Volume 8 POV: Third Person POV

"MIIYYUUUKIIIIII!!!!" That was the only thing Manaka could cry while she was dragged across the ground by her hog-tied arms and legs. What made this even stranger was the fact that no one could be seen dragging these ropes; and that was because they were moving on their own. If it couldn't get any more miserable, the skirt and thin leggings on her school uniform did not protect the teen from the burn of being dragged across the solid hard tile. With every moment Omo continued to be dragged, her legs continued to feel an indescribable burn.

Her heart dreaded what cruel fate awaited her. What was going to happen to her? "Please! Let me go!" Manaka helplessly begged, continuing to try to squirm and break the binds that held her. No matter what the second year did, it ended up futile. The detention room inevitably awaited her.

What typically would look like an ordinary door on most days could only be seen as the doors to the fiery abyss of hell in Manaka's eyes, which watched doors ominously open by themselves; and revealing the empty room cleared of most of its desks, chairs, and people. There were only two chairs that sat across the room from each other. One of those chairs would soon have that squirming Manaka tied to it within a blink of an eye. Once tied, the door would slam shut, which revealing a menacingly tall grown man standing there. He adjusted his glasses when he took sight of what he had captured, giving an empty smile. "Hello, Manaka. I haven't seen you in some time."

When the large man revealed himself, if she wasn't bound to the chair, she would have jumped out of it in surprise! Was that really who she thought it was?! "N-no, it can't be! You're working with them too?!" Manaka shouted, her heart feeling like it had vaporized. One of her favorite teachers stood before her as her captor... the one who encouraged her as a first year. The one who shared her struggles, and laid down everything to help her succeed in all of her classes. The only teacher in the entire school who seemed to understand and care for her and Megami... and here he was... in front of her with the most malevolent smile on his face, as if the man she knew before was nothing but a traitorous facade. "I c-can't believe it!--!!!" Manaka would say before a rope would wrap around her jaw so she couldn't speak.

"Why is it such a surprise? You act like this is a bad thing; and you would be right. It's very unfortunate that you ended up in this situation." The large man slowly walked over to Manaka, then kneeling down to get face-to-face with his former student. "Thanks to you and your outstanding brilliance, our establishment will have its trade delayed greatly! If your goal was to cease our money supply, however, then I guess I must fail you on that assignment.

"I am the Captain of the Vaulters. We are the people who supervise all of the trades and apply taxes to the deals made. It is with these taxes that we are able to ensure equal pay to every member of this group in the district. We are the true source of the funding for Clan Dei Diavoli, or should I say, I-35?"

Taking advantage of the constrained second year, the male would reach a hand out towards Manaka, gently caressing her soft cheek with his hand. "It truly does pain me to see someone so humble, of whom I thought of so highly to turn to such evil ways. You stole from the one who aims to only make a bright future for you, and then brutally harmed your own peers who shared those goals. It's heartbreaking but I must do what I signed up for." by how uncomfortably close he was, she could just smell the strength of heavy cologne and the breath of ice cold coffee. Two scents that make Manaka nearly hurl every time it hits her.

If that wasn't enough to drive Omo 'up the wall', Manaka was beginning to feel heaviness in her arms and legs. Her squirming had begun to cease as the teen was becoming too fatigued to continue trying. As she continued to tire, the ropes on her body began to hum and glow with the energy that once was once on Manaka's body.

"Much like Itoh and Billy, I'm not that intent on fighting. There rarely is a need to learn how to properly combat when you are already invincible to the rest of society. This gift that our great boss has given us Captains blesses my counterparts with the ability to control the future by the reins. I hoped with this power we now share that I could have helped you control your own.

