"You only have power over people as long as you don't take everything away from them. But when you've robbed a man of everything, he's no longer in your power—he's free again."
― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago
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4 / 15 / 2016
The Manikin and her missing face cries out for her soldiers, "Don't just stand there, kill her!"
But they're not quick enough. Fire spews from the ground like they've come from small volcanoes, and the fake Takamaki himself is forced to rear himself back.
Her robes catch fire and she immediately wriggles them off her, gesticulating madly, "Stop this! S-stop it right now!"
Takamaki just glares at her. The fire burns through everyone she's brought--the knights weep and wail and melt away like butter to the sun. Takamaki is dressed in a blood-red leather full-body suit, with pink gloves and scarlet heels. Blood pours down her eyes as the fire rages throughout the halls of the Sugurine Chapel and the Manikin rises up in fury.
"You cannot do thIIISSS!"
There's a new noise now; it sounds like rain rapping against windows. Blades burst out from behind the Manikin's back before taking on the shape of bat wings. Pale, ivory skin transforms into a dark purple. Gold embroideries pattern themselves on the creature's dark flesh, resembling flowers and leaves. Its tongue is white and its eyes are blazing yellow. It is naked, and its waist has become a serpent's tail. II hear laughter, something like a climax even. Then it stands over us, its dark form looming over as spreads its wings wide.
"Thou shalt not escape the love of King Kamoshida! Thou shalt not refuse his mercy nor deny his power! Any and all who stand against the God-given King Kamoshida must perish at once!"
The first of us to charge forward, is of course Ann Takamaki herself.
"Salome!"
I see her Persona, large and beautiful and grand and fatal. Her dress and her hair flail and billow in the air as she rushes forward in a mad dash, and I do emphasize the mad.
Then the Manikin's maw widens as her teeth grow sharp enough to shatter concrete, she rears her head up and I see fires flare from her mouth. The flames engulf Salome and she opens her arms wide to the Manikin, who lashes out and lunges; Salome's hand, Salome's whike arm rams itself into the flaming throat and pulls, and reaches, and grabs at something. Takamaki's arm twitches, and soon the pain is enough for her to fall to her knees and scream. Yoshizawa and Sakamoto run to her, the former asking the cat "What happened!?"
"It's normal, any injuries her Persona experiences will be felt on her physical body--"
Takamaki just keeps her eyes forward, on the Manikin, glaring as though the creature is something that must be wiped clean from the planet without a trace. Though Salome's flaming arm is stuck whole within the Manikin's open jaws, the Manikin's able to speak as it claws at her--
"BELIEVE IN THE LOVE OF KING KAMOSHIDA! REPENT THY SINS BEFORE THE GREAT KING KAMOSHIDA! PROSTRATE THYSELF BEFORE THE WONDERFUL KING KAMOSHIDAAAAA--!"
Salome tears out the Manikin's tongue, along with most of her insides in a flurry of fiery blood. Salome's expression is a stark and calm smile, while Takamaki's bleeding eyes are fierce and betray all the fury burning in herself. The Manikin pours blood out from its open face, its missing jaw, its mouth gurgles and grumbles but speaks clearly again and starts weeping tears of blood--
"It was my fault...," it murmurs, "I had failed to be at his side...the glorious King. I denied his affections for so very long--"
Salome raises an arm and the head on the platter roars--fires coat the Manikin, spreading all over her like an infection and even though she screams and burns and flails in fiery Hell she still fucking won't shut up.
"IT WAS BECAUSE OF MEEEEE!!!" and she thrashes and charges again, at Takamaki herself--stomping and crashing throughout the now-flaming chapel and raising a claw up to slash her in twain--
"Persona."
Satanael sends a round into her chest so large that her left breast and a little of her right are just gone. Another shot divides her head, a third separates her tail from her waist, and a fourth sends her right arm against the wall.
Takamaki doesn't want to hear another goddamn word out its mouth, so she just has Salome unleash hell upon the remains again and again and again.
By the time the Manikin's just an ashen corpse in the center of the chapel, Takamaki's eyes are dull, and her breaths are heavy. She's shaking now, and she moves her head aimlessly. She closes her eyes and bites her lower lip as she growls and hunches over, still gripping her arm as she falls face first into the floor.
"T-Takamaki...!" cries Yoshizawa, grabbing her.
"What happened...!?" cries Sakamoto.
