04 : Scare
By: Kokoro Kakera HP
Disclaimer: Yugiou, (Manga, anime, products, etc.), belongs to Kazuki Takahashi
Author's Notes:
And the plot thickens...
"I'd say it's too late to worry about that." The three froze at the sound of a stern, icy voice coming from the door. Jounouchi and Honda spun around, pulling from Anzu quickly.
"Shii-"
"Shut up! We're in enough trouble!" Honda yelped, elbowing Jounouchi hard.
"That's an understatement..." Anzu said weakly, trying not to cringe under Tayu-sensei's terrifying death glare.
Detention for the eleventh graders had been stationed in room 3B that day.
The teacher in charge of watching the students had gone out for a while to get something to eat and some of the kids were taking advantage of this.
"Haha, you got caught too!" Jounouchi laughed seemingly randomly and pointed at Kaiba, who snarled back at him.
"It's not my fault the teachers are so worried about getting sued for letting me go without being checked up."
"Not that I totally blame them. Their paychecks ARE pretty pathetic." Honda commented.
"Honda!" Anzu chided him. "That's mean!"
"What? It's true!"
"Man...this is pretty sad..." Jounouchi murmured. "I just noticed right now, but practically the whole group is stuck in detention. All we need is Yugi to join us, but the chances of THAT happening are pretty slim."
"Yugi is pretty well behaved..." Anzu found her concentration waning as the sick feeling that she was being watched returned. She spun around in her desk, thankful for the fact that the teacher had gone out for a little while, to get a good look at whom else was in the room.
'Jounouchi... Honda... Kaiba... Yujo... Ari... and Nato.' She shrunk a little within her seat. 'Nato... is always around when something strange happens. But I saw someone on the roof while he was talking with Kaiba, so he couldn't be the one...' He wasn't even looking at her at the moment anyway. She turned back to face the board and tried to ignore the urge to scream that was slowly building up within her chest. It was like trying to keep the stopper on a boiling kettle from bursting off.
"So what do you want to do later?" Jounouchi asked Honda and Anzu casually.
'No one is watching me. There's nothing to be afraid of.'
"Eh, wanna just hang out?" Honda stretched in his stiff, wooden chair. "Got nothing important to do."
'Nobody here is after me... I'm going to be perfectly fine.' She tried to keep her breaths even.
Sweating, Anzu tried to sound normal as she retorted with much difficulty, "Homework Honda! We got so much assigned to us today!"
"And I say again, nothing really important."
Anzu shut her eyes when another wave of fear overtook her. 'No one... is watching me. I'm not in any danger... I'm not-'
But someone else is
'Shit! How could I forget!?' Gasping, she stood up abruptly in her seat, startling everyone in the room. "Tell Tayu-sensei I'll be back!" She briskly strode to the door.
"What!? Anzu!" Jounouchi yelped. "Do you know how much trouble you'll be in if she comes back and sees you're not here!?"
"Tell her it was urgent!" She pushed the door open and dashed out before anymore was said.
'Yugi!'
"I've got to get to him." She murmured. Someone had already tried to kill Kaiba, which told her that this person was dead serious about his threats. She was terrified, but for Yugi's sake, she had to be strong. Perhaps she'd finally see who was behind everything.
"Yugi." Anzu whispered. "Please be okay."
She was so distracted by her thoughts that she didn't see the hands come out of the classroom she'd just passed. They snatched her around the waist and held her flailing arms to her sides. 'Too strong-!' Anzu screamed for all she was worth and kept thrashing, even if it was in vain, as she was dragged into a classroom.
A blindfold was forced around her eyes, just before she was slammed into a wall.
It happened so quickly.
"NO! Sto-" She couldn't finish as a hot mouth slammed over hers, sucking, while hands desperately roved over her-
'NO!'
"Let go!" Anzu screamed. She lashed out at her captor, desperately trying to get free. Her nails caught the side of her assailant's face and immediately, the hands holding her so tightly, jerked back, releasing her. Anzu shoved the body away from her and burst from the room, running as fast as her legs could carry her. Her hands fumbled at the blindfold around her eyes and ripped it off. She couldn't let go of the fabric - a vivid reminder of what had just transpired - fast enough.
