Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Defy and Comply ❯ Lesson 4: Free Will ( Chapter 4 )

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Defy and Comply
Lesson 4: Free Will
By: Melissa Norvell
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When Kraki saw the lolita enter the library, worry crossed her face. Sunoma looked as if she'd been crying. Her eyeliner was blurred and her blue eyes looked glassy. She had deathly pale skin, as if she'd seen a murder and her eyes were a little red. The pink of her lips had been bled dry and the pigment nearly matched her skin tone. It was troublesome. "You look pale. Are you alright?"

"I'm a little sick. I'll shake it off. Don't worry about me," Sunoma was quick to dismiss her acquaintance’s inquiry. The more Taiga's words echoed through her mind, the more she felt uneased by them. The queasy feeling was so bad that her stomach felt as if it were assaulted by a butcher knife.

"Did you go see Taiga?" Kraki asked, a little worried that maybe he was the reason for her unsettled look.

"I did," Sunoma spoke in as normal of a manner as she always did.

"What did he say?" The green-haired girl was curious on what about what she had found out.

The girl felt the blood drain from her face, and her illness rose again. Sunoma knew that the question would come, and that she would eventually have to answer it but now was not the time, especially when she was feeling so freaked out. She was sure that if she had to explain it, tears would pour down her face. "I don't want to talk about it right now. I'm still trying to piece things together and I don't want to give you false information." She decided to change the topic. "Do you know where Kiyomaru is?"

Kraki frowned. She got the drift that further investigation would be put on a temporary halt when it came to questioning her fellow student council member. "Very well, I'm going to stay in the library. I want to research this a little more. I'll tell you what I find. As for Kiyomaru, I saw him sitting at the fountain outside earlier. You might find him there."

Sunoma nodded. "Thanks, I'll see you later, Kraki."

The green-haired girl nodded as she turned back to her books. Sunoma's footsteps faded from the room and soon, silence reigned supreme once more as Kraki was left to her studies.


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In front of Shinjinku Academy was a mass fountain with a round pool. Atop of the majestic landmark was a figure of a male student and a female student. The female student had her hands cupped as water flowed from them, and the male student was pouring a jug of something on the ground. Water flowed from the jug; intermixing with the five other water sprouts to combine in one magnificent display.

At the bottom of the fountain, sat Kiyomaru. His hat lay beside of him as he immersed himself in the pages of one of his favorite history novels. The blue-haired boy loved to read about the bloodshed of war and the plights of people in an era long dead to the history of the world. He could spend hours submerged in such material and often did in his free time.

Footsteps approached him as heels clacked on the concrete sidewalk. Kiyomaru glanced up, placing his golden bookmark between the pages and shutting the book, laying it beside of him.

With a bright smile of happiness, he spoke to the girl. "Ah, Sunoma! Good day!"

Sunoma frowned, letting her facade fall a little in the midst of her friend's company. Kiyomaru was someone that she trusted enough with her true feelings to let him see beyond her opaque veil. "No, it's not a good day...It's a terrible day."

Immediately seeing his friend's sorrowful visage, Kiyomaru arose and placed a hand on her shoulder, hoping to comfort her. "What's wrong? You look scared and pale. Do you need to go to the nurse's office? I can escort you there-"

He was cut off.

"Can I tell you something? I want you to keep it a secret." Her voice trembled as tears clung to her eyes and her pupils shook with sorrow.

Kiyomaru leaned in close; his dark green gaze was intent. "Is something wrong? Did someone bully you?" Quickly, he changed poses, holding his fist up with a determined look. "Such actions will not be tolerated! I will make sure, as student council vice president that all parties are punished to the greatest extent! No student should have to live in torment here at Shinjinku Academy!"

Shinjinku Academy was a place where students should be able to learn and interact in a peaceful way. No one should feel they have the right to bully another student, especially someone like his dear, sweet, Sunoma. More than anyone, she meant the most to him. No one would get away with hurting her on his watch.

"That will be the least of your problems," Sunoma could only wish such a thing would have been revealed as truth.

Kiyomaru broke his pose with a bewildered expression. "Huh? What do you mean?"

"You can't tell anyone," Sunoma pressed him into secrecy.

Green eyes looked to her with serious intent. "This must be serious if you're entrusting me with a secret." It wasn't like Sunoma to keep important things to herself without just reason for doing so. Kiyomaru knew that only the darkest secrets were shared with one or two people in her case. She was pretty straightforward and never missed an opportunity to uphold what she believed the truth to be. It was a quality in her character that he admired.

