"Whoo! What a rush!"

I panted as I yanked off the mask I had been wearing roughly, sweat pouring down my face and making my skin glisten it the artificial lighting of the girl's locker room. I did my best to ignore the way my hair was clinging in my back as I pulled off the black turtleneck I'd used to hide my bustline and tossed the soaked garment into the bag I had brought in preparation of this whole façade, along with the mask and black pants.

God, I was so tired now. It felt like my muscles had become a pile of mush, my body burned from exhaustion and my mind felt like it was in a fog. My hips hurt from pushing myself to run at full tilt the whole time, as well as my exaggerated sneaking motions, and my knees and wrists ached from constantly having to crawl in tight corridors super quickly, but I had to do it this way or the whole plan would have gone completely belly up.

But damn was it hard to stay out of their grasp. I mean, I knew it would be considering who exactly I was up against, but still. I had to use every trick in the book that I had to keep them from getting me. Dodging, weaving, misdirection, and liberal usage of hiding places to keep them at bay. Simple things like hiding behind a door, ducking into a locker, or slipping behind a desk, to elaborate places like parkouring up a wall to hide in the rafters or ducking behind a pillar when they weren't looking like a bit from a cartoon chase scene. I had to put in work to keep them from finding me, and I couldn't rely on one trick for long lest I risk them catching on to where I was hiding, nor could I let them pause for too long lest they figure out what I was doing.

I didn't earn the self-made title of number one extreme hide-and-seek master for nothing after all!

Thankfully, there was one thing that I had that they sorely lacked that gave me a vast advantage over them, one trick up my sleeve that I could count on to stay one step ahead of them one-hundred percent of the time. Monokuma's vents, the emergency vent system that weaved its way to every single room in the school in one way or another. I never would have been able to get away most of the time if I didn't have access to these steel shafts as most of the places I had to hide in where very much lacking in places to safely hide even if only for a minute. It was a good thing I had memorized where they were ahead of time too, or I would have been caught several times over just searching for them.

But they certainly didn't make it easy for me. Between them all, I didn't know who was the hardest to stay away from. Hina was clearly no slouch as her history of being in darn near every sport club at her old school made her able to keep pace with most of my dips and dodges, and I could just forget about outrunning her in a straight hallway as her track and field time made that very clear. However, she had trouble getting a grip on me as she never learned proper grabs that she needed to keep me still, nor was she comfortable with close quarters combat as most if not all of those sports she had been in didn't require it; a fact which I was more than willing to exploit by getting up close to keep her focus muddled and allow me to trip her up, throw her into the others, or just dance out of the way.

Yes, I said dance. You would be amazed what you can learn online if you're determined enough.

Taka was also a difficult problem to deal with, but for different reasons. Unlike Hina who was more used to having space to move, he was made for chasing people down hallways and knew several of the tricks needed for keeping pace with a person in a school building. He also had what Hina lacked as he was trained by his career in disciplining trouble makers to hold onto his target like a vice to keep them from getting away and had the experience necessary to stop me from simply gut checking him and taking off. He knew how to take a hit and keep going, and I knew there was no way I could hit him harder than whatever delinquents he was used to dealing with. I had to really try whenever he would get close, to put my all into hitting pressure-points and joints if he got too close and tripping him up with dirty tactics wherever possible. It was fortunate that I had managed to get the drop on him in the beginning there and temporarily messed up his ability to breath efficiently, or I might not have been able to keep him at bay.

The real problem had been Sakura though. Good lord was she difficult to evade. You wouldn't think it by looking at her, but she was really freaking fast. So much so that several times I would think I'd gotten away, only to turn back and see this visage of a demon chasing after me. Plus, she clearly would have one-shot me if I'd given her the chance. Hell, several times she would come close to hitting me and I would dodge, only to see what looked like a freaking afterimage of her arm or leg fly by me. I thought that kind of nonsense was only possible in fiction, sweet Jiminy Christmas! And grabs, hah! If she had gotten the chance, I don't have a single doubt that I would have hit the ground with enough force to break every bone in my back from the sheer force of it all. If she wasn't bleeding out the whole time and getting slower as the chase went on, I would have been a dead man…woman.

But that was where my calculations worked to the fullest and the entire reason I snuck a knife from the kitchen. I figured that Taka, a man who dealt with, at most, punk kids who would come up with excuses when they were caught, or cowards who ran when yelled at, would not expect someone to jump straight into battle when he confronted them. Fortunately, I was correct as I was able to not only disable his strongest limb temporarily, but I was also able to weaken his ability to run by robbing him of his breath and then further winded him by laying him out on his back. This took out the second biggest player first, likely left him with a bruise that would be very distracting, and inspired panic in the other two.

That was when I threw the knife at Hina, even in spite how much it made me cringe internally, then I bailed before they could try to stop me. I knew that Sakura would leap into action to save her friend, there wasn't chance in hell that she wouldn't, but I had to make it so that she couldn't simply grab the handle. That was why I lobbed the blade rather then throw it straight on. If I had really been trying to hurt the swimming aficionado, I would have aimed better and gone for a straight toss that would have had much higher momentum and piercing potential, but at the cost of being easier to catch. A lobbed blade, however, while catching more wind resistance, was ten times harder to catch. Plus, it also had the added benefit of being able to become non-lethal because of the handle.

