5:30 P.M.

Mukuro Ikusaba crouched behind the tree, waiting with a gun in her hand. She'd heard Nidai a while ago, chuckling to himself about something, and had been following him for a while. Junko was back at their camp, underneath the tangerine trees with a banjo. Mukuro had felt weird about leaving her sister alone, with nothing but a banjo to protect her, but Junko just laughed and called her adorably protective. Then she'd said to go after Nidai and kill him.

And that was exactly what Mukuro was going to do.

She'd wandered over by the coast now; it was good that there weren't going to be any danger zones in this part of the island. She'd have to keep an eye on the time, though. It was nearing six now, and that was when the next announcement would be made… including new danger zones. One of them could be near. She'd have to be careful. She'd have to kill Nidai quickly.

There. He was stopping. Resting a little, probably.

He sat down and began stretching, and Mukuro took aim. Right in the back. She'd shoot a few times, just to be sure.

Once. Twice. Three times. A slight yelp. The sound of blood gurgling. It was over.

Mukuro headed over to Nidai and rolled him onto his back to make sure that he was dead. Gone. Good. She checked her map… it took quite a while to figure out where, exactly, she was, but after a while deduced that she was in F10. It would take a while for her to get back to Junko. She should check his weapon, his pack, see if he had water or food left. And she should take the batteries out of his flashlight. They'd come across many dead bodies, and from every one, Mukuro had taken the batteries from their flashlight. It was her flashlight having dead ones that made her think of it.

Batteries were important.

She dropped them into her bag, heard them clank against the others, and kept looking for his weapon.

Ah. It was crushed underneath him. She wrenched it free and studied it. Semi-automatic pistol… 9mm… Smith & Weston. A M59? Yes. She nodded, dug the ammunition out of his bag and dropped it into hers. Koizumi hadn't had a weapon, but Nidai… this would help. Guns would always help.

She jogged back to Junko, who had built a fire and was strumming her banjo.

"Junko-chan!" she said. "The fire will attract-"

"Yeah," Junko said, staring off into the distance. Mukuro half-wondered when she'd learned to play the banjo, then dismissed it. "Did you get him?"

"Yes," Mukuro said. "He had a gun. It will help."

"Good," Junko said, nodding. Suddenly she beamed. "I tapped into the radio frequency going into the school. Genocider Syo's here!"

"S-Syo?" Mukuro asked. "The serial killer?"

"That's right," Junko said. She sighed happily. "The outside world is going crazy. I'm so glad we got chosen, aren't you? Think about all the despair that's already happened! We even got to witness some, with Saionji. Remember Tsumiki's body? So much despair happened there. Sit."

Mukuro sat by her sister. Junko abandoned the banjo and propped an elbow up on Mukuro's shoulder, playing with her hair. "This is great fun, great despair," Junko said, directly into her ear. "The greatest fun and greatest despair I've ever felt. I wish our class was larger. That's the only way it would be better…"

Mukuro sat silently, staring at the fire that would most likely give them away and listening to her sister say things that shouldn't have made sense, but did. Felt her sister curl her fingers around Mukuro's hair, feeling her smooth it down and play with it.

It was true, she would most likely end up dying for her sister. No. She would definitely die for Junko. It would end up to be the two of them, and then Mukuro would put the gun to her own head and-

"You're not thinking about suicide are you, Big Sis?" Junko asked. "I'd never let you do that. Think about all the despair you'd get to feel if I died? But think about the despair I'd feel if I saw you kill yourself? Hm… I'll have to think on that one."

22 STUDENTS LEFT

Good-bye, Nidai. You had to die because of plot reasons later on.