Brightest of Shadows Chapter 9: The Rescue
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Yo peoples. So I think it's time that Yoshiki and Ayumi got a little bit of attention in their ship. Their relationship will obviously develop into romance long before Sachiko and Yami's, but you will see them fall in love with each other while we focus on Yoshiki and Ayumi. That may change at any time but for now that is the plan, and don't worry, they absolutely will be getting together! :3 Without further ado, onto the chapter!
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It was nearly 3 in the morning when the soft knock came on Yoshiki's apartment door. Thankfully Yoshiki could not find solace in his dreams thanks to the time that they had spent wandering in the cursed halls of Heavenly Host Elementary, and therefore was wide awake in his living room, staring blankly at the tv which was playing some random movie that Yoshiki hadn't truly even been paying attention to.
When the knock first came, Yoshiki had nearly buried himself in his couch from the surprise, instead opting for a loud curse along with throwing his tv remote across the room like a baseball, causing it to embed itself in between a few branches in one of his plants. Believing that whatever was on the other side of the door was something that may have possibly been some form of monster that had followed Sachiko from Heavenly Host, Yoshiki crept over to his kitchen, and retrieved a large chefs knife from a set resting in a wooden block on the counter.
Slowly Yoshiki shuffled over to the door, gripping the knife in his hand so hard that his knuckles had turned white. With a small pause for breath, Yoshiki slowly turned the doorknob, before throwing the door open and raising his blade into the air ready to face whatever threat lay at the other side of the door.
Unfortunately for Yoshiki's ego, the only thing that stood on the other side of the door made his heart skip a beat. It was a tired looking Ayumi, haphazardly dressed in her weekend clothes, with tears running down her cheeks, and her eyes wide, although Yoshiki suspected that the last point was more from him charging out of his apartment with a knife than any prior incident.
"K-... Kishinuma-kun?..." Ayumi asked, slightly confused as to why her friend appeared as if he were ready to do battle with a thug. "Is something wrong?"
"Uh.. Oh!" Yoshiki could almost literally feel his stomach ball up as he hid the knife behind his back and put on his best nonchalant smile while rubbing the back of his head with his free hand. His demeanor quickly changed once he was able to recover, his facial features shifting to that of concern. "It's almost 3 in the morning Shinozaki-chan... What on earth are you doing here?"
"I told you to call me Ayumi." The young woman muttered as she began to shiver, though Yoshiki was unsure as to why. It wasn't cold outside, even for the middle of the night, which made her shivering all the more unsettling to Yoshiki. Eventually after a few moments of silence, Ayumi spoke once more. "Can I come in?..."
"Yeah, sure, come on in-..." Yoshiki was suddenly cut off when he felt the kitchen knife he had been holding being wrenched out of his grip with the force of a wild animal. Spinning around on his heel, both Yoshiki and Ayumi found Sachiko, standing in the middle of the room with the knife in her hand, and her mouth tilted into an unamused frown. "Uh.. Sachiko-chan?... Everything okay?..."
"Do you know what time it is Kishinuma-kun? Don't wake Yami up..." With those words Sachiko calmly strolled over to the kitchen and gently slid the knife back in it's proper holster as she hummed before turning around to find both Yoshiki and Ayumi standing with their eyes wide, and mouths agape. "Oh... Hey Ayumi-chan. Why're you here?"
"Oh don't worry about that Sachiko-chan, you should go and keep Yami-kun company. He might be wondering where you are." To Ayumi's credit, she had recovered quickly to supply Sachiko, though she laughed nervously all the while while Sachiko tilted her head in confusion, before the young girl shrugged her shoulders in resignation.
"Suit yourself... Good night." Sachiko muttered simply, shuffling over to the bedroom door, only glancing back once more before she disappeared into the inky blackness of the shadows and the bedroom door was slammed shut, ironically making more noise than Yoshiki ever had. Although neither noticed a few thin strands of black hair slither it's way out of the bottom of the door along with the pupil scanning them from space between the bottom of the door and the floor.
"She's still really unsettling sometimes..." Yoshiki mumbled before turning to Ayumi, who had shuffled into the apartment closing the door behind her. Gently, he lay his hands on her shoulders as he spoke. "But never mind that right now. What're you doing here Ayumi-chan? Your mother would have a stroke if she found out you left the house in the middle of the night without telling her!"
"I know... I... I needed to talk to you when I knew we would be alone..." Ayumi finally managed to stutter out after multiple attempts, her shoulders visibly shaking once again. "It's kind of important, can we find a place to sit?"
This was a much different Ayumi than Yoshiki was used to seeing. Usually the moment he saw the class rep she would immediately begin to ride him for arriving late, without his homework, or even about the previous day if he had skipped that particular day.
