8

The students chatted nervously and quietly as they walked outside the classroom. "I can't look," Satoko said, covering her eyes when they got to the posted scores.

"I hope you did alright," Rika said. "You did work hard."

"Should we look for you?" one of their friends offered as she started to glance at the posting herself.

"No... Wait, fine, go ahead," Satoko agreed. Rika and others tittered as Satoko crouched down behind her shorter classmates. They looked around the ranking boards, complimenting Rika for her performance, until finding Satoko's not far off.

"Congratulations!" Rika said, briefly clapping her hands together. "Your work paid off." As the other girls hugged Satoko, she felt a little strange, but then decided to just hug her crush herself.

"Rika-san," Satoko gasped, reacting differently than when the other two had given her affection. She pulled Rika closer herself, sighing. "Thank you! I'm so happy I'm keeping up. My parents would be disappointed otherwise."

Still being embraced by Satoko, Rika swept her hair back from her face, revealing her smile. The other girls laughed. "You're both really close, aren't you?"

Rika nodded quietly as Satoko finally let her go, even though there was a background feeling that something was off. They were close? Maybe closer than they had been, but nothing like before. Besides, Rika wasn't sure if she really wanted to be close to this poor imitation of what she'd lost. She'd been accepting it as it helped distract her, somewhat fill the chasm in her heart. But using the same words that might apply to the previous Rika and Satoko seemed cheap.

"Oh, right!" Satoko said, leaning closer to Rika. "I'm caught up with my studies, so are you, and the test is done... Why don't we go out somewhere together to celebrate?"

"What about us?" one of the other members of their makeshift 'club' asked.

"Hehe," Satoko giggled, grabbing Rika by the shoulders. "Maybe I want Rika-san all to myself for a little while."

"Yeah, you're both really close, huh." The question from the girl who had just commented was more like a statement, and she laughed somewhat awkwardly as she said it. Satoko just shrugged, remaining right by Rika as she spoke. "It's not... Like you're a couple or anything, are you?"

"No," Satoko spoke simply. The offhand answer dragged a nail through Rika's heart, breaking any kind of illusion she'd been enjoying. "Not now, anyway. But later, who knows?"

The three girls laughed loudly together. The noise was intolerable. Rika shook Satoko's hands off her shoulders. Why would anyone stick around to be made fun of like this? What was the point of having what Rika wanted most waved in front of her like a carrot on a stick? The scene was fled, Rika escaping down the hall as fast as she could.

"Rika-san!" Satoko dared not just to call after her, but follow her. Rika reached the bathroom, putting her hand on the door for a place to lock herself in to cry, but Satoko's hand covered hers. "I'm sorry... I really did think you liked me," she rambled. "And I forgot how shy you were, and-"

Rika slapped the coarse girl right across the face, silencing her. Satoko stepped back, her expression going cold as she held her face. Rika cringed, ready to be hit herself, but even after a few moments, there was just silence with no impact. Looking back up, Satoko could be seen folding her arms and looking away. "I sincerely do apologize," she spoke up, pursing her lips. "I did go overboard."

"You did," Rika spoke seriously. "Are you trying to be a worse witch than me?"

"Excuse me?" Satoko's serious expression was replaced by disbelief as she turned back toward Rika.

"You're the worst... Even in this worst possible world, you're the worst here."

"Hey," Satoko began, reaching a hand toward Rika.

"That's enough. I don't need to hear anything from a stupid, cruel person like you," Rika insisted hotly, pulling her arms toward her body.

"Hey! That's a little over the top, isn't it?" Satoko said, her expression turning cross again. The sound of other girls talking echoed through the halls. Satoko sighed forcefully. "I know you're angry, but now I'm angry too. Maybe I'll talk to you later."

At the sight of Satoko walking away, Rika suddenly lost her desire to be away. "You're just teasing me, knowing what I want, aren't you?" she shouted after her. "Right, I happen to like Satoko a lot, and you're all just having fun laughing at that, aren't you?"

Satoko turned back to Rika, stomping loudly as she stared the other girl down. "Maybe I liked being crushed on by my pretty classmate," she declared.

The statement was quietly considered, and quickly understood. Of course positive feelings directed at oneself were pleasant. But that hadn't meant that taking advantage of the person who held them was tolerable.

"Maybe I thought it would be fun to spend more time with the awkward girl who acted like she was falling in love with me." Satoko tossed her hair back, blinking purposefully as she looked in Rika's eyes. "Maybe I just liked talking to you, getting to know you better. I'd thought you were having fun, too. But you just thought of me in this light?" Satoko again folded her arms and turned from Rika, toward a crowd that curiously stared down the hall. She glanced back at Rika a moment more before making her way over to them.