See, that was the funny thing. I had purposefully thrown the blade in a way that, had Sakura not stuck her arm in the way, the handle would have simply bopped Hina on the nose. Would it have hurt? Yes, but it would have been better than a knife in the eye. But they wouldn't have known that, all they would see was a flying, spinning blade of death coming at her face. So, just as planned, Sakura stepped in and got a cut that, while not fatal, would slow her down over time.

She would be the strongest force starting out, yes. That much is true, and thus she was the biggest problem. But once the blood loss kicked in and Taka finally recovered from having the wind knocked out of him, the tide would shift to where I needed it to go. They thought they could trap me, and had they had the time to formulate a proper plan they might have succeeded, but they were being pressed for time because of that injury, so they had to slap a crude one together and that gave me the chance I needed.

Of course, they would have to make use of the infirmary because I knew for a fact that Taka was in charge of it today, and they would need to patch Sakura up anyway. So, I used the little hints I'd intentionally left for them to figure out to "plan around me", to make them think that they could use Sakura as bait so that I could lure away the only one of them I needed.

I stifled a laugh at the thought. Sakura…as bait. Only someone truly desperate or exceedingly stupid would be dumb enough would think that they could take on the Ultimate Fighter, even in a weakened state. I didn't care that it worked out in my favor, that was just sloppy on their part.

Of course, I held every confidence in Hina choosing to stay nearby to the fighter. They were best friends after all and the swimmer had more than demonstrated how much she treasured those bonds. Unfortunately for her, that made her predictable and easy to figure out. If it would help out her friend, or if she was led to believe that it would help her friend, then of freaking course she would do anything she could to help. It was one of her best traits in my opinion.

All that was left was figuring out where Taka would hide when he tried to trap me, and that only required a tiny amount of intellectual foresight. There really was only one place he could have hid that would have allowed him full view of both the school store and the infirmary. And even if there had been another place he could have hid, I still held the advantage over them with the headmaster's handbook. Thanks to both of the GPS trackers in both their E-handbooks, and the Lifeline bands on their wrists, I was easily able to keep track of all of them no matter where they tried to hide.

Idly I looked down at my own wrist to gaze at the black band on it with a feeling of contempt. Of course, I was wearing one myself, I had to keep them from realizing that I wasn't Mukuro pretending to be me after all, but at the same time, I wasn't. When Kazuichi sent me these bands, he had only sent me enough of them for all of the others to wear, and it made sense because I was never expected to participate in the game myself. However, with the change in plans I had personally made, it meant that I needed one myself.

Sadly, it hadn't been so easy. I couldn't ask him to make me another one for fear of raising suspicion, so I had to come up with my own bootleg version. The only thing I had though was a few really thick rubber bands in the art room for some reason I couldn't think of that I had to paint black. I was also able to use the scalpels in there as well to make it look like it had the grooves and jagged eye of the real bands, but there was no way that I could mimic the way it blinked in response to a heartbeat. If I wasn't careful to keep that fact hidden, I could count this whole act out.

I shook my head. No, I had to make this work. Besides, no one would look at the band anytime soon. They were all to focused on the bomb aspect to care about anything else.

Now where was I before I got distracted? Oh right, Taka's hiding place.

There was no way that he wouldn't try and use the entrance way as a place to hide, it was perfect for what they needed after all, and that was what I needed as well. It was a cinch to get him to follow me after that. Some exaggerated toon sneaking to get his attention, some slow movements to allow him to think that he had the drop on me, and all followed up by completely subverting their expectations by walking right past their trap and causing him to panic and make mistakes. My biggest concern had been making sure he didn't alert the girls before I could get away, but I knew that his nature would betray him in the end and keep him from alerting them.

He would have wanted to catch me himself, his very nature as the Ultimate Moral demanded it, and that pride would blind him when it came down to it. I knew he wouldn't let them be involved when the plan fell apart, he was just too caring, too understanding, and that drive to protect wouldn't allow him to put an injured girl in danger. By walking by, I would be taking away that risk in his mind, and he wouldn't be willing to drag them right back into it if he could help it.

Truthfully, this was where I hit a bit of a snag in my planning. For a brief moment, I considered letting the girls know that I was passing by so that they could help out Taka when it came time to restrain Mondo, but I was quick to drop the idea. That wasn't to say that it was a bad idea per say, but the simple fact of that matter was, it would never have worked out for me if I had allowed it, for numerous reasons even.

The first and most important being, I was relying on Taka's inability to enter the girl's locker room in the first place; both from a practical stand point, and a moral one. If those two had tagged along, or even just one of them, they would have the chance to catch me in the act of changing out of my costume and realized pretty quickly what was going on. Second, while Sakura might have been able to sneak along with Taka, that would never work with Hina. Not only because she was the loudest one of the three of them, a fact that I was well aware of from the amount of times she would yell whenever she spotted me, but she had literally the amount of stealth that a bull would have if it ran into a china shop with walls painted red.

I mean it, she was terrible at stealth. She breathed far too loudly, especially when startled, her sneakers occasionally squeaked on the tile, and her clothes, though fitting for a sport lover, constantly made a ruffling noise whenever she moved. I would have to be completely deaf not to notice her, and even then, I might still find her because her stare was so focused that I could practically feel it whenever she had so much as glanced at me during our merry chase.

