Tsukihime is property of Type-Moon. Any additional references belong to their respective companies.

Chapter 5: Timeout

*-*-*

There was practically an inquistion going on the next morning. The adults were gathered around the remains of the monster, keeping the area cordoned off. It seemed they had some sort of way of breaking it down to try and trace whoever had attacked, but it was messy.

No one wanted to get potentially toxic fluids on a child, so they were all trapped inside the dorm. Some of the more bored students had peered out the windows, but had nearly puked. One especially sensitive girl had to be taken upstairs, hand held the whole way.

Many bowed out within ten minutes.

A few stayed out of sheer morbid curiosity.

Turned out that Ms. Gima was something of an insect lover. The young woman was practically pulling out her hair. She stormed up and down the body of the insect, furiously pointing out something wrong whenever she saw it.

"That isn't right!" She shouted. "Why- Why did they do that to you?!"

The first person that had just mentioned 'magecraft' in a dismissive way had practically been throttled.

"Geez," Chiyo stepped away from the windows. "I better get back and see how the others are doing."

Sayoko was limping away from Christina and Hana, both of the second floor's Resident Assistants looking peeved. Looked like neither of them could get anything out of Sayoko about the truth. Hana stormed away towards the break room; Christina blew out a puff of sand as she gazed sharply at the younger girl's back.

"Guess they're in trouble?" Chiyo asked Sayoko.

"I don't know what it has to do with me," She scratched her cheek, the patch there covering her bruises. "They should go yell at the bug."

The older girl was pretty thick.

"Miyako and the other two are talking to the principal." The younger girl shrugged. "We're the only ones they can vent on now."

"I wish I could command a bug army," Sayoko dreamily mused. "I could get all the honey I could ever eat."

Chiyo shifted in place awkwardly.

*-*-*

To say Hee-joon Jui-en was a stocky man was like saying the ocean was wet. Or you could call the principal of Sadatoyama Private Academy a mountain with a perpetual five o'clock shadow dusting his harsh cheeks. His presence made the mahogany grain desk in front of him look thin, like a piece of cardboard that could be snapped over your knee.

Hisui looked down, squatting a little while testing her knees.

"Congratulations, Ki-ha; you've managed to succeed. I was expecting to have to order a hearse. Keep it up, at this rate you will soon graduate to disappointment." He rumbled, nodding at his son. The man ignored his son's dark expression, leveraging himself up to greet Hisui. Hee-joon's palm pressed hard against the grain of his desk, causing the entire thing to creak in protest. "Good morning, Mistress Tohno, my apologies for last night's occurrences."

Hisui leaned towards her cousin.

"I... that wasn't your fault," She said, uneasy around his presence. "Or your son's fault either, sir."

The younger Jui-en looked at Hisui.

"That so?" Hee-joon grunted. "Still, an assassin got dangerously close to you."

Hisui gripped her arm, nodding.

"We need to come up with a plan of attack-" Hee-joon started to say.

"They did," Miyako cut to the heart. "And you seem awfully helpful."

The principal turned beady eyes on her.

"What are you implying, child?" He softly asked. "Be mindful with your words..."

Miyako scowled.

"I think this is a set up; Your son showed up at the night of the attack, his girlfriend befriended Hisui long beforehand, and neither of you two seem especially worried or surprised by what happened last night!"

"Miyako!"

Hisui shot the girl a look, afraid that she might've said too much.

Miyako shook her head, acknowledging Hisui's surprised look with a look.

"They need to tell us where they stand, Hisui." The younger girl said, crossing her arms. "Shiki left me with you to protect you."

Ki-ha jumped to his father's defense.

"Master Tohno was out of the door practically the moment he left Mistress Hisui to our care! We didn't even have a chance to meet with him!"

Miyako ignored the son in favor of the father, staring at him accusatorily.

Hee-joon laughed.

"Nothing in this world is given away," The principal ambled around his desk, a metallic sound ringing with his steps. "You are right to be suspicious of our aid in a situation like this."

He stood up carefully, one pantsleg conspicuously unfilled.

"Walk with me, daughters of Tohno." Hee-joon gestured at the eastern wall. "This crippled man shows you no ill-will, and you both can easily outrun me if I do."

His son nodded, walking over towards a globe stand flanked by a triad of chairs in the other corner of the room. Ki-ha pressed down on a small portion of the globe. In response, a bookcase on the wall swung open with a clicking noise.

