"AAGH!" Yasuho screamed in agony as a random girl from the mob around her suckerpunched her in the stomach. Two other girls grabbed her by the arms while another pair thrusted to the ground and wrapped themselves around her legs to stop her from moving. After the numerous punches she received in the gut, she would have fallen to the ground if it weren't for the students holding her steady.
"Are you a stand user?" The short white-haired student asked Yasuho after striking a few punches into her gut.
"S-Stand user? Is that some slang or something? I don't have any drugs." Yasuho spit out a bit of blood.
"Playing games are we? Let me put this as simply as possible." The white-haired student stood in a very masculine thug like pose. Hands in her pockets and an expression on her face that pronounced her chin. "Tell me what other stand users you know, or you die. Simple as that. So, will you cooperate and go along like a good girl, or not?"
"Stand users? Stand? I have no idea what that bitch is talking about. How can someone use a stand?" Yasuho was left confused and beaten. "Why of all the people in Japan would I be the one to get assaulted by ten or more schoolgirls in a group interrogation? Who do they think I am? They're just a bunch of psychos!" All Yasuho wanted to do was scream for help, but the doors were kept closed, the halls were still packed with students and the girls behind her probably had some cloth ready just in case. Even if she screamed, would anyone come to her aid?
"Can you define what stand users are for me? Maybe I know them under a different name?" The white-haired student stopped for a moment and rubbed her forehead.
"Really? You're not gonna buy yourself any time. Either talk or quit wasting my time."
"Ok Yasuho. Think. Think. There's gotta be a way out. There has to. I've gotta get out of this myself." Seeing no easy way out, she'd have to use her tongue to get out of this predicament.
"Stand users, right? Yeah. I… I know some. In my locker, there's a list of..." Yasuho barely caught her breath. "I wrote them down on the back of a photo." She explained, becoming too exhausted to even keep her head up. The white-haired girl walked up to her and rummaged through her coat pockets, where she found her ID.
"Alright. Goodbye." The white-haired girl smiled and waved as she pranced away. She pulled out her phone to check something.
"Wait, but don't you need me to..."
"137-353." The white-haired girl stunned Yasuho by knowing her password.
"Students are always told not to give away their locker passcode, even to their partners or closest friends. I had only written it down once. I buried it in a picture album under my bed. And with my schedule, no one was ever around to look over my shoulder to see me type it in. Hell, I even wiped off the buttons to make sure no one could just dust my fingerprints. What the actual fuck is going on!? Only people who know the people are me and the school staff in charge of the cyber security. Don't tell me it reaches that far. Oh god! This is too serious to be a prank!" Yasuho was having a breakdown. The veil of privacy and walls she had spent her whole life building had come tumbling down in seconds. All the paranoia, all the precautions, all the sacrificed friendships. All of that. Meaningless. The white-haired girl walked outside.
"Any last words?" A girl with blue hair took the white-haired one's place, even adopting the same manner of speech and body language as the girl that just went out. Even the tone and accent was identical. Yasuho took in a deep breath and looked at the blue-haired girl directly.
"You think you can get away with this? Please, I'm begging you. I'll leave and never mention this again. I swear!" The blue-haired girl went up to Yasuho, close enough to make eye contact even with blurry vision. Pink red irises emanated a deep aura of killer intent, yet somehow it almost felt like there was also something else. Could it be fear? Remorse? Pity perhaps?
"There is no list. You lied." The blue-haired one said with assurance.
"Shit. But how? Earpieces. That's the only logical way. Shit, time's running low. And so are my options."
"Is there anything you want to say?" The blue-haired girl asked with finality.
"Actually, no. I have no idea in the slightest of what you..." Yasuho quickly changed her pitch and went all in. "HELP! SOMEBODY, HELP ME! THESE SICKOS ARE…!" She screamed at the top of her lungs as a last resort. As expected a girl behind her stuck a piece of cloth into her mouth to shut her up. Three girls rallied up in front of her and beat her to a bloody pulp. If it wasn't for the cloth in her mouth, she'd have been wailing like newborn. She rested lifelessly in the arms of her attackers.
