Eizo Horiguchi, [I2-D1-B1] - Snapshots In The Rain
((aka, This Is An Eizo Horiguchi Walking Post. All PC control approved by Daviid, Shia and Shaun. Kenji's bit fits in with backhistory agreed with Laurra wayback when, and it's a pretty huge part of Eizo's life. Also the Yuu's party flashback was agreed with the relevant parties back in the day, too; I'm posting them now or they never will be X__x Hope that's OK! As ever, any feedback is love ♥))
He hadn’t had much patience for Kotone when Junpei Aragaki’s name was read out. For one, Eizo had suffered enough Juns to last him a lifetime (ironically, it probably was going to be a lifetime, right?) but mostly, it was because he didn’t particularly care for Kotone’s inner anguish, owing to him having more than enough of his own.
His thoughts kept flicking back to Kyoko, though they were only brief, dull flashes in his conscience. She had been the one to walk away from him, so if there was somet-
He would dismiss the thoughts at this stage. He was done with worrying about Kyoko, because he finally realised she never really worried about him. When she fled just before Kotone shot Hana Gomi, that could have been the point everything changed; thinking about that moment still filled Eizo with sheer terror. That could have been it; he could have been dead by now. Trying to comprehend what it was like not to exist, what it was like not to see, hear, think, for there to be blackness, and even then it wouldn’t be black as there is no colour or light or dark, or-
The unwelcome thought was shaken away again. He kicked at a rock and slouched onward, weighed down like a pack horse. Fucking bitches.
And it was now his thoughts would fly to Akemi. He forbade himself to think about her, though the prohibition in itself was enticing. He wondered what she was doing, whether she had killed, whether she-
When he dismissed these thoughts, it felt different The thoughts seemed to take on a different nature: They were vivid snapshots, capturing images from his imagination, reminding him of a face he may never see again, and of a body he would never touch.
No.
He was glad Kotone couldn’t see him. His mind was regurgitating all these memories and feelings he had from way back when, perhaps because his brain realised it didn’t have much time left, and to jettison this clutter would soothe him somehow. It meant his face played all sorts of strange shapes, thinking about people he shouldn’t be thinking about, because there was nothing to engage his mind besides putting one foot in front of the other and walking and all he could do is think, but the only thoughts that would form were the girls, and he shook them away time after time, because it didn’t feel right.
It wouldn’t feel right to think about any of these people any more.
The rain was coming down in full, now, and the skies became dark and heavy. The sky opened, greyed, and the two figures walked along folornly an empty mountainside.
Time passed, and the skies got darker still. When nightfall came, Eizo wondered if he could use the cover of dark to run away from Kotone (she couldn’t shoot him if she couldn’t see him, right?) But as time went on, Eizo realised there wasn’t much point in trying this. He really was in a bind, for if he ran away, he was still without a gun, so the first person he met might not be as tolerant as Kotone. It was the Program, after all. People change, and people-
Like Kyoko and-
The thoughts were easier to shake away, now. It was partly through being soaked to the bone by the rain, but also the chill from the wind lowering his core temperature, but he found his mindframe was changing from feeling sorry for himself, and more about getting through this alive. Perhaps it was some sort of innate instinct, forcing him to concentrate on survival. Perhaps it was his body simply getting tired from walking, and his surplus thoughts shutting down. Perhaps he had realised something other people had realised a long time ago: you need to put yourself in this game. The Program, real life.... there wasn’t too much difference between the two.
Then Toriumi spoke. In his mind, he was half-expecting to hear Kyoko’s name be read out. What he heard, however, completely caught him off-guard:
“Girl #04, Akemi Kasai!”
And that was one more mistake he couldn’t rectify.
The report was just more sound to him. He was shivering, and cold anfd soaked, but Kotone drove him to keep walking. He felt skeletal, like the water had stripped away his flesh; he couldn't feel it any more, and his movements were laboured, painful and increasingly difficult. He wanted a rest, and Kotone surely did, too, right?
The report came that night, and the third worst thing about it was Kyoko's name was on there, plain as day.
The second-to-worst thing about that report was that he didn't actually hear her name. Kotone was speaking to him, saying something about how he should be glad he didn't go with his buddy, and it was only then that the name registered with him. Kyoko Nozaki, as dead as the rest of them.
