Chapter 19

Life can be very unfair at times. Mostly because it's impossible to choose what happens before birth. Around the world, many people are born ugly, poor, or to a family who hates and abuses them. And there's nothing that can be done about it, because the past cannot be changed.

For Hisame Shikamoto, the third option was the one which fitted better with her life. The girl didn't choose to be born as Mari Shikamoto's cousin, but the blonde was a part of her family whether she wanted it or not. Hisame was never very fond of her cousin's company, and looking past Mari's weak and dumb attitude, Hisame was sure that her cousin disliked her as well. The reason why, though, was a mystery.

Strangely enough, the two girls had much more in common than they were different. They looked slightly similar due to belonging of the same family, had little social life, were viewed as two weirdoes at school and at home and wore the same hairstyle. Shoulder length locks, blonde for Mari and black for Hisame. Mari's newest attempt to be in fashion.

However, Hisame never created a truly strong bond with her cousin. Mari was the only person she talked to at school for the lack of better options. Perhaps because, even though Hisame could spend hours making a list of her cousin's flaws, she had to admit that, if it wasn't for Mari, she would be a very lonely girl.

Hisame was a loner because of her family. To any onlooker, she personified the "angsty and boring teenage daughter" stereotype. She was rude with her parents and grandparents, and the only one in her house who was yet to feel her wrath was her three year old brother. However, Hisame would never admit being the culprit for her family's troubles. She wasn't the type of person who assumes responsibility for her own actions. For the impatient girl, her parents were to blame for everything, including her looks, personality and zero social status at school. And so was Mari.

Sometimes, Hisame wondered if she would get more popular after deciding to stop giving attention to Mari and opening up to the many cliques at school. Deep inside, though, she knew that acceptance wasn't something she should expect. Partially, it was her own fault. Hisame was aggressive to other students every time someone contradicted or argued against her. Once, she even called the teacher dumb, which led her to the principal's office for a day. The girl wasn't like this due to pure, genuine evilness, but rather because she hated to lose. No one could defeat her; no one would ever mess with her. School was just like home, everyone tried to put her down. If she wanted to rise to the top of the food chain, she would have to be tough.

Unfortunately, being tough was not enough.

It was already 20:30 pm, and the cousins' stay at the Kazukawa Inn quickly went from tense to utterly boring. Surprisingly, Mari had gotten much quieter. She had stopped mumbling about America, or being pathetically annoying as always. Maybe The Program had finally gotten into her, but it was probably another reason. Hisame stopped responding to her. By allowing Mari to say everything she wanted without hurting her, Hisame had managed to achieve some peace of spirit.

"It's all about attention. This is what she wants; this is what she lives for. If I don't give her attention, she stops." While she thought about her cousin, Hisame wasn't sure about what Mari deserved more: her hatred or her pity.

Mari was, in a way, as unhappy as Hisame. She was nice and cheerful when she wanted to, but had severe self-esteem problems that would be hard even for a psychiatrist to heal. Her hatred for herself, in Hisame's eyes, was the reason why she loved America over Japan so much. And out of a sudden, Mari's repressed emotions had finally boiled over the surface. Even in the couch where she had been resting for so long, Hisame could still hear her cousin's sobs and laments, coming from the kitchen where dinner was being cooked. The refusal to accept her death.

Hisame wasn't ready to die. How could she? She was still a virgin, never finished high school or worked in her life, and did not have oceans of friends like the average teenager. She would kill in self defense, that was certain, but in case she managed to win, it would only happen due to extreme good luck. Hisame considered herself to be a lucky girl. After all, she had managed to escape her own death once.

Six months before The Program, Hisame and Mari were watching a concert in one of the biggest plazas in Tokyo. The band, Flip Side, was extremely famous and each of it's members had an ultra large fan club, the biggest one going to the lead vocalist, Junya Kenzaki. Hisame loved the concert, but Mari wasn't satisfied. Hating J-pop with every fiber of her being, the girl decided to go to a store a couple of blocks away, in the middle of the show. Hisame hated her cousin for abandoning her, but it was already midnight, and it would be impossible to find Mari after the concert if they weren't always together. With tears of anger in her eyes, Hisame made the best decision of her life: she accompanied Mari to the store.

