→ HOUSE WITH CONCRETE WALLS

@♀06 - asai katsumi As she retracted the sword and returned the gun to its holster, he understood the depth of her sadism, her desire to see him writhing and whimpering, screeching, crying out needlessly, desperately for assistance, for reprieve as his limbs convulsed under the edge of his blade – subject to death at the cruel conduct of the weapon that should have delivered him from danger. Amusement arose at the irony of the circumstance but Takumi suppressed any expression of his despondent humor, his chagrin at his own feebleness and carelessness, subjecting himself to such humiliation even if intended to ensure his own survival.

She clambered on top of himself and lowered herself onto his chest; he anticipated her intent and abided, adjusting his arms to bear the bare minimum amount of force, oriented to the outside of her calves. He noted that she wasn’t being particularly cautious or conscientious, assuming her superiority in combat and confidence exceeded the potential of her enemy’s – or, more aptly, victim in her mindset – intelligence. She did not understand the concept of desperation, having never been debased to such a basic and brutal state of being – capable of going to inhuman and immoral lengths to survive and thrive. She did not understand the caution in which he selected his words, enacted his movements, gauging her reactions to determine the response that’d incite the desired effect. It was a continuation of the manipulation he’d mastered as a child: innocent smiles and piteous tears, clever phrases and properly-placed compliments – seemingly endless possibilities to achieve influence. He simply had to open his mouth, breaths stuttering and chapping his lips as the pain spread through his muscles, split through skin, rupturing blood vessels and spilling more blood across his cheek and chest, pooling against his clavicle and slipping into the puddle underneath him.

For the pain she wrought was real, not the subject of discussion or emotion, not something he could dissuade or determine through words, but could still control through reaction, approximating the amount she’d inflict through appearance. He permitted the pleasure of seeing him in pain: face contorting and mouth closing, lips sealing as if to deny her the manifestation of his mutations. He almost abided by her command, needing to scream, needing to release the sharp stabs that stung along his skin as any human should, sobbing for their safety, but he remained in adamant silence. Torment hung a burden on his chest and Takumi released an agonized sigh, eyes slipping close as her fingers brushed against his lips and retracted. His sanity would remain intact as long as he focused on his goal, endured her lunacy as best he could when she lapped at his blood, forced a finger against the edge of his wound.
He hissed at the contact, eyes tightening in closure as instinct overrode intent and he flinched away, nail dragging against his skin as he squirmed underneath her. He refused to indulge her power fantasies, did not respond beyond soft, shaking breaths.

@♂04 - yamauchi takumi .
This was easy. Painfully, annoyingly, excruciatingly so. The opposing pressure of his minimal force was gone as she abruptly and sharply twisted her wrist. Gaining the sword from him, she put her gun back in its holster, swinging one leg over his chest, and settling down on him just high enough to hold his arms down with her thighs. She gave him a mock pout and tilted her head in provocation as she held the sword over his cheek, barely letting it graze the soft skin of his face, almost casually as if they weren't in such a compromising position with her straddling him. "You're making it harder for yourself; I'll have to make you."

She tilted his chin up with two gentle fingers. "Pretty boys are always the best victims, you know?" Especially the popular and rich ones, but not that she'd say that for whatever reason. She tilted his chin up further, letting the tip of the sword slice a shallow cut onto his face. "Scream," she whispered, trailing the sword down to his collarbone. She spoke to him but her eyes were on the faint trail of blood the sword had made upon its travel to his collarbones. His collarbones were defined and that made her want to break them, just snap the bones in half but not possessing the strength to do so, she made a cut deeper than the one on his cheek through the length of his left collarbone. She moved the sword along slowly, watching the crimson blossom like art right above his collarbone with the utmost pleasure.