Credit where it was due, at least Sakura and Taka knew how to do that much without alerting me immediately. Sadly, for Hina at least, if I had let them follow and didn't respond, then they might have realized that I was leading them around like a mother duck would her ducklings. I couldn't have that, not this time anyway.

Finally, or at least as final as far as important reasons go anyway, I…couldn't do that to Chihiro. Taka was one thing, he was a rule obsessed fanatic and he would no doubt give my little buddy a few choice words about breaking dress code or something along those lines, but he was still a boy in the end. Plus, he knew what it was like to be judged for something out of his control, and that meant he could help out with, not only my little programmer's problem, but calming down the beast that was Mondo's jealous rage. A win-win as far as I was concerned.

That wasn't to say that neither Sakura or Hina could as well, both were very understanding and very caring individuals who had to deal with at least some flak for what they looked like in some form of fashion, don't get me wrong. I guess I just wanted to respect Chihiro's wishes to become strong with the help of a guy friend who understood a bit of what he was going through. The girls were great and all, but since he didn't seem to want my help anymore, then it only made sense that he wouldn't want them to learn about his shame just yet. At least, not until he felt a bit manlier.

No, I'm not bitter about that. I have lives to save, I can't afford to be bitter.

Chihiro just wasn't ready to tell that many people his secret yet, and for so many people suddenly showing up where they weren't invited would have caused him to shut down. And that wasn't even counting the amount of yelling that would be aimed at Mondo when they were both found in the boy's lockers. With Taka alone it will be difficult, but I think the two of them would be able to handle him with only a bit of trouble. But both the stern Sakura and the unbelievably outspoken Hina on top of that?

Recipe for disaster.

Now, obviously I couldn't just let Taka believe that he could just approach me. I had to make sure that he would duck into the restroom so that he couldn't feel like doubling back and getting the girls should that pride of his waver and I had to prevent that. Let him get close enough that he thought he could stop me on his own, but not enough that he would think he could rush me without me noticing.

It should be noted that, I had most of this plan timed out in my head from the very start. I remembered a little detail from the first game that made this whole thing possible, and that was Chihiro's time of death. In the second case, he was said to have been killed at around two A.M. which meant I had the few hours between nighttime and then to lead them on this chase. To my fortune, it was highly likely that was because of not only Chihiro's anxiety likely stalling him, but also his want not to have been seen going out at night. That gave me the ample time I needed so long as he didn't grow his spine too quickly.

However, I had to make a rush decision change because I heard someone shouting on the second floor. It was muffled, and had I not been listening for it I might have missed it, but it was enough for me to know that I couldn't wait anymore, so I rushed up the stairs, knowing that Taka would follow after, and rushed into the pool entrance and over to the door of the men's locker room. As I ran in, I snatched up what had to be Chihiro's bag, and then headed over to the door and used the headmaster's handbook to open it a little and hustled to jam it with the bag to act as a lure for the chairman, before quickly rushing over to hide in the girl's locker room where I was still currently waiting.

I was so happy to have this E-handbook, or none of this would be possible. The thing had more overrides in it then what should be allowed in a school, even bypassing the gender identifying encryption that the locker rooms were prided on. In a normal school, this kind of thing shouldn't be allowed, but I guess considering the circumstances I guess it couldn't be avoided. If there was an emergency, then as the only adult at the time, the headmaster would be the one responsible for ensuring the safety of the students after all, and that would never work if he was stopped at the door. Still, I hope that he was always respectful of the girls and never let his lust overcome his judgements, or else there would have been hell to pay.

Regardless, I figured as I slipped my track jacket over my low-cut tee and pulled my track pants on, I managed to get exactly what I needed. Taka was no doubt in there right now judging by the amount of muffled yelling I could vaguely hear through the wall, and that made me smile a bit. It didn't matter that I might have ruined a friendship in the process, my actions would have saved a life, maybe even two since Mondo wouldn't become blackened and get executed for it. Sure, things would be tense for a little bit, but as long as it didn't end up with someone dying, then it could be fixed over-

*Splash*

My eyebrow raised when I heard a sound of water being displaced and turned my head to look toward the pool with a raised brow. "The heck…?" I muttered as I quickly closed the bag full of my disguise, crammed it into the hole in the wall, and closed the vent panel, returning the wall to its normal form. No point in being careless after all.

Why the heck was I hearing a splash of water? There shouldn't be anyone going for a swim at this hour, especially after that whole chase of ours.

Narrowing my eyes, I quickly picked up the crutch I'd left here prior to help sell any alibi I might have needed and made my way to the pool to see what was going on. Carefully, I slowly opened the door, not moving quickly for fear of being spotted, and once I was sure I was in the clear, I pressed on to survey the situation.

Immediately, I had to draw back when I saw two boys rush out of the men's side of the locker rooms, though thankfully it didn't seem like they even noticed me. However, I certainly noticed the panic written across the bro-brigade's faces as they rushed by. Following them both, I looked to where they were rushing and saw something, something that caused my heart to drop into my stomach and my eyes to expand to the size of dinner plates from shock.

There, in the pool about two or three feet out and slowly growing, clothes fully soaked in the chlorinated waters as his limp form lightly floated, was my little buddy. However, while that was a strange sight, it wasn't what made my throat clench up like I was choking myself, nor what made the world seemingly melt away until the only thing that mattered was me and the sight before me. Because what I saw was him in the pool, an entire area of his scalp covered in blood that was slowly trickling into his hair and contaminating the water, and that he was floating face down in it.

