The blood-soaked moon was drenching the halls, slipping in from the windows that look out towards the outside, and while we trudge through the gore, my mind continues to fill with flashes of images of slaughter… butchery… war… through the tale that is called history. The sound of modern war fills the air of a world that could never compare. My mind won’t leave these fucking jungles; it just keeps slipping into them. So many bodies, so much rape, so many faces that I was.

  The rot was carving up my lungs.

  Burning my eye.

  Blood soaking my soles.

  Bugs are biting at my dick.

  Rain falling on my M16.

  I watch the forest I used to play in burn in front of me.

  The past and the present consume my reality into a meaningless slog of confusion with short gaps of release. Being swallowed by the abyss and then split back out to kill or be killed.

  The bodies were staring at my soul with unblinking resolve.

  All the men I had made into corpses were staring up from hell once more.

  Last time this happened, I was being taken to the heavens.

  Now it seems I am going to the pits of hell.

  All just staring at a version of me…

  At the Devil…

  At an animal…

  At the reality of man… This is not the reality of man; this is the reality of the sick, the deprived, and the monsters that go bump in the night. Just apes with fully automatic rifles and long knives.

  Man forever rabid for its own blood.

  Consume by power

  Power he’ll never reach.

  2.2 pounds of bones.

  Length of 22 centimeters.

  Width of 18 centimeters.

  Circumference: 56 centimeters.

  The measurements of a skull… the measurements of my own skull. How can a human fit 300,000 years of humanity into 2.2 pounds, 22 centimeters, 18 centimeters, and 56 centimeters?

  “O Fortuna,

  Velut luna

  Statu variabilis,

  Semper crescis

  Aut decrescis;

  Vita detestabilis

  Nunc obdurat

  Et tunc curat

  Ludo mentis aciem;

  egestatem,

  potestatem,

  dissolvit ut glaciem.”

  ”Of Man’s first disobedience, and the fruit,

  Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste,

  Brought death into the World, and all our woe,"—Paradise Lost by John Milton

  The fruit of disobedience runs deep within man.

  With the tree made of a noose, and mortality only a lie.

  Death was brought within our world from necessity, and our woe has been here since the first being.

  I would know.

  私は見てきた。。。

  私は生きてきた。

  我见过。。。

  我活过。

  Le geutatoe…

  Le geupeud?n

  ????? ???? ??…

  ??? ?? ???? ???.

  He visto…

  He vivido.

  I have seen…

  I have lived.

  All of it.

  The curse of Konran took a slash at my neck with a woman that reeked of the past. Waterboarding me with the facts of man, sickening me with a case of nihilism, a disease that has taken its talons to my stomach to cut out my guts and consume my beating heart. Konran, making me dance on the coal during my firewalk. I doubt that fire is walking with me because I am the flame consuming all that is near.

  There are many theories about why man exists, many religions, and some scientific ones.

  There is a single theory that I created that ever fits for me, and it fits into neither.

  No gods.

  No white coats.

  All is that man was placed upon this hell, upon Earth, for one reason, and that was to kill. To create suffering and be in suffering till the rings of time hold dumb.

  Just like all the animals before.

  And ever after.

  The cold iron of the M16 that's strapped around my chest starts to phase through time.

  To an AK-47, M1, M1911, 12-gauge, M60, blunderbuss, flintlock musket, crossbow, bow, and a blade.

  At the end of time, at the beginning of time, all I was holding was a stick.

  M16… what a piece of shit.

  “Sors immanis

  Et inanis,

  Rota tu volubilis,

  Status malus,

  Vana salus

  Semper dissolubilis,

  Obumbrata

  Et velata

  Mihi quoque niteris;

  Nunc per ludum

  Dorsum nudum

  Fero tui sceleris.”

