Battle high: not your average high school
After Battle thirty-one
Telling a story and Kirai trapped in the attic
Lilly just pouted and stayed close to Cloud for the moment while she watched what was happening.
Sora fought the urge to tackle Prism to the ground and hold Alex's knife to her throat. Alex made sure to lead Sora to the sink in the kitchen and wipe the blood off of her.
"It's the only way to shut him up..unless I duct tape him on the ceiling," said Artemis.
"I think if you just threatened to put me in there he would shut up. Cause he would not enjoy me being in that closet with him," Cloud told Artemis. He twirled the strand of Lilly's hair that he was still holding. "Good point..now as for food," Artemis said as he looked at them all.
Lilly looked at Cloud and yawned, "I just wanna sleeeeeeeeeep," she complained. "Food?" Cloud was once again painfully reminded of how much he needed to eat. He looked down at Lilly and poked her lightly on the nose. "Shush. I don't wanna be awake either but things are happening."
"Yes. Food, that stuff you eat in order to live," teased Artemis as he threw the towel at him.
Lilly rolled her eyes, "But you didn't go hunting all night long now did you?," asked Lilly with a sigh. "I know what it iiiss," Cloud replied, promptly throwing the towel back at him. "Don't throw things. It's dangerous, young man."
"No but I did wander aimlessly around the city with Kirai for like an hour," he responded to Lilly, patting her on the head. "And that is very energy-draining."
"Yeah right. Says the one who throws knives all over the place like an idiot all the time," Artemis said to him with a smirk.
"But that's not the same as hunting down your target and trying to chase them down or keep attacking them with claws and fangs to try and kill them. You have to be more silent then you are Cloud," Lilly grumbled. "Hey, I throw knives responsibly, thankyouverymuch," Cloud responded, sticking his tongue out at Artemis like he had to Lilly mere moments ago.
"Well y'know what. You're awake anyway so be quiet," Cloud said, poking Lilly despite the inevitable consequences. Lilly looked at Cloud and growled her ice blue eyes were already visible now in her frustration with lack of sleep and being woken up many times already.
"Uh-huh..anyways let's get some food for you all," said Artemis.
"None for me thanks," Sora said quickly as she walked past everyone and went upstairs she unlocked the door to her room and slammed it shut.
"She's mad."
Cloud got slightly worried upon seeing the look in her eyes. He didn't say any of the witty comments he had just involuntarily thought of in order to protect his own well being.
Prism looked at Sora's door curiously. "Why?"
"Oh I wonder why she could possibly be mad," Cloud said sarcastically, looking at Prism. "Did you not just hear her little rant? And weren't you the one who was annoying her after it?"
"Shut up."
Artemis came back out with the plates of food and placed them in front of everyone before he glanced at her door. He looked at everyone before taking a deep sigh. He made sure they each got the hint of why she was upset and then decided to share, "I think you all need to know who that kid was then...,"he said to them. He sat down in front of them and made they were paying attention.
"Before I tell you, do any of you have a question about that kid?"
Cloud shook his head, unable to answer properly seeing as he was already munching on the food. Prism did the same.
"Other than who he is, which you are about to tell us, no," she answered him. Artemis nodded.
"Well since some have already started to eat and cannot speak, I'll just get down to explaining who he was. That kid, as weird as this maybe to you all, was one of her first friends, well, he was when he first arrived the first fight he got into was with Sora and was pinned by her in at least twenty minutes within their fight. He said the wrong thing to her and they fought."
"She could've killed him if she wanted but she didn't, instead she admired his strength and he admired her speed and skill, they became a great double team. This all happened while she had been in public school still, they went to the same one and he even told her his story at the same time, although he did want it to be a secret he knew she wouldn't tell anyone since she couldn't go the police at this point anyways," Artemis paused making sure everyone was following the story.
Prism pretended not to see Cloud glare a little bit at the mention of Sora having a friend that wasn't him. Cloud pretended not to notice that she was smiling about it.
Primrose was leaning against the staircase, listening. "Sora didn't want to kill him? And he was somewhat of a threat? Impressive," she said, more to herself than anyone else. Artemis looked up at Primrose and laughed a bit.
"You see, at some time while they were attending the same school, he got into a few fights and was never able to win and she was able to save his ass, he was smaller than the others and was always outnumbered from what Sora had told me. At least four to five would fight him and she would save him."
"But the fights only got worse and less went after him and wanted to take away his little "Guardian" as they called her. But when the fights got worse, her skills got better and more deadly and in which led her to landing many in the hospital and expelled from there. He begged them not to but they wouldn't listen and once she came here to my school, she started to grow distant from him as she got better and her reputation was more known. He was growing upset, she was his first partner in anything and they had always gotten into a lot of fights but he was also jealous."
"This story sounds strangely familiar," Cloud spoke up, taking a break from eating to point something out. "Sora protecting someone she really didn't have to? Killing a lot of people for someone? Can you say Kirai?"
"Yeah but they didn't grow apart," Prism pointed out. "And plus he has like nothing to do with this."
"Yes they did. Don't you remember when I found that watch and Kirai like flipped his shit and wouldn't talk to her? And plus it's still weird that she protects a lot of people. That's been the thing her whole life, she's always fighting for someone."
Primrose looked at Cloud blankly. "Stop overanalyzing this. This is a story, be quiet."
