Author’s Note:

                Thanks so much for taking the time to enjoy this presentation of A Nightmare on Heart Street, fanfiction based upon the anime series ‘To Heart 2’!  I have a background in writing, but this is my first attempt at a project like this, so I’m really hoping people enjoy it.  I already have a sequel mapped out, but I’d prefer to see what sort of reaction this one gets, first.  It should go without saying, of course, that since this is ‘fanfiction’, which is an homage to an existing story by nature, that I (the author of this story) claim no ownership of nor rights to the characters, storyline, or other intellectual/physical property concerning ‘To Heart’, or ‘To Heart 2’.  Copyrights are the property of their respective owners, and no form of profit has been assigned to me in return for this work. I’ve only intended to create something fun and enjoyable for fans of the show, and I hope you all take it that way and enjoy it!

                Part one of this series takes place immediately following the events of the third OVA episode of To Heart 2, and I mean immediately, as in, the same night.  Because of this, I strongly suggest you’ve seen this episode before you read this story, as I didn’t take the time to go into a lot of background detail (I’m assuming you know the setting already from watching the show).  Here’s how I would break down my watching suggestions with regards to this story:

                OPTION 1:  If you’re a fan of the To Heart series (why else would you be reading a ‘fan’fic of it, ne?), there’s nothing more to say.  I just hope you enjoy this, and I hope I’ve made the characters as true to form as you’ve come to expect from all you’ve seen of them.

                OPTION 2:  If you want to understand all of the character interactions and nuances of this story, and be able to appreciate it on the level it was intended, you can get away without watching the original To Heart, or To Heart:  Remember My Memories, but be sure to have watched the To Heart 2 TV series first, then the OVAs.

                OPTION 3:  If you want to get an idea where these characters are coming from, at least watch the OVAs.

                OPTION 4:  If you’re just that desperate to dig right in, AT LEAST watch the third OVA episode.  I warn you, however, that a lot of the nuances are probably going to be lost on you if this is all you do, and the story probably won’t seem as good (assuming you would have otherwise found it good, which I can only hope).

                This story is based upon the anime vein of To Heart 2 only, and not the game.  Reason being, I’ve never played the game, heh.

                Annnnnyway, enough blabber.  I planned to include some basic Japanese cultural notes with this intro, but honestly, I didn’t want to clutter things up too much.  I figure if you’re reading this, you’ve probably watched enough anime or read enough manga by now to understand things like ‘-san’, ‘-chan’, ‘-kun’, ‘-sama’, ‘Aneki’, and et cetera.  I’m really not trying to be rude when I say that, so please don’t take it the wrong way, I just don’t want to write a monstrous set of notes in the beginning for the reader to have to muddle through before digging into the meat of this story.

                That said, welcome to A Nightmare on Heart Street!  >:)

A Nightmare on Heart Street, Part I:  “How True Beats Thy Heart?”

--By Misa Ryuuguu

- Chapter 1:  Aftermath in Festivus -

                “Ahhh…there now, hasty fortifications ala Yuji!”

                Yuji Kosaka stood up to his full height, and, taking out a handkerchief from his uniform pocket, liberally wiped his brow.  As his breathing began to return to normal, he stepped back, hammer in hand, admiring his own handiwork.  Several two-by-fours were sloppily attached to the entrance of the student council room, and the floor was littered with a few bent and otherwise ruined carpentry nails.  Placing his hands on his hips, Yuji grinned, beaming with pride as he gazed upon the fruits of his labor.

                Class President Sasara Kusugawa brushed past Yuji in his moment of glory, walking boldly up to the boards that effectively trapped the occupants of the room within.  Lightly placing her hand upon a diagonally placed one, she tested it with a gentle tug.  With a sharp popping noise, the twisted nails that held it ripped free from the wall, and the board clattered uselessly to the tiled floor below.

                “W-what do you think you’re doing!?”  Poor Yuji gaped at the short, busty blonde, with a look akin to a child whose sandcastle had just been kicked into oblivion.  “Those are my battlements you’re destroying!  Just whose side are you on, anyway!?”

                “If I can do that with a touch, Kosaka-san, then your ‘battlements’ aren’t exactly fit to protect the Emperor, ne?”  Passing her flabbergasted kouhai without so much as a glance, Sasara sighed, wandering back into the room proper.  She wasn’t in the mood to argue, and whatever complaint Yuji had just made in response to her sarcasm, it fell on deaf ears.  Folding her arms, she glanced around the room.

                Other than Yuji, the only other students she felt safe around were gathered here, and their number was painfully small.  Konomi Yuzuhara, the Freshman, sat in the same council chair she’d been in for the past two hours, and was just as catatonic as before.  Her magenta eyes were gazing in abject terror at the constant wringing action her shaky hands were inflicting upon her uniform skirt.  The only other occupant was Takaaki Kono, a Junior like Yuji, who at present was sitting with one leg propped on the room’s only windowsill.  His hammer was still loosely in his grasp, and he had taken to gazing out over the eerily silent track field as he took a needed breather. 

                Sasara felt a lump in her throat, and she swallowed hard a few times in a vain attempt to cut through the phlegm.  It had been an otherwise beautiful evening, and she recalled dancing without a care in that same courtyard only a few hours hence, with Takaaki no less.  At the time, they had both been trying to forget the hectic afternoon, which consisted of ensuring this years’ student festival went off without a hitch.  The entire student body had been out there with them, laughing and chatting, dancing about the bonfire in anticipation of tomorrow’s festivities.

                “Kusugawa-sempai,” Takaaki suddenly spoke up, his voice ominously hovering above a whisper as he continued to stare out the window, “…you don’t suppose Marianne-sempai planned all of this, do you?”

                Sasara wandered over to the window in a daze, knowing full well that question had been on Takaaki’s mind just as much as it had been on her own since they both awoke from a lazy nap in this same room a short time ago.  She didn’t respond.  She couldn’t respond.  Despite the evidence, she couldn’t allow herself to believe that her best and only true friend, Marianne, could have engineered the horrors they were now looking upon from several floors above.

                Still standing where it had been since the early afternoon was the huge statue Marianne had constructed for the bonfire that was meant to be held on the last day of the festival, not the night before.  It was an unrecognizable tree-shaped thing with a huge heart placed atop it, and dozens of strands of colored Christmas lights adorning it.  The students had jokingly dubbed the apex of the curious sculpture ‘love idol’, and it nearly came level with the third story window Sasara was now observing it from.  So many were the lights, that she could hear the low, hypnotic electrical buzzing even from where she stood.  It didn’t help of course, that those lights seemed to be enjoying the only live electrical feed in the entire school at the moment.

                “She did insist on locking the gates.”  Yuji walked over to the pair and joined them in their vigil over the weird thing outside.  “She just…insisted that the way the festival was planned, it was too boring.  She said there should be more ‘libido’…that’s how she put it, anyway.  And so, she constructed that thing and moved the bonfire to before the festival, in hopes it would, heh…loosen everybody up, I guess.”  He shrugged, stopping a few paces behind Sasara and not daring to come closer.  It was Yuji that had carted Marianne around the school grounds in the afternoon, and had indeed done his best to assist her in her plans, given he himself was often a slave to his own libido.  He’d already been chastised more than once for thinking with the wrong proverbial ‘head’, and he wasn’t particularly interested in hearing it all again.

                “We can’t just stay here hoping it will all blow over, you know.”  Takaaki stared down at the hammer in his hand.  Initially, he had gone along with the plan to barricade themselves in the council room and hopefully wait it out until the inevitable arrival of the authorities, but he had just blurted out the second of two realizations nobody in the room wanted to cope with.  “The last time they went by was a close call, and with all that sound you just made, Yuji, I’m sure we’re not gonna fall under the radar this time.”

                “Wha--?  Me!?  B-but, but Sasara-sempai, she was the one who…!!”

                “Knock it off!  Both of you!”  Sasara’s cold gaze went back and forth between the younger boys like a knife, and the two fell silent almost instantly.  It wasn’t so much that Sasara was outspoken, quite the opposite actually.  It’s just that neither of them could believe the usually demure girl was even capable of producing such a bellow.  “It’s not going to do any good to argue about it now, and there’ll be no more talk about getting caught by those…those things out there.  We tried, but it’s obvious we don’t have enough scrap materials from the class festival projects to stay safe in here.”  Sasara narrowed her eyes and put on a false mask of commanding officer’s contempt.  Inside however, she could feel herself quaking with fear, and she wondered if Takaaki and Yuji were really as calm and relaxed as they seemed.  She wanted to run screaming at random down the halls and make for the main gates, but she forced herself to match their demeanor.  She was a Senior, and the Class President as well.  It wouldn’t do for her to not take charge of the situation.  Her kouhai were counting on her, and fleeing into the night would be tantamount to abandoning them to their fate.

                “We…we need to get out of here.”  Sasara gazed out over the courtyard one last time.  She thought back, recalling when it sparkled with innocent pleasures, images of the dancing students against the backdrop created by tranquil flames.  She even remembered Yuji, a member of the council like herself and Takaaki, disturbing her sleep for a moment when he wandered in to join the two of them at rest.  Konomi had been with him, and though she wasn’t a member of the council, she had been running around all day tending to her class’ café project, and appeared equally in need of a quiet place to catch some rest.  Sasara knew her to be a good friend of both Takaaki and Yuji’s, so there certainly wasn’t a problem with it. 

They all had slipped back to sleep then, and when they awoke, the idol had gone from an amusement to a bastion of horrors.  Not a soul was in sight, and neither had anyone stirred out there for hours now.  There was enough blood splattered all over the place, however, so as to make each of them wonder if somebody was trying to put the bonfire out with the gruesome substance.  Whatever was wandering through the halls and periodically passing by their room, it walked on two legs, but it sniffed the air and grunted to its fellows in a bestial manner.  Sasara did her best to stuff the memories into the back of her mind as she turned her head towards Konomi.

                “Yuzuhara-san…?”  As expected, nothing but gentle rocking and staring at her lap in response.  Konomi was usually so bubbly and animated, but she’d been like that ever since she laid eyes on the scene outside.  Takaaki had been stern, trying to spare her the sight, but she was young and curious.  It couldn’t be helped.

                “Konomi…” Takaaki was at her side now, taking the seat next to her.  He placed his hand on her shoulder in an overly friendly way.  Sasara felt ashamed whenever she admitted to herself how jealous that familiarity had been making her.  She was told the two had an older brother/younger sister relationship since they were small children, but that didn’t make her feel any less disturbed by their friendliness.  Takaaki had a way about him.  A pleasant, sensitive demeanor that seemed to make girls fly to him like moths to the flame, and Sasara knew deep down inside that she had been caught up in it too, almost from the day she met him.

                “Is she any better?”  Sasara once again forced herself out of her reverie for the sake of her classmates.  She was the first to directly bring up the Freshman’s condition for some time.

                “Konomi?  It’s me, Takaaki.  Listen, nobody’s going to hurt you, okay?  I promise, as long as I’m around, everything’s going to be fine.”  Takaaki’s voice was like the cooing of a dove, and it sent shivers down Sasara’s spine.  She knew he couldn’t possibly know enough about the situation to make or keep a promise like that, but she wanted to believe him regardless.  Konomi suddenly drew her eyes up to his, the first movement she’d made in what seemed like forever.  Judging by that, she must be believing him, too.

                “That’s a good girl.”  Takaaki ruffled Konomi’s dark pigtails in a brotherly fashion, and Konomi offered him a weak smile of acknowledgement.  “We have to go now, okay?  Will you come with me?”

                “But…” Konomi’s voice was barely audible, “…aren’t the gates locked?  We’d never make it past them.”

                “Bah!  You just leave that to me!”  Yuji’s bold declaration sent brash ripples of testosterone coursing through the room, interfering with both Konomi and Sasara’s emotional moments.  “They don’t call me Yuji ‘The Spider-Man’ Kosaka for nothing!  I’ll get us out of here, no sweat!”  Yuji picked up a board and swung it through the air a few times like a baseball bat, grinning broadly, “And if anything weird happens, I’m a Ghostbuster, too!”  Both Takaaki and Sasara wanted to beat down his enthusiasm with another sarcastic comment, but neither dared, for fear that it might damage poor Konomi’s courage even further.

                “I-if Yuji-san can do it,” the light finally seemed to return to Konomi’s eyes, “th-then so can I!  I’m in!”  She fixed Sasara with a suddenly invigorated stare, even as Yuji was again left gaping, this time due to his precious masculinity being compared to that of a capricious, underclassman girl.  “What’s the plan, Class President-san?”

                “Well…”  Sasara took up a board of a somewhat smaller stature than the one Yuji had armed himself with, and swung it in a weak arc with one hand through the air around her.  “This will have to do, I guess.  We have flashlights, some tools, and these boards.  I don’t think any of us have heard any sounds out there for quite some time now, so with any luck, whatever was there is gone now.  Let’s just stick close together and tread lightly.  We should be fine, right?”  She punctuated her words with a weak, yet poignant smile, “everybody gather up anything we can use in the carpentry toolbelts laying around, and let’s get ready to go.”

                With that, Sasara’s elite cadre of would-be survivalists set about carrying out her orders.  She glanced around, silently beating back her fear like flames licking at her heart.  There was no choice but to  wonder how many of them, if any, would even make it to the main gates, much less over or through them.

A Nightmare on Heart Street, Part I:  “How True Beats Thy Heart?”

--By Misa Ryuuguu

- Chapter 2:  The Blind Heart Reading -

                So far, so good.

                Sasara began to feel a buildup of confidence from somewhere deep inside her, as the four of them crept stealthily down a moonlit hallway.  A whole floor had been passed, and they had taken their time, moving carefully and silently, even as they heard footsteps advance upon the council room they’d abandoned moments before.  As it stood, whatever was out there seemed to still be in the dark as to their exact whereabouts, though they had to assume their existence was known.

She had told them all:  Just keep your head down, maintain a low profile, keep on the move, and everything will go according to plan.

                Everything, that is, until the shrill scream from a few doors down shot through Sasara’s mind like a live electric wire.

                “Wh-wha…?”  Struggling to contain her fear, she began to whisper sharply to the group, “Shh!  We can’t risk being found out!  Just let whatever it is alo—ehh?  T-takaaki-san!  Stop!!”  Takaaki was already at a sprint towards the source of the sound, concern and determination marring his features.  Sasara had come to understand Takaaki was just too helpful of a person for her to have a chance at stopping him.  That was one of the things all the girls liked about him—he had an overwhelming amount of concern for everybody around him, and once he’d set his mind to helping, there was no reasoning him out of it.