  Through our search across this school, we discover students and bodies and bodies of students. This search was through the first and second levels. Picking up more and more as we went… I will not be leaving any men, women, and whoever else that is taking up arms in this war. Whether they’re walking out on their leg or mine. We have the count of eleven and continue to consume more and more students into our company. We came across a few teachers whose mouths spoke words of skirmishes throughout the school's lower levels

  The heaviest battles were taking place on the first level. Both students and teachers have fallen upon their blades within the war. Bodies filled with cuts and bullets, bodies of children and adults, both dying for defense. But those who have been besieging the campus have been suffering heavy casualties since our forces have gained awareness and secured structures within units of teachers and students. All that holds the downstairs is filled with bullets and blood and blades and flames.

  The second level (where our horde is standing) had a lesser sum of combatants due to the bottleneck that the first floor had become. The teachers are saying that they believe that there have been low casualties on our floor, with only those of teachers and the assaulters slain upon these floors.

  The teacher bestows us with no report on what rages within the third floor, but due to the slim forces that lie on the second level, I doubt there are any real forces up there. But who am I to trust in any report given to me?

  There is no truth in war.

  No reality.

  Gore.

  Blood.

  Madness.

  Misery.

  These were the only ones that dared to reveal their selfs.

  Within the 1979 film Apocalypse Now, Captain Benjamin L. Willard leaves his patrol boat and enters the trenches that sit next to the Do Lung Bridge. When he stepped out of the patrol into these trenches, reality itself was wrapping itself into insanity. The battle to keep the Do Lung Bridge was a meaningless battle, and every troop knew it was useless, but orders are orders. So the men would live, and they would die defending something no one but bureaucrats cares for. And in the scene, there is a VC underneath his dead comrades, screaming, “FUCK YOU, GI!”

  “Sors salutis

  Et virtutis

  Mihi nunc contraria;

  Est affectus

  Et defectus

  Semper in angaria.

  Hac in hora

  Sine mora

  Cordae pulsum tangite;

  Quod per sortem

  Sternit fortem,

  Mecum omnes plangite!”

  We made it to a crossroads.

  If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Where one hall moves towards the headmaster's offices.

  The other towards freedom.

  My mind starts to fill with curiosity. Curiosity about what the headmaster could possibly be doing.

  I look over the company of people we create, with Yuto still nowhere to be found. “I shall look for Yuto while Miyamoto continues the trek out.” With Miyamoto and I shaking hands, sending each other off, he takes command of the company and starts to move towards the outside. With the teacher who had given the report helping lead the children out, Celeste taking the back, and the kid with the dog somewhere in the middle of the pack. All of us were acting out our roles perfectly.

  Am at my best alone.

  When there are no faces staring at me, but the men I must kill.

  With my reality of brutality truly formed, and my hands wrap around in gore.

  The Devil comes out and engulfs the flames with gasoline.

  And death encapsulates the land.

  By allowing my state of curiosity to take control of my action, the one thing that will never be fulfilled, I start to the third floor to see the headmaster. There was something here that was continuing to pester my mind. Whether Yuto had something to do with it, only time can ever tell.

  My mind aches for the simpler refuge of slumber, but such effortless action is filled with torment.

  When I sleep I don’t really dream; I just become another individual. Watching the worst things that ever happen in their lives, and then waking up feeling not of myself.

  What is the self when reality bends to specifically break it, turning the individual into billions?

  Maybe I was walking up the stairway to heaven, and that's why there were so many steps and why each was so steep. Each sin of mine constructed into reality, like so many times before. The only things that are left are blood drenching these steps and the sound of my cane to be heightened (to drive me madder).

  “Fortunae Plango Vulnera.

  Fortunae plango vulnera

  stillantibus ocellis,

  quod sua mihi munera

  subtrahit rebellis.

  verum est, quod legitur

  fronte capillata,

  sed plerumque sequitur

  Occasio calvata.”

  The halls of the third level reek of silences. Rather disconcerting for an active war zone to have an area not struck by pandemonium. It's like a city where no souls live anymore… like seeing those photos of Chernobyl. The eeriness only adds to knowing why, so what is the Chernobyl that lies in these halls?

