Clary: Thanks to all you guys who read the first chapter~ And thanks for sticking with me, no matter how amateur my writing skills are~ Oh, and I'M SORRY for not saying that they're all in Alice Academy. I suck at writing summaries.
But anyway~ Here's the next chapter!
DEATH PLAY
Written by: Clary~
Acknowledgements to: Lia (Clary's not-editor), Fadey (we love the part when Tezuka cussed, too!) and Alatarielf (Thank you, thank you, thank you!)
II. CARE CARE
In total, they had destroyed what had once been two regiments of trained soldiers of an elite task force. Over half a million people all in all, gone, killed by students in just one night.
He'd trained – or at least, watched over and monitored – those soldiers himself. And damn it, he thought them to be ready against anything, but apperently, he was wonderfully mistaken.
Defeated by students. Killed by students. Granted, students with powerful alices, but still students. Young, inexperienced and untrained.
The realization left a bitter taste in his mouth that he really didn't like because it made him feel inadequate and he rarely, if at all, felt inadequate and he never liked feeling inadequate.
Persona was mocking him, no one had ever the guts to mock him before, and he didn't at all like the feeling. No one mocked him. Especially not a damn teacher of an academy that cloistered and coddled special little kids and taught them how to embrace their powers and how special and precious they all were.
It made him sick.
Damn him and his precious little students to hell and back. In fact, damn the entire Academy. Damn all its teachers, all its talented students, damn all the people who made the damn Academy possible in the first place. And now that he was on it, damn the whole fucking world.
He threw the cut crystal glass that, just a day ago he had rather liked, against the wall and the wine bottle soon followed suit. The stain was hardly visible against the red wallpaper but he could see the liquid dribbling down the wall to his carpet. He hoped the housekeeping staff was going to have a damn hard time trying to clean that, and they knew they had to clean it, else he'd fire them and get a more efficient staff that wouldn't be put out by some stupid wine stain.
The way his two regiments were easily put out by Persona and his damn students.
He wanted to throw something again.
"Mou," a female voice whined from behind, putting so much emphasis on the last syllable of the word. "That glass was from a set I asked to ship from Italy. And the wine was from Belgium, like you asked. Do you know how much trouble it took me to get a glass set from Italy and wine from Belgium?"
Frankly, he could have cared less where the hell she got those things. She could've gotten it from the moon, for all he cared, and it would still have served the same purpose as something to throw when he was playing target practice against the wall. And he knew that Tsuwabuki Hinako knew that he hardly cared but Hinako was a child and she whined and he didn't know why he let her but he did and it was now giving him a headache.
"Don't whine," he said for the first time in his memory, and then, since he had gotten on with it anyway, he added, "You're such a child, Hinako."
"I am not a child!" came the retort, just as he had expected it to.
"You whine like one," he told her, straightening up and fixing his suit because even though he was only in front of the child Hinako, he didn't want some rumor about something or the other that he knew Hinako would spread around precisely because she was a child and he'd just told her that she was in her face.
"Mou, Ashikaga-san, I do not whine," she said, stomping her way to the couch located on the far end of the room, just like a child would. "I had trouble with customs for the set and it's not very easy to talk to a Belgian wine grower who thinks he's the best thing that happened to wine since grapes either. Have you ever tried talking to a Belgian who thinks he's the best thing that happened to wine ever since grapes?"
He didn't deign to give that an answer because he hardly cared about Belgians who think they're the best thing that happened to wine ever since grapes apart from the fact that they made him wine that would keep his sanity intact and get Hinako sufficiently knocked up so she didn't have to whine to him anymore, to hell what the law says about underaged drinking (though she, technically, wasn't underage).
"Where is Chizuru?" he asked, because it was Chizuru's job to listen to Hinako whine and keep her in line and frankly, he had far less headaches when he dealt with Chizuru and that did wonders to his sanity.
Hinako stuck her tongue out at him as she plopped down the couch and reached for a candy on the crystal bowl which, if he remembered correctly, Chizuru had gotten for him with far more efficiency and far less whines than Hinako, who whined as much as she was efficient.
