Chapter 34: Echoes Of A Fictional Past II

Nana is an evil little bitch

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).

.

More AI stuff coming soon!

Chapter 28: Justice, Parole, and a Ghost from the Past

Nana Hiiragi’s fragile, newfound resolve to confront Commander Tsuruoka, precariously bolstered by Jin Tachibana’s enigmatic counsel and Arthur Ainsworth’s devastating revelations, was tragically, almost laughably, short-lived. She had woefully underestimated the speed, the reach, and the utter ruthlessness of her former handler. Just a few desperate days after her clandestine, rain-swept meeting with Jin, as she was cautiously, almost timidly, trying to gather meager resources and formulate even the most rudimentary plan of action from the squalid sanctuary of her tiny, anonymous apartment, Tsuruoka made his decisive, inevitable move. He contacted Detective Maeda, the outwardly respectable police officer to whom the earnest, unsuspecting Akari Hozumi had so trustingly entrusted her meticulously compiled dossier of damning evidence against Nana.

“Maeda,” Tsuruoka’s voice was cold, devoid of inflection, and utterly decisive over the secure, encrypted line, “it is time to officially activate the Hiiragi case file. I want a full-scale, highly publicized manhunt. And I want her found. Quickly. Public interest in this matter is… considerable.”

The well-oiled machinery of the law, its gears greased and subtly guided by Tsuruoka’s pervasive, unseen influence, ground into motion with terrifying, unstoppable efficiency. Within hours, Nana Hiiragi’s face – a younger, more innocent-looking photograph taken from her old school records – was plastered across national news broadcasts, online forums, and police bulletins. She was branded “The Island Schoolgirl Killer,” a teenage monster who had preyed on her unsuspecting classmates. Her carefully constructed anonymity evaporated like morning mist under a harsh sun. The city, once a sprawling, indifferent refuge, transformed overnight into a vast, tightening net. Within days, her desperate attempts to change her appearance, to melt into the urban sprawl, proved futile. She was cornered in a crowded, brightly lit suburban shopping mall by an alert off-duty police officer who recognized her from a wanted poster. Her frantic, desperate attempt to flee, to lose herself in the throng of shoppers, was short-lived and brutally curtailed. Nana Hiiragi, the Committee’s former star assassin, the girl Tsuruoka had molded into a perfect weapon, was apprehended, her brief, flickering hope of confronting her tormentor on her own terms extinguished.

Her trial was a media sensation, a lurid, captivating spectacle that fed the public’s morbid fascination with youthful depravity. The damning evidence Akari Hozumi had so meticulously gathered was laid bare for all to see: chilling witness testimonies from former island students (their own traumas carefully managed and selectively presented by the prosecution), Akari’s own unnervingly precise forensic reconstructions of multiple murder scenes, and Nana’s own fragmented, tearful, partial confession made by the lake on the island. The prosecution, led by a sharp, ambitious young lawyer, painted Nana as a cold, calculating, remorseless serial killer, a monstrous aberration who had systematically preyed on her innocent, unsuspecting fellow students. The public outcry was immense, a wave of revulsion and fear. The death penalty seemed not just a possibility, but an almost foregone conclusion.

But Nana’s court-appointed lawyer, a tenacious, fiercely idealistic, and surprisingly skilled older woman named Haruka Ito, fought tirelessly, passionately, against the overwhelming tide. Ito, with a quiet dignity that often wrong-footed the more aggressive prosecution, argued for diminished responsibility. She meticulously detailed Nana’s brutal, isolated upbringing, her systematic indoctrination from a young, impressionable age, and the extreme, undeniable psychological manipulation she had endured at the hands of a shadowy, unaccountable government organization. She portrayed Nana not as an inherent monster, but as a tragic, deeply damaged victim, a child soldier psychologically tortured and molded into a weapon in a covert war she hadn’t understood, couldn’t possibly have comprehended. Nana herself, during the long, agonizing trial, remained mostly silent, a pale, hollow-eyed ghost in the defendant’s box, her demeanor one of profound numbness, punctuated by occasional, barely perceptible flickers of remorse and a deep, soul-crushing weariness. Haruka Ito’s defense was compelling, deeply unsettling to the public narrative. While it could not exonerate Nana of the terrible acts she had committed, it cast enough doubt on her sole, unmitigated culpability. The death sentence was, to the shock and outrage of many, commuted. Nana Hiiragi was instead sentenced to a lengthy, indeterminate prison term for multiple counts of culpable homicide. She disappeared into the unforgiving, anonymous depths of the penal system, her name forever synonymous with betrayal, youthful monstrosity, and the dark, hidden secrets of the nation’s clandestine operations.