'Help me!' Her mind, still blurred in a hurricane-like rush of panic, told her that someone was still trying to catch her. Tears streamed from her eyes as she ran, streaking in horizontal lines from her eyes across the side of her face.
She shrieked when she ran into something blocking her path to freedom and struggled furiously against the hands that'd come up and grabbed her arms.
"Snap out of it!" A cold voice snarled. She froze and slowly looked up, half in shock.
"K-kaiba..." She whispered, relief flooding into her hyper-tensed body. "It's only Kaiba..."
He let go of her, seeing that she was in her right mind again and frowned at her disheveled appearance. Anzu, who was most of the time neat-looking, with her hair nicely done and clothes straight, looked like a car wreck. Her hair was mess up and all over the place, her clothes were wrinkled badly and had a rip down one of the pink sleeves of her jacket and tearstains were visible on her face. The only other things he noticed were her bruised lips.
The news that detention had been cut short because Tayu-sensei had been caught up in some urgent business, could wait.
Anzu whimpered, before she shocked the living daylights out of Kaiba by stepping forward and wrapping her arms around his middle tightly. She sobbed without restraint into his chest.
Kaiba, feeling awkward and annoyed at the same time, grabbed her by the arms and pushed her back away from him reflexively. "What happened to you?" He demanded, harshness mostly gone from his voice. There wasn't any warmth in it either though.
Thinking of her ordeal only served to make her feel worse. Anzu fell to her knees, holding herself and cried piteously. Only after what seemed like quite a long time, her sobs began to ebb away and sniffling, she unsuccessfully tried to dry all of her tears. There were just too many of them and she'd already soaked her jacket.
"If there's something about you that I can count on, it's the fact that you're too damn inefficient in everything you do." Anzu's eyes widened when she saw the blue handkerchief before her face. Holding it, was Kaiba's hand extended down towards her. Hesitantly, she took it, staring at the cloth like it was a foreign object she'd never seen in her life.
"Y-you-" She stuttered, unable to believe or understand what she was seeing. 'He's still here.' She hiccupped and as if taking it as a cue, furiously began to rub her face. When she was done, she shakily got back to her feet and held the crumpled cloth out to Kaiba. "Thanks." She whispered.
He raised an eyebrow as he eyed the damp handkerchief and looked back at Anzu speculatively. "Keep it. I don't want it anymore."
"Sorry." She said quietly, ignoring the insult she'd been dealt.
The two remained where they were, as if frozen in the middle of the eerily quiet, white hallway.
"Why are you still here?" She had expected him to leave after the 'sorry.' She'd expected him to leave long before that too.
"What happened to you?" He didn't care much for her, but even he couldn't ignore someone who looked as though they'd just been attacked. He also felt obligated to return the favor she'd done him earlier, even if she'd already asked for something in return. For him, it had been too trivial a repayment on his part.
'Someone tried to...' She shut her eyes and looked away, folding her arms tightly around herself again. "Nothing." She said softly, tearing up again in remembrance. She took a step back. She'd already jeopardized his life once. Building up the last pieces of her waning energy, she took a deep breath and glared at him. "It's none of your business anyway!"
"Stop acting like a brat." He grabbed her wrist and ignored her stuttered protests as he pulled her along with him.
"K-kaiba! What are you-?"
"Any idiot can see that you've been attacked. I'm taking you to a doctor."
"I don't want to go!"
"That really doesn't matter."
"Kaiba! St- Tayu-sensei!" She gasped. Kaiba immediately let her go, knowing how bad he'd look to any outside observers.
There was no one behind him. His eyes widened. 'That little- She lied to me! And I fell for it!' "Mazaki!" But she'd already sprinted out of sight. Kaiba, unwilling to go on a chase, growled in disgust over the fact that he'd fallen for such a stupid trick, and left.
Around the next corner, once Anzu was completely sure Kaiba was gone, she let out a deep breath and slumped against one of the hallway walls. Try as she might though, she couldn't relax. She could feel someone nearby.
Watching her like he had for who knows how long.
Or maybe it was her attacker's blood drying on her fingernails that made her feel that way.