Sku-te - Down With Nana Hiiragi

Chapter 4: The Vote and Early Manipulations

The lunchtime encounter with Nana Hiiragi left Arthur feeling raw and exposed. Her ability to mask her true nature behind such a dazzling facade of innocent charm was profoundly unsettling. He knew, with a certainty that settled like a stone in his gut, that she had filed away every detail of his fabricated “vision,” and would be dissecting it for any hint of threat or exploitable weakness. His decision to put himself forward for class representative now felt even more reckless, but also, paradoxically, more necessary. He needed to understand how she operated in a position of influence, however minor.

The day and a half leading up to the vote was an uncomfortable lesson in social dynamics for Arthur. The other serious contender, Inori Tamaki, the sharp-eyed girl with the severe ponytail, campaigned with earnest efficiency. She spoke logically about her organizational skills, her desire for a fair and well-run class, and her commitment to representing student concerns to the teachers. She garnered a respectable amount of quiet support from the more studious and pragmatic members of the class.

Then there was Nana Hiiragi. She didn’t so much “campaign” as weave a subtle, irresistible web of charm. She seemed to be everywhere at once, a whirlwind of perfectly pitched compliments and thoughtful gestures. She learned names with astonishing speed, remembered trivial details about classmates’ hobbies – a favorite manga series here, a struggling subject there – and offered to help with homework (though Arthur, watching closely, noticed she often then subtly delegated the actual work to other admirers). When she spoke to someone, she made them feel like they were, for that moment, the most important, most interesting person in the room. Her promises for her tenure as class representative were vague but universally appealing – a more fun, more inclusive class environment, more activities, a stronger sense of unity. It was a masterful performance, and Arthur, watching her, felt a kind of horrified admiration. She was a natural politician, a born manipulator wrapped in a veneer of utterly adorable sincerity.

Arthur’s own “campaign,” by stark contrast, was a masterclass in awkwardness. He made no speeches, offered no grand promises. His efforts consisted mostly of him standing near groups of students during breaks, occasionally offering a stilted, phone-translated comment if directly addressed, or a clumsy nod if someone caught his eye. He’d initially entertained the idea of trying to rally some support, perhaps making a vague, unsettling promise about using his “Chrono-Empathic Glimpse” for the vague benefit of the class’s future, but the words felt hollow, dangerous, and far too likely to backfire. His primary reason for even putting his name forward remained largely internal: to observe Nana more closely as she vied for influence, and perhaps, in some small, almost imperceptible way, to signal to Nanao Nakajima – who seemed to shrink visibly whenever the topic of leadership arose – that not everyone who sought a position of authority was an overwhelming force of charisma. He’d hoped his own unlikely, ill-equipped candidacy might make Nanao feel slightly less isolated in his timidity.

Nana, naturally, with her acute social antennae, noticed his continued, if quiet, presence in the running. During a break between classes, as Arthur was trying to decipher a particularly complex kanji in his textbook, she approached his desk, her expression one of perfectly crafted, almost sisterly concern.

“Tanaka-kun,” she began, her voice soft and melodious, “I was just thinking… are you absolutely sure you want the burden of being class representative? It really does take up so much time, you know, with meetings and organizing things. And there’s an awful lot of… well, social effort involved.” She tilted her head, her violet eyes wide with feigned sympathy. “With your communication being through your phone, it might be terribly stressful for you. I’d hate to see you overwhelmed.”

Arthur met her gaze for a moment, seeing the glint of calculation behind the concern. He looked down at his phone, typed a brief reply. “Responsibility is… sometimes necessary, Hiiragi-san,” the synthesized voice stated, deliberately opaque. He didn’t elaborate.

Nana’s smile didn’t falter, but he saw a new flicker of something – annoyance? Reassessment? – in her eyes. “Of course, Tanaka-kun,” she said smoothly, her voice still dripping with false sweetness. “Just looking out for a fellow new student.” She gave a little wave and flitted off to charm another group.

Over the next twenty-four hours, Arthur began to notice subtle shifts in how other students interacted with him. When he tried to join a conversation, even with his phone ready, one of the participants would suddenly remember an urgent task elsewhere. He overheard snippets – or rather, his phone, with its microphone active, caught stray Japanese phrases that it dutifully translated on his screen when he reviewed the ambient audio later: “Tanaka-kun is a bit… strange, isn’t he? Always so quiet, with that machine…” or “Can we really rely on someone who needs a phone to talk for him to speak for us?” and even, more pointedly, “I heard his ‘Talent’ makes him moody and unpredictable. What if he has a bad ‘glimpse’ about a class trip or something?”

The comments were always deniable, never directly attributable to Nana, but their timing was impeccable, their effect insidious. She was isolating him, not with overt aggression, but with carefully planted seeds of doubt and discomfort, painting him as an unreliable eccentric. It was unnervingly effective. He felt a knot of unease tighten in his stomach; he’d hoped to remain a minor curiosity, but her actions suggested she was already taking him more seriously, as a potential irritant, than he liked. This wasn't just about winning a symbolic vote for her; it was about ensuring no unpredictable elements, however minor, remained within her sphere of influence. She was methodically clearing the board.

