Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

From the bits and pieces he’d seen of her, Ryota had never pegged Kirari as a party girl, so when he’d gotten the invitation in the mail it had come as quite the surprise on multiple levels.  One, that Kirari was hosting a party at her beloved academy, and two, that he of all people had been invited to it.  As a former house pet with no high-level connections and very little money to his name, saying Kirari and he were far apart was like saying being punched in the face stung a bit.  This just didn’t add up.

Naturally, the first thing he’d done afterward was call Yumeko, who’d given him her number shortly after they’d met.  Even though she was a newcomer to the academy, she’d already made quite the mark on the place, so if Kirari was inviting anyone outside the former Student Council, she’d probably be near the top of the list.

She’d picked up on the second ring, punctual as always.  “Hello, Ryota.  What’s up?”

Ryota didn’t know how to phrase the question he really wanted to ask, so he just took a step in the right direction.  “Did you get any mail today?”

“Yes, actually.  Kirari invited me to some kind of party this weekend, if you can believe it,” Yumeko said, which skipped the next three questions Ryota wanted to ask and just dove headlong into the conclusion.  At the very least, it saved a lot of time.

“Apparently, I got invited as well,” Ryota said.  “Is this, like, an all-academy thing or is there something going on that I don’t know about or…”

“I wouldn’t worry, Ryota,” Yumeko said.  “If this turns out to be a trap of some kind, I’ll figure out how to escape it.  I’ve done it before, I can do it again.”

The party being a trap of some kind wouldn’t surprise Ryota that much; it fit Kirari’s personality.  Yumeko seemed chipper about it, but she was Yumeko, that was kind of her thing. 

Then the lightbulb went off in Ryota’s head.  Yumeko probably wouldn’t be of much help here, but maybe she’d be able to talk to someone who was.  If they hadn’t been invited, he would know that this was something to avoid, and if they had, he still might wind up avoiding it, but maybe he’d go just for the chance to be with Yumeko for a bit.

“Hey, would you mind calling someone about this?  I’d just like to see who else is coming.”

“Sure thing, Ryota,” Yumeko said.  “In fact, I can get Mary on the line right now.  Hold on, just let me dial the number…”

Ryota almost told her to stop, but he bit back his nausea at the last second.  Having been Mary’s house pet for a time before Yumeko had bailed him out of that situation, talking to her on equal footing was still difficult even after Yumeko had either befriended her (or taken her under her wing, depending on who you asked).  Ryota didn’t know which and didn’t care, because either one meant that as long as he stuck with Yumeko, Mary’s fate would be intertwined with his.

Fortunately, Yumeko gained control of the conversation in a hurry, leaving Ryota to wait quietly in the background.  The long and short of said conversation was that Mary had been invited as well, and from calls Mary had placed earlier, invites had also gone to every former member of the Student Council and everyone Midari had conscripted for the Beautification Committee at the very least.  Either this was a trap on a scale he’d never seen before...

Or Kirari had just decided to host an all-out party for the sake of hosting an all-out party.

Ryota wasn’t sure which of the two was scarier.

“Well, that settles that,” Yumeko said once Mary had hung up.  “I’d like to ask a question before I hang up, though: I’m planning to go.  What about you?”

His brain was screaming “no,” but before it caught up with his mouth, he heard himself say, “Yes, I’m going.”

“That’s great, Ryota!  You want to meet outside the front gates before we go in?”

Well, he’d already backed himself into a corner.  Sure, he could just retract his previous statement, but when Yumeko was involved, things tended to go screwy, and Ryota’s common sense was no exception.  “Sure.”

“Well then, I’ll see you there, Ryota.  Don’t have too much fun without me, okay?”

Then she hung up, leaving Ryota to make a noise that couldn’t decide whether it wanted to be happy or sad, and thus just came out as a muddled and incoherent mess.  A party for the rich and famous, even by Hyakkaou’s standards, was not his scene, but he’d be willing to bear it if Yumeko was there.

Everything was better for him when she was around, after all.

Even while casually leaning on one of the black iron poles of the fence surrounding Hyakkaou Private Academy’s lush, opulent grounds, Yumeko still had a keen eye surpassed by very few.  Thus, it made sense that she spotted Ryota well before Mary did.

Whereas most students of Hyakkaou oozed confidence with every move, Ryota looked woefully out of place.  He moved with the unsteady gait of a child half his age, eyes darting around like he expected someone to leap out of the bushes and try to strangle him.  He carried a Tupperware container of something in one of his free hands, the contents being bumped around quite a bit by his motions.  Once he locked eyes with Yumeko, though, he seemed to noticeably relax.

“Hello,” Ryota said.  “Ready for… this?”

“Of course I am,” Yumeko said.  “I love getting the chance to just let loose.  It’ll be fun!”

“For you, at least,” Mary said, rolling her eyes.  “The last time you let loose, Kaede had to go to the hospital.  He still hasn’t been discharged, by the way, so I doubt he’s coming.”

“Come on, Mary!  Don’t be such a cynic,” Yumeko said.  “This’ll be a great experience.  I can feel it in my bones.  Let’s go!”

Smile equipped and friends alongside her, she breached the entrance, striding forward towards the academy’s opulent doors.

When they approached the front door, however, a girl sitting in a folding chair stood up and moved to block their way, flashing what appeared to be a badge of some kind.  “Ayame Nureba, event security.  May I please see your identification?”

Yumeko just kept her smile and brought hers out without complaint, while Ryota did the same without changing his expression.  However, Mary giggled a bit as she brought hers out.  “What are those badges made of, tin foil?”

