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'Your heart's strength is measured by how hard it holds on. Your self worth and faith is measured by finally letting go. However, your peace is measured by how long you don't look back'
— Shannon L. Alder

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"This place is so creepy..." Chiaki noted, gulping hard as the three paced through the hollow hallways.

"It is," Atsushi agreed, his eyes shifting around.

It was fairly bright with the dim lights shining above them but it was still dark enough to get lost in. They stepped in small puddles of water as they passed, the eeriness of the place rubbing them the wrong way.

"There's a room over there," Kazuma spoke after a long while of silence and the three came to a halt.

Looking at what the black-haired teen had pointed at, the three approached a far room at the end of the hallway.

"What kind of room is this...?" Chiaki inhaled a deep breath before cautiously pushing open the door. Before she could walk inside, Atsushi gently held her in place and entered in first, Kazuma following. When they all went inside, they were immediately shrouded by the darkness. "It's dark..." Chiaki murmured, feeling antsy as she inched closer to the two boys.

"There should be a light around here," Atsushi said. He slipped away from the two as he began patting down the wall for a switch.

"Be careful," Chiaki called after him, not daring to follow in his footsteps. "Agh, if only our phones were working..."

"The mastermind took that into account when he invited us here," Kazuma stated, his low tone catching Chiaki off guard. "What's important is to stay on our guard. We can pretend that this is a game but he's not. He's out to kill us. And in this darkness he has the upper hand."

A lump formed in Chiaki's throat and it made it hard for her to swallow. This was a dire situation. They couldn't afford to take this lightly. Any one of them could die at any...

She shook her head, ridding the thought. No. She couldn't think that. They were all going to live. No matter what.

Atsushi's sudden scream interrupted the teen's thoughts and gave her a heart attack. She screamed also while Kazuma was on alert.

"Atsushi?" he called.

"Ah!" he cried out again. Just then, a flood of light filled the room, momentarily blinding them. When their eyes adjusted by them squinting, the first thing they saw was a smiling Atsushi. "I found the light switch!"

From halfway across the room, Atsushi stood perfectly fine. Chiaki's voice was stuck in her throat as she released a relieved exhale. Kazuma glowered.

"Don't scream like that!" he yelled, standing up appropriately with a huff.

Atsushi immediately clasped his hands over his mouth, looking apologetic. "O-Oh, I'm sorry."

"Let's whisper," Chiaki said in a low hush as she studied the room they were in.

It was a bedroom with a queen sized bed in the center, draped with black bedsheets and blanket. Dressers stood at the far back of the room with creepy porcelain dolls decorating the tops, and the black and purple carpet that they were stepping on had many swirls and unidentified drops of red mixed into the colour.

"What's with all this black?" Chiaki asked slowly as she attempted picking up the porcelain doll. The wide green eyes and ceramic texture made her pull back immediately. She always hated those things. "And dolls?"

"I wonder whose room this is," Atsushi agreed, easily grabbing the porcelain doll. "It's fairly well kept so it's as if somebody sleeps here."

"Somebody probably does," Kazuma stated. "But what kind of abandoned warehouse has a room like this?"

Nobody had anything to say. It was obvious this was a girl's room. But if it was, and they were currently in the mastermind's headquarters, there was only one possible female it could be.

Atsushi was a little jittery at the thought as memories flooded to his mind. About his brother, Yasuo, and his upperclassman's face.

Inhaling a deep breath, he staggered forward until he caught sight of something at the corner if his eye. As he turned towards it, he blinked, ambling up to the door. "Is this a closet...?"

Atsushi put his hand onto the doorknob and as he began twisting it, a click was heard.

Kazuma and Chiaki's heads snapped to Atsushi when the click reached their ears and their hearts stopped.

"No!" Chiaki screamed but it was too late. A huge cleaver from the ceiling came hurtling down to the ground in a split second. Chiaki's hands slapped over her mouth as she suppressed a horrified whimper.

No... no way...

"Idiot!"

Chiaki's heart that had stopped began pounding again and she hesitantly peered over the large bed. What she saw caused tears to roll down her face.

Kazuma lay over the paralyzed Atsushi, heaving hard. He clenched his teeth as he punched his head. "Be careful! Do you want to die?!"

Atsushi couldn't even muster words as he moved his quivering mouth, most likely from the shock.

"Y-Your..." he muttered, eyes as wide as saucers. Chiaki was sobbing and that only proved that what he was seeing wasn't a nightmare. "Y-Your arm..."

Kazuma seemed to feel numb to the pain as he craned his head towards Chiaki.

"Find something you can chop it off with."

