Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Defy and Comply ❯ Lesson 13: I Win You Lose Now You Have A Two-Way Bruise ( Chapter 13 )

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Defy and Comply

Lesson 13: I Win You Lose Now You Have A Two-Way Bruise

By: Revamp

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Tsukimi lay in her bed, breathing heavily. The girl's body was covered in sweat. It was hot, burning like wildfire as she felt nausea overtake her. She was afraid to open her eyes, for if she did she was certain that the room would be spinning. Her neck seared like someone was burning her with a branding iron. What happened? Why was she so sick all of a sudden? Nothing made sense anymore.

To her right, Kiyomaru watched over the girl, laying an ice pack on her head in an attempt to quell her burning. He was starting to get worried. Tsukimi's condition was only getting worse. "I'm getting worried. She has not awoken since I found her. She is terribly pale and sweating profusely. Also, her temperature is up there. It's as if she has a fever or infection." Dark green eyes shifted to Lamar, as if the green-haired man had an answer to his problems.

"I know she was sick before she left, or rather she told me she didn't feel well." Could Tsukimi have been sick that day? Maybe she was worse than she was but never said anything about it. Maybe she didn't want them to worry about her condition. A thousand possibilities ran through his head.

Glancing back to the girl, who was resting uncomfortably on the bed, "I hope it's not serious. We don't need another death. Speaking of deaths, how is Daifumi-san doing?" Taiga had taken the death of Yuunatsu pretty hard. Kiyomaru had never seen him lose his composure like that. It must have been hard for him.

Lamar arched an eyebrow. "Haven't you seen him?"

"He won't speak to me," Kiyomaru looked back at the green-haired man. Taiga didn't want to talk to anyone much. He figured that Lamar might have known something, considering they were friends and roommates.

"I can make him talk," Lamar knew that Taiga would talk to him. More than anyone else, the yakuza would have spoken to him. They knew each other inside and out, and they didn't hide many secrets from each other. The two of them were best friends.

"Lamar?"

"What is it?" Lamar asked.

"What is your relationship with Daifumi-san?" Kiyomaru's voice sounded more concerned than it should have. The way that Lamar talked about the other man held a great sense of endearment to it. It made him wonder if the two were more than friends. After all, they did share a dorm room together.

"We're childhood friends. His brother and I were class mates...Well, something like that," Lamar replied, the last part of his sentence dropped an octave as nostalgia filled his eyes.

"Something like that?" Kiyomaru was confused as to what that phrase meant.

A smile crept across the older teen's pierced face. "You sound jealous," he teased with a grin.

Suddenly, Kiyomaru looked guilty and began to frantically cover up his nosey deeds. "How rude of me! I should not be questioning your bonds with people. I should punish myself immediately-" He nearly yelled the sentences, becoming more and more frustrated as he continued on, before getting cut off.

"You crack me up. You're such a spazz." It was an endearing quality, really. Whenever Kiyomaru thought he was asking too much or being too nosey, he beat himself up, like the straight-laced military brat he was. He was such a perfectionist and so into pleasing others. It was a quality that was unlike any that he possessed.

"I do not mean to be. You probably find me to be an airhead now," Kiyomaru's bushy eyebrows furrowed and he crossed his arms over his chest, glancing to the side in shame. This truly was embarrassing.

"I think you're amusing. I'm gonna go and check on Taiga." Besides, there was nothing that he could really do where they were. Tsukimi was resting, and for now, only one person would be needed to look after her. If Kiyomaru had any problems, he could always find someone or take her to the nurse's office.

Kiyomaru stood bolt straight. "Wait!" He yelled frantically, as if Lamar was disappearing before his eyes.

Lamar froze in place, then turned around to face him. "What?"

The blue-haired boy's cheeks flushed a little. "I find you very...our time together it was..." He kept trying to say it, but it only came out half way. Frustrated with his own awkwardness, Kiyomaru belted out the next few sentences. "Thank you! I would do it again! I do not mind a relationship of benefits with you! I am sure that you could educate me in many ways! That is all."