"If I haven't said this enough, I care about my students. When you gained this power, I hoped you would have chosen to be a part of this great group. Maybe you could have replaced that lazy bum Billy? Better yet, you could have been a part of The Boss' elite! I know that The Boss has greatly admired you from the sidelines." The teacher would move away from the student whose expression was clearly one of fear and confusion. He would let those expressions sink in while he walked towards the door to leave the room. He then opened the door, facing back towards his former student and saying one last request: "Before you fall asleep, think about this: You had the power to make your future one for your own good. You could have joined I-35 and be the start of a new powerful generation... a revolution to shatter the grounds that normality has rested on" Then the teacher left the room without another word, leaving the quickly fatiguing Manaka Omo to fade in and out of consciousness... then limply hanging her head forward and losing all feeling in her body.

-.-

Meanwhile, somewhere else in the building, someone else was just waking up from their involuntary slumber. After being knocked out for a good half hour, the distressed cries of her name had awoken Miyuki Sekken from the caved in wall she rested in. She had awoken, albeit a rude awakening. Sekken's stomach stung worse than the time Seijo cracked her ribs, it was a miracle that she hadn't died from the force... if Omo hit her wrong, she may have been a complete goner! With a deep inhale, Miyuki gently held her gut while she pulled herself out of the hole in the wall. On the exhale, the pain in her gut only burned worse as a large wave of nausea washed over her. The intense sensation caused the teen to collapse on her knees within only 5 feet from the crater.

"Manaka... why? My gut hurts... What's even worse is that her power is utterly terrifying... and my stomach, that's pretty bad too..." Miyuki wheezed with pain, then deciding to lay on the floor for a few moments until the pain was just a little more bearable. While she laid there, the first year reflected on the events that led up to the only person she knew to betray her like she did. "Was I wrong? Am I really that bad of a person?" Miyuki pondered. In her heart something told her that she deserved being flung like a ragdoll. While there was some part of her that agreed with the result, there was also another part of her that felt like she shouldn't have been surprised. It was then that the possible reasoning for keeping her out of commission hit her: "Don't tell me that she went after I-35 herself...!!" Miyuki whined. Her stomach wasn't getting any better, but she was going to force herself onto her feet regardless.

The teen grumbled to herself as she tried to get herself to walk down the hallway. Putting one foot after another, Sekken made slow shuffles through the empty and echoey hallways. The first thing she noticed was the extra bit of dust kicked up into the air. The closer she walked towards the direction of the cafeteria, the more intense the clouds of dust grew. Miyuki figured the only way to find Omo was to walk straight to the source of this abnormal scene.

By the time she reached the cafeteria, Miyuki was coated in this dust. Just to make this dust cloud marginally more bearable, Miyuki fanned what she could away until she saw two bright lights from above. After coughing up a bit of the dust she breathed in, Miyuki looked up and continued to fan away the dust until she could see clearly what the source of those lights were. They were massive holes from the second floor! What stuck out to Miyuki even more was the fact that: "That's Mr. Taro's room..." she slowly said while looking upwards at the cavities in the ceiling.

Along with the fact that the once noisy and filled cafeteria had its doors locked and dead silent, the holes in the ceiling only added to the eerie vibes she was getting.

Right after she spoke, she could hear the doors of Mr. Taro's room quickly shutting. Miyuki would quickly rush to the steps without another word to chase down whatever it was that left the room. The stairs would be a pain for her to climb in the state she was left in. Considering she gets winded climbing the steps at the peak of her strength, climbing them in the condition she was in currently would only make that fatigue nigh unbearable. Eventually, Miyuki reached the top of the stairs; and before she knew it, the teen was gripping tightly to her shaky knees and gasping for air.