Chiaki was frozen as she couldn't pry her gaze away from the bloodied mess. Kazuma's arm was sliced by the cleaver and was indented into the ground along with the blade. From his elbow and down he was bleeding like crazy while his other arm wrapped over Atsushi protectively.

"Hurry!" Kazuma shouted, jolting the redhead. "It's a goner anyway!"

Chiaki couldn't withhold her whimpers. "B-But... I-I can't..."

"Upperclassman Kurosaki..." Atsushi murmured, not being able to move.

Shoving Atsushi forward, Kazuma clambered upright and began tugging on his arm. After the umpteenth tug, Kazuma's arm ripped out from underneath the cleaver and he breathed heavily.

He grabbed his shoulder tightly as he woozily got up to his feet.

"Kurosaki!" Chiaki exclaimed rushing up to him. "You have to get to the hospital right away! Y-Your arm... i-it's...."

"The mastermind is right in front of us." Kazuma's words held the teen in place. "We promised we would all meet up in the middle. We cannot run like this. I won't run. Until he's brought down, I will remain here."

Chiaki's eyes flitted onto his sleeve shoulder, biting her lip. "B-But..."

As Chiaki began to feel queasy at the sight of all the blood soaking through the fabric, it caught her off guard to see sparks erupt as well. She blinked rapidly, trying to process the odd jolts of electricity leaving his arm. She even rubbed her eyes.

Kazuma, who had been watching this unfold, quickly unhanded his shoulder. "It's fake blood," he assured her. "And that's a prosthetic arm."

Chiaki's eyes had grown super wide. "H-Huh..."

"The scientists had decided to add a bag of red dye for a more real affect in case this ever happened," Kazuma explained, lifting his collar and revealing the metallic shoulder of his.

"H-Huh..." Chiaki couldn't believe her eyes. "Y-Your—"

"I'll explain later." Kazuma already had his only hand on the doorknob and already was prying it open. "Let's head inside."

"No!" Chiaki's shout was too late because Kazuma already entered inside. She raced after him. "W-Wait, l-like that cleaver—"

Without warning, Kazuma halted in the middle of the brightened room. Chiaki nearly collided into him if she didn't stop in time. Baffled, she stared up only to see a jaw-dropped Kazuma. Eyed wide, she averted her attention onto what he was gawking at only to be hit with the same amount of shock.

"I've been waiting for you guys~"

The purple-haired female of the past Student Council sat in front of a huge shelf filled with many life-sized figurines. In the chairs beside her sat a red-haired female dressed up in frilly clothing, a brown-haired green-eyed girl dressed the same, and a dirty blond wearing the leather jacket they knew all too well.

All at once, their blood ran cold.

They were familiar faces. They recognized the faces of their clubmates—their victims, their family—anywhere. And with their pale white complexions, they looked almost... dead.

Hitomi Watanabe smirked from ear to ear, propping a leg over her other one as she took a sip of tea.

"Your dear friends have been waiting for you too."

→☻☻☺☻☻ CRIME GAMES ☻☻☺☻☻←

"Saya!"

Chiaki was just about to charge straight up to her sister's body when Kazuma held out his arm to stop her. "Don't!"

Chiaki wasn't in the mood to listen to reasoning. She struggled to get forward, her vision blurry with her tears. "Saya! Saya! Saya!"

"Chiaki!" Kazuma yelled but with his one arm, it was impossible to keep her restrained for long. The redhead pushed past him and barrelled up to her sister's body, kneeling down and sobbing.

"Wh-What is... m-my sister..." Chiaki was sobbing, her breathing hiked. Now getting a good glimpse of her up close, it was the face of her twin all right. But if it was how did she get here...? Wasn't she buried... in her grave...

"Like my collection, Chiaki?"

Chiaki's heart stopped as she slowly craned her neck to see the purple-haired senior gazing down on her in amusement from the seat beside her.

"You see, Tadashi allows me to indulge in my hobby." Hitomi smirked, a hand under her chin. "So after he kills somebody, he leaves their body for the police to find and once they're buried, he lets me dig them back up and add them to my collection. Things finish easier that way and we don't have to worry about the police."

Chiaki's eyes were as wide as saucers. "Tadashi...?" she repeated, her heart pounding. "You mean... Matsumoto?"

"Who else?" Hitomi's smirk broadened even more, amusement clear on her face. "Tadashi Matsumoto, the genius mastermind of this entire case—the one you guys have been trying to catch the whole time."

"What is the meaning of this, Hitomi?"

At the sudden yell, Hitomi turned towards the black-haired male and her face lit up considerably. "Ah, Kazuma! I didn't think I'd see you for a while!"

Kazuma clicked his tongue at her cheerful behaviour.

