to Mr. Xemnas and Mr. Saïx as reference, after which we were informed of the act by the blue-haired man. However, Devilish Director did not exactly confess everything; she only mentioned that the cyberattack on the school was her doing, and that Scumbag was her co-conspirator. She never mentioned Samara's planned inheritance. Even regarding the framing of Fayra, she said nothing about Samara's name and how she was involved in all this mess. The police did not divulge any intel and investigation progress to the public, most likely due to the director's intervention. That was not necessarily bad though; low-key investigation was better than causing a racket out of things, alerting the enemy unnecessarily and allowing him escape.

Speaking of Samara, ever since we left the director's office, she had been absent, the given reason being overwhelming psychological stress so she needed a breather. Incredulously, the school approved her request. So it was that easy to apply leave… Then why did I have to bother with the daily nonsense every day? Ah, right, Devilish Director also requested time off work, laying low with her daughter for now. On the other side, there was no news about Fayra still. But our intel expert, Roxas, told us that there had been some progress in the inheritance business; the whole process was called off entirely, and now negotiations were underway among the household decision makers for Fayra to regain the title of successor. Since it was now early November, the supposed time when Samara would be of age to take over the family heirloom, and nothing happened to anyone, so that might have meant Roxas' intel was accurate. As for Scumbag Vanitas… it was as if he evaporated from existence and was never seen again. He did not come to pick a bone with us, nor did he terrorise Devilish Director and Samara. The reason why I was so sure about this was because the latter two did not moan about their misery to us, demanding us to solve their problems and save their butts. Seriously, they could untangle themselves from their self-inflicted mess, why push everything onto us? I was not born and raised to be their slave and get yelled at for not being one, OK?

Now that SPM was less than ten days away, all 11th Graders were allowed to stay at home for any final preparations for the crucial exam. Other students still had to attend school though, since they still had year-end exams to take, which were ending in a few days too. For us 9th Graders, we were pretty much sitting there like potatoes after PMR, but our attendances were mandatory anyways… Geez, did they just hate seeing others having their free time? Speaking of free time, Mr. Saïx was still as busy as ever. Ever since he submitted all the evidences, he had been working closely with the police. We were summoned once to his office to give our testimony. After that, he was bundled up by so many school matters that he could not catch a break. Eh… judging this situation, I did not have the right to complain, huh?

Today could not be more normal than any other day. The teacher allowed us to do whatever we wanted in silence, so I was chatting quietly with the rest of Organisation XIII. We were just getting to the best part when Mr. Saïx's voice blared out from the PA system speaker, "Attention all teachers and students, there will be an assembly tomorrow at 1100 hours sharp. There will be important announcements, so attendance is compulsory. Thank you." After the news, a small uproar broke out in class, but it subsided within seconds like nothing ever happened.

"Welp, we've got duties tomorrow…" commented Demyx, stretching. Every time when there was an assembly, prefects would get very busy and would not return to their classrooms before it started. We would stay in the Prefect Meeting Room and hall for assembly preparations. Roxas shrugged and said, "Well, we are indeed very free. No exams, no homework." "And the price for being so free is getting screwed over by some people who think they are entitled," I slightly rolled my eyes and muttered. Putting down the novel in his hands, Zexion added, "Regardless of how despicable they are, this whole affair has come to an end. Perhaps the assembly has something to do with it."

Hmm, Zexion's words could be right. To be honest, I had the same gut feeling. Things got too heated after all, it would have been difficult to placate everyone if the school chose not to make a proper official explanation. We would have to find out tomorrow…

And the next day came. We were organising files and documents in the Prefect Meeting Room, after which we would join in the assembly preparation work. I was about to carry a large stack of documents to a shelf on the other side when Roxas suddenly jumped up from his seat and almost knocked me down. Luckily I tightened my grip onto the papers in my hands and managed to fall on my butt right onto a nearby chair. "Are you possessed, Roxas? What the heck, why did you jump at me without warning?" I asked in an unamused tone after calming down my haphazard heartbeats. This small episode made the remaining members of Organisation XIII nearby to drop what they were doing and stare at us both. Roxas did not seem to notice that all eyes in the room were on him. He merely breathed, "Crap hit the fan…"

Raising an eyebrow, Axel asked, "Spill it." Roxas finally spun his laptop screen around for us to see. "Oh my god…" said Xion slowly. The screen displayed a news article uploaded an hour ago. It wrote that all major media just obtained the whereabouts of Vanitas, who recently had been wanted and tracked down secretly by the police. So when the media caught wind of the police going to Penang International Airport, they bunched up and joined in the fray. "So that's also saying that Scumbag was trying to escape, but his whereabouts got leaked?" asked Kairi, her hands on both hips. I sighed and said, "He dares to just leave just like that? He does sneaky and shameful things all the time, serves him right for getting discovered!"

Zexion thought about it and said, "He always comes and goes without a trace, secretive to the core. How did he mess up this time?" "Because karma finally hit him like a truck! A good deed is responded with good karma and vice versa, and karma is never forgotten, only late," I snickered and commented offhandedly. Xion agreed, "Well said! Karma is a bitch when it wants to be." Ven walked into the room and announced, "Sorry to interrupt… Mr. Saïx wants two volunteers to patrol around school grounds while the rest must now lead other students to the hall. Who's up for it?" Axel thought about it for a bit, stood up and said, "I'll go. It's good to stretch some muscle." Roxas enquired, "Oh right, can someone help me check which class I'm supposed to lead?" Demyx flipped through the duty roster, reading off the chart, "… K3H." "… OK, Axel, I'm coming with you." Roxas' left eye twitched, seemingly irritated. One second later he shut down his laptop and trotted towards Axel. "Eh? Wait, wait, what's up with K3H?" asked Demyx, confused. He looked back and forth between Roxas and the roster. Axel explained, "Dem, did you forget that Seifer is in K3H?" Demyx finally showed an "Oh… yeah" expression, whispering, "Ah… OK, got it."

Soon, we went our separate ways to carry out our assigned duties. Axel and Roxas were on foot patrol to make sure no one was loitering around when everyone else in school was in the hall. For the rest of us, some went to lead other students to gather in the hall, some were setting up the lectern, affixing the national and state flags, maintaining general order and so on. Students from the PPS club were testing the microphones, speakers, sounds and lighting. Due to the imminent SPM exam, there were already desks and chairs arranged in the hall, but since only 9th and 12th Graders were attending the assembly, the exam ground setup did not affect seating availability. 9th Graders sat on the ground between rows of desks while the 12th Graders took the upstairs' seats in the hall.

One could still hear hushed conversations about the cyberattack among the students now. From their words, it was obvious that they could not help but connect Samara and Devilish Director, who had been absent for many days now, with that incident. Just one thing; they did not know what connection there was between Samara and the other incidents happened since last year apart from the cyberattack. Honestly, this sort of ignorance might be a good thing; some things were really better left unknown forever. Looking on the bright side, we did not need to clamp down fake news around us… But would someone really say something about the cyberattack in this assembly? Zexion's words from yesterday swirled in my mind again.

Five minutes later, everyone was asked to be silent, and then we sang the national anthem, state anthem, and recited the national principles and school mottos (you know, a whole load of apparent nonsense). After that, the principal Mr. Xemnas stepped forward to give his speech. He started, "Good morning to everyone in this hall. Firstly, I would like to congratulate all 9th Graders for completing the PMR exam successfully. The results are estimated to release in late December, so please keep an eye out on the news broadcasts and newspapers for accurate dates. Moving forward, regarding the final steps of preparation for SPM and STPM…"

At this point, my mind went into autopilot mode. I did not pay too much attention to what the principal was droning on about, though I occasionally caught a few keywords here and there. I still had to maintain order here. Zexion, Ven, Kairi and I spread out in the hall to make sure no one was dozing off, being inattentive or getting out of line. Demyx, Xion and Naminé were stationed at the hall entrance. We were fixed to the location, while Axel and Roxas were mobile; they patrolled around and had no idea of the happenings in the hall. Similarly, we would not know what was going on outside of the hall. "… That concludes the report on school administrative matters. Now, I am going to speak about the school cyberattack."

In a flash, I regained my previously lost focus and looked more awake. No way, did Zexion really hit the mark? Mr. Xemnas shuffled the papers in his hands, cleared his throat and continued in his deep voice, "Like mentioned previously, the school had found the culprit. Though our investigations brought this person to the light, there are still other culprits out there. The person directly related to this incident shall explain personally about this matter." Wait, what? Upon hearing that, I was already dumbfounded. When I had yet to recover from my stupor, someone emerged from the backstage to the lectern – Devilish Director.

Right now, all students were either equally as dumbfounded as I was, or they started whispering with their friends. Obviously everyone thought that unbelievable, and Organisation XIII was no exception. Xion's voice could be heard from the interphones, "Um… what's going on in there? There seems to be a commotion…" Kairi answered, "The director appeared. Looks like she's going to talk about the cyberattack!" "For real? Zexy is just legendary at this point, he successfully predicted the aim of the assembly!" squealed Demyx excitedly. Zexion's slightly flustered voice came, "We are losing focus here…"

Devilish Director continued towards the lectern after the principal stepped aside from it, she paused for a bit and started, "Good morning to you all. I…" Speaking haltingly, one could see some internal struggle on her facial expression. A few seconds passed, and she continued, "I believe everyone has heard about the cyberattack. I recruited hackers to design a software to hack into electronic devices in school that are connected to the network. This consequently caused the theft and deletion of data from many students. I… was involved in the plan of attack."

Voices of arguments and debates were increasing in volume at this moment. I remembered my original duty, and I ordered any loud students in my area to tone down. Other prefects were also trying to control the situation. The director waited until no one was talking like no one's business and she continued her confession, "There is a reason why I did that, even if it does sound absurd… It is a serious matter should the school become a victim of cyberattacks, so the school had purchased related insurances. Now that the attack has happened, the school had sustained heavy losses, so the insurance company decided to compensate with a large sum of money. And then… then I siphoned away some from that pool under the name of repairing and upgrading the school network safety, but in reality it is embezzlement of public funds to fatten my pockets."

Absurd, indeed it was. What was she blabbing about?! Students and teachers were shocked to no end, but definitely not more shocked than us, who knew the whole truth. What the heck? Why would Devilish Director make up a fake motive? And that was also the question Ven posed to us. Since he asked via interphones, the other three prefects outside of the hall heard it too. Zexion quickly said, "It is best not to point out the true reason behind her forced involvement in the cyberattack now. Do not forget, her real motive is not advantageous to Samara."

"That's true, but still…" I lost my words too. I should have known that she would risk everything to protect her daughter. Lying was tons better than the all the other bullshit she pulled on us. I refocused my eyes on the woman on the stage. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. She spoke again, "Nevertheless, there is yet another culprit behind the attack, and he is also the one who started this…" This sentence shut everyone up completely, while I also stared at her with wide eyes. Oh my god, could she… Was she finally going to confess about Vanitas Inanis, aka Scumbag, who always managed to hide from everybody?!

Suddenly, the microphone she used emitted an extremely high-pitched noise, like supersonic. Her mouth was opening and closing, obviously still speaking, but her voice was entirely covered by the noise. She was surprised too, so she stopped talking and pushed the microphone away from her face. The noise eventually disappeared a few seconds later. She looked somewhat annoyed, as if she had never been interrupted by common microphone issues her whole life. When she wanted to continue her speech, the microphone did not react; it did not pick up any utterings from her, and we all heard nothing. In fact, all audio facilities in the hall seemed to have malfunctioned at the same time. Devilish Director's voice was as tiny as a mouse without the help of the microphone and loud speakers. While we were still baffled, from behind came a very loud metal collision noise and everyone looked towards the source of said noise, only to see the only entrance/exit of the hall was shut off by an iron gate. The thing was, this gate was never closed, except for the period when the school was closed.

"BAM!" Two seconds after the gates were closed, there was an explosion noise coming from the ceiling. I immediately looked towards said direction, and only then I realised the bigger problem; all air-conditioners were emitting large amounts of black smoke, but were not burning. Soon after that, the electric supply got cut off and our surroundings plunged into darkness. It was daytime, but the hall windows were tightly sealed, and the curtains were all down, thus creating the aforementioned scenario. Needless to say, everyone at the scene started to panic, screaming loudly. And then everyone started to rush towards the only measly source of light; the gate. Demyx's voice came from the interphones, "What happened in there?! Why did the gate close?" "The noises inside… what's going on?" asked Naminé.

I quickly said, "135, 383, Nami! Get the gate open! We have to evacuate everyone to the field!" "*Coughing* this is suffocating… There's a fire!" Kairi said through the interphones, coughing a few times. I then recalled seeing a door near the stairs to the hall stage, as well as another one at the other end of the stage stairs. I ran towards the one nearest to me, knocking into a few chairs and desks along the way due to poor lighting. Although everyone else headed for the opposite direction, I did not run into anyone. After some effort, I arrived at the door and twisted the door knob, but it did not budge at all. Panicked, I hit the door with my palms repeatedly and even slamming into it with my upper body, yet it was fruitless. Could the door be locked? By who? How? When?

"Guys! The gate won't open!" Xion yelled frantically through the interphones, and I also heard screams and the gate being hit. "Everyone, please remain calm!" I heard Mr. Saïx's voice, mixed in with the voices of other teachers. I started looking around, trying to find any route to leave the hall. In the chaos, my leg hit a metal chair. I looked at it and thought of an idea. Grabbing the back of the chair firmly, I forcefully swung it towards the glass window behind the curtains. It took me three slams to clear any remaining glass on the window. Luckily the curtains were thick enough to prevent any stray shards of glass from hitting me due to the impact. I tugged at the curtain, used it like a swinging vine and hauled myself over and out through the broken window, and I landed successfully in the side corridor outside of the hall. I ran to the door from before after that to try to open it from the outside, but I still could not get it to open.

