Finally got chapter 5 up! Before reading this, go back to chapter 4. I put a new section at the end of it (Haru). I was going to put it in this chapter since that one was so long, but it didn't fit at the beginning and putting it at the end would make it out of chronological order. Please bear with me and enjoy! :)

Shiena

The train ride had been so long that by the end of it she felt like the dead. Not the walking dead, because she had a feeling she'd fall over if she tried to stand up.

"Just one more train…" she muttered, stumbling out the door and making her way to the next train she needed to be on. In another hour she'd be at Myojou Academy. The sky stretched above her, dark and dangerous, as though it were foreshadowing the school year to come.

Shiena was smart enough to know that things wouldn't be that easy at the Academy. A class with one target and twelve assassins meant that two big strategies would come into play: eliminating the other assassins, or getting to the target first. She had also deduced that the target would be stronger than she looked. By digging around a few old Myojou files (the new ones were far better encrypted), she'd learned some things about the game rules, including the fact that you had to send a notice before you could attack.

Frankly, it all seemed very fishy, but she would have to bear with it. It wasn't every day one got offered a wish for anything they wanted. If she could just do this one job, she'd be able to take care of everyone she needed to and be warmly welcomed into her group. The group always came first.

At the moment though, she desperately needed something to eat. Being a distracted bookworm nerd like she was, she had only packed power bars for her journey, and those had either been eaten or melted beyond recognition. She absolutely refused to show up to the black class with chocolate on her face. Being familiar with drama, she knew that first appearances were incredibly important.

As the hours ticked by, that resolution seemed more and more futile. It was around eleven at night, so no one would get to see her until the next day. Whoever her roommate was would be asleep, right? Right?

Her stomach growled one last time, and she finally gave in to melty, mushy temptation. The wrapper came off halfway before sticking to the bar, but it was enough for her to gobble down a few bites. Gooey, chocolate-peanut goodness assaulted her tastebuds.

"Good evening."

Was she hearing things, or had someone just greeted her? She swallowed and licked her lips thoroughly before turning around.

A girl about her age with light blue hair to her chin and a headband smiled at her. She wore a strange uniform that was black with pink plaid sleeves, skirt, and tie. It looked kind of ugly, but Shiena wouldn't dare say so.

"Good evening," she returned, looking the girl up and down. "Did you have a question?"

"Oh," the girl smiled knowingly. "I was wondering if you were in the black class. We're on a train heading to Myojou Academy, but you and I are the only students, and we aren't wearing their uniform. Is there any other reason for a student to catch a train to a boarding school at night?"

Shiena was happy to meet someone so shrewd, but also worried to challenge her at the Academy. "You're right," she replied. "I'm Kenmochi Shiena. What's your name?"

She received an amused look. "Shutou Suzu. I notice you use boku."

Shiena folded her arms. "What's wrong with that? You use washi."

"Nothing," Shutou replied, shouldering her bag. "Should we sit together on the train? We might as well learn about each other."

"How come?" Shiena asked, eyeing her suspiciously. "Not to be rude, but we're going to be competing within a few days, possibly violently. And I'm not going to tell you anything that could be used against me."

Shutou chuckled. "Anything can be used against you, Kenmochi-san. But I'm not looking for your weaknesses, don't worry." She put her hand to her hip. "I just want to talk with someone. Unlike some who kill for a living, I'm still human."

"Shh!" Shiena hissed, checking to make sure no one had heard. "You might want to say that more quietly."

"Oh, they aren't listening." Shutou tapped her foot and gave it a wistful look. "You'll come to find that people are a lot more self-absorbed than you'd think. It's rare to find someone who's truly a good listener."

This girl was strange. Wise and experienced, but strange. There was something off about her, like she didn't quite belong here waiting for a train. Someone like her should have been elsewhere.

A screech and whish marked the arrival of their train. They boarded together, managing to find a seat before they were all taken. There were several more important stops on the route, so there were more people than expected. Shiena had been jostled a few times before sitting down in exhaustion.

"Ah…" she sighed, leaning back and wrapping up the power bar she'd been munching on. "I just want to get there so I can rest before tomorrow morning."

The blue-haired girl looked sympathetic. "If you want to sleep now, I can wake you up when we arrive."

Shiena didn't trust this girl for a moment, even though she had been all right so far. "Thanks, but I can stay awake. Didn't you want to talk with me?"

"True, true." Shutou yawned. "I do, but it's hard to form sentences this late at night, especially after a day of travel. Where are you coming from?"

"I'd rather not tell you about myself," Shiena answered nonchalantly, messing with one of her brown braids. "Anything I say can be used against me, right?"

"'Can', not 'will'. Why would I want to hurt you?"

