DAY ONE ; 6:45 P.M.

Hiyoko Saionji stumbled backward, pulling her sickle free and scowling. She studied Ishimaru, who didn't drop his guard. He was stony-faced, impassive, and was carrying an Uzi alongside his katana. As well as that, she was close enough to see the black material of what looked like a Kevlar Vest peeking out from under his uniform shirt. He'd kept hair off of his forehead with a makeshift bandanna; it looked to have been made from his clothes.

He'd killed at least one person. Probably two.

Huh. The smart ones did snap soon in these situations, didn't they?

He didn't seem to be making a move for her, and she wondered for a bit if she could simply leave. She contemplated this for half of a second, and then her gaze was drawn back to the Uzi. If she turned her back…

Her gaze flicked to Fujisaki, who was sitting with his back to the wall, eyes wide, clutching what looked like a picnic basket to his chest. She smirked a little and took a step forward. The katana lashed out, enforcing the fact that Kiyotaka Ishimaru was blocking her path.

"Leave the kid alone," he said, his voice raspier and rougher than she was used to. It wasn't clear and commanding; still loud, but not quite the level she was used to. "Get the fuc-fud- away and I won't hurt you."

There was something wrong with him. He had snapped, he was fighting to keep himself from swearing but couldn't quite make the substitution curse words either, and Hiyoko Saionji had no doubt that he would leave her alone.

"You wouldn't hurt a little girl anyway, right?" she asked. Her fingers dancing across the blade of her sickle as she looked at him, eyes wide and limp ponytails brushing her shoulders. "I'm just as much of a helpless baby girl as Fujisaki is."

Fujisaki flinched and pressed his back harder against the wall. Neither Ishimaru's expression nor body language changed, and Saionji squinted her eyes, trying to figure out just what was up with him.

Then she decided that there was nothing to do but attack.

She swung the sickle in both hands, ignoring the pain ripping through her injured shoulder, and Ishimaru's katana met the sickle again. He was trained, that much was sure – the sword acted as a part of his body, an extension of his arm that was driving her back, driving her back away from Fujisaki and toward the grove of tangerine trees.

But he wasn't really trying to hurt her.

He was trying to push her away, but the katana had only met her sickle each and every time. She smirked a little at this, and began to fight back in earnest. He wouldn't really hurt her. She didn't know why – probably something dumb, something to do with 'honor', something that wouldn't help in a game like this – but she felt secure in her observations and hacked and slashed away, trying to break past his defense.

And then she heard a gunshot and felt her stomach collapse in on itself.

She stayed standing for a few more seconds, swaying on her feet, and then the sickle dropped from her hands and hit the ground. She looked down, barely believing the blood that stained her kimono and the pain that was ripping through her abdomen. Her hands were outstretched, fingers curling over nothing, and she brought them down to her stomach. That hadn't… it hadn't been the Uzi. It had been something else, someone else –

She dropped to her knees. She tasted blood and bile in her mouth, but didn't let it come up all the way. She wasn't going to die like this like a loser, she wasn't a loser.

A pair of boots came into her field of vision and she looked up, squinting through the tears pooling in her eyes. Kyouko Kirigiri looked impassively down at her. She held a gun. Saionji tried to speak but couldn't quite make it. Kirigiri aimed the gun again, this time aiming for her head. A mercy killing. A shot between the eyes because Saionji was dying, she was dying from a shot to the stomach and Kirigiri was putting her down like a dog.

She wanted to speak, to tell her that she didn't want a mercy killing, but then a bullet ripped through her skull and Hiyoko Saionji was no more.

20 STUDENTS REMAINING

So there's that! Here's chapter one of three for today, good-bye Saionji.