I think I speak on behalf the other writers when I say we do not plan to all update at the same time xD It just happens to work out that way.
darkacex99 - Just hang around. You'll see in good time
mochi - I totally support putting Gaki into some action movies. Her reactions would be flawless xD She just needs to grow back her Renai Hunter hair and she'll be golden aha I swear, UFA has some brilliant actresses under their wing, and they have even more brilliant scripts and plots under their disposal HERE AT JPHIP WOOP WOOP
Sometimes I wish we could just actually direct these movies IRL They'd be best sellers, box office hits FO SHO.
Nah, that was the only Silence of the Lambs reference. I don't think I'm gonna be making references about fava beans or something like that here LOL But there will be other movie references along the way =]
LOL @ your getting beat by gaki with <3's comment lol I think we're both sick sadists or something. I'm just going to keep making jail worse for Ai, and I feel kind of bad for doing so, but girl's gotta build some character, right? HAHAHAHIMSUCHASICKHUMANBEINGOHMYGOD.
kiwi - <3333 I won't be gone for long~ NOT WITH THIS CHALLENGE GOING ON! NOT ON MY DIGNITY DAMNIT.
risa_ai - not angst LOL not yet anyway. *cue villainous laughter*
rndy - I'll leave it to you to decide. Details details!!!! We're essentially playing a huge game of CLUE lol
Quietriot - I'm sorry for making your friend think you're crazy ^^; I like showering authors with love and affection, because I know how much a bitch it can be to just sit down and write <3 Just showing my appreciation <333
Be prepared, btw. You're only going to want to hold her for the rest of the damn story LOL You might wanna skewer me (and some other people) along the way haha Sayu and Gaki are a tag-team...sort of LOL You'll see. And I totally agree with getting cuffed
Totes wouldn't mind lol And we're gonna see here who won the battle in cell #1111~
sorry ahead of time for disappointing you hahahAND HO HO HO, THIS CHALLENGE IS SOOOOOOO ON~ Who told you of my gambling addiction, HMM?!?!? I can't say no to bets T__T It's a problem ahha
CHLoe_Li - I feel so bad whenever I see people want Takagaki, or like ships in general here LOL It's not meant to be that way, unfortunately. Maybe in a roundabout way, but definitely not the usual. Go read the other wonderful fics by all the other wonderful authors here for your fluffy romance fix <33333 They're all wonderful and great!! Only come here if you want to see me ruin your OTPs and destroy their lives hahha
---------
Chapter Two: The InfernoShe felt like she was in high school all over again, if one were to only trade the co-ed uniformed, semi-innocent population of impressionable youths for a large number of female criminals dressed in neon orange jumpsuits. Ai picked up her tray of gruel and stale-looking rice and stood off in a corner of the dining area, searching for a table. Prison life, from what she deduced, was really no different from high school. Most of the women seemed to be conglomerated into groups, or gangs rather, and many of the convicts shot her dangerous glares whenever she tried to occupy a portion of their respective tables. If this were high school, Ai was the loser that ate her bento alone in a bathroom stall until it was time for classes to resume.
Luckily, she spotted a table off by the garbage area in the opposite corner of the room. It smelled quite literally of trash, but it was a table, and no threatening stares were passing her way. She picked at the rice on her tray with her wooden chopsticks, hesitating for a short while as she examined the stale grains before popping it in her mouth to find that it was just like chewing on small pebbles. The "rice" scraped against her teeth like sandpaper with each bite, but damn it all she was hungry, even if it would take some getting used to. There was little she could do to dispute the matter anyway.
Five trays suddenly slammed on the table, with five different women materializing at the table shortly after. Ai looked up to see her company was an odd group of women that all seemed somewhat friendly at first glance. One could never be so sure, though.
"Prison food not to your liking, new girl?" one of them quipped as she settled herself beside the innocent loner. She had very long black hair, and her eyes turned into pleasant half moons as she smiled, her lips parting and revealing a cute little snaggle tooth whenever she did. This one didn't seem too...dangerous.