"Don't fall down now, don't fall down now." Miyuki repeated to herself while attempting to step one foot forward, then bringing the second foot forward. Mr. Taro's classroom was just a few hallways down, so she wasn't that far from her destination. "Help... someone." Miyuki would mutter before falling to her knees once more. "I-I can't stand this pain anymore..." the teen, on the verge of her body giving out, grips a hand on her school uniform. Her hands dug with so much grip that the blouse was beginning to tear. ("I can't stand this pain anymore... I can't stand being the only one to do something. Manaka, where are you? David, please...") Sekken prayed, her hands gripping even tighter and tighter to the blouse. With a mighty RIIIP! Miyuki then tore the top off of her body. Underneath her now shredded school uniform revealed a white sports top. The sports top was something similar to a sports bra one would wear to work out. This top is something she always wore when it ended up being too hot, or if her body needed air. By removing her uniform, her body could breathe a little more, making the journey to Mr. Taro's just marginally more bearable. In no way did Miyuki like being hot, but rather had a stronger preference for the opposite. With her school uniform removed, Miyuki gripped one of her knees and pushed herself off of the ground, just barely managing to stand up tall, then continued her journey.

"Manaka! Can you hear me?!" Miyuki called out, her head shifting left and right down the hallways, scanning each classroom that she passed by until Mr. Taro's room was in sight. Speaking of Mr. Taro, he was walking down the hallway too. The teacher was going in the opposite direction Miyuki was walking. "Mr. Taro! Have you seen Manaka?!" she worriedly asks, hoping that he would stop and answer.

To her luck, he would do just that, stopping in his tracks and answering her question: "No, I do not, Miyuki."

"Are you sure? What about your classroom? I saw some HUGE holes in it!"

"I have. I am getting help to investigate the classroom." Mr. Taro emptily responded, adjusting his glasses which slid down his nose. By how shortly he responded to her questions, it definitely seemed like he was in a hurry. Sekken couldn't blame him, his classroom was just destroyed! Interested, she continued to press on.

"I mean, I can look at it if you want. Actually, I'm just gonna head there anyways." Miyuki said, turning around and walking away from Mr. Taro without another word. Despite him being unarguably the victim of this destroyed classroom, Miyuki's gut instinct told her that something wasn't right. Her suspicions would be ultimately confirmed when her body had jerked to the side from what had to be the most pitiful attempt at backstabbing known to mankind. Her own teacher had lit up with Ki before swinging down at her from behind, though ultimately missing Sekken.

"Hm. I guess that was a bad decision, wasn't it?" Mr. Taro said, pulling his hand back up.

"I.. knew you were working for I-35." Miyuki would coldly respond, turning her head over her shoulder and glaring daggers at the teacher's laughable attempt to attack her. "Had I not known the nature of this school's before hours, I would have never guessed someone so dull like you would join such a lively gang like this. Why?"

"I wish to provide for my family. One of the things most children do not understand is the sad nature of a teacher's job in New Tako Town. You are only paid so much for dealing with mountains of lesson plans, grading endless stacks of papers, and disciplining children in excess or else you risk getting fired just to name a few. For all of the necessity, difficulty, and demanding behavior, teachers barely make minimum wage. It's a travesty to the world's necessity for education. Unfortunately, I made the decision to pursue my education into such a position like teaching on my own clueless whim as a child. Had I paid attention, I may not have been so 'dull' as I am now." Mr. Taro ranted, standing over the once awkward and easily intimidated child standing before him with nothing more than an assertive tone. He couldn't help but admire their new confidence...

"So you join a bunch of thugs to get a better paycheck?" Miyuki blankly asks, folding her arms and looking up at her teacher.

"Miyuki, Miyuki... I wouldn't go so far as to call your peers 'thugs'. That is rude. My son also is a part of this establishment too and we come every day to this hangout to enjoy our time together."

"Thug life is not a good life. It's unfair to me that I was mugged by guys with baseball bats and had my house burned down because I spoke to someone. If you think I'm being rude, then you should look at yourself. Now, tell me where Manaka is... my stomach hurts too much to say anything else." Miyuki talked with her teeth clenched while trying to stand as tall as she could. While she seemed to be acting tough, the shakiness in her legs and voice only proved that she was just trying to not tear herself apart like she just did to her school uniform.

"She is in the detention room. You can find her there. She is in quite the fuss I do say." Mr. Taro would say. "I can lead the way..."