"She's off to get records from Alice Academy, following your orders," Hinako said, more interested with a lollipop than their actual conversation. "Oh, and I was sent up here, by the way. I didn't randomly decide to barge in on your office and watch you throw things that I had a damn hard time getting. Murakami-nii wants you downstairs. He wants you to check on their progress."
And the news, despite coming from the mouth of a child chewing on candy, washed over him with a great wave of satisfaction.
Soon what he'd been waiting for months would finally be on hand. Persona had done good in sending a warning with his two regiments but it came way too late.
Persona didn't know that, it was one thing he had that Persona and his precious students didn't, and he felt satisfied. He could damn that entire Academy to hell in the literal sense and get the revenge that was many, many years late, but would be equally as sweet, if not more so. He could, and he would.
Just wait, Persona. Soon, it would be me mocking you.
He opened the door to the hall from his office, feeling peversely happy. He turned to look at Hinako, still sitting on the couch with the lollipop, the straps of her black dress falling down her shoulders, her knees drawn up to her chest.
"Get me more wine," he ordered. "From France, this time. And I don't want to hear about French people who think that they're the best thing that happened to wine since grapes or customs. If they bother you that much, kill them, if you like."
"Can I kill that Belgian?" she asked, straightening in the couch, looking away from the candy to him.
"No, I like his wine."
And he closed the door before he could hear her whine.
./.
Keigo wanted to skip again.
And, for the first time ever in his life, Tezuka Syusuke actually wanted him to skip. He'd spent half of his life harping on Keigo about playing hooky to almost every class he had but today, he'd very gladly push Keigo out of the classroom if it meant that he wouldn't have to look at him in the eye or sit beside him for an entire hour and a half. He'd gladly push Keigo out of every one of the classes they had together if it meant he didn't have to deal with him for the entire day.
His cheeks were still burning as it is.
His every word was still ringing in Syusuke's ears and their volume only intensified every time he so much as looked at Keigo. He would have not given Keigo grief about skipping, just his luck that they had first period together, and honestly, the next time he would have seen Keigo would have been all too soon.
Unfortunately, Seiichi said something to Keigo, he didn't know what, but somehow, after Keigo stomped back to his room to change clothes, and possibly bathe, he showed up to their classroom, more than a half-hour late, and irritated, but still present.
Syusuke's eyes widened in disbelief as he turned to Seiichi seated beside him wearing a victorious smirk.
What did he tell Keigo?
Syusuke had spent many, many hours of probably every single day of his life lecturing, begging, threatening and getting mad at Keigo for skipping but Keigo only ever listened to him occassionally, when it suited him and certainly not when Syusuke wanted him to.
But one sentence, one sentence!, from Seiichi and Keigo shows up late to a class he hated on the day that their teacher was not present and had left the entirety of her class to a self-study, which meant that everyone was currently doing whatever and not giving crap about what anyone else was doing.
One sentence from Seiichi and Keigo shows up to a class Syusuke wished he'd skipped.
He saw Keigo moving towards them and Syusuke eyes immediately relocated to his desk. He and Seiichi had been playing chess, the board was on Seiichi's desk, which was beside his own, but he could care less that Seiichi had just gotten his queen on check now that Keigo was walking towards them.
His cheeks were burning.
"Ah, you showed up," he heard Seiichi say, and there was a smirk in his voice, too.
Keigo gave a noncommittal grunt before he settled in his desk, more often than not, unoccupied because Keigo hated German and hated the teacher, and since he hated both things that could appeal him to a subject, he hardly ever bothered coming and this was probably the only class that he was in danger of failing (because the teacher was a strict, no-nonsense kind of woman and she, unlike other teachers, was not 'awed by ore-sama's prowess' and it was basically the reason why Keigo hated her and avoided her subject altogether).
Oh, God. What did he say to Keigo to make him come here?
"... Where's that woman?" Keigo asked, and Syusuke knew that he was fully expecting him to answer because Keigo only ever addresses Seiichi when they're having one fight or another and most of them ended in the word ... .. ...bitch.
