"Yukki..."

"Yukki, please..."

"Wake up, Yukki..."

"I've already won the game for us, so please, wake up, Yukki..."

"Yukki...?"

"Oh God, oh God, oh my God, please wake up, Yukki! I can't, I can't, I can't afford to lose you right now!"

"Yukki, please, wake up!"

"Yukki? Oh no, Yukki... Yukki? YUUUKKKKKIIIIIIIII!"

...

"Why, Yukki? Why did choose me over a world where you have everything you wanted?"

"Yuno... I want you to end me."

"B-but, why, Yukki, why? You have to win... I want you to win!

"It's not worth it if you're not with me. Besides, I want you to have a place to call home."

"But I... I can't go through all of this once more! I can't take the pain anymore, Yukki! I can't lose you again, Yukki... I CAN'T LOSE YOU AGAIN!"

"I've already seen you die once, Yuno. I can't have that again."

"Yukki..."

"Do it, Yuno. I won't be mad. I deserve it."

"I can't, Yukki... I can't..."

"Neither can I. So please, end this. I only hope that the next timeline you end up doesn't force you back into this cursed game."

"Yukki..."

The pink-haired teenaged girl awoke from her slumber. She looked around, hoping to find something, somewhere or someone familiar. They were nowhere in sight, to say the least. But she then heard some men argue and scream unintelligibly, perhaps in another language, not far away. She then tried to move as quietly as possible to see what was going on better, until somebody pulled out a gun and just started shooting.

"POPALI, POPALI SUKI!"

"DAVAI, DAVAI!"

"AAAAH! BOZHE MOY, NYET, NYET, NYEEEEE-"

"BLYAAAAT!"

"A NUUU, CHEEKI BREEKI I V DAMKE!"

The screaming was now accompanied by gunfire and explosions seemingly coming from everywhere. The girl immediately went prone on the ground, getting her clothes dirty in the process. She then noticed that there was a knife stuck on the ground beside her and some sort of container strapped to her thigh. It had an adequately-sized full bottle of water, some snacks, some rolls of what appeared to be Russian rubles, and her phone, along with its charger and a spare full battery.

So I'm somewhere in Russia now? That explains the currency, the language and the landscape, but why are they fighting? What's going on?

She went back down when she felt a bullet pass right by her head. She needed to find somewhere safe to stay in for a while until everything calmed down.

She crawled her way to a tree not far from her, which was in front of the wall which she thought separated the area she was in from the rest of the country. While she was crawling towards the tree, she came upon the dead body of a man who looked to be in his early to mid-thirties.

His clothes told her that she was looking at some sort of bandit or scavenger type. He didn't look quite decomposed, which meant that he died just recently, most likely from the firefight earlier. He had a small hole in his forehead, and blood went into the soil surrounding his corpse. He also held what appeared to be an AKS-74u carbine in his right hand. He had a quite sizeable backpack on him, and he also wore a vest with straps on the back which held it on him with what appeared to be some form of soft body armor underneath.

She took the carbine from the man's cold dead hands and immediately went through his stuff to find something useful. The vest had three full magazines and ammunition for the short AK, as well a pair of full magazines for the pistol she found in his holster.

The backpack contained some more food and drinks, some medical supplies, a(n MP-153 semi-automatic) shotgun along with a bunch of 12 gauge shotgun shells, another pistol and some ammo for it, and a pair of hand grenades. The man's pockets produced a half-empty pistol magazine, another hand grenade, a small medkit, and a pack of crackers. The empty scabbard strapped to his thigh happened to be large enough for the knife she found to fit in.

She then realized that her clothes - her usual blue/violet school outfit - would make her stick out more than a sore thumb. The girl looked around to see if someone was still around. A gang of men wearing clothes similar to those the guy she stumbled upon was wearing was moving further away from the area, their backs turned to her.

Once the men were out of sight, she immediately began taking the dead man's weapons, ammunition, gear and clothes off his corpse before taking off her own. The girl found the man's clothes a bit too big for her, especially his boots. They were, however, not as dirty and stinky as she expected. She then put her old clothes in the backpack. Afterwards, she went to work figuring out how her new weapons worked before putting on the gear she found. She was careful not to make too much noise that would attract attention.

Once she was finished strapping the body armor and load bearing vest to her body, she returned to crawling to the tree she was headed for earlier. The weight of the dead man's gear slowed her down further, not to mention the discomfort caused by the vest and body armor pressing down on her breasts, which were quite well-developed for someone who looked like a middle school-age girl. She took a mental note to adjust the straps later once she gets to a safer location.

Upon reaching the tree, she immediately took one knee, readied her newly-acquired weapon and scanned the area, looking for friendly or hostile characters nearby. She kept scanning the area until she was satisfied that the area was clear.