"Those rumors that I brought up before the student council, they're all true," her words like a the final conviction being delivered to the accused in a trial and he felt the force of her words being slammed on his form like a giant gavel.

Kiyomaru drew back, throwing his arms up as his eyes widened in shock and a look of pure horror etched itself on his face. "What? How do you know?"

"I went and asked Taiga about what happened with his brother and he told me that he died in the graduation, that everything was true," Sunoma felt her voice tremble and fold in, overcome with emotion. "Kiyomaru...what graduation comes...we'll have to kill each other too. Everything that was told to me was real...that means that...that he really was a student of the graduating class." Blue eyes widened as her gaze hit the ground and the stubborn tears that had clung so tightly to their corners fell to the ground.

Kiyomaru couldn't believe what he was hearing. The rumors were all true? There had been a space in his mind, an area in his psyche that knew that this would happen, but he was unwilling to accept it. Accepting this as truth amplified his dread to a whole new level, a level that he was certain he could not accept without it absolutely crushing him. Seeing Sunoma so affected by it only made the truth more apparent. Sunoma wasn't the type who would break over simple things. Her will was stronger than a lot of people's, male or female. "That's not possible! You can't trust any information from a yakuza-"

"No...this is from more than one person," Sunoma's dread-filled eyes injected him with fear at the multiple confirmations.

"What? Where did you hear this from?" That's right! The one who started the rumors in the first place! But...who was it? He had no idea where the story originated from.

Sunoma began to tell him about the day he was absent from school, and how a man named Lamar saved her life. In order to thank him for what he had done, she had spent her days after school with him. One day, she had gone inside his house when he wasn't there and read a book that was sitting on his table.

Inside, the contents told a grizzly tale of how he was killing someone. It scared her, because her initial thoughts were that she was next. Not to mention, Lamar looked imposing, much like a street punk who dressed in black with spikes and multiple piercings. He had hair like that of a lion's mane and a pointed goatee. Instead of trying to kill her, Lamar told her to transfer out. When she inquired as to why, he told her about graduation and about how he was forced to murder his classmates. He was rumored to be the only one who survived, and he warned her that it would happen again with their class.

Sunoma knew how unbelievable it sounded and at first she thought he was joking or trying to scare her as payback for the way she treated him, but it wasn't. Taiga's brother was in the same graduating class as Lamar. He died. He was murdered. Taiga told her that they got rid of all of the bodies that were slain and no cases were ever filed on the murders. If they all died inside of the walls of Shinjinku, no one would know or care. The people behind the barbaric graduation practices would kill family members, or anyone else who stood in their way. There was nothing they could do.

They were all trapped inside of that school.

Kiyomaru let her story sink in for a moment before his expression glimmered with hope. "We can get out of here. It would put a damper on their plan if we told everyone to leave." If there were no students to murder, then a graduation couldn't happen. It was likely that some would stay behind, but most may take his advice.

Sunoma shook her head. "No...if we try to get everyone out it'll be worse. They're going to notice."

"We'll tell our parents-"

The lolita glared at him through her tears, her voice took on a sharp edge. "Did you not hear me? They'll kill them. They'll kill everyone." It was especially stupid for him, being an ambassador's son, to make such an idiotic move.

"There's got to be something we can do, anything. We've got to prevent this from happening. We have to stop it before it gets out of hand. Before everyone dies." Kiyomaru felt that it was his duty as a public figure and representative of the student body to protect and serve them to his best ability. If something threatened their very existence, it was time to act. He had to protect them, even if it meant sacrificing his life in order to do it.

"How do we do that?" Sunoma asked. She was out of ideas on how to approach the situation. For her, there were no options to take.

Kiyomaru thought for a moment, trying to construct a plan within the confines of his mind. "Let's find whatever we can about the students who graduated." Surely there were files of the graduating class before them stored in the school's archives.

"All of the documentation has been destroyed."

"What? Are you sure?" How could that be? The school had an extensive archive of student documents. They could be readily accessed at any time. The graduating classes' documents were relatively new compared to other classes in the past. How could they simply not exist?

"Kraki has been in the library and around school, trying to find anything she could on the students and she couldn't find anything. Lamar told me it wouldn't have done any good, and Taiga also said they were destroyed." At this point in time, there was nothing left to do but face the music. They could not learn a single thing and their one link to figuring out the truth had been destroyed.