"Well, you're welcome. I'd sleep with ya again. You're pretty cure," Lamar winked playfully and smiled a little. "Don't worry about Taiga. If ya like me, then go for it." The only thing that was truly stopping them from becoming more was the fact that Kiyomaru held back. Lamar was open with his sexuality.

Worry and confusion crossed Kiyomaru's face, and once again, he glanced to the side. "I-I believe further exposure is required. Besides, Sunoma..." He still had feelings for her. Sunoma was a girl who lit up his life, and even though he was uncertain of how she felt, he didn't want to hurt her. Kiyomaru truly adored her, and even if there was someone right in front of him, offering more than she had offered, who was to say she wouldn't have done the same if he had gone to her instead? All of this was so confusing!

"You'll figure it out," Lamar would leave that in his hands. For now, he needed to go and check on the yakuza. He was pretty worried about his old friend's state of mind, especially about things like that.

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On his way back to the dorm, Lamar noticed that the halls were nearly barren. There were a few students here and there, but not like there usually was. In fact, a silence befell the campus after Yuunatsu had been found dead, and he imagined that the word was spreading like wildfire.

Ahead of him, in front of one of the large, long gazing windows that looked out over the front yard, and the beautiful, groomed landscape stood Taiga. One hand was on his hip and the other balled into a fist and raised to his chest. The yakuza closed his eyes and tilted his head down, his teeth bore in a frown as he fought the conflicting emotions within him.

"How do ya feel?" Lamar's voice cut into his thoughts as he lifted his head up and glanced over at him.

"I've been thinking about things," Taiga's answer was short. His voice still had a clinging sorrow.

"About Yuunatsu's death?" He didn't need to question, but at the same time he was curious. Something told him that he didn't want to head what Taiga was about to tell him.

The yakuza nodded.

"What do ya think?" The bad feeling only got worse, the more he inquired.

"I think Tsukimi killed him," Taiga's voice was filled with validity. There was no question about it. Taiga one-hundred percent believed that the girl had killed him.

"That's a pretty harsh accusation. That girl doesn't act like a killer," Lamar didn't want to believe that Tsukimi was capable of doing such a thing. She didn't seem like the type of person who would kill someone if she was given the choice. To him, she was nothing more than a normal school girl and the events of the night before was just a moment of bad judgment.

Taiga leveled him with a serious expression. Those steely, aqua eyes bored right into him. "Does a killer have a certain way they act?"

"They have commonalities," Lamar argued the fact. Even when the both of them were involved in the last killing incident, everyone shared common traits that made them killers. Even he had to admit that.

"It had to have been her. You know what she said. Tsukimi admitted that she'd kill him if she could." There was no denying the truth. Lamar knew damned good and well that Tsukimi was thinking about doing it. At first, Taiga wanted to believe that maybe it was just her acting out of pain and anger, but there was no way in hell that he was going to believe it now. Yuunatsu turned up dead the very next day. That was too coincidental for him.

"You can say anything you want, but it doesn't make it true." Green eyebrows furrowed in irritation. Taiga was acting on his anger and that snapdragon temper of his. Lamar believed that his accusations were wrong.

Taiga felt himself getting more and more irritated. Lamar was supposed to be his friend and now he was defending his friend's killer? What kind of shit was this? "Actions speak louder than words and now he's dead, the very next day. Tell me that's not just some weird coincidence."

"It doesn't make sense," not to Lamar and not in many ways. He didn't believe that Tsukimi would have been able to take a yakuza down, not in a way as grizzly as that. Whoever killed Yuunatsu used the same pattern that Mishio had been killed in. Tsukimi would have never killed Mishio. It was just not cohesive.

This only riled the yakuza up more. Raising his fist as a vein popped out of his head, Taiga lashed out at him, unable to hold back his anger. "Are you questioning me?"

