CHAPTER TEN – A MURDEROUS ENCOUNTER
By the time she and Ryoma reached one of the school's courtyards, Kirumi still found herself at a loss for what to say. As tired as she felt from the day's hectic happenings, including a certain incident on her end, other feelings were welling up inside her, coloring her slight nervousness with shades of anticipation and something else that she could not guess for now. Still, it was not the kind of emotion that put her on edge; on the contrary, as she walked beside Ryoma, Kirumi found herself feeling at ease, as if the Ultimate Tennis Pro was giving off an aura of ostensible comfort and respite that she could readily bask in after the day's hectic proceedings.
A half-moon hung in the dark sky above, casting a faint, fey glow upon the school grounds that sat far from the bright lights shining through the windows of the main building. Few students were still out and about, walking along the stone pathways that wound around the school and through the numerous small courtyards. Some had converged upon stone benches, chatting the rest of the evening away before going back to their dormitories.
"Did you eat well?" Ryoma asked, breaking the silence between them. "You didn't seem to eat much earlier."
"It was fine," said Kirumi. "The bean buns you bought helped me get by. Thank you."
"No problem. I . . . I'm glad you liked them." Ryoma looked away, looking oddly embarrassed once again. Ever since he had talked to her after their group meal earlier, Kirumi could not help but wonder why exactly he seemed so flustered. Then again, it seemed foolish to second-guess especially after the small incident that occurred between Kaito and Kokichi, when she and Ryoma were inadvertently put on the spot by the Ultimate Supreme Leader's mischievous remarks. Between that and Kaede's announcement about the sports festival, Kirumi could not tell which one Ryoma was thinking about more, though she knew for herself which one affected her more for some reason. Kirumi was thankful that she had managed to defuse the situation before it escalated, but there was still a part of her that felt odd when she and Ryoma became the brief center of attention.
Luckily, she knew that the incident from that morning would make for a good distraction to talk about. "Things got even busier today, particularly with Class 78. There was an incident involving one of their members—Toko Fukawa, to be exact. Have you met her yet?"
"No, I don't think so," Ryoma replied.
"She is the Ultimate Writing Prodigy, and a member of Class 78. I was surprised to find out that she was in Hope's Peak as well, since I had only ever heard of her from the popular novels my former employers had read. Now, as to what happened earlier, I was running a few errands for Class 78 by transporting some book copies to their classroom, and I saw that Toko appeared to be having a panic attack. Aoi tried to step in to check on her, but Toko just kept pushing her away and complaining about the perfume that their classmate Junko had. Aoi was having trouble calming her down, and so I stepped in to help. That was when she . . ." Kirumi paused for a moment, remembering the exact nature of the events in her mind's eye.
"When she what?" asked Ryoma, looking up curiously at her.
Folding her hands neatly on her apron, Kirumi said, "Well, Toko was having none of it, and she took off all of a sudden. Unfortunately, her foot caught the edge of a nearby table, and she knocked herself out cold as she hit the floor. That was when her classmates began to panic as well. Fortunately, Sakura was there as well, and I accompanied her as she carried Toko to the clinic."
Ryoma raised an eyebrow in surprise. "That's unfortunate. I hope she's okay."
"Mikan took care of her posthaste, administering preliminary treatments and all. Some of Toko's classmates who had followed us explained to her what happened. But even after we smoothed everything over and I left to carry on to my next tasks, something even odder occurred. Aoi approached me about an hour later to tell me that Toko had gone missing. Apparently, Mikan went back to check on her after her class and found her bed empty."
"Really?" Ryoma frowned. "Did she get up on her own or something?"
"That's the problem. No one knew how or where Toko had gone, since she never went back to class or her dorm room," said Kirumi. "Aoi and Sakura asked for my help in looking for her. It took up the greater part of an hour, but we soon found her lying unconscious once again, this time behind the gymnasium. She woke up not long after, and calmed down enough for Sakura and Aoi to accompany her back to the clinic. Strangely enough, when we asked her how she ended up there, Toko seemed pretty tight-lipped about it. All she asserted was that she had been unconscious all the while, and remembered none of the last hours of the morning."
