Victims With Numbers 6

The door slammed shut before they could step out, and they heard a loud crack behind them.
"My game!" A look behind them showed that Yuki had snapped the game system in half and thrown it to the floor. Tokiko was pointing at the door, as if she had commanded it to close. Both girls then raised their hands, and with a simple gesture, Qi felt a force pulling at his collar, dragging him back and up violently. The spirits rose with him as he struggled fruitlessly, and then they took hold of his wrists and pulled his arms out straight. He winced as he felt his arms wrench - if the girls pulled just a little harder or further, both his shoulders would dislocate, he was sure of it. He tried to protest their actions, make excuses, claim he wasn't leaving them. The last thing he said was 'I was just going to the bathroom, I swear', and then he went limp. It was like he'd gone into a trance. His eyes slowly shut and his head lolled forward, and the two little ghost girls held him in place, high off the ground.
"No! Let him go!" Nico yelled, charging forth in his usual foolhardy yet brave way. He seemed to hit an invisible wall, and was thrown back into the very visible and solid wall behind him before slipping to the floor.
"Nico!" Instead of rushing to his side to check he was okay, Upa turned back to the spirits. If ever there was a time his abilities were needed, this was it. If there was any chance he could affect those ghosts, he had to take it!

The only problem with that course of action was that something had felt off since he'd woken up here, and he'd not been able to put his finger on what exactly. As if something was weighing him down. When he tried to use his power, for one moment forgetting about the negative effects it might have on those around him, he found he couldn't do a thing. Perhaps this was it. It was like his qi was just out of reach, like this place had locked away a part of him or somehow strengthened the charm keeping his powers at bay. Impulsively, he reached up to pull the tag away from his own head, but managed to stop himself before he went through with it.

Of course, pulling the tag away wasn't a sure fire way to fix whatever was wrong with his qigong. Increasing his power level would also increase the chances of Qi getting hurt. Then again, if Upa harmed Qi with one blast, he would probably still come out better off than if they let the ghosts hurt him. Removing the tag was something he'd been warned against on many occasions. When they regrouped with the guards, he would be in big trouble, regardless of his reasons. Was it worth the risk? Would it help Qi to remove it? And there was Nico to think about as well. This was frustrating. He didn't know what the best thing to do for Qi's sake was, or the best thing to do for Nico's sake. Or his own, for that matter. What could possibly be the right course of action to take here?

He was angry. He was aware of that, and he was trying not to act impulsively. He was succeeding so far, he'd stopped himself from taking one impulsive action. He'd barely noticed how tightly he'd been clenching his fists, but as he relaxed them, he could feel the deep grooves his nails had left in his palms. Keeping his eyes on the ghosts, and Yuki keeping her eye on him, he backed off until he was next to Nico. It was hard to keep his eyes on the ghosts and check Nico over at the same time. He felt the back of his head, and felt a bump. Okay, he'd hit his head, and hopefully a bump was all it would be, but unconsciousness was never a good sign. He looked away from the ghosts and turned his full attention to the injured party, checking him over for other obvious injuries. He found some blood across Nico's back and felt the anger increase, but he couldn't figure out where it had come from. He didn't have much time to look, though, because another crack brought his attention back to Qi and the ghosts.

Yuki had stopped looking at him. She was now looking at Qi, and no longer holding his wrist, though it stayed suspended where she'd left it. Instead, she was pulling at his hair, digging her nails into his scalp. Upa thought if he looked hard enough, he could see a little blood in Qi's hair. On his other side, Tokiko still had hold of his hand, and was playing with his fingers, bending and straightening them curiously like she'd never seen fingers move before. Sometimes, she decided to bend his finger back as far as she could. One of them was at an abnormal angle. The crack before had been a bone breaking. The spirits were laughing as they messed with the unconscious man's body. Like he was a doll they were only too happy to break. He watched Yuki rip a large chunk of hair from the man's head, and for a moment thought he saw some skin come away with it.

