Solo, stfu.

[spotto]

Srsly, he won't stop running on that noooooooisy wheel liek omfg.

Anyway...

PART FOURTEEN

Doves were singing along the rail tracks. They flew high into the sky streaming through the clouds of the air. They dropped towards the ground, heading straight to the trees, so they could nest or mate or simply just to eat some worms on their dinner plate. The flock of beautiful peaceful white birds took off, heading towards the other side of the happily inhabited woods. Unfortunately they flew into some razor wire, got caught, and died. That was the end of the doves. There was already bloodshed in this early morning. Ako had watched it all from the small window of her cell.

 “Well…that was…pleasant…”

She heard a yawn behind her, as the mess on the ground started to move, “Wuh…what was pleasant, Ako?”

Ako witnessed some officers run towards that particular fence with razor wire roadkill, and they were taking their time cleaning the mess up, “Um. Nothing much.”

Yuuna sat up, stretching her arms high into the air and yawned once more, “Man that was a crappy sleep.”

 “What do you expect from sleeping on the floor?”

 “I don’t know. Sometimes I get a good nap here on the good ol’ ground,” Yuuna explained. She stood up and looked at the corner, “Oh yeah…no TV. Damnit!”

Ako turned to gaze out the door window, “I wonder why they didn’t let us go to yard yesterday…”

 “Who knows.”

 “Yeah well they were talking about something…when they took me back here…and it might have something to do with it,” Ako thought for a moment, “They weren’t very specific though…”

Yuuna frowned, eyes sparkling, lips protruding, and eyebrows leaning, “I am so sorry you suffered in the hole. I am an utter failure!” She started to smack her head upon the upper-bunk’s bedframe, “Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!”

 “Uhm, doing that might make you stupider, Yuuna-san…” Ako said.

BAM! BAM! BAM!

Yuuna and Ako turned their attention to the door, as they noticed that the banging they heard was not from Yuuna’s forehead abuse, but instead someone knocking on their cell door. That was rather peculiar as it was pretty pointless to knock on someone’s door in a prison. It’s not like an inmate can give you permission to come in because they can’t open the door themselves and everybody just forces themselves in anyway. There was no such thing as personal space here.

 “Uh, who is it?” Yuuna asked.

 “HEY! WHICH ONE OF YOU IS AKO IZUMI!?”

Ako was about to speak up when she was interrupted by Yuuna, “Shouldn’t you know that!?”

 “Don’t screw with me! Just tell me which one of you is Izumi!”

Yuuna raised her arm, grinning, “I AM!”

 “YOU’RE NOT IZUMI!”

 “Well gee, if you knew the entire time why the fuck would you ask us the question!? Stupid cops.”

The voice responded, “OKAY! NOW I KNOW! IN FIVE MINUTES YOU’RE ALL GOING TO GET STRIP-SEARCHED!”

 “What the hell for!?” Yuuna spat back rudely. She wasn’t one who liked such searches, which usually happened twice a day, but they were all just minding their own business in their cells so it made no sense to just randomly search their personal space at this time.

 

The voice explained, “The new warden said so.”

 “NEW warden!? What happened to that old geezer!?” Yuuna asked.

 “He has a business meeting in Brunai and appointed a new warden until he gets back.”
 
 Ako raised an eyebrow, “What a random city to hold a meeting in…”

Minutes later, Ako was escorted to a rather small room. She knew it to be small, since anything smaller than her own cell was quite small, and this was in fact smaller than her own cell. She didn’t think such a room of such dimunitive size was possible, but here she stood being proved wrong at this very moment. Only a pinch away from the walls, Ako was glad she wasn’t claustrophobic. Two officers stood by her side, and one was at the door. Another was in front of her, who didn’t really look like an officer and was rather short for one as well. In fact, from the looks of her face, Ako could swear that it was merely a ten-year-old child. Yet she was puzzled for ten-year-old children would not be running around in a place like this. The security was tight, and Ako knew Yuuna was just outside the door, but something felt wrong for some reason. She brushed it off as the small officer finally broke the silence and her thought process as well.

 

 “So, you’re Ako Izumi?”

Ako nodded.

 

 “Give her a yes or no,” Officer Iincho grabbed the inmate’s head and thrusted it towards the small officer’s face.

 

 “Uh…yes.” Ako felt her heart race.

The little officer nodded herself, “Ah, I see. So you’re the one who ruined my friend’s life.”

 “Uhm…what?”

 “Oh. You don’t know yet, do you? Let me explain. Nagi Springfield is in a coma, if he dies you’ll be charged with murder.”

