Another Boring Teen Pregnancy Fic

It was with a heavy heart that Tohko Kirisaki willingly submitted herself to the test. She had been out for lunch with some friends at the time and had the test with her the whole time, but in the end her curiosity, her undying need to find out, led her to taking the test before she got home.

She came back to the table somewhat subdued, offering only slight and uncaring responses to the things her friends said. It was almost instantly that they realised something was wrong, of course.
"Tohko?" Emi asked, reaching over for her friend's hand. Tohko barely glanced up, heaving a sigh.
"My life is over..."

~*~*~*~*~

Kirisaki Tohko was pregnant. When she told her friends, Mitsuki gave her a big lecture about how she should have been more responsible, then sighed and asked what she was going to do. Tohko held back her tears and admitted she didn't know. Emi first asked who the father was, but Tohko's only response was 'I can't believe I slept with him'. For the rest of the day, top of Emi's priorities was cheering her friend up. Primarily, it worked. A bit of shopping, a look at some especially cute hair accessories, chili dogs and going back to her house to dance to a little music. A day of fun!

When she told her parents, they freaked out, asking what on earth she was thinking. How could she just so readily throw away her future like that? Well, Tohko didn't have much of a plan for the future anyway. Her father tried to pressure her into an abortion, however the more he said, the more she wanted to avoid exactly what he said. It wasn't a strain of rebellion, it was just...the more he said, the more horrible his solution seemed. Her mother just kept asking what she was going to do in an hysteric voice, insisting that if she didn't get rid of it in one way or another she would end up miserable and depressed and living off benefits, never being loved in her life. She knew they were just...concerned, and definitely more than a little shocked, but still, it hurt. Somewhere along the line, she'd just stood up and walked out, making her way to Emi's house.

When she told the father?
She didn't. She didn't even like the father, and for as long as she was able to hide her pregnancy, she would keep it a secret from everyone. She could already feel the weight around her waistline piling on, and she wasn't quite sure how far along she was. She tried to count, but how long ago was that stupid party? Everyone in school had gone. Well, almost everyone. Fukuroi and Kizami weren't there, which had been a bit of a disappointment. Besides which, there was the issue of whether she counted from when they actually did it or...nobody had ever told her about this, after all. She was a teenager, and sexual education missed out things like how you counted your pregnancy dates.

Her train of thought would also always get interrupted when she tried to count it out. Wherever she was in the terms and dates and process of growing a miniature Kirisaki within her, she was already overflowing with nausea and the ability to vomit like a whale who had eaten a good hundred tonnes of week old rotten fish crawling with parasites. It was beyond vile, and since she didn't want to throw up before the entire female population of Byakudan Senior High, she missed the odd day. Mostly, however, she did make the effort to go to school.

~*~*~*~*~

It wasn't until she started to show that school became an issue. Tohko had tried to loosen her uniform, but hadn't been able to buy anything new. Every now and then she tried to borrow Emi's uniforms, since she believed her friend was a bit bigger, but it didn't work too well, and all too soon her uniform was straining, and the others were talking. She wished she could just look chubby instead of staying slim around the bump.

All too soon, Tohko was acquainted with the calls of 'slut' and 'whore' and the words flying about on how easy she must have been, especially since everyone knew she was single. It was mostly the girls, since no boys would dare brave the wrath of her best friend, Hellgirl Mitsuki. It was midday and Tohko had nearly forgotten about the party and the little scumbag she'd slept with, and she was trying to tune out the usual shouts and whispers. Her eyes caught that boy's then, and as he passed, he offered a teasing smirk, brushing a hand across her waist.

Arsehole.

She kept walking, when suddenly she heard a loud bang. Turning, she found Shimada Kai had knocked something over and was now standing on it, like one of those soapbox preachers you saw in popular shopping districts.
"Shut the hell up!" He yelled. It seemed to work. The noise levels died down a little. Then again, half the girls in that hall wanted to sleep with the arsehole. He scanned his eyes over the hall, crossing his arms before spitting out his next few words. "All you stupid bitches and little whiny, jealous cows can keep your running mouths tied the fuck down, okay? Oh fucking wow, the girl's pregnant. You know what that means? She had sex once. I know her, and she's probably only ever slept with one guy in her entire life, she just got the luck of the draw. I know some of you who sleep with a different guy every fucking day of the week."
Tohko had stopped now, listening intently to this. Her first thought when he finished this part was 'Does he know it's his?', and then she felt her eyes burn with tears. How much damn emotion had she been holding back just so she didn't give those bitches the satisfaction?
Why the hell would that arsehole defend her, or any girl for that matter, anyway?
"God, you piss me off so much! You wanna see a slut? Try looking in the fucking mirror some time. Just because she's the one girl who didn't get an abortion as a form of contraception does not make her more of a slut than the girls who tear their clothes off the moment a guy so much as smiles at them. I'm looking at you, Chisaki!"
A ripple of sound ran through the hall and Shimada stepped down.
"I hear another word from you five in particular and I'm going on a killing spree."

He walked off and Tohko stared after him in confusion before finally remembering she was supposed to be meeting with her friends. Emi and Mitsuki hadn't heard a word of what Shimada had said, which was all for the better, really. She didn't want to talk about him, but somehow the topic of the father of the baby came up again.
"You still haven't told him, have you?" Mitsuki began in her usual scolding tone.
"No." Tohko responded at once, scowling.
"Why not?"
"Because I hate him! You think I'd ever sleep with someone like that unless I was so drunk I was practically comatose? Obviously not! He's vile, and I never want to touch him again! God, he isn't even attractive. I don't see why anyone likes him in the first place. Besides, what kind of womanising 17-year-old boy would want to be tied down with a cheap fuck's kid?"
She rested her head on the table, and outside, there was a sound. Someone had been standing by the door the whole time, and suddenly, they huffed and went away, kicking something over in the process, probably an umbrella stand.
Mitsuki shook her head. It seemed to her that Tohko at least wanted him to say something, say he didn't care or he wanted a child when older but it was way too early now, or even beyond the grace of god that he would offer at least a little help. Secondly, she picked something else up from Tohko's words. "It's Shimada, isn't it?"
Tohko remained silent, her worldess confirmation hanging in the air.
"You know...he's been in a pretty foul mood all day."
Emi piped up next. "Didn't Fukuroi say when he came into school his head was bleeding? He'd tried to hide it with his fringe, but it was still visible. That'd be why he turned up for history with wet hair."
"He's probably been picking fights again." Tohko spat. "You know what he's like."

And in a way it was true. Now, while Tohko lived in the opposite direction to Shimada, Emi lived in roughly the same direction. The former had been given a set of spare keys, and the latter had to take care of something in the school. Kirisaki Tohko went home with the rest of the surge of students, watching the usual groups get together. Oddly, Shimada had bypassed his friends and started swiftly walking in the direction of his home.

Not many students lived in this district, so soon enough Tohko, unfortunately, found herself following a moody, bitter Shimada down past the roundabout. At least Emi's house was closer to the school. Wait a second...Shimada was slowing, turning into a driveway. Tohko had long since gone past Emi's house. She herself slowed to a stop, watching the delinquent boy fumble with the lock of his front door. He stumbled when the door was wrenched open before him, wrenching his arms with it. He swore loudly, and the man before him crossed his arms.

The man in Shimada's house was a few inches shorter than him, with dark brown hair and cold, grey eyes. "Shut the fuck up, brat. Don't you dare swear at me!"
"You just swore back, fuckhead."
Tohko winced as the man slugged Shimada across the face. "What did you call me?! Kai, I have told you time and again, as part of this family, I deserve respect!"
"You need to earn respect, Tokio! You can't just fuck me over and demand it!"
Was this his elder brother or something? Though they looked nothing alike.
Tokio, the dark haired man, lashed out again, this time sinking his fist deep into Shimada's stomach. The redheaded teen retched, doubling over. For some reason he wouldn't fight back.
"Where's mum?" He asked after Tokio gave him a moment to compose himself.
"You call Aika 'mum' but you still refuse to call me 'dad'."
"You're not my dad."
"If I'm not your dad, what am I?"
"Mum's stupid boyfriend that she should have chucked years ago, dipshit!"
Tokio lost his temper, kicking the younger boy away from the threshold. "As long as I'm married to her, I am your father, like it or not! But you have to break her heart, refuse to accept it, insist on being Shimada's brat!" He approached Kai, grabbing his shirt and continuing to hit him. Still, Kai didn't fight back. "Do you even give a fuck? Aren't I better? You are a part of my family, Shimada, like it or not!"
Finally, he threw the redhead down and stepped back, going back inside. Tohko hurried to Shimada, as fast as her swollen belly and aching body allowed, but as she approached, she just made matters worse.
"Hey, look, Kai! Your little slut friend from school is here to rescue you! That one slut you never shut up about!"
And instantly, he was on his feet again, surging forward. "She's not a slut! Don't you dare call her that!" He finally went to fight back. Tohko was beginning to think he refused to because his mother loved this man, but that was no excuse.

Once again, Okamura Tokio threw his fist into Shimada Kai's face before he could get close. He seemed to know what he was doing, that was for sure. Kai paused, thinking things over for a moment. Once again, he was stood within easy reach of this man, supposedly his step-father? He wiped the blood away from his mouth and managed to speak.
"When I tell her all this, mum's gonna kill you."
Tokio laughed. It happened so quick that if she'd blinked, Tohko would have missed it. The man grabbed Kai's throat, at the same time sweeping his legs out from beneath him. He was clearly an athlete of some kind, but a very, very violent one. He squeezed gently, just enough to make Kai gasp for breath.
"Stop!" Tohko yelled before she could stop herself.
Tokio ignored her. "She's never believed you before. What in fuck's name makes you think your stupid mum would believe you now? All you are is that brat that breaks her heart and starts fights, finding any way he can to act out. I am her angelic husband. The entire block thinks I wouldn't hurt a fly. You're the only one in the world who drives me to this shit, Kai!"
Tohko reached the end of the drive. "Please stop! He can't breathe! Let him go!"
The man only just seemed to notice she was there, then spared a glance to his step-son's red face and desperate grasping for air. After a moment of considering, he threw the boy down. Kai curled over, taking great gulps of air before hiding his face in his hands.
"I never want to see you again, brat! Not unless you learn some fucking respect! And take your little slut girlfriend with you!" And with that, he slammed the door shut. Wincing, Tohko knelt down beside him, resting a hesitant hand on his shoulder. He was shaking, and every so often his shoulders jumped, accompanied by what sounded like sobbing, but may have been hiccups. Finally, whatever it was died down and he forced himself to sit up. The left side of his face was bruised, and he held himself in a way that betrayed the pain in his ribs. He ran something around in his mouth a moment before spitting something creamy white onto the pavement. A tooth. His step-father had knocked out at least one tooth. Tohko decided she wouldn't dwell on any other damage done.
"Are...are you okay?" Tohko asked hesitantly. Perhaps this was where Kai got his bad attitude from, although it sounded like his real father wasn't too good either. The redhead didn't respond, just stared at his tooth. It seemed like an eternity passed before she stood, bracing herself to force him up. The slight touch to his arm, however, and he dragged himself to one foot, however kept weight off of one. Sprained? Perfect.

She walked round to the sprained side and, though far shorter than him, offered her physical support. As she made her way back to Emi's, Kai followed obediently, not even asking where they were going. Perhaps he was just glad someone was helping him get away from there. Every step with his right foot became an awkward jump-skip thing, and it looked painful. When they finally reached Emi's house and Tohko unlocked the door, she called out.
"Urabe-san! I brought someone with me! Someone from school got beaten up, can you take a look at his ankle?"
Emi's father was a nurse, so it seemed like a fair request.
"Okay, just give me a minute, Tohko-san!" Came the reply. Tohko guided Kai to a sofa. The living room just had Emi's younger sister sat in front of the TV (dangerously close), watching some stupid show for little kids. When the two older students came in, she turned around and stared until Tohko shooed her, snapping that it was rude to stare (to which Urabe Aino responded with something even ruder before running off). A few moments of silence passed before Kai opened his mouth to speak. Tragically, at that moment, Emi's dad came in to check him over
"How did all this happen?" He asked the student, who shrugged, his cold and cool demeanour returning.
"Fighting."
"And Tohko brought you here? Normally she has no patience for kids like you, you know."
Tohko briefly wondered whether all his previous 'fights' were real or just him being hurt by his step-father. Kai glanced at her and reminded himself that she hated him.
"Does it hurt much when I do this?"
"Fuck! Ouch, yes!"
"It is pretty swollen...I'll get something to brace it. It should be better in six or so weeks, provided you don't get into any more fights."
"Six weeks?!"
"Although you look pretty beaten up. I hope you at least gave as good as you got. It might be worth staying off school a day or too to let the rest of the damage set and give yourself a little time to recover." He stood, moving toward the door. "I can give you a lift home later and explain the situation to your parents, but I think I'll let you explain about the fighting." With that, he left the room and Kai made a face at his back. After a moment, he turned to Tohko and made another face.
"What are you staring at, bitch?"
She shrugged and left the room, not wanting to lose her temper after what she had just witnessed. She waited by the front door for Emi, and when she returned, she decided to brief her on the situation before she saw anything for herself.
"Emi!" Aino called before Tohko could say anything. "Your friend from school is hot! The boy one, not your skank friend who lives here now!"
"Aino, don't say thinks like that!" Emi scolded, followed by similar words from her parents. She turned to Tohko, smirking. "Who's she talking about, do you know?"
"...Shimada." Kirisaki admitted bitterly. "But I guess Aino can have him. Anyway, speaking of Shimada-"
"Did you finally talk to him about the whole baby thing?"
"What? No! Just listen to me, okay?"
"So he still doesn't know?"
"No. But he's here, so keep your voice down."
"What's he doing in my house?!"
Tohko held her hands up to silence her friend. "Shhh! He was hurt, I brought him here since your dad's a nurse. I didn't have my phone and it was closer than the hospital." All true.

The rest of the afternoon was pretty average. At one point Kai interrupted the girls to ask where he could find a bathroom, and as soon as he returned, he went right for the front door. Tohko hurried to stop him.
"Where are you going?"
"Mum will be worrying about me."
"You can't go back there!"
He glanced at the floor before shrugging. "He won't do anything while she's there."
Tohko moved to stand in front of him, crossing her arms firmly. "Did your dad give you that gash on your forehead too? Urabe-san said it looks like you might need stitches, but you wouldn't let him look at it."
Anger flashed across his face. "That bastard is not my dad! My dad's off with his whore in Greece or something, I don't even care! Tokio will never, ever be my father! And what do you even care? You only want to help me because you pity me! You've always hated me, had to get so pissed you were practically comatose to show even the slightest affection, and apparently I'm too ugly for you to bother with! Oh, not to mention 'cheap fuck'. Great, thanks. I've loved you more than any other girl I've ever met in my life, no wonder it pisses me off so much when all you can do is gush over Kizami like he's some kind of sex god! You couldn't even be decent enough to tell me you were having my kid." With that last bitter utterance, he gently pushed her to the side and wrenched the front door open. Tohko had gone pale and stiff, but for all of those words all she could say was
"You knew?"
"You three were talking in a public place."
"You were listening to our conversation!"
"I had a right to know!"
"No you did not! It's my problem so you should butt out!"
"I just want to protect you!"
"I'm not the one who needs protection, you are!"
"I don't need protecting!" Without another word, he stormed out. Groaning, Tohko hid her head in her hands before following him. When she inevitably lost him, she told Emi to tail him (as she could run after him) and call her when she found him.

Kai hesitantly allowed himself into his home. The first thing he noticed was Tokio and Aika stood in the hall, one looking worried, the other furious.
"Kai! Have you been fighting again?" His mother hurried forward, cupping his chin in her hands. "You're limping!"
"It..." His eyes met with the cold grey orbs of his step-father. "It was Tokio..."
Aika stepped back at once, frowning. "Kai...I swear, we've talked about this. Your father wouldn't hurt a fly! He couldn't!"
"I'm sure, but Tokio could!"
"They're the same person!"
"No, no!" His voice was rising. He was trying to stay away from hysterics. Tokio was smirking. "Dad's in Greece! Every holiday he mails me, sometimes he includes gifts!" He gestured to the jewellery he was often seen wearing. "He cares, you don't. You're more fussed with keeping your bullshit abusive marriage alive no matter who else it hurts!"
"Where is this coming from?"
"You care more about him than your own son! You don't even care if he breaks every bone in my body as long as you can keep fucking him!"
His head snapped to the side, already throbbing cheek stinging with the slap his mother had just delivered.
"Don't you ever speak to me like that, Kai! I am your mother!"
He glared at her and his step-father for a moment or two before shaking his head. "You're not a very good one." He went to leave again.
"Where are you going?"
"Work. Remember? I work for a living!"
"Just...come straight back, okay?"

As if. The injuries he had received that day caused a problem with the whole modelling thing. He was let off early because he was covered in bruises, bandages and cuts barely clotting. It was dark out now and he was getting hungry, having given up his rights to a decent dinner with those last words to his mother. Not that that was any big disaster. Someone approached. He looked over, then to the ground. She was short, with long hair and a large build. Well, large...not really, but...

Tohko stopped just before him hesitantly. "Shimada?"
"What?"
Well, he responded, so that was a start. "Look, it took forever to find you, so..."
"So talk. You've gone to enough effort." He was still pissed off, but seemed reluctant to be too rude to the girl before him.
"I...I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything I said, I'd had a hellish past few months and...kind of got convinced nobody would ever really love me, so I took it out on you. And as for the secrets, I just assumed you'd be like everyone else and you wouldn't want to be involved so there was no point in saying."
"I at least want you to be decent enough to tell me I'm going to be a father..."
"Even if you don't want it?"
"Yes-!" He cut himself off, running his hands over his face and through his hair, frustrated beyond belief. "In future, don't make important decisions for me. Please."
"Sure. You coming back to Emi's?"
He thought it over for a moment, and after that moment he gave a slight nod, reaching out to take Tohko's hand. "I'm hardly going to let a pregnant lady wander the streets alone."
"You wouldn't care about any other pregnant lady."
"Hey, they could end up giving birth to something almost as awesome as me."
She dug her elbow into his side. "Shut up."
"Make me."
"Is that a challenge?" She stopped, reaching up to take his chin in her hands.
"Maybe it is." He answered as she pulled him closer.

~*~*~*~*~

He spent that night on Emi's sofa. The next day he tried to set something up with some friends. Fukuroi was able to offer board, so that was that settled. Otherwise, he seemed to keep close to Kirisaki, and she kept close to him, each keeping their silent promise to protect the other. After all, they certainly had their dangers that needed facing. Tohko wasn't exactly on a friendly set of terms but it was enough, certainly.

Months passed along with seasons, summer turning into Autumn. Tohko watched herself grow in disdain, and Kai tailed after her with various words that may have been intended to make her feel better. They didn't work too well.

He had been setting aside his payment to try and afford a place to live so he didn't irritate his friends so much, and maybe so that Tohko wouldn't impose. It was highly unlikely that she would move in with him though. He decided to bring it up that weekend.

He'd started talking about the place he was going to buy (which was unfortunately a grotty little council estate to the south) and fix up so he could live there and even have the child round every now and then, when it wanted to come round if Tohko didn't want to keep him close to them. She wasn't listening fully. That day, she went into labour.

Kai found the one situation he definitely didn't want to be beside her with. Watching a girl squeeze a baby out was...well, it was bound to be absolutely disgusting. She threatened to chop his balls off if he didn't at least try and provide some support. It took a lot of goading to get him in there with her, and then she managed to break his finger.

It took over a day for the baby to actually come out, something that annoyed the students beyond belief. Shimada had to admit, the weird wrinkly thing they ended up with was..kinda cute, actually. Tohko lay in the hospital bed, holding their newborn to her chest, and Shimada sat behind her head, arms around her waist and helping to support the baby. They fell asleep like that, cuddled together. The first step of their undeniably hectic life.

Just A Little Care

Whoever was in charge of security at that hospital was an idiot. It had been far too easy to sneak out while his mother went on and on about all the 'horrible things' he did when 'upset', and threatened to have him sectioned when she thought he wasn't listening. He knew the basics of being sectioned. Locked on a ward, away from his friends. The last thing he needed was more separation and ostracising. It hadn't even been that bad to begin with. It wasn't like he was trying to kill himself. Just a little scratch to help relieve the pressure and pain. He'd been caught with the blade hovering over his arm and the shout his mother gave made him jump, caused the scratch to turn into a stab.

Blood everywhere, and now she was threatening to have him locked up when it was her fault!

While the doctors were in a flap, Morishige Sakutaro went home to pick up his school bag (his father was away on a business trip and his mother was threatening the hospital staff, so it was a safe bet), changed into his school uniform, thankful the long sleeves hid his fresh bandage (if only they could mask the pain as well. Moving his arm created an awkward jerk, and it was bound to be suspicious) and headed off to school, hopeful the doctors wouldn't check there. Heck, as far as they knew, no child enjoyed school enough to run there when they could have a free day off, and his parents knew he was being bullied there, so they would highly doubt he'd go there for the day after attempting to self harm.

He was aware he'd been a source of stress for his poor mother lately with his growing state of depression. He'd had days of refusing to get up because he just couldn't face the day ahead, days where he'd refused to eat or speak and had undoubtedly been a bit of a failure for her. She would shout that he had nothing to be depressed about as all through his life she had spoiled him rotten, then at the same time tell him to suck it up when he was bullied, even when he had been pushed off the stage in drama club and broken his ankle as a result. She would tell him to stop being such a baby, pull him out of bed on his off days and when really stressed she would even go far enough to force food down his throat before sending him off to school with tears in his eyes and bruises on his arms. It had started getting to the point where he was afraid to return home, but when he asked those he considered to be his friends if he could stay at their place for a night or two, they flat out ignored him.

Even running at top speed, Sakutaro arrived at Kisaragi Academy towards the end of second lesson. He'd hurriedly apologised for his lateness and taken his seat, ignoring the mix of concerned looks and sneers. Well, it wasn't like he'd always been the example of a model student.

Apart from that morning's trip to the hospital and listening to his mother ranting and raving about how she didn't want him, it was a pretty average day. He was tired and hungry throughout, but he could easily endure it, even when Komeda Tamotsu tried to trip him in the halls. Today, his friends decided to have lunch on the roof. He joined them, although he hadn't packed anything to eat. He just stated he didn't feel well, and that was why he had been late that day. Kishinuma joked that it was fair enough as long as Morishige didn't throw up on him, and Mochida bid him to get well soon.

If only he could be so lucky. He was sure he'd been ill since he'd first joined the academy. It hardly helped that the one student able to pull him out of his funk had transferred months ago. She had understood him, always offered kind words to combat the bullying the others rained upon him and practically adored him. She never blew him off when he was down to go watch the latest chick flick or slasher horror.

And unlike mother dearest, she never told him his passion for drama was stupid and pointless, and that he should drop it for something worthwhile. His mother wanted him to become something 'important', like a lawyer or a doctor. She hated the idea of her only son standing up on stage and entertaining hundreds. She never took his dreams seriously, told him to stop being stupid and get his head out of the clouds.

Okay, maybe he was a little bitter. He preferred hanging out with Mayu to being home with a good book any day of the week though.

He really didn't feel like talking to anyone today as they separated into little subgroups in front of him. Even so, the pretense that he was fine paid off. It meant they would still hang around him instead of bullying him for being weak and worthless like everyone else. He tried to join in with the conversation Mochida, Nakashima and Shinohara were having, but they didn't seem to notice he was there. Probably because he wasn't adding anything worthwhile, just standing there trying to get a feel for the conversation. He glanced over at Kishinuma and Shinozaki, but they seemed to be busy fighting. Nothing unusual there.

Just a general, shitty day.

After school, he wandered down by the park, but didn't go home. Home wasn't an option any more, he'd decided. His mother was terrifying and seemed to be out to get him because he wasn't 'grateful' enough. He sat on the swing set an hour or two before going to the shopping centre to use the bathroom and get a few sweets. Not very substantial, and he wouldn't eat them now. They would last a long time, though, and were good for a quick energy boost when he got really hungry. There was no way he'd be able to afford a hotel or decent place to sleep without getting a job first, so he had a choice. Sleep in the park or go to a friend's house late at night so they couldn't turn him down. The second option was liable to have their parents contact his, unless he went to Kishinuma. Kishinuma was unlikely to allow him in, but lived alone and wouldn't rat the runaway out and put him back in danger.

Either way, he would need to stay out a while longer, especially since Kishinuma worked late on Fridays. He had to admit, the prospect of a hot meal and warm bed was one he preferred to sleeping out in the icy autumn night with an empty belly. Of course, that was if Kishinuma was willing to share his food. It was more likely to be crashing on the couch with a few blankets and a glass of water. Still miles better than the alternatives.

Though, of all their usual group, the two of them were the ones who got on the worst. It was seeming more and more likely he'd have to settle for the worst case scenario, which just depressed him further. So it was with low spirits in the dark that night that he made his way to where he believed Kishinuma lived. Midway there, it began to rain. A veritable storm, with thunder and lightning and all. He hugged himself tight for warmth as the cold winds blew through his loose uniform. The rain quickly spattered over his glasses, compromising his sight, but eventually he found the covered area outside the public estate his delinquent classmate lived. Half an hour of locating the corresponding door bell and another 10 minutes non stop ringing later, and he realised it was a lost cause.

He went back the other way eventually, hands in his pockets, head down. It was so cold outside. If he didn't find a decent shelter he would likely catch hypothermia, and he hadn't factored in school with his little runaway plan. He would be reported missing but still turn up at school, and not only that but every morning he would be a disgusting mess of mud three inches thick. The amount of weight he was bound to lose would put him in trouble as well. Sure, his weight was like a yo-yo now, rocketing between underweight and healthy at an alarming rate, but if he lived in the park of all places with just enough money for a few sweets he'd be starved in no time flat. Being caught and taken in scared him. He could end up back with his mother, with foster parents who could even treat him worse or in the hospital ward. Each fear was greater than the last and ran around and around his head. This was a stupid idea to begin with, but he'd felt like he had little other choice. He couldn't go home, he just couldn't! He couldn't go back there. He still had those ugly purple bruises on his arms and chin from mother's last fit of anger towards his depressed state. Before he knew it, tears were tracking down his cheeks, and no amount of wiping and biting his tongue could stop them. He couldn't even stop a small sob escaping his throat. Once again, his pointless life had reached a dead end. He stopped walking, finding himself on a high bridge over a deep, fast running river. He watched it for a while, hands clasped before him as he tried to calm himself down. It didn't work. He just kept thinking about the worst things, the hell his life had become, what he would undoubtedly be met with the next morning...more relentless teasing he couldn't handle and kidding himself that he was friends with those people who ignored him while allowing him to stand and listen to their conversations, those friends he had nothing in common with and couldn't really speak to.

He'd never even told Mayu he'd had thoughts so dark, like the one he had there and then as he stared down at the rushing water and thought that a river that fast and that deep could trap him in the current and take his life and worries away. Swallowing hard, he vaulted the rail, being swift and not hesitating so none of the people driving past would have time to get out and stop him.

~*~*~*~*~

Yoshiki had had a really long day. School and work had been irritating as ever, not to mention the sucker punch Ayumi had given him earlier. Still hurt. After that, there had been the wonderful world of working later than normal to make up for a couple of no shows. He'd better get paid overtime for this.

Oh, yes, and now it was absolutely pissing it down. A few steps away from work and already he was soaked. He still had a while to go before he got home. By the time he reached a familiar bridge, he was soaked down to his underwear, his jacket streaming with water it couldn't hold. He wasn't on the bridge yet, but he could see a lone figure stood by the rail, no umbrella or hood. Likely just as soaked. Not that it mattered. He was in a foul mood and another person's discomfort was no concern of his.

At least until the figure on the bridge vaulted the rail and leaped into the water. Yoshiki stared for a moment in shock, waiting for the man to resurface, however when it became clear he wouldn't, he skidded down the bank, wading into the water and as soon as he could, diving in.

Books, sweets and various writing implements washed down the river, and he took a deep breath before going under, searching semi-blindly for the figure who had fallen. All too soon, it seemed like his lungs were burning, but he kept searching until his arms closed around something he hoped was the person's waist. He pulled him up and took a deep breath. He couldn't tell if the other person was breathing or not. He was young, fairly tall and had dark hair. It was a struggle, but Yoshiki was able to drag the limp form to the bank. Someone had seen the boy go over the rails and stopped his car to call an ambulance, thank god. It was dark, hard to see the boy's features. He leaned down to check if the boy was breathing before beginning to push down on the boy's chest. (No way in hell was he going to give this kid mouth to mouth.) The rain kept coming down and after his dip he was freezing and the none too pleasant smell of lake was soaking into him. With every passing second, more and more things that could kill the dark boy who jumped came to Yoshiki's attention. With every passing second, things seemed more and more hopeless.