This Ayumi however was a completely different person. She seem vulnerable and unsure of herself. Some would even see her and describe weakness.
With a nod, Yoshiki gestured towards the couch, sitting down a moment after Ayumi had, before turning his body slightly so he was nearly completely facing her. She noticed the concerned look on his face, which perfectly mirrored his next statement. "Did I do something wrong? If I did I'm sorry, I-..."
"No. It's nothing like that..." Ayumi began to fidget with a random charm bracelet slung around her wrist as she bit her lip in either apprehension or flat out fear. "I've just... It's the first night I've really been alone with just my thoughts since we were trapped in... You know... And I just couldn't shut my eyes... I keep thinking about how close we all came to death..."
"Oh yeah... Honestly I'm not too sure that any of us will ever truly come to terms with what we saw in there... Even Yami-kun..." Yoshiki never even noticed his voice draw down into no more than a soft whisper. "He's a really great kid, but he went through a place that rivals hell for no reason of his own... We all did... I think we'll all probably have to deal with what we saw in there for the rest of our lives..."
"Kishinuma-kun... Can I ask you something?..." Upon receiving a nod in affirmation from Yoshiki, Ayumi continued her voice becoming more unstable with each word that she spoke. "Why were you so... Why did you put yourself in harms way so many times in that school just to protect me? We were barely even friends before that place and now-..."
Suddenly, as if on cue, both Yoshiki and Ayumi jumped upon hearing a knock on the door once again, with apprehension slowly building inside of them, although the growing nervousness shared between the two was more the mutual fear that Sachiko would hear and get annoyed at the sound of another ruckus.
As quietly as he could without tiptoeing, Yoshiki strolled over to the door and calmly opened it halfway, before the door was suddenly pushed open with such force that it nearly threw Yoshiki to the ground.
"Ooh, are we interrupting something juicy Kishinuma-kun?" Yoshiki knew that voice all too well. Glancing up he found none other than Seiko Shinohara grinning slyly at him, with Satoshi and Naomi in tow, both looking much more exhausted than their comrade, although Yoshiki could not help but to notice how close they were to each other, nearly shoulder to shoulder.
"N-... No... You weren't." Yoshiki mumbled, before picking himself up off of the ground with a slight frown, before turning to the others expectantly, hoping to receive some sort of explanation as to why they were turning up to his apartment at such an ungodly hour.
"Hey Yoshiki-san. We were all going to go and feed Monet and we figured we'd stop by... But it looks like you already have company." Satoshi said with a grin, stepping into the apartment and past Seiko, who happily took his place next to Naomi, pulling her in by her arms.
"Uh... Uh.. Yeah." Yoshiki stopped for but a moment before composing himself once again. "Wait... Monet?! Yui-senei's apartment is open?!"
"Yeah. I've been stopping by in to feed Monet every day since... You know..." Satoshi explained, his eyes becoming downcast along with the others as they remembered their missing and most likely fallen teacher.
Everyone fell silent for what seemed like hours until the entire group heard the soft click of a door handle. Turning slowly to the door, unsure of what to expect, everyone except for Yoshiki and Ayumi was surprised to see a curious looking Sachiko walk out of the room.
"Since what, Mochida-kun?" She asked, walking over to him, tilting her head up slightly so that she came into eye contact with him, which inadvertently caused her hair to shift back and expose the red marks on her pale neck.
"Since... Heavenly host... Our teacher came to heavenly host with us... But..." Satoshi trailed off for but a moment before he found the mental fortitude to continue. "We never found her after Kishinuma-kun and Ayumi-chan got separated from her..."
"I don't remember anyone recently that looked like a teacher..." Sachiko pondered as she paced the room, digging through her memory for any teachers to come through Heavenly Host recently, though despite doing all she could to remember, she couldn't figure out who they referred to. "Did she actually die or did you just get separated from her?"
Ayumi was the one to answer her this time, although she never even glanced at Sachiko, instead opting to gaze at the floor. "Well Yui-senei was transported into the same room as Kishinuma-kun and I but she went off to find the rest of our group... It's the last time any of us saw her..."
"Well... I could go and get her." Sachiko said with a shrug causing various reactions among the group, all ranging from surprised gasps to a full on squeal of joy from Seiko, who began to do a little dance in the corner.
"Wait! We can rescue her?! How?!" Yoshiki asked, his attention fully directed at Sachiko, who shrugged once more.
"You just have to make another paper doll. I'll go back to find her... I just need someone else to take the other half of the doll..." Sachiko explained, glancing around the room expecting to hear a barrage of protests, but surprisingly, she heard none.