But it was just too bad for him that Syusuke was currently occupied by a speck of dust that just settled itself in his desk, and Syusuke rather liked watching said speck and he didn't want to lose it from his sight and answering Keigo entailed tearing his eyes from the speck and one moment of distraction would probably mean that he won't be able to notice where the speck had gone to, so no, he wasn't going to answer the question.
It didn't have anything to do with the fact that looking at Keigo's eyes would intensify the volume of his words that were running like a mantra in Syusuke's head right now.
Nothing at all. He liked the speck, and that was it.
"Really, Keigo, you expect him to talk to you after what you said this morning?" Seiichi asked, with still the same superior tone, and he said it in German, because he knew that Keigo would get annoyed.
And Keigo did get annoyed. Because the next moment, Syusuke heard him say, and in German but with a rather funny accent, "Shut your mouth, bitch."
Seiichi laughed and if Syusuke wasn't still very embarrassed, he would have laughed, too, but he was embarrassed and still looking at the speck, so he didn't.
Reverting back to Japanese, Seiichi said, "Your German's atrocious, Keigo."
Of course Keigo's German was atrocious. He rarely went to class, and knew only about forty, maybe fifty words of the language, and most of them were insults, considering who he spent the period with (Seiichi... and Syusuke, who was mostly ignored in favor of arguing with Seiichi). Keigo complained that German was 'crude and guttural' and 'ore-sama does not need to learn such an unrefined language', though he did go to enough trouble to learn German for the words 'bitch', 'bitchy', 'bitchiness' and 'bitchily', which he all addressed to who he calls the only bitch in his German period, other than the teacher (Seiichi).
"Stop calling me Keigo!" And this was in Japanese, because probably the only word in the sentence that Keigo knew the German translation to was 'stop', which, in Keigo's German vocabulary, was often used in the sentence 'stop being such a bitch'.
Laughing, Seiichi turned to him and said something that would probably annoy Keigo, in German, so Keigo didn't understand, which would annoy Keigo more, but Syusuke didn't hear him, because he was busy looking at the speck. His entire concentration was in it, in fact.
"What did you say?" Keigo asked, loud enough for Syusuke to hear, and he would have sounded threatenting if he hadn't said it in German, with his funny accent. And because Seiichi only laughed, he turned to Syusuke and said, "What did he say?" this time in Japanese, as if he had learned his lesson.
Syusuke put more concentration to the speck.
Seiichi must've said something again, because the next moment, Keigo's hands were on his desk, covering the speck, demanding, "What did he say?"
"I don't know," he said, staring at Keigo's hands, not his face and certainly not his eyes, the hands were bad enough because he knew who the hands were attached to.
...This was probably the reason why nii-san is able to swallow an entire handful of aspirin without water after every mission he spent with both Seiichi and Keigo.
If he had to deal with this and act as mediator between the both of them, he'd feel like his head was going to explode, too.
He couldn't wait for second period with Senri and Kuranosuke.
./.
Contrary to popular belief, Persona did care for the other members of the Academy.
Not care care, and not the way he cared when it came to the Dangerous Ability Types he sent on missions, but still, he cared.
Well, enough, anyway.
It was all the same to the other members of the Dangerous Ability Types he didn't send to missions. He didn't care care, he certainly didn't care enough to read their student records more than once, just to glance surreptitiously at what their alice was, or acknowledge their existence, which he knew was a responsibility, but he cared, sort of. Especially when they were somehow, in any way, connected to the Dangerous Ability Types he cared about, whose records he had diligently read and spent so much time poring over.
It wasn't unequal treatment (it wasn't) and no one ever complained, so Persona kept it that way.
It was just too troublesome to learn about the people he couldn't make use of anyway. The purpose of the Dangerous Ability Type, as he saw it, was to be sent out on missions for the Academy, and as he was the teacher assigned to them, he led them. And some students who were Dangerous Ability Types he was very, very, very happy to have but there were also some who made him question what the hell the Academy was thinking when they put this kid under his jurisdiction.
Don't they get it? Dangerous Ability Type. Not Blow the User Up Ability Type.
