The room again transformed into a dojo, but on the other far side near where me and Slinca were, a bunch of sandbags dropped down from the ceiling. And where the sword rack used to be is now a gun rack with multiple guns. It had a variety of handguns, assault rifles and shotguns.
“Heh, more of my style.” Fred said under his breath.
“You may notice there are a large variety of guns.” Yurinami said. “You may know how to use a simple handgun, due to your education at school. But, you may not know how to use the big guns, like a shotgun or let’s say a sniping rifle.”
This seemed like a huge leap in lessons, yesterday was just simple sword fighting, now it's about shooting guns. But, I’m not an expert like Yurinami, so I guess I shouldn't question it that much.
“Today is a competition. Whoever can shoot the most sandbags in 30 seconds with a semi-automatic rifle. WINS!” Yurinami shouted. It seemed simple enough, though I don’t know how many people here have shot a rifle. My dad always said he would teach me but he never got around to it.
After Yurinami finished the instructions and rules for the competition, everyone went over to the gun rack.
“My dad has tons of these back home. But they don’t compare to these beauties.” Fred said, as he admired the gun, inspecting every inch of it.
“Stop being a gun creep and just take it.” Ian said, as he gave Penny a gun.
“I’m sorry my interests are ‘creepy’ to you.”
“It kind of is when you are literally looking down the barrel of it.”
“Do you think the part I’m looking at is the barrel? Or are you that stupid!?” Fred held up the gun to Ian’s face.
“Whatever it is. It doesn’t matter!”
“It does matter! You fucking cocksucker.”
“What did you say?”
“Please just stop, it’s only the second day and you guys are still bickering.” Penny interrupted.
“Not to mention you guys act like children.” Slinca said, walking up to the gun rack. She grabbed a gun off the top shelf and threw it up in the air and catched it perfectly.
“Oooo boy, do we have a little show off.” Fred interjected.
“Oh eat shit you bitch.” Slinca snapped back. She seemed more bitter than yesterday. It’s most likely due to me and my loud mouth. God, what was I thinking? I followed everyone else and grabbed a gun off the rack. It was heavier than I expected. I almost dropped it on the ground. Everyone was over near the sandbags over by the ceiling.
The sandbags were lined up like one of those carnival games my mom talked about one time. It looked like they were tied to a mechanism that moved left to right or right to left. It was hard to tell. I stood with everyone else. It felt so weird standing in a room with a bunch of people with a gun and being so trusting that none of them were going to shoot at each other.
“Any volunteers who want to go first?” Yurinami asked us. Jesse raised her hand and stepped forward in front of us, facing the sandbags. “Great.” Yurinami continued. “What you have in your hand is a special military rifle with a 100-round clip. It’s semi-automatic, weighs like a normal standard issue rifle. The targets will move from left to right for fifteen seconds then the targets will move from right to left for the last remaining fifteen seconds. Got it?”
“Yep.” Jesse responded.
“Alright on the count of three, the trial will start.” Yurinami announced. I straightened my posture. I wanted to see how Jesse was with a gun. Pretty much everyone else in the room was.
“1, 2, 3!” Yurinami shouted and the sandbags came to life and Jesse immediately started shooting. Everytime she shot a sandbag another one would take its place. There were about 10 of them. Every shot she was dead on, hitting every target with pinpoint accuracy. It was scary how accurate she was, like she was not even human. Fifteen seconds past and the sandbags switched direction, but that didn’t even throw Jesse off for a millisecond. She kept landing every shot, after shot, after shot, until she was out of bullets.
Time was up, she had an astonishing score of 100 sandbags hit. We were all left there with our jaws on the floor. She quickly turned around and walked past us. Yurinami was stunned himself, he had straightened his suit before he could even say a word.
“Well, um, I’m proud to announce that Jesse has scored an outstanding 100 points.” Yurinami said.
Jesse sat on the ground with the gun in her lap.
“Holy shit.” Fred said. “She’s more of a natural than me.”
“Welp, who wants to go next?” Yurinami asked, nervously.
No one raised their hands. No one can even compare or compete with Jesse. But, someone needed to go next. And if no one wanted to go. Then I’ll throw myself into the ring. I need to take action more frequently, so how about we start here.
“I’ll go,” I said, raising my hand. I kinda regretted it as soon as i said it. But, it’s better to get it out of the way. I went to the front of everybody and faced towards the sandbags, took a deep breath, and aimed my gun.