She did not like this. Miyuki did not like the idea of her enemy leading her straight into what she knew would be a trap. The detention room? Ki wielder? Manaka in 'a fuss'? Miyuki rolled her eyes and knew that something bad was going to happen. So if she knew that was the case, why did she willingly follow her teacher into the room? There was only one way she could know if Manaka was truly there or not, and both knew that clearly.

Miyuki Sekken followed Mr. Taro into the detention room, her eyes opening in surprise to see the horrid sight of her friend being bound and gagged into a chair. "Manaka!" Miyuki called out, running over to her until suddenly she would feel her own feet getting wrapped and pulled into the opposing chair from across the room. "I knew it! I soooooo knew it! I'm not lying either, your stealthy skills are worse than an elephant trying to sneak into a library!" Miyuki taunts before she would be bound to the other chair and has her mouth gagged much like her friend.

"For a kid who never paid attention to my class, I was not expecting any less from how naive you'd act. This was all too easy." Mr. Taro boasts, then taking a sip from his room temperature coffee that was resting on the floor (due to no desks being inside the detention room). "I ask, why do you guys want to oppose such a brilliant creation like Clan Dei Diavoli?" Mr. Taro asked. Since both were gagged and unable to respond, it was needless to say it was a rhetorical question. It was this question that he would try to answer himself while the two students helplessly sat there.

"Is it because we are so organized? Four branches of equal power. Baggers, Truckers, Vaulters, and Barricades. A system put together by mere school children that runs like a small country. It's a beautiful sight I think. The Baggers are the center of trade, the Truckers make sure members have their necessary supplies, the Vaulters sort the earnings and make sure everyone goes home happy, and then the Barricades make sure the rules are enforced.

"Then there is The Boss... ooooh, The Boss! The brilliant mastermind behind this stunning birth of a new economic system. Without The Boss, where would this district be now? Where would I be now?" Mr. Taro ranted while pacing back and forth in the classroom, then continuing his unending train of thought. Meanwhile, Miyuki was trying her hardest to not fall asleep from the boring monotonous tone that her newly-self-dubbed insane teacher spoke in.

"This is why I enjoy being a teacher! Though the work is overloading and the pay is minuscule, it was the students that drew me away from my first job of accounting. The students that pay attention make this job so much more bearable. What makes it even greater however is when those students use the knowledge of their older generations to forge a path fit for their own. Never have I ever been to a school that incorporates so much of their growing knowledge as to forging a revolutionizing body of power! One that makes sure every member of it is accounted for and none is left to eat scraps! The hungry get food, the poor get paid, the confused get enlightened, the leaders get acknowledged, the orphan gets a family, and the homeless get a home! I-35 has done the impossible! They have created perfection! Anyone who stands against this birth of a utopia are villains to their own generation's future! This is why such extraordinary measures are taken by our fourth branch. This fourth branch is vital for this establishment's expansion to the rest of the district, nae, the country!"

To take a short break from his speech he was delivering, the teacher took a sip from his coffee once more and then cleared his throat. Miyuki was a little jealous that he had the skill to talk so much for so long. No wonder why his classes were so boring, the teacher never stopped talking. Miyuki took a deep breath in and sighed with relief when he was done. Unfortunately that relief was short lived because Mr. Taro continued once more. "As someone from an older generation, it is my duty to give my life to promote the safety of modern day's generation of children. Whatever may stand in the way of Clan Dei Diavoli will perish by my binds. Whether or not The Boss holds special value for a person, if they wish to threaten the integrity of our government, I must eliminate them so the future can lay at peace." Mr. Taro then tossed his coffee mug, said mug crashing to the ground and spilling the remains of the cold coffee all over the ground. Miyuki's gut began to churn, the teen knowing and dreading what was about to come next. The towering man stood right next to the passed out student across from Miyuki, his body beginning to glow with staggeringly powerful Ki.

