(no subject)
Reina Ryuugu was born in the small town of Hinamizawa. She lived there with her parents, who were both fashion designers, until just before she was to enter grade school, at which point her mother got an offer to work in a company in Ibaraki. The company was then working at had been suffering from financial difficulties for some time and offered little-to-no opportunities for advancement, making the decision to move in order to get a better paying job and more promising job an easy one.
The transition to the company in Ibaraki made Reina's mother a very successful woman, but of course, with success comes new responsibilities. She was rarely given days off and would would work late hours every day, sometimes even staying overnight if a big project was underway, but even so her mother wore a smile that Reina had never seen in Hinamizawa.
Her father had been considerably less fortunate. He lacked his wife's talent and was therefore unable to find a job that utilized the skills and experience he'd gained over the year, and so he would frequently found himself at home between jobs. In order to support his wife, who had begun to come home less and less by then, he began to do work around the house. He also constantly reassured Reina that her mother was working hard and that they needed to support her.
Reina began to aspire to be like her mother. She even wrote in her school picture book that she wanted to follow in her mother's footsteps and become a fashion designer. Unfortunately her mother had assured her that taste wasn't something that could be learned and like her father Reina lacked it. With the option of being good at something her mother was ruled out, she decided to get better at things that her parents weren't good at. She began to learn to do things such as cooking, laundry and grocery shopping.
Things didn't stop there, though. As her mother moved up the ranks Reina saw her less and less. Over time she began to do housework alongside her father, who was still unemployed and had struggled when it came to domestic skills, and it turned into a way for the two to enjoy themselves by spending time together. When she was able to see her mother she always spoiled her by buying her things and taking her to fancy restaurants; however, as it was easier for her to take her work with her as she spent time with her daughter, she would often take her to places with her coworkers. On one such occasion, at a beach party that her work had held, she was introduced to her coworkers. Everyone treated her family, but a young man named Akihito had treated her especially kindly.
Akihito began to join them on their trips more and more; at one point Reina was even told to call him "dad." Eventually, on a day where her mother had bought her many expensive things and taken her to an expensive restaurant in order to let her live her dream of eating a mountain of parfaits, her mother began to ask about her feelings on Akihito. She also asked whether Reina liked her mother or her father later; not thinking it would be appropriate to say that she liked her father best after being spoiled so much, she answered that she liked her mother better. Her mother then threw her off guard by asking her whether she would prefer to live with her mother or father...and announced that she was intent on marrying Akihito. Reina screamed at her, demanding that she stay with her father, who had always supporting her, and even calling her a traitor.
A pregnancy had made that impossible, however, and so the divorce procedure began a short time later with a lawyer arriving at her house to tell him not to meet or contact her mother. Unable to find out anything about his wife aside from that the name of the man she was having an affair with, he turned to his daughter. When she confirmed that she knew him and called him a funny guy, he slapped her for the first time before falling to the floor crying. Her reason for crying was entirely different from her father's--not because she had been hit, but because she finally realized that there were people who would destroy her life. These enemies weren’t people that she should be kind to, and Akihito was one of them. Yet instead of trying to create ripple in their relationship by rejecting them, she had just passively accepted him. Her father rubbed her cheek and tried to apologize in order to console her, but was too broken up, so for along time the two could only cry together.
At one point during the divorce procedure Reina was allowed to visit her mother. Her mother asked to her leave her father and live with her and Akihito, but that was a request that Reina couldn't respond to right away. Instead she offered her a letter that her father had written through tears, wanting to see how her mother would respond to her father's final words; however, even with her daughter's insistence that she read it there her mother simply tucked it away, clearly having no intention of reading it. Her mother's reaction proved to be the deciding factor on what had been a difficult decision for Reina; she hated her mother--or rather, the person who used to be her mother, and had no intention of leaving her father for her.
