26 - Wasted (ARC 2: START)

The sounds of the downpour in the background, police breaching the doors of the school, and dozens of students laying on the floor just outside the principal's office in agony, not knowing what had just hit them.

Kanoko had just rose up from beating on Nao's face. Nao had already gone unconscious, her entire face stained with blood.

'She was the only one who could move. She was definitely not hypnotized at all. I should have killed her. I know it,' Yuuto thought, his vision getting blurry as blood trickled down from his back as he walked with Saki and Kaede towards the exit, away from the flames that had begun spreading across the principal's office; his grip on the pistol still firm, as well as his grip on Saki's hand in his burnt palm.

'Ahh... Goddamn it. She cut me up good, this girl...' Yuuto thought as he witnessed Nazuna rising up to her feet in the sea of students as they left the door. To her left was the very broken window she impaled Yuuto on when he subdued her.

'My concussion's getting worse... I don't think I can control my legs anymore. My nausea's getting violent...' He thought, beginning to stumble as Nazuna looked at him, a look of urgency in her eyes as she sprinted towards him. The entire world seemed to move in slow motion, his consciousness beginning to fade.

'No... I can't fall asleep...' He thought as he looked at Saki.

'There's still this girl... What if today's the day her parents toss her out...?'

'Shit... I'm beginning to lose it...'

He thought, no longer able to hear the screams of concern around him anymore.

"Sa...Ki..."

"If you get thrown out of the house today by your retarded mother... Come... To... Our... Place..." Yuuto murmured, his eyes closing as his grip on both the pistol and Saki's hand slipping.

Yuuto passed out.

After he did, many things unfolded.

The first event was the intense scrutiny of the security tapes from the school, watched repeatedly to confirm the unbelievable. Satoshi, overly confident in his victory, had neglected to erase any incriminating evidence of his actions.

The detective's suspicions deepened with each viewing of the tapes.

Hypnosis was real, and it had been used to commit heinous acts against minors. But, as they soon discovered, these students were not the only victims. A nurse named Riku collapsed in tears on the hospital floor alongside other medical staff. The moment of Satoshi's death seemed to trigger a flood of suppressed memories.

Riku remembered how her husband had died by her hands.

Overwhelmed with guilt and grief, she turned herself in, only to be released a day later when the police verified she was a victim of mass hypnosis.

However, unable to live without her husband, she took her own life shortly thereafter.

In the following days, several patients from a mental asylum were miraculously cured of their ailments after a week of intensive testing. All had suffered some form of trauma, and the description of Satoshi came up at all of them.

Upong exploring his background, they discovered most of Satoshi's actions and his entanglements with drug dealers.

Ultimately, these connections led to substantial police operations, resulting in the dismantling of the networks and the arrest of all involved.

Nao was exposed as an accomplice, corroborated by multiple witness testimonies, which included Kanoko, Kaede, and Nazuna and as well as video footage that showed her being friendly with the main aggressor. Consequently, she was sentenced to a lengthy term in juvenile detention without a foreseeable release date.

...But even that was not all.

"Honey," she said, her expression filled with worry.

"For the past few nights, I've heard our daughter moaning from her room. I haven't mentioned it until now, but it's starting to concern me. Do you know anything about it? Could she have a new boyfriend she's keeping secret from us?" the mother asked, coincidentally on the same day the mass hypnosis at the school began.

'Haah... I think I took this too far. Time to come clean... I'll just pin the blame on Saki. She's a whore anyway, a disgraceful daughter, so it will be easy to do it,' The man, calling himself Saki's father, had thought; after raping his daughter night after night, day after day, his gaze steady, yet cautious.

"Actually... Darling... I need to be honest... I've been keeping a secret because I couldn't bear the thought of our precious daughter frequenting questionable places... In fact, the moans that you heard were—"

The father began to explain, but was abruptly interrupted as their cellphones simultaneously rang, alerting them that police officers were surrounding the school perimeter.

