PART II - Cutting Tendency
Monika lifts herself up back onto her feet with her shoulder wrapped up and her wounds softened. Saying the clubroom was a mess, at this point, was a massive understatement; the area was a wreck, and the two fighters were lucky that just about everyone on the west wing of the school had left home. Hopefully Sayori wakes up and gets herself back together before anybody else comes by to see her in such a state that Monika had left her in, and hopefully Sayori will stay quiet enough.
"This situation is too ridiculous for any regular person to believe." Monika mutters to herself, "I shouldn't have to worry about this getting out there, especially to Protag-kun." Her arms cross and her face slightly pouts.
Monika walks towards the exit of the room and tucks her pen and a folded piece of paper into her blazer's pocket, signaling One Year Of Love to fade away.
"Protag-kun's classroom should be on the east wing, I can still get to him if my prediction's correct."
Suddenly, Monika hears the clubroom's closet door slide open behind her.
"H-hey Monikaaaa…" Looms a familiar, shy voice.
"What the-" Monika turns around. She sees that straight, slender purple hair and that innocent stance.
It was Yuri.
"Fuck fuck fuck she was still here?!" Internal panicking ensues as Monika attempts to keep a cool exterior, "Heeeyyyy Yuri! I didn't know you were still here!"
The velvet maiden smiles, "Oh you k-know, I just got l-lost in my books like… y'know, usual." Her expression tenses "What happened h-here though?..." She looks around.
Monika wraps her arms behind her back and holds her signature stance, "I have no idea Yuri! I'd had just came back here because I forgot something, and all of a sudden, the clubroom was a wre-" A knife flies past Monika's cheek and slams the wall in the hallway behind her, leaving a red gash on her face.
"...ck…"
Yuri's eyes had now changed, and her smile took on a wicked decorum. She had now possessed a gaze akin to that of a king cobra locating its next prey. The purple irises had lost all modest detail of sanity and now conformed to a straight, berserk feature of dementia. Fangs were bared.
"For someone who was in Theatre, your acting skills are terrible, Monika. Actors in shitty 80s slasher flicks are better at convincing me of their humanity than you are, bitch!"
Monika fumbles backwards in justified surprise, "Where the hell did that knife come from…? Don't tell me…"
A dark, almost-fiery blue aura exerted itself around Yuri as she tucked her hands into her skirt pockets, legs about intertwined.
"I have what Sayori has, and what you have. It's what you call… A 'stand' correct? I couldn't hear much from the closet, I will admit I got a bit distracted re-reading Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, though it was especially hard to focus when Sayori threw a hissy fit and started a hurricane in the classroom! Ridiculous, am I correct?!"
Monika's legs fidget slightly, her stance straightens. "Yeah I know rig-" Another knife flies by her, gashing her other cheek.
"A-are you just really bad at aiming?! Or do you just like cutting me up?" Monika yells in agitation, "Where are you even getting these knives?!"
Yuri smiles wider, "You want me to answer all of your questions in a mere second?"
A third knife flies at Monika with much fiercer speed, this time directly at her face, forcing her stand to come out and deflect it with a forceful backhand strike. In that same second, Yuri's stand finally reveals itself to Monika's eyes: Coated with the same dark-blue aura, it appeared to be that of a male human figure, completely shaded black, with the exception of its regular, plain eyes and its regular, plain black irises. Its eyes were the most clear thing about it. Yuri's stand also appeared to be wearing a long black trenchcoat with a long-tipped trilby hat, hands in its pockets. Everything was black with only grey-ish outlines indicating some sorts of features about it. The sheer darkness of the figure concealed all of the intricate details and conveyed endless mystery, almost as if it was a ghost of some sorts. Suddenly, it swiped out a combat knife from it's back and held it up menacingly between its fingers.
"Do you like my stand…?" Yuri grins, "I think it's really quite perfect for me! The enigmatic atmosphere it presents really protrudes a sense of fear and uncertainty, which is what I think is a key element in horror."