                With little regard for his own safety, Takaaki threw open the double doors to the school library, slicing into the darkness with the little shaft of light emitting from his flashlight.  No more than a second passed before he caught a glimpse of two female forms in the weak moonlight, outlined by school uniforms, close enough to one another that they appeared to be embracing.

                “What’s going on—uhh…?”  In spite of the entire circumstances of the evening, Takaaki couldn’t help but blush as his eyes fell upon the scene, and his pubescent male mind began to instantly conjure up lurid imagery.

In an instant, a swathe of blinding light suddenly flooded into his eyes from the girls’ direction, and he yelped in pain as it took him completely off guard.  In the ensuing confusion, the only inclination he had of whoever it was that just brushed past him at a run, heading out of the room, was a quick shock of pale blue hair, cropped short about the wearer’s head.

                “W-wait…Tonami-san!?”  Grimacing in pain as his bottom came in sharp contact with the floor, Takaaki called in vain to the girl fleeing rapidly down the darkened hallway.  His flashlight clattered harmlessly on the tiles nearby, its light shining weakly compared to whatever in the world had just emitted such a powerful flash.  With his eyes so out of focus, it did no good to squint at the running girl, so he was obliged to glance back into the room proper, taking note of the fact that he could have sworn he saw two girls there a second ago, though only one had run out of the room.

                Manaka Komaki sat upon her knees in a disheveled pile upon the floor of the school library, sobbing bitterly, her hands pressed firmly over her eyes.  Her usually crisp uniform bow was hanging untied about her chest.  It draped over her bosom and traced her thighs as she rocked back and forth in pain. 

                “Komaki-san!”  In an instant, Takaaki was there on his knees before her, both his hands on her shoulders, and she flinched openly as he touched her.  The clip that she always used to hold her hair in place was lying uselessly on the floor beside her, and Takaaki cursed himself mentally as he felt his cheeks flush again.  He’d never laid eyes upon Manaka with her hair down before, and something felt almost invasive about doing it now.  He kept his composure, even as his mind tempted him with thoughts of the adorable (and rather skimpy) white swimsuit she had on last spring break at the beach, where they had innocently collected sea snails together.

                “Y-yuma…Yuma…stop please…s-stop it…”  The only words Manaka managed through her sobs were muffled under her hands and rather haunting, but they led Takaaki to believe the girl that knocked him over moments ago must indeed have been Yuma Tonami, Manaka’s best friend, and the one girl who always seemed to think Takaaki was trying to pick a fight with her, for reasons he never quite understood to this day.

                “Komaki-san…?  Komaki-san, hey…snap out of it…”  For a time, all Manaka did was rock in place, shivering in his arms, until finally his patience began to wear thin.  “Manaka-san!  Snap out of it!  What happened!?”  He shook her roughly for a moment, her little waifish form just going along for the ride.

                “T-takaaki-san?”  Manaka finally seemed to be snapping out of it a bit, and she took her hands away from her face.  Takaaki brightened at that, and was about to speak, but the words died in his throat as he realized Manaka was groping uselessly at the air before her.  “I…I can hear you.  Where are you…?  Why is it so dark in here, Takaaki-san?  I’m scared…can you turn the lights on, please…?”

                “Komaki-san, what happened to your bow?”  Takaaki glanced at the window.  The moonlight was weak, but it was enough to cast a silhouette over everything, and his flashlight was still there upon the floor, bathing them both in its glow.

                “My what…?”  Her hands began to fondle her own breasts in a way that made Takaaki take his hands from her and scoot back a bit out of embarrassment.  Shamefully, he watched the odd, somewhat sensual movements of her tapered fingertips over her chest for a few moments before speaking up again.

                “You…you can’t see that your bow is untied, can you, Komaki-san?”

                “It’s too dark in here for me to see anything, Takaaki-san.  Please, can you turn the lights on?”  Her hands, finding their respective marks, lightly took up the bow and paused in anticipation of Takaaki’s response.  “I’m afraid I can’t fix this in the dark.”

                “I told you, Komaki-san, the light is fine enough to see in here, there’s even a flashlight on almost right next to you.”  Takaaki felt a lump in his throat, and his voice began to waver slightly as he continued, “…if that was Tonami-san that shined that light just now before running out of the room, you must have been too close to it.”

                “N-no…”  Manaka’s voice began to crackle with the feeling of more tears welling up inside her, and in a pitiable, pathetic fashion, she began to crawl in the opposite direction from Takaaki, feeling about before her to try and keep from running into anything.  “T-takaaki-san…I, I can’t see anything, I…wh-where are you…?”

                “What’s going on?”  Sasara and the others were on the scene finally, and Yuji barreled into the room with great gusto, aiming his two-by-four in every direction at once as if it were a loaded shotgun.  Konomi came trotting behind him, one finger over her lips in bewilderment, her other hand grasping the back of Sasara’s shirt, as if the garment had some powerful spirit ward emblazoned upon it.

- *** -

                Manaka sat at one of the library tables with her hands in her lap, wringing her skirt in a way similar to how Konomi had done it before.  Konomi was standing behind her, concern all over her face, carefully and dutifully putting Manaka’s hair back together with the clip she was never without.

                “Oh…?”  Manaka suddenly asked, sapphire eyes wide and unblinking before her, as she felt a tug at her still untied bow.

                “Ow!!”  Yuji cried out as Sasara slapped his idle hands away from Manaka’s accessory, the latter girl still staring ahead, seeing nothing, innocently oblivious.  “I was just gonna help the Class Rep with it,” Yuji complained, “no need to get nasty or anything.”

                “Shh, it’s okay, Komaki-san.”  Ignoring the everpresent libido of her fellow council member, Sasara sat before Manaka and took the blind girl’s wrists up gently in either hand.  “You’re really brave, Komaki-san.  You’re handling everything so well.”  Sasara did her best to make her voice sound soft and reassuring, and though Manaka had bawled openly before all of them moments ago, she seemed to have calmed down a bit and somewhat collected herself.

                “S-sempai?  What am I going to do?”  Manaka’s voice belied her real condition, and Konomi paused a moment in her hairdressing, imagining how hard it must be for Manaka to hold back her tears.  “I…I love to read.  How will I read?  How will I make tea?  H-how…how will I take care of my sister?”

                “Shhhh…don’t worry so much.  It’s probably only temporary.  You’re a strong girl, I know you’re going to be okay.”  Sasara spat out the words with as much sincerity as she could.  In truth, there didn’t seem to be even the slightest sparkle in Manaka’s eyes anymore.  Her usual warm, comforting look had been replaced by a cold, dead stare.  As horrible as it made Sasara feel to even think it, she was glad that Manaka couldn’t see the sorrow on her face or the fear in her eyes.

                “If…if I had just been a little faster…”  Takaaki folded his arms and looked away, the look on his face causing even the fearless yet sometimes stupidly bold Yuji to give him a wide berth.

                “We don’t have time for that now, Takaaki-san.”  All eyes fell upon Manaka, of all people.  Each of the other students in the room glanced at each another in embarrassment.  A cloud of shame passed from face to face at the fact that it was the disabled girl that was bringing them all out of their pity-funk, and trying her best to hold out hope and put them back on track.  “I think I know what’s going on, and I came here to get a book about it.  That is, until Yuma…until she…”

                “You know what all of this is, Komaki-san?”  Both Manaka and Sasara jumped a bit as Takaaki stole one of the blind girl’s hands from Sasara and cupped it almost lovingly in both of his.  Sasara bowed her head slightly.  She had little to fear from Manaka’s useless eyes, but she hoped in her heart that Takaaki would again not see her frustrated look.

                As Takaaki and Manaka exchanged a few more words about the situation at hand, Sasara’s eyes silently trailed up Manaka’s blouse until she realized in terror that Konomi was staring straight at her.  Blushing deeply, she felt affixed by the younger girl’s stare, and in an instant, the look on Konomi’s face and the bemused grin on her lips sent a mental message between the two that none of the boys were likely to understand.  It was as if Sasara had just declared her open desire for Takaaki from the public address system, and there was nothing she could do to take it back.  She placed the one hand that she still held in both of hers, and rested Manaka’s palm on her own thigh.  Absently, she took to stroking the back of it soothingly with her thumbs, as Konomi went back to work.

                “Vampires!?”  Yuji made a face.  “C’mon, you don’t expect us to believe—“

                “Cut it out, Yuji,” Takaaki’s stern voice slapped his buddy in the face without even turning his head in Yuji’s direction, “I’m willing to entertain just about anything right now, aren’t you?”  He turned his attention back to Manaka, “You were saying there’s a book here that might help?”

                “Y-yes.”  Manaka slipped her hand away from Takaaki and began to run it uselessly along the length of the library table, “I had it out and on the table here, I thought.  It tells you how to combat vampires and things, but…but now…”  Feeling it well up inside her again, Manaka sniffled hard to force back a tear, “Now I can’t help anybody.  I just wanted to see if I could find somebody to help.  Y-yuma was here, i-in the tea room in the back, and I thought I could help her, b-but now I can’t see, s-so now I can’t read the book…”

                Sasara began to rub Manaka’s hand more deeply, hoping in some small way it might soothe the poor, exasperated girl, feeling all the more useless when Manaka’s fist came thundering down upon the table, and she opened her eyes to their fullest in the useless hope that she might be able to bring more light to her pupils.  “But now I can’t help anybody!  Some Class Rep I am!”

                “Shhh…”  Sasara cooed again, but this time to no avail.  Sighing, she echoed Manaka’s words in her mind.  ‘Some Class Rep?’  she repeated, Some Class President that can’t do anything to help you right now, you poor thing.

                “Sure you can help us, Komaki-san.”  Takaaki slid the thick tome on the table into Manaka’s groping hand.  “I can be your eyes.  I don’t know what I’m reading, but you can explain it to me as I go, huh?”

                Sasara frowned, even as she was met again by Konomi’s pleasant smile.  That was Takaaki Kono in action, and she had to wonder if he was really that sweet and sensitive a guy, or if he was simply the shrewdest high school aged boy to ever live.  If the offer hadn’t caused her own heart to skip a beat in time with Manaka’s and Konomi’s, she might not have given it another thought.  She was so sure, however, that the three female heartbeats in the room were in time with Takaaki’s charms, it was as if she could hear them reverberating around in her head.

                “Meh…”  Yuji began to wander away from the trio, one hand in his pocket while the board rested against his shoulder.  “Damn Takaaki, always stealing all the girls for himself,” he mumbled as he began to wander down a tall aisle full of books, “how’s a guy supposed to complete with that?  I mean, seriously, throw me a bone here!  I’d be happy with just one girl, one!  I’m a growing boy!  I don’t think I’m asking for much, just one—“

                “Ruuu!!”

                “GAH!!”  Without a thought, Yuji brought his weapon to the ready and swung wildly before him, only to feel it slap hard against whatever it just came in contact with.  Just beyond him, a foot or two away in the shadows, stood a figure.  He pulled his proud sidearm back from the darkness with a satisfied grin on his face.  Whatever it was, he’d gotten it, but good.  It only took a second or two for his visage to morph into abject terror as he realized there was nothing left of his weapon but a footlong, splintered mess.  Stunned, he took a slow, meticulous step back, dropping the mangled board to the ground.  The being matched him, taking only one step forwards, as if a predator toying with prey.

                Yuji felt his life flash before his eyes as he took another step, and the being again matched it.  In the back of his mind, he actually felt a little tinge of annoyance lurking beneath his desire to wet himself and jump out a window.  Whatever it was, it could have just finished him off and made it quick, but this thing seemed to be delighting in the torment it was causing him.  He took another step, and the creature followed suit, its leg coming into view in the moonlight.

                “I’m…I’m about to be killed by a vampire schoolgirl…” he whispered aloud, his words shaking with fear, “…I’m too young to die, seriously.  T-there’s so much I haven’t seen yet, so many things I haven’t done, so many girls I haven’t wooed!  S-so, umm…”  he directed his train of thought to the being before him,  “I mean…c-can you at least make it, I dunno…exciting…?”

                “Even for an Uu, you are strange, Uu.”  Ruuko Kirei na Sora stepped unceremoniously out into full view, allowing the moonlight to bathe her calm, emotionless features in its glow.  Fixing Yuji with an unamused stare, she raised both her arms in the air and offered her by now semi-famous greeting, “Ruu!”

                “Y-yeah…r-ruu…eh heh…”  Yuji returned the arm gesture at only half the height, in an almost mocking fashion.  “S-seriously, t-this could be fun for both of us, right?  I-in the books, isn’t this supposed to be all orgasmic and exciting?  I-if you’re gonna kill me, couldn’t you at least grant my last request and make it fun?”

                “I have only greeted you, Uu, as is polite to do.”  Ruuko’s voice remained even and plain, “If you truly desire it though, I could kill you, though I am uncertain as to how the termination of your existence could be considered sexually stimulating.”

                “Y-you’re not gonna kill me?”  Tears in his eyes, Yuji began to shrink away from the strange pink haired girl, wondering if he might use the confusion to elude her.  “Ummm…maybe we can be friends, then?”

                “Ruu!”  Ruuko repeated the greeting as Yuji flinched, raising and lowering her arms with it.  “Have we not already become acquainted?  Your fellow Uu have been orgasmically exciting one another throughout the evening.  My readings show ninety-nine percent of the Uu that normally inhabit this building have chosen to evolve into a sensual state known in your popular culture as ‘Vampirism’.  It is fascinating, as we Ru do not experience a similar metamorphosis until later in life.”

                Yuji blubbered something incoherent in response.

                “Very well.  If you so desire, I am versed in orgasmic pleasantries.  Do you prefer this as a greeting, Uu?”

                Yuji brightened, and if not for the sudden, heavy slamming of Sasara’s intact two-by-four into the back of his skull, it’s truly anyone’s guess what might have transpired in the moments to come.  Yuji slumped to the ground before Ruuko, who merely raised her arms and repeated her greeting to Sasara and Takaaki.

                “Your fellow Uu was soliciting my services, I believe, though he seemed to want to be killed in the process.  The force behind your blow is not sufficient to grant him this desire.  Uu are strange.”