"Um… We need help! Come and pull the gate open!" I caught Ven's voice from my interphone, but it was nearly drowned out in the cries of other students. Without another word, I rushed to where Xion and company were at once. Demyx, Xion and Naminé were scrounging up every last drop of strength to try to pull the tightly shut iron gate open, and the gate was actually opened bit by bit. I joined in the fray immediately and pulled with all my might. My fingers ached from the strain. All of a sudden, a snap was heard and the gate budged, resulting in a bigger opening than before. And like a breaking dam, all students gushed out, so we had to pull the gate completely open, almost getting knocked down by escapees in the process. This did not seem to have turned into a stampede… for now.

Zexion, Ven and Kairi stumbled out of the hall, trying to catch their breaths. Kairi wheezed, "Phew! Luckily everyone helped to pull, or else… we'd suffocate!" Xion yelled, "Let's escape first!" We quickly ordered the remaining students to form a line and evacuate to the field in a quick and orderly manner. I was only halfway down the stairs when I saw so many people milling everywhere it was impossible to move an inch. Seeing this, Zexion said to me, "207, we have to remind them about the fire drill lessons; do not rush." "Oh…" We got ourselves involved in the evacuation work again…

[Ten minutes ago]

Axel and Roxas were patrolling around, and now they arrived at the highest floor of the westernmost school building. They had not caught wind of what happened in the hall and they also did not tune their interphones' frequency to the same one the prefects in the hall were using. They were chatting whilst walking, and suddenly Axel noticed a shadow flashing by from the edge of his visual field. "013, tango ahead," warned Axel, quickening his pace forward, and Roxas picked up pace too. He was right; there was a shadow turning at the corner where the stairs were. Axel burst into a sprint, so Roxas had to follow suit to keep up. The shadow also noticed someone coming for them, so they hastened their steps, one could hear their panicked footsteps ringing from the stairs. After a few minutes of chasing, the two boys arrived at a two-way road split. They shared a quick glance at each other and ran off to different directions. Axel reacquired his target in his line of vision soon after, and he was slowly catching up to it. That was when the shadow sped up and put some distance between them, and they took a sharp turn, disappearing from Axel's sight. He took the same turn and saw only a lone door at the end of the short corridor. He dashed over, swung the door open and barged in.

While Axel was trying to see if the shadow was really in there, the door slammed itself shut behind him, letting out a harsh metal clash. Oddly enough, he also heard a seemingly muffled explosion. Since he could not see a thing in the darkness, he subconsciously looked for the light switch. The room he was in had no windows, so after some fumbling in the dark, his fingers touched the switch. Just as he switched the lights on, the bulb promptly exploded, its glass falling to the ground. Fortunately, Axel jumped aside in time; it would have been ugly to let the shards shower onto his head. "Well, crap…"

Back to Roxas, he ran around like a headless fly but he found no one. He stopped in a corridor and used his interphone to call Axel while regaining his breath. He panted, "222, I couldn't even find a ghost here, I bet that tango never went down the route I chose. How's your luck?" Axel, "That's not the point. No, actually, my luck is the point now; I'm trapped in a room!" Roxas queried, "What? Your location?"

Seconds later, Axel replied, "Unclear, but it looks like some sort of storeroom." By now Roxas had already started going back to the previous road split, and ran down Axel's chosen route this time. Roxas, who was already anxious, noticed black smokes everywhere and pushed himself to run even faster. Sadly, there were too many storerooms or lookalikes along the way, and soon he realised that he had no idea about Axel's exact location. He panicked and asked, "Which storeroom?!" However, he could only hear Axel coughing non-stop on the other end of the interphone, mostly likely choked by the smokes.

[To the field]

Now, the teachers were already taking over to lead the students to exit the premises, while the rest of the prefects and I stood guard at the side entrance of the main school building leading to the field, helping to direct escapees and doing crowd controlling. Periodically, I had been trying to contact Roxas and Axel, but the call did not went through. Their interphones should not be broken but most probably tuned to the wrong frequency… I told Zexion who was standing opposite to me, "I still can't contact 222 and 013 so far, and I don't see them in the crowd." Zexion started to frown, looking troubled. I tried again, and failed nevertheless. I mumbled to myself, "Must've gotten into trouble…" And then I said to Zexion, "We have to find them!"

Once I saw that almost all students had come out, I notified everyone using the interphones, "I'm going find 222 and 013, I'll be right back." "Hell no, 207, don't you go back alone! It's too dangerous in there!" exclaimed Demyx immediately, and Zexion joined in soon after, "135 is right, we should advance in groups. How about this: we go back while Kairi, Ven and Naminé keep monitoring outside to see if they actually made it out and we just missed them." "What?" Naminé still had not caught on the situation. Kairi said, "Whoa there, don't be reckless. There are smokes everywhere inside. The few of you going in isn't necessarily better than going in alone." Naminé took the baton, "It's too dangerous… but I definitely had not seen Roxas and Axel on my side…" Finally, Ven said, "Let's agree on a time. If you all are not out after thirty minutes, we will think of a way to make the teachers let us in, or ask any outside help to enter once it arrives." "… OK, we're going in!" I said, spearheading the rescue attempt by running in first with everyone else in tow.

The smokes at the exit area were actually not very thick. It was less than five seconds after we ran back in when we suddenly hear Roxas' frantic voice from our interphones, "Hello? 207? 135? 006? 383? Do you copy?" I performed an emergency break upon hearing the boy and asked just as frantically, "013? Where you at now?!" "… Block A! Looks like the third floor!" Zexion replied immediately, "Roger that. 013, hang tight and continue reporting back to us. We are Oscar Mike."

After one minute, we arrived at the bottommost floor of Block A, where the smokes got thicker. I covered my nose and asked via the interphones, "013, make some noise so we can find you." As expected, I heard him yelling from the second floor, "Hey! I'm here!" We rushed up the stairs. On our way there, I noticed one thing; the black smokes all came out from drainage holes and ventilation shafts. "This is odd… but I can't tell how odd…" I thought, and then I heard Roxas again, "Over here! And I think I found where Axel's trapped!" "What? Trapped?!" cried Demyx. Zexion did not say anything more but moved on, and Roxas came into view after a few seconds and he spotted us. Agitated, he waved at us, motioning for us come over.

"Hurry! Axel's here! I've knocked every single door on this floor and only this door had someone knocking back in response!" Roxas explained in a rush while stepping aside to let us through. We ran up to the door only to see a small lock on the door latch, barely keeping the door securely locked. Zexion commanded, "Go find if there is anything to smash this lock with." Demyx and Roxas left and searched any unlocked classrooms found on our way here, but I could no longer wait; I violently tugged at the latch and yelled, "222, I need you to kick the door from your side, because this door opens from in the inside! Kick it outwards!" We never received a verbal response from the redhead, but the door jolted anyways.

Roxas and Demyx called from behind, "Metal chair coming in hot!" Axel kept kicking the door, so Zexion said, "Wait, 222, we are going to smash-" Just then, the door finally burst open, the lock along with the door latch detached from the wooden structure, clanging onto the floor. Axel stumbled out but managed to regain his footing and not fall flat on his face. "-the lock that was still locking the door earlier…" Zexion quietly finished his interrupted sentence. The blondes slowed down to a halt and left the chair behind them. Roxas asked first, "You alright?" Waving his hand dismissively, Axel said, "A bit lightheaded, but all good. Luckily the smokes inside… aren't as much as outside…" Axel's tone increased in confusion once he took note of the surroundings outside of the room, as if he just realised the weight of the situation. "And… that's our cue to GTFO, NOW!" I said, turned on my heels and walked to the nearest flight of stairs.

"Bom-bom-bom-bom~! Bom~~! Bom-bom-bom-bom-bom~! Bom-bom~~!"

An exceptionally loud music exploded from the PA speakers like an RPG, startling me to a halt. Everyone else reacted the same, not knowing what in the world was happening. My heart almost jumped out of my mouth… which imbecile dared to play "Zigeunerweisen Op. 20" on full blast at a time like this?! Eh, wait… Imbecile? Only then I realised this; except for us, there was no way anyone else would be in the school right now. So… who was it?

Soon, the answer revealed itself; a man's voice replaced the music from earlier, booming out of the PA speakers, "Welcome to hell! Thought you guys wouldn't make it together, so I just had to create a… small diversion to gather everyone. My apologies for the short notice. Oh, I also hope you guys enjoyed the music!" I almost exploded out of fury; I would still recognise the voice even in death: Scumbag Vanitas Inanis! I yelled at the ceiling, "Goddamn it, you're still at it?! There's no way you can get away with all the crimes you've committed! So just give up and come out to face us and your due responsibilities like a real man, you useless coward!"

He merely returned a sinister chuckle and said, "What gives you the idea that I'm going to just listen to you and come at your every beck and call? I call the shots, like always, and you all don't get any say in this." Axel had had enough of his taunt and replied, "We've got evidence on your dirty little secrets, so you'd better think twice before deciding who calls the shots!" "Ah, I should have known that you all require solid proof to my claim. That's just how your awful occupational habits work, isn't it? Well then…"

Once his voice dropped, a feminine voice took over, sounding quite panicked and agitated. It consisted of muffled whimpers like someone covered the person's mouth. Vanitas continued, "Whose voice this is… perhaps you'd know without me telling you, yes? Bah, what nonsense, you'd definitely know!" It was then Zexion noticed that something was off and quickly looked around him. With impending doom written all over his face, he said, "383 is not with us."

"… Guys! This blasted scumbag he- Mmph!" That voice returned and spoke this time, before getting muffled again. From that outburst, we were positive that that was indeed Xion's voice. Now we could see the dread on everyone's face. I muttered under my breath, "Shoot…" "Like I've told you, you don't get to choose but to do as I say. Even if there is no fire, you will still have to gather here either way, whether you like it or not…" said Vanitas.

We initiated an emergency group meeting on the spot. Demyx asked, "Crap, when did this happen?!" I recalled and spoke, "Last time I saw 383 was when we were outside the hall, just when everyone else was rushing out." "Correct, she yelled for us to escape first back then," agreed Zexion, looking grim, but then he continued, "Darn it, she must have been abducted amidst the chaos. He was here all along, just waiting for a chance to ambush!" Roxas took off his interphone and was adjusting it. After the Atsumi Peninsula beach incident, I immediately understood his objective; to locate Xion's interphone, and therefore Xion herself, via frequency synchronisation.

All of a sudden, a stream of loud static erupted from our interphones, it was so deafening that we were forced to pull them off of our ears at once. I could still hear the static ringing in my ears like an annoying tinnitus. Axel fumed, "What the hell…?!" Just then, Vanitas' voice boomed, "I want to play a game… Time to lay out the rules! Rule number one, no sneaky chitchat among you all, because that is just too rude. Therefore… I'll have to kick your interphones out! And rule number two…"

A few beeps were heard and our eyes followed the noise. It was bad; with no rhyme or reason, all entrances and exits as far as the eye could see were barricaded by some red laser beams. And I meant any crevice that might qualify as an entrance or exit. Furthermore, as if to warn us, a leaf floated towards the lasers and touched them, charring upon contact. "… No leaving before I say so. Let's see if you can find your dear friend before she turns into smoked bacon… Hahaha!" announced Vanitas smugly with a sinister laugh.

Axel coughed a few times and said, "The smokes are too thick here, let's go to the mini garden and plan from there." Good enough for me; it was an open area, so at least we would not suffocate to death. We arrived at our destination without any injuries, and just as Axel predicted, the smokes here were bearable. I started, "Well, there's no point in flabbergasting over how Xion disappeared, we need to find her before it's too late." Demyx sighed, "If we know where she was it would be fantastic, but… we don't." Roxas was inspecting his interphone and then he said, "Our interphones broke after the electric disturbance earlier… I tried to locate 383 by adjusting the frequency just now, but… yeah, you know what happened." I slapped a palm to my face and Axel sighed in frustration, "Right, comms are out." I added, "That bastard…"

Zexion shook his head and explained, "Obviously, finding her is our top priority, but stopping Vanitas is equally as important. Either we find her first or we get to Vanitas and capture him first." "… Sounds like we're splitting up," Axel said after some thought, folding his arms. Zexion nodded to confirm his speculation and I agreed, "Well, we don't have a choice, as much as I hate to admit it." Thus, we were divided into two groups; Axel, Roxas and I went after Vanitas, while Zexion and Demyx went to find Xion.

[Back to the field]

Watching from the field in front of the school, every building continuously emitted black smokes. Mr. Saïx called the fire brigade five minutes ago, but now was the time when the afternoon session students were coming in while the morning session students were supposed to leave, and since everyone on the roads decided to park their cars in the middle of the road to see what was going on, not even a bicycle could squeeze through the carnage that was the traffic outside of the school grounds. So any fire trucks reaching soon was out of the question. Ven thought it odd as he watched on, mumbling, "Why only smokes? I don't see any fire so far…" Kairi and Naminé ran over from the other side of the field. Kairi said, "We can confirm that Axel and Roxas are not among the crowd in the field." Naminé asked, "Then that means they are really still in there?" Ven did not say anything and looked like he was contemplating something. And then he faced the girls and said, "Let's head over and see what's up. If we could get in that would be great…"

Naminé was about to stop him, but Ven had already started striding over to the side entrance Zexion was at some time ago, so the girls had to follow. Kairi's sprint got faster and she overtook Ven in less than five seconds and was way ahead. Ven, who was a few steps behind the auburn-haired girl, then noticed a few shiny red beams crisscrossing the entrance. He frowned and said to himself, "What the heck…?" Kairi was about to reach the entrance steps, and Naminé also finally realised something wrong about the entrance, she shouted, "Kai, wait! Stop right there!" Kairi's feet screeched to a halt upon hearing her friend and she whipped around, her necktie whizzing through the air in a big arc following her sudden movement. But… it hit the one of the laser beams and burned its end. Naminé gasped and scrambled to Kairi, who stood there dumbfounded, and grabbed her tie for inspection. It did not catch on fire fortunately, just a gaping burnt hole.