And there was a concerningly small amount of bubbles forming around his head.

Soon his body started to sink, and I almost sighed in relief. Even with the head wound, the body's muscles will still remain full of tension. Little known fact, but most people sink in the water because of those very same muscles acting like a weight and the fluctuation of oxygen in their system not being enough to allow for floatation. It was only the air in the lungs and the fat cells that gave the body any buoyancy. A corpse takes much longer to sink due to the air trapped within the body needing time to fully escape since it wouldn't be able to fully leave the normal way. Of course, that made me tense up as well since, he just sank. That meant he was still alive, but he was also drowning.

Not much of an upside there.

As I watched him sink like a stone as, slowly, or it felt like it was slow, I think my heart stopped. Or maybe it was running a hundred beats a second and I just couldn't tell the difference, I didn't care which at that moment. I felt physically ill, like I was cold all over, yet at the same time I was broiling. It felt like my stomach turned into lead and had been tossed into a tumble drier just to make it worse. I felt like time had slowed even as my mind ran a hundred miles an hour. And for some reason I seem to have gained the ability to zoom and enhance with only my eyes as the sight of Chihiro sinking was getting rather close.

And then, I hit the water.

It would seem that I had been so lost in my sensations of horror and trepidation that I hadn't even realized I had been moving, damn near taking off in my haste to get over to my friend. I barely even noticed that I had dropped my crutch in my haste to get into the chemical distilled water, I don't even know if I could tell you what else I had even seen on the way. Only thing I could tell you right in this moment was that it had all come crashing back down into reality the moment I felt the cold pool water completely surround my form and the painful sensation of the chlorinated liquid stinging at my eyes.

Good thing I noticed and realized not to inhale, lest I end up joining my friend in a watery grave.

I think I also heard something like another splash not too far behind me but couldn't say for sure with the water now filling my ear canals. I ultimately couldn't care less though in the end, for even though it burned to look in this chemical filled water, I could see my quandary just a few feet before me. Instantly, I kicked my legs hard and stroked my arms fast to propel myself towards him, making sure to angle myself to reduce the amount of resistance the water had on me.

Within seconds I was by my little friend, a very small amount bubbles pouring out of both of our mouths as I slipped my hands under his armpits to get a firm grip and quickly pushed off of the pool ground with all of my core and leg strength combined and finishing with some hearty kicks of my legs to finish the divide between us and the surface. I broke through first, gasping mightily as I expelled the pent-up air from my lungs, and quickly heaved the small boy up so that his head was out of the water. Then, I quickly slipped one of my hands the rest of the way under his arm so that I could get a solid grip on his collar and free up the other to swim us to the shore.

Just before I could though, I felt a strong-arm slip underneath my own and wrap tightly around the both of us as their hand latched hard to Chihiro's shirt alongside my own. "Whoa! Yes, hello! Welcome to my personal space! Can I help you!?" Startled, I could only just readjust myself to keep both of our heads about water before I saw the arm of whomever it was who grabbed us start paddling towards the very same destination I had been aiming for.

"Shut up!" He shouted back, but just as I was about to chew them out for scaring me out of my wits and having the gall to tell me to shut up, but I was somewhat fortunately cut off from doing so metaphorically, or even physically, by Taka rushing over to the side and getting on his knees, reaching out to us with one arm while the other kept him in place.

"Here!" he stated, a twinge of both panic and concern in his tone, but I could tell that he wasn't referring to me specifically. I felt my brow twitch in frustration at being treated like an invalid, but as much as I really wanted to slam my elbow into the diaphragm of what had to be Mondo behind me, I would have needed to let go of Chihiro to do it. Yeah, not going to happen.

Didn't stop me from kicking his legs once or twice in frustration though.

So, I put up with his unwarranted help as I passed the smaller boy to Taka, the two of us clumsily working in tandem to lift him out as his water heavy clothes dragged him down and threatened to pull him back into the pool if we were to let go. Neither of us did, though I did have to grip the wall of the pool with one arm so that I didn't end up back in the pool instead. Once he was fully out and in Taka's arms, I moved to hoist myself up after when I felt that hand again, though this time it was on the hem of my sport pants. My eyebrow twitched, and I was so tempted to slap him seeing as he was just an inch away from grabbing my butt, yet I pushed the desire aside as I let him help me out of the pool and turned to grab his hand to help pull him out in turn in order to speed this along.

Once that was taken care of, I quickly crawled over to Chihiro's side and placed my head to his chest to listen for his heart beat. It took a few seconds, far longer than it should have, but I could distinctly hear the soft, bump-bump of his heart pumping. I sighed in relief, but I knew that it wouldn't take long for him to leave us if I didn't get the water out of his lungs.

"Do either of you guys know how to preform C.P.R.?" I quickly asked, hoping that it would be a yes. Mondo was unlikely to know anything about it, most biker's that I'd met in the past never even heard of the procedure, but that didn't mean that it was entirely impossible for him to have picked it up at some point. Meanwhile, Kiyotaka was a shot in the dark for me, as I had no idea whatsoever if this was a skill they were required to learn in the moral's committee, though I certainly hoped that someone as studious as him would have picked it up at some point or another since it was considered important in case of an emergency.