Some time later, he sat in the waiting area of the emergency department. The boy had been taken to hospital in an ambulance, and seeing the Kisaragi Academy uniform on his body, though soaked and rumpled, Yoshiki had insisted on going with. Besides which, he too needed to be treated for hypothermia. So there he sat, dried off and somewhat warmer, waiting to hear some news on the boy he had dragged out of the river on instinct.
"Kishinuma-kun?"
He looked up as the familiar voice reached his ears. "Shinozaki?" There Ayumi stood, looking concerned.
"Are you okay? What happened, why are you at the hospital?"
"It's...I went into the river by the swim centre."
"Why on Earth would you do something so stupid?"
"Someone jumped off the bridge." He answered before he could stop himself.
"...Who...?"
"I don't know." He admitted. "I didn't want to look at his face...in case it was someone we knew."
"Was he from...?"
"Kisaragi? Yeah..." She went to sit beside him and it occurred to him that she too was in the emergency department. "Why are you here anyway, Shinozaki?"
"My mum burnt herself. I came here with her to make sure she's okay."
He nodded, looking around somewhat miserably. Eventually, a doctor came through, saying they'd stabilised the near-drowned student, but hadn't found any ID on him as his belongings had all been washed away. Yoshiki agreed to go see the other boy, see if he could identify the boy. If he was a friend, Shinozaki would want to see him too. Walking through, he found he could identify the boy at once.
"Morishige?"


Sakutaro opened one eye, but without his glasses, it was clear he couldn't see too well. He had been changed into a dry hospital gown and had plenty of blankets to keep him warm. An oxygen mask was situated over his mouth and nose, and he was still very pale, making the mess of scratches, old and new, on his arms stand out magnificently.
"...Kishinuma..."
"...How are you feeling?"
"...Cold..."
Well, that made sense at least. A doctor came over, a man at least in his 30's with light brown hair in a ponytail.
"Did you say his name was Morishige? His first name wouldn't happen to be Sakutaro, would it?"
"Yes." Yoshiki answered, while at the same time Sakutaro said "No."
They stared at one another and Morishige dragged a finger across his neck, telling the blond boy to keep quiet. The doctor arched an eyebrow.
"No." Yoshiki corrected. "His name is...Satoshi." He managed, thinking fast. "They look a bit alike...I didn't quite recognise him...with the...mask..." It was a pretty transparent lie, but the doctor nodded and turned away nonetheless.
"The two of you have been here quite a while. You must be starving. I'll see if I can get something for you." And with that, he left. Thank god. Yoshiki sat down.
"What was that all about?"
"I was in the hospital this morning...that's why I was late into school. I sneaked out when my mother started to threaten to have me locked up in an asylum..."
"She what?" At least he didn't ask what he was in hospital for...although taking everything into account, he could probably make a good guess.
"That's why I was out this late...I'm not going home with her."
"...That's why you keep asking to stay the night with everyone..." He nodded, and I found my eyes drawn to the door. "Ayumi's here...I sort of told her I'd pulled a Kisaragi student from the river and she's pretty worried...mind if she comes in to see you?"
He shook his head. As Yoshiki stood, Morishige stopped him. "Kishinuma...could you get me something to eat from one of the vending machines?"
"The doctor's bringing you dinner."
"Hospital food is vile. Last time I ate some the taste alone was enough to make me throw up." He turned away, reaching down as though to get his bag. "I'll even pay for it...wait, fuck, my bag's not here..."
"Your stuff's probably still in the river, sorry. Couldn't grab it all."
He lay down, cuddling up to his blankets. "You pulled me out, that in itself is...pretty big."
He didn't seem to resent it even though it had been a clear suicide attempt. "I'll see what I can do food-wise."
"Thanks, I haven't had a bite for ages."
Yoshiki nodded, leaving the room and looking for a vending machine on his way back to Ayumi. She came to meet him as he came back to the waiting room.
"How did it go?"
"He's okay. He'll live at least, and he doesn't seem brain damaged." He looked into the vending machine, trying to think what Morishige might like. "Just...scared."
"Scared?"
"He really doesn't want me to give the doctors his real name."
"What's he afraid of?" Then a pause before "You still haven't told me his name!"
"It's Morishige. I think he's scared of his mum." He picked up the chocolate and crisps he'd gotten and led the way back to the ward.

"Morishige?" Shinozaki asked uncertainly as he approached. He glanced over, looking surprised.
"You don't often talk to me." He pointed out dully, startling both his visitors. Realising he'd said something wrong, he apologised softly.
"No, don't be...I just don't like to feel like I'm bothering you is all." She answered. "I don't want to put you in a bad mood."
"...Can I talk to you frankly?"
She gave a slight nod, sitting beside him. "Go ahead. I'm always willing to lend a listening ear and supporting shoulder when needed."
Morishige regarded her curiously before nodding, deciding to trust her.
"I've been asking around for places to stay but no-one can take me in...Suzumoto is too far to ask out of the blue, especially if it yielded only one night...I can't go home. Remember when I said Minami gave me the bruises on my arms and face?" She nodded and he continued. "I lied. I'm sure mother just wanted what was best, but she can get rough when stressed. She's not abusive, she doesn't hit me...but she hates me. She's told me she doesn't want me around. I'm this close to getting kicked out simply because I keep pursuing my dreams with drama...so this was really a long time coming...I don't think I can talk to anyone anyway...and with Minami and Komeda and all that lot constantly trying to beat me senseless, I don't get why I still come to school. I keep hoping that if I stay near you five, I can have someone to talk to, someone to keep me out of this dark space I can't seem to escape...but it doesn't work. I feel like I don't fit in...I feel like I just get in everyone's way."
Shinozaki took his hand and gave it a tight squeeze. "You don't. You...you're just a tricky guy to get...but then depressed people tend to wear a mask, so I don't blame you. You probably aren't even aware you have that mask set up to protect yourself. You're our friend though, Morishige-kun, we love having you around, we really do."
Yoshiki offered the chocolate in his hand and sighed. "I didn't realise it was like that, man. I know what it's like when parents get...nasty. There's spare room at my place, but you probably won't like it there. It's not exactly top quality."
Sakutaro shrugged, tearing open the packaging with starving hands. "I don't care any more."
Suddenly, a bright smile appeared on Ayumi's face. "I know! We haven't seen Mayu in ages, none of us have! We should all arrange a big group outing! It'll be great to have the whole gang together again and it might help keep you in high spirits."
"And we're hardly going to let them lock you on a psych ward." Yoshiki pointed out, smirking. "We'd miss your endless nitpicking keeping us boys from doing something completely stupid." He laughed, but nobody joined in. They were silent for a moment before Morishige looked away.
"Shinozaki...please stop staring at my arms..."
"Sorry..."
"Can...can you both stay a little longer?"
Ayumi and Yoshiki exchanged glances and the latter shrugged, taking a seat. "I have nowhere to go. Staying here with a friend sounds way better than going back out in the rain even for a second. Besides, this place offered me free food, I'm not saying no to that."
This time his joke at least got a smile. Shinozaki hesitated.
"I'm here with my mum, but I'd love to stay if I can though."
"I...appreciate that." Sakutaro mused, hugging his knees to his chest. At least he had back up to keep the doctors from calling his parents. At least he had friends he could talk to and who cared about him.

The Legend Of Heavenly Host

Shishio's POV
It always seemed like the impossible would forever loom over our generation. Monsters and legends and giant plants of death, but really that didn't mean anything when it all came down to it.

Naruto had come to visit the Hidden Sand. Whether it was on a mission or a leisure trip, I don't know, but he brought his friends with him. At the time, I was very into the occult and whatnot. I'd been researching legends and charms (and considering what I'd seen before, I certainly believed a lot of what I'd read), and I'd come across something that really did interest me. Something about a charm to keep the souls of those who performed it linked for eternity or something like that. Well, I, being me, immediately fell in love with the idea. After all, in the world of shinobi, there was always that omnipresent danger looming over us of death in the midst of our missions. I'd always held concern for my friends, but never voiced it. If I did they would just tell me not to worry and laugh it off. Even so, if I played my cards right, I could get my friends to perform this charm, have a blast and end up protected from the fate of a shinobi.

Gathering said friends had taken an interesting turn. I'd only gone to find Koji and Ameno (Kankuro would undoubtedly be hanging with the Konoha delegation for the day), but of course things would never be between just the four of us. I mean, I'd never really liked big crowds, but I couldn't deny things branching out to my friends' friends. Ameno was with her boyfriend, Mikoshi, and he seemed interested by the concept of this charm to link friends forever and protect them and whatnot with the blessings of Sachiko. I had a bit of an internal argument over whether to let Mikoshi in or not, but eventually agreed. I mean, Kankurou would probably insist on bringing others into the charm as well.

The problem with Mikoshi is he naturally offered to bring his own friends along, so by the time we got to the barbecue place, I was followed by an additional six people. Seven doing the charm, plus Kankurou and likely his siblings too.

I just sort of slipped my way in, looking for the Konoha delegation and I guess part of me knew my friend wouldn't be too happy with the intrusion. After all, everyone needed time to relax, right?

Then again, he didn't look to be at his most relaxed there and then. I weaved my way through the tables, half-hiding behind my violet locks, before reaching my target table and allowing myself a small sigh of relief. At least they didn't mistake me for a waiter (I'd met some of them in my last Chunin exams), so I stood there quietly for a moment before they started paying attention to me, offering questioning looks. I cleared my throat before beginning.
"I know this is probably a bad time, but the guys insisted this couldn't wait and I guess the more the merrier as long as the numbers don't get too big, but I found this charm online, sort of a protective bond thing. If friends perform it together they sort of become bound and those bonds are protected and help protect the people as long as they carry their charm. We decided it might be fun to try it out, but it'd be dumb to do it without all our friends."
Okay, this was a bad idea. They were all busy.
"You can, um, all come if you want, since you're all friends with each other...and bring other friends if you want...and, um...this evening...my house...yeah...I'll just..." I backed away, feeling awkward. I guess the others were staring, except Kankurou, who was more than used to my shit.
"We'll see-jaan."

I should never have said anything. Firstly, it all went horribly wrong, and secondly, there were practically a million people in my room that evening. Looking at all the people there, I made sure the proxy doll I printed took up almost the entire sheet of paper. "Okay," I began as I walked to the centre of the room. The kids from Konoha had come along, and Gaara and Temari had made a point to invite friends of their own (who had in turn invited their own friends). I paused to count everyone, and my count leveled a horrifying 21 people. I held out the flimsy doll. "Okay, those of you taking part, take hold of the doll. There's 21 of us here...even though I said not too many people, but that doesn't matter. Sure, it'll make things painfully complicated, but still. Everyone got a hold?"
Various noises of affirmation. I nodded and continued. "Okay, close your eyes and repeat the words 'Sachiko-san, we beg of you' in your head, once for everyone present. No more, no less, or the charm fails. Don't start over, it has to be 21 times total." Another round of somewhat bored murmurs. We stayed silent until everyone finished and opened their eyes again. "Okay, now pull on the doll until it comes apart and everyone has a piece in their hands. Ready? And pull!"
Rip. I checked to make sure everyone had a piece.
"Now keep that safe. Tuck it in your wallet or ID or even your shoe, as long as you keep it on you."
"Was that it?" Came a bored voice from the other end of the doll. Mikoshi looked rather skeptical. "When's the fun part?"
"Well, um, it would've been more fun if it wasn't so crowded. But I could go get some food and drink and we can have a little party or something. I just got some chocolate soda and it's actually pretty good." I went to the door, only to find it wouldn't open. Odd. My room never had a lock. I paused, checking the cracks to see if anything was jammed in there. "Did...did someone do something to my door?"
Silence. Then a boy I was little acquainted with but who was a friend of Korobi's spoke up. "Why's everyone looking at me?"
Another boy with a bowl cut and the ugliest bodysuit I'd ever seen came to help, letting out a roar before tugging on the door with all his might. Not even the slightest budge. It was as if the door had never been able to open in the first place.

Then came the earthquake. Now, they weren't that common in Suna. Probably what had half of the room clinging to one another in fright. Not nearly as horrifying as when the floor opened up beneath us, just...falling out as though sucked into a black hole.

I blacked out then, and when I woke up, I was in a run down elementary school.


Yaoki's POV:
This place, whatever it was, made my dust allergies go absolutely crazy. I couldn't stop coughing and sneezing and my ankle was throbbing like crazy to boot. I must have landed on it funny or something. Sighing apprehensively, I got to my feet, sure to keep my weight on my good foot, and cast my gaze around. There were various desks scattered haphazardly across the room, chairs on their sides, a teacher's podium and blackboard. In one corner stood a cabinet filled with jars of unidentifiable liquids and meats, and there was a notice near the door. I didn't pay much attention. Something about being sure to wash your hands when you came in from play. It looked kind of like an abandoned, jumbled version of the academy, with the floorboards rotting away. Swallowing anxiously, I stepped outside, into the hallway. It seemed the same, just a little cleaner. There were large gaps between bits of floor, making it near impossible to travel in some directions, and there was a foul smell coming from nearby. I chose not to go that way, instead went back into the classroom through the second set of doors in case there was something I couldn't see beyond the desks.

"Korobi!" I rushed to my best friend's side as best I could and started shaking him awake. He gave a vague murmur and latched onto my arm, nuzzling me like a teddy bear. "Korobi, let go, get up!"
"Nuerh...? Yaoki...? What are you doing in my room?"
I let out an exasperated groan. "This isn't your room. This is...I don't know where this is. We were doing that charm with Gaara-sama, remember?"
He sat up straight then, looking around with a scowl on his face. "This place smells of must and that hamster Nana left behind the sofa for months after it died..."
At first, I frowned as I helped him up, then I began to realise perhaps he had a point. There certainly was a foul smell of rot and something dead..."Don't worry about it. We just have to find our way out of here and back to Shishio-san's house, right? It can't be far."
He nodded, standing and going to a window. "It's raining."
"That's...unusual."
"Yaoki, I don't think we're in Suna. There's a forest down there."
"There can't be a forest. We can't have been out that long, it's over a day's travel to the nearest foresty area."
"We are in a forest! I swear, look!"
Reluctantly, I came and looked out the window. It was grubby, so I tried to open it, to no avail. It didn't even budge in the slightest. I gave a growl of frustration and kicked a nearby desk, but all that achieved was a stubbed toe. I felt hands on my shoulders.
"Calm down, Yaoki. Come on, we just have to get to the door and then go to the nearest city, we'll find one in no time, and it'll be fine."
I heaved a sigh and nodded. "Yeah, yeah, fine." We headed out back into the hall, but almost instantly, Korobi stopped me.
"Yaoki...are you okay?"
"Yeah, just a little put out...I guess I'm...worried."
"Well, that's obvious. I am too. I mean your leg. You're limping!"
"Oh...I must have twisted my ankle, that's all."
"Oh, that's no good, we can't have you getting hurt. You're my best friend after all." He beamed, grabbing my arm and looping it around his shoulders so I was leaning on him.
"Ah...thanks, Korobi..."
"No problem! What are friends for?"

We slowly went towards the source of the foul smell, considering we couldn't go in the other direction. Instantly, I wished we hadn't. We encountered a wall plastered with someone's remains, some even splashing across the ceiling. It was fresh, wet and soaked in glistening blood, globs still sliding down here and there, and bits of torn clothing barely visible in their new red colour. I think I even saw something like a forehead protector, but I didn't pay too much attention. I turned away, pulling away from Korobi and throwing up in the corner while he stared in horror.
"What...what is this?" He went closer, reaching out to touch it.
"Korobi!"
"It...it has to be fake. I've seen dead bodies before but never anything like this." Squelch. "Ah...it's real..."
"Korobi, for the love of god, stop that!"
"Sorry!" He came back to my side. "Come on, let's put that out of our minds."
"You touched it! Why the fuck would you touch it?"
"I didn't think it was real, give me a break!"
"Let's just get out of here already." I surged on and he did his best to keep pace with me, not too fast, not too slow. I didn't care where we were, I just wanted to go.

Worse yet, that mess wasn't the last body we encountered. They were littered everywhere, in various stages of decay, all killed in a variety of ways. Headless ones, ones with dried intestines leaking out, ones with exposed bones...after a while I just kept my gaze straight ahead, not daring to look at anything else. Korobi must have been braver, he was properly looking around for clues to where we might have been. Every now and then, he would stop to read something. "I think we're in an elementary school." He announced eventually as we neared the front doors.
"An elementary school?"
"Mmm. There's school newsletters." He decided not to mention the notice that proudly proclaimed 'don't trust your friend, he's only going to kill you in the end'. "Heavenly Host Elementary. Stuff about being careful on your way home because of recent disappearances."
"Seriously?"
"They're really old though. Dated way back to the 50's." He shrugged before grinning and pointing ahead. "Look, the door! We made it, Yaoki!" He ran ahead, grabbing the door and trying to yank it open.

It didn't even rattle. He kept pulling until his face went bright red, but nothing came from it. It didn't budge even slightly. "No!" He hammered on the door as I, despairing, sunk to my knees. "Let me out!" I wrapped my arms around my torso and whimpered.
"We're never going to get home!" I wailed. Korobi turned to me and a look of determination appeared on his face.
"Nonsense, Yaoki, it'll be fine. We just need more manpower. Come on, maybe if we were brought here, Gaara and the others were as well!" He pulled me to my feet and led me along. "We didn't look in any of the classrooms. We really should." We traversed a sea of abandoned shoes that lay near the entrance and returned to wandering the halls. Suddenly, my foot caught on something and a loud clatter echoed through the halls, making me jump. Some strange liquid pooled at our feet, having leaked from a bucket I had kicked over.
"Is that piss?" Korobi asked, arching an eyebrow.
"Gross, don't say that!"
"It smells of piss..."
"Korobi!"
"Sorry." He gestured to a classroom and I obediently went in. It seemed pretty plain, just a few desks, one body with a message painstakingly scratched into the wood with her nails and a newspaper. I went to the message.
"Whatever you do, don't look at the newspaper." I looked up and my heart sunk into my stomach. "Korobi, no!"
"What?" He had the newspaper in his hands, already reading through it. As he progressed, his expression became more horrified.
"Didn't you listen to me?"
"Yaoki, listen to this: Serial kidnapping ends in murder. Over the past months numerous children have gone missing and authorities turned to kidnapping as the most likely explanation. Investigators have found the location of the missing children and their findings are worse than anyone could have imagined. The bodies of the youths were discovered within the Heavenly Host building on September 27th. A male instructor was found with them, alive but near-catatonic, holding a pair of bloodied scissors. Each of the children had their tongues severed and removed....unique mutilations...far to grotesque...um...the paper's not legible after that point." He gave me a forlorn look.
"I said loud and clear not to look at that!" I snapped before going to the door. It wouldn't open. "Fuck...fuck! Korobi, what have you done?!"
"I just read the newspaper..." he glanced at it again and paled considerably.
"...What's wrong?"
"Th-the text changed...it just says 'you will never leave' now..."
"Fuck! Fuck! You ruined everything! I said don't read that paper and what did you do?"
"You said that after I picked it up."
"Shut up! We're going to die!"
"Calm down, I-"
"Don't tell me to fucking calm down! Oh god, I have a girlfriend! Our parents will spend forever looking for us, desperately searching. We'll be a burden on them and they'll never know! It'll be so painful! I'm a horrible person, putting them through that! We're horrible people!"
"You're wrong."
"Huh?" I looked to him, not daring to wipe the tears from my eyes. He was looking at the floor, forlorn.
"It's never a burden. We're not horrible, and with us gone they'll search and choose to live for our sakes. The memory of the lost loved ones inspires you to live through each and every day, to be strong for the sake of those you love and to keep on protecting those who remain!"
Korobi had experience with this topic. I knew that all too well. I shouldn't be saying these things in front of him, yet I couldn't stop. I was like a spoiled brat, just throwing a hissy fit and striking out at my best friend. I'd been striking out at him ever since we'd gotten here. I had to apologise.
"I don't know about your family, but...normal people don't work that way!" No. "Normal people suffer when their loves are torn away. All you can do is run around smiling and laughing like we aren't surrounded by death. News flash, Korobi! We. Are. Going. To. Die! All you can do is wander around in circles, chatting away like it's an average day! Do you even know how annoying that is? It's like you're enjoying that, so why don't you go enjoy it elsewhere?!"
He seemed shocked beyond belief. I could see tears in his eyes.
"No..." He breathed. I'd gone too far. "No! No, I don't want you of all people to talk to me like that, Yaoki! You're my best friend! How could you say those things?"
I had to say sorry. "Because you're dragging me to my death!" Wait, what? I hadn't even thought that. Where did that come from? "You're the one ensuring our destruction, and you have a smile the whole way through!"
"I...I..." He shut his eyes, shaking his head fervently before rushing to the door. Strangely, it slid open for him without him even touching it. I was left alone.

I think I must have blacked out. For the longest time I cried, then I wandered aimlessly, calling for my friend who I had carelessly destroyed. I started running, screaming frantically for Korobi to come back. When I came back to my senses, I was outside the bathrooms, staring at a scrap of paper.

Korobi's proxy doll scrap. At once, I brightened up, wiping my eyes. "Korobi! Korobi, are you here? Korobi, I'm sorry, I'm so, so, so sorry! I didn't mean any of it!...Korobi?" There was a loud crash from inside the men's room. Frowning, I went in. "Korobi? Koroooobiiiiii?" One of the stall doors was rattling, as though someone were frantically beating at it. Cautiously, I pushed it open.

I fell back with a cry of horror. There was Korobi, hanging by his neck from a thick rope. "Korobi! No, no no no no no, this can't be real...Korobi...I'm so sorry, you can't be dead..."
Suddenly, he began to cough. "Ya...o...ki..."
He could see me. He was aware of me. "Korobi! Oh, Korobi, I'm so sorry!" He gagged, desperately trying to get some air in. "Oh god...don't worry, Korobi, I'll save you now!" I grabbed his waist, planning to hoist him up, but my overzealous grab pulled him down, tightening the rope and had him emitting a horrifying strangled cry. I cried out in shock. "No, I'm sorry! I'll...I'll find something for you to stand on!" There was a bucket, the one I'd kicked over, just down the stairs. I ran for it, hesitant to pick it up as it was still covered in piss, but in the end managed to swallow my pride.

Damn my hesitance though. And my awful words. When I got back to Korobi, he hung there, swinging back and forth with the leftover momentum of his struggle, blood and spittle on his chin, tears tracking down his cheeks and all the life gone from his bloodshot eyes. The rusted bucket fell from my hands, the clatter echoing once more. I screamed.
"KOROBIIIIII! No! NO! How could this happen? I'm so sorry...please, please don't leave me alone here! Please...I don't want my best friend to die...not like this, not now and here...please, Korobi...say something! Don't just hang there, don't let this be real, please! Why would you hang yourself? You've always been so cheerful, so positive...why would you do this? I'm sorry Korobi, I'm so, so sorry!"

We'd been laughing and having fun just a few hours before, and now he was dead. It was all my fault. He'd just died before my eyes and there was nothing I could do about it.


Temari's POV:
"This school is comprised of several closed spaces, meaning even if you are in the same room at the same time, if you and your friends are in a different space, you won't be able to meet up. There is no escape, only lonely wandering...perhaps you should at least be grateful you have one another."
The speaker was nothing more than an ethereal blue glow, trying hard to form the shape of a person. I was sat in a musty classroom, facing my brother as I propped his back against the teacher's podium. He'd clearly taken a pretty bad fall since we'd arrived, and I could swear I saw a flash of white and red beneath the tear in his kimono top. His breathing was ragged, though that might have been because he was hyperventilating, and I was pretty sure one of his arms was dislocated.
"So how do we get out?" I asked, bracing my hands on his shoulders.
"I already said, there is no escape." The blue thing repeated as I tried to get my brother to calm down.
"Trust me, we're resourceful, we'll find a way out and we'll find the others, closed spaces or no."
The spirit inclined its head before disappearing. I turned my full attentions to my brother. "Kankurou, breathe. Come on, you're not really this weak, are you?"
"Sh-shut up!" He managed through clenched teeth before pushing me away with his good arm and standing. He tried to mask the pain, but I caught the odd twitch. He was hurt bad. Still, Sakura might be here. I knew she was a medical ninja. And Kankurou's friend, Ameno. I wasn't sure about anyone else. I offered my shoulder for support, but he ignored it and went on himself. Rolling my eyes, I followed him.

There wasn't much in the halls. The north hall had collapsed. The south path had collapsed. There was a hallway northwards that led east, and they could walk that one, but there was a ghost there, stood over a teenage girl. The girl was on her back, and going a little closer, we saw her stomach had been torn open. Kankurou clamped a hand over his mouth, gagging. The ghost raised her hand. In her grasp, a pair of scissors, open wide, the dead body's intestines sitting comfortably on the bottom blade. One snip and the entrails fell. Slowly, I backed away, and Kankurou easily followed suit, pointing silently to a flight of stairs. They went up, unfortunately, but any stairs down must have been blocked off. On the way up, my brother stopped to pick something up.
"What is it?"
"Hmm? Oh, I found a key." He held it up with a cocky grin, as though we hadn't just seen a ghost cutting up some poor girl's body. I shook my head, trying not to smile as I led the way up the stairs. The hallway was short, and ended just after two doors. Bathrooms. The men's was boarded up. Kankurou stopped and looked at it for a moment before biting his lip. "Temari?"
I looked over, arching an eyebrow. "Yeah?"
"I need to go take a piss. You mind waiting?"
One hell of an inopportune time. Rolling my eyes, I gestured for him to go ahead, and he stepped into the girls' bathroom. I moved away, but instantly, he came back out.
"That was quick." I commented.
"Couldn't go, jaan."
"Why?" I asked, stepping into the toilets. The reason became obvious at once, however. The floor before the stalls had fallen away, and the sinks were shattered. I was silent for a moment before shrugging. "We'll add finding a toilet to our list of things to do." I promised, pinching his cheek with a smirk. He slapped my hand away.
"Forget it, jaan." We walked off again. He made sure to take a look at the key in his hands. It was a key for the school infirmary.
"We should go there." I decided, looking at his dislocated arm and exposed rib. He shrugged.
"Yeah, sure. There might be something useful." He was keeping up his tough air.

We entered cautiously. The room had an oppressive air to it, and the two notices on the wall seemed weird. Kankurou sat on one of the beds to get his breath back and I took a look around. There was a desk with pen, diary and candle on it, but none of them moved, as though they were all merely decorations. I found some bandages, but I knew Kankurou wouldn't let me put them on. He'd be too proud to have his arm put in a sling, and would move too much if I tried to bind his ribs. The notices both said 'wash the blood with soap' and there was an anatomical diagram with the organs painted over in what seemed like real blood. Turning, I saw Kankurou had moved to lie on his back. He looked like he was asleep, though his breathing was still uneven. I was tempted to brush his hair back, but on the offchance that he might be awake, I held back.
"Korobi!"
He sat upright at once, and I looked round. "Wasn't that...?"
"Yeah, Yaoki."
The voice sounded out again. "Korobi, I'm sorry! I'm so, so sorry!"
"You rest." I commanded, moving to the door. "I'll go look for him."
"No!" I looked over. It was strange to hear that fear coming from my little brother. Instantly, he cleared his throat, embarrassed. "Look, I just...don't think we should split up in here. It's clearly really dangerous and I don't want us to lose each other if something else should come up."
He raised a good point, as much as I hated to admit it. I sat on the bed next to the one he was on and sighed. "You really need to rest with your chest..."
"I can rest any time, anywhere. I don't need this bed, you know, jaan."
"You sure?"
"Positive. You don't need to baby me, you know." He got up again. I wanted to say he already looked exhausted, which was true, but I held my tongue. It would just annoy him. Instead I nodded and headed to the door, only for a thump to catch my attention. Worried Kankurou had fallen, I spun round, but all that had changed was that there was a newspaper on the floor. Kankurou was staring at it as though it was about to kill him. Cautiously, I approached it and started reading.
"The brutal, shocking deaths of the kidnapped grade-schoolers have now been traced back to the hands of the instructor found with them. The scissors he was found with were confirmed to have been used to cut out the victim's tongues, ultimately leading to death through excessive bleeding or choking. One of the victims even had her head slowly and methodically removed. This cranial mass was found on the floor next to her body. The heavenly host students pictured here are the four found in the basement. One was...when investigators arrived at the scene she was..." There was blood covering the rest of the article. Kankurou had gone pale, but that might have been because of the injuries. "Those photos..." He managed. "The girl with the pigtails...that was the girl with the scissors..." I dropped the paper and walked out, snapping at him to follow.