She then started moving across the ground, passing a dead body or two, until she reached what appeared to be an apartment/dormitory complex, which she presumed housed some company's workers sometime before whatever happened here took place. The central yard was surrounded by cars, with their owners nowhere in sight. Trash, debris and random pieces of junk were everywhere, sometimes in sizable piles. She also spotted a road connecting the complex to some sort of main highway, with what appeared to be a small convenience store indicating the entrance to the complex.

The girl took only one quick look at her backpack to know that she can't hang around any further to check the apartments and cars for anything even remotely useful. Then, as she made her way to the highway, she suddenly spotted the same gang of scavengers from earlier heading towards the apartments, talking and laughing loudly among themselves. She couldn't discern from a distance whether or not they knew she was there, nor could she understand enough Russian to know if they were planning to ambush her.

She hid in the surrounding bushes and trees, and crawled her way to the highway hoping that none of them spotted her.

But alas, fate (or Deus?) had other plans.

One of the men spotted some blades of grass move quite differently while the wind was blowing past them. Not risking another ambush like earlier, he fired his trusty Makarov towards the offending patch.

His comrades then heard a burst come from very close by, and saw their pal fall dead from a 5.45x39mm round to the forehead. Some of them also got hit, while those who were still unscathed tried to either find cover or make themselves smaller targets while retaliating with their own weapons at the same time. A few even went out of their way to get their wounded buddies out of the firing line.

Once the first pistol bullets hit the ground near her, the girl immediately turned around and opened fire on the group, immediately killing her attacker with a single bullet to the head and hitting his other buddies. She then took cover behind a tree as the scavengers immediately returned fire with their weapons, which turned out to be pistols and pump shotguns, with the occasional Mosin-Nagant rifle here and there, unlike her carbine AK and the semi-automatic shotgun in her backpack.

She was surprised at how well she handled and shot the short AK for someone who only had it a short while ago. The girl then brought two more of the scavengers down, and finished off three of their wounded. But soon enough, the remaining scavengers regrouped, and she found herself pinned down by pistol rounds, buckshot and 7.62x54mmR bullets which had a better chance of penetrating the tree she was hiding behind. She couldn't risk getting herself shot without managing to throw her grenades.

Then she heard more gunfire from behind her, but this time it wasn't directed toward her. The last scavengers immediately hid behind an abandoned car, which then gave the girl the signal to resume firing. The bullets simply went through the vehicle's relatively thin steel, hitting the scavengers behind. One of the scavengers even made a dash for the nearest apartment building, but was shot dead by the source of the new gunfire.

Once the shooting died down, she immediately crawled her way to a nearby bush to hide in case whoever else was shooting at the scavengers was hostile. Once she was in the bush, she then found what appeared to be her savior.

A figure, presumably of a man, came into view. His face was obscured by a balaclava, his head protected by some sort of helmet which had a communications headset of sorts on it and what appeared to be a mount for night optics with a camera attached to it.

The torso was covered by some sort of armor which appeared to be heavier and stronger than hers, his vest/plate carrier/tactical rig was different than hers, as it also had a portion at the back, his backpack was bigger than the one she carried, and by the looks of it, it carried more stuff.

He wore an olive green tactical shirt with the sleeves rolled up, green digital camouflage trousers tucked into black tactical boots covered in what looked like mud, blood and guts, and he held what appeared to be a full-sized AK rifle with attachments aplenty in his hands, which were covered by black gloves. He also had the same pistol as the one in her holster secured in his own, and he also appeared to have the same secured container as the one she had strapped to her thigh.

And lastly, something about this one felt familiar. Very familiar.

That last bit got her curiosity. As she went to get a closer look at the figure, she unintentionally snapped a few twigs and branches on her way out.

The man then suddenly looked in her direction, gun drawn. He then shouted something towards her direction in what she presumed was Russian. The man's voice sounded somewhat gruff and somewhat older, but it sounded eerily familiar.

I can't be imagining things, not right now! Th-that can't be Yukki! Wait, why do I even think it's Yukki?

"I said who the fuck is there? Come out or I'll fucking chew your ass up with this motherfucker!"

Not wanting to further agitate the man, she then stood up with both hands pointed upward. The man then motioned for her to come out of the treeline so that he could better identify her. She then nodded and started walking to the highway, with her gun still held in her right hand. Upon reaching the highway, she then saw the man grab her gun and put it on the floor.

Then, suddenly, their eyes made contact for more than a few moments. If his aura and voice made her doubt her already dented state of mind, his eyes gave her even more questions than answers. The man also looked shocked at her appearance. He pulled what appeared to be a photo out of his rig's pockets, looked at it, then at her, then at the photo again before putting it back in and fixating his eyes on her, with his hands starting to shake.

"Is this seriously real? You can't be..."