                “Uh, yeah.”  Takaaki shrugged, hefting Yuji up on his shoulders, he started back for the table, “Don’t mind him, Ruuko-san.  Can you tell us what you know about what’s going on around this school?”

- *** -

                Manaka sat helplessly, hands folded before her in a praying gesture, as Ruuko pulled her eyerims down and shined a flashlight directly into them.  The blind girl didn’t even twitch in response.

                “This Uu female does not appear to have permanent damage.  However, I cannot be sure without proper equipment.”  Ruuko stood to her full height and let go of Manaka quite unceremoniously, to the point that the latter blinked a few times and took to glancing about as if Ruuko had walked away, even though she was standing in the same place.  “I do not understand your concerns, Uu.  Is this not a normal metamorphosis into adulthood for your people?  I am pleased that I have had the first hand opportunity to view your males and your females copulating with such little restraint.

                “C-copulating?!”  The word was repeated by every person in the room not unconscious, and as if observing a moment of silence, everybody bowed their heads, trying to hide their crimson flushed cheeks from one another.

                “Of course.  Uu are created male and female, just as we Ru are.  The exchange of blood I have witnessed this night is something of an aberration in comparison to Ru society, but are your bodies and the stimulus acting upon your minds not designed for copulation?  It is hardly sensible to assume this comes as a surprise to you.”

                “I-it’s not that…”  Manaka spoke up first, able to look at Ruuko only because of the direction her voice was coming in, “We just, well…there are social concerns, about c-cop...copul—“

                “About what?”  Unceremoniously, Ruuko placed her palm on Manaka’s stomach and began to lightly squeeze the yielding flesh of her abdomen, rolling her fingertips with it.  “You have reached the appropriate age, and you are ripe in your cycle.  Society demands the continuance of your species.  If you prefer, I will document the situation from out of sight, but I am grateful for your contribution to my research.”

                “R-ripe!?”  Manaka practically fell out of the chair, waving her arms above her head in a fit of embarrassment.

                “Ruu!”  Ruuko responded to the gesture, “Thank you for your cooperation.”

                “N-no!  I mean, I wasn’t…I didn’t…I’m not…Takaaki and I aren’t dating or anything!!”  It’s said that the loss of a person’s sight gives rise to the efficiency of the rest of their senses.  Sight or no, Manaka was quite aware that her comment had stunned the room into silence.  She glanced between everybody in the direction she had heard them speak, and, holding her palms up just before her face, tried in vain to play down her admission.

                “Um, Ruu?” she whispered in a mousy voice.

                “L-look, never mind that now,” Sasara chimed in, “You said there was a way we could tell who’s a vampire and who isn’t while Takaaki-san was reading that book, Komaki-san.”  Sasara was perhaps blushing the brightest of all at this point, but she had purposefully stepped back into the shadows as a defense mechanism.  “We don’t know when all of this started, and we don’t know where all the rest of us were before we boarded ourselves up in the Student Council room.  Now, I get the whole ‘bites on the neck’ thing, but what else can we do to be sure?”

                “It stands to reason that those females that have received the seed of a male student of this school within a twenty-four hour period would most likely have received it during this event.  According to my calculations, said females are statistically likely to metamorphose, if that is what your query is regarding.”

                “J-just stay out of this!!”  Sasara growled at Ruuko, to the point that even the alien girl with the always stoic visage flinched just a bit.  Sasara was sick and tired of hearing about all the sex that had been going on all night long.  She’d never admit to it, but the true source of her frustrations stemmed from the fact that that most of this ‘free love’ had probably been between complete strangers, and had nothing at all to do with herself and Takaaki.  “We can’t…test for that sort of thing, anyway.  We need something we can trust that we can validate on our own.”

                “Well…”  Manaka gazed down at her lap.  She couldn’t actually see her index fingers poking together with embarrassment, but she hadn’t been blind for long.  Force of habit dictated to her that she should try and focus on them anyway.  “Vampires typically bite either on the jugular vein, when the primary goal is to obtain blood, or if the goal is, umm…sensual…” she paused for a moment, taking a deep breath before finally continuing, “They prefer the inner thigh.”

                Konomi, who was still standing behind Manaka, gave the blind girl a wide-eyed stare and instinctively smoothed her own uniform skirt over her thighs.  Nobody noticed Ruuko wander back down a darkened aisle of books as they all began to glance nervously at one another.  All, save for poor Manaka, who was merely staring absently at the floor, and Yuji, who wasn’t really in any condition to stare at anything at the moment.

                “Yeah well, I get it, I get it.”  Takaaki chuckled dryly and scratched at the back of his neck.  He then took to hefting Yuji back up on his shoulders and heading off down another aisle, “I’ll uh, take care of him.  Don’t mind us.”

                “Takaaki-kun?”  It was Konomi’s small, helpless little voice that stalled Takaaki’s retreat.  “Umm…b-but shouldn’t we all be seeing this?  I-if we don’t, how will we know who we can trust?”  Sasara rested her face in her palm as Takaaki, without a single word other than clearing his throat nervously, laid Yuji down and started undoing his friend’s belt.

                “Dammit.”  Sasara walked over and sat beside Manaka, annoyed by the warmth on her cheeks.  Does this really have to be the way we all…show this, to Takaki-san?  A sudden soft touch on the back of her palm brought her out of her musings, and she turned her head sharply, enough to meet with surprise the calm, collected, yet totally empty gaze of Manaka, a reassuring smile on her lips.

                “It’s for the best, right?  Y-you said I was brave before, be brave with me.  It’s like having a skirt on over a swimsuit, right?”

                Sasara was taken aback.  Had everybody here forgotten to be scared at their whole predicament, and were they all so shameless about pulling up their skirts for Takaaki?  No, Sasara thought, it’s not that. 

                There wasn’t any other option, and Manaka took Sasara’s hand in hers, giving it a gentle squeeze.  Even Konomi, blushing profusely, nodded in agreement.  Sasara smiled.  Takaaki wasn’t the pervert some students made him out to be, and nothing weird was going to come of this, not anything stranger than what they’d already had to deal with.  So be it, then.

                By this point, Takaaki had gotten Yuji’s uniform bottoms off, and he couldn’t help but smirk at the pattern of chickens all over the unconscious boy’s boxers.  It helped to lighten the mood, and he summoned Konomi and Sasara over to glance quickly at either of his hairy, masculine thighs, which were quite free of bite marks.  Wordlessly, Takaaki took down his own trousers to just above the knees and flashed the unmarred flesh of his own thighs at the two of them.  Though the act was hasty and his pants were back up before anybody knew it, Konomi threw Sasara a quick, childish grin, which the other girl returned in the same fashion after witnessing the expected bulge in Takaaki’s briefs.

                There wasn’t much point in trying to hide her feelings now, at least not from any of the other girls, and Sasara felt strangely relieved to have at least one person she had been able to silently confide herself in.  Though not without a bit of hesitation, Konomi seemed to be able to go through with exposing her childish, bear print panties just long enough to disqualify her to her compatriots as a possible spy for the undead.

                All functioning and coherent eyes fell upon Sasara.  Knowing it was for the best, she shut her eyes hard and flashed her skirt at the two of them, her knees knocking together even moreso than Konomi’s had. The embarrassment of having a harder time dealing with this situation than a girl two years her junior was alive in her mind.

                “Umm, Kusugawa-sempai,” Takaaki spoke up, clearing his throat, “I don’t think that was long enough for us to get a good enough look.”  Sasara froze, eyes still shut tightly, and a visible shiver ran down her spine.  It was hard enough to do that once—a second time, she knew was impossible.  Desperate for a way to end this, she nabbed Konomi’s wrists in her hands and placed the girl’s open palms on the pleats of her uniform skirt.  Konomi yelped in surprise at first, but it only took a moment before she realized what her sempai was asking of her.

                “J-just…”

                “Y-yeah.”  That was all Konomi said in response, and with her eyes still shut, Sasara felt the sudden chill of the air in the room as it slipped up her naked thighs and caressed her pastel purple panties.

                “T-there, see?  I’m not a vampire.”

                “No, but you certainly have prominent goosebumps.”  Sasara buried her face in her hands as Konomi dropped her skirt back into place and Takaaki forced himself not to grin.  “S-sorry.  Guess we better check Komaki-san, huh?”

                “L-let Konomi do it,” Sasara spoke up, “you should put Kosaka-san’s pants back on and wake him up.  We can’t stay here any more than we could stay upstairs.”

                “Right.”

                It was a simple matter for Konomi to verify that Manaka wasn’t a vampire either, though the poor blind girl insisted upon having her hands placed on her skirt so that she could lift and return it under her own power. Takaaki woke Yuji and filled him in on the past few minutes, deciding to let him believe the boys and girls had segregated this activity by gender.  Had he believed he’d missed such an opportunity, he might be so inconsolable, he’d be useless to them.

                “Ru.”  Ruuko returned from the darkness with a hi-tech crossbow in either hand, each modified for the use of bolt-sized wooden stakes.  Yuji’s eyes went so wide with the joys of destructive mayhem, that it was unlikely he even remembered what Takaaki had just told him anyway.

                “R-ruuko-san,” Takaaki spoke up as Yuji caressed one of the weapons like a child, “what in the world are these?”

                “You are strange, Uu.  If however, being killed is part of the process of your metamorphosis, these would seem to be the most efficient methods for carrying out the act.  Your current tactical capabilities are…badly lacking.”

                “Y-yeah…”  Takaaki tried to ignore Ruuko’s incomprehensible babble about sex and death.  He instead took up the other weapon and checked it over like he’d seen done in movies, not really knowing what he was checking for.  Each of them came with a baldric style ammo belt full of more stake-bolts, and Takaaki sighed, “…I hope we don’t end up having to use these.”

                Sasara flashed Takaaki a pleasant smile.  Yuji seemed ready to for chaos and destruction, but the was something about the reluctant hero type that made her hear that rhythmic sound again, the sound of three girl’s hearts beating as one on his every word.

                “I will document this situation as it unfolds.  Thank you all for your participation, and please do not hesitate to copulate in the future.  I will be certain to keep appropriate records.  Also, the main gates have been unlocked, should you choose to depart.  I am certain it is against school policy to remain on the grounds this late in the evening.”  With that, Ruuko turned on her heel and was gone back into the darkness, much to the chagrin of the flushed cheeks and gaping stares that followed her.  Nobody bothered to try and comment on her words.  Konomi and Sasara went about helping Manaka to her feet while the boys began to scout ahead into the hallways that still lay between them and their goal.

A Nightmare on Heart Street, Part I:  “How True Beats Thy Heart?”

--By Misa Ryuuguu

- Chapter 3:  One Less Mystery -

                Though somewhat better armed and better informed, Sasara took note of the fact that they were all still skulking through the hallways as they had before, and she silently begged whatever gods would listen that there wouldn’t be any more surprises.  She hadn’t really thought much on what they’d do if they escaped successfully, and she didn’t want to cloud her judgment, so she’d forced the concept out of her brain as best she could.  The fact that both she and Konomi had been relegated to the task of guiding Manaka through the darkened hallways was certainly making it harder for everybody, but Manaka’s sheer bravery in the face of all this misfortune had been inspiring.  No matter the cost, she was going to see to it that her intrepid little crew all made it out safely.

                Alas, an uneventful evening was not to be.  As another scream rang out from up ahead, she sighed, trying to keep her thoughts concerning this all having to happen again to herself.

                “Yuji!”  Takaaki called, already halfway down the corridor towards the gymnasium, “Stay with the others!  I’ll handle this!”  Oh please, Takaaki begged, whatever it is, just let me be in time!

                “T-takaaki!  H-hey, wait!  He—ahhh….crap.”  Yuji popped out of his own sprint and, frowning a bit that he had to keep himself away from the fray, he walked back to the girls, consoling himself with the thought that he was playing the role of protector to a bevy of adorable young ladies.  He’d never seen Takaaki sprint like that before, and he wondered just how hard his best buddy was taking this whole situation.

                Takaaki blew past the entrance to the gym and was in the room in a flash, aiming the crossbow in every direction he could think of as fast as his eyes could change position.  The scream had faded into a simple sobbing cry, and he realized by the muffled sound that he still wasn’t in the right room.  There was only one other place to go:  the old metal door in the back corner to the gymnasium.

                Once upon a time, that door led to nothing more than a modest equipment room, but it had since been taken over by Karin Sasamori’s ‘Mystery Club’.  He felt his heart sink as he sprinted to the far side of the gym.  Despite his confused emotional state, boyish boisterousness crept into Takaaki’s mind as he moved, and by the time he got where he was going, he fully intended to shoulder tackle the door and barge haphazardly into the room.  If it was Karin, he actually prayed she was the one emitting the scream, not causing it.  It just felt to him as though it would be the better of the two situations, even if it did put her safety in jeopardy.  Karin was a crafty, cunning girl who had outfoxed him on more than one occasion in the past year.  The thought of her as a vampire made him shudder, even as he sounded his battle cry and dove towards the doorway.

                Takaaki, in his brashness, hadn’t taken into account what the heavy metal the door was constructed from, and ended up lucky that it had already been partially open, lest he risk popping his arm out of the socket.  He dove into the room like something out of a commando movie and rolled, coming up just where he had planned on the far side of it, aiming to either side of him until his eyes finally fell on the terrified form of Ikuno Komaki, Manaka’s little sister.  She appeared to be just standing there, facing him in the center of the room.

                “Wha--?  Komaki-san…?”  He almost gagged on his own words when he realized why the girl seemed so immobile.  Behind her swayed the unmistakable blonde pigtails of Karin Sasamori, holding the shorter, less developed girl by the shoulders.  Her fingernails were dug tightly into Ikuno’s uniform, and pain seemed to mingle with fear in the poor girl’s eyes, flashing with the swathe of moonlight from the room’s single window.

                “Sh-she made me…I-I’m sorry…”  Ikuno pleaded, flinching when Karin squeezed her shoulders.  Karin herself didn’t seem any different, save for the prominent bite marks just over her jugular vein and the catlike elongation of her pupils.  “Mmm heh heh…what a good girl, you brought me Taka-chan!  Now the Mystery Club can solve the greatest mystery of all!  Why are there still human students at this school?”

                “L-let her go, Sasamori-san!  She’s just a Freshman!”  Takaaki’s eyes narrowed, “that, and she just got out of the hospital!  You’ll hurt her!”

