The gray, concrete walls of the high school used to be bare. The classes used to be filled with students, happy and cheerful. The sun would shine bright through the perfectly clean and spotless windows, and the doors wouldn't be flown open. However, now everything had been ruined. Everything was covered in the blood and entrails of the student body. Akino dragged his classmate down the scenic stairwell so no one would see. His hands and face were stained with blood. He was too scared to cry.
He laid him against the wall and whispered, "I'll be right back, don't go anywhere." Akino then ran back up the stairs, panting heavily.
'How in the hell- how did this happen?!! Why?!,' he thought to himself.
He ran up to the last stair, pausing and peeking over the corner in fear. As his eyes focused, he could see Makina, covered in blood, aiming her weapon at the Compactor in front of them. It had frayed blonde hair, grey skin, tentacles, and a large, tooth-filled mouth. It's limbs were deformed and the jaw was completely visible from cheek to cheek.
When Akino saw a chance, he ran to the other end of the hall and snuck into a classroom before the Compactor found an opportunity to kill him. As soon as he walked in, he grabbed his mouth, taking all of his strength to prevent himself from throwing up. The smell of decaying flesh and blood filled the room. If he had one reason to work along side Omegas, this was it.
"Hello?! Are you alive?!" He ran over to a small girl, her uniform dyed red, curled up under a table in the furthest corner from the door.
The girl nodded. Akino took her hand and lifted her up. She trembled and her hand was shaking severely. A tear ran down her face as her and Akino looked at the classroom while they walked. The teacher, laying on a table, had gotten impaled with what looked like one of the Compactor's tentacles. A puddle of blood dripped onto the ground, creating several more puddles. Tables had been flipped over and a window had been broken. Books had been scattered across the floor and a few more corpses had been laying about.
"Why…," the girl said. Akino looked at her. "We only wanted some time to ourselves… then this…"
The two piers walked out. Before the boy could say something, Makina was shot down to the opposite side of the hallway and shoved into a window, shattering the glass behind her. She fell to the ground and wiped the blood from her mouth.
"Makina!"
She spit out her bodily fluid. "Ignore me, just get all the survivors out! I'll try to keep the Compactor up here!"
The girl looked up, wrapping her arm around Akino for support. "The transfer student…?"
He nodded, walking her down the same stairwell he went up, taking her to the collection of mortified survivors so they could keep each other company. Akino stumbled up the stairs once more, grabbing his throbbing head as he thought to himself how something like this could happen; and in a school full of children nonetheless.
The majority of the students remained unaware of the disaster that was happening in the floor above them. Their own chatter drowned out the screams and loud noises from above. The majority remained ignorant, stuffing their faces before classes resumed. Sadly, the students above were burdened with the secretive life of Omegas hidden from them.
Akino spun around the corner, panting. "I got all of them! The survivors are in the stairwell!"
Makina crouched as the Compactor launched over her. "Matoi, now!"
Makina, hidden under the monster, watched on with uneasy eyes as blue sparks bounced off the walls behind it. Suddenly, a shiny, robotic blade pierced through its stomach, just missing Makina's face. The Compactor flipped around, exposing Makina as Matoi ripped it open from behind.
Makina ran to the end of the hall, her hand over her ear. "Makina to the Grand Hall! Hello?! Hello! Fuji High is under attack by a Compactor! Several have already died but if you don't get troops here fast then the entire student body will be at risk! Hurry, now!!!"
The Compactor screamed with anger, blood and drool spewing from its mouth as it slammed Matoi into the wall. Matoi groaned, falling to the floor in pain. Clenching her fists around her blade, she sliced through the creature's ankles, sending it tumbling to the ground with her. The Omega quickly climbed on top of it, pinning it down with a blade in its neck.
"Akino, listen!" Matoi shouted, coughing mid-sentence. "I want you to go to the cafeteria and make sure that nobody leaves! Do whatever you can to make sure that not a single soul reaches this floor!"
He nodded and staggered down the steps without a single word. Matoi brought her focus back to the monster beneath her. The Compactor put this palms and knees to the floor, lifting itself up with Matoi on top of it. Seemingly paying no attention to the thick blade plowing through its neck, the Compactor stood up, using its tentacles to throw Matoi off of its back and separating her from her weapon.