Hee-joon walked past the bookcase and into a hall behind it.

Ki-ha offered Hisui a strained smile, stepping back from the globe. He seemed to be heading towards the door out of the office.

"Good day."

"Where are you going?" Miyako asked. "Going to beat your girlfriend some more?"

Ki-ha glared at Miyako, slamming the door shut behind him.

"You didn't need to do that..." Hisui sighed, feeling confused about the younger man.

The younger girl shrugged, her feelings more clear cut.

"Daddy issues left, but what if he tries to do something while we got our backs turned? I don't like the fact they didn't say anything to Shiki, either. They must have known something was up." Miyako insisted. "What do you think, Hisui? Should we follow? I'll leave it up to you."

Hisui bit her lip.

*-*-*

Ki-ha leaned against the front of the door, closing his eyes.

"Your father was kind," Sayoko asked him. "I'm happy for you, Ki-ha."

He looked at her, standing on the other side of the secretary's desk.

"How do you know?" He wondered, slightly accusatory.

"You're not frowning."

Ki-ha touched his lips, causing Sayoko to smile at him.

"Where's Miss Hye?" He asked, to try and get the topic away from himself.

"Chiyo distracted her." Sayoko briefly glanced at the empty chair, walking around the desk towards him. "She's good at throwing her voice."

Ki-ha furrowed his brow.

"Really good." She insisted in a low voice. "She made it sound like an ambulance outside."

Ki-ha held up a hand, preventing Sayoko from drawing any closer. He had to clear things up. If only for the sake of his own understanding, if nothing else.

"Why'd you let me enter your territory?" He sternly started. "What sort of woman would keep her faith in a man that abused her?"

"You always want to help."

He scoffed.

"That's stupid."

"You kept Ah from doing anything to me." Sayoko looked aside, playing with a lock of her hair. "I don't think it's so stupid."

Ki-ha grunted, nudging past her.

A shadow crossed Sayoko's face.

"Thank you for saving us." She lightly bit on her lower lip. "I'll always believe in you."

Ki-ha stopped walking. Then he raised a hand and waved. His head was a little higher on the way downstairs.

*-*-*

Julia Hye was feeling hotheaded as she stomped down the first floor. The short woman was gathering up a head of steam by the moment, bullishly pushing past a few students despite being shorter. She shuddered as she heard a wet, pulpy noise come from the bottom of her shoes again. The secretary looked down at her feet, adjusting her round glasses in the process.

Nothing.

A giggle could be heard.

She'd already wasted the last ten minutes on a wild goose. Whoever was leading her on had directed her on a looping course. It eventually lead her outside, but not before thoroughly wasting her time.

She heard her drinking partner, Mana Gima, call out to her through the open window facing the courtyard, stopping her in her tracks.

"Don't get so mad!" The teacher was smiling at her. "It was just a silly prank."

A few of the men dissecting the insect chuckled, making the secretary fume.

Hye's glare took care of the last few kids lingering in the hall.

"Don't encourage them! This is a sick prank, especially considering that beast just attacked! I really thought that thing had cursed me." Julia threw her body into a whipping motion of her arms, gesturing fearfully at the corpse of the monster. "Before too long they'd try to steal the school's mascot and string it up on the front yard!"

She wrung her hands at the thought.

"Why would anyone want to curse you? You're practically our second mascot, Hye! Everyone loves the fact you'd fit inside a carry on bag at airports!" One of the other female teacher's laughed, but it had a little edge.

Julia scowled, it wasn't her fault she had a touch of the fey.

If anyone said she had more than a touch, she'd whop them one.

"No one would do that to Norita-kun either." Mana assured her with a steady voice. "Beavers are nature's builders."

"It's a slippery slope!"

The secretary exclaimed.

"We're all young once." Mana sighed. "You don't want to be the kind of petty adult that'd hunt down a kid for doing a harmless joke, right?"

Julia fell silent.

"Riiight?" Mana stared at Julia.

"It was a stupid prank." Julia pouted.

"You need a hobby." Mana declared, before turning to bark out an order. "Don't touch that! We don't know if it'll explode! I don't want to be covered with curses, do you?!"

The biology teacher who had been thoughtfully feeling up a oily gland dropped it, trying his best to look innocent.

