Chapter 7

A blanket of stars were scattered above her head that fateful night, glowing in their multitudes, aligned in their inexorable formation. The moon was bright and full, covering the streets below in its gentle light. It was such a beautiful evening to be outside, she felt.

Akane was dressed in her school uniform, the black and red skirt and blazer being the most inconspicuous clothes she owned. She paired this with her black leather gloves, black mesh leggings, and black lace-up boots. Her school bag was slung over her shoulder, packed to the brim with all the tools she would need, including the shimmering, freshly sharpened hatchet she kept in one of the side pockets.

Honestly, it was good being out tonight. Normally on a beautiful moonlit night such as this, she would be alone in her room, dreaming of her Senpai. Frankly, she was tired of being alone. Akane couldn't keep hoping and praying for a brighter future to just fall into her lap. Tonight, she would make sure there were no more lonely nights spent under these gorgeous stars.

Tonight...one way or another...she took her relationship with Senpai to the next level.

Feeling a bit sentimental, she reached into her bag and pulled out the envelope containing her perfectly written confession. One way or another, she was going to get her Senpai to hear these words. Even if she had to tie him down to a chair and read this letter to him, he was going to know exactly how she felt.

Still...looking at it now, she couldn't help but feel a little sad. This wasn't how Akane wanted to do this. Maybe it was too much to hope that she could have just given him this letter at school, made him smile, and the two could finally be together forever. But she, of all people, knew that life, no matter how meticulously you may try to plan it out, hardly ever went according to the desires of a lone dreamer.

Akane was tired of dreaming; it was time to face the reality of the situation and take matters into her own hands.

The address wasn't hard to find. One glimpse at the school registry and a bit of online searching at the library, and Akane knew exactly where she needed to go. Of course, the driveway to that bitch Sana's home was practically a mile long. Her family was apparently the sort of wealthy that let you live in a luxurious estate deep in the woods. Something which proved to only infuriate Akane all over again.

If there was one silver lining to Sana's decadent home, it was all the foliage she could use for cover. The dense forests concealed her movements while she cased out the two-story estate in front of her. Akane grabbed a pair of binoculars and began searching for cameras, a good entry point, and every detail she would need before planning her route inside. The lights were off, and there didn't seem to be any activity inside, which she found odd considering it was only 8:00 PM. She thought for sure Sana's parents would at least still be up.

She put the binoculars down. That wasn't something she had considered up until this point. It wouldn't just be Sana and her beloved Senpai in there. Parents, siblings, there was no telling how many other bodies rested behind those walls.

In the end, it didn't make a difference. Collateral damage was never going to be avoidable, even if she were in a state where she wished it could be. And right now...Akane really wasn't.

After a solid thirty minutes of casing, she had her route. The estate had a major design flaw in that the junction box for the property's built-in security system was located on the perimeter. Likely an aesthetic decision made based off the remoteness of the property. Either way, it was exactly the sort of weakness she needed to make sure no evidence of her ever being here saw the light of day.

She quickly scampered up the hill towards the property, maintaining a low profile, ever mindful the cameras didn't capture her face. Akane passed over the freshly cut sod and scaled the stone steps leading to the property. She dropped her bag upon arriving at the junction box and immediately got to work.

Akane had read dozens of manuals and books on various forms of electronic security systems. Her in-depth knowledge, combined with a set of burglary tools she made herself, was what allowed her to perform her nighttime escapades without ever getting caught. The system Sana's family had installed appeared to be fairly rudimentary. Again, they likely relied more on the remoteness of the property's location and the relative safeness of the neighborhood their house was in.

A decision they were about to come to regret.

With a penlight between her teeth, Akane quickly got to work prying open the junction box's outer covering with her jimmying tool, exposing the internal circuitry. She then rummaged around in her bag for a set of wire cutters and a flat head screwdriver which she used to remove the secondary panel below the outer covering.

At which point, the light fell from her mouth in surprise. The little red light, typically indicating a functioning system, wasn't blinking. Someone had manually turned off all the cameras and disabled the silent alarm in the house. This confused her more than she cared to admit. What was the point of an expensive home security system if you didn't even turn it on?