In the most sadistic fashion, Katsumi lightly dabbed her left hand's index finger into his wound, applying pressure slowly in one area, as if not only letting him feel pain but letting her finger be doused in his blood. With a smirk and a dead stare, she placed her finger near the corner of his mouth, drawing a cross shape. It was small, small enough to save some for herself, and returning her attention to afflicting wounds on him, avoiding eye contact, she nonchalantly brought her index finger to her lips and her tongue darted out to it clean of his blood. She was going to make sure his death was a tainted and impure one unlike his previous life, or so Katsumi assumed his life was fairly pure.

Her eyes traveled to his bullet wound, and she was sure a sinister glint in her eyes gave away her intentions, her finger already creeping toward the area the bullet pierced. "Planning on uttering even the slightest sound yet? Maybe a whimper would suffice," she said, winking ar him as her finger tapped the area just outside his wound.

@♀06 - asai katsumi Each breath shuddered resonant and irregular in his chest upon intake, trembling through the muscles in his throat and augmenting his lungs, amplifying the foreboding that settled at the junction of his stomach and liver, hidden beneath his ribs and compressing his abdomen as his fears manifested in her approach. She stared at him, looked down upon him and frowned at his incompetence, disappointment entertained as amusement as she spoke in distinct condensation and slight contempt. She despised him for no other reason than not attaining whatever presumptions she’d surmised for him, crouching beside him, gun in hand, – he could not discern the prototype nor conjecture on the amount of ammo that remained; undoubtedly, undisputedly, enough to lodge a singular bullet in his brain – and nudging the barrel against his head. Closing his eyes against the press of heated metal against his scalp, the insistent wrench and yield of the handle from his grasp, he disentangled one of his hands from the snarl of fingers wound around the handle of the hilt, grasp slackening and arm retreating as she secured her hand around his and snatched the katana from him.

Takumi could not afford resentment nor rage – revenge an abstruse, abstract concept, an inconceivable oath sworn to realization – and instead concentrated on the persistence of the angles embedding into his head, distracting him from the dull pain that throbbed through his shoulder, the numbing sensations that crawled up the nerves in his arm, stiffening his muscles in a suppression of pain. Her question necessitated compliance, demanded subservience in exchange for meager, additional seconds to live, breathe and cower before her, anticipate her next action and agonize as she defied expectation, invariably ending in the same, simple and sole option available to him, confronted by the figure that prevented escape and ensured pain to induce her pleasure: death. She loomed before him as the arbitrator of his reaction, either enough to please her or false to frustrate her, and he selected the option that guaranteed his survival, if only for seconds longer, to be terminated upon impulse. So long as he had his eyes to see, his ears to hear, his body to conform to her commands, he could appraise the situation and calculate when to escape, capable of enduring unspeakable anguish if her features were the one contorted in confusion, surrendered to the same desperation that forced him to such lengths and surpassed his limits.

“No,” Takumi gritted out through clenched teeth, back cramping and left arm twitching at his side, reacting against his intent to the stabbing sensations that shot through his arms and animated his fingers in unnatural, awkward movements. Silence was a difficult pretense to abide by when dampness permeated his clothes in uncomfortable heat, dribbling from his shoulder onto his backpack, slithering onto the floor, forming a small, pathetic puddle that smeared against the cloth of his uniform.

@♂04 - yamauchi takumi .
The sounds of the heels of her sneakers resonated throughout the suddenly quiet area as she ran towards the direction the male had been heading in. The sudden silence had her thinking that she had aimed and landed a successful fluke shot but it was a trick of the light that had proved her wrong. The glint of out-of-place metal caught her eye and she had noticed the sword before she had let her eyes travel the male on the floor, blood pooling near his neck but it was quite obvious she had missed a lethal area by a few inches. The bullet lay on the floor a few feet away, deemed useless the moment it had collided with it's target.