They rounded a nearby corner, their shadows meandering across the stone pathways as the lights of the nearby buildings bathed them in a bright yellow glow. Ryoma shook his head as her story finished. "That's definitely a weird incident if I ever heard of one," he remarked. "Then again, this school has its share of weird stuff, so I wouldn't be surprised if we'll hear about happenings like that."
"That is true," said Kirumi. "To tell you the truth, I had expected it to be a prank of some sort, but Toko's disposition seemed to indicate otherwise."
"Do you think she sleepwalked or something?"
"It is plausible, yes. In all respects, I just hope it does not happen again. Such occurrences are as worrisome as students becoming injured through accidents."
"Or through overexertion."
As Kirumi looked down at him, Ryoma smiled a little at the jibe he had just poked towards himself. "Sorry, couldn't quite help myself there," he said.
"It's fine," said Kirumi, grinning as well. More than anything, her memory of his bare, scarred torso stood out more than her sudden shyness at the time, though the dinner that followed later felt all the warmer because of the encounter.
They reached the edge of the large open field behind the school's main building, right next to a number of bleachers overlooking the wide expanse of trimmed grass. Only a few lights were shining down from the tall posts that stood at certain intervals around the field. In the distance, a caretaker was directing a lawnmower across the greenery, following the straight edges that were marked with white paint.
Ryoma looked pensive as he stared out at the field. "I want to start practicing."
Kirumi looked over at him. His seriousness was evident on his round face, his eyes fixed with a steely glare ahead. "If you remember, I've been warming up and all, trying to get back in some sort of groove for September, and I think it'd be better for me if I just do it somewhere proper, like the gym or here on the open field. I've been considering it for a while now, but I always end up getting nowhere with the thought. Maybe I'm just procrastinating or something."
"Some might call it that, though you have your reasons for being reluctant about it," Kirumi noted. "Nonetheless, it's a good thing to consider, a reassuring follow-up to your growing drive to keep doing better."
Ryoma grimaced. "Hopefully I'll be able to make the most of it. I've still got a ways to go."
Kirumi regarded him for a moment. "You're wondering whether you'd live up to the expectations, particularly the ones you impose on yourself."
"Yeah, I guess you can say that," Ryoma admitted. "There's still a part of me that thinks messing this up is just another failure I have to deal with in a life filled with them. If that's the case, it should be easy enough to live with it. But there's also a part of me that . . . wants to be competitive again, to actually take on this with the same kind of seriousness that I used to have. It feels off, though. Pretty laughable, even."
"But there is nothing to laugh at about that," said Kirumi immediately. "It just means that you're slowly realizing that there is still potential left in you, the potential to succeed at something like this in the same way you have succeeded in your past endeavors as a tennis champion. It shows how far you've gotten since coming here."
"Maybe," said Ryoma as he took out a candy cigarette from his pocket and placed it between his lips, chewing grimly, "but if I'm gonna go any further, it's obvious that my room isn't the best place to keep practicing for it. Throwing the ball around and mimicking a serve . . . it's like I'm not even doing it seriously."
"You are. Your desire to practice outside of your room is a testament to your commitment," said Kirumi. "If you wish, I can help you with finding a suitable place to practice in, and create a schedule that would not clash with your usual routines."
Ryoma sighed. "Yeah, if I'm going to count on anyone to help me, it'd definitely be you."
The statement made Kirumi smile. "Thank you for continuing to trust in me."
Across the campus, a bell tolled once as the school's clock chimed at half past eight. The two of them continued walking, passing by some students who took the bell as a signal to start going back to their dorms at last. Curfew was imposed at nine o'clock, though Ultimates were free to stay and go about until nine-thirty as long as they had a valid excuse to do so.
Ryoma invited her to sit on a vacant stone bench on a courtyard at the school's eastern side, where there were even fewer students around. He settled down a short distance away from her, gazing up at the faint stars twinkling amidst the night sky. The trimmed hedges around them bore a number of colorful flowers, and their fragrance drifted faintly in the air around them.
"Quite beautiful, isn't it?" she said as she followed his gaze. "In any other part of the city, the stars would be drowned out easily by the lights of buildings everywhere. Here, however . . ."