                “Ohh geez, Taka-chan, c’mon now!”  Karin cackled, raising the poor girl with no effort at all until her feet were barely touching the ground, “You think I don’t see that silly thing you’re carrying around?  Long as I have this one here, that’s not going to do you any good…unless you think you can skewer me before I get her in the way, hmm?”

                Takaaki glanced between the tip of his weapon and Ikuno’s almost limp form.  Karin was right.  Ikuno was smaller than she was, but not so small that he had a clear shot, and he couldn’t take that chance, not with Manaka’s little sister.  Not that he wanted to hurt Karin, either.  He’d have been satisfied with just distracting her long enough to get the girl to safety, but for the life of him, he had no idea how he was going to do that other than through incapacitation.

                “Taka-chan!”  Karin grinned, sporting the same playful grin she had always carried around with her, only now, it sent shivers throughout Takaaki’s body just to see it.  “Ohhh c’mon!  You don’t think being a vampire is cool?  I mean, being a living, breathing mystery is the Mystery Club’s dream come true!  As an official member of the club, you should be excited about this!”

                “Huh?”  Karin’s words threw Takaaki off to the point that he lowered the point of his weapon a bit.  “Is that all you want?  For me to think this is cool?”  He couldn’t help but shrug and chuckle at that, And he lowered the crossbow in an unassuming fashion, “H-hey, you win then, huh?  I-it’s, uh…it’s awesome!  You’re the first real, live mystery I’ve ever met, Sasamori-san!  All those UFO watchers out there certainly can’t top that!”

                Karin made a pouty face and dangled Ikuno in between herself and Takaaki.  The poor, sickly girl began to sob softly from the pain, the toes of each of her white indoor shoes taking turns brushing lightly at the floor.  She extended her legs as far as they could go in hopes of regaining her footing, but to no avail.

“That’s not good enough, Taka-chan.  I’ve made a new rule!  Only mysteries can be members of the mystery club!  That means you need to put that silly thing down and come over here so I can make you a full fledged member.  Hey, maybe Komaki-san here would like to join, too!”  To Takaaki’s stunned surprise, Karin used the opportunity to lick the nape of Ikuno’s neck, causing the smaller girl to squirm and shiver in fear.  “Egg Sand-wich, egg sand-wich—I used to want to eat you…”  Karin giggled, singing softly into Ikuno’s ear, “Egg sand-wich, egg sand-wich—blood smells so much swee-ter…”

                “You want…me, then.”  Takaaki reasoned, glancing down at the weapon.  Placing it helplessly on the floor, he sighed and without looking back up at the scene before him, spoke up softly, “…let her go, and you can have me.”

                “Yay!”  Karin caught the shaft of the crossbow with the flat of her foot and sent the entire device crashing to the far corner of the room.  With that, she cast Ikuno roughly into the door, with about as much effort and regard as one might give an ant they were about to crush.  Ikuno shuddered and yelped with pain.

“Shoo, little girl.  Sasamori-sempai always keeps her bargains.  Takaaki smiled weakly as he watched Ikuno slip out the door, arms folded over her chest, clutching either shoulder with the opposite hand.  Yuji and the others were likely almost to the gym by now, and she was sure to meet up with them. 

Takaaki couldn’t help but wonder for the few seconds he had been afforded what it might feel like to have Karin bore her fangs sensually into his neck and draw the life out of him.  Despite himself, he had to blush when picturing it.  The strange feeling of arousal was short lived, however, once he began to ponder if Yuji would have to run him through the heart to keep him from tearing into the poor remaining human girls.  His dear little pseudo-sister Konomi.  Sweet, though rough around the edges Ikuno.  The prim and proper elder sister Manaka, who cherished an innocent crush on him.  Sasara, his dancing partner at the bonfire, and his confidant through the trials of student council life.  He shut his eyes just long enough to choke back a few tears for each of them, wondering if he would even care at all about any of that at the end of the next few minutes.

                “Oh, Taka-chan…”  Karin knelt beside him and cupped his cheeks in her hands, giving him an adoring stare, “Don’t be so scared.  Remember the first time you came to this room?  Remember when you fell on me and were so forward about groping me?  That was just so bold of you!  You can’t blame a girl whose heart skips a beat when remembering a little grope from a cute boy, so why can’t you be bold about this, too?”  After all this time of letting Karin goad him into practically anything she wanted just from the threat of her telling the world about that whole episode, Takaaki finally felt comfortable talking about it.

                “The irony of it is that it has to come to this before we talked about it again.”  Takaaki actually grinned, “You were the one that put my hand back on your breast after I tried to move it.  That was an accident, and you know it.  I just didn’t want anybody thinking less of you and having it all backfire in your face when you decided to blurt it out to everybody.  Did you think about how that would have affected you, as well?  Do you want people to think you’re easy?”

                “N-never mind that now.”  Karin could actually feel herself blush in spite of the fact that she at long last had her beloved Taka-chan exactly where she wanted him.  Takaaki assumed from what he learned in Manaka’s book that he wasn’t likely to get out of this through brute force.  All the same, he wasn’t ready to give up yet, and he has just set about laying all his aces on the table.

                “I just never wanted to hurt you, Sasamori-san.  And I couldn’t let you hurt yourself.  That’s why I told all those people who turned out for your ‘UFO summoning’ event that it was just a stargazing event.  I wanted them to show up to validate the Mystery’s Club’s existence, which is the one thing you always seemed to dream about.”  Deep inside, Takaaki felt rather bad about having to use words like those as a tactic.  He wasn’t sure what he planned to gain from the slight distraction he was causing, but he genuinely meant what he was saying, and so it hurt him a bit to have to say it all under circumstances such as these.

                “T-taka-chan…I”  Karin drew up close to Takaaki, taking in a long, deep breath near his cheek.  The ‘bad girl’ façade she had been carefully trying to maintain began to dissolve around her.  He had captured her heart long ago, but it wasn’t until now that she realized she was no longer able to keep such a secret.  “Ohhhh Taka-chan, you smell so sweet, and you always know the right thing to say.  Just…just be still, and I promise everything’s going to be okay, everything will be—“

                Takaaki braced himself, wondering if it would hurt when the Mystery Club President pierced the soft flesh of his neck with her newborn fangs.  The sensation never came, and Takaaki opened his eyes with surprise when he felt the weight of Karin’s limp form suddenly collapsing into his arms.

There in the doorway stood Yuji, blowing on the end of his spent crossbow as if it were a smoking peacemaker.  He made a face as Takaaki instantly drew the bolt out from Karin’s back and took to laying her down carefully on the floor.

                “Geez man, I mean…I know this isn’t easy, but…she’s not Karin anymore, y’know?”

                “Don’t say that,” Takaaki quickly reprimanded his friend as he began to arrange Karin comfortably on the floor.  “Yes she is.  And hopefully you just knocked her out with that shot.”

                “There’s no time for that, Takaaki!  C’mon, we’re almost out of here!”  Yuji vanished back into the gym, and Takaaki stood, retrieving his weapon and giving Karin one last, longing glance before he left the room.  The look on her face was strangely one of peace as opposed to shock, and he offered a quick, silent prayer that was a sign that was a sign of pleasant dreaming.  Trying not to think about the consequences, he sprinted out of the room to rejoin Sasara’s ‘Dirty Half-Dozen’.

A Nightmare on Heart Street, Part I:  “How True Beats Thy Heart?”

--By Misa Ryuuguu

- Chapter 4:  Exodus -

                “Woooo…!  See?  Didn’t I tell you I’m a Ghostbuster?  No sweat!”  Yuji chuckled triumphantly as the party made their way past the shoe lockers and outside into the courtyard proper.  The head of Marianne’s queer idol could still be seen a ways off on the track field, and the flashing Christmas lights sent ominous, flickering shafts of kaleidoscopic light dancing all across their bodies and the dirt below them.  There, only a few hundred yards away, stood the open main gates, teasing each of them with the promise of freedom.  Just as Ruuko had promised.

                Sasara grinned, standing near the boys, as Ikuno had since taken her place helping Konomi with Manaka.  Despite what she’d been through, she was adamant about the responsibility to guide her big sister, and the sentiment had not been lost on the group.  They had come a long way, and they had done it with a ragtag band of high school students and a blind girl in tow.  She couldn’t help but be proud of them all, and herself for leading them safely to the goal where she otherwise might surely have failed.  Not a single loss, either.  They’d checked Ikuno in both the expected locations for Karin’s bite even as she fawned over her injured sister, and the little girl had come up clean.  It was any wonder how she’d made it that far on her own before Karin got a hold of her.

                “So what are we waiting for, huh?”  Sasara puffed up her chest, squared her shoulders, and began to close the distance to the gates at the head of the pack, her dutiful armed guards covering the perimeter of the group, while Manaka was led on to safety by the two Freshman girls.  And to think, Sasara pondered, grinning bemusedly at Marianne’s not-so-scary lighting, I really didn’t think we could pull this off…!

                “Taka-bouuuuuu…”  The sing-songy voice carried on the cool night breeze, freezing the entire troupe in place and chilling them to the core.  By now, however, the little troupe of freedom fighters had been tempered by a level of discipline.  In an instant, the girls were huddled in a circle protectively around Manaka, while the boys slowly circled them, aiming at random into the darkness.

                “W-who’s there…?”  Recognizing the chain of student council command, Sasara was the first to speak up.  “H-hello…?”  She began to feel her heart crawl up into her throat, and almost as quickly as her moment of bravery had come, it was gone again, and her knees began to quiver like those of the lost little schoolgirl she was.

                “Taaaakaaaa-bou-ouuuuuuuu…”  This time the sound was appended by a merry giggle, and Takaaki and Yuji cut eyes at each other.  Up until now, Takaaki had been proud of Yuji’s bravery in front of the girls, as it seemed to be helping to lend them the strength they needed, but not a word needed to be exchanged between the two of them to know who the owner of the mysterious voice might be.  There was only one girl that referred to Takaaki that way, and it was the one person in town, perhaps in all of Japan, that could build the both of them up and tear them down like a house of cards.

                “T-tama…nee…?”  Takaaki forced the words to expel from his lungs at an audible volume.  If it was indeed Tamaki Kosaka, Yuji’s older sister by blood and Takaaki’s by upbringing, he feared that Yuji’s fight or flight response was going to kick in.  Things could just get ugly.

                “Hello, Taka-bou.”  With no sound of approaching footsteps, Tamaki appeared from the shadows between the group and their goal, her magenta locks and uniform bow flapping gently with the night breeze.  Never before this night did Takaaki recall a time where the little boy in him didn’t light up in the presence of his ‘adoptive big sister’.  Tonight however, her baleful yellow eyes and elongated, catlike pupils made him wish to whatever Kami would listen that this was all some terrible nightmare, soon to end in a cold sweat on his pillow at home.

                “A-anek-k-ki…”  Yuji sputtered out the greeting and leveled his weapon on his own flesh and blood.  The chinking sound of the firing lever being set caused Takaaki to double take.  Despite all they’d been through, Takaaki gaped at Yuji’s shivering, wide-eyed form.  No matter what she might have become on this night, did he really mean to injure, perhaps even murder, his own sister?  On the other hand, what did Tamaki have in store for them if they didn’t take action first?

                “Oh Yuji,” Tamaki rested one hand on her hip and chuckled in a patronizing tone of voice, “just what do you plan to do with that nasty looking thing, huh?”  In an unusual display of sensuality, even for the normally playfully suggestive Tamaki, she placed her free hand over one breast and gently caressed the fleshy orb under her shirt, “Just gonna impale your loving big sister, right through her womanly charms, like she never meant a thing to you, hm?”

                “A-aneki…”  Yuji repeated the out-of-place sounding term of endearment, “…just g-get out of the way.”  Yuji’s words were coming to him in spasmodic contractions of his esophagus as he desperately tried to bury his fear down his throat.  “Please, just get out of the way.  I-I…I don’t want…a-anything to happen.”

                “And you,” Tamaki threw a piercing gaze at Takaaki, “what are you going to do, Taka-bou?”

                Takaaki stared down at his own crossbow.  He chastised himself mentally the moment he realized that his brain had chosen to conjure up an image of the two of them pelting their dear sister with bolt-stakes, and trodding over her broken body in rabid pursuit of their goal.

Takaaki thought of Konomi, the little sister he never had.  He thought of how far she’d come since that catatonic trance she’d been in a few hours ago, to the point that she’d actually been able to lighten the mood with her positive spirit—she had even been brave enough to go as far as to expose her blossoming womanly charms to him when the need had demanded it.  He thought of dear, shy little Manaka, and how he’d promised her as he held her in his arms that everything was going to be okay, and that he’d get her out of this and see her ability to read books again be returned to her.  He thought of Ikuno, how she seemed so small and frail tonight, where normally she’d be spending her time reprimanding himself and Manaka for not ‘hooking up’ like she felt they were destined to.  He thought of Sasara, whom he had seen the meek side of on more than one occasion, and how she had inspired him with her success at taking charge in the face of a night of adversity no human being should ever have to be exposed to.  He even spared a morose shudder for Karin, begging in his mind one last time that they hadn’t truly injured her.

                “Tama-nee.”  Takaaki drew in a deep breath and rose to his full height, furrowing his brow and narrowing his eyes.  For a moment, he could have sworn he saw his ‘big sister’ flinch.  Without even feeling his body make the movement, his weapon was suddenly aimed straight for Tamaki’s heart.  “Please move, Tama-nee.  Don’t let this end the way you know it will if you don’t get out of the way.”

                “So that’s it, then.”  Tamaki frowned, and shifted her arms back to her sides as she bent her knees as if to pounce upon them.  “All we have and all we are has come down to this.  I’m ashamed of both of you.  All I’ve been to you since you were little boys, and now I come asking one thing of you all in return, and this is how you repay me.  Worst of all, you’re willing to scar poor Konomi-chan for life over this.  You two have no idea of the existence you’re denying those poor girls, standing in the way like that.”

                “You’re asking for something we can’t give.”  Sasara spoke up from behind the standoff, clutching the expressionless Manaka protectively by the arm.  Despite her condition, Manaka had taken her little sister by the back of the head and pressed her face down into her own uniform bow, doing whatever she could to shield the innocent child from the proceedings.  Ikuno’s expression was unknown, but it wasn’t cold enough outside for the shiver she was emitting to be considered normal.  “Please get out of the way, Kosaka-san.  I don’t want this to happen any more than you do.”

