Chapter 7: Yzctk ox ovp Fmqu

When he came to he was alone – Satoko was nowhere to be seen, and though the feeling of her hand against his throat yet lingered Natsumi had vanished as well. He woke in the entrance hall just beneath a series of toppled lockers, the hallways behind him consumed by ash, soot, and steel. Much to his surprise leg had been patched up, so at the very least someone had found him at one point and presumably hid him away.

He pulled himself out of the wreckage with little issue, being virtually unscathed otherwise - there was no longer a roof above him, or much of a floor beneath him – all that remained of the schoolhouse was a hollow skeleton, and the sky above was a boiling red abyss. There was no sun, no moon, no stars – only the endless dance of black and red, high in the sky as though the whole world were wrapped in its darkness.

Stumbling out of that space, he found a familiar baseball bat just off to the side – it seemed as though it was Satoko that had not only survived the wreckage but had saved him as well, though why she was no longer there wasn't clear. Propping himself up with it he proceeded out of the ruins, calling her name as he did so.

What was beyond the wreckage of the school yard was not accurately described as Hinamizawa, but rather its scorched remains. Eveywhere he looked, as far as the eye could see, was an incomprehensible smoldering heap.

He was more than certain that there were hundreds dead, though not a single body was in sight. The only thing that was certain was that the wall was no more, and the mass of beggars that clawed at its foundations had seized the village for all that it could have ever possibly been worth.

Just how long did it take for all of this to happen? An hour? Ten hours? There wasn't much sense in trying to distinguish the difference, at least not anymore – for no matter how much time passed there was nothing but the hazy sky and the howling wind and raving screams all around.

It had finally happened – the people of Mahamatsuri had struck back – and they had claimed the land they held so dear. It had happened so suddenly, and without warning – but somehow the deed had been done, and Hinamizawa had unceremoniously become a burning wreck.

The street before him was entirely in ruin, and the further down it he walked the worse the damage was. The beggars of Mahamatsuri had struck with a vengeance unlike anything he could have possibly understood – and they continued to storm the village, lighting aflame everything in their path as they made their way deeper, presumably towards the Furude Tower, which couldn't be seen even partially through the smoke.

Many of them were Catholic, chanting Hail Mary-s and Our Father-s as they moved about like gremlins from one property to the next, leaving no stone left unturned.

Much to his confusion he came across the Sonozaki estate first, despite the school house being nowhere near it. But regardless both it, and its nearly uncountable generations of use were cleansed in the flames as well, but without so much as an unconscious body in sight. Instead the conflagration was rife with looters and half naked men running around with their well known 'fuck the Sonozakis' chant fresh in the air, urinating on the wreckage and on each other in their daze. There was no yakuza, no Sonozaki family – there was just a burning heap, as though all the tension and turmoil in Hinamizawa's social structure had been suspended eternally as it all fell apart at the seams.

He proceeded further down the road to where he assumed his house was. The power lines had all been toppled, the fields burned, the cars left in fried heaps, the homes ransacked. There were beggars spray painting buildings, drilling holes through walls for easier home invasions – there were even some fornicating in the streets.

And he couldn't help but wonder – what good were all the traditions, all the carefully preserved culture, the sense of order that had kept Hinamizawa together for so long worth now? What were those countless nights of handing out punishment after punishment? What meaning did they have? Here there was no structure, no semblance of law or order – there was just mindless, haphazard discord, and there was no end to it in sight. No police, no ambulances – there was nothing but the fire and those that were hysterically trampling through it.

All of this was for the sake of an absolution. An absolution that did not exist. And by now Mahamatsuri had to have been well aware of that simple fact that Hinamizawa had kept hidden away for so very long. Now, all that was left was the fire, and the carefully built up stack of lies that had caused all of this to happen in the first place was the tinder upon which Hinamizawa now burned.

Before too long he came across a beggar that had managed to latch onto a villager that hadn't been able to get away in time – a small girl, younger than most that would've gone to school in the village. And the beggar was in the process of making short work of her clothing, very nearly foaming at the mouth in excitement over the prospect of having his way with such a small child.

And the girl had spotted him standing there watching it all unfold, and started crying to him for help. The beggar followed her eyes and saw him as well, and only laughed at him, his lecherousness overtaking any other emotion he could've possibly expressed.

By the time the man had his pants down there was a gaping hole in the back of his head, deep enough to more than merely pierce the brain, his bowels soon voiding for all the world to see. He fell over to the side and the girl crawled away, kicking and screaming all the way before scampering off into the flames.

In the end it turned out that killing a man was not all that different from tearing a door down.