While the girls were there, Mari cheerfully tried on the clothing while Hisame just looked angry in a corner when a loud explosion was heard. It was shortly followed by several screams and the sound of people running. The cousins ran back there to see what happened, and Mari began to cry after seeing that several of the people were wounded and bleeding. The aftermath of the explosion was devastating.

Someone, probably an anti-government terrorist, had put a bomb under the stage where Flip Side was playing. It suddenly exploded, killing approximately 200 people and wounding many more. Were the cousins still in the plaza, they would have received the full impact of the explosion. Probably, they would have gone back home in body bags.

While staring at her crying cousin's back, Hisame sighed at the ironies of fate.

As stupid and whiny as Mari was most of the times, she had unintentionally saved her life.

"But if she knew that a bomb was about to explode, would she have told me?"

Honestly, Hisame could never believe that her cousin would one day want her dead. Mari was kind and rarely got angry with anyone. The few times when she had actually argued back against her cousin happened only after Hisame made fun of the rock and pop idols she loved so much. However, Mari always gave the impression of secretly hiding something. Maybe her frail personality was only a show to Hisame, a trap to eliminate her from The Program.

"Dinner's ready!" Screamed Mari from the dining room.

Hisame took a while to make the connection. She had never seen Mari cook anything before, so the apparently lovable words came to her as a surprise. Maybe, just maybe, Mari would overcome her usual self-victimization and help her cousin to escape that horrible neighborhood alive. Holding on to that small being of light called hope, Hisame ran towards the dining room.

The vision of the place was so cheerful that it made Hisame forget about The Program. Mari was wearing a white apron over her school uniform, and smiled to her cousin so radiantly that she seemed to be on the verge of laughter. It was probably the first time she made dinner by herself, but the contents of the meal pointed otherwise. There was a portion of six sliced sushi on the table, along with a bowl of noodles for both of the girls. On another bowl at the center of table, there was even more rice, along with sashimi. Hisame had to admit: it looked absolutely delicious.

For the first time in years, she praised her cousin for something.

"Whoah, Mari, this looks so good! Congratulations girl!"

Hisame's kind words caused Mari to blush intensely, making a small but genuine smile with her lips. Had Hisame not been extremely hungry at the moment, she would have embraced Mari. But she wanted the food to come first, so the impatient girl took the seat on the right and began to hungrily devour the bowl of noodles.

Hisame stopped abruptly after two or three mouthfuls of food were in her mouth. Even though she wanted to say otherwise, even though she wanted to congratulate Mari, and to finally have a good meal… the taste of the food Mari had cooked was, undeniably, hideous.

Feeling a sensation of dirt in her throat and with vomit starting to load up in her mouth, Hisame gruesomely spilled back the noodles into the plate. She had never proved anything cooked by her cousin before, but even though that food looked good, the taste was hideous. Mari had clearly overboiled the noodles for a long time, causing them to taste like burned wood. Staring at her cousin with confused, angry eyes, Hisame uttered words that crushed even more of Mari's little self esteem.

"You can never do anything right, can you?"

Mari's eyes started to tear up one more time, but she was clearly making an effort to control her emotions. She sniffed upwards, and suddenly glared at her cousin with an aggressive, hurtful gaze. Hisame had never seen her cousin look at her that way. Was it a consequence of The Program?

"….stop" Mari said. Her face was a mixture of a thousand different emotions, but it was clear that she was repressing her anger towards Hisame. Being a smart girl, Hisame saw it all: Mari wanted her dead. It was so obvious. For years, it was Mari's objective. But only in The Program did she have her opportunity.

"Why? Why should I go soft with you? You are a bad cook, and also terrible at everything you do! Why should I accept this food? It's garbage, just like you!" In an attempt to make her cousin cry again, Hisame grabbed the bowl of noodles and angrily threw it on the wall. It shattered instantly, staining the white surface with raw, overcooked pasta. That dinner's place wasn't on the table. It was on the floor.

"Stop." Mari repeated her words, more determined than before.