"Wait. That's right." The blue-haired one remembered. "Accident."
"H...H...Excuse me?" Yasuho asked with a baffled and beaten tone, barely managing to take in the fresh air coming in through the window.
"Accident. The condition was to make it look like an accident. Come to think of it, suicide would technically count as an accident, right?" The blue-haired girl pondered for a moment. "No. That would lead to further investigations. There's no way I can make you write a not. Not in your lettering anyway."
"This girl. A dead ringer for the definition of demented." Yasuho trembled in her own thoughts. "This is the end. I can feel it. My mind is like a void. It's… calm. All of a sudden. There is no fear. Just blank." Yasuho visualized an Morioh Beach surrounded by nothing but darkness. A once bustling ocean of crashing waves was now nothing more than a calm puddle. A lifeless, useless pool, full of salt and sorrow. An image quite familiar to Yasuho.
"I imagined this would be a lot scarier."
"Are you gonna give up?" Yasuho heard a mysterious voice call to her. "You can hear me, can't you?"
"Am I hallucinating? What is going on? I'm not talking." Yasuho concluded.
"You aren't talking. Just the fact you can hear me is enough." The voice uttered in a calm and composed manner.
"Who are you?"
"I'll tell you later. Listen carefully." Yasuho focused on every single word. "Yasuho. I need you to jump. Jump up as many times as you can?" Yasuho's face turned sour.
"W...Why? I can barely even lift a finger." The pink-haired girl shared her concern. She felt a slight twitch behind her back, almost as if something had snapped.
"Trust me." The voice continued with utmost confidence.
"There's still hope. I realize that now. Screw these rainbow haired bitches! I'm going out on my own terms." Yasuho's burst of confidence was enough to get her back on her feet. With the last of her strength she stood up on her feet.
"Oh?" The blue-haired girl uttered. "Is there something on your mind?"
Yasuho jumped as high as she could against the restraints of the girls behind her. She jumped again. The girls tightened around her arms even more. This however didn't stop Yasuho for even a second. She just kept on going.
"H-Hey, what the hell's wrong with you?" The blue-haired girl looked a bit closer. The pink-haired girl didn't stop jumping. She wasn't trying to break out. If she did, she'd be pulling herself away. Instead, it seemed more like she was rubbing against the girls behind her.
"This is unexpected. It's almost like she's… enjoying this. I mean, I've heard shy girls tend to hide some dark secrets, but is it really true? Is she a… p-p-p pervert?" The blue-haired one panicked. One detail made her scream internally.
"Her bra! It snapped off!" Her cheeks flushed red as the image burned into her retina. For some reason all of her accomplices had the same reaction. They averted their gazes for a while and even covered or closed their eyes.
It was at this moment the tables turned. 8 hits. 8 cracks in rapid succession could be heard, the undeniable sound of bones breaking. The girls behind Yasuho let go. Yasuho fell to the floor on her side.
"I knew you lied…!" The blue-haired girl shouted in agony and looked right into Yasuho's eyes.
"What the fuck!? Her eye! Her eye!" Yasuho couldn't believe her eyes. In place of where the blue-haired girl's eye was, a patch of nothing appeared. It was like magic. A huge chunk of her head disappeared. Completely non-existent. It looked like she had just taken a rocket to the face. Everything from her lips upward was missing. Even from the cold floor, Yasuho could swear she saw the blue-haired girl's inner organs, like her tongue and teeth. It was as if half of her face was sliced through with a katana.
"A piece of her head is missing! But she's still alive? No damage. It was just a second, but her face started vanishing! "
4 more hits could be heard. The remaining girls all screamed in pain. Yasuho pried herself up. She couldn't believe her eyes. All of the girls had the top of their head missing. The same symptoms, undeniably a supernatural aid from an unknown ally.
"The fuck!? Why can't I…? Where am I? What is this place!" It was as if all the girls were blinded. Yasuho couldn't quite imagine what was going on.
"Wait, they can see something? But their eyes are missing! How in hell are they saying something like that? Wouldn't they just yell 'I'm blind' or something?" Yasuho focused her mind on the logistics of her situation. She was just too tired to even lift a finger.