Finally, the last period of the next day arrived. Mr. Saito, with his usual slightly flustered cheerfulness, produced a small, slotted wooden box. “Alright class,” he announced, rubbing his hands together. “Time to cast your votes for your new class representative! Please write the name of your chosen candidate clearly on the slip of paper I’ll provide, fold it once, and then come up to place it in the ballot box.”

Small slips of paper were distributed. Arthur stared at his for a moment. He had no illusions about his own chances, nor, if he was honest with himself, did he particularly want the job. His candidacy had served its quiet, observational purpose. He carefully wrote ‘Inori Tamaki’ in hesitant katakana, then folded the paper. As the students filed up row by row to deposit their votes, he watched Nana. She dropped her own slip into the box with a confident, radiant smile, even offering a cheerful little wave to Mr. Saito, who beamed back.

The counting was swift and public. Mr. Saito, with the surprisingly willing assistance of Inori Tamaki herself (a sign of her own good sportsmanship, Arthur thought, or perhaps a subtle power play by Saito to demonstrate impartiality), tallied the votes on the chalkboard. The chalk clicked with a steady rhythm.

The results were, to Arthur, hardly surprising, though the decisiveness was still a little startling. Inori Tamaki: 8 votes. Kenji Tanaka: 1 vote. (Arthur felt a small, inexplicable pang. He suspected, with a strange mixture of gratitude and embarrassment, that it was a pity vote from Nanao Nakajima, or perhaps even a mistake by someone else.) Nana Hiiragi: 21 votes. (The remaining students in their class of thirty).

“And the winner, by a very significant majority, is Hiiragi Nana-san!” Mr. Saito declared, leading a vigorous round of applause. “Congratulations, Hiiragi-san!”

Nana beamed, her eyes sparkling as she stood to accept the accolade, bowing graciously to the class. “Thank you, everyone! Thank you so much! I promise I’ll do my very best to represent you all and help make this a truly fantastic and memorable year for us all!” Her voice was full of earnest sincerity.

Arthur felt a strange cocktail of emotions. There was an undeniable surge of relief; the thought of actually having to perform the duties of class representative, with his profound communication handicap and utter lack of understanding of their school’s social labyrinth, was daunting. But beneath that relief was a profound, chilling sense of unease. Nana’s victory had been a foregone conclusion from the moment she’d entered the classroom, but the subtle, almost surgically precise way she had neutralized him as even a token competitor was a stark lesson. He had wanted to understand how she operated, and he’d received a masterclass in social engineering and covert manipulation. The downside was now glaringly clear: he was definitely, irrevocably on her radar, marked as someone who didn’t quite fit, someone who had, however ineptly and briefly, stood in the path of her ambition.

“And in other exciting news,” Mr. Saito continued, his voice full of oblivious good cheer after the applause for Nana had finally died down, “please do remember that at the end of this school year, we’ll be having our traditional leaving party for those students who might be moving on to other pursuits! It’s always a wonderful highlight of the academic calendar, a chance to celebrate our achievements together!”

Arthur almost snorted aloud, a bitter, mirthless sound he barely managed to suppress. A leaving party. The irony was a palpable, acrid taste in his mouth. There would be plenty of students “leaving” this island well before the end of the year, he knew with a sickening certainty, and their departures would be anything but voluntary or celebratory. He glanced at Nanao, who was looking at the newly elected Class Representative Hiiragi with an expression of timid, almost hero-worshipping admiration. Arthur’s jaw tightened. He might have lost this meaningless vote, but the real struggle, the one for Nanao’s life and the lives of so many others in this classroom, had barely begun. He had to be smarter, more careful, and somehow find a way to use his terrible, fragmented knowledge before it was too late. And Nana Hiiragi, now armed with a modicum of official power, would be watching his every move.

Thank you @sku-te and everyone who got me to 5 reblogs!

Hej

Chapter 26: Reunion in the Rain

The chaotic, premature end of the third school year on the island had seen Arthur, along with the other bewildered and traumatized student survivors, unceremoniously dumped back onto the mainland like so much unwanted refuse. For him, it meant a grim, dispiriting return to the life he had briefly, miserably known before his forced return to the academy: the anonymity of the teeming city, the gnawing ache of poverty, and the soul-crushing, repetitive labour of a sprawling construction site on the urban fringe. The bitter irony wasn’t lost on him; he was now walking the same path of grueling menial toil, enduring the same casual cruelties from foremen and co-workers, that Kyouya Onodera had apparently walked before his own arrival on that cursed island. He endured the harsh, unforgiving conditions, the meagre, often insufficient pay that barely covered the rent for a shared, squalid room in a decaying lodging house, and the constant, wearying taunts from his fellow labourers who mocked his still-halting Japanese and his foreigner’s awkwardness. Each day was a fresh testament to his unwanted, unwelcome survival. His phone, his former lifeline to communication and understanding, had been confiscated during the island evacuation, leaving him to navigate this complex, indifferent world with only his painfully limited vocabulary and a profound, isolating sense of linguistic inadequacy.

Months bled into one another, a dreary, monotonous procession of exhausting physical labour and long, lonely nights spent staring at the cracked ceiling of his cramped room. He heard nothing of Nana, nothing of Michiru, nothing of Kyouya. The island, and the unspeakable horrors it held, began to feel like a distant, terrible fever dream, its sharp edges softened by time and the sheer, grinding drudgery of his current existence.