"Wait…. Are you…. Are you trying to challenge me?" Hisame mocked her cousin openly, leaving the chair so quickly that it went two steps backwards. "So you like to play the victim, Mari? You love to blame me for everything, don't you? I won't let that happen anymore. If you want to play the overconfident bitch, go ahead. Just don't think I'll buy into this crap." Dominated by anger, Hisame stared into her cousin's hideous "blue" eyes. No one would mess with her again, and no one would blame her for anything. And most of all, no one would stop her from doing what she wanted.

"I said stop!" Suddenly, Mari did something Hisame wasn't waiting for. She pushed her cousin to the floor. The girl who had mistreated a family member for years suddenly found herself fallen flat on her back. Her foot hit the edge of the sofa and began to hurt- a lot. But no pain was bigger than what she came to realize. Mari was fighting back.

"At least I'm not a monster."

After saying those words, Mari calmly walked to the sofa and sat there, and a few seconds later, began to cry. For Hisame, her tears were more of a relief than anything else. It showed that Mari had not changed. Although the game was clearly affecting her minuscule brain, Mari was still the same weak crybaby she had always been. If Mari wanted to, she could have killed her cousin. Hisame's ax was on the floor, clearly available.

But although the thought gave her immense pleasure, Hisame wouldn't kill Mari. She was too… innocent to get killed. Besides, she was the only "friend" Hisame had in school. With Mari dead, Hisame would be alone in The Program. Alone and about to die.

Sharing her own frustrations with the only companion she had, Hisame went to the couch and sat there, turning her head away from Mari so as not to look in her eyes. Not that she would really see them, thanks to Mari's stupid blue lenses. The two stupid pieces of shit, that the blonde could do everything to get her hands on.

Hisame sighed. In a few moments, she began to bawl as well.

As usual, the long silence was broken by Mari. But she wasn't talking about America this time.

"You should thank me one day."

"For what, for turning my life into hell?" Hisame's eyes, red with all the crying, began to dry with the painful memories.

"I think I could say the same. But that's not it." Mari replied.

"Then what?"

"You should thank me for saving your ass on that day. You loved that band, you wanted it so much, and that's why you almost died because of it." Hisame couldn't see her cousin's face, but it was probably filled with relief. "And what did you give me in exchange? Insults. You never thanked me, never told me that I did the right thing, and did not spend a single day without making fun of the way I wear and how much I like America. You are ungrateful."

"Ungrateful?" Now the tears had dried completely. Hisame wasn't going to lose to Mari again. If The Program had changed her, then it had changed Hisame as well. "For destroying my day? If you had looked at my face one fucking time, then you'd see that what you did wasn't a favor at all."

Mari shrugged. "At least I didn't destroy your life."

"Are you sure?" Deep inside, Hisame was about to laugh of the irony she was about to say. "If I had been blow up in that explosion and not even you were able to recognize me, I would have gone to a better place with a bang. And now, look at us. We are in The Program, against all odds, living like animals and probably going to die like animals. I don't think I'll win, and I'm sure that someone like you won't be the last one standing as well. If I could choose between then and here, I would prefer to die there, in that concert. I would be around people that I liked, and not with an annoying bitch."

Mari tried to answer, and for several seconds she struggled, but no words came out. She was defeated again. Fighting back wasn't enough to finally, and for once, put Hisame on the ground. But Hisame also increased her chances of survival. It was better to be with her than being alone. No one knew Mari more than her cousin, and vice-versa. Winning the fight against her low self esteem, Mari looked back at Hisame. And to make herself more approachable, she took off both of her blue lenses and threw them on the floor.

"I don't want to live like this."

"Who does?" Instead of mocking Mari, Hisame agreed with her.

"No, but in my case it's worse. I wanted to go to America. I always did. My dream is to go there, and since our uncle talked to me about how perfect that place is, I always believed in him. And you know what? I'm not going to change. I know no one will come to take us out of here, but I'll never think that he was wrong. How can a country brutalize and kill its own citizens? How can people do this to each other?" As clichéd as that speech sounded, Hisame was hooked into it.

"I know it all. But they have their own problems as well, don't they?"