Defiance was laced onto the green-haired man's face. He frowned, cold, green eyes staring down the volatile man before him. "Damned right, remember what happened when we didn't think things through last time?"

"Damn it! Why are you defending her?" Taiga barked. He felt even more backed into a corner than he did before. This was pure and utter bullshit! Even his best friend was against him! He knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that Tsukimi killed him, he just couldn't prove it.

"I don't have valid enough evidence to convict her," his gaze hardened and his voice gained a cold edge, "neither do you." He delivered his words like a knife made of liquid nitrogen slamming into Taiga's form.

"I know she did it," Taiga was going to stand by his words until he was proven otherwise. No way in hell was he going to believe any differently.

"So what if she did? Are you gonna try to kill her?" Lamar shot in accusation. He knew how Taiga was. More than anything, Lamar knew that above anything he was a yakuza and honor his men came before anything, his family, his brother and even him.

Taiga gave no response. He glared defiantly at his friend; his aqua eyes were full of rage and contempt.

"Don't go blowing up, Taiga. I know you got anger issues but goin' into it with a cloudy head ain't gonna solve shit and it won't catch ya a killer, either." Lamar could only warn his friend by saying it in the most threatening way he knew how. He hoped that the hot head would get it through his head and not do anything strange.

Taiga closed his eyes and clenched his fist up by his chest, growling lowly. "Why are you against me? Anyone but you." That last phrase was filled with more hurt than it was anger.

Lamar's octave softened as he cast his friend an understanding expression. "I'm not against you, but I'm not for you either. If ya can prove to me that Tsukimi did it, I'll side with you. If not, I won't agree with either of you."

A third voice interrupted the two causing them to look back. The voice was young and wild, but it held a vast intelligence to it.

"Man, you two fight like a married couple."

Lamar looked as if he had seen a ghost, or something straight out of a horror movie. His eyes widened and he broke out into a cold sweat. There was no way that he could possibly see what was before him right now. There had to be another explanation. His eyes were undoubtedly playing tricks on him. Taiga was equally shocked. All he could do was stand there with wide eyes. He uncurled his fingers that were once balled tightly.

Before them was a slender man, donning a white, button up shirt that hung out of his faded yellow pants that he had rolled up to his mid-calf. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up behind his elbows and his pants were held up by suspenders. Long, pale blue, almost white hair was combed back and flowed down his back, past his butt. He had a very oriental look about him, with thin eyebrows, cat-like eyes and a wide, jagged smile.

"Complete silence? Man, that's bunk. I thought I'd get a warm reception instead you two look like you've seen a ghost," how disappointing. He expected better of his two school mates than that.

"What...the fuck?" Lamar uttered in broken up syllables. This man shouldn't have been alive. He should have died. How was he alive?

"H-How..." Taiga could barely utter a word. He was just frozen in place, with widened eyes and his hand out. The yakuza didn't even have the will to move.

"It's you! How the hell are you alive? I killed you!" Lamar couldn't believe it. Someone else besides himself had actually survived through graduation. He pointed at the blue-haired teen before him. It still didn't make sense, however. He could have sworn that he killed him. What was going on?

The teen frowned and put a hand on his head. "Rude, I didn't tell you that you should be dead." This wasn't going the way that he had planned it to go at all.

"B-but, but-but..." Taiga babbled unintelligibly.

"You guys could actually say legit words and not act like you have a bad case of tourettes," he knew that they both possessed that ability, especially someone as outspoken as Taiga.

"You died. There's no way you can be alive," he was murdered during the course of time that Taiga had met up with his brother's class. It was true that Taiga didn't see him die, but he saw all of the blood at his murder scene. No one could have lost that much blood and lived. If they did it was a miracle.

"I killed ya. How did ya live from that?" That was the real question that Lamar wanted to know.

"I'm fuckin' magic!" The blue-haired teen jerked a finger to himself and flashed a brilliant, shark-like smile. Taiga and Lamar fell to the ground in response before the boy took on a more serious demeanor. "No but seriously. I've been here."