He gave in to his temper's impulse and tried to tear the tag away from his head. He felt his connection to his qi returning, felt power surge. It was like being in this place had increased the power of that charm to the point that it completely took away his qigong abilities, but now it was off, he was at full power again. Like the charm had never been there. Now, using qigong out of rage was never a good thing. You need to be able to concentrate and have a clear head. He knew his temper could be a problem, that was one of the things meditation was supposed to help with, but here he was, giving into it again anyway. The flash of light that accompanied his attack against the ghosts hurt his eyes, a stark contrast from the dark and dreary surroundings, and he already knew it was going to hit Qi as well. At least he was already unconscious.

Only, the blast stopped before it reached him. It hit the same invisible wall Nico had hit before, pulsated, caused the wall to become visible - rotting wood, translucent, pulsating as the ball of energy was. Then, the blast ricocheted back at him. "Ah-" Was all he managed before he was blasted into the wall.

When Upa came to, Nico was crouched over him, his hands holding tight onto his shoulders. "Master? Are you okay? Are you hurt?"
Well, truthfully, it felt like he'd been trampled by a stampede, but Upa decided not to say that. "I'm fine, Nico." He managed.
"Oh, good. I was worried there. I woke up and you were just lying on the ground, not moving! I didn't know what happened! I thought maybe if I hugged you, you'd get better, like before-"
"Don't do that." He sat up, biting back a groan, and Nico hugged him anyway. "Nico!" Upa pulled away from the embrace and looked to Qi. He was still in the same place they'd left him, still with the ghost girls either side of him. When they noticed Upa looking, they hissed at him, and Yuki's hand went dangerously close to Qi's throat. The qigong master felt a cold, dreadful feeling pass through him.
"We have to leave." There was just something in his head screaming that if they didn't leave now, there would be hell to pay.
"But the old man!" Nico looked over to the ghosts, and then a look of fear crossed his face. He wasn't a complete idiot. Even he could tell that they had just succeeded in pissing off the ghosts holding the other inmate. Ever since they'd entered that room, they'd just made things worse and worse. "Hey, Master? I think we should leave."
Upa nodded and the two of them got up and fled the room. Great. What else could they mess up today?
"What do we do now?"
"We head back to the classroom and see if Kiji's come back yet, or if anyone else has seen our message."

The two made it all the way back to classroom 1-A without any major incident. There was nobody there, and no response to the note they had left. Nico shifted uncomfortably. "Nobody's been here."
"It doesn't look like it." The note was in the exact same place they'd left it before.
"Should we wait?"
Upa opened his mouth to respond, but didn't say a word as a sound from outside caught his attention. The sound of something heavy scraping across the ground, and of the footsteps of someone large and heavy-set.
"Master? What's that sound?"
Nico had noticed it too. Upa shrugged and went to the door, motioning for Nico to be quiet. He edged the door open as quietly as he could. Down the hall, away from the hole in the floor, a man was walking, dragging something large behind him.

A sledgehammer?

The man was pretty big. Broad-shouldered, probably overweight by the looks of him, but a significant portion of that weight may well have been muscle. He was certainly much bigger than either of the inmates watching him, but if Upa had to guess, he would say the man was about the height of Nico's cellmate, Uno, or the two inmates from Building 3. Not a giant by any means, but certainly decently sized and someone who gave off a definite air of danger and aggression. The man was lumbering away from them, moaning slightly with every heavy footfall. His clothes were grey and black, and unless he was wearing gloves, from where Upa stood it looked like the man's hands were grey as well. In fact, the only real colour he could see came from what appeared to be a doll attached to the man's belt.
"Is that a zombie?" Nico asked from behind, keeping his voice low.
"No." What was it, though? It certainly seemed zombie-like in its movements and the grunting sounds it was making. It was an adult man, and he seemed in some way similar to the three ghosts they'd seen before. Like he was dangerous and deadly, and not really alive. "I can't be sure of this, but he might be the killer."
"The killer?"
"That news report Qi showed us said those children were murdered by a teacher from their school. He could be that teacher."
"So he is a zombie!"
"What? No, he...sure. He's a zombie." He was more likely to be some kind of enraged ghostly manifestation, just like the three ghost children they'd seen thus far. "Keep your voice down. We don't want to attract his attention."
"Yes, Master."
The man made his way towards the stairs leading down to the first floor, and the watching inmates had to consider their next move. Obviously they wanted to avoid the murderer where possible. They couldn't be sure where he was going or what he was doing, but with a bloodstained weapon, it didn't look good. There was also the slight concern that staying in place would mean the murderer would eventually find and attack them, but wandering around aimlessly increased chances of randomly running into him. They'd been lucky to have not encountered him before. Upa moved to follow when he felt the man was a safe distance away.
"We should try and get past him and get to the entryway we saw before. We haven't been there yet, we've only seen it through the hole in the floor, and if we can secure an exit..."
Nico nodded and followed. Upa had already said to be quiet, and he didn't need to be told twice. It was obvious that this was a serious situation. The two moved towards the stairs, not really much choice but to follow the man's path, being careful not to draw attention to themselves.