"Yeah, they do. But nothing that could compare to this." Mari's face turned into a mask of anger. "You know how uncle convinced me that they were the land of the free? He told me that they don't have The Program every year."

"You sound like those two traitors who fled The Program, while we were kids. Can you remember?"

Being the anti-japanese type of girl, of course Mari did. For two years, the authorities chased that couple, going from door to door with their guns raised and putting missing posters on every street. When the boy and the girl seemed to have vanished from Earth's surface, a rebellious organization published a video on Youtube, in which the fugitive pair heavily criticized the government and ordered the extinction of The Program. They also informed the government of their location in America, where "no one could defeat them." The video was removed by the authorities only two days after publication, but it was enough time for most of the Japanese youth, including Hisame and Mari, to see it.

"She's in The Program too. It's impossible for her not to identify with them." Thought the false blonde.

"Well, I think you also want to be one of them right now." Unlike what her brain always told her, Mari looked much prettier with her natural brown eyes than with her false lenses. Prettier and even older. "They must be having children by now. I want to have a son and a daughter one day, but I know that it won't happen. I won't escape this fucking game, I won't meet my dreams. It's just…. Unfair." Mari began to cry one more time, the tears quickly soaking her white blouse. Two minutes before, she looked like a spoiled child. All of a sudden, she became an adult. And real adults cry when they feel pain, because they are not afraid of what others may think.

Looking at the melancholic figure of her cousin, part of Hisame wanted to hug her. Maybe she would tell Mari one or two words of encouragement, and say that everything would be alright even though she knew that nothing would. The other part, though, was enjoying Mari's suffering. Maybe it was the game, or maybe it was just her feelings. But it did not matter. Mari was actually hurt and broken. She had fought bravely against her cousin, but lost.

Changing the subject would help her.

"Let's watch some TV." Said Hisame, grabbing the remote on the table in front of the couch and pressing its button. Nothing happened. Hisame pressed the button again. No results. Swearing softly, the impatient girl flipped the machine and checked its pills. They weren't there.

"Crap. No pills." Soon after Hisame was done, Mari let out a small giggle.

"You know, TVs are turned on by buttons that exist on top of them. Are you too lazy to stand up from the sofa and push it?"

"Fuck you." Hisame hated sports. She did physical education at school because it was her obligation. She wasn't beautiful by birth, extremely short and with a large nose and narrow eyes. The lack of exercising, though, also made her weak. She wouldn't last much in a fight, unless she had a gun. Mari got her on the Achilles heel. Hard.

Hisame turned the TV on.

The images projected on the screen would haunt the two cousins for the rest of their short lives. At first, it was just a filming of a large kitchen, with six girls inside of it. But the timer on the top-right side of the screen, dated from 2006, did not lie. It was live footage from a previous Program.

As soon as Mari realized it, she screamed at the top of her lungs.

"This is from this game? Turn it off now! These girls are going to kill each other!" It was so obvious that it became painful. What would the government show to the contestants who wanted to watch TV? Barney? Sailor Moon? No, it was the bloody carnage that made them turn into killers faster. Simple as it went.

However, Hisame did not turn the TV off. She was…curious, on how that scene would turn out.

Suddenly, it started. A rather chubby girl tasted some food and then began to vomit blood on the floor. Her body arched and contorted itself while her face turned blue. In seconds, she was on the floor, instantly dead. The volume of the TV was extremely low, but it did not matter. Both cousins felt every second of it.

"Hisame , turn it off now! Please!" Mari's eyes grew wide as she screamed, and turned her head away from the TV. She shielded her face with her arms, so as not to see the tragedy that was to come. Back to her old fragility, Mari was horrified.

Hisame, though, remained fixed on her standing position. She did not know how to react to the scene. She had just seen someone die, not really, but a real person nonetheless. A whirlwind of different emotions flooded inside of her, and her mind was overtaken by confusion. But still, she did not stop watching. It was a horrible scene but… it was fun to watch.

After a few more seconds that showed the girls on the TV blaming each other about the incident, accompanied by the nice soundtrack of Mari's screaming, another death occurred in the footage. One of the girls, who wore glasses and held a machine gun in her arms, shot one of the others dead in an instant. The bullets made a hole on the fallen girl's stomach, and she fell on the kitchen floor in a pool of her own blood.