One particularly bleak, miserable evening in late autumn, as a cold, persistent, sleety rain lashed the city, relentlessly turning the streets into slick, reflecting rivers of neon and grime, Arthur trudged wearily away from the cacophonous, muddy construction site. His body ached with a bone-deep exhaustion, his spirit felt numb, hollowed out. He took a shortcut through a narrow, dimly lit, garbage-strewn alleyway, more to escape the biting, rain-laden wind than to save any appreciable time. And there, huddled in a recessed, darkened doorway, trying desperately to find some meagre shelter from the relentless downpour, was a figure he recognized instantly, despite her ragged, filthy clothes and the haunted, almost feral terror in her eyes. Nana Hiiragi.

She looked up with a start as he approached, her eyes – those once bright, violet, calculating eyes – widening in shocked, terrified recognition. She was thinner, almost skeletal, her once vibrant pink hair now lank, faded, and plastered to her skull by the rain, her face smudged with dirt and etched with a weariness that went far beyond mere physical exhaustion. She looked like a cornered, wounded animal, a desperate fugitive who had finally run out of places to hide. On top of a nearby overflowing, reeking rubbish bin, a scrawny, spectral white cat sat preternaturally still, its intelligent, luminous eyes fixed on them both, seemingly entirely unfazed by the driving rain or the charged atmosphere in the narrow alley.

“Tanaka-kun?” Nana whispered, her voice hoarse, cracked, barely audible above the drumming of the rain, disbelief warring with a flicker of raw, desperate fear, and perhaps, Arthur thought with a jolt, a tiny, almost imperceptible spark of desperate, unwelcome hope. She looked utterly broken. She began to stammer, incoherent words of regret, of apology for… for everything, her body trembling violently.

Arthur, his own weariness a heavy, sodden cloak upon his shoulders, cut her off, his voice flat, the English words falling like chips of ice in the damp, cold air. “Save it, Hiiragi. Just… save it.” He saw the last vestiges of fight, of defiance, go out of her. She sagged against the grimy, graffiti-covered wall, the rain plastering her thin clothes to her shivering frame.

“Tsuruoka,” he began, speaking slowly, deliberately, still in English, knowing she had some comprehension, and needing the precision of his own tongue for what he had to say. “Commander Tsuruoka… he killed your parents, Nana. Not you. He did.” He saw her flinch as if he had physically struck her, her eyes widening in stunned, uncomprehending horror. “He hired two Talented criminals to do the job, individuals with existing convictions, easily manipulated, easily controlled. They were likely… disposed of… after they’d served their purpose. Silenced. Standard Committee operating procedure.” Nana stared at him, her mouth agape, rain dripping from her chin, her breath catching in her throat. “Your parents,” Arthur continued, his voice relentless, a grim, emotionless recital of terrible truths. “They supported Talents. They were actively opposed to Tsuruoka’s ideology, his methods, his growing power within the Committee. He decided not only to eliminate them as a threat but, as the ultimate, monstrous act of revenge against their memory, to take their only daughter and twist her, mold her, into the very thing they fought against. It was so much easier to shape you, to control you, if you could be blamed for their horrific murders, wasn’t it? If you truly believed yourself a monster from the very start.” He saw the dawning, unutterable horror in her eyes as pieces of her shattered, manipulated past began to align with his brutal words. “You running to that police station, a terrified child clutching your own father’s severed head… the accusations, the recriminations you faced there… that was all part of Tsuruoka’s meticulous, diabolical plan. The reason you were shunted from one uncaring, abusive foster family to another. It was all designed to break you, to isolate you, to make you utterly pliable, to make you his perfect, unquestioning weapon.”

He paused, letting the crushing weight of his words sink into her already fractured psyche. “You could have asked more questions, Hiiragi,” he said, his voice softening almost imperceptibly, a hint of weary sorrow creeping in. “You could have done more research. Yes, many Talents are bad, dangerous, destructive. But it was never your place to be their judge, their jury, and their executioner.” He looked her directly in the eye, his gaze unwavering, trying to convey the full import of his next statement. “And Talents, Hiiragi,” he added, his voice dropping to a low, pointed near-whisper, “they don’t have a monopoly on doing bad things.” The implication that he knew she, Nana Hiiragi, the Committee’s most feared assassin of Talents, was herself entirely Talentless, hung heavy, unspoken but deafening, between them in the cold, rain-swept alley. “Now, perhaps, after everything, you finally understand the full, terrible extent of my ‘Talent.’ My ‘predictions.’ And believe me, Hiiragi, things are going to get much, much worse. For all of us.”

Nana, looking utterly numb, her face a mask of dawning, unbearable truth and profound, world-shattering despair, finally spoke, her voice a mere breath, almost lost in the relentless drumming of the rain. “I’ve seen them… Tanaka-kun. I’ve seen… the Enemies of Humanity.”

Arthur, who had almost turned to leave, to walk away from her and the vortex of pain and violence she represented, froze in his tracks. Her words, so quiet, so full of a new, specific terror, stopped him cold. He knew, with a sudden, sickening lurch, where this was heading, to the most bizarre, the most terrifying, the most inexplicable aspect of this twisted, nightmarish world. He turned back slowly to face her, the rain dripping from his hair, from the collar of his thin jacket. He struggled for a moment with his limited Japanese, then resorted to blunt English again. “Tsuruoka. He’s shown you, hasn’t he?” he asked, his voice grim. “Two of them, I’d wager. Two of those… monsters. And he told you that Talents don’t truly die when you kill them? That they just… change? That they turn into those things?” Nana, her eyes wide and haunted, brimming with a fresh, unspeakable horror, nodded slowly, a single tear tracing a path through the grime on her cheek.