Ryoma nodded. "This is a sight that you don't get to see in prison. With the windows barred up and too high to reach, you start forgetting what the sky looks like sometimes. It's just one of the worse things in prison that people don't know about often."
"I'm sorry."
"It's fine. Being out here again, I'll admit, it's a lot better than spending twenty hours a day cooped up inside a cell. I'm surprised things came back to me easier than I expected, though it's good that I'm in here instead of anywhere else in the city. Walking around the streets like a normal person again, going inside stores and stuff . . . it would've been a whole other kind of hell adjusting to that all over again. Then again, I suppose the system wouldn't have liked me walking free for three years after I got scouted for this."
A melancholic shadow fell across Ryoma's face as he spoke. Kirumi was once again reminded of his scars, and what they entailed for anyone who saw them like she did. Even though Ryoma's recollections did not have that many specifics, it was not difficult to see the toll his experiences had taken on him.
"She would've loved it here."
Kirumi turned to look upon him as he finished his candy cigarette with a final bite. He looked at her and cleared his throat. "It's okay," he added, as if forestalling her sudden silence at the mention of Isabella Henderson. "You want to know more about her, right?"
The surprise upon her face then must have seemed obvious, for Ryoma gave her a nod to assure her further. It was as if he had decided to talk about something potentially better after realizing that their conversation was taking a bleaker turn. Still, Kirumi felt unsure as she straightened up, placing her hands on her lap.
"I would be lying if I said I was not curious about her," she began, "but of course, to ask about her and thus inquire about your past . . . that might be too much for you, Ryoma."
Ryoma heaved a sigh. "To be honest, I don't know how I might feel," he admitted, staring back out onto the dark surroundings of the courtyard they were in. "I've never talked about her with anyone since that . . . that day long ago."
"And you don't have to if it hurts to speak of it," Kirumi declared earnestly. "The same goes for your experiences in prison."
Silence dawned on Ryoma for a few seconds. "But if I just keep burying her and ignoring any talk of her, it feels like I'm just trashing her memory. That's the last thing she deserves after what happened to her." When he looked over at her, Kirumi could see the regret weighing heavily upon his eyes. "That's why I want to remember her for how she lived, not for how she died. My involvement in that can't be changed now, but that doesn't mean I should just let her be forgotten as a mere casualty of my stupidity, like how the news made her out to be back then. She . . . She deserves more than that."
Observing the pained regret on his face, Kirumi felt for Ryoma greatly, but it also made her appreciate him even more. He has lost so much, and yet he never lost his sense of humanity. It was yet another admirable aspect of his person that made her want to keep helping him, to ensure that in his journey to grow again and move on from his past, he would be successful. Kirumi knew that wherever she was right now, Isabella Henderson would be undoubtedly touched by his sentiments and proud of his desire to keep fighting.
"How did . . . How did you two meet?"
She half-expected Ryoma to dodge the question, but he let out a wistful chuckle and replied, "It was in America, right after our first international open, when I had just won in the men's division. We had two more days off to wait for everything to be wrapped up. While everyone was out, I went down alone to eat at the hotel restaurant, and she just walked up to me as I was passing by the buffet tables."
"That seems like an interesting way to start things off," Kirumi noted.
"It was," said Ryoma in a fond tone that belied the deepness of his voice. "She told me that she was a journalist for a high school who wanted to conduct an exclusive interview with me for their school paper. Being all cocky and stuff, especially after I just won my first international championship, I decided to humor her. Now, I know this might be risky when you're in another country where shady people could pose as fans or something, but I figured that there was no harm in it; besides, we were gonna go back to Japan eventually, so what's the big deal, right?
"Anyway, we sat down to talk, and she asked me questions about my matches, my opponents, things like that. I could tell that she knew her stuff when it came to tennis, which made me more comfortable with our discussions. After that, we met each other a few more times at the hotel over the course of those last two days, and she eventually felt guilty and confessed that she wasn't there on an assignment for her school paper, that she was just there to try and meet me in person. I was a bit peeved about her keeping that hidden, but she was quick to tell me that the part about her being a big fan was true. Our manager was having none of her, but I stopped him from outing her in public since I could tell she meant no harm. On our last day in America, we spent a bit more time together, and I helped her meet some of the other players in our team that she also liked watching. She thanked me a lot for it, and I figured that we were just gonna go our separate ways after that, but . . . well, let's just say that I decided at the last second to give her my e-mail address."
