Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Crimson November ❯ late for class ( Chapter 1 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

Crimson November

Disclaimer: I own nothing, thus, I have no responsibility for anyone who thinks I do own this when all I own is the contents of the story and not the characters, except for a few which were created for the purpose of furthering the story's gory content. Be warned, this is a graphic and violent horror fic, which means it will contain things that are unsuitable for younger readers. Thus, it is rated R.

This is also a Yaoi fic, which means boyXboy. Mainly, Seto kaiba X Joey Wheeler, Ryou Bakura X Yami Bakura. This also contains character death. * major Character death, so be forwarned.

_______________________________________________________________ _____________

It was deathly quiet when Joey Wheeler got to school. The air was biting with harsh displeasure, the cold bitter and unmoving, sulking in nature. The leaves were just falling from the trees, crimson leaves scattered in the crisp air like a thousand snowflakes.

It would have been a perfect day to simply enjoy the nipping air, to enjoy the rosey pink it brought to their cheeks…. If he hadn't been ten minutes late for school.

What made matters worse, even worse then being late to school, was that he hadn't heard from his sister or mother in two days, when they were supposed to phone the two days prior. His father hadn't cared all too much, but Joey did. Thus he ran to the school's front door, tearing as quickly as he dared through the halls, nodding apologetically to the few teachers who tapped their watches and tisked with displeasure.

His hair was a mess, snaggled with leaves and twigs from the mayhem and chaos of his apartment complex, narrowly avoiding cars and dogs that snapped and growled at him.

He skidded to a halt and knocked on the door to his classroom, panting, out of breath. Slowly, almost methodically, the door lurched open and Seto Kaiba sneered menacingly at him, lips curled into a cruel sneer, eyes glinting like hard blue candy.

" late again Wheeler? You'd think that with so much money, you'd be at least able to afford a proper alarm clock - oh, wait, I forgot your dirt poor and don't have any money." Kaiba chuckled, fixing the neckline of his blue school uniform.

Joey shoved past him, bowing apologetically to the teacher, who looked saddened by both Kaiba's comment and Joey's late arrival.

" sorry Sensei, but I woke up late." He mumbled, watching his shoes for sign of scuffing, rather then looking at the teacher.

His teacher, Mr. Blumenbach, shook his head.

" Joey, take your seat. You know I'll have to give you another detention. This is the third time this week you've been late for class, and I expected better of a sixteen year old. Your friends all arrived on time… now sit." The teacher nodded at him, his graying hair bobbing up and down. Mr. Blumenbach was a middle aged teacher, most likely in his fourties, and rather athletic, except for the fact that he was one of the most gentle teachers in the school. He could make anyone feel guilty for anything, any crime committed.

He turned to the chalkboard and then began to scribble a math problem on it, back turned to the class.

Kaiba took his seat at the far back of the classroom and put his head down on his desk, obviously already bored with the entire lesson plan.

Joey snuck to his seat beside Tea and Yuugi, who smiled sheepishly at him. They pointed at their math textbooks, whispering to him. " page 171" and then fell silent.

Complying, Joey grabbed his textbook from his ratty blue bag and quickly flipped to the right page, pulling a half crumpled page of lined paper out from behind the cover, where he usually stashed any loose paper he had; pulling a half chewed in half pencil out of his bag, scribbling on the paper the equation.

A few moments later, the teacher cleared his throat with a loud, " ahem" and then pointed with a ruler at the blackboard.

" alright. Who can tell me what X is in the equation 7=2x +7, anyone? Mr. Kaiba perhaps, since you seem so sure of yourself." The teacher asked, raising a furry nearly grey eyebrow at Kaiba, who sneered.

" it's zero." Kaiba growled, resting his chin on his crossed arms.

" good." Mr. Blumenbach smiled and then turned to Joey. " Mr. Wheeler, by any chance have you seen Mr…." he walked over to his desk, picking up the attendance bubble sheet, tracing his finger down a column. " a mister Tristan Taylor. I thought you might have been with him, as you two usually go to class together…"

Joey blinked in confusion.

What had caused Tristan to be late? He was usually at school early, trying to compete with Duke Devlin for the affection of some girl, but somehow he wasn't there.

Kaiba laughed from the back.

" maybe he's playing with Wheeler's little sister? I wouldn't put it past him to go to daycare just to skip school." He drawled, eyes glinting as he looked at Joey.