“1, 2, 3!” The sandbags started to move and I started shooting. The first few shots didn’t land, but eventually I got the hang of it. I wasn’t as accurate as Jesse. But, I was able to hit an average amount of targets.
“Lee with a score of 40. Pretty good for a starter” Yurinami said. Being very proud of my mediocre score, I went to the back of the group, and stood next to Jesse. Ian went next, and Yurinami was counting down. I needed to know how Jesse got her fighting and shooting skills from.
So, I sat right next to her and asked. “Where did you learn to do all of that cool stuff?” Probably the worst way to put that, but whatever. Jesse didn’t respond. “I was just wondering because it seemed like you were a natural out there.” Yet again, no response. “It kinda looked like you used to shoot that specific kind of weapon-AH!” Jesse hit me in the mouth with the but of the gun. I lunged my head back due to shock, and put a hand on my jaw.
“Why did you do that?” I said.
“Because you were annoying me with your questions.” She responded.
“Well you could’ve just said stop.”
“True. That wouldn’t be as fun as hitting you.”
“Guess I’m just the punching bag of this whole group. First Slinca knocks me out, and I get hit by you. I’m like the opposite of a chick magnet.”
Jesse let out a little chuckle and then went back to her straight resting face. That was the most words Jesse spoke ever since I’ve got here.
Ian’s round was over and he had gotten 53. Next up was Penny, and she got 39, 1 sandbag behind me. It was Slinca’s turn, she had gotten 75, second place behind Jesse, although none of us could even beat her score. Fred was the last one up.
“Watch how a real pro does it.” Fred confidently said.
“I thought Jesse was the pro here.” Ian snicked.
“Of course it’s you coming up with the witty remarks.”
“It’s just too easy with you.”
“Oh shut your bitchass up.”
“Heh.”
“Yurinami, start it up!” Fred was now aiming down the sight of the gun.
“1, 2, 3!” Yurinami said, and for the final time, the sandbags began to move. Fred started off very good, with most of his clips hitting the sandbags. But after 15 seconds, when the sandbags changed direction, is when his shots started to get really sloppy. He kept missing pretty easy shots, that hell I could’ve hit. I could hear Fred’s frustration after every shot he missed. And before we knew it. The trial was over.
“Fred has ended up with a score of 50” Yurinami announced. 3 behind Ian. Ian began to laugh, almost a cackle.
“Oh my god! You said you were a pro!” Ian laughed again. “My fucking ass you’re a pro. You barely got past me and I haven’t shot a gun in over 5 years.”
“You shut your fucking mouth!” Fred yelled.
“Oh, what are you gonna do? Shoot me?”
“No, but I’ll challenge you. I can’t accept defeat to you like this. Let’s have a rematch of yesterday”
“Deal, I’ll still school your ass.”
“Gentleman, I think that’s not the important matter.” Yurinami interjected. “It’s not about who’s better than others, it’s about working together to get stronger.”
“Shut up and give us the wooden swords!” Fred demanded.
“Fine, next time don’t talk back to me.”
Yurinami went to the back of the dojo and brought out the wooden swords while Penny pleaded that Ian just let it go, but her efforts were futile. He then handed them to Ian and Fred. They got into the positions they were in last time.
“I didn’t expect to count down to three this much today.” Yurinami joked. “Ok, you guys know the rules and all that, so. On the count of three you’ll fight.” Ian and Fred both got ready. Me, Slinca, Jesse, and Penny were all sitting next to each other. “1, 2, 3!”
Just like last time, they clashed swords together super fast. This time, the swords hitting each other were even louder. They both were going at it.
“That’s one, two, and three!” Yurinami said rapidly. It turns out that Ian had switched up his fighting style mid-fight and swept Fred off of his feet and hit him in the head twice.
“God Dammit son of a bitch!” Fred yelled.
“Good try man, just not good enough.” Ian remarked.
“You know what? Fuck you! And fuck this school!” Fred quickly got up and rushed over to the school's doors.
“Wait, Fred!” Yurinami shouted trying to catch up to Fred. “If you leave right now!” Fred opened the door and slammed it shut. “Gah! Mother-” Yurinami took a deep breath. “Welp, suit yourself I guess. He is gonna miss an important lesson.”
Why is Fred like that? Just a perverse asshat. I’m always wondering about how people turn out that way. But, using today as an example, my curiosity always gets the best of me.
“I didn’t plan for today to go like this. But, that’s one less student to deal with soooo.” Yurinami said. “We’ve got a very special little lesson today. I just didn’t want this day to just be a shooting range.”