"I can't take this anymore!"
We both stopped, exchanging glances before Kankurou ran on. "Gaara! Ototo?" Groaning, I followed. At least we might find our brother. Surely if we could hear him, he wouldn't be in a different closed space. All we found, however, was a blood stain leading down the hall as though someone had been dragged. We slowed, following the trail a little until it led to a wall and a nail puller. I picked it up twirling it in my hands.
"You needed to go, right? We might be able to get into the Men's room with this."
He was searching the wall for some kind of seam, as though looking for a secret door. "Kankurou!" He jumped and looked over.
"Gaara was here! We have to find him."
"He isn't here now. We'll find him, I promise. It'll take time though. We need to know where to look. Aimlessly wandering won't help anyone." I offered my hand and begrudgingly, he turned and walked towards the stairs. "Kankurou!"
"You said we could get into the men's room now. Come on, my bladder's stretched to breaking point..."
"...Nice..."

The boards came off and fell to the floor, and my brother pushed past me moodily. After a second or two I heard him swear and looked in. No stalls, no urinals, and the sinks were filled with the remains of someone. Definitely unusable.
I heaved a sigh. "Cross your legs, Kankurou. We might as well search for Gaara and Yaoki now, as well as the others."
He gave a slight moan but nodded anyway. We went back down and found the corridor to the east had opened out, allowing us to go downstairs. The ghost was gone but the body of the girl still lay there. Stepping carefully around her, we made our way down the hall on the first floor. There was a door at the end. It was stiff, but a few good tugs got it open.

The door led to an outdoor annex that joined two buildings together. The fence was about chest-height, but if we could vault over it, we could escape the school and we'd then have to traverse the forest.. The second wing had a thick, oppressive air to it, and my head started pulsing. Turning, I found Kankurou too had clutched his head, clearly in pain. We passed into the room to the right on impulse and found another bathroom. This time we headed in together, only to find once again the floor in front of the stalls had fallen away.
"You know, there are a lot of buckets and the sinks here are intact. If I turned away or left you in the room alone, you could-"
"No! I don't need to go that bad, jaan."
"So you can hold it?"
"Yeah, I'm fine."
I nodded and gestured for him to follow me, and we went up a floor. The floor was destroyed once more, no way across the hall on the second floor. We went back down to the first floor and to the room left of the main entrance. There was a music room and an art room. Neither had anything important inside. They were just plain classrooms.
"Temari...Nee-san!" I followed Kankurou's gaze and saw a girl stood in the corner, back to us. She had purple hair, some tied back in a bun. I went up to her and cleared my throat.
"Miss?"
She wasn't speaking, but mouthing something frantically. She had amber eyes and a lip piercing just below her lower lip.
"Miss?" I repeated. This time I was able to hear her.
"These chicks who are nested within, never to be seen again...washed away by nothingness...rising and falling in a constant stream..." I reached out to touch her shoulder, and suddenly she started screaming and pulling chunks of her hair out. I stepped back in shock and tried grabbing her arm. In an instant, Kankurou was by my side and pulling me away.
"She's too far gone, jaan." Another look and I realised he was right. The girl didn't even seem the slightest bit aware that I was there. When she looked in the right direction, she seemed to be looking right through us. Sadly, we left the room. Someone else pushed past us, pushing me right into the wall. A blonde girl with a high ponytail, wearing lilac tunic shirt and navy shirt. Frowning, we followed her. Eventually, she stopped running and I cleared my throat.
"What's wrong?" I asked, reaching to her again. She had brown eyes and was clearly quite young. She was from the land of wind, I remembered her vaguely. She had been childish and loved puppets, never speaking to people. I didn't know her name. Kankurou might have, but I didn't get to ask. She screamed and slapped my hands away, running off again. I sighed, shaking my head.
"No luck here..." I muttered. We headed back to the first floor, when suddenly an earthquake started up. Yelping, Kankurou dropped to his knees. I cried out too, bracing myself against the wall. Eventually it stopped, and he groaned again. Slowly, I pulled away from the wall and offered my hands to my brother. He took them with his good hand and let me pull him up.


We made it to the first floor again. Something seemed different, but I couldn't put my finger on it. Frowning, I surged on back to the second floor where the floor had fallen out, Kankurou following behind me slowly. The floor...seemed to have repaired itself...
"That's impossible..." I breathed, crouching down to examine the floor. Kankurou walked past me to a set of doors up ahead, then swore once more. Looking up, I saw him frantically trying to tear open a door. Walking over, I found the door was labeled 'Girls' Bathroom', but sealed with various protective charms. I placed a hand on his shoulder and he let his arm drop. "I give up." He whined. "I'll just go in the forest."
"The forest?"
"Yeah, let's go back to that annex between the buildings. I can climb over the fence and go out there."
I gave a reluctant nod. "I'll stay just inside the door. If something happens, yell as loud as you can."
He laughed at that as we walked back to the entranceway. "I can take care of myself, jaan."
"Still, this place is dangerous."
"I know, I know. I'll be fine." He stepped out into the crossway and shut the door behind him. I leant against the door for a moment with a sigh.

The quiet air was suddenly broken by a yell. I turned, hands at the door. "Kankurou?" I called as I pulled.

The door didn't budge, and Kankurou's yells stopped. "Kankurou!" I screamed again. Fuck, this was bad. He was in serious trouble and I couldn't get to him. "Kankurou! Answer me! Kankurou!"

No response. No matter what I tried, it seemed my brother and I had been separated.



Gaara's POV:
At first, I'd thought I was alone in this strange place of death and decay. I wandered the halls, stopping every so often to examine something. There were notices all over, spouting vile things and talking about the deaths of four children, kidnapped and mutilated. Aside from that sat various bodies in varying states of decay, all young and murdered. It could turn the stomach of even the strongest man. Speaking of which, I hated to think how people like Yukata and Korobi would hold up in this hellhole.

I was reading another paper, sat cross-legged against the wall. It detailed the extent of the mutilations the children had been victim to, but it seemed the torn and bloodied edges of previous papers had been trying to say one child survived. There were certainly only three deaths in the article. I heard the door open, but I was in the far corner, hidden behind a cabinet. Whatever had killed these children might still be there, after all. I heard footsteps as someone looked around the room, and then a voice.
"Hello? Temari-san? Gaara-sama? Yukata-san? Is anyone in here?"
I recognised the voice all too well. The dainty, melodious tones of one of my closest friends and my only student. Creeping forward to see more of the room, my eyes confirmed my thoughts. Matsuri stood by the blackboard, examining a drawing tacked on to it of a teacher being stabbed by four cheerful children. Cautiously, I got to my feet, making my way over. She turned slowly at the sound of creaking floorboards, and instantly her face brightened. Next thing I knew, she had me in a tight embrace.
"Gaara-sama! Oh, thank god you're okay!"
"Matsuri." I greeted casually, as though completely unphased by all that was happening. "And you. You are unharmed?"
"I'm totally fine, I swear."
The next question we asked at the same time.
"Have you seen anyone else?"
"What about the others?"
We stepped away from one another, regarding each other with concerned gazes.
"You're the only person I've seen since the charm, Gaara-sama." Matsuri admitted softly. "Sorry.
I just nodded. "Me neither." I gestured to the door. I was feeling strangely anxious. These bodies had no doubt been here a long time, but there was still that looming possibility of the killer still being here (and some had clearly been murdered). No doubt my friends were tough, but I still worried about them. What if they weren't strong enough to survive whatever this was? Silently, we left the room, and slowly, I filled her in on my findings, and she, upon being shown the pictures, stated she had seen the children who had been killed in the newspapers. There were ghosts of children walking through these halls. It seemed as though it might even be them who were killing others.

I'm not sure how long we walked for, but we spoke a little. Not just about what we had found this time, but...it was more like being at home, just spending time with my friends. She spoke to me about training techniques, her last outing with Sari and Yukata and even tried to get me to talk about what kind of girls I liked. I let her talk, adding the odd comment to keep her encouraged. It was good to hear her talk away like this. It even uplifted my spirits a little.

Then we heard something that made our blood freeze over. A scream. A voice filled with hopeless desperation and unimaginable pain. Something I'd heard way too often for it to surprise me, but this time I recognised the voice.

It was someone I called a friend. Matsuri had fallen still and silent.
"Yaoki..." I breathed in shock.
"We have to find him." Matsuri decided firmly. I nodded and we took off, heading up the stairs. We were certain the yell had come from upstairs, and it went out of my head, that Matsuri had been told we were in different dimensions to our friends, even if we were in the same school.

The top of the steps led us to the bathrooms. We were looking for a man, so I went into the men's room, Matsuri following me uncertainly. There was a black stain on the floor. Crouching by it, it seemed to be a pool of unidentifiable liquid, almost completely dried in. I heard the scream again, Yaoki's voice echoing despairingly through the room, and the door to one of the stalls suddenly slammed open. Matsuri gave a cry of fright before peering in.
"It's...empty." I looked up. The stall was stained black, but indeed empty. For some reason, that sight struck terror into my heart and soul, and suddenly everything went white, the light stinging my eyeballs. I couldn't breathe no matter how hard I tried, feeling ice cold but for a burning pain around my neck. Desperately, I clawed at my neck, trying to open my airway. My neck was stiff, I couldn't tilt my head back. I felt like my feet weren't even touching the ground and kicked out desperately.

Then suddenly I could breathe again. I took in great gulps as a pulsing warmth embraced me, something soft cradling my head. I nuzzled into it, shutting my eyes.
"Gaara-sama, please be okay, please stop it...come back, please..."
I frowned at that. "Matsuri..." I mumbled, recognising the voice before remembering where we were. My eyes shot open. "What's going on? Matsuri?"
Her voice brightened, sorrow disappearing in a flash. "Gaara-sama!"
It came from above me. Glancing up, I saw her tear-stained face, a red mark on her cheek as though she'd been hit. Why was I below her? My feet were flat on the floor, but her arms were tight around me, keeping bent over and...I pulled back at once with a gasp. I'd been pressed against her chest! I'd relaxed against...so embarrassing.
"Are you okay, Gaara-sama?"
I gave a slight nod. "What happened?"
"You...you started acting really weird..."
"...Weird?"
"You don't remember?"
"I...the bathroom door opened and then there was a bright light and I felt cold and couldn't breathe...and when I came to, you were squeezing the life out of me..."
Her cheeks went a little redder, as though blushing. "You just ran off..." Looking round, I confirmed that. We were no longer in the bathrooms. "You were saying really weird things, talking to yourself, asking why I was doing something...not sure what...I just wanted you to come back to normal."
I heaved a sigh, massaging my temples. I was getting a headache. "I think...those stains...someone we knew died in that room..."
"You mean Yaoki-..."
"Judging by his yells was likely a witness...he might still be alive." The more I spoke, the more my heart sunk. "Either way, they aren't in there, or we cannot reach them from there. Yaoki is in a different dimension." I reached out for her hand and she took it at once, squeezing comfortingly. "We need to find who we can and find a way out of here. After a moment, I felt her thumb brush against my cheek, spreading something wet.
"Don't cry, Gaara-sama, it'll be okay. We'll get out of here and we'll find them, protect them. I'm sure of it."
I wasn't aware I'd been crying until she'd pointed it out. I turned to her, and I saw confidence taking charge over the fear and sadness. I decided I needed to protect her as long as we were in here.

A spirit stood at the bottom of the stairs though. One of the children from the articles that Matsuri had seen before. It had something in its hands. Closer inspection showed a pair of bloodstained scissors.
It tried to speak, but its words came out garbled. The message was something I managed to decipher after a moment. 'Why did you kill me?'
"You're one of the victims of Heavenly Host." I noted aloud. "The little boy." There was a dark stain on his clothes, as well as what must have been blood running down his chin.

Stabbed in the stomach numerous times. Tongues severed.

I suppressed a shudder and stepped forward. "Let us pass."
Another garbled sentence. 'You'll pay'.

Suddenly, the boy rushed forward, and I pushed Matsuri out of the way. A sharp pain blossomed in my arm. My sand shield hadn't come up, and I found the scissors embedded in my arm. Hands closed around my other arm and suddenly I was being pulled along, away from the ghost child, which followed at a slow walk. I don't know how long we were running for, but eventually we rested against a wall, breathing hard. I looked down at the scissors in my arm, realising that having that protruding from my being would cause problems. Slowly, I gripped the handle, wincing and grunting at the shoot of pain.
"Gaara, stop!" Matsuri put her hands over my own, giving me a stern look. She checked the way we'd come to ensure we'd lost the ghost boy. "There's got to be an infirmary. We're in a school. We can bandage your arm then so it'll be safer." She turned back round and started walking, still holding one of my hands. "Come on, we-"

Peering ahead, I saw at once why she'd stopped. Another spirit had appeared, this time of a little girl, another one from the pictures. Upon laying her one-eyed gaze on us, she giggled and entered a room. We waited a few minutes before walking again, planning to pass the room in search of the infirmary. Only problem was, the room the ghost girl had gone into was the infirmary. Conversation drifted out, a familiar voice laughing with the ghost girl and another child's voice. Talking.
"Yes, I love my teacher too! He is inspirational and always full of the power of youth!"
"Lee..." I breathed, concerned, before throwing open the door and running in, pulling my poor student with me. "Lee!"
Lee turned to face us, a big smile on his face. He was stood between the ghost girl and another spirit, I assumed the final ghost child. Most of her head was missing. "Gaara-kun, Matsuri-san! It is good to see you! Come, sit with us, we were talking about our senseis!"
I shook my head, holding my hand out. "Lee, these ghosts are dangerous. Come with me, we have to get out of here."
"Gaara-kun, you're injured!"
"Lee! We don't have time for that, get away from them!"
Lee hesitated before shaking his head. "They aren't bad. I've been speaking to them. They had something awful happen to them and they've been so alone. They just want company, someone to understand them and love them. They've been trapped here away from their friends and family since they died."
"I..." I released Matsuri's hand.
"Gaara?" She asked, shocked.
"They're alone?" I repeated uncertainly. Thinking about it, Lee had described my childhood. Someone to understand and love them. "They aren't bad...?"
"Gaara, they stabbed you." Matsuri pointed out skeptically, crossing her arms. "They don't have to be trapped here...there's always a way to put spirits to rest, send them on to meet their friends and family. If we can do that, we can help them...you two'd want to help them, wouldn't you?"
Lee nodded firmly. "Yes, of course! I would do anything to help my new friends! Yuki-chan, Tokiko-chan, we can help save your souls, right? Help show us the way!"
I moved closer, hoping to get on the spirits' good sides, but instead a powerful force hit me, throwing me back. I hit the wall, breath knocked out of me.
"Lee-san!"
Cracking open my eyes, I saw what Matsuri had yelled for. He was suspended in the air, the spirits each holding one arm, keeping it out straight as Lee's head fell forward. He seemed to be unconscious. "Lee!" I cried, getting to my feet. "Put him down!"
They paid no heed.
"What do we do?" Matsuri whimpered, clasping her hands together before her mouth.
"Exactly what you said. Put them to rest."
"How?"
I looked at her for a moment, then to Lee, before leaving the room and taking a deep breath.

It was only when Matsuri followed and asked "Who are you?" That I became aware someone else was there. I looked up, seeing a man with long, blond hair, and blue eyes with no light.
"His eyes are like a dead fish's." It was out of my mouth before I realised I'd had that thought, and the man smiled.
"I admit, I've been dead a long time, un. I died here a while ago, looking for someone."
"An important person?" Matsuri asked, frowning. "You came here willingly for them? That's...admirable. I'm not sure I could be that brave."
The man instantly changed topic. "Your friend in there is under the power of those spirits. If those spirits are given closure for their rather violent deaths, the barriers holding the closed spaces together will break down, un. Not only would you save your friend, but you'd be able to find others you traveled here with, un. These spaces are only held together by the suffering of those children."
"How exactly do we give them closure?" I asked, brow furrowing.
"Perhaps they need a show of remorse from the one who killed them."
"The one who...?" The man laughed at our expressions of horror. "You mean he's...?"
"In the school as well, yes."
Matsuri shook her head. "How do we get someone like that to show remorse?"
The man shrugged, smiling. "Hurry up before your little friend reaches with a grisly end. Good luck, un."
He turned and walked away, and I shrugged, letting him go. "Matsuri, come, we have to find a way to save Lee."
She nodded, hurrying after me. "Do you really think we can do this?"
"We won't know until we try."
"Where do we even look?"
I didn't know. "We look anywhere and everywhere."
She nodded in determination. "Right!"
We scaled a flight of stairs, and-

Ouch. I must have tripped over something.
"Gaara-sama, are you okay?"
I nodded, flipping onto my back and picking up whatever I'd tripped on. It was the head of an old antique doll.
"Is that thing speaking?" My former student asked shakily. I listened closely, and indeed, I could hear something.
'find...my...body...return...me...to...my...body...'
I exchanged looks with one another. She reached out to help me up and I staggered, falling against her. I felt my cheeks heat up before my eyes fell on the slight bruise on her cheek. "Did someone hit you?"
"Huh?" Her hand flew to her cheek and she looked away. "It happened when you sort of stopped being you and totally flipped out...it's nothing, it doesn't even hurt!"
"Are you saying I hit you?"
"It was an accident. You were panicking."
It was a lie. An obvious lie. Even so, I guess she was trying to protect me. I ignored it  and pocketed the doll head. Even so, I couldn't sink the feeling of guilt. I'd bruised her pretty face. She hadn't expected it and we hadn't been training, it was pure malice. I knew it and so did she. Even so, she stuck by me in case I needed her.

It didn't take us long to find the body of the doll. Matsuri found it around where we'd first heard Yaoki screaming. When we placed the doll back together, it started speaking again. It chanted words along in a set rhythm, a loud, emotionless monotone.
'To have killed children so brutally...I was not in my right mind...I did not want them to die...I was scared too...I am so sorry I am so sorry so very sorry...I am actually a good person...I am so sorry I am so sorry so very sorry..."
Matsuri froze, staring at it as though afraid. "Do you think this...belonged to the murderer?"
My hands clenched tightly over the doll. "Doesn't it kind of piss you off? Like it's just saying what you want to hear, like it doesn't really care." I glared at the doll. "We don't need this." I went to throw it, but her hands caught my arm, stopping me.
"Gaara, wait, this could count as repentance. Maybe if we show the spirits this, they'll leave Lee alone!"
I still wanted to destroy the thing, but slowly I agreed, nodding and returning to the infirmary.

Lee still hung there, and we called to him as we ran in. The door slammed shut behind us and Matsuri gave a squeak of fear. Suddenly her face flashed with anger.
"Haven't you ghosts done enough already? I don't know everything that happened, I've never been through it, and I get it was horrible, heart-wrenching horrible, but you're cursing and killing innocent people who had nothing to do with it! What the hell are you even trying to accomplish?"
Before she could say anything else, I held up the doll. "Listen, please!"
The doll spoke again, and the children listened to the penitent spirit sealed within. The child spirits paused, whimpering and then wailing. One of them called for her mum.
I swallowed hard. "You're free now. Go. Go to your families."
The girl threw her head back, screaming for her mother again, but something was wrong. The room began to shake and Matsuri and I clung to one another. Suddenly the ghosts moved, right through the closed door, shattering it as Lee slammed through.
"No! No, stop!" I yelled, running out after them.

Lee hit the wall with a sickening sound. A thud, crunch and slat all in one. My eyes shut on instinct in response to the sound, and when I opened them, all that remained was a mass of blood, bone and meat covering the wall and ceiling. My stomach lurched. I may have vomited, I may not, I'm not sure. I felt that overwhelming nausea and then pain all over, and I gripped my head. Beside me, Matsuri stopped, tears flowing.
"Lee...Gaara..."
I still had the doll in my hand. In a fit of rage and with a scream of frustration, I threw the doll against the wall. It landed in one piece, unlike my friend. Tears stung my own eyes.
"I can't take this any more!" I screamed before running, lost in the pain and nausea overtaking every inch of my body.

In the back of my mind I heard Matsuri call my name, her footsteps as she followed...


The scrape of something heavy and metal across the floor and the sickening thud as someone brought it down over Matsuri's head...


Koji's POV:
At first I thought 'at least my team's here with me'. There were two people with me, one behind me, searching for something, the other stood before me, trying to pull me to my senses. It was Ameno. As my vision cleared, I reached out, taking her hand. "I'm good." I assured her quickly, allowing her to pull me to my feet. I turned, expecting to see the usually stoic, sour face of Shishio, but instead I saw someone else on his hands and knees, searching for something by sweeping his hands over the wood.

It was Ameno's stupid little boyfriend, Mikoshi. He'd destroyed our otherwise perfect team with his little intrusions. It seemed like he'd lost his glasses. Once again, he was being annoying and a complete burden. Ameno rushed over to help him, quickly locating his glasses for him and helping him to stand.
"You okay?" She asked.
"Fine." Mikoshi answered with a smile. The smile was returned, a personal thing between the two of them. I stood nearby as the third wheel. It was beyond awkward, I had to admit it. After a second or two, I stepped up between them.
"Okay, so I don't know where we are, but this sure as hell isn't Shishio's house, and even someone like him wouldn't be able to pull off something like this. We ought to find out what the hell's going on." I surged on to the door, expecting them to follow.
Mikoshi spoke behind me. "I think we need to make an action plan. Our main priorities should be finding our friends and finding a way out of this place. An escape shouldn't be too difficult to find."
I ignored him, going upstairs. As I took the lead, they followed.
"Is upstairs the best idea, Koji?" Ameno asked.
I shrugged. "Walking out the front door...it can't be as easy as that. We'll need to gather some information, and like Mikoshi-san said, we have to find our friends." I got to the top of the stairs, but before me just sat some bathrooms. Ameno sighed, stepping forward.
"Will you excuse me, boys? I need to go." She didn't wait for a response. I looked to my sole companion and sighed.

Suddenly a shout of fury rang out, a scream of 'shut the goddamned door', mixed with a scream. Ameno burst out a second later, panting.
"Fuck...there was something in the stalls." She whined, clinging to Mikoshi's arm as she got her breath back. I waited for her to elaborate, but instead, "No! I dropped my medical pouch! It has my paper scrap inside."
I groaned. "Go get it then!"
"I'm not going back in there."
Mikoshi gave her a comforting smile. "I'll get it."
"No!" I interrupted at once, getting shocked looks. "I...I mean, you wait here with Ameno, keep each other safe. I trust you to protect each other. I'll get the pouch." I gave them a smile and passed through into the bathroom. I realised pretty quickly. "God's sake, Ameno, this is the men's room!" I went further in and quickly located her pouch, scooping it up and turning to leave. When I turned, I saw the stall was open slightly, an ethereal blue eye staring out at me. "...Hello?"
The door opened a little further, showing a rather sharp-dressed spirit. "Hello." He answered with a smile. "You didn't come bursting into my stall."
"Nah, I just came for the pouch...sorry about my friend. She can be a bit clueless at times."
"You're retrieving your friend's belongings?"
I nodded. "Why? You lose something?"
"My glasses and hat. Another spirit stole them from me."
"Well...if I see 'em, I'll let you know." I promised before leaving. It seemed kind of surreal, talking to a ghost. Ameno thanked me with a hug.

I don't know how long we were traveling after that. I'd long since put my meeting with the spirit out of my mind. We'd stopped for a rest in the infirmary. We were examining cabinets and notices, bandages and furnaces. Suddenly, Mikoshi turned to me.
"Koji. There's something under those beds."
Frowning, I dug my feet underneath and kicked out a felt hat and round rectangle glasses.
"Do these belong to the bathroom ghost?" I asked aloud before I could stop myself.
Ameno froze. "The one that made me drop my pouch?"
"Yeah...he was just upset you burst into the stall while he was on the toilet or something." I answered with a smirk. "Said these had been stolen from him. Maybe if we return them, he'll help us in return. He might have seen someone else, like Shishio or Kankurou."
Ameno suddenly seemed determined. I guess the idea of finding her friends must have bolstered her or something. She gave a nod and grabbed Mikoshi's wrist. "Let's go."
She was never that close and comfortable with me any more. Grumbling, I picked up the items and followed.

The ghost thanked us warmly, taking his hat and glasses back. We were careful not to just open the door. Instead we knocked, calling out that we'd found his glasses for him. No reward, no offer to help. When I asked if he'd seen anyone, he answered that he'd spent every moment since his death within that stall. I left disheartened, but for some reason, Mikoshi and Ameno were smiling. They seemed painfully cheerful. Just doing a good deed had always seemed to bolster Ameno's emotions. I followed them moodily, letting them talk away.

Suddenly a scream pierced the air, pulling me back to my senses. Looking up, I found a horrifying sight. Ameno was on the floor, face pale, tears streaming down her cheeks. She was surrounded by blood. It all happened so suddenly. It looked like something akin to a bear trap had snapped shut on her leg, severing it just below the knee. Her lower leg had hit the opposite wall. It took me a while to process what had happened, and by that point Mikoshi was already binding her leg in bandages to stop the bleeding.
"Mikoshi, once you're done, we have to get out of here. Ameno needs care immediately. We can come back for the others. I can carry her on my shoulders and we can kick down the door if we have to."
"W-what if there are o-other traps? I-if another one of us s-steps in one, w-we'll not be able to get Ameno out alright. We need to make sure there's a safe path out or we'll just be making things more dangerous."
Ah. Tragically, he had a point there. "Okay. You stay here, protect Ameno-chan with your life, you hear me?"
"Of course."
I walked off. The halls seemed clear, no more traps at all. Not a single one. It was as if Ameno had been unlucky enough to step in the only trap in the entire building, tucked tight into the corner. Then again, she'd only been walking so close to the wall because her arm had been linked with Mikoshi's.

No, I shouldn't start blaming him. If we get Ameno's leg on ice ASAP, we can reattach it. I reached the door. There was a spirit curled up in the corner but I didn't pay him any heed. As I approached the door, it slid open. By itself. I slowly stepped outside, where it was raining heavily. I was soaked in an instant. Before me, a forest stretched on for an eternity. I doubted we'd be able to navigate through that in time. I hurried back to Ameno and Koji.

When I got back, Mikoshi's head was bowed, shoulders shaking. I approached, a feeling of dread washing over me. Ameno wasn't moving, not even slightly. Not even breathing. I reached over his shoulder, touching her cheek. It was ice cold.
"Ameno..." I breathed, tears stinging my eyes. Mikoshi looked up, eyes red, face puffy with tears soaking him. Next I knew, I'd hauled him up roughly by his arms and was shaking him.
"What did you do?!"
He gripped my hands, throwing me off him. "I tried to keep her alive. She died shortly after you left, just slipped away, I tried to get her breathing again but it didn't work I'm so sorry!"
"I trusted you..." I threw my fist out, connecting with his nose. "I trusted you! I believed you would look after her, trust you to protect her!" He backed up, hands up in surrender.
"Koji, please! I tried! Please, stop..." He was crying so hard. I grabbed something from nearby, something stiff yet somewhat squishy. Mikoshi paled and I hit him with it.
"Koji, that's her leg! You're defiling her...what the hell is wrong with you?!"
"You let her die!" The coward ran then. I chased him to a dead end, the only thing nearby being a bloodstained chute. He panicked, looking around as I gained on him, then threw himself head first down the chute. I threw the leg down after him and screamed, punching the wall.

Ameno was dead.

It was all his fault. I'd trusted him. For the first time ever I trusted him. He betrayed that trust.

He killed her.


Sakura's POV:
The children had their tongues severed. We didn't really know where we were going. So many people scattered through this hell.

It must have been our fifth time passing the mess against the wall. Sari clamped her hands over her mouth and nose, the foul stench overpowering, and I looked at the floor, trying to pretend there was nothing there. Only Sasuke seemed to keep his head. Then again, he was always so cool and controlled, able to keep his head in even the most dangerous of situations. Something I definitely admired about him. I guess he must have been the first one to notice it. The distant weeping. It sounded almost robotic. When I looked up, Sasuke was already moving to the wall. He stooped to pick something up, and Sari and I ran to see what he had found. It appeared to be an antique doll of some kind, but the weeping was definitely coming from the doll.
"What is it?" Sari asked before someone behind us cleared his throat.

