Half an hour after the incident at the cave, I arrived at the town central square.
He was there, in a black coated, smoking a cigarette, standing in the rain. His back turned to me. I can only see half of his face, but he's definitely Mr. Seito.
That asshole...
"Took you long enough." He began.
I pointed my pistol at him. "Give me a reason why I shouldn't put a bullet in your head right now, you bastard."
The man, Seito, whoever he is, dropped the cigarette to the ground, before using his foot to crush its remains.
"Because you're here for answers," He replied. "I told you, haven't I? I'm gonna tell you everything, kid. So do me a favor and put that gun away before somebody gets killed..."
"Damn it, damn it, damn it!"
Five minutes of digging proved futile. The cave-in is just too much to do anything without sufficient force. It'll take a freaking dynamite to clear them!
"Yomiya! You hear me!? Yomiya!"
No answer at all. I feared the worst.
No, I can't give up now!
I struggled myself through the narrow space to get outside. The storm's getting worse.
"Gotta call some help!"
I reached into my pocket for my phone. No such luck.
"Aw, hell!"
My phone's not here. It must've struck inside the cave when Yomiya pushed me out!
Chances are it's already crushed by the cave-in.
"GODDAMNIT!"
That's it. There's nothing I could do.
Yomiya's...
'Just get out of here, Kouichi! Go get that bastard!'
'If he knew we're out here, chances are Mei and Izumi's in danger! Go find them!'
I stared at the pistol in my left hand.
"I won't let you down, Yomiya..."
I started to run, as fast as could.
The ever-stronger rain cannot stop me. There's nothing to stop me now.
I need to put a stop to this madness right now...
"You said you wanted to know why I did all this, right?" The black coated man said.
I nodded, but my hand still held firmly on the pistol.
"Tell me."
Thunders roared in the skies, lightning flashed in the distance, but the only thing that matters is the man standing in front of me right now.
"Because I wanted to bring her back...The woman I loved..."
"The woman you loved?"
"My beloved Shizuka..."
"Shizuka? You mean Shizuka Yomiyama?"
The black-coated man turned to face me, finally revealing the whole face.
The hell!?
The right half of his face, old and full of wrinkles, is that of Mr. Seito, but the left half...is that of a very familiar man...
"You're..."
"Yes, Sakakibara-kun. It's just as you think." He grinned.
He's...that man...the ghostly man in that photo...
Akira Matsumoto.
"But...you're supposed to be...!"
"Dead? Yeah, I'm already dead. Didn't you see me in the photo Mr. Chibiki showed you?"
Seito...Akira...moved his hand across his messed-up face.
"Isn't it amazing how simple it is to become someone new nowadays? You just need some money, and someone with skills and, voila!"
Suddenly, it all clicked.
The boy in the photo...the reporter mentioned Mr. Seito died a cardiac arrest...memory alteration...
"You...you're the one who killed Mr. Seito, aren't you!? He didn't die from cardiac arrest."
"Now, now, don't just start blaming me for all the bad things that happened, kid. I'm not a psychopath, I just wanted justice be done for all this town did to me and my loved ones."
"What do you mean?"
"Come on, Sakakibara-kun. You're smart, you should figure that out easily! After everything you and your friends learned. Oh, and for your information, Seito did die from cardiac arrest. I told you, I'm not a psychopath..."
I thought back to everything I learned during these past few days.
Akira Matsumoto...going out with Shizuka...committed suicide...
The cult...resurrection...angry townspeople...Shizuka's furious classmates...
"You'll never find something like this in our town's history. The worst crime ever committed in Japan..."
"It's not something young people like you could accept..."
"Shizuka Yomiyama returned to life in some form of deceased people?"
"In order for the dead to come back to life, the living must fill in their places..."
Everything, every piece of information, every puzzles, it's all started to click in.
"You...you wanted to take revenge on the town because of what happened to Shizuka Yomiyama..."