In the days that followed Reina's mental state deteriorated, but at the same time she found herself feeling nothing; however, those feelings of emptiness were just the calm before the storm. Her father would cry every time he saw something that reminded him of his ex-wife, prompting Reina to help him recover by getting rid of her belongings. She did so in a surprisingly violent way, throwing them in a trash bag or even just on the floor. She went as far as to try and destroy anything that reminded her of her mother, including furniture. That wasn't enough to sate her anger, however, and so the stress continued to pile up. She began to hate everything and became increasingly paranoid, believing that happy people were simply looking down on her and that everyone was out to get her. At one point she smashed all the school windows at another she went so far as to attack three of her classmates.
But even that amount of violence wasn't enough to satisfy her, not when she still felt so angry about the fact that she had destroyed the happy days with her own hand; eventually she began to think that destroying herself would be the only way to atone for her sins. At the same time she thought that she might be able to damage her mother's career by killing herself, creating a suitable act of revenge. She started by cutting her throat just once once and watched as the blood spurted out...and proceeded to panic as a clot of dusky red maggots oozed out with her blood before trying to squeeze back into her body.
Not wanting to maggots to enter her body again she began to began to claw at her throat, but only managed to cause herself more pain. She cut her thigh in order to try and see them better and watched as countless maggots oozed out. Eventually she was found on the bloody bathroom floor and subsequently hospitalized, but she never quite recovered; she would have panic attacks about the maggots, believing them to be in her blood and begging the doctors and nurses to give her clean blood in what would later be accounted to post-traumatic stress disorder.
After being released from the hospital she was given a strong medication in the form of red capsules that made her feel lethargic and would later make it difficult for her to remember the period of time she was on it. The medication served it's purpose up until the day that she forgot to take it. Without the pills to sedate her she began to feel the maggots moving inside of her body again. With her mind clear she determined that the pills had been given to her to kill her and stopped taking her. Eventually she began to cut herself again in order to see the maggots were there. Upon finding that they were she tried to rid herself of them, both to get rid of the maggots and as a way of satisfying her anger. She just couldn't forgive herself for her parents' divorce until she found someone else to blame.
What followed next was a truly divine experience. The dark bathroom was covered in a gentle light and she found herself confronted by Oyashiro-sama, who looked upon her with sad and gentle eyes. Oyashiro-sama touched Reina and removed the maggots from her blood. She apologized to her repeatedly and told her that the curse of Oyashiro-sama had descended upon her family because they'd left Hinamizawa; for now she would hold the curse back, but it was only a temporary solution. If she wanted to keep from being taken over by the maggots and dying insane she would need to move back to Hinamizawa. The apologies continued and Reina finally found herself free of guilt. It wasn't her that had caused this tragedy, it was the curse of Oyashiro-sama. That was why Oyashiro-sama kept apologizing.
After that Oyashiro-sama began to walk behind Reina at all times, apologizing her and telling her to hurry and move back. The god would even follow her to bed, hovering over her as she slept. Reina begged her father to move back to Hinamizawa, explaining to her the delusions she was having. She was ignored by the doctors, who insisted that she was hallucinating as a result of her guilt and was frequently given a shot (a sedative) that she hated. The doctor did, however, suggest to her father that they move back to Hinamizawa if possible
Reina's grandmother had left them a house in Hinamizawa after her death and so between Reina's desire to move back and her father's desire had wanted a fresh start after the divorce, it wasn't surprising that they soon found themselves back in Reina's hometown. Although she'd lived there before Reina found that there were no familiar faces of street signs and few people recognized her; were it not for the distinctive atmosphere of the village and the blessings of Oyashiro-sama that came with it, it might have been no different than moving to an entirely new town. As she adjusted to her new life in Hinamizawa the curse started to disappear, though she was forced to take the vivid colored pills for a time after moving there. The memory of the maggots and Oyashiro-sama became unclear and eventually she was only able to remember the side effects of the pills she had taken.
