20: Sudeni Kaibutsu ni Natta (I've Already Become A Monster)

Satoko only slept the night of Watanagashi because of the sedatives given to her via IV drip. Otherwise she would have stayed awake all night, demanding to be released, or at least to see Rika. She felt betrayed by Irie, who backed up Takano's decision the previous night to make the little girl stay in the clinic for a few days. Satoko insisted that she wasn't dangerous, and truthfully, at that point, she was fairly stable. But Irie loved her and felt he couldn't be too careful with her. Plus, if Satoko's story about being attacked was true, wasn't it better to keep her here where her safety was assured?

As soon as she woke up the next morning, Satoko demanded once again to be set free or be allowed to see her friends. Irie said he would release her this afternoon if she stayed calm and cooperative until then. That made Satoko so angry she wanted to hit the glasses off the young doctor's eagle-beak nose. Still, she tried her best, and it seemed that her patience paid off. Rika called the clinic, and Satoko was immediately given permission to talk to her best friend. However, the golden-haired girl could tell right away that Rika wasn't calling for a friendly chat.

"I just heard bad news from Detective Ooishi," Rika stated. "Takano-san and Tomitake-san are missing. It's just as I predicted. They're the victims of the curse this year. But that's not all. There was also news from Okinoymiya. Tastuyoshi Kasai, Shion's personal bodyguard, was found dead at their apartment. It looks like suicide. The police and I have tried reaching Shion, but we can't. And then I heard about your story."

"I've been waiting for you to come hear my side of things for over a day," Satoko said irritably. "I know why you can't reach Shion. It's probably because she's… she's dead."

"That damn Takano," Rika swore in her deeper, older voice. "The other day, she didn't tell me exactly what you said happened, only that you were having delusions of being attacked. I only just heard your story from Irie-Sensei. Mion attacked you. That's true, isn't it? She tried to kill you, didn't she? It may be hard, Satoko, but you have to tell me everything you know."

It was indeed difficult for Satoko, who wanted to prove to others that she could be strong, to recount how she had been targeted by Mion and how she ended up running away like a coward and leaving Shion to the mercy of her deranged sister. "I think Mion was going to kill Shion. She might be dead already. Unless… was she at the festival last night?"

"I thought she was." Rika gave an aggravated sigh. "Now that I think of it, though, she didn't say anything about what happened between she and Mion. And she wasn't hurt at all, no bruises like I'd expect after two Sonozakis fought. That doesn't make sense. It must have been Mion disguised as Shion. She said Mion was locked in her room grieving her grandmother's death, to cover up the fact that Shion… yes, that Shion is no longer with us."

This is just too bizarre, Rika thought to herself. This world has too many anomalies. I thought I had seen everything, but fate proves me wrong again. A world where Mion goes crazy instead of Shion? I never would have guessed. She might have had something to do with Oryou's death, and it's no mystery that Kasai's demise is her doing. It makes sense to eliminate him first as the only one who would miss Shion immediately. Making it look like a suicide was clever. Clever? No, that sounds like I'm admiring her work. I've killed, yes, but I'm different from Mion. I'm not infected with Hinamizawa Syndrome. I had good reasons for all my actions.

That was what Rika told herself, but in truth, she was feeling extremely guilty over all she had done in this version of Hinamizawa. Unconsciously, Rika started thinking aloud. "I had to do it, I had to do those things," she said, voice faltering. "I didn't think I had any other choice. But I've become a killer for nothing. What good did it do to try to eliminate Shion? She was never the problem. Why bother killing Tamae to save Satoshi just to learn that Satoshi was murdered? Maybe it wasn't even right to kill Sonozaki Ando. On top of it all, now I have to kill Mion."

"Ri-Rika?" stammered Satoko. "What are you saying?"

For a few moments, neither of the girls spoke, each dumbfounded. Rika couldn't believe she had spoken aloud; it was a juvenile mistake, and a sure sign her mind was crumbling. As for Satoko, she couldn't believe, at first, that Rika had committed those killings. The news was too much for her. That's when Satoko actually became unstable again.

"Murderer!" she yelled through the phone at Rika. "Liar! Killer! I can't believe I thought you were my friend!" There were some worlds where the friends accepted each other even if they had become murderers, but this was not one such world. In Satoko's head, Rika being a murderer was a betrayal of everything she knew. Or thought she knew. Delusions and conspiracies sprouted like fast-growing seedlings in her mind. Rika was trying to talk to her, to calm her down, but Satoko was crying and screaming over her.

"You murderer! You said you tried to kill Shion! Then it's your fault she was attacked that night! And you killed my aunt! I hated her and wanted her to die, but I never wanted you do that for me! I never asked you! If you were a real friend, you would have told me about it! And how could you kill Mion and Shion's father? We've both lost our fathers. Why would you do that to someone else after feeling it yourself? And now you're saying you have to kill Mion?!"

