Hello! Craftsdwarf here with the sequel to my first work! In case you didn't read the newly added chapter (5-6: Unseen Enemies), you might want to check it out. There's also a character poll I'd like to see get some votes~
Also, before we begin, the sequel ended up a little bit darker than the first one (just check some of those tags). If you feel that the rating should be raised, don't hesitate to let me know!
1-1 will be up sometime tomorrow, thanks for reading!
"You know, people...they just don't have any taste!"
"How many great shows do you think have been pulled because of low ratings? Or movies that just didn't get the funding they needed to even happen? What about manga being ended early when it clearly had a lot of potential while plenty of other ongoing garbage keeps being mediocre in the same damn magazine!"
"When have you ever heard anyone say something was best left unfinished? Nope, didn't think so."
"But it happens anyway, and the people responsible are perfectly fine with it. 'Oh, I didn't have anywhere to go with the story.' Then why did you start writing it, you hack!?"
"Did you ever leave anything unfinished? Oh, wait, duh, don't answer that. I mean, you were obviously off to do something when I found you. And that something's going to be left unfinished because of me."
"Hmm. Does that make me a hypocrite?"
"Oh well, I guess someone else can finish it. I mean, I'll bet you're replaceable. Your job can be managed by someone else. Sure, they'll be inconvenienced by it, but what needs to be done shall be done."
"Maybe."
"Oh! Wait, you never started it, so it isn't unfinished!"
"But me? I started something. Something big. And-"
"W-what do you want with me?" A pained voice finally rang out, every word coming rattled and shakily, the owner a full grown male.
The teenaged girl he addressed hissed, infuriated, "I wasn't done talking!" With a wave of her hand, there was another flash of blood. The man gasped out in agony, sucking in air and biting his lip, trying to alleviate the pain from his freshly formed cut.
Tachibana Chiyoko looked at the wreck of a man in front of her. His full head of wrinkles and dark gray hair was matted by blood, which ran slowly and dripped to the carpeted ground from numerous cuts. Tachibana got the feeling he was used to suits, given his former occupation, but he currently wore a sleeveless undershirt and jeans, their original colors obscured with blood. He was bound to a wooden chair, strips of cloth that he once wore as a coat keeping him in place. He gripped the armrest with his fingers, a couple fingernails missing. His feet were in worse shape, a couple of his digits being scattered on the ground.
Taking a step back, Tachibana figured she didn't look much better. The chubby girl was unhurt, of course, but the amount of blood on her person might have implied otherwise. She couldn't even see the color of her skin on her right hand any more, still clutching the kitchen knife. Plenty of blood had splattered on her black skirt and red, black, and white top. Her black heeled shoes were finding a hard time getting a grip on the wet, squishy carpet whenever she approached the man, but she didn't want to abandon them. Raising her other, clean(ish) hand, she ran it through her curly dark orange hair, trying to right it, grimacing as she broke up some strands that had either tangled from her work or gotten stuck together by dried bits of blood. She took off her small spectacles, wanting to wipe them on a clean spot of her shirt, but she only managed to smear blood all over one of the lenses.
With a sigh at her failed attempt to tidy herself up a bit, she turned her red eyes back to the man, grinning evilly again. He flinched as she moved forward, taking care to step firmly. She spat, "What was I just saying! I go on about leaving things unfinished, and you go and interrupt me! You're the worst kind of person! Sheesh, I bet some of your pals over at Future Foundation are thinking, 'man, she did us a real favor gutting that big nosed politician what's-his-name'." Looking over him again, she mumbled, "What was your name again?"
He opened his mouth, choking on blood, before Tachibana suddenly exclaimed, "Oh, that's right! Hatoyama Tarou, the Super High School Level Reserve Officer Trainee of the 49th Class!" She stopped, pondering for a moment, before mumbling, "Where have I heard that name before?" She thought on that for a moment, before shrugging, "Doesn't matter!"
"Not going to finish that thought?" Hatoyama grumbled.
Baring her teeth, Tachibana raised her knife, driving the butt into Hatoyama's blue eye. He cried out in shock as Tachibana screamed, "Don't you get smart with me!" Hatoyama moaned in pain, face contorting as he tried to do something about his eye, which didn't seem to want to open any more.
Taking a breath, Tachibana finally continued, "Now, tell me what I don't know!"
Hatoyama gritted his teeth, shouting in exasperation, his eyes still locked on the ground, "I don't even know what you're after! You haven't asked me anything!"
