DISCLAIMER: I OWN NOTHING EXCEPT A PART OF THE PLOT!
Chapter 8 – DEEP ABYSS VS. A GLINT OF HOPE
The next day, at school, in the detention room…
"Let us out! You got the wrong person, you idiots!" Axel yelled with all his might, banging his fists on the door. I said, "You know, no one's going to save you even if you keep doing that." Demyx said out loud from a corner, "No one? Is 'no one' here?" OK… bad joke… especially at a time like this…
Roxas looked up from the floor and said, "Give it a break, we don't know how long Zexion had been in the Disciplinary Room…" Since half an hour ago, the four of us had been quarantined in the detention room, while Zexion was summoned to see Mr. Saïx. It was all Fayra's fault! Had she not sided with that scumbag, we would not be in this predicament.
Suddenly, the door was opened, revealing Naminé and Kairi. "What did you all do? Why were you guys quarantined here?" Kairi asked. I grumbled, "Well, all we did were trying to capture an immoral scumbag and to save a spoiled brat who apparently did not deserve to be rescued." I could feel the sarcasm dripping off my every word, but I could not help it. We told the girls everything. Naminé frowned and said, "What's the meaning of this? Obviously, it was her fault!"
"Um, excuse me…" All of us gazed towards the door, only to see Ven. "Um, the director and Mr. Saïx wanted to see you guys. It doesn't look good." Everyone could tell that by observing his wan expression.
"Don't be afraid! Because you guys were not guilty!" Kairi patted Demyx's shoulders to lighten up the tense atmosphere. Yeah, why should we be afraid? There would be nothing they could do to us if we were innocent! We must not be afraid! "Organisation XIII! No matter what happens, even if the world comes down, do not surrender to evil forces! WE have to hold our ground!" I said to them.
How naïve I had been. The evil force had a backing. A VERY strong backing!
The director sat on her office chair, her sharp eyes scanned every living being before her. On her right stood a very stern-looking Mr. Saïx; Kairi, Naminé and Ven were on her left. The only person standing close to the director was Fayra Joann, the person whose butt I wanted to kick so hard the most. The cool air emitted from the air-conditioner flowed slowly in the room, but the atmosphere was slowly heating up…
"So, you're the ones who injured Mr. XXX?" The director said first. Fayra pouted and complained as usual, "Director! It's them; Axel, Demyx and Nemixiljix! You're all finished!"
I immediately defended my pals and myself, "Director, it was that 'teacher' who wanted to sexually harass Fayra at that time, we had no choice but to barge in. Axel wanted to immobilise his hands, therefore he threw the remote control at him." "Oh really? What about Demyx Oceanus?" "That was the most baffling of all, Demyx merely grabbed his hands, then the hands themselves just let out a cracking noise, and he himself flew and crashed into the wall. Demyx never exerted any force to make him do that; he had never had any martial arts training either!"
The director retorted, "Are you saying that Mr. XXX himself intentionally crashed into the wall and gave himself a mild concussion?" Of course! He wanted to appear as innocent. "His intention was to play the victim and avoid blame," Zexion finally said something. "I did not ask you to voice your opinion, did I? Zexion Illusione!" She shot her words at him.
"Director! I saw that man trying to molest Fayra Joann, with my own eyes!" Roxas backed Zexion up. "It doesn't count even if you saw it! Did you take any pictures? Any pictures of the scene described?" Being the aggressive one, the director denied every single thing we threw out. "… No…" Roxas was stunned for a few seconds and he muttered under his breath hatefully, lowering his head to gaze at the floor. Axel tried to suppress his anger and said, "I have one more thing to say." "You? And what would it be?" The director glared at Axel and asked. "Fayra made up rumours to frame Zexion!"
"She posted this picture… And then… After that… Like this… That's how." Axel pointed out every single detail confidently. He even told them about the condoms I found in that kook's bag. Great…
"Aha! How dare you ransack a teacher's bag without permission?!" Fayra jumped and accused me. Roxas then countered, "I have the evidences stored in my laptop! I'll go-" Fayra sauntered over to us and pushed Roxas aside. She snickered evilly, "I'm SO sorry, Roxas Lychnus. Your laptop has been suspected to contain a Trojan virus. In order to prevent cyberattacks on the school, your laptop has been confiscated for formatting!" Roxas' expression turned into a shock and horror one and he yelled, "What?!" No way! Roxas would never do such a thing. If anything, he would be the one to prevent any cyberattacks! She was one step ahead of us and got rid of any evidences in his laptop. How dare you, Fayra…
"Fayra Joann! Who's the interrogator now?!" I could no longer take this. I would have exploded if I did not let it out! "Yeah! You or the director?!" Axel was furious too. "SILENCE!" The director slammed her palm onto the table and commanded.