"Yes, and the calamity proved to be a very desirable distraction. Heh, her father was a genius. Replace the dead with the living? Hah! Just like some of the horror novels, eh?"
He started laughing like crazy.
"How did he manage to resurrect the dead?" I asked.
"Who knows? I don't even know how I got here! And that Misaki boy, he looked just like me. Coincidence? Maybe. Some questions just don't have answers, Sakakibara-kun."
He lit up another cigarette.
"It doesn't matter anyway. The point is, you know the side effects of defying nature. Nobody can cheat death. With the dead people, the 'Extra' ones, as you called them, roaming the world, you know what happened next."
"The calamity..." I said. "As long as the dead don't return to death, it will continue on, but..."
The calamity happened every year. It stopped temporary after the Extra one has returned to death.
But...it still happened every year.
The ghostly boy in the photo...Akira Matsumoto...
"So it was you!" I yelled out angrily. "You're already dead! But you're still here! That's why the calamity never stopped! You're the one behind the deaths all these years!"
"As if I care!" He shouted furiously. "Those fuckers deserved it anyways! Especially my so-called friends in Class 3-3! Those vile animals! You don't saw what they did to her...what they did to Shizuka! What they did to me!"
He then threw the cigarette in his hand out in frustration.
"The fucking cult, yeah, they're the reasons Shizuka was killed! Seito, yeah, he did nothing and covered up everything! And the townspeople played along like his puppets, his dogs! You call this justice!? A young, beautiful, innocent girl got tortured and murdered for something she didn't do and being forgotten by everyone else!?"
"You're just doing the same thing!" I argued. "All these deaths, all these people, they did nothing! You killed them for something they didn't do, too!"
"So what!? I could bring them back! The barriers between life and death is broken now. I could bring back anyone, just that I couldn't choose them. But with luck, I could bring back my beloved Shizuka!"
"All these Extra ones, Ms. Mikami...my aunt... They're all your doing!?"
"It did worked, didn't it!? Dead people could come back to life! I just needed to do it some more time to bring back who I wanted most..."
"So you lied to me about them being Shizuka's reincarnations. You lied to everyone!"
"Doesn't really make that much of a difference, does it? Everyone knew what they needed to know, not what they wanted to know. My disguise as Mr. Seito helped in some way, too. I don't want too much attention, so students rarely see me leaving the office. As the so-called principal, every person in the school are at my disposal. They could get whatever truths I wanted them to know. Those who knew too much will be...taken care of."
"You're insane!" I shouted.
"No, I'm a genius." He grinned. "Every time I didn't get my Shizuka back, the townspeople will suffer. That's what they deserved for what they did twenty-six years ago!"
That's it. He's a maniac.
I aimed my gun toward Akira again, prepared to put some leads into that bastard's head.
But I was too slow.
Akira's faster than me. He pulled out his pistol and aim straight at me, putting us both in a standoff.
"You don't want to do that, Kouichi."
Goddamnit!
"It doesn't have to be this way, Kouichi. You know? Me and your mother were best friends. Your mother, me, and Shizuka. The three best friends forever and ever... That's why I let you live for this long..."
So, that time at the cafe, he deliberately let us, no, let me go?
"Let's try something new, shall we?"
He lowered his gun, then walked casually to the nearby tree. I'm still aiming my gun at him, but in this heavy rain, it's gonna be hard to hit anything .
I stared at the tree. There's a couple of people sitting there...
Izumi and Mei.
"No!"
They were both tied up, their mouths gagged, struggling desperately to get free.
"Heh, I'm a principal, after all. I had to know where my students are, right? You're even kind enough to send one of Mei's lovely friends to be with her at her house...two birds with one stone!"
"Now, now..." He moved his pistol toward Mei's head, his index finger held firmly on the trigger. "We don't want any more of your friends to die, aren't we?"
"Wait! Damn it, stop! Don't do this!" I shouted.
"Put that gun away first, kid."
I stared at Izumi, she's shaking his head, like she's telling me Don't do it! Just shoot that bastard!