"Alright. I'll go with her I guess." Satoshi sighed, before turning to Ayumi and Seiko, the latter of whom was whispering something into the formers ear which made her blush after glancing at Yoshiki. "Shinohara, can you and Ayumi-san go to the 24/7 Konbini* and print out a few dolls?"
"Sure thing boss!" Seiko yelled with a mock salute before dragging a protesting Ayumi out of the door. "Come Ayumi-chan, our quest to rescue Yui-sensei begins!"
Sachiko however seemed troubled, her eyes blanly staring at the ground. She did not want to put her new friends back in danger for someone who may be dead, but she had no other options. Unless. Sachiko silent glanced around to make sure no one was paying attention to her before the faintest trace of a sick grin twisted onto her face.
She knew exactly who she could get to volunteer to go to Heavenly Host with her.
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After a few tense minutes of silence with no real conversation taking place between her, Sachiko, or the boys, Naomi finally spoke up, tearing through the blanket of silence like a knife. "Hey Kishinuma-kun, do you mind if I go and make everyone some coffee? I don't think any of us will be going back to sleep tonight."
"Uh, sure. I don't have a machine or anything, you'll have to use a strainer." Yoshiki explained as he gestured to a small strainer along with a small note on the cupboard above it that read 'coffee' in kanji.
"That's fine, I'll manage. Thanks Kishinuma-kun!" Naomi called, strolling over the kitchen to begin the process of creating the caffeinated drinks.
Silence dominated once again for a few moments until Yoshiki pulled a random question out of thin air. "So I see that Shinohara-chan dragged you and Naomi-chan out of bed... But where's Yuka-chan? She's usually right by your side all the time, and I'm sure she would've heard you get up every night."
"Oh... Yeah... She's been waking up with night terrors, so she and my mother are staying in my parents room while my father stays in her room." Satoshi explained, his concern showing plainly in his face while he began to awkwardly fiddle with his hands, suddenly extremely interested in the floor. "My parents are thinking of getting her some therapy... I hope it will help..."
"That's... Too bad... I think we would all benefit from a visit to a therapist, especially Sachiko-chan. Hopefully someday we'll all be able to forget about that damn place..." Naomi said from the kitchen causing Sachiko to puff her cheeks out in guilt upon the mention of Heavenly Host and the possibly irreparable mental damage it may have done to all of her new friends.
"So... What exactly was Ayumi-chan doing over here at such a weird time anyway? Did we accidentally interrupt something important?" Satoshi asked, attempting to change the subject to anything else, although he had to admit he was rather curious as to why their class rep was at his best friend's apartment at 3 in the morning without a justified reason.
Like a light going off in his head, Yoshiki groaned loudly before turning to the wall, slamming his forehead against it. The group stared blankly at Yoshiki as he banged his head on the wall, causing small cracks to eventually appear in the drywall like it was being hit repeatedly with a brick.
"I can't believe it! I didn't even realize how perfect an opportunity that was!" Yoshiki cried between head slams, small almost unnoticeable tears beginning to appear at the corner of his eyes.
"Aww, poor Yoshiki-kun! If only you had just a little more time!" Sachiko was holding her sides in a giggle fit, nearly falling to the ground in her torrent of laughter, which Satoshi happily joined in, falling onto the couch in a fit of laughter that rivaled even Sachiko's, which was certainly saying something.
"So you guys 'were' talking about something important huh?" Satoshi somehow gasped out between his bouts of laughter.
"Satoshi! Be nice to Kishinuma-kun!" Naomi laughed as she brought over a few mugs filled with the decaf coffee that she had found in the kitchen, along with a smaller one for Sachiko, who accepted the small mug with a grateful smile.
"Never! Come on Yoshiki-san, there's no hiding it! What was it?" Satoshi prodded with a sly grin, almost as if he were conveying a different message entirely. One that didn't so much want to know what exactly was going on, but how far it had gotten before they were interrupted.
Yoshiki however was not ready to relent in his stance quite yet, digging in his metaphorical heels, he crossed his arms over his chest and spoke proudly. "Nothing! None of you have any idea what you're talking ab-..."
Sachiko cut him off happily blurting out, "Ayumi-chan makes Kishinuma-kun horny."
"She what?!" Satoshi asked in between guffaws while Naomi covered her mouth in shock, although she was secretly laughing as well. Satoshi was right back on the couch, almost rolling off at one point due to the lack of horizontal space. "Oh God! That's rich! Looks like Sachiko-chan has your number already man!"
"Sachiko!..." Yoshiki growled, attempting to lunge for the girl, only to slam forehead-first into another wall when she stepped to the side, seemingly uninterested in Yoshiki's assault.