She decided to cut the appropriate wire anyway. Better to be safe than sorry, after all. With the home security system disabled, Akane snuck along the walls to one of the side doors of the house. Picking the lock admittedly proved to be more difficult than disabling the security system. Whatever money they saved on the subpar electronics was not spared for their mechanical locks. All the same, Akane had dozens of small pins, rods, and other tools she'd fashioned into picks over the years, which, combined with a substantial amount of practice as well as trial and error, had given her the skills necessary to crack virtually any door lock she came across.

It took her some time, but Akane was eventually able to set each individual pin on the lock in the right place, letting her turn the drum and open the door. With her entrance secured, she steeled herself for what came next. With a single hand trembling in equal parts rage and excitement, she reached into her bag and pulled out the freshly sharpened hatchet along with a much more powerful flashlight.

With hatchet in hand, she entered the residence. All was quiet, the lights appearing to be non-functional. Already, Akane could tell something wasn't right here. There didn't seem to be anyone home, and power to the residence had been cut. Nothing about this was adding up. Curious, she decided to investigate further.

Upon rounding the corner of the hall and entering a spacious living room, Akane came to a dead stop, a small surprised gasp escaping her lips. She raised her flashlight in the air and switched it on.

The living room was in shambles. Blood coated the walls, and all the furniture had been smashed to pieces. It looked like a hurricane had rolled through here. A bloody, violent hurricane.

"What is this?" she muttered quietly, equal parts confused and concerned.

There wasn't supposed to be anyone else here tonight. Just Sana, Caleb, and whatever family might have been unlucky enough to be present. Looking at the grisly scene in front of her, Akane began to wonder if she was really the only one who had a vendetta against the school council president. Because by the looks of things, she wasn't.

Walking up to the walls, she reached out and ran a finger across one of the crimson smears before rubbing it between her fingers.

"Still fresh..."

A sound from the nearby hallway caught her attention, bringing Akane back on alert. She shined her light down the hall, gripping the handle of her hatchet tightly as she slowly approached.

The sound was coming from a set of stairs leading down into what she could only assume was the basement. Something down there was making a lot of noise. Specifically, she could hear some sort of animal chewing on something. They were making guttural, growling noises as they did so, gnawing on some sort of meal with the primal enthusiasm of a beast.

She slowly descended the stairs, hatchet at the ready. There were no lights on, so it was all but impossible to see what was making that ungodly noise. It was only as she reached the bottom step and shined her light to the left that Akane came face to face with the source of the sound.

Whereupon she gasped in stunned surprise, nearly dropping the ax in the process. Akane stared in a mixture of shock and disbelief at the image in front of her. There, straddling the body of Sana Nijio, was her Senpai, Caleb Barlow.

She was naked; that was Akane's first thought. Yet, despite this, rage was not what came to mind upon seeing her lying there on her back. For one, Sana's chest cavity had been cracked wide open, lungs and entrails having been violently ripped out. Her eyes were glazed over at that moment, rolled into the back of her head. But these were not eyes of pleasure she was seeing. They were lifeless, cold, and very dead.

Caleb had stolen Sana's heart in much the same way he had stolen hers. Only in this case, it was in a very literal sense. In that, Sana's heart was literally in his hands at that very moment. What was left of it, anyway, as he continued to gnash down on the raw, bloody organ, coating his lips, his chin, his whole lower face in blood and gore with each grisly bite. His hair was a mess, face still red from exertion, but not the kind Akane had feared. Caleb's immaculately tailored jacket was gone too, his white undershirt now stained with the blood of his date for the night. He had a wild, almost animalistic look in his eye as he downed the heart, attacking it with his teeth like a starving wolf.

It was only as the last bite slithered down his throat that he slowly turned his gaze to her, mouth covered in blood as he considered Akane with curious intrigue. He licked his fingers one by one while slowly lurching up.

"You're not someone I expected to see," he observed, a noticeable edge in his voice that definitely wasn't there before. "What are you doing here, Akane?"

She lowered the flashlight, plunging them into darkness once more. Akane had always sort of known there was something wrong with her.

But not like this.