"I got my eye on you, Romero." Mana warned, giving him the stink eye. "Anyway, just chill out, Julia."

Romero leapt into the conversation.

"I can distract you by taking you out on a date, Hye!"

"No."

Romero drooped miserably, sinking up to his knees in the earth.

*-*-*

The straight hallway gave way to a descending staircase.

"My family was given the sacred duty to protect the students that live at this school," Hee-joon kept a hand on the wall as he led the way. "I had never thought the day would come I would have to use the tools your family gave us against my own clansmen."

Hisui recalled the foreign teachers and students she had seen in the halls.

"Why?" Miyako demanded. "What did Hisui do to them?"

Hisui could guess.

"It's because I'm human, isn't it?" The redhead prodded. "They found out, didn't they?"

Hee-joon stopped walking, keeping his back towards both Tohno women.

"Yes and no. We came across your ...circumstances by accident. My family had been looking for a way to overthrow Master Shiki."

Miyako tensed, ready for a fight.

"So you really are an enemy?" She asked. "I should've figured it out when you showed us your secret door!"

Hee-joon's laughter bounced and splashed against the stones, stirring him into motion as he walked ahead of the schoolgirl.

"No, child, he's the truest Demon Lord I've seen since Makihisa."

Miyako glanced back at her cousin, befuddled.

"What does he mean?" She asked, completely lost.

Hee-joon provided the answer.

"He's the strongest killer."

Hisui jolted, pushing past a stunned Miyako. Her brow furrowed and her lips thinned into a single line while she rapidly descending the steps to catch up. She grabbed hold of the man's shoulder.

"He's no murderer." She denied him. "Shiki is a kind man."

"And that's the problem," Hee-joon glanced over his shoulder. "Our people need strength, not kindness."

Miyako's lips puckered up, distaste turning her nose up.

"Our people need the strength of Tohno." He visibly double backed, shaking his head. "No, not strength..."

They walked out into a large open room.

From the stairs, they emerged into an wide, domed chamber of smoothly carved stone - more akin to something out of a fairy tale castle than a Japanese private school. There wasn't any visible electrical lighting, but at the center of the octagonal space, an eerie green glow emanated from the concentric circles of symbols carved into the slabs of the floor - illuminating the room.

Within the circles, there was an ugly, misshapen stone - or so Hisui imagined at first glance. On closer examination, it appeared to be carved in the likeness of a human heart - anatomically accurate to the diagrams she'd once seen in the books on human physiology Kohaku kept at her bedside.

From where the petrified organ sat, arteries began to extend outwards across the stone floor - following the grooves between the tiles until they hit the walls, and then climbing vinelike to the domed ceiling. There, they penetrated outwards through narrow crevices of the blocks - grotesquely pulsating with some sort of unseen fluid.

Hee-joon spun to face them.

"We need balance." He concluded. "We'll kill for it, if we must."

Miyako whipped her head, throwing her arms forwards.

"That doesn't make sense!" She shouted.

"You're too young to know our history," Hee-joon answered, letting her anger splash against him. "We were but mindless beasts, lost to the vices of our inner natures. We carousled through the night. We whored and slaughtered and glut ourselves on the feast of humanity spread before our tables. Then the original Tohno arrived from the old province of Mutsu."

He placed a hand on the heart.

Hisui could almost hear Kohaku speaking to her, as if she was still with her.

She shook her head, throwing the slight daze off.

"It was with 'balance' that our people, the half bloods of north-east Asia, were united. Their blood carried the purest echoes of greatness, the power of our great and abominable Ancestors. Yet they still had a iron grip over their humanity, unlike us half bloods. We could do nothing but bow our head before our superiors..."

Hisui's eyes flashed, remembering a curtain of fire spilling forth from Akiha's brow.

"They used the power to guide the half bloods," Hisui quoted, remembering steamy nights standing behind Akiha with Kohaku. "From there, they united the half bloods, and expanded."

"Lady Akiha would have been the greatest," Hee-joon's face fell. "She proposed for us to attempt to bring in half bloods of other lands here."

"Then just talk to Shiki!" Miyako spun between both of them, stuck between both of the older people. "Why did they have to attack Hisui?! The Tohno are the leaders, right? She's one, too!"

The man ran a hand across his left leg, only feeling fabric beneath his fingertips.