Suddenly, a strange hand grabbed Yasuho by the hand and pulled her away. Immediately, she found herself get swiftly dragged along the floor next to the open window. Another hand covered her mouth to prevent her from screaming. The hands looked humanoid, but had a metallic texture. They were pink and covered in a plethora of web patterns and occasional highlights. As Yasuho turned her head to the left, a bizarre purple figure with a face filled with sixteen eyes, a bird like nose and webbed armpits sat beside her. It looked like it was pulled straight out of a sci-fi horror movie from the 90's.
"What is this thing? It's creepy. And yet, so friendly?" In spite of its menacing look, Yasuho felt safe. For some reason, that thing wasn't trying to kill her. At this point Yasuho simply assumed the thing was the one speaking to her.
"Psst!" A whisper made Yasuho look to her right. She couldn't believe it. A girl with purple hair and green lipstick was crouched beside her, gesturing to her to keep quiet.
"Shizuka!?" Yasuho uttered before the thing covered her mouth again.
"I can hear you. From now on, we talk like this." Shizuka didn't say a word and yet, Yasuho heard her as clear as day. "We have to go."
"How? The door is guarded?" Yasuho questioned.
"Window, genius." Shizuka was disappointed at Yasuho's lack of creativity. Yasuho looked down. They were on the third floor. Below the window was nothing to cushion their fall. Just cold cement pavement.
"Unless that thing knows how to fly, then there's no way we're getting down." The pink-haired girl communicated by just thinking it. She found it strange how quickly she got used to it.
"Who said anything about getting down?" Shizuka gave Yasuho a cheeky look and slowly helped her get body, that was at this point limp as a corpse, on the edge of the window.
While the two girls were struggling, the attackers lay confused on the floor. To normal on goers it would have looked like samurai went on a killing spree and sliced off the heads of ten or more people. They weren't hurt, but they couldn't guess what was going on. Of course, from the attackers point of view it looked totally different.
"What the fuck is this!? All I remember is a flash and bam, suddenly this! What stand power even is this!? I knew this Yasuho chick was hiding something!" The blue-haired attacker thought to herself as she peered at the situation from her own point of view. What she saw was nothing short of a mushroom trip. A pitch white void surrounded her from every angle. In the vast emptiness, all she could see was a bunch of heads floating at about the same level as her own. She couldn't see her own arms or anything else for that matter. Upon a closer look, all she could see were only top halves of heads. They looked like they were cleanly sliced off. Though something felt wrong.
"Wait. I can feel something." The attacker started connecting the dots. "This thing underneath me. I can't see it, but I can feel it. This is the bathroom floor. Come to think of it, that's the place I got hit in. So I'm still here, but I just can't see anything. But why do I see those heads?" The attacker pondered for a moment and thought about a word of advice from the black-haired third year.
"Remember Rinji, your stand allows gives you a great advantage in battle. Perspective and distance. It is a power that requires outside the box thinking, diligence, preparation and willpower to handle. You must tame it Rinji. Only then can you truly become who you're destined to be." Rinji remembered the words he cherished so much.
"No, this is no time to hesitate. I'm not dead, obviously. I hope. I'm not severely hurt either. Is this some sort of illusion? It feels like I'm wearing a blindfold or something." Little by little Rinji came to a conclusion. In order to solve this, the attacker tried thinking outside the box.
"I'm still in the bathroom. That means that Yasuho is still here with me. I just can't see her." A faint creek could be heard coming from the window. A much colder and stronger breeze blew his way. "The wind. I need to aim for the wind. Which puppet was closest to the window?" Rinji ruffled through his head, but then realized that he can just look at the visible severed heads and deduce from there.
"That brunette with the buns. She's closest to the window. I have to quickly jump into her before they get out." Rinji closed the eyes of the blue-haired girl his brain was inhabiting and quickly moved over into the head of the brunette.
Shizuka was already outside the window hanging onto the outer wall with her stand. She moved a bit and managed to get a hold of the fence around the school's rooftop. Yasuho stood up on the window and basked at how easy Shizuka made it look. Shizuka held on tight to fence. The hand of the mystery thing that came with Shizuka extended towards Yasuho.