Tongue darting out at the sight of the crimson liquid, she stepped slowly towards him, paying attention to the quivering blade with a smirk gracing her lips. "Pitiful. And I thought you to be a threat." Nonetheless, she planned to finish what she started-- but not with the barrel of her gun. She felt that her victims deserved so much more than that. Silence ensued as Katsumi crouched to his side, left hand holding the gun to the back of his ear, threatening to shoot if he didn't cooperate. Her hand wrapped around the hilt of his katana right above his, tightening her grip, and tilting it away from her. She yanked, harder and harder and she wouldn't stop until she got a grasp of the sword. "If you won't speak, will you scream?" she questioned quietly, looking into his eyes as she tilted her head, gun pressing even further against his scalp. If it meant landing the finishing blow, maybe another bullet wouldn't hurt too much, disregarding the fact it wasn't much fun that way. She supposed that in the end, what really mattered would be who was left standing.

@♀06 - asai katsumi Outrunning someone was within his physical capabilities. Years of continual soccer practice and competitive soccer matches trained him in the endurance and stamina necessary to sprint across expanses of moist grass and compact dirt; enhanced the speed and acceleration crucial to distancing himself from other players, running across the field to receive arching kicks; developed the agility and the reflexes to dodge and dribble among players equal to him in stature, skill and speed. She seemed to acknowledge his physical prowess and perceived him to be a threat, designated as one of her first targets and subjected to a weapon that he could not outmaneuver nor outrun – a gun, sights aligned to either his head or heart. He spared no thought as to when she’d shoot, where she’d shoot him, concentrated on the door before him, handle seconds away and meters ahead, almost in reach –

He heard the sound of the gunshot before he felt the bullet, unable to prepare or maneuver as it pierced through the muscles at the junction of his neck and shoulder, careening through flesh, shredding muscle fibers and arteries, ricocheting off the concrete and clattering uselessly to the floor. He stumbling from the immensity of his pain, face contorting and mouth opening in a silent scream of agony, sounding a strangulated gurgle and panicked heave. His mind processed the acute sensation pulsating through his veins, aching in his muscles and spine, urging him to react – a combination of fear and false confidence, frightened enough to attempt scampering away. Another step and his knees trembled, legs faltered, body collapsing from the sheer magnitude of his suffering, mind deluding him into a false security as his body folded against the concrete.

Crippled, corner and caught slumped against the floor, Takumi surrendered himself to what meager combat he could manage in his current condition, pushing himself from the wall – dampened and colored black in blood – and landing on his back, backpack an uncomfortable pressure on his shoulders and hips. He braced himself against the floor, using his backpack as proper leverage to situate himself, and folded around himself: back slanted across the surface of his backpack, feet against the floor and knees bent to shield himself from bullets. He tightened his hold around his sword and raised it against the oncoming footsteps, the labored breaths and the alarming ardor she had in pursuing him. It seemed she had no intentions of squandering another bullet on an injured opponent and he straightened his arms, hands trembling and blade teetering from inexperience and apparent apprehension. He refused her the sadistic pleasure of hearing him speak, expecting hoarse accusation and baseless insult, or meager defense and desperate pleading, and he persisted in silence, grasping the hilt in both hands and steadying its tremulous movement.

@♂04 - yamauchi takumi .
A scoff escaped Katsumi's lips as the male attempted to run. From the moment's glance she had gotten at his face, she had confirmed that he was indeed someone who was athletic-- a familiar soccer player from the school, whose face she could not even bother to match to a name. Soccer players were definitely a threat, being superior in agility and leg strength, and that was the main concern. His name, was the least of concerns. It would be forgotten as soon as Katsumi sent a bullet through his flesh and as soon as the Battle Royale ended. With a sneer at, to her, the cowardly prey, Katsumi began steadily applying pressure to the gun.

"Like hell." With a sneer accompanied with a profane string of words and a split second of concentration that she could barely afford to pay as her prey began to slowly slip away, Katsumi's finger pressed on the trigger. "Bang," she smirked as the sound of the gunshot resonated throughout the neighborhood of concrete houses. "You still alive, flower boy?" The female mused quietly to herself as she let her arm drop to her side.