At her first Watanagashi festival Reina chose to change her name. She wanted to remove the "icky" things from her memory and from her body and so she took out the "i," entrusting those things to the cotton ball that she sent down the river and leaving her to be known as "Rena." Rena was a new girl, free from the tragic past that Reina had suffered through. Rena began her new life as a member of a new school, where she quickly made friends and lived every day happily. Finally it seemed that she and her father had reclaimed their happy days.
Shortly after moving to Hinamizawa Rena was forced to watch as a tragedy unfolded. Satoshi and Satoko, two of her classmates and also a pair of siblings, were abused horribly by their aunt. Satoshi went to all the people who he considered friends, two of which who should have had influence over the village, but found that they could only sympathize with him. He went to Rena as well, but just like his other friends Rena could only offer him her condolences; unlike her classmates, however, she could also advice him about the footsteps that followed him.
One day after school she met up with Shion, who was pretending to be Mion at the time. Shion had only intended to walk home with her, but when a storm forced them to take shelter at an abandoned bus stop they began to discuss Satoshi, who had distanced himself from his friends almost entirely. Rena announced that he probably on the verge of the breakdown, but also suggested that he would only become more despondent if he were to see Mion so dispirited and told her to smile for him. As the conversation continued it almost seemed as though she was reading Shion's mind, easily determining that she was in love with Satoshi and that she felt jealous of Satoko as a result. She also announced to her that Satoshi was thinking about leaving the village and so, like Rena before him, he was suffering from Oyashiro-sama's curse.
At some indeterminate time Mion decided to form a school club in order to keep Satoko and Satoshi away from their evil aunt, if only for a little longer, and Rena became one of its members. The club mostly consisted of playing indoor games, but with a slight twist. One of the rules was that the club members were to do anything to win. Failure to do this (and consequently failure to win) would lead to punishment games. These punishments ranged from wearing embarrassing outfits to preforming chores to any number of other things; though in spite of the fact being called punishments, they were still meant to be fun for all of the club members, even the one receiving the punishment.
Satoshi and Satoko's aunt was killed during the next Watanagashi and Satoshi himself disappeared just a few days later. It was obvious to everyone, including Rena, that Satoshi had killed his aunt, even after a drug addict came forward to take the blame. After his disappearance the subject of Satoshi became something of a taboo, as a result when speaking of him the members of his class would generally just say that he'd transferred out.
Nearly a year later a boy named Keiichi Maebara moved in. The two hit it off quickly and Rena, knowing better than anyone what it was like to be new to the village, did her best to take care of her new classmate. She walked to and from school with him every day, along with their mutual friend Mion. Soon after he was inducted into their after-school club. Things were more lively than ever.
About a week before Watanagashi another new classmate was introduced to them, Hanyuu Furude. The shy, flustering girl was introduced to them as a relative of Rika's. Later the girl joined their club and officially became a part of their little group. After snapping out of her adorable mode, Rena herself also expressed that she thought having Hanyuu there was great, because she was sure that this girl had watched them play before and had wanted to join in. Keiichi assured her that it was impossible for Hanyuu to have been there, but that didn't quite shake the feeling.
A couple days later Rika went to her clubmates for advice under the guise of asking for help with the scenario for a comic that she hoped to write. She soon after informed them that what she had told them wasn't just a work for fiction; it was a description of her life. In order to protect her from Takano and the Mountain Hounds, who would be try to kill her due to her status as the Queen Carrier they came up with three plans: the first of which was to hide Rika in the Sonozaki house, while claiming that she was already dead and her body had been found 48 after her death. The purpose of this plan was to disprove Takano's theory of the entire village going insane 48 hours of her death and preventing Takano from executing Emergency Manual #34, which would lead to the death of all of the residents of Hinamizawa.