"She's tired. You were all pretty tired when you got your Personas first, remember?" says the cat. "None of you taxed yourselves like she did."
I say then, "We need to get out of here before more show up."
Sakamoto nods, "Okay," carrying Takamaki bridal-style.
We step over the charred bodies and block our noses from the smoke. But something tugs on my leg, just as we're about to finally leave.
"There is nothing you can do," says the blackened Manikin, recognizable as Shiho Suzui from her voice alone . "He is a king."
"Oh my God...," Yoshizawa brings a hand to her mouth.
"We are all ants at his feet. None of us deserve to even breathe the same air as he. Flee from this castle. Flee with your lives. He will destroy you if you stay."
Suddenly she unhands me and her body fades and blooms into dust, swirling in the air like a bird taking flight. The dust soon hits a blank spot on the wall, and another naked girl with an empty face and colorless hair appears in the murals.
.
.
.
We get out of range of the gymnasium, and return to the real world. Once we all make our way to the courtyard, Sakamoto lays Takamaki gently upon the bench, lying her flat on her back.
"She just... became another girl on the wall." Yoshizawa looks like she's about to cry. "That's what Suzui-senpai is to Kamoshida. All she's ever been. He's probably forgotten about her already."
"You think he can't get any lower," Sakamoto balls his fists up, trembling. "Hikawa. You said you saw his memories. What did you see?"
"When I touched the book, I saw his whole life. From childhood to now. I saw everything. He's assaulted so many girls he doesn't even remember their names. Suzui's hardly even a footnote. Just someone he wanted on the side. He's been fixated on girls like Takamaki multiple times, of course. She's just the latest in a long line. Some of them, he's charismatic enough to pull off a consensual encounter with. For most of them, he isn't. All of them are either barely legal or not even."
Sakamoto cups his mouth, "I never knew him. All this time. I thought I knew exactly what he was. I didn't know shit."
"Takamaki-senpai...?" Yoshizawa mutters, seeing her stir from her slumber. "Takamaki-senpai, c-can you wake up?"
Takamaki blinks a little, murmurs a few noises, then finds it in herself to sit upright, covering her forehead. "Oh, God..."
"Are you alright?"
"Head hurts like hell. But...I'm fine," weakly, she turns to face us. "I'm assuming that what I remember happening wasn't a dream..."
Yoshizawa says, "No. I'm sorry."
"It's alright. I'm sorry. I promised I wouldn't slow you down...then I fainted right there on the spot."
"You were exhausted. So was I, when I first summoned Cendrillon. Don't worry."
Takamaki looks around, looks at the orange sky. "I'm assuming we didn't spend that much time in the Palace, huh...?"
"Nah. Not even six PM yet," mutters Sakamoto.
"Then let's go back in."
"What?"
She swings her legs from the bench, "I can still go after—" the second she stands, her knees give way and she collapses. "Oh come on...!"
"You need to relax," Cat suddenly cuts in. "You've just summoned your Persona. You're too tired to continue on for the day. You try again, you'll prolly die."
"Are you serious?" she groans and rages and laughs bitterly at her weak knees, tears forming at the edges of her eyes. "God, I'm so worthless."
Sakamoto and Yoshizawa try to comfort her as she crumples into herself even deeper. Between all five of us I see a dead girl with mottled and pale skin. Emaciated and wearing a bloody nightgown, utterly drained of blood and drenched in water from below her neck.
Sparks fly in my head as I turn back to the school. "Teachers usually stay behind after classes are over, typically from three to five hours. And Kamoshida wouldn't wanna look like the asshole who left work first."
Sakamoto turns to me, "What...?"
"So he's probably still in his office. Meaning we can actually finish this today."
"Wha--today?" At that, Takamaki and Yoshizawa turn to face me.
"The Manikin of Takamaki said that Kamoshida's...afraid. So afraid he's holed himself up in the highest room of the tallest tower of the castle. It's the one place he feels safest in."
"What're you getting at?"
"The gym was a chapel. Full of his little conquests. So where in the whole school would he wanna hole himself up in if he intends to keep himself safe? He needs a place where he can be uninterrupted. Where he knows nobody can find him and he can do whatever the hell he wants."
Sakamoto's eyes widen. "His office."
"That's where the Treasure is," I smile.
"What? You sure?"