Tachibana's mouth hung open for a moment as it sunk in, before she raised her hand, bopping her fist against her forehead. He tongue popped out as she giggled, "Oops! I'm not very good at this. Silly me!" Hatoyama let out a whine, followed by a grunt of pain, desiring the end of this engagement.
Something popped into her head, and Tachibana gasped, "Oh, duh! Of course the name of a former Hope's Peak student sounded familiar, it was probably Kotoblandy. She probably, I dunno, listed off all the Hope's Peak Alumni that ended up as big crybabies under the knife. That's probably why you never got plastic surgery for that scar, huh!"
Getting more confused and desperate, Hatoyama finally lifted his head, blood running down his face from a deep cut on his nose. A nasty scar across his cheek was visible as he looked at her through his droopy eye, pleading for it to end.
Adjusting her spectacles with her cleaner hand, she sighed, "Fine fine, let's get it over with. So, mister former Minister of the Defense how much do you know about Future Foundation's current plans to take care of me? I mean, they don't plan to just let me do what I please forever, right?"
Hatoyama grimaced, before spitting, "Of course not. You...haven't been easy to find, but we have teams out looking for you. We've been trying to predict what you might attempt to do or where you might go, and act based on that."
Tachibana thought for a moment, before saying, "Well, since no interrupted the creation of my cute little drama film, I guess you haven't been doing a good job!" Hatoyama flinched, not pleased by the memory Tachibana had dredged up. Noticing, the Director added, "What, you didn't like it? The way the mother broke down after being forced to kill her own daughter...it was so good! It was almost like she wasn't acting!" Hatoyama flinched again as Tachibana chortled, "So what if she stopped following her script afterword! It made it feel more natural! It was just a little thing for fun though."
Hatoyama raised his head snarling, "Then why did you do it!?"
Tachibana shook her head, "You just don't understand the world of production, deadlines, and having people waiting to see your next work." She nodded, "I don't want there to be any lulls in my content even while producing something bigger! People might start to think I'm done with Directing, or dead! I've got fans, you know."
Disgusted, Hatoyama shook his head, looking away. Tachibana lifted her knife, pressing it on the side of his face, turning his head back to her. Smiling, she said, "But you made me curious...what kind of things would you think I'd be interested in? That crummy old Academy? My crappy house? You weren't on your way to any place like that, were you?" Hatoyama gritted his teeth, gripping the armrest of his chair. Tachibana's smile widened ever more: she'd hit a mark. "Oh? Where were you heading? I wonder..." she mumbled. Hatoyama didn't seem to be so forthcoming on that piece of knowledge.
He didn't keep that frame of mind for very long.
Several days later, in yet another abandoned house, a crowbar ripped the long stuck door free. One of Tachibana's cohorts, a large, bald man in a coat and jeans, with a nametag reading out his name, stepped in, looking around. Making sure the coast was clear, he turned and nodded. Tachibana, long cleaned of the blood from her information extraction, stepped in, looking around the dimly lit room. The only illumination was dusk light filtered in from the windows. There was some furniture about the living room, but it was scattered and broken. The house and likely been looted and left some time ago, any who entered unaware of any significance it might have had.
Looking around, she waved her hand, signaling that she'd rather be left alone when exploring. She was no loner by any stretch of the imagination, but when plotting and planning (or scripting and editing), she preferred her solitude.
Going deeper into the house, waving her hand in an attempt to keep the dust from her face, she made her way to the hallway, where she found evidence of its previous occupants in the form of glass breaking under her feet. Looking down at the once framed photo, she saw the face of Enoshima Junko smiling up at her. Tachibana smiled back at the photo, glad she wasn't misled, but even with one thing confirmed, there was still something that needed to be answered.
Why was Future Foundation interested in the Enoshima household?
Ideas filled her head as she searched the house. The kitchen and bathroom were normal, boringly so. The master bedroom had been ransacked, looters likely searching for hidden stashes of whatever the Enoshima family felt was worth hiding. Whether or not they found anything, Tachibana couldn't tell. Moving on, she went to a plain room, its occupant clear by the spots for now missing weapons on the wall, racks surrounded by outlines for guns that could in no way be legal to own in Japan.
As Tachibana though back to Ikusaba Mukuro and the Game of Mutual Killing, she realized how wrong this all was. A quaint little family home for those two most certainly deep in the depths of Despair. It didn't add up, especially when she remembered that Ikusaba Mukuro was estranged for several years. Thinking back, did Junko even have a family?
And if she didn't, why go through the trouble of pretending otherwise?