It wasn't really until that moment that it all sank in – that the daily life he'd come to know was gone forever. He knew the life he struggled to build, brick by brick, the internal struggle he had and the changes he'd made to deal with it – none of them meant anything.

He had killed a man. And in doing so he'd realized just how worthless life truly was.

A man was dead, yet lightning hadn't come down on him from the heavens. His hands that he'd used to swing the bat were still firmly attached to the rest of his body. He'd committed the worst sin of all. Yet here he stood, in just as much of a daze as he had been before.

He hadn't killed that man because he wanted to save the girl – no, that wasn't the real reason. That might've been what had killed his hesitation, but it wasn't the drive behind the act. He'd killed him because he'd legitimately wanted to. He didn't care what values or what symbolism went into it. The look on his face had disgusted him – the sound of his laugh had, too. He hated the man enough just for existing to want him dead. He'd passed judgment upon that man – a task fit only for God – in a matter of seconds, with no justification other than the simple fact that he didn't like him.

Therefore, if there had ever even been on in the first place, there was surely no god here. All that mattered in this world he now lived in was how hard you could bludgeon or how fast you could pull a trigger.

And that was all. No meaning in protecting the people he loved, because he was so weak that he could only barely overcome his own psychosis. No meaning in pretending that a world without violence was the natural state of things. Effectively he had died the moment he'd taken another man's life – there wasn't a single aspect of the Keiichi Maebara that had struggled that was granted any purpose in this new world.

But even so he still called her name as he wandered through the madness, for even in the midst of all that pointlessness there was one thing he still wanted –

He always longed for stability. But nothing in the world he knew was truly stable, even himself – except, of course, for her. She had stayed true to her purpose from the start, even if she had trouble shaping it.

He had to find her.

He had to find Satoko.

He needed her to tell him that everything was going to be okay. That there was going to be an end to all of this, and that things were going to go back to the way they were. Even if none of it was true.

He needed her to lie to him. After all, that was what they agreed to. That no matter what, she would pull him back.

No matter how far he walked his house never came into view – only ruined streets that he couldn't recognize and the occasional destroyed landmark that shouldn't have been where he found it.

Finally he came upon corpses – fresh corpses, but not of the villagers, but of the beggars, each dismembered cleanly and some even decapitated, their body parts strewn across the streets. In fact aside from that single lost girl there were no villagers to be seen at all.

And sure enough, along that path he'd found her there, wandering the hellish waste with the siderite cleaver in hand, standing over a beggar that was feebly crawling away from her and begging for mercy, his left leg reduced to a bloody stump, his right tangled in the entrails of another man.

She strode over to him and rammed her foot into his back before flipping him over and driving her cleaver straight through his throat. She then lifted him by his hair and, extending the blade, severed his head from the rest of his body, staring at his vacant eyes briefly before tossing it in a random direction.

It was more than apparent that she wasn't doing this out of the same loss of purpose that he had – after all, she was the north star, unmoving, ever constant. This was her job. This was her purpose. And she would carry it out no matter what.

It was her job to burn things down. But everything was burning. There was no reason for her to be doing any of this anymore – but she would keep going until she dropped dead. She may have now been completely hollow inside, but even then she would never stop.

She turned and saw him standing there, staring at her. Her face was naturally splashed with blood and her school uniform was drizzled in guts – there was even someone's small intestine wrapped around her shoulders and trailing behind her like a muffler. Her face was perfectly calm, showing not even the slightest sign of delirium. She did not call out to him or recognize his presence in any way beyond that – she merely turned away and continued down the street.

She roamed the narrow maze of splintering buildings as though she walked that road every day of the week – but she moved slowly enough for him to catch up to her, and before he knew it, they were on their way through the village just like they had been every morning up until that point.

And the road soon made sense, despite all the twists and turns and seemingly the retracing of steps at first. They passed all the right houses, even passing the Sonozaki estate and briefly stopping to see if Mion would emerge. But around each bend another beggar would appear, and the cleaver would pass from her hands as though in flight and find a home in another poor fool's bowels.

They did not speak. There wasn't anything to say, anyway. She clearly didn't want him dead anymore, and that was all he needed to know.

Despite everything, the Furude Tower still stood – but the fields were in shambles, the storehouse was destroyed and the housing on fire. The flowers had long since burned away and where Takumi Furude's flower garden once shone brilliantly stood a wooden cross propped up by wooden planks – the beggars were preparing for a burning that would doubtlessly bring the tower down, and were hard at work moving back and forth across the shrine grounds, pulling apart whatever they could for additional wood.