But the worst part about it was he couldn't bring himself to care. If he hadn't been so sodden, it might have been a different story, but no, that wasn't right... he was sodden when he heard Akemi's name read out, but he didn't feel the same way about his girlfriend?
(Ex-girlfriend)
They're both ex-girlfriends, right?
It wasn't fair that she (Akemi? Kyoko?) was dead, and Kotone was still alive. Another girl giving him grief, and...
That was when he realised enough truly was enough. Kotone had conceded to let them rest under some shelter, and to take their respective towels out of the bags. Eizo was kept out of reach of his ally, naturally, but... She was using him, just like the others.
She was playing him.
She was going to wear him down, and kill him anyway.
Both of them split up with him, and he felt--
Grimacing, he started planning Kotone's murder at that very moment. The trick, as he had found out earlier to his expense, was to make it stick.
It was a gamble, but one he felt was absolutely neccessary for him to take. As the morning sun started to rise higher in the sky, Eizo realised the only chance he had to defeat Kotone was to take her by surprise. But she always had her guard up, right?
He would only get one shot at this, he understood. Dispatch would have to be quick and flourish-free. If he failed, he would be meeting his maker.
He felt a little bad about it, which was strange, considering what had happened earlier in the game. He had done all sorts of horrible things to people, told bare-faced lies to those who trusted him, and the whole time he barely batted an eyelid. Maybe it was because he was cold, battered and weary, but he almost felt like he was growing a conscience, and it was happening at the worst time imaginable. And of all the people he had met--
When he started thinking about Jun, the pangs of guilt subsided immediately. Sure, he had tormented the kid, got his hopes up when he had nothing to lose; and then, under the pretense of needing a specific resource from the boy, betrayed him when he was at his most helpless.
But that was just the thing: Kotone was doing that right with him, right now. All the marching, and the shivers, and the raw hatred and fatigue brewing up, she was just waiting for him to explode, to give her an excuse to shoot him, like she did to Ryo, and...
No. Eizo refused to sit in the same category as Ryo Jo.
A flash of his face bubbled up in Eizo's mind, but he dismissed it effortlessly. After all, he wasn't Akemi. There were so many people he had forgotten, because Eizo, like the other survivors, had to focus on the task to hand. Whenever he looked at his list, he saw a sea of scored-out names, names Eizo would purposefully ignore to examine the remaining survivors.
It was a competition, and he didn't want to lose to Kotone Fujino again.
Finally accepting he was delaying the inevitable, Eizo gripped the blade and swore loudly. He pointed at a rock, and then yelled at Kotone. Some bull about having passed it three times already, like in the cartoons. He knew it wasn't true: they had been going steadily down the mountain, and to have doubled back on themselves, they would have had to have climbed, almost surely blowing up their collars.
It didn't matter, though; his heart was thumping against his chest as called her out on something trivial. She looked slightly defensive, and that split-second was the moment to make his move.
"Let me see that map."
He said it firmly, approaching her.
Kotone should have held her gun up right away, but she paused for half a second too long, in which Eizo shortened the distance between them.
"I don't have to give you anything."
She raised her weapon, as a command for him to stop walking. Perhaps unintentionally, she makes a small step toward him, and he approaches her even closer still.
Just one quick thrust into her chest, and...
It found flesh, and his heart stopped beating.
The world was motionless and silent.
Eizo saw the wound below him: the dirk had plunged through Kotone's chest. It was an upward thrust, entering just below her ribcage. There was a dark red line at the seam, glistening slightly. It wasn't bleeding; time stood still for so long and...
Then it began to move. He saw the blood trickle thickly down the shaft of the weapon. Still silent, still no heartbeat, still lifeless and soulless, and...
The blood reached his fingertips, and his heart began beating again. It was warm, caressing his numb fingers, electrifying him back to his senses. He didn't even look at Kotone as she fell. Just at his fingers. At.... at nothing in particular. He grabbed up the bags, and pried the gun from her fingers. He would sort those out once he got away from here. He left the blade in Kotone's body, and ran.
He could see the electric fence as the steepness of the mountain subsided. If he stayed by that, but looked out for the lake to the south, then...
He was back in the game. And he could actually win this thing.
"Shi... To the lake," he muttered to himself, punctuated with a series of pants. "Get to the... to the lake... fuck.... the lake.... fuck..."
