Summery: It was all a test wasn't it? To see if he'd keep his secret promise, to protect her no matter what happens, as a promise made in secret is still a promise. Nothing, not even the threat of Heavenly Host swallowing him whole, would deter his determination. How's that for keeping a promise?!

Yoshiki K. Ayumi S.

Rating: T (Extreme violence, slight language)

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Wow! x11x reviews on just the prologue!? I didn't think I would get that many. You guys are the best :D. Some of you may or may not have guessed what has happened, but I am genuinely very excited to keep writing and show everyone. I tried very hard to get this posted on Saturday the 17th of January, 2015. Your reviews really helped and fueled me to reach my goal. The next update will probably take longer, but I really wanted to get the first chapter up since the one before this was only the prologue. This is my first Corpse Party fic and my only wish is that you enjoy it :). Happy readings!

Disclaimer in the prologue!

Chapter 1: Remnants of Final Moments

Three... Three of her friends were confirmed dead. She couldn't handle it. She had already experienced a mental breakdown after Suzumoto's death, but now the double whammy of both Ms. Yui and Kishinuma? Basic instinct told her to run. She didn't know what from or where to, but the simple action would make her feel even the slightest bit better, so she turned tail and ran, taking off at top speed. She could have easily kept going long after she entered the decrepit hallway outside the infirmary. She had a habit of running from things that overwhelmed her, and now she was doing it yet again.

"Wait! Shinozak-" his voice called out; however it was interrupted by a cry of pain from deep in his throat: "AGH! Damn it! Not now!" He felt remnants of his final moment's pain all the time, but when he was separated from her it was much worse than usual. All the pain, each feeling was coming back. He felt his stomach tighten and pain clawing at his chest with an avid determination, ceasing his ability to breathe. He fell to the floor with a thud, covering his chest, trying to dull the rampant pain to no effect. He struggled to breath even though air could not enter his lungs. He felt like he was suffocating. His lungs were on fire, burning from the pressure. His head cracked next, making him move his other hand to his head. He wanted to cry out, but could not find the air to be able to do so. It hurt so much worse when he was remembering the full events, when he was alone. He felt as if the life were leaving him, even though he was already dead. He realized he was actually bleeding again, the substance seeping through the fingers clutching his head. He didn't want to experience the full feeling of any more of it, not again. He didn't want the rest of the pain to come.

Ayumi stopped in her tracks before she reached the stairs leading down to the first floor, she couldn't do that to Kishinuma again, especially in the state he was in now. Last time she had left him, when he found her again, he was injured and had a cut chain on his left ankle. He thought she didn't notice his injury, but she did. He had a large bruise on his head, almost hidden by his hair, but the black-ish blue was still slightly visible. He had also seemed to space out a lot. It made her worry about him... She shook her thoughts and rushed into the room. Kishinuma, eyes clenched tightly shut, was on his side and curled up on the floor, one arm over his chest, as if trying to relieve pain. The other clutched the front his head. A blue aura enveloped him, like a mist floating around him. Red liquid she assumed to be blood leaked from between the fingers holding his head and out of the corners of his mouth. Red also stained a large patch of the chest section of his white Kisaragi shirt, making it equally as red as his undershirt, if not even darker. Wait... She remembered one of the spirit's words: 'if you should happen to die here, you will feel the pain of death for all of eternity. There is no escape from this place, so you might want to pick a good one. kehehahaha!'

She shuddered, the spirits here were just so... unsettling. The thought did bring something up. How did Kishinuma die? She flashed back to just before they left to search for Ms. Yui. Kishinuma had flinched when she touched him and had been limping, favoring his right side. He was in obvious pain from the action of walking, but no injuries seemed to be on him until now. Also, with the other ghosts who had outward wounds, the wounds were always present unless they were just in flame form, which most of the spirits took. How did he make them look like they had disappeared? She looked at him as his breathing was coming back, and the red bled away, vanishing as if it had never been there in the first place. She wondered why he continued to breathe even after death. Perhaps it was habit. It ate at her that she could do absolutely nothing to help him. The blue aura remained. She guessed he knew he couldn't hide the fact that he was dead from her anymore, so he decided to not repress it.

