"JUSTICE FOR KOTONOHA KATSURA"
The train platform was empty. It was past operating hours so no trains were riding along the tracks. It was quiet, peaceful, and completely silent. That was until the roar of an engine was heard followed by a loud whistle.
A steam engine burst out of a multicolored portal, pulling along two bullet trains behind it. The trains had a more elaborate design compared to contemporary trains, modeled after prehistoric steam engine resembled a wooly mammoth while the trains it was pulling were based on a T-Rex and triceratops.
The train slowed down before coming to a stop at the platform. A door opened and a young man in a bomber jacket, blue jeans and black boots with long, black unruly hair stepped out. His ice-blue eyes scanned his surroundings, looking for anything that was amiss.
His name was Ryuji Hasuma-Katsura.
"Alright, nobody's here," he said and another passenger stepped out after him. She was a pretty young woman with long dark hair, fair skin, and a large bust. She wore a white turtleneck sweater with a purple jacket over it and blue jeans.
This was his wife, Kotonoha Katsura.
"So, we've arrived?" Kotonoha asked Ryuji who smiled at her.
"That's right, this is the place," he said as he checked his tablet.
"Alright, finally!" the third passenger yelled as she jumped out of the door and landed on the platform. She had long black hair with a bow ribbon in it. She wore a leather jacket over a black tank top and wore tight jeans that were ripped at the knees. Her choice of footwear was a pair of boots with stiletto heels. She had blood red, cat-like eyes and shared a resemblance with Ryuji since she was his sister - Kat Hasuma-Wilson.
"Let's go," Ryuji said as they exited the station together.
"So, this is where it happened?" Kotonoha asked as she looked into the alley.
"Yes, this is where she died," Ryuji confirmed.
"You know, you do have a time train," Kat reminded him. "We could just go back in time and save her before she got murdered."
"That's not why we're here, Kat-nee," Ryuji reminded his older sister.
"Oh, yeah. I know. We're here to bring her killers to justice and give her family closure," Kat remembered. "Yeah, yeah. Doesn't explain why you need me if we're not here to stop her murder unless you want me to go kill those bitches."
"That's not the plan either."
"Spoilsport." Kat stuck her tongue out at him.
Kotonoha was silent as she dwelled on what she had learned. This place, this world, was of a different timeline. It was very much like her world, actually, it was pretty much identical. However, events in her life played out differently.
In this timeline, she never met Ryuji. In this timeline, she was murdered.
And she knew by whom.
"Our main suspects are Sekai Saionji and Makoto Itou," Ryuji stated.
"Are you sure it's them?" Kotonoha asked. She did not want to believe that either of her friends was capable of murder. She knew Ryuji held a grudge against them for breaking her heart. She just hoped he did not let his feelings compromise this case.
"They've got a motive," Ryuji answered. "They wanted your doppelganger out of the way so she wouldn't get between them so they resorted to murder."
"A pretty petty motive if you ask me," Kat remarked. "You know, I thought you wanted them dead after you learned they killed a Kotonoha."
"Wouldn't you?" Ryuji retorted.
"Well, yeah," Kat smiled and looked to Kotonoha, her sister-in-law. "I like her. Why wouldn't I kill anyone who killed my sister-in-law? Anyway, you haven't explained the plan here, Ryuji. If we're not here to kill them, then how are we going to bring them to justice?"
"We make them confess," Ryuji answered.
"How?" Kotonoha asked.
"Oh?" Kat cocked an eyebrow. Then she realized why her brother requested her specifically for her assistance as her smile grew. She didn't even need to read his mind. "Oh, I see! I see!" She rubbed her hands together in anticipation. "This is going to be fun!"
"Kat, your target is Saionji. With your powers, you can make her see things. I want you to haunt her with visions. Be creative," Ryuji instructed.
"Oh, this will be fun!"
"And that leaves Makoto - I mean Itou-san - to us?" Kotonoha asked.