The noon report was going to be in about three or four hours. He hadn't slept since that afternoon in the schoolhouse. He wanted nothing more than a rest, except...
It was too risky. The danger zones were clearly shepherding people to the open ground. Anybody else who had been where he was would, without a doubt, be coming along the same route he was.
But even so....
He probably had no more of sixteen hours of life remaining. If he didn't sleep, he would probably collapse. His muscles were protesting, cramping following the sprint, and now...
If he didn't sleep, death was certain. If he did sleep, death was probable.
But there were nine people left, now. Probably, less. Plus he had guns now...
"This is no good," he said to himself. "Okay, let's.... right."
He dropped his bags down in the most inconspicuous place in the vicinity. To his west, Eizo could make out a plateau; presumably, that was the meditation area marked on the map, and he made a point of not going too close, for fear of straying into a danger zone. He was positioned near a loudspeaker, so he would be woken by the report in the worst-case scenario, but even so...
After drinking some of his (Kotone's?) water, Eizo pulled his phone out. It sat in his pocket, an almost pathetic reminder of the life he had left behind. Its screen showed him a wallpaper of a photograph he could no longer remember taking. Deciding to give it one final use, he set himself an alarm for eleven-thirty, and shuffled himself into some shade.
Just a few hours rest. That was all would need to bring out his A-game.
Taking his chances, Eizo removed his wet shirt, wrapped it around his bag, fashioned himself a pillow, and rested himself on the soft, moist earth, before stealing himself some precious rest.
- It was the second day of the Program, and the rain that had blighted the mountain arena was also coming down heavily on much of the mainland; above a city prison, the skies were grey, as visiting hours began.
A grizzled man sat behind a Plexiglass screen, hands shackled loosely, face emaciated from the months of imprisonment. He found the whole ritual of endless waiting inside prisons to be incredibly bothersome, not unlike a toddler who is bored of being put in Time Out, or an older teenager still scathing at being grounded at his age.
This time, however, it was a little different, as things were happening outside of his control again. A younger man came to see inmate, sitting himself down weightily on the other side of the screen.
“Hey, dad.”
“And about fucking time one of you decided to come here,” Genta Horiguchi said to his son. “I’ve been sat around since yesterday waiting for one of you to get in touch.”
“We’ve had other things going to think about,” Arayoshi said simply, not fuelling his dad’s temper. He sat down, and the two of them gazed down one another’s eyes. “I take it you’ve heard, then?”
“How couldn’t I?” Genta grumbled. “Apparently, two of the guards were talking about the fucking show, and some smart-ass inmate piped up about how one of the favourites to win has the same name as my son. Doesn’t take a genius to put two and two together.”
Arayoshi grimaced. “And they told you?”
“Well, I only got let out of isolation first thing this morning, but never fucking mind me,” Genta said. “What’s happening at home?”
“Mom had to shift something yesterday, and I think she got shafted for the price, but she ain’t talking about it. She didn’t sleep a wink last night, of course.”
“Huh, figures,” Genta said. “Make sure you kids look after her, right? She’s a tough one, your mother, but she will need you lot round her. Get my no-good brother to help if you have to.”
“Teruki?” Arayoshi scoffed. “Chance’d be a fine thing.”
“Why, what’s he doing?” Genta began, rising off his chair, only to re-seat himself following a glower from a guard. “The bastard knows full well he’s supposed to be taking care of-“
“But when’s that ever changed anything?” Arayoshi said, making a snap decision to abridge his uncle’s response to the Program. “According to Mitsuki he’s just been carrying on as normal. But I’m the one who’s feeling guilty here...”
Arayoshi lowered his gaze, and Genta leaned forward. “Say, what?”
“I...” the eldest of Genta’s sons hesitated, hoping for the peace of mind that might follow, “I... I was the one who signed Eizo’s consent slip. The fucking form for the trip, where they took him.”
Genta’s face was frozen in a look of disgust. “What did you say?”
“Uncle Teruki wouldn’t do it, so... Eizo asked me to do it,” Arayoshi confessed. “He said his homeroom teacher can recognise Eizo’s fake signatures by now, and I’m an adult relative, so...”
“So it’s your fault?” Genta snapped. “What do you want: me to give you absolution? Fuck off, I didn’t need to know that.”
Arayoshi’s head was bowed with shame. For a few moments, no words were exchanged, until Genta broke the uneasy silence.