For heaven's sake, what use did he have for a kid who has a strong alice but can't control it and ends up hurting himself with his own alice in the process? He wanted kids who could hurt the fucking enemy, not themselves, it doesn't serve the purpose of the damn ability type. He certainly didn't want kids who had too damn weak alices to be even sent out on missions.
Thinking about it over and over in his head just made him angry and, even though he normally liked it when he was angry, he didn't like it that he was angry because of the damn selection committee, which he can't touch, because he didn't even know who they were.
So, the best remedy to the situation?
Care care about those students he could make use of.
It worked rather well for him, but of course, he occassionally, had to expand his horizon, and care somewhat about those other students who had a connection to the students he cared cared about.
Because students sometimes needed motivation.
Take Tezuka Kunimitsu, for example. The Alice of Pain. It was one of the best alices he could have ever had and one of the most useful ones, too.
Damn it, the kid was talented. But the kid was quite reluctant at first to go to missions, his uptight morals rejected violence.
So, Persona expanded. Tezuka Kunimitsu had a younger brother, also Dangerous Ability, but someone Persona hardly bothered about. He didn't even read the kid's file, not once, because one look at the kid's picture immediately eradicated all interest Persona might have had on the younger brother. Persona didn't think it was even possible to look that delicate, the kid looked like a damn girl and hell, had Persona not known better, he would've mistaken the kid for a girl. Kid probably couldn't even last a minute in battle.
But the younger brother was still Dangerous Ability, under his jurisdiction, and he made sure that Tezuka understood that he had control over the younger brother and dangled the fact in front of the kid like bait.
Kid took the bait, of course.
Now, he took more missions than Persona needed him to and did wonderfully in every last one of them. Needless to say, Persona was very pleased.
Because when Persona expanded, it was when he needed leverage, when he needed some strings to pull, some buttons to push to make his puppets move the way he wanted them to. And Persona always did find leverage, because it was so easy to find strings to pull like that.
Which brought him to the issue at hand. Chitose Senri.
Another good alice, one that allows him to force his will upon others, very good for assassination missions, because then, they wouldn't even need to cover up any incriminating evidence because it could all be just chalked up to suicide.
The problem was, the kid was too damn eccentric for his own good. And Persona, for the life of him, didn't know how to shut the kid up. It was infuriating to have this kind of alice, that, even to himself, he had to admit was valuable, but not be able to utilize it because of its user's damn attitude.
He suspected this behavior had been brought about by the company the kid kept, and yes, he knew that Atobe Keigo was eccentric but there was always Tezuka to keep him in line during missions.
Unfortunately, Chitose didn't have anything like that.
Well, he did, but he'd already decided he didn't want Shiraishi Kuranosuke for his missions, because though he had an exceptional alice, it was those blow the user up types that he just didn't need.
He needed leverage.
He'd pored through the kid's records, checked and rechecked one too many times but found nothing. Well, there was Shiraishi Kuranosuke, who was scratched out of his list of possible leverages, and then, nothing.
It was infuriating.
Even more infuriating was the fact that since he hadn't been able to find leverage in paperwork, which he almost always did, he had taken to stalking and he never liked stalking because he wasn't some damn spy, those were his kids and he would've rather happily left the spying job to them.
First period was ditched in favor of sleeping on the roof, but when the warning bell rang for second period, the kid had lazily got to his feet and made for the gym.
PE, which he was late to. PE, which was doing some version of hide-and-seek, which was a child's game.
...
This was why Persona thought he was the only decent teacher in the Academy.
They were well into the game when the kid got there and, just as Persona expected, the Akita-sensei didn't even bat an eye.
But, to his great surprise, Shiraishi Kuranosuke did. He ran up from god knows where to Chitose and started lecturing him on something that probably had something to do with punctuality.
At first, Persona was amused. Then, as he noticed that no other person was approaching the two, he started to get angry. Didn't the kid keep some other company?
Persona always got what he wanted, it was a given fact, and Persona didn't have any recollections of a time when he didn't get what he wanted.
He slammed his fist on the tree trunk he had been leaning up against, knowing that the tree was withering. So were the bushes around him, and all he thought was good, because he wanted them to die, damn it.