Taiga jumped to his feet, barking at the other teen. "Answer the fucking question! How are you alive?" Enough with the bullshit! He wanted answers!

The teen began to explain his situation. After graduation, he had to fend for himself. He drug himself across the ground and he had to sow up his own wounds. He managed to sow up the wound on his chest and seared off the one in the back by heating a sword blade in the incinerator. While everyone was killing each other, he was busy making plans. He created a room, a hidden room in the basement of the school and lived there ever since.

"Wait! You've been living here the whole year?" Lamar was shocked, and at the same time he wondered what his classmate had seen.

"Yep, I've never left campus,” the other student beamed, happy of his ability to go under the radar for so long without being noticed.

"How did you go undetected?" That was the big question that went through Taiga's head.

"I go out during the late night hours for shit like food and water. I managed to construct several simple machines to help make this possible. I also have medical supplies as well. Inside of my little home, I have gathered several important documents regarding Shinjinku Academy. It took many hours and even days of research and exploration to obtain these documents. It's not easy playing spy," he scratched his cheek with his finger and leveled them with a confident smile. Someone like him had always had ways of cheating the system. After all, he was inducted into the academy for his exceptional skills as an engineer and architect.

"So, you have the floor plans to the school, Kazoo?" Lamar asked. If he did, this would be a great piece of information for them.

Kazoo winked and gave the two a thumbs up. "You bet your sweet ass I do. Not only do I have them, I know where everything is. I have every room memorized. I've been training for this moment."

Taiga's expression hardened. "Where's the switch for the dome?"

Kazoo's confidence was extinguished with that very sentence. He frowned unhappily. "I can't find it anywhere." It wasn't designed into the floor plans, so he was shit out of luck when it came to its location.

"What?" Taiga's hand clenched. What good was he if he didn't send any time even trying to learn its location. Without that, it didn't matter what kind of plans they had.

"I've been through here with a fine-toothed comb and I can't figure out where the control system is or how it even works," the whole thing was a mystery to Kazoo. It was so complex that he didn't know where to even start.

"You're an engineer-" Taiga started to explode again but was cut off.

"I tried! Throw me a bone!" Kazoo retorted, throwing his hands out, then he scratched at the back of his head and pouted. "Well, I mean throw me a bone that's not going to hit me in the face and knock me out."

"That means you don't have all of the plans," Lamar was a little disappointed. It looked like the killing event was still going to happen. There was nothing that any of them could do to stop it.

"Well...no..." That was shameful to admit.

"Useless waste of space and creation-" Taiga muttered in irritation. What good was he? Kazoo stayed in the school for a year and he still couldn't figure out where the switch was that operated the dome. They were all going to die now and it was all his fault.

"Hey! There's no way I can get my hands on their technology. I'm only one guy. I'm not the military or anything. Besides, why would they leave their sensitive documents lying around? That's just stupid." Kazoo would defend himself until the end. It wasn't that he didn't try to get the documents, or even find the switches' location; it was that they were just that smart and calculating. If they would have even dared to leave documentation out laying around for him to find, it would have been easy for anyone to have access to something that was a key factor in graduation.

"You've seen everything that's going on here, right?" Lamar wanted to know how in touch he was with the string of murders that had been happening.

"Most of the time, yeah, I do my own thing, too," Kazoo dabbled in the latest buzz that was going around campus, but he didn't pay attention to it specifically.

"Do ya know anything about this serial killer who's been murdering students?" Lamar pressed.

"The killings have been happening at weird times, so no I haven't seen who it was," he was just as clueless as they were. Kazoo hadn't seen anything too substantial, he merely knew of the news that was going around.

"Damn it," Taiga wasn't happy with that answer.

Kazoo arched an eyebrow. "You guys think it was a student?"

"It has to be," from what Lamar knew, there was no other answer to the mystery. It didn't make sense for it to be anyone else other than someone who actively attended the academy.