“He was telling you the truth, Nana,” Arthur said, his voice heavy with a weariness that seemed to age him decades in that moment. “Up to a point, at least. My own… additional information… it may not be entirely precise, you understand. It’s… fragmented. But from what I’ve managed to piece together, from what I remember… when a person with a Talent reaches a certain point in their life – late teens, their twenties, sometimes as late as their forties, it varies – their Talent can undergo a kind of… profound, often terrifying metamorphosis. Think of it as… as puberty, but with new, often unstable, uncontrollable superpowers. A secondary, more monstrous blossoming.” He saw the flicker of horrified understanding in her eyes. “Unfortunately, from what I know, it’s not long after that stage, that secondary manifestation, that they can… they can transform. Become those creatures Tsuruoka so proudly, so callously, displayed for you. The process, I believe, can also happen, perhaps even accelerate, if a Talent appears to be dead to our eyes, like Etsuko, the girl he showed you in that body bag. Their essence, their Talent, it just… festers, corrupts, transforms.”

He saw the recognition of Etsuko’s name, the confirmation of her own terrible experience in Tsuruoka’s charnel house, reflected in Nana’s horrified gaze. “I don’t know what the Committee’s ultimate, endgame plan is, Nana,” Arthur admitted, running a hand through his wet hair. “I truly don’t. But I strongly suspect Tsuruoka will use – or perhaps already is using – these so-called ‘Enemies of Humanity’ as a potent, terrifying tool. Maybe, just maybe, it’s to keep the current Japanese government in power, by presenting these monsters as a constant, existential threat that only he, and the Committee, can manage, can protect them from. Or, and this seems far more likely given his megalomania, once he’s successfully eliminated all other Talents he deems problematic or uncontrollable, he’ll use these monsters, these transformed Talents, to try and take over the world himself.”

He looked at Nana, her face a canvas of shock, dawning comprehension, and utter, soul-crushing despair. “He played you, Nana,” he said, his voice softer now, almost gentle. “From the very beginning. He played us all.” With that, Arthur Ainsworth turned and began to walk away, his shoulders slumped, leaving Nana Hiiragi alone in the cold, dark, rain-lashed alley to absorb the full, crushing weight of his devastating revelations. As he reached the grimy, graffiti-scarred end of the alley, he glanced back, a brief, almost involuntary movement. Nana was slowly, unsteadily, pushing herself to her feet, a small, broken figure in the vast, uncaring city. The scrawny white cat, which had been watching their entire exchange with an unnerving, almost sentient stillness from its perch on the overflowing rubbish bin, hopped down with a silent, graceful leap and, with an almost imperceptible flick of its tail, began to follow Nana as she stumbled out of the alley and disappeared into the rainy, indifferent labyrinth of the darkened city streets. He knew, somehow, with a certainty that settled like a stone in his own weary heart, that their paths, his and Nana’s, were still destined to cross again. The island’s dark, insidious tendrils reached far, even into the deepest, most anonymous shadows of the sprawling mainland.

Nana Hiiragi

Of course the hate for her is well deserved.

First off, blaming "brainwashing" lets her off the hook far too easily. Patty Hearst tried the same trick in the 1970's and it didn't exactly work out well for her. Ironically, Patty spent more time in prisoner for her bank robberies than Nana does for her 10+ murders, which in itself is unfair - Nana gets away with far too much because she's a girl, instead of in spite of it.

Yes, she would be hated just as much if Nana was male (probably more so).

It should be noted that all Nana's murders were premeditated, on her own cognisance and with malice. Just because she was told to do so, doesn't mean she had to.

In addition to that, just because she may not have wanted to do kill anyone, she was certainly happy to do so (smiling when thinking about killing Mirichu as well as the "won't be shy in killing you" part). Nana is a person who would rather murder someone than think of any sort of alternative (as is the case later on).

Futher more, stating that she's a "child soldier" carries no weight - she's killing civilians, which if she was a soldier makes her actions even more odious.

The fact that people try to exonerate Nana because she was "mind controlled" doesn't hold much water considering she was fully aware of what she was doing; didn't need to; didn't bother querying anything and was fully cognisant during her pre-meditated murders; and she quite happily carried another one out, with no doubt more to come.

In addition, there is no reason why she couldn't have asked questions or even did her own reason about Talents and so forth.

I wasn't surprised that the anime didn't get a second season (if it wasn't just for boosting manga sales) because Nana is so unrelatable, unrelatable and pretty much evil personified. Even later on, she's totally dislikable, obnoxious character.

Considering she's supposed to be intelligent, you would have thought, at the very least, queries the morality, if not the legality and ethics of killing schoolchildren (let alone those she killed before she arrived at the island). She's fully aware of what she's doing, so it's all on her own head. She certainly deserves to be punished far longer than three years (that ends up around 3 months for every kid).

I wouldn't be surprised if Nana Hiiragi does enjoy killing people - she is always smiling happily when thinking about killing her victims.