"Positive. If it's the one place in the whole school where he feels at his safest, then undoubtedly the Treasure's there."
"Perhaps," says the cat. "It's worth a shot. What do you wanna do?"
"Cat. Back then. You told me something about how some event in the real world is needed to trigger the manifestation of the Treasure in the cognitive world. Care to explain again?"
It whirls around to face everyone. "When it comes to stealing a person's Treasure, the plan is thus: you probe the Palace, form a layout of the place, and decide the best path to get to it. Then, you trigger an emotional reaction in the Palace owner, in the real world; something warning him that what he values most will be stolen right from under his nose. It'll affect the Palace, and will make the Treasure fully manifest into a corporeal form. Lastly, you just dive in the Palace itself...and steal the Treasure."
Everybody looks like they kind of understand but not really.
So I ask the Cat, "What happens when a person encounters their own Shadow?"
"Senpai, what...?"
The Cat just grins at me, knowing exactly what I'm planning. "When someone overcomes their own Shadow, they obtain a Persona. If a human and a Shadow met face-to-face, the Shadow would normally attack them without question. Even someone's own personal Shadow would attack their host without sentiment or fear of the consequences. But a Shadow born of a distortion great enough to spawn a Palace? They're different. They're driven by desire. And if you're about to die, I think you'd be pretty keen to give up whatever desire's threatening your life. But, well. Obsessiveness is a self-destructive mistress, so who knows how they'd react?"
"What are you even planning to do to him?"
"We threaten him," I tell Sakamoto.
"Good luck with that," he sighs. "Guy's buff as hell and can kick our asses three ways to Sunday—"
"We confront him in his own office and send him into his own Palace. Threaten him right in front of his Shadow. Tell the Shadow that if he doesn't give us the Treasure, we blow his brains out."
Sakamoto and Yoshizawa just stare at me, mouths agape. "Dude. No. We can't just—"
Takamaki rises to her feet, "I'll go for it."
"What—Takamaki!"
"We just have to get close enough to him, right?"
"Yes. It's proximity-based."
"Wait—hold on a sec, would ya!?"
"Senpai, I don't think this is a good idea," says Yoshizawa. "It's too risky."
"Too risky?"
"He's an Olympic athlete, so he definitely has the skill and the strength to just throw us around like—"
"In this world, he does. As soon as we get close enough to send him into his castle, he's powerless. Our Personas can easily break his spine if we saw fit."
"You can't be serious," Sakamoto cries.
"I'm certain there's at least a fifty-percent chance we get the Treasure."
"And what if his Shadow doesn't agree to your terms?" asks Yoshizawa. "What if he doesn't want to give up his desire!?"
"We shoot parts of him off. Whatever works, I guess."
"That's horrible," Sakamoto shakes his head.
"Thought you didn't care what happens to him."
"No—I mean—look, goin' into his Palace and stealing his Treasure and maybe causing him to shut down, is different from holding a gun to his head and threatening the guy directly to his face! If anything, doin' that'll likely give him more of a reason to kill himself!"
"Either way, there's a non-insignificant chance he dies. He might as well jump off a cliff, your words."
"You're asking us to torture him," Yoshizawa says.
"You said that we didn't have a choice but to steal his Treasure. This is just a faster way of getting it done."
"There are other ways we can—!"
"He said he'd have us three expelled by the next board meeting. Obviously he's not gonna wait to talk about how much he hates us on the day itself. He'll plant the seeds in the teachers' heads, the students' heads. By the time of the meeting everybody'll be on board with kicking us out. We've been in that castle three separate times, and not one of those times did we even come close to getting the Treasure. No fucking around now."
"You're not going to convince me to threaten and torture him," Yoshizawa says starkly.
"He deserves it," Takamaki blurts suddenly.
Sakamoto looks like he doesn't know who he's talking to, "Takamaki, c'mon..."
"Shiho's in a coma because I wasn't willing to stand up against a sick asshole who used her to blow off steam. If he dies, I hope he rots in hell forever."
"Do you realize what you're sayin' here!?" Sakamoto cries.
"What are you suddenly on your goddamn high horse for, huh!?" she shouts. "Now that we're actually getting our hands dirty, you wanna back out!?"
"We ain't part o' the Secret Service, Takamaki!"