With the help of Ooshi the plan was executed a couple days later. They hid themselves away in Sonozaki family's secret underground basement, with Mion and Rena watching the monitors while the others stayed in a secret room, until Kasai and Shion suddenly appeared in front of the house with Irie in tow. Rena, Mion and Keiichi rushed out of the basement and to the front gate to greet them, while the other three club members remained behind. As soon as they began to question the three they caught sight of more vehicles approaching, making it clear that the three had been followed due to a tracking button on Irie's lab jacket. The group retreated to the underground basement once more, but their enemies were clever, stripping them of their phone lines and electricity before finding ways to take down the basement's heavy metal door, leaving them with no choice but to make use of the underground escape route.
The escape route was hidden inside of a well, about thirty meters down into a supposedly bottomless well, and only allowed for one person to go down at a time. Mion, Rika, Irie, Satoko, Hanyuu, Rena and finally Keiichi were able to go down; however, Shion and Kasai stayed behind with the intention of holding the Mountain Hounds back with machine guns. Of course no one wanted to lose any members of their group, but when when Keiichi suggested that Rena take Rika, Hanyuu and Irie and run to the hills she had no choice but to hesitantly agree.
Rika, on the other hand, refused to lose anyone in what would be her final world. She boldly declared that she didn't want to live in a world where Shion and Kasai didn't exist. The Mountain Hounds that had been pursuing them took advantage of this fact and chose to use Shion and Kasai as bargaining chips, threatening to drop one after another down the well if Rika and Irie were not handed over. Rika chose to accept that deal in spite of Rena's protest, knowing that Takano would not kill her immediately and believing that her friends would save her from her fate. All Rena could do was promise that they would save her as she held back her tears.
Thanks to a small miracle Rika was saved by Akasaka and the group was able to reform in the basement to discuss their grand counterattack. It was decided that the club members would serve as a diversion unit in the hills, with Rika using the tracking device that had been put on Irie in order to ensure that the majority of the Mountain Hounds would follow them, while Irie, Kasai and Akasaka would go to the Irie Clinic to rescue Tomitake, who could then call the Watchdogs to suppress the Mountain Hounds. At the last minute Shion decided to go with Irie and the rest to rescue Tomitake. When Rena expressed concern Shion simply assured Rena that she wouldn't die even if they killed her and the exchanged high fives.
Rena's group, also known as the decoy group, stationed themselves at Satoko's hill. With Mion acting as their fearless leader, the group worked together and took advantage of their knowledge of the area in order to take down as many of the Mountain Hounds as possible by luring them into the traps that Satoko had set up over the years. As they took more of the units down the Mountain Hounds and the remaining units started to become fearful the group even engaged in psychological warfare.
It soon became apparent that the Mountain Hounds were fighting a losing battle, so much so that even their leader, Okonogi, realized it. Rather than continue their exercise in futility he ordered his remaining units to ease out before finding the shack that the club members were staying at. Once there Okonogi requested their leader, Mion. Soon after she'd stepped forward both the club members and the Mountain Hounds watched as the two leaders engaged in a dramatic battle that ended with a complete victory for the club members. Soon after the Watchdogs arrived, forcing the Mountain Hounds to retreat. The Watchdogs begged them not to say anything and of course they agreed--who could they talk to that would believe such a crazy story, anyway? The club members themselves, Rena included, thought that they might later think that all of this had been a dream.
With Takano's group defeated and the rescue group and Tomitake were confirmed to safe it seemed as though the nightmare was over, but fate had one more card to deal and soon after Rena and the rest realized that Hanyuu had gone missing; by the time they found her Takano was already pointing a gun at her. Takano demanded that Mion step forward. Mion complied, in spite of Rena's protesting, fully prepared to take a bullet if it meant protecting her club mates. The group could only watch in horror as Takano threatened to shoot if anyone were to move and as Mion gave what might have been her final orders to the club members.