"...I can't complain," Ai muttered, poking at the questionable looking substance she dubbed as gruel.
"Don't eat that if you value your guts, new girl," another stated flatly. This one had long black hair also, but her appearance seemed less welcoming in comparison to the first. Ai couldn't read an ounce of expression on her face, and that made her feel unsteady as she took a seat beside her.
"...So what's your name, new girl?" a third one questioned. She seemed relatively taller than the rest of the four girls, even while sitting. Her hair felt just past her shoulders, and though her expression was as blank as a piece of printer paper, Ai felt a little more at ease with this woman than the former. She had an airhead-like quality about her voice that made her seem a bit more endearing than harmful, and that alone was comforting.
"T-Takahashi Ai."
"What're you in for, new girl?" the last two asked in unison, giggling like school girls after realizing they had just verbalized the same thoughts. Unlike the other three of the group, these two younger looking girls had their hair dyed into different shades of brown, though one had shorter hair and the other had hers tied back in a high ponytail. They both seemed much too young to be locked up in these prison walls, but their seemingly innocent exterior undoubtedly hid their true, conniving natures.
Ai looked up from her puddle of gruel to look each of the five girls in the eyes. None of them seemed like they wanted to outright cause any bodily harm to her, which was something of a relief after the morning she had. Paranoia might have wanted her to believe otherwise, but in this sort of hostile environment, she needed all the friends she could get, even if it was merely false security. "I'm...I'm innocent. I don't belong here..."
The group of five shared an amused look amongst themselves before bursting out in a fit of uncontrollable laughter, earning a few murderous stares from nearby tables directed their way. The unwanted attention made the innocent woman even more uncomfortable, and she sank lower in her bench to avoid the stares from other inmates.
Their hearty display simmered down eventually, and each of the girls took in a few deep breaths to calm themselves down back into the conversation. "Sorry about that, new girl, but you're a funny one. You'll fit right in," the snaggle-toothed one said, patting the innocent woman on her back appreciatively. "But seriously, what are you in for 'supposedly' then?"
"Laundering finances, corporate espionage, and attempted murder..."
The dense looking one whistled. "Damn, new girl. Triple threat, huh?"
"Corporate espionage, hmm? We've got a real badass over here, ladies. You must be quite the smart one to be making money off an honest living," the expressionless woman responded as she swirled her chopsticks in the pool of crud on her plate in boredom.
Were they toying with her? She was never one to be so easily unnerved by insolent taunting, but being thrown in jail for a crime she did not commit and being humiliated in the course of 24 hours or so was enough to wear her patience to its breaking point. "I said I didn't do it," Ai retorted, slamming her fists against the table in her frustration.
"Whoa whoa, calm down there, new girl. No one said you did." The snaggle-toothed female carefully took Ai's tray away from her proximity before speaking again. "I'm Suzuki Airi by the way, and that right there is Yajima Maimi," she pointed to the dense looking woman, "...and this one here is Nakajima Saki," she pointed to the the expressionless female beside her, "...that one's Okai Chisato," she pointed to the short haired younger woman, "...and finally we've got Hagiwara Mai right there," pointing to the ponytailed girl.
Ordinary looking girls, with ordinary sounding names. It was hard to believe that these women were capable of crime at all. Ai was slow to question, but eventually curiosity had won the battle. "It's a pleasure, but...what are you all in for?"
Again, the snaggle-toothed one named Airi spoke up for the group while the rest busied themselves with eating the crap off their plates. "Nothing quite as impressive as yours, new girl. We were arrested for partaking in a contraband circle. You know, providing yakuza members all over Japan with decent artillery and whatnot. It's nothing really."
