The old school building's classroom, just from the outside, exuded a heavy sense of bygone eras. The worn-out wooden desks and chairs looked so frail that even the lightest person wouldn't dare sit down for fear that doing so might result in a loud crack and a collapsed chair.
Walking on the wooden floorboards and seeing the gaps between the planks made one instinctively wonder if something was buried beneath them.
The heavy smell of dust inside the classroom seemed to be silently telling a story of its own—that no students had stepped foot in this room for years. Once the final batch of students from the old school building graduated, everything here would live out its remaining days in silence. No one knew how many more seasons of spring, summer, fall, and winter it could accompany Sobu High through.
"So dusty," Megumi Kato muttered, covering her mouth with her hand and coughing lightly as she followed Arisu Sakayanagi into the classroom.
Before she could even lift her head, she suddenly heard the sound of a chair being dragged out from under a desk. The moment Megumi heard it, a bad feeling surged in her heart. Looking up, she saw Arisu Sakayanagi holding a wooden chair in her hands. She didn't look like she was about to sit down. Rather...
The next second confirmed Megumi's fears.
Though old, the wooden chair was still quite heavy. Arisu Sakayanagi lifted it effortlessly and hurled it toward her without warning!
Megumi didn't have time to think. She bent down, dodging the flying chair just in time. With wood shavings flying behind her and a loud crash ringing in her ears, she quickly turned around—only to see the wall behind her now had a hole in it. The chair that had just flown past had already shattered into splinters on the ground.
"Are you crazy?!" Megumi shouted.
This wasn't her first fight with Arisu Sakayanagi, but she hadn't expected Arisu to be even more violent than before. A heavy chair thrown with that kind of force could have been fatal had she not dodged in time. The mere thought of it chilled Megumi to the bone.
She now understood—Arisu had called her here with the intent to kill her!
Perhaps disappointed that Megumi's head hadn't been smashed open and the wall behind stained red, Arisu let out a disdainful snort. Despite her leg injury, she wielded her cane with such confidence that she showed no fear at all facing Megumi.
Using her cane as support, Arisu charged forward, fists clenched, and threw a punch at Megumi's face. Megumi tried to dodge, but Arisu's attacks came too fast. Megumi took a solid punch to the stomach and staggered back a few steps.
She instinctively reached for the stun gun in her pocket—only to remember that her old one had been destroyed by Arisu during their last encounter using that sword cane.
She glanced at the cane in Arisu's hand. Cold sweat soaked her back. It was the exact same one as before—no doubt the sword cane. To put it bluntly, Arisu might very well use that cane to stab her in the heart.
No one usually came to this old classroom. It was remote, isolated. Even if Arisu killed her and hid the body here, no one might ever find it.
"No wonder you chose this spot. You must have planned this since this morning, didn't you?!"
Faced with Megumi's accusation, Arisu sneered:
"I had no intention of hurting you—so long as you don't hurt Kotomi, not even a little. This morning, I only came to greet Kotomi casually. Even though she covered it well, I still saw the blood at the corner of her lips."
"And by the way, I know her crying face best."
"When she was little, she used to cry all the time, over all kinds of things. Depending on her emotions, her post-crying face would change. The way she looked this morning... it was from crying out of pain."
"And Megumi Kato, aren't you always cautious? Didn't you realize that from the moment you left your house this morning, Atsuki and I were tailing you by car? Everything you did in front of the Izumi residence with Kotomi—I saw it all!!!"
As she said this, Arisu Sakayanagi slowly unsheathed the blade from her cane. What had looked like a refined, elegant cane was now a sword filled with deadly intent! The glint of the blade reflected on Megumi's face.
"How many times have you kissed Kotomi in front of me?" Arisu gritted her teeth as she gripped the sword cane. If looks could kill, she would've already dismembered Megumi a thousand times.
Ah… so she saw that… Megumi tugged at the corner of her mouth. She truly hadn't noticed earlier this morning.
"Kotomi is my girlfriend. Of course I can kiss her," Megumi replied with a light smile. She didn't want to show weakness in front of Arisu—and absolutely couldn't. She had long seen through it: Arisu liked Kotomi Izumi. If Megumi didn't firmly hold the initiative, Kotomi would be taken by Arisu sooner or later!