Natsumi merely stood there, however. She didn't attempt to stop a single one of them – she just watched, and he stood beside her watching as well. Much to his surprise, they were both rational enough at that moment to realize that there was nothing they could do to stop what was going to happen here.

"I couldn't anymore." She suddenly spoke, the stagnating silence finally ending. "I couldn't love people the way I used to. I needed this name and this face because my old ones were just a big jumble of all the things I hated. And if I couldn't believe in anything at all, I would've just shriveled up and died. Then I tried loving you, the same way I used to. Now I'm sure that was a mistake."

But he didn't have any words for her – especially not in that moment, when a crowd of beggars came from behind the tower, carrying someone in the air over them, nor in the next, when the captive in question turned out to be Rika, her clothes in tatters and her face scarred severely with cuts and bruises.

The crowd must have at least been partially aware that the two of them weren't any of theirs, but they didn't seem to care in the slightest, one of them tossing Keiichi a flaming torch since he was standing close to the cross.

The beggars carried Rika to the structure. It was plenty obvious what was about to happen, but as Keiichi tried to move Natsumi held him back.

"They'll kill you." She spoke quietly.

They bound her to the cross, though with cloth bindings that were hardly sturdy – but Rika was just a little girl. There was no way she'd have the strength to break them. The crowd started crying out, shrill and ecstatic – do it! Do it! Do it!

Rika's eyes were resolute. There was no trace of fear of any kind – she was perfectly willing to accept death here at his hand and he simply couldn't understand why. But while he stood there with the torch in his hands and the crowd cheered on, the girl at his side had no intention of waiting on him to make a decision. Without warning she pulled the torch from his hands.

"Wait, don't – that's Rika, for fuck's sake!"

She didn't so much as bat an eyelash his way and merely shrugged off his attempts to stop her from approaching – for a moment her eyes met Rika's.

"If you have any peace you wish to make, do so now." She said without an ounce of empathy in her voice.

"All I have to say to you is best described as 'truth', rather than peace." It was Keiichi's first time hearing Rika speak in that tone of voice – but to Natsumi, it was the one voice she remembered her by, untouched, unbroken.

"And what truth might that be?"

"You were not born an object." She replied, doing all she could to hold back a huge smile. "But by accepting everyone's false affection, you were destined to be nothing but."

"Am I supposed to understand what –"

"You were not loved. Not once. Not by anyone that kissed you. Not by anyone that touched you. Not by anyone that stuffed you full of happy thoughts and eupjoria, not anyone that made you kill their unborn seed after the fact. They wanted your flesh, your voice, they wanted everything that you kept sacred – but they did not want your love."

Though her expression remained neutral, Natsumi's face went pale. Keiichi's objections finally stopped, unable to comprehend not just the words but the fact that they were being spoken by someone that spent her days beautifully ignorant of the world around her, whose purity served as a moral compass for him on more than one occasion.

And in that brief time where nothing seemed to make any sense, the torch went flying, igniting the straw at the base of the pyre. Without thinking he tried to move forward to save her, but Natsumi grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled back as hard as she could.

"She dies so we can live." She spoke into his ear. "She broke the rules. She pays the price."

Her words were familiar. So familiar it made him angry.

Spat much like fire, his words came forth in an uncontrollable rage. "None of that horseshit matters anymore! You're no different from any other killer!"

Her face most certainly didn't show it, but she had no words to describe how deep those words had cut into her. But for the moment, none of that mattered, for the fire had spread and their friend was burning. At first she had gone very quietly, staring down at the swirling red with that same fearless look on her face. Even when they gnawed away at the tips of her toes she did not so much as brace herself.

But when the fire consumed her, she screamed. She cried and cried, the pain unlike anything she had ever felt before. The flames boiled her inside and out. Her hair burned away slowly and her scalp, dowsed with oil, caught fire all at once. But even then there was no cry for help. There was no begging for mercy, no hysterical apologizing – not even a vengeful outcry. And by the time all that was left of the girl was a charred husk, it was certain that for her dying that way meant nothing.

The crowd wanted to hear those cries for help. They wanted to hear her suffer as they believed they had. Her death was, therefore, not enough. But it wasn't enough for Natsumi or Keiichi, either.

"What are you?" He asked, his eyes still glued to Rika's deceased form. "Are you even human, really?"

She had no words, and merely started off towards the tower entrance. The entire building was going to catch fire before too long but that didn't seem to be enough to stop her.

He had no other choice but to follow her. After all, he'd already decided that he would stop her, and now would have to be that time. He proceeded in after her, knowing that no matter what happened inside, he could walk out and as long as there was still hope that Satoko would be there for him to find, even if Natsumi was lost to him forever, there was still a future left to him.

