Ultimate Amiss IX
Paying attention?
"Now if you look at this diagram of the brain you can see the prefrontal cortex-"
It was just like flicking a switch, but without the capability to flick the function back on at one's own leisure. Izuru found himself tuning out from his teacher's lecture at regular intervals, and it lasted longer each time; until some sudden noise brought him out of it.
There just wasn't anything he could do about it. His mind kept drifting back to the source of all his recent troubles: Junko. He really wished he had never seen her through the window in his room, that he had never touched the grate so he didn't have to be dealing with this now. Everything would be so much better if he hadn't recognized her - thought he had.
He didn't know what to think anymore on that front. After yesterday he was just more confused than ever; something he did not make a habit of being. If someone just recognized a person they should not be this effected by it. There had to be more to it if he considered what had happened yesterday.
With her getting hurt and all. He didn't even know her and had managed - somehow - to slip past all the teachers and security in his building, just to go to the infirmary to see her. Something that had just required luck, otherwise he couldn't make sense how he manged to get out with next to no planning. It had taken him a week to get out before and made his teachers go into a blind panic for a number of hours before he had returned. That time he had given some bullshit excuse of getting fresh air that no one had believed, but there had been no point to coming up with something more plausible - it simply didn't exist - when they wouldn't have believed that either.
It was easier for them to believe that he was testing their boundaries, like some child to see just how much he could get away with. In a way he was, but for the most part they encouraged that behavior; so it was completely their fault for panicking after knowing exactly what they were doing, what they wanted from him.
Now though, he would be more than lucky if he could get out of the building again; evidently they were fed up with him leaving the building when he shouldn't be. Even if he did manage it they would go through the school's system to see either where Junko or Mahiru was since one of his teachers had caught him with them at the infirmary. What Mahiru had said about him checking up on a friend wasn't going to help matters either. They would be much faster at finding him if they knew about his focus on Junko.
A completely irrational focus at that, one that he had thought wouldn't actually be distracting him during his lessons. He had just wanted to sate his curiosity of who she was - how the fucking hell - he knew her. Which should have been resolved after he had gone up to the roof, but instead it just kept growing, and that was not including everything else going on now that he was blaming on that woman.
Those actions had been so stupid - ridiculous. He shouldn't have left his room, but he had just moved, he hadn't had a single rational thought. Kind of like when he had found himself speaking to her while sitting on that chair. Usually he kept his words measured, he thought about what he was going to say, nothing just came out before being filtered. It was like someone else had hijacked his body in those minutes. A feeling he was not familiar with; one he never wanted to experience again.
He was sure it had all been caused because of her, because Junko had gotten injured. If that hadn't happened he wouldn't be... disturbed? It was hard to tell. He should probably look for the exact description later and see if everything matched up with what he was experiencing.
Why had he gone to her so quickly? Just to check on an injury that happened to be so minor; a complete waste of time. He even recalled being glad it wasn't anything serious. At the very least his little excursion to the infirmary - her sprained ankle - led him to the conclusion that she didn't simply remind him of someone else. It was her that was causing him to lose out on his current lecture, even if he could just read all the information later.
Perhaps if he just got down to how he knew her his thoughts would clear up again. He was now leaning toward the theory that she had done something to him, but again he was second-guessing it every other second. If she had done something horrible to him he shouldn't care if she got injured. Hell, he should have been happy that her ankle was sprained, that she would be limited in the work - and for how long she could do her job - she did.
There was no reason to keep running around with these theories, though. He needed to confront her, get straight to the problem.
Izuru had to force himself to continue staring at the screen in front of him, instead of looking out into the hall. Now, he just needed to hack into security and edit the film from the new cameras positioned in the staircases that had supposedly been installed for safety, to check if anyone was trapped in the building during a fire or something; that was the official reason for those cameras being there. The school was not going to admit to keeping him on his own floor as the reasoning for them being positioned there.
He had heard from the teachers that they were implementing the same system for the other lower stories of various school buildings, so nothing about it would seem strange. There was even a school safety announcement for it.
It was going to take some time to get around the new security, and that wasn't counting the fact that he couldn't move as quickly as he had the first time. He would need to shake off their suspicion that he was going to disappear again, for some inexplicable reason.