Chisato scoffed. "Pfft, don't be so modest, Airi," she paused to wave her chopsticks and make sure she had the new girl's attention. "You heard about that epic robbery attempt at Asahi bank in Tokyo two years ago? Made headlines for weeks! Those idiots were using our smuggled firearms. Top of the line stuff. They were just too stupid to use 'em right," she said proudly, taking a bite out of her stale rice.
Ai opened her mouth to say something, but was interrupted when an uproar of jeers and catcalls overtook the entire dining area. She looked toward the entrance of the vicinity to find that officer Niigaki had strolled in with her usual hardened scowl and not a single hair out of place, followed by the inmate that she could only assume to be the one called Tanaka from cell #1111. It didn't take a genius to figure out who had won that battle, however.The convict looked like she had seen better days. She had sported a black eye, a bloodied lower lip, and a few red hand marks around her neck like some sort of choke hold imprint. The broken inmate shot her adoring crowd with a deadly glare as she walked through the cafeteria line to get her breakfast.
The innocent woman examined the convict carefully. She noted her honey brown hair and the woman's misaligned sharp eyes through her ruffled fringe; her orange uniform resembled a giant neon garbage bag that was two sizes too big. Ai almost wondered if the defiant inmate was starved during her stay here at the reformatory; the inmate's stick thin arms exposed through rolled sleeves were a frightening indication of possible starvation, and it made her sick just thinking about it. This woman didn't seem like being capable of any sort of criminal activity either or capable of a good fight for that matter, but she did prove to be a thorn at officer Niigaki's side. Ai quickly averted her attention away when she noticed the beaten up woman taking a seat at the far end of her dining table. The way she sat and picked at her grubby meal resembled something of a yankii, her lips muttering some presumable silent curses as she grudgingly ate her breakfast.
Airi leaned from the table to get a better angled view of the yankii at the opposite end. "Another day, another beating, hmm Reina? Just can't get enough of that officer Niigaki, hmm?" she jeered, before leaning back to her original position.
The yankii was not amused. She threw her chopsticks at the snaggle-toothed woman, but the latter had managed to duck from the line of fire just in time. Growling over her poor aim, the yankii shoved her untouched tray out of her way so she could rest her head upon folded arms on the table.
Airi laughed in her seat, her attention returning to the new girl in her midst. "Those two are like fire and ice, you know? Anytime Reina can get under officer Niigaki's skin, she will. And then the officer will proceed to beat the shit out her. It's like this at least once a week. Wouldn't mind getting caught in a cell with that officer though," she mused airily, leaning her chin against a loose fist as she gazed upon the decorated officer pacing along the cafeteria.
Maimi slapped Airi's head playfully, earning a frown from the daydreamer. "You know you're a messed up con that's spent one too many days in prison if you start developing some Stockholm complex over the resident head of the guards."
The five girls of the group laughed, while Ai smiled sheepishly in good nature. She herself didn't have the most pleasant first encounters with the stern officer. A shiver ran down her spine as she recalled the events of this morning. Perhaps Airi's strange infatuation with the cold-hearted officer had some actual substance behind it, though...
As if on cue, the officer of interest emerged from the crowd to their specific table. She wore her usual pokerface as she perused the faces, pausing to linger on the yankii at the end of the table before addressing the latest addition to the facility. "Takahashi, you've been assigned to work with the cleaning services. You will follow officer Michishige to your respective location upon roll call. Understood?"
Ai nodded, and the officer paced back to the front of the cafeteria with the other guards on duty.
Airi sighed happily, and the other four girls rolled their eyes. "Laundry duty for the new girl? What a drag for you," Saki commented, taking a sip from her cup.
"Is it
that bad?" Ai asked.
"Not really, if sorting soiled cloth strikes your fancy. It's the dumps, though," Maimi commented. "And you've got two of the most spineless ass-hats in the facility working down there."
"You'll see when you get there," Mai chirped happily.