"Matoi, remember the drill," Makina called out. "This is a Stage Two! Your goal now is to kill it before it goes anywhere! Focus only on breaking the core, not-"
Before Makina could finish, her head was cleanly removed from her body by the Compactor's tentacle. Matoi stood, horrified, as Makina's head tumbled down the stairs on the other end of the hallway. She turned around, weaponless, to see the monster standing mere feet from her, foam dripping from its unhinged jaw.
Akino charged into the cafeteria, the thick metal doors slamming against the walls beside him, resulting in the front few tables of students to stare at him. Their expressions were cautious and disturbed as they gawked at Akino's bloody condition. Akino struggled to catch his breath as people stared at him and the cafeteria grew silent. His vision went in and out of focus whilst he held his head in pain.
"Hey, kid," a guard said, concerned, as he approached Akino. "Why you got blood all over you?"
Akino swayed back and forth, dizzy. He rubbed his eyes, frightened at his condition, until a white flash blinded him, causing him to faint and fall to the floor.
The students all shot up from their seats, startled and curious as to what was unfolding. Flocks of people surrounded him, including Miki and Yukino, who pushed through the crowd towards the front lines. Miki kneeled next to Akino, still face-planted into the floor. Miki pushed up Akino's hair, acknowledging his blood stained forehead.
"What the heck," Yukino expressed.
Suddenly, a massive boom shook the cafeteria, displacing the tiles and shaking the lights above. The crowd fell to the ground, screaming as the school rocked violently. Miki wrapped his arms around Yukino, the both of them watching on as clouds of dust filled the room. The lights flickered until the power quit entirely.
Yukino lifted her head up from Miki's guard. Lights and chunks of concrete from the ceiling fell onto the student body, crushing them. The screams grew louder as another explosion of debris rocked the cafeteria; this one coming from the hallway in front of them. The second floor caved in, decimating the hallway and sending a suffocating wave of dust and debris into the cafeteria.
She shoved her face into Miki's chest as them and hundreds of others were knocked from their feet. Without any line of sight, all Yukino could do was listen to the haunting sound of wires snapping, industrial lights falling, walls and ceilings caving in, beams and pillars breaking, and tiles being uprooted and thrown about. However, the most frightening thing was hearing the screams around her die out one by one until the room was nearly silent.
Miki slowly opened his eyes. The lights with power swung violently above them, casting light to the mounds of crushed students. Yukino screamed, startling Miki. He looked towards her direction, catching glimpse of Akino's bloody body pinned under a mound of rubble. Then a shadow abruptly overlapped his corpse, bringing Miki's attention to what she was actually screaming at. The screams of surviving students and staff joined hers as they stared. A massive, gory creature loomed over them with hunger in its bloodshot eyes.
"Run-…"
The pair squealed, quickly glancing behind the monster to see Matoi, crawling on the ground in a crippled mess.
"Run… please!"
The Compactor lifted its leg and crushed Matoi's skull under its heel. The survivors screamed, stammering back over the mountains of rubble as the creature approached. Miki pulled Yukino up by her arm, pulling her frozen body up the hill behind them.
"M-M…M…Matoi!!!"
The white void.
It was familiar now.
Akino wondered along an invisible path, numb to his surroundings. His mind was blank with nothingness, but his chest was heavy with guilt and shame. He stopped and fell to his knees, holding his chest. His scrunched his face, shaking his head to rid himself of his fogged head. He looked up towards the endless white sky, and shouted, 'What?! Nothing?! You brought me here and you're not going to say anything! My friends are dying and you're just going to make me go unconscious on them?! Say something! Say something, god damn it!'
He waited, staring at nothing. Left with no answer, he thrashed his body around in anger, punching at the void. 'Don't do this to me! I'm doing my best!' Tears swelled in his eyes. 'I know what you mean now! You want me to unravel the mystery, to accept me for me and put an end to the Compactor's, right?! Isn't that it?! Hello?!!!'
He slouched over, covering his ugly cry. 'This is ridiculous… I just…' Akino lowered his hands, his eyes glowing with ambition. 'I just want to save people!'
Makina lifted Matoi's limp but breathing body up off the ground and dragged her to the corner of the hallway, out of sight from the Compactor. Makina lifted Matoi's head up by her cheeks as she finished regenerating. Matoi blinked into consciousness, breathing heavily.