Yoshizawa appeals to logic. "Senpai, he'll obviously remember what happened inside the Palace—"
"And tell the cops a couple of his own students somehow threw him into a castle, beat the shit out of him in front of himself, and stole his treasure? They'd take him in for drugs. If his heart's changed, he'll either turn himself in or kill himself anyway."
"You want him dead more than you want him to confess," Yoshizawa glares at me.
"I want to get this over and done with before our lives are ruined."
"We don't have to go as far as you say we do!"
"Going too far is me invading his Palace by myself and blowing his Shadow's head off."
"Wh-what...?"
Sakamoto steps between me and Yoshizawa, "I'm calling your bluff. Your Persona's strong, but it ain't that powerful—"
"It's no bluff," Cat says suddenly. "I've seen him in action, way before any of you did. What you've seen out of his Persona is only a fraction of its power. If he really wanted to, he could just murder Kamoshida without any of your help."
Sakamoto and Yoshizawa don't say a word. I breathe deep. "No matter how we go about this, there's always the risk of him dying. The only reason I've chosen not to just kill him yet is because I know you'll feel all guilty for dragging me into this and killing him under your watch—"
Yoshizawa actually slaps me. Looks scared and angry as shit while doing it. But she does it. "You chose to help us. Neither of us dragged you into any of this."
"Keep telling yourself that—"
"That day you told us about all this, Sakamoto and I went into the Palace ourselves, and you followed after. Even when Sakamoto-senpai begged you for help after the fact, you could've said no and ignored us for the rest of the volleyball meet. At any point, you could've just stopped and turned away! But you chose to help out, because you wanna put a stop to him, too! Don't you dare pin all this on us, senpai!"
I just look at her, then to Sakamoto. I see in his eyes that he's folding. "It'll be a last resort."
"What!? Sakamoto-senpai, you can't—!"
"I don't like this any more than you do," he growls, "but he's gotta point. At the rate we're goin', we're screwed. We've gotta get the Treasure soon."
"Uh, guys...?" mutters the cat.
"Yet you still want to hold off until you're absolutely sure we have to do it."
"I hate him, more than I've ever hated anybody," Sakamoto admits. "But like I told you, man. I don't wanna have to cross that line without knowing I tried everything I could."
"Hello, you guys?"
I ignore it a second time. "We'll see how things go over the next few days."
"Let's try a week."
"Too risky—"
"The board meeting's in May. We have two weeks for this shit, at least give us a chance—"
"GUYS!" Cat shouts, and we turn to face it. "Your friend's gone."
"What?"
"She just...ran into the school."
The doors leading back into school swing back into place.
Yoshizawa and Sakamoto turn to each other and dash back inside the building. I feel long black hairs coiling around my neck, and I follow shortly after them.
.
.
.
Hallway leading to the faculty office. We're so close I can goddamn smell him. Lucky that nobody else is here.
Office lights are still open. Guy might be in there, checking papers or watching porn. And if he is, then we've fucking got him.
"Takamaki, wait!"
"No."
Sakamoto grabs her arm, "Wait, would you please wait a sec!? Please, I'm beggin' you, please!"
She pulls herself away from him, "We're right here. Let's get this over with— "
"We'll do it, but not now! Come on! We still have time— "
"You don't know a goddamn thing!" she shouts at him, so loudly and fiercely he rears back. "I just stood by and let her take everything upon herself—"
"You couldn't have done anything," Yoshizawa steps in and grabs her shoulders, "please, please listen to me, you can't keep blaming yourself, you were put through the same— "
She roars, tears pouring through, "He'd hit her, he'd abuse her and I'd speak with her every goddamn day, but I wouldn't even—I wouldn't even come with her, I wouldn't even ask where the bruises came from or why she looked like she was dead all the goddamn time!"
Yoshizawa looks like she's on the verge of tears, "Takamaki-senpai..."
"I've never been able to do anything for her...!" Takamaki crumples then, falling to her knees. "Every single thing I've done up to this point was to keep myself safe from him. And because I wouldn't stand up to him or look out for her or even be there when she needed me, she jumped off the roof of the school. I needed her more than she ever needed me. I don't even deserve to call myself her friend."
Yoshizawa kneels down, to face her, "That's not true..."
"She should hate me," Takamaki seethes, "She should hate me until the end of the goddamn world, because I'm an idiot who refused to see what I let happen—"
"What's going on here?" says a voice from ahead of us all.