"Grab on already! What are you braindead?" Yasuho quickly grabbed the things arm. It had a strange texture, metallic yet smooth. She felt as if she was touching raw energy. In the corner of her eye, Yasuho saw something move. A body with half of its head missing spasmed back to life. Before the pink-haired girl could react, the body bum rushed her in an instant.
"Shit!" Yasuho screamed in fear. Without even thinking, she grabbed onto the Shizuka's weird metallic arm and jumped. She swung forward and back, crashing into the school's wall. Shizuka didn't like it.
"Yasuho! Are you mental or something?" Shizuka screamed as she was on the verge of puking.
"Shizuka! Brain talk." Yasuho communicated with her mind.
"Right. But seriously, what the hell do you eat? You weigh like a sack of brick." Shizuka complained. Yasuho kept clear as the brunette ran her hands along the window, its frame and the walls outside it.
"Well sorry 'Miss cig and gin', but I'm not exactly used to drugees trying to kill me. I'm scared for my life here." Yasuho exclaimed. Shizuka pulled her up with her strange appendages. Now they were both on the same level, standing up at the top of the roof behind a wire fence. All there was left to do was to get to the other side and get back into the building through the roof. The mighty wind made their hair blow around wildly. Yasuho took the moment to catch her breath.
"Thank you, Shizuka." She proclaimed. Shizuka stayed silent for a bit, trying to regain her strength. "So what now? Do we just go back to class? How do we climb over this thing? I'm failing P.E just so we're on the same page." Yasuho pushed Shizuka for answers.
"What now? We wait." Shizuka said as monotone as possible.
"Wait?" Yasuho was eager to know more.
"With my Stand, I guarantee he could never find us."
"Shit. This is bad! I need to get her! God knows what the boss will do to me if I don't. Why did I even agree to this!? Think outside the box. Think. Think." Rinji thought to himself. The white-haired girl that went to Yasuho's locker finally came back. Rinji jumped into her head to prove his hypothesis. "Shit. Yasuho's stand. Now I see. All these girls. Their eyes. She aimed for their eyes to blind them. It's probably something that obscures space. It's probably not very strong in direct combat, but makes up for in versatility. Odds are she can become invisible herself. What do I do?"
Rinji felt sick to the core in multiple bodies that didn't belong to him. He could almost feel the clock of his life ticking to zero. "Willpower. Willpower will pull me through. It's either all or nothing."
Rinji used the brunette's body to talk to Yasuho. He leaned on the window and talked to the pink-haired girl he knew was nearby. "Yasuho! I know you're up there." Silence. Yasuho just looked down. She knew he couldn't do anything even if two more of them rushed to the rooftop. Not with Shizuka around. "Yasuho! I'm gonna be honest with you. All these students here are innocent. None of them have killer intentions towards you. They're my puppets, you see." Rinji left a small pause. "My stand allows me to take control of people. I can force them to obey my commands. At the moment, I'm in control of over 100 people." Another small pause continued. "Tell me Yasuho. Can your consciousness bare the weight of 100 innocent souls?"
Yasuho grew pale at the prospect. Just one innocent soul dying because of her would have made her feel tremendous guilt. 100 was just too much to bare.
"For proof, allow me to start with this one. I don't know her name. All I know is she's a second year. From her fingers I can tell she plays guitar. From the injury on her leg, she probably also plays soccer. A cheat sheet in her pocket tells me she's bad at math. Think of this as an appetizer. This one for now, the rest for tomorrow." Rinji stepped on the window's edge with the brunette's body, still blind because of the enemy stand's effect.
"You ready Yasuho?" He asked with the attitude of a crazy person.
"Shizuka, what should I do!?" Yasuho panicked. Shizuka just took a deep breath and let out a deep sigh.
"Yasuho, why would they want to kill you?" She asked in the calmest way possible.
"I have no idea. But I can't just let that girl get killed. How do we do this?" Yasuho awaited Shizuka's wisdom.
"If what they're saying isn't bullshit, then the attacker's stand is a long range possession Stand. Their body is probably sitting limp somewhere while people are getting taken over. The Stand itself probably isn't too powerful. At the end of the day they're just as powerless as any other human." Shizuka got way too into speculating about the enemy.