"Oh, almost forgot. You had my purse with you this whole time, why didn't you return it to me? You were going to steal it, Zexion Illusione!" Fayra used our evidence against us. I defended Zexion who was furious but speechless by retaliating, "You also brought contrabands to school! According to the latest renewed version of the school rules, bringing perfumes to school will cost you two to four marks of demerit, along with confiscation of said item!"
Zexion, who was standing beside me, tugged on my sleeve and whispered, "But physical confrontation against the principal or teachers will cost us seventy-two marks of demerit as well… do not delve too deep into it…" I whispered back, "Just a minute…" And then I continued, "Director, Fayra Joann did not only bring contrabands, but also brought more than forty Malaysian Ringgits to school, which went against-"
BAM! The director banged her fist on the table again. "Enough! No matter what you all said, you all had committed intentional wounding and more. Although the police said nothing about this, we do have school rules to uphold. I hereby order the disbandment of Counter Crime Group 13! The punishments will be listed and posted in the school foyer. You are all dismissed!" The director boomed.
Disbandment…?! There were worse things to come…
Thirty minutes before the afternoon session was due to start the next day, the foyer notice board was bombarded with many people. I stood very far away, but I could see what was on the board very clearly. The latest notice was as follows:
To: All teachers and students,
Starting on Xth XX month 20XX, Counter Crime Group 13 is officially disbanded. The members had committed the following crime:
1) XXX, 08XXX, instigated the members to commit crimes;
2) XXX, 08XXX, exploited privacy of others;
3) XXX, 08XXX, vandalism, theft, ransacked a teacher's possession without permission;
4) XXX, 08XXX, injured the victim's hands on purpose;
5) XXX, 08XXX, intentionally wounded and caused concussion to the victim.
After the meeting of the Board of Directors, it is decided that the aforementioned students had brought serious disgrace to the school, therefore they are to be expelled from the school starting on XXth November 20XX (A day before the end-of-year school holidays).
Yours truly,
Xemnas Inritum
Principal of Kingdom Hearts High School.
I seriously could not mention our names here… This was not fair! Expulsion?! Bullshit!
I ran to the Activity Room immediately and locked myself inside there once I shut the door. I was all alone in the empty room. I wanted to cry, but nothing came out. I could only feel fury and indignation instead of sadness. Just then, a voice came from outside the door, "Hey! Idiot! I know you are in there! You don't have to come out, but I should warn you. If you dare to mess with me and my business again, your mother can pack her stuff and get lost forever!" It was Fayra. After she finished her words, everything went silent once again. She must have left.
… No, get a grip. I had to stay calm. If my mum, a teacher in Kingdom Hearts Elementary School, was fired, even if my dad had a high monthly income, once he retired three years later, cash would stop flowing in, what should we do? Now, my younger brother was only in 6th Grade, I was only in 8th Grade, what could I do? Keep your cool… Something cold was on my cheeks. I brought my finger to my face and I felt a wet sensation. The tears flowed slowly…
Dad… Mum… I was useless… Sorry…
You simply could not imagine how we endured everything in the following days. We had to put up with each and every unfair treatment and misunderstanding at school, yet at home, we had to pretend like nothing happened at all! Goddamn Fayra Joann! Would she be satisfied if I finally died of shock from doing all the cleaning duty? Each time I finished sweeping the floor and went for the blackboard, the floor would be full of sweet wrappers later. After I got rid of them, more scribbling and doodling appeared on the blackboard instead; full of insults and sadistic comments! Was she going to declare to the world about our predicament or what?!
We finally got over the third test, in which my results were just normal; not the best but could be worse, then came the year-end exam. This could be the last exam ever in my life, ugh… Let us strive one last time then… Although Organisation XIII was disbanded, we fully made use of the gadgets we used during missions for group study before they were confiscated by the school.
Even after the gadget confiscation, we would still meet up, whether it was talking about crap, studying, revising… Finally, the exam came, I put my heart and soul into every paper I wrote, giving my all, I even bothered revising the two subjects I detested the most, namely Moral Education (all the nonsense memorising without using your brain) and Arts (nothing about theory, but to create a piece of art within two and a half hours, which was aggravating) for three times! Holy Bananas… After I handed in the last paper, (Civic and Citizenship Education, weird one, huh?), I lay my head on my desk, suppressing the surfacing tears. Maybe I would not even get to see my report card… So what if I got into K3B? Like that would prove anything…
My other classmates were so happy that the ordeal had finally ended they practically flew out of the classroom for recess, I guessed no one was in the room right now. Only then I slowly got up and headed to the back of the classroom. I was so exhausted; maybe I burnt the midnight oil too much. Suddenly, I heard footsteps, so I turned to the direction of the sound- not that b**** Fayra again!
