The next day, Osano and Ayano (as well as Rin tagging along) walked to school together like the old days. Although most of the time, Rin would talk nonstop about random shit, she was unusually quiet this morning.

"What're you doing on your phone?" Ayano asks, turning around in her seat. "You've been staring at it ever since we left the house."

Rin instantly shoves it closer to her chest protectively, causing more suspicion. "Nothing. Just...texting an old friend." she pauses and looks at the empty seat beside Ayano. "W-Where's Osano?"

She looks over and realizes he's gone. "Oh...I never noticed he left. Wait— why are you asking?" Ayano began to feel a bit worried, a sickening feeling rising.

"We should go look for him," the red head suggests. "Class is starting in just a few minutes..."

"Yeah..." Ayano mumbles before getting up and walking away, just in time when the teacher entered the classroom.

The hallways are vacant and there's nearly nothing but silence, since the walls of the classrooms are nearly soundproof.

While searching quietly, they pass by the Student Council room and that's when they see a terrifying sight.

It's a tall, masked boy with black hair, attempting to attack Osano— who's unable to defend himself.

Acting immediately, Ayano dashes towards him and grabs his wrist just in time before the sharp end of the blade slices any deeper through her childhood friend's hand.

"Stay away!" she screams, slowly overpowering the attacker— but it seems more like he's hesitant to fight her.

To quicken the process, Rin and Osano are quick to grab both of his wrist and pin him against the ground, a muffled groan of struggle escaping the attacker's lips.

The sounds are enough to attract the last student around, and it happens to be Megamo Saikou. He takes one look and tries to help— but the attacker recognizes him and pushes all the three people pinning him down, running out the door and into the field.

Rin and Ayano immediately go to Osano and his bleeding hand, more and more dripping down onto the ground.

"Fuck..." he curses under his breath.

When Megamo runs towards the door, he sees nothing but an empty field with no guy escaping whatsoever. He turns back to the group of friends and takes a look at Osano's hand. "I'll call the police."

"I'm fine," Osano snaps.

"You're not," Ayano argues back. "Please do call, Megamo-kun."

He's already doing it though.

The police arrive soon after the four inform as many faculty members as possible.

When they arrive, they found that the incinerator is still turned on. When they were informed that the killer was masked, they banned all masks— including the ones from Drama club to prevent this from happening again.

When given details about the culprit, 6 black-haired male students happened to be out of class at the time of the attack.

Aru Aishi, Budo Masuta, Levi Ackerman, Ayato Ishia, Taro Yamada, and Kyoya Ootori.

Osano Najimi: "I...I don't know why I came out of class...there was a creep sending me pictures of me sleeping and them breaking into Ayano's house at night to steal her personal belongings. He threatened to hurt me and Ayano if I didn't meet him...and me being so horrified and not in the right state of mind...I stupidly followed without Ayano noticing...but now, thanks to her, I'm still alive..."

Aru Aishi: "Osano-senpai is my best friend since I was a baby, and I'd never try to kill him! He means so much to me and my sister and he's practically a second family. Today, I got sent an anonymous message telling me Osano-senpai was in danger and of course, I didn't believe it because I thought it was someone trolling. But they began to send me threatening pictures of them following him around school and taking pictures while he's asleep. That's when I started to believe it, and so I ran out of class just before the teacher came in to see if he was in his classroom or not...and he wasn't. Nor was Akari-senpai or Nee-chan."

The police attempted on tracing down to whoever messaged them, but it was no use. This hacker was too powerful for anyone.

Budo Masuta: "I was on the school rooftop and this weird girl kept me from leaving, but I didn't bother remembering her name. I'm passionate about Martial Arts, and the whole purpose of my club is to practice self defence, not cause violence. I'm 100% sure it wasn't me, nor any of my clubmates."

Levi Ackerman: "I was in the library studying and was so caught up in the book that I ignored the bell. Also, I heard this guy got pinned down by three students. Now, I'd hate to brag but those lanky little brats are no match for me. 100 soldiers are no match for me either. And if I were to commit a murder, I'd do it wisely instead of stupidly getting caught. If you wanna know who it was, ask Ayato. I saw his nearly naked ass walking around school grounds while soaking wet...and who knows? Maybe he's the culprit."

Ayato Ishia: "I'm a really competitive sports player...and so I decided to practice a little bit on swimming before school ended because I really wanted to improve. Someone— now I don't know who— hid my clothes, and so I had to embarrassingly walk around school grounds, desperately looking for my uniform."

Kyoya Ootori: "I was taking a nice walk around the field without a care with what time it was...but I never saw a boy hanging around the incinerator. And it looks like he planned this thoughtfully, since the cameras could've easily caught him if he wasn't careful. Perhaps this attacker could also be responsible for the deaths of 8 other girls this week."

Taro Yamada: ...

"This kid is useless," the police officer mumbles. "He won't speak."

And that was most likely because of the trauma Ayano had put him in.

The police investigation ends with very little evidence. More cameras have been installed and the school atmosphere is going down once again.

- End of Chapter 4 -

A/N: I'm just curious. Whoever's reading this, what do you think is happening and who do you think is the culprit? Why are they trying to kill Osano? Is it to get revenge on Ayano or is it because of something else? I wanna see if anyone can guess correctly...hehe

Thanks for reading ♡