The pain faded back to bearable. He was able to start his breathing again. Though it hurt a lot to breathe, he felt like he needed to do it, even though he really didn't. Why had the pain dulled? He hadn't even finished all the events up until his death, not that he was complaining or anything. The memories faded to the back of his head where they should be instead of playing involuntarily.

His eyes slipped open, and they focused on her. When he spoke, she could pick up genuine surprise and confusion in his voice, though hidden. She sometimes wondered why he had to be so guarded all the time.

"You- you're... You came back?" He realized the injuries were gone, but the aura remained. He felt relieved that she had not left him. Why had the blue aura stayed?

The way he looked up at her and met her eyes, she imagined, that if his eyes weren't completely empty and expressionless, she could see something in them. Something that was always there when he looked at her, but she could never tell what it was. Thinking back on it now, the meaning was clear. It was the same look she saw Morishige always give to Suzumoto, the same one Mochida gives to Nakashima. Affection. There was a small pang in Ayumi's heart. She would never see that look again. She realized she hadn't had a single thought about Mochida since Suzumoto's death when she had been separated from Kishinuma. Instead she missed Kishinuma, wondering why she felt insecure when he wasn't there... Then it hit her. During her experience in the horrible school, she had begun to develop feelings for Yoshiki. He always protected her, kept her safe, often at his own expense. Tears began to fall as she put her arms around him, pulling him close. How could she have been so blind!? Always seeking after Mochida when she knew for a fact he didn't have feelings for her and ignoring Yoshiki's feelings. The night before this had all happened he asked her to go to a Karaoke bar and she had turned him down without a second thought, she wished she wouldn't have been so oblivious. He froze, stiffening for a bit. She loosened up a little, had she accidentally aggravated his now invisible injuries?

When she had hugged him, he stiffened in complete surprise, where had that come from? As soon as she started to loosen, he snapped of it and hurriedly wrapped his arms around her, hugging her back. He didn't want her to think she had hurt him or that he didn't want it. It did hurt, but it was well worth it. He knew she was going to ask him eventually, and he dreaded the moment the question would pass her lips.

Ayumi noted somewhere in the back of her mind that the rumor about all ghosts being extremely cold wasn't true. Yoshiki was actually quite warm, perhaps all the normal victim's spirits were warm; they could turn into flames after all. When Ayumi pulled away, Yoshiki wiped a tear away from her eyes with his thumb. She didn't want to ask, but she needed to know, for closure: "How... What happened."

He sighed before speaking: "When you were being possessed, there were many revenants in the area. One of them killed me. Anyways, it doesn't really matter. Can't change anything after all." He didn't want to give her all the gory details, and so he wouldn't.

She felt no better, she still didn't know how he died, just what had killed him. It probably wouldn't have made her feel better even if he had told her, but something inside her wanted to know. She ultimately deduced that getting any information about it from him, as stubborn and bull-headed as he was, would be futile and so she let the matter slide.

His promise echoed in the back of his head, 'I promised myself as soon as I realized we were trapped here… that I'd protect her. No matter what happens.' He meant it. Any test this place wanted to throw at him, he would take on. He was going to keep his promise, "We just need to find Satoshi and the rest. I may not be able to go back anymore, but I'm going to get you out, even if it's the last thing I do."

Her heart dropped again; it definitely would be. There was nothing for him after this, only an eternity of pain in a damned school. He had been working so hard to turn his life around too. If only she hadn't introduced them to the charm, then none of this would be happening. Everyone would still be alive, well, and on their way to their futures: "I should never have suggested the charm. What a joke that was. We'll be friends forever because none of us will live long enough to grow apart. We're all going to die here. There's no hope." Her thoughts were headed down a bad path. Her breaths sped up. She was on the verge of hyperventilation again. Yoshiki's eyes darkened. Ayumi recognized it as being the only emotion a spirit's eyes could show besides pure insanity.

He was upset, very upset. He growled, "Don't you ever blame yourself. NOT FOR ANY OF IT!" His voice was distorted, like the spirits they had encountered. He felt the anger start to claw and grab at his sanity. He grasped his head and shook, forcing the rage away. He shouldn't be that angry, so why did it feel as so? He calmed himself down. The emotion in his eyes faded back into emptiness.