Hisame's eyes grew wide.

"HISAME, TURN THIS THING OFF!" Mari might have tried to do the job herself, but she was too frightened. The only action that she could muster, besides the screaming, was rocking her own body in a fetal position. She never saw the glorious bloodbath her cousin was experiencing. She wasn't affected by it like Hisame was.

After the first two girls were down, the rest happened very fast. Two more girls tried to get a pistol and shoot the crazy girl who held the better weapon, to no avail. They were both shot, and fell to the floor in a bloody heap. For a while, the girl who wielded the machine gun seemed to be the winner of that Program's edition. But while she walked towards the other living classmate, who stood in front of a fridge with her eyes filled with fear, the supposed winner got a pistol shot to the head and died instantly. She fell on her side; her brains stained the floor along with even more blood.

Hisame took a while to realize that she was smiling. When she finally did, the impatient girl, now turned into a psychopath, dropped the remote control on the floor. She held it so tightly, and for so long, that the instrument had the smell of the sweat on her hands. Sweat was dripping down Hisame's body, and her face turned into an expression of pure glee as soon as she saw Mari's shielded face.

"Why did I take so long to see it…" So that was how everything would turn out in the end. Friends come and go, people come and go, and lives never survive The Program. But some things always remain. Fear. Hatred. Jealously. Paranoia. Anger. And all of these different emotions dominated Hisame's heart. It was an easy battle; they already had a fixed target to turn to.

Mari. It had always been Mari. All of Hisame's problems, the reason why she never made friends, the cause of so much loneliness and emptiness in her life. Hisame could never sleep well due to Mari's constant calls, never do what she wanted because Mari was in the way, and most of all, never been allowed to get a single second of peace.

America, that shitty country, had never been a land of opportunities. The real Promised Land was there all along, in The Program. While she was in it, Hisame could find her freedom. She could do whatever she wanted, with no one to hold her back. She could torture Mari until sundown if she wanted to, and no one else would give a damn. There was a reason she had been saved from death on that Flip Side concert. Her job while still alive was to murder Mari. The ugly, stupid, ridiculous cousin of hers deserved that, she had to pay for everything. Hisame had the ax, but, in her twisted logic, it was the blade of justice.

"Hi…sa…me…?"

Hisame's teeth turned into a wolf's, and as she looked at the terrified Mari with mad, cruel eyes, the newest player in the 2011 season grabbed the small Bowie knife she had taken from Miki Nakayoshi's body.

Screaming ferociously, Hisame brutally impaled her cousin's left hand.

Although Mari Shikamoto had never felt a lot of pain in her life, she knew that she had never experienced more of it the moment she got her hand stabbed.

The quick movement of the knife cut through every sort of tissue that existed in the blonde's hand, burning through her flesh and tearing her muscles. Mari screamed in pure agony, and for a moment the world spun around her. The red liquid began to pour from the wound, much to the smiling Hisame's delight. Soon, Mari's left hand had turned red, along with the fabric of her blue skirt. It was clear that she was going to die, but dying by the hands of her own cousin was the last option the girl considered.

Before Mari could scream more, Hisame removed the knife from her cousin's hands. Mari felt like her hand was on fire, and the removal of the knife did not make it better. If anything, the bleeding worsened. Now there were two large stains of blood on the couch. And growing.

Mari stared at what she once called Hisame. She wanted to believe that there was still some sanity in her cousin's mind, but that quick look was enough to destroy all of her hopes. Hisame's face had turned red and malicious, and the blood that dripped from Mari's hands only made her even more excited for the kill. Mari felt a pang of regret. When she had the chance, she could have turned off the TV by herself. But the extreme fear of blood she had paralyzed her body. The consequences were right in front of her. Hisame, the cousin she had been her confident and only companion for so many years, had suddenly turned into… something else.