"Listen," Makina whispered, "I know you're still dazed, but we need to do this quickly before it eats any others." Makina put her arm under Matoi's and pulled her into view. "It's currently approaching that small group of people crowding at the exit. The door must be blocked or something, I don't know. But notice how slow the damn thing is moving now. I'm not sure what you did to it, but I'm assuming slamming it though three floors of wood and concrete helped."
Matoi spun her head, mumbling, "where's Akino?"
Ignoring her, Makina continued. "Since you're weaponless, your job is to distract it. I want you to run in front of it and block it from the people over there. I'll then run up behind it and use Kaminari to carve its core out."
"W-where are the other Omegas at?"
"I don't know, we're on our own. If anything happens to me, it's up to you to kill this thing alright?"
"Makina…?"
"Understand?!"
Matoi nodded as Makina pulled her to her feet, making eye contact.
"I hate you, but we're teammates," Makina confessed, her red eyes oozing with determination and confidence. "Now go!"
Suddenly, the Compactor came tumbling in their direction, only to be stopped by the frame of the doorway between them, shaking the building with its weight. The Omegas backed up as the debris settled, confused and on-edge.
"What happened…?"
A force from the other side of the doorway pushed the Compactor further towards them. Cracks formed along the wall as the monster was about to breach the hallway. A bare fist penetrated straight through the creature's back, shocking the bewildered Omegas. The friction of the punch caused the Compactor to bounce off the doorframe and fly through the hallway, shattering the windows along its way.
A figure launched itself past the girls at a speed too fast for the person to be recognizable. The person grabbed the Compactor by its tentacle and swung it into the gym, breaking the doors on its way in. Makina and Matoi followed quickly behind as the person ran into the gym with the creature.
Matoi stumbled into gym with the two, frightened and worried. She pupils shrank and sweat dripped down her hands as her suspicion was confirmed. Akino was standing before the monster, crouched down and fists high.
"Akino… what are you doing?!!!"
The Compactor shot its tentacle into the floor where Akino was once standing. Now wrapped around its head, Akino tucked his fingers under the curvature of its skull and snapped its neck, screams escaping the monster's mouth. It grabbed Akino by the collar of his shirt and flung him up to the ceiling, mangling his body in the cage of an industrial light. The boy quickly pulled his limbs back together and plummeted into the Compactor, crushing it into the floor in a cloud of dust and debris.
Makina and Matoi stood in the doorway, frozen as they watched on. Towering above the murky clouds was the shell of a Compactor with steam escaping through a gaping, gory hole in the center. Akino stood atop it, stupefied, a crumbling core in his raised fist.
The rain poured heavy outside as police officers and Omegas flooded into the school through a collapsed wall. Matoi, Akino, and Makina observed, taking shelter under a makeshift tent provided to them by Hetsu herself, who stood on the sidelines being interviewed by reporters.
The trio blocked each other off, unable to communicate. Matoi sat in a folded-out chair with a blanket around her shoulders, eyes to the ground. Makina was in the corner of the tent, her blood soaked jacket wrapped around her waist, her eyes wondering aimlessly in thought. Akino, sitting between them, had his eyes glued to his scarred and bruised hands, silent.
The sound of gurney wheels clicking against the piles or concrete caught Akino's attention. He watched with a heavy heart as his piers were carried away, unable to tell if they were still breathing or not. A scream echoed from behind him as a mother stumbled past the yellow crime-scene tape towards her child, who's corpse was laid against a pile of rocks. Suddenly, a wave of mourning parents flooded past the tape and towards the school, including Mr. and Mrs. Shota, clinging to their daughter, as well as Miki's father.
Akino emerged from his seat, wobbling out towards the school, bringing Matoi's and Makina's focus to him.
"Akino!!!"
He turned his head, his face bruised and bandaged. Sakagami darted towards him and pushed herself into her son's arms. The two stumbled to the ground as the blonde sobbed uncontrollably, digging her face into his shoulder.
"Ahhh! Y-you're ali-alive!" She wailed.
Tears dripped from Akino's eyes as he choked up. He wrapped his arms around Sakagami, lifting his head towards the gray sky, rain dripping down his face. His bloodied hands rested against her back, taking note of her breathing pattern.
She was alive.
He was alive.
Together, they cried, mourning louder than the rain itself.