We see him. This tall musclebound jackoff with a shit-eating grin and condescending eyes. He came out his goddamn office and he's pulling Takamaki away from us and she looks fucking furious—
"Did they hurt you?" he asks—
"Get your goddamn hands off me!" she shouts, wrenching herself away from him and goddamn, he actually looks a little sad at that.
"King Suguru Kamoshida!" I cry out.
Kamoshida just eyes me carefully, and with more than a little contempt.
"I know that mercy is far beyond my reach, that I am undeserving to ask thee for thine forgiveness; I am a weak knave, worth not even the chaff separated from the wheat during harvest."
Sakamoto's eyes widen, "Dude, what're you doing."
Kamoshida just shakes his head, "What, are you trying to flatter me, kid?"
"We tore through your castle. We killed your knights. We destroyed your property, and we disrespected and insulted you. We deserve to be executed. Indeed, this is true. Surely, as the king of this castle, it would be mad of you to let us live. What I propose is not so much a plea for our salvation; rather, a trial. A trial, by combat."
At that, Kamoshida's ears perk up as he looks more offended and disgraced than ever before. "Cut the shit. What the hell do you think you're doing?"
"Senpai, what—?"
"So you don't even have the decency to execute me yourself?" I ask him. "You run this castle, you run an army, but when the guts and the grime are involved you stand back and let the higher-ups take care of it all?"
"You don't talk to me like that—"
"All you've done is run away from your cruelty. You can't face it head-on. You can't face anything you've done head-on—"
"What do you know?" he grunts, smirking at me, folding his arms. "What the fuck do you think you know about me, huh!? You fucking—what, you think I need to impress you?"
"I think you need to impress everybody, but nobody's impressed. Even after everything you endured and sacrificed you became what? A school teacher?"
"I don't need to impress anyone," Kamoshida grunts out, through gritted teeth. "Least of all, little ingrates like you."
I need to get under his skin. I need to make him hurt. If I try to get my own hands on him, he might suplex me or throw me aside; make him come to me. Make him want to grab me by my neck, and choke the life out of me.
"What about that girl?" I smirk.
He's dismissive, of course. He's had many girls, I'll have to be more specific. "You're still on Suzui...?"
"No. I'm talking about that girl in the alleyway." He freezes for a moment. But just a moment. He goes back to his table, focuses on what's on the screen of his laptop. He doesn't say a word. So I continue, "You know. You're in a bar. You're with some friends, and you're having a good time. Cooling, chilling, relaxing. Drinking wine and settling yourselves in."
His eyes widen and his hand trembles.
"There's a girl who looks like she's sixteen, and I know you saw it through the makeup. You want to impress her. You want to get to know her, because she's cute. Before you know it she's crying. Her clothes are torn off, she's holding herself and you're just standing over her— you're standing over her with your friends. When you leave her there, and I know you left her there, you feel guilty, of course—"
He walks over to me. His eyes are colder and bleaker than any blizzard on earth could ever be. Keep talking.
"But you stop feeling guilty. You stop because you're a champion. You have to stop feeling guilty, because you can't confess what you did. So it becomes normal. But that couldn't have been you. You're gentle."
His hands curl around my neck before anyone can stop him. He lifts me up above the ground, so much so that when I kick with my legs, my feet don't even reach the floor. I make my noises as I try to breathe, I grip his arms with one hand and my pocket with the other. He yells obscenities at me and the others and when I get my phone out, he just lets his left hand go and tosses it aside.
"Get off of him!" cries Yoshizawa, as she and Sakamoto grab his arms. He just shrugs them both aside as he drops me.
"Planning to record this?" he laughs, putting his left hand back on my neck. "I don't think so."
How fragile must his ego be if it takes this much to send him over the edge? He's laughing now, but it sounds more like wheezing. Something tells me I've seen this out of him before, and I have; when his nose is in a young girl's hair, when his mouth is on her belly, when she's crying and there's nothing he can do to stop it.
I smirk and laugh slurredly, "Can't even get women your own age, so you go after the ones who can't fight back."
"I'm not wrong. They should've all been glad. All of them. I'm more than they'll ever be. None of them—it's not my fault," he says, sounding like he's almost about to cry. "It's not my fault. You see them, don't you? Them, and their simpering whining stares—they look at me all the time—! They keep telling me to do things, and I can't keep up! I can never keep up! Who's to say I'm wrong for doing what I want, huh!? Who are you to say I'm wrong for doing what I want!?"