---------
The innocent convict hadn't a clue what any of the contraband girls meant by their "spineless ass-hats" comments as she was marched through the hallways of the housing cells with a roller collecting bin. There was hardly anyone else in her midst, aside from the few guards that were scattered about to keep watch. The black-haired officer from that morning was the Michishige figure that officer Niigaki had referred to during breakfast, and Ai was incredibly thankful to be under this guard's watch as opposed to the latter. Though her voice had a somewhat irritating nasal-quality to it, at least she seemed to have more of a heart than the head of the guards.
After collecting all the dirtied sheets, Ai was directed to a lower level of the facility. It was a dark, tangled maze of corridors and rooms, boilers and furnaces, piles upon piles of cleaning detergents and lines of retrograde washing machines along the very heart of the lowest level. Here the innocent convict found herself in greater company, spotting more than a few orange uniforms scattered about the area, with officers lined up along the perimeter as expected.
Michishige kept a close eye on her; she could feel it. She could feel the officer's eyes following her as she rolled her cart to the nearest washing station, and a familiar shiver ran down the convict's spine. So much for any benefit of the doubt with that one. Ai wondered if the seemingly kinder officer was capable of driving inmates to their knees like her commanding officer. It was difficult to fathom as she recalled how gently the woman had handled her post-shower earlier this morning, but the paranoia was making her manic, and she chose instead to focus her mind on the mundane task she was assigned.
"Hey, slow down with dumping that crap in here, new girl." Ai turned away from the penetrating gaze of the black-haired officer to meet the eyes of her scolder. This woman was as young as the Mai and Chisato contraband girls from lunch, maybe older, and her hair was just about the same shade of brunette as well. With her thin lips and puppy dog eyes, she hardly seemed like a threat just like the rest of them. Ai slowed in passing off the dirtied sheets, wondering what this woman was in for...
When the other half of their two-way assembly line wasn't responding and receiving her sheets, Ai looked up to find her brunette partner bickering with a taller, black-haired female for bumping into her for the nth time that morning. This other female was impressively tall, but looked incredibly lanky and ditzy to boot. Her bright, wide eyes were so doe-like, she seemed more like a lost child than a criminal. And it wasn't until the two women were up in arms, that Ai realized how sickeningly pale both inmates were against the fluorescent lights of the room.
"You two!!" The bickering women stopped their argument upon hearing the oddly stern squeaky sounding voice at the opposite end of the room. "Shut up and get back to work!"
Though the order was not directed towards her, Ai couldn't help but stare at the commanding officer of the division. It seemed as though with each passing second, her initial impressions of the woman were being torn down brick by brick. This was bothering her to no end, and she had no idea why. Despite herself, Ai had this nagging inkling that the officer was not the person she portrayed herself to be. Whatever that true personality would be was a thought for another time of day.
"So, Takahashi right? Corporate espionage criminal who insists she's not guilty?"
The innocent woman stopped mid-pass to look at the brunette in disbelief. "How did you...?"
"Find out?" the taller woman interrupted, grabbing the sheets from the confused Ai. "You're in a
women's penitentiary. Word gets around faster than a bad case of chlamydia."
"Gotta hand it to you, new girl, that's pretty impressive," commented the brunette as she struggled to stuff the last of the sheets into the washing machine. "...Even if you didn't supposedly do it."
"...Thanks, I guess."
The trio rolled the collection bin off to the side while the machine did its business, and waited in the wings by few crates of detergent. They remained relatively silent for some time, and Ai could somehow feel officer Michishige's eyes once more piercing straight through the crates right at her. Her involuntary shiver was interrupted when the brunette randomly face-palmed herself. "How rude of us. I'm Mitsui Aika by the way, and this idiot here is Kusumi Koharu."
Ai nodded her head to acknowledge her new company, her attention briefly caught by the sudden appearance of the black-haired officer rounding the corner of the room to finally come into her line of view. Something...just wasn't right with her, Ai mused. "...And what are you in for?...If you don't mind me asking..."
