7. Out with a Bang
Torako froze. Tomo's eyes widened as her arms slackened. Her mouth opened and a whimper escaped. "To . . . run . . . Tora . . . ko . . ."
Her vision went red. Forgetting the pain in her head, the pain in her hand, and the pain in her shoulder, with an animal scream Torako lunged forward and grabbed the second masked figure by their brown hair before slamming their face into the kitchen counter.
"Why?!" Kagura demanded as she slammed her fist into Kaorin's face again. "Why would you do this to us?!"
She paused. Kaorin wasn't looking at her. Kagura turned her head and saw Sakaki in the doorway, staring down at them with horror in her eyes. Eventually her mouth worked. "Kaorin . . . you?"
Fresh tears welled up in Kaorin's eyes. "I just . . ." she said through bloody lips, "I only wanted you . . . to myself . . ."
"So we all had to die?!" Kagura shouted and shook her. Kaorin's arm swung up and the chair leg in her hand cracked against the side of Kagura's skull. As she swore and grabbed her head Kaorin scrambled away and staggered to the balcony, hand over her bleeding side.
Torako picked her sister up off the floor. "Tomo, get up. You're gonna be okay, but we need to go."
"It hurts," Tomo said between sobs. Her hands shook as they tried and failed to stop the flow of crimson from her side.
Torako started pulling her to the door. "I know, but we need to move now. You're going to be okay, I promise."
"It's Chihiro," Tomo said then.
"What?"
"Chihiro," she said again and pointed at the brown-haired girl picking herself up dazedly from the kitchen floor.
Torako picked up the pace. It wasn't easy to move someone when they refused to use their legs. Tomo always picked the most inopportune moments to be a drama queen. "Yeah, that's great. You have to help me here." Then she screamed and fell to the floor as Chihiro drove the knife into the back of her leg. Torako pushed Tomo towards the door as she rolled over to see Chihiro (whoever that was) starting to crawl up her body with vengeance in her eyes. She looked towards Sakaki as she came back from getting Kagura outside. "Get Tomo out of here!" she shouted as she looked frantically for something, anything, to use as a weapon. She was reaching for a pointy piece of broken wood as Chihiro's knife was pounded down into her stomach.
Torako screamed and bent double. She heard Tomo screaming her name, and forced herself not to succumb to the pain. Clenching the piece of wood in her hand, she swung it like a hammer into the side of Chihiro's neck, punching straight through the other side. As the smaller girl grabbed at her throat and began gurgling and coughing blood, she kicked her away and crawled back away from her.
Kaorin coughed blood onto the floor of the balcony and moaned. How had everything gone so wrong? She wiped at her face and sobbed, showing red-stained teeth. All she'd wanted was the others out of the way. Then she'd have Chihiro stab her a couple times, tie her up, and leave her somewhere for the cops to find. She would recover, and as the only two survivors she and Sakaki would share a new bond that she could build on to achieve something greater.
All that was gone now. That fucking blacklunged bulldyke lesbian bitch had ruined everything by having the gall to not die. No, it was Chihiro's fault, for not making sure. She should have known her friend wouldn't be up to this. Still, she could have salvaged the situation. She would have had to do some quick thinking, but she could have ironed everything out. But then Sakaki had seen her. Oh god, that look in her eyes. They could never be together now.
She checked her watch. Just as well then, that the timer would be running out any second now. She could only hope Sakaki was outside the house.
Torako was picking herself up off the floor and taking a limping step toward the door when the bombs attached to the struts holding the beach house on the cliff exploded. She managed only a surprised grunt as the entire house shook and a blast of flame and shredded wood knocked her flying, landing just a few feet from the doorway. _What was that?_ she thought in a daze, and then the house shuddered and groaned. The sound of splintering timbers filled the air as the house began to collapse over the side of the cliff, and Torako felt the floor tilting underneath her. She raised her head and fear brought her back to her senses as she saw the ocean appear as a huge chunk of the house fell away with a crash. Forgetting the pain of her wounds, she began scuttling backwards for the door as she heard the rest of the place getting ready to collapse.
She was nearly there when a support beam came crashing down straight through her right leg, shattering bone and pulping flesh. Torako threw her head back and howled in agony as she felt someone grab her under the arms and yank her backwards. She felt her ruined leg tear away from her body as Sakaki dragged her outside, and she finally lost consciousness.
Outside by the cars, Sakaki tied the makeshift tourniquet tight around Torako's thigh and hoped that it would suffice. She looked to Tomo and Kagura then; they were both bloody and close to catatonic, but alive. She heard sirens in the distance, and prayed they would make it in time. Then she let the full weight of everything that had just happened come crashing down on her, and she fell to her knees and began crying.
**The End (finally).**
End file.