Monika steps forward and away from the clubroom door, "You said you'd answer all of my questions in a second, but I'm still yet to know where the hell those knives are coming from."
Yuri's stand swipes out another knife, this time a kitchen knife, with its other hand.
"You'll be surprised to know that my stand can take possession of any knife in the world and materialize it here through the pocket dimension in its… well, pocket!"
"Eh?!" Monika is perplexed.
The knives began levitating behind and above Yuri's stand.
"I gave it a really neat name," Yuri raises her index finger up, "THE BLACK PARADE!"
Monika steps one more time forward, "Well at least you gave it a creative nam-"
The two knives are launched like bullets.
"DOKIDOKI!" screams One Year of Love as each knife is smacked aside.
"You're really bad at letting me speak huh-"
A knife flies by Monika's skirt and rips the bottom-left of it.
"CAN YOU PLEASE?!" Yells Monika as Yuri giggles maniacally.
"You're a fool to let your guard down, MONIKAAAAA!" The purple maiden shouts as Black Parade closes in for a physical attack, combat knife bared into a stabbing motion. One Year of Love counters the first attack by grabbing Black Parade's armed left side and holding it up, but suddenly, a bronze, Egyptian dagger materializes in it's other hand and aims a stab towards One Year's right side, who promptly elbows the dagger out of Black Parade's hand. The black stand then kicks One Year's stomach, loosening it from the opposing stand's hold, leading him to follow up with an uppercut to to it's plasma green face, knocking it back and leaving it seemingly open to Parade's blade.
"This'll be a quick end!" Yuri laughs as Parade swiftly stabs towards One Year's chest.
"Heh, too predictable." Monika smirks as One Year dashes with unprecedented speed to Black Parade's right side and delivers a heavy blow to its head, knocking it through the clubroom wall into the hallway, which also knocked Yuri onto the ground and into the wall, not breaking it like her stand did. The battle seemed already decided.
"It seems you've forgot the physical prowess of my stand, Yuri! One Year of Love not only beats Sayori, but you as well in both speed and streng-" A knife strikes Monika in the left calf. Blood covers her lower leg, gushing.
"AAAAHHHHHHHHH Ssshhhittttt!" Monika screams as the piercing pain infiltrates her skin and tissue, almost toppling her, but she manages to keep standing with her other leg.
Yuri then begins to stand back up.
"That was a really good hit, Monika, it felt gooood…" Yuri rubs the bleeding right side of her head, blood dripping down all the way to her cheek, "But I thought you'd already know it isn't as easy as one punch." She continues as her eyes intensify with fury, her wicked smile evolves, and her tongue reaches out to taste the bitter blood smeared on her finger.
Monika, still fidgeting and grunting from pain, uses her stand to remove the steel blade from her calf, despite the messy and agonizing dismissal of the weapon.
"Jeez, I can't stop getting stabbed can't I?" Monika mutters, breathing intensely,
Yuri laughs like a witch with her finger on her lip as Black Parade materializes behind her, armed, "I hope you're prepared for more!"
Dozens of knives begin to materialize behind Black Parade, appearing to be sourced from a dark void in the stand's hand. Every single blade, each unique in terms of country origin and construction and size, were pointed towards Monika.
"This is looking really familiar…" Monika takes out a piece of paper and her pen and begins writing down 'Steel medium shield.' "I need to get out of this room and form a strategy, taking her on like this is suicide if she truly has access to every knife in the world." The shield materializes in her grasp, covering a good chunk of her upper-body.
"Monika, WELCOME TO THE BLACK PARADE!" Yuri spreads her arms and yells as the army of knives are launched at Monika, akin to super-sized bullets going at supersonic speed.
"ONE YEAR OF LOVE!" Monika yells as she runs for the clubroom door, holding the shield up chest-head height while One Year handled deflecting any knife 'aimed' at Monika's lower half.