Sachiko despite appearing calm was completely dumbstruck. She tilted her head slightly to the side as she gazed up at Satoshi. "What? All I said was that-..."
"Don't say it again!" Naomi pleaded, her face now shifted into a flustered smile as she silently pleaded to Sachiko through her gaze to not repeat herself, although Sachiko still couldn't understand where all the fuss was coming from.
"But... But isn't that what people say now when they like each other?" She asked, her head still tiled to one side.
"Where the hell did you hear that?!" Yoshiki asked, now calmer than he initially was, although he was still mildly annoyed with the girl. Of course there was the point that no one exactly learned anything new. Both Satoshi and Naomi knew about Yoshiki and his huge amount of affection towards their class rep.
"Some teenagers that came to Tenjin a few days before you guys. A guy told his friend he was 'horny' and she she was as well so they started kissing and hugging until blockhead came and killed them both." Sachiko explained as if the occurrence was a near daily activity.
Suddenly, before anyone could make further comment on what Sachiko had said, Seiko burst through the door once more, still dragging Ayumi by the hand like a human rag doll like before, however they now possessed the small stack of paper that they had been sent out to go and print. Two pure white genderless dolls had already been cut out and were held firmly between Ayumi's thumb and index finger on her free hand.
Sachiko, without missing a beat, silently strolled over to Ayumi, and was handed the dolls by Ayumi, never bothering to thank, or seemingly even acknowledge the older Shinozaki, nor anyone else in the room, before Yoshiki spoke up to address Sachiko with all of his usual grace.
"Hey, what gives? Don't you need someone else to come with you?" He asked, about to stand in her way until he noticed the look on her face, or rather the lack of one. Her long black hair had fallen in front of her face like a shroud, obscuring her face completely from everyone present.
Yoshiki had the good sense to get out of her way almost immediately, instead opting to stand beside Ayumi, who unbeknownst to him, smiled ever so slightly at the sudden lack of distance between them.
"Oh I do... I'm going to go and get my special volunteer now." Sachiko uttered in a voice that none of them truly recognized, but knew in their gut was the voice of evil. Sachiko's mannerisms had almost completely flown out the window, replacing the previous happy little girl with a seemingly emotionless shell which had been inhabited by a sort of negative aura.
What she said just then proved otherwise however. "If Yami wakes up tell him I wanted to go and get some food from the Konbini or something... Tell him I couldn't sleep so I went for a walk... Just don't tell him I went back to find your teacher..."
Yoshiki could only raise his hand halfway up. "But-..."
"Please... I-... I don't want him to worry..." Yoshiki only nodded silently before opening the door for Sachiko, standing aside so she could walk by.
Without another word, Sachiko glanced back towards the doorway where Yami lay behind, turning back with her fists clenched. Building up her will, the young girl departed out of the open door, stalking down the hallway like a shadow before disappearing into the darkness of an unlit section, like she had evaporated into it's twisting grasp.
Yoshiki sighed heavily before retrieving the TV remote from the plant that he had thrown it in before switching the TV channel to a cartoon channel. Almost immediately, everyone in the room was paying close attention to the program, completely blocking out the world around them in favor of the random flashy visuals and cheesy jokes occurring on the screen.
Before Heavenly Host most of the group had believed themselves to have outgrown cartoons, minus Seiko of course, but after spending time in such a miserable place, the Kisaragi students found the innocence of cartoons cathartic.
Yoshiki sighed, glancing around at everyone. Somehow most of the group sent to Heavenly Host had made it out alive, and hopefully Sachiko was out saving the final one. They could only hope both of them would return safely...
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Hoshu Tsukino woke up for what seemed like the hundredth that night in agony. Every breath he took almost felt as if it wasn't worth the effort. It was so painful to even be conscious, to the point he welcomed the point in which he would black out from the suffering every night, if the massive amount of drugs that the hospital was pumping into him didn't do the job first.
The nurses had told him that he had been attacked by a wild dog, and that one of the bites had actually punctured one of his lungs, along with leaving him with severed tendons in his leg and a large puncture wound in the side. He certainly felt like he had been ravaged by some sort of wild beast.
But he knew that it was no dog.
Whatever had attacked him knew they were doing so purely to harm him, and had every intention of killing him. Why he was even still alive was a question in of itself, but in the mean time his primary concern was receiving treatment.
"Mister?" A voice startled Hoshu out of his trace. Using almost all of the effort he possessed within his soul and body, he wrenched his eyes open to come face to face with the innocent stare of a little girl with shining purple eyes and long black hair pushed away from her face and behind her ears. "Would you like me to get you a glass of water?"