Joey glared at him, clenching his teeth and fists, ready to pummel the ceo into the ground, except for the misfortune of having the teacher in the classroom.

Ryou Bakura, a normally shy teenager, held up a hand, looking meek.

" sir, I saw Tristan at the corner store earlier this morning. Maybe he was there to buy something and the store got held up." He mumbled.

The teacher smiled appreciatively at him. " I sure hope not. Now then, -"

Before the teacher could utter another word, the door opened and Tristan lumbered in, a bag carried lightly over one shoulder; a very lumpy and heavy looking bag.

His coat was nearly dragging on the ground, as if he had too much stashed in his pockets, appearing like a traveling hobo, his entire home stashed in his pockets.

He put his bag on the floor, and then put his hands in his pockets, as if to fiddle with something inside them.

" sorry Sensei, but I had an errand to run this morning and I ran a little short of time."

A giggle ran through the classroom, mostly the girls and a few of the boys who found it amusing to mock the late comers.

Tristan smiled pleasantly at the teacher, and the teacher nodded approvingly at him in return, clearly not upset at the fact that two of his students had been late on the same day.

" alright Mr. Taylor, please take your seat, so we can get on with class." The teacher nodded once, and then turned his back to the class, reading out the second equation from the board.

" alright, what is does the variable for this equation? 7x + 19 = 30." He said, clearly and loudly, voice ringing out through the classroom.

Tristan pulled his hands out of his pocket and with his hands came a semi-automatic pistol in each hand. In one moment, he aimed and fired, the bullet tearing from the muzzle like a racing dog, trying to chase a mechanical rabbit, finding its mark dead square in the back of Mr. Blumenbach's head.

There was a spray of white gray matter as the bullet met its mark, piercing the skull with incredible accuracy. In an instant, all that was on the chalkboard was the splattered geletin like remainders of the teachers brain and parts of his face, the bullet having been a dum-dum, a bullet that exploded on contact with its target.

It seemed almost serine, as the body fell forward, slidding noodle like down the chalk board, leaving a sticky trail of blood in its wake, falling like a rag doll to the ground.

All eyes fell on Tristan, all eyes filled with disbelief and mingled curiosity, some unable to perceive what had just occurred. Even Seto Kaiba looked shocked.

The reality was unable to sink in, for Tristan smiled courteously at them all, the gun's muzzle trained on a girl with pig tails in the front row, who looked at him innocently, mouth open slightly from shock.

" if you've got anything to say, say it now, Miho, because I'm not going to wait any longer…" he said, voice stern and demanding, like that of a trusted councilor.

Miho's eyes widened with realization. She opened her mouth to speak, eyes wide and filled with unspeakable terror, unable to utter a word, before Tristan fired again.

She fell, her blood spraying with mist as the bullet coursed its way through the middle of her head, the back splitting open like a ripe watermelon. The people around her gasped, feeling the blood and bits of flesh rain down on them, tainting their skin like a plague.

A wail rose from Tea, and some of the other students who were able to recover faster then the others, but Tristan moved fast, not waiting for the noise to intensify. He fired seven times, impaling unfortunate students in their screams, leaving them dead and lifeless, the bringer of a disease, wiping out all who he shot with one hit, moving from row to row, changing gun each time, evening out he score like a deadly abacus.

No one moved. No one breathed, for fear of reprisal. They were frozen to their seats, hoping against hope that it was all just some silly dream of joke that would end abruptly with everyone standing back up laughing.

But it wasn't a joke.

Joey's eyes widened in horror as he was a girl he had sat beside for years tumble, limp and empty to the ground, knocking over her desk, her pencils and erasers clattering like deafening bangs to the ground.

He felt her blood perfume his cheeks, felt his stomach chrun, felt his bladder threatening to release its contents, felt Yuugi and Tea's terror mingle with his own as he realized that there would be no reasoning with Tristan.

Tristan moved godlike, unchallenged by all, walking past his corpses, trading is empty guns for new ones he had stashed in his belt. He seized a trembling girl by the hair, who sat beside Tea and then pressed the muzzle of the gun to the crown of her head, the gun held vertically pointing downward at the middle of her head, like a sick gesturing finger.

" You want to live Tea?" he asked, releasing the safety with a calm click.