Sadly, it seemed that I overestimated them a tad because both of them shook their heads in concern, with Taka nervously stating. "No, I do know of the procedure, but I've never been certified. It wasn't part of my school's studies."

"Oh, for the love of…!" I whined, really not wanting to do this, but I did my best to shove my discomfort aside. "Fine. Get over here and help me then."

He moved fast to where I directed him, taking position at Chihiro's head and keeping it straight, craning it back slightly to open his airway. I inhaled a deep breath to calm my racing heart and took up my own spot at his side and ran through the steps in my head. Hands on the center of his sternum, fingers straight, and hands crossed, one on top of the other. Arms straight, positioned straight above the victim, I began to compress his sternum down in quick, smooth intervals. Carefully, I timed each press, making sure not to pause for longer than a second, but not so fast that it wouldn't have time to decompress.

I counted to fifteen, then moved quickly to the next, and arguably most uncomfortable step. My only wishes were that I had either a face mask for this moment, or that Hina were here instead. Surely, she, the Ultimate Swimming Pro, would know how to preform C.P.R. at the very least. But I didn't know if the school even had one, and there wasn't enough time to check anyway or to have one of the guys rush all the way down to the nurse's office, grab the two athletes, and get back in time. So, I sucked down my discomfort with a deep breath, and ducked my head down.

And pressed my lips to his own.

I heard a sound coming from one of the boys resembling a deflating balloon, but I purposefully ignored it as I forcefully exhaled into Chihiro's mouth. I separated for a second to gather one more large breath, then repeated the process of vigorously filling the small boy's lungs with air once more.

I was frantically chanting in my head to the whole time, 'Just imagine he's a cute girl. He's a cute girl. You're a professional, damnit! Act like it.' Without a word I pulled back, vehemently ignoring the redness of my face as I went back to the compressions on his chest. For a while, I continued this pattern, pressing hard on his chest over and over before giving him two deep breaths of air, trying to get him to choke up the water in his lungs. Around the third or so cycle, I felt a few of his ribs give way with a muted pop, but I ignored it just as well as I was the rising panic in my own chest, trying to overwhelm me into making a rash mistake. But I stayed strong, even as liquid started to build in the corners of my eyes, I refused to stop.

"Come on, come on, come on…" I heard someone chanting in the back of my mind, but I couldn't tell if it was one of the guys around me, or if it was in fact my own voice saying it. However, I didn't care. I stayed focused on my task, hoping, praying, that he would just freaking cough up the water already. I could feel something welling up inside me as I saw his unresponsive form, something vile and twisted. I wanted to scream, to beat on his chest in rage, to rip and tear the world down.

It wasn't fair. I had done so much to prevent this all from happening, I had succeeded it stopping Mondo from bashing his head in, I stopped this tragedy. I did everything I could to stop this. So, why had it turned out like this!?

No…I knew why. It was my fault. Again, I made the mistake of thinking that I could save everyone by changing only a few things and believing that it would be enough. I let my egotism shine far to brightly and became blind in the process. Blind to the truth that I wasn't giving my all, that I was only putting in the effort that I thought I needed, but not the amount that it actually did. I was just repeating what was easy, being lazy, and not doing what I should have been doing, protecting them from this twisted game.

It was even worst then with Sayaka. At least then I had the argument that it was the first time, and I could ignore the guilt to focus on saving her life. I held no real attachments back then either, and because of that I could tell that the impact of a death wouldn't affect me as much. Now though, I had spent time getting to know them all. I had gotten attached, and now I was struggling to stay calm as a result.

I went through every exercise I knew for calming down that I knew. I took long, deep breaths. I mentally counted to ten numerous times in succession. I resided the alphabet from Z to A several times over in between my counting. I shut out all sound around me to focus exclusively on the task at hand. None of it worked. And all the while I continued to alternate between pressing on Chihiro's, by now doubtlessly broken ribs and forcing breath into his lungs all the while, trying to resuscitate him.

I had long since lost track of time, and of the amount of times I had pressed on the drowned programmer's chest in desperation. Yet, there still was no sign of him coughing up the water in his lungs. I…I failed. If he wasn't dead yet, then with how blue his face had turned; and when did that happen? Well, he couldn't be that far away now, especially with how much time had passed. He was going to die, and it was all my-

"You, stupid bastard! Wake the fuck up!" I was cut from my dark spiral, practically ripped out of the twisting emotions of mounting insanity, when Mondo suddenly intervened in a way that, had I been of clear mind, should have seen coming. The biker had pushed his bro to the side so that he could kneel next to Chihiro, both of his hands laced together almost in a prayer, but then he destroyed that misconception when he straightened his back as he lifted those hands like he was shouting to the heavens above, and then proceeded to drop them like a hammer straight onto the smaller boy's sternum with bone shattering force.

In that very moment, I was about to leap over and throttle that bastard. Chihiro was already dead, there was no reason to desecrate his corpse like that! However, I never got the chance as the second the thought appeared it was washed away as the little boy that I'd presumed to be a carcass heaved and a blast of water, spit, and what might have been bile burst from his lips with a mighty, wet, choking cough, followed by a series of far less wet, yet still pulsing sharp gasps as his body tried to force him to draw in that life fueling oxygen once more.