Then Nico sneezed.

From how close they were to one another, Upa felt a spray of snot against the back of his head. He shot round and hissed "Cover your mouth, Nico!"
"Oops, sorry!" Was the response he got back. "Bless me...I think."
"...Bless you."
Nico smiled and wiped his nose on his sleeve. Upa figured he needed to carry tissues with him a little more often, because having someone else spew snot into your hair was irritating at best when you couldn't do anything about it, dangerous at worst, for someone with a compromised and medically suppressed immune system. At the very least, he figured Nico had just inhaled some dust that had tickled his nose a bit and caused the sneeze, so he didn't think he was going to catch anything from that, and certainly nothing serious. He watched Nico's line of sight travel upward and the smile fade from his face. He could already tell he wouldn't like what he saw when he turned back toward the stairs, and the deep, throaty moan confirmed that before he even dared to look.

The murderer was stood right there now, raising his bloody hammer high above his head, preparing to strike the two boys down there and then. Up close now, Upa could confirm his previous thought, that the man had had grey skin. It looked a bit like it was rotting away, so maybe Nico's zombie comments weren't too far off. His eyes were bloodshot and reddened and dull, and some kind of black ooze was streaming from his eyes and nose.

The hammer descended, coming right for Upa's head.

It was, in a way, lucky that he was used to dangerous situations and could see it coming. He moved back out of the way, taking Nico with him. It looked like they were engaging with this thing whether they liked it or not. With another mournful wail, the man swung his hammer again, and once again the boys were able to move back. The man's movements were big, easy to predict, but they weren't slow, and they weren't weak. When they hit the wooden walls and floors, they caused splintered craters. They couldn't just keep dodging forever, either. They would run out of space to back up, or stop being so lucky. The hammer came for them again, and it came so close to landing its mark this time. Upa could almost feel it against his skin, the force behind the swing. He stumbled and tripped, and landed on his backside while Nico kept his footing.

To prevent his prey from squirming away again, the big man placed his foot firmly over Upa's lower leg, and seemed to press his full weight on it. It hurt enough for him to cry out, but he didn't think enough force had been applied to break his leg. It was enough weight that he couldn't struggle free himself, and twisting the trapped limb in a futile attempt to escape would only serve to cause some real damage. The man raised his hammer again, and this time it would strike the intended victim with little difficulty.
"MASTER!" Nico, in a show of both stupidity and his usual fanboy heroics, leapt into action, levelling a kick at the man's chest, clearly determined to free his friend. The man let go of his hammer and instead grabbed Nico's ankle as the foot made contact. The kick forced the man back a step or two, freeing Upa and allowing him to get to his feet, but the man threw Nico aside like he was a ragdoll. The American hit a wall with a sickening sound, leaving a crater beneath him and crying out in pain. Upa crouched as the man approached him once more, apparently deciding Nico wasn't worth his time. Before he could reach him, a blast of energy hit the man square in the chest. The impact sent the man stumbling back toward the stairwell. With one misstep, the man disappeared from view and went tumbling down to the next floor.