Kirumi could not help but smile. "Sounds like she made quite the first impression."
"To be honest, I still don't know what made me want to keep in touch with her," Ryoma admitted. "But we did, and we kept on chatting for a year. That's when we got closer, and then—"
"Well, well, well! What do we have here?"
The voice that suddenly spoke out pierced through the night in a shrill tone, startling Kirumi and Ryoma. The two of them looked around in time to see a dark figure standing several feet away, its silhouette tricky to make out against the glare of the school's main building behind it. Kirumi stood up just as Ryoma hopped off the bench.
"Who's there?" she called out, trying to make out who the speaker was.
Taking a few steps forward, its gait possessing an audacious saunter, the figure crooned with a mocking tone. "So what're you two supposed to be? Two lovers, out trying to find a bit of warmth in the cold moonlight, perhaps? Or are ya just trying to sneak in a quickie, ease a stiffy and get all sticky while no one's around?" The laugh that followed sounded like nails grating on a chalkboard.
"Who are you?" Ryoma muttered, his beanie casting a shadow over his eyes.
A sudden unnerving silence followed as the laughter stopped abruptly. Kirumi began to make out a few details of the figure's appearance that alerted her to its identity—shining eyeglasses and a pair of black twin braids. But before she could speak, the figure leapt in the air in a graceful backflip towards them. Kirumi drew back instinctively, watching as the interloper landed in a patch of light emanating from the school for them to see, confirming her guess as to who it was.
". . . Miss Toko?"
But even with the long braids and round eyeglasses and the uniform of an Ultimate, she could tell that there was something strangely wrong with Toko Fukawa, and it made her recall the odd incident that had transpired earlier that morning. Right now, the Ultimate Writing Prodigy's eyes looked blood-red, and not the doleful grey that Kirumi remembered them to be, while her tongue seemed to loll obscenely from her lips, which were twisted in a demented grimace. Even her voice sounded different with its manic tone.
"Like hell I am, tweeny!" Toko snapped, her glare giving off an obvious air of belligerent intent as if Kirumi had insulted her in some way. "Do I look like a sniveling, smelly, mopey little wretch to you?! Well, there's no helping it since Miss Morose really loves stinking up the place, but she's not here! Instead, you're talking to the one, the only, the Ultimate Murderous Fiend, Genocide Jack! Love me if you want, fear me if you dare, but don't think I won't slash you up into bloody little pieces either way!" And then, she beamed at them and began to speak like she was a cheerful attendant greeting customers at a department store. "With that said, I sincerely hope you make yourselves comfortable dealing with murderous ol' me!"
Kirumi and Ryoma exchanged glances of confusion. On Kirumi's part, there was a hint of bewildered trepidation as well as she recalled the name that had just been uttered. Genocide Jack? No, that . . . something doesn't seem right.
But the so-called Ultimate Murderous Fiend did give her a chance to think on anything in depth. Striding forward, she pulled up the hem of her skirt to reveal her right thigh for a brief moment. Kirumi tensed at first, wondering what indecency was afoot, but the atmosphere took yet another drastic turn as Genocide Jack pulled out a pair of wicked-looking scissors. They shone brightly against the nearby light, their pointed blades looking extremely dangerous, and when Jack adjusted her hand, Kirumi saw that there were two of them.
"Now, now, I'm not gonna cut you up . . . yet," Genocide Jack simpered. "Personally, I go for cute boys where I can find them, but since I'm in a pretty peckish mood tonight, I'm gonna play with ya for a bit." She brandished her scissors playfully, tracing one in a vulgar manner across her abnormal tongue. "I'm gonna give you approximately ten seconds to tell me where Master is. If you tell me, I'll let you walk away without a scratch. If not, I go snip-snip, and trust me when I say my hands like to slip!"
No one moved for a moment. Running the tip of her scissors across her cheek now, Genocide Jack began to count down. "Ten . . . Nine . . ."