I didn't know how to feel. As I sat there watching him try to cough up one of his waterlogged lungs, I found myself stuck in between three very differing emotions. On the one hand, I was elated, Chihiro was breathing again so that meant that he was alive. Just knowing that made my heart calm down by a heck of a lot and it nearly brought out an ear wide grin of relief to my face. He was alive, even though he no doubt had a concussion and he had to have a few broken ribs to go with that smashed sternum after all of that nonsense, but that didn't matter much in the end. The simple fact that he was alive wiped away any of the fear that had clung to my heart like a dying parasite and soothed my haunted soul.

On the other hand, I felt rather frustrated and irritated, immensely so. After all of that effort, all of that emotional trauma, all of that fear, disgust, panic, and despair, it was all for nothing. After everything I did to revive the little prick, even giving him mouth to mouth resuscitation numerous times, and I had to repress that well of revulsion immediately at the thought of it, the thing that works was a hammer arm to the chest. Not the well-practiced and perfected over several decades medical practice, but a blunt, possibly just as likely to kill the person as it would save them, punch to the gut. Yeah, I feel I deserve a little feeling of indignation right about now.

However, the more pressing emotion, and the one that quickly won out as I rushed to support the little programmer as he finished his coughing fit, was concern for Chihiro's wellbeing. Drowned, concussed, dazed and now having broken, or at the very least bruised sternum. Yeah, he had to be in all kinds of pain right now. And all I could do for him was support his head so that the water wouldn't drain back down his throat.

Fortunately, against all odds, he didn't seem to be coughing up blood, so it didn't seem like his guts got skewered by his broken bones. Yet, that didn't mean that he was out of danger completely, especially since he still had a concussion to worry about. We would need to be careful with him no matter the situation.

"Hey, come on." I said as I lightly slapped his cheeks as he started to nod off. "Wakey, wakey. You can sleep latter, buddy. I need you to stay awake for a little longer."

His head bobbed slightly, and his eyes rolled in his head unfocused as he tried to find the source of my voice. I made sure not to move as he blinked several times in groggy confusion, and eventually he managed to lock his gaze on my own. However, it was clear he wasn't completely out of the fog as his voice was rough and full of exhaustion as he muttered out my name. "…Jun…ko…?"

"Yeah, it's me little buddy." I confirmed warmly, relief filling my voice and I made no attempt to hide it. "How're you feeling?"

It was a stupid question, I knew that. But it was also a standard one. Something to keep him awake as I checked his injuries to see just how severe they were, as well as something to see just how bad his concussion was. He looked at me for a few seconds as his mind struggled to understand what I had said, but eventually he managed to moan a bit. "My…chest…it hurts."

"That would be the broken ribs." I explained softly as I softly poked around said broken bones, irritating the area and causing him to hiss whenever I found one of said broken bones. Ended up being around three on his left side and two on his right. Sternum had multiple brakes, obviously. "You nearly drowned there for a moment, and we had to resuscitate you with C.P.R. Sorry about that, but as my mother always says, if you don't break some ribs, you're doing it wrong."

He moaned in response, and I am positive I heard one of the two behind me give a sharp inhale from either shock or fear I didn't know. But I pushed it aside and continued my examination. Moving on from his ribs, I moved to his head and lightly pulled his eyes open. The little programmer looked at me in confusion, though it was a bit difficult to notice with the fog his mind must have been under.

"What are you doing?" I heard Taka question from behind me, so as I continued to look into Chihiro's eyes, I addressed my explanation to the programmer as well as answering the moral, "I'm checking to see how dilated your pupils are. When concussed, the eyes tend to expand and contract wildly in response to the sudden pressure that builds up within. Depending on how severe, it might be a good indicator that you'll need to see a doctor. You might also experience symptoms of headaches, nausea, slurred speech, ringing ears, dizziness, and the inability to focus, possibly even a mild case of memory loss. Usually it's all on top of feelings of lethargy or fatigue, but that isn't much help here since you'd get the same thing after nearly drowning."

"Fascinating." Taka commented, and I could just see him rubbing his chin in thought as he considered what I just told him. I couldn't actually see it since I was busy checking for those very symptoms with a few whispered questions to Chihiro, but I didn't need to see to tell. To the little programmer's credit, despite being a bit slow, he was able to answer everything I asked him with little difficultly.

"But, he's going to be alright, right?" I heard Mondo ask, and to my somewhat shock, I could detect a massive amount of concern for the small boy. However, that didn't stop me from narrowing my eyes at his little slip up.

I didn't want to draw attention to it though, so once I finished getting what I needed from Chihiro, I finally turned back to address the stupid brothers. "She'll be fine. From what I can tell, in was mostly just a minor blow, all things considered. It seems that we got most, if not all of the water out, so Chihiro's body should be able to handle the rest from here. I didn't feel anything that would suggest a fractured skull, just some small lacerations near the top. Nothing too major; at least, not enough that a good night's rest shouldn't cure. Biggest issue right now is the broken ribs, and there's not much we can do about that right now without proper equipment."

"You're being awful fucking calm about some busted ribs!" Mondo suddenly snapped, "Shouldn't we wrap them up or something?"

I immediately glared back in response and would have got right up into his face if I wasn't currently holding Chihiro' head and maintaining my cover at the moment as I snapped back, "Do you want him to suffocate, moron!? Yes, you don't want them rattling about doing damage, but you seem to have forgotten that he still needs to breathe!"