Upa approached the top step and looked down. The man was no longer moving. Nico appeared at his side, clutching his arm and clearly in pain. "Is he dead?"
Well, thought Upa, he certainly didn't seem to be alive. Whether he was truly alive before he'd fallen down the stairs or not was another matter entirely. "He might still move. We should be cautious."
"Okay." Nico went down the stairs. "What's with the doll?"
"Don't touch it." Upa followed him down. He had to admit, his attention had been pulled to the doll as well. It seemed so out of place in comparison to the rest of the man. Upa didn't want to pick it up. Honestly, there was no guarantee the man wouldn't regain consciousness while they were thinking about the stupid doll, and thinking about how messed up everything else in here was, there could be consequences to touching it. Nico reached for it.
"Look, Master, it's so cute!"
"Nico!" He stopped just inches from the thing. Upa gestured for him to move away, and went back up the stairs to tear a piece of paper from the wall. The paper had a messy scrawl across it, likely left by one of the many victims of this school. It was a barely coherent writing about curses in the school. Carefully, he used the paper to pick up the doll.

It was most certainly not cute.

"It looks creepy to me." He admitted. The doll was a simple culture doll, small enough to fit comfortably in his hands. It wore a red dress and a matching bonnet, staring blue eyes and a bit too much make-up on its sheet white cloth face. He supposed the thing might be appealing to young children, or people who were like young children on the inside.
"It has the most kawaii little anime eyes!" Nico insisted, clearly enamoured with the thing. Upa did not like the kawaii little anime eyes. It just gave him an unnerving feeling, worse than he'd felt when he'd been back with Qi in the infirmary. Actually, that bad feeling had never faded out, just gotten worse now they had this doll.
"I am so sorry"
At the sound of the high pitched, tinny voice, Upa instinctively tossed the doll away from himself. It wasn't with much power, more a startled jolt than anything else, which is why Nico was able to easily catch it as it continued to apologise in a slow, rhythmic monotone. He then seemed to start examining the thing.
"What are you looking for?" Upa asked him.
"The button, or the string! Talking dolls have those, right? At least, there were dolls at this one prison I went to that were meant to be for entertainment. One guy tried to use the pull cord on the doll to hurt another guy. The talking dolls were banned after that."
"...It doesn't seem to have any such mechanism."
The doll was repeating the same words over and over.
"I am so sorry
To have killed children so brutally
I was not in my right mind
I was scared too
I did not want them to die
I am so sorry
I am so sorry
So very very sorry
I do not want them to suffer
I am actually a good person
I am so sorry
I am so sorry
So very very sorry"
And then it would repeat again from the top.
"Why is it saying that?" Nico asked, frowning. Upa, seeing his companion hadn't been affected by touching the thing, took it from him and examined it. He found, written on the back of the bonnet, the name Yoshikazu Yanagihori. He assumed that was the mystery man's name.
"I'm not sure. It looks like it belongs to this man."
"To the killer?"
"Yes. It sounds like the doll is talking about the murder as well."
"So...the doll is apologising for the teacher?" Nico suddenly got an 'I have an idea' look on his face. "So he's saying sorry for what he did, right?"
"It sounds like it, but it doesn't sound very sincere."
Nico grabbed the doll back and held it aloft. "If he apologises to the ghosts, maybe they'll feel better and they'll leave the old man alone!"
Upa doubted it was that easy. He doubted the people he'd harmed or killed in the past would forgive him just like that if he gave an insincere apology. Those children had died a horrific death and their spirits were being tormented. On the other hand, closure could be a step in the right direction and exactly what they needed. It was a tough decision to make.

If they made the wrong move, Qi would die.

Upa hesitated. Once again, he wasn't sure what the correct action to take was. Eventually, he asked "How sure are you that this will work?"
It was Nico's turn to hesitate. "I...I'm not. But we can't just leave him! And the ghosts are unhappy too! If this might help them, then..."
He gave a nod. "We can try and see if the apology will make them feel better then. At the first sign of things getting worse, we leave. If it doesn't seem like it's working, we leave. We do not want to make matters worse again."
"Yeah, you're right..."