"I don't understand this. Why is this happening, and how has it been kept in the dark so long? How long has this horrible injustice and these senseless acts of violence been in play?" He was losing it, completely freaking out as Sunoma had. Kiyomaru tried to keep any sense of stability alive but it was slowly dissolving away as if it had been eaten away with caustic acid. He trembled and held the sides of his head in disbelief.

"I don't know," Sunoma looked to the side. She couldn't bear to see her friends breaking over the horrible news and she had no idea on how to approach the others at all.

Standing straight and turning to the girl with a serious expression, Kiyomaru looked her straight in the eyes. "Can you take me to Lamar? I wish to question him on what he knows. Being the only surviving graduate, he may have knowledge that we do not. Perhaps he can help us in trying to figure out who is behind all of this and why innocent students are being needlessly slaughtered." All of their links weren't gone yet. In fact, Lamar and Taiga were the two links they had that could provide them with possible information.

Sunoma nodded. "After school, we'll go talk to him."

"Can I go alone?" Kiyomaru felt a little rude excluding her, but he had his reasons.

"Why?"

"I want to see what he'll tell me if I approach him alone. You can ask him afterwards. He might be willing to tell you more that he would hold back with the two of us present." After all, Lamar didn't trust him or really know him from Adam. The chances of him knowing anything beyond the scope of what he felt like telling him was little to none.

Sunoma looked thoughtful for a moment. He was right, however. She and Lamar had time to bond, and due to their situation he could tell her information with fewer inhibitions than he could with Kiyomaru. "I didn't think of that. I'll show up late."



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A loud knock reached the pierced ears of the green-haired man, who was strumming his guitar, laid back on the couch. Green eyes locked onto the door and Lamar frowned in annoyance to himself. Who could be knocking on his door at this hour? Usually, he had no visitors of any kind.

What gives?

Sighing to himself, he placed his guitar back on the stand and walked over to the door, opening it to reveal the blue-haired teen before him, standing board straight, clad in some kind of military get-up. Lamar's face twisted into further irritation. No doubt this was some kind of fundraiser from Shinjinku or a door-to-door salesman thinking he could worm a few yen out of him for some shitty product he was selling.

"Who are you?" Lamar asked, as he glared down at the boy.

Kiyomaru flashed his brightest, toothy smile as he made his introduction. "Greetings! I am student council vice president Kiyomaru Isata from Shinjinku Academy."

"I'm not paying for your fundraisers. Go stalk the mansions," Lamar muttered and attempted to shut the door but the quick-thinking student grabbed the side, trying to force it open.

"No! Wait! Please hear me out!" Kiyomaru begged as he stuck his head and chest through the door, leaning on the door frame and making himself a human door stop.

"This is breaking and entering," Lamar warned. Hopefully the threat of being accused of being a robber would hinder this guy, but it did no such thing.

"Your name is Lamar, correct?" He asked in a strained tone, still trying to keep from being smashed by the force of the door. Lamar had hellacious upper body strength for being someone so lean.

"What about it?" Lamar's voice was strained as well. This kid was stronger than he thought.

"I wanted to ask you a few things...about graduation." His features darkened and he felt himself free fall and become weightless as he crashed to the ground in front of Lamar, who had ripped the door away from him. Green eyes opened to see black, shined shoes in their wake.

He looked up to see Lamar's expression, riddled with a hardened gaze. "Get your ass in here."

Kiyomaru got up and was very grateful that he had finally been given a chance to talk to this man. Clasping his hands together with a nervous expression, he smiled awkwardly. "Oh, thank you!" Anything was better than being smashed in this guy's door. No wonder he was able to survive graduation with strength like that. Kiyomaru had figured he used a weapon that required great upper body strength.

Lamar shut the door behind him, leaning on it as Kiyomaru rose to his feet. Before him was a man just as Sunoma described him - he was dressed in black, leather pants and a form-fitting muscle shirt with straps over the shoulders. He wore spiked cuffs, a collar and a spiked belt and he had many piercings but despite this he still retained a youthful appearance. Kiyomaru would label him as handsome by any standards - male or female.

"What did she tell you?" There wasn't a doubt in the graduate's mind that this was Sunoma's doing. She told the student council and this guy was its vice president.

"You mean Sunoma?"

"I don't have a choice but to talk. Somehow I knew you'd be one to hear about it." Well, besides just being outright told, that is.

Kiyomaru's features became worried. "This is really real, right?"

