The next thing to decide, naturally, is who will stay and spot. Personally I'm not quite keen on taking this position because, for one thing, I just said I would brave the darkest and most twisted mind so that Shun could be his normal self again and if I end up spotting instead I wouldn't be able to live up to my badass sentiments, and for another, well, I'm not that excited about sitting alone in the creepy main research building, accompanied by the humming machines, a comatose teacher, three unconscious classmates, and a dead Mr. Kojima.

His brains are still on my clothes. Yuck.

Besides, Mr. Yamada is dead as well in the room beside this one (that is, if no one had moved him after he had perished in the fight with Shun, which happened just this dawn yet feels to me like eons ago). Surrounded by so many dead bodies—not a very comfortable position to be in. I'm actually surprised I haven't puked yet. I'm also rather surprised that Anna has shown zero remorse after basically shooting Mr. Kojima in the head, but then she's the one-track-minded type of person and probably sees everything that stands in her way of saving her little sister a nuisance that needs to be rid of.

Either way, the point still stands—we can't all go into Ikoma-san's mind. Someone has to spot, and I don't want it to be me. Luckily I also happen to be the worst at spotting out of us four, so I have a legit excuse to not be the spotter (It's also true that I'm the worst at mindhacking out of us four, of course, but I tactfully do not bring up the point).

The other three are absolutely adamant that they want to go on the mindhacking mission and would much rather not stay to spot. Natsumi's reason is that she's the best at combat out of all of us and that combat skills will definitely come in handy since Ikoma-san's mind sounds very dangerous. Anna's reason is that she's the brain expert and therefore would know more ways to get us out of sticky situations when mindhacking such a difficult subject. Izumi doesn't give a reason and when the epitome of reason is being unreasonable you know it's impossible to make her change her mind.

After the three of them spend about five minutes arguing without coming to a conclusion, I suggest lamely: "Uh, if no one wants to spot, we might as well go get the others and see if any of them wants to take over the job?"

This satisfies everyone immediately, and we are about to do so when the others save us the trouble by jogging towards us themselves. Well, Daisuke and Yukiya at least.

And their clothes are spattered with blood. My breath hitches in my throat. This isn't good. This can't be good.

Natsumi speaks our mind by saying "What the actual fucking fuck?" and bounding over right away. Even though she always acts immensely annoyed by Daisuke she has a soft spot for him—it's hard not to; he has adorable twinkly little eyes, rosy cheeks, talks in a rich baritone voice and looks like a forty-year-old businessman shrunk two sizes. That doesn't sound like a compliment but I swear it is meant to be.

"It's not our blood," Daisuke explains hastily after Natsumi demands to be shown the wounds so that she can tie her jacket around them to stop the bleeding.

"And whose is it then?" Natsumi prods.

"Katsuki, Hiroki... Riri escaped narrowly. She's taking care of them now," Yukiya replies, glancing nervously out of the window into the schoolyard.

"Are they all right? Are they alive?" Anna screeches. We're relieved when Yukiya responds in the affirmative.

"About as all right as they can be after fighting off Shun who is holding a knife. Clearly rubber band jumpropes aren't the best at keeping people captive."

I feel like someone has stabbed me in the heart. Shun, hurting people who are supposed to be his friends. With a knife. Drawing blood.

Ririka, the sweetest and purest little soul. Hiroki, who wants nothing but to be loved. Katsuki, who quietly and reliably assumed the leader position to protect us all. They don't deserve this. This shouldn't have happened to any of them.

And I am probably to blame. I should have remembered that Shun has been hoarding weapons from when only the two of us were awake. I should have warned Katsuki about the existence of said weapons. I should have suggested that we find something sturdier to tie Shun up with. I should have insisted we deal with Shun's insane darkness problem earlier instead of feeling so confident that it won't cause any trouble. I should have done all those things, and yet I did a grand total of: nothing.

Watanabe Tomomi, the epic doer of nothing.

I could smack myself in the face.

"How did you guys manage to escape? Are the others safe now? How badly are they hurt? When did it begin? We've left for just a short while and now this?" I shriek, trying hard to keep my voice level but knowing that I sound like I were having a major freakout session, which I am. "Ugh, actually, just tell us everything that's happened."

So Daisuke begins to narrate for us, being the more talkative out of the two, while Yukiya continues to sneak worried glances out of the window. According to Daisuke, he had been stuck in a pyramid full of scurrying mice, where he was found by Yukiya and Ririka who took care of the rodents for him. He was just about to express his endless gratitude to them when the next thing he knew he was sitting on a mattress in a classroom watching Shun and Katsuki rolling on the floor fighting for the possession of a knife. Hiroki was slumped against the wall, pale and listless, nursing a bleeding arm and looking like he really wanted to help but could barely move. Yukiya scampered over to him, trying to coax words out but failing.