Maybe she wasn't so wise. "Because if you got me out of the way, you'd have less competition for the target. Isn't that a good strategy?"

Shutou raised an eyebrow. "But in the time I waste eliminating you, someone else might slip off with the real prize." She closed her eyes and smoothed her bangs out of her face. "Besides, that's not the way I do things. I prefer to wait and test the water." A frown formed on her face. "Then again, I've never really been pressed for time."

Those cryptic comments were getting annoying. Shiena was beginning to fall asleep for real. "I have one job to do, and then I'll gladly leave," she mumbled, her red glasses slipping down over her nose. "I have to do it for my group. They're my friends…"

Bending over her, Shutou smiled again. "Do you mind if I ask what your group is called?"

Oh, what the heck. It didn't really matter, and she would be out cold in a few seconds anyway. Travel had never been so rough on her.

"Collective Dismissal…" Shiena breathed, her body slumping against Shutou's. "Sorry…"

"Don't worry about it." A gentle hand patted her head like one would their child's. "My specialty is explosives, by the way. What's yours?"

Her vision blurring, Shiena struggled to focus on the girl's face. She suddenly felt much younger. "I get info… hacking…" Her eyelids fluttered closed. "I like… drama… and…"

She was out like a light.

Suzu

Once she had delivered the soundly sleeping Shiena to her dorm (she'd been greeted at the door by an overly friendly girl with what looked like a volume of guro manga in her hand) Suzu had stumbled into her own room. She was glad she didn't need that much sleep anymore, though the brunette leaning on her shoulder had made her feel like dozing off too. She rolled it to work the kink out.

The room inside was pitch black except for a sea green illuminated clock face. It was 12:30. She tiptoed across the room, praying that her roommate wasn't the jumpy sort. Having a stranger sneak into one's room at night wouldn't be a good start to a friendship, even if it was unavoidable.

She decided to go straight to bed. She would have liked to shower and change out of her day clothes first, but it was already so late and it would have been loud. Before slipping under the covers, she decided to get a look at the girl in the bed opposite hers.

When she peered over the lumpy comforter, she saw a girl with black hair and pretty, melancholy eyes. Her hair was naturally wavy and splayed out in the back, but her bangs had been recently straightened to hang around her face. She did not appear to be having sweet dreams.

Suzu wondered what could make someone look so sad in their sleep. She herself dreamed about her lost loved ones, but hopefully this girl didn't have so unfortunate of a past. Then again, they were all assassins for one reason or another, and most people didn't choose that path willingly.

Then she noticed that the girl was clutching something tightly in her hands.

Should she try and see what it was? The answer was obviously no, but Suzu's curiosity got the better of her. It wouldn't hurt, would it? She could gently pry the girl's hands apart without waking her up. Making bombs required precision, and she was a master.

So she inched out from under her sheets and took ahold of her roommate's fingers, peeling them back one at a time. They were weathered, but not particularly rough. Probably not a melee fighter, then. While she worked, she checked the girl's face periodically for signs of alertness.

Her dexterity managed to uncover half of a necklace. A cross, if her sense of touch was to be trusted. It was metal, but the girl's grip had made it warm.

Satisfied, Suzu was about to fold the fingers back over the cross. Then the girl stirred.

Suzu froze up. Taking a deep breath, she backed away slowly. If she could be back in bed in two seconds, she might not be suspected of anything. She'd ask the girl about the necklace in the morning.

"Irena-senpai…"

The girl was talking. Eyes narrowed, Suzu lowered herself into bed and listened.

"No…" the girl whispered, tears forming in her eyes. "I didn't…"

Her face contorted into something Suzu had seen in the mirror far too many times. "I'm sorry," she whimpered. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"

Her eyes shot open. Suzu closed her own, pretending to be asleep, which she really wanted to be right now. Whatever this was about was more serious than she'd thought, and it was wrong for her to listen in on it.

She heard the rustle of covers as the girl sat up a little, and the clink of the beads on the necklace she pressed to her heart. Then she began to cry softly. It was awful to listen to in the dead of night, especially when Suzu understood all too well what the girl was feeling.

"Irena-senpai," she choked out, hugging her knees and curling up into a ball. "I… I…I'll get out of that place. I'll get it done and I'll leave this life behind. I promise…"

Suzu could hear her own grief in the girl's stifled sobs. Like herself, this girl carried a burden she would never share with anyone. Whether it was for the sake of pride or courtesy, she would shoulder her pain alone, bottling up her feelings and only releasing them where she thought no one could hear.

I hear you, she thought, desperately wanting to provide comfort for this unknown girl who sat crying in the next bed over. You don't have to bear it on your own. The only one condemned to that fate… is me.