"Yeah," Ryuji confirmed. "You still have his number memorized, right? How do you think he'll react when he receives calls and texts from his dead ex?"
Sekai was on her way to school. It was a new day and she could finally say that it was going to be a great day. Ever since she and Makoto had to take care of a little problem, their relationship was going well. Now there was nothing that was going to get in-between them.
"Saionji-san."
Sekai froze and looked up to see Kotonoha standing ahead of her, looking straight at her. Her skin was pale, she had a bloody knife sticking out of her chest, and she wore an angry glare. Sekai gasped in fright and tripped backward.
When she looked again, Kotonoha was gone.
Sekai's heart pounded in her chest. What the hell was that?
"I'm...just seeing things," she told herself, trying to convince herself that her mind was just playing tricks on her. Kotonoha Katsura was dead. She knew this, everyone knew this; it was all over the news. There was no way she had seen Kotonoha.
Sekai got back to her feet and marched toward the school gate, hoping to push thoughts of Kotonoha way. She did not notice that she was being watched by Kat who saw her go into school. She smiled.
"And the game begins," Kat snickered to herself. She just let Sekai have a taste by casting an illusion of Kotonoha in front of her. She would wait to hit her again later. "Hm, let's see. I guess after gym class."
"Are you OK?" Makoto asked as Sekai sat beside him in class.
"It's nothing," Sekai denied. "I'm f-f-fine!" She was not fine. Seeing Kotonoha on her way to school had shaken her but there was no reason to panic and she would not tell Makoto. He did not need to know.
"Oh, OK," Makoto accepted. "Say, after school, how about we head on over to Radish?" He leaned in close and whispered. "We can have some fun in the changing room before you start work."
Sekai blushed. Oh, Makoto was sweet but he also wanted sex. It was like he was addicted to it.
Makoto's cell phone rang and he checked the number. He did not recognize it but he answered anyway.
"Hello?"
"Hello, Makoto-kun."
Makoto yelped and jumped in his seat, dropping his phone on the floor.
"Makoto, what's wrong?" Sekai asked.
"It's...nothing," Makoto answered as he forced himself to relax. "Just a wrong number." He did not hear Kotonoha's voice just now, right? He hesitantly picked his phone back up and turned it off.
Ryuji and Kotonoha were both watching Makoto and Sekai via a laptop feed in their hotel room. They had installed a camera inside of the classroom to watch Makoto's reaction. On the table, next to the laptop, was Ryuji's phone.
"That was great, Koto-chan!" Ryuji praised.
"That really frightened him, didn't it?" Kotonoha asked. "Did they really kill my doppelganger in this world?"
"They probably did," Ryuji answered but he still enjoyed watching Makoto suffer a bit.
"If it's true then we need to make them face justice," Kotonoha resolved. "What's next?"
"Kat's waiting for her next chance to scare Saionji," Ryuji answered. "With her powers, she can remain unnoticed."
"That's frightening."
"Well, I can sense her, at least. Most of her victims don't realize she's close by until it's too late."
For the rest of the day, nothing extraordinary happened to Sekai and Makoto. Sekai had not had another hallucination and Makoto kept his phone off the whole day. It was near the end of school, after gym class, and Sekai was in the showers with her classmate to rinse off the sweat and freshen up before they went home.
With a towel wrapped around her body, Sekai stood in front of the sink's mirror to dry her hair. She looked at the mirror and saw Kotonoha standing right before her. She screamed and spun around, dropping her towel in the process.
"Kat...Katsura...?" No, it was impossible. Kotonoha Katsura was dead.
"Saionji-san."
Sekai's eyes widened and she followed the direction of the voice and looked up and saw Kotonoha on all fours on the ceiling, looking down at her with bloodshot eyes and blood leaking out of them like tears.
"yOU kILleD ME!"
Sekai screamed bloody murder and ran out of the showers, not caring about the fact she was only in her towel.