Kairi was still reeling from the scene and breathed, "Holy cow…" Naminé looked at Kairi's necktie, and then at the laser beams at the entrance, finally she said worriedly, "This is bad…" Still frowning, Ven said, "Not just bad. Something… sinister is going on… and they are still in there." Kairi recovered slightly and tried to contact the group back inside the school buildings, but she only heard static. She looked at the other two and said, "The interphone seems fried." "We need to call the police. Let's go to Mr. Saïx," concluded Ven determinedly, and off they went to find the blue-haired man and filled him in on the situation. Mr. Saïx dialled the police, however…

"…" The man's face was shrouded with a hidden murderous intent, he remained silent while the police spoke on the other end of the line. The three teenagers did not dare to ask why. Ten seconds later, the man finally said, "… Understood. Please come soon. We have students in danger." After finishing the conversation, he told the trio, "The police won't be here anytime soon. All available forces in the city swarmed to the airport to capture Vanitas Inanis due to the tip about his escape attempt. Taking into account the current traffic conditions, no one can get in or out." "Oh, come on!" whined Ven, slamming a palm onto his forehead. Naminé shook her head slowly and said, "Why is everything coincidental?" After some thoughts, Mr. Saïx added, "He might have already had everything planned out. He is highly likely in the school… we cannot barge in just like that. Surely he had planned to ambush us and is just waiting for us to jump into his trap…"

"Great, looks like we have to wait…" grumbled Kairi, feeling frustrated. With a rare tone of defeat, the Discipline teacher said, "We can only observe from the sidelines, waiting for an opportunity. It's best not to let anyone else know about this yet, so that we don't alert the enemy needlessly…"

[Switching back to a corridor in the school main building]

"OK, since that scumbag used the PA system to taunt us, we might as well check the broadcast room and kick his butt if he is there," I said while walking along the wall. Roxas and Axel were behind me. On our way there, the smokes did not dissipate much, but my question from earlier finally had an answer; the reason why those smokes came out from the drainage holes and ventilation shafts was because… someone made them to, and I meant someone. "I don't know about you guys, but this seems less like a fire the more I look at it… There is no fire from the beginning to now, and the smokes do not come out from anywhere else," I pointed out, feeling something was out of place when I thought about it. Axel concurred, "… This is just a ruse to single us out." Roxas sighed, "Luckily he decided to do that. If he planned to involve every single person out in the field in this, it would be chaos…"

We passed by the welfare office on the way to the broadcast room, so we picked up several damp tea towels to cover our noses and mouths. After that, we kept our bodies low at where the smokes were very thick and it took us fifteen more minutes to finally reach the door to the room in question. We leaned on the wall next to the door. I was on the right side while Axel sneaked to the left, and Roxas and tried the door, not letting out any noise. And then he whispered, "Door's not locked." I tried to peek inside, but the glass pane on the door did not allow any outsiders to see through, so I said, "I can't be sure if he's in there, so we still have to barge in." The boys nodded, and I started the countdown using my fingers. Once it was over, Axel quickly swung the door open and we rushed in at once.

Of course, no one was in here. Things were never that simple, huh? Besides that, the PA system was on, and there were surveillance cameras spying on every nook and cranny of the school. "Crap, he got away… but that sort of proved that he was at least here before, and he's watching us," I grumbled in frustration at first, and I added an inference after noticing the many screens of security camera feeds. Roxas thought of something and went to the screens, saying, "Hey, we can maybe use this to see where 383 might be!" He tapped a few keys, and after staring at the screens for about thirty seconds, he sighed and said, "Well, mostly smokes. And most of the angles are so bad, they are mostly blocked too." With a deep sigh, Axel asked, "Great, now what?" Looking at the screens again, I proposed, "I guess we can rendezvous with 006 and 135. From this camera we can see that they're headed in the general direction of the library."

They did not object so I turned around and got ready to leave, but the door slammed shut out of the blue and let out a click, telling us it was now locked. We were still registering what had just happened when black smokes rolled out from the vents in the broadcast room, some were even coming out from the slit under the door!

"Bloody hell, we have to get out!" I exclaimed, looking around for any potential exits. Axel went straight to the door instead and tried opening it. After discovering it was really locked, he threw a few kicks at the door, but it did not budge. Roxas was also busy searching for an exit. Just when I was about to really panic, I noticed a metal chair next to me, so I grabbed it and shouted, "Out of the way!" Axel and Roxas jumped aside just in time. I hurled the chair through the air in a big arc and the chair leg struck the door glass pane. "PANG!" The glass broke into a thousand pieces and mostly fell outside of the room. I removed any remaining shards left sticking on the door with the chair leg. And then I extended my arm through the hole I created, trying to unlock the door from the outside. Unexpectedly, it worked; the door swung outwards after a click.

We scrambled out of the room, panting hard. "Good god, I thought we're going to die back there!" wheezed Roxas, waving his wet tea towel in the air to waft away the smokes. I said, "It's most likely Vanitas… How else would the door shut itself for no reason?" Axel merely jabbed his thumb at a basin beside the door filled with smoke-emitting charcoal and said, "That blasted thing must have been placed in the corridor by someone after locking the door to try to smoke us to death?" That scumbag! I was about to add in a few insults, but Roxas interjected, "Wait! Look… there seems to be someone!"

Roxas was right; two shadows could be seen amidst the smokes, resembling two men. I moved three steps forward to get a closer look; they were two men wearing our school's security guard uniforms. I had never seen them before, because the guards in our school were always changing, perhaps due to low pay. Once they spotted us, they stopped in their tracks. The taller of the two spoke out first, "Finally found you kids! The principal heard that there were still students stuck in the school, so he sent us to rescue you all." "Oh what a relief! At least we don't have to wander around here anymore," sighed Roxas, starting to walk towards the men. They also started to move towards us, while Axel followed Roxas. I would have also done that, however… I noticed something decidedly off. My hand shot out and grabbed Axel's sleeve, and I spoke in a low volume, "待ってくれ、学校警備員はいつ銃を持っていたんだ？" [Translate from Japanese: Wait a sec, since when did school security guards have guns?]

Fortunately, both boys heard the heightened alert in my tone, and they halted to observe. My eyes were not playing tricks on me; the two "guards" had their hands sneakily reaching into their jackets, the hidden guns were barely visible, but the reflected light proved that I was not imagining things. Axel had also just realised that, and replied in hushed Japanese, "いや、持っていなかった… 持つわけがないし。" [No, they never did… Had no reason to.] Roxas asked carefully, "じゃ、どうする?" [So, what do we do?] Axel stared at the "guards" and contemplated, and then he said quietly to me, "207、彼らを止めなきゃ、三に数えて逃げろ。" [207, someone's got to stop them, on the count to three, you run.]

"What?" I forgot to ask in Japanese out of surprise. Since Axel was not facing me all this while, I seriously did not know if he was joking. Roxas added, "最速走るのはあなただけで、止められるのは僕たちしかない。" [You're the only one who runs the fastest, we're the only ones who can stop them.] Axel got slightly impatient and hissed, "Don't ask, just do it!" He steadied himself and started to count, "One… Two… Three!" Axel and Roxas sprang into action like two arrows flying from a bow, tackled the "guards" down and started wrestling with them. I blanked out for a second and then pulled my legs to run away without looking back. Since I was focused on escaping, I did not take in my surroundings until I saw an ajar door. I went through said door and closed it, hiding in a corner.

Only then I noticed that I was now hiding in the Prefect Meeting Room, my legs aching from the sprint. I could not believe that Axel came up with that stupid idea, and Roxas even went along with it. And yet I left them behind and escaped… "This is so frustrating…" I breathed, raking my fingers through my hair. Just great; there were three, no, at least three madmen on the loose out there, and they were armed, while I was basically a sitting duck being alone like this, it was just a matter of time before I fell into their hands. I calmed down and said to myself, "This won't do. I have to find a way to rendezvous with the others… but how? … Argh, damn it!" I was frustrated, and then my hands touched my pockets, and that was when I remembered something. "Oh, that's it. I still have my GPS device that I can use." Besides… there were some cell phones confiscated a few days ago lying on the table in the room. "… Hey, this might come in handy."

[Switching to somewhere else in the school]

Zexion and Demyx met up after searching the areas they assigned themselves to, reporting their search results. "So you did not find her…" said Zexion in defeat, his tone did not sound like he was asking a question. Demyx said in despair, "Where could 383 be? She might not be here at all, it could be just Vanitas screwing with us." Zexion was not about to give up just yet, and he asked, "Could we have missed out any clues? 383 was last seen outside of the hall, everything was normal until the prefects stationed outside of the hall had to pull the iron gate open… And then 207 successfully found a way out and everyone pulled it open together. Lastly, she told us to escape the school first…"

"Beep beep! Beep beep!" Out of the blue, Zexion's pager let out a string of alarm, catching them off guard and making them almost jump out of their skin. Zexion took out his pager and checked; it was 207's number. He paused for a bit, and then he snapped back to reality and pressed the answer button, saying, "207? Is that you?"

"Oh good, luckily this still works. Guess Scumbag Vanitas overlooked this alternative way of communication of ours, hah!" I said excitedly. In this situation where danger lurked everywhere, I would claim any accomplishment, however small. My moment of euphoria did not last long though, I had serious business to attend to. I got back to the topic, "Anyways, where are you and 135? I'm laying low in the Prefect Meeting Room. Alone." Demyx asked, "Alone?" I sighed softly and explained, "222 and 013 stalled the enemies so I could run." "Darn it… was it Vanitas?" I answered, "Not exactly… Worse yet, he had at least two henchmen posing as school guards and roaming in the school to hunt us like open season!"

Zexion finally said, "So I take it you had not seen 383?" "Ugh, what do you think? I reckon you did not see any signs of her too?" Demyx replied dejectedly, "Yeah…" "… Anyhow, let's find a safe spot and rendezvous," I said, not fancying the idea of staying in one place for longer than necessary. Zexion said, "Right. Outside the library then." "Oorah…"

[Switching scenes to a dark area in the school]

"… For god's sake, this is too tight!"

In the last three minutes, Xion had been trying to wriggle out of the ropes tying her wrists to her back. Apart from the blindfold covering her eyes, there was a gag cloth in her mouth, so she could not utter a word. Xion cursed internally, "Darn, I can still smell that blasted chloroform. Surely I'd still remember it even in the afterlife… and there's this smoky smell. Ugh… Damn it-" She struggled too hard and fell down to the floor along with the chair that was tied to her. BAM! "Ow… that hurt… luckily it's wooden floor, otherwise it would've been painful. Eh? Wood? Wait a sec… I can still smell smoke here, so I'm possibly still in the school, and there are not too many places in school that have wooden flooring…" She stopped moving as she thought, only to smack her head lightly onto the ground and let out a disgruntled groan. She thought, "I can't think of anything… Forget it, I'd rather not guess blindly. Let's try removing the blindfold…"

[Back to the field…]

Mr. Saïx was about to ring the police to follow up with their status when his phone rang instead. He took it out and inspected the incoming call; an unfamiliar number. At that moment, a few thousand thoughts flashed in his mind. "This could be Vanitas Inanis' blackmail call, but if I picked it up, he can probably use the chance to hack into my phone. He might brick it and I'll not be able to get help from the outside. Besides, the police might call me anytime, if I'm engaged in this call, they wouldn't be able to dial in, and I'll lose a good opportunity and put everyone in the school in deeper risk… Furthermore… why would I answer an unknown call? If they are merely punks who want to mess with me, wouldn't I be wasting my time? Using that time to contact the police or the fire brigade is better." Thus, he pressed the "reject call" button and let out a sigh.

However, his phone rang again after seconds. The man checked the caller and found that it was the same number as before. Annoyed, he rejected the call without even thinking this time. And to prevent the person from calling him again, he dialled the police hotline immediately and was connected to the police seconds later. "We're on the way, but the traffic congestion is extremely serious, it's going to take us a long while to get there." "… Understood. Still that phrase, please come soon."

[And back to the school]

"What the heck, why is he rejecting my calls?!" I almost jumped around in agitation and almost yelled hysterically, gripping onto one of the phones I took from the Prefect Meeting Room. Zexion suggested, still as calm as ever, "Let me try." He picked up another phone, copied Mr. Saïx's phone number onto his dialling screen and called to see if calling from a different number would work. Five seconds later… "… Lines engaged." "Great…" I slapped my forehead and sighed. Demyx picked up a third phone and said, "Let me try calling Mr. Cloud." I decided not to question how he knew his phone number. He pressed a few buttons, and sighed in not even ten seconds, "Oh really? The SIM card isn't topped up!" I buried my face into my hands at this point and groaned, "As if my life couldn't get any worse…"

Zexion blinked and said, "Leave the people outside of the school aside for now. Since your GPS device is able to contact me, I will use my pager to try and contact 222 and 013." After he finished talking, he switched to his pager to call the boys who had stayed behind voluntarily to stall the "guards" for one of us to escape. Listening to the dialling tone, Zexion filled us in, "The call went through, but no one picked up yet."

Now I felt even guiltier. I knew I should not have listened to Axel's crazy idea. Did they… get away successfully?

[Now switching to somewhere dark]

Roxas had his hands tied to his back, and his feet were tied up too. He sat on the concrete floor. He yelled at the "guards" on the opposite side of the locked door, "Hey! You bastards! Where did you take my friend?!" It was all quiet… "Answer me!" Still all quiet… "Ugh…" Letting out a dejected sigh, Roxas leaned his back on the metal rack behind him. He thought, "I have to get out of here, fast. This looks like some storeroom… there's a basketball… pole, badminton racquets… and also… mattresses used in high jumps. Hmm, must be the PE storeroom."