  The taping of my feet and cane was creating a migraine within me. The ground continued to shake, and the sounds of muffled shouting and firing could only be heard by putting one's ear to the ground and still would need rather well-working ears.

  Standing outside the headmaster's tower with his wooden door standing tall, I could hear nothing from within. The headmaster could have skipped town, leaving us all behind to fix the mess; hell, I couldn’t blame the man. He was never supposed to be a soldier, just a man who picks teachers… and he does that rather poorly, so I have him run instead of fighting. Who the hell knows what he could fuck up?

  Well, maybe Yuto walked in and found nothing, and it just made him determine to push back the offensive single-handedly. He's just that type of kid—the type whose blood spills first in war… only the good die young. Good and the foolish, and normally these two groups slam into each other like two semi-trucks going 40 over the speed limit.

  Knock.

  Knock.

  Knock.

  Nothing. I don’t know what I’m expecting there to be. I had a feeling no one would be there, and my gut was right, even though it currently hammered. One thing that is strange is there being no echo from within the tower.

  I grab the hander.

  It was unlocked.

  I start to creak the door open by a bit and then throw the door open.

  Looking inside, there was nothing but blackness, so the only thing to do is walk inside, even if this is unbelievable translucence, to see that this is a trap in some form.

  Taking a step inside, I began to fall, falling into an abyss I’ve been in a few times.

  “In Fortunae solio

  sederam elatus,

  prosperitatis vario

  flore coronatus;

  quicquid enim florui

  felix et beatus

  nunc a summo corrui

  gloria privatus.”

  Being plunges into somewhere, a land that is only blacker than the blackest black, makes a mind miss light even if the light was radiating off Amaterasu. I’ve been trying to light my lighter, but I couldn’t find it, and even if I did, I doubt it would emit too much.

  This will be how I be seeing everything if I keep on doing my normal bullshit. Dead before losing an eye and lost an eye before getting a crippled leg. It all feels rather backwards, doesn’t it?

  My feet and cane ripple through the boundless void, so this land I stand upon had a ground, which means this is not one of those Amaterasu abysses. I guess the fabric of this reality is just full of different endless blacknesses across the universe.

  Reminds me of being dead, but with more movement. Movement into the nothingness… probably the best trap any being has made for me. Locking me in a limitless darkness to starve me to death.

  “Oh, V, don’t give such slim credit.” A voice booms through the blackness, and then scintillating spotlights light the abyss.

  A cane reflects the light into a blinding beam.

  A top hat and a tweed hat lay on top of two men.

  One dress in a black suit and white undershirt, and another dress in the abyss.

  “Keyser.”

  “V.”

  “Konran.”

  “V.”

  “Gentleman.”

  “V.” They both replied.

  “Fortunae rota volvitur;

  Descendo minoratus;

  Alter in altum tollitur;

  Nimis exaltatus

  Rex sedet in vertice

  Caveat ruinam!

  Nam sub axe legimus

  Hecubam reginam.” — O Fortuna

  I grasp my M16.

  “I wouldn’t do that,” Keyser said.

  “You gotta be fucking kidding me.”

  “No, V, we aren’t. I believe there's a mutual friend between the three of us tonight,” Keyser replies.

  “Is that how you two met, kidnapping people?”

  “Who said anything about kidnapping? This is all just a conversation.”

  “Stealing a sixteen-year-old boy is not how you start a conversation.”

  A third spotlights lights.

  A table.

  A Nambu M60.

  And Yuto.

  “Now good old V. We going to play this…”

  “Fuck you, I know what a revolver on the table means, Konran.”

  “Always so short with people, aren’t you?”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Well, if you both parties know how to play, then let’s begin.”

  Four chairs were sitting on the table.

  One already filled.

  Konran sat in the middle chair in front of Yuto.

  Keyser took the chair to the right.

  I took the chair to the left.