That day, the father chose to withhold his secret a while longer, which consequently postponed Saki's expulsion from her house.

Nazuna attended her friend's funeral with a vacant, hollow expression as she stared at the grave, standing next to Akito who was wrapped in bandages and seated in a wheelchair.

Then there was Yuuto.

He had battled against a multitude of students, overcoming seemingly insurmissible odds, eventually killing the hypnotist after fatally shooting two police officers with stolen law enforcement firearms and assaulting numerous teachers and students.

His actions were ruled as "Self-Defense," and he was absolved of any wrongdoing.

Subsequently, several police officers visited his hospital room to offer their condolences and support to Yuuto, Kanoko, Kaede, and Nazuna and Akito, who regularly checked on their safety.

The officers also expressed their gratitude to Yuuto for preventing further atrocities by the deceased officers, appreciating his swift actions.

Amidst this, Kaede's thoughts often returned to her son's new identity that he shouted, Yuuto Sakurai, sometimes feeling as though he was no longer her son, Hiroki.

Yet, these thoughts were secondary to her reflections on the grim necessities her son faced to protect them—how he had to end a life to save theirs. These memories left her feeling helpless, wishing only that he remained safe.

Throughout the week Yuuto lay hospitalized and unconscious, neither she nor Kanoko left his side.

By the seventh day, the gunshot wound had transformed into a stark, fresh scar.

Now, all that remained was for Yuuto to awaken.

But naturally... other things kept happening around the world.

"SIR!" An enthusiastic, mature voice called as he walked through the doors, wincing as he laid his eyes on the man sitting at the elegant desk in front of him.

"Yes...? Don't stop talking... Heheheh..." The man mocked, tightening his grip on a petite woman sitting on his lap.

"It's... It's about your adopted son... It's Jameson. He was... erh..." The man stuttered, tightening his fists in silence, trying his hardest to look away from the man and the woman he enveloped himself with.

The man then powerfully slammed his fist against his desk. "YOU COME IN HERE TALKING ABOUT MY SON, AND THEN YOU STOP TALKING!? LOOK AT ME AND SPEAK, YOU RETARDED LIMP!!" His voice boomed.

The man shook his head, raising his gaze.

"Oh, her? Is it her that makes you uncomfortable?" he said with a leer, fondling her breasts before the man's reluctant eyes. "You have some fine taste, I'll tell you... She was resisting quite a lot, but in the end, I got her hooked on my dick, heheh~"

The man leered again as he played with her body. "As a good boss, I have to show you what happens when you keep secrets from me... For example, keeping such a hottie of a wife a secret. That is insubordination, you know? But since I'm such a generous man, I'll let you off with a warning. You don't mind me taking your wife all for myself as a consolation prize, right?" he mocked.

The man could only look down as his wife momentarily glanced at him, feeling sorry for him before being pulled back into overwhelming pleasure at the slightest touch from the man.

"...No... I don't mind, Mr. Tarude," he said weakly, eyes fixed on the floor.

"Hehehe... Good lad. I'll give you some money. Go to a whorehouse and find yourself someone to play around with," Tarude said, tossing hundreds of dollars toward him. The man, who had been in a loving relationship with his wife for many years, merely nodded as he ducked to pick up the cash.

'At least... Michaela is safe...' he thought of his daughter, who was under his boss's desk, doing her best to please him, unbeknownst to her father.

"Good, good... Hehehe..." Tarude laughed as the man left the room.

"Consider this a present from me, Hugh Glee Bass Tarude."

"Ahh, pops, ya' totally got him all depressed..." A blonde, tanned guy leaning nearby the desk exclaimed playfully, almost disregarding the two girls draped over the man.

"He deserves it, Gyarune. He forgot to tell me the news about your adopted brother..."

"Well, you already knew that little Jimmy died in Japan, though," Gyarune said, scratching his head.

"About that... I need you to go there and check things out... After you're done with your assignments here, of course," Hugh ordered.

"Fair enough..." Gyarune sighed as he left Hugh's office.