She almost wished that he would stay angry with her, because even if it wasn't positive, his eyes had lit with a spark of life and emotion. For a few seconds, she could pretend he was still with her, still alive. At least, as long as she didn't look at the blue swirl of his aura or hear the distortion of his voice. Just looking into his eyes, when he was angry, she could pretend. She was snapped out of her thoughts by an apology: "Sorry... it's… harder to control anger now." His voice softened to a tone he only ever used for her. "Now look at me." She looked into his now empty eyes, tears falling freely down her face, "when you suggested the charm, did you mean for this to happen?"

She had not, but she should have known it would. Researched it! Looked at the consequences of failing. Should have done anything but blindly performing a charm, having only read about it on Naho's blog on the Internet: "Well... No, but-"

"No buts. You were just trying to do something special for Suzumoto's last day. No one holds you to blame, except yourself." He wanted her to understand that. Her tears were slowing. "Now, let's go find the others, ok?"

"Wait!" She looked over to Ms. Yui, "We have to do something for her."

Yoshiki didn't know what to do. They couldn't bury her, since they couldn't even get outside: "What can we do for her?

Ayumi was deep in thought, racking her mind to find some way to give her a grave. She got an idea, "We could put her in the corner of the room and cover her with the bed sheet. I still have the pen we used to write the note on the podium, we could write her Epitaph on the wall above her."

Yoshiki thought on that. It could work. He lifted Ms. Yui off of the bed and Ayumi grabbed the bloodied sheet she had been atop of. He laid her in the corner, near where Ayumi's candle still burned brightly on the counter, a beacon to all their friends in the other spaces.

Ayumi removed the panda necklace from around Ms. Yui's neck before she draped the cloth over her, placing the panda necklace on top of the sheet. She moved to uncap the pen and write the epitaph on the wall, but the thought of why she was doing an epitaph in the first place made her hands shake. She took a deep breath, she had to do this, for Ms. Yui. She steadied her hand.

The Epitaph Read:

Shishido Yui-sensei
1987-2010

Beloved Teacher
We Miss Her Dearly

She recapped the pen before she hesitated in putting it away. She opened the cap again and drew some flowers on the sides of the epitaph. Since they didn't have any real ones, that was the best she could do. She put the pen away this time, sat down, and cried. Yoshiki didn't say anything, but knelt down next to her and placed a hand on her shoulder. She leaned into him and cried. She froze having only just realized something: "I-I never made one for Suzumoto."

If she wanted to make one for her she could, it wasn't as if she didn't remember where Suzumoto was, and she was almost just outside the door to the infirmary. He spoke up, "Would you like to? We could right now."

She always hated passing that wall and seeing what had become of Suzumoto, but she couldn't give her a proper burial, even if they did have access to a shovel and the outside. She was in far to many pieces for that, not even recognizable as a human anymore. Ayumi didn't even know how to even partially cover her. So she was at least going to get an epitaph: "Yes, let's go."

Approaching the sight of her murder, Yoshiki felt much sympathy for her. If he couldn't handle the pain of his death very well when he was not by Ayumi's side, how did she feel? Had she found her way to Morishige? He left deep thought and once again watched as Ayumi worked.

The Epitaph Read:

Suzumoto Mayu-chan
1994-2010

Beloved Friend
No One She Met Could Ever Hate Her

She was drawing the flowers again. They really were beautiful flowers, he noted that she really should give herself more credit as an artist. What she wrote was true. Suzumoto had an underlying charm about her that made everyone's day a little brighter. She was a good listener and a nice person. She also had an innocence about her. She and Shinohara had found out about his poorly hidden affection for Ayumi one day and badgered him constantly about it ever since. Suzumoto often encouraged him to tell her, but didn't push. Shinohara had tried to give him a big shove more than once, which more often than not didn't work out to well in his favor at all, usually making his situation worse. His mind was trailing off topic. He had to remind himself of the situation. They were in an old abandoned school that had been torn down years ago and was now occupied by dangerous ghosts. He was dead. Everyone else had to be found. They had to escape. She had to escape.

Ayumi didn't want to lose anyone else to this school. She was determined to find everyone. She turned facing Yoshiki. Her fist involuntarily clenched. Even if she did find everyone else, Yoshiki, Ms. Yui, Suzumoto- they would still be trapped. It was so unfair, all of it.