"Even the Tohno aren't above fault," Hee-joon declared. "Lord Makihisa's errors created the bastard that killed Lady Akiha-"

Hisui's lowered her head, completing the thought.

"They think Shiki is making the same mistakes."

Hee-joon looked past Hisui, more aptly through her, and towards the staircase for a moment.

"In this generation, Lord Shiki has chosen to ignore the considerations of his forebears to serve his sentimentality." He agreed, as if it didn't necessarily concern him. "It's been agreed among the elders of the clans that Lord Shiki singularly holds the potential to captain the advance of our people."

Miyako tensed.

"You better," Her breath burst out in a shout. "Not finish that thought!"

"However, certain parties feel that his 'lapses' must be corrected." Hee-joon stopped speaking at them, eyes refocusing on Hisui herself. "Lapses like yourself, Lady Hisui."

He dug into his pocket, fumbling with a knife before dragging out a line of blood from his palm.

Hee-joon swapped his hand across it. The slathered layer of blood soaked into the stone. It trembled, dust shaken off its surface with a deep shudder. The room sympathetically quaked as well, causing both girls to sway as they lost their balance.

Vines burst out of the ground, swarming and wrapping around the heart.

A steady thudding, pumping noise started up from the depths of the earth.

The glow of the carved circles shifted from viridian to crimson red.

"What's going on-" Miyako demanded, scrambling to stand next to Hisui. "Did you show your real colors?!"

Hisui followed the principal's gaze towards the stairs.

A bloodied schoolgirl leaned against the side of the entryway, staring at her plaintatively.

"Sayoko?" Hisui started, but was halted by Miyako's firm grip.

Hee-joon laughed, smiling at Miyako's awareness.

"We have more rats in our midst than I expected," He wrapped his wound up with a napkin. "It's time I clear our home of its infestation."

Sayoko's expression went dark, standing up straighter. From her pocket, she took out a wickedly curved knife. The fresh coating of blood on it made Hisui's heart jump to her throat.

"Sayoko...!" Hisui yelped, hauled back by Miyako.

The named girl smiled at Hisui over Miyako's shoulder.

It wasn't kind.

"I'll be done with those children before the Lords' Heart finishes casting me out." A male voice came out of the girl's mouth, devoid of any sympathy. "Step away before I'm forced to deal with you again, Jui-en."

The principal took a step forwards, cracking his knuckles.

"So it's revenge, is it?" The assassin wondered, "That's fine too."

*-*-*

It wasn't actually Sayoko.

The true nature of the attack began to dawn on Hisui when a second iteration of her friend abruptly manifested - shimmering with bands of electronic snow like a broadcast from an analogue television.

Then, there was a third; and then a fourth; and then, simply many.

"Bunshin no Jutsu?" shouted Miyako, desperately fending off the duplicates. "Since when was Mihara a ninja?"

"She isn't," said Hee-joon. He pulled out a small rod from within suit. He caught one of the knives, turning the blade aside. The metal bent while the wood of his weapon held firm. "This is just an extension of her Territory. She has the ability to imprint her existence into media. The clones aren't actually around you. They're being projected directly into our minds through the speaker broadcast."

Miyako swayed around one of their sloppy attacks.

"They sure as hell feel solid for illusions," said Miyako, delivering a vicious upper-cut. "She was a traitor all along?"

"This isn't Sayoko," said Hisui, tightening the grip of her fists. "She's being controlled somehow..."

Hee-joon laughed.

"That's how he got the drop on me decades ago, yes." The principal had a bitter glint in his eyes. "He knows what to use against his targets."

"Well spotted," said the assassin, speaking through the lips of all of the Sayokos at once. "She a weapon to employ against you and a good hostage."

Hisui glanced at Hee-joon, noticing how stiff his expression was at the moment.

He caught her look.

"It happened to me, too." He nodded at his leg. "I was too sentimental."

Miyako's crushing blow pinned one of the doppleganger's to a wall, and causing it to crumble on top of the attacker seconds later.

"We can't stay down here forever! She's going to swarm us at this rate. Everyone, run this way, hurry!" She waved, pointing towards the staircase.

Hisui started to move, but Hee-joon caught her hand. Before she could say anything, he pressed her palm squarely on the Lords' Heart. A thick coat of ash came off on her hand, causing her to look at him strangely.

"Hurry," He said. "There's still time for your friend."

"But-" She started.

"Just run!" He boomed. "Don't look back!"