Kat stepped out of an empty stall, watching Sekai run out of the bathroom as everyone else watched, perplexed by her behavior.
Kat grinned. She was enjoying this.
"I SAW HER, MAKOTO!" Sekai cried.
Makoto and Sekai were up on the roof. He had heard about her rather public freakout as she ran out of the school showers, dressed only in her towel. News spread pretty fast in Sakakino High School.
After regaining her bearings, Sekai got dressed and dragged Makoto up to the rooftop to tell him what was happening. She could no longer keep this to herself.
"What do you mean, Sekai?" Makoto asked.
"KATSURA!" Sekai screamed. "I SAW HER!"
"Sekai, relax," Makoto tried to talk her down. He looked around, scanning for any eavesdropper. "She's dead, remember?"
"You don't believe me, do you?" Sekai questioned.
"That you saw Kotonoha? I think you're just stressed," Makoto reasoned. "Look, after a few weeks, it'll be fine. We can put this all behind us and move on."
"But it was so real," Sekai insisted. Oh, she felt like she was going crazy.
"What? You think her ghost is haunting us?" Makoto laughed. "Sekai, this isn't like 'Ju-On'. Ghosts aren't real."
Now that Sekai thought about it, he was probably right. There were no such things as ghosts. She was probably just seeing things.
All of a sudden, Sekai's phone rang, causing the two of them to jump.
"That's just my phone," she answered and she looked at the number. It was an unknown one but she answered anyway. "Hello? Who is this?"
"Sai...on...ji...san."
The soft voice made Sekai's blood run cold and she dropped her phone.
"Sekai, what's wrong?" Makoto asked.
"It's her! She's calling me!" Sekai pointed at the phone.
Now Makoto was outraged. Scaring him was one thing, but scaring his girlfriend, no way! Makoto swiftly scooped the phone up and yelled into it.
"OK, I don't know who you are but you better stop this sick joke right now!" Makoto demanded.
"...Makoto-kun, I loved you," the voice on the other end - Kotonoha's - spoke softly, causing Makoto to freeze up too. "You broke my heart and then you stabbed me in the heart. I thought you loved me too."
"W-w-who is this?" Makoto asked, unwilling to believe it was who he thought it was.
"Don't you remember me? It's me."
The call cut off. Then the phone beeped, alerting them of a text message. Makoto hesitantly opened the text to show it was a photo of Kotonoha but she was pale and her hair covered her face like a curtain, making her look like an Onryo.
Makoto screamed and dropped the phone before he stomped on it.
"Makoto! That's my phone!" Sekai yelled but he ignored her and continued to furiously stomp her phone until it was broken. He huffed and panted once he was done.
"Let's go," Makoto insisted as he grabbed Sekai's hand and dragged her to the roof's exit. As they walked down the stairs, Kat stepped out of her hiding spot and watched them flee.
"Yeah, they got it," Kat said into her phone. "You really freaked them out."
"What else happened?" Kotonoha asked.
"Oh, Itou got so freaked out that he broke Saioji's phone," Kai snickered. "Here, I'll text you a video."
"Good," Ryuji spoke through the phone. They were on speaker. "Let's keep putting the pressure on until they confess"
"You think they will?" Kat asked. "I mean, what if they decide to learn to just live with it?"
"They won't. Sooner or later, one of them is going to break and when that happens, it'll be all over."
"So, what do you want me to do next?"
"Follow them. We're going to take this to their homes."
Makoto's mom was busy at work and wouldn't be home until later. The same for Sekai's mom. So, they decided to stay together at Makoto's apartment. He locked the apartment door and sat in his room with Sekai as they tried to process what just happened at school.
Were they being haunted by Kotonoha's ghost? That was ridiculous. Yet, that was her voice and he had seen the picture.
Had Kotonoha risen from the grave to haunt them for what they had done to her?
"This can't be real," Makoto shook her head in denial.
"What are we going to do, Makoto?" Sekai asked, frightened.