"Are you sure it's not our mystery fiend?" Kazoo brought up the fact that they never did find out who the mastermind of the operation was when they were in class. They could very well be hanging out among the population, killing people to kick off the event early.

"Maybe they're masquerading as a student," when he thought about it, Taiga figured that was one scenario that could have made sense.

"That means we can't trust anyone," Lamar stated. This also meant that Tsukimi's innocence in Yuunatsu's murder couldn't be validated either.

Taiga paused. He looked as if a realization had hit him. "Wait...since you have the floor plans, tell me. Can you tell me if there are cameras in here?"

"Yeah! They're all over the place," Kazoo thought that was common knowledge.

Lamar's face lit up in surprise. "That means-"

"They know what you two are doing," Kazoo didn't know who they were trying to kid. Did they honestly think they were being sneaky with their little plan?

"What!?" Taiga belted in shock and anger.

"We're busted, but you know they're going to use us to their advantage. You're a toy to the big man's creation, like a figurine trapped in a crystal ball. You guys should know that from the last graduation. What the hell's wrong with you two? You're not being sneaky at all," Kazoo had thought that all of this must have been painfully clear to them. He was sort of shocked that they were so surprised that their plans had been found out. This was a mistake novices made, not people who had been through a graduation before.

"What do you know about who's behind this?" Lamar had to wonder if he had any more connections than they did.

"Nothing," Kazoo said it as plain as day. It was as if he was discussing the weather or something.

"You've been here a year. I call bullshit," Taiga wasn't buying it. Kazoo had to know something that they didn't, unless he was calling himself a shitty detective.

"What about the school itself?" Lamar tried a more indirect approach. Surely, Kazoo knew something. He had to have known something.

Kazoo looked at them dead in the eyes as he revealed the next piece of information. "I found a graveyard."

"That exists?" Lamar questioned. He didn't know that there was actually a graveyard that was dedicated to their graduating class. Why would such a thing be constructed?

"The one for our class does. There are even tombstones with both of your names on them." That piece of knowledge was enough to send chills down both of their spines. It was as if someone had planned that the two of them would die, or perhaps it was a deadly premonition of their deaths to come. Either way, he caused them to feel dread bad enough to send their stomachs into a pit fall.

"They're buried on the school grounds? Are there any others?" If their class had a cemetery, then maybe the classes before them did. This was a big break, and something that could prove to the student council that something nefarious had been going on, but more importantly it solved the big mystery of where the bodies had been taken to back when everyone was fighting for their lives.

"Just our class," Kazoo shook his head with a dismal expression. "You can get there easily. I'll take you there."

Lamar took a deep breath and closed his eyes; trying to hold back all of the nostalgic emotions that had flooded back to him. The fighting, the killing, the trials, his failed execution. It all rushed back to his head with such force that it felt as if he was being assaulted by bricks. "I don't know if I'm ready for this."

"I'll never be ready for this but I want to see it," for Taiga, it was a sense of closure. It was the spot where he knew his brother rested. It was the knowledge of knowing that his brother had a body that could be recovered. It meant a lot to him, and he wanted to at least bring that back with him.

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It was a long, rectangular room with a high ceiling that was painted to look like a partially cloudy sky. The air smelled of turf and grass as the group of males stepped into it. There was a steady stream of ventilation. It provided a sense of air movement that played with the ends of their hair, rocking the strands back and forth to a rhythm on they knew existed. There were many tombstones, all spaced evenly apart and all the same size, color and shape. They were merely white, stone planks with each student's name engraved on it as well as their date and cause of death.

"Here it is. I told you it existed," Kazoo said as he gestured to the plot of land before them. "No one knows about it but us, so it's like our free area." It wasn't as if anyone with murderous intentions could have found them there. They were safe to go unarmed during graduation, providing no one learned about its existence.

