Part 9: Closed Conspiracy

Story Four:

The police found out that the bloody hailstone on the ground had shot through the two students’ hearts. It seemed this hailstorm broke every window within the vicinity of entrances and exits of the school. Fortunately, the six students who had stayed inside the office moved to the auditorium thanks to Ogato. Her intelligence became useful within this particular scenario ever since she had an obsession with predicting the future by studying gems. She would study weather patterns without the aid of news forecasts. This accuracy developed over time because she knew all of the signs that helped her to anticipate those conditions. This in return, saved their lives.

Toma and the ten members of The Student Council had disappeared to chase after a strange shadowy figure that ran by the office and shot their principal with a strange weapon that could not be detected by sound. They had tried to find it, which took them all the way upstairs, but there was no sign of the suspect to be found. Somehow, this thing knew that leading them away from the office would test their chances of capturing it at all. Had Toma split the council between the office and pursuing the murderer, what occurred next wouldn’t have happened. It was mildly disturbing when he heard the arguing between the detectives about Edahoshi and Nachi dying.

This had to be taken more seriously. Toma wasn’t entirely sure if he was meant for this, but Suyashi being gone was his only motivation to keep them alive. With that in mind, a few questions had to be raised because of the anonymous writer and developer. Were they both the same identity or separate people? Or was this one of their henchmen putting in the message? What was he going to do if he had caught them? Kill them? Send them to prison? Or maybe an asylum?

To him, it would be ideal to stop the flow of murders and interrogate the mystery guy while they were ahead. With that, a new special class was made for the now seven students to come every day to ensure they were safe with at least two Student Council members assisting students. Nabira had returned as well, but not with good intentions. She pouted in her seat which could be felt while the lessons were being taught by different substitute teachers throughout each day. Finally, near mid-December, Nabira was ready to ditch them for a holiday event at the Paradise Park Convention Center when Ogato and the rest of her classmates blocked the entrance.

They had been preparing to do this for quite a while.

“Hey, what's your problem, glitter girl?! Watcha got all these losers at the door for when I’m about to leave, huh?” asked Nabira.

Tachigo began to explain their collective concerns while taking a zipped plastic bag out of his backpack. It contained a portrait picture of Suyashi.

“I want to make something very clear. See this person here in the photo? That is Toma’s friend. She was the first to die two months ago from a game called Candiere’s Cafe. We need your help to figure out who made it and why they did it. I know you don’t care about other people dying but, why? Wouldn’t you—“

Nabira had interrupted his question, slapping the bag of photos in Tachigo’s hands towards the ground out of spite.

“Do you actually think I care whether or not one of you cares about me? I don’t need any of you for anything! Stop acting like you can guilt trip me for something that’s not even my responsibility. It’s those idiots’ fault that they even thought nothing bad was going to happen. That’s why I left out early after they called me in that day.”

Everyone was so disturbed by what they heard, that they decided to let Toma handle her after school in the same room.

The silence was filled with uncomfortable tension while Toma and Nabira were left in the room by themselves. The other students were being escorted to their homes by The Student Council members. One was guarding the outside door while they were inside. Toma paced in the front while an agitated Nabira was sitting back in her previously assigned seat.

“So what’s the deal? Is someone abusing you Satsumi-chan?”

Nabira, who was becoming frustrated, started rejecting his sentiments to open up to her own feelings.

“It’s none of your business what happens to me. I can take care of myself.”

Toma dumped a yellow folder before her eyes which confused Nabira further. When she skimmed its contents, she realized that this was an updated file on her school records. Her failing grades were in almost every class except PE.

“What’s this supposed to do? Make me feel bad?”

“There’s more.”

Nabira looked closer at it out of hesitation. A few things stuck out to her. A smaller paper behind those that she saw. It was about one of her peers, Hanakawa Hayakia, who she remembered did not react to the events that occurred since she was on her phone the entire time. Mostly anyway.

Because of what happened with Nachi and Edahoshi, she also now had gym with the other students who had their names written in the mysterious note. Reading on with that context in mind, it mentioned that Hanakawa had excellent grades in all classes except PE. Toma negotiated with their gym teacher to create a new assignment for her. She would have to complete an exercise list with Hanakawa as her partner during the holiday break. In return, the classes Nabira failed at required her to work with Hanakawa on the critically missing assignments for her other subjects.

She was left speechless. Nabira’s plans to go to the convention had been thwarted. This did anger her but she had no other choice now knowing that they closed at five in the evening. She decided to make Hanakawa go through as much torture as she had right now, if not worse.

The next day, Nabira had arrived at Hanakawa’s doorstep after consulting with Toma for instructions to and from her house. By ringing the doorbell multiple times over (which sounded like chimes), the door itself opened as Hanakawa grabbed her inside extremely fast without warning.