Kirumi stepped forward. "Pardon me, Miss . . . Jack," she said tentatively, "but I'm afraid we don't know who this . . . 'Master' you're referring to is. What—"
Genocide Jack threw back her head and screeched with laughter. "What's up with you, prissy missy? Are you trying to sound like someone's mom?! But wait . . ." She sniffed, as if she was trying to pick up a scent in the air, her giggles hissing through her teeth. "Ooh, you're different from all the pathetic little skanks that I've seen before. Yes, I can smell it. . ." She grinned wickedly. "A pretty little rose with thorns, yes! And my, oh my, those thorns have pierced more than a few bodies, it seems. How charming. . . But don't think I'll let that stop me from shanking ya for interrupting me oh-so rudely!"
Kirumi tensed momentarily, both from the threat and the fact that Genocide Jack seemed to guess correctly about the rougher parts of her maid duties back then. But before she could say anything in return, Ryoma stepped between the two of them, his back turned to Kirumi as he faced the Ultimate Murderous Fiend. He moved so fast that Kirumi did not even see him shift from his spot, and in spite of his small appearance, he was giving off an aura of grim intensity that would make even larger men hesitate.
"We don't want any trouble," Ryoma declared.
Jack narrowed her malevolent eyes. She sniffed again, her eyes widening after a brief second. "Ooh. . . There's something about you that made me tingle just now, weeny," she hissed. Her eyes darted back and forth between him and Kirumi. "Miss Tweeny Todd over there has definitely had her share of roughhousing, but you're the one who's actually got the bloodstains to go with his share! Oh, the gore and the screams! I can feel them coming from you! How cruelly captivating!"
It took Kirumi a moment to realize what Genocide Jack was referring to. Ryoma, on the other hand, stood still as a stone, his expression unfathomable now. Kirumi could not tell whether he was angry or startled, or if he simply did not care at the moment about the Ultimate Murderous Fiend's taunts.
The scissors flashed in Jack's hands again. "To tell ya the truth, that's not bad for someone who's no professional like yours truly," she commented, "but you're still lightyears away if you're gonna get on my level!"
"I'm not trying to," Ryoma replied at last in a curt voice. "I'll ask you this, though. If you're technically Toko Fukawa, then how ar—?"
At that, Jack's eyes widened with fury. "You actually dare to tell me that after I just explained everything to you?! Did your brain leak outta those pointy ears of yours or something?! I'm a thousand times cuter, cooler and deadlier than that loser! I'm my own pretty little self, okay? And in case that doesn't get through your thick skull, lemme just put it this way: What you're seeing before you is a textbook case split personality, and in Miss Morose's case, her other personality just happens to be a charming, bloodthirsty serial killer! Now as to where that came from, well, just like how every inning has a top and a bottom, or how in the depths of every truth lives a little lie . . . Behind every dark and gloomy soul lives another that shines as bright as the sun!"
The information was a lot to take in, made even trickier to digest with Jack laughing shrilly once again. Kirumi felt rather unsettled, though she held on to her composure and decided to play along nonetheless. "Then if what you say is true, how did you get here?" she asked.
Genocide Jack eased her manic stance with a scowl, like she was genuinely thinking of a reply to her query. "I woke up on the floor, alright? I dunno what the heck my other loser self was doing, but I could sense that Master's scent was all around me, so I decided a little nighttime hunt for him would help keep my blood running before I get booted off again like before." She wrapped her arms around herself, her eyes misting with sudden ecstasy as she squirmed like a schoolgirl going gaga for love. "Do you think Master had his way with us in the hallway? Is that why Miss Morose got knocked out cold? 'Cuz she couldn't handle the pressure of pouring her guts out while Master was pouring himself into us? Oh, I'm getting all sweaty just thinking about it! Master, you naughty little snack, you should've waited until I got there!"
Kirumi found herself failing to make heads or tails as Jack's constant changes in thought and mood made it hard for her and Ryoma to keep up. However, one thing was clear enough; the presence of the scissors evoked a warning of how things could worsen at any moment, and it did not take much for anyone to sense how volatile Genocide Jack could get. Her first priority would be to help Ryoma then, and she could tell that the Ultimate Tennis Pro had the same conclusion with her; though whether they would stand their ground or flee from an attack, Kirumi could not say.
