Blades of Despair

-Chapter Eighty-One-

Listen to the Whispers of Your Heart

This chapter is told from Morino's perspective (when in first person)

Sanda Heikichi was pacing nervously around her room. She bit her nails, despite having filed them neatly that same morning, and circled her dormitory once more. She was in disbelief. She'd just been told that she was trapped inside Seiko Academy, a place where she thought she would finally be safe. To make matters worse, she and the others had been told that the only way to escape would be to kill another student. Just the thought was enough to turn her stomach inside out, so she tried to occupy her mind with other thoughts, but every time it came back to the fact that these other students, whom she knew she could not trust at all, could kill her at any point. Her phone wasn't working - Sanda assumed that her captor had jammed any signals to her mobile, so she knew she couldn't reach anyone outside. She clenched her teeth.

"Think, Sanda, think," she whispered to herself. Suddenly, there was a series of frantic knocks on her door, causing her to shout, startled. Good grief, Sanda, get a hold of yourself! With a huff, she checked in the reflection of her phone's screen that her expression was as emotionless as possible. Satisfied, she walked over to the door and opened it, glaring at whoever had knocked.

"Sanda! Uehara says hello!" Sanda was unimpressed. It was the Ultimate RPG Player, Uehara Tsuru, cheerful and clueless as always. She was beaming up at Sanda with her crooked smile, and Sanda was dismayed to see that she had brought company. It was the silent boy - was his name Morino? Uehara had latched herself onto his arm, but he did not seem to mind. In fact, he did not seem to think anything. His poker face was almost as good as Sanda's.

"What do you want?" Sanda snapped. Uehara was unfazed by her curt tone.

"Uehara has brought Morino to Sanda for exercise," the smaller girl chirped.

"Exercise? Are you deliberately trying to waste my- hey!" Without waiting for Sanda to finish her question, Uehara barged past her into her room, dragging Morino with her.

"Come on, Sanda! Uehara will use her 'Guarantee' skill to make sure that friends have fun with Uehara!" Sanda could not make sense of the girl's blather, but seethed at the intrusion.

"What are you doing?" She demanded. Uehara let go of Morino and twirled on the spot, posing as she completed the full three hundred and sixty turn.

"Uehara has come to help friends Sanda and Morino with their levels!"

"Our... levels?" Morino was flummoxed.

"Yes! Uehara can see that Morino and Sanda have really levelled up their 'Mystery' skills, but they are really low on their 'Social' skills. Uehara is here to help!"

"Are you serious?" Sanda muttered. "What a pain... can you just leave?"

"No!" Uehara shouted, alarming the other girl. "Uehara is here to help and Sanda needs to be helped!" Sanda felt defeated. Perhaps this will pass the time - and she might even leave me alone afterwards.

"Okay," Sanda agreed, and Uehara cheered.

"Uehara is so happy! 'Happiness' skill has levelled up!" Uehara posed again, and Sanda fought every impulse to roll her eyes. "TIme for the first exercise! Copy Uehara!"

"Copy...?" Sanda was bemused, but then Uehara pointed towards the ceiling, put her other hand on her hip and kicked a leg in the air.

"Copy Uehara! This is the first exercise!" Sanda could not believe that this was happening, but nonetheless she obliged. She felt stupid, and was grateful that none of her video cameras were switched on and recording this. "Great work, Sanda! Okay, Morino, copy Uehara!" Without saying another word, Morino replicated the pose that Sanda and Uehara were performing. Sanda thought he looked even dumber than she, only because his face did not portray any emotion.