Pericarp's Story

                 My name is Tammy Tristan and I am 16 years old. My mother was a court herbalist and my father was a respectable general in the military but both of my parents died when I was 7 years old. I still remember that time.

           When I was born, my parents decided to move far away and had bought a piece of land in the forest for they were worried that my father had made some enemies. Before my seventh birthday, three men in business suits and brief cases came to our house. Visitors rarely came to our house as it was deep in the forest, away from any main roads. My father invited them inside and my mother served them tea. At first, they were polite but, a half hour later, I heard a lot of angry shouting and I saw the men leave our house with angry faces. 

           After dinner, I stood outside my parents’ bedroom, listening to them talking about the men. It turns out that those men were from a successful company called Import Ant and that they had come to our house to ask my father to sign an agreement that we should move somewhere else so that they can build a factory here. My father had refused even after being told about the benefits given.

          While sleeping that night, a noise woke me up. I saw that my door was slightly ajar so I got up to close it but a noise like a man’s grunt stopped me. Suddenly my door slammed open and a man clad in black clothing stood in the doorway with a knife in his hand. Looking at the knife, I stepped backwards but he took a step forward and kept walking towards me, his steps becoming faster. When I bumped into my bed, I turned quickly to climb it but he grabbed me and threw me on the bed and holding me down on with his hand. He was about to stab me when he suddenly let go and stumbled backwards.

         My mother, who was pregnant, had grabbed him from behind and was pulling him back. “Run!” She shouted and I quickly opened the window next to my bed, climbed through it, jumped down and ran away as fast as I could. Luckily, the house was a bungalow so I didn’t hurt myself. I ran until I found a giant tree and climbed it.

        The next morning, I went back to my house. The living room and my bedroom were as they usually were but my parents’ bedroom was a mess. There was a lot of dried blood and the mattress had several cuts on it. All the tables were broken and the window was cracked with a bloody handprint on it. In the middle of the room, two chairs sat back-to-back with each other and pieces of rope were on the floor surrounding them.

        I couldn’t find my parents in the house so I went out into the garden, thinking that they were gardening. They were there but they weren’t on the ground. They were nailed to the trees by their arms and feet. Their faces were swollen and bloody. My mother had a huge gaping cut on her stomach and my father had a knife in his neck. There was a lot of blood on the ground but there was also something else. I felt scared as I realized what it was: a baby with its head, arms and legs cut off. Its body was also sliced into half and next to the baby was a business card with the name: TAKAOKA GINJO, CEO OF IMPORT ANT.

      I was adopted by a couple who found me lying down on a road, wishing for death. When I was 13 years old, I found out that my foster father worked for Import Ant which made me remember. It also made me angry and a feeling of hatred for Takaoka developed. Even though I told my foster parents what had happened to my parents and also showed them the card, no one sued him. I soon realize that I yearned for revenge. I yearned to kill Takaoka Ginjo. I studied a lot about killing and assassinations. I searched through my foster father’s work and kept track of Takaoka. I soon knew everything about him, including that one of my classmates, Waikit was his stepson. I hated him too for the way he always flirts with me. I had a plan on how to assassinate Takaoka without being discovered but it would also mean leaving my foster family forever.

      Walking to the mansion was easy and getting past the guards was even easier as they were obviously slacking on their jobs. I entered the mansion and made my way to Takaoka’s room carefully as there were security cameras nearly everywhere. I also knew that the people using the security cameras weren’t as laidback as the previous guards. It was ten o’ clock at night and Takaoka would always be in his room at that time. While avoiding the security cameras, I bumped into a vase which crashed on to the floor, setting off an alarm. I ran quickly to the nearest unlocked room.

      The room I entered was painted blue. There was a bookshelf and a door leading to a bathroom.  There was also a dressing table with a cracked mirror but pictures were put on its frame. Looking at the pictures carefully, I saw that they were of me and remembered my best friend telling me that Waikit was always taking pictures of me which meant that I was in Waikit’s room. At that moment, the bathroom door opened and I ducked under the bed as quickly as I could.

     Waikit took a balloon, sat on the bed, blew it and began drawing it with a black marker pen while singing: “First you take the planet earth round and blue and green and floating over Tokyo, you drop a giant bean.” Although his voice didn’t match the character, I recognized the song: Assassination Classroom’s Koro Sensei drawing song. Without realizing it, I began singing along, my voice getting louder. By the last lyrics, Waikit dropped the balloon and pen and bent down to look at me. I quickly took out a smoke bomb from my bag and threw it at him.

     When the smoke finally cleared, I had Waikit pinned down beneath me. He didn’t even struggle. “You want to kill my father, don’t you? Don’t lie. I know what happened to your parents,” he said and launched into a story of how badly Takaoka treated him by beating him and having his mother killed in front of him. He then asked, “If you want to kill my father, then let me help you.” I agreed, let him go and we formed a plan together.

    We went out of Waikit’s room to go to Takoaka’s room. We bumped into some guards and they recognized me and were about to take me away when Waikit pulled me towards him, wrapping me with his arm, sending a signal to them to back off. We reached Takaoka’s room and Waikit knocked on the door. We entered a few seconds later and Waikit locked the door. I saw Takaoka sitting in a red sofa wearing a red dressing gown and holding a drink. “Father, I would like to introduce you to my classmate, Tammy. She is here to kill you with my help,” Waikit said.

    His second sentence caused Takaoka to choke on his drink. I quickly took out some rope and gave some to Waikit and we quickly tied Takaoka to the sofa. Unfortunately, after tying the rope and giving a knife to Waikit, Takaoka broke free and lunged towards me. I stepped backwards quickly, causing him to fall on to the floor but he had managed to grab my foot and he pulled me down. Suddenly, the red sofa landed on him, allowing me to his hand with a knife and freeing my foot. Takaoka screamed as we tortured him again and again. Waikit may be his stepson but we both knew that he deserves it.

    After I delivered the final blow to Takaoka, I saw Waikit searching the room, grabbing papers, money and other things and putting them into our bags which we had brought. After he was done, he went to me, took my hand, kissed it, went down on one knee and said, “Will you run away with me?” I smiled, nodded, knelt down and kissed him.