Koharu shook her head, a goofy grin on her face as she replied. "Hacking."
"Yeah, we got a little careless," Aika added, rolling the collection bin with the heel of her foot. "We started out with hacking into bank computer systems to get some penny change for some good times after classes at university. But after we realized how easy it was, we moved on to breaking into corporate finance holds."
"But even that wasn't enough!" the taller woman chirped. "We started making some contacts with the black market, and a lot of money was on the line for some of Japan's nuclear weaponry. So we hacked into the National Defense system and managed to re-route a fresh set of nukes to the North Koreans for some big cash."
"...We obviously got caught. The government managed to trace the codes back to our apartment and here we are..." Aika sighed, pushing the cart away with a half-hearted kick.
The cart rolled off toward the washing machines until a hand prematurely stopped it along the way. Officer Michishige pushed the cart back toward the trio, who in some fearful act of nervousness stood straight upon her arrival, arms pinned tightly along their sides. Ai dared to make eye contact with the phantom guard, finding herself at a loss with the woman all over again. The officer lacked that chilling look in her eyes that Niigak had, but there was something else trapped behind those seemingly unfeeling black orbs...but what?
"Get in line. It's time for lunch." Her voice was uncharacteristically low, and somehow still managed to squeak as it left her throat. She was a peculiar figure to Ai, and she watched the officer carefully as the trio marched to their positions and proceeded to the main floor of the institution.
----
This really was high school, Ai thought to herself.
As the innocent convict settled herself at an empty table by the garbage for lunch, she found herself in the mixed company of the contraband group from that morning and the hackers from the cleaning services. The combination was explosive. It had been mainly Saki and Maimi exchanging insults with the hackers, discussing their superiority in the realm of crime and execution to the "tech geeks'" cowardice driven set of algorithmic manipulations, while the remaining contraband convicts ignored the additional company altogether. This childish dispute obviously happened far too frequently for the rest to even feign interest anymore.
"So what's with that Tanaka girl?" Ai questioned the trio.
Airi shrugged her shoulders. "No one really knows why Reina's the way she is, or why officer Niigaki seems to have it out for her. Our group has been here the longest, as far as we know, but Reina's been here even longer. Whatever caused this probably happened well before the time we arrived. You're better asking her yourself."
"But good luck with that. Reina isn't exactly as welcoming as the rest of us. If anything, she's single-handedly managed to have everyone in the reformatory put her on their personal shit lists," Mai added.
Chisato laughed into her drink, spotting portions of the table with her beverage. "Do you guys remember that one time she got caught in a fist-fight in the showers? That was AWESOME!"
As the convicts recollected the scene happily amongst themselves, Ai tuned out from the conversation to steal a glance at the yankii. She sat by her lonesome at the edge of another dining table, looking bored as she poked at her meal in her own disinterest. There was no reason for Ai to hold any suspicions or ill-will against the inmate, but much like officer Michishige, and to an extent, officer Niigaki, there was something about these three figures that piqued her interest, something...she just couldn't place her finger on.
------
Similar to the times of recklessness and injury-causing incidences on the playgrounds during the recess periods of one's middle school days, leisure time at the reformatory held the same potential for danger according Ai's observances. The innocent woman wandered the dirt grounds of the open recreational field, tossing a pebble up in the air and catching it as she silently surveyed the environment.
The hackers opted to huddle together against the shade of the institution, no doubt as a result of their habituation from several years of cooping themselves before their computers. The members of the contraband group were off in a corner, surrounded by other inmates Ai was not familiar with. They seemed to be engaged in some sort of auction-like activity as Airi and the members of her group pointed left and right to raised hands in the surrounding crowd.