Hee-joon pushed Hisui towards her friend, moving as rearguard while the girls ran up the stairs.

A visible distortion flowed out between the bricks, reforming Sayoko's image. She was rejoined by pulped versions of herself. Their damage looked visibly worse, but it was already healing.

"Oh, that's new, Hee-joon!" One of the Sayoko cooed. "Are you adopting the barbarian's habits, too?"

Another unpleasantly laughed.

"You're playing at being yama?" She mocked, running her hand against her forehead. "You might accidentally send this host to take my spot in hell, instead!"

A third eyed her bent knife distastefully.

"I'll have settle to ripping your throat off with my bare hands this time."

"I'm willing to carry that weight." Hee-joon said. He struck the wall with the rod. A haze of demonic might swept out from the heart, catching the entire room in its blast radius. Immediately, a piercing wail erupted from the walls. Lamentations and desperate curses rose from the floors, walls, and descended form the ceiling.

"Make it stop!" They shrieked. All the Sayoko shrieked in agony, falling to their knees. One by one the images dispersed, unable to hold their form. The survivors huddled together, covering one of them with their bodiess. Invisible claw marks ripped chunks out of their bodies, dispering them into clumps of shadow substance that dissolved into static. "What did you do, Hee-joon?!"

Hee-joon stood firm, but blood began to ooze out from his ears.

"My, you've steeped yourself in wickedness, haven't you?" He laughed shakily, sweat pouring from his brow. "This would just have been debiliating to you once, Wei."

The surviving Sayoko lunged at him, with maddened eyes and clawing fingers as she went for his throat.

Hee-joon was feeble in his stance as well, so it was all he could do to meet her charge.

"Go to hell!" Wei roared, spittle flying. "You supremist pig!"

They grappled like frenzied animals, the curses flying around them whittling both their titanic strength enough to make it a stalemate.

"You first!" Hee-joon answered, throwing the animal off him with a shout. "You're not laying a hand on Hisui Tohno."

The assassin shook his head, coming back to himself.

"Hisui?" Pain induced madness fled from his eyes. "Dammit!"

Hee-joon hobbled forwards, but his leg was knocked out from under him by the sudden materialization of another copy of his student. A third smashed the side of his head with a dazing kick. He answered their attacks with crushing blows of his rod, breaking them into nothing. More of them dove on top of him, raining blows on him.

Wei shook his head.

"I'll present her skull to you before the day is over, Hee-joon!"

His form winked out, joined by the others that were assaulting the principal.

The man rolled onto his side, wheezing for breath. He spit out a tooth. His face was entirely swollen on an entire side, and he seemed to be favoring his left ribs when he tried and failed to sit up.

"Fool," Hee-joon laughed, liking what he saw. "You should've killed me when you had the chance."

Red strands of hair were rising from the fluid spreading out from the heart.

A single voice, young and female rose from the din of the throng of curses.

"Hisui." Akiha Tohno whispered. "Hisui?"

Voices wailed.

"Kohaku and I are so lonely here..."

*-*-*

The stairway felt longer going up than it had when they had descended. It felt like they had already passed that electric torch three times. The unpleasant paranoia dogging them the whole way up made it feel much more claustropic too.

Especially when a Sayoko had literally walked through a wall to attack them.

"Do you think principal is okay?" Hisui asked. "There were lots more Sayoko back there."

Miyako was limping a little from a bad call, so was a bit short of breath and patience.

"Worry about yourself first!" She snapped.

Hisui's expression went timid, but then her lips firmed.

"Miyako! He's a friend!" She barked, stern. "Shiki taught you better."

The younger girl winced, holding her hand up.

"Sorry, but he's fine. Gramps is holding them back. He's okay. Otherwise we'd be dealing with way more of them. Guy is really strong, really." Miyako bunny hopped over a pair of arms, bouncing off a wall and coming back in a spectacular elbow drop that crushed the head that was rising from the ground. Whatever the Sayoko image was made out of spread thick against the shattered steps.

Hisui didn't point out that Miyako was babbling. She didn't want to make her cousin panic. More than she obviously already was, from the way she was excessively wiping at her face.

It now made the redhead feel guilty too.

Miyako helped Hisui over the steps, while offering some contrary advice.

"Just stay behind me, but within arms reach. I need to be able to grab you at any time, but you'll get caught if they get past me. Why aren't they attacking from the floor?"