Whilst she may say that she doesn't want to kill any more, later on - it certainly doesn't stop her (no doubt it would be the first thing she thinks of to solve problems, instead of anything else).

Hopefully, she won't have a happy ending (preferably meet a nasty end - with her own poison needs would be nicely ironic). Whilst she may have "changed" for dubious reasons she will have to end up killing people again at some point. Even though she's changed, she's still an insufferable, nasty little bitch. I've got very little sympathy for her, especially as she was sadistic killing everyone.

And yes, killing Nano led to more people suffering - all because of Nana (no idea why Nano should forgive her - obviously he forgot how Nana taunted him before he fell, although I do hear he did beat the crap out of her as well).

Hopefully she will pay some sort of price for her actions.

Whist Nanao killed more people than Nana, it should be noted that Nana was the cause. It was nice of him really to leave Nana alone, considering she had no compulsion about killing Nanao - he certainly would have had a good reason to seek revenge on her.

In addition, for those who subscribe to those who view Nana as a child soldier (which is dubious to say the least), there is still precedent for requesting reparations and the same for prosecuting child soldiers too (DOMINIC ONGWEN).

.

Do hope Nana Hiiragi gets her comeuppance

Chapter 14: Sacrifice at the Docks

Arthur’s mind raced, his breath coming in ragged gasps as he pounded the worn pathway leading away from the deceptively cheerful gymnasium. The distant, tinny music of the leaving party faded behind him, replaced by the frantic thudding of his own heart and the lonely sigh of the wind whistling through the island’s sparse, salt-stunted trees. He had to calculate where Rentaro would take Michiru, where Nana, in her desperate pursuit, would inevitably follow. The boat docks – isolated, exposed, offering few escape routes and an abundance of shadowy hiding places – loomed large and ominous in his mind as the most logical, and therefore most horrifying, stage for the unfolding confrontation.

He sprinted towards the harbour, his unfamiliar teenage legs burning with the unaccustomed exertion, his phone clutched tightly in his hand, though he had no time for the laborious process of translation now. The air grew colder, tasting of salt and damp, decaying wood as he neared the coast.

He arrived, breathless and his chest aching, just as the scene at the end of the longest, most dilapidated pier reached its horrifying crescendo. Silhouetted against the dull, bruised pewter of the overcast evening sky, Rentaro Tsurumigawa’s spectral form – a shimmering, translucent duplicate of his arrogant human self – had Michiru Inukai cornered against the rotting railings. Razor-sharp, crystalline projectiles, like shards of malevolent ice, hovered menacingly in the air around him, glinting faintly in the dim light. Michiru was crying, her small body trembling, her face a mask of pure terror, but even so, she seemed to be trying to shield herself, a tiny, defiant figure against a monstrous, ethereal threat.

Nana Hiiragi stood between them, a fierce, protective tigress in a party dress. Her usual neat pink pigtails were askew, her clothes torn in several places, and a dark bruise was blooming on her cheekbone, but her violet eyes blazed with a desperate, almost feral fury Arthur had never witnessed in her before – not the cold, calculating fury of an assassin about to make a kill, but something raw, deeply personal, and utterly protective. She was intercepting Rentaro’s psychic attacks, her own movements preternaturally quick and agile, dodging and weaving, but she was clearly outmatched, her physical efforts largely ineffective against the intangible, relentlessly attacking projection that could still, somehow, inflict real harm upon her.

“You won’t touch her, Tsurumigawa!” Nana snarled, her voice hoarse and strained as she narrowly dodged a volley of shimmering blades that sliced through the air where she’d been a split second before. One of the shards grazed her arm, drawing a thin line of blood.

“She ruined everything!” Rentaro’s projected voice was a distorted, inhuman screech, filled with venom and thwarted rage. “She deserves to die for her meddling! And you too, Class Rep, for getting in my way!”

Just as Rentaro’s astral form lunged forward with a particularly vicious-looking ethereal spear, its crystalline point aimed directly at Michiru’s heart, Nana, with a desperate cry, shoved Michiru violently aside. The smaller girl stumbled, falling hard onto the rough wooden planks of the pier. The spectral weapon, impossibly, plunged deep into Nana’s side. Nana gasped, a choked, pain-filled, liquid sound, her eyes flying wide with shock and disbelief. She stumbled, her hand instinctively going to the phantom wound in her side, though no spectral blood flowed from the astral injury, the devastating impact on her life force, her very essence, was terrifyingly apparent. Her face began to pale with an alarming rapidity.

At that exact, critical moment, Rentaro Tsurumigawa’s shimmering projection flickered violently, like a faulty hologram. It let out a final, agonized, drawn-out shriek that seemed to tear through the very air, then dissolved into nothingness, vanishing as if it had never been. Kyouya. Kyouya Onodera had found him. He had found Rentaro’s hidden, vulnerable physical body and neutralized the threat. Arthur let out a shaky, almost sob-like breath of relief for that small, vital mercy, but his gaze was fixed, horrified, on Nana, who was collapsing slowly to her knees, her face now a ghastly, waxy white.

Michiru scrambled to Nana’s side, her face streaked with tears and grime, her voice a desperate, broken wail. “Nana-chan! Nana-chan, no! Please, no!”