As she wandered closer to the group, she noticed Reina standing with her back against the wall, her mismatched eyes scanning the grounds for any potential intruders venturing into her personal space. The two had made brief eye contact, causing Ai to drop her pebble absently. The yankii did not seem to care enough to acknowledge her existence as she broke their contact to continue scanning the area. Unsatisfied with their all too brief "encounter," Ai's eyes chose to not leave the lone wolf yankii's, her sights set solely on the isolated woman as her feet led her to wherever her destination happened to be.
"Hey, new girl, care to join?"
The sound of Maimi's airy voice tore Ai's attention away from her figure of interest. The crowd surrounding the contraband members parted to allow the innocent woman entry. "What exactly are you doing?"
The convicts exchanged knowing smiles. Airi reached out a hand to pull their latest addition closer inside their circle. Verifying she had the innocent woman's full attention, the snaggle-toothed convict held out her arm, tilting it downward until a several packs of cigarettes slid straight into her open palm from underneath her sleeve.
Ai felt her jaw drop in surprise. These criminals quite literally had a variety of tricks up their sleeves, so to speak. "How did you manage to get those?"
Airi winked at her shocked onlooker. "We may be stuck here in jail, but that won't stop us from doing what we do best! We can get you whatever you'd like."
"The five of us might have been unlucky enough to get caught, but there are even more of us out there. Connections are key, after all," Saki added, handing some cigarettes to a few inmates in the crowd.
"What's the catch?" Ai asked as she watched Saki and the others bargain and barter with other female convicts.
"No catch, really. We need to have our fun somehow. So we make bets with one another, and to the winner go the spoils. Plus, it's fun to know how easily we can get away with these things even under 'high security'," Chisato stated, a mischievous smirk plain on her features.
The innocent woman shrugged her shoulders. She was definitely impressed with how these women managed to take advantage of the system, and their cunning and skills would surely be an asset someday.
Ai eased away from the crowd to return to her original task of observing. She noted a particular group of women running laps around the periphery of the field, only because they had made regular passes around the loner yankii against the wall. Tugging on Mai's sleeve without losing sight of the marathoners, Ai asked, "Who are they?"
The youngest of the contraband group walked closer to Ai as she pointed to the female running laps. "Oh, you mean the bombers?"
"Ehhhh?"
"Yeah," Mai began, walking away towards their direction and away from the rowdy auction crowd. "Shortly after we arrived, these girls got stuck here, too. They're all bomb specialists and mercenary fighters, assassins, stuff like that. Can beat you up and blow your guts in one fell swoop. You'd be wise to not get on their bad side, new girl. They've been known for killing other inmates that rubbed them the wrong way."
"What the- Watch where you're standing, bitch!"
Ai had wanted to look into the eyes of the person she had the misfortune of running into, but soon felt her heart racing in a frenzied panic when she realized the victim in this scenario would be herself instead. The innocent woman began to cower back in fear once she recognized the oncoming attacker to be one of the convicts that belonged to the bomber assassins group running their rounds, her breathing growing more frantic when she found herself cornered between the stone wall fence and the raging beast coming toward her. She could only shut her eyes tightly and turn away as she felt the attacker's strong hands lifting her body up against the wall and smashing her against the stone foundation repeatedly.
"HEY, HEY! MAASA WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?!"
At once, the thrashing stopped, but Ai could still feel the woman's hands pinning her shoulders forcefully against the wall. She cracked open an eye to find the contraband girls, the hackers, the beast's ragtag comrades, and officer Michishige surrounding them in a concentrated half-circle. "Put her down, Maasa."
The beastly woman growled, crushing the innocent woman's shoulders against the wall one last time before dropping her gruffly to the ground. The monstrous convict clashed shoulders with the petite guard as she made her exit, making sure the officer heard every last curse she muttered under her breath as she returned to her laps.
"Get on your feet, Takahashi," the dark-haired officer ordered.
Ai did as she was told, though she found it a bit difficult to breath steadily after that beating. Her eyes once again met with the black-haired officer's as the latter surveyed her beaten body for any alarming bruises. The guard seemed to be satisfied with the victim's current condition, giving her a hard look before walking back to where the other officers stood on duty.