"DOKIDOKIDOKIDOKIDOKIDOKIDOKIDOKI!" Yells the stand, it's fists, and the clanging of the metal of each blade. 'WOOSH!' and 'DING!' fill the entire room as the fury of Black Parade is unleashed from Yuri's infinite arsenal. After sustaining several injuries from One Year tanking the impact of the knives, Monika finally escapes the clubroom and into the sunny hallway, a fresh sight to the tired eyes of the club president.
"My shield's a wreck, what kind of power goes into launching those knives?-"
'CRASH!' goes the clubroom's wall a few meters in front of Monika and across from what remained of the clubroom's entrance. Yuri's stand smashed a hole in order to exit the clubroom; combat knives were now equipped in each of her hands.
"You idiot, Monika," Yuri shouts as she twirls both of her dual-wielded weapons. "This hallway makes the massacre easier!" Her twisted expression multiplies and mixes with the blood-stained half of her face. Yuri's teeth resembled that of a Coyote snarling at its prey.
Monika writes down on her paper as more knives appear behind and above Yuri and her stand: "Legendary Steel greatshield." The colossal object materializes with a loud 'THUNK!'. It almost even extends to the edges of the hallway walls and expanded beyond Monika's height, almost beyond her stand's height. It was truly a shield from a fable of great myth. Inscripted on it were illustrations and markings indicating the wielder could be a great hero of English legend.
"Well, it allows me to do this at least!" The club president shouts and starts dashing away from her position, crouched over to make sure her spawned wall can maintain coverage. "If I can just get to a safe area… Like a… Like…" She thinks while holding onto speed like a cat holding onto a branch for dear life.
"Clever!... Well, not really!" The opposing girl responds as knives begin pounding the colossal shield, pounding the shield with so much force that the blades stab through the thick, metal membrane. Eventually the blades hit the shield so rapidly that it knocks over in just a few seconds and falls to the wooden ground with such force that it crashes through and falls to the bottom floor.
"You can run, Monika, but you can't escaappppeeeee!~" Yuri jumps over the hole and runs in Monika's direction, equipped with knives still, her stand close behind also sporting a dozen mid-air blades. She turns a corner.
"Monnikaaaa!... I promise I'll kill you quickly if you let me have Protag-kun!"
Meanwhile, in the Boys' bathroom in the next perpendicular hallway, Monika is bandaging her leg up in one of the stalls.
"I wouldn't put it past Yuri to end up checking this bathroom too, but she'll most likely look in the Girls' first… Now I just need to figure out how to counter The Black Parade."
Monika looks at her paper, "Maybe… I can fight fire with fire… Firepower. After all she cooperates synergy with her stand like I do."
Chaotic crashing and smashing emanated from next-door, shaking the Boy's bathroom even.
At that same time, Yuri exits the Girls' bathroom, which is now in complete shambles due to the fact she raided every stall with an onslaught of blades.
"If you want to play a game of suspense, I can perfectly do that, Monika! In fact, I bet you're hiding in the Boys' bathroom, huh?!" Yuri shouts out in hope of a sound while kicking open the bathroom door, playing with her knives and blushing, "That'd be really perverted if you were! Then again, I have touched myself in here quite a few times during club hours-"
Bullets and flashes of light and fire begin flying from the dark bathroom, accompanied by the ruthless rhythm of an automatic firearm! Yuri, caught by surprise, takes a bullet to her left hand and loses her grasp of her weapon.
"SHIT SHIT, BLACK PARADE!" She shouts as she takes cover while Black Parade forms a shield with its knives, nullifying any bullets.
"What the hell, Monika?! A gun-" A beep interrupts Yuri as an explosive charge of C4 detonates at the door, parallel to her, blowing a massive hole where the door once was and sending her flying across the hallway and yelling obscenities.
"This is my chance!"
Monika books it out of the Boys' bathroom, rushing down the hallway in the direction where she came from while shooting off a volley of bullets in Yuri's general direction. Of course, Black Parade deflected each of these shots with incredible accuracy. Monika rounds the corner, smacks her paper against the wall, and writes down another medium shield like before.