Three years later, in the mild, cherry-blossom-scented spring of late 2028, Arthur Ainsworth was expertly wiping down a small, Formica-topped table in “The Corner Nook,” the bustling, unpretentious restaurant in a quiet, residential Tokyo suburb where he now worked as a waiter. He was surprisingly, almost guiltily, content. The mundane, predictable rhythm of the work – taking orders, delivering food, clearing tables, the easy, unforced banter with the regular patrons – was a soothing balm to his once-tormented soul. His Japanese, honed by years of daily immersion and supplemented by diligent attendance at informal language exchange meetups, was now reasonably fluent, his English accent a minor, charming novelty that amused the customers and his co-workers alike. He had even, cautiously, begun to make a few tentative friendships.

The island, Tsuruoka, Nana Hiiragi – they were ghosts that still haunted the periphery of his thoughts, their sharp edges softened by the healing balm of time and distance, but their presence, their impact, was undeniable. Annually, on the grim anniversary of his inexplicable, violent arrival on that cursed shore, he would make a quiet pilgrimage to a large, peaceful, and entirely anonymous public cemetery on the outskirts of the city. He didn’t know where Nana’s victims were truly buried, or if their families had even been allowed the dignity of a grave. So, he would choose a weathered, unnamed, forgotten headstone at random, lay a single, pure white chrysanthemum at its base, and talk to them, to Michiru, to Nanao, to Hoshino, to Tachibana, to Habu, even to the foolish, cruel bullies, Etsuko and Marika. He would speak to them in quiet English, recounting their small, stolen lives as he remembered them, acknowledging their needless deaths. It was his private penance, his way of remembering, of shouldering the small share of responsibility he felt for their fates.

The world outside the comforting, predictable routine of his quiet restaurant, however, was growing increasingly, palpably uneasy. News reports, both mainstream and from more fringe online sources, spoke with alarming frequency of rising anti-Talent sentiment across Japan, often fueled by isolated, sensationalized incidents of Talents losing control of their abilities or, more disturbingly, using their unique powers for overtly criminal, even terroristic, acts. Whispers, then more overt discussions, of government-run “Protective Custody and Assessment Centers” – internment camps, Arthur knew them to be, his blood running cold at the familiar, chilling euphemism – for individuals with “problematic” or “unstable” Talents were becoming more frequent, more insistent, presented as a necessary measure for public safety. The seeds of fear and division Tsuruoka and the Committee had so carefully, so cynically, sown over the years were now bearing bitter, poisonous fruit.

It was on a cool, clear spring evening, as Arthur was meticulously cashing up for the night, the familiar scent of soy sauce and grilled fish still lingering in the air, that Nana Hiiragi walked, not back into his life, but back into the turbulent, unforgiving life of the world at large. She had been paroled, her release from prison quiet, unpublicized, almost surreptitious – likely another of Tsuruoka’s intricate, inscrutable machinations, Arthur suspected. Her first act as a conditionally free woman, her gaunt face hardened by three years in the brutal, dehumanizing environment of prison, her eyes still burning with a desperate, unquenched need for truth and retribution, was not to seek anonymity or a fragile peace, but to confront her primary tormentor, the architect of her ruined life.

She found Commander Tsuruoka, as she somehow knew she would, in his heavily fortified, opulently appointed private office deep within the Committee’s impenetrable headquarters. He received her with a chillingly calm, almost paternally amused demeanor, as if her unexpected appearance was an entirely predictable, mildly entertaining diversion from his important work. Nana, older now, her youthful softness almost entirely erased, her voice raspy from disuse but her resolve like tempered steel, demanded answers – about her parents, about the Committee’s lies, about the true nature of the “Enemies of Humanity,” about everything.

Tsuruoka deflected her every accusation, her every anguished question, with infuriating, condescending ease, his words a masterclass in psychological manipulation, twisting reality, subtly shifting blame, painting Nana herself as the architect of her own misfortunes, a flawed, inherently unstable instrument who had inevitably, disappointingly, broken under pressure. He smirked, a slight, dismissive, utterly contemptuous expression that finally, irrevocably, shattered Nana’s fragile, prison-honed composure.