Daisuke was naturally puzzled, not only about this recent turn of events but also about everything else (no one had had the time to explain to him what had transpired during his lengthy stay in the mouse pyramid), but he still had his senses around him so he quickly began to assess the situation. Katsuki was definitely larger, but Shun was stronger—abnormally strong, in fact, and he had the advantage of being able to make stabbing motions without a care while Katsuki was careful not to cause his opponent any harm. They were both moving fast, making it very hard for Daisuke to join in the brawl, so he picked up a fire extinguisher from the hall and proceeded to spray both of them with it.

Hurrah! 

Unfortunately, Daisuke's badass fire extinguisher move had no effect except alerting Shun to the fact that there were now three new additions to the scene, which meant three new attack targets. Shun forgot about Katsuki and pranced onto Ririka, who was standing there screaming.

For a second, time stood still.

"And then Yukiya came charging at him out of nowhere and pushed him away. So proud of you, bro!" Daisuke whacks his friend on the back happily.

"Shuddup," Yukiya mutters.

"Yeah, and then it was Yukiya's turn to roll on the floor with Shun, who's become so weird, like what even happened? Okay, okay, you guys gotta explain later. Anyway, I didn't know what to do, I wanted to help Yukiya but he was like no, go stop Hiroki's bleeding, so I ran to Hiroki but he was like, no, go help Katsuki he's bleeding too, so I ran to Katsuki and he was like, no, I'm fine it's just a small cut and Hiroki's hyperventilating you should go help him? And I was like what the heck you know?"

"We know, we know," I assure him. Daisuke has the tendency to talk nonstop if given the opportunity.

"Yeah so I thought, like, this is crazy, I don't know why Shun's so psycho, maybe he's PMSing? But he can't, he's a guy, I don't know, it's all so strange. Anyway I hit him on the back and said hey come and get me and then I ran, and for some reason Yukiya came running too and Shun was following us holding a knife, and we were like, screaming, shouting hey Riri lock the door so that he wouldn't go back in again, and Riri said yeah okay, and we ran—"

"That's not exactly the best idea, no?" Natsumi interjects. Interrupting Daisuke's run-on-sentences is one of her greatest hobbies. "You do realize how fast Shun is?"

"Yeah!" Daisuke nods enthusiastically. He has this habit of starting sentences with 'yeah'. "Yeah, he's fast, so I thought oops, shouldn't have done that, I'm screwed, and Yukiya's got short legs—"

"Yours are even shorter!" Yukiya exclaims indignantly.

"No, you. Yeah anyway, Shun was running after us and I thought oh no we're dead, but then we realized that he was actually hurt too so couldn't run as fast, I don't know maybe he got hurt waving that knife around while fighting with Katsuki? Maybe, so yeah he wasn't fast enough to catch up with us and we thought we'd run into this building because Yukiya said you guys are in here and it's the only building with a single main door and is all indoors so he couldn't get in through the windows and we shut him out so we're safe. I think."

Daisuke finishes his account with a satisfied look and pats his stomach. Daisuke is a short and stocky dude with a big belly. It's why he resembles a middle-aged businessman.

"Okay," Izumi speaks up, "let me go over the facts to make sure we didn't get anything wrong. Right now, Katsuki, Hiroki and Riri are in a mindhacking classroom behind locked doors, and the first two are injured. We're right here. Shun's somewhere outside this building, also injured, and has also gone crazy. Everyone else is either unconscious or dead."

"Excellent summary," Natsumi says.

"Therefore, with all these in mind, there are three things we need to do," Izumi continues. "First, make sure Katsuki and Hiroki get adequate medical attention. Second, find Shun and recapture him so he doesn't do other crazy stuff like carving up the unconscious people lying outside. Third, mindhack Ikoma-san to find a method to turn Shun back to normal. We should also start thinking over what to do about the unconscious teachers and upperclassmen but that can probably wait for later."

"Excellent summary," Natsumi says again. "Pretty much that."

"The first one and second ones can be a bit hard to achieve, since we aren't exactly in a position to leave the building right now," Yukiya murmurs, "because, you know, Shun's prowling outside with a knife and it's not very safe."

"It's not very safe?" Natsumi rolls her eyes so hard they are about to roll out of the window. "You guys are so freaking incompetent. There are six of us and one of him. He has a knife, so what? We have a gun—two guns, since we just picked up one from Kojima—I'm better at fighting than Shun is and you're an arsonist. What's there to be afraid of?"

Yukiya is speechless for a moment, while Daisuke looks at Natsumi with stars of admiration in his eyes. He's like that.

"Um, you realize that we don't want to shoot Shun or set fire to him, right?" I point out meekly.

"Of course not, but surely we can threaten him with the guns and some fire and then tie him up with real rope that's not a rubber band jumprope," Natsumi huffs.

"Uh, then you better get ready to do that right now," Anna pipes up innocently from the side. "Like, did you two even remember to lock the building's main door before coming up to us?"

"Incompetent," Natsumi repeats, and holds up the gun she has picked up from Mr. Kojima. She aims.

Because Shun is hobbling towards us on the corridor, right this instant. And he looks like he's out for blood.