The inside of the Furude Tower was plain and undecorated, even with the slightest amount of detail. There was an endless pattern of wood that crawled the walls, floor and ceiling – even the stairs were made out of the same color – he wouldn't have been surprised if all of it had come from one massive tree. The floors went on and on into the sky – there wasn't a soul to be found, despite the tower supposedly being the heart of Hinamizawa's entire government.

The highest floor – the inner sanctum of the Powers That Be. The source of all that was happening and all that ever had. A presumably century old establishment, unrivaled by any other form of law enforcement.

It was an empty, circular room with two small windows. The floor was coated in a very thick layer of dust and the air was stagnant, and as they crossed it the floorboards creaked so much it was as though they would crack under the pressure - it was clear it hadn't been used in a very long time.

At the very center was a single woman that did not react in the slightest to their arrival, illuminated by a single dim light that shone down from a cheap light fixture. It was Hinoka Furude, Rika's mother, dressed in a white kimono sitting on a cushion in the middle of the room.

"You shouldn't be in here." Natsumi started. "At the very least you could have watched your daughter die."

"She wouldn't have wanted that." Hinoka spoke. "She would've wanted me to be the one up there instead."

"Where are the rest?"

"The rest of who?"

"The dissenters. The council of elders – where is everyone else?"

"There isn't anyone else."

"I don't understand."

"There hasn't been a council of elders in nearly a hundred years, not since your family and mine ended their bloodlines."

"That can't be true."

"The only proof that the Powers That Be still exist at all are the summons. And, of course, that boy whose leash you were carrying until recently. I'd imagine all this happened because he was killed."

"Then the spread of Christianity -"

"There wasn't a spread, child. It's simply the natural order of this place."

"Explain!" Natsumi extended the cleaver, thrusting it in her direction, the blade coming close enough to graze her nose.

"This place has been ingrained with the Holy Trinity since its days as the swamp village. The entire Furude family has been devoted to it for many generations."

"A secret-Christian society...?"

"During those times Hinamizawa was visited by the first Jesuit. Though he was exiled for cloaking the words of one god with the name of Oyashiro-sama, the miko of that generation fell in love with the man and his god, and took his teachings to heart. Though the other two ruling clans could not be swayed and the miko was hung for her actions, ever since the Furude women have always maintained an Onigiri to safeguard the true faith of the village, nurtured in the shadows and always growing."

"So you bought into lies?"

"The only lie was the one that we told ourselves about what Oyashiro-sama is supposed to be. That vengeful horned monstrosity, the one you grew up on, was just a delusion. It was because we believed in a benevolent god that we spread Oyashiro-sama to the corners of this land."

"So then you're the ones that dug the tunnels?"

"We did not. What Mahamatsuri believed in was not salvation, but self-gratification. They could never understand – there is no salvation for beasts, only for men."

"Then who did?!"

"I don't know. I'd imagine Rika was the only one that knew for sure."

"And why is that?" Keiichi finally spoke. "Why is it that Rika is the one that supposedly knows all this shit? Wasn't she too young for any of this crap?"

"Rika was not a member of our family – she was an outsider, and chose to be such because lacked compassion for other people. As such, she saw everything going on around her, no matter how slight the detail."

"And you let her go on like that, completely unhinged?"

"No matter what we said to her or how we punished her, she never changed her way of seeing things. It didn't matter what shape it was – she loved living in her boxes. And her mind was critical and uncaring – she saw everything and everyone around her exactly the way they were. There was nothing we could do by the time we saw what she was turning into."

"And that's really what you think, huh?"

"Indeed."

"Her father didn't see things that way."

"Her father failed her more strongly than any other."

"Really? And what about you? What did you do? Absolutely nothing? Did you even try to understand what she was thinking?"

"My responsibilities to this clan and the mouths of this village take precedence over everything else."

"Don't give me that shit, that's not a reason!"

"Enough of this." Natsumi cut back in, readying the cleaver once more. Keiichi backed down begrudgingly, unable to get the confession he was looking for. "You don't have a use anymore."

"Are you going to kill me now? I have no expectations of living past this night regardless of what you decide to do. It won't be any different from what you felt when you watched Rika die."

"If I can't destroy my enemies outright, I have to settle for the next best thing. At the very least, you'll get to reconcile with your daughter in hell."

No more than an instant later and Hinoka Furude's head folded backward and slid from her neck, tumbling onto the floor in front of them.

"It's over now, isn't it?"

"No. The night isn't over until we get rid of all the filth that threatens our village. Just like always."

"Really? And who are you going to go after next?"

"That Goro Majima – he's Satoko's father. Of that I'm sure."

"What...?"