It was certainly nice to know the details of her so-called victim, as Ako had not known a thing befor—wait what? MURDER? The very sin that she was so strongly against, and now she was almost accused of commiting it as well? A quick thought blinked in her mind: why wasn’t she charged with attempted murder then? It didn’t make quite sense, but whatever she wanted her name cleared from definitely took a nose-dive in terms of hope. Not that Ako really had much hope in the first place. What with all the horrible and misfortunate things that have been happening to her lately, she just wished for at least a day free of harm, but it was too much to wish for apparently. How could it possibly be any worse?

The small officer crossed her arms, “Nice to meet you Ako Izumi. I’m the new warden.”

She should’ve expected it to get worse anyway. Ako’s face was blank.

 

 “Shall we perform the strip search now, Anya?” Officer Oukouchi asked. Ako once again watched the hypocritical notion of the warden nodding, and slowly removed her standard prison uniform. It was now mostly a routine for Ako. Before she was uncomfortable, but now she knew that dignity was also taken away too, as was almost absolutely everything else. If she saw herself like this when she was first taken into such a depressing institution, she would have never believed herself.

 

The warden strangely focused most of her attention on Ako’s chest. She was even holding up a magnifying glass and writing something down on a note pad.

 

 “Uhm…aren’t these searches to check for contraband?” Ako asked, once again raising an eyebrow.

 

Officer Oukouchi replied, “Indeed.”

 “So how can I possibly hide anything uh, there?”

The officer once again replied, “Well, the warden has some sort of breast-size complex. Basically the new rule is that anybody who exceeds a certain size will be provided less food. They will instead only be given one meal every two days.”

 “That’s kind of…uh…” Ako wanted to say ‘cruel’ or ‘horrible’ or ‘torture’, but then she remembered how certain words could also lead her to cruel horrible torture. So wisely the inmate shut herself up at that point. Suddenly, Ako also remembered Yuuna who had quite a developed chest, and started to worry when it was her turn to get examined. She gasped unconsciously.

 

 “Breast-size complex!? It’s not a complex! If we ever release some of these people and their breasts are too big, they’ll manipulate all the men with their gastronomical-sized boobs and TAKE OVER THE WORLD!!!” The warden yelled, whipping her magnifying glass around in protest, “In fact! Even you Akira-san! You have quite a questionable-sized chest!”

Officer Oukouchi sighed, “See?”

 “Anya! I understand you are the warden, but you shouldn’t be so blunt with your words like that to fellow officers!” Officer Iincho scolded.

The young warden pointed at Iincho, “You also have some questionable breasts! Cut down on the chow, fatty!”

 “WHY! I NEVER! My bust is of a perfect size with my body proportions! How dare you!” The blonde officer spat back, angered.

 

Suddenly an argument broke out between the two officers, trading insults, pointing rude fingers, and debating whether or not breast size matters between men. It was quite a scenario for Ako. She was standing in the tiniest room possible, naked, between two people arguing over breast sizes. Well, at least she wasn’t in the hole, or being hit with a stun gun, or getting beat up by other inmates.

 “YOU FIRED THE PSYCHIATRIST BECAUSE HER BREASTS WERE RIDICULOUS!?” Officer Iincho shouted in surprise, “CHIZURU IS MY FAVOURITE CO-WORKER!”

The warden growled, “Yeah!? WELL YOU’RE ITCHING TO GET LAID OFF TOO, AREN’T YA!?”

 “I need this job! TO PAY FOR MY RENT AND MY EDUCATION, THANK YOU VERY MUCH! You are also only a temporary warden, so who says you should be ALLOWED TO FIRE PEOPLE!?”

A strange breeze caused Ako to sneeze, and she nudged Officer Oukouchi’s side, “Uhm…can I put my clothes back on now?”

 “Well, I don’t see why not. You’re pretty much done here anyway…” Officer Oukouchi was shaking her head at the warden’s and Iincho’s immature squabble.

 

Ako started to redress herself, but she only managed to get her panties and bra fastened on when both of the arguing officers suddenly pulled out stun guns, pointing them at each other. Officer Oukouchi tried to hold Iincho back, “What are you doing!?”

 “I’m going to teach this bitch a lesson! And if I have to do it with some electrical pain, so be it!”

Anya the warden cried back, “Not if I hit you first!”

Thus both the officers pressed down the trigger of their guns, only to find that the surge of horrible, torturous, and harmless pain did not reach each other. Why? A certain inmate was between them and so she had acted as shield for both parties, unfortunately sacrificing herself unintentionally. There were some resistant inmates who had been tased, and others who had belt versions of such gun around some part of their body, further restricting their freedom, but no one had been hit twice at the same time.

