Chapter 26

It was unknown, how long Ayami laid on Anri Souma's dead body. From a third person view, it seemed that both of the girls were dead by now. Ayami stayed unmoving for a long time, she listened to the howling wind.

After she calmed down a bit, she got to her feet again, but first pushed Anri away from herself. It was a hard task. Ayami realized how much tired she was. She was all of a sweat and her hair was a total mess.

Ayami was staring at Souma Anri with the thought of the wound on her head. It hurts like hell.

Then she spat on the body. Quite precisely for a girl.

"See? You got exactly what you deserve, moron!" she grunted.

She could not forget the wound. She could not even touch it. It was not too big, but a deep one. And it hurts like hell!

What now? Where is the ambulance? She will bleed to death, she has no idea about first aid!

Ayami screamed and pranced with rage, her eyes were swimming with tears.

"It's all your fault!" she picked up a stone, and dashed against Anri's body."Your fucking fault, damn it!"

But she was not pleased. She kicked Anri a few times by saying out words at every kick.

"Take! That! You beast! Killing! People! Just! So! Easily!"

At last she kicked something hard, what could not have been part of Anri. A weapon maybe? Ayami stepped closer to the girl, turned her over and examined the dusty, blood-bespotted uniform.

Ayami saw something strange on the blouse. There was a clean part in the middle of the blood mark. She almost reached the blouse with her hand, when a voice sounded from somewhere behind.

"Don't you find it strange, that Souma just died?" and seemed a bit annoyed. "She almost got you, Yami, but she died instead."

Ayami knew that voice. But it came so suddenly, that it gave her a jump. She pulled her hand back and turned around to see the boy, who had just come out of the bushes. Fuyuki Shinji Egami (boys #3) came closer slowly, with determination and something it could be some kind of an evil joy on his face.

Ayami could not stand that look. Too many silence, something was not right. It was odd to compare this Fuyuki to the few-days-earlier himself. Fuyuki had always that naughty smile, he talked too much like an old woman, and what's more, he could also be romantic in private.

Yes, they were a couple. In school. Ayami had a boyfriend at home, an another in the cinema, and one in the restaurant. She used someone else as companion in town, and a sixth boy escorted her to the disco. As you use your shoes for walking and your hat against the cold, Ayami used her boyfriends only for one thing. Fuyuki was at the bottom of the list though, Ayami somehow let herself picked up by him, despite his childish attitude and lame jokes (people often laugh at him from pity), he was not capable of a serious relationship. But perfect for filling out the pauses between lessons, or against boredom in the hostel.

The point was, that Ayami thought she knew Fuyuki better than that.

As she was standing defenceless next to Souma, she started to be interested about her death circumstances. She turned Anri's body back to her stomach again, then she got a sight of the deadly wound. Souma got the blow in the middle of her back and died by a dense commando blade. The grip of the blade stuck out of the flesh like a fifth limb. Anri's long hair covered it, so it could not be seen so easily at first sight.

"Fuyuki?" Ayami hesitated. This dude totally stabbed Souma in the back. Even I didn't knew, that he's here.

"Perfect timing." Fuyuki said "Don't you think, Yami?"

She found disturbing, that Fuyuki called her Yami. Not to mention the original meaning of that word (darkness), Ayami used to suffer many insults in school. Even in her own class, the Erina-kinds hated all, who got into the 3/e later.

Fuyuki reached Souma's body and pulled the knife out of it. The movement, then the way he cleaned the blade from blood in Anri's skirt, gave Ayami the creeps. Then Fuyuki turned unto her with a wide smile. Seriously. This guy loves killing.

Ayami was shocked. From one minute into another she flew away screaming. Who cared, that the bushes hurt her skin, who cared about the wound on her head or the unending pain. These were still better as death.

Fuyuki waited a bit. He was certain, that such a plaza-filler was no match for a superb runner like he was.

Finally he started to run after the girl.

"Ayami, wait!"

He followed the rustle of the vegetation, it showed him the way, where Ayami was fleeing to. Sometimes he caught sight of a white part of the girl's uniform. A small light in the deep night.

After a while the rustling stopped. Fuyuki slowed down and listened. He could hear some sort of soft whimpering mixed with painful hissing. Then he went a few meters more, where he had found Ayami. The girl was crouching like she would have been busy with her shoes.

"Yami!"

Now he saw what happened.

"Everything's okay?"

For a very second he got frightened. Seeing such a huge, rusty bear-trap, which was keeping Ayami with its teeth like a hungry beast... It was a wonder that Ayami's leg was still in one piece.

As the girl realised Fuyuki arriving, looked the other direction and acted like she was the only one there. She continued the attempt to free herself from the trap.

"Maybe I can help." Fuyuki said. By that time Ayami's trapped leg bathed in blood up to her long socks.

"No... leave me..." Ayami could hardly speak, she suffered so much.

Fuyuki helped himself, he did not need any permission to save Ayami from those irony teeth. As he opened the jaws, the girl simply fell into her butt. But she was finally free.