"We find him and kill him – he must be the Onigiri. He's the one that helped Mahamatsuri achieve this, by building the tunnels under the wall from the inside. Nothing else makes sense. Only then will Hinamizawa be safe."

"There is no Hinamizawa anymore, don't you get it?"

"After everything you've done already, you want to stop now?"

"All I've done, huh? Girl, if there's one thing in the world that I know is definitely not in the natural state of things, it's your head. Every day of your life you've made it your mission to destroy families – how can't you find anything wrong with that?"

"And you followed along because you believed in it."

"No, not once. You know damn well what the real reason was. Just look around you – it's over. We know now all of the fighting wasn't for anything away. There's no point in fawning over these ashes."

"Why did you follow me up here in the first place?"

"Look, I've decided that I'm going to stay the way I am, all my faults included. When the morning finally comes and we get see the sun again, I'm going to be Keiichi Maebara again. I don't really give a shit about the true value of life or how much of a lie everything is or any of that crap – I'm going to live. Even if it's just for me, even if things are fucked up so royally that there's no one else left, I'm going to live whatever life I've got left."

"You can't honestly believe that. You're just like me, after all –"

"And that's why I'm trying to tell you – it might be impossible to forget, but we've gotta move past it now. Otherwise we're either gonna end up dead or live long enough just to turn into beasts. And I can tell you right now there's nothing more meaningless than that. Even if it's not easy, even if it's going to take most of our lives, we can still do it."

"She said you didn't love me. Why would I ever believe you?"

"And quite fucking honestly, I don't. There isn't a single thing you've done that's admirable in any sense – there's nothing good, nothing just, nothing even logical about any of the shit you try to justify as part of the greater good. But I told you I wouldn't leave you behind, so here I am."

"You really are a cruel person after all."

"I'm not going to lie to you anymore. I'm not going to let you bury this under any more bullshit because the only way you're ever going to walk away from this is to tear down the last wall you've got."

"It's not bullshit."

"Who told you that? Your retainer?"

"He's my father."

"He's not your father. He's a heartless man, blinded by his bloodline. The guy has an inferiority complex to boot."

"He took me in when I had no one. If he didn't take me in I'd be dead, and just like you said there's no point to being dead."

"He tore down everything that you'd built up and replaced it with some fake bullshit. What kind of moral compass is that?! What kind of man does that to a child and gets praised for it?!"

"Violence is a necessary adjunct –"

"Come on, children are supposed to be thoughtless, but you're not a child anymore! Lashing out at someone just because they disagree with you – that's all we were doing. You wanna tell me that means anything?!"

"Those found in violation of village principles are no better than dogs! And in case you've forgotten that includes you too!"

"They're stronger than you. Stronger than me, too. All we were doing was blindly following the rules! Hinamizawa's laws and customs were all just a farce. All just a ploy for a bunch of old assholes to hide inside their little box for as long as possible. The people that stand up against that – even if they're acting on impulse, even if they haven't thought things through all the way, even if they put other lives at risk by doing so, at least they have the strength to make their own decisions!"

"Lies…"

"We fucked up royally. The both of us. I let you go on like this for so long and didn't try to change anything. We're going to walk away from this – you and me. We're going to leave this place and make up for the shit we've done, and we have to find some kind of replacement -"

"Lies!"

"I'm running out of ways to say this -"

"I've heard enough. If you're going to stand in my way – even if it's you, I'm going to have to cut you down."

"Then you know what? Fucking do it! But if you do, you damn well better tell my parents the truth."

"What truth?!"

"That you gutted me because -"

"Because you broke protocol, got in my way and wouldn't budge!"

"Because I started saying no. That's the only reason."

"No, you're lying -"

"That's exactly why! Fucking say it, Natsumi! That's why! Because you wanted to take the easy way out, and I wouldn't let you. That's what you're gonna have to say, that's the only reason you could ever fucking have for killing another person -"

"You're lying! You don't know anything what kind of person do you think I am?!"

"You're the kind of person I hate more than anything else in the world."

"Alright, Keiichi-kun. If that's the truth, then you're just going to have to take that hatred and kill me with it."

He raised his bat, holding it much like one would ready a katana. It was clearly too late – she was so far gone there wasn't any other way forward for her but to continue destroying the lives of people she didn't approve of. He'd have to stop her by force.

Natsumi extended the cleaver, bent her knees ever so slightly, and then in the next moment the two of them were locking blades, at it were.

She was overwhelmingly powerful – she was without a doubt stronger than Noro, though perhaps not quite as invincible. She had more power in her bones than most grown men, and it wasn't as though he hadn't been expecting it – he knew how well built she was, and how he paled in comparison on essentially every account.

