Vacuity/Ophan 2 Anonymous 2012/03/24 (Sat) 23:37 No. 154724 ▼ File 133263225137.png - (1.16MB, 800x1131 , 736a8e7317f44581aaec98de6446c291 keine.png)
[X] Four years of care and worry will protect you again. Call for Keine's help.
You glare back up at the leering alpha male who is giving you a wolfish grin. He crosses his arms and tilts his head back, looking down at you while exposing his throat. His throat. Oh, how you wish you could put your hands around it and squeeze… To see his eyes bulge, to hear his voice rasp for air…
No, you can't. He's only provoking you. You refuse to bend to his whims. You absolutely will not play by that thug's rules. But what can you do? He has the entire class in his hands… Except… He doesn't. It's not his class. He's not the one that teaches. He's not the one who goes out of their way to have everyone understand something. He's not the one that promotes the coexistence of humans and youkai. And he certainly has never defended you from personal attacks. There is only one other person you know who to rely upon.
By now, you've mostly recovered from the alpha male's punch. Putting aside the imagery of the cauldron in your heart, you straighten your back, shake your hair out of your vision, and steady your breathing rate. Although your gut still aches from his blow, you're not about to let it show. Instead, you take the deepest breath you've ever taken, filling every fold of your lungs with air, expanding your chest and diaphragm to their upper limits. As you breathe in, you swear you notice the crowd begin to quiet down, if only a little, as if in anticipation of what you would spew forth from your mouth.
You scream.
"KEINE!"
The noise around you suddenly dies.
You take another, equally deep breath.
"HELP!"
Your second scream came out hoarse, laced with desperation. Would she hear? Would she come?
You take a moment to sweep your gaze across the circle of faces surrounding you. Some are stunned, some are shocked, some are taken aback, some are in disbelief. The alpha male before you has his jaw half-open, his grin quickly fading away. It morphs into a scowl, and he briskly walks to you. Panic and fear begins to set in you; your eyes widen and you begin to hyperventilate. What now? You raise your arms in preparation to defend yourself while you gasp in another lungful of air to scream. The alpha male is swinging his arm back. Instinctively, you squeeze shut your eyes.
"KEEEEIIII- oof!"
You lurch backwards, trying to keep your balance with a few, unsteady steps, but to no avail. The wind has been knocked out of you again, and as you struggle to breathe, you fall over on to your side, with one hand clutching your stomach and the other grasping at the dusty earth.
"SHUT UP!" barks the alpha male, his face contorted into a snarl, his canines seemingly glinting in the pitiless sunlight.
With your free hand, you feebly attempt to toss the beige dust-dirt into the eyes of your tormentor, only managing to get some of it on his shoes. Your show of defiance only serves to agitate the alpha male more, and earns you a kick in your ribs.
You still haven't caught your breath yet. The world around is beginning to spin even though you are lying in the dirt trembling, your head at rest on the earth.
You twist your head slightly to see the alpha male cracking his knuckles. From where you are, the sun is adjacent to where your attacker's shoulder and neck meet, blinding you, rendering you incapable of discerning the features of the alpha male's face.
It's too bad, really. You had wanted to burn the image of his ugly face into your dying memories, if only so you would know who to haunt in the afterlife.
You finally take in a breath of the sweet, fresh air, just as the alpha male is pulling his arm back behind his ear.
Silence hangs thick in the air.
Here it is, your final blow. You close your eyes and hold your breath.
One…
Two…
Three.
---
...Four?
...Five…
...Six!
Er, sev-
SLAP.
Nothing. Nothing except for the shuffling of a pair of feet.
You ease open one of your eyes. Then, the other one. You open your eyes fully and look up, shading them with your free hand, and blink.
To your forward-left side stands the alpha male's shoes. Just in front of you are Keine's shoes.
You push yourself away a bit from the two, crawling backwards a small distance so you can get a better idea of what's going on.
A throbbing pain nestles itself in your gut and you notice yourself beginning to shiver, but despite that, you watch the scene unfold.
The alpha male is holding his right hand up to his left cheek, staring at Keine, stunned. Meanwhile, Keine's hands have been balled up into fists which are visibly shaking. Her face, livid.
The wolf is at a loss, his mouth shaping wordless sounds.
Finally: "Miss Ka-"
In a flash, Keine's finger is pointing at the bridge in between the alpha male's eyes, silencing him immediately.
"Don't you dare speak my name."
A minute passes. He nods weakly. Keine begins to talk, her voice low and restrained.
"I thought you were above this. I thought you were a better person than this. You got along so well with everyone else, and yet… To think that you could have taken it this far…
"You are hereby expelled from my school. I never want to see you on these grounds again. Do you understand?"
He nods numbly.
"I will have a letter delivered to your parents promptly. Now, get of here." She lowers her hand, and the alpha male stumbles out of the schoolyard with his tail behind his legs, the circle of students parting to give him a generous amount of space.
After he leaves, Keine whirls around to survey the muted crowd of students. A handful of them retreat by reflex, as if scorched by the flames in her eyes.
"As for the rest of you…" Keine's voice is deathly quiet, shaking slightly, but everyone can hear her clearly. "…Have you no shame? Have you no compassion, no humanity? I have met and befriended youkai more humane than what I have borne witness to today. Instead of defending your classmate from derision, you join in it! Have you learned nothing from the lessons I have taught? I would have thought that at the very least, you would have learned to show each other respect. But this... This is… This is!..."