"Alright, I think that's enough!" Snapping to attention, Jack pointed her scissors at the two of them again. They clicked like sinister castanets. "I've gone on for a lot longer than ten seconds, and you two still haven't told me where I can find Master! Maybe it's time I started painting a few more colors on those dreary clothes of yours!"
But whatever Genocide Jack's intentions were as she stepped forward, Kirumi and Ryoma would never know. Before the Ultimate Murderous Fiend could reach them, she suddenly froze in her spot, her hands faltering and her scissors trembling. Kirumi saw that her nose was twitching.
"W-Wha . . . No! Not ye—achoo!"
Jack reeled backwards, her face scrunching up from the sneeze and her scissors falling to the ground with a clatter. When she looked up again, Kirumi was dumbfounded to see that her appearance had changed again; Genocide Jack's red pupils were gone, replaced now by the more familiar grey ones of Toko Fukawa. Her tongue receded into her mouth, and the demented air on her facial features relaxed, giving way to obvious shock.
Her body twitching as if she had woken up from a nightmare, Toko looked wildly around. "W-Where am I?" she sputtered, more to herself than to anyone. When she saw Kirumi and Ryoma standing a few feet away, she took a few terrified steps backwards.
"W-What's going on?!" she cried out in a tone of voice that was markedly different from Genocide Jack's. "Why are y-you staring at me like that?!" Her eyes flitting around in terror, she soon saw the fallen scissors on the cobblestones and turned white.
"Oh, no . . . S-She was here, wasn't she?" she gasped, the words ostensibly proving the veracity of Genocide Jack's testimony about her split personality in Kirumi's mind.
"There you are, Toko!"
Kirumi, Ryoma and Toko looked around to see Aoi Asahina and Sakura Ogami hurrying towards them. Aoi looked particularly worried as she ran beside Sakura. Toko, on the other hand, paled further at the sight of them.
"We've been looking everywhere for you!" Aoi told her. "Are you okay? Did you hurt your head again?"
Toko swallowed anxiously. "What do you mean? I don't even know w-what happened to me!" she said in a defensive tone.
"I was on my way to the dojo when I saw you speaking with Byakuya in the hallways near the dorms," Sakura explained as she loomed over the four of them. "You collapsed all of a sudden when he left. I went over to check on you, but you . . . you just rose up and started running like nothing happened."
"Y-You were just imagining things!" Toko insisted. "M-Maybe you just hit yourself too hard on the head one too many times again when you were busy punching walls in the d-dojo!"
Ignoring the verbal barbs, Sakura looked at her with serious concern. "I am positive that I'm not imagining things." Her eyes moved downwards, and she frowned. "Are those . . . scissors?"
Hyperventilating now, Toko bent down to snatch Genocide Jack's scissors off the courtyard's stone pathway. "T-They're mine! They just fell out of m-my pocket, that's all!"
Aoi turned to Ryoma and Kirumi with a worried look. "Did you two run into her?"
"Well, she ran into us, technically," said Kirumi, though she had no idea how to explain properly what she and Ryoma had just seen and heard. "She seemed . . . fine."
"No, I wasn't!" Toko screeched. Without waiting to be put on the spot again, she turned and began to run towards the direction of the dorms, her arms wrapped around herself as if she was covering up some form of indecency.
"Toko, wait!" Aoi called out to her. "We just want to make sure that you're okay!"
"I just said I'm not! A-And don't follow me!" Toko snapped back. Without looking back, she ran even faster, her braids flying behind her. Soon, her figure vanished in the darkness, leaving the four of them staring after her with bewilderment. Aoi let out a tired sigh.
"She hasn't really been herself lately—I mean, as far as Toko goes, even this is beyond her," she said. "With her chasing Byakuya around, and that stuff this morning with Junko's perfume . . . it's all just been hectic."
Byakuya must be the 'Master' she was referring to, Kirumi noted privately. Byakuya Togami often called upon her services in the cafeteria during lunchtime, where she would serve him the finest fare that could be prepared. His background and talent as the Ultimate Affluent Progeny made him treat everyone with both coldness and disdain, though he afforded a small measure of respect for Kirumi in the same way a rich employer would approve of a dutiful servant.