“So? How is he getting on?”
“Huh?”
“Eizo, you little dick,” Genta snapped. “I can’t see it in here, can I?”
“Oh, no...” Arayoshi mumbled. “He was alive the last thing I heard, though he was travelling with some girl.”
“That one he’s dating? Akemi what’s-her-face?”
“He’s not dating Akemi any more,” Arayoshi said, realising his father’s knowledge of his sons’ personal lives became stunted as of a couple of months ago. “No... Akemi was killed a little while ago. And his real girlfriend’s run off now. It’s just... someone else.”
“Another girl?” Genta allowed himself a small smile. “That boy always had a thing for the ladies. So did he kill anyone yet?”
“No,” Arayoshi explained. “Apparently everyone’s surprised at that. I dunno; I haven’t been following the viewer forums. Got better things to do with my time.”
“Yeah, well. Ten packs of cigarettes to say Eizo kills the girl he’s with.”
“Ten?! You don’t even smoke.”
“Oh wake up, Yoshi,” Genta said. “You’ve spent time in prison... it’s not about the ciggies, it’s about the currency.”
“Eh, sure,” Arayoshi said, glad to have ceased his summary of the game, though annoyed he had just agreed to a wager from which he couldn’t gain; after all, there was no way Genta could get ten cigarette packs out of jail. The muscles in Arayoshi’s arms flexed a little. “That other kid’s alive still, too.”
“Who?”
“Kenji Matsuda. The little shit you put you away here in the first place.”
Genta flinched, furious Arayoshi had mentioned the snitch in Eizo’s class. “Well, there’s some consolation: the little shit’s gonna get what’s coming to him, and we don’t even have to try and get our hands dirty.”
Arayoshi nodded silently. He didn’t expect their dad to break down in floods of tears, but the cold pragmatism bothered him a little; it was as though Genta had accepted Eizo was dead already. He had come to make sure his father was okay and to tell him they were all there for him, but in the end, there was nothing much worth saying.
He hadn’t had much patience for Kotone when Junpei Aragaki’s name was read out. For one, Eizo had suffered enough Juns to last him a lifetime (ironically, it probably was going to be a lifetime, right?) but mostly, it was because he didn’t particularly care for Kotone’s inner anguish, owing to him having more than enough of his own.
His thoughts kept flicking back to Kyoko, though they were only brief, dull flashes in his conscience. She had been the one to walk away from him, so if there was somet-
He would dismiss the thoughts at this stage. He was done with worrying about Kyoko, because he finally realised she never really worried about him. When she fled just before Kotone shot Hana Gomi, that could have been the point everything changed; thinking about that moment still filled Eizo with sheer terror. That could have been it; he could have been dead by now. Trying to comprehend what it was like not to exist, what it was like not to see, hear, think, for there to be blackness, and even then it wouldn’t be black as there is no colour or light or dark, or-
The unwelcome thought was shaken away again. He kicked at a rock and slouched onward, weighed down like a pack horse. Fucking bitches.
And it was now his thoughts would fly to Akemi. He forbade himself to think about her, though the prohibition in itself was enticing. He wondered what she was doing, whether she had killed, whether she-
When he dismissed these thoughts, it felt different The thoughts seemed to take on a different nature: They were vivid snapshots, capturing images from his imagination, reminding him of a face he may never see again, and of a body he would never touch.
No.
He was glad Kotone couldn’t see him. His mind was regurgitating all these memories and feelings he had from way back when, perhaps because his brain realised it didn’t have much time left, and to jettison this clutter would soothe him somehow. It meant his face played all sorts of strange shapes, thinking about people he shouldn’t be thinking about, because there was nothing to engage his mind besides putting one foot in front of the other and walking and all he could do is think, but the only thoughts that would form were the girls, and he shook them away time after time, because it didn’t feel right.
It wouldn’t feel right to think about any of these people any more.
The rain was coming down in full, now, and the skies became dark and heavy. The sky opened, greyed, and the two figures walked along folornly an empty mountainside.