Upon further inspection, Hoshu realized that this girl appeared to be around his son Yami's age, although unlike Yami this girls clothes appeared as if they had been much better days, with various tears throughout the dress that exposed the lake skin on the girls arms.
"H-..." Hoshu licked his chapped lips before attempting to speak once again. Seeing that the man was having an issue communicating, the girl ran over to the sink and retrieved a glass of water, pouring it down the man's throat carefully. "H-... How did you get... In here?... I thought this floor was only... Accessible by a keycard?..."
"Oh my mommy is a nurse! She's really popular with everyone!" The girl proudly stated, folding her hands in front of her while she balanced on the balls on her noticeably bare feet. Hoshu tacked that up more to the assumption that the child merely disliked wearing shoes all of the time.
"Oh really? What's her name? Maybe I know her." It was the truth, Hoshu had met nearly every single member of the staff on this floor due to his inability to even walk around. The girl was silent for just a moment as she deposited the glass back over near the sink, trading it for a small piece of paper, waving it about like a trophy or a key.
"Yoshie Shinozaki." The girl answered with a cute little giggle before skipping back over to Hoshu, the innocent smile never leaving her face.
"Shinozaki?... No, I don't think I kn-... AAAAAUUUGHHH!" Hoshu suddenly felt a massive wave of pain run up his arm, and upon turning his gaze down, found that the girl had shoved a large pair of medical scissors into the top of his hand, piercing it all the way through his palm and into the mattress itself, staining the sheets red.
"You weren't supposed to..." The girl growled menacingly before she twisted the scissors while they were still embedded in Hoshu's hand, causing his muscle and bone to rip itself apart with a horrifying sound that sounded like the tearing of cardboard. Or it would rather, had the man's screams not downed the sound out.
Moments later, Hoshu though he heard the door to his room being slammed against, almost as if someone was attempting to force their way in, which meant only one thing. Hoshu felt his heart skip a beat. He was locked in this room, and no one would get in before this girl finished her gruesome plan.
"Now you're going to help me... See this cute little dolly?" The girl held up a small paper doll in her bloodied grip before slipping half of the doll into Hoshu's uninjured hand while keeping the other half in her own hand. "You are going to pull it apart with me, and we are going to go to the only place you deserve to be..."
The banging on the door was quickly growing louder. It sounded as if someone of larger stature was now throwing themselves against the door in an effort to make the door give way. Hoshu made sure to scream just a little louder for a moment before it turned to a haunted wailing.
"I want to play surgeon. But I'll need a pen to write notes..." The girl uttered with almost no emotion in her voice, excluding the immense amount of hatred dripping from each word. "Too bad... This'll do..."
The girl was guiding his still skewered hand all along the sheets, almost as if she was attempting to write a message with the scissors while they were still attached to his hand. It was absolutely agonizing. It made the first attack a week ago seem like no more than a playground squabble. This was pure torture in the truest sense of the word.
"You hurt him... You hurt his mother... And now you think yourself safe?... You're never safe from me..." Suddenly, the girl ripped the paper doll held in she and Hoshu's hand, causing his vision to blur rapidly, despite his best attempts to remain conscious. Before he lost himself to the darkness however he heard the girl mutter five words that would put the fear of God in his heart once more. His child's name. "This is for my Yami..."
A few moments later, the door suddenly gave way, flying open as a large statutes man holding a handgun ran into the door, and by extension the room, with all his might. He was followed by a pair of nurses, one carrying sedatives, while the other wielded a pair of scissors, ironically enough, unsure of what exactly was attacking the patient stationed in the room.
To their surprise and horror however, the screaming patient was absent. In his place was a mess that the police would later describe as a train wreck in a hospital bed. Horrible enough that the nurse carrying the scissors immediately broke down, emptying the contents of her stomach onto the floor.
Despite a thorough search of the room by both the hospital staff, and the police a few hours afterwards, there was no sign of a breakout. However in order to cover themselves, the hospital soon informed various news stations that an injured man was wandering the streets, and would require immediate medical attention.
What they left out however was the one piece of evidence left on the bed. The hospital sheets were dyed red with blood, with small chunks flesh in one section of the bed. What disturbed investigators more however was the message haphazardly written in blood across the sheets, just barely legible through a combination of flesh and additional blood. Only three simple words.
"Off To School!"
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* A Konbini is essentially the japanese version of a convience store, which will often sell everything from lunches to clothing items. Many Konbini's also carry printers, hence how Ayumi aquired the doll in the canon, and how they aquired it in BoS.
Okay... So I really said everything I need to say at the beginning of the chapter, so I suppose until next time my minions!