The Assassin Within

Part 10~Goat's Blood

Shiftly, Zen sped down the road, Koro-sensei and Karasuma following him as they approached the home. Zen didn't wait a second before bursting through the door, storming into the house and towards the living room.

Looking around frantically, he ran his fingers through his hair before punching the nearby wall.

"Now, now, Zen-kun. Attacking the wall is not going to help us," Koro-sensei scolded, placing a tentacle on Zen's shoulder. Zen slapped the offending yellow limb off before walking to the stairs. 

"There has to be something here we can use to find them." 

The others didn't look so convinced, the house was abandoned, looks like it has been that way for years. The walls were peeling and the carpet was dirty. Paper and cardboard boxes littered around the rooms with nothing else. The few small windows that were in the wall were smashed and glass embedded itself in the wool fibers of the floor. 

"This is pointless, there is no point in going around a disused building when Nagisa and your friend is not here," Karasuma grumbled as Zen glared at him. 

"I'm not giving up that easy, you lot can but I'm not." Zen walked up the stairs, his heart pounding. "No matter what lead I have to follow I am finding you, Nagi."

Nagisa threw the knife into the wall, landing in the exact same whole as the last three hundred and ninety four throws. Without even thinking, Zen reached out, pulling the knife out from just about his head. He didn't need to look as he threw it at Nagisa who groaned and rolled back. "I'm bored," he whined. "There has to be something to do."

"We could spare," Okabe suggested, rolling over on his bed and having half his body falling over the edge.

"I would beat you in a second flat."

"No you wouldn't!"

"Digit could beat you and she is useless in any sort of close combat."

"Not true!"

"It is true."

"Come on then. Come at me," Okabe jumped up, holding his fist up as Nagisa rolled his eyes. 

Without looking, Nagisa threw the knife. Okabe let out a surprised yelp but before he could protest, Nagisa was up. He wrapped his arms around Okabe's torso and threw him across the room. Okabe cried out as his head collided into the wall. 

"You cheated," Okabe claimed, rubbing his head.

Nagisa rolled his eyes as he grabbed the knife from the wall and threw it at the wall. "You didn't lay out the rules. Assassins should be ready for everything."

Okabe sat on Nagisa's bed, grabbing the knife out the wall and twisting it in his fingers. "Don't start lecturing me. I would win in the real world."

"Sure you would. Just give me back my knife."

Okabe glared at Nagisa, throwing the knife at his face. Nagisa didn't even flinch as he caught the blade and went back to playing their original game, growing more and more bored as time went on.

Zen searched through the papers, throwing them about and looking for any sign of a hint or the smallest clue to where Nagisa and Okabe could be. "It has to be here! There has to be something!"

"Zen..."

"Shut up! You don't know how Black works! Nothing is unimportant! Everything has significance!"

"While that may be we aren't getting anywhere. Maybe we should take a step back and try from a different angle," Koro-sensei suggested only getting a hum to show that Zen had heard him.

Static startled Zen away from his thoughts as he brought out the radio. "Zen! I've worked out what the blood comes from. It's Goat blood," Digit reported, speaking quickly.

"Goats blood," Koro-sensei muttered to himself. "Why would they put goat's blood on the snake's fang?"

"It's a threat. The blood and the fang. They are both threats. That if we don't find them in time he will kill..."

"Zen?" Karasuma looked over the boy who clearly had noticed something. 

"Goats blood. Forget why for a minute and let's focus on a different question. How? How does one get goat's blood in Japan?" Zen jumped up, quickly passing the two and storming out. 

"Digit! Get me every butcher address in the city and send it to the school. Get everyone of them checked out to see if they sell goat's blood. I'm going to check on our old pal." Zen pushed down the airel and ran towards the destination. 

"If time is money then where's our money?! We've been here for hours!" Okabe whined as he lay there upside down on Nagisa's bed with a knife stuck into the mattress, just above his head. 

Nagisa, who was seated on the floor leaning against the wall, leaned away to look at his fellow prisoner. "It doesn't work like that Okabe you dim wit," Nagisa stated bluntly before chuckling lightly, “It would be nice if it did though."

Having started to feel sick Okabe sat up properly and blew a few strands of hair out of his face before going to a corner of the cell where their bags had been left with only a few objects left, or more specifically one object each, an old polaroid camera for Okabe and a biology text book for Nagisa.

"Read about the body Nagisa, maybe you'll find a way to make yourself taller" Okabe joked as he tossed the biology textbook to his friend while taking the polaroid and snapping a picture of the wall quickly to make sure it still worked.

"Ha Ha, very funny Mr Simp," Nagisa retorted with a slight laugh.

"Hey I may be a simp but at least I don't rely on my crush to save me all the time," Okabe shot back as he snapped a picture of Nagisa, to which Nagisa snatched the camera and tore up the picture before looking at Okabe. 

"Put on the skirt and pose like you would if Karma was buck naked or else I'll tell him about the night I caught you rummaging through his stuff at training camp," Nagisa commanded with a maniacal smirk.

It's safe to say that for the next two hours, Okabe was Nagisa's little Pin-up model and Nagisa most definitely planned on showing these pictures to Karma.

Thank you, da_pizzaman7 for writing the end of this chapter (the part in bold), credit for that writing goes to him.