  “Now the “reward” to the victor of this game is if Keyser wins, he observably kills you, V, and Yuto, taking his blood as well as taking everyone in the school’s blood that is not part of his army. This a course includes your comrade, V. Now if you win, V, you get out of this abyss, Yuto, and Keyser's troops get kick out of this school as long as he lives. This includes the mass teleports of the whole army at a V victory.”

  Konran picks up the revolver and rolls the cylinder.

  He throws the gun to my side.

  I pick up the gun. “What, you needed a god to get me?”

  Click.

  I side the gun down the table to Keyser.

  It stops right in front of him on this clean wooden table.

  He picks up the gun. “He made himself apparent to me without ever asking.”

  Click.

  He slides the gun back down the table.

  “Guy, guys, let’s slow this down a bit. I want the tension that goes with putting a gun to your head and possibly unloading on yourself. Right now it looks like two suicide men are being creative in the way they kill their selfs. V, you haven’t even taken a glance at Yuto since the lights been brought up.”

  “If I’m going to kill myself, I’m going to choose the speed.”

  “Come on, V, let’s humor the man; it’s not like either of us has anything better to do.

  I look over at Yuto, seeing a man as pale as a damn albino. The look upon his face was if he were a boy sent to the trenches of the First World War witnessing his first over the trench. Frozen solid he was… frozen solid.

  “How the eye been treating you?” I said while picking up the gun.

  “It’s been doing well. Actually, I think it helps with the arms deals. People said that my face looks too perfect for such evil, some may call it.”

  I pull back the hammer. “Well, I guess you should be thanking me for that crowbar to the socket.”

  “Funny.”

  Click.

  I slide the gun back down.

  “See, wasn’t that more fun? V got to look at his student, and you two got to learn about each other.” Konran said with a sound that the ear can only say as popcorn being chew upon. “And we still get possibly three more of these.”

  “I believe I’ll talk about my gun for a bit. The first point I’ll bring up is a normal Nambu M60 doesn’t hold six shots. They only hold five.”

  “But with just a bit of my magic I made one that held six. Just for fun.”

  “Also,” he takes the gun and points to his forehead. “The gun is round in .38 special, and the Japanese police force carries the gun.”

  Click.

  The gun returns once more.

  “There’s still something that feels off. Like the stakes have no stakes.”

  “You can’t always get what you want.”

  “Always the pessimist, V. Is that because you watched that girl kill herself in front of you, and how it was your fault for being unable to save her? Or does it come from how emotionally detached you are from humanity that you couldn’t even draw out a tear at your parents’ funeral? Hell, you didn’t even frown; you were just blank, as blank as white paper. Because in reality that is what you are, just a blank piece of paper that would have shoveled the Jericho he carries around in his mouth at 40 when he realizes all the good years dissolve in the booze. I was the one that brought you here. Do you want to know why? V. Do you? Do you really want to?”

  “Just FUCKING say it.”

  “It was all just a game of fucking dice, V. Every hundred or few hundred years I just throw a pair of dice, and five, three things are summoned into this world of shit. You know I could have gotten just two flies fucking on some window in Central America, but no, I got you. And I could ever dare to think about how entering you would be. Like I said, after we first met in this shithole that could barely be called a town, I only started to pay attention to you after your death and rebirth. I look once or twice but your early stuff isn’t too awful interesting, but taking own a whole fucking building by yourself and only a mere few hours early, you lost your eye and dropped from the sky, then were saved by the bell. Your life is just something else. And you always showed me Keyser, and I look back at his old stuff, and I gotta say he beats you for greatest hits. But he’s been around the block for a long time, but at this rate I’ll say you’ll be ravelling the man.”

  Click… “There’s your fifth fucking click.” I throw the gun at Keyser.

  “I’ll see you in hell. Save me a seat if you be so kind.”

  “Actually, I was going to ask you the same thing, V.” The revolver hammer was pulled back and aimed at me with his finger over the trigger.