“We had to make them on short notice,” Ayame said, devoid of any and all emotion.  “There’s actual badges on the way but Midari screwed something up with the order and now they’re not coming until next week.”

“Good luck keeping order with that on your chest,” Mary said, although Yumeko couldn’t figure out whether that was sarcastic or not.  She fished out her ID from her pocket, after which Ayame stepped aside and let them in without a word.  The three of them left Ayame behind and proceeded inside before getting overwhelmed with a rush of vividly colored signs and arrows, all of them seeming to point in the direction of the cafeteria.  Following the arrows, Yumeko passed by room after room after room until the threesome finally arrived at their destination.

Swinging open the door revealed a scene that was about what Yumeko expected.  All the cafeteria tables had either been moved to the sides of the room’s first floor or otherwise been stored, leaving a wide-open area in the center of the room that made for an excellent dance floor.  Food and drink crowded the tables that remained, hosting a range of palates so wide that just on the first two tables of drinks, Yumeko spotted chocolate milk, diet soda, regular soda, lemon-garnished water, hot tea, iced coffee, and fruit punch.  Off in one of the far corners was something that appeared to be a bar for those who wanted to drink something stronger, manned by a couple of students Yumeko hadn’t met personally but no doubt knew who she was.  Streamers and banners hung from the walls, stairs and even the ceiling in an assortment of vibrant colors that stopped just short of complete sensory overload, aided a bit by the somber music playing in the background.  

A handful of the Student Council’s former members had already arrived: Yuriko stepping her way through a traditional-looking dance (fitting for the leader of the Culture Club, she supposed), Yumemi doing a mic check on a makeshift stage, Midari hovering in everyone’s peripheral vision as she watched over them with her good eye.  Two massive speakers flanked Yumemi, the music playing from them quiet for now but likely to grow explosive. The party’s mastermind was nowhere to be found, but chances were for a plan this big she’d reveal herself eventually.

“This is insane,” Ryota said.  “How’d she get all this set up so fast?”

Mary rolled her eyes again.  “She’s Kirari.  What the hell do you expect?  Here, if you throw enough money at a problem, eventually it gets solved.”

“That probably explains all the alcohol,” Ryota said.  “Just asking, how long do you think we’ll have to wait until some kind of drinking game starts?”

Mary smirked.  “Probably as soon as Yumemi gets off the stage.”

“Not cool,” Yumeko said.  “Let the poor girl have her fun!  Plus, given how successful our last duet was, I wouldn’t be surprised if I get called to the stage at some point.”

She had a point there.  Yumemi had broken into the music scene via Spotify, which she tended to use to judge how marketable each of her songs was via their view count.  When she’d posted her duet with Yumeko (after asking permission, of course), it had racked up views faster than anything she’d ever posted there.  Everything except the first song she’d ever posted had already been eclipsed, and the day neared when even that would fall victim.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to hit the dance floor for a bit,” Yumeko said.  “Anyone want to join me?”

Mary and Ryota both declined, after which Yumeko sauntered her way toward Yuriko, whose face went about three different shades of red upon seeing the dance floor’s newest occupant.  Looking back, she saw Mary move toward one of the snack platters with a plate, while Ryota just walked to the side of the room opposite from where Midari was now standing and leaned against the wall.

The party promised to get wild later in the night, but for the time being, it was just her, Yuriko, and some soft music playing in the background.  Without a word, Yumeko began dancing along with the music.  The dance was one of her own design, loose and free.

For now, at the very least, she was at peace.

Kirari and Ririka hadn’t stepped foot downstairs yet, but that was to come soon.

They needed to run a final inspection on what they’d done first.  In the past hour or so, they’d managed to put together several gambling-related party games together, Sayaka, Runa, and Inaho doing what they could to help.  Kirari figured that even if these gambles didn’t have the capability to shuffle the standings around that much, at the very least it would disperse the partygoers a bit to make things more manageable. Sayaka had been working in another room for a while, but now she pushed open the door to the room Kirari had just finished, ready to give her report.  “Everything’s ready.  I’m willing to be the blackjack dealer, and the slot machines are up and running with appropriate pricing and odds.”

“Excellent,” Kirari said.  “We’ve got some poker tables set up in the other room.  I contracted some house pets to monitor them in exchange for reducing their debt a bit.  Roulette wheel is working fine as well, I tested it myself.  Runa asked if she could manage that and I’m not going to refuse her there.”

The two of them turned to face Ririka.  She’d taken off her mask once she’d gotten here so she could see better, but now that it had become clear their work here was done she’d put it back on, obscuring her face behind its cheap plastic once more.

As evidenced by what happened next, she could still talk just fine.  “Should we announce to the others that this is an available option?”

“Of course,” Kirari said.  “Plus, I might as well check out how things are going.”

Hosting a party like this, especially on school grounds, had been a gamble in and of itself.  Securing the funds needed to set everything up wasn’t the problem; money was never a problem for a Momobami.  Getting the alcohol onto the premises wasn’t either, although that did present the possibility for her being on the hook if someone from Hyakkaou got arrested for underage intoxication.  She could handle that if it came up, though.  Even getting the slot machines and poker tables hadn’t been a problem: she’d commissioned Itsuki for the task, and with a combination of help from her father’s company and the girl’s own artistic talents, she had not disappointed.

No, the problem lay in what was to come from this.  Alcohol and teenagers rarely mixed well, but if things went the way she hoped she’d have plenty of new information to go around.  Drunk people often did things they regretted later, after all.  However, if that extended to anything beyond words, it’d lead to an embarrassing story down the line at best and a mass trip to the hospital at worst.