Hanyuu stepped forward, shielding Mion and announcing that if a human sacrifice was necessary, then it would be her who would act as one. This time Takano didn't hesitate to pull the trigger, but then a peculiar thing happened--the bullet stopped just in front of Hanyuu's chest, almost as though she was protected by an invisible barrier; then Takano called her a monster, the barrier shattered, and time froze. The club members found themselves unable to move, as they had in the previous world before Keiichi was shot; no matter how much they screamed it wouldn’t change the fact that they would only be able to watch as their friend was shot.
What happened next was surely a miracle. In that space where time was frozen Rika was able to move forward and take the bullet. She announced to their group that after her thousand year journey the conclusion that she had come to was that this world didn't need a loser; her wish for a miracle, a complete world where everyone could be happy required no human sacrifice.
When time resumed they found that the bullet had missed, and also that the sound of the gunshot had attracted the attention of the Watchdogs, who then appeared to take Takano into custody. Tomitake stepped in to save her a moment later, directing their attention to the scratches on her body and suggesting that she may have been in the terminal phase of Hinamizawa Syndrome. It was significant because it meant that her actions might been the direct result of someone taking advantage of her delusional state, but in the meantime she would need to be hospitalized and have her actions monitored carefully.
After that everything was over and Rena and the others were able to resume their normal lives. They attended Watanagashi, visiting various stands and fooling around, and at the end they transferred their sins to the cotton and sent them floating down the river.
The transition to the company in Ibaraki made Reina's mother a very successful woman, but of course, with success comes new responsibilities. She was rarely given days off and would would work late hours every day, sometimes even staying overnight if a big project was underway, but even so her mother wore a smile that Reina had never seen in Hinamizawa.
Her father had been considerably less fortunate. He lacked his wife's talent and was therefore unable to find a job that utilized the skills and experience he'd gained over the year, and so he would frequently found himself at home between jobs. In order to support his wife, who had begun to come home less and less by then, he began to do work around the house. He also constantly reassured Reina that her mother was working hard and that they needed to support her.
Reina began to aspire to be like her mother. She even wrote in her school picture book that she wanted to follow in her mother's footsteps and become a fashion designer. Unfortunately her mother had assured her that taste wasn't something that could be learned and like her father Reina lacked it. With the option of being good at something her mother was ruled out, she decided to get better at things that her parents weren't good at. She began to learn to do things such as cooking, laundry and grocery shopping.
Things didn't stop there, though. As her mother moved up the ranks Reina saw her less and less. Over time she began to do housework alongside her father, who was still unemployed and had struggled when it came to domestic skills, and it turned into a way for the two to enjoy themselves by spending time together. When she was able to see her mother she always spoiled her by buying her things and taking her to fancy restaurants; however, as it was easier for her to take her work with her as she spent time with her daughter, she would often take her to places with her coworkers. On one such occasion, at a beach party that her work had held, she was introduced to her coworkers. Everyone treated her family, but a young man named Akihito had treated her especially kindly.
Akihito began to join them on their trips more and more; at one point Reina was even told to call him "dad." Eventually, on a day where her mother had bought her many expensive things and taken her to an expensive restaurant in order to let her live her dream of eating a mountain of parfaits, her mother began to ask about her feelings on Akihito. She also asked whether Reina liked her mother or her father later; not thinking it would be appropriate to say that she liked her father best after being spoiled so much, she answered that she liked her mother better. Her mother then threw her off guard by asking her whether she would prefer to live with her mother or father...and announced that she was intent on marrying Akihito. Reina screamed at her, demanding that she stay with her father, who had always supporting her, and even calling her a traitor.
A pregnancy had made that impossible, however, and so the divorce procedure began a short time later with a lawyer arriving at her house to tell him not to meet or contact her mother. Unable to find out anything about his wife aside from that the name of the man she was having an affair with, he turned to his daughter. When she confirmed that she knew him and called him a funny guy, he slapped her for the first time before falling to the floor crying. Her reason for crying was entirely different from her father's--not because she had been hit, but because she finally realized that there were people who would destroy her life. These enemies weren’t people that she should be kind to, and Akihito was one of them. Yet instead of trying to create ripple in their relationship by rejecting them, she had just passively accepted him. Her father rubbed her cheek and tried to apologize in order to console her, but was too broken up, so for along time the two could only cry together.