What Kamoshida doesn't know is that I don't even have to use the phone for the plan to work. He then lets me go. Lets me fall to the ground. He lets me cough and spit bile and as I nearly vomit all over his shoes, I grip his pant leg. To which he shakes my arm off and kicks my stomach. Right in the middle of the office.
"I'm more than you all. I don't have to impress any of you. I don't know where you got these allegations, but if you ever choose to let them loose, I'll find you and your family and have you all thrown into prison for libel. You see, you still have no proof. You still have nothing at all. I already told you," he says, gripping my hair and squatting so as to face me directly. "I'm still up there, while you're still at the bottom of the world—" and I laugh at him, I laugh and because I laugh he chokes the hell outta me again, I laugh so hard but because his hands are around my neck it sounds like growling and snarling, "—fuck you! Fuck every single last goddamn one o' you! Fuck this whole school and all you insufferable little—"
A fist runs into Kamoshida's face, so hard it pushes his eye in and breaks his nose.
AGGHH YOU LITTLE SHIT is the cry that he lets out and as he holds his face, as blood gushes down his nostrils he sees a look in Sakamoto's eyes that he hasn't seen ever before. And as he brings his hands down, Sakamoto braces. Yoshizawa tries to step in-between them both—we notice too late that Takamaki's already grabbed and opened up my phone.
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.
.
Suguru Kamoshida is cold. His head hurts, his body hurts. It's an alien sensation burning through his brainl; perpetual motion sickness overlapping with vertigo. For a moment he thinks he's dreaming, and he sees unbelievable shapes in his closed eyes. Like centipedes, like dragons, like gigantic mushrooms with tentacles spiralling under their caps.
When Suguru Kamoshida opens his eyes, there's something blasting through his head. Like a nail driven into his skull. The vertigo fades, as does the motion sickness, as do the visions. He hears people in the distance, arguing from the tone of their voice, but he pays them no mind.
"My head...," he whines, struggling to get to his feet. When he gets a glimpse of where he is, he's initially curious and assumes it to be all just some extremely vivid dream. As anyone else would. But he feels the gravel underneath him. He smells the air, tastes it.
He's in an ornate room, the walls lined with the statues of barely legal girls that don't have any faces; the windows have Nouveau Riche vomited all over them and everything's dark and damp, lit only by torches running across the walls.
He feels cold again. He's grasping his shoulders because he feels his heart palpitating.His back's sweating so much a large patch of his shirt's soaked already. He wants to stay, but he wants to leave. The whole goddamn place feels like a parody of everything he's ever wanted—
And then he sees the throne, as well as the man sitting upon it.
The man is frozen, utterly naked except for a red cape over his shoulders, some fucking bunny slippers, and a crown atop his head. The man's expression is one of utter fury and terror, and Kamoshida realizes far too late that the man looks exactly like him. He asks for a moment what he's doing here, I can see him try to connect the dots in his head. He remembers, of course. Remembers the gym and remembers us. I told him something reprehensible, something he could not and cannot forget. Or ignore. So when he remembers everything, he turns around.
And the first thing he's met with is a boot to the face.
"AAAGHH GOD— " He holds his nose and the cracks form even deeper in the bone. He sees a shape, a dark looming shape that towers over him; one that almost seems as large as the castle, if not larger. " Wh-who are you...!?" he cries out helplessly. "S-someone, help me!"
My robes are silly, to be frank. I'm gaudy, campy, unfashionable. But to him, down in the dirt, his vision obscured by his fear of the unknown, he sees me as something to be feared. He's no longer a king. That look in his eyes; if you would ever see that look from a person as horrible as he, the catharsis would be unforgettable.
I smile at him, once he gets a good look at my face. I kick him low in the stomach. An excited jolt runs through my leg as I hear the GAAKK noise come from his mouth, and when his upper body keels over I shove that same boot right into his throat, forcing him to stay down.
"Sometimes the school fucks back," I say as Takamaki pulls a shotgun up to his face.
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NoRoleModelz Chapter Notes: Had a lot of trouble figuring out how to get them to finally steal the Treasure. Debated on whether Kazuya or Ann should be the one to throw him into his Palace; settled on a compromise. Next chapter is the end of the Kamoshida arc, see ya thennnn