He flinched back in response, but I was not going to let him off just yet. "Need I remind you that the diaphragm and ribs are some of the most flexible of the bones in the body for a reason? They are designed from the ground up to allow for the chest to expand and contract in conjunction with the lungs, and as such need room to expand. If you wrap up his chest in this case, then there won't be any room for him to breath and he'll suffocate."

"I…" He started to reply angerly, but it suddenly died as his head drooped in frustrated resignation. "Sorry. I didn't…didn't know about that."

Against my better judgement, I felt my own expression soften at the sight off the gruff boy looking so…defeated? Distraught maybe? Despairing possibly? It was kinda hard to tell with his hair blocking most of my view of his face, but I got enough to understand that he was feeling bad. If he was projecting his thoughts about something else onto my words though, I wouldn't be able to tell you.

I sighed, but replied, "It's fine, I guess. You didn't know. Just don't growl at me next time you're confused, or I'll next time I'll lay you out. Got it?"

For a second, his gaze snapped up to look me in the eyes with an expression of shock; though whether it was from me forgiving him or for the threat that followed, I wasn't sure. Quickly enough though, he gave me a murmured statement of, "Yeah…I got it." He ended this with his gaze averted and a hand on the back of his neck, but at least this time I could see the honest to god shame on his face instead of corn shaped locks.

"…hmm…" I pondered, but contrary to whatever it was that Mondo was thinking it was about, I was more focused on thinking about how I could salvage this situation. The entire reason I had hid in the girl's locker room was to give myself and Mukuro an alibi, as well as to come up with a reason that my masked self couldn't hide in the same place. I hadn't expected to end up taking a swim though, especially not in front of these two. I had to come up with a way to fix this.

…I think I got it.

"Hey, I got a question." I started as I looked between the two of them to make sure they knew I was addressing them both. "What are you guys even doing here anyway?"

They both turned to look at me with the obvious question of, "What do you mean?" from Taka as well as a nod from Mondo that I could tell meant to say, "What he said."

So, I elaborated. "Well, I'm here because I was going to get some training in. Try and get some muscle back into my bum leg, ya know? What about you guys?"

They looked at each other in that annoying, communicating without talking way that I really disliked having to deal with, but I held my tongue. If there was one thing you don't interrupt, it was a private conversation.

The context though, now that I can describe. While the exact bits I could only guess at, I watched as Taka lightly nodded in my direction, likely asking if either he or both of them should explain, to which Mondo lightly shook his head with a look of frustration and a mild bit of fear. The moral frowned in response, clearly unhappy with the decision, no doubt angered by it as well if the glare that formed was any indication. His bro glared back, but there was a feeling of desperation in there as well. He clearly didn't want anyone to know what had happened.

He glanced over at Chihiro then, and when Taka followed his gaze I was shocked to see that both of their eyes filled up with guilt. Why were they feeling guilty? Mondo I could understand, he was a loudmouth who was constantly making situations worst with his hair-trigger temper, but he hated that side of himself and was always upset whenever he did something stupid because of it. But Taka was new. Just what had happened in there?

Whatever it was though, it would have to wait as Kiyotaka's eyes suddenly shot wide open and he started glancing around wildly in a panic. "Ah! I can't believe I forgot! The entire reason I came here was because I was in pursuit of a masked individual that assaulted myself as well as Asahina and Sakura!"

Perfect. Insert look of shock as well as a gasp to help sell the illusion, followed by allowing Mondo to exclaim in shock, "What the fuck!? Why didn't you say anything!?"

"I was so caught up in…" He hesitated. He shouldn't have hesitated if he didn't want me to be suspicious. "…What was going on that it had completely slipped my mind! What a disgrace I am to forget something so important!"

"Damnit!" Mondo yelled as he stood up sharply. "Well what the fuck are we doing standing around for!?"

I had to look like I was going to add to that, but I made sure that they both didn't forget the more important fact that we still had an injured person on our hands by deliberately turning to look at Chihiro. Apparently at some point during our little discussion, the poor boy had nodded off and was now resting his head on my left thigh. His breathing was still rather rough and every so often he would softly groan from the pain, but there wasn't anything I could do for that. All I could do for him was move one of his hands over his chest to help support his diaphragm where he instinctively clutched it in support.

I gave a sharp nod. Time to get some answers.

Or rather, make a situation where I can force out some.

"Okay then." I stated before turning to the other half of the dum-dum brothers, "Taka, I need you to go get some help from one of the others. If I remember right, there should be an emergency stretcher backboard in the infirmary somewhere. If you can't find it, then you can tie one of the bed sheets to some wood to make an old fashion one, but whichever one you use, we're gonna need one to get Chihiro downstairs."

He looked at me with an expression I actually had trouble reading for once, but it faded away in exchange for one of determined resolve. "Leave it to me! Come along Mondo! We'll be there and back in-"

"Actually, I think Mondo should stay here." I interrupted with a stern, yet polite tone. When they both gave me a look of confusion, I elaborated. "Think about it. If both of you leave, then that will leave me alone with Chihiro. Considering that she's only just barely conscious, and I'm next to useless with only one working leg, we'd both be prime targets right now for any sicko with a want to kill."

They both flinched at that, and wasn't that an interesting reaction, but they made no effort to disagree.