Consumed by years of suppressed, impotent rage, by the fresh, agonizing grief of her remembered, manipulated past, Nana lunged, not for Tsuruoka himself, but for the heavy, ornate, antique silver letter opener lying innocuously on his vast, polished mahogany desk – a poor, desperate substitute for a real weapon, but the only thing immediately at hand. She tried to stab him, to silence his maddening, condescending voice, to inflict even a fraction of the pain he had caused her. At the last possible second, Tsuruoka’s ever-present, stoic, and utterly loyal adjutant, a career military man who had served him faithfully for over two decades, threw himself in front of his boss with a shout of warning. The sharp, pointed steel of the letter opener plunged deep into the adjutant’s chest. He collapsed with a surprised, gurgling grunt, a dark, rapidly spreading stain blooming on the crisp white front of his uniform.

Tsuruoka looked down dispassionately at his dying, devoted aide, then back at Nana, who stood frozen, horrified, the bloody letter opener dropping with a clatter from her trembling, suddenly nerveless hand. A slow, cold, almost predatory smile spread across Tsuruoka’s face. “Is that all you’ve got, Hiiragi?” he taunted, his voice soft, laced with a chilling amusement. “Still so… predictably emotional. So very… disappointing.” Panic, raw and absolute, seized Nana. She had just killed again, this time an innocent man, a man who had tried to protect his monstrous boss, right in front of her nemesis, the man who held all the power. She turned and fled, stumbling from the opulent office, Tsuruoka’s derisive, mocking laughter echoing in her ears, a soundtrack to her renewed, now doubly damned, fugitive status.

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).

.

Chapter 35: Unravelling Threads of a Told Tomorrow

The fire in the damp cave crackled, spitting a shower of orange sparks into the heavy, charged silence that followed Arthur Ainsworth’s almost whispered invitation. For a long moment, no one spoke. The only sound was the distant, ceaseless roar of the hidden waterfall, a monotonous, indifferent rush of water that seemed to echo the vast, empty chasm of disbelief his words had torn open in their reality. Nana Hiiragi stared at him, her expression a battlefield of warring emotions: shock, anger, a dawning, horrified comprehension, and beneath it all, a flicker of something else – a desperate, almost unwilling hope. Kyouya Onodera’s usually impassive features were tight with a focused, almost predatory intensity, his mind clearly working at furious speed to process, dissect, and analyze the impossible. Michiru Inukai looked pale and stricken, her gentle eyes wide with a mixture of fear and a deep, compassionate sorrow for the sheer, unbelievable weight Arthur must have been carrying. Even Jin Tachibana, his enigmatic calm usually an impenetrable shield, seemed to regard Arthur with a new, sharp, almost piercing alertness.

It was Kyouya who finally broke the spell, his voice preternaturally calm, yet with an underlying edge as sharp as the makeshift blade resting by his side. “Ainsworth-san,” he began, the use of Arthur’s true surname a deliberate, pointed acknowledgement of the new reality between them. “You claim this… ‘story’… this ‘Munō na Nana’… it accurately depicted events on the island, events involving us, with a specificity that allowed you to make your… ‘predictions.’ How can you be certain this wasn’t merely a series of astute observations on your part, perhaps amplified by a genuine, if limited, precognitive Talent you are now choosing to deny for reasons of your own?” It was a logical, almost lawyerly challenge, an attempt to find a more rational, if still extraordinary, explanation.

Arthur met his gaze squarely. “Because, Onodera-san,” he said, his voice weary but firm, his Japanese surprisingly steady, “the details were too specific. Not just the ‘who’ but often the ‘how,’ sometimes even snatches of dialogue, internal motivations of characters that I couldn’t possibly have guessed. The sequence of Nana-san’s targets in that first year, for example, the methods she employed… many were almost identical to what I remembered from this… this narrative.” He paused. “And believe me, if I actually possessed a genuine Talent for seeing the future, I would likely have managed this entire horrifying situation with considerably more competence and far fewer… casualties.” The self-deprecating bitterness in his tone was palpable.

Nana spoke next, her voice low, hoarse, almost raw. “This… ‘Nana’… in your story. You said she… she changed. That she started to… to save Talents? That she wanted to destroy Tsuruoka?” There was a desperate, almost hungry intensity in her eyes. “Did it say how? Did it show her succeeding? What else did it say about… about what I became?”