A blond man, couldn't be more than 19. His eyes were devoid of light and life and his skin seemed translucent. He was dead, I was sure of it.
The man gave a slight smile. "You know about the ghost children, right?"
I nodded. "The four children missing their tongues...although I don't get why there's four of them. If one of them survived, she'd still be alive...just very old by now."
The man shook his head. "That's not the point, un." He gave a nod to the antique doll. "The doll...it belonged to the man who killed those children. The murderer. He's in here, un. I tried to appease the children's souls, but I was unable to before I died. Maybe you can use the doll to calm him, get him to give a real repentance toward the children he killed, un. My companion says the doll was his in life. I believe one way to help put the children to rest would be to return their tongues, but I don't know where you can find them, un."
Sasuke crossed his arms. "Who's your companion?"
"None of your business!" The man snapped. The building started to shake. "Must you little freaks stick your nose into anything and everything you can? Just go, before your little friends enrage them once more!"
"What do you mean?" Sari asked before she could stop herself. The blond just grinned and gestured to the splattered remains.
"Three little ninja tried to appease two ghosts. A redhead, a Suna girl in a pink shirt and an ugly Konoha kid with a bowl cut and dressed in green." He threw something and I caught it, just. It was a bloodstained forehead protector. Konoha.
"You...you mean...Lee?" I asked shakily. The blond started to laugh.
"Rock Lee went splat, like a large, overripe tomato! Splat, splat, splat, squishy squishy splat!"
"Shut up!" I snapped, hitting out. It didn't connect. When I opened my eyes, he was gone.
And my eyes were drawn back to the remains of Rock Lee. Suddenly, the solemn silence was broken.
"Go to the red door. Six steps horse, thirteen paces rooster."
Sari frowned. "What does that mean?"
"There was a red door downstairs." Sasuke answered. "It's instructions. Go to the red door, then horse and rooster...it refers to Chinese zodiac, I think." He led the way without another word. "So from the red door, we go...six steps...south...and twelve paces west."
Of course. Sasuke had always been pretty smart. We followed in silence. The instructions led us to a plain hall. Sari stepped on a creaking, loose floorboard. Frowning, she glanced down at it before pulling it up and reaching in, pulling out a small, hemp bag soaked liberally with blood. She held it out at arm's length with a look of disgust on her face.
Sasuke arched an eyebrow. "What is it?"
"I don't know."
"Open it."
She paled. "O-open it?"
"Yes, open it."
"You open it!" She snapped, shaking her head. Sasuke glared. After a moment of this strange standoff, I grabbed the bag off Sari and opened it. I gave a shout of disgust, looking in. It was an old, severed tongue. It must have belonged to one of the children.
"Return...it..." All heads turned to that doll. "Return...it..."
"The tongue?" I clarified, looking at the bag. It had a name written on the side. 'Yoshizawa Ryou'. "It...it must be the boy's tongue."
The doll spoke again. "Infirmary." Was all it said, so obediently we went up there.

The boy was sat on the beds, curled over. Sasuke took the bag off me and sat beside the boy, shaking the bag before him. "Oi. We have your tongue." He didn't respond. Sasuke held it right up to the boy's eyes. "Take it." Still no response. Swallowing hard, he moved to sit directly in front of the boy. Ryou looked up, locking eyes with Sasuke and paralyzing him. He moaned, and panicking, I ran to them.
"Yoshizawa Ryou!" He looked to me and I took the tongue off Sasuke, pressing it into the boy's hand. "I know your name, and I know what happened to you...it must have been awful, Ryou. We found your tongue though. We found it, and it's a part of you. We want you to take it back." Slowly, Ryou took back his tongue, placing it in his mouth. After a moment, he started to glow with a bright, white light and then he spoke.
"Thank you, onee-chan, onii-chan." And then he disappeared and Sasuke gasped for breath. I gripped his arm supportively.
"Sasuke-kun! Are you okay?" He doubled over, coughing. It didn't last long and just as he opened his mouth to respond, an earthquake shook the school to its very foundations. When it finally stopped, I paused to shake the dust from my hair.
"That was horrifying." I breathed, looking up to see Sasuke looking at me with something bordering on awe.
"You...that was...impressive. It was brave of you to confront that thing while it was...killing me."
"Brave? I felt like any moment I might cry! You don't know how scared I was..."
He tilted my chin up and my heart fluttered. "Blow your nose." He told me sharply. "It's dribbling snot everywhere."
A blush overcame my face and I grabbed his shirt, happily obliging and blowing my nose on the cloth. Disgusted, he pushed me away.
"Come on." He commanded, dragging Sari by her wrist and leading us out of the room. "We have to keep looking for those tongues and return them."

We wandered a little while before the doll spoke again. Well, wept for a moment, then spoke in a rhythmic monotone when all attention was on it.
"From the stairs...three paces rooster...six paces rat..."
"Which stairs?" Sari asked, exasperated.
"We'll just have to see." Sasuke answered after a moment, leading the way once more.

Sari was digging in a crack in the wall. Finally, she pulled out a key. The label to it read 'locker room', so we searched for the matching room. The room itself was dank and wet, with several showers and cubbies for storing belongings. It seemed to double as a changing room for PE. There were bodies inside, as there were in every room so far. Sari opened the far door, only to find a swimming pool filled with floating bodies in stagnant water.

We both jumped when Sasuke hit the floor. He seemed to have fainted. I got down to check him over, but it just seemed like the events from earlier with that spirit boy had caught up to him. He was otherwise unharmed, that spirit had just hurt him.
I stood after confirming he was okay. "Sari, stay with Sasuke, look after him. I'm going to go explore the poolside. The doll wants us to go here for a reason." On the other end of the pool was a pump room, but the gate to it was locked. Sighing, I went back. The pool wasn't an option, not with all that debris floating around in it. As I headed back to the locker room, I noticed something tucked into a crack on the floor. I dug it out with the metal part of Lee's forehead protector and found it was a key, most likely to the pump room.
"I C A N T T A K E I T A N Y M O R E"
I froze as a splash rang out behind me. I turned in time to see the water in the pool ripple out.
"S-Sasuke-kun? Sari-san?" I called, worry rising in my gut. No response. I ran back to the locker room. Sasuke was still there, placed into the recovery position. Sari wasn't there. "Shit...shit! Sasuke-kun, wake up! Where's Sari gone?"
He didn't awaken, and in a panic I rushed back out and jumped into the pool, holding my breath and diving under. It seemed like forever before I grabbed a body. The first body I brought up, however, was the bloated body of a teenage boy who must have drowned there a while ago. I pushed it away in disgust and went back under, searching blindly. The water was filthy, too filthy to keep my eyes open, and even if I could, I wouldn't see anything but filth. Finally, my arms latched around a waist, and I pulled up. Coughing, I cracked open a burning eye to see I'd managed to grab Sari.

I dragged her back to the locker room. She had a pulse but was no longer breathing, so I had to give her mouth to mouth and finally she woke up, coughing violently.
"Sari-san! Are you okay? What happened? Why the hell did you do that?"
She looked at me like I was stupid. "You called for my help." She managed in a hoarse voice.
"No I didn't, I-!"
"There's something in that pool...you think the spirits here wanted to keep us away from it?"
I nodded. We tried to wash the gross water off in the showers to no avail, and then went out and rinsed ourselves off in the rain. After that, we went into the pump room and drained the pool. The drain wheel was easy to find. The room shook as the water rushed through. After a moment, we returned to the pool. The bodies now lay on the floor, some dribbling bodily fluids as they rotted away. Sari went straight to the spigot that would send water in if it were functioning and tried to pull something out, but her attempts ended with her falling onto her back, onto one of the bodies. She uttered a shriek and I caught a flash of something red in one of the grates. It wasn't red like blood, more fire hydrant red. Digging it out, I found a valve of some kind.
"Sari, I found something! I think it's part of the pump room!"
She came over then and took it from me roughly, rushing to put it in place. Suddenly, a rush of water spurted forth from the spigot. It stopped as suddenly as it started, just dripping then, but a small bag stained liberally with blood had fallen out with the water...

Tsuji Tokiko

"It's one of the girls." I noted as we exited the pool and went back into the locker room. Sasuke was sitting up now, rubbing his head as blood dripped out of his nose. I ran to his side at once, searching my pockets for a tissue. Sari came forward and offered some, a smile on her face, and I helped a dazed Sasuke wipe his nose. After that, I offered him my arm so he could lean against me for support until he felt a little more with it. We walked until we reached the hallway, where we encountered the two ghost girls. They seemed to be wandering aimlessly.
"Which one's which?" I asked hopelessly. After a moment, Sasuke pointed to the headless girl.
"It's her."
"What? How do you know?"
"Trust me."
Uncertainly, I followed the headless girl, holding out the tongue bag. "Tsuji Tokiko?"
The girl stopped, regarding me with a disgusting gurgle, before grasping out blindly. After all, she had no eyes. I held the bag so she would grab it and stepped back as the same blinding white light overtook her and she was finally put to rest.

Two down two to go. Now all who remained were Kanno Yuki and Shinozaki Sachiko.


Kankurou's POV:
I'd gone outside to relieve myself near the woods outside the annex in the school. There were bodies near the trees, just like there were indoors. The fence was at chest height. It struck me that I wouldn't be able to get over with a dislocated arm and shattered ribcage. Swallowing anxiously, I braced my good hand against the fence and tried to raise my leg. Just as I managed to hook my knee on the fence, I heard something in the distance.
"Give it back..."
Looking up, I saw the little girl from before. The ghost with the pigtails. Her eye was gone, blood pouring from the socket and staining her jumper. I swallowed nervously, glancing down briefly before looking up again and...

She was right in my face now.
"GIVE IT BACK!" She shrieked. I yelled, pulling away and ending up on my backside. She came through the fence and repeated her pointless request and I scrabbled back with another yell before scrambling to my feet and running back inside. I slammed the door shut. "Temari! God, that little bitch from earlier was out there, jaan. She came after me." I looked up, getting my breath back. "...Temari?" My elder sister was gone. She'd said she'd be right there, but she was gone. Suddenly, the door shook.
"Give it back!"
"Go away!" I yelled. Or at least tried to. It came out as a weak squeak. The door opened bit by bit and eventually I had to abandon it. I ran to the left, but a cabinet fell, blocking my path. The ghost girl was walking slowly, slow enough for me to run past her to the right. She stayed by the main entrance as I ran, ran all the way up to the third floor.

Something thumped against something else. It made a wet yet solid noise. Creeping forward, I saw my friend, Koji. He had his back to me and was hitting something repeatedly with a crowbar. It was the body of the blonde girl from earlier. I think her name was Meno. I swallowed nervously, and Koji suddenly straightened and turned.
"Kankurou." He spoke my name slowly, an unnatural grin on his face. "What a way to find me, doing something like this to a body." He leaned to look over my shoulder. "You look like you've seen a ghost. Is something wrong?"
"I...um..." I couldn't stop looking at the dead girl he'd been beating. Had he killed her? "Temari..." I managed. Koji's grin immediately disappeared, replaced by a look of shock.
"Of course. Your siblings. You're so...family-oriented. I could help you look for them. It's important to protect our comrades after all...something I couldn't do..." I opened my mouth to ask what he meant but he rushed in, getting into my face. "Ameno's dead!" He hissed. I staggered back. "Ameno's dead, and in this place we're all going to join her, but I can help you look for your sister and brother! We can at least die together!" He started laughing hysterically and I shook my head.
"That's okay, jaan. I can look by myself."
He tilted his head to the side, a look of anger overcoming him. "I said...I will help you look!" The crowbar collided with the wall beside my head.
I panicked. I couldn't fight in my current state, so I turned and ran, and he followed. Desperately, I fled back to the first floor. I'd managed to gain enough distance between us that he wouldn't see if I ducked into the girls' bathrooms and hid there. I ran in and shut the door as quietly as I could, then turned and remembered I couldn't get into the stalls. And damn it, this running around was seriously aggravating my bladder and my lungs. I sunk to my knees, gasping for air.

I heard the door open and slam shut behind me, followed by a locking sound. Crap, he'd found me.
"Give me back my eye..."
Okay, never mind, even worse. It was the little ghost girl. She had her scissors, I could hear them opening and shutting with a painfully grating snip snip sound. Slowly, shakily, I stood. I couldn't back away and the door was locked, so dodging round, even if I could successfully get past her, would be pointless. Swallowing hard, and knowing I would never be able to fight a ghost, I resorted to the worst possible thing.

Weakly calling for my siblings. "Temari! Gaara! Somebody help me, please!" Tears were managing to escape my eyes. I was beginning to realise I was about to die. Furthermore, I could already tell it wouldn't be pleasant. That kid wanted my eye after all.

God how I hate kids.

"Kankurou!" A voice called.
"Temari? Oh sweet Jesus, Temari, help me!"
The door rattled, the lock clicked and suddenly the door swung wide open. The ghost girl turned to the door, looking confused. I took the opportunity at once, running round and out. I stopped to catch my breath by the main entrance as my body was getting desperate for some proper air, but no matter how hard I tried, it seemed I couldn't get any air in at all. The pain in my chest was traveling up my shoulder and around my back, and when I finally got some air I started coughing. I was starting to think my lung had collapsed or something. I couldn't take any more running today, I knew that much. I also knew I had to get out of here before things got worse. Any more damage and I was liable to kick it there and then.

Once I felt a little better and the coughing had stopped, I staggered to my feet and went back towards the toilets, but before I got through the first doorway, I collided with someone. Shooting pains ricocheted through my upper body and my vision swam. I worried for a moment that I might pass out, but I focused on the person in front of me. A woman with green eyes and blonde hair tied into four pigtails.
"Nee-san!" I snapped. "You promised you'd wait for me! You lied! I've been chased around by ghosts after my eyes and psychos with crowbars and all this with a collapsed lung! Where the hell have you been? What the hell have you been up to?  You promised you'd wait!"
I wiped my eyes, not wanting Temari to see me cry, and my vision cleared fully.

The woman in front of me certainly looked like Temari, only she wore a school uniform of some kind. White shirt with the top three buttons undone, purple blazer tied around her waist and short, black skirt. Her blonde hair was tied into four plaits, not pigtails, and she wasn't identical to my sister, not by any means. I felt my cheeks redden with embarrassment. I'd just shouted at a complete stranger.
The stranger offered a kind smile. "I'm afraid you must have me confused for someone else."
"Yeah...sorry, jaan."
"Hmm...you're from Yokohama."
"Sunagakure."
"Similar places." She shrugged, looking around, then checking me out. Her eyes lingered on my injuries and she bit her lip, concerned. She was older than me, and possibly even older than Temari. "You're looking for your sister?"
"Yeah...we were separated not too long ago. I'm also looking for my younger brother."
"I'm looking for my brothers too." She admitted with a shy smile. "The elder one would be about your age, actually. He's probably more than tough enough to look after himself, but I can't help but worry, you know?"
My thoughts flitted to Gaara. It was impossible to explain how worried about him I was. "I know exactly what you mean."
"My name's Kizami Yuuka, by the way."
I nodded. "Ishida Kankurou."
"Cool. Since we're both looking for our siblings, maybe we could search together. After all, this place is dangerous and I fear for even the strongest man here."
Considering I'd need help if I encountered any more danger in the state I was in there and then, I agreed. "Yeah. In a place like this, the living should stick together, jaan."
I went straight to the main entrance, only to find it locked. Strange. Yuuka gestured for me to follow her upstairs and reluctantly, I agreed.

There lay Meno's corpse, no longer being battered by Koji's violent hands. Yuuka approached the body with a sigh. "Meno-san...must have been killed by the ghosts of this school...or maybe even the man with the hammer."
"Man with a hammer?" I asked, shaking a little. "What do you mean?"
"I think he might be the one who killed the ghost children." I tried not to shudder, but she caught it and apologised, offering her hand. I took it and we walked on. Beyond where Koji had been, we found another set of rooms. Most didn't open, but when one finally did, it seemed to just be a plain classroom. One of the desks was open, something like an amethyst inside. Yuuka picked it up, examining it with curious eyes. After a moment, she turned to me.
"Kankurou?"
"Yeah?" I looked up. Once again, Yuuka-san was gazing at me in concern.
"You're...standing funny. Like you need to go to the bathroom or something...you okay?"
I hesitated, looking away and considering whether or not to tell. After a pregnant pause, I heaved a sigh and shook my head. "There's not a single usable toilet in this school, jaan. I just have to hold it until we get out."
"We might find somewhere...there was a bathroom sealed with protective charms. My brother knows a lot about charms. Amethysts may be able to release the charms."
"Feel free to try it, jaan."
She nodded, taking my hand again. A moment of walking and I let a question slip out. "What are your brothers' names?"
"Hiromasa and Teruyoshi." She answered at once. We stopped and I realised we were outside the bathrooms. She hesitantly held the amethyst to the door, and suddenly it shattered, the charms catching fire and burning away. When the fire died down, the door was untouched. Yuuka gestured for me to go in. "There we go, open and usable, hopefully."

I went in, and instantly a powerful stench assaulted my nose. I pulled some of my hood round to cover my nose as I approached the first stall. There were ropes hanging from the rafters, disappearing behind every door. The stench came from whatever hung on the end of each rope. I dreaded having to open the doors, but in the end I forced myself to. It was tough, something blocking it. Eventually, it gave, and the thing blocking the door swung into me.

A rotting body of a young man, younger than Gaara, leaking fluids, liquefied organs and old gunk from the inside that splashed against me, and maggots crawling off it and onto me. I screamed. A proper, girly scream. I ran out, shaking myself off, afraid they'd get inside me. Yuuka stared in shock.
"Kankurou-san?"
"They...they're all full..." I managed before essentially passing out. I hit the ground hard, exhausted, as Yuuka entered to find out what I meant. As I lost consciousness, I heard her laughing hysterically.

When I came to, Yuuka was crouching over me.
"You...you were laughing..." I managed weakly.
"No." Yuuka answered, smirking.
"There...there was a shout...was that you?"
"It wasn't me." She answered, chuckling. The chuckle quickly evolved into a full-blown hysteric laugh. This obviously worried me. I got to my feet and bowed my head.
"Thank you so much for the help, Kizami-san, but I think I'll look for my sister by myself if that's okay."
"What are you talking about, Kankurou?" Yuuka asked, placing a hand on my shoulder. "I am your big sister, after all."
Okay, that definitely wasn't good. I took a deep breath and ducked away, making a break for it again. I made it to the ground floor, and there lay the twisted form of another man. I skidded to a stop before it. He was bleeding to death and had clearly fallen through a hole in the floor above. He was tan, body stitched at every joint, long brown hair covering his face. He coughed, blood staining his locks. For a moment, I forgot the danger I was in, crouching by him. "Shit, are you okay? Hang on, if I rip some of my shirt I could bind your stomach."
He started to say something, but he was too quiet. I leaned in to hear it.
"Run...get out of here...run...please..."
"W-what?"
"She's...coming...Kizami...she's behind you...run...I'm be...begg...ging...you..." The man managed before hacking blood on me. I looked round, scrabbling up, and received a swift kick in the gut for my efforts. My stomach cramped painfully and my bladder finally gave up, making me wet myself. It was not a pleasant experience. Yuuka crouched down, reaching into the man who clearly knew her, tearing him apart while he screamed in agony.
"You know, ototo, people are only truly honest when in their very last moments. In their last moments, when they know they're about to die, they will give one last struggle to survive, showing their true selves, their true values. The one time in their life they don't lie."
Between his throws of agony, the man managed to let out a plea. "PLEASE! PLEASE, ARGH...AGH...ACK...KHA...RUN...GET OUT...get out...of here...run..."
The man was begging for me to get to safety once more. I got to my feet, but almost immediately collapsed into the pool of my own urine, stomach cramping horribly, legs feeling like jelly. I couldn't stand, I couldn't walk away. I was starting to hyperventilate. Finally, with bits and pieces of her friend scattered everywhere, Yuuka turned to me.
"Kakuzu showed a very different side in his final moments. I never thought someone like him could show compassion to a complete stranger." She was approaching, palming a knife from between her breasts. Weird place to keep that, I thought briefly before the fear came back. "The fact is, Kankurou, where we're trapped, there is no escape. Everyone here is doomed to die. Whether you're killed by the spirits here or killed by, say, me, you still die, you still feel the pain of death. And you, my precious, precious ototo, I will protect. I will ensure those ghosts never kill you...by taking your life myself!"
With that, she placed her hand over my exposed rib and pushed me down painfully and held her knife to my stomach...


Hinata's POV:
I felt dust or sand or something in my mouth, and got to my feet, spluttering and choking. "W-what is this? Where am I? Hello?" I called out, but there was no response, as though not a single other living soul was here in this building. Everything seemed still and stagnant. I was in a cold, dark room, the air thick and clammy. The place looked like a cave, dug by humans into the earth, with wooden support beams and some wooden walls built in, almost like the emergency shelter back in Konoha. I tried raising my voice and calling again, but I choked again, coughing and spluttering once more. "This can't be real, can it?" I wanted to go home, pretend none of this ever happened.

The reason for my fear could be attributed to the thick, oppressive air. Added to that, the far wall was shattered, the earth disturbed as though a body were buried, about the size of a large dog or small child. Debris littered the ground, including piping and broken glass, and a corpse was propped up in a chair. I decided my top priority would be to find the others. Clearly this was a bad place to be, but I'd fallen through the floor at Shishio-kun's house. Perhaps this was an old, abandoned bomb shelter of sorts that certain buildings in Sunagakure were built upon. Exciting this room, I saw a light to my left and headed towards it. As I approached, however, one of the earth walls collapsed, kicking up dust into my eyes and lungs and blocking my path. This place was definitely dangerous, and I was starting to see why we had fallen through. Perhaps I could talk to Gaara-kun about this afterwards and he could get someone to investigate. I tried to shift some of the rocks, but to no avail.

Wandering north a little, I heard a voice ring out. It sounded like a child singing a lullaby.

Kagome kagome
Bird in the basket
When oh when will you come out?
Will it be in the evening of dawn?
The crane and the turtle have fallen
So who is it who stands behind me?

I headed towards the sound, calling out again. If a child was in this place, he must have been frightened, maybe even injured. I needed to find him. The lights flickered and I could have sworn I saw something up ahead, so I rushed forward, but the lights went off and I couldn't see a thing.
"Hello?" I called. "Little boy?"
A flame erupted into live before me, accompanied by a blood-curdling scream. I screamed back in the resultant shock. I paused to get my breath back, and saw ahead a set of bathrooms. The boys' room wouldn't open, as though nailed shut, so I went into the girls' room and called out again. "Hello? Anyone in here?"
The stalls were empty. Skeletal remains sat by one of the stalls, neck twisted. Obviously not the voice I had heard before, and the child must have died in whatever disaster merited the need for this shelter. I bowed in respect and turned back to the stalls. I needed to go, but there was a limit to how disgusting a bathroom stall could be before I would refuse to close myself in there.

I kept heading west, but all that led me to was a dead end. Suddenly, the voices of children started up again. This time, they sounded like they were in pain.
Why? Why?
Save me...please...
Help me.
It hurts!
Please...stop...

There was more than that little boy, I could hear them, and they were in trouble. I ran out, calling to them, telling them to keep talking, but the voices faded. I hurried past long-dead bodies and sealed doors until I heard another set of voices and stopped. From all around, every direction, were voices goading me into playing.
Come and get me!
Here, I'm over here!
Let's play!
I'm over here!
I'm over here!
No, I'm over here!
No, I'm over here!
No, I'm over here!

I kept running until I hit another dead end.
Are you ready yet? sang one voice.
Not yet! sang the response. Children playing in such an unpleasant place!
Continuing to explore, I heard more voices singing. The children just wouldn't stop, and I couldn't find them no matter how hard I looked.
You may proceed, you may proceed.
What narrow path is this?
It is the path of Heavenly Host.
"Please, stop!" I yelled. "Please, I only want to help you!" Carrying on in the same direction cautiously, I noticed a body different to the others. She was clearly very recently deceased, and her hands were hooked around boards from the wall, as though trying to dig her way out. This didn't fit with my earlier hypothesis at all, and now I was really starting to get scared. I turned back and heard children laughing heartily...and among that laughter, I heard a door open. I avoided the door at first, heading down another path that lead to two more dead ends, one with a fully decomposed body of a young girl, the other with the fresh body of a severely malnourished man, still in the midst of rigor mortis.

Finally, I decided I would allow myself to go to the room where the door unlocked. It was completely dark inside. The only indication of size was the echo of dripping water.
"H-hello?" I called, leaning my head in. No response that I could hear, but maybe it was obscured by other sounds, or there could have been people inside who were unconscious, that was always a possibility. Swallowing my fear, I entered the dark, foreboding room. A putrid smell assaulted my nostrils, like the smell of something meaty sliced open and left to rot. My leg brushed against a bucket, spilling the wet, chunky contents over my lower legs. With a cry of disgust, I slapped my hand against my trousers to knock whatever was on them away. The smell was metallic and vile, bitter like blood on the site of a slaughter. I'd seen them before on missions. Something other than blood had gotten onto my hands though, and they were moving and wriggling. Bugs, perhaps?

A light flickered on, the electronic hum vying for my attention. I looked up and saw a true site of slaughter, just as I had imagined. There was a wooden table upon which countless creatures had met their grisly end, no doubt, a blood-stained cabinet, a desk piled high with bodies and tools, and buckets all over the floor filled with various bits and pieces of human limbs and viscera. Blood and still more organs decorated the walls in a vile pattern of sickening violence and cruelty. There was even a bucket of human arms sticking up as though waving. Looking down at myself, I saw there were indeed bugs on me. Maggots crawling up my trouser leg and around my hand. I quickly brushed them off, trying not to let the blood-splattered room get to me. The worst part was, none of the blood seemed dry. All the deaths seemed frighteningly recent. Stepping back to the door, I accidentally plunged my foot into one of the buckets, causing it to overflow. It had tongues in it. Human tongues.

I screamed. They were sticking to me, stuck inside my sandals. I could handle bugs no problem, I was friends with Shino after all, but this was just too much. In the midst of my screams my ears tuned in shockingly well to my surroundings. I could hear great, heavy footfalls that couldn't possibly belong to one of the young ninja I'd arrived with. My stomach tightened, killing the next scream in my throat. I stifled any other screams with my hands, whimpering as I looked desperately for somewhere to hide. I pulled open the cabinet, and met with some resistance as it was the kind that automatically opened and closed when you pushed in or left it. I jammed myself in and forced the door shut, fingers burning as the metal formed welts in my flesh. I clamped my hands over my mouth once I was hidden, tears streaming from my eyes. I prayed for the owner of the footsteps to pass by the room, but surely they belonged to the same person who turned on the lights, so there wasn't much hope there. Worst case scenarios flashed through my mind as my shoulders shook with sobs and panic. I shut my eyes tight and willed myself to stay silent.

I dared to peak through the gaps in the door and my fears were confirmed. I was no longer alone in this room. A great, hulking form shuffled into view, moaning as it went. He wasn't quite human, but not really anything else either. Although, maybe he was human. He had a grotesque face and abnormally large body, and shuffled about like a zombie. He had the limp form of a redheaded girl thrown over his shoulder. He threw her down violently onto the blood-soaked table in the centre of the room. The girl let out a moan of agony and coughed, or maybe they were sobs. Then she started screaming. I think her legs had been severed at the thigh!
"NOOOOOOO!" The girl tried to weakly struggle, but it was clear it was taking all her energy just to scream. The not-quite-man straddled her waist and fastened her wrists into the table restraints. What was he planning to do with her? The girl gave a weaker moan, shaking her head slowly.

Oh god! He's coming this way!

I pushed myself into the corner, curling up and praying to anyone who would listen that I wouldn't be found. Someone was definitely listening, because the man walked right past the cabinet and over to the table piled high with tools. He clumsily took an armful and brought them back to the table, dropping several before dumping the rest on the table. He then bent low to pick up the ones he had dropped. If I had hidden under one of the tables, I'd have been found there and then.

He sorted through his tools and pulled out a pair of pliers, straddling the girl once more. She'd stopped crying and struggling, now just whimpering. I feared what he might do with those pliers. The room fell into silence that seemed to stretch into eternity before the man forced the pliers into the girl's mouth. She cried out and gagged, moaning once more, trying to enlist help that would never come. He kept forcing the pliers back, back until they must have been in her throat. Then he readjusted his grip and clamped down hard on the base of the girl's tongue, yanking up in one, rough, powerful motion and tearing it from her mouth. All through, she continued her weak sounds of agony and wordless pleas for mercy. Her mouth frothed over and she shuddered violently before all movements ceased suddenly. Tears streamed down my face and I began to pee uncontrollably. Urine was pooling across the bottom of the cabinet. If it leaked out, it would give away my position! I forced myself to stop, stomach cramping at the sudden refusal, but I didn't care as long as I didn't get killed. The man tossed the new tongue into the bucket I had stepped into before and the pliers into a nearby toolbox with a loud clatter, then grabbed the bucket of tongues and left the room.

