Being Led by A Blood Red Thread [Closed]

Marlin nodded. He walked the mannequin over and had it open the book. He then laid its head in its hand as if it fell asleep. He then retreated to a dark corner and covered his face. He hid in the shadows, and practically vanished. He became quit.....a ghost as he hid.

Shiki watched from a distance as someone came by the mannequin. It was Tac. She looked at the person in a hood, the mannequin, and looked surprised. However, she then hid it, her eyes still lowered down to ground.

"Do you still not believe in the ghost stories?" she asked the mannequin.

Marlin simply waited to see what would happen from where he was. He did however ready his weapon.

"My best friend died yesterday..." Tac said with trembling fists. "She died after she told me she saw...her...you should really believe in the ghost stories because they're real..."

She wasn't looking straight at the mannequin, so she couldn't understand why he wasn't responding.

"You've seen her, right?" Tac asked. "I know you have since you say you've seen her...but all you've been seeing is a ghost. Right?"

Silence. Tac's left hand lifted, a sharp jagged dagger pointing at Marlin's mannequin.

"RIGHT!?"

Marlin kept quite and waited seeing if she would attack the doll.

Tac laughed hysterically at the mannequin.

"The ghost is real! The ghost is real!" she shrieked in a crazed manner. She leaned over as she swung her blade against the mannequin's neck. "The ghost is real!"

Marlin walked out silently and with his hand engulfed with black dust. He sent it all at her. Needles to say at that distance she would not move fast enough. "That's quite enough." Her body would become immensely heavy now. He walked over and took the dagger. "You are nothing, but a fool!" He then motioned for Shiki to come out.

But Shiki did not come out. In fact, as Marlin looked, she was no longer there. As Tac lay there on the floor, bound by the black dust, she opened her mouth and began to laugh crazily.

"YOU'RE THE FOOL!" she shouted at Marlin, cackling insanely. "See!? There's no friend of yours! You've never had a friend! Think of it? Has she ever been noticed by anyone else? Does she disappear and appear at the strangest times? Why do you think you thought she was the one in the paper? BECAUSE SHE IS THE ONE IN THE PAPER! YOU SAW THE GHOST! YOU SAW SHIKI AND NOW YOU'RE GONNA DIE!"

From out of the shadows, a man in a black suit and white mask came along carrying a hatchet.

"Prepare to die!" Tac cried madly.

Marlin shook his head. With his other hand glowing blue, he sent a block of ice dust flying at the man. "If this is the day I die, I shall not die lying on my back!" He held the dagger in his hand, and readied it as he sent the stream right at the man.

The man stepped aside to dodge the ice dust and then proceeded to charge at Marlin at an angle at an incredible speed.

"SHE EXISTS! SHE EXISTS!" Tac was screaming madly as she watched the scene and laughed.

The man lifted his hatchet and attempted to swing it at Marlin's neck.

Marlin saw that there was only one option left. As the hatchet came down, Marlin moved out of the way before sending the dagger he had flying toward the under part of the mans jaw. It would not kill him, but it would hurt a lot. (something like this. https://youtu.be/CsZUGoa3JHc?t=1m51s.)

The man screamed and cussed as he moved backward screaming. Tac stopped laughing as the man began to retreat.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?" Tac said. "COME BACK HERE AND FINISH HIM!"

It was only then that something glowed from the left hallway and a large ball of electric light shot at the man and forced him against a wall. From the hallway emerged Shiki, Dark Orson equipped. While one's cannon went out she had already pointed the other at Marlin and shot at him before he could react and would leave him numb.

"Stay down, " she said blankly.

Marlin knelled to the ground. "If you had been here violence could have been avoided." He said calmly. "He looked at her. "He shall be fine, but in pain. Though I am sad it ended up resorting to blood shed." He said as he looked to her.

Shiki looked blankly at Marlin.

"You should have stayed out of this," Shiki said blankly as she shifted Dark Orson back into claw form, moving closer towards him. "If you had I wouldn't have to resort to this."

She raised up the claws and looked as if she were about to pierce Marlin.

Marlin looked up as she raised the claw. He soon lowered his head. "I shall not harm a friend. Do what you will." He said in a calm voice. He closed his eyes, and waited for the hit.

Shiki then turned herself away from Marlin and turned behind her where Tac was already standing, another dagger in her hand.

"DIE YOU B****!" Tac screamed. Shiki merely blocked her with Dark Orson before she pulled up her foot and kicked her against a wall. Tac groaned. Shiki then reverted Dark Orson to glove form before picking her up. Tac looked at Shiki, her eyes wide and in shock.

"H-how how are you--" Tac stuttered.