Arthur looked at her, his heart aching with a complex pity. “The story, as I said, was ongoing when I… left my time. It showed her making that profound shift, yes. Driven by… well, by events similar to what you yourself experienced, Nana-san. By betrayal, by the realization of Tsuruoka’s true nature, by the influence of… of someone like Michiru-san.” He glanced at Michiru, who flushed slightly. “She became fiercely determined to dismantle everything Tsuruoka had built. As for how she went about it, or if she ultimately succeeded… those were parts of the story I never got to see. It was, as you might say, a continuing serial. I only had access to the ‘published volumes’ up to a certain point.” He hesitated. “It did show her becoming… incredibly ruthless in her pursuit of Tsuruoka. Almost as ruthless as she had been when serving him.”

“And my parents?” Nana pressed, her voice barely a whisper now. “The story… it truly said Tsuruoka arranged their murders? That they weren’t… my fault?”

“It was unequivocally clear on that point,” Arthur affirmed gently. “They were good people who opposed him. He had them eliminated and then, with sickening cruelty, manipulated you into believing you were responsible, to break you and bind you to him. That was a central, tragic element of your character’s backstory in the narrative.”

Nana closed her eyes, a single tear escaping and tracing a path through the grime on her cheek. The validation, however bizarre its source, seemed to offer a tiny, almost unbearable sliver of solace.

“What about the Committee?” Kyouya interjected, his focus shifting to more strategic concerns. “Did this narrative provide details about its internal structure? Its ultimate objectives beyond what you’ve already speculated? Were there insights into Tsuruoka’s specific long-term plans, or the identities of other key figures within the organization?”

Arthur sighed. “Frustratingly few concrete details, I’m afraid. Tsuruoka was always depicted as the primary antagonist, the mastermind. Other Committee members were shadowy, ill-defined figures. Their goals seemed to be about control, about manipulating society through fear of Talents, and perhaps, as I mentioned, about weaponizing those ‘Enemies of Humanity.’ But the intricate details of their hierarchy or their decades-long endgame… that was mostly left to speculation even within the story’s fanbase, as far as I can recall.” He paused. “Explaining a Japanese comic book that somehow predicted, or perhaps even influenced, their entire horrific existence… it felt like trying to summarize a particularly bizarre, convoluted dream to a skeptical psychiatrist. Or perhaps attempting to convince the local parish council back in Crawley – or for that matter, any sensible, rational person from Chichester to Land’s End – that their lives, their deepest pains and struggles, were nothing more than a work of popular fiction from another dimension. Utterly, certifiably mad.”

Michiru, who had been listening with a mixture of wide-eyed horror and profound sadness, finally spoke, her voice small and trembling. “Arthur-san… were… were other people we knew from the island… people like Nanao-kun, or Hoshino-kun, or Tachibana-kun… were they also… characters in this story? Did you know what was going to happen to them too, all along?”

Arthur looked at her gentle, troubled face, and the weight of his past inactions, his often-ineffectual interventions, pressed down on him anew. “Yes, Michiru-san,” he said softly. “Many of them were. And yes, I had… glimpses… of their fates. Sometimes clearer than others. As I tried to explain to Kyouya-san, my knowledge was often too little, too late, or too vague to act upon decisively without risking even greater catastrophe.”

“And what of me?” Jin Tachibana’s voice, smooth and cool as polished silk, cut through the charged atmosphere. He had remained silent throughout the exchange, his pale eyes fixed on Arthur, his expression unreadable. “This… ‘Rin’… Kyouya’s sister, who supposedly took on the identity of a boy named Jin Tachibana after a past tragedy. Was her specific role, her full story, also detailed in this… chronicle you remember so selectively, Ainsworth-san?” There was a subtle, almost imperceptible challenge in his tone.

Arthur met Jin’s gaze, choosing his words with extreme care. “The narrative I recall touched upon a character with a deeply tragic past, someone connected to Kyouya-san’s sister, yes. Someone who had been grievously harmed by the Committee’s system, who had lost their original identity, and who later operated from the shadows, with… complex and often ambiguous motivations.” He offered no more, sensing the dangerous, shifting currents beneath Jin’s calm façade. He knew he was treading on very thin ice.

“Why?” Nana asked suddenly, her voice raw with a new kind of pain. “Why didn’t you tell us all of this sooner, Arthur-san? From the very beginning?”

Arthur looked down at his hands, the hands of Kenji Tanaka, a boy whose life he had unwillingly usurped. “Would you have believed me?” he asked quietly. “If, on my first day, a strange boy speaking through a telephone had told you that your entire reality was a Japanese comic book from his world? You, Nana Hiiragi, trained assassin, would you have simply accepted that?” He shook his head. “You would have marked me for immediate elimination as a dangerous lunatic, and rightly so. I told you what I felt I could, when I felt I could, in ways I hoped might make a small difference, without getting myself killed in the process, or making things catastrophically worse. My ‘Talent depletion’ announcement after the escape… that was the first moment I felt it might be safe, or even necessary, to begin unravelling the true extent of the… absurdity of my situation.”