Somebody had just died right before my eyes. She had just been murdered. I had to leave. if I stayed, he might find me, kill me too! I slowly emerged from the cabinet.

The redheaded girl was still chained to the table, mouth completely filled with blood, more blood staining her shirt, eyes bloodshot. She almost looked alive, albeit gravely wounded. I sobbed again, running out of the room at a speed I never thought I could muster. I never, ever wanted to experience something like that again as long as I lived.


Matsuri's POV:
Another earthquake shook the very foundations of the building. I swear it had been constantly on and off since I'd woken up. I had a pounding headache after that monster with the hammer had hit me and dragged me away. I'd woken up in a tight, narrow room with dirt floor, and no-one was around me, so I was easily able to escape. There was a wet rope ladder leading up, and I came out in the girls' bathroom. Since then I'd been looking for Gaara. I had been so worried after he'd run off. He had just seen a close friend die, after all. Travelling down the hall, I heard what sounded like...crying. I rushed ahead as the shaking died down.
"Temari-san?" I called in shock as I approached a crouched figure. She quickly moved to wipe her eyes and looked up.
"Matsuri!" She stood, moving to look me over. "Jeez, your head's bleeding!"
"I'm fine, Temari-san." She didn't look hurt. "Have...have you seen anyone else?"
"Not for a while now...I was traveling with Kankurou before, but we got separated. I thought I heard him call out to me, but..." She cut off with a sigh.
"I haven't seen him." I admitted. "I saw Gaara earlier-"
"Where did he go? Why aren't you with him now?"
"He...ran off. After that I got hit on the head. I couldn't go after him. I've been looking for him this whole time."
Temari gave a slight nod. "Have you traveled far?"
"No." We started walking, feeling somewhat forlorn.

After a long time, we approached the front doors, however there seemed to be no point in trying to open them without the others with us. A spirit sat in the corner, but we did our best to ignore him. My eyes were drawn to a body lying nearby. She had her wrists slit and was covered in blood. The thing that interested me, however, was an open student ID. It belonged to the dead girl, clearly, and proclaimed her name to be Hina. Inside, she had written in what I hoped was red ink.
Ao is my love. I love her so very much, I can't let anything happen to her. I will protect her with my life, especially from that pig, Mitsurigi. These ghost children will never get her...
I flipped a page.
Unforgivable. I thought we were friends. I hope you die in agony.
Leaving that, we kept walking. We entered a classroom, but all we found in there was a paper charm. We turned to leave, heading back down the hall when suddenly the spirit grabbed our shoulders.
"Ghot you!"
I screamed, crunching the paper charm in my hands. Suddenly it burned, and the spirit disappeared in a bright light. I staggered back and Temari caught me. We carried on walking the halls until we found the body of a boy, another crumpled piece of paper beside him.

It wasn't long ago that I was wishing for some great disaster to help alleviate the boredom of everyday life. I guess I should've been careful what I wished for. Now, all I want to do is return to that peaceful, uneventful life I was living back home. Those days spent laughing, scowling or crying may not have seemed like much, but they were what life is all about. Here, there's just suffering.

I never realized how much it hurt to go for even one single day without eating anything. And I'm so thirsty, I feel like I could die at any moment. Mummy, please... I need my dinner...

I dropped the paper, despair washing over me. Not too much later, we encountered another corpse with more torn paper around it. This paper was illegible however, but seemed to be complaints about the boy we had found before. There were notes tacked here and there that contradicted one another.
Fate can be changed.
Fate never changes.
Well, which one was it?
Near our latest deceased find, we found a key with a note saying 'do not use under any circumstances.

We walked in silence. I felt strangely uncomfortable around Temari. Maybe it was because she knew of my feelings for Gaara. Maybe it was because it felt wrong to be so scared for him when Temari was his sister, and was worried sick about her brothers. I just didn't want to dare upset her.
Then I had to turn to her. "Temari-san...do you hear that?"
She raised her head, trying to listen. There was a frantic yelling coming from down the hall, alongside the sound of someone begging the frantic voice to calm down, stop struggling. We hurried to the locker room, and what we saw shocked us.

Shikamaru-san was pressed up against one of the sets of cubbies, trying desperately to keep a marble bust from falling. The bust was tied with bandages, some leading up to the ceiling where they kept a large bucket suspended, and some leading to the ground where they bound a young girl with long, ginger hair, partially tied into a ponytail, and fair skin. She was struggling and giving shouts of fear, but the more she struggled, the more it pulled on the bust. If the bust fell, the bucket would upturn and spill its contents over her face. The girl had bandages criss-crossed over her eyes and ears, and probably couldn't see or hear a thing. Temari took charge at once.
"Matsuri, untie the bandages around the girl's eyes and ears, try and get her to calm down. I'll help Shikamaru." She ran to do just that and I started tugging at the bandages, biting my lip. Finally, they were free, showing beautiful brown eyes, filled to the brim with terror as she continued to struggle.
"Help!" She shrieked all of a sudden. "Help! Amaru! Shion! Shizuka! Anyone, please!"
"Calm down, it's okay, we're here to help!" I insisted loudly, but she shook her head.
"Help! Save me!"
I slapped her, hard. "Listen! We'll get you free, I promise."
Slowly, the woman calmed down, relaxing. Or at least becoming as relaxed as one can in this situation. The bust became steady and I was given the go ahead to carefully untie the girl's bindings. Slowly, I helped her sit up, and she wiped her eyes. Temari and Shikamaru came over to see how she was.
The woman slowly became open to us.
"Thank you! Thank you so much! I don't know what happened to me, someone really strong just sneaked up behind me and knocked me out and when I came to, I was all tied up like you found me!"
"It's okay." I insisted. "I've encountered the same man, I think...my name is Matsuri. These are my friends, Temari and Shikamaru."
"M-my name is Fuuma Sasame." Sasame stated before sobbing. I stroked her back in a calming manner.
"It'll be alright, Sasame-san. You're safe now, we'll help protect you."
She nodded, wiping her eyes again. "You...you saved my life."
"Never expected someone to say I'd saved their life and mean it." Shikamaru muttered, smirking.
"Shikamaru, Matsuri, Temari..." She seemed to be running the names around in her head. "Are you looking for your friends as well?"
"That's right." I answered, offering a calm smile. My mind flashed to Lee briefly, but I shook it off. I was aware how dangerous this place was, but for now it was best if I didn't worry the girl. Plus it put me on edge, knowing exactly who had hurt her and knowing a man like that...large, horrifying...dead...it made me feel so close to panicking it was unreal. "Maybe while we're searching for our friends, we can keep an eye out for yours as well, Sasame-san."
She brightened at once. "Would you? That would be absolutely wonderful!"

Slowly, we went back to our investigation. Shikamaru explained that, apart from the three of us, he hadn't seen a single other living soul. He'd heard a lot of sounds that worried him, certainly. After I explained what happened with Gaara, he answered that he wasn't surprised. I didn't understand everything he said after, but what was made clear was that Nara-san believed a sensor-type ninja would likely be more vulnerable to the effects of this place. He even pressed with concerns that Uzumaki Naruto-san would suffer similarly. We got to the front doors and Sasame weakly tried to pull open the doors, but my eyes were drawn to something within one of the shoe cubbies. It seemed to be a ball of wadded up paper, but there was something inside. I unfolded the paper and found what looked like candles, but as the others approached, I noticed something more. The objects were white, but at the thick, base end, they were stained with something red and wet. There were ten of them, and each one had a fingernail with copious amounts of dirt and blood lodged under them, painted with chipped pink varnish. As Sasame saw them, she paled considerably. I may have been shaking when I returned them to the cubby.
"Sasame-san?"
"It...it's nothing...I just thought I recognised...never mind."
We walked along a little longer, finding nothing of value as it went. Just notices warning us not to trust people. (It wasn't like Sasame could kill us though.)

No classrooms would open, and eventually, we came across a hole in the floor. Inside, we could see something faintly attempting to reflect the weak light from above. The hole was too large to navigate around safely, so we turned back, heading towards the third floor. There hadn't been much there earlier, just a locked library and a body, but now the stairs were blocked by a collection of spirits, whispering to one another.
"That body...I need that body..."
"So good, he has to accept us in"
"You can't stop us, you living. We're taking him, he is ours!"
When Shikamaru took a step forward, the flame-like spirits bristled and flared, presenting a dangerous path. In the end we had to duck back. The Konoha ninja paused after a moment of walking.
"That hole...we might be able to go down it."
"We don't know how deep it goes before it bottoms out." Temari pointed out.
"If we use the gauze bandages from the locker room, we could make a rope. They seem very strong and should hold our weight, no bother."
At first, Temari looked like she was going to argue, but then Nara-san was a srategist, so it was more than likely he knew what he was talking about. He grabbed the bandages and knotted them into a makeshift rope, then returned to the hole and set about tying one end around his waist.
"We'll be able to get whatever lies within that hole, but there's nothing on this end to tie it to, so we'll likely have to hold it steady." I observed. "But that shouldn't be a problem. Temari and I wield heavy weaponry all the time."
Shikamaru paused, looking into the hole. "Although the two of you rely more on your weapons, so if something were to come you'd be at a disadvantage unless I stayed up here and one of you went down there."
"I think I should go." I answered at once, taking the rope from him. After all, I was usually the one in need of protecting and saving, but I really was a more than capable kunoichi. This time, I wanted to be the one needed for the sake of others, so I decided I would help. I would protect them and help them. "I'd be able to climb up and down without any trouble, and if there's any danger down there, the two of you could pull me up quickly, and faster still if Sasame helps."
After a brief moment's thought, Nara-san seemed to agree. Next I knew, I had one end of the rope tied tight around my waist. It was tight enough to hurt, but I didn't say anything. It was better than it coming loose and dropping me to my demise. Slowly, I began my descent. I didn't make it far before the foul stench from below hit me, making me gag, but still I continued down. Ninja were meant to endure, after all.

The room at the bottom had an oppressive atmosphere and was so dark. What little light filtered in showed blood-splattered walls and something...well, lots of somethings...scattered throughout the room. I think I could even see a pool of what I hoped was water, but was very dark and murky. On further investigation, I found the dark shapes were bodies in various states of decay, some fresh and still warm. I moved over to one girl who had clearly only just died within the last few hours. Her white-blonde hair reached her waist, purple eyes gazing blankly at nothing in particular, shock frozen on her face. All her fingers had been removed, and by her mutilated hands lay an object weakly attempting to reflect the weak light. This must have been the object we'd seen from above. I scooped it up and began my climb back up.

The item was a clear glass bottle, filled to the two thirds mark with clear liquid. It looked like it could be water. Temari took it, examining it with a frown. "What the heck is this, sake?"
"It doesn't smell or anything," I answered with a shrug, although my sense of smell could have been numbed by that vile stench from below.
"Oh! That's holy water!" Sasame stated, smiling. "My friend, Shion, had a bottle just like it. It's a sort of protective charm infused with the power of a powerful medium, it's meant to ward off evil spirits and grant good luck with love or money."
"Is this something you can buy?" I asked, turning the bottle over in my hands.
"You can get it online, but my friend Shion is a priestess, she infused her bottle with her own powers...you don't think this could be Shion's bottle, do you? Is Shion down there?!"
"I don't know." I admitted, although the evidence made it seem likely. "It could be someone else's bottle. If you can get it off the internet, then other people are bound to have bottles. And even if it is her bottle, maybe she just dropped it down there."
Shikamaru seemed to be in thought. "You said it wards off evil spirits, right? Perhaps we could use it to get past the spirits on the staircase."
"The one leading to the reference room?" I looked back to the holy water and nodded. "Right, let's go."

The spirits were still there, arguing over this supposed body. I think Temari must have lost her temper, because she just snatched the water and threw the entire bottle at them. It smashed, dousing a good part of the staircase. Inhuman screams came forth from the spirits.
"It burns! It burns like acid!"
"You're still alive, you bastards! Isn't that enough for you?"
"Die! Just die!"
With that, the spirits flew right at her in what was clearly meant as a hostile action. Shikamaru moved quickly, hands out in front of him to take the full brunt of the spirits' attack and spare Temari.
"Shikamaru!"
The spirits faded, and he shook his hands out, seemingly unaware something had dropped from his kunai pouch. "It's fine. Just a few burns."
"I have some ointment in my bag." I told him, instantly looking through it. "Huh? What?!"
"What's wrong?" He came to me, the girls following after quickly.
"N-nothing...I just can't find my ID..."
"Isn't that it in your hand?"
I glanced at the ID I'd picked up and shook my head quickly. "Oh, no, this belongs to one of the dead students in this school..." The others started to give me weird looks, so I quickly explained myself. "There were some interesting passages and drawings. These two pages are stuck together just after an entry says two of the girl's friends are going to...kill each other...and the girl says she has to seal Ao away for safety..." I handed it to Shikamaru, open on the entry I meant.
"I need to hide her. Ao is mine, and mine alone. She must be protected. If I hide it in that box, no one will ever find it.

Ao, I love you so much."
He managed to peel the sealed pages apart without damaging them. They had been stuck together with blood. Bloody fingerprints decorated the page, around a shaky ballpoint drawing of an ornamental box. There was also a picture of the key I had found earlier, pointing to the box.

"I've sealed Ao in the reference room. Ayaka's going to kill her. I can't let her find her under any circumstances. I'll hide the key somewhere Ayaka will never find it. I will protect Ao with my life. Ao, I love you so much."
Sasame gestured to the item Shikamaru had dropped. "That box you dropped looks just like the one in the picture."
I was the first one to reach it and lift it, opening it with ease. It was a music box that played a nostalgic tune. Shikamaru took it and tried to dig whatever was inside out, but his fingers wouldn't fit inside the tiny thing. I took it back, upturned it and shook it until the key tumbled out. I lifted it with a triumphant yell. "We can get into the reference room now!"

Upstairs was nothing of interest beyond the reference room, but something stopped us before we could go in and check it out. "Can...can anyone else hear a voice?"
Frowning, Temari gave a slight nod and pressed her ear to the reference room door. There was an incoherent babbling from within, speaking pure nonsense, but...
"Gaara!" Temari held her hand out for the key. "That's definitely Gaara's voice!" She twisted the lock open violently, her sisterly protectiveness shining through as she yanked the door wide open. A body had been propped up against the door, and as it opened, spilled out into the hallway. The two of us completely ignored it, letting Shikamaru and Sasame worry about it, as there by one of the book shelves stood our young Kazekage. He was reading something at a shocking speed, and behind him were several other discarded books. By the looks of it, he had carelessly tossed them over his shoulder once finished with them. He was still muttering to himself.
"The curve on the other side causes a turnover on the nine ball joints that look like a fish in the hourglass geoglyph, with a white shoe instead of a needle..."
"Gaara! Get a hold of yourself!" Temari snapped. This made him turn, however the look on his face was one of murderous rage.
"Be quiet! This is supposed to be a library! Libraries are supposed to be quiet! Honestly, what do you uncultured troglodytes expect to accomplish with your mindless gossip?"
I stepped forward, reaching to take his hand, but he threw the book in his hand at us.
"What's this ringing in my ears? Is it bugs? Is it bugs?! They're all over me, crawling all over, what have you done?! It was so quiet in here too! Now look what colours you've let in! Silver, huh?! Green, maybe?!"
"Oi!" We turned to Shikamaru as he spoke up now. "Whatever spirit has taken control of Gaara, get out of him now! That's a human being there, not your little plaything."
Suddenly, an unnaturally wide grin stretched the redhead's features. "He's ours. I'm going to make this body mine. Not a chance! I'm better at using him than both of you combined! It's only when we're inside this child that our pain subsides, so please, won't you let us have him? Give him to us, and...what if we help you? Save you even? We can aid you in your escape, if you just let us have the child..."
"Listen, I totally get you're in pain and it's awful, but you were alive once too, you knew the value of life then, and if you intended to keep Gaara, I would never accept your help. No matter what you could give me, it wouldn't be worth sacrificing the life of a friend!"
"Oh ye of sound mind...we're in agony and cold and thirsty and hungry and mad, but you, you're still alive! You have yet to truly understand our plight. You are still blessed with life!"
Temari joined in with Shikamaru's indignant shouts. "I don't give a shit! You can't have him!"
Suddenly, he stopped, a calm look on his face. "Yellow...it was yellow!"
"Gaara?" I asked, starting to really fear for not only him, but ourselves as well.
He turned to me, fixing his soulless, cold eyes on me, the only lights shining within were shimmers of malicious intent. "Brother? Is that you? You're late...I'm so hungry, it's been so long since my last meal..." He began to advance on me, and it was so hard to stand my ground. I knew his strength from personal experience, as he was my sensei. "Hina sealed me up in here," We looked to the remains of the girl. It was her spirit controlling him! "I haven't eaten a single thing since then. Not a single bite. Nothing at all. Mmm, brother...you look delicious, brother. Is it bad that I want to taste your succulent flesh, feel your blood running down my throat?" He gripped my shoulders, hands like vices and leaned in to my neck. His breath felt hot and heavy at my jugular and suddenly he bit down, hard. I bit my tongue to keep from crying out as he worked to take a chunk of my flesh away, pulling back to savour his hellish meal. Suddenly, his head rocketed back. Temari had grabbed him by the hair, and I could hear Shikamaru and Sasame yelling. I held out a hand to stop them and looked up, my eyes locking with Temari's. She understood, despite my violent shivering, and released her brother's hair. He had blood around his lips now, some even smudged over one cheek, some dribbling down his chin. I could feel it on my neck and shoulder, soaking into my shirt. Slowly, I placed my hand on the back of his head and once again lowered him carefully to my chest, resting his head there where he could rest and be safe, and just as slow and careful, Temari joined the embrace, cradling her youngest brother as though he were made of fragile glass and may shatter at any moment.
"G-Gaara..." I managed. "Gaara, this isn't you. Come back to me, please. Come back to us. We love you...I love you. You're our Gaara, our precious friend. Please come back to us.
"So...so warm..."
Slowly, the lights returned to his eyes and he raised his arms, wrapping them around my waist. Temari stopped stroking his hair and stepped back so he could raise his head, and when he did, he went red as he realised he had once more been pressed against my chest. That quickly faded to a shocked pallor. "Matsuri..."
"Gaara, you're back..."
"You're injured..."
"It's nothing."
"You're bleeding and shaking..." He reached into his pockets and pulled out what looked like a handkerchief, pressing it against the wound on my neck. I didn't have the heart to tell him he was the one who injured me. Reluctantly, I let him tend to my injuries, holding back any shows of pain. He seemed to be trying to spit something out without being too obvious. He could taste the blood and didn't seem to know why.
"Gaara!" Temari called in relief.
"Thank god you're alright." Shikamaru sighed. Gaara turned to them, eyes wide.
"What...where? What's going on? Where did you come from?"
"We found you in this room, possessed by a spirit of some kind." Shikamaru explained. "How did you get in here anyway? This room's been locked since I got here."
"I...have no idea...the building seems to change its layout at will though...I've been...under the influence of those spirits for a while...so I suppose anything is fair game. Now, I'd say we have three objectives here. First, we need to look into the reasons why this place is the way it is. Specifically, we need to find out more about the beings who control it. Then we need to interact with those beings and try to dig up some means of getting out of here alive. And finally, once we've figured that out, we need to actually make it happen. That's pretty much it."
Shikamaru shook his head. "I think you're forgetting the most important objective. We have to find our friends."
Gaara looked confused for a moment, then shook his head. "That goes without saying. That is our first step. Once we find the others, we can focus on the rest."
"And help Sasame here find her friends too." I added.
"Let's not get careless though." Shikamaru warned. "None of this is going to be easy. Even so, we don't give up, we don't give in." We turned to Temari, finding she had picked up one of the books Gaara had discarded earlier.
"Temari-san?" I asked, stepping closer.
"Heavenly Host..." She read aloud. "That's here, right?"
I nodded. "Seems like it."
"Serial kidnapping and murder at Heavenly Host Elementary, 1973. Dashing the hopes and prayers of their worried parents, three of the kidnapped children return home tonight in body bags. Local police gave an official statement at around 4:00 yesterday afternoon. Yuki Kanno, 11, Ryou Yoshizawa , 8 and Tokiko Tsuji, 7, previously reported missing, were found dead in a basement room beneath the school. The circumstances behind their murders are still under investigation, and a suspect with ties to the school's teaching staff is in questioning. First respondents report a shocking, grisly murder scene, and have expressed concerns at even allowing the families of the deceased to see their children. Significant mutilation is said to have occurred, and officials believe the sight of this may exacerbate the already delicate mental states of the bereaved. The sole survivor of this unspeakable crime is 7-year-old Sachiko Shinozaki, who remains in shock from the experience. Her testimony may prove invaluable toward closing this case and putting this horror behind us, however, so police are anxious to question her. Meanwhile, other parents have already begun calling Heavenly Host's safety procedures into question in the wake of this tragedy. Members of the PTA have--"
It cut out there and she put the paper down. Gaara gestured to an image on the page.
"That is the soul survivor?" He asked, frowning. "She is in this school as well. I know I've seen her." Strange. I hadn't seen her, and we'd not been here long before I found him.
"What...?" We turned to Sasame, encouraging her to ask her question. "What do you think happened to the murderer?"
"He's in the school." Gaara stated at once, causing the redheaded girl to pale.
"Accused child murderer commits suicide." Temari read, frowning. "The 32-year-old former teacher believed to have committed the now infamous adolescent kidnappings and murders was found dead early yesterday morning. After being deemed mentally unfit to take responsibility for his actions, he was placed in intensive psychiatric care, but escaped two nights ago. The psychiatric ward commissioned a manhunt which culminated in the discovery of his hanged body in a room beneath Heavenly Host Elementary School, near the site of his shocking triple homicide. The cause of death was ruled as strangulation and is strongly believed to be self-inflicted. As this appears to be a show of remorse, previously thought beyond his mental capacity, his psychiatric ward has come under heavy fire since the discovery."
"Guess there's not a happy ending for anyone." Sasame mumbled, hugging him. "Though the parents were probably happy to see him go."
"There was the girl who survived." Gaara pointed out. "Although it's strange...not one single comment from her or her family...not even a word about her after the event itself."
I gave a hum of thought. "Probably on request."

We left the reference room after that. Gaara seemed very drained after the possession ordeal, so I helped support him. I had to admit I too was getting very tired. "I wonder how much time has passed since we got here." I mumbled, rubbing my eye with my free hand.
Temari shrugged. "I don't think I can trust my watch in a place like this."
Gaara nodded. "If space is being changed round at random, there's no reason to believe the same isn't happening to time."
Shikamaru stretched his hands out behind his head. "I trust my stomach, and it's telling me dinner time has been and gone."
Sasame looked to the floor. "I have to admit, I am hungry..."
I gave a hum of agreement. "Maybe we should add finding food to our priorities list." I stumbled, blood loss and exhaustion getting to me. "I think we need to find somewhere to rest as well."
"I'd like that." Gaara agreed. "I admit I am tired."
Temari gave us a gentle smile and gestured for us to sit. "You two rest, we'll make sure nothing causes any trouble."
I agreed to that happily, sliding onto my bottom and pulling Gaara down beside me. He hugged my arm, resting his head on my shoulder and almost instantly his breath became even and gentle as he fell asleep. I licked my thumb and brushed it against his lips, trying to wipe away the blood. It had clearly been distressing him before, so I thought it might help. I shut my eyes then, resting my head against his.

"They must be exhausted." Sasame commented. "Matsuri-san sure went through a lot to get him back, after all."
I could hear Temari's smirk in her voice. "It's clear to anyone they're very fond of one another. The only ones who don't see it are them. I'm just waiting for the moment they actually get a clue and announce my new sister-in-law."
I heard the girls laugh and hoped I didn't blush.
"They really look so cute together." Sasame agreed, a tone of bliss in those words. I wondered if that was really so. Would we make a good couple?
It was somewhat refreshing to be able to think normal thoughts in a situation like this.
"So, how about you two? What's going on?"
Temari and Shikamaru made noises of shock and horror.
"Oh, no, we're not a couple."
"Nothing's going on, we're just friends! He's my little brother's age anyway."
I smirked. It seemed we weren't the only ones incapable of admitting our true feelings.
Sasame's skeptical voice rang out. "Uh huh. Sure. And the hand holding and little looks are just friendship too."
"There's nothing between us." Temari insisted. "Besides, I have more important things to worry about than that right now."
"You want to find your friends?"
"And my other brother..."
Shikamaru spoke up next. "Maybe Naruto and Hinata will be together, looking after one another, just like Gaara and Matsuri."
"I...I really want to find my friends too."
A painful silence covered us like a blanket of shadows. Then, I heard someone shift, and Sasame spoke again.
"I think I might go scout around for my friends again real quick. I need to go to the bathroom anyway."
Without giving us time to respond, Sasame left, calling over her shoulder as she went. "I'll only be gone a moment, I promise!"
I sat forward, and then Temari grabbed Shikamaru's arm. "Go with her."
"To the girls' bathroom?"
"She can't go alone, it's far too dangerous. Go with her!"
"Why can't you? You're both girls."
She simply turned her gaze to her younger brother. I'd never seen her so distressed, but the fact was she had already lost Kankurou. She'd even said the last she'd been near him, she had heard him screaming. No wonder she was distressed. Seeing this as well, Shikamaru placed a hand on her shoulder.
"Okay, I'll go after her." He got up and hurried off, and Temari kept staring at her brother. She didn't mind that I had my arm looped protectively around him, so I kept it there.
"Temari-san?" She glanced at me briefly, but almost instantly looked away. "Kankurou's tough, you know. I don't think he'd ever let this place get him down, no matter what."
"But-"
"No matter what. He's also a lot smarter than people give him credit for, you know. He'd be able to survive somewhere like this no bother, I'm sure of it. We'll find him before anything bad can happen, I promise."
She stared at me, not believing, but nodded anyway. "Thanks..."
We stayed sat there a while before Shikamaru came back.

Sasame wasn't with him. He looked pale, almost grey, and the expression he held...I can't explain it. He looked like he might throw up.
"Shikamaru..." Temari began shakily, "where's Sasame?"
He shook his head quickly. "I...I didn't find her in time...she...her legs had been cut off. She's gone."


Sasuke's POV:
After we returned the tongue of Tokiko Tsuji, the third ghost began to chase us. Panicking, we ran until we noticed the fourth and final spirit child. The spirit in the red dress turned and headed into the nearby stairwell. As we stopped there, the antique doll began to weep once more. I looked down at it, unimpressed. The girls either side of me were bedraggled, filthy and stinking, and the dark ways of this place were starting to get to me.
"Here we go again." Sari sighed. "Where the hell's it going to take us this time?"
"Where your friend was splattered."
The three of us froze. I could tell that was a definite no for the girls, and if I'm completely honest I wasn't too eager to go digging around in the splattered remains of a comrade.
"The floorboards beneath that wall.
Right underneath his globby entrails
Drip drop drip drop
Smelly smelly icky icky
Get in there good and
D I G I T O U T"
After that point, the monotone ended, replaced with a hysteric cackling. I threw it violently down the stairs, a scowl clouding over my face.
"That's sick." I stated evenly. "You sick son of a bitch."
Sakura shook her head, tears in her eyes. "If that's where the next tongue is, I don't think we can ever get it! I can't touch it!"
"Is someone there?" The three of us turned as a familiar girl approached.
"Yukata-chan!" Sari cried, rushing in to embrace her friend.
"Sari-chan!" She cried back, hugging back tight. Her hands were coated in blood. Sakura had noticed it as well. As well as the blood soaked hemp bag in her hands.
"What are you holding, Yukata?" I asked her evenly. She and Sari broke apart and she looked to it sadly.
"I found it in the floorboards in the hallway, just up these stairs." We all stared at the dark haired girl in shock, and she stared back blankly, eyes devoid of hope or joy...something had happened to break her spirit. It may well have been that the Yukata Sari knew was dead and gone, replaced by a soulless, emotionless wreck walking in her place. "Is it some form of charm? Do you want it? I have no use for charms." She walked on, continuing down the stairs, not even acknowledging me or Sakura properly. Sari shuddered as she looked at the bag in her hands. As with the others, there was a name written on the front.
Kanno Yuki
I turned to Sari, not sure what to say.
"She dug in Lee's guts!" Sari shrieked, dropping the tongue bag.
Sakura picked up the bag and I spoke up. "I think Yukata may have lost to this place."
"What do you mean?" Sakura asked.
"The girl you know is no longer in there. This place has brutally dismantled her. She's been so emotionally damaged, she's as good as dead."