"I...I don't know, OK!?" Makoto yelled before he quickly apologized. "I'm sorry. I'm just a bit on edge right now because of this."
"She's coming for us," Sekai feared. "It's going to be like in those movies. First, she haunts us and then she kills us!"
"Sekai, listen to me," Makoto looked into her eyes. "I won't let that happen, you understand? Whatever this is, we'll face it together."
Sekai smiled. She trusted Makoto.
"OK, I'll make the lights flicker with this," Kat said as she and Ryuji stood in front of the door of Makoto's apartment. The mercenary was holding a remote.
"And I'll make it cold in there for them," Ryuji added. "While you and Koto-chan scare them."
"You hear that?" Kat spoke into her phone.
"I do," Kotonoha confirmed on the other end. "I'm ready."
"Good, let's begin," Ryuji instructed as he put his hand on the door, his eyes glowing. A layer of frost covered the surface. Meanwhile, Kat was using the remote to play with the lights inside. Her eyes glowed as she began to cast her illusion.
The lights started to flicker for a moment. This caused the two teens to become confused but they relaxed once the flickering stopped until they felt a chill. The room had gotten cold all of a sudden, so cold that they could see their own breath.
It was when they saw the figure standing in the corner of the room that they truly became frightened.
"Kat...Katsura...?"
"Kotonoha...?"
Kotonoha Katsura stood in the corner in a blood-soaked uniform, her hair hanging in front of her face and holding a blood-stained kitchen knife. She looked at them, her hair parted slightly to reveal her bloodshot eyes as she unleashed a loud, bloodcurdling scream.
The two teens screamed and ran for the door which slammed shut. Makoto grabbed the doorknob and tried to twist it and pull the door open, but it was not budging.
"MAKOTO!" Sekai screamed as Kotonoha approached and raised her knife. Makoto scrambled back and then he hid behind Sekai.
"I'm sorry, Kotonoha! I'm sorry, we killed you!" Makoto cried as he hid behind Sekai and the two of them backed away. Kotonoha did not respond and stepped toward them. "Please don't hurt me!"
"cOnFeSS!" Kotonoha Katsura's vengeful spirit screamed as she raised the knife. "CONFESS!"
"YES, WE'LL CONFESS! WE'LL CONFESS!" Makoto screamed.
Kotonoha did not seem convinced but she vanished into thin air.
Makoto and Sekai dropped to their knees, skin pale, skin drenched in cold sweat, hearts pounding in their chests. Sekai started to sob as the guilt caught up with her.
They had no choice. If they did not confess, Kotonoha was coming for them and would not stop until she killed them herself.
Kotonoha, Ryuji, and Kat sat in the DynoLiner's dining room, reading the newspaper headline. It had pictures of both Sekai Saionji and Makoto Itou on it.
"So, they confessed," Kotonoha concluded.
"Yes, they did," Ryuji confirmed, satisfied. His plan to haunt Makoto and Sekai and scare them into confessing had worked. He was, however, a bit disappointed that it took them only a day to drive both of them into a corner like that.
"Now that was fun," Kat admitted. "I mean, sure, I would just kill them and be done with it, but they'll have to live with this for the rest of their lives."
"And now the Kotonoha Katsura in this world and her family will both get the justice they deserve and closure," Ryuji concluded and he raised his milkshake. "Cheers!"
They clinked their glasses together and enjoyed their beverages. Victory tasted so sweet.
"So, what's next?" Kat asked, eager.
"How about we pay Sawanaga and Katou a visit next?" Ryuji suggested with a mad gleam in his eyes.
A/N: I learned in one of the Bad Endings in the School Days HQ was that Kotonoha ends up murdered by Sekai and Makoto. It's not said outright, but both Makoto and Sekai's behavior after learning about Kotonoha's death implies they were responsible for it. Now, I could have gone and tried to prevent her death but for me, it was more fun for me to find justice for them using my OC's and the Kotonoha from my KAMEN RIDER DAYS series.