*** "I want to play a game" ***

Chapter 13: A Moment to Strike

Day 12, 06:50 PM

'Day twelve: I re-read the entry I wrote from the past few days. For every entry I'd always start with how "my condition has worsened today", and "today" is no different than any other day. I never thought headaches would affect me this much, in fact if I tell people on that hell I surely belong what the cause of my death is, and in this case, "headaches", I'd be a laughing stock. Even now I could see, my handwriting is getting messier and messier, I'm just not thinking straight. If I'm complaining this much over a headache on day twelve I can't imagine how it'd be like on the last day. It's possible that this aching pain would make me forget how to breathe or something. Whenever I blank out... What exactly happens then?

I'm growing more and more anxious. If I can't save myself, how can I save other people like this? Even though I've already decided on the plan with Kaito on what to do once we reach our destination (we should arrive by night time.) Kaito would "somehow" try and get Rin out, wherever she was, and he knew Mayu would lock me up somewhere and I need to figure out how to leave by myself. We're "working", more or less alone on this one. The saying "Don't leave a man behind" don't apply here, because as soon as either of us can leave, we leave. We just need to trust each other, though I'm not sure if Kaito trusts me as much as I trust him on leaving. He knew I'm not thinking straight and whatever was injected in me was reacting already. If we both can make it out "alive", that'd be great. It's just, by then I would only have two days left to "live". If we both can't make it out alive then we'll all die.'

Footsteps. A while later Len heard the unique sound of heels, so it could only mean that Mayu was on the way. Maybe she was there to mock him again, she knew the drug was kicking in and she'd probably just laugh at him there. At least, that's what Len thought Mayu would do if he was in her position. He put his notebook away as Mayu opened the door; she greeted him with an unusual smile, something that surprisingly didn't suit her figure. The smile wasn't cute or ugly, it just seemed force. It gives an impression that the smile she put on every day was from her own free will and not as a disguise to act innocent, because that was what Len had always thought it was.

Why would she force herself to do that?

"You look like one of those people who're about to die in two days!" Mayu positioned herself and sat right in front of him, her legs crossed. "How're you feeling?"

"I've been better."

"It's weird; you look like you're really suffering. We're going to reach shore soon and I'm glad I won't to see you running around; I want to see what happens in the last day. You know there are poor beggars on the street out who looks healthier than you." Did she really mean what she said? He still had the strength to think and write so it shouldn't be that bad, should it? "So... What does it feel like knowing the fact that you're going to die in two days?" She showed a grin, a normal grin, a part of her looked as if she was enjoying herself.

"Terrifying." Len said in a blank tone, which didn't convince her at all. On second thought, maybe it would be better if he shows her how miserable he was so Mayu wouldn't give him more things to carry on his shoulders. "I'd rather not think about it."

"What else is there to think about? What it could have been? That'd only hurt you more you know."

"Why would you care?"

"Ah, you know what? Right now, I feel like..." Mayu turned the conversation around. She clapped both hands together and continued gleefully. "I want to play a game! It's called how 'fast are your senses'. I think your little friend played it too before she passed."

"You see these small knives?" Len didn't like where the game was going. Then, it happened again. His eyes were playing tricks again and he blanked out for a heartbeat. He rubbed his temples as he watched Mayu spread out the knives on the floor. There were five of them, and they somehow fit Mayu's dress pockets before. "Basically all we need to do is hit the opponent with these knives here." Len stood up upon hearing that, only to find the knives were nowhere within his reached.

"I can't reach those knives... Should I leave my cell?"

"Of course not! You have your spot and I have mine. If you don't have any more questions, let's start the game!" From the person couldn't even blanks out every so often, Len wasn't sure he could dodge five over five of those knives. "I'll aim for non-vital organs for now, but I'll be aiming the last one up your slender neck so don't let your guard down!" She picked up one of the knives read on the floor and aimed.

"It's like... A game of darts." She threw the knife. If Len hadn't move the knife would've penetrated his abdomen... She did say she'd avoid vital organs, but apparently she didn't care blood loss being cause of Len's death. She wanted him to suffer. The knife stuck there on the wooden cell wall, and that was his chance. Len tried to pull the knife off the wall, with his guard completely down Mayu threw her second knife aimed at Len's left hand.

It was too late to evade the shot; the knife penetrated his skin, not deep enough to leave a permanent scar, though deep enough to make him cringe and fall on his knees, his headache acting up again. Blood was flowing more than he expected, his hand throbbed... And it was only the beginning. He held his wounded hand, his sleeves dyed completely in red. It wasn't a good idea to attack; he should focus more on dodging all of HER attacks.

"Oh, come on! That girl played with two of my men and she could evade all the hits!" Len knew it was a bad time to be lost in thought about Rin, but he couldn't help it. On one side he was furious with Rin having to play the little 'game' like that; on the other hand he was glad Rin could avoid them, but... Really? She managed to avoid all of them?