He saw that she had turned to face him, but she stopped, eyes unfocused, she appeared deep in thought. "You ready?" He asked. The faster Ayumi found the others and a way out, the more of a chance there was for her survival. It also meant the faster they would be separated and the pain would come again, which was not something he fancied so much, but her safety came before his feelings or his own well-being.

"Huh?" She then repeated in her head what he had just asked, "Oh, yeah sure." They passed the unmoving door of the science lab. Ayumi looked up the stairs, as if trying to decide whether to ascend or not.

"There's no reason to go up the east stairs. There was no one up there before and I highly doubt that there is anyone now." She looked to him, he was probably right.

'Seeeeiiiiikooooo!' Passing the stairway, she was reminded of that awful gut-wrenching screech from upstairs, echoing through the girl's room like a song in the mountains. In and of itself, it didn't mean Shinohara was dead. Plenty of people had that name, right? PLENTY OF PEOPLE! She took a deep breath, getting worked up and hyperventilating yet again wouldn't help anything. That shriek alone didn't mean a fourth one of her friends was dead. She needed to find something to distract the thought from her mind.

"Oi, Kishinuma-kun." She called out. He turned his head to look at her, "Do you think you could travel through the spaces now, like Naho-san can?"

Yoshiki hadn't really thought about it before. He probably could, but he didn't know how. "I'm not sure, it's not like I really have an instruction manual or anything. If we did find Naho again, do you think she could help me figure it out?"

"I'm sure she can, we should find her." Even after the mishap with the doll, she still believed that Naho was a better form of information about Heavenly Host than she could ever be. She still believed in her.

"Right, we should." He knew it would be hard to find her though, she might not even be in the same space. In the past, Naho had usually come to them. They headed off in search regardless.

Something had also been making her curiosity itch, "I've been meaning to ask, but why do you look so normal most of the time. What was going on in the infirmary?"

He didn't know if he should tell her or not he decided to give her only what she needed to know to answer her question. "The full pain of my death is usually dulled. Then when I went to go after you, the full feeling started coming back. Then it was gone, back to the duller pain." She seemed to be processing what he had just said.

After around an hour, they ascended the stairs on the west side of the building, up toward the reference room. If Naho wasn't there… Then the only place to check would be the bathrooms on the east side and the first floor. If she wasn't in any of those places she probably wasn't in this particular closed space, which brought them back to square one. Ayumi pulled on the door, trying to slide it open. It moved, but did not open. So it was locked, not one of those strange doors that seemed like merely a decoration on the wall. Yoshiki stepped up to the door and put his hand in the handle. In a fluid motion, he pulled the door off with supernatural strength, tossing the broken piece of wood onto the ground. She had to admit, it was better than trying to look for the key. Naho did thankfully happen to be situated inside the reference room, leafing through old articles that were most likely about the missing children's case. She was probably trying to find out how she went wrong before. Ayumi called out, "Naho-san, we finally found you."

She lifted her eyes from the news article and tilted her head to the side, "You were… looking for me?" She turned to look strait at Ayumi. Her casual posture straitened in alert and she looked around the room before relaxing and looking at them again, this time more particularly Yoshiki, "Ah, met with a terrible fate, haven't you?"

He didn't answer, he knew it was a rhetorical question. She seemed to know everything that was going on, but not everything about the children's spirits. She probably knew exactly what had happened to him. Before Ayumi asked any questions about how Naho could see or sense him, Yoshiki decided to be blunt and to the point "We wanted to know how you moved through the spaces, and if we could."

Her head tilted again, "You could, but it wouldn't help you. Not only can you not travel to all the closed spaces, It would only be yourself. You don't have enough supernatural power to bring someone with you with the walls between the spaces being as strong as they currently are, and you don't want that, do you?" He shook his head, recalling the horrible experience last time he was alone. By the tone of her voice, he knew that Naho was well aware of the little fact that he couldn't be separated, he could only hope Ayumi didn't ask about it later.

"Could we maybe weaken the walls?" Ayumi asked, she was determined to find a way to see her friends again.

Naho's dead gazed turned to her, "Yes, that is what I have been trying to do for a while. I haven't been able to find the one whom I was looking for so I can only assume my Kibiki-sensei is in a space which I can not enter. Those child spirits are what is holding this place together. If they're appeased, the barrier between spaces should weaken significantly, perhaps even be taken down all together." Naho's fist clenched, "I was sure the murderer's repentance would help, but it only seemed to upset them further. There is something strange going on here, but I can't figure out what it is." She shook her head, "The only other thing that might work would be to give them back what was stolen from them. The murderer kept the stolen items and they are now hidden throughout the school. His doll should be able to help you find them, provided you know where it is."