She didn’t intend to drink, though.  For that reason alone, she was willing to take that chance.

As she emerged onto the second floor of the cafeteria, Ririka and Sayaka trailing behind her, she took in the party scene from above.  She saw Yumemi dazzling with another one of her infectious songs, causing everyone in her official fan club (and many people who weren’t) to dance along, sing along, or both at the same time.  She saw Midari standing off in a corner with a glass of something in her right hand, leaving her signature pistol to dangle loosely from her left.  She saw some of the quieter types, Ryota and Nanami among them, attempting to engage in awkward small talk in between bites of hor d'oeuvres.  She even saw Mary, who appeared to be taking a quick break from the festivities to check her phone for some reason.

She did not see Yumeko, but that didn’t surprise her.  Sometimes it felt like the universe bent over backward to accommodate that girl.  She probably sensed something was wrong from a mile away.

Kirari had no problems with that.  She liked a challenge.  Yumeko provided one.  Everything worked out in the end.

After Sayaka finished whatever her song of the moment was, Kirari managed to catch her eye in the brief intermission between that song and the next, meaning Kirari could stride over and commandeer the microphone with minimal interference apart from a few dispersed groans from Yumemi’s fan club.

“Before the show continues, I would like to make a few announcements,” Kirari said, drinking in the attention the audience gave her.  “First, there are now several gambling rooms open for those who wish to partake.  However, please leave all food and drink downstairs at the tables: Itsuki put a lot of hard work into creating the tables and games and I don’t want her work to be spoiled.”

Itsuki, standing nearby while casually munching on a dumpling, took a bow to a round of polite applause.  Once that concluded, Kirari pressed forward with her speech.

“I’d also like to thank all of the students who helped me put all of this together.  Their help was invaluable to bringing everything you see right now to life.”

More polite applause.  She couldn’t tell whether it came from their positive impression of everything that had happened or if they simply didn’t want her to chew them out, but she also didn’t care.  Their opinion meant little for her pet project, after all.

“Last, but most certainly not least, the bar is now open and being manned.  If you wish to order a drink, you may only order another after you finish or otherwise dispose of the one in front of you, but unless you become a danger to yourself or others, there are no strict limits on the number you can order before you leave.  That’s all I have to say.  Enjoy the party, and I thank you for your attendance.”

To the surprise of no one, a final round of applause occurred as she walked off the stage.  Maybe she was pushing her luck by not controlling the alcohol all that strictly, but one, Midari and her crewmates were responsible for security, not her, and two, no one here, not even Yuriko, was old enough to drive yet.  Plus, while she guessed that a good chunk of the people here had at least practiced driving, their families had enough money to hire drivers to get them places, or at the very least send them a taxi.  Unless someone died of alcohol poisoning on the premises (and she presumed that everyone here had the good sense to stop well before that point), chances were everything would be fine.

As she sat down at the table to scan the rooms for the house pets she’d planted as moles, Yumemi reclaimed the microphone, and made an announcement that seemed expected to everyone except Kirari.  “Could Yumeko please come to the stage?”

Suddenly, the crowd around the stage seemed to churn for a few seconds before spitting Yumeko out, the girl looking as lovely as ever.  She almost skipped up to Yumemi, beaming from ear to ear like she’d just emptied a Vegas casino.

“Thank you for this opportunity, Yumemi,” Yumeko said, all smiles.  Her eyes bore little of the intensity Kirari knew raged beneath her beautiful exterior at the moment, but maybe it would come out with a song.  Just maybe.

Yumemi shouted, “Now who’s ready for another performance from the Dreaming Creaming Sisterz?”

Most of the crowd cheered, the noise so loud Kirari wished for ear plugs for a moment.  Then, as if synced up by some invisible cue (which Kirari wouldn’t have put past them, given the circumstances) the speakers started blasting the opening music for “I’ll Blackjack You” at top volume, very nearly causing Kirari to go deaf, before the two of them started singing along, most of the crowd mimicking their motions as they clapped and cheered.

Kirari stayed seated through the first iteration of the chorus, then rose and slipped away, the crowd not seeming to notice the newly-created space where she’d been.  As she entered the hall and shut the door behind her, the noise almost seemed to stop, the flimsy barrier between it and her apparently having a similar noise-canceling factor of one of the Momobami mansion’s specially-made soundproof rooms.  Before long, though, she found her real target: a nondescript room in a nondescript hallway that largely went unused, even during the day.  That, fortunately for Kirari, was by design.

She threw open the door, revealing a room that resembled a teacher’s lounge.  A small television had been placed on top of a bleached-white shelf sticking out of the far wall, facing a sofa big enough for three and a triad of chairs.  A fridge and a microwave sat next to each other on a simple wooden table, each of them ready to be used at a moment’s notice.  It was simple, but it solved the problem it was meant to just fine.

This room, repurposed from a largely-unused classroom, had been another one of Kirari’s pet projects that she’d overseen almost as soon as she became Student Council President.  Whenever a council member or student of similar rank had needed a break from class or just life in general, they could come here and have some time for themselves.  The faculty were forbidden from entering this room under threat of their jobs, and while lower-ranking students no doubt knew what it was they didn’t enter either except under direct orders from Kirari.

Now, its sole occupant was her.  Kirari sank into the sofa, a drink in one hand and a snack in the other, and flicked on the television.  Instead of the trashy drama or news that one might have expected, the television instead displayed footage of the room from some cameras she’d set up beforehand in split-screen to relay both the audio and visuals of all the oblivious partygoers straight to her.  With these, even if her house pets couldn’t get the job done, she certainly could.

Smiling wide, she bit down on her rice cake, its sharp crunch breaking the silence.