"No shit it's real. You're a real genius to figure it out. I thought Shinjinku was a school of prodigies, not dumbasses," Lamar shot sardonically. It was bad enough that he had to put up with this guy and his questioning and now he was slowly becoming involved with students. Was the rest of the student council going to show up at his house, too?

"That's so offensive! I merely came to question you-" Kiyomaru retaliated, but was interrupted by the graduate once again.

"Tell me what ya want to know," Lamar didn't have time for this. Nothing would come from fighting with this guy. He seemed uptight as it was.

"What happened in your graduation? Just how was it that you were made to kill each other?" That was something he longed to know. Surely Lamar's class didn't just jump into murder right off the bat. Surely, they tried to protest against it!

"On the day of graduation, a dome covers the school and trapped us inside. We had to kill each other and they would let the one out who won. That was their rules," Lamar explained the initial phase of graduation.

Shocked crossed Kiyomaru's face, "surely you didn't go through with it at first."

"We tried to make a no kill pact but that just pushed them to torture us mentally until one of us got blood on our hands. Even if you don't wanna kill, they have ways of fuckin' with ya so you do." No one escaped the hands of the great mastermind. If they were condemned to death, then that was merely how it was. When they defied the rules, they were broken and busted, their minds blurred and manipulated into bending to their will.

Despair hit Kiyomaru hard. Never had he felt so trapped, never had the situation felt as real as it did now. "Is there really no way out of this?"

"Not that I saw," Lamar's voice dropped an octave. He tried to the best of his ability and still he couldn't find anything that could have led the students to freedom.

"What if we can beat their mental game? What if we can absolutely ensure the fact that no one will die?" If everyone was aware of the plan, then they would all know not to succumb to it. Mind over matter, that's what it would be a case of. Kiyomaru was sure that he could keep them from wanting to commit such a heinous crime.

"How do you do that? There are hundreds of students in the senior class. Someone's gonna flip their shit or they'll turn an accident into a crime and punish someone for it to instill fear into you all, to make you feel like ya wanna get out...to scare you into killing." Lamar knew the game all too well. It wasn't about mind over matter; it was about sanity and breaking under pressure. It was about the lack of free will. It was slavery and confinement. It was hell on earth.

"How dreadful! That's just barbaric!" Kiyomaru could hardly believe what he was hearing. It seemed as if it didn't matter what happened, someone was going to die, lives would be lost and his world would spiral down into darkness.

"If you don't kill, they make these horrible games and events. They know everything about you, and they'll use it all to try and break you." One way or another, there was going to be a sacrifice. It wasn't something they could avoid. If they defied the rules, they would be forced to comply with alternative methods. There was nothing fair about graduation. It was a brutal havoc that crushed all of its victims in one way or another.

"That's impossible! How can they have access to that type of information?" Someone who knew the very intricacies of his personal life, right down to the things only he would know about? That sounded like some sort of military technology. No school would be capable of such a thing...would it?

"I haven't been able to figure that out yet." Lamar had wondered how they could possess the same knowledge and despite his year of searching, he found nothing.

Kiyomaru could feel himself running low on questions and alternative methods to combat the horror of his situation. He felt himself caving in to the reality before him. "This sounds like it's beyond the scope of any high school student. How are we supposed to figure out whose behind this in such little time?"

"I've been trying to find things myself and I can't. I don't know where else to look." Green eyes hit the floor at admitting his failure. Lamar had a year to make things count, and even with his spiral into drug use, he used his time to try and find out whatever he could. Lamar wanted to make sense of graduation and Shinjinku Academy, but he had failed to gather any conclusive evidence or new information.

His hands were tied.

Kiyomaru leveled Lamar with a serious expression. "Tell me...why haven't you tried to prevent this? You saw everything. You had a year." Surely that was enough time. Lamar could have done something in that year. He could have tried to shut down Shinjinku Academy, something.

Lamar felt his heart tear from that strike. Like a dog backed into a corner, he defended himself by looking cross and holding a fist up. "You don't think I've been busting my ass to try? Who would believe it, even if I did? There's nothing I can even prove. I don't have bodies or evidence. I can't even prove they exist. I'm not a government agent."

Kiyomaru seemed to forget that he was in the same position as they were.

"If you graduate, what happens?" Kiyomaru had to know what result he would be dealt. Was it really last man standing or did something more sinister await the lucky graduate?

Lamar closed his eyes and turned his head to the side, frowning, "nothing."

"You're joking."