We went downstairs. The girl there was missing an eye, but all we had was the tongue. Hopefully it would be enough. She approached us, repeating the demand to return something to her over and over. I approached her, holding the tongue bag before me like a shield. "Kanno Yuki?"
She responded. We had the right girl. After a moment, she lowered her head, sobbing, and began rocking back and forth.
"This is your tongue, isn't it?" I asked, trying to keep my voice from shaking. Slowly, she reached out and took the bag. Once more, that same white light filled the room.
"Thank you very much."
And then she was gone and I was shaking. Whenever I spoke to these ghosts, it felt like every bit of heat was being sucked out of me, followed by my very essence and my life. It was something I never wanted to experience more than once, but here I'd been through it three times. Three horrific, unforgettable times.
Sari and Sakura seemed pumped. "Alright!" Sari yelled. "Three down, now we just need to take care of the girl in the red dress and-"
"No!" I'd shouted out before I realised what I was doing. "No more! Every time I talk to these spirits it's like I'm getting closer to death myself, like everything's being sucked out of the flesh and bone shell that is my body! I can't take it!" The girls regarded me with sorrowful concern. "Sakura, you returned Tokiko's tongue to her, surely you know what I mean."
She nodded. "Like my very essence is being wrenched out through every orifice..."
"I want to go home." I managed, shaking my head quickly.
Sari sighed. "Don't worry. I'll return the final tongue bag, okay? Then we can all get out of here, toge-" She was cut off when once again the foundations of the building were thrown off kilter, throwing all three of us to the floor. I think I must have passed out, because when I next woke up, I was stretched out on Shishio's bed.

Everything still seemed so vivid, so real, so it couldn't have been a dream. Sakura and Sari were both on the floor, so I quickly went to awaken them.
"Sasuke...kun...?" Sakura asked before sitting up and groaning. "Oh, what happened?"
"We're back! It's over!"
"No kidding...where are the others?"
"I don't know. Maybe they woke up before us." I opened the door out into the hall. The lights were out, the hall pitch black. Then the girls started screaming. I rushed back in to see some kind of dark, ethereal mass in the corner of the room, hands seemingly made of shadow reaching out to us.
"What the hell is this?" I snapped.
"It's not over." Sari whimpered. "Why isn't it over?"
The spirit of the third girl came out of the dark mass, and I panicked. I gripped my head and screamed, yelling at her to stay back, not come any closer. Then, she spoke.
"It was a rainy day after school, just like this one...on the day I was kidnapped...I remember I had a fight with my mum that morning."
I frowned, looking to Sakura. "Why is she telling us this?"
"I have no idea." She replied, shrugging.
"I didn't want to see her face." Yuki continued as though we hadn't spoken. "So instead of going home that day, after school, I decided I'd sit in the outdoor walkway for a while and watch the rain. Then Yoshikazu sensei showed up and sat down next to me. I told him about the fight with my mum, and he nodded and listened. He was sick and couldn't speak very much, you see. But he was a very kind man. I liked him. Then he..." She stopped and shook her head, sobbing. "You three are very nice people. I am so sorry. Thank you for what you tried to do back there...for trying to help those of us killed in the school."
"Didn't we succeed though?" Sakura asked, frowning. "Why are you still here?"
"No...you didn't..."
"But we gave you back your tongues, made it so you could speak out again, even got your murderer to repent for what he did! Is it just that...we can't succeed no matter what? You can't forgive him?"
"It isn't about forgiveness...Repentance is between the criminal and the victim. It's the sole act capable of moving us. And we exist as fragments of the sacred ground upon which Heavenly Host is sealed. I believe moving us...is your best course of action. But it's not enough. Yoshikazu sensei's words aren't enough."
"So what then? Why do you feel the need to trap one innocent stranger after another in that godforsaken place?! You child spirits are the ones who summoned us there, aren't you?"
I'd seen Sakura get angry and upset before, but for some reason, this seemed different. Almost like her words were the embodiment of anger and hate.
"That's...not true." Yuki answered.
"What does that mean?"
"We just hold the closed spaces together."
"But you killed Rock Lee, didn't you?"
"Wait." I commanded sharply. Sakura stopped at once, looking at me in shock. "At least hear her out." I told her calmly.
"I'm just glad I was able to get the two of you back to safety." Yuki conceded, looking away, anywhere but at the three of us. "To die as we did...it's like stopping short on the edge of madness. Our fear and anger and hate never stops turning. We act without any control. Your friend, Lee, he could see we were unable to possess any sense of self control, and he tried to rally others to help us regain our humanity...but the madness struck, and we were made to destroy him, to keep the closed spaces together."
We were silent for a moment. The kindly girl before us and the murderer child from the school were two different sides to the same coin, essentially. The uncontrolled side governed my madness and the true, kind side. Finally, Sari spoke. "Well, hurry up and bring the others back. Mikoshi, Matsuri, Gaara and the others."
Again, Yuki just looked away.
"You...you can do it, right?"
"I don't...think that's possible anymore." She admitted.
"Why not?" Sakura snapped. Yuki winced, but spoke nonetheless.
"Those closed spaces...have eaten a lot of innocent souls. Far too many, in fact. The grudges of those who died there have filled every last corner of them. There's no room left. And because the agony and pain has nowhere else to go...it's begun feeding on the minds and souls like us who are bound there."
I understood what she was saying. The spirits within the school, no matter how kind, were all losing all sense of good will, sanity and kindness they had left. "So...we'll lose you as an ally soon?" I asked. She nodded. "Then hurry up and bring them back."
"There's only one way to send your friends I know of...you'll have to return to the closed spaces...find the victims of the kidnapping and our killer, and put us all to rest, then the closed spaces will begin to fall apart without us to hold them together...and your friends should be able to escape."
Sari shook her head. "You're telling me you want us to go back inside, and instead of just appeasing one kid, we have to redo all four of you plus the psychopath?!
"Why weren't our previous efforts enough?" I asked. "Why can't you just tell us?"
Yuki shook her head, tears flowing again. "It's just...something I really don't want to remember...but if you really need to know, I can show you."
She reached out and took my hand in a gentle, cold grip. A shooting pain burst through my head and I fell back, blacking out. I heard the girls scream my name before everything faded to black.

Huh?
I was still fully aware. I couldn't see a thing, and I couldn't move a muscle. Sleep paralysis maybe? Then a light flickered on, blinding me, and I could hear the cries of children, terrified children, beside me.

Shinozaki Sachiko, the little girl in the red dress. The sole survivor of the horrific events to take place in Heavenly Host Elementary. Following the incident, Sachiko's family fled from the area, moving to another prefecture to escape the frightful memories that remained here. Strangely, however, I've been unable to locate any other records of the Shinozaki family. No matter where I look, the only information I can find about them comes from newspaper reports on the Heavenly Host murders.

Granted, when an elementary school becomes the stage for a grisly incident such as this, perpetrated by none other than the principal's own son...it stands to reason that the scandal would serve as the primary focus for public interest, with all other details fading into the background. So of course, after learning the Sachiko was safe, further news of her whereabouts was largely ignored in favor of the media circus surrounding the school. But there was more than that. People weren't merely uninterested in Shinozaki's whereabouts, rather, there was no data to be found.

I was able to twist my head left and right. Either side of me lay the children, the victims of Heavenly Host, wrists and ankles bound, bandages over their eyes. They were still alive, squirming, struggling and crying out for help. I couldn't see Yuki there. It was then that I realised similar bindings were exactly why I couldn't move. A large man approached us. Yanagihori Yoshikazu...

The children became more desperate, starting to scream for help or for their parents. "Stop!" I yelled, joining in as I began to realise what was going to come. I was living Yuki's last night.

My voice came out strangely high pitched. Looking either side to the children, I found I was roughly the same size as them, but still a boy, still me. I was just a child again. "Please, no, stop!" I kept yelling, trying to pull my hands and feet free.
"Eeeeye....herr...eye...sss..."
Yoshikazu tied the blindfold around my eyes. I wanted to make it stop. I tried to use my sharingan, but even if it wasn't blocked by the spirits, I was only eleven now. A year younger than when I'd passed the academy, and likely a month or two before puberty. That was a frightening thought. Now I once again couldn't see a thing. I began to listen more intently, stopped struggling and just listened. I was Yuki now, and there was no escape from the fate she had already lived. Even so, it doesn't help to ease my fear as I hear the children's frightened sobbing. "What are you doing to me?" I asked, feeling shivers run down my spine. "Why am I blindfolded?"
Yoshikazu retreated to the corners of the room.
"Untie me! I'm not Yuki Kanno! Please!"
I kept begging and pleading, desperate to avoid whatever Yuki had experienced, but all I heard were the retreating clomp clomps of Yanagihori's footsteps.
"In...or...der..."
Order?
Then, breaking through the silence was a scream. Not a scream of fear, but a primal scream of pure agony and terror the likes of which no human being should ever experience. It was the boy at the end, accompanied with softer sounds of a sharp foreign object being pushed into the stomach. After the screams finished, the boy becoming too weak to continue and too close to death, which seemed to take an eternity, he still made a sound with every new jab the knife made as his insides were scooped out and dumped to the side. Why wasn't he falling unconscious, why couldn't he have some release from the pain?

Adrenaline was a bitch sometimes.

It's been at least half an hour. The inhuman screams of a small boy having his insides torn to pieces have finally come to a halt. There is the sound of snipping and something wet being cut through as the murderer I assume remove's the boy's tongue, and without so much as a second to stew in that utter terror left over, the killer moves on to the next child. The girl next in line begins to scream for her life, begging for forgiveness and mercy, unsure what she's done to deserve this. Her screams give way to chokes and coughs, any further screaming muffled and distorted as her head is slowly cleaved in twain. Gurgling sounds and choking.

Oh god...I can't take any more of this! Stop it! Stop it stop it stop it stop it!
Is it still going on? Oh god, just die already!
...'Just die already'? God, what is wrong with me?

I just want peace, I just want it all to end. I've seen death before, but I've never heard such young, primal screams, such desperation...such suffering.

Finally, after hearing a heavy object drop to the ground, and the removal of the tongue once more, the room fell silent again. The only sounds assaulting my ears were my own frantic breath and the sound of approaching footsteps.

I feel every organ inside of my body freeze and twist with complete and utter terror. The girl beside me just died, which means I'm next!

Someone grabbed me by the hair and pulled me up so roughly it felt like my neck might snap. Hands tugged at my blindfold. I was going to see the face of my killer.

The four missing children were found in a basement room in Heavenly Host, unused and sealed off since the building's construction. When authorities entered, they were greeted with an inhumanly horrific sight. Based upon the evidence at hand, the murder weapon was determined to be a pair of large sewing scissors found in the hands of the accused. Investigators suspected some hesitation on the man's part, however, as the deceased victims' wounds did not indicate that his full strength had been used. Nonetheless, he had clearly acted with extreme malicious intent. The official cause of death for the deceased children has been listed as 'loss of blood following the removal of the tongue', but the actual state of affairs was not quite so clinical, nor even so "pleasant" (if you can believe it).

The following details have been extrapolated from information previously unreleased to the public -- or at least, previously unreported by news outlets. These details of the crime are based on the official police testimony of Sachiko Shinozaki herself.

Evidently, the victims were bound, blindfolded and spaced out on the floor...then killed, one by one. One was repeatedly stabbed in the abdomen with the aforementioned scissors, and then had his internal organs forcefully pulled out. Another was stabbed in the head dozens of times, hundreds of times, until everything above the jawline was minced away. 

With my blindfold removed, the sights before me were more horrific than I could have imagined. Beside me lay the two deceased children. Beside the boy, a pile of meat trailing inside his abdomen lay. The girl was completely unrecognisable. However, it still got worse. The person in front of me, brandishing a pair of sewing scissors before my eye, was not Yanagihori Yoshikazu after all.

It was one of the children.

A little girl, covered in the blood of her victims, staring at me with soulless grey eyes...and then...she started to laugh. I heard panicked moans, and a look to my side confirmed Yoshikazu was nowhere near. In fact, he was sat in a corner, clutching his head and crying in horror. The little girl raised the bloody, rusty blades, slowly bringing them closer and closer to my left eye...
"Why? Why is it you?"
And with that, she thrust the blades deep into my eye. I reared my head back as an unimaginable amount of agony shot through my head. I could hear the blades scrape against my skull from inside, feel every beat of my heart, feel the adrenaline make it faster and more painful.

The third victim was stabbed in the eye an unknown amount of times until her eye became liquefied and was simply left like that until she eventually bled to death in agony. Strangely, it was only after these mutilations were performed that the killer severed the deceased's tongues. Learning the truth about these proceedings is shocking even to me, and makes it nearly impossible to accept the murderer as anything but a monster. And watching this all was 7-year-old Shinozaki Sachiko, the most long-suffering of them all. It was through her tearful testimony that Yanagihori was sentenced and convicted. Now, going back to the hunt for information on this unfortunate girl's whereabouts, it was her words that ultimately led to Yoshikazu's sentencing. Therefore, it comes as no real surprise that sensitive information pertaining to her and her family would be withheld. That's to be expected. What's not expected, however, is there is no trace whatsoever of Sachiko's existence around the time this took place or after. This leaves a nagging feeling at the back of my head, one that asks a bone-chilling question.

Was Yoshikazu truly the killer of these three children?

Is it possible this crime was not actually perpetrated by him at all? Think about it. In his final days, Yoshikazu was incapable of communicating with others through speech. And despite his childlike reversion, he'd always been a personable and friendly man. As the saying goes, he wouldn't have hurt a fly. All his relatives, friends and neighbors confirmed as much, shocked to hear that such a kindly man could commit these unconscionable atrocities. He certainly had no motive for the crime, either. There was nothing for him to gain from it. Or perhaps, like his father, he had simply lost his mind. It was around this same time that Principal Yanagihori Takamine began speaking in tongues and acting in a most peculiar way...not to mention scribbling incomprehensible gibberish all over his walls, as if possessed. He seemed frightened of someone and would often be found crouching in the corner of his office, moaning and thrashing, when visitors came by. If he could wind up in such a state with no warning, then perhaps so too could his son...

I believe we are looking at a curse more powerful than any could have imagined, one that may have spanned from the day Heavenly Host opened its gates to the moment it closed its gates forever.

I believe the story of Heavenly Host starts not with these murders, but far earlier. Perhaps even a whole 20 years earlier.


Mikoshi's POV:
When I awoke, I was surrounded by stinking meat and lying in a shallow pool. It was dark, and even if it wasn't, I had blood covering my glasses. They were also cracked and pretty much the definition of unusable. I let them fall away and scrambled around searching blindly for a door. Finally, my fingers found a seem and I was able to stagger free from the room. I took great gulps of fresh air. I have never, ever been so happy to be able to breathe. I staggered along a little more but found myself almost walking into a hole. Not my cleverest move. I crouched beside the hole, peering in, I saw something in there. I couldn't quite see what it was, but it looked like an ID of some description from where I was sat. I wouldn't be able to reach it from here, that much was for certain. Not able to get it, I kept walking.

I found a set of bathrooms after a while, and within them, a body hanging from the rafters. Otherwise there was nothing of note as far as I could tell. There were notices tacked up here and there, but I didn't read many. There was a storage room, wide open. This underground section to the school confused me, but I paused to consider how long it must have stood. The murders were 50 years ago, and the school had stood long before that as well. It was likely the school stood during a war. Perhaps this was a bomb shelter or something of the sort? It seemed to be closed off from the rest of the school, apart from via that chute I'd come down before. I shuddered as I remembered Koji, wielding my girlfriend's leg like a weapon...

I stifled a sob. Ninja are supposed to endure! I could mourn when I was free. I pushed the storage room door open and explored a little. Not much there. I could tell that much. Spools of rope and string. Might be usable. If I had, say, a length of wire, I could use it to fish out that ID at the bottom of the hole. Just in case, I kept the spool of string.

Slowly, I approached a door. I hadn't seen it before, and it seemed to lead outside. There was light coming from beneath the cracks. As I approached, however, a spirit appeared before me.
"Stop. The covered walkway beyond this point shouldn't even exist!"
I pushed forth and went for the door, but a powerful impact sent me back. I fell onto the floor, my ankle twisting unnaturally until it snapped.

After screaming, I sat there for lord knows how long. I was...it was like my mind was clouded by some form of fog. When things became clear again, I found myself staring at some strange, moist stain on the dirt wall. Slowly, I stumbled to my feet, extra careful not to put any weight on my injured foot, and hopped back down the hall. My leg scratched against something sharp, and I hissed in pain as the skin tore open. I looked down and it appeared to be a large chunk of...some form of support wiring locked into place against the wall. I reached out and pulled, trying to take out one of the wire hairs. The support wire groaned and bent out with my efforts, but eventually I got the wire hair I required. I could fish out that ID now. With my ankle possibly broken, it was clear I couldn't risk going down there.

I never realised how difficult fishing was. Every time I thought I'd hooked the thing, it slipped free and fell down again. It took at least 10 attempts to get the thing. The ID had a familiar photo and a familiar name.
"Matsuri? Matsuri's down there?!" Worried, I braced my hands against the edge of the hole and stuck my head down there. "Matsuri! Matsuri, answer me! Are you there?"
God, what if something awful had happened? I didn't want to lose another friend at this point. Maybe I had a flashlight. I quickly checked my bag, and indeed I could find some flares. I set one off, holding it so it cast a bright light over the hole in front of me.

Many more dead bodies, but Matsuri herself wasn't among them. She must have just dropped her ID. Her paper doll scrap was within it...I folded it up and tucked it into my pocket. I could give it back to her when I found her. No doubt she'd appreciate that, especially if it meant remaining linked to Gaara. She'd become better at hiding her little crush and no longer gushed about him in such an irritating way, but she clearly still liked him. You could see it any time he passed her. Not that I would bring it up. She always got really indignant if you tried to tease her.

I'd see about getting her to tell him she loved him, even if he did only take it as friendship. It was important to let those close to you know you loved them, after all. I just prayed we wouldn't lose anyone else before it was too late.

Even so, I couldn't find another living soul in here. I called out, but never once received another response. Eventually, I found a set of bathrooms. I needed to go, but the men's room wouldn't open. It was as though the door itself wasn't much more than something painted on the wall. I guess I could have gone in the girls' room...actually, I decided I might as well. No-one else was down here, and it wasn't like anyone could complain.

Every one of the filthy, dilapidated stalls I tried were locked up tight, but not a single soul was in any of them. No feet on the floor. Just in case someone was hiding within the stalls, I called out hopefully.
"Hello? I don't want to hurt any of you. I'm just looking for my friends, you don't have to hide."
I felt beyond ridiculous saying it, but soon it became apparent there wasn't a single soul in there with me. After a moment of feeling around and figuring out the best course of action, my thumb located a hole in one of the stall doors for me. Perhaps using that I could unlock one of the doors from the outside, but just to make sure I knew what I was doing, I put my eye to the hole.

Something thick and sharp plunged into my eye and I reared back with a scream. The shock of the sudden, agonising attack sent me into convulsions.
"Boys aren't allowed in the girls' bathroom." A child's voice scolded. Looking up with my good eye, I saw the glint of a spirit stood before me. I couldn't make out any specific features, but she was young, definitely a little girl, with shoulder-length hair in pigtails and dark stains on her clothes. In her right hand, she held a bloodstained awl. "P-please, I'm just looking for my friends, Matsuri, Sari and Yukata..."
"It's not allowed." The girl stated calmly, closing the bathroom stall she had just stepped out of. She raised her arms and I threw up mine, instantly feeling the sharp, resonating pains of the awl piercing my flesh. Over and over again, the girl swung down, delivering punishment upon me. I begged her to stop, but she continued until she pierced through my arms completely, slicing and hacking into my head, destroying my ear, scalping me. I could hear the skin peel away with every hack. All there was left in the world was pain. My vision went black, and I couldn't tell if I'd closed my eyes or if she'd pierced my remaining one. I begged for mercy, but it never came. I begged for the sweet release of death, but even when my soul parted from my body, all I knew was pain. I wasn't even aware of my own demise until the girl finally stopped hacking away and left me in peace. Or as much peace as you could be left in with this much pain.


Yukata's POV:
I remember last night, the night before we did the charm, I'd been having a sleepover with some of the girls from Suna. Well, Matsuri and Sari. They were my absolute best friends ever, after all. After a hard day's training, I flopped over onto my bed with a heavy sigh. This was my castle. The pale pink carpet, curtains, walls, pink and white bedclothes with cuddly toys littered over by the pillows of every colour of the rainbow, white ceiling with an old soda stain. Matsuri sat beside me, taking a deep breath through my nose.
"Mmm. It smells like caramel in here." She commented with a blissful smile as she removed her flak jacket, rolling her stiff shoulders back. It was my first sleepover, and hers as well. Sari had probably been to others before. When I'd started the academy, Sari'd already had a lot of friends. Matsuri hadn't had many. A lot of people didn't like her much, as she was an outsider, some even considering her 'bad luck'. It got a lot worse when she became Gaara-sama's student, at which point people even stated she would become corrupt, perhaps even a monster.

I had bags upon bags of junk food, including two large bottles of chocolate soda. It had been three for the price of one, so we'd given a bottle to another ninja we were acquainted with, Shishio. He was a friend of Mikoshi's girlfriend. Two bottles would be more than enough. Sari was making a call home at the time, so we were free to talk. Matsuri was my absolute 100% best friend ever, after all. For some reason, however, everything felt awkward. I felt shy and embarrassed, and I could tell Matsuri felt the same way.
"Want to try some of the soda?" I asked, sitting up as Sari came in, planting herself into an arm chair.
"Hell yeah!" Matsuri shouted eagerly. I'd always loved my friend's cheerful disposition. Sari pulled out one of the bottles. It was clear, but with a faint muddy colour to it, like a muddy yet fast-running river.
"What do we do with the rest of it if it sucks though?" Matsuri asked as Sari began to pour the fizzy drink into three glasses.
"Give it round to some others." Sari answered at once. "People who annoy us. Make like we're being real nice."
"Kankurou-Dono likes chocolate. We could offer him a drink and watch him squirm."
I laughed. "You two are evil." The three of us drained our glasses in one and reached an agreement in an instant.
"Damn, that's good!"
And before I knew it, we were back to our usual antics, talking about anything and everything, from Sari's latest boyfriend, a dream I'd had after a mission when I'd been in a coma (creepy, huh?), our one shared crush...and our worries. I hoped we could be friends forever. They were the absolute bests. The only ones I could tell all my worries to, and in turn they could tell their worries to me. We were a perfect trio of close, supportive friends. I wouldn't give them up for the world.

And so soon, such a peaceful, cheerful life could be thrown to hell. I was on all fours, emptying my stomach onto the wooden floor of the...the...it looked like a school, but nothing made any sense. A dark, shadowy figure had attacked me in the infirmary, entering my body through my mouth, nose, ears, eyes, and every other hole, choking me, gripping my insides and turning them inside out, changing them to ice. I almost passed out, I was sure. As I managed to keep my grip on reality, I started to cry. I cried and cried until I couldn't any more. I desperately needed to drink something, my throat was so dry. Miserable, I called out for help. "Help! Matsuri, Sari, Mikoshi, Gaara...someone help me, please..."
I hadn't seen a single person since I'd come here. Not anyone alive, at least. I was so worried, and so scared, so scared, so very, very scared! I tried to call out again, but instead I just started hacking and coughing. It felt like something hairy was caught up in my mouth, blocking the flow of air through my hair...my throat...my...I can't think straight, I can't breathe...

I reached into my mouth, closing around something. From my throat, I pulled clumps of long, black hair. It wasn't mine. I did not eat my own hair. I didn't eat anyone's hair! I kept pulling and pulling, gagging as I went. It seemed to stretch on forever, from my hands, into my mouth, down my throat and into my stomach. The feeling of the hair scraping against my tonsils was beyond foul. Where the hell did all this hair come from?

All of a sudden, the entire building was shaking around like crazy. I was terrified. I covered my head with my hands as bits of wood and dust fell from above. The floor in front of me fell out. If I had been just an inch further forward...

I was so scared, so scared, so very, very afraid. I wanted my mum. I was certain I was going to die and I couldn't stop sobbing and whimpering. My mind swam with all these thoughts. How long would it take? How much would it hurt? How would it happen in the end? But in the end, I survived. I opened my eyes as the shaking subsided and stood, slowly easing out the stiffness in my body. I went to check out the hole in the floor. The floor below was very far down and seemed to have fallen out as well. If I fell into there, I would undoubtedly meet my end. Hesitantly, I went back into the infirmary. I felt someone else might find me easily in there. In a place like this, an infirmary was a beacon. I could see a notice on the wall, something I hadn't looked at before. I'd been busy being attacked.

[Proper Procedure for Dissection]

First and foremost, you must ensure that both arms and both legs are firmly pinned down, such that the subject is completely unable to move. Next, make a clean incision across the stomach and carefully peel the skin on both sides, exposing the subject's innards. Use pins to keep the op-

It became unreadable from that point. There was a photo of a man on the desk. A little more exploring had be finding nothing of value, so I decided to walk away from the hole in the floor. There was a foul stench.

Had...had that splatter of blood and guts been there before? The smell invaded my senses, bringing me to my knees. It was all I could do not to vomit again.
It felt like my fear and uneasiness was swirling around and around non-stop in my head, turning into a tornado torrent of pure misery. Every body of someone young I saw drove me a little closer to the edge. I wandered aimlessly, my senses dulled, barely able to keep a grip on reality.

Up ahead, I swear I saw a light glinting off something. A kind of thin, sinewy web. Piano wire? They were stretched all across the hall, blocking my way. Curious, I reached out to touch one, but as soon as my skin made the slightest contact, I withdrew, looking at my hand. It had been such a light touch, yet blood was swelling up on my finger, becoming beads that grew heavy and slid down the length of the digit, curving down my hand and wrist. How could piano wire be so...so sharp? If I hadn't come to my senses and noticed it, death once more would have come to me...and not death by nasty spirits, but by a mere booby trap, things kunoichi like myself were trained to spot and avoid!

Well, I had spotted it, and I had avoided it. Even so, someone had planned to catch me or my friends in it, I was sure of it. I spun around in place. "Is someone there?" I called. I felt like someone was following me, watching me, waiting for me to fall into their trap so they could gloat. "Stop this, please! You're scaring me!"

I went back the other way, seeing a blood soaked sheet. It stated that 'getting closer to the darkness means getting closer to the truth'.
This whole place sits in darkness, after all.
I entered a nearby classroom. A message was scrawled onto the blackboard.
Your friend is a traitor. Run.
Had...had someone written this to drive a wedge between myself and my friends? Or between other members of my group who had come here.
"Is somebody here?" I called again. "Stop harassing people! I can't take it any more!"
I wasn't sure who I was angry with, but boy was I angry. Seething, I ran from the room. I kept exploring in silence.

The next classroom I entered had a light flashing in it. It seemed to turn off whenever I looked toward the source. It was almost as though someone were trying to get my attention. I eventually located a flashlight. It stayed on solid when I finally approached it. Perhaps it was running out of batteries. I picked it up wordlessly. I was more creeped out than ever despite this. I was certain someone was watching me. Another notice was by the door.

Listen to your teacher

You are going to die now.

I got out of there fast. The next classroom along contained bodies and a vibrant picture of a widely grinning girl. I read another disturbing notice. I should have noticed that all these things written by cursed souls were eating away at my sanity, but I didn't.

[Class Log]
I ate a student today.

I was hungry, so I had to. Plus, we played rock-paper-scissors, and I lost. I thought I'd lose to an adult, but I didn't.

The cabinet in the corner of the room was full of dirty tissues. It made my stomach turn.

As I walked the halls, I heard a desperate cry for help, but when I tried to find the source, it was replaced with a monotonous tone that spoke as though over a tannoy system.

Nakatsuka Yukata, class 3 room A, please return to class immediately

Nakatsuka Yukata, class 3 room A, please return to class immediately.

Class 3 room A...the door was locked, and I didn't belong there.

"Wh-who, me?" I asked shakily, once again searching for the source.

Instead, a dark, gravelly voice responded.

You're next.

"Wh...What the hell does that mean?!"

I felt a sickness in the pit of my stomach. It was like I was forgetting something really, really important, but at the same time I didn't care. I wanted to forget it.

I wouldn't be able to tell you who Matsuri or Sari were by this point, the darkness had invaded me so completely. Every time I passed the mess of blood in that one hall, the remains caught my eye. I walked right up to them, running a finger through some of the blood and then licking it slowly. I crouched low, digging into the mess that had fallen on the floor, pulling up the floorboards beneath with desperate fervour, a low, almost inhuman moan escaping me.