                Whatever Tamaki was about to say, her words were drowned out by the sharp whistle of a finely honed, perfectly balanced wooden stake as it sang through the air and embedded itself deep in the dirt, inches from Takaaki’s feet.

Whoever was behind the attack, two more of the same projectiles had already formed a triangular pattern in the sand around Takaaki before anybody had the time to glare into the darkness in hopes of identifying the assailant.  Tamaki emitted an almost bestial snarl, cursing herself for the lack of experience she had with her newly heightened senses.  It had caused her subsequent failure to take this little occurrence into account.

                “Takaaki Kono!  Stand still!  Don’t think you can avoid me forever!  I’ll get you eventually, you just wait!”  The voice might have been harder to recognize had she not been shouting, but everyone had heard Yuma Tonami’s boisterous challenges with regards to Takaaki enough times in the past to recognize instantly who was calling him out.

A moment later, the shadowed perimeter around the proceedings oozed forth the image of Yuma, who looked like she was the immediate product of a post-apocalyptic warzone.  Panting heavily, her cyan locks were disheveled just as much as her torn, stained, and ragged schooldress, to the point that one might have thought her from a different school entirely due to the color change brought on by the soiling.  Over her shoulder she sported a utilitarian baldric full of sharp stakes similar to the ones supplied by Ruuko, and the weapon she had leveled on Takaaki was identical.  A nasty gash was grimly visible on her inner thigh from beneath a large tear in her skirt, and from the looks of it, it had bled profusely before finally clotting.

                “Y-yuma-chan!”  Manaka spoke up first, clutching Ikuno tighter to her bosom and gazing blankly in the direction in which she had heard the voice.  Her face was marred with fear, and Takaaki grimly assumed the horrible imagery from the library before he got there was running through her mind.

Takaaki gestured to Yuji, who despite his fear, took up Takaaki’s former position between the girls and his ravenous sister, while Takaaki boldly interposed himself between Yuma and the rest of the troupe.  He never took his eyes off the bloody scar on the new arrival’s leg.

Tamaki sniffed downwind once and grinned suddenly, returning to a casual standing position slowly enough so as to not excite Yuji’s itchy trigger finger.  Throughout his entire life, Yuji had never once trusted that expression whenever it alighted upon his sister’s face, and fear had begun the process of converting him from a brash young vampire-hunter into a terrified little boy.  It was anyone’s guess how long it would be before his mind cracked.

                “Get away from Manaka-chan, you bastard!”  Yuma barked through gritted teeth, loudly enough to even cause Tamaki to jump a bit.  “This is all your fault, and so help me, you aren’t going to win again!  Not this time!”  Desperation permeated Yuma’s voice, and Takaaki flashed back to her fleeing image in the library, wondering where she’d start feeding on the helpless blind girl first if he actually heeded that command.  The thought of Yuma wanting nothing more than to feed on her best friend like that disgusted him, and he wondered who she’d jumped in the hallways to get ahold of one of Ruuko’s ‘Festival Night Specials’.

                “I’m truly sorry, Tonami-san,” Takaaki began, voice cool and even, “but I can’t let you have Komaki-san, her sister, or any of the others.  You’re going to have to go through me if you want at them.” 

Sasara gaped at Takaaki from behind, and didn’t even care at this point how his words made her blush.  All this that they’d been through, and here he was, asking rather than demanding, and truly putting his life, perhaps his very soul, on the line for their sake…for her sake, even.  Were the situation different, she’d have damned the proprieties of youth to hell and buried her lips into those of her hero.  She longed for it, despite knowing how popular he was with the girls.  All the same, she had enough woman’s intuition to realize Konomi’s relationship with him went beyond the mere siblingship they played it out to be.  She couldn’t be sure of Takaaki, it was certainly the case in the little Freshman’s heart.

                “Oh, I’ll go through you all right, you monster!”  Yuma planted one foot in the dirt in front of her, leaning into the step, and both crossbows were made ready to loose their volleys.  Tamaki smirked a bit as she looked on, apparently content to watch.  “I’ve taken out bigger…th-things than you all night long, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you do to her what you’ve done to everybody else!”

                Everyone froze, and all eyes fell on Yuma.  Even Tamaki chose not to capitalize on the dip in the distracted Yuji’s guard.

                “’D-done’?”  Takaaki repeated the phrase in disbelief, and glanced at Yuma’s wound again.  “Wh-what are you talking about?  I caught you in the library just before you turned on Komaki-san!”  Takaaki’s voice began to crackle just a bit, “She was trying to help you, Tonami-san!  Maybe even save you!  And you respond by trying to turn her into a horrible creature, and then blind her for her trouble!”

                “Pssh, I am not a ‘horrible creature’…”  Tamaki folded her arms and allowed the complaint to be carried off by the wind.  Nobody was listening to her, anyway.  Besides, the conversation at hand was much more fun to listen to, given the scent she’d picked up moments ago.

                “H-help me…?  I tried to…?”  Yuma’s eyes went wide.  If Takaaki had been experienced with such imagery, he might have seen the glimpse in her eyes of a gunfighter who’d just made the decision to come of the saloon blasting.

To her own amazement, Yuma actually chuckled a bit.  “I-it’s already too late, isn’t it?”  The words poured from her even as the tears she’d refused to cry all through the night began to finally catch up.  “You’ve already finished with her.  You horrible jerk, then you must have had your way with the rest of them, too.  Th-that means…I’m the only one left…a-and the only virgin, too…”

                “V-virgin!?  Wh-who’s not a—mrrgrff…!”  Manaka choked off Ikuno’s protests with her steadfast grip and the cotton of her blouse.  Everyone, even Tamaki, had to pause long enough to blush and gape at Yuma for her suggestion.  Marianne had, after all, announced that afternoon over the public address system that her ‘love idol’ was for the purposes of ‘relaxing everyone’s libido’.

                “Tonami-san, look at me.”  A horrible, impossible thought threatened the edge of Takaaki’s mind, and he slowly held his arms akimbo, daring exposing himself to Yuma’s potential wrath.  “I’m not a vampire, Tonami-san, and I didn’t start all this.”

                “Don’t you think I’ll fall for that crap!”  Yuma’s weapon remained taught and focused, and she lined her next shot up to skewer the poor boy straight through the heart.  “I-I’ll…”  unable to hold back anymore, her tear ducts began to loose themselves upon her cheeks with abandon, and she began to squint her puffy eyerims to maintain clear vision.

“I’ll, I’ll do it!  I’ll get all of you if I have to, before I go down!  E-even…e-even…”  She threw a glance at Manaka, and the words died in her throat as she witnessed again in her mind all the blood, all the cavorting and unbridled spread of the disease that had turned all of her friends into creatures of the night, lusting for her life’s blood.  She felt her finger begin to quiver on the trigger, and she knew that of she didn’t act soon, she was risking either her life or her sanity.

                “Look at me, Yuma!”  Takaaki, normally docile, barked out the command and brought his free hand to his face, pulling down one eyerim and craning his neck at the confused girl, “See?  No crazy cat pupils!  No bestial snarling!  I’m not one of them, Tonami-san, and neither are any of the rest of us!” 

                Yuma sniffled hard in lieu of wiping her face.  It wouldn’t do to take her eyes off of him, even for a moment.  Damned if the boy wasn’t right.  This wasn’t how those creatures had been acting all night, and the sheer terror on everybody save for Tamaki’s face only seemed to drive his point home.  Had they been vampires, there were enough of them to have easily overwhelmed her by now.  Chuckling again, she began to grin stupidly, and her weapon lowered just a few inches from its mark.

“Oh god,” she whispered, words just barely audible to the rest of the small crowd, “oh god…you’re not a vampire.  I-I…I almost killed you…”

                By now, Takaaki had completely forgotten about the situation with Tamaki.  He left poor Yuji to his own fate, and placed his crossbow gently on the ground.  He covered the distance to Yuma at a slow, steady walk until he was close enough to close his hands around Manaka’s mess of a best friend.  It was Yuma’s breaking point, and she began to bawl like a baby in his arms.  By contrast, it was also Takaaki’s first happy moment since he awoke in the Student Council room, and a soft smile spread upon his lips as he held the poor girl in a warm embrace.

                Tamaki, meanwhile, rested her weight on one leg and her fist on the same hip, winding a few strands of her long mane in the opposite index finger.  She was amused, but at the same time a bit annoyed to have been forgotten like this.  Certainly the circumstances left her with a perfect opportunity to consider a surprise attack, but that just wouldn’t do.  She had already learned that it wasn’t any fun to sate herself upon a hapless student who didn’t see it coming, and just as well, she had not been altered past a sense of fair play.  She had been compromising all night long.  This time, where her close friends were involved, she simply insisted upon earning her victory and subsequent meal, despite the odds and potential consequences.

“Aren’t you curious as to what she was doing with your other little girlfriend over there in the library if she’s not a vampire, Taka-bou?”  She smirked, tasting the air again with her tongue, “she’s not, you know.  I can smell the delicious effervescence of her blood even from over here.”

                “Takaaki!  What the hell, man!?”  Yuji glanced in a panic between his sister and the embracing couple, “Pick that up and let’s get the hell out of here while we still can!!”  His blood began to pump furiously through his body, and Tamaki took a mental note of it.  She was learning that incest didn’t seem to have a whole lot of meaning when it came to tearing into a nice, fresh pulmonary artery.  Her perverted brother would do, if it came to that.

                Takaaki and Yuma froze in place, staring into each others eyes in shock.  For Takaaki, it wasn’t adding up.  If Yuma wasn’t a vampire, why did she flee the room?  It could have been anybody, or anything for that matter, barging into the library when he came calling.  Was her mind so possessed by fear that she’d abandon her own best friend?

“T-tonami-san,”  Takaaki’s voice was quiet and haunting, and the words came to him with a shiver, “…why didn’t you protect Manaka when you had the chance?”

                Yuma opened her mouth and began to form a sentence, but nothing came out apart from choked sobs and one macabre phrase, “V-vam…vampires…d-don’t l-l-like…b-bright…b-bright l-lights…”

                With a painful yowl, Sasara was suddenly flung several yards away from the other girls, and she hit the earth with a hard crack to the backside.  She only had enough time to sit up and rub her bottom before she caught a glimpse of what had caused such impressive force out of the blue like that.

                Manaka.

                Manaka had lifted Ikuno’s chin just enough to gaze into her little sister’s eyes, and had gone about caressing her soft cheek in a manner much too friendly for a sibling.  Her other hand was outstretched in the direction Sasara had been launched, palm out and fingers spread.  Her eyes were no longer blank and pitiful.  On the contrary, her pupils had grown long and catlike, and fangs had begun to extend from under her upper lip as she offered a somber smile.  Transfixed, Ikuno felt her resolve sizzling off her skin and melting into her Aneki’s eyes.

                “Shhh…” Manaka cooed, “don’t be afraid, imouto.  Please don’t be afraid.”  Manaka brought her offensive hand back and began to stroke the top of Ikuno’s head in a childish fashion.  Despite her obvious intentions, there was a softness in Manaka’s eyes—a genuine, innocent affection for her dear little sister.  She took in a deep whiff of the overpowering scent of Ikuno’s blood and noted her patiently throbbing jugular vein.  “Mmmm…you smell really good, you know that?”

                “’S-smell…?’  B-but…”

                “Shhh…but what?”

                “A-aneki…I’m so scared…”  Nobody had ever heard Ikuno’s voice sound so shaky and small.  Even Manaka herself hadn’t heard her take such a tone since she got out of the hospital.  It was clear the night had all but obliterated her fragile psyche, and she had to be admired for holding things together as long as she had.  Her big sister was the only person she ever dared show this side of herself to, and now, it was if she had nowhere else to turn.

                “No, no,”  Manaka cupped Ikuno’s cheeks in her soft palms and offered her a demure, reassuring smile, “don’t be scared.  You don’t have to be scared of anything anymore.  Your big sister is right here.  Haven’t I always looked out for you?”

                Ikuno nodded weakly.

                “And I would never do anything to hurt you, right?  You’re going to feel wonderful, and I promise you, promise you,” she repeated, “you’ll never have to be sick in the hospital ever again.  Wouldn’t that just be the best?”

                Ikuno nodded again, her will all but gone, and she didn’t offer the least resistance when Manaka gently took one hand from one of her cheeks and gathered up her wrists with it, holding them together.  Manaka drew her lips up to Ikuno’s ear and began to whisper something unintelligible to all but superhuman ears, and Tamaki smiled an encouraging smile to the both of them, even while the others, too far away to be of any use, gaped in horror.

                Through a sniffle and a thick throat, Ikuno whispered, “O-okay, Aneki.”

                Sniffling once in her own right, Manaka parted her lips and placed them firmly over her sister’s jugular vein, burying her hollow fangs past the thin layers of yielding flesh.  Ikuno stiffened and began to pant, grimacing through wild tears and a misguided smile as her own sister began to draw away her life’s blood, gradually gifting her in turn with the condition so many students had shared in that night.

                The moment had come.  Takaaki took his hands from Yuma and gasped as dozens…no, hundreds of pairs of cat-eyes began to blink to life all around them.  Endless pairs of footsteps, their owners not bothering to mask their approach, echoed thunderously through the brains of the last remaining humans on campus.

A bloodcurdling scream that could only have emitted from Yuji rent the receding stillness, and Ikuno began to grow limp and dependant on Manaka’s support just to remain standing.  Takaaki, Yuma, and Sasara turned just in time to see Tamaki violently boring her own fangs into the base of Yuji’s neck, who had kept his guard down just a second or so too long.  There was fair play on Tamaki’s part, but then there was the need for satisfaction, and time had simply dragged on for too long for her to continue to resist.  Yuji’s weapon thudded uselessly in the dirt.  He whimpered in pain, for his sisters bite was far from the loving caress that had been witnessed between the Komaki sisters moments ago.  Once again, Yuji began to succumb to his sister’s ego, though in an entirely different way than ever before.

                Yuma’s turn was next.  Takaaki whirled on her surprised yelp just in time to see her being held fast by either arm just a few paces away from him by the Himeyuri twins, Ruri and Sango.  The two of them wore pristine uniforms, in sharp contrast to Yuma’s miserable one, and their long purple and blue respective locks were, as always, done up in two wrapped buns to either side of each of their heads.  Ruri, eyes closed, drew her nose along the nape of Yuma’s neck, inhaling deeply, while Sango nabbed her chin and forced her panicked stare to meet the vampire girl’s merry grin.