The first step of which would actually be paying attention to his lessons. Which was actually going to take some effort on his part; now all he needed to do was clear his mind...
There was something pressing against his neck, at first it felt like a speck of dirt, until the cool metal slid down, to press against the center of his jugular. Izuru's eyes snapped open, taking a moment to adjust to the near darkness that formed a thick blanket in the room. The only light was coming from his window, which once again had it's grate; this time untouched and with further measures taken to secure it to the wall.
So he could see the figure hovering over him easily enough. The body's shape told him it was a girl, who had a leg braced on either side of his stomach, raised up just enough so she wasn't actually on top of him. So the only thing that was touching him was the blade in her hand. The hair was short... familiar, oh. She had been the other girl on that roof, the one who's name he had never gotten.
The metal flashed in the moon's light when she nudged the blade against the hollow of his throat. "Who are you?" the girl asked.
Hm, that was impolite. "Izuru."
The girl's eyes narrowed, blue eyes flashing in the darkness. "I already know that. What's your full name? Who are you?" she repeated, pressing the blade against his neck once again.
He frowned. She was persistent, but considering no one was in the room yet and asking who the hell she was and requesting that she get off him then she must have slipped past security. He was going to have to tell her his name, especially if this threat with the blade was indeed real. The skin around the nick she had given him was already warm from the few droplets of blood there. "Izuru Kamukura. Who are you suppose to be?"
"Mukuro." He noted in the back of his mind that she only gave her first name. Well, she was the one with the knife. Her hand was steady, keeping the blade still against his skin, so this couldn't be her first time doing something like this.
Another Ultimate then... not that she had looked like a Reserve Course student before, but she had seemed to be following Junko's orders then; acting as a guard in the stairwell.
"How do you know Junko?" Did Junko put her up to this, then? It seemed a bit... extreme. No, Mukuro had to be acting on her own.
Besides, if her questions were going to be this simple he didn't see a reason not to answer. There was only one con to doing so. "I already explained that on the roof. You heard everything, I'm sure." Mukuro didn't say a word, just pressed the blade forward to nick at his skin again. So, she wanted a more detailed account, huh? Izuru sighed softly. This was bothersome. "I thought I had recognized her when I spotted her down in the courtyard."
"Through that window over there, correct?" Mukuro tilted her head to indicate the grate covered window and he gave a nod of his own head.
"Yes. I went up there to ask her if she remembered seeing me. I thought it would jog my memory, that's all." There really wasn't anything to add there. He wasn't sure what she expected. For his story to change in just a few weeks?
"How do you think you know Junko?"
"That would be a purely theoretical answer."
Mukuro looked just as unhappy with the answer as he had been with her question. "Are you really this ignorant?"
"Not usually," he admitted. "That's why I tried to talk to Junko in the first place." He ignored the sting on his neck when her blade pressed a little deeper than the other times when she leaned forward. Had that pissed her off?
"She already told you her answer," Mukuro said, eyes narrowed as she looked down at him, shifting her grip on the blade. That would be a yes. Perhaps he should stop trying to irritate her, but he could be doing much more important things right now if he was going to be awake at this hour.
"Which I still find hard to believe, as previously stated. I could repeat the whole conversation from the roof if you like. As a demonstration of how good my memory usually is."
"That's not necessary. She said she doesn't know you, so you're going to back off." Mukuro pushed forward just enough to draw the blade against a major artery. Not that he had needed her to demonstrate what would happen if he didn't. He had gotten that message loud and clear the moment she woke him up.
"I'm not doing that until she answers my questions truthfully."
Her lips pulled back into a scowl. "Are you insinuating that my sister lied to you?"
Sister? He couldn't see any similarities, maybe the eye color, but the shade of blue was different; and Junko had practically told him herself that she wore contacts. Perhaps they were half-sisters, then? "I'm insinuating that your sister is ignorant to who I am. If she truly doesn't know me, then all I require is the evidence."
"She doesn't have it. So stop with your games, and stop watching her. Junko needs her rest more than ever, she doesn't need some asshole keeping her up at night because they're convinced they've seen her before, making her second-guess herself and looking through old photos when she should be sleeping-"
"What?"