I walked the halls with a small hemp bag in my hands. Every sign I passed had a skull faintly imprinted behind the red, glowing writing.

What have you got there? Where are you going with it?

g i v e i t b a c k

Who...who even am I? I don't know any more. A black smoke surrounds me, liquid similar to tar pouring from every orifice as the darkness and I become one. I have no memories, no feelings, no emotions, no likes or dislikes. There is no gender or personality. I've never even heard of Yukata.

I've never heard of any of it.

Heavenly Host is all I know.

G I V E I T B A C K

Y O U R E N E X T

Nakatsuka Yukata, please return to class immediately. You will now die.

Saya's POV:
My head...hurt so bad...I hardly remembered much. Child spirits...Shishio's charm...Yaoki had asked me to perform it with him...at first I thought someone had been playing a practical joke, but I quickly realised all those spirits were no joke. A large chunk of hair on the left side had been torn out, my clothes were soggy and ruined, my hair was loose...I hated this. I desperately wanted to go home. Finding myself back in the main building after I'd made a break into the forest...it was like waking up from one bad dream and finding myself in another. I stood, heading north, only to be stopped by a voice.
"Kankurou!"
It was Temari. I froze. Were those two in trouble? The voice echoed, becoming impossible to pinpoint.
Saya-chan, this way.
The voice was familiar. It sounded like Yaoki's friend, Korobi.
Please...take care of Yaoki...he's on the verge of snapping...
"Who's there?" I called, feeling unease try and creep in. I pushed it down and kept walking up the stairwell. Yaoki sat in the corner, head down. I ran to him.
"Yaoki!"
He faded as I approached. "Wh...Yaoki?"
I jumped as something clattered loudly. A phone was falling down the stairs. I picked it up as it rang. I was sure it belonged to Yaoki. I answered it.
H E L P M E...
It was a deep, unfamiliar man's voice, guttural and throaty. Something about the voice scared me, before a posh woman's voice sounded through.
"Answer me! Please, Yaoki! Answer me! I'm your mother for god's sake, please don't make me worry! Please, god, don't let anything have happened to him..."
"Hello?" I called through quickly. "Hello?"
H E L P M E...
With a shriek, I threw the phone away from me.
"Fuck...this place needs to cut the crap already..." I picked up the phone again, tucking it into my corset, lacking pockets. I continued to head up, and as I emerged onto the third floor hall, I heard Yaoki's voice.
"Well, it was difficult, you know?" Followed by a laugh. "I certainly was surprised. So, Korobi, did you hear?
Hmm? What is it? What is it?
Mamushi bumped into Saya-chan turning earlier and grabbed her boob!
Seriously?" Another smirk and titter.
"When I saw it happen, though, I just wanted to smack Mamushi upside the head.
Oooh, Yaoki, do I detect a hint of jealousy?
Maybe, maybe not. All I know is afterwards, the two of them got into a huge fight.
I'd have loved to have seen that!
I don't know...it really wasn't a pretty sight...
I dunno, I bet I would have enjoyed it.
Girls are idiots.
Saya-chan especially, huh Yaoki?"
All this time I had been approaching the stall the voice was coming from. There was only one voice.
"I-is someone there?" I asked loudly. I could sense someone behind the door, but when I tried it, it wouldn't budge. I backed away a little, and suddenly I heard the snap of rope pulling taut and a gagging, choking sound. In a panic, I kicked the door open. It gave easily, showing the struggling form of Yaoki, hanging by the neck from a rope.
"Yaoki! You idiot! What the hell do you think you're doing?!" I yelled before stepping into the stall, no clue what I was going to do. I knew I had to loosen the grip the rope had on his neck, so taking a deep breath, I moved in under his legs, placing them on my shoulders and heaving him up so he could breathe. He started gulping in air like crazy. There was a rusted bucket at my feet, clearly what he had been standing on to set up the noose, but it looked rusted and weak. I highly doubted it could take both our weights. Instead, I reached up, scrabbling blindly for the knot so I could pull the binding rope away from his delicate neck. Finally, it seemed to loosen. It seemed Yaoki would live.

Slowly, I lowered him to the ground and lay him out. "It's okay, Yaoki. You're okay. Just take deep breaths. That's it. Easy now, breathe slow, in...and out. That's it. That's it." I stroked his cheek with the back of my hand. His eyes flickered open.
"S-Saya-...chan...?"
"Yeah, it's me. Can you sit up?"
Instead of responding, he started to sob and whine.
"A-are you in pain? Where does it hurt?" His neck, idiot.
He threw his arms around me, holding me tight. "Get here sooner next time..." He managed between sobs and sorrowful sounds. "I...I'm sorry..."
"There's no need to apologise." I told him gently, smiling and stroking his hair, letting him cry on my shoulder. "Is your neck okay?"
"My...my neck? Why am I in here anyway? I fell down the stairs and...when I came to, I was here..."
"You don't remember anything?"
"I...I guess not...I heard a snap in my leg, I thought it had broken, but it was some of the leather in my sandals."
"Where's Korobi? I heard his voice a little earlier."
He sobbed again. "Korobi...Korobi is..."
"Huh?"
Yaoki pulled away, leaving the stall and opening the door to the next one over. Inside, Korobi hung, motionless and deathly pale.
"That's...that's impossible...he spoke to me just a moment ago! I heard his voice!" I insisted adamantly.
"Korobi..." Yaoki whimpered, shaking his head and wiping his streaming nose and eyes. "Korobi..."
"Let's get him down...we can't leave him like that..."

A moment later, or maybe a whole while later, we had taken Korobi's body to the hallway, just by the stairwell. He stared at us with blank, frightened eyes, but I couldn't bring myself to touch his face, shut those eyes.
"We had a fight..." Yaoki began. "Just before we separated...I was in the wrong, but I was too stubborn to admit it...when I next saw him, Korobi was...already..." He cut off with yet another sob. "I can't even apologise any more!"
"Yaoki, it's all right, it's not your fault...you do realise...you also tried to hang yourself, right?"
He looked shocked. "I...did? That's not possible!...But...my neck..." He gave a hiss of pain, massaging the mark the rope had left.
"You really don't remember...I'm sure it was the same for Korobi. He'd never give up on something, and never ever hang himself, especially over an argument, no matter how vile...because he knows rifts between friends can be patched."
"You...you're right...he wouldn't..." He didn't sound convinced.
"We need to hurry up and find the others." I decided, standing and offering my hand, which Yaoki gratefully accepted. "Korobi...I'm sorry we can't take you with us. I wish we could, but right now it's just impossible. Please, forgive me."

We returned downstairs when Yaoki collapsed, coughing and spluttering. I worried the damage to his neck had cut off oxygen to his brain.
"S-sorry...I just got really dizzy for a second there..."
He didn't say anything more, just passed out. Sighing, I lifted him, carrying him to the infirmary and lay him out. His breathing seemed normal, so I chose to leave him there a while and search for some of the others. Shortly after leaving the room, I found myself faced with another earthquake. I gripped the doorframe until it finished, and then up ahead I saw a little girl in a red dress. Hesitantly, I followed her. As I traversed the halls, I heard the voice of a young girl.
"Mother..."

"I'll kill you..."

I couldn't catch up to the little girl in the red dress, but I did find Korobi's cell phone. It seemed he had been in the middle of texting someone when he'd dropped his phone. It appeared to be a text for Yaoki. I decided not to show him this just yet. It turned out that would likely be my worst decision for my entire time here. As I headed back to the infirmary, I found Yaoki was stood outside and ran to him.
"Yaoki, I left you to rest!"
"Please don't leave me alone in here like that..."
"Sorry...I was looking for the others."
"Find anyone?"
"No..."
I started to walk, but Yaoki did not follow. "Yaoki? Are you okay? You seem kind of spacey..."
"I dreamed...about Korobi..."
"Oh!...Oh..."
"He must have really suffered...he just wanted me to understand!"
"Yaoki, don't let it get to you...please..."

Exploring a little further, we found a red key. It must have led to the red room.

The custodian's closet. We went inside, spotting a TV in one corner, and settled down before it to rest a little. The lights went off almost instantly, and we both cried out in shock.

Suddenly, the TV came on, at first only static, but slowly that static gave way to an image. An image of Korobi. My breath hitched in my throat as I saw him walking, texting as he went , looking up every so often to call for Yaoki. A figure seemed to be following him, looming up behind him before hitting him hard on the head with a large wooden box. It looked like the boxes Korobi and Yaoki kept their puppets in. He dropped like a rock. Slowly, the scene fizzled into the bathroom, where Korobi was regaining consciousness. Above the floor-level toilet stood a chair. Korobi was held by his attacker's hands on the chair, arms and legs bound. The attacker slowly placed the noose around the young man's neck and stepped back.
"Please...what are you doing? Why are you doing this to me...

Yaoki?"

The angle changed, looking at the attacker. The Yaoki on the TV screen gazed at his friend in an emotionless fashion before removing the ropes around his friend's wrists and ankles in a swift motion and kicking the chair out from underneath him. With that, he left Korobi to struggle for his life, walking calmly from the room.

The TV turned off then, and slowly, the lights flickered back on. I turned to him, shocked. It was obvious he had no memory of such an event...I assumed he wasn't in control. Just like when he tried to hang himself. I reached out to him, but he gave a low moan, one that frankly terrified me. When he looked up at me, he had the same expression as when he had killed Korobi. He approached, hands outstretched, still moaning. All I could do was scream as a tar-like black fluid escaped his mouth.


Naruto's POV:
It was hard to believe we'd been at Shishio's house just moments ago. Either way, the current plan was to ensure the safety of everyone as soon as possible.

It was weird, though. I'd been totally alert, then suddenly felt a vile pain in my leg, and when I came to, my head was in his lap.
I was with a boy who had introduced himself as Korobi's boyfriend, Sajin. I instantly pulled away. "What the hell is with you?"
Sajin held up his hands in surrender. "Hey, you were the one who started screaming and crying. I was just trying to get you to shut up."
"I wasn't screaming or crying!" The soreness of my throat and wetness of my cheeks told a vastly different story. Sajin shrugged and stood, and slowly I stood with him.

We were in a wing of the school containing a music room, art room and an office of some kind. The music room seemed plain and normal. The first thing I noticed in there though, was a box of matches and pile of candles. This place was pretty dark, so we decided to take them to help us light our way. On closer inspection of the room, there was a box within a cabinet. It seemed interesting, but I couldn't get it out, and Sajin also pointed out there was something wedged between two piano keys. It was wedged in so tight I couldn't even press the keys down. After this, we headed up to the staff room, only to find it locked. Just outside sat an old bedsheet.

Eventually, we found a bathroom. Inside sat the body of a girl, her spirit nearby.
"Excuse me..." The spirit asked. "I want to ask a favour..."
We turned to listen apprehensively.
"I...I want you to hide my body...I don't want anyone to...to see me like this."
Looking down at the rotting corpse, both eyes slit, as well as her throat, I nodded.
Sajin hugged himself and looked away. "We should get that bedsheet. It should be large enough to cover her."
At least he wasn't objecting to helping the ghost.

By the front entrance way, a severed head was shoved into a cubby hole. It was a tight fit and had been put there with some considerable force, judging by the flaking skin and hair stuck to the sides.
"There's a key in its mouth..." Sajin uttered meekly. I gestured for him to take it, and he shut his eyes before reaching into the head's mouth, pulling out the key and shuddering violently.

The key led to the wing's art room. There was bound to be all sorts of helpful tools here, definitely. In fact, the first thing we found was an old palette knife. That would dig between those piano keys with ease. We went back to the music room and Sajin started violently working the stuck object loose. It was harder than I thought it would be, but eventually he dislodged it (and one of the neighbouring keys) and in his hand he held a key. Wordlessly, he gave it to me to hang on to. However, I remembered the storage closet in this room had been locked.

The key turned with little resistance and I pulled out the box triumphantly. "What do you think it is?"
"Doesn't seem dangerous or anything." Sajin noted.
"Well duh, how can a bod be dangerous?"
"Traps." Was all he said, shrugging.
Suddenly a lot more cautious, I held the box a little away and opened it. The inside was silk, and a cloth was wrapped around something thin and rectangular. It looked like a grave tag used to ward off negative spirits. Pocketing this, as it could be of use in a place like this, we continued to explore until we found a spirit stood beside one of the bodies. The body itself had no head and was thoroughly decomposed.
"Someone...stole my head." The boy's spirit began. "Please...get it back for me...I can help you if you do..."
I turned to the sand shinobi at my side. "What should we do?"
"Good question...I never believed in paranormal shit before now, but...this is really real, isn't it?"
"No, you idiot, I mean whether to help this guy or not-ttebayo!"
He arched an eyebrow at my outburst, looking none too impressed. "If we can do something for him, I see no reason why we shouldn't."
"Yeah, maybe he can help us find a way out of here..."
"The head...you think it's the one in the cubby hole?"
"I'm not carrying it with my bare hands."
"There's a bucket by the staff room, perhaps we can use that."

And we did just that. Just standing before the severed head, however, was too much. It turned my stomach, I could see maggots crawling around the receded flesh and through the eye sockets. It made me want to vomit. Wordlessly, Sajin held the bucket out and I shot him a glare. Hesitantly, I dug my hands into the cubby hole. The meat of the rotted head squished beneath my fingers and I had to struggle not to vomit as I felt the maggots crawl over my fingers, across my hands, up my sleeves...finally I got a good grip and pulled hard. There was a lot of resistance as the skull scraped across the wood. I practically threw it into the bucket, much to Sajin's displeasure. He glared at me as I focused on getting all the maggots off me. Slowly, we made our way back to the spirit and Sajin held out the bucket.
"Here...I...I think this is your head."
"My beautiful head!" The spirit cried. "Oh, look at how rotten it is...all those bugs...I'm so ugly now!"
"I can sympathise...many others have been killed here just as horribly. We'll make sure the people who did this pay."
"Are...you pitying me? Do you feel sorry for me?"
"N-no! That wasn't my intention...sorry if I offended." He bowed politely.
"No...you think I'm ugly and wretched and you never want to touch my foul body again, isn't that right?!"
A shiver went down my spine. "I don't like where this is going."
"It's because you're still alive. That's why you turn your noses at us dead people. Arrogant creatures... Why don't you come and join us?!"
The floor began to shake. With a shriek, we held onto one another.
"I'll just hand you over to the others, and they are scary! They are so frightening you'll want to tear out your own throat no matter how painful if it means they won't get to you!

The last thing I heard was the spirit laughing before I blacked out.


Sen's POV:
I remember...we'd seen Yukata. She had been running from something, but she didn't look especially scared. When we'd caught up with her, she was in a puddle of black and her head was split wide open.

I could even see her brain.

It sent a shiver down my spine, but Shishio-san had collapsed beside her, writhing in agony, clutching his head and tearing his hair out. I dropped to my knees beside him, grabbing his arm and trying to calm him. Nothing got through to him. He really was in pain, but there were no injuries. "Shishio!" I screamed, just trying to get him to come round, or at least stop screaming! There were footsteps nearby, and Yukata wasn't long dead. No, it had probably happened only moments before we'd found her, and her killer was undoubtedly still around. I begged him to calm down, to stop, but there was nothing I could do...and then the big man with the hammer came. I got up and scrabbled away, but I couldn't keep hold of Shishio and bring him with me. The hammer came down on his head. I could hear the blood join the pool of black. It sounded like a leaky faucet, and the air was punctuated by his gags and gasps. He seemed to come to as the man raised his hammer for another strike.
"No...stop!" He held his arms out to protect himself, although the motion was slow, sloppy and weak. Was he already brain damaged?

With the next strike, his right arm twisted unnaturally and started to tear off. Another smash brought the arm clean off. I was vaguely aware of a woman screaming. Was it me?
"Sen...r-run!"
Smash.
"Run!!"
I didn't want to, but then the man with the hammer turned to me and started ambling along. I ran. I remember hearing a crash as the man fell, and assumed perhaps Shishio had made him fall, using his good arm. The hammer came down again and the man with the hammer went the other way...leaving me alone.

Then I heard a familiar voice talking to him.
"I'm surprised you're still alive, after all that. Can you hear me? What happened?"
Shishio gagged and coughed, choking on his own blood. "Save...oth...ers..."
"Others?"
"P-please...Sen..."
"Sen?"
"Gllgh...help...her..."
"Okay. I'll do just that."
I could hear the sneer in the newcomer's voice, and then heard the telltale squelch of a knife boring into a person's abdomen. Shishio grunted, choking becoming more pronounced.
"It's time for you to rest in peace...though they say when you die in here, the pain never goes away."
"W-why...?"
"What does it matter? You're dying anyway."
He twisted the knife, I could hear it, and the sounds of Shishio's suffering. I staggered down the hall a little further and emptied my stomach. The telltale sound of footsteps sounded in my ears, so I ran, ran for my life until I found myself running into a classroom. It was an art classroom, so there was bound to be palette knives, chisels and scissors I could use as a weapon to defend myself. Now all I needed was somewhere to hide. Leaving the classroom, as there was nowhere to hide in there, I sobbed. I felt like such a coward, just leaving that boy to die.
"Shishio...I'm so sorry..." I managed to sniffle. "I..I panicked...I should have done something..."
Footsteps approached and I tightened my hold on the chisel in my hand. If it was that man again, I'd...
"Sen-san, is that you?"
"Koji!" A wave of relief washed over me. He looked a little tattered and bloody and was holding a crowbar, I assumed for defense. He sighed.
"I've been looking all over for you."
"Yukata and Shishio!" I remembered Shishio was his team mate and it made me feel a million times worse. "I tried to help him, I really did..."
"It's alright. It's going to be alright. I promise. We'll get out of here."
"They were both killed by that man...!"
"I know. I saw them too. What's with the chisel? Were you honestly planning on fighting him?"
"I didn't want to go out without a fight..." It sounded pathetic and beyond stupid when I said it out loud.
"You don't need any such thing, Sen-san." He scolded gently, taking my chin between thumb and forefinger and the chisel from my hand. He was so calm and gentle.
"I will remove all your fears...forever." He promised.

He shot his arm out but I caught it. He had been trying to stab me!
"Nice reflexes."
"Please tell me you're kidding...why would you...?"
"Do I look like I'm kidding?" He asked calmly.
"What? Why?!" We struggled back and forth, him trying to dig the chisel into my flesh, me fighting back desperately. "Please don't!"
"Shishio didn't die from the wounds inflicted by the hammer." Koji told me calmly. "I finished him off. If we're all dying one by one, it's best it happens sooner than later to spare the lengthy suffering we're bound to experience just wandering these halls."
I managed to throw his arm away from me and took off running, tears flowing uncontrollably. I just wanted everything to go back to how it was before any of this happened. I didn't want anyone to die or any of this to be real.

Please, please just be a nightmare. The whole time, Koji pursued me, swinging the chisel and very narrowly missing me. I ran up the stairs, back to and past Shishio and Yukata's bodies, and right into a dead end. I turned to him, pleading. "Please...I never did anything to you, so please stop this!"
"That is true...it would be awful if I did something I could never take back, such as this." He plunged the chisel into my stomach without a moment's hesitation. He knocked me onto my back and knelt on my hands, plunging the chisel into my body over and over. It was difficult to process, my whole body was flooding with agony, every nerve screaming that something was wrong while my mind screamed back that I was well aware. I'd never felt something even remotely like this before as long as I'd lived. I was vomiting blood, I couldn't breathe. It was clearly nearing the end. All this time, Koji smiled down at me. That sickening smile.

Friends forever? Bullshit.

I'll never forgive you.

I'll curse your every waking moment.


Sajin's POV:
Footsteps in the dark. We were on a dirt floor. I woke up to Uzumaki shaking me awake frantically, and when I sat up, he pulled me to my feet, practically dragging me along the way. Eventually, we lost the beast behind us and approached a sealed door, Not able to go through, we backtracked and went north. I kind of needed to pee, but I held it in until we reached a set of shelves lined with severed heads, like prizes. They were pretty fresh, recent deaths. We slowly picked our way through them, reaching the end where a none too pleasant sign awaited us.

Dear Shiho,

Stay strong -- no matter what happens, no matter what you may see. Never lose that immovable will of yours. Fight the darkening. Don't let it take you over. If you can beat it...then you can beat fate itself.

I was worried. Afraid even. I'd never felt so afraid before in my life. We went to the east and almost collided with someone else. She had long, reddish-brown hair, blue eyes, tan skin and a mole, and she looked terrified. She screamed, then realised something. "People!"
Naruto stepped forward to meet her. "It's good to see another living person down here. My name is Uzumaki Naruto."
"A-Amaru..." She managed before glancing over our shoulders, likely at the head collection, turning tail and running, screaming. We exchanged clueless glances and followed. She ran through a room of boxes piled high, to a dead end hall and into a room in the wall. We followed, finding a foul room, filled with blood and bits of people, buckets full of blood and guts and all sorts. As we entered, Amaru slammed herself into a metal cabinet, loud enough to alert anyone who might be nearby exactly where she was hidden. And judging by a set of very heavy footprints, there was someone coming. We exchanged panicked glances and crawled under the table.

A large zombie man came in, moaning and groaning wordlessly. He dropped what he was carrying, and I was met with Korobi's lifeless face right before mine. Naruto clamped a hand over my mouth to stop me crying out. Suddenly, the zombie man let out a truly horrifying cry and charged at the cabinet. I couldn't see anything, but I heard the horrifying crunches, splats and screams of terror and agony as he did something to Amaru. Then the monster grabbed Korobi by the head, removed his tongue and carried him off somewhere. I burst out from beneath the table and gave chase. "Bring him back, you bastard!"
"Wait! Sajin!"
I ran up north, where a blood trail ran, and to the east. It didn't occur to me that this place had been a dead end before. I reached a room within which Korobi's body had been unceremoniously thrown across the floor. I grabbed his turban, dragging him back by his head. I spotted Naruto up ahead and drew my kunai. I attacked him, deaf to his yells of outrage and confusion, and then some girl with blue-black hair and white eyes and big boobs was in the way, pushing me hard in the chest.

I can't begin to describe the pain I felt as a thick pipe wire severed my spine and pierced my organs. I was there for so long, struggling and writhing before I died while the girl apologised profusely. Hmm. Stupid bitch. Still, at least she'd stopped me from killing him. At least she'd stopped me losing my mind.


Shikamaru's POV:
There wasn't a single soul in the girls' bathroom. Perhaps Sasame and I had passed one another along the way without realising it. I kept wandering around, knowing I had to find her sooner than later. If she got hurt, it would be on my head.
"No! No!"
I froze, turning. "Sasame? Is that you? Where are you?"
I stood at a heavy-looking iron door. It sounded as though her screams were coming from behind there. Slowly, cautiously, I approached it, hand outstretched.
She screamed, a sound alike to that of a butcher knife slicing through a thick slab of meat, bone and all. I opened the door, and instantly, Sasame grabbed my foot. She was sprawled over the ground, screaming and writhing, her body cleaved in half from the top of the thigh. She wouldn't stop screaming, half in agony, half for help. It was too much for me to handle. I fell onto my backside, frozen with fear, unable to move. Her writhing made it seem like she was trying to flee the pain, her body gushing blood every which way. It burned itself into my mind, I could still see it when I closed my eyes. I started moaning in fear as a presence appeared behind Sasame, something large. Beyond large. It was a veritable giant, standing at likely 7ft. He approached with heavy clomps and reached down, grabbing Sasame's hair with filthy fingers. He turned, dragging Sasame into the horrid room. I couldn't begin to imagine how much pain she must have been in, the point at which her body was severed dragging across the uneven floorboards. Her voice was getting weaker, her writhing less pronounced, and I just sat there...watching...

She screamed to me, eyes fixed on me and me alone as she was dragged off.
"Save me! Please, don't let me die, I don't want to die! Shikamaru, help me!"
I was hearing the panicked, primal screams of someone about to experience their last moments on Earth. It's the kind of thing you'll hear in your memory for the rest of your life. Nothing will ever wipe it from your memory, not even the most extensive of therapies. Those seconds in which she was dragged away were the longest seconds of my life. Soon, only a swathe of blood remained. It was only then that I was able to scrabble to my feet, dashing after them.

I dashed head first into a wall.
That was it. It made no sense, but Sasame was gone. Dead.

That had been, what, an hour ago? Two? Matsuri seemed to be getting weaker and weaker. Right now, Gaara had checked her neck wound and though it had bled profusely for a while, it seemed to have clotted now. He chose to support her until she felt better. We had found the second wing, which previously had been...gone. I'd had no clue there was a second wing until Temari said that was where she had lost Kankurou. A cabinet had fallen, blocking off the east path, so we checked a message saying 'the darkening has already begun', and then went back to the west. I cried out when I saw what awaited us in the next room.

A large man was...scattered across the floor. His head was intact, but it lay in the corner. Whoever had done this to him, they had clearly enjoyed it. Furthermore, the blood was all wet and fresh, as were the marks of the killer leading away. He had only just been killed. Temari had her hands clamped over her mouth until she noticed something on the floor.
"Gaara...are those...?"
He followed her gaze and after a moment, nodded. "They appear to be Kankurou's shoes." I looked. They were soaked in blood and urine, and I quickly stepped aside to ensure I wasn't stood in the puddle of urine by the door.
Temari lifted them, not caring that they were that filthy. "No...please, no..."
Gaara didn't go over, primarily because he was holding Matsuri close to him and steady. "Temari, don't worry. He's lost his shoes, but the blood clearly isn't his. It's more than likely he witnessed this man's death and lost his shoes in his hurry to get away."
"What the hell happened here?" It came out of my mouth before I could stop it. A thought flashed across my mind that walking around barefoot on the splintery wood and broken glass wouldn't do him any good. I decided to insist we keep moving. The doors to the classrooms were locked, as was the principal's office at the top of the stairs. It didn't seem like Kankurou was in this building, so we went back toward the main exit...

"Temari!" I called as they went to the door. She stopped and turned to me, looking questioningly. I gestured to a point between two cubby shelves and spoke quietly. "Kankurou."

On the end of the bench between two cubby shelves, he sat, hood missing, hunched over, shoulders shaking. Even so, I was certain it was Kankurou, and so was Temari when she saw him.
"Kankurou!" She called, leaping onto the bench and going to him. When he felt the disturbance on the bench, he leaped up, spinning to face us, a snarl on his face.
"Stay back!" He snarled. "Don't come any closer!"
Temari froze. "Kankurou, it's us, Temari and Gaara. I've been looking everywhere for you..."
He wasn't able to see Gaara, so I stepped aside, pushing the younger brother forward. Seeing his sister seemed to be making him panic, but seeing his brother calmed him down. I took a good look at the disheveled man before me. His top was in tatters, a deep cut on his stomach, a rib protruding from his chest. He was covered in blood, but the only smell was the stench of stale urine. His eyes were red, tracks down his face left over from dried tears, his face paint smudged beyond recognition. His eyes flitted between his brother and sister in a panicked fashion before drawing Temari in for a hug. His other arm...the bones were out of place. Dislocated? Gaara sat by awkwardly as Kankurou...cried. He was genuinely full on in tears. Then again, looking at his injuries, he had clearly been through one hell of an ordeal. It wouldn't be a lie to say I'd almost cried several times myself.
"You lied!" He managed through strangled tears. "You said you'd wait for me! I've been chased around with knives and scissors and my lungs...I want to go home...I just want to go home..."
My attention was jolted to Gaara by the distinctive tear of cloth. He was tearing the sleeve off of his jacket, then tearing the sleeve open so it could cover more.
"Kankurou." He called, drawing his brother's attention.
"Ototo...I'd hug you too but my other arm's...out of commission...what are you doing to your coat?"
"You're injured. Badly. Come here."
Kankurou didn't move so Gaara did, moving forward and, despite his brother's squirming, tying the sleeve tightly around his waist, covering the wound on his belly. The siblings helped him to stand and Temari supported her younger brother. We went back to the main building. We made our way up through the rooms until we found a room with a wide open door. Going in, we found two more bodies, and Gaara gripped his throat. Matsuri pulled him away from the room at once, stroking his hair, keeping him calm. She was dedicated to keeping him safe, comfortable. She rested her forehead against his, whispering calm, gentle words to him, and he, understanding, closed his eyes, placed his arms around her shoulders, thanking her in his own way. It was...cute. Uplifting, in this dark space. We continued in without them, opening the closet. It wasn't just a closet, it led into another room with a ladder inside. We didn't pay any attention to that, though. Two bodies had fallen from the closet, both in black robes decorated with red clouds, and both thoroughly decayed. One had had long blonde hair, partially tied into a ponytail, and the other wore an orange mask with a swirl on it. I carefully stepped over the bodies and climbed up the ladder, leaving Temari and Kankurou behind as the latter couldn't climb, with the promise to come right back the moment I knew where it led.