He only had strength and speed in his arms – and so he'd have to use them to his advantage. Otherwise she'd crush him in an instant. If he could fend her off, rather than beat her outright, he could win, but that was the only way. The most he could hope to do was tire her out – he knew she had a limit, and he was almost certain that she was more than halfway there already.

With each swipe of the cleaver she scraped at the bat carving off slivers of it at a time. Each swing was well timed and fast enough to eat everything in its way straight down to the bone. Her ability to extend and retract the blade as she swung was enough to have meant the end of him had he'd not seen her do it many times before. She was fast, she was strong – but she was very predictable, at least to him. Every swipe came from a perfectly telegraphed direction, at an exact speed, and he'd come to know all of these since long ago.

And there was no doubt that she knew this – that the same power that struck fear into so many was known to him like the back of his hand. But she knew no other way – she couldn't fake him out, she couldn't start swinging blindly. She refused to come at him with anything but her best. For her best was all she had.

He parried her slashes primarily with low swings, though several were aimed towards her face when she caught on. And she would only ever back away for a moment before coming at him again, tearing a little more of the bat away each time. Whenever he ran out of space to fall back he'd push forward, and so on and so forth, every action dictated by how she came at him and from where.

But even then her limit seemed so much further away than his was.

All it would take was one slip up – and so it did, as in one seemingly innocent instance of her swing from the left, followed by a faster one from the right, he did not move the bat to his right side fast enough, causing the blade to catch his chin as she moved forward and retracted the blade – knowing what would inevitably come as the blade extended he fell backward, his head safe from its clutches, but his right forearm, which had gone up over his head as he did, was by no means so lucky.

He saw both his arm and the bat go flying, and in the next instant came the pain and the screaming and the spraying blood – she'd taken everything from his hand to slightly below his elbow with just that one swing. And he could see her eyes glinting with delight as she thrust the blade downward into his right shoulder, piercing straight through to the ground. But that wasn't enough – she kept pushing the blade as far through his shoulder as she could, to the point where he was sure she was cutting tendons. His vision swam and his hearing was drowned out by an incessant ringing in his ears.

In that moment something shattered within him – he wasn't terrified by the notion that life as he once knew it could physically no longer continue. Instead he was unbelievably angry – all rationale took flight and the only thing he could think about amidst the pain was how badly he wanted her dead.

Then the tower shook, the fire having eaten away at enough of the foundations to cause collapsing. Natsumi lost her footing and her grip on the cleaver – still unable to process everything that was happening correctly Keiichi moved on instinct, pulling the cleaver out of his shoulder and having finally found footing of some kind, charged into Natsumi, holding onto it with one hand and only just managing to point it in her direction.

The floor sagged even further and a fissure opened up in it, the tower folding inward bit by bit. Rika's mother was engulfed by the opening, and the sudden shift caused Keiichi to trip, but gave him enough momentum to drive the cleaver through Natsumi's left leg as he did so, claiming everything from the knee down in the process. He felt the wound in his left leg open up, the movement proving too stressful, and whatever strength he'd used to hold himself up on that leg promptly gave way. Natsumi meanwhile cried out and fell over, sliding straight towards the hole in the floor, though managing to hold on to a jutting floorboard that seemed able to support her weight before being swallowed completely.

He limped over towards her, the cleaver too far away for him to bother with – but as he did she vaulted over the edge and dragged him to the ground, pinning him down with her legs.

He could feel it, with her thighs pressed against him – the dampness of the cavern between her legs, and not from blood of any sort.

"You're really fucked up, you know that?" He spoke only facts.

"It's why we're perfect for each other."

She smiled sweetly at him for a moment, then grit her teeth and rammed her head into his while shoving her fingers into the gaping hole in his shoulder, yanking on whatever flesh she could get her clawing fingers around. He feebly swung his remaining fist at her face, then grabbing hold of it and trying to turn it away – but she still had two good arms, and used the other to make her way down his pants, pulling on his shaft as hard as she could as though to tear it right off.

It was a losing battle until the moment the floor gave way even further, the cleaver now sliding towards them and Keiichi somehow managing to grab hold of it before she could. He drove it into her side, forcing her to free both her arms to stop its advance. In that moment using his hips and legs he inverted their position, pulled the cleaver out of her side and trying to drive it straight into her – only she sacrificed one of her hands to stop it midway, and with her one good leg kicked him off of her and into the pit.

Fortunately it was a fairly short fall that was further cushioned by exposed planks of wood, but only moments after he came to a stop she descended upon him, cleaver in hand – but he rolled out of the way just in time. She landed on her good leg, the force of the impact shattering her foot, and the cleaver passed straight through the floor and out of her grasp.