"Nothing, I swear it. They just let me walk out and handed me a diploma," Lamar opened his eyes, still averting them away from Kiyomaru. His voice was low and sorrowful as flashbacks of his final moments within the walls of Shinjinku. That moment the doors opened and the dome was no longer in place. The bodies of the dead were all around him, serving as his silent audience.

"How long has this been happening?" Kiyomaru asked. If Lamar's class had been killed, did this mean prior classes suffered the same fate? Just how long was this murder trail?

Lamar's vision was guided back to the student council president. "I...don't know. I have no idea how many students died. My class alone was 176 people."

"What did you get into this school for? I couldn't find your name anywhere."

"I used to be a rock star."

"I heard you wrote down the events of what happened in your graduation," Kiyomaru brought to topic of the book up. It wasn't meant to bring back any bad memories for the rock star, but in the back of his mind the blue-haired male wanted him to show him the book.

Lamar walked over to the mantle of the fireplace in the living room and took the bloodstained book from it. Glancing down at the book, he frowned; looking conflicted before he walked back over to Kiyomaru and held it out before him. "I wanted to keep a record, as much as I could remember when I had the time to write it. It's not leavin' this house but...I'll let ya read it. It's not my fault if ya get mentally scarred."

Kiyomaru looked down at the book; apprehension riddled itself on his expression as he stared down the splattered parchment. 'The answers I want are in here. This is what Sunoma read. What have your eyes seen, Lamar?'

Opening the book to a random page, green eyes scanned over the kanji written down on the pages.

This is the end. I'm finished.

I'm nothing but miserable and lonely, trying to remember the last time I smiled or laughed is impossible. Was there any happiness to begin with or have I been lying to myself? No friends, no happiness, fuck my dreams of becomin' famous. Something keeps calling out to me, tellin' me to just end it. I'll never get out alive.

There's Raiga and his brother, but that makes it worse. I disappointed them and that is worse than death. What a choice, right? Die and be a disappointment and failure or live and make everyone's life worse.

This laceration hurts like hell. I still see her body falling to the floor as I deliver the final strike, but she wanted it...She begged for me to kill her. I traced my fingers over my poorly sewn wound. To experience pure, unadultered pain without modern science is hell.

There's a dream that's real in every way. I stand in front of a lonely mirror, gazing at the wound that threatens to take my life every second. I see other people, my classmates, the way they were before. Memories of happiness flooded my mind. Raiga...he always wanted me to be happy. He would have never let this happen. He wanted to protect me. Even if it's for him, I have to live. Tears run down my face. It's dark. I can't see. There's too much blood on my hands. No redemption. This never should have happened. This school is just a facsimile. The stage of fantasy where I sing a rock solo alone with no captive audience.

I feel pushed towards this madness. This world, this school needs me. They need me. Red. Blood. Red. Blood. It flows like sick rivers here. It's washed down the drains when we shower. I hear the blood curdling screams. I feel that substance splatter on my body as I kill them one by one.

As I grip my scythe in my hand, staring down at my unbuttoned shirt, I begin to think to myself. When I really think about it, by killing them, I get them out of here. I free them from this hell. I hold the power in my hands, in this weapon. I can play god. I can end their suffering. I can save them.

But...they look so unhappy, like they don't realize I'm saving them. Why can't they smile, happy to escape this hellhole? Why don't they stop screaming at me? Why can't you be happy that I saved you?

You don't need to be afraid. I'll save you all. Dying by my hands is far better than execution. If I can't get them out alive, I'll take them out of this world. No one needs to suffer like this. They are better off. I'll be the justice this school needs. I will show you all my radiant glory. You'll love me because you'll be begging me for this.

I would want it. I would die with a smile. I would be more than happy to get out of this place as a corpse then I would be free of this unimaginable pain.

He couldn't bear it anymore. Kiyomaru couldn't read another word.

Tears hit the kanji, smearing it a little as they fell from his eyes. His hands trembled and he could feel the pain in those words, he could only imagine what it would have been like to be hurt and crazed from the pain and the trauma of his situation. Kiyomaru could do nothing but cry.

"What is this?" His voice shook with sorrow. His teeth clenched as rivers flowed down his face. 'Why do I feel so guilty? There's nothing I could have done...nothing I can do now?' Evergreen eyes looked to the rock star as Kiyomaru sobbed. "This book is your feelings, your pain and anguish...It's the real deal. The extent of human emotion, the raw pain of the broken soul. I can't take this. I don't want to kill, or die. I don't know what to do anymore..."

Kiyomaru was lost and he was broken.




...To Be Continued