The girl whimpered piteously, tears streaming down her pale face, falling like crystalline gems off the edge of her chin. Tea's eyes widened. She put her hands to her face, gagging, unable to speak, unable to do anything but watch.

Tristan smiled.

He pulled the trigger.

It was hard to tell from the way the girl's eyes snapped open, eyelids fluttering ever so lightly like doomed butterflies, that she was dead. For all you could see was the tell tale blown out pupils, the eyes pale and blood shot in nature. But then, a river of blood streamed from her nostrils, and then it was apparent that the only reason she still sat upright was because Tristan was still holding her hair tightly in one hand, gun still pointed downward. Her mouth dropped half open, as if to speak, and then Tristan dropped her, her face slamming unrestrained into the smooth wooden surface, smearing it with blood. A large gaping whole stared at Tea, like a ugly mouth , lined with red and gray and white, shining with crimson liquid as it began to seep and pool from the cavern, dripping and slipping down the once blonde hair to drip with a steady beat on the floor.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

Tea fell to the ground, vomit purging itself from her mouth, the stench and nauseous fumes of it making the only other survivors retch with her, and in a moment, Tristan fired again, almost mechanically this time, aimed at Tea's back. The bullet did its work quickly and with skill, severing the spine, tearing the flesh, scalding the nerves like hot water. She jolted miserably, unable to move, alive, her body throbbing like a drum having been beaten to rise above the crowd.

" you'll never dance again little Tea…" Tristan chirped, an excited note sounding through his vocal chords, as if a totally different person. Then he motioned to the remaining survivors with the gun held tight in his grip.

" everyone on you hands and knees." He ordered.

Kaiba slipped from his chair, knees weak and banging against one another, falling to all fours like an animal.

Joey did the same, eyes filled with tears of grief that wallowed in hazy misery, unable to fall free from his eyes. Bakura slipped on the blood of his classmates and fell, face clipping the side of a desk, almost breaking his nose, he landed, unconscious, preciously oblivious.

Tristan fired, not aiming to kill, but to put out the shy boy's eyes, missing the pair and only scoring the left eye, popping it like a burst grape. He marched down the row, head jerking up as he heard the sounds of gunfire peppering other parts of the school.

He kicked a desk out of his way and came upon his prize, a cowering Duke Devlin. Grabbing him by the hair, he yanked the teenager upright, ordering him to stand. Duke obliged, shaking from unstaunched fear.

" Now open your mouth like a good little dukie boy."

Duke's eyes blurred as tears stained them; he pursed his lips, sealing them shut, shaking his head. No.

Tristan's face consorted briefly with rage and amusement.

"I never gave you a god damned choice, did I Dukie-boy? Now open your Fuckin' mouth before I do it for you! Or would you like someone to die because you refuse to comply with my orders, you pissant!" he snarled, yelling in Duke's ears.

He yanked at Duke's hair, pulling a few strands out of his head by the roots, causing each survivor to wince, begging in their minds for Duke to comply, to make it easier on himself.

When he did, it was a relief to some, until they realized what Tristan ment to do.

Duke Devlin cringed as the life covered muzzle slipped majestically and slowly into his mouth, his nose began to run, his bladder released its contents giving off the odor of acidic urine, streaming down his legs.

He began to shake, trying to beg for his life around the gun in his moth, but Tristan would have none of it. He held onto Duke's head like he would have held onto a basketball, then smiled sadly, the weapon as far in as it could go.

" Bye bye Dukie boy. Burn in hell." He laughed hysterically, showing the first signs of mental trauma at what he had done, and then pulled the trigger.

Joey watched in slow motion as Duke's body jolted, as if by an electric shock, twitching as it died. He saw the red mist that was the aftermath of the dumdum, as it tore its way through the back of Duke's head and through his brain with deadly accuracy. It tainted his cheeks and hair.

And then it was Yuugi's turn.

Tristan took aim and fired before Joey could even react to jump in the way.

Joey cried out as the small boy fell to the ground, the pullet having pierced his left eye, traveling through the middle of the brain, smashing through the brainstem at the far back.

He reached out, fingers touching the wet, coarse fabric of his best friends shirt, body shaking, eyes wide, stomach ready to loose its contents into he world ---

He felt the cold steel press against his temple and his eyes shut, lips clenched.

Now it was his turn.