“And now, the gamble can really begin.”

Chapter Text

Midari probably shouldn’t have been drinking considering she was the closest thing this party had to a bouncer, but being one of the rare fans of self-inflicted pain, she’d done it anyway.

Calling her drunk would be a bit much, considering she’d only had about a glass and a half worth of alcohol and downed nearly twice as much in lemon water, but calling her tipsy was not an exaggeration.  Her unsettling smile stretched wider, her grip on her pistol loosened, her laughter came louder and easier.  Despite that, her senses remained largely unchanged.  While her hearing had dimmed a bit thanks to a slight buzzing starting up inside her head, her field of view remained clear and steady and her stride was the same long, stiff-legged stagger many of her fellow classmates had come to fear.

She only looked for specific things.  The drunks she ignored; unless they were passing out or puking they weren’t a danger to anyone on their own, even themselves.  The couples making out in barely-hidden places she left alone as well; as long as both parties seemed like they had consented she had no obligation to break something like that up.  All she really cared about were two things, those things being that no hard drugs made their way here and that nobody started a brawl while she was nearby.  And neither had happened so far, leaving her bored out of her mind. She was no longer content to pace circles, making sure that everything was a-okay in the main room.  Yumeko and Yumemi had 90% of the crowd pacified, and for the rest, she was sure one of Ayame, Naoe, or Nana could handle it.  Thus, she slipped her pistol into her pocket and went upstairs toward the gambling rooms.

She entered into the nearest one like a phantom, her arrival seemingly unnoticed by most of the dozen or so other students in the room.  All of them seemed focused on their gambles: slot machines in the corner (although this only held a few students, the rest seeming to know that any machinery here was more than likely to be rigged), so those who were gambling clustered around Sayaka and her blackjack table, the girl dealing hands at a frightening speed as chips, curses, and even the occasional catcall crossed its wooden surface.  Unfortunately, all of the games here were too mundane for her, and after idly watching the blackjack players for a couple of hands she determined none of them even came close to being a substitute for Yumeko.

“Seems like everything’s going fine in here,” she said, attempting to break up the room’s crushing monotony.  In an instant, every person swiveled to face her.  One even screamed like they were acting out a low-budget horror movie.

“I thank you for checking in on us, but no help is needed at the moment,” Sayaka said, still managing to deal a new hand in the midst of her statement.  “In the future, if your services are required, I will call you in using the walkie-talkie.”

“Fine,” Midari said.  “If someone starts punching someone else, though, call me specifically, okay?”

Sayaka simply nodded, which Midari took as a yes considering there was little to say.  Midari considered trying her luck on the slot machine just for the hell of it, but it wouldn’t scratch the itch Yumeko had set on her.  Not even close.  That girl couldn’t be replicated by anyone else at the academy, even Kirari.

She loved her for it.  She worshipped her for it.  She yearned for those feelings to be returned.

Next time, she told herself.  You’ll get her next time.

After chasing those thoughts out of her head with a couple of slaps to the face, she marched onward through the other rooms to reveal similar scenes to the first.  Something of interest almost happened when an argument broke out around the roulette table in the third room, but before anything came of it Runa stepped between them, her petite form and unsettling manner of speech somehow getting them to calm down.  Grumbling with disapproval, Midari spent a little longer there to make sure nothing else transpired and then continued her aimless journey.

Every gambling room looked the same: dead-eyed students engaging in pointless gambles while the equally dead-eyed moderators strung them along through their pointless, miserable games.  Midari didn’t know how any of them gained satisfaction from something so insufferably dull, but she moved on without questioning it.  If she got exposed to any more boredom, she’d probably fall asleep, and there was little good that came out of a security guard sleeping on the job.

Once she’d finished her trip, another side effect of the alcohol she’d drunk appeared to kick in.  Even though she’d gone to the bathroom less than an hour ago, her body screamed at her that she needed to go again.  She considered delaying, but it’d take a few minutes, maximum, to get that done.  Nothing too grotesque could happen here while she was gone, which was good; if something like that did happen, she wanted to be the first to witness it.

For now, though, Midari marched down the empty hall in search of a bathroom, leaving the rest of the academy behind.

As the party wore on, Sayaka started to notice changes in the people who sat at her blackjack table.

When it was first unveiled, the players she dealt with remained polite for the most part.  They usually bid small amounts (or at least small compared to the norm), made small talk with each other, and didn’t display much emotion win or lose.  However, once the sunlight began to fade, so too did the inhibitions of her players.  The stacks of chips on the table grew larger and larger, curses and whoops being exchanged after each hand.  Every time a player wandered off, someone just a bit more drunk took their place.  The room had started to smell of a potent combination of sweat and alcohol, to the point where shortly after Midari had popped in, Sayaka even considered pausing the game for a few minutes so she could get some fresh air.

She soldiered on, though.  Kirari expected nothing less of her, and in turn, she expected nothing less of herself.  She’d do the job until the job was done, and that was the end of that.

The foursome at the table fidgeted and twitched in their seats as Sayaka dealt their latest hand.  The first player, a beanpole of a boy with coke-bottle glasses and greasy black hair tied in a ponytail, went bust, cursing as he did so.  A petite girl missing several teeth stopped upon reaching 17, a tank of a girl with ocean-blue hair upon reaching 20.  The fourth one, wearing full clown makeup including a squeaky red nose, busted as well, proceeded to shove his chips in Sayaka’s direction, curse her out, and storm away from the table, not even bothering to see what her hand was.

“All right,” Sayaka said to no one.  “Dealer shows.”  And she did show, her cards displaying a perfect 21.