Arthur finally reached them, his chest heaving, his own terror a cold, hard knot in his stomach. He saw the life visibly draining from Nana’s eyes, the way her body was becoming limp. He saw the way Michiru was looking at her – a dawning, terrible understanding mixed with a desperate, almost fanatical resolve. He knew, with a sudden, sickening certainty, what Michiru was going to do. Her healing Talent… he remembered the whispers, the theories about its ultimate, desperate application. It could, some said, even bring back the recently departed, but only at the ultimate cost: the user’s own life force.

“Michiru, no!” Arthur yelled, the words tearing from him in raw, desperate, unthinking English, forgetting the phone, forgetting the language barrier, forgetting everything but the impending, pointless tragedy unfolding before his eyes. He lunged forward, his hands outstretched, trying to pull her away from Nana’s rapidly cooling body. “Don’t do it! You’ll die! It’s not worth it!”

But Michiru was lost in her grief, her loyalty, her terrible, loving determination. She barely seemed to register his presence, his frantic, foreign words. Shaking her head, her cloud of fluffy white hair matted with tears and sea spray, she gently, almost absently, pushed his restraining hands away. “She saved me, Tanaka-kun,” she whispered, her voice trembling but resolute, her gaze fixed on Nana’s still face. “She saved my life. I have to… I have to save her. It’s the only way.”

Ignoring Arthur’s renewed, frantic pleas, Michiru pressed her small, trembling hands against Nana’s still form, over the place where the spectral spear had struck. A soft, ethereal white light began to glow around her, emanating from her palms, then engulfing both her and Nana. The light intensified, pulsing with a gentle, almost heartbreaking rhythm, bathing the grim, windswept scene in its otherworldly luminescence. Michiru’s small body began to tremble violently, her face contorting in an agony Arthur could only imagine, but her hands remained firmly fixed on Nana, a conduit for the impossible. The light flared, becoming blindingly bright for a single, eternal moment, then, with a soft, final sigh that seemed to carry all the sorrow of the world, it receded, vanishing as quickly as it had appeared.

Michiru Inukai crumpled to the rough wooden planks of the pier, a small, still heap, her vibrant life force utterly extinguished.

A heartbeat later, Nana Hiiragi gasped, a ragged, shuddering intake of breath, her eyes flying open. She sat up slowly, looking around in dazed, profound confusion, her hand going to her side, where only moments before a fatal wound had been. Then, her gaze fell upon Michiru’s still, lifeless form beside her. Understanding, followed by a wave of raw, uncomprehending anguish, crashed over her. A sob, harsh, broken, and utterly devoid of artifice, tore from Nana’s throat – a sound so full of genuine, unadulterated pain, so unlike anything Arthur had ever heard from her, that it momentarily stunned him into silence. This wasn't the calculated grief she’d so expertly feigned for her previous victims; this was real, shattering, soul-deep sorrow.

Arthur stepped forward, his own face a grim mask, his earlier panic replaced by a cold, weary, and profound anger. He raised his phone, his fingers deliberately, almost violently, typing out his words.

“Well, Hiiragi,” his translated voice stated, flat and devoid of any inflection, cutting through Nana’s ragged, heartbroken sobs. She looked up at him, her face streaked with tears, her violet eyes wide with a mixture of confusion, grief, and dawning horror. “It seems you finally got what you wanted. Another Talent eliminated from this island.” Nana stared at him, her mouth opening and closing, but no words came out. “You should be rejoicing, shouldn’t you?” Arthur pressed, his voice, even through the phone, laced with a cruel, cutting sarcasm. “Or,” he paused, letting the words sink in, twisting the knife, “are some Talents worth more than others, after all?”

Nana flinched as if he had physically struck her. She looked from Arthur’s cold, accusing face back to Michiru’s peaceful, lifeless body, and a look of dawning, unutterable horror began to mix with her grief.

“I’m taking her,” Arthur’s phone continued, his voice now unwavering, filled with a cold, hard resolve. “Tsuruoka and his damned Committee won’t get their hands on her for experimentation.” He saw Nana’s eyes widen almost imperceptibly at the casual, knowing mention of Tsuruoka’s name. Yes, she knew now that he knew. The game had changed. “She deserves to be treated with dignity in death, Hiiragi, not carved up like some lab specimen for your masters to study.”

He knelt beside Michiru, his own heart aching with a profound, unexpected sorrow for this gentle, brave girl he had barely known, yet had come to care for. “You killing Tachibana… the time traveler… that was your worst, most senseless act. You couldn’t even let a dying boy like Hoshino live out what little time he had left in peace.” He looked directly at Nana, who had stopped crying now, her expression a frozen mask of shock, confusion, and a dawning, terrible guilt. “There were times, Hiiragi, so many times, I was sorely tempted to stop you permanently. To end your murderous spree myself. For Michiru’s sake, for Nanao’s, for my own damn principles, I refrained.”

He paused, then added, his voice, even through the phone’s impersonal synthesizer, laced with a profound, weary sorrow, “She deserved so much better than you. Better than any of us on this cursed island.”

Without another word, Arthur gently, carefully, scooped Michiru Inukai’s small, impossibly light, lifeless body into his arms. He stood, turned his back on the stunned, grieving, and utterly shattered Nana Hiiragi, and began the slow, heavy walk back towards the distant, uncaring lights of the school buildings. He left Nana alone on the windswept pier with the accusing ghost of her actions, the devastating weight of Michiru’s sacrifice, and the first, agonizing, unwelcome taste of genuine, heartbreaking loss. He didn’t look back. He couldn’t.