" Joey, Joey, Joey. I haven't asked you yet if you would like to die…" Tristan murmured softly, voice just barley breaking the horrid silence, punctuating his words by tapping Joey on the cheek with one hand.

" would you like to go to hell, like the rest of them, where you can burn and writher for eternity?"

Joey's mouth moved of its own accord.

" n.. no."

Tristan raised an eyebrow mischievously.

" Oh? And why, may I ask, would I let you live? What is it that you so dearly want to live for?" He drawled.

Joey felt tears stream down his cheeks, his throat closing off.

" For my sister."

Tristan chuckled darkly.

" Oh, silly me. Did I forget to mention, they're already dead and waiting for you?" He chuckled as Joey began to sob, body shaking so hard, that Tristan almost had trouble holding on to him.

" no.. you didn't! you .. no.. couldn't … no."

" but I did." Tristan reasoned bluntly, pointing the gun at another girl.

He fired, hitting her in the shoulder.

" I should at least leave some injured, just so I can see what they think of it. Don't you think so Joey? Now stand up, and walk to the front of class, just like your going to give me a presentation… that's right, nice and slow. Good."

Unable to refuse, so scared to die, Joey rose, fingers slipping in the blood of Yuugi, as he pulled himself up the desks, walking a death march to the front, hearing only the sound of his own shoes stacattoing their way to the end of the line.

He froze as he heard a loud click.

Tristan looked surprised. " must have emptied the cartrige." He pulled a new one up out of his pocket, throwing the other one away, hitting kaiba in the cheek bruising it.

He pointed his fresh gun at Joey, smirking.

" bye."

He pulled the trigger -

" JOEY!"

Kaiba hurled himself past Tristan, adrenaline pumping in his veins, and shoved Joey out of the way, moving faster then he had ever moved before., the bullet piercing his side, by little more then a few inches.

Joey's eyes widened in amazement.

Had Seto Kaiba just saved him? Had his arch nemesis risked his own well being to keep him from death -

He sank to his knees, seeing crimson painted down Kaiba's hip.

Tristan smirked, then checked his wrist watch, tutting

" seems like I've got a schedule to keep. I'll come back to kill you two later…"

He slipped past the two and grabbed his bag, throwing it over one shoulder. He threw open the door and then gave them one last horrible smile.

" kill you later."

With that, he vanished into the halls.

Kaiba fell to his knees, clutching his injured side, cerulean blue eyes filled with tears of pain and worry.

" your lucky… Wheeler…" he managed to say, before Joey hugged him in a grim embrace. He felt Joey's cheek against his neck and smiled weakly, one arm wrapped roughly around Joey's shaking form.

" he … he…" the blond clung helplessly, grief stricken, to the fabric of Kaiba's school uniform, and then stood upright, determination alive and kicking in his eyes.

He abandoned Kaiba for a moment, and then slipped to the classroom door, peering out, not seeing anyone. He sighed with relief, and then flinched as he heard gunfire from further down the hall.

Somewhere, Tristan was still on his rampage… and someone was helping him.

Nodding grimly, he ran back across the room and pulled the injured weeping girl up, then darted across the room, avoiding desks and gore, to Bakura's side.

He knelt beside the limp form, fingers pressed to the youth's neck, feeling a weak but steady pulse beating beneath his fingers. He winced, trying not to look at the mess Tristan had done to the poor boy's left eye.

He looked up, struggling to pull Bakura's limp form upright, and then slowly made his way back to Kaiba, smelling the blood, death and excrement in the air, from spilled bodies, unable to be at peace.

Kaiba struggled up, and then helped Joey carry the unconscious boy to the door, with only female survivor at their side, throwing open the door, hearing the silence in the hall, now all that one could hear, except for the occasional gunshot or scream from below, in the lower levels. They made their way down the empty corridor, seeing the telltale signs of someone who had tried to escape, laying dead and bleeding on the floor, bloody fingerprints bannering the hallway doors and walls like childish finger painting.

Kaiba pointed to a stairwell, unused by most of the students, and helped Joey push open the door, the girl holding the door open as they snuck inside, seeing their options that lay before them.

" Do we go up, or down?" The girl asked, near hysteria, injured shoulder bleeding like an open sore.

Kaiba snorted.

" We go up and then down the fire escape…. It's the one thing they won't expect survivors to do… the firescape's on the back side of the building, near the forest…"

Joey shook his head.