"Slow down. I've got no idea what half of that means. But you said something about the attacker being powerless. Does that mean they're vulnerable somewhere. Hey! Help me stop them goddamn it." Yasuho was getting anxious.
"Three!" The brunette said out loud. A countdown to the girl's horrid fate.
"This Yasuho girl..." Shizuka thought to herself. "It's like saving the girl is the only option available. It never even crossed her mind to leave her be. Yasuho. You may not even know what your stand does, and yet..." Shizuka's mind cleared. "Oh, Yasuho. That spirit. Why can't I have something like that." It was evident that it was time for action.
"Two!" The brunette counted down. "I've got four people storming the rooftop as we speak. It's a dead end. Yasuho's stand is very weak. Its whole schtick is based on deception. But you've misjudged me Yasuho. In the end Yasuho, I am the one willing to make sacrifices. This is the culmination of my willpower. This is my devotion incarnate. I will do what has to be done." Rinji grew determined.
"Yasuho!" Shizuka communicated to her ally. "You may be confused for a bit, but whatever you do, don't move." Yasuho simply nodded in compliance.
"One!" With a final word, the brunette jumped downward. The small moment of weightlessness came to a sudden stop as the brunette's arm jolted upwards.
"What the…!?" Rinji looked up, but couldn't tell what was going on because of the previous attack. He could feel a metallic arm grasp the puppet's left arm and use another one to hold onto the open window. The backlash from the stop wasn't too strong. The brunette didn't have any time to accelerate. Rinji switched back to the white-haired girl's point of view. From there, he approached the window. A metallic hand clung to the edge of the window. It was impossible for the hand to be even remotely that of a human.
"Yes! She fell for it! This must be the hand of Yasuho's Stand!" Rinji cheered with glee. "I can't believe that actually worked! I must be swift before she descends to a lower floor or something." Rinji pulled out a seemingly inconspicuous pack of tissues and ripped it open. Buried in between the layers of tissue and aluminum was a switchblade. Durable and sharp, dark and glistening, imported from Sweden and sold in Tokyo. Rinji remembered the time he received it from his superior about a week prior.
"Remember Rinji, Stands can only be hurt by other Stands. Your [Strawberry Fields] is unusable for fighting one on one, I'll give you this knife. I've coated it with the ink of my Stand. If you ever find yourself going up against a Stand user, it'll surely be of use. I bought it with my own savings. Consider it a gift. From me to you. And only to you." The words from his mentor never failed to send warm chills down Rinji's spine.
This knife instilled in Rinji a much desired feeling. Not one of power or love, but one of trust. Growing up, Rinji was always known as 'the clumsy kid'. Whenever there was a task he had to do, odds were he'd screw it up in a major way. Plenty of people would spend more time and effort correcting his mistakes than needed and before long, they started leaving Rinji alone. And while he wasn't complaining, he felt a sense of emptiness. He felt like a detriment to the people around him. As if he was someone lesser than them. A lowly peasant among royals. A dirty rat among eagles. Useless. He grew apathetic. For a while now everything he ever did only resulted in more failure. It was like a chasm he couldn't escape no matter how hard he tried.
But that feeling soon went away once he met his mentor. The black-haired third year gave him what he had been lacking for a long time. A genuine sense of trust. For once, someone was willing to accept him for who he was. Someone who believed that he could accomplish what had to be done, and that was all the motivation he needed, to go along with his mentor's plan.
"The ideal thing to do now would be to slash the Stand's wrist. But first I need to keep her from escaping."
Rinji pulled out the knife and in the blink of an eye had the white-haired girl stab the Stand in the hand. The user let out a faint scream. Rinji looked outside to check. To his surprise, it wasn't Yasuho.
"This isn't Yasuho! What the hell!? Who is she!?" Before he could even finish his thought, the purple-haired punk hanging from the window started talking.
"Gotcha." Before he knew it, a surge of energy had travelled from the Stand user to the Stand itself, onto the knife and into the body of the white-haired girl Rinji was inhabiting. It was a split second shock that left Rinji utterly shocked.