Hisui tried to calm her down.

"Magic?" The older girl guessed. "The air feels lighter, compared to how it was in the basement."

"Don't ask me the specifics," said Miyako. "I don't know them any better than you. You can sort of just assume that it's like demonic abilities, except that instead of biological instinct, it's intentionally and artificially produced."

The smaller girl warily kept her eyes to any open areas where an enemy might appear - obviously unused to dealing with literal swarm of opponents.

Hisui wanted to comment that she'd picked up enough self defense to protect herself somewhat, but it felt as if making the comment would disrupt Miyako's focus. Then again, she doubted that the little she had learned from Shiki could handle this sort of scenario. It would be like demanding to be allowed into an olympic meet when she had only practiced for a month.

The door came into view after several more attacks.

"There!" Miyako's eyes lit up.

Both of the girls bolted out from the staircase, wary expression on their faces. They shared a grim look when they saw the body of the secretary on the ground. Hisui moved forwards, but was halted by Miyako. The younger girl shook her head once.

Priorities.

"Where's the AV room?" Hisui reluctantly asked.

"Follow me!"

*-*-*

The Tohno girls didn't so much burst into the room as stride past a shattered frame and door. There was already a confrontation going underway, with the younger Jui-En being swarmed by copies of Sayoko. The real one was standing on the far side of the room, shaking her head over and over. She was hunched over the controls to the school's public announcement systems, gripping the controls.

Miyako went into action, hopping over a desk and cold clocking one of the clones with all her strength.

Her fist punctured the chest of the clone, and it burst apart, dissipating into a mist of video static. As the last of its limbs unraveled, three more clones manifested - advancing upon Miyako from all sides.

'Curses are without limit,' Hisui recalled Miss Akiha saying, once. 'They are without sense, and without restriction. This is their nature.'

Brute force wouldn't allow them to save Sayoko.

"Sayoko!" Hisui called out. "It's me, Hisui!"

Miyako's eyes flicked over towards her. The younger girl must have seen something she liked in Hisui's stance. Miyako turned away from Hisui and back towards their attackers.

"That killer did something to you." Hisui continued, knowing she had Miyako's support. "I don't know what it was. It must have been painful. It has to be something unnatural."

Miyako slammed an elbow through one of the many angry faces Sayoko was showing them. Miyako swept two legs clear off the body of another. Miyako couldn't stop until Hisui got through to her friend.

"Are you afraid?" The redhead asked. "Will he do something worse if you don't do this?"

Miyako stomped the ground hard, causing three of their attackers to lose their balance.

"It doesn't have to be like this, Sayoko." Hisui kept pleading. "Let me help you."

Miyako stepped into one of the clones' guards, slamming her halfway across the office with a palm strike.

"Just like you helped me before."

*-*-*

More and more kept coming, taxing Miyako's reflexes. It was impossible to stop a tide only with her small body. They were going to break through to Hisui and kill her.

Miyako stepped into the guard of the schoolgirl charging Hisui and slammed her nose into her skull.

This wasn't the self-defense that she'd been taught.

Miyako pulped a leg, rendering another attacker a non-issue.

It was desperate.

The small girl's punch pistoned into a throat.

It was sad.

Miyako was finally swarmed. Her limbs restrained, heavy bodies came down on her hard. She thrashed about, slamming into the crowd pinning her to the ground.

Physical strength was her only advantage, and now, against an opponent whose favored tactic was quantity over quality, it had failed her.

*-*-*

The legwork was there; the evasive lightfootedness that Sensei had repeatedly drilled into her at the start of her lessons, which she'd finally become confident in adopting of her own volition. Rather than merely holding ground per her training, however, Hisui was gradually advancing - somehow grasping the movements of the swarm of clones on instinct, and minimally adjusting her gait to sidestep the ever-evolving onslaught.

'I can dodge?' she thought, surprised. 'I can understand what they're saying.'

Miyako had long ago asserted that martial arts was a variety of nonverbal communication. Hisui hadn't really comprehended what she meant at the time, but she felt that now she was beginning to grasp it.

There was a certain grammatical logic to combat, defined in rhythm and motion trajectories and the occupation of space. Even if she couldn't yet parse any precise intentions or meaning, terrified resignation was blatant enough as an underlying theme to the clones' movements overall that it was impossible for Hisui to misread.

