Fortune Chapter
In this abbreviated tale you will be given a lesson in the whims of lady luck, and how even the smallest glimmer of chance can be lost in a matter of seconds. When one places their fate in the cards, they cling to a small sliver of chance. That sliver, more often than not, is snatched away before the beholder's very eyes. But in this world, where one's luck cannot run out, perhaps the very definition of luck will be at stake. But beware the relevance of such musings about luck, especially in the eyes of the user-defined truth.
~Dr. Saturn Anne
The pivotal actors are as follows (perspective character get's the bold):
Rika Furude
Shion Sonozaki
Mion Sonozaki
Maebara Keichi
Rena Ryuugu
Mamoru Akasaka
The Unreliable Narrator (You should know what he looks like by now)
Rika Furude sat in the darkened room, having shut the blinds to block out the sun's rays. She'd been locked up in her room like this, with Satoko having been taken in by her uncle, trying to determine the source of this new phenomenon that seemed to affect not just her, but the rest of her friends.
She stared at the pair of dice that rested in her palm. She already knew what would happen if she rolled them, but she did so anyway.
Snake-eyes again.
This had been happening all morning- every single one of her rolls with the pair of dice had resulted in snake-eyes. It was as if every single role was rigged to turn out the exact same way. She'd done the same thing with five other pairs of dice, and another six that she snuck out of the game boards in Mion's locker. Every single role turned out exactly the same way.
But it wasn't just with her, or her dice rolling. It had been happening all over town, but more specifically to the people involved in the incident she was so used to. Keichi had begun to win game after game. Shion had gotten a raise from the Angel Mort management almost out of the blue. Mion succeeded in courting Keichi, only a matter of moments before Rena did. Rena was supposed to have killed her step-mother, but it seemed that the body had yet to be found. Satoko still had yet to come down with the syndrome and Keichi had yet to try and kill her uncle.
But most importantly- Miyo Takano and Tomitake were both still alive. They were both alive and well, and no murders had occurred after the Watanagashi festival. If not for Teppei's reappearance, Rika would have been fooled into believing that the cycle was over.
Rika came to the conclusion that because Teppei had appeared and that Rena had killed her step-mother, that maybe this limitless luck didn't apply to absolutely everyone, but she was not completely sure. She decided to seek out Keichi, reasoning that depending on whether or not he could do the same thing she could with the dice would determine whether or not this situation absolutely applied to everyone. She thought the situation could have been similar to the small changes in past fragments that had gotten her hopes up. After all, it could have just been the fragment playing out slightly differently than usual and death was still imminent for them all.
Perhaps this was a cruel joke imposed upon her by fate. Or perhaps this was a one in a million chance- a chance for her to finally break free from the chains imposed upon her by her cursed existence. Rika hadn't been able to take any initiative on the matter, but she assumed that when the time came she could use this endless luck to her advantage.
She encountered Keichi only a few blocks away from the shrine. Apparently he'd been on his way to see her, which saved her the time of heading all the way towards his house. Ignoring the fact that Keichi had wanted to talk to her about something, she had him roll the dice.
Snake-eyes once again.
So she wasn't the only one who could perform this trick. So it was limitless luck, and not just for herself, but for the others as well. She quickly thanked Keichi and headed off into town, eager to try and test this newfound condition of this fragment elsewhere.
She'd gone to that competition that was going on at the game store, to determine how widespread this luck was. Keichi was absent this time, but aside from that everything was perfectly normal. Rika had gone to the final round, having managed to cheat her way, which voided the luck factor entirely. The match between her and Mion ended in a draw, given how their luck was matched. It seemed that the spread of the limitless luck was exclusive to her friend and, by assumption, Tomitake and Takano as well.
After heading home, she decided that there was still a way to void the cycle, but she had to make use of all of her potential resources. She had yet to determine if the luck had spread to people involved in this incident outside the village.
She decided to call Akasaka. In most scenarios, he would not answer the phone, and as such she would never call him as a means to escape from her fate, since it was impossible. But if he was there, it meant that there was a strong chance that she could void the cycle.
That was why she was overjoyed when his voice crackled in from the other end of the line.
After about fifteen minutes of pleading with him, she managed to convince him to travel to Hinamizawa. Given how he still had his family to take care of and going off for no real reason wasn't that smart an idea to begin with, Rika was almost shocked to hear him accept. It turned out that his wife and Miyuki, his daughter, were off somewhere else for the week and he could go to the village without much issue.
Of course now Rika was almost completely convinced that she could break out of the cycle. She was almost certain that she could do it now that Akasaka was going to arrive.
Akasaka appeared as it had been arranged. Rika tried to explain to him the details of what was going to occur. He didn't believe her at first, but a call to Rika's house from Oishi claiming that someone had tipped off the police about the Yamainu's operation made him believe everything she had said. So it was determined that Rika would be guarded and the chances of her death would be almost zero. Akasaka was even able to stay for an extended period of time himself, furthering her chances for success.
Of course Takano ended up disappearing in the end, except her "burnt corpse" never turned up. Tomitake left the village as he had planned and all of Rika's friends were relatively safe. The quantity of policemen in the village was still relatively small, but the village was well aware of what was going to happen. With so many people wary, there was little chance the purge would occur.