He started to walk away, annoyed and incensed, but footsteps stopped him from taking another step. He leaned against the back of the now dead tree and waited.
./.
Kuranosuke had been in a bad mood for all of Phys Ed because Senri had the nerve to skip when Kuranosuke had clearly told him not to.
Then, Senri had shown up late and Syusuke didn't know whether it was better if Senri had just skipped or not.
Because while Kuranosuke didn't like it that Senri skipped, he most certainly despised tardiness.
He was probably yelling at Senri right now.
He hoped it wouldn't be that bad. Senri never really liked being yelled at, he hated it and he usually spent the entire day afterwards sulking, which meant Senri skipping more classes and Kuranosuke being more mad.
He sighed.
He didn't even know where he was going anymore and he wished he had went with Kuranosuke even if it meant having to watch the both of them yell at each other again. At least he wouldn't be lost.
Which he really was, he decided.
He never even recalled seeing these trees ever in his entire stay in the Academy. It was late spring, almost summer, so the trees should be in full bloom by now. He didn't know much about trees, he liked cacti and flowers better, but he at least, knew enough to know that trees, at this time of year, should be alive.
Or whatever you call it. They certainly weren't supposed to be dead. Withered.
Something tweaked at his senses and he stiffened.
He turned to the bushes, equally as withered as the trees, and slowly peaked underneath it.
Yep, he was right. A dead rabbit.
He supposed he should've expected that, with these plants dead and all, but the rabbit wasn't even supposed to die. He knew it, he knew that this rabbit was supposed to live a long, long life and this rabbit wasn't supposed to be wandering in death this early a time.
He reached out to touch it, and sure enough, he felt its will and its strong life force keeping it from being dragged by the current of death's rivers.
He hesitated. He promised his brother he wouldn't do it, he promised, but this rabbit wasn't supposed to die yet, and well, no one was even around.
He looked around one last time before he bit back a guilty sigh and entered Death.
./.
Clary: TO ALL THE GERMANS READING THIS FIC, I AM SOOOOO SORRY! I didn't mean anything about Atobe's complaints with German, it's just that I needed a language that Tezuka should be good at and he went to Germany so... yeah... I LOVE GERMAN, HONESTLY~ TELL THEM, LIA.
Lia: She means she loves my brother's best friend, who's German and yes, Issa thinks that German is a very sexy language.
Clary: That's because it IS. It is very hot. I wanna make out with a German guy.
Lia: You mean you wanna make out with Rien's best friend.
Clary: ...(blush) Well... yeah... but other German guys count too. They are hot.
Lia: Rien and his friends went here for their vacation once. Issa was all like 'Oh my god! German guys!' and then she asked Rien if he didn't feel like an outsider being the only French guy in their little group. I told her she was rude.
Clary: I wasn't rude! It was a perfectly legitimate question. I mean there were all of your brother's German friends, and then there was your brother. I mean, didn't Germany and France fight somewhere in the history of the world...? (Right...?)
Lia: Issa, Rien, just like me and just like Elle, is half-French. Our dad is American. How many times do I have to say this?
Clary: For all the contact you guys had with your dad, you could just all be full-blooded French people who happened to live in the Philippines and Germany, in Rien's case. (HAH. My reasoning is perfect)
Lia: Whatever, Issa. Anyway, during Rien's visit, Issa got totally hung up on my brother's best friend.
Clary: He calls me Fraulein~~~~~~~~ Isn't that soooo sweet~~~~~~~~ (fangirl scream)
Lia: Issa, Fraulein means miss or young lady. Of course, he'd call you Fraulein. It's called BEING POLITE. You should try it sometime. (You know, instead of being all rude and racist)
Clary: You're just jealous he likes me. (sticks tongue out at Lia)
Lia: (Issa, you're making a big deal out of things again. You are impossible.) Since Issa is currently unavailable now, considering she's back to her daydreams of her crush coming to sweep her off her feet to a beautiful German castle, I'll say it: Please review, and make this lovesick author happy. (PLEASE. Issa is very, very hard to deal with when she's fantasizing about happily ever after.)