Elleanor and Kohaku ran from the from the school and through the trees. More accurately, Elleanor was doing most of the running. Kohaku, who still looked like a wreck, was mostly being dragged. The brunette girl stopped when she reached a small clearing about twenty minutes away. After a quick look around, she sat her friend and their bags down on the floor.

"There we go, we can use this place as our base for now. Let's see what kind of weapons we have and then we can think of a plan to meet up with any other people we can trust." Kohaku simply nodded and watched intently as Elleanor opened up her bag. She removed a small, black metallic object showing three yellow dots on a screen. Two were near the middle and one was over by the edge.

"Hey Kohaku, take a look at this weird little thing. It's the only thing I remember not on the tape so it must be my weapon. I wonder what it is." Kohaku took a few steps towards her and looked over her shoulder at the screen.

"It looks like the collar detector. The yellow dots are signals from our collars. The two in the middle must be us and the one on the side is some one else." Elle stared dumbfounded at her friend.

"That would make sense, but how do you know all this? You even predicted Minako's and Takashi's deaths, but I don't get how you would know! Your parents don't work for the government, you have no connections that I know of. Either you're psychic like Tenchi or you've been hiding a dark secret in your past, so which is it?" Kohaku sighed, Elleanor was a great friend but she had many quirks, one of them being that she truly believed Tenchi was psychic. Normally Kohaku would argue his point that Tenchi, and the third period Literature teacher were both normal, but now was not the time.

"I'll tell you. Hang on, just let me see what I got..." Elleanor watched the third dot on the radar become closer and closer. It's path took it near their makeshift camp and whoever it was would surely spot them.

"Kohaku, can you hurry up, some one's coming!"

"...No... not this... why... no... Big Brother..."

"Kohaku! What's going on!" Elleanor heard no reply from her friend so she turned around, and had to hold down a gasp of horror. Kohaku was sprawled forwards on his bag and he wasn't moving.

"No, Kohaku! Wha... what could do this.." She ran towards her friend and felt his wrist, breathing a sigh of relief when she found a faint pulse. She knew they had to leave, whoever the third dot was was bound to have heard them talking, but Kohaku's health came first. she hoisted him up under the arms and almost lost control of herself when she saw his face. He was breathing and his eyes were wide open but his face was pale and he wasn't responding to anything. Something had made him faint.

"Well well well, what have we here.." Elleanor turned around to see the speaker. It was Kiyo, an annoying and odious boy who had powerful connections through kids in the other classes. Here, he was nothing. Still, he was holing a katana and all Elle had was her tracker. Kiyo saw, and grinned with a desire for a fight. Elleanor grabbed a long stick on the ground and charged, hoping to take the fight as far away from Kohaku as possible.

The two of them fought for several minutes. Kiyo had an advantage with his sword but Elleanor was on the Kendo team and knew how to counter it reasonably well. As Kiyo cut towards her with an elegant stroke, no doubt picked up on an anime episode, Elle move quick and blocked it with her stick, hitting the blunt side of the sword so it wouldn't cut through the wood.

They entered a deadlock with each one pushing against the other. Their faces were brought close together and it took everything Elleanor had to not mime barfing in Kiyo's face. Instead, she had a plan to carry out. She shifted her weight to her back leg, lifted her front leg up slightly, and delivered a quick, sharp kick to the nuts. He doubled over in pain as Elleanor spun her stick around and whapped Kiyo's wrist, forcing him to drop his sword. Without thinking, her body picked up the sword and ran it through Kiyo's right eye. He was killed instantly.

"Darn it... what did I, how did I.." Elleanor muttered to herself as she drew out the sword and let Kiyo's body fall to the ground. She had killed. She was a murderer.

"No! It was self-defense, he would have killed us both if he had the chance. Besides, he was a horrible person who used his connections to mindless thugs in other classes to bully and extort people. I said.. I said before that if it would be legal for me to kill him, I would." Elleanor sighed, she had justified herself as much as she could but she knew that her humanity had slightly fallen inside her. But there was no way she could stay here. Others would have heard her fight with Kiyo and would come looking for the source of the noise. She checked her tracking device. Nothing so far but Kiyo's dot was the same as both hers and Kohaku's.

"It's the same if you're alive or dead, I wonder if Kohaku knew that too..." Elleanor zipped up all the bags, Kohaku's weapon was far from her mind now. She took the bread and water from Kiyo and tucked it safely in her day pack. She then slung both her and Kohaku's day bags, and their personal item bags, over her back. She made a makeshift holder for her knew sword out of a belt loop on her skirt and she made sure it was easily accessible. After double checking to see if she had everything valuable with her, she picked Kohaku up bridal style and balanced her tracker on his chest where she could easily see it. Then she set off, saying her thoughts aloud.

"Heh, I wonder how many pounds of weight I'm carrying right now. It's a good thing you're so puny Kohaku or else we might be dead. Man am I gonna be stiff tomorrow, if I live to see it... I wonder how you knew all these things.. and why you passed out. I'd like to know that, I could sure use you consious right now. What was it you said before you fainted? Something about your big brother? I know you miss him, you told me that when we met, but what does he have to do with anything now? He drowned six years ago and who knows where his body is, probably still in the ocean.. I'm sorry you were able to bury was that drop of blood from when he cut himself on the nearby rock, but that's all in the past. I thought I knew you well Kohaku, but now I realize you haven't told me the important things. I thought you had since we were close friends since we met, a pair of shy outcasts looking out for eachother. You introduced me to your friends and I took down any bully that came our way. We were always looking out for eachother. And now I find out I know nothing... Huh? What's this!"

Elleanor stopped her chain of thought as she looked at the located resting on top of Kohaku. On it's right outer edge, three yellow dots were visible.

37 students remain

--End