"AH!" He screamed in agony and confusion. The white-haired girl's body he had been controlling to at the moment went limp and collapsed to the floor.
While this was going on, Yasuho herself had found herself in a bizarre situation. From what she was told, she was still in the same place Yasuho left her, except that she couldn't see anything. It was only her body and clothes. For a second, she felt as if she had been transported to limbo. When she closed her eyes, she realized that she was convinced that she was still in the same place as before.
"This metal wire fence. The cold breeze blowing on my skin. The sound of birds and students bustling." She looked around for a bit. Below her, she could see what appeared to be halves of student's heads. The same halves she couldn't see back when she was still in the bathroom. Little by little, she pieced together the clues.
"Shizuka. I see now. This ability of yours. It makes things invisible. But when you use it on people, they can only see that what is invisible. It's like you put us on a whole different layer. Incredible." Yasuho was in awe of what was possible. In that moment, the limits of her knowledge of what was possible and what wasn't had reached a new level of understanding. For at least once in her life, it felt as if nothing could hold her down. From behind her, she heard a loud clang.
"The doors opened. They're here." Yasuho's mind was racing.
"I know you're here Yasuho." Said a fairly handsome male voice.
"It's alright. They literally cannot see me. All I have to do is keep quiet and they won't suspect a thing. Besides, maybe they're bluffing." An odd moment of optimism kept her spirits high.
One floor below, the white-haired girl's body lay paralyzed on the floor, jerking from the jolts of electricity in her system. Rinji felt like his brain was getting scrambled and so he ditched the body at the last moment. He retreated to the body of a teal-haired girl with half of her face missing right next to the white-haired girl.
"This is a nightmare. I feel like I've been run over by a train or something." He found himself back in the void. "Here again? Wait. Why can I only see…?" Rinji was trying to reason the parameters of the Stand user's power. He pretended to play dead for a moment. "Maybe she thinks she killed me. When she comes to check the corpse, I'll have my puppets swarm her from every angle." As he got into position, he looked to the ceiling.
"Wait! That's." He saw Yasuho standing about a floor above him. She looked like she was clinging to something that wasn't there. She was tense about something. Rinji's thoughts started making sense.
"She's on the roof." He switched his view back to the young male puppet he had search the roof. "Just like these girl's heads, they can't see normal stuff. They can only see the stuff that punk girl punched. Which means...!" Rinji almost jumped in excitement. "I can use these girls to pinpoint Yasuho." The plan was set. Focus on Yasuho and have his boys on the roof shake her off. He navigated them closely, cross referencing what they saw with what the teal-haired girl saw.
Yasuho was starting to get worried. She couldn't see Shizuka and the boys were starting to investigate the fence. She held her breath and hoped for the best.
"Bingo." Rinji had found her exact location.
"Well, I guess she got away." Said a male teen on the roof. "We'll just have to go back."
Yasuho was relieved for a moment. She let out a deep sigh. Her tensed up muscles had relaxed a little.
"That's right Yasuho. Get your bearings..." Rinji saw that this was the moment to strike. Yasuho heard footsteps rushing towards her. She barely even registered them. At that moment, Yasuho was fit through the fence with the strength of four strong teens. After the impact, Yasuho could feel herself fall through the air. With no real point of reference other than the heads below her, Yasuho only felt the wind resistance as she fell face forward to the ground.
"AHHH!" She couldn't think of anything. Only fear and confusion. Her fall shortly came to a sudden stop. Her hand was caught by a familiar hand. Her body followed a path like that of a pendulum and crashed into the side of the school, halting her gained velocity. Shizuka had managed to catch her falling ally. The sheer force with which she grabbed her was enough to revert the invisibility Shizuka cast on her before. Yasuho could finally see.
"Hi. Good thing you screamed. Otherwise I might have missed you." Shizuka said light-heartedly. Another seemingly lifeless body hung from the side of the window. She was being held in place by something.
"Oh. Good! The roof's a dead end, we need to go downward." Yasuho communicated.