"We'll try to talk to her again and see if we can help her calm down when she acts up again," Aoi continued. "I hope she didn't give you guys any trouble."
"Just a few choice words, nothing else," said Ryoma. It could not have been any farther from the truth, but Kirumi mused that he wanted to keep the part with Genocide Jack hidden for now.
"Please excuse her," said Sakura. "She's a little abrasive, but I don't think she means any real harm. Although . . ."
Aoi looked up at her. "What is it, Sakura?"
With a stern look in her eyes, Sakura stared in the direction where Toko had run off to before shaking her head. "It's nothing. I might just be imagining things."
Aoi reached out and laid a hand comfortingly on her musclebound forearm. "It's okay. We might just be on edge with the constant issues Toko's been having."
"Yes, that might be it," Sakura mused. Even so, Kirumi could tell that like her, the Ultimate Martial Artist was starting to sense what exactly had transpired, both tonight and earlier that morning. The presence of self-proclaimed murderous fiends notwithstanding, it simply showed just how chaotically colorful Hope's Peak Academy can really be.
After clearing things up with Aoi and Sakura, Kirumi made her way back to the dorms with Ryoma. The silence that prevailed in the main building told them that the incident had not drawn much attention, given that most of the student body had now retreated to their dorms. Kirumi felt relieved on the school's behalf; she could not imagine what kind of chaos Genocide Jack would have created if she ran into more students, and she had nothing but concern and sympathy for Toko Fukawa.
"It's a wonder that she did not encounter any students this morning," Kirumi remarked after a while. "If she had gone out during lunchtime when everyone was around . . ."
"That would've been quite an incident," Ryoma mused quietly. "Do you think the school knows of her, ah . . . predicament?"
"If not, they will soon enough once they get wind of these incidents," said Kirumi. "However, the fact that Toko is involved with her like that might complicate things somewhat."
"Yeah, can't deny that," Ryoma muttered. When he did not say anything else, Kirumi looked upon him with concern. Ever since Genocide Jack had gone, he had grown rather quiet, almost dejected, and she did not have to think too hard on why that was. The obvious silence continued as they entered the last hallway leading to the dorms. Though Ryoma made attempts to initiate small talk, none of them seemed to take off. Kirumi bowed her head, wondering what else she could say. She wanted to comfort Ryoma or at least distract him from what might be keeping him down at the moment, but she could not bring herself to tackle the situation head on and mention what Genocide Jack had belted at him. And any attempt to divert the topic towards school matters or Ryoma's desire to start practicing tennis for real felt both forced and ineffective.
"Ryoma . . ." she began. "Regarding what happened—"
Ryoma waved his hand airily. "It's fine. All that stuff I heard earlier, it's nothing I haven't faced before. Besides, that's . . . that's not what I'm concerned about."
"What do you mean?" asked Kirumi.
Ryoma looked straight into her eyes. "I was just worried about you. As wacky as that Genocide Jack character seemed to be, I could tell she was dead serious about cutting people up." He shook his head as they kept walking down the hallway. "You've served as a bodyguard to people before, so I have no doubt that you would've been able to handle yourself just fine. But I think my worry made me want to step in regardless, because I . . . I didn't want you to get hurt."
With a dejected sigh, he looked up at her, though he seemed unable to say anything else. Kirumi took note of the regret and reluctance on his round, youthful features—and the obvious concern most of all, which made her immensely grateful.
After a while, Ryoma looked away. "I'm sorry if I'm getting all riled up like this. It's just that . . . with what I shared about Isabella, with all that stuff over at dinner and that business with Genocide Jack, it made me think a lot."
Kirumi walked a little closer to him, as if drawn to some unseen force in his being. "Of what, Ryoma?" she asked softly.
Ryoma pulled his beanie over his eyes. He remained so quiet for a few seconds that it appeared like he had lost his nerve. Kirumi tensed a little, taking note of the reluctance and even embarrassment in his countenance.
". . . Nothing, never mind," Ryoma replied at last, his eyes downcast. "Some other time, maybe."
After a brief pause, Kirumi nodded and looked away, having no desire to prod any further and make Ryoma feel more uncomfortable than he already did. Still, she found herself wondering what exactly it was that he wanted to say—and why she felt somewhat disappointed at being unable to hear it.