Her opponents weren't uniform in their behavior, but the majority weren't acting with the natural grace of a human being. There was something robotically clumsy about them - simplistic and excessively forceful, with unmeasured overcompensation in the followthrough. Were it really Sayoko controlling the replicas, Hisui couldn't imagine them behaving like this.

'It's not that I've improved,' thought Hisui. 'Rather, it's that they aren't very good at all ...'

But that wasn't correct either. If it were, Miyako and the others wouldn't have had so difficult a time.

'No, there's something familiar about this feeling,' Hisui thought, narrowly dodging a blow to the stomach, and casting a glance to the floor beside her.

Her eyes widened.

Extending from the soles of her shoes - or rather, extending toward - perfectly straight lines of blood trailed across the floor in parallel, sharply tracing an angular course from the basement stairwell like pathways on a circuitboard.

'This ... this is ...'

Hisui's inattention was punished. She was slammed into the ground by a thrown segment of the principal's desk. The countless shades cackled, but the one that had ripped off a portion of the desk stood behind the line of encoraching threats.

"So that's your ability?" Sayoko's face asked, but a man's voice came out of her mouth. "Simply mimicking your little friend's motions..."

Countless blows rained on the redhead, causing her to cry out.

"Won't save you."

The pain blossomed across her body - an accumulation of bruising strikes that overwhelmed her ability to properly think. But at the edge of her mind, just beyond the boundaries of her being, the voices were saying something:

They were here for her.

They would be here for as long as she needed them to be. This was her right by blood.

Hisui opened her eyes, glaring up at the replicas that crowded about her.

"I accept," she said.

The blood answered.

*-*-*

Hee-joon cursed his aging body as he stumbled away from the corpse of his old friend. His creaking bones and worn out joints struggled to carry him as quickly as they could, but he doubted he'd get to the Tohno girls in time. In his dying breath, Wei had sworn that his partner would take care of them, even if he couldn't do it.

"I've gotten sloppy," He muttered, using the wall as a guide. His arm uselessly dangled at his side. He hated getting old. "My time will be up soon."

Especially since someone would have to answer for the attack.

His nostrils filled with the familiar scent of metal and slight decay. Was he bleeding that profusely from his scrap with the assassin? He dreaded going into another fight this way.

His feet were suddenly moving thorugh something warm and vascous.

The principal glanced down.

Crimson surged upwards from the depths, bubbling and quickly overlaping at his ankles as it rose in a terrifying quickness.

It wasn't a flood.

The blood didn't behave as fluid ought to - swelling and climbing over all surfaces in a decidedly non-Newtonian movement. Dare he say - it seemingly grasped at the stone and pulled itself up. He saw dust fleck off the wall as the blood grabbed at it.

Coating his clothing in a dark crimson gloss, it advanced upwards along his limbs.

The candles along the walls were quickly snuffed out, plunging the room in darkness. The last thing Hee-joon saw was black hair and long, white grasping fingers. An incredible force pushed from down below, and he felt himself carried upwards with the blood.

The door to the basement made a high pitch creak as it was obliterated.

Blood surged out from behind the door, rich and thick enough to knock down the bookcases from the wall nearest it. Several of the copies of Sayoko were knocked off their feet. Hisui and Miyako were both dragged away from their attackers by the pull of the blood, their bodies sliding past legs and through grasping claws. The original Sayoko was dragged down beneath the fluid, her legs buckling beneath her from an irrestible pull at her ankles and thighs exerted below the surface.

Whatever control the assassin possessed over the original Sayoko's abilities were dimmed the second the girl was thoroughly pulled beneath the blood.

A full half of the Sayoko copies stopped dead in their tracks, puppets cut free from their strings. Others started stumbling around drunkenly in the blood, looking quite a sight like victims from a mass murder. The few replicas that were still in the midst of sluggishly pursuing the two Tohno girls ripped free from their grasp were unceremoniously lit ablaze.

The blood that splashed against the bodies of the attackers fell away to reveal crimson strings - and though the clones hadn't so far exhibited any response to pain, they screamed now as their bodies decohered with video static, catching aflame from their extremities.

The assassin stared at the tabeleau, aghast from the sudden shift in dynamics.

Then it stopped mattering.

*-*-*

The school was in an uproar for the next week, classed canceled for the duration while hazmat teams swept through the administration ward. Security teams were constantly surveying the hallways. Armed men and women swept through the forest alongside the edge of the buildings.