"You can do a lot of things, Tac," Shiki said. "You can make a myth out of my dead aunt, you may have the entire population ignore me..."

Shiki's teeth gritted for what seemed like the first time.

"But you will not take innocent lives and kill people..especially my friend."

With that, Shiki's arm began to flicker brightly until it was bright with electricity. She came alight and before she knew it she was electrocuting Tac who was screaming. Shiki looked like she refused to let go and if she didn't Tac might not have the chance to live.

Marlin rose and pulled Shiki back. "No! There has been enough death!" He said pulling her away. He stood in front of her now. "Shiki! We are here to stop death! This is not you!" He said worriedly.

Electric sparks lashed from Shiki's body as Marlin pulled her away and she finally let go of Tac who was now on the floor unconscious. Shiki breathed out and didn't look at Marlin. She did, however, speak.

"Thank you for that," Shiki said. "I don't know what came over me."

She shifted to the left. The sound of footsteps could be heard as well as the clanging of armor.

"What's going on there!?" a voice said. As Marlin looked, guards were coming his and Shiki's way. Or rather, his. Shiki had once again disappeared.

***

Marlin didn't have to do much regarding questioning. Tac had already confessed everything and the man she had kill her own friend as well as the guard had been arrested and was for trial. Tac, herself, had been diagnosed as mentally insane and would be undergoing her own therapy as well as criminal justifications. A memorial was going to be held for Zoe in a few days.

The next day, the study hall was buzzing with chatter. The shock of a the rumors actually having been criminally plotted. The disbelief that a student could actually plot all it. There was a lot more, but it would eventually be a passing faze.

Despite the ghost story being proved unreal, people still dodged the study hall before it got too late to curfew. Shiki, as usual, was sitting at the table. She hadn't told Marlin anything, but she knew he'd eventually arrive. It was his sort of thing to do something like that. Plus, he never went to bed on time and she thought she needed to reprimand him.

Marlin soon arrived with his head deep in a mathematics textbook. "Greetings Miss Zenchi." He said in his normal as ever voice. "I hope you are well." He said taking a seat. He didn't look at her as he looked over his mathematics work.

"I am," she said not lifting her head, either, from the patchwork she was doing at the moment. "Did you finally get to sleep after all that trouble?"

Marlin simply shook his head. "Afraid not my studies keep me busy at all times." He said as he turned the page. He yawned a little as he read.

Shiki made an obvious frown.

"You're quite stubborn," Shiki said. She sighed as she continued to sew. "But at least you were one of the few people to not think I was a ghost..."

Marlin shrugged. "I am not as impressionable as others. I am rational." He said as he flipped another page. "You must tell me how the entire school thought you a ghost."

Shiki couldn't help but smirk at his first remark, but at the second remark, her face fell a bit.

"It's pretty complicated," Shiki said as she sewed to no end. "Basically, I had an aunt who used to study here. Her name was Shiki Takanashi. She was my mom's twin and that's why we all looked alike. She committed suicide when her heart was broken by Tac's uncle.

"At the beginning of the school year last year, Tac immediately recognized me and she blamed my aunt for her uncle's own death brought about by his guilt. I told her I was not connected to any of it. But Tac for some reason thought I owed her some sort of debt passed down by my aunt.

"I ignored her, but she then started the rumor of the ghost girl. She had enough to go with. I look like my aunt and we both wear eyepatches. She had a tumor removed from her eye when she was young, I heard. And I...had an accident.

"I go to class at irregular times, too, so that made it more believable. I'm permitted to stay in places past curfew such as here or the auxillary room. This is because of my part-time job.

"I didn't know Tac would eventually start staging deaths. I wonder how much suffering the death of my aunt caused her uncle and eventually the suffering of her own family and herself...such a strange world we're in..."

Marlin nodded in agreement. "Indeed it is. She is in good hands now. Though it is odd. The whole school sees you as a ghost. I wonder if they think I'm talking to no one then." He took a sip of his drink and yawned again.

"It's not that they don't see me, they ignore me," Shiki said. "In their denial, they think they can ware off not being killed by a curse. You'd think such a highly modern school would believe less in myths..."

She paused for a while.

"But perhaps I am a ghost in my own way. Merely occupying unnoticed space. Looking when no one looks back. I am fortunate to have friends at all. And as your friend, I think you should head bed."

She then smirked at Marlin as she revealed she had switched his drink with something called Sleepy Time Tea.

Marlin looked at his friend and shook his head. "......how did I not predict this." He said as he rested his head on the table. "Good night my friend......I will...*yawn* get you......back" Was all he said before falling into a deep sleep.