Akira seemed to notice this, as he immediately moved his gun from Mei to her.
"Ooh, she's the annoying one..." He said. "Would hate to spoil that pretty face of hers, though..."
"Goddamnit, please! Stop pointing gun at my friends!"
"So put the gun down, kid!"
I did as he asked.
I can't let them in danger.
"Kick it toward me."
"Tell me what you're going to do first!" I demanded. I'm not giving up that easily.
"You're so stubborn just like your mother, Kouichi. Alright, here's what we gonna do. You'll help me in bringing back Shizuka, then I'll give you anything you wanted. You already put Ms. Mikami back to death, right? So there's no risk from the calamity to your friends anymore."
"And what if I refuse to play along?"
"Well, then you can say goodbye to your friends."
I thought about what he said: I already sent Ms. Mikami back to death, stopping the calamity for this year. My friends are now safe...
"I know Ms. Mikami is your aunt, Kouichi, and my best friend's sister. I could even bring her back again if that's what you wanted! Your mother, your aunt, your recently deceased friends. Think of the possibilities! If we could control life and death, then death isn't something to be feared anymore!"
"But...the next year's students will be..."
"Who gives a shit about them!? They don't mean anything to us! As long as we get what we wanted, nothing else matters."
"I..."
"Work with me, Kouichi. You're like my nephew. Ritsuko will be proud of you if she knew what we both achieved together!"
Damn it! My thoughts are so conflicted right now.
What's wrong, Kouichi? Can't pull the trigger?
I can't risk my friends' safety!
So you're just gonna work with him? Becoming the very thing you despise?
Never.
So what are you waiting for!?
He'll kill my friends if I try anything! He's holding all the cards right now!
"So you're okay with having the calamity happened every year and more people die? As long as they're not your friends or closed ones? I thought you're better than this, Kouichi Sakakibara..."
That voice...
"You have to watch your friends die, again and again. Sacrificing your own happiness to put an end to this madness, but it'll be all worth it."
God forgive me...
"...No."
"Pardon me?"
"I'm sorry, but I'm not like you..."
I grabbed my pistol, knowing fully what's going to happen.
"My best friend once told me, that sometimes, you just can't save everyone..."
I might've just condemning Izumi and Mei to their fates...
"What you're doing right now is wrong, Akira. Dead people is dead, you cannot change that. It's all in the past."
My gun is now aiming straight at him.
"I need to stop you, Akira. The calamity must end, here and now, no matter the cost."
Akira's smile slowly faded.
"So be it."
This is it.
If I'm fast enough, I could shoot him before he...
Suddenly, he did something I never saw coming.
Instead of using the pistol, he lifted his other hand up, holding some kind of a remote.
A detonator? For what?
Oh...fuck.
"Wait, don't, DON'T!"
It's too late.
Akira pushed the button, and loud sounds came from the distance. Sounds of explosions, echoed along with the thunders in the clouds.
"Yomiyama North Middle School has just been blown up, along with every sons of bitches still inside it. It's a school day, after all..."
Editor's note: The true villain's finally revealed. The one behind everything...
Honesty, I've been wondering about that 'ghost' in the photo for months now. I mean, if dead people are returned to death, they should've disappeared from the pictures taken 'after' their deaths, right? Then why was he still in the picture? My theory is, he's still out there, cheating death, that's why there is calamity every year.
The anime itself left some questions, and I filled them with the answers I made up in this fanfic. It may seem out of place, but, well, everybody's not perfect...
Akira Matsumoto's personality is, as I intended, to be similar to Kouichi, but got taken to the extreme. He's desperate to save someone he loves and is willing to do anything, right or wrong, to achieve what he wants. In other words, he and Kouichi is not so different from each other. It's just the methods that divided them.
AND another cliffhanger for this chapter, this time I decided to blow the whole school up, because I don't know what to do with other characters anymore. LOL (I'm so evil...) but this is NOT the end. There's still three or four chapters left..
Next chapter tomorrow!