Making a small giggle with her mouth, Hisame raised the bloody knife higher in the air, ready to make another stab. Mari, though, did not let it happen. Guided by pure adrenaline, the terrified blonde moved her right leg backwards and kicked Hisame in the stomach. The brunette half of the pair grunted in pain and moved a few steps backwards. Not much, but enough for Mari to escape the sofa and run towards the dining table.

As she grabbed her frying pan in a midst of bravery and despair, Mari wondered if, in the end, Hisame was right about her. It wasn't the right time to analyze their troubled relationship, but in the back of Mari's mind something told her that she was the guilty one. It all made sense. Hisame had openly showed that she disliked the US. And yet, Mari kept tormenting her by stepping on a dead subject. She had also unconsciously saved Hisame's life on that day at the concert, but failed to protect her cousin from the horrors contained in that TV. In the end, Hisame became a pressure cooker. Maybe it was fate? Mari didn't believe in that. It was just, like always, an immense amount of bad luck.

Leaving her own shell for a moment, Mari ran to the stove and grabbed the frying pan on top of it. Had it remained hot, it could have been a dangerous weapon. But cold as it had become, it was no match for Hisame's ax. Mari thought about grabbing a knife in one of the drawers, but her left hand had gone completely numb; she could use only one weapon at a time. At first, she lamented her bad luck, but now the girl understood that she would have to find a way of making her weapon deadly. Right in front of her, Hisame grabbed the ax and ran towards her cousin.

There was no time to think.

Miraculously, the frightened blonde managed to dodge the blade. She jumped to her right, and the sharp curve of the heavy ax hit the floor with a crack. Hisame tried lifting it up, but not being very strong, she would take a while to do so. Exactly what Mari needed. In desperate self defense, the blonde swung the frying pan and knocked her cousin on the head. The dark-haired girl fell like a tower, hitting her head on the edge of a table as she did so. A trickle of blood began to pour from her forehead.

Seeing the violence she created with her own hands, Mari began to scream.

Even though Hisame was the one who attacked first, Mari had always been terrified of blood. Since that day when Marilyn Monroe, the poodle she had in her house, got run over by a car and died instantly, everything that involved violence made her cry and shriek. The Program only made things worse. However, getting selected to die wasn't a surprise. The blonde considered herself to be unlucky since the moment she was born. She wasn't born in America, and was forced to sing that horrible Japanese anthem every day at school. Her dog had died and her mother did as well, of cancer. Her cousin constantly abused her, and her status as an outcast at school prohibited her from making friends. She was also ugly, not having the silky and beautiful blonde hair or the bright blue eyes everyone loved to look at. To topple it off, she received a frying pan as her "weapon", in a game with guns and knives. Yes, she had always been the unlucky one. The victim.

At least in her own mind.

"Crybabies like you, Mari…" uttered Hisame with malice. "Don't deserve to survive this game."

Hisame's words shook Mari back to reality. Her cursed cousin was now right in front of her, holding the ax threateningly. Fear caused Mari to step backwards, cornering her between the bedroom door and the insane Hisame. Death was certain. Hisame began to send the ax backwards.

Although Mari was not athletic or strong, she did swimming at school. It led her to faster reflexes than her cousin, and also a greater speed. It was time to use it. Adrenaline rushed through her veins as Mari pushed Hisame backwards, stunning her for a moment. Then, the blonde managed to open the door that led to the bedroom, creeping into it as fast as fox. When Hisame struck down with the ax, it was too late; Mari had entered the room and locked it, leaving the ax to chop off the wood.

Hisame continued to axe the door mindlessly, but Mari did not hear her. Her mind was filled with uncertainty, doubt, fear. As she looked around the room, which only had two beds and a closet, along with a small window, the wannabe American had her eyes fixed on one object before moving to the next one.

"Hiding under the bed? No, she'll find me there. In the closet, maybe? I might go for a surprise attack, but she has a better weapon and will probably hit me first. Which only leaves me…."

"Crack! Crack!" Guttural sounds came from the door, increasing in volume instantaneously. Mari could now hear Hisame's laughter, her giggling and cursing, a beautiful but horrible song of madness. For a moment, Mari thought that it was all a joke, and as soon as the song ended Hisame would go back to normal. It wouldn't happen. The damage had already been done.