Wasting a bullet was more than possible when aiming for a moving target, but wasting an opportunity to give up the chance to rid of prey was a far more unforgivable deed in Katsumi's morals. Besides, she had seen a store somewhere around here and it was a store she fully planned to raid soon enough. She didn't wait for a scream, a shot, a yelp-- a thump to the ground or the slightest reaction, instead running after the direction in which the boy had been running. She was not willing to waste another shot on this boy but she was not willing to let him get away. If her one and only bullet had been completely and utterly wasted, there was one option: to chase and to tackle.

Because God damn, if they were going to randomly assign weapons and expect a group of students to kill each other, common sense; how much could be done with twelve bullets against fourty-nine other students? It didn't work out without proper training, proficient aim, and a decently still target. And then there was the other question: how much damage could a sadist of the sort of Katsumi do while having fun and preserving bullets? None.

@♀06 - asai katsumi Sunset approached in elongating shadows stealing across the courtyard and concrete structure – once an urban manifestation of human presence and influence, left abandoned and uninhabited in the governments’ determination to teach obedience, – case in gossamer threads of encroaching darkness. The exterior of the building had since succumbed to the persistence of nature: pathways deteriorated into clusters of weeds springing forth and splintering from the stone, concealing the inconsistencies of the ground and stretching across the entirety of the area surrounding the house. Since the announcement hours ago, silence had descended across the island – a product of morbid curiosity and despair – and the concrete house contained and captured the same eerie quiet, seemingly inlaid into its stout walls.

Crouched alongside the entrance of one of the rooms adjacent to the entrance hall, Takumi observed as night signified its presence through the diminishing light and amplified until an amber glow illuminated the room around him. He remained as quiet as his surrounding necessitated him to be: each breath soft and silent, each adjustment and movement calculated and careful, each sound accounted for as the product of his carelessness. His intent had been to secure the house as a temporary base of operations, someplace to operate in scouting and defend from potential intruders.

A soundless exhale and a sudden proclamation alerted him to an intruder and he startled at the abrupt address, shoulders immediately stiffening and instinct compelled him to locate the cause. Abruptly turning his head, Takumi registered the direction and orientation of the speaker, the condescension in the usage of a nickname and the amusement in the intonation and intent of her voice. Her figure was scarcely distinguishable in the current lighting but he caught sight of her arm, extended toward him, and a rectangular object clasped in her hand, her expression darkening in a trick of the auburn light.

Horror shuddered through him an alarming reality, confronted by danger and assured survival solely through initiative and instinct. His limbs lurched into action before he could formulate a coherent response or proper escape, pushing him forth against the ground as Takumi stumbled into a rapidly accelerating run, grasping the hilt of his sword in one hand and clenching his fingers into the fist in the other. One thought occupied his mind as his feet clattered against the ground, gait irregular and balance unstable, concentration fixated on door at the end of the hall: run.

@♂04 - yamauchi takumi .
Katsumi didn't know what sort of utter bull the damn government was trying to attain but one thing had been made clear: she was to kill or to be killed. And so, scoping out the concrete houses for easy victims as she left the stronger ones to eliminate each other slowly first with a gun in hand, Katsumi crept along the sides of the houses. It was when she peeked around the houses that she caught a glimpse of a silhouette. She breathed slowly, almost didn't breath at all as she peeked around the corner of the house. She scoffed to herself in amusement-- his silhouette was easily recognizable as one that was athletic, and that made him a threat, regardless of whether or not he was a murderer. "Hey, flower boy." A smirk came upon her lips as she aimed her gun, despite not yet intending to go for the kill. Provocation was an art and fear was a beauty. He was twenty yards away from her, not too far but unless he had a gun, definitely not close enough to land anything lethal on her. "How lucky am I?" She mused to herself, tilting her head, expression darkening as she raised the gun to aim from his heart to his skull. It would've been nice to slowly cut his flower boy's face up, but without a blade, blowing it off would have to suffice.