Axel is next aware of being within a garbage dump as he is surrounded by hills of junk, including an abandoned van up above him. He hears voices coming from around the junk pile in front of him and carefully makes his way to the edge of it and listens. He looks to see a woman with short hair and wearing a top and close-fitting slacks talking to someone unseen.

"Lies!" the unseen person shouted. A girl, judging by her voice.

"It's not a lie. It's the truth," the woman denied innocently.

"I heard it," the girl is heard accusing the woman harshly. "What you said to a man named Teppei at the Café. I know that you called my dad your 'Hinamizawa Husband', and you're trying to bait him! And your 'badger' tactics too. I know it all!"

"Hm? So you know all about it?" The woman crooned dangerously. Axel sees her looking around and ducks away before her gaze turns in his direction. "So you say . . . This is your secret hide-away, huh? No one knows about it . . . Just your secret place, right?" Her tone increasing with deviousness, causing Axel to tense.

The sound of a slap makes him look to see the woman grab the girl by her hair and he immediately goes into action. He reaches the woman in time as she attempts to strangle the hapless girl and grabs her hair, causing her to let go to grab his hands while crying out in pain, and drags her off and away from the girl. He lets go and gets between her and the girl. The woman recovers with a furious expression as she gets up to confront him, only to cower before him while grimacing up at him with shimmering shrunken irises that shows both fear and frustration.

"You wanna try strangling me instead?" Axel said menacingly in Japanese. "Get lost." Ending with a snarl.

The woman runs away. Axel continues watching her until she is out of sight and next hears a car engine starting up. He turns to regard the girl who still sits there staring up at him with an astonished expression. He is startled that she is also one of the girls from those pictures: the girl with the bob cut hairstyle and wearing a white dress with puffy white hat.

"Hello there, my name is Axel Sawyer," he said with a smile and offers her his hand. "Are you all right?"

The girl stares at his hand for a moment, then picks up her hat and puts it on.

"Uh . . . yes," she answered as she clasps hold of his hand and is helped up. "Yes I am. My name is Ryuuguu Rena."

Axel expects to leave, only it does not happen. At least not yet.

"I guess I'm not finished here," he mused.

"Eh?" Rena inquired.

"Oh, I'm just thinking out loud," Axel said. "Who was that woman?"

"She sometimes goes by the name, Rina. But her real name is Ritsuko. She's involved with my father, but it's all a deception so that she can get to his money for her pimp, Teppei."

"I pretty much overheard that. Listen, Rena-chan, this is an extremely serious matter. If it wasn't for my being here, she would've killed you. The police must be alerted."

"Yeah, you're right, Axer-san."

"I'm coming with you. I get the feeling that bitch won't go down without a fight, especially since she's connected to a dangerous man."

"Th-Thank you," Rena said as she bows slightly to him.

"Where is the closest police station?" Axel asked.

"It's kinda far."

"Then let's get going."

And they leave.


The woman, Ritsuko, arrives at Teppei's house where Teppei is seated at a table counting his money with two of his subordinates sitting there as well.

"What's wrong, Ritsuko?" Teppei asked.

"We got a problem!"

"Eh?"

Ritsuko lowers her head and takes a deep breath. Then raises her head. "It's about my Hinamizawa Husband! His daughter, Reina, knows all about us and our badger game!"

"What?!" As Teppei rises out of his seat. "How?!"

"She was in the Angel Mort the other day when we were together! She overheard everything!"

"And just how would you happen to know that she knows?" Teppei asked grimly as he leans over the table to glare into Ritsuko's face with a crook of his brow.

"I followed her to the junk yard outside of town," Ritsuko explained. "That is where she revealed the truth to me."

"And then what did you do to insure her secrecy?" Teppei growled menacingly as he reaches out to clasp her chin and bring her face even closer to his own.

"I tried to kill her but a big foreign guy interfered! I-I had no choice but to flee!" Ending in a desperate tone.

"What?!" Teppei roared into her face as he yanks her forward by her chin so that she has to stop herself from falling by quickly planting her hands upon the table.