Both crippled and unarmed, all that remained was their aggression. There was no deliberation or character in either of them at that point – blood addled and stricken with both grief and hatred, the two simply struck at each other again and again and again.

He wailed down on her with his one good arm, ramming his fist into her face over and over, She pushed him away, managing to end up on top of him, and grabbed him by his lower jaw, punching him again and again until his nose was a bloodied stump.

He forced himself over her again, kicking at her between her thighs as hard as he could, then attempting to break her nose using his dead arm to hold her steady, but she managed to tear them away and put two of her fingers straight through his left eye, blood gushing as the sac imploded. As he cried out she pushed even deeper, but he managed to grab hold and force her hand out, then biting down on her fingers as hard as he could, managing to bite through her index and middle fingers. Spitting them out he pushed her off and threw himself on top of her once more, grabbing a fistful of her hair and bashing her head into a spike in the splintered floors enough times to tear through her right ear.

And it went on – bits and pieces of them scattering across the sinking tower one shimmering trail of blood at a time. And they were soaked in it as well, with no concern for the blood loss that would doubtlessly kill them both if the fighting went on any longer. The surge that moved through them was carnal and desperate. Natsumi's desire to keep the world the way it was, Keiichi's desire to change everything – neither one of them were even aware of those ideals at that point. All they knew – all they needed to know – was that

And at last the floor gave way completely – the tower fell like an elevator smoke and heat engulfing them.

For a moment there was red, then black – and then nothing, for a brief few moments before his eyes snapped back open and he was faced with the sky.

He tried to stand, and very unceremoniously rose to at least one of his feet, his left leg still unable to support anything. He found the siderite cleaver close by, the mechanism broken and the blade permanently extended. Propping himself up on it he proceeded into the wreckage.

Sure enough, she was there, hanging out of a pile of rubble, a huge cavity opened in her chest, but unfairly still conscious. She saw him with her hazy eyes and smiled.

"Please don't kill me." She managed to speak.

"You want to die."

"I don't. I don't want to die."

"It's too late. You won't make it no matter what I do."

"It's not enough – it isn't fair. There were so many. So many people, and now -"

Her gag reflex suddenly kicked in, making her throw up all over the ground in front of her.

"If you don't get it by now, you won't ever." He doesn't react to the display at all – in truth his eyes were staring far past her at that point, miles into the distance. "If killing you is the only way to make it stop, then that's what I'll have to do."

"You're not a killer. Not in your heart."

"Maybe not, but I'm sure as hell getting used to it."

"I'll haunt you the rest of your life. You know that, even if you deny it now -"

"You never listened. Not once. If I actually get out of here, I'll make my peace with it one day. And I'll have people to help me do it, too."

"I hate you."

As though struck by lightning he suddenly remembers it – the dream, the ocean, the dying girl.

"No you don't."

"And why... Why wouldn't I?"

"Because we're best friends. Now and forever."

Her eyes widened for a moment, and in the next he had plunged the cleaver into her heart. And with that she passed. He didn't look at her corpse any more than he had to.

Only then did he realize he'd never called her by her real name – not once. Maybe that of all things was the key. The key to unlocking her closed heart. In fact, the more he thought about it, the more he realized that he'd given up on saving her from herself quite awhile ago. It was a rather dull realization, something he really knew just barely beneath the surface, yet didn't consider until that moment. But it didn't matter now, she was gone, and there was no changing that fact.

And just like that he was alone again – so, of course, all there was left was for him to continue his search, even if he was only minutes away from expiring.

He wandered through the now abandoned ruins of the Furude grounds, the cross Rika had been strapped to little more than a pile of ashes.

The shrine residence was still at least partially in tact, and so he passed through its remains while calling for Satoko. Much to his surprise, there was a response.

It was a soft coughing sound, so slight it was a wonder he'd caught it at all. He traced the sound to a small dark room. He fumbled around looking for a light switch, but there wasn't one, and there was furthermore no need.

On the floor in front of him was a child, huddled over a collapsed figure. It turned to face him -

It was Daiki Tomita. His eyes were dark and hollowed, his face was stained with tears. His glasses were broken, his clothes were covered in ash and soot -

"Aniki..." He spoke, his voice cracked.

"Daiki, you're... You're still here."

"What... happened to you?"

"Listen, I need to know – I need to know if you've seen Satoko." He showed him his arm. "I don't have a lot of time, y'see, and..."

"...I understand." The boy nodded his head after a few brief moments of silence. "She's at Irie-sensei's clinic. I tried to help her, but she ran away from me."