"She wasn't hurt at all?" Mayu was about to aim for her third knife, but paused.

"They didn't lay a finger at her. The only one hurting her is..." Mayu aimed for his right foot and threw, Len jumped back; almost making him fall over. "Herself. The only one hurting that girl is herself."

The fourth knife ready on her hands, instead of bracing himself, Len's mind wandered off, scattered everywhere. Questions like 'What does she mean by Rin hurting herself?', 'Can this girl even be trusted?' Everything distracted him from the fourth knife, aimed just below his left shoulder. Len's response came a little bit late, though he somehow managed to evade it.

Or so he thought. It wasn't as worse as his left hand, though it did pass through him, just a little bit. Len held his now throbbing shoulder and wondered how Rin could face two men with knives and evaded all of them. Or maybe he was just weak from everything that had happened the past few days? He couldn't sleep right, and the bread he was given couldn't enter his stomach fully.

"What do you mean when you said... She's only hurting herself?"

"Can I take a guess here?" She readied the last knife on her hand. It was too early to give a sigh of relief; the game would finally be over...IF he could avoid it. "Is that girl the type of person who puts others' need first before hers?"

"I guess so." As she said in the beginning, Mayu aimed at his neck.

"That makes sense." Mayu opened the cell door and pushed Len aside hard, making him fall over with a large thud. She began picking up her knives and cleaned the ones with blood there, with the edges of her skirt. "The men guarding that girl played a prank on her you see."

"One of them said to that girl... For one bottle of blood she sacrifices, they would release three prisoners held captive there." The knives all clean, Mayu stood up and put all the knives back to the back pocket of her skirt. "Get the idea where the story is going? I think she pitied all of them... That girl was grouped with some children in that mini prison I'd like to call my office building. Maybe she just doesn't want them to suffer and was ready to give herself up to people she just met."

"Scars around her arm... Her blood, sweat, and tears were for nothing because they didn't free them. My two men there killed them or moved them to a different cell. Quite a prank, eh?" Mayu could be lying, he knew that. But why is it that was picturing the worst in his head? It just seemed like... Something Rin would do in that situation. "Do you wanna know how she gave her blood away? Using only a knife and that one small bot-"

He slapped her before Mayu finished her sentence. Len would regret that action sometime soon, but he couldn't help it; talking back at her would cost him his life, but slapping her? Though what he found weird was... How could Mayu have dodged bullets before, but when he slapped her... She didn't move a muscle there. It was too late to apologize and Len didn't feel like he should apologize to her either. He waited for her reaction, she was no longer smiling, but she didn't look all that angry either.

"I can't remember the last time I was slapped and didn't move." Mayu took Len's left hand; his injured hand, and examined it. "You know I like you, a little bit. I'm so nice around you and I don't even know why." Len was having a hard time trying to determine whether she was being nice on purpose or not.

"When you love something, set it free. Maybe that's what you should do."

"Hilarious." She smiled." It's nice to kill some time in here; I think we'll be arriving at shore any minute now. Got any plans on escaping yet?"

"Not at the moment." It wasn't really a lie, Len really hadn't thought of anything. It's just that, Mayu knew he wasn't the type who would sit around like that so she doubted his answer. "I could always improvise somehow when the time comes."

"I'm curious on what you and your friend are planning." Len raised an eyebrow... Could she mean Kaito by that? Well, there was no other candidate in that ship there. "Don't look so surprised. Do you think I'm that stupid?"

"Maybe a little bit."

"Well he was so loyal years ago." Mayu sighed. "Did he tell you the part where he faked his own death?" He gave a slight nod, a part of him glad he could hear Mayu's side of the story to what happened two years ago.

"He grew tired of killing 'innocent' people and faked his death. That's what I think anyway, he did all those stupid things like leaving hints to detectives, threat letters saying who'd die in the next few days; which was supposed to be his list. He jumped over a cliff... We couldn't find his body at all and we didn't bother to look for it very long. Looking back, it was hard to track him. He moved often, he had done more than one kind of job, and even faked his names sometimes." A part of Len thought Mayu looked astonished by what Kaito had done.

"And you recently found him..."

"You can say that. He's one hell of a worker but I think he's becoming a bit too strong." Mayu, who'd, been holding Len's injured hand the whole time, finally let go. She wiped her fingers off Len's blood with her skirt. She really looked like a girl who'd just murdered someone with all the blood on her skirt.

"I heard he's waiting for the right moment to strike." Mayu probably knew that already, so there's no use for Len to hide Kaito's not-so-secret plan of revenge at her. "By making him work here it just gives him more chance for him to strike."

"What he doesn't know is, well..." Mayu left the cell, not bothering to lock it again. "Maybe I'm waiting for the right moment to strike too."