Ayumi knew, she had left the damn thing right where she threw it in the infirmary. "I know where it is. We'll find those stolen items and return them!"

Naho smiled at them, "Good luck! ... You'll need it." She faded away, just as she always had.

As they were passing by the wall of Suzumoto's murder, he noticed a silver object on the ground. He heard Ayumi comment from behind him, "That- that looks like Morishige's phone." She picked it up and turned it on. There was one video, recently taken. Any photos or videos he had taken before that had all been deleted. The video consisted only of his soul-ripping screaming of 'Mayu!' before throwing the phone at the wall. The phone recorded him rushing down the hall and around the corner. He had something in his hand, but in their shock, they couldn't figure out what it was. After a period of time, the sound of glass breaking and something hitting the ground below somehow reached the phone though it would have been impossible to pick up the sound, given the distance to the nearest window. The video cut out shortly after. The phone fell from her limp hands. He also was in shock. Had Morishige just... committed suicide? Even if they got on each others nerves most of the time, he had his good moments as well. After the incident was well over, Morishige and he had had many a laugh about the glasses situation, both exceedingly thankful that no one had seen them. It was really awkward. But now... He was... dead. By his own hand. It really was a lot to take in. He couldn't say he didn't understand. He didn't know what he would have done if he had lost Ayumi while he was still alive. After they had both processed and mourned, they continued on to the infirmary.

Ayumi entered the infirmary, spotting the doll immediately. One of its arms and the head were hanging off the edge of a large crevice. Ayumi picked it up and it began to apologize again with its broken high-pitched robotically monotone voice, "I'm sorry. So so sorry..."

Sorry didn't mean a thing. Saying the words never made anything better. She handed the doll off to Yoshiki, desperate to have the thing out of her hands: "Where are the items that were stolen?"

The doll was silent for a time, its unmoving painted face giving no insight as to why it had paused. It spoke, "Ankoku no sekai." It paused again for a few seconds. "In the darkness the Suijin sings. There is where you'll find the first of the things."

So it was to do with darkness and water. The school did have an outdoor pool didn't it? And it seemed to be a perpetual dark rainy night. The full moon hadn't moved its position since they got here and all the clocks had seemed frozen in place. So what they had to do was find the pool right? She turned to Yoshiki, "The pool. We have to find the pool!" He nodded.

"It should be on the first floor." He told her. She didn't like going down to the first floor often since it was really dark down there and, in the past, she had only been able to use her candles for lighting as the torchlight refused to work. She hesitated, trying to think of where the pool would even be down there.

He noticed she wasn't moving, "let's go." He stated.

She snapped out of her daze, "R-right." They headed toward the stairs, the opposite direction of where Morishige had ran off, and descended. The halls were dark, as she remembered them. Preparing to grab a candle and light it, she was mildly surprised once Yoshiki made his way down. His aura was glowing, lighting a larger portion of the hallway then her candle would have been able to. She knew the flames gave off light, but she did not know that the aura would as well. Her searching head fell down to her side, having just found a candle, and she awkwardly said, "I- I guess we don't need a candle anymore."

He looked down, eyeing the candle already in her hand: "You could always leave that one here, for the others." She had been doing that, leaving a candle so that the others could know that they were still here... Well they weren't both there anymore, but Yoshiki had been the one to suggest it.

"I think I'll do that." With the blue light provided by his glowing mist, she easily located her lighter and flicked it on. Melting a little of the wax on the bottom, she lit the wick and set the candle down. Having done that, they continued on their journey.

They stopped for a bit in the entryway, just to see if by any chance the door happened to be open. She didn't know why it mattered to her, but she just wanted to get outside, to feel the rain on her face. It wouldn't help anyone escape, since they did happen to be in an alternate dimension after all. The door was as ornamental as always, refusing to budge even the slightest bit.

Yoshiki felt something off, like something wasn't quite right with the air. The feeling increased and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. He also felt like he was being... watched? He turned but saw nothing there. The feeling did not go away. What was hiding in the darkness?

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