  “If you pull back, I’ll blow your brains out before you ever see mine.” With my Jericho prim and ready for killing.

  Yuto's face was regaining color—a rather strange time for such a thing, but maybe he really hated my class.

  “You want to do it like one of those old westerns.”

  “I’m fine with that.”

  The only sound filling the air was the sound of chewing popcorn.

  “1”

  “1”

  His gun was pointed at my heart.

  Mine was at his head.

  “2”

  BANG!

  Keyser fired.

  Fucking bastard.

  BANG!

  At least I’ll take him out with me.

  The bullets move through the void.

  The muzzle flash formed the only light the void now had due to the spotlights turning off.

  The loud bangs cover any chewing Konran could be doing.

  Thud.

  Shad.

  The lights turn on, and I’m on the floor with blood on me.

  But no site on Keyser.

  I pick myself up.

  Konran sat eating popcorn.

  Keyser and Yuto have disappeared.

  “Yuto!”

  “Mr. V, I’m down here.” A few inches behind my chair lay Yuto bleeding.

  “Goddamn, Yuto!” I pick him up and lay him flat on the table. “Goddamn, I thought how I thought about you was different from reality, Yuto.”

  “Mr. V what…” He started to cough up a large amount of blood. “what did you think of me…”

  “I thought you were a fool, but a moral fool. He would rather lay down his life than not.’

  “He could have just chosen the better opinion. He would have been killed if you were killed, so he would have died in any way.”

  “You son of a bitch, I fucking won! Your buddy starts firing.” I said while trying to apply pressure to Yuto's wound.

  “Hey, I never said it was against the rules, mostly because you never allow me to say them. We weren’t even going to play Russian roulette. We were just going to spin the gun around until it landed either on you or Keyser, and whoever it landed on shot the other guy in the head.”

  “Come stay with me, Yuto.”

  “Man, you are good at getting people killed even when you are not even trying to. You know why Keyser just disappeared with that little "shad" sound. It's because he was never here like you and I and Yuto here are. So you got off a shot that meant nothing when you could have just dodged the bullet, but you chose to shoot.”

  The color that was in Yuto's face was almost gone completely.

  “Killing your own student—that’s a new one.”

  “Mr. V, before… I die, can you relay a message?

  “Yeah.”

  “I won our last duel.” He closed his eyes, with the only colors that were on him being his clothing and blood.

  The boy died.

  “Well, if it isn’t that time already. Well, as always, it’s been fun, V, but I have to go now.”

  The void was ripped away from existence.

  My mind was still trying to comprehend what had just happened in the past few minutes when my legs started to move on their own.

  The weight on my arms grew heavy.

  Looking down, I found Yuto's body with his eyes closed, but his mouth was grinning.

  My feet continued to move upon their own will.

  The sound that was once filled with war was now filled with nothing.

  Ever hall past… every hall I look up for was holding no battle.

  My journey ended where the journey started, looking at two large wooden doors.

  They open.

  Piles of bodies lay throughout the halls, but crowds of people filled the land right outside the steps.

  On the first step out of the building were those I call my comrades and that of my students.

  They first look at my first strange awful thing, that is my face, and then look at my arms. Each student's face filled with a different kind of horror, but not that of Takeshi. He walked up to me. “What were his last words?”

  “He told me to tell you that he won your last duel.”

  “Yuto… you bastard… using your death as a tiebreaker… fine, old friend, you won… you won them all.”

  Takeshi took his body from him and bowed, walking away from us all.

  I looked out at the students I had taught each bloody, beaten, and a few missing; my stomach was sick, but my mind saw nothing different from any other moment.

  I just… just couldn’t take this, this image so ripe with the reality of man. The reality of greed and horror.

  I started to walk, and so did Miyamoto as well as Celeste with Violet and Bear, because of course our time was done with this place. We used everything that could be used and, as always, never stack around to see the aftermath… The aftermath of horror.

  The horror…