Chapter 27: The Cat's Counsel

The relentless, cold rain continued its merciless assault on the sprawling, indifferent city as Nana Hiiragi, her thin clothes plastered to her shivering frame, stumbled numbly through the labyrinthine backstreets. Arthur Ainsworth’s devastating words echoed and re-echoed in the shattered ruins of her mind, each revelation a fresh, agonizing hammer blow against the crumbling, indoctrinated edifice of her former life. Tsuruoka, her parents, the true, horrifying nature of the “Enemies of Humanity,” her own unwitting, monstrous role as a Talentless executioner in a grand, grotesque, and terrifying deception – it was too much to absorb, too much for any sane mind to bear. She was a ghost in her own stolen life, her hands, her very soul, stained with the indelible blood of those she had been so cruelly, so thoroughly, manipulated into killing. The city lights – reds, greens, whites – blurred into meaningless, swirling patterns through her tear-filled eyes, the cacophony of urban sounds a distant, irrelevant roar.

She eventually, through some dazed, unconscious homing instinct, reached her current, miserable hideout – a small, squalid, single-room apartment tucked away in a decaying, rat-infested tenement building, its grime, its anonymity, its pervasive air of neglect and despair her only shield against the world that now hunted her. As she fumbled with the rusty, ill-fitting key in the lock, a silent flash of white darted past her legs from the shadows of the crumbling stoop. The scrawny white cat from the alley, the one that had watched her and Arthur with such unnerving, almost sentient stillness, slipped silently into the room just before she could close the rickety, ill-fitting door. It padded softly across the grimy linoleum floor and settled itself on the room’s only chair, a broken-backed wooden reject, regarding her with those same intelligent, unblinking, luminous green eyes.

Soaked to the bone, shivering uncontrollably more from profound shock and existential horror than from the penetrating cold, Nana sank onto the threadbare, stained mattress that served as her bed. She stared blankly at her hands – these hands. Murderous hands. Hands that had, with such chilling efficiency, such blind obedience, snuffed out so many young lives, so many bright futures, all predicated on a foundation of monstrous, unforgivable lies. The weight of it all, the sheer, crushing, suffocating enormity of her unwitting, unforgivable crimes, pressed down on her, stealing her breath, extinguishing the last, faint embers of her will to live.

In a daze, her movements slow, almost mechanical, she rose from the mattress and walked with an unsteady gait into the tiny, grimy kitchenette alcove. Her vacant eyes fell upon a long, thin, serrated kitchen knife lying on the chipped, rust-stained draining board, its blade glinting faintly in the dim, flickering light from the single bare bulb hanging precariously from the ceiling. It seemed to beckon to her, a silent, gleaming promise of a swift, definitive, and perhaps even merciful end to her unbearable pain, her suffocating guilt, her wretched, pointless, and now utterly exposed existence. This, she thought with a strange, cold clarity, was the only atonement left to her. The only way out. She picked up the knife, its cold, surprisingly heavy metal a stark, unwelcome contrast to the feverish, chaotic turmoil raging within her. Turning the unforgiving steel blade towards her own throat, she closed her eyes, a single, silent tear escaping to trace a path through the grime on her cheek, ready, almost eager, to embrace the oblivion she so richly deserved.

Just as the cold, sharp edge of the blade kissed the delicate skin of her neck, a white blur, impossibly fast, launched itself from the shadows of the broken chair. The cat, with a surprisingly powerful, perfectly aimed leap, slammed into her outstretched arm, its small body a furry projectile of unexpected force. The knife, knocked from her nerveless grasp, clattered loudly, skittering across the grimy linoleum floor to come to rest beneath the leaking sink.

Nana gasped, her eyes flying open, her body jolting with a fresh wave of shock, this time not of horror, but of sheer, uncomprehending surprise. She stared at the white cat, which now sat a few feet away, calmly, almost nonchalantly, licking its paw, as if knocking a deadly weapon from a suicidal girl’s trembling hand was the most natural, most everyday occurrence in the world.

Then, before her disbelieving, traumatized eyes, the cat, the ordinary-looking stray from the alley, began to shimmer and change. Its form elongated, solidified, its white fur receding, its feline features melting and reforming, coalescing with an almost liquid grace into the figure of a young man with stark white hair, pale, intelligent features, and an unnervingly calm, enigmatic smile. Jin Tachibana.

Nana’s mind, already reeling from Arthur’s revelations, struggled to process this new, impossible reality. This… this was the man she had glimpsed, so briefly, so unsettlingly, in that sterile observation room at Tsuruoka’s monstrous facility, the one whose brief, intense, almost accusatory stare had inexplicably, uncomfortably, stuck in her memory. “You…” she whispered, her voice trembling, barely audible. “You were there. At Tsuruoka’s base. In that… that room. I saw you.” Jin’s faint, enigmatic smile widened almost imperceptibly. “Yes, Hiiragi Nana-san,” he said, his voice calm, melodious, entirely at odds with the squalor of the room and the suicidal despair he had just interrupted. “You are quite correct. Your observational skills remain… commendably sharp, even under duress.” A new wave of bewildered confusion, mixed with a desperate, clawing need for answers, for any kind of sense in this senseless, collapsing world, washed over her. “But… why?” she stammered, her gaze darting between him and the discarded knife. “If you’re… if you have a Talent… why would you be there? Why would you work for an organization that wants to eradicate us all?”