 

 “AHFGEYWKAJNCVSDBHSAILDSEQSBJFALKJNSKGJI!” 

THUD!

The door swung open, slamming into the wall. There stood Yuuna breathing heavily. An officer was lying unconscious behind her, but she was not particularly worried about that, “I heard Ako’s bloodcurdling scream! WHAT HAPPENED!?”

 

The new arrival let out a gasp as she rushed to Ako’s side. The girl had fallen onto the cold hard floor. The other officers were about to pounce of the inmate for intruding when Yuuna was saved by the bell. The alarm started to clang throughout the prison. All the officers quickly jolted towards the door.

 

“Akira! I want you to stay here and watch those two inmates!” Officer Iincho ordered, “Anya, as much as I don’t like you, you should get the unconscious officer to the infirmary! I will go ahead and try to figure out what is happening! I will radio you the info! Go! Go! Go!”

The officers scattered, and Officer Oukouchi stepped back into the rather small room. She took out two handcuffs and grabbed Yuuna by the shoulder, “Down on the ground, Yuuna.”

Yuuna on the other hand, was reluctant, “What the hell did Ako do to deserve this!? She was in incredible pain!”

 “I wasn’t the one who pulled the trigger Yuuna, but if you don’t get down on the ground I’ll have to pull my trigger on you!” Officer Oukouchi demanded, “Now get down!”

Yuuna growled, “I don’t care if you didn’t! You stupid cops keep doing this shit to us without any explanation whatsoever!”

 “Even so, you commited a serious offense knocking out that officer, Yuuna! Do you realize how many years you could get for that!?” The officer argued. She struggled with the inmate, trying to pin her down.

 

 “It doesn’t matter! I’m here for the rest of my life! So there!”

The officer grunted, trying to control the inmate’s movements. This task was usually done so with many officers, so she had a hard time herself, “Yuuna! You’re not in here without parole! Even if it’s a minuscule chance to get out, it still is one! Knocking out officers or trying to hurt other inmates is not going to help you! Now please listen and stop moving!”

Officer Oukouchi’s radio started to break in, “Come in, Akira! Come in!”

She picked it up, managing to hold Yuuna with one arm, “Akira here. What is it Iincho!?”

 “There’s been an escape! You need to get here as soon as possible!”

 “Alright! I’ll be there immediately! Akira out!”

The officer replaced her radio and took out her stun gun, “Sorry Yuuna. You’ve been too much trouble.” She slammed the gun into Yuuna’s back, and a jolt of electricity surged through Yuuna’s body. Ako heard her cellmate hold back her cries of pain with much difficulty, and finally the inmate fell out cold on top of Ako.

 “Wha…what did you do to her?” Ako managed to say as her vision blurred from the massive shock earlier.

 

 “I just set my shock to be stronger so it’ll knock her out. I’m afraid I’ll have to do the same to you so I can be where I am needed!” She explained, pointing her stun gun at Ako now.

Ako closed her eyes, cringing from the anticipated shock, but none came. She reopened her eyes to see a large shadow above the officer, and a two by four piece of plywood slammed onto the officer’s head, knocking her out. Ako gasped, wondering who would’ve done such a thing, but her vision was too blurred and she was starting to fall unconscious…

 “Ako…rest. Rest for now…you have been through too much…”

-

The young inmate woke up to find herself surprisingly not in a cell. She was neither inside her own cell, nor in segregation as she had expected to be. She wasn’t even in that tiny room she blacked out in either. Unfortunately, she also wasn’t in her bed back at home sweating from a terrible nightmare, for she recognized the grey walls of the prison that surrounded her and about fifteen hundred other inmates. She was breathing the outdoor air, but surrounded with the familiar walls of the prison. It wasn’t the yard since it was significantly smaller than the yard, but it was thankfully bigger than her cell. She had never been in such an area before, and her head was resting on an oddly-comfortable pillow near the corner. Her entire body was sore from what she felt was the worst physical pain she had ever endured in her entire life, which was saying something. The previous record holder was the indescribable pain she took when she was inflicted with a horrible scar across her back. Those were some good days.

 

 “Oh? You’re awake,” Ako heard Yuuna behind her, and immediately turned around. The inmate was holding a moist cloth.

 

Ako managed but a peep from her mouth, “Huh? What’s going on?”

 “Shhh…you have a fever,” Yuuna gestured for her cellmate to lie back down, “Here, drink some water.”

The inmate was presented with a bottle of water, which was rare now as inmates usually were provided with water from a Styrofoam cup. Such a piece of utensil was necessary so inmates couldn’t create pointy destructive stabbing utensils in order to attack other people.