While the blonde was observing the dark surroundings, he stopped wriggling out of the ropes. Out of the blue, the PDA he kept in his pocket vibrated non-stop. "Huh? Why now…? Ah, it could be the others trying to reach me using the old methods before we used interphones." With some difficulty, he tried to fumble for the device in his pocket. After some time, the PDA finally dropped out of his pocket. Once Roxas pressed the button to answer the call, a few unlocking clicks came from the door at that very moment. Roxas entered panic mode at once, his mind was racing, "Oh crap! The caller voice from the PDA after picking up will be so loud that anyone near the recipient can also hear them. If they found out I'm using the PDA, I'm dead meat! What should I do, what should I do?!"

Left with no choice and no time, Roxas decided that mistakes were made and he could only go along with it, so he yelled with a louder voice, "Hey, hey, hey! Listen up you morons! Don't assume that you can keep me here in the PE storeroom forever! You think I don't know that?! Release me!" The door was open now, the two unamused "guards" from earlier stood at the entrance, and then they walked in without saying anything. The sudden increase in light intensity made Roxas squint his eyes. One of the men went over to Roxas and kicked him in the stomach, snarling, "Shut up! If I catch you making noise again, I will shoot you!" Roxas rammed into the metal rack behind him from the impact of the kick. Although creating a loud collision, it did not fall over fortunately. And then, the men left the storeroom and locked the door again.

Roxas lay unmoving in his fallen pose on the floor, he only slowly sat up once he thought the crisis blew over. "Wow… that hurt…" he whined very quietly. He thought, "Phew! Luckily I shoved the PDA behind me in time, so they did not see it." Using his tied hands, he pushed the PDA from behind him to his side. However, the PDA was not on, and its screen was cracked. "Huh? Broken?" Roxas could not believe the fact that his PDA broke when he crashed into the metal rack, but it did get caught in between his back and the rack and had to withstand impacts from both sides. After the PDA did not turn on after he tried restarting it, he finally accepted the truth. He sighed, "Well, at least I managed to let the caller know my location… But seriously, where did they take Axel? I was knocked out when we could not win the fight against them, and I did not see him since I woke up…"

[Back to the outside of the library]

"Bad news; I think 013's device broke; his voice was cut off abruptly…" said Zexion lowly, we were watching his every move and were equally as, if not more than, worried. After that, Zexion added, "The good news is that at least I know that he is imprisoned in the PE storeroom thanks to his screams. It was hard not to." I rubbed my hands and whsipered, "This should be easy; there's only one PE storeroom in here. Let's go!"

I distributed the cell phones I grabbed from the Prefect Meeting Room among us for convenient communication. And then we sneaked out from the library stairwell where we were previously hiding in. No one saw it coming when we put one foot out into the open the same time we saw two "guards" five metres away from us. To make matters worse, they spotted the three of us too. "Oh crap! RUN!" Demyx and I screamed and took off at once. Zexion did not dare to slow down and scrambled along with us. We could hear the pursuing enemies' footsteps and a few gunshots behind us.

I ran like no tomorrow, but due to the omnipresent smokes, there was a certain level of difficulty in discerning the road ahead of me. Five minutes later, we arrived at a junction splitting into three different directions. "We need to run separate ways, otherwise it'd be bad if they caught us all!" I suggested quickly, turning my head to look at Demyx and Zexion. My feet were fidgeting, prepared to run at any time. Zexion did not have the time to think, so he only said, "We have no choice…" Demyx yelped, "I'll pick this one." He darted to the rightmost stairs and ran up a floor. I said, "I'll find a way to get to 013 directly. You can hide first, I'll call you when I find him." With that, I made haste to the stairs in the middle and went down one floor. Zexion chose the remaining direction and continued running.

Demyx ended up in the washroom and hid in the first booth he came across. But then he realised that closing and locking the booth door was basically screaming out his location to his pursuer, so he hid behind the washroom entrance door instead. One of his hands gripped the hose tightly, while the other rested on the water faucet connected to the hose, ready to strike back at any time. Demyx could hear footsteps inching closer to his hiding spot…

For Zexion, he honestly could run no more, and since he noticed the door to the Home Economics Room was left open, he went straight in. Once he did, he shut the door and slid a nearby wooden ladle through the latch like a lock, but he did not have the time to barricade the door with heavy objects. He switched off any fans and lights that were left on, and then he quickly hid himself in the large cabinet storing flour and rice. "OK… Pretend that no one is in here…" Zexion panted. He tried to suppress his breathing noise, thinking, "Remember what they taught in the boot camp; run, hide, fight. Run if possible, if not then hide, only fight back when there is no other way." He also set every electronic devices with him to silent mode, so as not to give away his location.

He was just about done with his preparatory work when he heard someone banged on the Home Economics Room door. He peeked out from the slit of the closed cabinet doors, he saw the wooden ladle snap into two after the door was kicked open by force and it clattered to the floor. The door swung open and slammed hard onto the wall next to it, and a "guard" armed with a gun walked in slowly. The slate-haired boy did not dare to breathe forcefully or move an inch. Careful not to knock into the flour and rice bags in the cabinet, he silently inched towards a corner of the cabinet.

Zexion could hear someone walking around, but he was sure that there was only one gunman in the room, no other enemies had found their way here. He peeked through the slit again and saw the gunman looking for someone everywhere, opening any cupboards and cabinets. And soon, the man's sights were set on the very cabinet he was hiding in. "Not good…" his thoughts warned, and now he could only hear his heartbeat pulsing with fear. His palms started to sweat, his mouth dried up, but he had no weapons at his disposal. Zexion could only try to breathe as quietly as possible despite his rushing adrenaline. He tightened his fists, ready to rush out-

"Yo? Boss is summoning us, everyone go… *static* now… immediately!" At that moment of life and death, the gunman's walkie-talkie came to life, startling both guys in the room. The man picked it out from his belt and replied with an irritated voice, "Speak clearer. Go where?" "*Static* … *More static* … the boss said… *Even more static*" It seemed as if the reception was poor, so the gunman had to go out of the room to continue the conversation. "Boss said to go to the agreed point, no absentees allowed!" The voice from the walkie-talkie finally became clear, though the gunman was still not happy. He hissed, "I'm busy here." Whoever on the other side of the line reciprocated his tone, "It's none of my concern whether you're busy or not. The boss calls the shot after all. Face the music if you decide to go against his orders." The gunman grumbled, "What the… Fine, I'll go." And then, he kept the device and left the scene for good.

Throughout the process, Zexion did not dare to even twitch a muscle until he could no longer hear any noise. Only then he released all of the air he subconsciously held in. "Phew… that was too close… I have to inform the others about this, to at least let us gather while they are not patrolling around." Once Zexion finished the deed, he carefully pushed the cabinet door open and came out of hiding. His head poked out first and the rest of his body followed after he saw no one else in the room. "OK, the coast is clear," he whispered, and then he sneaked to the wall next to the exit, pressing his back against it. He peeked outside of the Home Economics Room. When he confirmed that he was truly left alone, he walked to the door.

"BANG! BANG!" At that instant, Zexion heard two gunshots accompanied with glass breaking from his left. He covered his head with his left arm immediately and turned around to see. The window glass of the Home Economics Room were shot to smithereens, and he also noticed that, in the middle of the room behind him, there was a grenade rolling slowly five steps away from him. "Oh shoot!" Zexion gasped and scrambled away. Like a loose arrow, he climbed and flipped over the wall lining the corridor he was in, but once he landed, explosions erupted from behind him. The blast propelled the boy's body forward, and he hit his head on the tree in front of him. His body fell limp onto the ground and he lost consciousness.

[Changing scenes to an empty corridor]

I successfully lost my pursuer five minutes ago. I was not sure if it was because the chase dragged on for too long and the gunman gave up chasing, or it was because I ran so fast he could not catch up. I felt like my sprint lasted forever and now my legs were like jelly (man was I hungry too…), it was a freaking miracle that I was still able to walk. I lowered my body and hid in a corner to catch my breath. When I thought about hitting the road to find Roxas, I heard a deafening explosion that almost made me fall over.

"What in the name of Bahamut was that?" I said to myself, peeking around. After I was sure that nothing strange was going on, I decided to continue my rescue mission. "Screw that, I've got better things to do!" After sneaking around for a few minutes, I finally arrived at the PE storeroom, but I still had to hide from afar because standing right outside of the storeroom was one of the gunmen who I really did not want to see now. Worse still, he was not among the ones I saw when Axel was still with us.

I cursed inwardly, "Goddammit, how many of you are there in the school?!" I sneakily observed my surroundings, thinking of a way. Where I was at now was actually very close to an exit. Even if there were lasers barricading, people at the field should have noticed something fishy… Ugh, that would not do, although I had failed before, I had no choice but to call Mr. Saïx one more time, hopefully without getting my call rejected again. I redialled using a cell phone and listened to the dialling tone beeping. When the tone disappeared in my ears and was replaced by background white noise and an impatient hello, I almost cheered out loud. "It finally went through! Thank goodness!" I sighed as quietly as possible, feeling slightly lightheaded. And then I added, "Sir, it's me, Nemix!" "Wait, so it was you who tried to call me? More than five times?" asked the man, genuinely surprised. I quickly replied, "Correct. Things are dire here. That scumbag Vanitas is at it again, he trapped us here and had gunmen hunting us down. I need your help to divert the attention of the man stationed outside the PE storeroom, make him go away. But tread carefully, every enemy in here is armed."

Mr. Saïx answered after a few seconds of silence, "I see… I'll see what I can do." I replied, "OK. Oh, right, are the fire trucks and police arriving yet?" "… Ventus followed up just now. They are on the way here." Great, it looked like I still had to hold out for some time. I said to him, "Let's hope they get here soon. Hanging up now." "Understood, you be careful too. Keep in touch." I ended the call, waiting patiently for the gunman to be "needed" at somewhere else.

I kept staring at him, and in less than a minute, his walkie-talkie seemed to buzz. He listened to it and said something in return, and then he ran off. Huh, that came faster than expected. Mr. Saïx's efficiency really was unparalleled… "Eh, whatever, no time to lose!" I thought and ran to the storeroom door immediately. The door was locked up with a very rusty lock. I knocked the door in the only Morse code message I knew: 207. After the deed was done, I pressed my ear to the door. I could hear some movement inside. The most annoying thing was that I needed to open this damn door… then I noticed a shovel lying on the ground nearby. In for a penny, in for a pound, so I grabbed the shovel and smashed it onto the blasted lock. Luckily it was rusted beyond recognition, so after two hits it broke and fell to the floor. Ha, Axel had commented that the school should have replaced this lock; thank god that did not happen, or else it would have been troublesome. I tossed the shovel aside, swung open the door and finally saw Roxas.

"Nemix!" Roxas exclaimed. I scurried to him and worked on untying him. Unlike always, the ropes were taken care of easily. I pulled Roxas up and said, "Good to have you back. Let's get the hell out first." We walked out of the storeroom and there was an exit on the right leading out to the field. Mr. Saïx was right at the other side of the laser beams. "Sir?" I saw him and went over with Roxas. I said, "Thanks for the diversion earlier. I managed to set Roxas free." The man's face was shrouded in confusion as he said, "What are you talking about? I have not thought of how to divert him away yet. It wasn't me."

Now I was the confused one. I replied, "What? Ah, whatever. He got out of the way nonetheless. We still have to find the remaining people! So far we're four people short." Frowning a bit, the blue-haired man said, "I don't think it's safe to continue your plan. You said so yourself, they are armed." Roxas added, "And god knows how many fake school guards are out there waiting to gun us down… Don't get reckless, 207." "But we can't just leave them behind!" I argued, getting agitated. Only then I realised that I almost lost control, so I breathed deeply once and then explained, "Anyways, I'm not planning to deal directly with that Scumbag when they are lurking in the dark while we are out in the open. My top priority is to grab all missing members of Organisation XIII and GTFO. This also means that it would be great if these lasers can go, or else I would need to hide after rounding up everyone until the police arrives. Can you help me find a way to get rid of the lasers, sir?"

Yet another moment of silent contemplation ensued. "… Seems like no other options are available. You two proceed with extreme caution. Once any external help arrives, I will let them enter the school and get you all out." After hearing that, I nodded determinedly and said, "Will do." I seriously had no idea where this confidence and courage came from… Then, I gave Roxas one of the remaining cell phones I had on me, bade farewell to Mr Saïx and ran off with Roxas. Hang in there, Organisation XIII, we were coming!

[Switching back to the washroom]

"Oh my god…"

Demyx was still reeling from the events that happened to him. In front of him lay an unconscious gunman. A gun lay not too far from the body. The scene was a total mess, things like mops, buckets and the like scattered all around the floor, and water was everywhere. Ten minutes ago, this uninvited guest barged into the washroom when Demyx was hiding behind the washroom entrance door. The blonde planned to make a run for his life while the gunman had his back against him. Alas, when he was about to push the door so he could slip out, since no one bothered to clean this door in a good while and resulted in myriads of cobwebs lining it and the wall next to it, a large spider accidentally dropped onto Demyx's shirt, making him scream at the top of his lungs and shove the door out of his way. That was how the gunman spotted him.

However, Demyx's reflexes were quick enough; after swatting the spider away, he aimed the hose he was gripping onto all this while, turn on the faucet to the max and spurted water at his target. The gunman was caught off guard by this sudden attack and was stunned. Although he did not fall over, it did make him drop the gun in his hand. While the gunman staggered backwards, Demyx dived in and kicked the gun away, but that made him lose his chance to escape because his opponent recovered and pounced on him, and the two were tangled up in a fight. Demyx fought back with all his might, using everything and anything within his reach to attack his foe, including a bar of soap. But since it was too wet and slippery, the soap shot out of his grip before he could hold it properly and miraculously found its mark on the gunman's face.