"It's pointless. Look down." Yasuho did as she said. A group of students patiently looked upward. They had no business being there. Not even delinquents would go to this part of the school. "The enemy can control people. They've probably blocked every exit we have by now. Every window, every doorway, every path. And they've figured out my invisibility. Talk about a pain in the ass."
"Can't you just make everyone visible and make us invisible!?" Yasuho scrambled to find a plan.
"That's not how it works. If I want to make them visible again, I have to hit them myself or get some distance between us." Shizuka said as she pulled Yasuho up with her Stand. The pink-haired girl took a closer look at the blonde next to Shizuka. Specifically how she was holding herself up.
"Shizuka! Why is there a knife in her hand!" Yasuho yelled at Shizuka internally.
"Cool it down, bitch. It was either that or have you fall to your death. Just be glad I heard you scream. Besides, she'll walk it off." Shizuka justified why she stabbed the brunette through the palm.
"What's she waiting for?" Rinji thought as he lay dormant, waiting for them to make a move. "Can't she just use her electric powers to get through? She must have a limit. Why else would she be afraid of some regular high schoolers." Rinji heard some noise coming from beside him. He looked to see the white-haired girl jerking and jittering on the floor. Upon closer look, Rinji noticed foam spewing out of her mouth.
"This is bad. She's probably having a stroke. Damn it. Yasuho was my target. That brunette was just a desperate bait. I knew she wouldn't let someone die. No one else was supposed to get hurt. Shit." Rinji used the body of a girl with a ponytail that was guarding the door to check on the girl's body to check on the girl. "Hey, can you hear me?" He carefully turned the girl's head to the side to prevent her from choking. "I messed up. I messed up hard. I failed again. Senpai trusted me and I… damn it! One thing's for sure. Senpai would be very displeased if an innocent died."
Outside, Shizuka and Yasuho were hanging on for dear life. They were cornered by the enemies possessed puppets. Every possible exit had been sealed off.
"Come on, think of something." Yasuho pushed on.
"Shut up, bitch! I'm trying." Shizuka tried to keep her composure and think. "I was hoping a shock would incapacitate the user and shut them out from the rest, but judging by everyone below, they're probably still alive. We're trapped." Yasuho tried to think and instinctively looked down at the crowd below.
"Hey, Shizuka, look at that." A shocking sight to be sure. The puppeted students that were previously standing and ready to catch the girls were now laying on the floor face down. Their hands were on the back of their heads and their feet were touching their asses. More than anything, it looked like a sign of retreat.
"Hey, you!" The ponytail girl's body uttered. "Purple haired girl. You gave one of the girls a stroke. I'll give up if you can help her." Shizuka and Yasuho were left confused.
"Hold on, how do we know this isn't a trap? You wanted to kill this girl!" Shizuka shouted at the enemy.
"It was just to bait you out. My main target was and still is Yasuho. If you help the girl, I'll let you go. That is a promise." Rinji tried to convince the two.
"Did I really give her a stroke?" Shizuka felt a whole lot of guilt for the girl's state.
"We went too far. You. Whoever you are. I'll try to help her, but you have to promise you'll let us walk. No trickery." Yasuho negotiated, knowing full well that her life is the one the enemy was after.
"Of course. That is the condition." The deal was made. "You two, get in here, quick. Bell will ring in about a minute or two." And so, Rinji, Shizuka and Yasuho created a truce. Shizuka looked carefully through the window. She noticed a girl with a ponytail was attending the white-haired girl she shocked earlier. The rest of the girl's were in the same position as the students on the ground outside. Face down, hands behind their heads and feet on their behinds. The enemy seemed serious.
"Alright. Let's go." Shizuka pulled Yasuho into the bathroom first and then herself. Together they pulled in the brunette that was stuck to the window by just a small pocket knife. They took her inside and lay her on the floor. Shizuka rushed to the girl with a stroke.
"Is she breathing" She asked.
"Hardly. I put her head on the side in case she vomits." Rinji said casually, as if talking to a person he wasn't trying to kill two minutes ago.
"I see." Shizuka pulled out her stand. A metallic humanoid with an odd looking six eyed face and spider webs under it's armpits. She used the stand to do CPR on the girl without leaving any fingerprints.