But she stayed silent. The girl continued to cry until she collapsed into a fretful sleep.

Suzu didn't sleep at all.

Nio

Nio yawned and relaxed into her bed. Out of all the black class members, she was the only one with her very own room. She'd known about it since the minute that year's black class had been approved, but she still felt cheated. This room was like a symbol of her loneliness.

She sat up and undid the buttons on her black and gold-trim blazer, preparing to take her shower. It was all right to be alone, because she didn't need anyone. She'd decided on that a long time ago.

A mirror greeted her when she entered the small bathroom. Her reflection met her eyes, and the two of them did not get along. There was her mess of blonde hair that wouldn't do anything except floof out at the bottom and make her head look misshapen. Then her weird, sharp teeth that had both ruined her life and saved her from a lot of other children when she was little. Finally, those deep red markings that had sealed the deal and branded her as a freak.

Her own red eyes gazed back at her as she stepped up to the smooth piece of glass. She could have smashed it if she'd wanted to. The chairwoman had a soft spot for her, so she probably wouldn't get detention.

But smashing the mirror wouldn't change anything. Instead she gave herself a wide, hideous, jagged-toothed smile.

"You're a real monster, Nio," she said softly. "Get used to it."

A beeping sounded from her red-backed tablet. She always kept it around, even in the shower, because the chairwoman had told her to.

She tapped the little phone button. "Hashiri Nio heeere!"

The slightly weathered face of Meichi Yuri appeared on the screen. A small smile tugged at the woman's lips. "Hello, Nio-san."

Nio laughed. The chairwoman had two expressions; smiling and bored. Everything else that happened on her face was some variation of that.

At least, that was all she let people see. Nio had to admire her ability to hide her true emotions, even if it made her a bit hard to understand at times.

"Did you have a message for me?" she asked, propping her tablet against the mirror so the chairwoman wouldn't have to talk to the ceiling. "Everything is going smoothly so far. The current students are Azuma, Ichinose, Inukai, Namatame, and Banba."

The chairwoman chuckled. "I already knew that, Nio-san. I've been watching their every move all day, and I will continue to do so."

Leave it to the chairwoman to be on top of everything. There were probably cameras and bugs hidden all over the place. If there was one thing Yuri hated, it was to be uninformed.

"I called to see how you were doing," the brunette continued, her figure bathed in the eerie green light of her control center. "Did you make a friend?"

Nio rested on her elbows. "I made some people talk to me, which was fun. And haven't you been watching me all day?"

"I can't see inside your brain." The chairwoman's smile grew gradually more genuine. "I know what you did. Tell me how you feel."

"How I feel?" Nio fished for the words. "Kind of excited, I guess. A whole class full of people like me isn't something you get very often." She grinned. "And then there's Haru."

The chairwoman's smile faded a little into seriousness. "Yes. There is certainly Haru."

"You said I can spread rumors, right?" Nio gripped the edge of the mirror.

"You may. Just don't reveal the actual truth." The chairwoman raised an eyebrow. "On a side note, did you realize that you don't have any clothes on?"

Nio remembered with a start that she'd been about to enter the shower. She bonked her head and laughed, straining to hold back the blood rushing to her face. "Oops. Hang on…"

Shaking her head, the chairwoman sat back in her very large executive chair. "That's fine, I was about to hang up anyway. But I expect a more detailed report later."

Of course she did. Nio sighed good-naturedly. "Are you going to be my therapist from now on, chairwoman?"

"No, I'm going to be what I've always been." The chairwoman waved. "I'll be your friend. Goodnight, Nio-san."

The screen went black, and the "call ended" icon appeared. Nio set down the tablet and made her way over to the glass shower cubicle, making sure not to glance in the mirror on her way there.

A friend, huh? She pressed her finger to the water controls and stepped into the shower. The more she thought about it, the more true it seemed. Yuri had looked out for her ever since they'd met on the Myojou Academy rooftop. She didn't show it outright, but Nio knew she always cared, and that she really did worry, even if her eyes were guarded.

And yet that word… friend… she wasn't sure she liked it. Something like that was frightening. It was a promise of commitment, one Nio had never been offered. It also sounded too breakable.

Perhaps the word "friend" just didn't sum up the way she felt about Yuri.

Hot water cascaded down over her small figure, burning away the fear and leaving her clean and refreshed. But when she stepped out of the shower, the mirror still stood before her, mocking her the way she'd been mocked all those years ago.

There were some things she could never wash off.

I love Nio. I really want to try and flesh out her past in this fic, cuz I was so disappointed when they barely touched on it in the anime. Also, her powers! So awesome!