"Wait! Wait! We can fix this!" Ritsuko cried with shrunken irises as she clasps Teppei's wrist with one of her hand.

"How?" Teppei growled as he keeps his grip upon her chin.

"Okay," Ritsuko sighed as she collects her wits. "We have to assume that Reina is on her way to the police with that foreigner for protection, but the closest police station is far from that junk yard. Now, if you and the boys come with me, we should catch up to them. That way I can deal with Reina while you three deal with the foreigner, who also knows Japanese by the way."

Teppei releases her chin so that Ritsuko straightens and he thinks while leering upward while stroking his own chin.

"Understood. Come on, boys."


Axel and Rena are walking along the road.

"You're Japanese is good, Axer-san," Rena said.

"Why thank you."

"I was never very good with languages," Rena said in a somber tone as she looks down momentarily. "But I'm good at detective work though." As she looks up at him on a brighter tone.

"Is that so? Then maybe you should think about becoming a police detective when you get older."

Rena giggles a close-eyed smile.

"So the name of the place were heading to is?" Axel asked as he trails off, knowing what she will say.

"Hinamizawa."

"Hinamizawa," Axel echoed grimly.

"So exactly where are you from in America, Axer-san?"

"I'm from Ohio."

Rena giggles once again.

"What's so funny?"

"Ohayou means good morning in Japanese."

"Ohio gets its name from an Indian tribe. Many of America's states are named after the Indian tribes who lived there."

Rena stops as she scowls ahead, causing Axel to stop as well and look. He sees a car off in the distance approaching them.

"That's Ritsuko's car!" Rena gasped. "Axer-san, we have to get out of here!" As she runs, prompting Axel to follow. Together they run into the forest.


"That's them!" Ritsuko exclaimed as she points forward from the driver's seat with Teppei alongside her.

"They just made it easy for us," Teppei sneered. "All we have to do is simply get out and chase them into the woods and kill them in there without witnesses."


Axel and Rena run through the forest, pushing brush aside. A distant slamming of car doors makes them both stop momentarily to look back, with Axel gnashing his teeth and his irises shrunk from fright.

"My God, those guys really are out to kill us!" He gasped.

"Come on!" As Rena grabs him and they run again.

They keep running through the forest.

"Does this Teppei have any friends?" Axel asked.

"I think he has two," Rena answered. "And we must assume that they're with him."

She stops for a moment to regard Axel.

"We're going to have to split up," she said intently. "The three guys will come after you, while Ritsuko will come after me."

"But-"

"No choice!" Rena stated desperately. "If we stay together, they will kill us together! But with us seperated, we will have a fighting chance."

"M-Maybe for you with that woman, but I'm gonna have three men to contend with! I don't think I can fight two men, let alone three!"

"There is no choice, Axer-san! Now run!"

Axel nods and runs one way, while Rena runs the other.


Ritsuko, Teppei, and his two thugs stomp through the forest in pursuit of Axel and Rena.

"This is such a pain in the ass," one of the thugs whined. "Where did those two go?"

"Man up, fool! We'll get them!" Teppei snarled.

"Look!" the other thug exclaimed while pointing.

They see Rena running off.

"Over there!" Ritsuko exclaimed while also pointing.

They see Axel running in the opposite direction of Rena.

"You sure you don't want one of the boys with you?" Teppei asked Ritsuko.

"Nah, I can handle Reina by myself," she waved dismissively with closed eyed haughtiness. "And besides, you're going to need them to handle that foreigner."

"Fine. Come on, boys."

Ritsuko goes off in pursuit of Rena as Teppei and his two goons go off in pursuit of Axel.


Axel runs through the forest. He does not know the lay of the land and hopes that he does not get lost. He wishes that he could go into another universe right about now.

He is stopped by a mountain side too steep to climb and too wide to get around, and is doubly trapped on either side by brush too thick to go through. Sweat rolls down his face as he starts hyperventilating.

"Gotcha now, gaijin!"

The loud coarse voice shouted from behind him, causing Axel to rapidly turn around with pinpricked irises at the sight of three men stalking toward him with gleeful expressions. One of them is dressed in a Hawaiian shirt and has permed bleach hair.