I came out into the stalls in the bathroom, next to the stall that apparently led to the basement. Why all these ladders led to the girls' bathroom, I had no idea.

I went back down and joined the others. "Has everybody got their paper doll scraps?" I asked before we set off again. Everyone gave affirmatives, apart from Matsuri.
"I...must have dropped mine when I went to get that holy water."
The rope wasn't a viable option to get back down there. "Don't worry Matsuri, it'll be fine. We'll find it."
Gaara took her hand, giving it a light squeeze. "If it's important, I'll stay with you until it's found, no matter what."
They gave one another a smile. I looked to Temari, briefly wondering if we could be like that. I didn't dare try and take her hand though, especially not while she was looking after her brother. We wandered a while and when we passed the wall Lee had died against, we found something peculiar. The infirmary was suddenly down a long, thin hallway. We approached the door, but suddenly behind me, I heard a gagging sound. Turning, I saw the two other boys, holding their heads in pain, noses beginning to drip blood. Matsuri took charge once more, leading the two back, and it was just Temari and myself left to surge onwards. There was a notice on the door.
Sachiko
I'm cleaning up in the reference room. please wait for me until I'm done.
-Mum.
Sachiko?
The door slid open on its own and a woman's voice called out.
"The door is open, come on in!"
Blood dripped onto my hands. I gasped, touching my hand to my nose. When had my nose started bleeding? My breath was coming in gasps.
"Shikamaru, maybe we should go." Temari suggested, pulling on my arm. "This place is bad for us."
"There might be something important in there."
Slowly, she lowered her hand to take mine and gave it a comforting squeeze. "Okay then...together?"
"Together."
We walked in, and the woman spoke again. My head was reeling, and Temari's nose had started to bleed as well.
"Let's all have a field trip together over the summer holiday. What do you say?"
We took a few steps forward, and suddenly the spirit of a woman with a twisted neck appeared before us. She had short, dark hair, skin a deathly pale, smart shirt and trousers torn and dirty.
"Sachi is my pride and joy...she'd do anything for me..." She walked toward me, making eye contact with soulless grey eyes. Finally, she broke that eye contact and I fell to my knees, gasping for breath.
"Shikamaru!" Temari was at my side, arms around me, holding me close. She helped me up and over to a chair in front of a desk. It had a diary on it. The lettering was still completely legible.

19/7/1953
I seem to be dead.
"That can't be right..." I muttered before the woman spoke.
"I can't forgive you...I won't forgive you...I'm going to kill you...how dare you harm Sachiko? How dare you harm me?"
"This is bad." Temari noted. The woman ran towards us and we fled, back down the hall and back to the other three.
Kankurou walked over to meet us. "What happened? You two look like you've seen a ghost."
"We were in the infirmary." Temari stated. "There was a woman with a broken neck...just as we ran out...I swear I saw children appearing all around her."
I hadn't seen that. Everyone looked at me and I arched an eyebrow.
"Is that the diary from the desk?" Matsuri asked. I nodded.
"I tried going through it earlier but it was frozen in place." Temari stated, looking shocked.
"Is it the woman's?" Gaara asked. I nodded.
"Without a doubt. I saw her writing in it." I turned it to look at the back, where I found a name.
Yoshie Shinozaki

19/7/1953
I spoke at great length with the children today. They're so full of life, and growing up so fast... The younger students are quiet and respectful, too. It's clear their parents love and care for them very much, and have taught them very well. But I won't be left behind! I intend to raise Sachiko with just as much love and devotion as any of them. Today is her 7th birthday and I'm meeting with her after school to have lunch with her. I hope she likes the stuffed cat I bought her. Had to sort out some documents in the reference room before meeting up with Sachiko. While I was working, the principal dropped by. After he and I talked for a bit, he suddenly grabbed me from behind, forced me down and began unbuttoning my blouse. He'd always been so kind, lending a sympathetic ear to my problems...but today, he didn't even seem like the same man. His eyes were cold and empty. I was in such shock, I'm not even sure exactly what happened to me after that.

I slipped away somehow, but he was right behind me. I only made it as far as the landing stairs before I felt him push me. The floor came at me fast and suddenly I found myself unable to move. I was slumped across the ground unceremoniously, and I was dead. Buckets of blood spilled out from my head. I'm sure it was hell to clean up later. I also lost control of my bowels -- embarrassing, to say the least.

I was slipping away...but I was pulled back by the sound of a very dear voice. Sachiko saw everything. I guess she'd come to find me...The principal closed in on her. What was he planning to do? I yelled with every ounce of my strength for him to stop...but I was dead. I had no strength.

Sachiko tried to run, but she had the stride of a 7-year-old. He caught her easily, and then, before my eyes, he strangled the life out of her. What a cruel man...

He rebuttoned my shirt, then took Sachiko to the basement and buried her. He'll probably say my death was an accident, and report her as missing.

I'm not a bad person. I don't deserve this. There is no redemption for what he's done...

20/7/1953
It's just as I expected. According to the official report, I slipped and fell...and nothing's been said to anyone about Sachiko yet. The other teachers and students are all mourning me. They're so kind.

I'm in mourning too...

21/7/1953
There's a stranger sitting in my chair. The new school nurse, no doubt. But no-one's come to see her yet. She mustn't be very popular.

I hate her.

26/7/1953
Little by little, I'm losing my mind. Bit by bit, I'm fading away. A dark will, not my own, has begun infiltrating my being.

Make it stop...

???
I'm so alone. So very alone...

I want to see Sachiko again. I want to see the children again.

I will never forgive him for what he did.


I'll kill them all.

12/7/1973
Sachi is my pride and joy. She'd do anything for me.
She'd even kill lots to keep me company.
She sends me so many children. I love them all.

15/7/1973
I have to make her stop.
This won't make me happy. Sachiko, please stop.

16/7/1973
His family is just as guilty as he is. I'm going to curse the entire line, forever. I'll burn some sense right into their brains.

17/7/1973
How did this happen?

Sachiko, who died alongside me twenty years ago, has a flesh-and-blood body once more. She kills children and sends their souls to me. But I don't want this! That won't make me happy! Sachiko...please, come see me! Talk with me!

20/7/1973
Sachiko killed six more.
And when they die, it's like every trace of their existence is removed from history. It's "spiriting away," in the truest sense of the term. But she's not capable of abducting and killing children on her own... She makes that man do the kidnapping for her.


Sachiko... Please, stop...

23/7/1973
Sachi is no longer killing for my sake. Now she's just killing because she likes it. I don't know when this change happened...but it did.

Living beings are such fickle, easily-angered creatures. They killed us, after all. I can't forgive anyone who kills another human being.
I'll kill them all.
I'll kill them all for what they've done to us.
I'll show them no mercy.

24/7/1973
Kill more

25/7/1973
Kill more

15/8/1973
Bring me m o r e

18/9/1973
Thanks to Sachi, I'm no longer alone.
She sent me three more adorable little children today.

Sachi is my pride and joy.

I don't think she even recognizes me anymore.


But I still love her with all my heart.

18/11/1975
The school's been closed down. And the principal jumped off the roof. Serves him right.

I think I'll sing with the children. Something fun and happy.

What a pitiful way to die. Serves him right!

23/11/1975
Sachi's been wandering the halls. These empty halls... She kills anyone who enters. People who've heard rumors, or are just curious.


She and I are both so desperately thirsty... But there's nothing we can do about it.

"Sachiko killed these souls to keep her and her mother company." I mused. "And it looks like it eventually drove her mad..."
Gaara put a hand on the diary to get my attention. "If we wish to appeal to Sachiko, stop her from killing and save her soul, it seems the principal is the key. His office is in the other wing."
With that, we agreed and got to our feet, making our way to the second wing.

I'm not sure where or how, but somewhere along the line, Kankurou had picked up a stuffed cat. Evidently the one mentioned in Yoshie's diary.

As we crossed the walkway to the second wing, a man fell past us, screaming, to his death. It certainly startled us all.
"What the hell was that?!" Kankurou yelled, the first to get over the shock.
"I..." Matsuri was second. "I think it was the principle of Heavenly Host."
Seconds later, the same man fell to his death once more. Gaara gripped his head and buried his face into Matsuri's shoulder.
"I...I guess he can never rest after what he did..." I mused. "So he's forced to relive his death, over and over..."
"That's awful..."
Temari approached the railing. "Hey, what's that?" She asked, pointing to the man's remains. She started to climb the railing. Kankurou cried for her to stop, and I grabbed her arm.
"It's way too dangerous."
"Everything here is dangerous, Shikamaru." She answered, quickly kissing my cheek before leaping over to obtain whatever she had seen. She waited for her chance, waiting for the next cycle in which the man would splatter, then taking the item before another man could fall. She came back with a small desk key complete with gourd-shaped keyring. We went up to the principal's office, unlocking the door and stepping through.

The room beyond was ice cold and completely covered in protective charms. A voice filled our ears.
"I didn't mean for it to happen...it was just a temporary lapse of judgement...it's her fault, she clearly overreacted to the situation!"
Nasty, coming from a would-be rapist. The words repeated as we explored the room and I stopped at the desk. In one drawer sat a small hemp bag, slathered with blood. I pulled the drawstrings open, and inside sat a human tongue, old and stiffened with age. I cried out with shock, and then everything went dark.

Everything was dark. I could hear the sounds of shovels on dirt, and then light broke through, and there stood principal glaring down at me.
"Every single night...the same dream...I deeply regret what I did. I can't even truly express how ashamed I am! But how much are you going to make me suffer for it?!" He laughed, clearly insane. "I understand it...I get it...you're just pretending to be dead...but look at the position you're putting me in! I can't let you tell a single living soul about what I did...so I'll have to fix it so you can never tell another living soul ever again." He prised open my jaw and slowly removed my tongue. Except I wasn't me, I was Sachiko, and I barely felt a thing. Then he stabbed me multiple times. It thunked through Sachiko's rotting chest dully.
"If I ever see you in my dreams again, I'll be back. I'll kill you as many times as it takes."
With that, he began to shovel dirt back onto me.

The scene switched. I was creeping along the school halls. I briefly caught sight of myself in a mirror. My body was that of a seven-year-old, but still me. I rounded a corner and saw Yoshie tumble down the stairs, her neck breaking as it went. Takamine walked over to her, panicking at the turn of events, then turned to me. "Shinozaki Sachiko-san...you...you saw, didn't you? You just had to see..."
I backed away a few steps as he approached, then turned and ran. I didn't get far before he caught me by the scruff of my neck. Next I knew, his thick hands were closed around my throat and I couldn't breathe. His hands were gripping so hard and tight I was sure he would crush my pipes completely. I could feel things crack and pop and burst, and all too soon my head hurt and my chest felt like it might explode. It was painful. It hurt. It hurt! It really, really hurt! I didn't know dying would hurt this much! My eyes rolled back in my head and I prayed for the sweet release of death...

And then I awoke, Temari shaking me. "Shikamaru! Wake up, please!"
I groaned as I sat up, massaging my throat. The tongue was gone.

Wait, no, Matsuri was holding it. "That's Sachiko's tongue." I managed. They looked to it in shock. "I just saw...her death. The principal dug her up after and cut it out...she's buried in the basement..."



Sari's POV:
It had been hard to believe that a young girl had killed those children, but Sasuke had lived it. He knew. Now we were back in the hell school. Before us stood Yuki, holding out a statue of an angel. "Here." She began. "I'm sorry I can't do more to help, but this should help you. There's another statue, a red one. You need to meet with the others...due to our momentary awakening, the closed spaces are unstable, the school destroyed. You must be very careful. To appease Sachiko, you must appeal to her humanity...my mind has already come under attack, so when next you see me...run." With that, she faded away.
"If the closed spaces are collapsing, we should be able to find the others." Sakura mused.
Stepping out of the classroom, we found everything looked very different. Furthermore, the dark presence and chill in the air was much more...heavy. I struggled to suppress a shudder.
"We need to find the others and get the hell out of here." I muttered.

We kept walking for a while before Sasuke cleared his throat. "Uh, Sakura? Are you hurt? You have a lot of blood on your...posterior."
She went bright red. "What?!"
"Did you scrape yourself? It looks pai-"
"Shut the hell up!" She tried to look to her back. Sasuke seemed to have no sense of shame. It almost made me laugh. To anyone who knew anything about girls, it would be obvious what happened. I wandered around a little, reading a few papers.
You know why you're here, don't you? You incited Sachiko's anger. Did you count how many times you said the phrase? Did you forget Sachiko? Sachiko is always with you.
Well, that was disturbing. But it looked like we were stuck here because we flubbed the charm. The sole reason we'd been put through this hell was because we'd angered Sachiko. There were 21 of us, it was easy to miscount...but then Shishio had never said to say it once for Sachiko.

Slowly, we made our way down to the main entranceway, at which point I noticed a notebook on the floor. I rushed forward, scooping the notebook up and flicking it open. There were a few passages about hospitals and stuff before I found Heavenly Host, and a lot of things and equations I didn't understand. These appeared to be 'findings' written by the blonde man earlier. It was labeled 'Deidara's Findings'.
Method of ingress: Obtained. (Requires two or more participants.)
Method of egress: Obtained. (Will need to gather more information and plan very carefully, but it can be done.)

Encountered fierce spiritual resistance while simply researching the Shinozaki estate. Right side of body paralyzed. Left eardrum ringing. Orbs visible in photographs. Influence confirmed. Severe dizziness, nausea and bloody BM experienced. Symptoms persist for weeks. Significant danger is clearly present. Next investigation will place others at risk. May be best to leave others behind.

Seems he returned empty-handed again today. How many times has that happened with this publisher? He writes such interesting pieces, but never receives due credit. They're too daft. They don't appreciate him. Poor guy can't catch a break... But all that will change once his next serial is published. I'll do everything in my power to help him.

"These are notes about Heavenly Host by that blonde guy!" I told them, hands shaking in excitement. "At least, I think it's him."
Sasuke came forward and checked the notebook. "The name fits."
After that page, all the pages had been torn out. We went north until I noticed another stack of papers.
I had a final exam today, so I went to school for the first time in quite a while. Seems while I was gone, Tobi came here to Heavenly Host without me. "It's too dangerous! We don't have enough data!" he said, trying to justify why he'd skulk into this sacred ground behind my back. His assistant, Shinga, most likely put him up to it. I did give him all the details on how to return home from here, and it's a fairly simple process...but I can't help worrying about him nonetheless.

At any rate, the blog's been updated. And I do feel bad about dragging my friend Kisame into this...but it's time to dive headfirst into these trenches, and really feel out what this place is all about...
I paused, reading this all aloud. "...There's a way out of here even if we don't succeed in appeasing Sachiko."
"We are appeasing her." Sakura insisted, scowling.
"I know...it's more a last resort...a promise to protect the others we can find, even if they can't join us to appease her. It's a just in case thing...if we can find the method."
There wasn't much more on this floor of the building. Unrelated notes and papers, bodies, holes in the floor, shallow steps...it was strange. Everything had changed so completely. We traveled down to the first floor.
The next floor up had some more notes in it.
Herein I will detail the proper observance of Sachiko Shinozaki's charm, as well as a means of reversing its effects and returning home.
No...no...it couldn't be.
The information he had put on the blog that Shishio had read had been false. He had purposely given the incorrect information.

We passed the halls, and as we passed a set of windows, blood hammered against them. We jumped, and then Sasuke went in, frowning. We followed obediently. Right by the door stood what looked like a skinned woman with a sheet over her head. It must have just been an anatomical model, we agreed. We passed on through the room, between the science room's tables. Another body was perched on a chair as though working, and Sakura found some more notes. "It's hard to read, but it's the same handwriting."
Indeed, the pages were slathered in blood.
Tobi, I'm so sorry... My readings were far too broad, and my interpretations of them overly naive. This place is not the simple plane of spirits I'd previously surmised it to be. If we don't get out of here a.s.a.p., we'll be in real danger....

...until a more reliable method is found. Until then, please, PLEASE be safe...I want to see you again, Tobi. More than anything, I want to feel your hands in my hair.
We turned, but something struck me as off. "...Wasn't that model by the door before?"
Sasuke turned to glare at me. "Are you trying to freak us out?"
I felt like it was working. The model suddenly moved, approaching Sasuke from behind.
"Sasuke, I genuinely think-"
"Shut up! Don't say it! Don't even think it! I hate you!"
The model reached for his throat, letting out an inhuman moan, and Sakura quickly pulled him out of the model's grasp.
"Run!" She shouted. "It's trying to kill us!" We all headed for the door, but as we came close, it slammed shut before us and locked.
"No!" I cried, feeling tears spring up in my eyes. Another, deeper inhuman moan filled our ears.

Yanagihori Yoshikazu was in there.

Where the hell had he come from?! Sakura dashed between the benches and we focused on not getting caught. She returned with a key and frantically, desperately tried to open the door. We ran out, slamming the door behind us, and went to hide in another room to get our breath back.

In this room, there were more sheets of bloody paper. These pages, however, were otherwise blank. Staring at them gave me a headache, a wave of outside emotion rushing over me. It was as though Deidara's emotion was projected upon these pages.

Then letters began to appear on the paper. It was as though they were being written there and then. I could hear his voice. At first I thought it was just in my head, but Sasuke and Sakura could hear it too. They were shocked, looking for the source before they realised it was coming from the papers.
I can smell him. I'm getting closer. Soon I'll be able to touch him again, taste him again. My consciousness is fading, my hands turning black...but I'm alright. I'll be with him again soon, after all.

Then the letters stopped, but the voice continued.

I found you, Tobi. I found the room you ran to. Why are you running away?

I found you. I'm going to hug you now. I missed you so very much.

Everything has gone dark. My body is a black mist.

"What the hell...?"
We exchanged glances and Sakura shook her head. "Sounds like he met an unpleasant end." We left the classroom, going up the stairs into the reference room. When we asked why Sasuke was leading us there, he simply said 'Deidara'.

"Deidara." He greeted darkly as he entered the library. The man turned slowly, looking up from the book in his hands.
"Uchiha Sasuke-kun. How's it going, un?"
"You've done a lot of research...were you aware Yoshikazu did not kill the children? The true killer was Sachiko-sama."
"This is valuable data indeed...though you've only solved half the mystery, un. You've yet to figure out who, exactly, Sachiko-sama is. At any rate, there's someone I must find, so if you'll excuse me..." He turned and went to leave, but Sasuke stopped him.
"I'm not done speaking to you yet."
"But I've lost interest in what you have to say, un."
"I'm disappointed in you."
"And who are you other than another Uchiha brat?"
"Because of this!" He tore the notes from my hands and thrust them at Deidara. "What's this Sachiko Ever After crap? And this about the ruins of the Shinozaki estate?"

The spell trigger is the phrase, "Sachiko, we beg of you."

It must be chanted once for each participant, then one additional time for Sachiko. Following this, the proxy doll is to be torn apart. (Should the proxy doll recovered from the ruins of the old Shinozaki estate be unavailable...a printed facsimile will suffice for the purposes of this ritual.)

If everything is performed as indicated, the spirit will pass by harmlessly, and nothing of note should occur. If any part of this ritual is performed incorrectly, however, then Sachiko herself will descend upon any viable spirit medium in the vicinity...and all present will be afflicted with her curse and spirited away to the sacred ground.

If you have angered Sachiko, you can atone for this by performing the ritual correctly in reverse.

"You intentionally put the incorrect instructions on the blog Shishio got them from. You wanted the ritual to fail, apparently for your 'beloved' Tobi's sake. You wanted him to have a large sample size for this article he was writing."
Deidara started to laugh.
"What's so funny?"
"You think you're so smart, but you're not, un. Go fish."
I was confused. "What does that mean?"
"He's saying it's a lie." Sasuke answered, fists clenching.
"Anyone who takes things they see on the internet and takes it wholesale is a complete dumbass, un."
"You're shaking...you can't tell me you never once thought this would occur. Your little whim sent so many people to a slow, painful death. You spread Sachiko's curse all over the world!"
"Don't you think I don't know that, un? But Tobi, my dear Tobi...he smiles at me when I do right by him...Tobi, my sweet, delicious Tobi...I would do anything to make you smile! You occult freaks can go die in a corner for all I care, un."
"Deidara...you died here..."
"And?"
"Do you remember your death? Where you were, what you saw, who you were with?"
"I...don't, actually...that's the one moment I can't recall, no matter how hard I try, un."
"Your selfish nature cost you the one you loved most." Sasuke spat.
"...What...?"
"You don't remember...your last actions, before you died but after losing all hope...You succumbed to the darkening, the darkness of this school overtook you, but didn't dissolve you." Once again, he thrust the pages at him. Deidara paled, started letting out a fearful moan.
"You get it, don't you? You killed Tobi! You killed him! You killed the man you loved! You took his life with your own bare hands!"
Deidara's moans transformed into screams of agony and black smoke and liquid begun pouring from his mouth and nose, choking him as he staggered about in pain. It surrounded him and he gazed at us with pleading blue eyes, and then melted into the floor. All that remained was a black, human-shaped mark, and a red statue.

Near the custodian's closet, there was a room with two pedestals. I placed the two statues there, and a door opened up, leading down, down into what appeared to be a basement.

As we descended the steps, a voice rang out.
"Turn back...please...turn back..." A spirit appeared before us. It was Sachiko, but she was wearing a yellow dress instead of a red one, and looked at us with pleading eyes. As we continued on. she began to turn red. "I said turn back! Stay away!"
Then the three of us fell into something wet and chunky, and the spirit giggled.

We found ourselves in a pool of rotting bodies, but quickly pulled ourselves out before the disgusting stew could stick. I noticed a familiar face among the mix, but I said nothing, just wanting to get out of there. After walking out and just a few steps, we encountered something...I'd have to say amazing.

From one direction came a tired looking Naruto and Hinata, who Sakura greeted with excited countenance and open arms. From the other, came my friend Matsuri, alongside Gaara-sama, his siblings and Temari's boyfriend. I gave my friend a strong hug and we quickly worked out what had happened, sharing our findings on Sachiko and how to get out of this place alive.

Matsuri then for some reason went into the body pool.
"Matsuri, no!" I followed her, but it was too late. Already she was stood among the bodies, staring down at the remains of Mikoshi. She knelt beside him, examining his stabbed out eye and finally she picked something up and wiped her eyes, coming back with her ID. At least she could go home...

It hurt to think that out of 21 people, us 10 were all that remained.

As we approached the room that held the body of Sachiko, a spirit appeared before us. It was Yuki. "Sasuke, Sakura, Sari..." She mumbled. "Don't give in."
Everyone exchanged confused glances. "One of your number has been stricken with the darkening. There's still time to stop it, but only if you hurry. She's here, just beyond the next room. Whether or not you'll be able to return home depends entirely on her. Hurry, quickly. You should be able to appease Sachiko...just make sure you're ready...and the way out is to touch Sachiko's heart." She raised her hand, pointing first to the tongue in Matsuri's hand, and then to the stuffed animal in Kankurou's. Then, she disappeared. Kankurou handed the doll to Matsuri and we walked through. We passed the hanging body of Yoshikazu and tried our best to ignore it, then on to a room with recently disturbed dirt. A thick, oppressive air threatened to burst a blood vessel in my head. In fact, Gaara even staggered, nose already pumping out blood. His brother moved in to support him, and Matsuri stepped forward. The earth began to move itself, showing the mutilated body of the young girl as the other three child spirits appeared in the corners.
"I told you not to come! Don't come any closer! Don't look at me!" The spirit shrieked.
"Sachiko?" Matsuri called. "Sachiko, please listen, we-!"
"Leave!"
I decided to help. We had agreed earlier that Sachiko's appeasement would be left to me. "Sachiko, please, we mean you no harm!"
"Leave now, or I'll kill you!"
"We're not getting through to her." Shikamaru observed.

Then, all of a sudden, we couldn't move a muscle. We were paralysed. "Is everyone alright?" I called in concern.
"My ears!" Hinata cried.
Sachiko stepped forward and approached the most injured member of our party, Kankurou. His eyes widened in fear as she came closer. She raised a pair of scissors and sunk them into his stomach, through what appeared to be a makeshift bandage formed of Gaara-sama's coat sleeve. He doubled over with a strangled cry.
"Wh-what are you doing to me?" He managed. She raised her scissors again and this time stabbed through the shoulder of his good arm. He screamed and Temari snarled at her.
"Sachiko, you bitch, leave him alone!"
Another Sachiko appeared before the body, dressed in yellow.
"Girls, hurry!" Sasuke urged.
"Sachiko!" I called. "This is a part of you, it was taken away from your body! Open your eyes, please!" I thrust forward the bag with the tongue inside, and the girl in the yellow dress hung her head.
"Mummy...you promised..."
Matsuri spoke next. "Your mum's suffering just as much as you are. The things you're doing aren't making her happy at all!" She offered the plush cat to the girl's spirit, and she looked up, observing us with sad eyes. Behind us, Naruto gave a shout of victory.
"I can move-ttebayo! It must be working!"
"Who...?" Sachiko began uncertainly. "Where's mummy?"
Then she began screaming in agony, and the entire basement shook.
"Everyone!" Sakura commanded. "Take out your paper doll scraps!"
"Sachiko, hear our pleas! We want to go home! That's what charms really are... They represent our regards for other people! They're like microcosms of the soul, right? You and your mom both suffered such horrible fates...but all we want to do is free you from that suffering!"
"Sachiko-san, we beg of you!"
"Sachiko-san, we beg of you!"
"Sachiko-san, we beg of you!"
"Sachiko-san, we beg of you!"
"Sachiko-san, we beg of you!"
"Sachiko-san, we beg of you!"
"Sachiko-san, we beg of you!"
"Sachiko-san, we beg of you!"
"S-Sachiko-san, we beg of you!"
"Sachiko-san, we beg of you!"
"Sachiko-san, we beg of you!"
A white like enveloped us as we thrust the scraps of paper together and chanted, one at a time, then all at once. Then, Yuki appeared before us. "Now...is your only chance to escape. The veil between your world and this one is at its thinnest. You need to hurry and get outside the building before it closes. Complete the ritual. Once it closes, this nexus will return to the way it was, and you'll have lost your chance to get out."
"And...what will happen to all of you?" Sasuke asked.
"We've become part of these spaces. Apart from Sachiko, none of us can be saved. For now, I'm free. It won't last long though. The school has already begun to create a new Sachiko. Go, before it's too late!"
We ran. Ran out of the bomb shelter while behind us a bell chimed, like that of an old grandfather clock. We ran up the stairs, panicking all the way, afraid we may never get out. As the bell chimed, the air became thicker. We ran out to the covered walkway...

...And all awoke within Shishio's bedroom.


Aftermath:
Everyone parted ways. The sand siblings went home, and afraid to go home by herself, Matsuri stayed close to her friends. Gaara offered for her to spend the night at his home and she accepted. Though she still had his bloodied handkerchief over her neck and Kankurou still had the sleeve tied around his stomach, their injuries seemed to be gone. Sakura and Sasuke stayed close to one another, one having seen the weaker side of the other, and the other having seen the strong, unshakable side of the first. The Konoha delegation stuck together and went home that night, mourning the loss of their friend.

When they returned to Konoha and tried to tell Tenten the bad news, she had no recollection of Rock Lee whatsoever. In fact, it almost seemed as though none of those who had died within Heavenly Host existed in the first place. Gaara could not find a single record on his late friends, team Ameno or Matsuri's team mates. All they were left with was that frightening, hellraising ordeal and the trauma that came with it.

He and Matsuri stuck together for a while. He seemed almost afraid that he could lose control at any moment, and she was his anchor, giving him love and comfort at every turn.

Temari didn't seem very outwardly changed, though her concern for her siblings and friends had increased tenfold. Kankurou for the first few days was afraid to leave his room, feigning illness. When he found no-one remembered his friends, he stopped talking to others, aside from the odd reply to his siblings.

Matsuri was able to stay strong. She never cried when anyone was watching, always waiting for when she was in private to allow her emotions free, but when in private, she cried a lot. Sari would beat up anyone who dared to say Yukata and Mikoshi never existed. Nobody would ever get away with disrespecting her closest friends. She even sometimes spoke to them. Their spirits came to visit her, she insisted.

Naruto made a memorial for Lee. He, Sakura and Shikamaru visited it often to give their excitable friend updates on the world around them. They liked to think he would enjoy their company, even if the one person he was closest to would never turn up. Shikamaru felt irreparably guilty every time he saw someone from Sunagakure. As though it was his fault. If he'd just looked at the charm beforehand, this whole thing could have been avoided...he could have saved everyone if only he'd used his brain.