“Dealer wins,” she said, sliding the chips in her direction, ignoring the hard stares of the table’s other three inhabitants.  By the time she’d prepared to deal the next hand, though, she could no longer ignore the blue-haired girl pointing an accusatory finger in her direction.  “Miss, is there some kind of problem you need me to deal with?”

“You’re cheating,” the girl spat through clenched teeth.

The next line came naturally.  “And what is your proof?”

“I’ve been here for ten hands.  I’m playing every hand to the best of my ability, and yet I’ve lost every single time.  There’s no way in the universe my luck is that bad.”

In a bit of a surprise, no foul play had actually occurred unless you counted the girl’s blackjack skills.  Maybe she knew how to count cards, maybe she didn’t, but either way she seemed like the kind of person who could barely add her cards correctly, let alone utilize them to their best extent.  Sure, she’d gotten a couple of really terrible hands, but while Sayaka had been on a hot streak for those past ten hands, other players had won a few times.  She’d simply had bad luck, and Sayaka had good luck to counter it.  Nothing else could be said about the situation, not from Sayaka.

“No cheating has occurred on my part,” Sayaka said, her voice still calm and orderly.  “If you wish to observe other players for signs of cheating…”

“Fuck that,” the girl said, standing up and shoving her chair aside with a crash.  “You.  Me.  Right here, right now.  It’s on, bitch.”

Sayaka kept her composure.  It was sure to be a one-sided fight if things came to blows, for her at least.  She had a taser and this girl did not.  That alone swung the odds massively in her favor.  However, that wasn’t how she preferred to handle things, so she simply reached for the walkie-talkie clipped to the waist of her dress.  “Event security to Gambling Room B, please.  I repeat, event security to Gambling Room B.”

Then she turned to face her aggressor.  “You can either leave or be thrown out.  I don’t care which one happens, but either way, you’re gone.”

The girl stood indecisive for a few seconds, but after they passed, she spat on the floor and faked a lunge toward Sayaka, causing her grip on her taser to tighten.  Then, she turned on her heel and stalked out of the room, vile curse words snaking their way toward Sayaka until she disappeared from view.

Sayaka shrugged it off.  The only thing that surprised her was that it had taken this long for someone to do that.  “Well, now that that’s handled, would you two like to return to the table for another hand?”

Both of them did, but before they could even finish placing their bets, everything got derailed by the sounds of loud shouting from the floor below.  Both players picked up their gambling chips, left their seats and moved towards its source, and at that point, Sayaka reasoned she had nothing to do at the moment and did the same, keeping half an eye on the other patrons in her room to make sure nothing else happened.

Once she reached the edge of the room and could see the main area, she became witness to a frightening scene.  The girl she’d just kicked out was currently brawling with three or four other people, somehow staying upright despite her taking blows from all sides.  As she watched with bewilderment, two more people rushed into the brawl, then one, then three, and before long, it seemed like half the floor was involved even as she called event security to the main floor and wondered where the hell Midari had fucked off to before this all started.

Sayaka sighed.  You had to do everything yourself nowadays.

Thus, without a word of internal dissent or even a thought of hesitation, she charged down the stairs, taser in hand and ready to fire.

Ryota was currently in the process of thanking every god he could name that at the very least he’d skipped the alcohol.  If he hadn’t been sober, he would most certainly have been caught in this mess, or even worse, involved.

The scene unfolding around him looked so bizarre he couldn’t tell whether it fit better in a horror flick or a comedy skit.  About two dozen Hyakkaou students, most of them far drunker than any high schooler should ever be, had started attacking each other with various degrees of efficiency.  Some did little more than feebly slap at anyone who got close, but at least a few were throwing full-on punches, and others seemed to have no qualms about hitting below the belt.  Curses and half-baked insults poured out of their mouths in a tidal wave of negativity as they fought, fervent intensity radiating from each word.

Since he was sober, dodging their attacks wasn’t too hard, except for one guy with bloodied knuckles that managed to give him an open-handed slap to the cheek.  He managed to force his way to the edge of the cluster of humanity before extracting himself with some difficulty, trying to figure out where the hell Yumeko and Mary were so they could get the hell out of here.

“Yumeko?  Mary?”  Ryota’s calls dripped with desperation, wanting nothing more than to be somewhere else.  “I think it’s time to go!”

It happened in a blur.  One second, he walked alone, and the next, the two of them both had a hand on his shoulder and stared at him as if they were ghosts he had summoned through a sacred ritual.  Ryota made a mental note to never play any horror games with them.

“Yeah,” Mary said, drawing out the word.  “I’m not sure about you, but I think I’ll skip… that.”  She pointed at the brawl occurring center-stage, which was growing worse by the second.  Ryota even saw (and heard) Midari firing her pistol into the air as she entered in an attempt to at least draw the crowd’s attention, but it was no use: the people involved were too single-minded for that to work.  

“I understand, but I’m not that confident in the event security’s ability to break this up,” Yumeko said as Midari dove headlong into the melee, laughing maniacally as she did.  “There’s only a few of them, and there’s a lot of fighters.”

That number appeared to be growing by the second, with student after student piling into the mess to either avenge hurt friends or blow off steam or do whatever it was they thought fighting would solve.  The level of violence seemed to grow in tandem, with punches flying, feet kicking, and blows landing.  It’d be an interesting Monday that week, to say the least.

Before anyone else could say anything, another blur of motion caught Ryota’s eye.  Sayaka had clearly heard the commotion and come rushing downstairs, taser in hand.  Ryota hoped for the best: maybe if just getting hit wouldn’t stop them from attacking each other, ten thousand volts could do the job just fine.