"This'll be heavy, but I've endured far heavier!" Monika continues her mad dash down to the other side of the school's west wing, hoping to fully loop. Meanwhile, Yuri rounds the corner, left hand and head still bleeding with her uniform worn from the explosion. Some edges of the skirt were blackened and her blazer was noticeably absent, leaving her vest and white dress shirt exposed. Yuri's expression was now less that of composed madness and more of the nature of unraveled fury.
Three knives materialize in between the fisted fingers of her right hand, "That was fucking CHEAP, MONIKA!" She yells as she flings the weapons towards her target, which are followed by exponentially more knives by Black Parade.
"ONE YEAR OF LOVE!" Monika yells as her stand 'DOKI's as many blades as possible while its master ducked and utilized her shield.
"Fuck!" she yells as One Year noticeably takes more hits than before, causing cuts to appear and scatter all over her her body. Monika flings the shield at Yuri like a disc while firing off more shots from her rifle and walking backwards. Black Parade calls upon the same knife shield as before, signaling Monika to continue her dash.
"What the hell could she be possibly accomplishing by doing this?!" Yuri's teeth start gritting, "If she thinks she can tire me out, then I'll just preserve my stamina…" Her expression lightens up, despite the visible damage, "That's right… I can't let this fight get to my head. I must be at my best-as-possible state for Protag-kun!" She stands calmly in the hallway for almost a minute before proceeding past the stairs.
Yuri walks calmly around the upcoming corner, a smile on her face, and back into the original hallway where the clubroom's doors are. The walls still destroyed, the hole in the floor present, and the windows to the right miraculously undamaged. At the end of the hallway, Monika laid there on her stomach with a .50 caliber sniper rifle, on stand, aimed down the corridor.
"Shit!" Triggered through Yuri's mind as soon as she had noticed, prompting her to take cover behind the corner wall, "Why didn't I expect her to pull out something like that!? I'm still not confident enough in my stand to deflect or block a SNIPER RIFLE bullet, I could've been dead!" Eventually, a smile returned, "N-no problem. I think I can snipe her back. BLACK PARADE!"
Yuri's stand summoned another barrage of knives, which were aimed around the corner and down the hallway.
"C-checkmate."
The knives are launched at their usual jet speed and Yuri quickly heard the long-awaited sound of blades smashing the wall and, even better, flesh.
"I DID IT! I DID IT!" Yuri screeched and jumped around the corner, face blazing with glee from the brand new sight of Monika at the end of the long hallway a bloody, metal mess.
"That fool thought she could steal Protag-kun from me…" She laughed so hysterically that breaths were needed to be taken every couple of seconds, "NOW SHE'S FUCKING DEAD! HE'S MINE, HE'S MIIINNNNNEEEEEE-"
"DOKIIIIIII!" A familiar battlecry yells as Yuri is unexpectedly clobbered and thrown down the hallway. Monika plus One Year of Love stand triumphantly at the corner, the former now equipped with a beretta pistol aimed at Yuri's felled body, the emerald shadow crossing its arms behind her.
"I suggest you take a closer look at 'me', Yuri… Because you didn't kill me." She holds up her scribbled piece of paper, "That was a fake body double I had wrote into reality and stationed with a sniper rifle. I'm honestly really lucky you took your sweet time getting here…" She grins, "It's ironic how you tried to stay composed, but were too consumed to even notice the fak-"
A knife flies toward's Monika's right shoulder, but for the first time, she dodges it with a calm shift to the left, eyes closed in confidence, her hand in her skirt pocket appearing to be holding onto something.
"I'm not a fool, Yuri."
Monika unloads her magazine onto the felled girl, but Black Parade deflects each shot while in front of its master, now sitting up with her head a bloody mess. She jaggedly stands up, with a crackled voice: "BLACK PARADE!"