"Hey, loser! How's the test? Hope you didn't flunk it," she taunted.
"There were many general knowledge questions, one of my strong points, so… not bad, I guess."
"Pfft! Don't forget about our bet…"
"I'm not that forgetful! It's just that I-"
"Oh right~ I almost forgot that you are going to get kicked out of school soon…" She literally looked down on me as if she was the best of all.
"…" What was she, taunting me?! My breathing rate increased.
"Let me tell you; he and I are going for an outing, how nice of him."
"I did mention that he was trying to sexually harass you, didn't I?"
"That's your baseless accusation! Oh, one more thing."
"Ugh, what?"
"Your three friends, Kairi Aecor, Naminé Fluctus and Ventus Lychnus have been suspended from their duties. Perhaps they would share your fate the next semester when school reopens… Haha!"
I was beyond infuriated. "You despicable being! What did they do?!"
"They tried to steal the confiscated gadgets for you all, but they were caught in the act! Hahaha…!"
My breathing sped up. "You…!"
I could not resist the urge anymore. I wanted to beat her up. I raised my fist and was just about to punch her in the face, suddenly I was seeing stars, and the world seemed to spin rapidly around me. I fell onto my knees. I was so dizzy… And I could feel my veins pulsing in my head, like when I had mild migraines. Crap, it was happening again!
To suppress the headache and dizziness, I pressed both of my hands on both sides of my head and I bent over a bit. Slowly, my consciousness was fading away. I only got the chance to spit out a few words, "Fayra… You… won't … get away… with… this!" The relapse took over me real fast, the headaches washed over me like waves, one after another, I was at my limit. I let out a strangled scream and I fell forward from my current kneeling position and hit the floor. Both of my hands were paralysed and I could not even move a finger.
About three seconds before I fell into oblivion, I heard she said, "Wow, she really fell, so it's true!" After that, I remembered nothing…
… What the heck is this place…
… Aurorae surrounded me, I was in, um, a cage… Soon, a flash of blinding light shined through, I could not open my eyes. Later… The venue changed, although I was still in the cage as before, the aurorae outside had transformed into a random room in a random mansion. What the…
What really was fishy here was that the tables, chairs, fireplace, curtains and the doors were awfully huge… Wait, that was wrong. "Where in the world is this place?" I mumbled to myself, pacing back and forth in the cage while crossing my arms in front of my chest… This did not make any sense. Looking at the rug outside, its fine wools were as the same height as me. How could fine wools on a rug be 163 cm long?! Even the dew drop hanging on the side of a bowl was bigger than my head! I realised something and I clutched onto the metal bars of the cage and yelled, "WHY WAS I SO SMALL?!"
Just then, the door was opened. I looked up and- HOLY BANANAS! BARACK OBAMA?! (P.S. I am neutral about Obama. However this was a part of a dream in my sleep about some years ago) Wait, I was in the White House? What the heck?
He said, "Now, what have we got here? Hmm, the cage is moving? A mouse, perhaps." He picked up the cage. The cage started swaying from side to side, I was swayed as well. I could hardly maintain my balance, suddenly the cage tilted sixty degrees. His enormous face loomed over the cage door. I fell onto my back and hit my back on the cage wall. The wall was about thirty steps (for my mini feet) from the cage door, I practically glued myself onto the cage wall. Crap, what was he going to do?
The cage door was opened, he looked in and commented, "OK, now- oh? You look weird to be a mouse." I shouted, "A MOUSE?!" Excuse me, what did you assume I was? "What?! A talking mouse? Guards, take it away!"
UH-OH… Not yet! I jumped out and landed on his face and started hitting and kicking in all directions. Take left! Take right! One more flying kick-
BAM!
Why did this noise sound so surreal? But my surroundings became too bright for me to see. When I could finally reopen my eyes, I was shocked once again; Axel had his face planted onto the floor with his back facing me, both of his arms were supported by Zexion and Roxas, Demyx peeked timidly from behind a large-sized first-aid cabinet. What the crap?