Around June 25th, only days before the end of June and the day Rika was waiting with bated breath for, Rena's stepmother's corpse was reportedly found and Teppei Houjou was determined guilty of her death, given the relationship the two were in and fingerprint evidence pointing directly towards him (most likely due to the relationship they were in as well) found around the points of her body that had been the most damaged. Satoko was set free and she was able to move back in with Rika. In the aftermath, Satoko had become a lot closer to Shion, who'd decided to help her in place of her brother. The scene couldn't have been any more perfect.
Meanwhile at the Sonozaki residence Mion had apparently taken notice of a case of Hinamizawa Syndrome in Shion and had managed to contain it before she lashed out. She almost faltered, but disaster was narrowly avoided thanks to Keichi realizing that the Mion who had approached him the day before was in fact Shion. Keichi himself hadn't had much going on but hadn't had any sort of notable issues. Shion had been admitted to Irie's clinic, and all was well.
Rena had once again returned to her normal self. Having been set free of the bonds of that woman's death, she was as relieved as could be. She participated in club for the first time in over a week, according to Satoko who had been going to school and relaying all of this information to Rika who remained guarded in her own home.
The scenario was perfect. It was June 30th, and the village was still untouched by the Yamainu. There were no gassings, there were no meaningful deaths, but most importantly there were no means for anything terrible to befall her or her friends. The police had packed their bags and Akasaka had returned home, but Rika was sure that she wouldn't need any protection anymore. Indeed, in just twenty four more hours the cycle would finally be broken.
But as one would expect, things did not go as planned for the poor girl. It's a shame, considering the look of pure delight on her face when she truly thought she was free. But such is the whim of fate- or more specifically, the whim of chance.
The probability was set in her favor. The chance for failure was relatively close to zero. But in her state of joy, in her excitement over finally having the best fragment possible, one small, seemingly insignificant detail slipped her mind.
She woke up that morning, suddenly wondering what Keichi had been up to. She'd heard the least about him. He'd been able to discern Shion's true identity, but past that all she knew was that Mion had been regularly dating him. There was a smaller amount of information on Keichi than on anyone else.
Then she remembered. The day she stumbled upon her endless luck- Keichi had wanted to ask her something.
She had no idea what it was at the moment, but not that long after she'd probably assumed it was something like "Hasn't Mion been acting strange?"
Rika received an incredibly cryptic- or perhaps unintelligible was a better word- call from Keichi that morning. She couldn't understand a word of what was being said, but it was the first time she'd heard from him in weeks. Upon pressing Satoko, she learned that Keichi had taken the last three days off from school.
Of course, against her better judgment, Rika went straight for the Sonozaki residence- the place Keichi had managed to convey that he was currently at. The scene was all too familiar. She'd seen it many times before. Of course she had been completely taken off guard this time. She was almost free. But it appeared that things were not as they seemed to begin with.
She saw Keichi, dead on the floor. He'd been either stabbed by whichever one of the twins was still up and about or stabbed by his own two hands as the body seemed to depict. Off in the far corner of the room was the similarly positioned corpse of Teppei Houjou, who had somehow been pulled out of the authorities hands and into the hands of the current killer.
Then she appeared behind her. One of the two twins appeared behind her with an axe in her hand. It was as atypical as possible. But Rika wouldn't allow herself to be killed the same way again. She decided the best course of action was to try and evade her- running would be futile. The Sonozaki sibling began to swing somewhat wildly, but eventually the axe ended up stuck in Keichi's skull, which was simply a mere accident turned into a huge disadvantage for her. Rika took her chances, pulled the knife out of Keichi's chest and slammed it into "Shion's."
The woman fell over, dying a few seconds later due to the rapid blood loss and her pierced heart.
Rika sighed, before screaming in agony. Just like that everything was lost.
But before she had proper time to mourn, she heard noise. It was most likely a Yamainu operative who was on their way to kill her.
But no, Rika wouldn't have that. She'd do the axe chopping this time. She drew the axe from where it had been lodged and moved over silently to the door. The sound grew closer and closer. She planned to quickly open the door and kill the assailant. Eventually, the sound stopped and Rika assumed that the person was on the other side of the door. She swung it open and brought the axe down.
But little did she know that on the other side of the door was Rena, who'd heard Rika's cry, and assuming that someone had killed her she had readied a cleaver, the same one she used to kill her step mother, that she planned to swing downward at the first sign of the door moving. She'd heard Rika's heavy breath, and unable to determine that it was her, brought the cleaver down on her right shoulder, while Rika's axe nailed her square in the head.
Rena collapsed forward, the cleaver still lodged in Rika's shoulder. Her weight dragged the cleaver down, effectively wedging itself halfway through Rika's body. The smaller girl collapsed much the same way. As she fell something slipped out of her pocket.
The pair of dice. They slipped out of her pocket and hit the ground, bouncing into the air and landing a few feet away. Rika, through her clouded vision, tried to determine what the result of the accidental role was. It was hazy, but she was absolutely sure of what she saw.
It was snake-eyes once again.
She passed away shortly after.
Once more there were no survivors. The villagers were gathered at the school house and gassed to death at approximately 11:59 PM. When July 1st rose upon the village, the village was wiped out.
As she died, Rika realized something. Perhaps she was never lucky to begin with.
Fortune Chapter Result:
Rika Furude – Death by sheer misfortune.
Maebara Keichi- Death by love or death by jealousy?
Rena Ryuugu – Death by sheer misfortune.
Mamoru Akasaka- Lives in denial over the incident that he may have prevented.
Oishi Kuraudo- Lives to tell the tale despite having lost his job along with mostly everything else he had.
The Unreliable Narrator- About as lucky as anyone else.