"What was that about, new girl?"
She broke from her trance to find Airi and Koharu patting the dust from her dirtied uniform. "I'm not...too sure."
Shaking her head from anymore thoughts about the peculiar guard and stilling her heart after facing death in the form of a beastly bomber, Ai scanned the half-circle of bodies that surrounded her. Most of the wild woman's posse had evacuated the scene to return to their previous activities, except for one of the shorter members of the group. The petite figure pushed passed the hackers and the contraband girls to face Ai directly.
"I apologize on behalf of the group for what happened, new girl. Maasa's got...quite the temper, to say the least," the tiny woman stated, extending her hand in front of her for an apologetic shake. "Captain, by the way."
Ai took the gesture kindly, shaking the woman's hand in return. The innocent convict looked around to find her new circle of "friends" smiling in relief. They were definitely a motley crew of females, but at least it made Ai feel a bit less alone in Project Morning. She was convinced she wouldn't make it through her first night, that the despair of being convicted for a crime she did not commit would lead her into suicide. But through some forgiving stroke of luck, here she was in the company of some friendly faces, willing to at least give her the impression that they would help her ease into her "new life."
The injustice of her conviction would never be erased from her mind, not this easily of course. But that was something she would worry about tomorrow. For now, it was necessary to establish some human connection to protect her overall fragility, to set the foundation of her vengeance into place. Before making some noise of her own, she would settle for the serene silence of the new world around her, the rapid beating of her heart finally stilling to its regular pace.
...Until a heart-dropping cry of absolute pain ripped through the otherwise calm skies of the common grounds. The women in the half-circle exchanged silent looks of confusion, soon joining the rush of other inmates toward a specific corner of the grounds to get a look of what just happened.
The group pushed their way through the crowd, only to be restrained by some officers that separated the inmates from the scene. To Ai's horror, she found a group of young girls isolated from the rest of the convicts, no older than 15 perhaps, standing off toward one side of the crowd while two other teenage girls stood at either side of the bloodied remains of what could only be a male officer. Both of the girls had blood dripping from their arms and staining even their mouths, yet neither the duo or the group off to the side surrendered any expression on their faces. They were frightfully expressionless.
Officer Niigaki and a group of muscular male officers broke through the crowd to retrieve the two bloodied inmates and dragged them with little struggled to a separate corridor of the institution. Ai wondered if this gruesome occurrence was routine with the way the guards had acted without any direct orders from their head.
Michishige walked up to her commanding officer, who was currently examining the remains of one of their own. It made Ai shudder as she noted the equally blank expression on the head guard's face. Did that woman have a soul? The two women exchanged words as other guards busied themselves with carrying the shredded remnants of a corpse to a separate corridor in the facility. Niigaki nodded in silence while her black-haired partner presumably reported the events of the crime, apathetically kicking dirt over the pool of blood as she listened.
Interest amongst the inmates dissipated as they all began to line up at the sound of the alarm signaling the conclusion of their leisure time. As Ai fell into position, she felt a tapping on her shoulder. She looked behind her to see Aika smiling, her index finger motioning the innocent woman to lean in before they processed back to their cleaning service duties. "Welcome to Project Morning, Takahashi, where the good times just keep rolling."
-----
And now you've met our lovely jailbirds. Well, most of them anyway LOL Toned it down a few notches since the omake kind of wasn't so sweet lol I mean, if you completely disregard that last scene lol
Have you been paying attention to details?
Have I successfully made you suspicious of the guards, and Reina? HMMM!??!?! lol
All this serious bidness is making me go rawr ahha I should probably go back to HnK and get all happy again xD Because I miss writing Takagaki~ And Ai being the smoothest operator and Risa being in denial LOL And you know, love and funny things in general LOL Because after this chapter, things will just keep getting worse for our heroine T__T