"I really don't have a choice," Rika replied, trying to hide her frustration. Satoko was probably right about half of what she said. "Mion has probably killed Shion. She'll come after you next. No, wait. I assume she was here the night before last. That's when she had to have killed Oryou. And if she didn't kill you, it means she doesn't know you're being kept here. Damn, I can't get a read on her. Who would Mion want to kill next?"

"Probably Rena," Satoko answered quietly. "It's probably all about Keiichi. Mion really likes him. But I think Rena does too. She'll go after Rena next. I know Mion has to be stopped. But Rika, I don't want you to kill her. Tell the police. Tell them everything. Don't kill one of the people you love most in the world. Don't make yourself into a monster!"

At that, Rika gave a short, mirthless chuckle. "Satoko," she said, "I'm already a monster. I became one long ago. Long before this world. Experiencing so many worlds, only to watch my friends kill each other and end up being killed at the end every time…"

"Rika? I don't understand what you're saying."

"Of course not, my dear Satoko." On the other side of the phone, Rika forced herself to smile. "I'll finish Mion quickly. And then I'll come to the clinic and get you out of there. If you don't want to see me, since you know what I am, you can leave without me."

Without further ado, the shrine maiden hung up the phone. In her sense of urgency, she forgot something critically important: assuring Satoko that she was still her friend. When the Hinamizawa Syndrome affected Satoko, it usually came in the form of delusions that people close to her wanted to kill her. Now, she was starting to think the same thing about Rika.

Didn't it make sense, from the shrine maiden's view, to kill someone like Satoko? She had pushed her parents to their deaths. She had nearly killed Mion by pushing her, too. She was always walking a tightrope; at any time, the injections might stop working as the Syndrome reached critical level five again. Satoko became convinced that Rika wanted to kill her. After she was done with Mion, she would come to the clinic and end the little girl's life.

"I won't let it happen," Satoko muttered, biting at her nails and scratching at her neck. It felt like worms were wriggling just out of reach under her skin. "I won't let Rika come and kill me." She burst into tears and began wailing like a child much younger than eleven.

The golden-haired girl cried out with her mind, Kami-sama! Oyashiro-sama! What did I ever do to make this happen to me? My Nii-Nii is dead. My Nee-Nee, Shion, is probably dead too. I want them back! Why is all this happening? Why did Rika turn into a killer? It's all Rika's fault! After that, her thoughts stopped making any clear sense.

It was midafternoon and Mion was taking a shower. Not even the moisturizing body soap or the hot, steamy water could take away the itchiness all over her body. It was especially strong around her neck. She scratched herself until she bled. And it seemed to her that blood wasn't the only thing that came out of the tiny cuts in her flesh. There were maggots, too. Fat, slimy, white creatures about three centimeters long, they wriggled and rolled around in her flesh, and fell down from her cuts stained pink with blood. It was enough to make Mion puke again.

She thought she was done being sick. She had been sick non-stop while she used a saw to disassemble the bodies of Keiichi and Rena. Their dead faces seemed to stare right at her with wide open eyes. When they were chopped up, the limbs and body parts looked so unnatural it made Mion shudder. And the bodies smelled terrible after they were cut to pieces. It was the worst smell in the world. Mion threw up until she couldn't anymore, until there was nothing left to throw up. Every time she tried to take a sip of water, she threw up again.

Those bodies would never haunt her again, Mion thought. She had loaded them onto a wheel barrow she found in the junkyard, and carted them to the river not far off, in a place isolated from public view. Then she took each of the fourteen pieces of her friends' bodies—each wrapped in cloth or plastic bagging—and tossed them into the river. Of course, that meant the bodies were bound to be discovered. But Mion was beyond the point where she could consider that possibility. She wasn't thinking at all. The demons in her brain had set her on a course to violence, bloodshed, failure, and death, and she operated on auto-pilot.

Mion had hoped the hot shower would calm her down, or at the very least lessen the infernal itching. But her leisure time was cut short when she heard someone knocking on the door. No longer caring who saw her, Mion wrapped herself in a green bath towel and went to the door right away. To her annoyance, however, nobody stood there waiting. Had the knock been another hallucination?

Just as Mion turned to go back inside, a small figure leaped out from behind a pillar to one side of the door. She—Rika—unleashed a storm of pepper spray right at Mion's face. She had managed to steal it from Ooishi that morning. Without telling Satoko, the shrine maiden had also stopped by the Irie Clinic and taken a syringe full of solution that she knew would cause immediate outbreak of level five Hinamizawa Syndrome. It would speed up Mion's inevitable death and kill her in minutes. And when Rika administered the shot—straddling Mion's body where she fell with her hands over her eyes, screaming in pain—she did not hesitate. She delivered the lethal injection and then rolled off Mion and backed away, waiting.

"Rika, you little bitch!" Mion screamed, sitting up, and already beginning to tear at her throat. Her eyes and nose were streaming fluid as a result of the pepper spray. "How dare you!" she howled. "I am the head of the Sonozaki House! Do you think you can get away with this? Satoko put you up to this, didn't she? Or was killing me your plan all along?"