 “Don’t worry, the water’s safe. It ain’t the crap they give us from the prison pipes,” Yuuna explained.

 

 “Uh…then where did you get it?” Ako asked, trusting her cellmate and easily gulping the liquid down.

Yuuna replied, “I got it from the canteen.”

 

 “I thought bottled water was reserved for the officers only though…”

 “Yeeeah…about that…” Yuuna scratched her neck, slightly nervous, “Y’see…there’s kind of a riot going on right now and—”

 “A riot!?”

Yuuna attempted to calm the slightly panicky inmate down, “You should rest, Ako. You’ve got a pretty bad fever right now. I can explain things later, when you’re a little better.”

 “I can’t rest if I don’t know what’s going on, Yuuna-san…”

Her cellmate sighed, giving in to the curious girl, “I guess I should start from the beginning, but you better get some rest after this story! It isn’t very pleasant either.”

 “I promise,” pledged Ako.

Her cellmate had her finger tapping on the concrete floor as she searched her mind for the best place to start her tale, “It happened about a year ago shortly after I was released from the hole for jumping Asakura. There was a twisted tradition the cops liked to do every year…”

 “Oh look. The Kid is back from the hellhole,” an inmate pointed at Yuuna as she walked by her in the lunchroom. Yuuna only brushed by her, not even giving her a look. She sat down at a table by herself, only to see a blonde join her, with an oddly goofy smile on her face.

 “You the Kid, aru?” She asked, closing her eyes to further give her a look of traditional happiness.

 

Yuuna nodded, and shifted a little further away from the odd inmate.

 

 “Ku Fei is I, but you can call me Master Ku!” She introduced herself and even bowed. This caused Yuuna to shift even further away from the girl’s weirdness.

Master Ku continued her banter, “So what you in for, aruka?”

 “Uh. Do I have to tell you?”

 “Ah! Then maybe it rude if I do not tell you why I here first, aru! I apologize!” Master Ku bowed again and continued, “I here for doing dirty work of Paparazzi!”

 “What? You’re the paparazzi’s thug?” Yuuna asked in slight shock, but her voice remained strangely deadpan.

Master Ku nodded, “Yes! Why you so surprise?”

 “Are you here to beat me up?” Yuuna asked, scooting further away from the blonde, only for her to step closer.

 

 “Why I do that, aru?” The inmate blinked in confusion.

Yuuna shook her head, “Er, never mind.” She was relieved that Master Ku did not seem to know that she had assaulted her boss, Paparazzi, months ago, and that the blonde was not here to commit some retaliation.

 “Okay! Now you know why I here, so why you here, arune?” Master Ku asked.

 “I’m not going to say.”

Master Ku frowned, “But I tell you why I here! It only fair, aruyo!”

 “I didn’t agree to that.”

Yuuna was suddenly interrupted from her story by Ako, “You seem rather different in the past, a lot more serious.”

 “What do you expect? I just got out the hole. You know…no human interaction for three months…it does that to you…” Yuuna shook her head in sorrow, “But back to my story!”

 “I don’t see how it has to do with a riot,” Ako said.

Yuuna gritted her teeth, “I’m getting to that!”

 “You also sounded smarter then—”
 
 “OKAY! GOING BACK TO THE STORY!”

Master Ku growled, “Well I come warn you about new fight season, but if you no want to be fair then I leave!”

 “What? What ‘new fight season’?”

 “I no tell you. You mean person, aru!” She turned and faced her back to Yuuna’s face, giving her a ‘hmph’!

 

Yuuna sighed, “Fine. I’m in here for murder. Now what about the ‘new fight sea—‘”

 “What!? You are very bad person, aruyo!” Master Ku pointed at Yuuna.

 “Yeah, but you’re a thug. You beat people up for a living and give fear and—”

 “So!? You still bad! Very very bad, aruka!”

Yuuna sighed, “For the love of…can you tell me about this fight thing?”

 “No. Now I no wanna tell you because you are killer, aru.” She once again turned around to face her back at Yuuna’s face, followed by the ‘hmph’.

 

Yuuna started bashing her head on the lunchroom table.

 “Why you doing that, aru?” Master Ku turned around and noticed Yuuna’s famous self-abuse.

 “…because…I don’t know. Just a habit I have…” Yuuna rested her chin onto her palm, “You’re frustrating me.”

Master Ku was about to reply when an inmate started to scream and struggle in the grasp of the officers nearby, “NO PLEASE! ANYWHERE BUT THERE! PLEASE DON’T SEND ME INTO THAT PLACE! I’LL DO ANYTHING! I’LL BE GOOD!”

Yuuna noticed the disruption, “Huh? Is she talking ‘bout the hole?”