"Have you called an ambulance? Can you send a puppet to the nurse's office?"
"I can try, but..." Before he could finish, he heard sirens blurt in from outside. "Huh?" A firetruck, two ambulances and three police vehicles rushed in and halted near the school's entrance.
"How did they get here so fast?" Rinji asked.
"Damn it. If they see us here, we're fucked." Shizuka vented her frustration.
"Go. They can't trace it back to me. I'll keep her stable for now. You... " Rinji sighed in defeat. "Just scram damn it. We'll deal with this later." A sincere tone came out of the ponytail sporting girl.
Shizuka froze up a bit. How can someone with such an intent to kill, and ways to not get traced back be so concerned for a student? It wasn't unreasonable, but it was puzzling to say the least.
"Let's go Shizuka." Yasuho stood up and gave Shizuka a hand.
"Y… Yeah." Shizuka didn't know what to say. In part, she felt like the girl's state was partly her responsibility. She stood up and carefully walked to the door. The fire alarm suddenly triggered. Screams of panic could be heard from the hallway. Shizuka carefully opened the door to check. No one was paying attention.
"Ok. We can blend into the crowd. Yasuho?" Shizuka turned back to see her ally. The girl was looking at the girl with the ponytail.
"Hey. Next time we meet, I want an explanation." The pink-haired girl declared.
"I can't guarantee that. All you need to know is that this isn't personal, nor did you do anything that would piss us off. In the end, you're just a victim of circumstance." Rinji explained.
"Circumstance?" Yasuho asked.
"I already said too much." Rinji rushed to end the talk. "Go already." With only a wave, the girls exited the bathroom and blended into the crowd, which they followed outside. During the evacuation, a number of firemen, medics and policemen rushed opposite them.
"Hey, Shizuka. Do you think someone called while we were fighting? Did someone know what's going on?" Yasuho asked curiously.
"Yasuho, I'm afraid these are the least of your concerns."
"What do you mean."
"The enemy revealed that this wasn't personal. And that they aren't alone."
"So what does this mean for us?"
"It means that there's a group of Stand users out there who want you dead." Shizuka paused dramatically as they pushed through the crowd. "Right now, someone in this crowd probably wants you dead." Shizuka conveyed with a sinister tone.
"Was that supposed to calm me down? I don't want to die!" Yasuho started shaking a little as the adrenaline of her prior encounter wore off. "What's the plan? Do I run? I've literally got nowhere to go. What about my mom? What about her, Shizuka?" Shizuka trudged through the crowd to get closer to Yasuho. It wasn't necessary, but due to what just happened, Shizuka felt like it was she needed. The right thing to do.
"Yasuho. Listen closely." Yasuho stiffened up as Shizuka appeared beside her. "Are you going to run, or are you gonna fight for your right to stay alive?" Yasuho's expression turned from that of confusion, into that of anger and sheer determination. "Let me tell you Shizuka, it's one thing to go after me, but it's another to get innocent people involved. These people, they're a cowardly bunch for sure. They're like ants under a log. When we turn it, they'll scatter like the shits they are." In that moment, something had awoken in Yasuho. It was as if a seed had sprouted into a magnificent tree in the prime of Summer. Her Aura had been giving off powerful, lively vibes. She turned to face Shizuka.
"You with me?" The pink-haired girl asked with a smile that would send lions into hiding.
"This spirit. Remarkable. Yasuho. I've nothing to say..." Shizuka thought to herself. This girl was surely something else. She had a glint in her that simply shone like a lighthouse in a storm. Shizuka was running scared even though she could conjure up a ghost to fight her fights, while Yasuho faced her situation with her head held high. "You've got guts Yasuho. That's for sure." She thought again.
"You can sleep over at my place." Shizuka implied. "If they're Stand users, they'll think twice before even stepping foot there. Tomorrow, we smoke them out. We strike quick and hard. Get this over with. How does that sound?" While Shizuka acted bold, it was merely Yasuho's sheer will and admiration towards her that kept her from giving her the option of running away.
"Sounds like a plan." Yasuho went along. As of today, her circle of friends has been expanded by one.