"Well since Cloud likes to over analyze the story. Yes, it's familiar to everything that has happened so far and each one is close to the other. But he was a run away and they were partners and still knew very little about each other. Sora never told him a word of what happened to many of those kids afterwards because he didn't know she killed them more than half the time since he was always shoved into the bushes."
"Yes Kirai flipped when he saw the watch but she was oddly different after that. I understand it's weird that she protects everyone. But you have to remember she had killed many and was an assassin at some point, she was the top ace assassin, and she even killed her own partner when assigned one as an assassin. She regrets that all."
"If no one will fight for them and protect them, then who will? Cloud, you and Prism were once murderers and at some point Sora thought she would go after you both but she decided she wasn't ready to do that three years ago. You two should at least know some of that pain she has carried for so long now...She carried the heaviest on her shoulders to this very day, people she trusted the most, were ones she ended up having to kill."
Artemis made sure to point out that at some point when he had been training Sora at a young age she had killed many of her friends when she had gotten older because of the fact they tried to take advantage of her skills. They wanted her to try and take out people they didn't like at their school and because they all ended up at some point betraying her in the end by trying to take her life.
Cloud and Prism looked at each other. "Well, kinda, I suppose.."
"But we're different because generally we killed strangers," Prism said.
Cloud shrugged. "We never had emotional attachment to them."
"Except for with Sora because Cloud went batshit crazy."
"And Prism didn't stop me."
"Like I could've."
"Maybe if you would've taken the goddamn medication-"
"NO. None of that." Primrose glared at the two of them. "Quit getting off topic."
"Someone's grumpy."
"Someone's tired as fuck because SOMEONE WON'T STOP KICKING THE FUCKING WALL," she yelled, hoping that Kirai would hear upstairs.
"MAYBE IF YOU WOULD LET ME OUT I WOULD STOP," was the faint reply. "Both of you two knock it off. Cloud wasn't thinking about what would happen in the end, and you should've done as you were told. You go sleep in my room its down stairs anyways."
"NOT HAPPENING BECAUSE IF I COME UP THERE THE NEXT THING THAT WILL HAPPEN IS YOU BEING YOUR MOUTH DUCT TAPED AND DANGLING YOU FROM THE ROOF OUTSIDE LIKE A CATERPILLAR!,"Artemis shouted back up the stairs.
"Now back to the story. The kid was jealous, very jealous because while at the new school she had gotten better than him and starting to ignore him. He was more jealous of her new group of friends who were stronger than him and who would not let him talk to her when he saw them. When he saw her with me once he ran over to her, but she smirked and ended up shoving him into the road and almost got hit by several cars."
"Yaaaay." Primrose rushed downstairs before Kirai's response to Artemis could be heard.
"YOU ARE SUCH AN ASSHOLE."
"AND I AM A BIGGER ASSHOLE, SO HOW ABOUT YOU SHUT UP BEFORE I GO UP THERE AND INTRODUCE YOUR FACE TO MY KNIFE," Cloud shouted up to him.
Kirai did not respond.
"This isn't the same kid that she was fighting that one time, like right after Cloud died, and I had to pretend to beat the shit out of Kirai so she'd stop, is it?" Prism asked. She always wondered who that kid had been. "YOU'LL FIND OUT WHAT AN ASSHOLE I CAN BE IF YOU DON; T KNOCK IT OFF I COULD ALWAYS FEED YOU TO LILLY'S WOLVES!"
Artemis turned back to Prism and looked at her with slight hesitance before answering her. "It was actually..he didn't go to our school he was able to get on campus by sneaking here and acting like he went here, he was escorted off of campus."
Artemis looked away for a moment as he thought about it, "It was that one kid when he wanted revenge for what almost happened, that was never his brother by the way."
"BUT YOU WOULDN'T DO THAT CAUSE SORA WOULD KILL YOU, AND THEN CLOUD WOULD ANNOY YOU MORE CAUSE HE WOULDN'T BE ABLE TO PISS ME OFF, AND THEN YOU'D-"
"WE GET IT DUMBASS, SHUT THE FUCK UP," Prism yelled at him. She looked back at Artemis. "She was really into that fight.."
"Well he's dead now so," Cloud said plainly. Prism shook her head at him. "Wow."
"NOT UNLESS I MAKE SURE YOU MOVE TO ALASKA!"
"She was very much into that fight. You see, when she had made it officially clear she wanted nothing to do with him he went into an anger where he wanted nothing but revenge on a girl he had thought was a friend."
Artemis threw the towel at Cloud's face again, "But even though they hated each other more than anything else she did not want to kill him even in that fight she may have been driven by it. She did not want him dead."
Cloud kept the towel next to him so Artemis wouldn't be able to throw it at him again. "Why not? I mean he wasn't exactly being very nice.."
"Just because someone pisses you off doesn't mean you have to kill them.." Prism glanced at him. Cloud glared at her. "Are you finished directing comments regarding murdering on a whim at me? Yes, I fucked up, the entire world knows, congratu-fucking-lations for pointing it out at least three times today," he snapped at her.
"Are you both really going to bring that up? You must realize that it's still difficult for Sora to not have her parents. After so many years she has not once stopped begging for them. But she is still forgiving Cloud slowly; she's still trying to forgive Prism for holding her down that day. You each played a part so you both must take a part of the blame," Artemis reminded them both.