"You make a good point." Taka admitted with a grimace as he glanced back and forth between Mondo and Chihiro and myself with a conflicted expression on his face. Obviously, he wanted to bring Mondo with him for something important, likely to get an explanation of some kind from the biker gang leader or another. However, as he said, he also knew that I had a very good point and his morals would never allow him to forgive himself if anything else happened because of the masked person he'd failed to catch; who is me, but he doesn't need to know that.

"I do." I agreed, nodding just for the sake of it. Just a little more and he'll go. "Now go, and hurry! We'll need all the help we can get."

He continued to hesitate for but a moment as he glanced at Mondo once more, but he shook it off quickly and gave me a look of determination. "Right! Leave it to me! I'll grab the others and be back soon!"

"Take care." I stated as he rushed away, completely missing the sudden shift in my tone to one that was full of smarm. The moment he was out of sight, I turned to look at Mondo with a diminutive grin. "Oh Mondo, could you be a dear and fetch me my crutch?"

"Huh? Oh yeah, sure." He muttered, clearly not all here as he was still watching his bro leave when I called. At least he did manage to do as I asked even as distracted as he was, though it seemed more an automatic response then an intelligible one.

As I had thought, I had dropped it just outside of the range of the pool, just close enough that I could thankfully guess that despite my mindless charge into the pool, I had some level of self-preservation. It would have had to have been or else I might have left it at the door, or god forbid in the locker room. Could you imagen what that would be like? Having to ask a guy to go into the girl's locker room because you dropped your crutch in the heat of the moment. That would have been all kinds of awkward; for both of us.

Soon, he was at my side with the crutch, and after I had a moment to safely move the sleeping boy off of my lap and onto the floor, Mondo, with little prompting, reached down and grabbed my bicep to help haul me to my feet. Without any problems, as I would expect someone of his background, he was easily able to get me upright and standing without even a grunt of exertion. He even held me still so that I could adjust the support to a comfortable spot before he finally let go, and even than he hesitated, not completely pulling away should I end up capsizing. A sweet enough gesture that I decided to give him a simple, "Thank you Mondo-sweetie."

"Huh...? Oh! Yeah, no prob- Gurk!" Now, you might be wondering to yourself, 'What now? What could possibly happen now to make him choke like that?' and it could be a multitude of things, I will admit. It could be that he had accidentally drank some water from the pool and his body tried to expel it while he was breathing and caused it to go down the wrong pipe. It's possible that a thought of something terrible just occurred to him and it made him choke up in response. Maybe he was finally able to realize that, as I had been wearing a white shirt when I had gone underwater, it was now somewhat transparent to show off the red lined black bra underneath.

Or maybe it was the fact that I now held an iron grasp on his bolos. That could do it.

"Alright shit-stain," I whispered furiously into his ear with deathly seriousness in my tone. "I'm about five seconds away from ripping out your spine and using it for a back scratcher. So, you better explain exactly what happened to lead my little buddy to decide to try and take a nap in the pool with a bleeding head wound or else you'll have to explain to Taka why exactly you suddenly have a brand-new, superfluous vagina."

I don't know what part of all that made him talk. Maybe it was PTSD from the incident in the sauna or maybe his mother really put the fear of god into him at a young age. It could have been the way my glare caught and reflected his face with a cold promise of certain doom should he defy me, or he just really didn't want to see if I would find a way to make my threat actually happen; especially since I was still clutching his dangly bits like I was trying to squeeze a lemon.

Whatever the case, he sang like a freaking canary. Most of it went as I had expected, really. He told me about the note telling him to meet in the locker room, having to deny his bro in the process of fulfilling the promise, Monokuma showing up and everything involving that which I was there for, and how he had waited a few hours for them to show up. He told me a bit about how he met up with Chihiro, and that it was him who had asked for his help in all of this, and how he had apparently thought the small boy was going to try and commit suicide via chain-gun.

It was at this point he paused, hesitating to go any further on account of his pride as a man and his oath not to tell what he knew. Now, normally I would have commended him on that. Even with the loaming threat of having the thing that made him a man in the first place threatened, he still refused to outright blatantly sell out Chihiro's secret. Props to him for that, but I didn't have time for this with Taka no doubt collecting Sakura and Hina as we speak, so I stated in as clear and bluntly as I could, "Quit stalling. I already know about his little secret. Found out a while ago, and it doesn't matter to me. So, continue. Now."

I could tell that he had all sorts of questions after that, but a quick squeeze to remind him of what was at stake if he kept me waiting made him quickly put them on the backburner for now. He gulped in a small amount of fear and grumbled a bit since he was very much not happy to be in this position in the first place, but he complied.

"Alright, so it all happened like this…"

Hello all you happy people out there! Merry Christmas!

…Wait, what? It's already past that…? Oh…

Well then, happy new year!

…What...? That was a weak ago…? Dang it.

Aw well, enough of this. Sad to say, it looks like we had one heck of a close call this time as well. Poor Chihiro, looks like even when things are starting to look up, you still end up with a blow to the head. Least this one didn't result from a dumb-bell lodged in your skull. But still, I wonder…what could have happened in there that would have resulted in this near catastrophe? What events led to the need for intervention of this caliber? And most of all…will our resident biker manage to keep our friend from crushing his natters like grapes in a press?

We'll see, next time.

And yes, I am aware that I'm evil for doing this to you all. MWAHAHAHAHAAAA! :D Happy 2019!