That unexpected attack made the gunman loosen his grip on the boy, but Demyx's footing was unsteady and he fell as a result. As he was about to scramble up, he noticed that, to his horror, the gunman had picked up his previously lost gun and stalked towards him with a menacing face. He pointed the gun at Demyx, his fingers were curling in on the trigger. And at that moment, he stepped on the soap from earlier and slipped in an exaggerated movement, his legs kicking into the air. When he fell onto his back, he hit his head on the floor and passed out on the spot.

"Oh holy bananas, what should I do?! He's… not dead yet, right?" Demyx could not find it in him to calm down and his mind were spinning in panicked circles. After his freak-out, he mumbled to himself, "OK, get a grip, Demyx… he's still breathing. First, lock him up…" Not daring to waste any time, he tied the gunman up tightly with the hose he used, put him in one of the booths and closed its door. He also picked up the gun on the floor and told himself, "OK… safe for now."

He thought he should rendezvous with the rest of his team, so he dug out the phone in his pocket, only to see an unread message from Zexion. "The agreed point?" questioned Demyx, but he had little time to think, because there came a call for him to take straight after reading the message. "Hello?" he asked cautiously, and then he added, "Who's this?"

"135, it's me, 207!" I sighed. Using a stranger's phone to call a friend who was using another stranger's phone was awfully inconvenient. I continued, "I found 013 already, and now I'm going to get 222, 383 and 006. I tried calling 006, but he didn't pick up." After a pause that lasted a few seconds, Demyx replied, "Oh… OK, so where's the rendezvous?" The more I listened on, the more I felt that Demyx's current location was a bit… peculiar. I probed, "135, the echo is loud on your side… Are you in the washroom?" "Yeah. Why?" he replied without a doubt. Hold up… Could I…? I thought about it and asked, "You have water hoses there, right?" "… Yes…?" he said with evident confusion. "Hmm… I've got an idea. Pour water into all the drain holes you can get," I presented my nasty plot. Demyx replied, slightly surprised, "W-what? Why?" I explained, "To snuff out the smoke, duh. I don't care how much water you use, even if it causes a water cut, just do it. When you're done, rendezvous at the junction of the canteen and Block A."

Demyx stuttered and finally agreed, "This… I… roger then. See you later. Use caution." "Copy." After that, I hung up. I turned to ask Roxas, "They really didn't let you see where they took 222?" He ran his hand through his hair and sighed, "We were knocked out back then. Once I came to, he was already gone, most likely incarcerated somewhere." I was about to say something when the PA system speakers came to life suddenly and a voice which made my blood boil blasted out, "Now, now, I thought I said no sneaky chitchat among you all?"

"Pfft, look at all the damns I give! Your bloody henchmen have chitchats among themselves too, don't they? To us, you're rude as hell!" I cursed inwardly, rolling my eyes in annoyance. I really did not wish to waste any words on this scumbag, nor did Roxas and I have the luxury of time to waste on him. We had three more cases of MIA, so they were our priority. "Ignoring my existence, eh? You are really uneducated, didn't your parents teach you better than this?" That was low; he dared to drag my parents into this? I was irked, but I would rather not wage a meaningless war of insults at him. I made a hand gesture to Roxas saying "he's nuts, let's go", turned on my heels and left. Vanitas was still delivering his speech that no one asked for, "Fine, just treat me as invisible. After all, you are out in the open and vulnerable. At any time, I can-"

At that instant, his voice was cut off, like someone shut him off like they did to a computer. "What?" Roxas blinked a few times, not really comprehending what was happening. I did not get it either, but I said nonchalantly in the end, "Ah, I don't really care. Let's hide first then plan our next step."

[Meanwhile, in a dim room]

Xion was practically jumping in excitement, looking really happy. She had been wriggling and struggling like a worm some time ago, and she finally got rid of the blindfold on her head for good. That was when she found herself in the hall backstage, where no one would expect since everyone else thought the hall as too dangerous. Lady Luck was with her today though, since the chair tied together with her broke into several pieces when she fell down from squirming too violently. Therefore, that only left her with a tangled mess of loose ropes around her body. She successfully wriggled out of the ropes in record time, as well as pulling out the gag in her mouth.

Soon, she heard Vanitas' voice coming from the speakers, and she got really mad. She cursed, "Darn it, although I didn't directly witness my captor, I am damn sure it was him, that bastard! Now that you messed with me, let's see how I will mess you up!" She started looking around, and all of a sudden an idea made its way to her mind like a light bulb lighting up in her head. Xion patted out the dust from her uniform and walked into the depths of the backstage. Ten seconds later, she got to her destination; another broadcast room. A smirk appeared on her face as she went into the room. After simply pressing a few buttons, she shut off Vanitas' broadcast, finally saving all ears from the onslaught of blatant annoyance. "Ha! Scumbag, I will end you somehow. I'd like to see how long you can remain so smug for! You interrupted me before I was knocked out by the chloroform, and now I interrupted you! So noisy…" Xion was still not over that fact that Vanitas used her to threaten Organisation XIII. Now that she avenged herself, she felt at least a wee bit at ease.

She was so excited that she almost did not hear the door opening behind her. She has yet to react when someone covered her mouth and nose and dragged her out. She fought tooth and nail, throwing punches and kicks, but her assailant was too strong and maintained their grip on her like a python. It was unclear where they planned to drag her to. Xion thought she could escape by biting into her assailant's hand, so she started to squirm out of the hand muffling her mouth and nose. When she managed to create an opening, she heard a strange and loud buzz. Instantly, she felt immense pain. Her shrill cries of pain cut through the air in the backstage.

"Holy Kingdom Hearts! That hurt like hell…! Was that… Taser?" While she was regathering her shattered thoughts, she tried to move her body. Xion felt only paralysis all over, her limbs were not heeding her will, but she was still conscious. She could feel she was dragged away again. She tried speaking, but nothing would come out from her throat. Worst yet, her consciousness, which she was somewhat able to control, was slowly slipping away like fine sand through between fingers. Only pitch black and blurred backgrounds flashed alternately before her eyes. Xion barely heard the following conversation while she was dragged around like a rag doll.

"Yo, what're you doing? Didn't boss ask you to patrol around?"

"I'm here to deliver a message. He told me to come take over and told you to meet up with the others at the agreed point."

"This soon? You're… not bluffing?"

"I don't get paid for bluffing you, so kindly don't dilly-dally and hand her over to me for disposal. Or would you rather get hit by your hostage?"

"… Eh, sure, why not? This brat is too feisty anyways. Take her if you want. She's all yours."

Xion could register the feeling of her being pushed into another person's grips, and was dragged away again. By now her fleeting consciousness was fading fast, she vaguely remembered the other person carried her on their back at some point; perhaps her weight was slowing them down. Semi-consciously, she could register the sensation of an icy cold surface, and then she heard a voice sounding like it came from far away, most likely from the person who was supposed to dispose of her. "The smokes… Hmm, this should work now."

Just a second after, like a cut electric supply in a power outage, she could remember nothing, see nothing and hear nothing anymore.

[Switching to a corridor outside of the washroom]

Demyx wiped the sweat oozing out from his forehead with the back of his hand, saying, "Whew! Finito!" He turned off the faucet, tossed the hose to the floor and returned to the corridor where he spent quite some time in for his task; water was everywhere, especially at the drainage holes at the sides of the corridor where water pooled at and flowed to. "207's nasty plot really is effective, the smokes are indeed snuffed out. But I used up too much time, I've got to head out to the rendezvous!" Demyx said to himself and carefully tread across the puddles of water on the floor. It would seriously suck if he slipped and fell now.

He jogged down the quiet corridor, calculating the shortest route and he decided to turn at the next junction. He turned ninety degrees and, to his shock, saw a gunman running towards him. "Holy hell!" The blond boy gasped harshly and exclaimed, losing composure. The next second he turned around and ran for the hills with the gunman hot on his trail. To lose his pursuer, Demyx decided to ditch his original plan and randomly picked another junction and turned right. To his worst luck, he ran straight into a dead end, his chances to escape getting slimmer. Demyx pulled the brakes on his sprinting feet and spun around in hopes of get back to the previous corridor. Nevertheless, it was too little too late as the gunman had entered the dead end. It was now no way in, no way out. The gunman pressed down his cap and walked towards Demyx.

"I'm going to die, I'm going to die!" Demyx's brain went into overdrive and like a broken record, it kept repeating that phrase. Gritting his teeth, he could hear his brain screaming, "No time to think!" What transpired later was all a blur to Demyx since he surrendered himself wholly to his survival instinct and intuition. He vaguely remembered pulling out the gun he picked up back in the washroom and trying to shoot the gunman, but, perhaps because it was drenched, no bullets came out. Even more panicked now, and also due to the burning fact that the gunman was closing in, Demyx used the gun as a slap and whacked it across the gunman's face. "SMACK!"

That "slap" left a cut on the gunman's cheek, and the pain made him stumble backwards, leaving a gap of space and time for Demyx to make a run for it, and that was what the panicked boy exactly did. Without looking back, he ran like a wind towards where he agreed to meet up with his friends. The gunman held his cheek to suppress the pain, growling lowly, "Goddammit… made my job so hard!"

[Changing scenes to a grassy field]

"… W-what…?"

Zexion opened his eyes and saw only a bunch of green grass. He also heard low rumbles in the background. At the same time he also felt… hot. Awfully hot at that. He then realised that his lying position on the ground was awkward and uncomfortable, with some pain thrown into the mix. The main painful sensation came from his head though… "Ah, yes. I do recall hitting my head…" thought the boy. And then, using his hand, he carefully held it at his head where it hurt, slowly rolled over and sat up. Zexion also started to notice debris of white concrete scattered around him which looked like remnants of the wall lining the corridor. Just… why was it in pieces like this? Zexion's gaze followed the trail of debris on the ground, until he saw what seemed like the blown apart wall, and behind it… "Home Economics Room? On fire?!" He was shocked as he stared at the raging flames burning, swallowing anything within reach.

The grassy field he was in had not caught on fire yet, but if he did not leave soon, it would be a matter of time before the flames consumed it and him too. Just then, he heard someone calling out for him from afar. Biting down the throbbing pain in his head, he looked towards the direction whence the voice came, blinking his bleary eyes hard to focus on the source.

I was rendered stupefied at the scene before me. While Roxas and I were heading over to the rendezvous point, we picked up some burnt smell as well as broken glass sprinkling the floor, but we certainly did not expect to see a real fire when we were passing by the grassy field of the small garden, and Zexion was sitting there on the ground looking not as responsive as he should be. I called out his name once, and since he at least had some reaction towards external stimulation, I was slightly less worried. We rushed over to him and helped him up. Roxas asked before I could open my mouth, "Oh god, what happened?" Zexion took a deep breath and said, "… Grenade." "OK… Anyways, we need to rendezvous with 135, and then think of a way to find 222 and 383. If not then we would have to play this defensively and wait for outside help," I decided that the story of the grenade could wait till later and proceeded to lay out the next steps to Zexion. I readjusted my grip on his arm and asked, "Can you walk?"

Zexion tested his footing and answered, "Yeah, but a tad slow." I looked at Zexion and then at Roxas, and then I said, "Looks like one of us have to carry him on my back, and someone has to scout out ahead, then we could switch shifts." I did the carrying while Roxas observed the situation ahead of us, only signalling me and Zexion to advance when it was safe. After a few minutes, we were passing through a carpark leading to the canteen. Only now did I really see the full extent of the network of lasers blocking all entrances and exits entirely. How in the world did Vanitas manage that? We made it to the junction of the canteen and Block A without a hitch. Since Demyx had not arrived yet, the three of us hid in a walled stairwell nearby and rested up.

Roxas cautiously peeked at the situation outside by poking his head out of the stairwell wall, and then he reported back, "Still no sign of 135. Should we call to check up on him?" Deeming that appropriate, I dug out the phone and was about to press the button when a voice suddenly came from behind us, "What are you three doing here?"

"WAH!" We yelped from the shock and spun towards the voice. I readied my fist- "222?!" I exclaimed with my eyes wide. Roxas followed suit, "You're… OK?!" Axel walked closer to us and then I just noticed the various bruises and grazes on him. Worrisome, but mild injuries nonetheless. Zexion pointed out, "You look a bit worse for wear…" The redhead merely sighed and scratched his head. He said, "Got into a brawl earlier. Literally minutes ago I had to fight to run. I just lost the pursuer." Distressed, Roxas asked, "Ugh, for god's sake, with this many gunmen running around, how are we supposed to find 135 and 383?!"

Speak of the devil and he shall appear. "Hey! Over here!" Demyx yelled while running straight to us, exhausted. He almost could not stop his feet, and after Roxas and I caught him in our arms, he still could not get a grip. Zexion said, "135, listen to me. Calm down, breathe in, and then breathe out…" The blonde followed his instructions once and then started recount his tale like firing a machine gun, "Oh my Kingdom Hearts, it was so terrifying! I thought I was dead meat… I was chased by a gunman, and after I lost him another one showed up, it's endless!" I squeezed his hand and said, "I know you've been through a lot, but it's safe for now, so you can stop panicking. See, even 222 is alright." "Oh?" Demyx could not believe it and looked at where I motioned him to. Axel was indeed standing before him, alive and well. "222? Oh my god, you're alright! I heard from 207 that you-?!" His sentence was cut short. Shock was written all over his face, and he looked tense from top to bottom.