"O-Okay, let's go, can you walk? I can -" He tried moving a bit too quickly and his bad leg caught up with him, nearly causing a stumble.

"We'll go together." The boy stood up and proceeded out the door, holding Keiichi by the arm and managing to support him to some extent.

The two of them proceeded out the door and through the rubble. The Irie Clinic wasn't much of a walk from the shrine – he'd figured out how to retain as much of his blood as possible, and if they at least made it to medical supplies fast enough, he might have actually been able to survive.

"Do you know if anyone else is alive?" There was seemingly none of the boy he knew present at the moment – he sounded as though all the life had been sucked from him.

"Natsumi was, until a few moments ago."

"That's a shame. I never got to thank her."

"For what?"

"She saved me from the fire, after all."

"Ah, that's right..."

They crossed the field and proceeded into the woods, the indirect path to the clinic being the one thing that seemed to go exactly the way it was supposed to.

"What was it like?" Daiki suddenly asked him halfway to the destination. "You killed Natsumi, right?"

"Yeah, I did."

"What did it feel like?"

"Well, it didn't feel good, that much I can tell you."

"Do you regret it?"

"I didn't have a choice. She didn't give me one."

"Did you decide that before or after you lost an arm?"

"I don't remember, really."

"I see..."

As they moved Keiichi needed to support himself with the nearby trees – Daiki was certainly a help, but he was a bit too small to make the whole trip on his own strength.

"Where's your mom, by the way? Did you find her?"

"My mom..."

Suddenly Daiki stopped moving.

"Mom, Suguru, everyone's dead."

"I'm sorry."

"She dead, and... do you have any idea what they did to her?"

"Hey, I can't-"

Suddenly he was pushed, landing on his back. Daiki was standing over him, his eyes suddenly sharp and swelling with fury.

"I really thought about it, you know. I thought I could stop myself, but it's just too hard."

"Look, I know you've got a lot to be mad about but -"

"All this time, so many people totally ruined, and that's all you have to say? You don't know?! It's hard to remember?! Is that all it was? Something you could've done at any time without a second thought?!"

"What...?"

"I need a reason! A reason why my mom is dead but you get to go home and fuck your girlfriend like nothing happened!" The moment those words came out there was a hint of regret - even if it was there for only a moment, even if it would ultimately never show itself ever again, he'd seen it.

"I know I fucked up, and I'm sorry, but it's not that simple -"

"Who cares if you're sorry? What good does admitting you're wrong do for everyone else?! What good is a fucking apology to people that're dead?!"

He didn't have anything for those words – he hadn't thought about that at all until that moment. No, It wasn't just a matter of him, or Natsumi, or any of his close friends – many people had lost so much to the fire department, and in the end all he had done was act in the heat of the moment. And he wanted to come to terms with that by relying on someone else. But not once did it occur to him that maybe he didn't deserve that chance.

"It's not enough. It won't ever be enough if you just get to walk away from that, even if you lose an arm, even if you lose a leg, even if you were fucking paraplegic, don't you get that?!"

"Tell me what I have to do. Look, I'll do anything, please, just take me to her -"

Then he saw the flash of a knife, and in the next moment a seething pain tore through his chest. And everything from that point passed by in a series of barely coherent flashes- Daiki's look of disbelief as he stared at his bloodied hands in an unbridled hatred he had no control over, his attempt to flee as the ground around them began to shake, then a brief cry as a flaming branch descended from above and trapped the boy beneath it.

He wanted to call out to him, but at the same time he wanted to curse him, he wanted to tell him any number of cruel things – it wouldn't have been justified, but he would've done it. In the end all that came about once Daiki's screaming ceased was silence.

With that he was left alone, there in the splintering wood to spend his final moments in silence.

And as he died, he realized just how much of this ruin was his own doing.

Natsumi could have been saved. But he cowered and hid, so she had to die because of it. Daiki could have been saved. But he cowered and hid, so his life was ruined and his family destroyed. Mion could have been saved. But he cowered and hid, and so she was lost to whatever dark pit she had been hidden in. Then there were all the other people he could've prevented the suffering of that he couldn't even remember the names of.

So in the end, just as he feared, what he had done amounted to very little. Instead, what he had failed to do had formed a massive pile.. His own personal justification meant absolutely nothing, his self-pity was unsubstantial – for at this point, all that could have come from him, from his bond with Natsumi, from the friendships he'd built over the last two years, all the good that could have been born had been lost in the darkness and the flames.

And as he breathed his last, he no longer cared about anything, or anyone, and he returned to the dirt as something even dirt would ultimately cast aside.


Tips are next. They won't be the typical kind.