At the junction where the dormitories branched out into their respective areas, the two of them turned to each other. "I have to go now," Kirumi told him. "I do hope you're okay, Ryoma. As busy and . . . bizarre as this day was, I'm glad to have spent a bit more time with you tonight."
"No problem. I'm glad that I got to talk to you as well," said Ryoma. "Are you free tomorrow for the gym, or do you have some work to take care of again?"
"That depends on whether more students will look for me to assist them in their activities," Kirumi replied, "but I'll do my best to make time for you, as always."
"Thanks for that, I appreciate it." Ryoma shifted where he stood, his breath hissing faintly through his nose as he sighed. "Also, I still owe you that story about Isabella."
"All in good time, Ryoma," said Kirumi. "We'll have plenty more opportunities to continue with that. I look forward to it all the same."
Ryoma nodded. "Alright. Anyway, just . . . just take care of yourself, okay? I'll see you tomorrow in class."
Kirumi smiled, wishing that she could stay just a little while longer. "You too, Ryoma. Good night."
Thirty minutes later, as she finished taking her nightly bath and getting dressed for sleep, Kirumi settled down at last in her bed and looked through her laptop once again. She had concluded the day's events by researching about Genocide Jack, intending to refresh her memory about the name. Her efforts led her to various news articles that she and the rest of the country had seen before: a series of gruesome murders linked to Genocide Jack that had cropped up all across Japan over the span of the past couple of years before mysteriously stopping altogether. All the victims were handsome teenage boys, and all of them had been found stabbed to death and crucified with scissors on walls, with the words "Bloodlust" written in their own blood beside them. When looking through the grisly details of each case, it was difficult to fathom the fact that the unconventional and apprehensive Toko Fukawa had a split personality that was capable of committing such crimes.
As she skimmed through the list of articles, Kirumi recalled how one of her former employers, a prestigious businessman in Osaka, had confided in her about the killings when they gained traction on the news. "Horrible business, these murders," she remembered him telling her. "Evil, sadistic bastards getting a kick out of killing other people. Whoever's doing this needs a life sentence and the capital punishment ten times over. That's all they deserve."
Being a mere maid at the time, Kirumi did not see the point in debating with her employer's sentiments, and simply carried on with her duties. But after her encounters with Ryoma and now Genocide Jack, she saw what kind of real humanity often lay beneath the so-called "evil, sadistic bastards" that rocked the country with their harrowing wrongdoings. Whether it involved those who became the byproducts of unfortunate circumstances like Ryoma or those with possible mental disorders like Toko, it was plain to see that mere evilness was not the sole catalyst in their crimes.
Driven by her thoughts, Kirumi opened a new tab and started a fresh search. The results that came out spoke for themselves; apart from scant articles detailing Ryoma's young but storied career as a tennis player, most of the pieces she saw spoke of the same thing.
"'FORMER TENNIS ACE NOW SUSPECT IN BLOODY SHIKOKU MASSACRE"
"COURT EYES DEATH ROW SENTENCE FOR RYOMA HOSHI"
"KILLER TENNIS – EX-CHAMPION NABBED FOR MASS SLAYING"
For someone who knew Ryoma in a very different light, the headlines weighed heavily on Kirumi's heart, though she could not imagine how traumatic and cumbrous they had to be for the Ultimate Tennis Pro himself. Nevertheless, along with the dreariness came a healthy measure of undaunted resolve. I've still got a ways to go, Ryoma had told her, and Kirumi was more willing than ever to help him get there.
A/N: I live once more! And first off, I'm really, really sorry for the longer delay. I was actually on a roll with my chapters until I fell sick with the flu. Thankfully, after a few days' worth of bedrest and taking meds, I managed to recover quickly enough. It took me a couple more days to mentally get back in the groove, hence the extended delay. Once again, I apologize if I kept you waiting again :(
I'm already planning the next chapter out so that I'll be able to make enough of a headway into it in case it gets delayed. Some work-related stuff is gonna be happening soon and I might end up being busy again, so I wanna make sure I create enough progress to make things easier for the next chapter upload. For now, I hope this chapter delivers a nice read for you all.
As always, stay safe, and happy reading!