A long silence fell, filled only by the crackling of the fire and the distant, soothing roar of the waterfall. The survivors sat, each lost in their own thoughts, grappling with a truth that redefined their past, their present, and their utterly uncertain future. The world had not just been turned upside down; it had been revealed as a strange, distorted echo of a fiction from another dimension.

Finally, Kyouya spoke, his voice thoughtful, pragmatic. “This knowledge, however outlandish its origin, however unsettling its implications… it changes nothing about our immediate objectives. Tsuruoka is still out there. The Committee still operates. The threat to Talents, to all of us, remains.” He looked at Arthur. “But it does, perhaps, give us a new, if deeply unorthodox, perspective on our enemy. And on ourselves.”

Nana nodded slowly, a new, hard light dawning in her violet eyes, the earlier flicker of desperate hope now solidifying into something far more dangerous, more focused. “A story…” she murmured, almost to herself. “So Tsuruoka thought he was writing my story.” A small, chilling smile touched her lips. “Perhaps it’s time I started writing my own ending. And his.”

Arthur watched them, a strange sense of detachment settling over him. He had unburdened himself of his greatest secret. The pieces were now on the board, for all to see. His "one idea," the thought that had been coalescing in his mind since their escape, now felt more urgent, more necessary than ever. But first, they had to truly absorb this. They had to decide if they could even move forward together, now that the very foundations of their reality had been so profoundly, so utterly, shaken.

Chapter 23: Hunted and Haunted

The months that followed the chaotic "evacuation" at the end of the Second School Year had transformed the island into a place of profound, echoing silence for Michiru Inukai. After slipping away from the frenzied embarkation, she had retreated into the island's deep, overgrown interior, finding a precarious solitude in hidden coves and forgotten, crumbling outbuildings of the sprawling academy. She had survived, barely, on her knowledge of the few edible plants Kyouya had taught them to identify, on rainwater collected in broad leaves, and on a fierce, quiet resilience she hadn’t known she possessed. The island, stripped of its teeming, terrified student population and its menacing faculty, had become a different entity – still haunted by memories, but also imbued with a wild, untamed, almost melancholic beauty. She missed Arthur’s quiet, if awkward, companionship, Nana’s newfound, fierce protectiveness, and even Kyouya’s stoic, reassuring presence more than she could say. She often wondered where they had been taken, if they were safe.

Then, one cool, late summer morning, the unnatural silence that had become her constant companion was shattered. Faint at first, then growing steadily louder, came the unmistakable, deeply unsettling thrum of powerful marine engines, followed by the distant, mournful blare of a ship’s horn. Ferries. More than one. Michiru’s heart, which had settled into a rhythm dictated by the tides and the rustling leaves, now hammered against her ribs with a mixture of terror and a wild, desperate hope. New arrivals. The Committee was repopulating its monstrous school.

Clutching the sharpened stick that had become her primary tool and occasional weapon, Michiru Inukai, on hearing the undeniable sounds of pupils arriving once more, decided to forgo her hard-won isolation. Her loneliness, a constant ache, warred with her ingrained caution. She had to know. Were they among the returnees? Or was this a fresh batch of unsuspecting victims, doomed to endure the island’s horrors anew? With a surge of trepidation, she began to make her way, slowly and stealthily, through the dense undergrowth towards the distant, now reactivated docks, her senses on high alert.

For Arthur Ainsworth, the return to the island was a descent into a familiar, deeply dreaded circle of hell. Strapped into a hard plastic seat on the transport vessel, surrounded by silent, grim-faced Committee agents and a new cohort of bewildered, frightened teenage Talents, he felt a suffocating sense of despair. His brief, brutal interlude on the mainland – the back-breaking labor, the constant fear, his abduction, and the chilling pronouncements of Tsuruoka’s subordinate – had stripped him of any lingering illusions. He was a prisoner, a marked man, returned to this cursed place with a death sentence hanging over his head. Nana Hiiragi, he knew with a chilling certainty, would also be here, Tsuruoka’s orders to eliminate him no doubt ringing in her ears. This strange, unending, almost timeless progression of his life, from one bleak May in Crawley to this even bleaker, surreal late summer, felt like a cruel, cosmic joke.