Jin regarded her for a long, silent moment, his pale eyes unreadable, his calm composure utterly unnerving. Then, with a graceful, almost dismissive gesture, he indicated the tiny, dilapidated bathroom cubicle in the corner of the room. “You’re soaked through to the bone, Hiiragi-san,” he observed, his tone surprisingly gentle. “You’ll catch your death of cold, or something far worse, if you remain in those wet clothes any longer. Why don’t you avail yourself of a hot shower, if such a thing is possible in this charming establishment? Find something dry to wear. Then, perhaps, we can talk. Some questions, I find, are best answered on a full stomach, and with a clearer head, don’t you think?”

An hour later, scrubbed clean, dressed in a set of surprisingly clean, if ill-fitting, clothes Jin had inexplicably produced from a small satchel he carried, Nana found herself seated opposite him in a discreet private booth in a surprisingly expensive, almost opulent restaurant, the kind of place she hadn’t imagined she’d ever set foot in again. The warm, ambient lighting, the soft, unobtrusive classical music, the starched white linen, the delicious, exquisitely prepared food Jin ordered for them both without consulting her – it was a deliberate, disorienting, almost aggressive contrast to the squalor of her hideout and the black, churning turmoil in her soul. Jin, she was beginning to understand, was a master of subtle psychological manipulation himself, though his methods seemed geared towards creating a temporary illusion of comfort and security, perhaps to disarm her, to make her more receptive to what he had to say, or simply to demonstrate a level of capability and resourcefulness that was both vaguely reassuring and deeply, profoundly unsettling.

As they ate, Jin began to speak, his voice calm, measured, almost hypnotic. He told her about Kyouya Onodera, a name she knew, a presence she had felt on the island. And then, he spoke of Kyouya’s younger sister, Rin. “Rin,” Jin explained, his gaze steady, unwavering, “was a profoundly gifted, yet deeply troubled young woman. She suffered from a severe, almost crippling depression, always felt like she was an unbearable burden to her beloved older brother, Kyouya, whom she adored with a fierce, protective loyalty.”

Nana listened, her own food forgotten, captivated, wondering with a growing sense of dread and anticipation where this unexpected, intimate narrative was leading. “Rin,” Jin continued, his voice dropping slightly, drawing her further into his confidence, “eventually reached a point where she believed she could no longer bear the weight of her own perceived inadequacy. She left Kyouya, hoping, in her own tragic way, to spare him further pain, further worry.” He paused, allowing the sadness of it to settle. “Unfortunately, Hiiragi-san, in her vulnerability, in her despair, Rin ended up falling into the insidious, waiting clutches of the Committee. She was… one of your direct predecessors, Nana. One of the talented, broken young women Commander Tsuruoka identified, indoctrinated, and meticulously trained to be an efficient, unquestioning assassin. She saw the horrors of his program firsthand, the endless lies, the soul-destroying manipulation, the casual cruelty.” He paused again, his pale eyes searching hers, letting the full, terrible implication of his words sink in. He didn’t explicitly state that he was Rin, that he had endured those horrors himself. But he implied a deep, intimate, almost unbearable knowledge. “I learned everything I now know about the Committee, about Tsuruoka’s monstrous ‘Enemies of Humanity’ project, about his methods, his ultimate goals, from Rin. What she endured… what they did to her… it motivated me. Profoundly. I decided then that I would infiltrate the Committee, that I would gather information, that I would understand the true, horrifying extent of their despicable plans, and perhaps, just perhaps, find a way to dismantle their entire bloodsoaked operation from within.”

By the end of the surprisingly elaborate meal, Nana felt a fragile, hesitant sense of something akin to hope begin to flicker within the desolate wasteland of her soul. Jin’s story, his apparent deep-seated opposition to the Committee, his calm confidence, offered an unexpected, almost unbelievable lifeline. She wasn’t entirely alone in this. There were others who knew, others who fought. She returned to her dingy, cold apartment later that night feeling slightly less burdened, her mind, though still reeling, already beginning to formulate a new, desperate, reckless plan – a plan to confront Tsuruoka directly, to wring the full, unvarnished truth from him herself, armed with the terrible, empowering knowledge that Arthur Ainsworth, and now this enigmatic Jin Tachibana, had given her.

Jin escorted her to her grimy doorstep, then, with another of his inscrutable, faint smiles and a quiet promise to be in touch, he simply melted away into the dark, rain-swept city night, leaving Nana with a fragile, newfound resolve, but also a lingering, disquieting sense of unease. She felt as though she had merely traded one form of potential manipulation for another, possibly more subtle, more complex kind. But for now, any ally, any weapon, in the desperate, coming fight against Tsuruoka and the Committee was a welcome, if deeply wary, development.

Unfortunately for Nana Hiiragi, her desperate desire for immediate confrontation, her burning need to act on this new, terrible clarity, would be her swift undoing. She didn’t realize, couldn’t possibly have known, how closely Commander Tsuruoka was already watching her every move, how quickly his invisible, inescapable net was already closing tightly around her. Her time as a fugitive was rapidly running out.

Would be even better if Nana is killed by someone she trusted. Would be nicely ironic