When they got back to the infirmary, Upa opened the door first, hands raised and palms open to show he meant no harm. The girls were still giggling and still treating Qi as their plaything, but they both showed the two inmates due attention when they entered. Nico came in after, holding up Yoshikazu's doll so they could see her, and gently shutting the door behind him. It was Nico who did the talking.
"Hey, Yuki? Tokiko? We're really sorry we upset you earlier. We were scared, and we wanted our friend back. We thought he was in big danger and we thought we'd be safer with him around too. He can be scary sometimes, but he's also nice, like he was to you, and if he's that nice to you then you don't really want to hurt him, right? I think you're just sad and scared and lonely, too. So we found this for you, and we want you to listen to it! It's from that teacher! It's his thoughts and feelings and we thought it might help to hear them." He was quiet for a moment so the ghosts could hear the doll's words.

The ghosts listened, and then began to cry. They both released Qi, and he stayed suspended in the air and unconscious right up until the ghosts faded from view, at which point his eyes flickered open and he pitched forward. No-one moved to catch him as he fell toward the ground, yelling all the way. Uoa figured it would be fine, he would survive a fall like that easily, and it wasn't like the two of them could easily catch and support his frame without causing further injury to more than one of them anyway. The important thing was that the ghosts had released him for now, and once he got up off the floor they could do a quick emergency treatment for their injuries and get out of there.

He never did reach the floor, though. Instead, it was like his ankles were held in place. He swung until he was suspended upside down, and the momentum even caused his glasses to come flying off and something to fall from his pocket, both items skittering to the back of the room. He was still crying out in pain, likely due to the torn flesh on his head and the broken bones in his arm. None of them were really sure what was happening, but now the two younger inmates rushed forward to help.

Yuki and Tokiko appeared again, each holding an ankle, and just as Upa reached his cellmate, just as his fingers brushed against the idiot's collar, the spirits moved and pulled him away at such speed that his eyes couldn't keep up. It was like one moment, Qi was there, and the next he was gone.

He could register a few things. The spirits had flown to the door, the man held firmly between them, flying low enough that his head was dragging against the floor. He didn't have time to react himself, no time to try and prevent his fate. They crashed through the door, completely wrecking it on the way out, and disappeared from sight. For a very brief moment, Upa and Nico could hear a scream, a raw thing of pain and fear, and in an instant it was ended with a thick sound. Something between a splat, a crunch and a thump. The doll fell from Nico's hands, and Upa took a hesitant step towards the door. He felt sick, like the stress and pressure he'd been feeling from this place was having a physical effect on him. He stepped out, looked down the hall and froze.
"No..."
Frowning, Nico hurried over to stand beside him, and followed his gaze to the end of the hall, where the path turned a corner.

There were no words to explain the sight before him now. The wall at the end of the hall was decorated with the remains of a person, remains that had not been there before. Remains that were barely recognisable as a person.

Qi's remains.

It looked like the impact had torn him to pieces. There were bits of meat and bone splattered wide across the area, the nearby walls, the floor and ceiling...guts were sliding down the wall and collecting in a puddle. It was quite possibly the most horrific sight Nico had ever seen, and he'd seen some pretty bad things in his time. The worst part was that he knew this person, he knew that he knew this person, and he didn't know how to react. A strange squeaking sound fell from the back of his throat, but he couldn't speak. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he thought he heard a sound, but it was probably just the panic.

"I...I can't take this any more..." Upa managed before running off down the hall, disappearing round the bloodied corner. Nico reached out to stop him, stepped to follow.
"Master, wai-" Something heavy struck him on the back of the head and he felt himself losing consciousness.

Yoshikazu lifted the unconscious boy by his ankle with one hand, the other still gripping the sledgehammer tightly. With a dull moan, he turned and dragged the boy away from the mess on the wall, and away from his friend.