As the ferry docked with a familiar, jarring thud against the weathered pier, Arthur was herded off with the other students, his gaze sweeping the familiar, yet now even more menacing, landscape. He saw Kyouya Onodera further down the pier, his expression as impassive and unreadable as ever, though Arthur thought he detected a new, harder glint in his pale eyes. Nana, too, was visible, a flash of incongruous pink hair amidst the drab uniforms, her face pale and drawn, her usual ebullience entirely absent. She avoided his gaze.

The new students, wide-eyed and apprehensive, were being marshalled by a fresh contingent of stern-faced teachers Arthur didn’t recognize. He felt a familiar wave of helpless anger towards these oblivious newcomers, lambs to the slaughter. His priority, he knew with a grim clarity, was survival. He had to evade Nana, to anticipate her moves, to find a way to neutralize her as a threat without becoming a killer himself. The thought was almost laughable in its impossibility.

Then, a small movement at the edge of the bustling, chaotic pier caught his eye. A figure, small and hesitant, emerged from the shadows of a stack of weathered cargo crates. Her white, fluffy hair, though matted and unkempt, was unmistakable.

Arthur’s breath caught in his throat. His heart seemed to stop. It couldn’t be.

“Michiru?” he whispered, the name a fragile, disbelieving prayer, his Japanese clumsy but heartfelt.

The figure turned, her wide, gentle eyes finding his. A slow, hesitant, almost incandescent smile spread across her dirt-smudged, gaunt face. “Tanaka-kun?” she breathed, her voice weak but clear.

Forgetting the guards, forgetting Nana, forgetting the new students, forgetting everything but the impossible, miraculous sight before him, Arthur stumbled forward. Nana, too, had seen her, her own face a mask of utter, stunned disbelief, her hand flying to her mouth. Kyouya Onodera, his usual stoicism momentarily fractured, actually stopped in his tracks, his eyes widening almost imperceptibly.

Michiru Inukai, who had chosen solitude over evacuation, who had somehow survived alone on this cursed island for months, had come to see who had returned. And in doing so, she had just irrevocably altered the deadly game that was about to begin anew.

The fragile, almost forgotten sense of hope Arthur had so carefully, so secretly, nurtured during his vigil over her seemingly lifeless, yet persistently warm, body now surged through him, potent and overwhelming. She was alive. Truly alive. And she was here.

The reunion was brief, cut short by the harsh commands of the guards ordering the students to move towards the school buildings. But as they were forced to separate, Michiru flashing him a quick, reassuring, if still weak, smile, Arthur felt a subtle shift within himself. He was still a target, still hunted. But he was no longer entirely alone in his knowledge, or in his desperate hope. Michiru’s presence, her impossible survival, was a testament to something beyond the Committee’s cruel calculations, beyond Tsuruoka’s monstrous designs. It was a spark. And perhaps, just perhaps, that spark could ignite something more.

Later that day, as the grim routine of the Third School Year began to settle over them, Arthur knew his primary task remained unchanged: survive Nana Hiiragi. He saw her watching him during the opening assembly, her expression unreadable, the conflict within her a palpable, dangerous force. He would use his knowledge of the island, his understanding of Nana’s methods, his sheer, stubborn will to live, to evade her. He would be a ghost, a shadow, always one step ahead. The cat-and-mouse game had resumed, but now, there was a new, unexpected piece on the board, a fluffy-haired girl whose very existence defied death itself, and whose presence might just change everything. The new students, chattering nervously amongst themselves, remained entirely oblivious to the complex, deadly currents swirling around their upperclassmen, unaware that their island academy was, once again, a hunting ground.

Grendel Jinx in Talentless Nana: A Tale of Talents and Deceptions (on Wattpad) https://www.wattpad.com/story/393719322-grendel-jinx-in-talentless-nana-a-tale-of-talents?utm_source=web&utm_medium=tumblr&utm_content=share_myworks&wp_uname=MrTAToad 

The last thing Grendel Jinx remembered was a frying pan swinging toward her face in a Chichester warehouse, courtesy of some goon from a rival secret organization. Then, a flash of green light, a sensation like being sucked through a straw, and now-this. She blinked against the sterile white ceiling of what looked like a hospital room, the faint hum of fluorescent lights buzzing in her ears. Her head throbbed, but her limbs were intact, and her trademark leather jacket was neatly folded on a chair nearby. Not bad for a girl who'd just been yeeted across dimensions.