Violence Is Usually The Answer

[VoltTurtle]

Isabel hissed from the pain not only in her face but in her back.

Kimiko had more than just the sword, she had a knife too. Isabel was lucky she yanked her head back when she did.

Kimiko was running away. She couldn't allow this. She couldn't allow that bitch to get away from her right when she had her.

Isabel reached out with the sickle, her back screaming in agony, trying to catch Kimiko's legs.

She only managed to scrape her leg before she recovered and ran out of the room.

[Deamon]

She felt the blade slice through her calf and nearly fell over. The pain every step brought tore its way through her body. She felt the blood begin to run out of the cut only to be absorbed her sock, giving it a warm, wet feeling against her skin.

As she reached the doors she heard Isabel screaming after her.

"Get back here!"

Kimiko ignored her and crashed through the doors, slipping down onto her knees and she tried to pick up her pack.

She froze and looked up as she remembered Lily was in the room. When she did however, she found that she was the only one.

Struggling to her feet Kimiko looked around for Lily, making sure she wasn't hiding in a dark corner of the room. She could feel the sharp burning pains from the wounds Isabel inflicted on her and it forced her to make the decision to leave.

As quickly as she could managed, Kimiko jogged across the room to the door she had come through, with a noticeable limp and wince whenever she put pressure on her injured leg. Adrenaline allowing her to ignore the worst of the pain she was feeling.

Lily, must have run away at the sound of the fighting she assumed.

When she got to the door, Kimiko slowly pushed it open and stepped through, the corridor seemed clear.

She finally allowed herself to breathe and rested a hand on the wall. Inhaling and exhaling rapidly as the adrenaline left her system. From the corner of her vision Kimiko saw something, quickly turning her head she could just make out Lily.

Kimiko stared at her, knowing that if the girl decided to attack, there wasn't much left that she could do.

[ViolentMedic]

Perhaps Lily could have lashed out at Kimiko. Put an end to a triple killer. Secured the one kill she needed to get off this island. There was a moment where Lily might have managed it. Given some luck.

But it was too risky. And even if it wasn't, it was not worth killing Kimiko. Kimiko had proven to be someone who could be reasoned with. Who could prioritize. Otherwise she would have cut Lily down and moved on to Isabel with one problem less. And Lily had warned her. Lily was trustworthy. So perhaps, should they meet in the future, Kimiko wouldn't harm her. Maybe she would. But there was room for doubt and debt.

And Lily didn't want the heat of killing off one than one person. She needed one kill to leave. And she wanted it to be Isabel.

So Lily looked at Kimiko, looked at the blood sliding from the wound in her leg, and bolted. Looking for the nearest hiding spot, so that when Isabel left Lily could continue with her goal.

Lily didn't leave as quietly as she wanted. She hoped that Isabel would attribute the splashing noise of her feet rushing through water to Kimiko.

((Lily Caldwell continued in Megalomania.))

[VoltTurtle]

Isabel hissed in pain.

Her knee hurt from Kimiko kicking it. Her elbow hurt from having it hit the ground. Her back hurt from being flung into a hard surface.

And most importantly, her face hurt from Kimiko slicing into it.

She should've expected Kimiko to have another weapon on her. One weapon wasn't enough with someone who's killed three people. Especially one who's also won one of the best kill awards. She shouldn't have gloated, even for an instant. She should've just gone for Kimiko's throat immediately. As much as she wanted to correct that mistake now, Kimiko was gone, and Isabel was in too much pain to run, let alone keep fighting.

Isabel opened her bag, still quietly sitting next to the halberd in the stall nearby, an empty water bottle almost immediately popping out from how stuffed the bag was. Yanking out her medical kit and her flashlight, she got to work. A cracked mirror sitting above a sink let her make sense of the damage. The cut running across her nose and right cheek wasn't deep, fortunately, but Kimiko had nonetheless managed to hit muscle and sinew. This was going to scar. This was her individual idiot tax. Her reminder not to make the same mistake in the future.

She licked the blood running down from her face off of her lips in between grunts of pain from the alcoholic pads stinging on her cuts.

Clean.

She wrapped gauze around her head, coiled tightly enough around her skull to be secure when taped. Her nostrils were left uncovered, although that barely mattered given that her right nostril was filled with her blood.

Covered.

She sat in the shower stall for a while, letting the pain in her back, elbow, and knee slowly fade. She made sure to eat and drink from her stocks, after finally plugging up her bleeding nostril with a bit of bandage, to keep herself strong and nourished.

Eventually, Isabel wrapped the scarf around her neck again, and re-affixed all of her weapons to her person. Her knee and back still hurt with each step she took out of the showers and the corpse filled room, but it was a tolerable pain. She couldn't afford to stick around with Kimiko potentially knowing her whereabouts.

---

So she trudged out of the asylum once again, intently listening to the girl that had been tailing her this entire day move quietly from a distance - as if she was actually being clever.

She wasn't concerned with the girl tailing her. Quite the contrary in fact, she enjoyed the company, even if it wasn't exactly friendly company.

Being the top killer was lonely, and more importantly almost certainly made her look terrible to the viewers at home.

She tried to not concern herself with what her image would be like when she got back from the island. She was certain she could take her immunity for the crimes committed and make up for it- repair her public image that would be so thoroughly tarnished. She was doing what she needed to in order to survive, and she lost control at a few points. She could talk her way out of that. She could probably talk her way out of anything.

Isabel stopped for a brief moment, looking at the ground.

But what if she couldn't talk her way out of it?

What if she actually died out here?

It had almost been impossible for her to consider. She had easily taken care of everyone she's encountered so far, and knew what risks she could take and what situations to leave in. She thought she was smarter than everyone. Stronger than everyone. Far more capable of killing than everyone.

But she was wrong. She wasn't invincible. One mistake could get her killed. Kimiko proved that.

If she died out here, then that would mean that all she would ever be to everyone that remain behind would be a murderer. Her public image would rot along with her mangled corpse. She couldn't allow that. If she died, she needed to at least leave something behind. She couldn't just have her entire life up to this point and all her struggles with the social order and her parents be for naught.

...But she didn't know what to do. She didn't know what she could possibly do to make her seem better in the eyes of the public. She just needed something. Something that would give them a way to theorize that maybe she wasn't as bad as they would inevitably think. An image burned into their minds of who she was in the dark.

Isabel started walking again, to where she didn't know. She just kept her eyes peeled and her ears intent on her tail. She needed time to think, and a place to sleep.

She just needed to cleanse her sins for the viewing audience.

((Isabel Ramirez continued in Megalomania))

[Deamon]

Lily spared her. Maybe she didn't have a weapon or didn't fancy her chance of overpowering her. Kimiko didn't know either way. After a few moments the spell between them broke and Lily ran. Kimiko breathed out and rested her weight on the wall more.

Her whole body ached from the fight with Isabel. It had been bad, she could feel the two cuts on her body and the bruising was starting to come up on her shoulder and back. What she needed to do was fix tend to her wounds, but she needed to get a safe distance away from Isabel first.

The splashing from Lily's footsteps slowly faded away into the distance and that was when Kimiko finally moved off the wall. It was a struggle to move with any speed especially with the condition her leg was in. Every time she moved  her leg she felt the cut squish together and pull apart. It was nauseating.

So she limped as fast as she could through the corridor, her foot kicking up small waves in the layer of murky water.

When she reached the stairs Kimiko allowed herself a small smile.

She had made it out of hell.

((Kimiko Kao continued in Seediq Bale))