Looking at myself, I had my school uniform on, and I had a carbon dioxide supply mask on my face. Oh, yes, I had a relapse and I lost consciousness. But, the standing-on-one foot-with-my-arms-extended-on-both-sides pose I was posing at the moment was… awkward…
"Calm down! What mouse? You started hitting random people again! See? Even Axel flew to the floor from the kick," said Roxas. Haha! I guessed Obama himself would never have seen a talking mouse in a school uniform in his whole life!
Axel got up and groaned, "What the hell 207? Even I have a nose bleed now…" Oh my god, blood seeped from both of his nostrils…
"*Sigh* The whole thing was…" I droned on and on for about five minutes, and then they knew the whole story. Demyx asked, "Then what's up with your illness? What was it?"
[CUT! Authoress: Sorry for interrupting! I am going to take over Nemix's part again! Actually it was not anything too serious, but under anxiety, extreme pressure or overexcitement, breathing rate would increase very quickly, and most of the carbon dioxide in the blood would be expelled, resulting in something like spasm P.S. The thumb would curl towards the palm, it hurt like hell when pulled out. Soon, dizziness and cramp would kick in (even crying too much was a trigger). Thank you for not kicking me out all this while, and bye! Back to normal]
"So that was why we had to use carbon dioxide tank…" Zexion mused thoughtfully. "But since you are able to hit Axel, that means you're OK now," Roxas said.
I told them, "Kairi, Naminé and Ven were being suspended from their duties. It's because of us…" I slowly settled down back on the bed, sitting upright. Zexion commented, "Not only them, even some of our classmates voiced their pleas and opinions to the director, and they were threatened to shut up about it or else they would share the same fate." "Yeah, since Sora and Riku led the protests, they were the ones who faced the most serious threats," Demyx lamented, sighing at the end. He was always in high spirits, and now here he was, sighing in defeat.
Ugh, who the heck did that so-called director think she was? I would rather call her the Devilish Director! "That Devilish Director… Why wasn't she kicked out already…" I muttered and blew at my bangs. What did we do to deserve this? That devil spoiled her niece, always defended her from any accusations, even if Fayra was to be blamed! That was just…!
After having enough rest, school was dismissed. When I got home, I locked myself in my room. After finishing what needed to be done for the day, I was so tired, so I went to sleep early…
A few days passed, and today was the last day of school. Everyone was happily chatting about their holiday plans, only the five of us sat there, without a sound. This was the last, and I meant the last day of school for me. I observed my surroundings, trying to memorise everything my eyes captured. The classmates… especially Rita, my best new friend of the year. She helped me a lot without demanding anything in return. I really wanted to thank her so much, but I would not have been able to hold back the damned tears. I really cherished her as a good friend, but, we might never meet each other again.
Sufferance… and more sufferance… Time flew really fast, especially the time you wanted to grasp and cherish the most, it flew without looking back at you. What I could only do now was to wait for the ruthless school bell to scream its victory.
3… 2… 1…
"KRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNGG!"
Ah, those that must leave still had to leave in the end after all. I pulled up my not-so-heavy bag and took some reluctant steps towards the awaiting door. One step after another and the heavy feeling in my heart increased. Now I stood still, turned around and stared at the signboard on the wall: K2D. The more the memories that flashed before my eyes, the more sadness I felt. Closing my eyes, I let out a deep breath… And I walked away.
Farewell, K2D…
See you soon. No, I would not be able to see you again…
Just then, the five of us coincidentally met at a junction. Because the boys usually left a bit earlier for duty, so normally we would meet up with each other there every day. I did not know what to say… "… Let's walk together?" Demyx broke the ice first. No response came, so we took that as a "yes" (By the way, if you happened to be listening to Aqua's Theme from Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep right now, it fitted the mood and setting very well… I own nothing of that game). We walked ever so slowly. Like fast-forwarding a movie, all of the memories flashed in my mind. How we met, trained together, had lessons in the same class, played with each other, fooled around, went on missions, caught criminals, joked, studied together, rambled about how we were going to fail that particular test, overjoyed when one of us succeeded in doing anything… Too many memories… And it hurt… so much.
Without realising, we had reached the school gate. Once we got out, we would never come back, let alone see each other. It seemed like we had a tacit understanding among us; we stopped at the same time. Only the breeze was rustling softly. Some leaves were floating in the sunset sky. The scenery was beautiful as ever, but we had no comments on it. Ha, what a waste… Indignation and anguish were the only things that existed, along with sadness.