                “Oh, isn’t this exciting!?”  Sango cried out with the genuine spark of naivety she’d always sported, “Now we can all be love-love together!!”  Yuma’s pleading gaze was punctuated by a sudden wet,  guttural ‘hrrk’ing noise as she went stiff.  Sango made a pouty face and glanced over at her sister, who was eagerly sating her newfound appetite for blood on Yuma’s neck.  “Ruri-chan,” she complained, one hand on her hip, “that’s not polite!  You should wait until everybody else is ready to begin!”

                Ruri only murmured in response, merrily sucking away, and the two of them gently lowered Yuma’s swiftly weakening form to the ground.  Ruri took the opportunity to turn the wound on Yuma’s thigh outward, exposing the precious little treasure to her sister, who clapped her hands together in gleeful anticipation.

                “Awww!  How sweet!”  Sango slid her body in a fluid motion overtop Yuma’s fluttering lungs until she was on all fours above her hapless victim, gazing lovingly at the marred flesh under her torn skirt.  She took a deep breath and her smile began to fade, her cheeks flushing and her expression turning more to one of childish embarrassment.

“She must really love-love me, preparing such a wonderful meal like this…”  Sango took in a deep breath and lowered her face between Yuma’s legs, tracing the length of the scar with her tongue, “…I think maybe I’ll love-love her, too…”

                Takaaki knew there was nothing he could do for the overexerted freedom fighter that was once the human Yuma Tonami.  His throat closed up in a gag, and he stumbled backwards, almost tripping over himself several times, until he and Sasara met back to back, dead center in the bevy of vampire teenagers they once called classmates.  Shock hadn’t gone so far as to relieve him of his senses, however, and he bent to retrieve his weapon from where he had dropped it, neither knowing nor caring how Sasara had managed to get ahold of Yuji’s.  Just that she had it was enough to turn a completely impossible situation into a nearly impossible one, and that was better than nothing.

                “You’ll only get one shot with that.”  Takaaki admitted the painful truth they were both aware of, feeling his heart pounding on overdrive and sweat beginning to bead upon his forehead.  “What will you do with it?”

                Sasara cut eyes at him the best she could, while still trying to keep the students that had just come from the darkness on her side in view.  What was she going to do with a single shot against hundreds of targets?  She wasn’t strong, even for a high school girl, and even if they weren’t superhuman, one or maybe two of them at the worst would still be more than enough to overpower her.  Takaaki was brave and strong, but he was only one boy, and to call their chances bleak was an understatement not worth bringing up.  Sasara began to emit a nervous, almost insane giggle, and pressed her back closely to his, enjoying the warmth of his body against her own.

                “It…it was a great run, wasn’t it?”  Sasara’s voice was uncharacteristically small and calm given the circumstances, “we made it so much further than I thought we would.  I’m…I’m really proud of everybody for that.”

                “Stop it!”  Takaaki hissed back, repeatedly changing his aim to whoever drew the closest to them by the second.  “Don’t you give up on me, Sasara!  We’ll make it through those gates.”  He began to grasp at straws, “Ruuko-san will come for us.  O-or the authorities.  Surely somebody must have noticed the power’s out by now.  All we have to do is hold on for a little longer.  A-as long as you have that thing loaded, none of them are going to want to be the first to take the risk.”

                “You…you never called me ‘Sasara’ before…”

                Takaaki’s body froze in place and his eyes went wide as he heard the sound of Sasara’s weapon discharging.  Whatever she’d fired at, he hoped she’d retained enough of her composure over the last few minutes to make the short worthwhile.  With bated breath, he turned just enough to get a look over his shoulder.

                Sasara was completely still, the crossbow taut in her hands and her finger still firmly depressing the trigger.  A pink-haired figure stood at the edge of the constricting circle of students, a few paces closer than the rest of them.  Takaaki recognized this girl instantly as the former Class President, Marianne.  Sasara’s eyes were plastered all over the new arrival as though she had seen a ghost, and the fact that Marianne came to be standing there at all belied the question of her human/vampire status.

Even if it hadn’t been for that, no normal human could possibly have plucked Sasara’s incoming projectile from mid-air, and now be clutching it so casually as Marianne now was.

                “I’ve always been your friend, Sasara-chan.  Even when nobody else was.”  Marianne loaded the bolt between two fingers and snapped it in twain like a toothpick, looking a bit morose.  “You even succeeded me in the class Presidency.  I thought we were closer than this.”

                “Wh-what,” Sasara choked, “what did you do to all of these people…?”

                Marianne shrugged, “I already told everybody that.  Everybody in this school is so uptight.”  She took a few steps forward, and a few random students in the background chuckled a bit as Sasara threatened her with the empty weapon as a reflex action.

“The theme of the school festival was supposed to be an end to inhibitions.  No more silly high school longing, and no more bullheaded, stubborn restraint.”  She held her arms up to the night sky and grinned, marveling as the cool breeze caressed her cheeks, “an indulgence of the libido, Sasara-chan!  You have no idea at all how wonderful it feels to be this alive!  To have every nerve in your body constantly crackling with glee at the slightest sensation!”

                Takaaki swallowed hard as Marianne spoke, eyeing Sarara.  She seemed so rooted to the spot that pigeons could have made a perch out of her.

                “Please, Sasara-chan,” Marianne continued with a somewhat condescending tone, “even you danced with Kono-kun at the bonfire.  You!  The girl who’s too scared to make any friends!  Everybody saw it, and I…”  Unable to help herself, she had to pause just long enough for her demeanor to soften from the cruel to the compassionate.

“…I was so happy for you, Sasara-chan.”  Taking another step towards the mortal duo, Marianne held out her hand to the taller blonde, “It doesn’t have to be this way.  Come with me.  I’ll make sure you’re never afraid to express yourself, ever again.  I care about you too much to let you leave, knowing you made the wrong decision.”

                Sasara felt the phlegm that had been teasing her all night long build up in her throat again, but this time she was able to force it down.  Her face began to brighten, and her cheeks began to flush, as she allowed Marianne to gently lift the weapon that stood between them away and cast it harmlessly to the earth below.  She began to sniffle, and in that moment she knew her tears would no longer be denied as she buried her face in Marianne’s chest, quivering and sobbing.

                “There, there, you poor thing,” Marianne whispered, putting her arms around the beleaguered Class President.  Sasara began to feel her inhibitions, along with all the terror and confusion of the last few hours, melt away with her best friend’s touch.  “Say goodbye to Kono-kun now, dear.”

                Sasara turned on her heel towards Takaaki, who in turn turned to meet her.  Her cheeks and eyes were a soft pink, the former damp with salty tears.  A simple, contented smile—one that Takaaki couldn’t begin to fathom, sat upon her lips as she looked up at him and gave him a deep bow, folding her hands before her.

                “Goodbye, Takaaki-kun,” Sasara stated, her voice warm with emotion.  “I know you don’t understand, and I don’t really, either, but…I think I’m finally starting to.”  Conjuring up the courage in an instant, she went on tiptoe and pressed her lips firmly to Takaaki’s, holding them there for a good minute or two before finally allowing the torrent of her emotional state to recede a bit.  Takaaki, his mind and body damaged from fatigue and confusion, was in no position to deny her.  It was the one thing she had been asking herself for, and the one thing she had been too afraid to reach out and grasp ever since she’d met him.  After all she’d been through since the start of her school years, the act seemed so simple now that it was done.  It was but the tip of a monstrous iceberg, and Sasara’s mind began to fill with joyful thoughts of exploring its other depths.

“Good luck to you, Takaaki-kun.  You’re the kind of man no woman could resist falling in love with.  I certainly couldn’t…but I know I’m not the one.”  With that, Sasara slipped her hand in Marianne’s, and the ring of vampire students parted, restraining themselves before their progenitor, as the pair of best friends vanished into the night.

                Takaaki couldn’t feel his heaving chest anymore.  He couldn’t hear his heartbeat, couldn’t make note of the hairs standing up on the back of his neck.  His sweaty palms tightened around the comforting heft of his last line of defense, and he spun in place a few times, taking note of his grim situation.  There wasn’t time to think about the others falling one-by-one, nor of Sasara up and abandoning him.

Must escape.

The phrase boomed within him, and he glanced over Tamaki’s busily feeding head at the cruel tease of the open main gates, a goal he couldn’t hope to achieve.  True to his nature, it wasn’t his own fate that bothered him, it was his inability to help the others.  There were none left, now.  None left…

                None left, but Konomi Yuzuhara.

                Takaaki spun in place so fast he almost lost his footing.  No matter the cost, if anything had become of his pseudo-little sister, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to deal with it.  He cursed himself for forgetting about her in the past, critical moments.  A sigh of relief passed from his lips as he saw her standing there, only a pace or two from him.  She was shivering and glancing in every direction at once with her fingertips pressed nervously to her lips, but she was still there.

                “Taka-kun,” Konomi reached a hand over and tugged on Takaaki’s uniform sleeve, “Taka-kun, I-I’m…I’m scared…”  The look in her eyes was enough to send a chill down Takaaki’s spine, the first real sensation he could say he registered since the horror of watching the Himeyuri twins tear into poor Yuma Tonami right before his eyes.  He placed one hand over the one she’d used to make contact with him, gripping it firmly, and kept his opposite index finger poised over the trigger of his weapon.

Yuma, Ruri, and Sango had by now vanished into the fray of bodies.  Even Manaka had carried poor little Ikuno off to some unspeakable place.  The only one who remained was Tamaki, who finally stood up from her kneeling position over Yuji’s prone form.  A trickle of rapidly clotting blood oozed from the bite marks on his neck, and Takaaki took small pleasure in the fact that he seemed to at least still be breathing.  What he would be doing when and if he woke up, however, was another story entirely.

Tamaki stretched lazily, and nonchalantly rubbed some of the excess of her brother’s blood off of her lips with the back of her sleeve.  “Still over there, Taka-bou?”  She asked the question with an almost passive, dismissive tone--as if it really weren’t of much consequence.

Takaaki pushed Konomi behind him and interposed himself defiantly between the girls.  He hefted the weapon, and it felt good in his hands.  Adrenaline began to course through his body, energizing his extremities, and he grinned, turning his head in every direction as he began to shout.

“There are enough of you to finish the job, but not before I get one good shot off!  So who wants it first, huh!?” 

                The silence was deafening.

                “That’s right!”  Takaaki took a few steps further towards his goal, contenting himself with the knowledge that Konomi was still holding onto the back of his jacket.  “Konomi-chan and I are going to walk right on out of here, unless one of you wants to give your life for the sake of everybody else’s hunger!”

                Tamaki’s giggle sliced thinly through the silence, “Oh, Taka-bou, you’re so cute when you’re determined!  You mean after all this time, you still don’t know?  I always knew you weren’t very observant, but this is just kinda sad, really…”

A few muffled giggles could be heard from all around.  Takaaki might have felt confused, insulted—maybe still even defiant, if he didn’t currently possess the second poorest strength and reflexes of anybody on campus.  Without a second to respond, the gentle tugging at his jacket became a forceful grab at his arm.  The sheer suddenness of it was enough to spin him in the opposite direction, and he was easily cast off his feet by a swift palm-strike to his midsection.  Landing prone with a painful thud in the dirt, his weapon went flying, and he found himself gazing up into eyes he’d been begging the gods since he woke in the student council room he’d never have to see.

                “Taaakaaa-kuuuunnn…”  Konomi’s pupils had elongated to the same cat-like consistency Takaaki had come to recognize by now.  Whatever resolve he had left instantly disintegrated into bold-faced panic, and he began to sputter incoherently, trying desperately to grab onto any words at all.  Konomi had become something other than he had ever seen before.  She was still the same little slip of a girl with the adorable pigtails he’d always known, but there was a forbidden sensuality in her eyes, mixing with her usual innocence to produce a veritable, delectable cocktail of confused, excited schoolgirl.

                “N-nuh…”  Takaaki’s voice went from whisper to shout in an instant as he spoke, tears welling up in his eyes, “N-no!  Konomi-chan, this is impossible!  W-we…we all made sure, in the library…you even showed me,” Takaaki, blushed, pausing to pant while Konomi took an indulgent whiff of his scent.  “You and Komaki-san were clean!  Y-you…you…you aren’t one of them…y-you’re not…”

                “Konomi-chan,” Tamaki spoke up, “Taka-bou has been suffering so much tonight, be a good girl, and at least put his mind at ease, ne?”

                “Yes ma’am!”  Konomi sang out her words.  Her bright smile, at least, was something Takaaki was happy to get the chance to see again.

                “You’re such a resourceful boy, Taka-bou,” Tamaki began to explain, “you were the only one we couldn’t be sure of.  Don’t you think Konomi-chan did a great job?  Why, she almost even had me fooled into believing she was pure as the driven snow all night long!”

Manaka suddenly emerged beside Tamaki, Ikuno’s blood still fresh on her lips.  Placing her hand on Tamaki’s uniform bow, the two shared a deep, passionate, and completely uncharacteristic kiss, savoring the exchange of each other’s sibling’s lifeforce.  Perhaps Marianne had achieved her goals concerning the ‘theme’ of the school festival after all.

“Mmm,” Tamaki spoke up after the exchange, “I never would have thought family tastes the best.  You should be proud of Manaka-chan, Taka-bou.  I’m sure that flash of light was painful, but pretending to be the poor, innocent blind girl, now that was convincing!”

“Ikuno-chan is taking to it well, she should be up soon.”  Manaka bowed her head in gratitude, digging the toe of her shoe in the dirt and smoothing her skirt a bit, “Thank you, Tama-nee.  I never thought she’d be rid of her poor health.”  A few other students smiled and offered pats on the back to Tamaki.  It seemed as though the term ‘Tama-nee’ had now become a more widely used term of affection for her, and in turn, more students were using personal incarnations of each other’s names in casual conversation now, where before they may have been nearly strangers.

Takaaki never heard the exchange.  His cheeks flushed red as he rested the back of his head in the dirt, knowing he didn’t have the strength to throw little Konomi off of him.  She had already cast her untied uniform bow to the ground, and despite the situation, Takaaki wouldn’t have looked away even if he could. She pressed her bare knee up against his crotch, and began to pop each little plastic button of her blouse free, one-by-one.