Crying, Mari went to the window and looked outside. She was on the second floor, and a fall from there would probably cripple her. However, it was still a beautiful night, with the moon being the only illuminated spot in a dark, star-less sky. The buildings made a surreal stone jungle, and if she wasn't in The Program Mari would have enjoyed the view. But the girl did not have the time to admire the night. The world around Kazukawa Inn was a terrifying place, and she would certainly get wounded after doing the craziness she was about to do. But did she really have a choice?

Hisame began to open the door from the inside, her smile disappearing from her face as soon as she saw her cousin standing at the window.

Seconds later, Mari held her breath and jumped.

"AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Mari's high pitched scream of pain could be heard on the entire district.

To Hisame, it was music for her ears. But nothing compared to the last dying breath Mari would emit. It was clear that she had broken something, and the mad girl had no time to lose now. Killing Mari would be easier if she was already wounded. Running with her brain empty of thoughts that did not involve death and blood, Hisame held the heavy ax even tighter and left the hotel room in a hurry. She could feel her heart beating loudly, the power pulsing through her body as she carried her weapon in twisted pleasure.

No time for the elevator, she would have to take the stairs. The brunette ran down the steps like an Irish ghost, floating in the darkness and not giving a damn about anything else. Mari was her target and enemy, and now she finally had means to silence her. If she knew that physically hurting someone was so easy, Hisame would have done it more to Mari. She would have spanked her cousin every time she raised her voice, and turned Mari's life into a horrible, never ending nightmare. She regretted not doing it before, but it was no problem; she had the opportunity and the guts now.

After Mari, Hisame was certain that she would win. If she did not, well, at least she would not die like a coward. And if luck was on her side, she would die with a bang.

Mari was crawling her slow body on the floor of dark stones, close to the garden. She didn't go very far, and it would take more than ten minutes to reach the front gate. Mari couldn't stand up because her right leg was broken, its bone protruding in an unnatural angle, almost tearing through the skin. The wound was grotesque, and Hisame could imagine the pain Mari was feeling. The blonde was crying and howling in pain more than she ever had, but it was nothing compared to the fate The Program had reserved for her.

The first hack from the ax went to Mari's intact left foot. It was severed instantly, and arterial blood pumped out of it in a stream. The sliced member rolled on its side and fell closer to Hisame. She would send it to Mari's uncle through internet after she won The Program.

With her two legs useless, whatever will to live she still had disappeared from Mari. She closed her eyes as the tears kept falling, crawling with her remaining arms in a useless fashion. Hisame did not waste any time; she severed Mari's right hand with another hack, cutting through meat and bone and destroying all four of her locomotive members. She wouldn't live much longer, but Hisame wouldn't give her cousin such a clean death. The fans loved those who were creative, and brutalizing Mari's body would get her the approval from society she had never received before.

Despite her wounds, Mari half turned her body, just in time to have Hisame's ax rammed into the side of her belly. The large hack spilled blood all over her uniform, and even some drops fell on Hisame's face. The blade punctured her internal organs, which began to slide out very slowly along with the blood that flowed. Screaming in agony, Mari fell on her back. Hisame began to ax it, one, two, three, four times. Soon Mari's spine was completely shattered, and the crunching noises of her breaking bones filled the air. However, Hisame did not have enough strength to drive the ax all the way through, creating bloody, grotesque chunks of flesh all over Mari's back. Arterial blood fell over Hisame's clothes and made her look like a painted Indian. The air smelled horribly. The girl who always wanted to be American died in seconds, erupting blood from her mouth and drowning in infinite pain.

Still, Hisame kept going. She kept hacking her cousin's body more and more, rupturing her organs, draining her blood and breaking every single bone she had. She screamed like The Exorcist girl all along, and maybe in the end she was possessed as well. Soon, Mari grew unrecognizable, and so did Hisame. She looked like a demon, bloodied from her face to her sockets. The little sanity that remained in Hisame's mind disappeared, and as her final hack on the already dead Mari chopped off her head in one last spray of gore, the Hisame that lived before The Program was already dead.

"None of them will remain but me!"