"Look, if I wanted to hurt you, I would have done it already." said the boy. He took his knife. "Lemme see..."

Ayami clenched her eyes. It was the end indeed.

But nothing happened.

Fuyuki used the weapon only to cut a bit of her uniform off, then tied the wound up. He used a bit of his uniform, too, it seemed obviously cleaner than Ayami's. The two white textiles replaced the gauze, and Ayami's orange scarf served as bandage. Two massive barks did the job of the cradles.

It seemed strange, but Ayami made the 'operation' through without wincing. Okay, not without wincing. Without any words.

After Fuyuki was ready, he helped the girl standing to her feet.

"Can you walk?" he asked.

"I think I can." Ayami replied, so Fuyuki released her.

The moment Ayami was on her own, she collapsed. Fuyuki quickly caught her.

"Let me help you." he said gently. His barbaric-self vanished, that was odd in such circumstances.

"Are there any bears here, or why's this trap here?" Ayami complained. She started cursing, but Fuyuki cut in.

"Dunno. It seems quite old. But who knows." he answered then changed topic."So... why did you run away from me?"

Ayami left in silence, like she was searching apologies in her head.

"Are you kidding?" she replied later "You murdered Souma in front of my eyes!"

"She wanted to kill you. It was for your sake."

Ayami wanted to believe Fuyuki, but she could not forget that lunatic from-ear-to-ear smile. Fuyuki might thought the same, because, when he sounded, he sounded explaining.

"You might ask for yourself, that I liked Anri, too. She was my one and only partner on dance lessons, and so on. But! If I have to choose between you two... well... here we are."

Ayami's face went red. I can't believe that he is such a sweet talker. Why here? Why now?

It was a rare second, but Ayami felt something she felt before, sometimes, when she bought the last pair of high heels right before her best friends.

"I was looking for you from the beginning." Fuyuki continued "I was desperate. I couldn't even sleep, see?" he showed the girl his black eyes (not that Ayami could see it in the dark) "I almost gave up hope... I mean... allegorically..."

"How did you find me?" Ayami wondered between two painful hissing. Fuyuki helped her walking by supporting her under the arm, so Ayami could not press close to Fuyuki's chest.

In the meantime, Fuyuki evaded her question with some empty mealiness, then changed the topic to an average conversation for ordinary couples. They could have easily had the feeling like they would have made their everyday walk in the park of the student hostel. More of an everynight walk under the silver moon, to be specific.

Fuyuki suddenly stopped. As he pulled Ayami back, the heart-to-heart moment vanished.

"Why did we stop?" she asked.

"Wait a sec, honey" Fuyuki ignored the question "Something's freaking not right here. You didn't say a single word that you missed me and crap like that."

As he was standing still like a big pile of rock, Ayami was not able to go away. She could barely walk, well, not at all without Fuyuki.

"Why don't you look into my eyes?"

Somehow, staring at the dirty toe cap was more interesting than doing that, no matter, that Fuyuki, his boyfriend - they agreed before that they are officially a couple in school - sounded more imperious this time.

Ayami felt the paleness in her face. How would he like this? Imagine, Fuyuki, in these last weeks I started to be bored with you, but you know what? This heartless d*ckface-yourself makes me vomit, I'm disgusted to touch your sh*tty hands, because you took away only God knows how many lives. So sorry, babe, I hope there are no hard feelings, and you will keep helping me and forget to use your weapon against me.

Since there was a forest around them instead of the streets of Zentsuji, she fell her eyes and lied:

"Of course I do."

"Really?" Fuyuki misunderstood Ayami's referring to his previous question about still loving him "Am I on the ground then?"

"I... I missed you and... still want you."

Fuyuki sighed.

"I think you should practice harder."

Hearing him talking in his barbaric voice again, Ayami's heart stopped beating for a second.

"I mean it!" she answered half appealingly, half angrily.

It was too late for trying to make it a bit more believable. The least she could do is to kiss the dirty cheek she would prefer to kick instead. This shot was as grey as Fuyuki's skin, the boy obviously did not look convinced. At least he did not frenzy. Yet.

After so much walking, they have found a glade. The sky full of stars covered the space above their head like a huge carpet, it became slowly crowded more and more with dark storm clouds.

"Looks like a storm is coming." Ayami said "Better to find some shelter."

"Right."

As they were on the search, none of them said anything, Ayami just suffered silently. Then they found a partly destroyed hollow. It had to be a home for some animals before.

Fuyuki stared at Ayami. Perfect, right? He said with his look. Ayami nodded.

After they occupied the hollow, they agreed to keep watch sometimes, but it looks so hidden, that it was not that necessary. They revealed the inside with the built-in reflectors of their watches, and it turned out, that the cave was really small. Apart from a few roots hung down from the top and some spider webs, it was empty.

"Let's not draw attention" Fuyuki sat down in the end and turned the light off.

Ayami repeated the movement.

As they were sitting next to each other, Ayami thought of the GPS-chip, which Souma mentioned before. The classmate had it by the time they had that last fight among the woods, but where was it exactly? Fuyuki's appearance confused her completely, last time she checked her watch around nine something after a small sound of explosion, in zone E8.