“Hey! Watch it! You could have dirtied up my school uniform with your grubby hands,” Nabira yelled.

An awkward silence began to break those words in mere seconds as articulated classical music played in the background. Hanakawa creepily turned around, titling the gaze from her eyes while giggling in subtle excitement.

“Welcome home Satsumi-chan. We’re going to have a lot of fun together.”

This left Nabira in total shock as she saw a different side of Hanakawa. She almost didn’t care before because she still hated her, but no one had ever pulled her into a house that fast before. She was the fastest and most agile of the cross-country team. Her reflexes should have caught that. Until now…

As she glanced around Hanakawa’s home, it had an eerie soft pink and white color theme lavishly designed in every room of the house. The living room was extremely large with walls and patio windows that seemed to be at least two stories high. The glowing lavender futuristic lamps, abstract paintings, and puffy fuchsia carpet decorated the place with an unusual sense of unease. Before reaching the stairs, she passed by a large couch that was facing a humungous flatscreen TV hanging on the wall.

Upon following her up the steps, her hands were starting to shake with the exercise sheet in hand. She felt as if Toma had made a great mistake. Nothing felt right about this assignment. Then again, there had to be a way to outdo Hanakawa. She was just not willing to give up to whatever was going on here.

Once they reached the bedroom, it was pretty dark until Hanakawa closed the door behind them and put one hand in her pocket for a few seconds. The room immediately switched from calm into a disco light fiasco with loud and graphic party music playing. Nabira shouted to the top of her lungs as she couldn’t figure out what was going on.

“Hey, what is all of thi—”

Suddenly, Hanakawa’s hands took Nabira’s right arm by surprise as she plopped her quickly into the fancy queen-sized bed she had. She began to lay on top of her as Nabira found it to be more difficult to escape Hanakawa’s grasp than she thought. How was she stronger than her? If Hanakawa failed PE there was no way it should’ve been this hard to get out… Unless…

She lied to the school and Toma. Faking her grades. All for something a lot more disturbing.

Nabira squirmed as much as she could, but could barely hold a candle to getting out of the room anytime soon. She hit Hanakawa with her head, who began to yelp in pain while collapsing towards the floor on her hands and feet. As Nabira tried to open the bedroom door, she quickly realized it was automatically locked without her knowing. That meant Hanakawa had to have a remote to access it. However, by the time she figured that out, an empty glass bottle of wine collided with her head. She passed out without seeing what caused it.

Her memory was starting to get foggy. By the time Nabira woke up, she found herself lying in an open star position on the same bed as before. Tight chains stretched her out as she struggled to make any sort of movement. Her mouth was wide open with a weird sticky mouthpiece inside that kept her jaws from closing. Her uniform and short trousers were sweaty but visible nonetheless. Her sleeves had also been rolled up with her socks and shoes gone missing. Hanakawa was kneeling next to the left of the bedside, stroking Nabira’s thighs and legs too fondly.

“It’s so cute how when you are mad you’ll do crazy things for people,” said Hanakawa in a more gentle voice than before.

Nabira was trying to use her tongue to spit out the mouthpiece but nothing worked to no avail as the analog clock ticked on relentlessly in sync with her heartbeats.

“I used to tell my parents I wanted a place where I could be on my own but, thinking about it now, where is the fun in that? You see, all I wanted was to be understood. If I told them about what I wanted, it would conflict with our pre-existing businesses.”

Hanakawa began to crawl into the bed, laying on top of her while licking Nabira’s arms like a cat. Nabira, on the other end, was screaming inside. This had turned into an increasingly traumatic experience for her as this girl she didn’t know much about was further grooming her up and down in such inexplicable behavior. It became more sensual as Hanakawa unbuttoned two buttons from Nabira’s uniform and used her tickling fingers to play with her skin as if it were a physical ASMR session from all the heavy breathing that came through it.

“Tell you what, I’ll fill out that little sheet with the questions on it and in return, you tell no one about this. We wouldn’t want to get anyone into trouble that they can’t get themselves out of after all. Oh, speaking of which, our cult leader told me to give you this.”

Nabira looked over to her left as Hanakawa grabbed a medical syringe needle filled with a mysterious dark liquid and a sticker tattoo with a strange symbol on it.

“Now, hold still Satsumi-chan. This will be painless.”

The bed began to shake as Nabira couldn’t contain herself anymore. She tried everything she could to possibly escape the bed, but there was no one there to help her. As the needle pierced and entered into her right forearm, her body suddenly stopped moving. Lifeless eyes stared blankly at Hanakawa who was smiling while watching her slowly die inside.

“It was the only way to prevent the curse from happening to me. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me someday.”

As the psychotic Hanakawa left the room, she used her phone to make a call privately at the staircase.

“Yes, hello? It’s me. I have the body ready for you.”