Time passed, and the skies got darker still. When nightfall came, Eizo wondered if he could use the cover of dark to run away from Kotone (she couldn’t shoot him if she couldn’t see him, right?) But as time went on, Eizo realised there wasn’t much point in trying this. He really was in a bind, for if he ran away, he was still without a gun, so the first person he met might not be as tolerant as Kotone. It was the Program, after all. People change, and people-
Like Kyoko and-
The thoughts were easier to shake away, now. It was partly through being soaked to the bone by the rain, but also the chill from the wind lowering his core temperature, but he found his mindframe was changing from feeling sorry for himself, and more about getting through this alive. Perhaps it was some sort of innate instinct, forcing him to concentrate on survival. Perhaps it was his body simply getting tired from walking, and his surplus thoughts shutting down. Perhaps he had realised something other people had realised a long time ago: you need to put yourself in this game. The Program, real life.... there wasn’t too much difference between the two.
Then Toriumi spoke. In his mind, he was half-expecting to hear Kyoko’s name be read out. What he heard, however, completely caught him off-guard:
“Girl #04, Akemi Kasai!”
And that was one more mistake he couldn’t rectify.
“Hey, dude.”
“Huh? Oh, hey...”
Eizo was leaning over the sofa, to whisper into Masakichi’s ear. The party at Yuuji’s was coming out of its peak; fatigue starting to disrupt the atmosphere, but not enough to suggest it was anywhere near finishing. Masakichi had retired to the sofa for a while, probably to take the weight off his feet, and finish a drink. “’Sup, Eizo?”
“This is... kinda awkward, but...” her leaned in, close enough to whisper, as Mimiko was stood nearby with her knot of friends. "Have you got a condom I can borrow?"
Masakichi couldn't help himself: he released a very loud guffaw, which was surely heard over the music by everyone in that room. "Sure thing! Who's the lucky girl?"
"It's nobody," he shrugged, though no-one was attending to their conversation any more. "Just some girl. You got one?"
"Sure," Masakichi mumbled, hitching his rear up to pull a small, square foil wrapper from his seat pocket. "I was gonna use it in case I got lucky with--"
"Huh?"
"Oh, no, s'nothing." Masakichi backtracked hastily. "I might have been meeting that girl of mine afterwards."
"Huh. I see." Eizo said, choosing to bite his tongue for now; this wasn't the best time to tell one of his closest friends that he suspected Masa was seeing Akemi on the quiet, and that Eizo was about to have ex-sex with her anyhow. "Look, I better run, don't wanna keep her waiting, y'know?"
Masakichi chuckled, giving half a salute as Eizo attempted to leave the room; Kyoko walked in with Junpei and Yuya, and the last thing Eizo saw as he left the sitting room was Masakichi looking at Kyoko, puzzled.
He skipped over the grass behind the house; the smokers were mostly stood out front at Yuu's request, meaning he and Akemi had some privacy. "Got one."
"Where did you get that from?" Akemi mouthed.
He shook his head, the alcohol making the world slush about his head a fraction of a second too slowly. "Don't ask."
"This is a fucking mistake," she growled at him, kissing him aggressively on the lips. "You fucking piss me off."
"Get the hell away from me then, you filthy slut."
"I wouldn't come near you with a barge pole, asshole," she snapped, gazing steadily, coldly in his eyes.
"So why are you, then?"
"Cos I can't get you out of my head, you bastard," she admitted.
"Huh," he mumbled, failing to hide a smirk. He was returning her gaze.
She tilted her head away from him. "Say it."
"Say what?"
"Say you still fucking want me. Tell me you're not with that prissy whore Nozaki."
He spoke quickly, but chose his words carefully, as though hopping over a causeway of stones. "Heh... you're fucking hot, and I want you so bad."
"And Nozaki?"
"I thought she was seeing Junpei?" Eizo asked, feigning innocence, though deliberately avoiding belabouring it.
"Huh, figures you'd say that," she whispered, edging closer; he could smell her hair. "It's bad form sleeping with girls behind one another's backs, y'know."
"I'm not sleeping with anybody right now," Eizo said, still locked in a casual staring contest with his old flame. "What about you?"
She scoffed. "I'm not the one who's a love rat."
Eizo's eyebrows flickered unintentionally. "Love?"
She fell silent for a few seconds, glanced up and down to his lip, then came in for a long kiss which he didn't refuse.
In one hand, he fumbled with the lock of the shed; in the other, he grabbed at the small of Akemi's back, feeling the contours he had almost forgotten.
In the background, the party music echoed from the house, but they weren't part of that crowd right now.