"You should've minded your own business, you stupid gaijin!" Teppei sneered. "Or maybe you thought you were gonna get lucky with that girl you rescued?"

Axel takes a deep breath as he removes his knapsack.


Rena runs through the trees and stops to listen. She cannot hear anything and wonders if she had indeed lost Ritsuko, then continues onward.

A punch to the face causes Rena to cry out and fall upon the cool hard ground. Ritsuko is quick to straddle her stomach once again and clamp her hands around Rena's throat. Ritsuko grins malevolently.

"Finally, I can kill you in peace," she exclaimed triumphantly, "now that Teppei and the boys are handling your foreign bodyguard. It's too bad really because he is pretty hot. Were you going to reward him with a fuck afterwards, Reina-chan? You're probably still too small for foreign-!"

Ritsuko screams in agony while letting go of Rena's throat and arches back from having a stick viciously jabbed into her eye, courtesy of Rena, who shoves her away to scurry out from underneath. Rena eagerly gulps breathes of fresh air and revives.

"You fucking little bitch!" Ritsuko shrieked with rage as she turns to regard Rena while still covering her eye.

And ends up getting a massive rock to the face.

Ritsuko falls backward while gagging with a busted bloodied face that is now missing front teeth. Rena, now snarling with widened eyes and shrunken gleaming irises, stands over Ritsuko with a rock the size of a soccer ball held high above her head in both hands.

"Die!" Rena screeches as she brings that rock down upon Ritsuko's head with a sickening crunch, splattering blood.

She continues to bash in Ritsuko's head while screaming for her to die, and eventually stops to catch her breath. Though mainly over Ritsuko's caved in head and popped out eyes.

Rena drops the rock back onto Ritsuko's head and runs to find the road, and does so. She sees the car and runs up to it. There, she checks around to find anything and ends up finding a nata, a machete with a long pointed tip that runs perpendicular to the blade, in the trunk.

"Odd, that was not taken with them," Rena noted aloud as she holds it aloft. "They must've been too cocky, believing that they could handle us."


Axel grunts loudly as he is thrown to the ground. His face now swollen and bloodied.

"Stupid fool," Teppei gloated as he repeatedly kicks Axel in the ribs. "Did you think you could take us all on?" Then stops. "Get him up boys."

They roughly grab Axel and hoist him up by either arm and pin them behind his back, exposing his front. Teppei punches Axel in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him, causing him to gasp once again in pain. Axel's head gets winced back as one of the thugs grabs his hair and pulls. He barely registers a punch coming his way, before it connects with his cheek, violently twisting his head off to one side as he gets a dreamy feeling once again and pain goes searing through his face.

"Let's end this," Teppei said grimly as he takes out a knife.

So this is it. Axel thought as he feels his mind detach from himself. Instead of his whole life flashing before his eyes, it's his death instead. Guess they were wrong about that.

"Look out!" One of the thugs yelled.

Teppei turns around with a curious expression and ends up getting his head chopped off. Blood gushes up from the stump of his neck like a fountain as his body collapses and his head bounces along the ground. Axel gapes at the sight of Rena, her white clothes splattered and dripping with blood as she holds the nata.

The thugs are flabbergasted and loosen their hold upon Axel. He goes into action by wreching his arms free and elbowing one thug in the face and punching the other, doing his best to ignore the pain he is in.

Rena rushes past him and slays one of the thugs. Axel is shocked at how quickly she had taken him down. The other thug is terror-striken and turns to run, but he is not quick enough as Rena also slays him as well.

Axel is kneeling on the ground as he stares between the three men with wide eyes with shimmering pinpricked pupils. Their blood flowing over the ground. He stares at Teppei's head lying elsewhere as his mind seems to stretch, then up at Rena and gives a start over seeing the same look in her eyes that Shion had.

"Axer-kun, are you okay?" Her tone innocent and concerned.

"I . . . I don't know," he answered hesitantly as he is finally able to stand, fighting against the pain in his ribs.

Rena looks around, then back at Axel.

"This solves our problem," Rena said in a soft chilly tone.

Axel walks up to his knapsack and picks it up.