Miyuki's eyes widened, feeling the true power of Mr. Taro's Ki, which nearly rivaled Manaka's own power had Omo's Ki not been drained previously by the teacher's ropes. Miyuki screamed, desperately trying to say "DON'T!" from her chair.

"Manaka Omo, you have committed the most unforgivable crimes to our future. You have stolen and destroyed the last necklace us Captains have sworn to protect until our very end. You have forsaken us all, so us Captains are fated to end up in unknown fates due to our failure. I curse you until my last breath! No matter if you were once one of my closest students or not." Mr. Taro said, then lifting his arm above his head and preparing to perform a neck chop on the passed out student. "Perhaps when you look back on this moment in the afterlife, you will understand what I am saying. Until then, Manaka Omo!" Mr. Taro then would proceed to violently swing his arm down at her neck at his full power. It felt like these longest minutes of Miyuki's life were only fated to end in tragedy by the hands of the very teacher she despised the most... there was nothing she could do. She had failed, and this was Sekken's inevitable punishment.

"What the?!" Mr. Taro would suddenly shout, pulling his hand back and looking at the untouched Omo in surprise. His hand had phased right through her! "But how!? There is no possible way someone can do that!" he said in disbelief, swinging again at her. When his gaze fixed back to Manaka however, she was no longer there! Her seat was empty!

"That is impossible, she was stuck in my binds! She can't just disappear like that! What is going on?!" Mr. Taro shouted again, angrily facing Miyuki and shouting: "DID YOU DO THAT?! YOU CHEEKY LITTLE SHIT! WHERE DID YOU PUT HER?!" Mr. Taro furiously yelled, then using a hand to remove the rope from Miyuki's mouth so she could speak. Miyuki too was in just as much of a panic as he was, having no clue how the person she just saw was no longer in the spot she should have been in.

"I don't know?! Where did YOU put her?!-- MISTER TARO!" Miyuki suddenly yelled with fear, then stretching her head out in an attempt to point to what was standing behind him... it was a shadowy figure, one of unknown features that could not be made out by any intelligent person.

"What are you talking about?! Of course you did something–GAAAAH!!!" Mr. Taro screamed, the teacher instantly feeling a violent pain in his back. He would look down and see the deathly sight of someone's fist through his own chest. The teacher fell to his knees, the color in his face turning pale. With his last words, the teacher would spread a smile on his face and utter these final words to Miyuki: "So this is how it ends...? Heh heh...

"The Boss comes for us all, sooner or later...

"...all hail... the Goddess of Shadows."

The lifeless Mr. Taro collapsed on the floor, leaving a growing pool of blood from where he was laid.

"M-MISTER TARO! OH MY GOD!" Miyuki wailed in terror from where she sat. The shady figure was quick to make a sprint for the door without looking back at the violent mess it made. The ropes that bound Miyuki vanished in thin air, leaving her sore body free to escape. Miyuki without hesitation ran outside the same door, shouting: "HEEEYYY!!! COME BACK HERE!". She was too late though, because the assassin was long gone.

This whole morning has been a huge mess for her: Megami's missing, Omo is missing, Mr. Taro is dead, and here she is still powerless. This day she had hoped to be the end-all-be-all had only left her hands emptier than when she started. Miyuki wailed another despairing sob, then collapsing to her knees, and resting her hands on the concrete.

"WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?! MR. TARO! OMOOOO!!! GODDAMNIT, WHERE ARE YOU?! WHERE AM I!? WHY CAN'T I DO ANYTHING?! I HATE BEING HELPLESS! I HATE IT! I HATE IT! I HAAAATE IIIITTT!!" Miyuki's fists would be clenched and repeatedly punching the concrete as she shouted. Sekken, gathering the last ounce of her remaining being, threw her bloodied fist into the air and shouting in a single cry to curse the cruel fate that she had walked into: "IIYYAAAAAAAA!!!!!"