Author's note: Thanks for waiting, folks!
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As all of this was going on, Takagi and Kanami had temporarily sought refuge in the ruins of another building. For him, he had been looking for food and even bed materials, hoping they could last.
The girl with the light brown hair had chosen to sleep, hoping no one could attack them.
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Meanwhile, Ayatsuji had just enjoyed a snack or two before dinner. It wasn't long before something came to her mind, and laid back in her chair.
Honda...To me, it rings a bell. A broken bell, even...
The very last name of Kanami prompted the black-haired woman to let out a sigh as she closed her eyes, a very past memory slowly catching up to her.
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When Ayatsuji and her class were chosen for the Program years ago, she had started out as a shy, introverted girl with little to no friends. She would usually be harassed by more popular girls, one of them being in the same class as her.
Her name was Kei Honda, and that she was a very distant cousin of Kanami. A cousin that she never got to meet as she grew older.
At the time class 3-C were abducted, Ayatsuji began showing genuine disdain and anger towards Kei and the friends she had from the class. It would all come to a head once the Program began, and equipped with a katana, she had begun carving her path of vengeance.
But it also brought with her an almost misanthropic hatred for everyone else in her class, and would slay approximately eleven of the students. There were others that were killed, but rather by different students.
Those eleven also included her tormentors, and at the very end, she would confront Kei once and for all. She stood there, almost pale as a ghost, as she dropped her .45 to the ground.
"R-Renge...it's...it's me!" she stammered. "I just...I just wanted to tell you that I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything me and my friends did to you!"
Her pleas did nothing to faze the already blood-covered Ayatsuji, unsheathing her bloodstained katana. "You're sorry? Sorry for what? Treating me like shit and wishing I'd just drop off the face of the earth?" she asked.
"I-I'd never said you should kill yourself! After all I've been through, losing almost all my friends...it just made me realize that I want to avenge them!"
With a tremor in her voice, Kei asked, "Please...we can get off this island together and start over from scratch. We might even marry some cute guys and-"
"Never."
Ayatsuji simply said those words without any emotion before lunging towards her. With several slashes of her katana, the girl watched as Kei slumped to the ground, now having been sliced apart.
The only look that Kei had on her face was shock and horror, simply looking up at Ayatsuji with wide yet dead eyes. It wasn't long before the black-haired girl's right eye started twitching, and looked like she was about to start crying.
Dropping her katana, Ayatsuji wound up laughing, her sanity having reached an all time low. When she was announced as the winner, her 'victory' was shown on screen, and as she was cackling non-stop to the camera, it was a face that would scare even the littlest of children.
It was the also the same Program on television that Shuya Nanahara and Yoshitoki Kuninobu briefly watched, before their caretaker switched it off.
Years later, Ayatsuji would become one of the many associates / subordinates of Yonemi Kamon. Dressing in more fancy clothes, and developing a confident swagger, she had now become what she had hated as a schoolgirl.
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"Kei Honda...Kanami Honda..."
Ayatsuji muttered under her breath as memories of the former began to curdle before her, before a guard suddenly asked, "Miss Ayatsuji? Are you allright?"
This prompted her to bring herself back to reality, turning to the guard as she let out a drawn-out sigh. "It's...it's nothing." she managed to tell him.
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Kanami suddenly awoke, and just in time as Takagi returned from his errands. "Takagi..." she said softly.
"What's up?" he asked.
"I think I had a nightmare..."
"A nightmare?"
"Yes." the brunette replied. "I imagined myself as a relative of sorts, and that I was in the Program myself, along with fourty one more unlucky students. I thought I would survive to the end, and that I'd try to make amends with Miss Ayatsuji, but she wouldn't listen."
"That was a Program from years ago. How could you possibly remember it?" he inquired.
"I had a relative, who I never got to meet for the first time since I was just a little girl at the time. She was in that Program, and never survived."
"Jesus..." Takagi muttered.
"And I pleaded for Miss Ayatsuji to stop killing and get ourselves out, but...she killed me. And that's when I woke up."
As Kanami said those words, she got herself up, still looking at Takagi. "If I dare myself to confront her about her history with my relative from years ago, she'll probably kill me."
The dark blond-haired man gave her a small smile, as he said, "Don't worry. You'll have someone protecting you; either me, or Keiji."
She smiled, but around the same time, both of them could hear the sound of rain falling. "Shit, it's raining...c'mon!" Takagi commanded.
Kanami nodded, before both of them started seeking protection from the incoming rain.
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Having left the lighthouse, Keiji had arrived at the forest. He had carried with him a fairly large duffel bag containing all of Tomoko and her friends (and even Ayumu's) weapons inside, and was now sporting a very serious expression on his face.
"Aoyama...where the hell are you?" he asked.
He had also been aimlessly searching for Keigo, who brought him to the lighthouse in the first place. He would finally give up, and focus more on finding Kanami and Takagi instead.
As he discovered an area with training dummies littered around, he knew that it was the perfect place to practice his aiming and melee skills. He was also quite aware of the rain beginning to fall, but it did not matter.
Opening the duffle bag, and taking out Tomoko's Magnum, the brown-haired boy had already put on his game face on. It was time to finally deal with Akihito Mori.
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With love for my fans,
Chrissy