Suddenly alert to the potential interest in this place, she began to search a little closer, tossing things about even more, overturning chairs, throwing bedsheets and random pieces of wood about. Her search yielding nothing, she changed rooms. Going to the next door, she went into Junko's room, covered in vain pin ups and pictures of herself, though many were torn, hanging lopsidedly or lying on the ground. The walls were covered in knife marks, which implied to Tachibana that someone had been here within the last year with a mind on vengeance, having seen the true face of Despair on the broadcast. Before then, Junko was known to the world as its Hope. Enjoying the irony, Tachibana moved to search, making even more of a mess as she looked.
Once again met with disappointment, she crossed the hall to enter the study, her interest was piqued by a bookshelf taking up an entire wall. Not wasting any time, she began pulling down books, hoping to trigger something. As they piled at her feet, she stopped, figuring it would be more disappointing if this were the entrance to some sort of secret basement. Bookshelves were so overdone! Thinking about other angles, she began looking at the books, curious about the subjects covered. There were a wide variety, from cookbooks, survival guides, medical references, and psychological texts to Country tourist handbooks, game rulebooks, fashion magazines, and building blueprints. She began flipping through notable looking ones, wondering what the purpose of it was, trying to justify the menagerie of subjects. She began trying to link them to Hope's Peak students, but that wouldn't be too hard: there were tons!
Not wanting to give up, she took a brief moment to call her goons and have them search through the books. Tachibana was a busy lady: she had other things to do! Worse yet, when Future Foundation realized they'd lost another of their members, they'd be sending someone over, whether they knew Tachibana was there or not. Time was of the essence. Going back to search the rest of the house, she returned to the Kitchen, finally finding something of note. As she looked over the sink again, she noticed something about the empty knife block, its tools long stripped away for use elsewhere. Etched into its side was the Hope's Peak Academy emblem. Though it was slightly worn, Tachibana could still make out that it had once been painted. That was a lot of effort to put into a carving of a simple knife block.
Lifting it and seeing nothing, she tossed it aside, before opening the cabinet under the sink. It was fairly empty, but something stuck out. A pipe, attached to nothing, simply sticking out of the wall. At first, it might have looked like something was missing, but the rest of the plumbing seemed fine. She was tempted for a moment to simply stick her finger in, but she wasn't that dumb. Finding a broken piece of wood, she jammed it in, fiddled with it, and cracked a smile once she heard a telltale 'click' from the bottom of the cabinet. Looking down, she saw the panel and popped up a little: she could lift it. Doing so, she only saw an iron ladder, leading down into pitch darkness.
Getting giddy, Tachibana had her minions fetch her a flashlight, and she descended into the darkness. She climbed down about ten meters when she suddenly ran into solid ground, stumbling for a moment as her rhythm was disrupted. Regaining her bearings, she stood on what seemed to be concrete ground and waved her flashlight around, trying to find something to allow for a better source of light than the tiny bit from the trapdoor above. Her search for a light switch useless, she took a look around with her flashlight, trying to spot anything of note. The basement was a decent size, but there wasn't anything to speak of in the upper part of the room except cobwebs. Turning her beam of light to her level, the first thing that caught her eye was a rickety looking desk, a computer sitting atop it, a number of papers scattered about. Taking a step forwards, there was a clatter as Tachibana accidentally kicked something metal with the bottom of her foot, moving it a few inches. Turning her light downward, she discovered that, scattered on the floor, seemed to be a number of machine parts in varying states, some in perfect condition, some that seemed like they'd work, if they were filthy, and many broken. Tachibana, being a Director rather than an Engineer, had no idea what it could have been for. Ignoring it, she treaded lightly as she went over to the desk. Looking around a bit more, she could see a few other tables and cabinets, but decided to focus on the desk for now.
Tachibana groped the monitor for a moment, turning it on. A light turned on, but nothing came from the screen until she leaned down and found the computer tower, turning it on as well. While it booted, she looked around, spotting a rotating chair. Grinning, she pulled it over, plopping in. As she sat, she noticed the drawers. Opening them, she saw stacks of papers and folders. Curious, she pulled them out, laying them on the desk, holding the flashlight between her neck and shoulder as she read.
The computer quickly became an afterthought as she flipped through the charts and papers. Pictures, lists, names, and faces filled her mind. As she realized what she was seeing, she mumbled aloud, "This is...very interesting."
Head full of ideas and potential, Tachibana's mouth stretched into a wide, malicious grin.
Sixteen swallows hope
in the bay where old blood runs,
tragically fleeting.