The report was just more sound to him. He was shivering, and cold anfd soaked, but Kotone drove him to keep walking. He felt skeletal, like the water had stripped away his flesh; he couldn't feel it any more, and his movements were laboured, painful and increasingly difficult. He wanted a rest, and Kotone surely did, too, right?
The report came that night, and the third worst thing about it was Kyoko's name was on there, plain as day.
The second-to-worst thing about that report was that he didn't actually hear her name. Kotone was speaking to him, saying something about how he should be glad he didn't go with his buddy, and it was only then that the name registered with him. Kyoko Nozaki, as dead as the rest of them.
But the worst part about it was he couldn't bring himself to care. If he hadn't been so sodden, it might have been a different story, but no, that wasn't right... he was sodden when he heard Akemi's name read out, but he didn't feel the same way about his girlfriend?
(Ex-girlfriend)
They're both ex-girlfriends, right?
It wasn't fair that she (Akemi? Kyoko?) was dead, and Kotone was still alive. Another girl giving him grief, and...
That was when he realised enough truly was enough. Kotone had conceded to let them rest under some shelter, and to take their respective towels out of the bags. Eizo was kept out of reach of his ally, naturally, but... She was using him, just like the others.
She was playing him.
She was going to wear him down, and kill him anyway.
Both of them split up with him, and he felt--
Grimacing, he started planning Kotone's murder at that very moment. The trick, as he had found out earlier to his expense, was to make it stick.
- It was that time of year when the weather was improving, the air was not yet humid, and the wind blew strongly and consistently. It was also around the time where the Odaiba City Council were due to re-open their nominations for Representatives. Eizo found himself slumped against a wall outside the school gates one Friday afternoon, hanging about a few feet away from the smoking, delinquent kids. Soccer practice had been cancelled due to staff illness, but Eizo had to wait for a while, anyway, not bothering to hold conversation with the juvies; although he couldn't give a fuck what they did with themselves, he knew his parents would kill him if he came back reeking of nicotine.
They did plenty of disgusting things, but smoking wasn't one of them.
A figure hurried down the driveway of the school, cantering on short legs so that the efficiency of the distance covered didn't improve much. She was carrying her school bag, trying to lose the people she had spent her after-school flower arrangment class with.
"H- H- Hello, Eizo," Fuuka huffed as she caught up with him. Eizo glanced over at the delinquent kids; one had spotted Fuuka and was looking at the two of them, as though trying to work out whether they were dating, and if so, why. "Sorry, I couldn't get here any faster than I..."
"Sure, it doesn't matter," Eizo muttered, glancing over at the other kids. "Should we get going to the station?"
She leaned against the wall. "Sorry, I need to get my breath back first."
Eizo waited a couple of moments; the delinquents had probably assumed that as the remaining after-school classes were leaving now, so would be any remaining teachers, hence they made moves to leave before they got caught smoking. Eizo, not too bothered about random kids leaving, started to speak to her quietly. "Your father told you about what he wants mine to do, right?"
"Yeah," she muttered, eyes watery and afraid. Fuuka had never been comfortable with being her daddy's pawn like this, all the more being stood alone with one of the rougher kids in class. "But he can't call your dad directly, as he suspects the Government are monitoring his calls, right?"
"You tell me," Eizo shrugged. "Wouldn't be the first time they did it before an election."
"Yeah, but that's the problem..." she gasped between breaths. "He can't... he can't talk to anybody to sort any... problems he's got."
He mumbled assent to the unsubtle euphemism. "Course, that's where we come in, right?"
"He asked for your dad in particular," Fuuka said. "He wouldn't tell me the details, but... something about a job from December before last?"
Eizo thought for a moment. That was around the Christmas when he got his best soccer boots, which meant it was probably something to do with money laundering. "I think I know the one he means. Hold on, lemme write it down."
Eizo grabbed a piece of paper, and wrote disjointed, context-less words in his cramped handwriting, trusting his memory for the rest of the task. "Go on."
"Yeah, and he says he needs it done by midnight next Friday, because they do the first round of votes on Monday," Fuuka reeled off, closing her eyes to ensure she recited her father's words from memory as accurately as possible. "And he wants your dad to sort it out personally."
"Why?"
"I don't know," Fuuka said apologetically. "That's all he told me."
"Hmm, right," Eizo said. "You can't think of any details? Cos dad won't want to have extra bits trickle in while he's planning."