The group walked through the tombstones, looking at each one, reading the student's names and cause of death as vivid flashbacks assaulted their minds. Lamar walked down a row of tombstones, reading each one carefully. Persephone Peacock, cause of death: execution, Akagi Sekiya, cause of death: murder, Okasana Miisa, cause of death: assisted suicide...and then, Lamar's face turned a ghastly shade of blue. He stopped in dead in his tracks as his eyes laid sights on the grave before him.

It had his name scrawled on it, but the cause of death was left blank. He felt uneasy and nauseous. The very sight of it made him want to puke. All of that time, all of that time he was convinced he couldn't kill himself. Lamar had made many attempts on his own life. He tried to terminate the urge to kill himself by drowning in drugs, and none of it worked. To see a grim reality that could have been in front of his face made him all the more ill.

"Sure enough...this is my name. Man, that's fucking freaky. I don't like lookin' at this at all," Lamar pried his eyes away as his stomach churned sickeningly.

A couple of tombstones down from him, Taiga knelt down in front of a tombstone. On the tombstone, it read Raiga Daifumi, cause of death: murder. The solemn yakuza had his eyes closed and his expression was crestfallen.

"Pretty wild, huh?" Kazoo asked as he glanced between the two.

'Even looking at it now...I don't want to believe it. Is this really all I have? Some fucking tombstone in the ground? This is what his class amounted to in the end?' Taiga tore his gaze away, before he got any more emotional than he had been. It just amplified his feelings of loss and despair. "Why did we even come here? I can't stand looking at this shit."

"There was a saying - the only certainty in life was death. Everyone wanted a purpose, a reason to live but we only live to die. Every moment, every second we age. Life has no real progression. All of this time I've spent trying to find my purpose in this world, but my purpose is to die. To end up in a place just like this," to Lamar, it didn't matter much. His life was expendable, and in many ways he wanted to die. Lamar had retained this belief from the time he lost his mind in the graduation. It was as if he had come to a strange, warped epiphany. Everything people lived for only resulted in the same means to an end - death.

"Death solves nothing," Taiga argued as he arose from his brother's grave.

"Yes it does," Lamar explained the reasoning behind his strange mindset. "It solves problems, relationships, debt...it ends suffering. You don't have to worry when you're dead. You can't suffer anymore." To him, it was a release. It was a great peace, and ever since graduation he had only waited until his came, cold and brutal.

The whole conversation unnerved Kazoo. Could they really just not talk about a subject like that in a place full of tombstones? "Dude, you're freaking me out. Stop talking like that." It creeped him out when Lamar lost his mind during graduation and started rambling about the same subject. It was clear he still retained that fucked up sense of logic, much to his unease.

"Some problems can't be solved. Some happiness is unattainable," Lamar continued, despite Kazoo's apparent unease.

"I know how you feel. You wanna forget but the darkness looms over you. It's too strong to forget no matter how much you try to block it. We struggle every day and for what? So we can struggle some more. People don't wanna die because they're afraid of what they don't know but how much worse could it be? When you question yourself every day? Thinking things will get better is just as bad as thinking they'll get worse," Taiga didn't want to hear Kazoo's girly-ass excuses of feeling like he was creeped out by their dark subject matter. The truth was the truth, and part of what Lamar said, as left fielded as it was, had grounded accuracy to it that he couldn't deny.

"Why should people have to put up with the bad? C'mon, get a grip," Kazoo tried to shake the two out of their dark thoughts. So what if that's what their situation was? He didn't need it brought up like that. The last thing Kazoo wanted to be reminded of was the pain.

"What else is there to do?" Taiga questioned.

Then, the answer came, as grim as it was.

"Keep struggling," Lamar's expression hardened. This was the path that they had all chosen.

"Raiga must be experiencing something beautiful. To lie in the soft earth and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, no tomorrow, to forgive life and forget time. I want to believe that's what he feels right now." More than anything, Taiga wanted to know that was what his brother had been feeling.

Kazoo said nothing; he merely stared into the fabricated sky with its motionless clouds. His hands shoved into his pockets.