Upon seeing this, Roxas asked, "Hey 135, you OK?" Demyx just kept staring at Axel and the look in his eyes was strange… I saw… fear? "… 222, where did you get your wound from?" asked Demyx anxiously, gesturing at his own face. Axel looked at Demyx with a surprised expression, raised one of his eyebrows and said, "This one on my face? A gunman punched me." Just when Axel's last word came out, Demyx pressed on, "Then how did you get… that kind of wound? And… at that exact spot?" I could tell something was going on so I jumped in, "Wait, wait, wait, 135… Are you implying that… you two fought? 135, you did mention a gunman chasing you down…"

Said boy's tone became guarded as he said, "I thought I… No way, I remember that cut, a cut that could only come from… that." That confused Roxas to no end, so he interjected, "135, what are you saying?" Axel let out a frustrated sigh, shook his head and said, "We don't have time! 135 must've not calmed down yet so he's talking nonsense. We need to get out of here!" Roxas was just as frustrated as his friend was and countered, "How? Every possible exit is cut off by bloody lasers!" Axel finally lost his cool and shot back, "Don't ask! Just go!" The more agitated he got, the more the situation seemed to be out of control. I was about to say something to pull the delicate balance back, but Axel managed to breathe in a big gulp of air and spoke with suppressed emotions, "Look, just… run or hide or something. They might be watching us in the dark and they know our whereabouts. So you guys just go…" He then added a growl laced with desperation, "Just go already!"

"*Static* … Yo, kid, you found them yet?" At that instant, the five of us seemed to have lost our voices. Axel's face portrayed shock and he did not move an inch. Surrounding us was only a voice coming from a walkie-talkie or interphone, but of course it could not be one of our already fried ones… Furthermore, we did not recognise the voice. My eyes traced the voice back to a lump in Axel's pocket; a handheld walkie-talkie. I did recognise this device.

It was one of the gunmen's.

"We're coming over to ya. You're wanted by the boss, so you'd better follow through your promise and sniff out your friends." Once the voice was done talking, it did not ring out again. Roxas stumbled through his words, "Axel… the voice… walkie-talkie… is coming from your pocket?" Zexion and I could not find our voices to speak, or rather, speechless despite wanting to. "What are you…?" Now Demyx looked legitimately scared and latched onto Roxas' arm. Just then, we heard some masculine sounding shouts from afar. Axel's head slightly turned to his right, having also heard the voices. The redhead looked extremely distressed and was deep in his internal struggles. Three seconds passed, he shut his eyes and took in a deep breath. When he reopened his eyes, he said emotionlessly, "Ah, to hell with that… Well, sorry, guys." When he turned to look at us, one of his hand pulled out a gun from his pocket at the same time and pointed it at us. His eyes looked unusually serious and intimidating, completely void of emotions. The struggles earlier turned into indecipherable Da Vinci codes. The Axel who was staring us down now was exceptionally unfamiliar, and exceptionally dangerous.

His sharp gaze scanned us like an eagle did to its preys, finally stopping on me. With a barely audible voice, he hissed, "まだ時間があるんだ、だから行け!" [There's still time, so go!] "What is he…?!" That was one of the million thoughts flying through my mind right now. Roxas was in denial of what he saw, so he made two steps forward, trying to get closer to Axel. He started, "222, what are you doing? This-" "BAM!" I did not see what unfurled clearly, but when that deafening bang dissipated, I could only see a light string of smoke drifting out from the muzzle of Axel's gun. Thinking the worst had happened, I turned around to check on Roxas. He was fine, no injuries and all, but I could not guarantee his heart rate; he might have skipped a few beats. Axel readjusted his aim and threatened, "I won't repeat myself." He must have shot somewhere beside Roxas to stop him in his advances.

Demyx increased his tone and said, "Don't tell me you're the gunman I injured earlier?!" Axel did not shift his gun away while looking towards Demyx. He said nonchalantly, "You are truly a very difficult prey, putting up a harder fight than I did. You used a goddamn gun to slap me across the face so hard it was impossible to not leave behind such a peculiar wound. But since you didn't shoot me dead, I should take it that I got lucky." Zexion was silently watching everything that was happening before him, and then he quietly said to me, "In my current state, I will not be able to get far. Leave me here and the rest of you run. It is better to have more people escape than more people captured." I stared at him with incredulity slathered across my face, but I did not exclaim my thoughts. I hissed to him equally as quietly, "What are you saying?!"

Now, the shouts from earlier appeared again and they were clearer this time, meaning that the owner of shouts were getting closer to us. I focused my gaze on Axel, but I asked Zexion secretly, "006, can you stand?" Zexion whispered, "Affirmative." OK… I discreetly let go of his arm, keeping a steady gaze on Axel. I whispered to Demyx and Roxas, "135, 013, run." "Huh?" blurted Demyx, seemingly unable to react accordingly. I turned to them this time and reassured, "We'll catch up soon." I flashed a quick smirk at them and used a serious tone to tell them a split second later, "Now go!" They glanced at each other, but otherwise still glued to their spots. As time was evidently running out, I shoved them out of the blue. They staggered backwards a few steps, but they did not fall. They shot me one last look, and then Roxas exhaled deeply and pulled Demyx, running away and finally leaving the scene.

Axel's eyes held a subtle change; for a second a very mild surprise appeared, the next second his eyes became unreadable again. Five seconds after Roxas and Demyx escaped, five gunmen wearing school security guard uniforms quickly surrounded me, Zexion and Axel. Strangely, one of them was drenched like he just came out of a sauna. I moved to place myself slightly in front of Zexion and extended an arm to shield him from hostility. Looking at the gunmen surrounding us, I thought, "There'd better be a good reason to this, Axel…" I did not plan on getting captured without a fight. Nevertheless, five (or six?) against one was definitely not an advantageous situation. I planned to pick a worse off gunman as my first victim to get his butt kicked, but I had yet to make a step forward when someone caught my hands and pinned them behind me. I started to struggle, and suddenly a painful sensation erupted on my nape and I saw only pitch black. The next moment I could remember nothing.

When I came to again, I slowly realised that I was tied up, lying on the floor. I also heard Zexion's voice, "207! 207!" That woke me up even more. I blinked once and carefully wriggled around to sit up, observing around me. We were now back in the hall where the curtains were all down and shut. One thing to note was that the smokes in the hall a long time ago were gone and there was only a weak smoky odour too. However, if one sniffed carefully, there seemed to be also a bit of… rose perfume? Wait… "Oh, hell no…" I groaned in exasperation, except that I could not slap a palm onto my face to emphasise my point, because my hands were literally tied.

"Oh well, at least it's better than smelling smokes?" I tried to comfort myself. Zexion, on the other hand, had a tense expression on his face as he said, "But a fire broke out in the Home Economics Room, if it had not been put out by this point, it is probably already unstoppable." All of a sudden, strong rays of light shot out from my right, lighting up the dim hall by a bit. Both of us look towards the light; it was the hall stage. In the middle of it stood… one man. All stage lights were focused on him. "Vanitas!" warned Zexion. At that same time he spoke, I flat out denied him any respect and exclaimed, "You bloody scumbag!" Actually, it did not matter since I never spared him any respect from the start anyways. We also spotted Axel offstage not too far from Vanitas. He looked somewhat restless, but keeping his cool overall.

Vanitas started, "Well, well, well, you nuisances just had to make my life so difficult. And look at where your stubbornness has got you?" I let out a humourless laugh and grumbled, "Pfft, your words sound like what my mother always said, if not more annoying." Unfortunately his hearing was especially sharp this time. Upon hearing my remark, he became unamused. He snapped his fingers as a gesture for one of the gunman to kick me down from my back. "Oof!" I turned my head aside just in time so I did not fall flat on my face, or worse, break my front teeth. But there was more; the gunman put one foot on my back while pulling both my arms backwards, maintaining this pose with force. Throughout the manoeuvre, he was very violent. Initially the pull felt like nothing, but as it dragged on, it got more painful and I felt my arms might dislocate.

Half a minute passed and he was still continuing this torture method. I gritted my teeth, not even letting a pained moan slide even if I needed to. Axel could not take it anymore and stepped forward, but he remained at that one step forward and did not move anymore because another gunman pressed a gun muzzle on my temple, as did another gunman on Zexion's back of the head. "Ah, don't get too hasty, kid. Think carefully now…" Vanitas rested one elbow on his palm, a finger from his supported hand pointed at his own head, tapping on his temple, hinting that we would be sent to the gods if Axel so much as took another step. That bastard, he knew only how to use such despicable tricks.

He then decided that it was enough so he waved his hand dismissively, and the gunmen either released their grips or pulled their guns back, and retreated to their original positions. I thought my muscles, tendons and ligaments were about to snap. I could not move my arms at the moment, but I still sat up slowly using the force in my waist, panting lightly. "When I said 'welcome to hell', I meant it, you know. You should have taken me more seriously, you meddling brats. Speaking of which…" He paused briefly and waved his hand as if gesturing something, and a light shone on Axel. He looked extremely displeased but he said nothing. Vanitas continued, "How did it feel getting betrayed by friends? Heh, you never thought he would shoot at you, huh?"

I did not want to go through the ordeal of getting my limbs torn apart, so I just retorted in my mind, "Anyone with brains can tell that you're forcing him, it was not of his own free will." Axel said whatever was on his mind instead, unsurprisingly mirroring my thoughts. He did not even attempt to play along with Vanitas' antics and he growled, "From the very beginning, I never gave my OK to this. I never agreed to follow your orders, you threatened me to. More exactly, you threatened me with her life." That irritated Vanitas again, his eyes narrowed as he glared at Axel, growling, "Do not steal my line." After that, his facial expression changed so fast, like nothing had ever happened before. He faced me and Zexion and said nonchalantly, "Well, since he let the spoilers out of the bag, I might as well let you see the climax, before you lose the chance to, heh…"

As if rehearsed, another light shone on the other side of the stage. "Samara?!" Zexion and I blurted in astonishment, staring at the girl with our eyes wide. She was tied to a chair and there was a self-improvised electronic bomb tied to her chest, though not the kind to explode after a countdown. "So that means… there should be a remote control or something to detonate it…" I reasoned in my head, subconsciously averting my gaze to Scumbag Vanitas. I was right; in his right hand was a cuboid black item with a red button embedded on it. Getting the correct answer under such circumstances bore no sense of accomplishment, at all.

There were obvious tear stains on Samara's face, proof that she cried quite a lot some time ago. Right now, appearing before everyone turned on her waterworks again, begging Vanitas to release her. "Please… let me go… I'm begging you…" Vanitas paid no attention to Samara's pleas and sobs. He toyed with the detonator in his hand and was basically frolicking around on the stage. He then waved the detonator and mused complacently, "Man, it does feel so good to feel and have the power over human life in my hands! To take, or not to take. That is the question, hmm…"

What a total scumbag, how dare he compare himself with a god! Shameless! Comparing himself with Shakespeare and plagiarising his masterpiece was even more unforgivable! To overstep even more boundaries, his British accent was so fake, a pure insult to all British people out there, and even more so to my ears! I huffed and said irritably, "Who do you think you are? All you know is just exploiting people's humanity and always stalking people in the shadows. Have you no shame?" He merely sneered and replied with a contempt smirk, "What shame is there when I'm just trying to survive?" He turned to face everyone offstage wholly, extending both arms. He stared straight into me and Zexion while saying, "You show weaknesses, and therefore I just make use of them. There's no written law stipulating the illegality of exploiting others' weaknesses. Not my fault you all are too naïve." With flames burning in his eyes, Axel glared at the black-haired man and grumbled, "Bastard…"

I did not know where I got the confidence and bravery when I spoke up, "To have friends is not weak, it doesn't mean the person is naïve and feeble. Neither is having friends to worry about and vice versa, nor is trusting and depending on them, and nor is being concerned of others' wellbeing. You think its naivety, but that is what makes us human. It's not like you'd ever understand-" I was about to end my interjection but I was kicked in the torso by a gunman. I fell to the floor and curled up in pain. I could also see another kick coming my way, so I gritted my teeth and clamped my eyes shut, ready to endure whatever they threw at me. However, I only heard the impact of the kick on elsewhere and a groan that definitely did not originate from me. My eyes flew open. Turned out Zexion lunged forward and took the hit for me, and now he was on the ground next to me.

Zexion bit down the pain and breathed heavily as a coping mechanism for the pain to pass. He panted, "Is that all you can do? To silence others when you have nothing to say? You committed so many crimes that you can only pick on anybody you think is less than your size to even attempt to escape your responsibility?" I added, "Stop glorifying your crimes. Breaking a law is breaking a law, no matter how major or minor it is, it's just wrong!"

Vanitas was finally infuriated; he aimed his gun at me and Zexion, he seethed with suppressed anger, "Stop acting as if you know me." While pointing his gun at me, Zexion and Axel one by one, he growled, "I could kill you all easily right now, like crushing ants, but it would be too easy. I don't think you all deserve a quick death, oh no…" Axel rolled his eyes and scoffed, "Pfft, yeah, sure. Do enlighten us…" In quick steps, Vanitas got dangerously close to Axel and pressed the gun muzzle to Axel's forehead and hissed, "You'd best not use that tone on me, brat. Don't forget what I can do to you and especially your friends…"

He glowered at us, but this time his expression was mixed with some form of craze. He fumed, "I'm merely aiming for my cut of the deal with that blasted woman, and you twerps got in my way again and again… Heh, perhaps it was my mistake for not weeding you all out when I had the chance, heh, heh." He chuckled mirthlessly, threw his hands up and shrugged in a "what can I do" manner. He mused, "But it doesn't matter, since I might not walk away from this in one piece, so it would at least be consolation bringing you all down with me, that is if I fail, of course." I sighed exasperatedly, "You won't get away with this…"

Samara was still wailing. She wept, "I beg of you, let me go… I thought you-" Vanitas rolled his eyes in annoyance and looked at her with a bored expression, asking, "Thought I loved you?" The two of them were quiet for seconds. Samara was about to say something, but Vanitas beat her to it and continued his grand speech/drama, "To be honest, you're just as bothersome as Fayra was. Look at yourself in the mirror when you have the time, take a good look at yourself. What do you have to offer? Oh, actually a bit. I might actually thank you for telling me about the police looking for me weeks ago, so I can prepare for today's spectacular performance, haha." He flashed a hollow smile at Samara, and then he continued with a neutral tone, "Well, it was fun while it lasted though. Such a shame, really. I am so close to getting what I want…" He then switched to a melodramatic tone as he continued his spiel, "Oh, she was such a bright girl too, but maybe a bit too… nerdy and stubborn like you." He pointed at me when he was at his last sentence. I did not really comprehend that sentence… Who was stubborn like me? Nerdy? Definitely not Fayra; she was the exact opposite of said term. Then, who could it be?