"I think that's everything," Fuuka reaffirmed, looking squarely at Eizo's chest. "I think so, at least."
"Okay, so how about we--" Eizo began, only to overhear a loud voice come from behind the wall against which they were leaning:
"God, Kenji, how long does it take you to tie your shoelaces? C'mon, we should get home before midnight, Keisuke and Emi are already on their way over! Oh... hey, Kuroki, Horiguchi..."
It was Taro, who was exiting through the school gates following his basketball practice, not expecting to see the unlikely duo of Fuuka and Eizo stood outside, amidst freshly-smouldering cigarette butts. Behind him, Kenji Matsuda crept out sheepishly. Taro was still in his shorts, so presumably Kenji had stayed behind to watch him. Taro waved akwardly at Fuuka, avoiding Eizo's gaze. Kenji also slipped by wordlessly, nodding vaguely at the two of them, also making absolutely no eye contact.
Eizo's eyes narrowed suspiciously, as Kenji shuffled off with a forced blank face. Had he been listening?
Apparently, Fuuka was thinking the same thing. Her hands were over her mouth, and she squeaked. "They heard!"
"You think?" Eizo muttered, brow darkening. "I... he might not have."
"Oh, no! How much do you think he heard?"
"Not enough," Eizo shrugged. "I mean, we don't know much. Besides, what's he going to do, call the political police?"
Eizo mimed holding a phone to his ear, and pressing the number "3" with a finger. Fuuka didn't break a smile. "I'm worried, though..."
"Look, it's fine. Kenji's a bit of an asshole, but he's not that much of an asshole. We should get going, anyway. Your dad's gonna get paranoid, and I'm having Thai tonight."
And with that Eizo began walking in the other direction. He had nothing more to hear from Fuuka, and she nothing more to say to him. He was confident she would realise soon that she was being too paranoid, although he knew that if Kenji relayed anything he might have overheard, then...
He wondered if it was worth talking to Matsuda, as hanging around with Fuuka was odd at the best of times, unless he was one of her troupe of losers. Which he wasn't, of course.
Evidently, he decided against it. And that was the moment Eizo and Fuuka faced the same dilemma together, yet ended up choosing different paths.
That evening. Fuuka took no chances, and got home, confessing to her father what had happened, and how worried she was that something bad might become of it.
The same evening, Eizo got home, and decided it wasn't worth risking the wrath of his father. He would take his chances, because there was no gravity attached to things like that, when you have Eizo's sort of mentality.
Five days later, Fuuka's father had made some contingency arrangments. Thanks to his daughter's admission, he worked out an additional method with which to secure his job, and to remove any traces of shady dealings from his office. Fuuka, Mr Kuroki's employers, and the wider town community wouldn't know any better.
Seven days later, Eizo's father was caught red-handed in a police raid. Genta Horiguchi was taken to a cell, and the remaining Horiguchi family formally given a supervision order, which would expose every sordid detail of their family to the authorities, yet absolutely nothing of the Kurokis.
Eizo learned the hard way that if you're trying to undermine the authorities, you can never be too careful, or too thorough.
It was a gamble, but one he felt was absolutely neccessary for him to take. As the morning sun started to rise higher in the sky, Eizo realised the only chance he had to defeat Kotone was to take her by surprise. But she always had her guard up, right?
He would only get one shot at this, he understood. Dispatch would have to be quick and flourish-free. If he failed, he would be meeting his maker.
He felt a little bad about it, which was strange, considering what had happened earlier in the game. He had done all sorts of horrible things to people, told bare-faced lies to those who trusted him, and the whole time he barely batted an eyelid. Maybe it was because he was cold, battered and weary, but he almost felt like he was growing a conscience, and it was happening at the worst time imaginable. And of all the people he had met--
When he started thinking about Jun, the pangs of guilt subsided immediately. Sure, he had tormented the kid, got his hopes up when he had nothing to lose; and then, under the pretense of needing a specific resource from the boy, betrayed him when he was at his most helpless.
But that was just the thing: Kotone was doing that right with him, right now. All the marching, and the shivers, and the raw hatred and fatigue brewing up, she was just waiting for him to explode, to give her an excuse to shoot him, like she did to Ryo, and...
No. Eizo refused to sit in the same category as Ryo Jo.