" No." he pointed to the downward steps.

" We go down the stairs, and sneak into a classroom down there, then we go out the window. As long as we avoid the front door and the hallway, we can make it."

Kaiba rolled his eyes. " and what makes you think that Tristan would have enough brains to tell if we were going to escape from the fire escape?"

Joey smiled grimly. " I know how my friend thinks Kaiba. And I know that he'll have the fire escape blocked off, or he'll be waiting for us at the bottom. He won't suspect anyone to follow my lead… because he'll think that we'll all listen to you… besides… it's smarter, because we'll be doubling back into places that they might have already been into, and they'll expect us to retreat to places unoccupied."

He shifted Bakura's weight up a little and then was surprised when Kaiba nodded.

" Your right. No one would suspect us to do that… good thinking Wheeler… never thought I'd hear myself saying that…" he shook his head, as if to put a little bit of his normal attitude into the statement, but it was clear by the smile on Joey's face that it didn't have its usual sting.

*************************************************************** *********

at first it had confused Joey, that the ambulances hadn't come as fast as they should have.

They had had to wait a painful twenty minutes for the first ambulance to come, and then all four of them went to Domino Hospital, the smallest hospital in the city.

Joey sat quietly in Kaiba and Bakura's shared room, sitting cross-legged in a cushy hospital chair.

The hospital was crowded with casualties, and Tea was in another hospital room, crippled and barley alive. Her hopes and dreams totally crushed under the iron fist of a bullet.

It seemed that six other people had been involved in he murders, and each six had arrived in Balaclava's, faces hidden. They had all escaped before the police had arrived, and were still out in the real world, waiting in darkness for their escape and revenge, or capture.

This disturbed Joey greatly. For it seemed that on one had even glimpsed them, and not even the news broadcasters seemed to care about their escape.

He sighed, tears cried out, and smiled softly at Kaiba, who lay peacefully sleeping in his bed hooked up to various machines that were beeping gleefully.

He cast a sad glance at Bakura, who was lying with half of is face bandaged up. He shook like a leaf in the wind, tears streaming from his one remaining eye, mourning both his classmates and his sight.

The doctors had told Joey that he would never been able to see out of the eye again… but there was hope that a donor would give him another chance at sight.

They so far had one donor, a teenager who had died in the school massacre, (the parents of the murdered youth had given the hospital permission to use the eye, as it was a direct match) and the eye would be transplanted to Bakura… but the colour would forever be different. The new eye would be a startling violet green, a rather unnatural eye colour, but then, beggars couldn't be choosers.

Bakura sniffled, sitting up, arms wrapped around his stomach. He looked frantically around for Joey and then saw him, relaxing.

" J..Joey?" He whimpered, a look of misery formed in his eye.

Joey rose somberly, feeling guilty that he had escaped the entire attack, unscratched, without even being able to save his best friend.

He took his seat beside Bakura's bed, and then picked the millennium puzzle up from where it had fallen. Yuugi's grandfather had given it to him, as a way to reconcile the grief and death. He said that Yuugi would have wanted him to have it, and had delivered it to him while he had come to view his grandson's body.

There was a sad realization, the realization that there would be no revival of the dead. It was over for them, for Yuugi, for Duke, for Yami… now all that was left was the empty shell of the millennium puzzle.

" Yes Bakura?"

Bakura's lips trembled harder, and a gut-wrenching sob slipped from his lips. Joey reached out and squeezed his friend's hand lightly, trying to be as comforting as he could.

" Did you find out… is your family…-" he broke off as Joey lowered his gaze, staring at the bedspread.

" Yes… he killed them all. The police say that he killed my mother and sister a few days ago… and then he killed my father this morning, probably right after I went to school late…"

He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to get the hopelessness out of his head.

" I wonder if it hurt… if they felt it… if he gave them mercy…" he murmured softly.

Bakura bowed his head in shame.

" I guess that makes me lucky then… that my father and mother are already dead…" he said quietly.

Joey looked up and then sighed, ready to fall to his knees, to cry the tears of death..

A glow from the millennium ring made them both jump.

And then Yami Bakura smiled at them, eyes sharp like blades.

*************************************************************** *********

What will happen to Tristan and the others? Will Yami Bakura help them seek their revenge, or will he be just another disappointment to the survivors. And who has helped organize Tristan in his slaughter of the school?

Please review!