Whatever fury Axel had been keeping within him finally eurpted. Gritting his teeth, he hissed at Vanitas, "Don't you dare mention her…" That scumbag looked at Axel expectantly, his brows raised, and waited for and gauged his response. He looked at the redhead with an expression of "what can you do to me?" and smirked evilly while saying, "If I'm referring to your best friend for life Xion, codename 383, then I should be correct. No, the word 'life' might actually sound inappropriate because… it does not apply to her anymore." "Wh-…!" My eyes widened and my heartbeat hastened up. "You see, I had to… dispose of her. She got in my way after all." Axel was one hair away from spontaneously combusting out of fury. His fists tightened and made cracking noises, and we both lunged forward at the same time. But we were not really any further from our original spots when guns were pressing down our temples. Scumbag Vanitas wagged his finger with a mock surprised expression on his face as he said, "Ah, ah, ah. I wouldn't be so hasty if I were you."

A menacing smirk made its way to his mouth. His fingers fidgeted and hovered on the trigger like they were going to pull it at any given moment. He boomed, "Look at you, so pathetic and foolish to have something so frivolous to get worked up and lose your common sense over. Now tell me in your oh-so-great speech that this isn't a weakness!" He blinked and changed his tone for the umpteenth time today and said, "Or actually, nevermind. I had enough fun already. Although I immensely enjoy watching you twerps suffer, I'm a very busy man and I've got places to be." He straightened up and aimed his gun at my head with the detonator in his other hand. Smirking evilly, he said slowly to me, "The finale starts with you… Farewell, forever!"

Ever since I heard about Xion getting disposed of, I could not focus until I heard a gun being cocked. Only then I noticed that Vanitas had aimed his gun at my head. I had this sinking feeling of my surroundings spiralling into slow motion… but that only lasted a few seconds, because what happened after that came crashing in one after another in rapid consecutiveness, not sparing anyone time to react; firstly, Axel jolted as if startled by something, jumping slightly. In the next second, he swiftly pulled out his gun and fired at Vanitas, hitting the detonator out of his hand. When the device just flew out, Axel shot at all stage lights. After a few gunshots, the hall descended into total darkness. The panicked footsteps of gunmen near me and Zexion were ringing out, and I swore I heard many footsteps after a few seconds… footsteps belonged to more than ten people. And of course, Samara's incessant sobs lingered in the background.

Now I could hear people fighting and shouting… The situation seemed off. I was still wondering about that just when the lights in the hall were all switched on, the harsh brightness made us all shut our eyes. It had been only three seconds after I closed my eyes but I could no longer wait, so I forced them open to peek. And what a sight it was; police officers were fighting the gunmen! "Holy hell…" I breathed, surprised. Just then, a voice came from behind me, "207!" I turned to the voice; Demyx and Roxas?! Roxas got to my back and said, "Hang on 207, I'm going to untie you!" Demyx went over to Zexion to help loosening the ropes. I finally gathered my wits now, hopes were flashing through my mind… the police arrived, Demyx and Roxas arrived too… How the tables had turned, and now my chance arrived!

Once the ropes came loose, I jumped up and directed my eyes at Scumbag Vanitas who was still on the stage. I pointed at him and yelled, "The most wanted person is on the stage!" Everyone around me looked at where I pointed. Vanitas could see things were getting out of hand, so he dug out a cylindrical object from his pocket and threw it forcefully onto the stage floor. At that moment, heavy coloured smokes covered the entirety of the hall stage, nothing beyond the smoke screen could be seen anymore. I had been holding in my wrath for a while now, if I let him escape now just like that, it would be shameful for me to face everyone. "Grr… Don't run if you have the guts!" I roared, spun around quickly and darted towards the hall exit, with Roxas, Demyx, Zexion and Axel in tow.

I was arriving at the exit when I noticed the opened backstage window. Coincidentally, I saw his hand flashing by it. It was evident that he had just escaped from the hall through that window. Realising that fact, I got out of the hall at once and ran to a T-junction. If one were to come out from the backstage window, one would be sure to land in this side corridor of the hall, and to escape from there one could only go down said corridor to reach the foyer connecting the hall, only then one could proceed to the ground floor. To reach said foyer, one would have to pass by the junction where I was now prepared for an ambush in. I readied my pose, listening to the footsteps. When the footsteps got loud enough, it was the cue for me to extend my leg. I successfully tripped the black-haired man and made him plant his face onto the floor.

I tackled him and held him down, but I was, alas, not heavy enough, because he caught me soon and threw me off easily. He proceeded to put his hands on my neck to strangle me, and I did not hesitate to knee him where the sun did not shine. He loosened his death grip, his face contorting from the excruciating pain, but Vanitas saw the police coming over, so he gave up trying to subdue me, got up and ran away. Axel ran to my side, took aim at his escaping target and pulled the trigger, but… "What the Kingdom Hearts, no ammo!" Axel almost died of fury; at this crucial moment, not even a puff of dust came out of his gun. Nevertheless, Axel did not waste a second more; he stared intently at Vanitas' back, and in one fell swoop and a ten-point shotput throwing arc he launched his gun out and, unexpectedly and comically, it hit Vanitas' head and made him fall once again.

Axel ran ahead, and I gave chase once I recovered my normal breathing. Axel caught up with Vanitas in less than three seconds, he shot out his right hand and caught Vanitas' shoulder. Suddenly, Vanitas landed a hand on Axel's, gripped onto it and proceeded to fling Axel to the wall. After the redhead knocked into the wall harshly, Vanitas pulled him closer and took him hostage by holding him at gunpoint. He yelled at the advancing people, "Come any closer and I will blow his brains out!" I had to stop immediately, trying to steady my breathing, but my eyes never left him and Axel. "Goddamn it…" I thought, having no choice but to stay where I was.

I had to watch on as he retreated with Axel, slowly inching to a flight of stairs and a washroom. Axel had a murderous expression on his face while cooperating with his retreat. Obviously, he was very aware of the deadly weapon aiming on his head so he dared not rebel directly. Once he got far enough, I sneakily made a small step forward. The officers behind me were also prepared to rush out at any time. Scumbag Vanitas taunted arrogantly, "Ha! How's that? Come at me! Come at me if you dare! I will pick you off one by one, so bring it on!"

"PWOOOOOSH!"

In the previous second Vanitas was still goading, in the next second he was blasted aside by a large stream of gushing water which came out of nowhere, crashing into the wall violently. Axel managed to struggle out of Vanitas' grip when he was blasted, and lunged forward just enough to steer clear of the geyser-like water. We were rendered dumbfounded, but I regained composure one second later and dashed ahead. The water did not stop, and we watched as a shadow accompanying a thick red water hose coming into view from where the water came from. I seriously could not believe my eyes…

"Xion?!" I shrieked. Holding the hose in her hands and in one step at a time, Xion inched closer to Vanitas, who was probably seeing stars at this point from being assaulted by plain gushing water. And just when I thought about that, the water supply was shut off. Xion's face had "sweet revenge" written in bold caps on it as she jeered, "Hahaha! Did someone say 'fire in the school'? Take this! Serves you right!" I quickly dove in and snatched Vanitas' gun from the ground and handed it to the nearest officer for good measure. Soon, the police swarmed in and finally arrested Vanitas.

Fast Forward Ten Minutes

"… That weakness of having burdens that worry us is our strength," I said with a serious tone to a drenched Vanitas, who was about to be taken away by the police. His glare was not pretty at all, and I could not help but rub salt in his injured pride, "If you have the energy to glare at me until your eyes fall out, save some of that to prevent getting yourself hypothermia. Hope the water washed out that blasted perfume too!" And then, he was pushed into the police car and finally got out of my sight for good. "And don't ever come back!" Xion shouted after the leaving police car, making faces at it.

The firefighters were busy putting out the fire originating from the Home Economics Room. Samara was brought away by the first ambulance that made into the school grounds as a priority victim, likely due to someone pulling some networking strings but mostly because she passed out from extreme agitation. The scene was flooded with students, teachers, school staff, reporters, police officers, firefighters, parents and many more. In order to ferry the ones trapped in the school out to the hospital without attracting too much attention, we boarded the ambulance from the back door and left.

Fast Forward One Hour and Thirty Minutes

The six of us got into the same room of the ward; the doctor mentioned that we would have to stay one or two nights for observation. Soon after we settled down, Ven, Kairi and Naminé barged in like no one's business, and Kairi's voice reached us first as usual, "Holy Kingdom Hearts! You all gave me a heart attack! Are you guys OK?!" Ven was more disquieted than usual and joined in, "Good god, what exactly happened?" Naminé seemed like she was trying to say something without getting her voice drowned out, "Um, guys-" "Ahem, excuse me, you are in a hospital, so please tone down," said a nurse whose head poked through the door to our room. Kairi replied sheepishly, "Hehe, sorry…" Naminé whispered, "Told you so…"

After we shut the door, Kairi jumped right in, "I want every single detail from the start to the very end. Starting with Xion; I heard people say that you were disposed of?" Oh yeah… At one point I thought that was true. Smacking her palm onto her face, Xion said, "First of all, don't wish bad things on me, OK? Well, this is what happened…"

Xion recalled herself being placed somewhere for "disposal". But when she regained consciousness she discovered herself in a washroom booth. Observing her surroundings further revealed the location of the washroom being the one close to the basketball court. Besides, there was a note left on her torso, telling her to wait for the remaining members to get to her. Upon this recollection, Axel added, "That note… was actually written by me. I went undercover." Next, he looked at me and said, "I wholly expected Nemix to be one of the people to rendezvous with Xion, I never thought she would stay back…" Xion continued, "Anyhow, at least Demyx and Roxas came and found me. The remaining instructions on the note were to escape through where the laser emitter was destroyed with anyone that found me."

Raising an eyebrow, Zexion queried, "Destroyed?" Axel answered, "Earlier, I shot at Roxas, but I wasn't aiming at him. My target was a laser beam emitter somewhere behind him. And when Xion woke up, she would then contact whoever I instructed her to as per the note, in this case they were Demyx and Roxas. It depends on who escaped." Xion resumed her story, "Once I confirmed that only the three of us were leaving, we snuck out from the exit where the lasers were gone; the note reminded me to ask the other two where Axel had fired his shot. Afterwards, we got out and led the arriving police force into the school, and voila, the encircling movement began! My last task was to let Axel know that it's show time by dialling his electronic dictionary! Hehe."

Axel now sounded like he wanted to imply something, "Yeah, it sounds cool and mind-blowing, but then good ol' Nemix here was almost crowned the LVP." I retorted, "Hey, what LVP? I was the nasty plotter who came up with this plan, for crying out loud. However… the expected outcome of this plan was Axel being left alone with that bunch of lunatics, and I can't just leave you behind a second time, can I? When you told me the plan…"

[Flashback]

I just lost my pursuer seconds ago and was now squeezing into a small corner of a classroom to hide. I was trying to come up with the shortest route from my current location to the PE storeroom; I still did not know what happened to Roxas, and of course Axel… Just then, my GPS device vibrated so I picked up the incoming call once I noticed it was Axel who was calling.

"Hey, 207?"

"222?! You-"

"Listen to me first, 207. I'm now forced by Scumbag to hunt and kill you all, so I'm calling you in secret now. I don't think I have much time. Although they put me on foot patrol, they can't see me where I'm calling from."

"… Copy… You alright?"

"Well, sort of. But I have an idea."

"… Fire away."

"Since I am pretty much forced to be on their side, why not play along and pull a Garbo on them?"

"… Meaning you're acting as a double agent, or at least undercover?"

"This way, getting our hands on weapons won't be an issue, or are we going to continue letting them treat us as hunting spoils?"

"OK, that chance is plausible. And then?"

"With this idea, escaping becomes a real possibility."

"… Is that so?"

"Is that not so?"

"You can't be thinking I don't know that you're taking the risk to stay back in the lion's den in exchange for our success in escaping, right? You know I can't possibly leave you one more time too."

"207, think about this. Not only is the undercover role important, it is necessary. We need it to find and save 383…"

"… And also disabling the laser beams."

Up to this point, I needed to pause and think. What Axel suggested had a high-level risk, but if it worked, the rewards would be bountiful for everyone in need of help. I had to think about this more thoroughly before making a decision.

"222, we can also lay someone akin to a sleeper cell, a timed bomb they never saw coming. And then we can provide teammates to aid them, the more the better. This sleeper cell is best suited for external communication and bringing in outside help."

"No doubt help is coming, but any help would need to enter sneakily…"

"… Sneakily surround all tangos and net them in one go."

"… I'll be OK, don't sweat it. Better to have one person down than more. Besides, the sleeper cell and the outside folks wouldn't say no to someone who can come up with a bunch of nasty plots, would they?"

"… Hmm… yeah…"

[Flashback ended]

"You planned to stay regardless, huh?" sighed Axel, scratching his head. I nodded and responded, "Correct, especially after judging the actual situation. Furthermore, I couldn't let you have all the 'fun'. We needed as many people as we could to buy time for everyone, and since Zexion was not fit enough to carry out the nasty plot alone, I had more reason to stay and watch out for him." Ven asked, "Although, surely that scumbag Vanitas wouldn't possibly be blind to you guys playing along with his antics a bit too obediently and also contacting each other in secret?" Axel stifled a grin and said, "Luckily for us, he dug a hole only for himself to fall into it later; he created so much fake smoke that obscured most of his hidden cameras instead, or else I would have been busted for contacting Nemix behind his back. Sure, he couldn't hear us, but we would seem to be acting out some nonsensical silent movie that looked suspicious to him." I snickered, "Serves him right, he bought so many smoke grenades for this show of his and to fake a fire, and now the vendor must be laughing all the way to the bank and he's on the way to jail!"