Hitomi smiled once she caught on to Kazuma's anger. Her eyes fell to his arm and she smiled. "It seems you fell victim to the trap. Your precious arm... how does that pain feel?"

Kazuma swallowed hard. "That—"

"Doesn't hurt, right?" Hitomi cut him off with a dismissive wave. "How unfortunate am I to have wounded the only person who wouldn't have suffered."

"How did you—"

"Know you were a cyborg?" Hitomi chuckled. "Is it really that surprising? Honestly, it makes sense to why I've never seen you smile. You're half-robot after falling victim to your father. Before Ayame Kobayashi came along, you were the one he constantly experimented on."

Hitomi's wicked smile right then made Kazuma's gut twist. Although he thought he knew everything about the girl before him, in that moment she was nothing but a stranger. She wasn't the enthusiastic, aggravating idiot that got him into plenty of situations. She was more twisted and sadistic...and way more aware than he ever believed.

At the corner of his eye, Kazuma caught sight of Chiaki tugging her sister's body away from Hitomi. Though, that backfired because Hitomi caught on without a second's delay. Latching her hand onto the dead Saya's hair, Hitomi reeled her back.

"Nu-uh, Chiaki. You can't try to escape with your sister," Hitomi tsked, pulling at Saya's hair some more. "You had your fun with her. Now it's my turn. She's a pretty corpse... And I do not want you ruining it."

Hitomi kicked at Chiaki but the redhead didn't relent. She winced and groaned, but her grip around her sister's waist didn't waver.

"Stop..." Chiaki grunted in between all the pain. "Give my sister... back. She didn't deserve this."

"Chiaki!" Kazuma cried, racing forward. Before he could dare approach, something was fired at him and he sidestepped just in time to dodge three knives that bounced onto the carpeted floor.

Wide-eyed, the black-haired male glared at Hitomi who held knives between every knuckle. Her chartreuse eyes were menacing. "I feel so hated when I only wanted to greet you guys," she drawled. "Tadashi did say to keep you alive until after I offered you tea but never mind. I'm killing you two—no, three."

From the crack between the doorway, Atsushi jolted when Hitomi made eye-contact with him. She kicked Chiaki one last time, and Chiaki finally lost her grip and recoiled back quite a bit. Chucking Saya's limp body to the side, Hitomi cackled.

"By the way, did you guys happen to like my new corpse? I found it earlier." Pointing in the direction where a dirty blond had his head hung, his school uniform sent disbelief coursing through them. "It's new so he still has some blood left on him, but it made me so happy that he let me kill him so easily." With a hand over her cheek, Hitomi giggled. "He knew he was dying so he let Atsushi escape so he wouldn't have to die too. He looked so heroic when he died like that. Made an upperclassman like me proud y'know~"

Atsushi was a mess by the doorway as his mouth fumbled for something to say. But with his eyes locked onto the dead body of the male he was always arguing with, he found it hard to breathe. He did this. He left Yasuo to die...and he didn't even realize it.

"But it doesn't matter," Hitomi stated, ambling slowly towards the black-haired junior of hers. "The dead will be dead. And the living are the only ones that can do what the dead can't."

Looking upwards, Atsushi's shrunken eyes were locked with Hitomi's. His heart was squeezing in his chest, his stomach doing countless amounts of flops. He couldn't move. All that he could stare at was Hitomi's cynical smirk.

"This will be one endless night for you guys," Hitomi stated, crouching down and lifting Atsushi's chin. "Watching your friends die one after another, withering and twisting as the three of us put you all through hell before you finally die... You chose the wrong people to mess with. Nobody can kill Tadashi. Even if you shoot him and managed to hit a vital spot, that wouldn't kill him. His legacy will be there, beckoning for humankind to come join his side..."

Simpering, Hitomi twirled a knife in her hand. Atsushi heard screams and yells coming from Kazuma and Chiaki but they were tuned out. When pain soared throughout his chest, he realized why. He felt his pulse weakening and the numbing pain from the dagger that had impaled him.

He collapsed on Hitomi's body, his breathing ragged. The girl tittered as she whispered in his ear, "It's your fault Kazuma got his prosthetic arm cut off. The reason Atori became a hitman. And it's because of your weakness, Yasuo suffered too. It must've been way more painful for him during his time of death than what you're going through right now. But don't worry, Atsushi. At least you no longer have the need to feel guilt. Death is a solitary place where you don't have to feel anything at all."

Atsushi slipped from Hitomi's fingers and hit the floor, his eyes rolled to the back of his head. All at once, a horrified scream erupted, coming from Chiaki. Kazuma was gawking as well, his senses numb.

"ATSUSHI!"