"Honestly, thank you all very much, it has been an honour to work with you all," I made my move before the irritating tears flowed out victoriously. It did not feel good at all, I tried suppressing them. "… I had prepared the necessary documents to transfer to another school next year…" Zexion took a breath and said quietly. He sounded like he was choking due to the lump in his throat, but he would never let that show. Roxas said, "If conditions approve, I would migrate to the United States… I don't think I would come back…" Demyx forced a smile while saying, "Well, I would apply for a student visa to Australia, maybe… *sigh* we won't meet again." His smile looked even worse than crying.
Axel cleared his throat with some difficulty. He would never let that weak side of his exposed to us. He still put on that indifferent attitude, even though he might have wanted to cry so hard. Yeah, I knew how that felt. He said, "I… I-" At that moment!
"HEY! YOU GUYS! WAIT UP! DON'T LEAVE JUST YET!"
"ORGANISATION XIII! STOP!"
We turned around at the same time, at our back were Kairi and Naminé. "You guys?!" I yelled. When the girls reached us, they were totally out of breath. They looked like they were about to pass out at any moment. What happened?
"Kairi, Naminé, you were here to… see us off?" Zexion asked. "… No… Of course not…!" Kairi bent down and rested her hands on her knees due to exhaustion. Naminé answered for her, "We… successfully… got your… gadgets… back! Here…"
Demyx took a rather large bag from Naminé, but he was very confused, so he asked, "Why…?" Kairi had regained her breath and explained, "We bought some cheap counterfeit to replace the real gadgets. That's how we successfully smuggled them out! Hope Ven is not discovered when replacing them!"
"Also! You all won't be suspended anymore!" Naminé said with agitation and excitement.
"WHAT?! WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?!" some of us exclaimed.
"It's true! It's because… Argh! Do you guys remember there was a letter about a planned student exchange programme received back in May, where they wanted some students from our school to go to Japan?" Naminé impatiently said. All of us nodded our heads. "OK, back then, they wanted us to nominate some candidates, so we nominated the five of you! And it worked!" Naminé was feeling very triumphed about this, but the five of us still could not understand what she just said. Demyx blinked his eyes twice and then asked, "… What's the connection?"
Kairi continued, "Terms and conditions stipulated that successful candidates will be considered as students of that Japanese school, so what Devilish Director did, aka the expulsion, was useless! She literally just 'helped' you guys to cancel off one of your double school enrolment! Haha…" "Ever since you guys got into trouble, we had been trying to intercept the letter from Japan before the school did, and we just received a while ago. We wasted a lot of time on translation, that's why we delayed until now," Naminé said, taking out the envelope and passing it to Roxas.
"The candidates nominated were successfully chosen and the final judgment was made in 30th June… That was before we got into the whole mess with the karaoke centre!" Roxas read out the letter, looked up and screamed out of surprise, but more of joy. That was totally, absolutely, seriously UNBELIEVABLE! OH MY GOD!
"Mum! Dad! I did it!" I was so overjoyed that I jumped and cheered. I threw my bag high into the air. "Thump!" It dropped onto the floor? IDGAF! "It's like we won the top prize of the lottery!" Roxas shouted. Demyx hugged Kairi and Naminé so hard and screamed, "OH MY GOSH! WE WON'T BE SUSPENDED ANYMORE! YES!" They almost suffocated… Zexion witnessed us going into crazy mode, but he himself was not any better than us. He let out an uncharacteristic and somewhat maniacal laughter and said, "Fantastic! Thank the heavens!" [The crew: Zexion, what happened to you?]
"HEY! GUYS!"
… Axel? All of us shut up and looked at where he was, only to find a rather large swelling on his head, like a bun. He huffed angrily, "I'm still alive, man! You guys only cared about yourselves and ignored me?! And you! 207! Your bag again… It's not the first time your bag hit me!" … Oops, I got too carried away…
"Alright, alright, I apologise. 对不起, sorry, minta maaf, すみません, lo siento, mi dispiace, désolée, entschuldigung, beklager-"
"Stop! English is just fine! 'Cause I seriously don't understand everything after that 'sue me five cent' or whatever…"
"You guys done yet? Anyways, all of us escaped from hell today, pizza, anyone? My treat!" Kairi, who was the wealthiest among us suggested. "Finally, no more sentimental crap," Axel muttered. "Hello! Wait for meee!" Who was that? Hey, it was Ven! "Exactly eight people… Prosperity number 8! Let's go and eat all you can!" I said. "HURRAY!"
~ CHAPTER 8 FIN ~
TO BE CONTINUED
Here is the eighth one… Whew! Finally did it! Now that the exam is finally over, I will try my very best to upload as much as I can. You can rate or comment if you want. Thanks for reading this! Bye and stay tuned!