Xion interjected, "Speaking of smokes, what did you mean back then when you said 'the smokes… Hmm, this should work now'?" Axel raised his brows and asked out of surprise, "You heard that? And even remembered it so clearly?" Sticking out a tongue, Xion replied, "Survival instinct, you know. I could have died." Axel explained, "I meant the smokes wouldn't be able to diffuse into the washroom, so the sleeper cell plan should work, since you wouldn't suffocate to death while waiting for the clearance to escape." Xion teased, "Yeah sure, waiting for you to give the green light to run was torturous." Axel defended himself, "Well, I had to wait until he's not staring at the camera feeds in full-on OCD mode for you all to escape. And that was when he was being such a drama king in the hall." "Then… the 'agreed point'?" Zexion asked, looking at Axel, but Axel looked at me instead, seemingly relaying the baton of explaining to me. I said, "Zexion sent me and Demyx a message about this 'agreed point' mentioned by one of the gunmen, so I informed Axel about it and asked him to lure the gunmen away from us by saying Vanitas asked them to meet at the 'agreed point' whenever he saw them. Though…" I looked at Axel again, deciding that he was the better candidate to explain this part. He continued from where I left off, "Turns out the 'agreed point' merely meant Samara's house where they kidnapped her subsequently. They thought nothing much about it because Vanitas had ordered every single one of them to go there anyway." I shrugged and said, "Whatever it was, it did save us on more than one occasion, intentional or not, so I'm not complaining."

Naminé raised her hand and posed her question, "Wait, so you're saying Zexion is the only one out of the loop?" After a soft sigh, the slate-haired boy said, "… Not entirely. As soon as I noticed Nemix 'foolishly' wasting too many words on someone she wanted nothing more than to kick into the ocean to feed the sharks, and Axel's exceedingly strange behaviour, I kind of had a rough idea that we were buying time for help to arrive, so I played along too. Though I did not know about Xion's sleeper cell role." Roxas added, "We only found out about the plan, in which Axel planted a sleeper cell under the guise of disposing victims, after Demyx and I received a message from Xion and found her." "True that. I even brawled with Axel… Does it still hurt?" winced Demyx. Axel subconsciously touched the gauze covering his wound on his right cheek and teased, "Originally, I planned to tell you the plan when I approached you, hoping to save me the trouble of messaging Xion about who to contact. Who knew you'd be so over-reactive? Fortunately no bullets came out of your gun, or else I will wear a red cloak and haunt you in your dreams."

I gingerly moved my still aching arm and said to Zexion, "Yeah, talking too much earned me a few kicks and the near dismantling of my body parts. Was I that conspicuous though? Ow, that hurt…" Zexion chuckled a bit and explained, "It had nothing to do with your acting skills. It was simply because you completely acted against your character. You seemed oddly cool about Axel 'betraying' us, as if you knew the real reason behind his actions. Like Axel, you would never turn against us of your own free will, and you absolutely despise traitors of any degree; you would have reacted badly if you encountered one. On top of that, Axel was obviously waiting for something; back in the hall, any slight movement seemed to put him on edge." No wonder Axel was so jumpy back then; the vibration from Xion's call was all that he was desperately hoping to feel so he could finally kick butt. Demyx commented, "If we're talking about acting skills, I almost crapped my pants when Axel pointed his gun at us. The whole moment including when he 'showed his true colours' was so convincing." Said boy groaned, "That's because it was not an act. I genuinely wanted you guys to understand that Nemix had a nasty plot to get us all out, so I was pushing for you guys leave first and then I would destroy the laser emitter. What I forgot to take into account was the fact that I was still carrying their blasted walkie-talkie, and since they were closing in, I had no choice but to 'show my true colours' to force you all to run whether by threatening or by disheartening."

Roxas looked at me and asked, "Did you expect Axel to use such… extreme measures?" I shook my head and replied honestly, "I did not expect him to 'reveal his true colours' right in front of us, and I certainly did not expect him to really fire his gun. But there were two points that told me that he was ready to execute the next steps of the plan; one, when he aimed at us, he was scanning us, but his gaze spent too much time focusing on somewhere behind us where the laser emitter was. Two, intuition… He purposely left us too many opportunities to escape, so I had to play along so no suspicions could be raised. Actually, I originally foresaw this double agent plot to not turn Axel into the centre of attention. Something more discreet and brewing in the dark and finally hitting Vanitas when he least expected it… But… oh well…"

Kairi took in everything and slowly said, "So all in all, Nemix's nasty plot worked out." I drew in a deep breath and said, "Yeah, but not without everyone's efforts and sacrifices…" I suddenly turned shy and awkward now like when everyone decided to come to my home, acting like a fish out of water. I did not look at anyone but instead focused my sights on the blanket on the bed I was sitting on. Playing with one end of the fabric, I said, "To be honest, all that I said back then in the hall… it wasn't just to buy time. I… meant it. Trust and interdependence among friends give us strength. Sure, it might seem like a weakness for scumbags like Vanitas to exploit, but it ultimately saw us through this and to victory…" Roxas nodded vigorously, smiling. Demyx pumped a fist into the air and said, "Hell yeah!" With a rare small smile, Zexion added, "Well said. We did it, guys. After all the ordeals and dangers, everything is really finally over."

Slightly unamused, Axel grumbled, "Well, yeah, I almost got shot at, no one's going to mention that?" Guffawing, Xion said, "Well, I saved your butt by blasting the bastard to oblivion with fire truck hose water." "Fire truck?!" we exclaimed loudly out of shock. We were speechless at first, but then Roxas recovered and spoke, "Holy hell Xion, that's one hell of a badass entrance!"

We spent the rest of the time chatting and joking around until visiting hours were long over and the trio who did not have to stay overnight were kicked out by irritated nurses. After two nights in the hospital, we were declared good to go and were discharged successfully.

Three weeks later, Vanitas was finally summoned to the court for his trial. After a long intense debate among court juries, he was charged with attempted rape, rape, blackmailing, kidnapping, instigating suicide of others, arson, intentional vandalism, attempted murder and such in the end, and was sentenced to fifty years of incarceration (all of his penalties were carried out parallel to one another, otherwise he might have to stay in jail to kingdom come). Everyone was satisfied with the court decision overall. Although we cheered for the outcome, we were still mindful of those who suffered because of him, including the victims before Fayra, so we held a minute of silence during a gathering before going nuts with celebration.

Samara officially lost the title of successor of her family's inheritance and that returned to Fayra. Due to Samara still being a minor, the court decided to send her to a juvenile detention and rehabilitation centre for a twenty-four-month period. Devilish Director was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment and a cash penalty of a hundred thousand Ringgits, stemming from her aiding a criminal, theft and some degree of involvement in attempted murder, and those were after mitigation due to her owing up to her crimes. Soon, she renounced her position as the director of our school and never appeared before us ever again. Speaking of school, the school authorities badly needed to repair and rebuild certain parts after both the real and fake fire, so SPM candidates were arranged to sit for their exam in the neighbouring Kingdom Hearts Elementary School.

Other students were dismissed by the school and thus we kicked off our year-end holidays earlier, and were to return in the next academic year when school reopened. At the supposed last day of school, the nine of us went to the beach in Tanjung Bungah in the north of the island we were living on. We swam, built sandcastles, had a picnic, strolled, played volley ball, chased each other around… you know, basically acting like idiots all day. Even the tourists deemed us as bumpkins who had never set foot on a beach and dared not come up to us to ask for directions. Of course, we still kept in touch after that. And finally, the long awaited day of the release of the PMR results came. I was still half asleep when I heard the news announcing the date as 23rd December. I just got off of a night bus ride after spending a short holiday with my family in Singapore. It felt as if I just woke up from a long dream. That day, we were gathered in the hall, trying not to recall what transpired here more than a month ago.

We received our results slips from our seniors stationed at the many tables laid out with stacks slips surrounded by nervous students, and we could not help but scream out loud. All of us passed, and some of us even scored straight A's, including me! Oh holy bananas of Kingdom Hearts! I passed with flying colours! Holy Chocobos! And of course, people from our group who did not score as great started a vote for a celebration, so in the end, Zexion, Naminé, Xion and I had to join forces (and cash) to treat our group to a meal. Axel, being Axel, was gobbling up a lot of food like an annoying hungry ghost. Without the combined effort, I would have to declare bankruptcy, not even the money I received as my reward for acing the exam could correct the deficit. Despite all the shenanigans, I would not have it any other way…

Ten or so days passed, and we successfully advanced into 10th Grade, opening up a new chapter in our high school lives. We chose to go into Science stream except for Naminé who opted for Business related studies instead. Our class arrangements had a big shakeup; Zexion, Xion and I got into S4A, the so-called elite class I never thought I would enter. I started in K1F in 7th Grade, I then jumped into K2D next year, and after flying straight into K3B the year after, I still ended up crash landing into S4A… I had many feelings about this. On one hand, I had reached the metaphoric pinnacle of my achievements, and the only way to survive was to maintain my placing. On the other hand, I did not want to be categorised unjustly as a stereotypical first class student, who people painted as academically FOMO and fear of losing anything. Luckily Zexion and Xion was there with me and for me, otherwise it might have been unbearable. Kairi and Ven went to S4B, Demyx got into S4C, Roxas was assigned to S4D and Axel to S4F. Naminé was sent to P4A, the only odd one out among us.

Well, at this rate we were like spilled sand scattered into different classes. Despite that, we still got together whenever we had the chance as if we were never separated. We still played, laughed, studied, went on missions and duties etc. together, spending every day like we used to back in the days. The only different thing was the amount of schoolwork… as expected. I could basically handle the hostile environment shaped by the snobs of S4A, no big deal. Nevertheless, some people in the class were just displeasing to even glance at, and I was that one nobody (no pun intended) that no one ever noticed. I had always flown under their radar, until that one day when I scored the highest mark in class, and presumably in the whole grade of cohorts, for Additional Mathematics. From then onwards, people started to stalk me for information about my tuition classes and my "origins", as they put it. I did have extra tuition classes for Add Math, but the tutor was too eccentric for others' taste, so they flat out did not trust my answer. Most of my skills and abilities actually derived from my own tuition work, and also said work from other classmates which they did not know how to solve. Mind you, those were exercise questions from famous tuition centres. I should have just listened to Xion when she told me to set up a counter specifically for solving Add Math problems, charging a Ringgit per question, and I would have been rich in less than one month. The funniest thing was that they could never sniff out the person placed seventh in the class/grade. They exhausted all their resources and networks of informants, but they dug up nothing, because… that mystery person was me. Since they never even thought about asking me, I decided that I could not be bothered to reveal my placing myself. I planned to see how long it would take them to find me… hehe!

One day, the time was almost three in the afternoon, Xion and I were in our classroom busy solving Add Math problems. Of course, none of those were my own classwork; they were all tuition exercises from others. And Xion was stuck somewhere, so I had to drag her out of her predicament. "So, you see, you need to change the base of this logarithmic expression, and when the algebraic expressions on both sides of the equation have the same logarithm base, you can then use the method of comparison to get this quadratic equation. After some arranging, you can then show this expression, which is the final answer. To change the logarithm base, you need to apply this formula; the value you want is your new base, you write it like this; log base 3. On the top argument you put the original argument, x, and below you put the old base 9 as another argument. So now the expression changed from log base 9 to log base 3, and you simplify log base 3 9 into log base 3 3 squared, toss the 2 to the back and log base 3 3 equals 1, so you get 2.

Don't confuse these." While I wrote out the solution and breakdown on a scrap piece of paper, I explained to Xion. She then interrupted, "OK, OK, timeout Nemix! Let me digest these. My brain can only register a bunch of logs and is now waterlogged…"

"207!" Just then, an electronic noise came from my pocket, and I pulled out the culprit, which turned out to be my GPS device. I replied, "207 speaking, fire away." "006 here, new mission inbound; a nameless school bully. A whistle-blower reported someone spreading ill rumours about somebody, and it had escalated to the blackboard being written with derogatory terms regardless of how much cleaning duty was done. This had been going on for days. Rendezvous at HQ pronto. You too, 383."

Surprised, Xion almost choked on her saliva and blurted, "What the heck? How did he know I'm here with you?" I shrugged and said, "You're talking about Zexion, our Professor, after all. Must have been some kind of logical analysis." Soon, Xion's watch flashed with a small light, signalling for an emergency group meeting. We looked at each other and nodded. It was time to move out, so we quickly kept everything in our bags and got ready to go. Xion announced, "Let's go kick some honey buns!" I snickered and teased, "Ha, you totally didn't steal that line." Xion playfully hit my arm and retorted, "Hey, it's funny, OK? Live a little."

We strode towards the Reading Room. Heh, whoever this school bully was, or wherever they were, they were going up against Counter Crime Group 13, aka Organisation XIII. We may be separated, but we would never be apart, and together we would take them down and kick their butt!

"Yo, 207, we're almost there. You?" Axel's voice came from our interphones, as well as his footsteps. With a smirk, I replied, "207 is Oscar Mike. Over."

At the Reading Room, we discussed how we would nab the bully. "OK, that is the plan. Prepare for an ambush at your assigned locations at 1600 hours. Move out and Godspeed!" "Oh yeah! Let's go!" yelled Demyx excitedly, standing up from his chair.

Organisation XIII's nasty plotter 207, reporting for duty!

~ CHAPTER 19 FIN ~

TO BE CONTINUED

Would you look at that; I did it again! As you can tell, the plot of this chapter took me months to plan, and also write. This chapter is the final showdown after all, so I want it to be as epic as possible, but not without logic and suspense. This may sound like the last chapter, but it is actually the penultimate. I still have an epilogue coming up to wrap this long overdue story up nicely. My work took up most of my time, so I am glad to still be able to actually churn this out. Thank you for tuning in, stay safe, stay healthy and stay awesome. Until the next chapter!