Guess it's too late to even think about to go back.

It seemed as time would have stopped, too, only the digital numbers on their watches were glowing in the dark, proving the opposite.

9:52 PM

Ayami could not sleep. Somehow, the silence was too deep around them. Something was in the air, and it was not the cold vet-smelled air before the storm.

All of a sudden, she felt Fuyuki's hands on her face, icy fingers slid down from her ears to the neck and back. Fuyuki repeated that many times, it gave Ayami goosebumps. In a bad way. But she bore it, as she bore that also, when Fuyuki pressed his body against hers.

The boy hugged her strong and passionately. Ayami pretended as she was sleeping. She tried to stay still and breathe like sleeping people do, but it made Fuyuki even more vehement. He became persistent. He pressed Ayami to the ground and put his whole weight onto her. At the end he tried to take off her uniform.

No, I cannot do that. He suddenly stopped. At least, not now. Only eight minutes left.

He laid his head upon the girls chest instead, and listened to her heartbeat. Its rhythm... the darkness around them... none of them moved a muscle... those wishes and thoughts... Fuyuki did not notice, that he fell asleep.

He dreamed about a girl. Was it Ayami? Nah. She looked like Ayami, though, these two were alike a lot. But this girl was shorter, not that much of a wasp-waisted one (Ayami was the tall, model type, the dream girl of many guys), had short arms and legs. The common features were the sun tanned skin, the unnaturally light blue flowered eyes and those thick-lipped, always smiling face.

Fuyuki knew this girl. Risako Iriye's floating face winked at him from the background of blackness, the girl, who attended once to this class. She changed school in the first year, because she did not get along with form teacher Mr Fukashi Genda.

Fuyuki felt ugrent need to grab Risako's waving hand, to cuddle and to never let go again. It was the pure desire of his heart, that girl, not Ayami Horigoshi, whom he wanted to have fun and bang sometimes, because she was Risako 2.0. Everybody made jokes about these two girls being twins, more than the Ryusakis could ever bear resemblance.

Fuyuki did not deny the fact, that he had some good time together with Ayami, but still...

I wonder, what's happening with Risako right now...

They could not meet since she left this school. Lucky girl, she missed this nightmare.

Does Risako think about me sometimes?

Fuyuki's eyes popped up with a speed of lightning. He realised that he was awake for some time, he was just staring into the nothingness for minutes long. And what's more, he felt cold on his face, Ayami's soft bosom somehow disappeared.

He grabbed his watch without hesitation and turned on the built-in reflector. Its light revealed almost all part of the small hollow, at first was too much for his eyes. What he could see, was a variety of dancing shadows on the dirt walls and a huge massive one, a silhouette of a person with a long, sharp object in the hand.

Holy sh*t, a female almost took me out.

Ayami Horigoshi held a thick big piece of a branch, only she could tell it where did she get it from. Her hands were shaking, it looked like she hesitated.

Fuyuki left the mouth opened from the shock. Yup, this is not Risako. I always loved only her.

But then, Ayami dropped down the branch and burst into tears. The drops like small rivers carved their way on her dirty cheek down to her neck, underneath the uniform.

"Forgive me" she stuttered "I was terribly afraid of you. I thought... I thought you're going to kill me while I'm sleeping. I... wanted to prevent that... please, forgive me!"

She covered her face with the palms and kept on crying.

"No offense taken." Fuyuki shrugged the shoulders. He took out his combat knife.

Ayami was still at the same position.

Everything happened within a few seconds.

The zipping sound of the knife as the boy slung it, the knocking of the blade as it reached Ayami's skull, then a thud could be heard as a sign of Ayami's lifeless body fell into the ground. A small drift of dust rose up around her. Strange. She was laying at the same posture as Anri Souma did. And the knife. It stuck up almost in the same way. This time it was funnier though. Ayami became an oni with that blade-horn.

Fuyuki observed his work for a while. After he saw enough, he broke down the horn of the oni (aka pulled the weapon out of Ayami's skull) with an easy move.

Another funny moment. The wound was so narrow and barely bleeding, it reminded him of the top of a piggy bank. Unlike the other wounds which caused Ayami so much pain, this one did not hurt at all.

"I wanted the same" finally Fuyuki answered her, while he cleaned the blade from blood in her uniform. "From the very moment we met."

He should be grateful to Baku Baisotei (boys #1) for 'borrowing' him this combat knife at their afternoon meeting.

Killing Ayami was not that hard after all. Not because she could have been a match, Fuyuki had doubts that he might go emotional.

"Not today." He chuckled with satisfaction.

He barely said it out, the sky grumbled back threatening as an answer. Glittering lightning-tongues ran across the eastern horizon.

But what was louder than the thunder, came from above the forest. It was a plane.

At the same time, Fuyuki's beeping watch also disturbed the silence of the night.

'TO THE FEEDER, YOUNG COMRADES!'


[Number of students: 15]

Ayami Horigoshi eliminated