For years, Takaaki had been Konomi’s pseudo-big brother.  He’d seen to her safety, had dinner with her family night after night when his parents were away on business—they even trusted him to spend the evening with her when they, too, had obligations.  All the same, they weren’t related, and only in his own mind did he ever make the admission that he was a growing boy.

Konomi’s chest was slight and still rather childlike.  She was usually so self-conscious about not filling out her school uniform the way her classmates had long since begun to.  The embarrassment of it still shown on her cheeks—only now, it was tempered by the desire she had been infected with at some unknown point in the earlier evening.  All this time, he was sure he was still playing the role of her protector, the role that had always been reserved for him.  But to have little, innocent Konomi-chan--the girl he knew in his heart would someday be ‘the one’, betray him so blatantly all night long, like this…

If not for the circumstances, he might have blushed and grinned at his first time seeing her in little more than her red skirt and a lacy, pastel pink bra.  Instead, he sported a hurt look, wearing his heart on his sleeve and bearing his feelings to her.  It was all he had left to do.

“Taka-kun,” Konomi ran her fingers through Takaaki’s short mane, cradling his head, “it’s not like that, Taka-kun.  Please try to understand.”  She knew his moods well enough to read his expression.  Her cheeks flushed a slightly deeper shade of crimson as she realized he wasn’t looking her in the eye anymore.

“I…I guess I’d feel proud if you were staring at what I thought you were, Taka-kun.  But you’re looking at the marks, aren’t you?”  On the fleshy middle of her left breast, just above the flowery embroidery of her bra, rested two pristine bite marks, long since clotted.  “Everybody has them now, you know.”

“N-not everybody…has them there, though, Konomi-chan.”  Images raced through his mind of who might have been responsible for those marks, and what Konomi must have been thinking when they were placed there.

“Is it really…” Konomi sputtered a bit, holding Takaaki down by the shoulders firmly, “is it really such a horrible thing?  Remember when we promised we’d always be together?  That next year we’d have a picnic under the Sakura trees?  Just you, me, Tama-nee, and Yuji-kun, the way it’s always been?  And we promised to do it again the following year, and then the next…with all our new friends…”

“If you tried anything like that now, it would have to be at night.  You’ll never feel the warmth of the sun on your face again, Konomi-chan.”  Takaaki stiffened.  “You’ll never enjoy the beach again, never taste a wonderful meal again…you’ll never even know what it feels like to grow up.”  He cocked his eyebrow at her, bravely meeting the gaze that spelled his certain damnation.

“My god, Konomi-chan…you didn’t even fight them when they came, did you?  You…you welcomed it.  What in the world could possibly have been worth giving all that up?”

To Takaaki’s surprise, he could feel Konomi’s iron grip on his inefficient, mortal muscles slacken just a bit.  Her eyes, driven by prey drive, began to gloss over a bit, and in the passing of an eternal moment, tears began to stream down her cheeks.  She took in a deep breath, and Takaaki braced himself, preparing for the end.

It never came.

When he finally dared to crack an eyelid again, she was still there, in the same position as before--sobbing like a baby.

“YES!”  Konomi screamed the word out.  Even the thirsty students, who had been unable to help closing the circle a bit for the scent of Takaaki’s blood, made way for the couple lying in the dirt.  “Yes, Taka-kun, I let this happen to me…I didn’t fight it, I…”  Konomi began to sputter again, and without realizing it, Takaaki began to softly stroke her thigh with his pinned down hand—a reflexive desire to comfort her.

“Everyone has been so, so happy this year,” Konomi continued, sniffling hard between her words. “Growing up is exciting, but we’re just going to all have to go our separate ways before we know it.  What’s s-so…s-so wrong with us always being together, a-and always being healthy and happy?  I’m naive, I know that, but I also know you can’t promise me you’ll always be here with me, Taka-kun.”  Konomi paused to wipe her face on her shoulder, for lack of a free hand.

“I know your parents want you to go to college overseas.  T-this way…this way, we n-never have to be apart.  Not for a day.  We can all be…” her voice began to trail off as the needs welling up inside her began to reassert themselves.  “…we can always be together, as one big, wonderful family.  Oh please, Taka-kun…I’m just so thirsty, now…”

“She hasn’t fed since she was turned, Taka-bou.”  Tamaki offered the thought aloud, though now, even her mood was morose and somber, so touched was she by the scene.  “It happened early on.  She had lots of opportunities with the other students, but…dammit, I just couldn’t make her listen to me.”  She chuckled a bit and stared up at the night sky, “she insisted on waiting for you.  I don’t know how she managed that kind of restraint with all that was going on around us.  I never would have made it.”

Takaaki stared blatantly at the open-shirted Konomi, blubbering incoherently over him, her tears occasionally marring his uniform jacket.  Her grip slackened to the point that he found he could now raise his arms, and in the back of his mind, hope still held out that he could use the opportunity to shove her off of him and make a run for it.  Dawn would be breaking soon, and if he somehow managed to make it as far as the gates, it didn’t seem likely the student body would be foolish enough to try and stalk him.  The risk of the morning sun was just too great for that.  From all he had seen this night—all the blood, all the rampant stalking and unbridled taking of the innocent—to think that Konomi, just a little slip of a girl, could have managed to restrain herself for him, was almost impossible to believe.  Almost.

A thought occurred to Takaaki.  Konomi could easily have done bench presses with him right about now, and yet, she hadn’t merely given in to her urges and buried her face in his jugular.  She was shivering, but the need in her eyes was greater than he had ever seen in any of the other vampire students throughout the night, and he knew her body must be suffering horribly.  Yet she had remained firm, and refused with all that she was to give in—just because of him.  What if he managed to escape?  Would she come to her senses, or would he have to watch her disintegrate with the rays of morning as she desperately called his name?

Despite what was on the line…could he deal with that on his conscience?

Gently, Takaaki began to raise his body up to a seated position.  All Konomi did was stare into his eyes, loosing herself utterly in them, her hands cupped and praying before her exposed chest.  In a moment, he was seated upright in the dirt, legs spread, with little Konomi huddled up on her knees in between them.  He began to smile.  A soft, warm, and reassuringly kind smile it was.  He knew that no matter the consequences, even if lives depended on it, he could never raise his voice or his hand in anger at her—he just wasn’t capable of it.

A soft, muffled thumping in the dirt caught Tamaki’s attention, and she glanced down to see a stirring Yuji, dried blood caked about his neck, his lazy eyes just barely beginning to alight with the hunger she had come to recognize.  He had planted his open palm in the dirt in Takaaki’s direction, and made a move as if to span the distance at a crawl, before his sister placed a forceful hand on his shoulder.  The metamorphosing effect of a new vampire’s first hunger had taken him to the point where he wasn’t yet coherent enough to speak, and moved with more bestial-like gestures.  All the same, he was cognizant enough to relent before the simple shaking of Tamaki’s head.

Konomi had begun to brighten.  She had been with Takaaki for so many years of her life that she knew, deep inside, he wasn’t going to stop her.  Fixing him with a delighted, loving gaze, she gently took each of his wrists in her hands and moved them towards her lap, reestablishing her grip without so much as a wince from him.

“I…I love you, Taka-kun.”  Konomi drew her face close to his, tears still flowing, but her childish exuberance had been restored to her.  She had finally, after so many years of longing, been able to out and say it, and she had the night’s festivities to thank.  “Please stay with me.  I know my Taka-kun.  If you stand up, you’ll somehow manage to get away from here.  Please,” she swallowed hard, “stay down here with me.  Please love me, Taka-kun.  I can’t be me anymore if I don’t know that you love me.  I’ll follow you wherever you go, even if it’s someplace I can’t.  You know that, right?”

“I know you will.  I…I love you too, Konomi-chan.  I always have.”

Takaaki pressed his lips over Konomi’s.  So taken was she, that in a moment, it was he that was holding her wrists, and he gently guided her fingers into interlacing behind his back.  Konomi’s first kiss, vampiric or not, was as it always should have been.  She’d fought hard, denied herself, and watched her friends pass her by as she grew up.  Now it was her turn—her turn to claim the man she loved.  She held onto him for dear life, and longingly traced his lips with her tongue, coaxing his own to make an appearance.

Tamaki placed one arm around Manaka, who rested both her hands, one upon the other, on the taller girl’s shoulder.  Playing with her hair in her free hand, she smiled warmly at the other vampire schoolgirl.  The two of them, sniffling in their own right, watched the scene unfold before them like the apex of an epic romance trilogy.

Takaaki knew his time had come.  Though he’d always do his best to live up to it, he knew Konomi gave him too much credit.  There wasn’t any getting out of this now, and he was no longer certain he could bear the thought of what his escape might do to the girl of his dreams.  She was more important to him than the sun, or good food—moerso than graduation, or even growing up at all.  He cupped his hand over her cheek and traced her jawline with it, drawing his lips away from hers and taking one last look into her needy eyes.  Volumes of her innermost feelings were like words on a page in those eyes, and he took a moment to read and appreciate the story of her short little life--before moving his hand to the back of her head and guiding her face towards his delicious, pulsating jugular vein.  He loosened his collar, and felt her gleeful little body squirm with delight as she took in one sharp, final breath of his human scent.

Takaaki took one last look at the stars in the clear night sky, which had just begun to slightly fade with the dawn.  He wondered if he’d ever see a sunrise again.  It didn’t matter.  There was no beauty to be found in any sunrise, if he couldn’t share it with Konomi Yuzuhara, his one and only love.

A Nightmare on Heart Street, Part I:  “How True Beats Thy Heart?”

--By Misa Ryuuguu

- Chapter 5:  Turn Another Day -

                Takaaki bolted upright in his own bed, bathed in cold, aging perspiration.  His eyes only went wide for a moment or two before he realized where he was.  In a moment, he placed a hand over his chest and closed those eyes, taking a moment to calm his hyperventilation.  It was that same dream again had taken him. 

After he felt he had come to his senses, he glanced at his alarm clock.  Just enough time to get cleaned up and get himself to school before the gates closed and he was labeled tardy.  He sighed with relief, taking a moment to enjoy a relaxed pace by stretching and emitting a long, deep yawn.  It wasn’t like him to be late, but that dream had accompanied him to sleep on more and more occasions lately, and it had gotten to the point where it was starting to disrupt his routine.

                With a firm ‘ca-chack’, Takaaki locked the front door to the Kono home.  He made sure his bag was secure, and began his short trek across the front yard.  As with every trip to school recently, he had taken up the habit of holding out his hands before him as he turned into the street, furrowing his brow as he pretended to grip an invisible crossbow.  Despite the absence of anything actually in his hands, he felt an eerie sensation course through his body as he pulled back the lever and prepared the imaginary device.  It wasn’t until he began to take aim at a stray cat on a nearby fence that a shock of fear bolted through him, and he stopped dead in his tracks.  The little cat gave a pleasant meow of greeting and hopped off its perch to wherever it had in mind to go.  Takaaki held his hands in fists at his sides and took a few deep breaths, steeling himself as he heard a pair of running footsteps rapidly catching up from behind him.

                “Taka-kuuuun!!”  Konomi’s voice sang in his ears and  he purposely kept himself still, knowing if he didn’t let her hug him from behind, she’d be complaining straight up until lunchtime that it was his fault she’d fallen on her face.

“Hello, Konomi-chan.”  His misgivings vanished upon impact, and he turned to offer her a genuine grin, effectively transforming her assault from behind into a greeting hug.

“Yo, Takaaki!  Good to see you on time today, ne?”  Yuji was a few paces away on the same approach, with his sister just beside him.  The two seemed oddly pleasant today.  Takaaki usually expected to see Tamaki dragging Yuji onto the scene by his ear.

“Do we not walk to school together anymore, Taka-bou?”  Tamaki grinned teasingly, giving Konomi a little shoulder hug with one arm.

“S-sorry, Tama-nee.”  Takaaki presented a sheepish grin, scratching at the back of his neck apologetically.  “I had that dream again, I guess…”  he trailed off, glancing slightly away from Tamaki’s concerned gaze.

“It’s just a phase,” Tamaki sighed, “I’m sure it is.  You probably just have something on your subconscious mind that you haven’t completely dealt with yet.  When you do, those dreams will go away.”  she grinned in her own right and shrugged, “That’s what I was reading in class the other day, at least.” 

With that, the four made their way to class.

                School was the busy hub of before-class activity it had always been as they began to approach the open gates, trading gossip and stories of the unfolding events of their lives in one another’s absence.  Konomi had skipped a few paces ahead, and Takaaki took a moment to glance at her bouncing pigtails and the little pleated skirt that flitted about her hips as she moved.  She never seemed to loose that youthful exuberance—that little spring in her step and giggle at the end of her sentences that seemed to energize everybody around her.

It wasn’t until they had come onto the school grounds, to that very place where the vampiric orgy in Takaaki’s mind had occurred, that he heard a familiar, soft voice in song behind him.

                “Egg sand-wich, egg sand-wich, may-be some-day you’ll en-tice me—“ the melody was cut off as Takaaki felt a hard slap at his back, “Taka-chan!  On time today!”

                Takaaki whirled, his face brightening as his eyes fell upon Karin, Manaka, and Ikuno.  Without thinking, he nabbed Karin by the shoulders and peered into her eyes, looking hopeful, “Sasamori-san!  I was so worried!  A-are you okay!?”

                “A-ah, uh, T-taka-chan.  S-so friendly, eh heh…”  Karin glanced slightly to the left and right, and began to blush deeply as she realized the Komaki sisters were giggling at the sudden display of affection.  “N-now now,” she chided, “it wouldn’t be proper for a Mystery Club member to be like that with his club president out here in public, now would it?”

                Takaaki frowned in confusion for a moment, but managed to put two and two together as he glanced over Karin’s head at the giggling Komaki girls.  He instantly pulled his arms off of Karin and blushed in his own right, his voice softening a bit, “B-but, but that nerve to your arm…”

                Karin waved it off with her good hand, “Ma, ma, don’t worry so much.  Everything’s okay now, and there’s no hard feelings.”  Karin gently patted the sling that cradled her damaged limb and grinned, “After all, it wasn’t you that shot me, hmm?”

                “B-but,” a blubbering Yuji suddenly interjected, “but I was just trying to back my bro here up!  It was out of bravery, that’s all!”

                Everybody had a good laugh as the soft rays of the moon, young yet in the night sky, bathed them in its glow.