Looking as far as she could with her bloodied eyes, Hisame saw another girl entering the garden. She had passed through the gate while Mari was being axed, and stared at the scene completely horrified. Hisame did not know who it was due to the darkness, but did it matter? It was just another one to be axed to death and have her weapon stolen. Hisame ran towards the tall girl, ready to split her skull in half with the bloodied ax. Her legs were faster than her thoughts, and they brought her extremely close to the visitant before she knew it.

With her mind obscured by insanity, Hisame wasn't counting on the fact that she would never be faster than a gunshot. And this is exactly what happened. The taller girl, who was beautiful even when her face was obscured by darkness, suddenly pulled out a pistol and aimed at Hisame's head. The killer tried to stop, but it was too late.

Instead of dying with a bang, Hisame Shikamoto got two.

It was the first time Misa Fujiwara used the 44. AutoMag she took from Kageri, and she wasn't sure if she would be able to hit the insane girl. But at such a close range, missing was impossible. Misa pulled the trigger twice, and both gunshots proved themselves to be fatal. The first turned Hisame's right eye into a hole of gore, and exploded the back of her head like a watermelon. The second hit the right top of her forehead, and the area around it became a thick, red paste of nightmares. The two combined gunshots exploded and burned the right side of the crazy girl's head, destroying everything from her hair to the beginning of her jaw. As Hisame fell, her body made a gracious, almost disturbingly beautiful curve in the air, and arterial blood spilled profusely from her wounds as she fell on her side with a thud. She was dead before hitting the floor, with a mixture of her jelly-like brains, warm blood and black hair creating a hellish pool around her head. Her right ear was ripped from the rest of the head and fell several inches away.

Misa stared at Hisame's dead face, or better, the surviving half of it. She couldn't believe on what had just happened. In a moment, she wanted to find shelter in a supposedly abandoned hotel. On another, she watched the goriest thing she had ever witnessed in her life, moments before adding another body to the "deceased" category. She was getting sick.

"What is this… this thing, turning us into?"

Hisame killed a family member. Misa had killed twice. Kageri also wanted to play the game. And many others out there were doing the same, shooting, stabbing and burning the ones they gossiped with at school and sat with in the same class. Where had the 3A class gone? What happened to everyone?

But the worst thing was the promise. The promise Misa made after seeing Kageri's body. That she wouldn't kill again, wouldn't let The Program and the government win. Saying it was easier than doing it. In a similar situation, she had killed. Again. Hisame's blood, all over her shirt, confirmed it. It was nothing compared to the gallons of red liquid that flowed from what was left of Mari, but still, it was a horrible sight.

As she got closer to Mari's disemboweled body, Misa began to feel nauseated and had to hold the vomit inside of her throat. Along with all of that, another emotion came: guilt. Why had she not shot Hisame before, stopped her when she had the chance? The beautiful and proud girl suddenly turned into a child, begging for someone, a higher power or even her mom, to come into Saitama and take her out of there. Hisame was a monster, but Misa was no different. By killing two people, she was forever negated of her status as a normal human being.

For the first time since the beginning of the game, Misa Fujiwara cried.

Girl #12 Mari Shikamoto – Dead

Girl #1 Hisame Shikamoto – Dead

13 to go

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Like most chapters lately, this one also took a lot of effort, and many hours of no sleep, to be finished. I consider its content to be inevitable, since the building of tension between Hisame and Mari could only lead to one of them murdering the other. My intention was to make both of them equally flawed, so as not to create a good and evil picture. It'll be up to each reader to choose their side in the confrontation. Who's right, Hisame or Mari? The answer is, neither of them. Because both committed mistakes during their entire lives, which lead to their deaths.

Was the gore exaggerated? I've been reading through "72 Hours" and its sequel, "Uprising", recently. Therefore, it's not a surprise that I'm trying to replicate the ultra violence here. I don't want to make it look extremely implausible, and, in my opinion, being killed by an ax is one of the worst ways a human being can die. Much worse than knife or sword related cutting. My question to all readers and reviewers: Was the conclusion to Mari and Hisame's arc satisfying for you? Why?

See you all on the next chapter! I will take a break with the killing for a while.