A flash of his face bubbled up in Eizo's mind, but he dismissed it effortlessly. After all, he wasn't Akemi. There were so many people he had forgotten, because Eizo, like the other survivors, had to focus on the task to hand. Whenever he looked at his list, he saw a sea of scored-out names, names Eizo would purposefully ignore to examine the remaining survivors.
It was a competition, and he didn't want to lose to Kotone Fujino again.
Finally accepting he was delaying the inevitable, Eizo gripped the blade and swore loudly. He pointed at a rock, and then yelled at Kotone. Some bull about having passed it three times already, like in the cartoons. He knew it wasn't true: they had been going steadily down the mountain, and to have doubled back on themselves, they would have had to have climbed, almost surely blowing up their collars.
It didn't matter, though; his heart was thumping against his chest as called her out on something trivial. She looked slightly defensive, and that split-second was the moment to make his move.
"Let me see that map."
He said it firmly, approaching her.
Kotone should have held her gun up right away, but she paused for half a second too long, in which Eizo shortened the distance between them.
"I don't have to give you anything."
She raised her weapon, as a command for him to stop walking. Perhaps unintentionally, she makes a small step toward him, and he approaches her even closer still.
Just one quick thrust into her chest, and...
It found flesh, and his heart stopped beating.
The world was motionless and silent.
Eizo saw the wound below him: the dirk had plunged through Kotone's chest. It was an upward thrust, entering just below her ribcage. There was a dark red line at the seam, glistening slightly. It wasn't bleeding; time stood still for so long and...
Then it began to move. He saw the blood trickle thickly down the shaft of the weapon. Still silent, still no heartbeat, still lifeless and soulless, and...
The blood reached his fingertips, and his heart began beating again. It was warm, caressing his numb fingers, electrifying him back to his senses. He didn't even look at Kotone as she fell. Just at his fingers. At.... at nothing in particular. He grabbed up the bags, and pried the gun from her fingers. He would sort those out once he got away from here. He left the blade in Kotone's body, and ran.
A few miles away, the Program's computers bleeped as Kotone Fujino's picture and stats flushed red. Simultaneously, the big white "0" next to Eizo's name clicked to a "1". In a matter of minutes, the live stream would show it to the public; the cameras in that area already trained on the two companions, poised for the inevitable collapse.
Very soon, the bookmakers would alter their odds, fan forums would spike in activity, men in prisons would gain packs of cigarettes for triumphant wagers, and spectators would inch closer to their television sets, snapping their eyes open in a fresh wave of excitement.
This happened every time a person was killed. One violent act causes a volley of consequences, yet none of them were important.
He could see the electric fence as the steepness of the mountain subsided. If he stayed by that, but looked out for the lake to the south, then...
He was back in the game. And he could actually win this thing.
"Shi... To the lake," he muttered to himself, punctuated with a series of pants. "Get to the... to the lake... fuck.... the lake.... fuck..."
The noon report was going to be in about three or four hours. He hadn't slept since that afternoon in the schoolhouse. He wanted nothing more than a rest, except...
It was too risky. The danger zones were clearly shepherding people to the open ground. Anybody else who had been where he was would, without a doubt, be coming along the same route he was.
But even so....
He probably had no more of sixteen hours of life remaining. If he didn't sleep, he would probably collapse. His muscles were protesting, cramping following the sprint, and now...
If he didn't sleep, death was certain. If he did sleep, death was probable.
But there were nine people left, now. Probably, less. Plus he had guns now...
"This is no good," he said to himself. "Okay, let's.... right."
He dropped his bags down in the most inconspicuous place in the vicinity. To his west, Eizo could make out a plateau; presumably, that was the meditation area marked on the map, and he made a point of not going too close, for fear of straying into a danger zone. He was positioned near a loudspeaker, so he would be woken by the report in the worst-case scenario, but even so...
After drinking some of his (Kotone's?) water, Eizo pulled his phone out. It sat in his pocket, an almost pathetic reminder of the life he had left behind. Its screen showed him a wallpaper of a photograph he could no longer remember taking. Deciding to give it one final use, he set himself an alarm for eleven-thirty, and shuffled himself into some shade.
Just a few hours rest. That was all would need to bring out his A-game.
Taking his chances, Eizo removed his wet shirt, wrapped it around his bag, fashioned himself a pillow, and rested himself on the soft, moist earth, before stealing himself some precious rest.