Aqua eyes shifted to the long-haired male. "Why are you so quiet?"

"I usually am around here," Kazoo didn't know why. Maybe it was an odd sense of respect, but he felt as if he should just be quiet and listen to the air movement.

"Are all of the dead truly here?" Lamar wondered.

"Their tombstones are," Kazoo gave him an obscure answer.

"What do you mean their tombstones are? Where are their bodies?" Taiga didn't like the sound of that. Was Kazoo implying that there were no bodies in the graveyard? What did he mean the tombstones were there?

"I can't tell you that," Kazoo's answer was simple. He couldn't nor was he going to.

This infuriated Taiga. He had every right to know where his brother's body was. "What? You mean you know where they are?"

"I know a great many things that I'm not going to tell you," Kazoo's small, blue pupil shifted to the irate yakuza. His voice was dripping with apathy.

"You son of a bitch! Why the hell would you withhold information like that?" Taiga was disgusted that he would do such a thing. Kazoo was hindering everything. Why the hell would he even show them the graveyard if all he was going to do was tease them with information he wasn't willing to give them?

"It's for your own good," Kazoo had his reasons, and no matter how much of a pissy fit Taiga threw he was still going to keep his secrets regarding the bodies. There were just some things that didn't need to be told and that was one of them.

Taiga held up a fist, his anger flared up again. "You think you can tell me what you think is for my own good?" How dare he do that shit to him! No one told him what to do. Taiga didn't care who the fuck he thought he was.

"Drop it. He's not going to talk. We'll have to find it out ourselves," Lamar's voice was harsh and cold, authorative. The yakuza needed to be handled to get his rage issues under control.

"Rat-ass bastard! You'll be the reason people die!" Taiga didn't give two shits about Lamar's authority. He was pissed and he was going to let Kazoo have it in one form or another.

"I said drop it," Lamar's voice was more stern this time, more demanding.

Taiga held his fist up, unable to control his rage. "He pisses me off," the yakuza seethed.

"You still have to deal with me. I have my reasons for not telling you, trust me. Don't be a huge dick about it," Kazoo could care less if the other man swung his fist. It wouldn't have been the first violent conflict he had with the short-tempered yakuza leader. When it came down to it, Taiga was like a match lying next to a bunch of fireworks. It was only time before he blew things up.

"You're stayin' down here, right?" Lamar turned his attention back to the long-haired teen.

"It won't be long before the dome closes. I thought now would be a good time to make myself known." Kazoo took his hands out of his pockets, placing them on his hips as he looked at the two.

"We'll need to find a place for you to stay but first, I want to check on Tsukimi," Lamar was worried about the girl's condition. Last time he saw her, Tsukimi wasn't doing too well. He wondered if her condition had improved any.

"Hmpf," Taiga put his fist down and jerked his sights away from the two. He wanted nothing to do with that girl.

"Who is Tsukimi?" Kazoo had come into the middle of the action, and he hadn't intensely studied the students enough to care who was who.

"A girl that wears cat ears, has black hair with red and yellow streaks, different colored eyes, wears a yellow dress with fish net stockings..." Lamar tried to think of all of the words that described the girl.

"I think I've seen her around," Kazoo was actually pretty sure he had seen that girl in particular before. If memory served him correctly she was quite attractive.

"She's been sick, so I wanted to check on her," Lamar was worried.

"Count me in!" Kazoo jerked a thumb towards himself and smiled brightly as they headed out of the graveyard, making sure that no one saw them upon their exit.

XxXxXxXx

Back in Tsukimi's room, Kiyomaru had not left the girl's side. He peered down at her form, tangled in the sheets. No matter how many ice packs he had put around and on her, it did no use. Tsukimi's body temperature wasn't dropping, and her labored breaths were bothering him greatly. He didn't know what else he could do. Her skin was flushed and her sweat was more profuse now. Every once in a while, she groaned in pain. Each noise that the made was like an assault on his heart. Kiyomaru couldn't help but feel for the girl.