Yurinami snapped his fingers and six guards came out from hidden doors from the area where the sandbags were, they were escorting six people. These five people had their hands cuffed and they had their mouths muffled. The guards were escorting these guys to us. Once they got to us, they forced them on their knees. They were squirming around, moving their body back and forth and the guards kept trying to keep them still. I saw some of them with tears rolling down their cheeks.
“An important step for you guys is to get your first kill.” After Yurinami said that, we all understood the purpose of him bringing these guys out, We were gonna kill these people. “You can either stab them or shoot them. It’s your choice though.” The guys were squirming harder than before. “I’m sick and tired of this nonsense. Since Fred is gone, give the others an example of what will happen if they resist some more.” The guards understood Yurinami and shot one of the guys in the back of the head. His blood splattering at me and only me. This is the second day in a row where I got blood on me.
“Holy fuck!” Penny shrieked.
“What? I thought you would be used to this Penny? Since you’re the only one here with an actual kill.” Yurinami said, looking directly at Penny. Me, and Slinca both looked at Penny. Ian ran up and grabbed Yurinami by his suit.
“How the fuck do you know that!?” Ian growled.
“Come on Ian, you can’t figure it out? Anybody can look at the kill history, it’s not like I'm a wizard or something.”
“Shut the fuck up! You didn’t need to announce it to everyone.”
“Ooo, you just reminded me. Since Penny already has her first kill. How about another one, boys.” One of the guards shot another one of the guys in the back of the head. “Also.” Yurinami grabs Ian’s arm and slams him into the ground. “Don’t ever, do that again!” Ian rolled over to his side and held onto his arm. Penny came to his side.
“Now, you guys can begin.” Yurinami said, brushing his suit off. We didn’t know what to do. Our first kill, the reveal of Penny actually already having a kill, and Ian standing up to Yurinami, it all happened in a short span of time. I looked over at the four guys tied up. They had so much fear in their eyes. It reminded me of the guys in the alleyway, completely helpless.
Jesse was the first one to make a move, she took a knife from her pocket and walked up to one of the guys. She knelt down to face him. You could hear his muffled cries and screams. Jesse slit his throat and blood came gushing out and the life in the guy’s eyes began to deplete, until there wasn’t anything anymore. He flopped over face first into the ground and died.
“You just did him like that? You didn’t just shoot em?” Slinca asked.
“I had no more bullets.” Jesse responded.
“Fair. I guess,” Slinca scratched her head. “Welp, I’ll get it over with.” Slinca aimed her gun at one of the guy’s heads, hesitated a little bit, and shot him. “Lee,” Slinca said to me while still aiming her gun. “You should do the same.”
“Isn’t this fucked up?” I said back. “Like, did these guys do anything bad? What did they do to deserve this?”
“Not anything particularly, they are gang members though. Each one of these guys has at least one kill.” Yurinami said, while still fixing up his suit after Ian grabbed it.
“Really? And that's enough to deserve to just die like this?”
“Lee!” Slinca grabbed my shoulder. “Just do it. Don’t think about it too hard, you just need to get it over with.”
“Just get it over with? These are human lives we are talking about here!”
“Welp just deal with it! In this world, morals are out of the question!”
She wasn’t completely wrong, those people in the alley, I barely protested their death. They tried to kill me first, so I thought nothing wrong with killing them. But this is different, these are people who are completely defenseless, they have no threat to us at all. Si killing them isn’t really justified. They’re just here to be our first kills. They don’t deserve to die like this, they deserve to go out fighting. But I guess we don’t have a choice for our fates. I’m sounding more like a scared little boy than a man. Fuck this, Slinca’s right. I should just get it over with.
Slinca patted me on the shoulder, and didn’t say anything. I took a deep breath, and clutched the gun in my hand. I need to stop being so soft, toughen up more, or how else am I going to protect Alice, mom, and dad. Eric is not completely out of the question. Though I think he’s becoming more and more crazy, he can still handle himself.
I turned to face one of the guys, his eyes lit up and he started crying. I tried my best not to look at him as I held up the gun to his face. For some reason I didn’t want to see his face explode when I shoot the gun, so I closed my eyes and looked away. My hand was trembling, I’m not even sure I was aiming at his head anymore. But no one tried to correct me, so I guess I was doing a good job.
My thumb went to the trigger, and I hesitated. Clenching my teeth, and bracing myself for the sound and impact. My thumb basically took control, and I shot the gun. Hearing the boom, and the splatter of the guy’s head pop. It was over, done and over. I got my first kill.
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