She gave a loud, eerie laugh for no reason, and then it turned into a sob and she started crying piteously. "The voices, the voices!" she wailed. "Rena, I already killed you! Shut the hell up! Keiichi! Keiichi, where is your head? Oh, I cut it off, didn't I?" And the sobbing turned back into laughter, followed by choking, and her throat became swollen from the many wounds her nails had torn into her flesh. "These worms! These maggots! Why the fuck is this happening?!"

Rika looked at her unblinkingly. "I suppose you learned such language from the yakuza."

"As a matter of fact, I did, you filthy cunt!" Mion leaped at Rika and tried to tackle her, but she was still half-blinded by the tears from the pepper spray, and she was hallucinating at least half a dozen Rikas. "Fuck you! Fuck you all! Which is the real Rika? Damn it, I'll kill you! Just like Shion! And Rena! And Keiichi! And after you, I'll finally rid the world of that abomination, Houjou Satoko!"

The towel had long since fallen off the Sonozaki girl's body as she rolled on the ground, feeling like her skin was on fire. She clawed deeper into her own flesh, her hands quickly becoming stained with blood. She looked at her hands and seemed shocked. Next, Mion started trembling, and let out a bloodcurdling scream. "It's that shot!" she shouted, looking suddenly terrified. "It's going to kill me! You came here to kill me!" Mixed with the terror was judgement and accusation. "Furude Rika, do you realize what you've done?!"

Despite her deep self-hatred, in that moment, Rika hated Mion more intensely than herself. She kicked her former friend and spat in her snot-covered, blood-speckled face. "Do you realize what YOU have done?" she returned coldly. "You destroyed the future. Thanks to you, this world line ends just as tragically as the others before it. I worked hard, you know." She fought back tears, clenching her tiny fists.

"I worked so hard. To make this world different. I thought I would stain my hands with blood so none of my friends had to do it. I thought I would eliminate all the threats before they came to fruition. I made some mistakes, yes, but things might have still worked out. If not for you. Sonozaki Mion, or rather, the demon living inside your brain right now. I speak to you. Listen. Oyashiro-sama commands that you die. Right here, right now, naked as the day you were born, groveling at the miko's feet, you will die." There was so much hatred in her voice that it surprised even Furude Rika, who already thought she knew the deepest depths of emotion.

The shrine maiden forced herself to look on as Mion tore into her carotid and the blood started spurting out. Disgusted, Rika wanted to vomit. But she resisted. She owed it to Mion to watch her die, and make sure it was quick. It only took two minutes for the Sonozaki heir to lose consciousness, and after that, the blood kept pouring from her neck for another two minutes. As the spurting and flowing tide died down to a weak trickle, the unconscious Mion went into cardiac arrest. Her life ended there.

Her life. She had been a gorgeous, healthy, and courageous young woman with a strong sense of responsibility and honor; that was who Mion had been not two weeks ago. When had she changed? Whose fault was it? The parasite? Oyashiro? Some Almighty God like they spoke of in the west? Was it Shion's fault, because she came and competed with her sister for Keiichi? Was it Keiichi's fault, for transferring to this town to which he had no connection? Was it Satoko's fault for pushing Mion off the stairs? Was it all their faults for not visiting Mion more often when she was going crazy in the Jouga hospital? Did it even matter whose fault it was?

Every time I think I have hit rock-bottom, Rika thought, as she watched her former friend die, I fall even deeper into the abyss. There is no way out. Hanyuu, I'm tired of this world. Take me to the next one, please.

"I'm done. I can't take anymore. Please." Out loud, she prayed—to Hanyuu, to Oyahsiro-sama, to fate, and to the universe—"Let me die now."

Perhaps Rika should have seen it coming, but she didn't. Satoko was behind her, dressed in a hospital gown still, showing that she had run away from the clinic against Irie's orders. She was carrying one of her dead uncle's razors. Without saying a word, Houjou Satoko slit reached around from behind and slit Rika's throat. Darkness was falling, and mixed in with the sound of Rika's dying coughs there was the sound of a woman's delighted laughter.

"There's a good girl, Satoko," said Takano Miyo adoringly. "You've gone and done the job for me." She stayed in the shadows, knowing she had to play dead for another two days or so. After that time, the effect of the death of the Queen Carrier would come to its climax, and all of Hinamizawa would be wiped out. "Thank you, dear," she called to Satoko, who looked as dead as a zombie, and as likely to kill herself at any moment as she was to kill the next person who came down the road toward the Sonozaki property.

"Rika can't hear me, but I'll say thank you, Miss Furude, regardless." Takano started walking back to the Yamainu base, leaving the little girl and the two bodies in her wake. "Thanks to Rika dying, the world will be able to see proof that brain parasites exist. So much about the world can be explained by these microscopic creatures. A ton of scientists will start studying diseases like this one, and someone will find a cure even better than Irie's C103. Or, if the world prefers, we can use the parasites for biological weapons."

The scientist laughed. "It looks like the story ends well for me and my purposes."