 “No. The fight season, aru.”

 “What?”

 “It a tradition. Every year cops throw two or more of us into outside room and make them fight to death! It a tournament! It their way of solving overcrowded prison, aruyo!” Master Ku waved her arms around to express the severity of the situation.

Yuuna gasped, “But how would they explain to people where those inmates went!?”

 “I no know, but winner of tournament get charge with murder after, aru. They go to death row and die anyway, aruyo…”

 “So it’s basically a sentence of death?” Yuuna gulped, hoping not to be chosen…

 

“And thankfully, I wasn’t chosen!” Yuuna said, smiling in relief and joy, “and that’s the story of how I lived through those hard times!”

Ako sat there with a slightly exasperated expression, “Uhm…so why is there a riot?”

 “Oh! Well back then we were quite frustrated with the way how the cops were treating us, and I’m sure you have noticed. The little gladiator fights didn’t really help either. We’re near the time where they start those fights again, so we had planned to riot at this time to prevent from unnecessary dying’s and all,” Yuuna explained, “The new warden being a little girl gave us a weak spot and we managed to find a way to escape the clutches of the officers.”

 

Ako asked, “And why didn’t you just tell me that without the story? It would have saved time…”

Yuuna sat there looking dumbfounded, “…because I’m an idiot?”

 “I guess since I promised, I’ll get some rest now…but I’m a little worried…” Ako looked down at her wrists, where she was used to seeing some handcuffs locked on. Yuuna certainly noticed the melancholy look upon Ako’s face.

 

 “Worried about what?” She asked.

Ako lowered her head, sighing, “I don’t know. The riot thing…it’s kind of bad isn’t it? I mean don’t riots tend to be…violent?”

 “War is violent. It’s generally understood today that it is necessary at times,” A new voice entered the conversation, and Ako turned to see Asakura at the door.

Yuuna growled as she watched Asakura walk in. Ako noticed that they still weren’t nice at each other, but at least they weren’t arguing or beating each other up. She started to feel slightly light-headed and knew that some rest was wise.

 

Ako continued though, “Yeah but can’t there be some other way that’s peaceful and…legal maybe? I’m not really comfortable with this.”

 
 “We’ve tried, believe me. It would be stupid to start with a rebellion because of the huge risk involved, but since everything else didn’t work, this is our last resort,” Asakura explained, “Anyway I was told to get one of you to guard the one of the hostages.”

 

Now Ako was very uncomfortable with the criminal activity, “H-h-hostages!?”

 “You can’t expect people to listen to us if we don’t put something at stake,” said the gang leader, “Now I was thinking of you, Yuuna, to guard them since you’re pretty good in terms of strength.”

 

Yuuna frowned, “No.”

 “You’re not just saying that because of our fight a few weeks ago, now are you?” Asakura asked.

 “No.”

The redhead continued, “Or is it because one of the hostages is a little friend of yours?”

Two shadows filled the hall and grew larger and larger. Ako and Yuuna watched as two inmates entered the area holding someone bounded and gagged by their arms and legs. They threw her into the area and marched off. She was battered up and a bit bruised and bloody but she did not seem to be hurt seriously. Asakura stood up and walked towards the hostage.

 

 “Shame it had to be Akira, she’s a one of the better officers,” the leader stated.

 

Yuuna stood up, walking towards the officer, “And how do you know I won’t set her free since she’s a friend of mine!?”

 “I don’t. I’m not the one who gave the orders. The ringleader behind this riot told me to get one of you to guard her,” Asakura explained, “I can’t do it because she gave me an order too, so you have fun here.” Their gang leader walked off but closed the door behind her.

 

Yuuna carefully took off Officer Oukouchi’s gag, “Sorry Akira…”

The officer did not hesitate to scold the inmate, “Yuuna! You have to stop this now!”

 “I agree with them though…which is why I apologized,” Yuuna responded, “And even if I tried to stop it, I would probably get beat up or killed by the others for being against it anyway, so…”

 “You know what? I believe some policies in this prison are too harsh myself, but a riot is not the answer,” Officer Oukouchi reasoned, “Every time a facility has tried that, the prison just got worse.”

The inmate narrowed her eyes, “There’s nothing else we can do. The things that happen here…sure maybe a few of us do deserve it, like me, but to treat everybody like that including Ako or someone who’s only in here for something small…makes no sense.”

Ako watched her cellmate look up at the sky, as she too joined her at watching the clouds slowly drift by the prison. The sunlight continued its reign over the building as they heard a gunshot go off from the distance, most likely in the yard…

 

The battle had begun.

END OF PART FOURTEEN

Octenburg.