Chapter Thirteen: No way out

"Damn, what are we gonna do?" Chika asked after a few more tries at opening the window.

Michiru watched him while taking no notice to Zen staring at her. Ookami, on the other hand, did take notice of his staring and stood closer to Michiru, glaring at him. Zen chose to ignore the werewolf girl's glare and took a few steps closer to Michiru.

"Hey, Glasses Girl, just then I grabbed your hand-" Zen started but was cut off when a thud was heard nearby.

Everyone quickly looked toward where the sound came from, putting up their guard quickly. Ookami got in front of Michiru while Chika and Shito drew out their weapons.

"Waah, wait, wait!" a familiar voice exclaimed, making Ookami perk to it. "H-h-help me, my hip hurts."

"Koyomi?!" the members of Z-Loan exclaimed once seeing it was their friend and classmate.

"Yoimachi-san," Ookami said as she went over to the girl and helped her up.

"What are you doing here?!" Chika exclaimed.

"Why are you here too?" Shito asked.

"Who's she?" Zen asked but his question fell on deaf ears.

"I….I don't know either," Koyomi said. "I was making dinner in the dorms, and before I knew it, I was here."

Shito remained silent for a moment before looking at Chika. "Was it Yomi?"

"Probably," Chika said.

Just then, the intercom came on, catching everyone's attention again.

"Ah….ah….ah….eh? Did it turn on already?" a voice said through the intercom.

"The school intercom?" Toko said as she looked up at it with everyone else.

"Eh, no way. That one's the switch? Ah, how annoying." the voice said, sounding somewhat bored to Ookami. "Eh, people from Z-Loan and A-Loan. I'm only gonna say it once, so you better listen carefully. Your lives are currently in my hands. Don't worry, I won't do anything to you yet as long as you stay here for now. This place can only be opened by me. I can let you out but not all of you. Only those who can get through this situation can leave."

"What does the person mean by that?" Ookami thought as she tilted her head to the side, staring up at the intercom.

"And that's by cutting your numbers in half." the voice said, shocking almost everyone.

"What?!" Toko exclaimed in disbelief.

"It's very simple. Half of you live, half of you die and it's all good." the voice continued as Chika and Zen rushed down the hall toward the room where the equipment for the intercom system was. "You can fight and break up or suicide. Anything's okay, do whatever you want. Good luck to you all."

The intercom then turned off just as Chika and Zen reached the room and kicked the door opened. However, much to their dissatisfaction, there was no one within the room nor were there any signs on where they had run off to...or even if anyone was really there.

"Damn, he's really gone." Chika said as he and Zen looked around the room a bit.

"...After seven days, when it's the loan's deadline, everyone's dead." Shito said once Chika and Zen had rejoined the group.

"So, that means we have to get out of here within seven days?" Toko asked.

"Nope, we still have to earn money after getting out." Shuuji pointed out, "So, we gotta leave earlier."

"Leaving us here like this, A or Z-Loan will eventually lose half their people." Zen said. "Doing something like this especially, probably from the start, they wanted to eliminate us all."

"Then why don't they just kill us all now? Isn't it weird for them to do all this for that?" Chika said.

"What did you say?!" Zen exclaimed, glaring at Chika.

"Ahh, what, shorty?" Chika asked, returning the glare.

"Hey, hey guys," Michiru started as she approached the two boys with Lyca and Ookami following closely behind. "It won't help if we're fighting with each other. Let's figure out the situation?"

"He's not even one of us!" Chika said, looking at Michiru. "Why should we help them out as well?!"

"I'm not a shorty!" Zen exclaimed.

"Lyca just went to check out some things." Michiru said. Ookami let out a growl to this but Michiru chose to ignore it. "The water fountains are working normally, so at least there's water to use. But food….there's only some emergency canned food in the storage room. It's definitely not enough for us to eat for seven days. We have to work together to come up with a way to escape. It's the same for the zombie-like students outside. Since they're living people, they won't be able to last long."

"Wait," Shuuji said. "Don't order us on your own! Us A-Loan have our own way of doing things."

"Shuuji…." Toko said as she and Zen looked back at their companion.

"Isn't it a little too strange? We almost reached our goal." Shuuji said, "This is also Z-Loan's place. How do we know that those people outside and you guys aren't together?"

"What?" Shito asked as he glared at the A-Loan member.

"Besides, from the start we were rivals competing for survival," Shuuji continued. "It's still the same now. It's just that killing them is an option-"

"Enough! That's enough!" Koyomi said as she went up to Shuuji and hit him on the head with her ladle.

"Ow!" Shuuji exclaimed, holding his head.

"There's no time for bickering." Koyomi said.

"Koyomi-san," Michiru said as she looked at her friend with worry.

"That hurts," Shuuji said as he glared at Koyomi. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Shut it!" Koyomi said as she returned the glare. "If you say so, then living separately would be good enough, right? A-Loan will live on this floor and Z-Loan will live on the second floor. Using weapons is not allowed! Any other questions?"

"You…." Shuuji growled out but backed away when Ookami got between them and snarled at him, protecting Koyomi behind her.

"Wait a minute," Zen said, "living separately is okay but not using weapons….You could plan a sneak attack on us."

"What?!" Chika said as he got into Zen's face. "Why would we do something like that?!"

"That's right!" Zen said, glaring at him. "If you come into our territory, don't blame us if you get killed!"

"Great! We'll prepare ourselves too!" Chika said.

Ookami let out a sigh to this as she went back over to Michiru, taking Koyomi with her in case.

"Ah, they're arguing again." Michiru said as she watched Chika and Zen fight. "At this rate, we're doing what the enemy wants."

"It's what happens when you let the idiots do most of the talking, Kita-san." Ookami said as she looked at the said "idiots" fight.

"What was that?!" Zen and Chika exclaimed as they turned their glares on Ookami.

"Akatsuki-san and little boy heard." Ookami said as she returned the glare.