Turns out her initial wariness toward Arisu wasn't unfounded… This woman was even more dangerous than she had imagined!
And she was the eldest daughter of the Sakayanagi family. To put it bluntly, even if she committed murder, the law might not hold her accountable.
"You've got some nerve—to say that in front of me. That just makes me want to kill you here and now!"
Fueled by fury, Arisu struck. Megumi reacted quickly, but not fast enough. Her right arm was slashed by the sword cane. Though she managed to roll and dodge the second, throat-bound strike, a searing pain spread through her entire right arm as she steadied herself. Blood oozed from the wound and dripped to the floor.
Megumi gritted her teeth. If only she had her stun gun, maybe she could turn the tables on Arisu. But she had no weapon now.
After Arisu destroyed her last stun gun, Megumi ordered a new one—but it was still in transit and hadn't arrived in Japan yet...
She cursed the slow delivery under her breath. Then she twisted to dodge another chair Arisu hurled at her. So unfair—Arisu had both close and ranged combat advantages!
What she didn't expect was that dodging the chair was exactly what Arisu wanted. The throw wasn't meant to hit—it was a lure to close the distance.
Arisu had conserved her strength for this moment. She slapped Megumi hard across the face with a smack, sending her flying into a row of desks and chairs.
Hiss—
It hurt. Her nerves burned as if set aflame, the pain intensifying by the second—in her right arm, her cheek, and her back where she crashed into the furniture.
"Kotomi—I've been protecting her since she was little. But you didn't just take her away from me—this morning you even bit her lip and made her cry in pain. Just thinking about her tears... it's like my heart is being shredded by countless knives. I can't forgive you. I won't forgive you!
Back at the aquarium, I started wondering: how can I make Kotomi come back to me—like when we were little and she only had eyes for me?
Now I realize—it's so simple! All I have to do is kill you!"
Arisu straddled Megumi. The smile that usually graced her face was gone, replaced by a frosty expression. That beautiful face twisted into a devilishly cold mask as she reached out and suddenly clasped Megumi's throat, tightening with deadly intent.
"Ahhh!"
As if the next moment would bring suffocating death, Megumi Kato let out a harrowing scream under the increasing pressure of Arisu Sakayanagi's tightening hands. She was like a drowning person, mouth agape, desperately trying to breathe. But the faint air entering her lungs didn't bring relief—instead, it drained her strength even faster and intensified the fear spreading through her heart.
"I really like Kotomi. Even back then when she couldn't speak, she would still toddle over to me when everyone else isolated me. She'd babble 'ah wah wah' and clumsily walk to my side. One time, she even kissed me on her own. That feeling... I still haven't forgotten it."
"That moment, I realized something—lucky people will meet their own sun in this lifetime. The sun will warm you, heal all the loneliness and sorrow in your heart. I'm so lucky. I met Kotomi, my little sun, my little angel."
"But you took her away from me! This morning, you even made her cry from pain! How dare you hurt her? Kotomi is my little sun, my angel, my future wife!!!!"
Arisu's face twisted with emotion as she smiled in fury, her hands increasing the crushing force on Megumi's throat, as if determined to snuff out her breath entirely.
Megumi tried to resist, using both hands to pry Arisu's off her neck. But after so long in a near-suffocating state, her hands began to lose sensation as her blood circulation weakened—numb, lifeless, like a corpse's.
Kotomi… Am I really going to die here? That's such a shame. I haven't even apologized again for this morning's recklessness. I haven't proposed to you. I haven't made you my wife.
If Arisu could truly bring you happiness in my place—
Megumi's consciousness began to fade. Her hands, once trying to push Arisu away, now dropped powerlessly to her sides.
"That's enough, Young Miss. Don't go overboard. Even the Sakayanagi family can't just kill people at will…"
Atsuki appeared as she pushed the door open, rushing over and striking Arisu at the back of the neck with a precise hand chop.
Arisu paused, her vision blackening as she fainted. Just before she collapsed, Atsuki reached out to steady her and gently placed her into a chair.
Cough, cough!
Able to breathe fresh air again, Megumi let out a fit of violent coughing. For the first time, she truly felt what it meant to escape death.
She had come terrifyingly close to dying at Arisu Sakayanagi's hands...
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