Watching her leaving incited an overpowering feeling of loneliness. Forgetting her original goal, Rika decided to head back toward the dormitory. Any sort of studies would be unable to be concentrated on. In fact, nothing was able to be concentrated on due to the overpowering pain in the heart that reverberated through the body. Taking the initiative to even arrange the out of place items on the desk seemed like too much, though Rika did so anyway. Putting away one notebook with the rest, they all spilled over, and she burst into tears. "This really is the worst chapter!" she exclaimed. Instead of making any sort of effort at cleaning, swiping all the items off the desk to burn off some anger.

Eventually, the items were carefully picked up, to be stacked on the desk before putting them back in the proper arrangement. After putting all the notebooks in order, the smaller items were sought out. Where was the favorite blue pen? After looking around, it was found at the feet of a previously unseen visitor. Rika jumped in a start before calming. She looked away, not acknowledging this entity, though the witch spoke away. "Really?"

"I'm not sure how to respond to that," Rika said.

Ange shook her head. "You think this is a bad place to be?"

"Of course. As you know, or should know," Rika said.

Ange stayed still, seeming to ignore the response. "Where you are now is a 'chapter', a world, a fragment, and not just that, but the 'worst' one?"

Rika remained silent. Of course, that statement may be more difficult for a passive observer to understand. Someone just watching would likely think that the endless worlds Rika had been killed had to be much worse than this simply monotony. But that wasn't the case.

"You're just a kid throwing a fit, you know," Ange accused.

"I'm not," Rika insisted. "You know nothing, Ange. After suffering through that endless tragedy for all those years, I just wanted to be able to live my life in peace, with my beloved friends, including Satoko. I wanted that happiness, and I had it. I was truly in heaven, until I was brought here, to a place worse than all of those repeating tragedies. There's no love here, that's the problem!"

Ange again couldn't speak, even having all the reasoning for Rika's conclusion spelled out here. She eventually kicked at the pen, rolling it closer to Rika's feet before finally speaking. "Really? No love?"

"Not a shred," Rika responded sharply.

"What about the mother and father who love their daughter?"

There was that, of course. Rika had given up on her parents before, though she had tried. Now they were alive, though they often could annoyingly harp on her about various things. Maybe there was some kind of parental love, but- "It's not the same as there," Rika insisted.

"Oh, right, your Hinamizawa friends. Maybe you can't appreciate actually having your family, but what about the versions of those friends? No love? Even though they went out of their way to make a club just for the little sullen violent girl to have something to do?"

Of course, that had been an effort, even if a pale imitation of how lively everything had been before. It wasn't something that had to be done, but an effort just for her. The fact she didn't appreciate it more only incited guilt. Of course, it wasn't something she could appreciate in the moment, either. "Even if that was wonderful, it has nothing to do with the present, does it."

"Hmph. What about now? You've actually made friends."

That claim was easy enough to deny. "There's nothing like that here."

"Oh? Doesn't everyone greet you and try to talk to you and even make some efforts to include you even when you shun them?"

"Not really," Rika insisted, gripping the pen tightly.

"And what about the girl who's always talking to you, even reading your creepy stories that kill off a character with the same name as her without making fun of you?"

"She is making fun of me!" Rika shouted. That much she knew for sure. "She sees I want that connection and bond so badly, so she mocks me with little fragments of it. She knows I'll take these scraps, so she throws them at me and laughs."

"Does she laugh to mock you? Happens, but even if that might be your only reason, there's other reasons, you know."

"That is the reason," Rika insisted.

"You sure? Not that she just thinks something's funny? It couldn't be that she's having fun with you, or maybe is nervous or something, right?"

"It's not."

"Well then, you know what to do."

Rika looked up from the floor and at the witch, her eyes wide open. Was there an action that might be taken to escape this cruel, bland fate? Ange lifted her hand, making a stabbing motion before posing. "Go ahead," she invited. "Kill off that cruel person who damned you to a fate worse than your endless tragedy. Maybe you can even call upon your witch powers and make it particularly gory and fun."

"I'm not the witch," Rika said firmly, though she felt a hesitation in her heart. That feeling must be because she regretted her decision to be a human. Was it even possible this sentiment was because the witch had never disappeared from her heart? "Bernkastel fully surrendered this life to Furude Rika."

"Bernkastel, Furude Rika," Ange repeated, shrugging as her voice seemed to fade. "I don't see any difference."