“This behavior is absolutely unacceptable,” Sayaka said with grim determination, leveling her taser and beginning to fire.  “Event security has been called to remove everyone involved from the premises, and I swear to God, I can—”

Maybe it was because they noticed she was dealing far more damage than anyone else involved in the brawl, or maybe they just sensed that a new participant had entered.  Either way, though, it resulted in at least two dozen of the drunk brawlers stopping whatever they’d been doing beforehand to charge Sayaka, who broke into a run for the opposite side of the room without changing her expression, frantically firing her taser over her shoulder like she was the last survivor of a zombie outbreak while jabbering into a walkie-talkie in her free hand.  “Event security to the main floor, please!  I repeat, event security to the main floor!”

Midari seemed to be doing an okay job with knocking people down, but most of them just picked themselves back up like nothing had happened and rejoined the seething mass of humanity.  Midari’s friends, who Ryota couldn’t have named if he tried, entered the room at a full sprint to try and settle things down, but at this point, the situation looked unsalvageable; it was a miracle no one had pulled a weapon yet.

“Hold on,” Yumeko said.  “I’m not sure how Sayaka plans to take control of this, so I’d like to see how this plays out.  Plus, if things get really bad, hopefully they’ll know better than to try and attack me.”

Ryota’s eyes almost started bulging out of his head.  “They’re attacking Kirari’s personal secretary right now.  I doubt you’ll be much different, and I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“It’ll reflect badly on me if I witnessed this and did nothing,” Yumeko said.  “It’s not fair, but that’s just how the story goes.”

Ryota didn’t have a defense for that, but his brain struggled to form some kind of argument anyway.  However, before he could make any kind of connection, the group caught up to Sayaka as he stared in horror, absorbing her like a speck of dirt in a puddle as she struggled and fought.

Just in time for a hideous screech to rip the room in two.

Kirari exited her pocket of heaven to a scene straight out of hell.

What appeared to be a drunk, angry mob had materialized and started charging around the room, and while Midari seemed to be attempting to curtail the group, her pistol was useless in close quarters and her ability to win a twenty-on-one fight was nothing to write home about.  Kirari might have just made her way to the mic to try and grab their attention or even sat back and watched as everything played out, but then a piece she hadn’t known was missing snapped into place.

Sayaka emerged into her field of view for a split second before being absorbed into the mosh pit that was the dance floor, screaming her head off as her taser got knocked away, stopping dead on the floor with a sharp whack.  While the attacks from everyone in that blob seemed scattershot and didn’t have one specific target, to Kirari, every last one of them followed one objective.

Reach Sayaka.  Stop Sayaka.  Maybe even hurt Sayaka.

Kirari wasn’t letting that happen.  No one got to hurt her precious Sayaka.  Not now, not ever.

A feral scream in her throat, Kirari tore her way into the crowd, uncaring of the blows that came from all sides.  She didn’t quite remember how she got to Sayaka and she didn’t care, everything blending into a hazy mixture of pain and sweat and fear, no one seeming to care who she was or how she’d gotten there.  She took Sayaka’s hand without her even noticing and pulled, forcing the two of them through the disaster alike even as her cheeks burned and her side throbbed and her legs were kicked.  Then, like a deep-sea diver having run out of fresh air, they breached the surface, gasping heavily, as they hurried away from that mess under their own power.

The crowd didn’t seem to notice for a short while, continuing to attack each other like the lunatics they’d become.  Meanwhile, Sayaka looked at Kirari with an expression close to wonder.  “President…”

“I’m not the Student Council President anymore, Sayaka,” Kirari said.  “Just Kirari is fine now.”

Sayaka started over.  “Kirari… why did you do that?  And how?”

Kirari let out a bemused chuckle, even as the crowd now turned toward her.  “Now, now.  Do you seriously think I’d have this much money to my name and not invest at least a little of it into learning some basic self-defense?  Furthermore, I couldn’t just hang you out to dry with that awful mob.  You and I both know things could have gotten much worse if I hadn’t stepped in.”

Then the riot was on them again, Kirari yelling for Sayaka to run and Sayaka complying, putting distance between her and the kids chasing her not worrying her too much for all their drunken weaving.  She tried to summon the beast that had gotten her out the first time, but couldn’t pull off the trick again even as she scratched and clawed while Midari and her girls took down everyone they could, Midari laughing even as she took a right hook to her good eye.  Then the mass of humanity rippled and boiled over again to admit Yumeko Jabami as she finally made herself visible, calmly inching her way forward as if the fighting was naught but an illusion.

“Kirari, you need to get out of here,” Yumeko yelled like that wasn’t obvious, extending her hand.  Kirari didn’t waste the opportunity, grabbing on as Yumeko repeated what she had done with Sayaka, pulling them out until once more she stood separately, even as the fighters took notice once more and turned toward her with everyone else having fled at the first sign of fighting.  

Kirari and Yumeko both knew better than to just let them catch up, and they ran around the room in circles to keep the group.  Kirari managed to catch a glimpse of Mary standing in the corner with a look somewhere between amused and horrified even if she saw no sign of Ryota, then they had to start moving again as it seemed like everyone had stopped hitting each other to focus solely on them for some reason that probably made sense in their alcohol-addled brains.  The two of them ran and ran and ran some more, but even as the Beautification Committee did their best to take everyone out, almost every time they knocked someone down they’d pick themselves back up like nothing had happened, and soon even the Beautification Committee started to falter, all of them collapsing except for Midari, who was still laughing her ass off.

Then, a new voice interjected, loud and obnoxiously peppy.  “Alright, ladies and gentlemen!  Who’s ready for one final song?”