She swallows. Some of the students have bowed their heads.
"There will be no more class today. As a matter of fact, there won't be class for some time. You are all suspended indefinitely. I will be sending letters to each and every one of your guardians."
Keine looks around at the students again.
"Class dismissed."
Slowly at first, then accelerating, the students disperse in various directions. None of them bother to say anything, none of them look at each other, let alone at you or Keine.
After a few minutes, the schoolyard is left deserted except for the two of you. You gaze around from where you sit; sure enough, everyone else is gone. When you revert your eyes back to Keine, you notice she's still trembling.
"Miss Kamishirasawa?"
You watch her as she slowly turns to face you. She gives you a faint smile, but you can tell by her eyes she's not quite there.
"Your hand," she whispers.
You curiously tilt your head to one side and wipe your free hand on your pants, before offering it to your teacher. She kneels down and takes it in both of her hands, then places her forehead against the collective.
"I'm so, so, so sorry I didn't notice how bad it got." She looks up at you, her eyes focused this time, her expression serious, and gives your hands a light squeeze. Wow, she has really soft hands. "Can you forgive me?"
You give her a quizzical look. "What do you mean? You never did anything wrong."
Are her eyes watering?
"I don't think I did anything right either," she responds quietly.
Whoa, this is getting a little too emotionally intense for you a little too quickly. And it's rather uncomfortable. Just a short while ago, she was absolutely furious, and seeing her now in this state… You feel as though something is amiss. You don't quite understand what's going on.
You look away from Keine nervously. You shiver. You feel like it's rather chilly, despite the sun directly overhead. She appears to have noticed, as she gives you a worried look and puts her hand to your forehead. This act sends alarm bells ringing in your head.
"Hey, what are you-"
"Oh my! You're burning up! Can you get up?"
"Y-Yea, I think so."
As you try to pull yourself up with the help of Keine, a wave of intense nausea washes over you. You retch and tear your hand away from her. She instinctively gives you some space as you drop to all fours, emitting stomach-twisting sounds from your mouth. You quickly run through the mental list of things you've eaten since last night: air, water moisture, and dust. Why then, is your body attempting to vomit? Did that alpha male hit you too hard or what?
You retch some more, feeling bile well up in your esophagus. You fight it down, but only barely.
"Oooohh, Miss Kami-"
You retch again, and as the internal fluids reach your throat, you realize that this time, whatever is in your body is coming out.
And so, you vomit.
Crimson liquid infected with black membranes streams from your mouth, splattering onto the ground.
You feel something inside of you sink as you stare at the red and black mixture on the ground. Shaking uncontrollably, you barely have the energy to lift your head to see that Keine has taken another step back, one hand covering her mouth. She's obviously as horrified as you are to see what your body has produced.
"Th-that boy… He didn't do this to you did he?"
The boy? Ah, the alpha male… The alpha male… The alpha male. Where is he? You clench your hands into fists. That son of a bitch. You're going to make him pay.
The mere thought of him boils your blood. You're going to kill him, you're going to strangle him, you're going to remove his testicles, you're going to-
Retch and vomit again.
This time, the contents of what you spill forth are split fifty-fifty between the runny blood and the viscous pitch.
When you stop, you strain look up again to see if Keine is still there. She is, shaking her head from side to side as if in denial. You're desperate for help. You haven't felt this bad since when you were little. Your desperation is forcing your mind to regress.
"H-Help me, Miss Kamishir-" Your speech is interrupted by another retch.
Upon hearing your voice, Keine breaks out from her nightmarish trance and runs to your side, dropping down and patting your back and rubbing your stomach. But that's not where it hurts the most - it's your chest. You can feel it - the agony is all dripping from your chest into your stomach and intestines, as if you've swallowed the pain, inviting it into your digestive tract, and from there, spilling it onto the ground.
What you say next surprises even yourself: "M-Miss Kamishirasawa, I-I'm not going to d-die, am I?"
"O-Of course not! No, no, don't think, just listen to my voice and breathe…"
As Keine comforts you, she begins to coo softly. At first, hesitantly and haltingly, as though unsure of herself, but then as she goes on, with more confidence, and her melody becomes increasingly soothing. You try to stop thinking, stop hating that son of a (you retch), and you start to try breathing slowly, calmly, and listening to Keine's lullaby.
After one last batch of vomit and what seemed to be an eternity of horrific sounds, you finally calm down. It's the afternoon by now. You now feel hollow and empty inside - not just from having puked out a whole lot, but in your chest too. You feel exhausted - not just physically, but mentally and emotionally.
You are still shaking and shivering violently. Fortunately, Keine is still at your side, preventing you from falling face-first into the puddle of blood before you (the tar mysteriously vanished with whatever it ate through). Her humming is soft and relaxing, and she is still patting your back and rubbing your stomach, albeit at a slower rate than when she started.
Eventually, she asks kindly, "Are you feeling better now?"
"Yea," you answer weakly with a raspy voice - that vomiting really took a toll on you.
"Then I think it should be about time you saw a doctor."
"Why's that?"
Keine gives you an incredulous look. "You were vomiting blood and some other substance just now!"
Ah, right.
"I don't feel that bad though."
"It's better to be safe than sorry. Besides, you have a fever."
"…"
[ ] Better go visit the doctor.
[ ] To Hell with the vomit, and to Hell with your fever!
-[ ] Go home.
-[ ] Ask if you can impose.