                “Ne, ne, Takaaki-kun, have you tried any of the new stuff in the vending machines?”  Takaaki felt a little tug at his jacket, and turned to face Ikuno, who sported a girlish smile and a soda bottle full of thick, sweet smelling blood.  “They just got all the new flavors in!  ‘A’ positive, ‘O’…there’s even supposed to be some ‘B’ in there now.  Ooo, I just can’t wait to try some!”

                “Ikuno-chan, don’t crowd poor Takaaki-san.”  Manaka patted Ikuno gently on the back and began to rub her fingers in cocentric circles between the younger girl’s shoulder blades.  “He’s been through a lot this past week, you know.”

                Ikuno wasn’t at all the girl Takaaki used to know.  Before, she had always been sickly, and her condition had caused her to adopt what he thought was a morose and taciturn outlook on the world.  Getting her to come out of her shell was tantamount to pulling teeth, and sarcasm was her order of the day.  Now, she seemed to have a zest for life akin to Konomi’s, and she leaned into her big sister’s touch, rubbing her head against Manaka’s uniform bow.  It wasn’t a vulgar gesture, but it’s never something she’d have blatantly done in public without feeling self-conscious in the past.

                “Yes, Ane—O-onee-sama,” Ikuno merrily replied, her tone respectful and obedient.

                “Good girl.  Run along and go meet up with your friends hm?”

                Ikuno bowed politely to both her big sister and Takaaki, her bag before her in both hands, rather than slung over her shoulder in only one of them as she used to carry it.  “Yes, Onee-sama.  Good to see you too, Takaaki-ku-err…” she bowed again in a bit of embarrassment, blushing deeply, “Takaaki-sempai.”  With that, she turned and began to run for the main entrance doors, “See you later, Onee-sama!  I love you!”

                “Love you, too, Ikuno-chan.”  Manaka waved lightly to her little sister, smiling warmly as she vanished from sight.

                “Komaki-san, about your eyes…”  Takaaki faltered, “…I’m sorry for how much that must have hurt.”

                Manaka lifted one of Takaaki’s hands in hers and gave it a gentle kiss.  “It wasn’t your fault, silly, and yet you’ve been apologizing for a whole week, now.  Yuma-chan didn’t mean to do it, she was just, well…being a mortal at the time.  She couldn’t help herself.  She knows better, now.”

                “Still…”

                “Shush now.  Don’t worry about it anymore.  If you keep thinking guilty thoughts like that, those bad dreams of yours are never going to go away.”  Manaka placed her hand gently on Takaaki’cheek, “Ikuno is like I’ve never seen her before in her life, and she and I have been having a…special time together, since this all happened.  I couldn’t be happier.  After all,” she offered him a knowing grin, “there’s a certain someone you should be spending more of your nights concerned about, don’t you think?”

                “Thanks, Koma—Manaka-sa—“  Takaaki smiled, placing his hand gently on top of Manaka’s and giving it a gentle squeeze before sending it back to her, “…Manaka-chan.”  Manaka didn’t need to say anything as she walked away—the blush on her cheeks took care of the rest of the conversation for her.

                All around, students were chatting, holding one another, or laying back with a nice bottle of blood.  One young couple were even necking on a bench under a weeping Sakura tree, passing their vital fluids back and forth as they sensually drew from one another’s veins.  It was a bold and unbridled act, despite the blatant public display of it.

                “ACK!  Get out of the wayyyy!!”  Takaaki might have gawked at the lovers on the bench a bit longer, had he not suddenly found himself cast violently to the dirt by the front wheel of a bicycle.  Much to his surprise, being run over out of the blue didn’t actually cause him any pain.  Rather, he felt little more than just a bit of shock at the suddenness of it.

                “Takaaki Kono, I should have known!”  A girl’s uniform shoe planted itself in the dirt before his face, and he glanced up to see Yuma standing there, smoothing her skirt and correcting her bow.  Her uniform was otherwise pristine, and Takaaki couldn’t help but feel overjoyed at seeing her back in top shape.

                “Your wound is almost gone,” Takaaki observed, having rather plain view of Yuma’s thigh under her skirt from where she was standing.  “Oh, they’re blue today….huh.  They match your hair color.”

                To her frustration, Yuma only caught the breeze with her foot as Takaaki made use of his newfound reflexes to scamper away and subsequently back to his feet.  Growling at him in a much more bestial anger than she used to be capable of, she flattened her skirt to her legs with both hands and turned a deep shade of crimson.

                “God, you’re still such a jerk!  Why, why…I’ll beat you senseless right here and now, Takaaki Kono!”  Yuma balled her hands into fists at her sides, “Don’t think I can’t do it just ‘cause I’m a girl, either!  I feel…”  her expression seemed to soften a bit into curiosity as she thought on it, “..come to think of it, I feel better than ever.  I feel like I could beat an elephant into submission.”  Just as soon as she had shifted away from it, she was back to growling, “…so that means, your scrawny butt shouldn’t be any problem at all!  Get over here and take what’s coming to you!”

                “Tonami-san!  Tonaaami-saaann!!”  Practically before Yuma could finish her sentence, she was suddenly grasped by either shoulder from behind, and spun completely on her heel, until she found herself staring into the face of Sango Himeyuri, who glared back at her with a merry grin and raised both arms in greeting.

                “Ruu!!”

                Ruri was behind her, arms folded. She eyed Yuma in a way that made the taller girl uncharacteristically shrink away from the two smaller, weaker looking girls just slightly.

                “Tonami-san,”  Sango sang, “let’s spread lots of love-love today!!”  Yuma irked as Sango tightly threw her arms around her and began to squeeze for a moment, before drawing back and fixing Yuma with her excited eyes.  “Where’d you go to, huh?  You’re not s’posed to just wander away on your own, hmm?”  Sango made a pouty face, and where Yuma might normally have growled and stomped away, she instead bowed her head and dug the toe of her shoe in the dirt with great embarrassment.

                “Y-yes ma’am,” Yuma actually murmured under her breath, “S-sorry ma’am.”

                “Good girl!  Now, come with me.”

                Takaaki was astonished.  Never had he heard such meek, submissive words emit from Yuma.  She wasn’t a truly unkind person, but she was still a proud girl, and thus was more likely to run somebody over with her bike than cowtow to them.  Yet when Sango presented a hand, Yuma took it, and she allowed the smaller girl to lead her off to class, her head bowed in defeat the entire time.  Several students glanced at Yuma as she walked by, sniffing the air and presenting somewhat confused faces before they went back to whatever they were doing.

                “She’s the only one Sango-chan or I got, all that night.”  Ruri lazily meandered by Takaaki, without stopping.  She sported on her face a look Takaaki had seen only once before, and remembering it gave him pause.  She seemed a little annoyed, maybe even worried, as she laid eyes on her disappearing sister up ahead.

                “She’s like sister’s new maid robot.  She won’t even let me turn her all the way.  She keeps…” Ruri paused a moment in both her words and her step, “…she keeps taking her right to the edge and then pulling back.  It’s a damn dangerous and stupid thing to do, in a school full of people like us.  She’s gonna end up getting the poor girl hurt, or something.”

                Ruri began to pad away again, not giving Takaaki the chance to voice his concerns.  “S-she should just get it over with and get rid of that girl…”  she trailed off, her voice beginning to fade anyway with the increasing distance.  Takaaki felt Tamaki’s hand on his shoulder suddenly, and he glanced at her, presenting his worries to her by the look on his face.

                “Don’t worry too much about it, Taka-bou.”  Tamaki offered the phrase with a reasurring tone, “after all, didn’t you know?”

                “’Know’?” Takaaki repeated pensively.  Tamaki sighed as she watched Ruri walk into the main building.

                “They never finished with poor Tonami-san.  She feels like a vampire, but she’s not one, and it’s anyone’s guess if any of the other students are going to notice her while she’s stuck in that weird ‘in-between’ phase or not.”  Tamaki frowned, “Ruri-chan is right, but then, all that Sango-chan ever was is all stored at Kurusugawa Electronics, a place she can’t go anymore.  Maybe she just…can’t cope with not being a ‘mother’ to somebody.”

                “Tama-nee…”

                “Humans who aren’t completely turned end up slaves to whoever feeds on them on a regular basis.”  Tamaki rested a hand on her hip, “You either let them return to normal, or you finish the job.

                “If Sango would let Ruri finish with it,” Takaaki began to fit the pieces together, “the two of them would be alone again.  That’s all Ruri ever wanted anyway, to be the only person in Sango’s life, and she must have thought that dream was finally coming true.”

                Tamaki nodded solemnly, and the group began to trudge towards the same doors Sasara’s rogues had so desperately tried to flee from so few nights hence.

                 A thought occurred to Takaaki as they walked, and he spoke up, “Has anybody seen the Class President?”  He posed the question out at random, pretty much to whomever would listen.

                “She’s usually holed up in the Council Room with Marianne, Taka-bou.”  Tamaki giggled and let out a merry breath, skipping once as she walked on.  “I have to give her credit, she might be the bravest person I know.  Let’s let her be though, ne, Taka-bou?  They’re such special friends…let’s just let them alone for awhile.”

                “Heh, yeah…”  Takaaki trailed off, glancing over at the love idol in the track field, its lights still flashing beautifully long after the end of the festival.  It was a lovely sight, and Takaaki no longer felt a silent, ominous scream emitting from it whenever he glanced upon it.  As he finally entered the building proper, he closed his eyes and indulged in his newfound senses.  Karin was off singing about egg sandwiches and blood somewhere.  Ruri was arguing with Sango.  Yuji was calling out in pain as Tamaki dragged him away from some cute young number he had been ogling.  Manaka and Ikuno were talking about what they were going to do together after school.  Sasara was…well, he couldn’t hear Sasara speaking, but her voice was still audible.  It was enough to get his eyes back open, and his mind back on the young evening.

                Konomi stood in the hallway, watching the students go by with a broad, happy smile.  They would go by today.  They would go by tomorrow.  It was just another ordinary, boring night at school, and she would never have had it any other way.

                Nothing had to end.  Not anymore.

A Nightmare on Heart Street, Part I:  “How True Beats Thy Heart?”

--By Misa Ryuuguu

- Epilogue:  Of Fact and Fantasy -

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>>>>>Delta Omega Kappa subscript in memory.  Content reads as follows:

To:  Sector 45238, Third Planet, Ursa Major, 47.

From:  Lucy Maria Misora, aka:  Ruuko Kirei na Sora

Colleagues:

Ruu to you, esteemed associates.  I have yet to hear from any of our vessels in the Sol system, and am uncertain if this message will reach the intended audience.  All the same, I have begun the study of Uu in earnest, and wish to report upon curious cultural occurrences, heretofore undocumented by Ru in previous studies.

Shortly after the age of puberty, many Uu appear to exhibit an extreme lack of restraint concerning the act of copulation than we had originally come to expect from their society.  As you are aware, it had originally been assumed that Uu as a species were in a state of sexual adolescence with respect to their evolution, and typically prescribe religious, moral, or other difficult to understand, voluntary obstructions that otherwise relegate themselves to a state of constant sexual frustration.  It has been surmised by Ru scholars that said cultural ‘taboo’ behavior with regards to this practice is the underlying reason behind why war, anger, and other forms of obscenity have been so rampant in Uu society in recent millennia.

As this is the case, I have recently encountered a curious societal abnormality, perhaps spawning from centuries of self-inflicted physical denial, that appears to cause a sudden and much feared metamorphosis in young Uu referred to in their terminology as a state of ‘vampirism’.  It is as yet unknown how this state of existence begins in a given geographical area, but the affected Uu seem to exhibit a great desire to pass the condition on to other Uu.  By the same token, unaffected Uu seem to go to great lengths to avoid infection, to the point that they threaten physical violence, or even loss of life, against Uu that they may not have otherwise lashed out upon.

Yet it would appear that Uu continue to amaze the observer, with the presence of a choice few of their kind that exhibit opposite behavior from the group.  Some Uu, be it through acceptance of fate, courage, or perhaps an extreme concern for their fellow species to the point we thought them incapable of, appear to willingly take aforementioned condition upon themselves.  Uu are indeed strange, but in this way, they are also a fascinating subject of study.

As of this time, I have encountered no fully mature Uu exhibiting the condition known as ‘vampirism’.  As this is the case, I cannot comment on the permanence of the condition, but I continue to be confused as to why they would not welcome it.  It cures their diseases, removes the burden of their restraint, and heightens their concern for others to grand extremes.

With regards to other matters, the Uu invention known as ‘maid robot’ appears to have reached the development and completion of model HMX-17.  As originally ordered, I will continue study of this important technological advancement in Uu Society.  It is as yet unknown as to what effect the outbreak of vampirism among Uu geographically close to Kurusugawa Electronics will have concerning the development program.

Ruu (et. al.),

Lucy Maria Misora

aka:  Ruuko Kirei na Sora

>>>>>subscript ends.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Ruuko snapped the lid of her long distance, transwarp communications device closed.  She grinned at the item, pleased that it coincidentally happened to resemble the item Uu referred to as ‘cellular telephone’.  The disguise of such a device couldn’t have gone better if she’d planned it.

                Stretching lazily, the little grin she sported began to settle on her lips and metamorphose into a contented smile.  Uu didn’t seem able to reach such high branches without some difficulty, and as such, her perch in the park was a useful place to observe them about their business without otherwise interfering or being noticed.  She idly stroked the head of the cat she spent most of her time with, and cast her contented gaze upon the scene below her, patiently monitoring it.

                There, bathed in the sensual glow of midnight, were Takaaki Kono and Konomi Yuzuhara, warm in each other’s embrace upon a park bench, their lips pressed lovingly to one another’s neck.  Each drew in long, pleasured draughts from the other, and in turn passed what they took back again, in a moebius loop of innocent high school passion.  A menagerie of convoluted bloodtypes coursed through their bodies, both enticing and contenting them at the same time.  Like the endless school days they were about to exist through, their union was a complete, unbroken loop.

                The two of them marveled at the thought of existing together in one single, still, and everlasting night.

~FIN Part I~

                Hopefully you’ve enjoyed part I!  As I’ve stated, if there’s enough interest, please look out for A Nightmare on Heart Street, Part II:  “HMX Rhapsody”.

                It was a pleasure writing this, and I hope it was a pleasure reading it, too.  Thanks for your interest!!

--By Misa Ryuuguu