In a move that surprised everyone, even Kirari, about a third of the brawlers stopped whatever they were doing to cheer, even as a few of them got punched or kicked or otherwise assaulted in some way and blacked-out students still lay on the floor.  Then, as the rest of the crowd stopped and stared for a second, trying to figure out just what had caused this massive interruption, they caught a glance of Yumemi, back on stage for an encore like this was all part of the show.

Before anyone was ready, the opening for another one of her songs (Kirari forgot the name, they all kind of blended together for her) had passed, and Yumemi once more sang her heart out, putting as much raw emotion and energy as she could into every word.  Maybe Yumemi knew how hypnosis worked or maybe her music had become just that infectious, but within thirty seconds the fighting had almost stopped, most of the students involved either dancing or singing along even as they simultaneously groaned in pain from their various injuries.  As for the few stubborn ones, Midari was more than happy to deal with them, and soon everyone not involved in this musical number of sorts was on the floor either sitting or just passed out.

As the song went into its final chorus, almost everyone began to stagger away in awkward clumps, grunting and moaning as they wandered away like fresh zombies.  The rest were in no condition to wander, but that was alright, at least for now.  Kirari could pull some strings and get them to hospital beds.  This was her own stupid fault, after all.

Once Yumemi’s song ended, she wrapped everything up in the simplest manner possible.

“Show’s over, everyone!  Thank you!  Good night!”

Chapter Text

The day’s classes wouldn’t start for another two hours, and yet the room Kirari typically used for Student Council meetings was packed.

Kaede, frail and white-haired following his poker game with Yumeko, didn’t quite understand what all the fuss was about or why he’d even been called upon after that disaster.  He’d been lying in a hospital bed, trying and failing to not think about the debt that had swallowed his life, when all of a sudden his phone had been bombarded with approximately five billion texts, mostly from Kirari, calling an emergency meeting first thing this morning.  Apparently he had yet to be dropped from that loop, and while the girl clearly noticed his presence she didn’t even try to shoo him out.

For once, Ririka seemed to be the one in charge, and thus, she called order to the room, causing everyone there to silence themselves in an instant, even Runa.

“Thank you all for your attendance,” Ririka said.  “Now, most of you here probably know why this emergency meeting was called even after the council’s disbandment, but just to make sure of that, I’ll elaborate on it anyway.  There was a party over the weekend that was signed off on and set up by members of the Student Council, however, in hindsight checking off on the alcohol was a bad idea.  It led to a nasty brawl, and… well, just look around the room and you’ll get the picture.”

Kaede looked around the room and got the picture, all right.  It was impossible to tell what was going on with Ririka’s face due to her mask, but almost everyone else had some kind of noticeable injury: a black eye for Sayaka, a nasty bruise on both cheeks for Kirari, a swollen nose for Runa, and a couple other entries fit for an encyclopedia of pain.  Only two people in the room besides him remained untouched.  Itsuki was one, and to his bewilderment, Midari was the other.  He concluded that whatever had happened at the party was far more brutal than he’d expected for even a Hyakkaou event, at least on a physical level.

Kirari took the stand, at least for a moment.  “Based on eyewitness reports, the end result concluded with too many minor injuries to tally and eight hospital visits, which I’m covering myself.  Also, I managed to sweep this under the rug, but each student who went to the hospital and a number who didn’t were intoxicated, some well above the legal limit.  If the local police branch decided to investigate, it wouldn’t have taken a genius to follow the paper trail back here.”

She took a breath.  “This had a high chance of happening, yet I approved it anyway for my own sake.  A careless mistake on my part, and one I don’t wish to repeat.”

Midari stuck her hand up.  “Does this mean we’re not doing that again?  Because I enjoyed that.”  When everyone else in the room gave her a hard stare or at least an odd look, she grumbled something unintelligible under her breath and turned away from the crowd.

“That seems to be the proper response,” Sayaka added.

“Sayaka is right,” Kirari said.  “If I were to attempt this again for some inexplicable reason, if nothing else the alcoholic drinks would be more strictly monitored if they were present at all.  The instigator of the debacle that happened at the party’s conclusion had an aggressive personality to begin with and the amount of alcohol she’d drunk that night appeared to remove her inhibitions.  Get rid of the stimulant and the problem is mitigated.”

Sound logic, at least to Kaede’s ears.  The room stayed silent after that, so he could only assume that sentiment rang true for everyone else, or at least if it didn’t they were smart enough not to show it.

“Thank you for your agreement,” Kirari said.  “Next, I would like to formally apologize to the Beautification Committee.  While I didn’t see very much of it, I heard through the grapevine that their initial attempts to break up that brawl went quite poorly.”

Midari scoffed a bit.  “I’ve been in communication with Ayame, Naoe, and Nana over the weekend, and from what I’ve heard, they’re fine.  They just got overwhelmed, not seriously hurt.  None of them are in the hospital and whatever injuries they did get will heal on their own.”

“Well, thank you for that clarification, Midari,” Kirari said, pursing her lips like she’d just sucked on a lemon.  “In addition to that, I would like to thank Yumemi for her services in both performing for the party and just making everyone stop what they were doing.”

Yumemi giggled.  “Oh, it was nothing.  You should have seen what happened the first time I gave out autographs.  Made this fight look like a tea party.” Kaede could believe that.  Yumemi seemed to attract far more than her fair share of freaks and weirdos to her fanbase.

“One final request before this meeting is adjourned,” Kirari said.  “I think we’d all be better off if we worked to forget this ever happened.  I’m not saying it’s possible, but I’m saying I recommend doing it.  If you can’t, I guess that isn’t your fault.  But I know it’s being forced to the back of my head, if it can take shelter in there at all.”