It didn't particularly have an effect on two adults, steeped as they were in their own feelings of anxiety.

The principal's secretary, an American woman with icy eyes, was hurriedly rushing through the halls puffing out bits of fog.

A young man trailed close behind her, practically stepping on her ankles every other step.

The following day, Hee-joon's secretary had the dubious pleasure of guiding the leader of her society to his wife and sister's bedsides.

"I can assure you that we'll be doing our utmost to punish the ones that hurt Lady Tohno," She babbled. "The assassin's corpse will even be reanimated if we must, so that their employer faces justice."

"Yes, you do that." Shiki Tohno nearly bit the hapless secretary's head off. "Be quiet."

"...quiet a mouse." She squeaked.

Shiki sighed, glancing at the folder he had been given by the staff. A clip held a picture onto the front, like some sort of sacrifical offering for his growing frustration. The man that had hurt his remaining family had suffered quiet a bit before he died, hadn't he?

He recognized the crimson strings that ran through and coiled around the mummified corpse in the image.

Origami.

But it wasn't the original Origami, at the same time...

"We're here, sir."

Shiki snapped out of his thoughts, as the door was opened by the uneasy looking woman. He brushed past her, walking into a cleanly lit nurse's room. His sister was sleeping in a bed to the right, looking a sight as a mass of bruises covered her entire face. Her side of the room had several chairs arrayed around her bed, and a large bear was resting on the ground next to her bed.

He turned to the left.

His wife's bed only had two chairs next to it, one which was occupied by a sleeping teenage girl.

Hisui was sitting straight up in her bed. The redhead had a split lip that had recently been tended to from the sheen on it, and her left eye was swollen enough that it was completely shut. The other one was a little glassy, probably from whatever medications she was being given. That glassiness went away as she focused on him, and she smiled a tiny, painful smile. One that the old Hisui would never have made in her old life.

"Hisui," He uneasily said her name, stepping towards her. "How... are you feeling?"

Hisui glanced at the folder in his hand.

"Not as bad as it did," She answered. "I got a shot for the pain, but I feel fuzzy."

Shiki uneasily nodded.

The bruising discolored splotches of Hisui's exposed skin, and he couldn't help but clench his jaw. He'd hoped that she would be able to learn to better protect herself, but this wasn't an outcome that he'd anticipated. The academy was supposed to have been a safe place, away from actual danger - an environment of muted adversity for Hisui to prove herself within before facing the trials of society at large.

'But it's better that this happened now, rather than later,' whispered a traitorous part of his mind. 'It's better that it happened while I still have the capacity to protect her.'

And it was true. Given the nature of his health and his status, it was equally probable that he would die soon as it was that he would survive to see grandchildren. The future couldn't be anticipated.

He lingered far from her bed, unsure whether to approach. She took the choice out of his hands, reaching out with her free hand towards him. Hisui took his hand before he could even really sit down next to her, gripping it tightly with trembling fingers.

Hisui had been able to defend herself. Regardless of her injury or suffering, this was a good thing. It really was a good thing, it had to be...

"I'm alright," Hisui said, looking though him. "Really."

Her hand's trembling ceased, and she reached up and cupped his cheek.

"If you get worked up over this, you might faint again." She whispered. "Remember what Sensei said?"

She was still warm.

Shiki forced himself to smile.

"Worry about yourself," He replied.

"But I already have you to worry about me," said Hisui. "Clearly, my job is to worry about you."

Shiki closed his eyes, taking in the warmth of her skin against his own. He wanted to apologize; to tell her that his decision had hurt her; that it was his fault. He wanted to explain his intentions - but the words wouldn't come.

"A relationship can't be a relationship if it's only one-sided, Shiki-san."

He opened his eyes.

"What?"

"You're working hard," said Hisui. "I can tell."

The light in her eyes was resolute, despite her medication.

"You aren't the only one who has to work hard." She shook their joined hands a little. "I'll never rest on my laurels again."

She took a breath, struggling to get her thoughts out in a rush.

"And even if you were alright with me being a burden, I'd never let myself become one as your wife."

Shiki stared at her, at a loss.

"I love you," He blurted.

"Of course you do," said Hisui. "Lady Akiha and sister told me so."

She surprised him with an impish smile.

"But I love you so much more."