The dark stand materializes kukris in both hands and closes in on One Year, delivering a horizontal cross-slash utilizing both blades. One Year swiftly ducks the attack and aims a punch towards the opposing stand's gut, but Black Parade counters with a somersault over One Year and an attempted double-stab in the back. However, the green stand quickly dashes to the side and unleashes a flurry of punches that pushes Black Parade towards the hallway wall parallel to the hallway window. Yuri, now standing and rugged, initiates her stand to fire a flurry of knives from behind Monika's stand. The blades fly immediately after materializing.
"Fool!" Monika yells as One Year shifts away and dodges the blades, leaving the squad of weapons to hit Black Parade.
Yuri grins.
Black Parade blocks the knives with a quick emergence of another blade shield. The two masses collide with a soul-shattering explosion of clings and clangs as dozens of knives laid on the floor. Those dozens of knives now floated and aimed themselves at One Year and Monika as Yuri and her stand stood confidently behind her sharp storm.
"You think I'm stupid enough to not calculate your speed into the equation?!" Yuri spouts furiously, her eyes akin to the flare of Proxima Centauri, "Thank you for coddling the fire into my favour! Your stand better protect you, MONIKA!"
Monika, behind her stand and in-front of the impossible onslaught, took out an object in her pocket.
"She hasn't moved since I punched her, so let's hope this works." She says as she presses a button on the object.
Abruptly, a gunshot of unheard magnitude shocked the scene to a pause. Yuri was incapacitated to the ground by a heraclean force. She dropped to the ground in sync with the knives.
It was the Sniper Rifle positioned by the fake Monika at the end of the hallway, apparently attached to the object, a remote, in Monika's pocket.
"Aaaahhhhhhh… M-Monika… What was that…?" Yuri muttered and coughed as the pain in her right leg was almost-paralyzing.
Monika, looking down at Yuri, holds out the remote and her Beretta, "I could say it was the result of you losing your shit, but it's really a plan that worked because of you trying to keep your shit. If it wasn't for that minute you took in the other hallway, it would've been impossible for me to set up the remote-controlled Sniper Rifle and the fake Me." She continued with some lightly expressed sympathy, "It's funny, despite how physically powerful One Year is, I couldn't take you head-on. We almost seemed equals even."
Silence dominated the next few seconds before Yuri weakly laughed and lifted herself up onto her arms.
"Y-you think I-I'm going… D-down to t-that?" She laughed harder, coughing, as Black Parade materialized behind Monika with two Bowie knives ready to butcher her.
"Well, it would've been better if you did…"
"DOKI!" Responded One Year of Love to Yuri's stand as it clobbered the latter into the windows, promptly hitting Yuri hard enough to send her flying backwards into the hole of the hallway, made by the greatshield from before. A loud 'BONK!' sounded as her unconscious body hit the bottom.
"Sorry I had to end it so quickly, but I didn't feel like being gored to death in my school's hallways."
Yuri looked somewhat peaceful and calm now, despite her physical injuries and rugged look in the blazer-less version of her uniform. Of course, It was not like Monika was in pristine condition either. Her uniform, mainly blazer and skirt, had suffered multiple rips and tears. Bloodstains still remained on her leg, shoulder, and arm.
"I could've been ironic here and placed some knives down there for her to fall on… Oh well, she's bad enough with the sniper rifle injury." Monika thought to herself, "I hope that was the last encounter I need to suffer through… Protag-kun should still be in the east wing…" She brainstorms and pictures the school map in her mind, "Going through the garden in the middle of the school should be the fastest route. I'll also take this opportunity to write myself a new uniform, so I don't look like… This for Protag-kun…" She looks down at her ripped uniform, dabbled with bloodstains and char-marks.
Monika walks off, relieved, towards the stairs, stand now-invisible and pen in-hand.
However, an unbeknownst spectator sits in the garden on a wooden bench. They smile with a sinister fang in anticipation as their legs dangle up-and-down, playfully...
PART END