Oh, well.  If Kirari wanted everyone to try and forget one of her biggest fuck-ups, sure they could try, but there’d always be the few opposing her feeding the story along, twisting and distending it to their own ends until it became unrecognizable.  It didn’t matter in the end, though.  The idea was what counted.

“I have nothing left to say, and I don’t want to waste your time or mine,” Kirari said.  “Thus, this meeting has been concluded.  Thank you for your attendance.”  With that, everyone began to trickle out in languid waves, slowly making their way to the hall.  However, Kaede remained, and that precise moment seemed to be when Kirari finally noticed that he was there.

“Oh,” said Kirari.  “Are you here about your life plan?”

“Not yet,” Kaede said.  The fewer reminders about that little caveat, the better.  “I just have to ask: was the party really that bad?”

Kirari didn’t answer, but her expression said more than enough.

After Kaede left, Kirari and Sayaka stood alone.

Kirari treasured these moments where it was just the two of them.  Other people often came out to be nothing more than nuisances or obstacles to be shoved aside, with few exceptions.  Sayaka came first and foremost among those exceptions, a paragon that no other Hyakkaou student could possibly hope to match no matter what they tried, even her dear Ririka.  

Sayaka turned to leave, but then Kirari spoke a single word.  “Wait.”  

Loyal as always, Sayaka did just that, freezing dead in her tracks like she’d just heard gunshots before turning slowly to face Kirari.

“Sayaka,” Kirari said, “I’d like to say a few things to you before we leave, but I thought it most prudent to wait until the others had left.  Would you like a seat?”

“Uh, no thank you,” Sayaka said.  Kirari knew better than to insist on that, so she let it be.  Thus, Kirari remained standing as well, making sure to look Sayaka straight in the eye as she did. 

Then, she began to speak.  “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Kirari.  Might I ask why you think I’m not?”

“It’s because of what happened to you at the party,” Kirari said.  “You remember, right?”

“Of course I do,” Sayaka replied.  “It’s something I should have expected going in.  A lot of our students were inebriated for the first time and didn’t know their limits, and everyone has different reactions to excess alcohol.  Having some of them unlock their inner brawlers should have been an outcome I kept an eye out for.”

Halfway through her response, Kirari let out a little gasp, a staccato beat in the midst of her sonata.  Her air of poise and confidence had dropped for but a second.  It was still a second more than everyone besides Ririka had ever seen from her.

“Sayaka, I—”

“Whatever you plan to say, there’s no need,” Sayaka said.  “I understand you don’t want me hurt.  I don’t particularly care for getting hurt, either.  But it’s something I have to undertake if I want to perform my duties for this academy.”

Kirari followed along with the speech, a sick combination of mystified and mortified.  On one hand, this meant the values of Hyakkaou had instilled themselves so deeply into her brain that nothing could convince her to deviate from them, even injury or possibly risk to her life.  On the other hand… well, there was no other hand.

She didn’t know what to say there, a rarity in any case, so she just nodded.

“Thank you for your concern, though,” Sayaka said.  “It’s nice to know I have a boss who cares about me.  Do you mind if I go now?  I have to study for a math test.”

Kirari didn’t quite buy the excuse.  Sayaka’s brilliance was frightening in its base state, quite possibly outshining even her own.  She could have aced that test blindfolded if she wanted to.  The only reason she wasn’t running the academy instead of Kirari was because that brilliance largely relegated itself to academia, whereas Kirari considered her own smarts to spread a bit further.

Nevertheless, if Sayaka wanted some time alone, Kirari would give her some time alone.  It was only fair.

“Go right ahead.  Thank you for staying.”

“No problem,” Sayaka said, proceeding to walk out the door at the pace of someone who was panicking but trying their damndest not to show it.  Even with that weighing her down, though, she didn’t forget to close the door behind her.

Now, Kirari was the room’s only occupant, and it was a good thing, too.  She needed some time to herself as well before school started for the day, maybe then she’d be able to process what had just happened.  Time and time again, Sayaka had proven herself to be every bit as capable as Kirari had imagined upon their first meeting, and this time went above and beyond even that.

“Amazing, Sayaka,” Kirari said to herself.  “Just amazing.”

Toshiko Miyata thought she’d seen everything this academy had to offer in the ten years she’d been employed there as a teacher.  She’d learned quickly that the best strategy in most instances was to not intervene, for the students could sort their own issues out here.  It fit the theme of the academy better, after all.

However, she’d never bore witness to a sight quite like this, and here, that said something.

At least half the students in her room had some kind of noticeable injuries, mostly to their faces.  She’d need both hands to count the number of fading black eyes, including two on the same person that she didn’t want to learn how theft got there.  One student’s forehead was wrapped in gauze.  Two of them had casts.  Almost no one looked untouched.

She should have known better than to ask, but curiosity could be a cruel beast.  “My, my.  What happened here?”

Ryota, her class representative and one of the few unscathed students, changed his expression to one that looked vaguely queasy.  “Trust me, you do not want to know.”

“Well, then I guess I won’t,” she said, tamping down any further questions.  Maybe she’d see if she could pull aside some of the injured and get the story out of them later.  She’d scratch that itch somehow.

Despite that, though, there was class to get to, not that the students with the most sway here would care.  Oh, well.  She had a job to do, just like everyone else here.

Thus, she started taking attendance, trying not to look at the injuries, preparing herself to be sucked into the next insane week she’d be having inside the walls of Hyakkaou Private Academy.