"She looks worse," Lamar said, shifting his eyes from the girl to the blue-haired boy.

"I am unsure of what to do. Her condition has depleted severely." At this rate, Kiyomaru feared what might happen to the girl. There was no illness that fit the definition of what she had. Their situation seemed hopeless.

Kazoo examined her body, brushing some of her tri-colored hair from her shoulder and upon doing so, he noticed something peculiar: a knot that was red and swollen. The discoloring on it was strange as well and there was a darkened dot in the middle of the lump. He grabbed a piece of paper from a tablet nearby, then rushed to her beside with a sense of urgency. Light blue eyes shot to Kiyomaru. "I need a kitchen knife."

Kiyomaru drew back aghast at his suggestion. Why would he want to put a girl like Tsukimi out of her misery? The illness was grave but they didn't need to resort to such drastic measures. "What? I will do no such thing!"

"I need to lance her wound," Kazoo stared straight into the boy's green eyes. Whatever stupid conclusions he was jumping to could wait. This situation was urgent.

"Oh...right," Kiyomaru felt a little stupid for thinking something like that. "I will do so!" He saluted, then headed out of the dorm room and to the kitchen to retrieve a knife.

Kazoo waved a hand in front of the girl's face, but she was unresponsive. "Hmmm...she's really out of it." He proceeded to check her pulse and temperature, "she has a really high fever. This is bad."

"What do ya think is wrong with her?" Lamar asked. Kazoo seemed to know what he was doing. He wondered if the long-haired male could make a better diagnosis than any of them could. After all, they didn't notice the abscess on her shoulder.

"Either she's got an infection or she's been poisoned," after he lanced the abscess, that would tell him what he needed to know.

"Poisoned?" Lamar was shocked that he would say something like that. How could she have been poisoned?

"I have a feeling. That lump in her shoulder is suspicious. Even so, she has a mass here." Touching the lump, it moved under her skin as Tsukimi whimpered in pain. "It's not a tear in the muscle. It feels like an abscess or infection. If I can lance it, then I can drain it," he would find out what the contents of it was from lancing it. That would determine if it was an infection of a poison.

"What are you, a medical expert?" Taiga asked from his position across the room.

"I've taken a lot of classes. Before I decided to be an engineer and architect, I wanted to be a paramedic. I studied medical classes for years," Kazoo wasn't certified, but he still retained enough medical information to do something as simple as landing a ball of unknown matter under the human skin. It would be a pretty cut and dry procedure.

"Here," Kiyomaru had returned from the kitchen with a small, carving knife. He handed it to Kazoo, who precisely sliced the lump on the girl's shoulder. Tsukimi flinched and yelped in pain as the long-haired man placed the paper beneath it. Slowly but surely he worked the mass out. In a lump of puss and darkly colored substances was squeezed out and placed onto the paper.

"There was something in her shoulder," Kiyomaru stated as Kazoo made sure to work all of the dark mass out of her wound.

"What?" Taiga asked and ran up to the girl's bedside to see what it was.

"I need disinfectant and soap," Kazoo ordered and Kiyomaru obliged, going off to fetch the said materials. He held the paper up, examining the substance on it. "Bizarre..."

Kiyomaru handed him soap, disinfectant and a pail of water as Kazoo continued to clean the wound, making sure that he washed every last bit of that offensive substance out. He then bandaged the wound so nothing else would get into it.

"She should get better now. That mass was what was giving her such a problem." Wiping the sweat from his brow, Kazoo's eyes went back to the paper. What he wanted to know, was how did that substance even get into the girl's body?

"What is that? Do you know?" Kiyomaru asked as he examined the odd substance, his eyes shifted to the man who just saved his friend's life.

"It's nutmeg."

...To Be Continued

A/N: How can nutmeg poison someone you ask? I'll let you figure it out next week; unless you want to do some research on it then feel free to. Nutmeg is actually very poisonous if injected into the bloodstream.