At one point during the divorce procedure Reina was allowed to visit her mother. Her mother asked to her leave her father and live with her and Akihito, but that was a request that Reina couldn't respond to right away. Instead she offered her a letter that her father had written through tears, wanting to see how her mother would respond to her father's final words; however, even with her daughter's insistence that she read it there her mother simply tucked it away, clearly having no intention of reading it. Her mother's reaction proved to be the deciding factor on what had been a difficult decision for Reina; she hated her mother--or rather, the person who used to be her mother, and had no intention of leaving her father for her.
In the days that followed Reina's mental state deteriorated, but at the same time she found herself feeling nothing; however, those feelings of emptiness were just the calm before the storm. Her father would cry every time he saw something that reminded him of his ex-wife, prompting Reina to help him recover by getting rid of her belongings. She did so in a surprisingly violent way, throwing them in a trash bag or even just on the floor. She went as far as to try and destroy anything that reminded her of her mother, including furniture. That wasn't enough to sate her anger, however, and so the stress continued to pile up. She began to hate everything and became increasingly paranoid, believing that happy people were simply looking down on her and that everyone was out to get her. At one point she smashed all the school windows at another she went so far as to attack three of her classmates.
But even that amount of violence wasn't enough to satisfy her, not when she still felt so angry about the fact that she had destroyed the happy days with her own hand; eventually she began to think that destroying herself would be the only way to atone for her sins. At the same time she thought that she might be able to damage her mother's career by killing herself, creating a suitable act of revenge. She started by cutting her throat just once once and watched as the blood spurted out...and proceeded to panic as a clot of dusky red maggots oozed out with her blood before trying to squeeze back into her body.
Not wanting to maggots to enter her body again she began to began to claw at her throat, but only managed to cause herself more pain. She cut her thigh in order to try and see them better and watched as countless maggots oozed out. Eventually she was found on the bloody bathroom floor and subsequently hospitalized, but she never quite recovered; she would have panic attacks about the maggots, believing them to be in her blood and begging the doctors and nurses to give her clean blood in what would later be accounted to post-traumatic stress disorder.
After being released from the hospital she was given a strong medication in the form of red capsules that made her feel lethargic and would later make it difficult for her to remember the period of time she was on it. The medication served it's purpose up until the day that she forgot to take it. Without the pills to sedate her she began to feel the maggots moving inside of her body again. With her mind clear she determined that the pills had been given to her to kill her and stopped taking her. Eventually she began to cut herself again in order to see the maggots were there. Upon finding that they were she tried to rid herself of them, both to get rid of the maggots and as a way of satisfying her anger. She just couldn't forgive herself for her parents' divorce until she found someone else to blame.
What followed next was a truly divine experience. The dark bathroom was covered in a gentle light and she found herself confronted by Oyashiro-sama, who looked upon her with sad and gentle eyes. Oyashiro-sama touched Reina and removed the maggots from her blood. She apologized to her repeatedly and told her that the curse of Oyashiro-sama had descended upon her family because they'd left Hinamizawa; for now she would hold the curse back, but it was only a temporary solution. If she wanted to keep from being taken over by the maggots and dying insane she would need to move back to Hinamizawa. The apologies continued and Reina finally found herself free of guilt. It wasn't her that had caused this tragedy, it was the curse of Oyashiro-sama. That was why Oyashiro-sama kept apologizing.
After that Oyashiro-sama began to walk behind Reina at all times, apologizing her and telling her to hurry and move back. The god would even follow her to bed, hovering over her as she slept. Reina begged her father to move back to Hinamizawa, explaining to her the delusions she was having. She was ignored by the doctors, who insisted that she was hallucinating as a result of her guilt and was frequently given a shot (a sedative) that she hated. The doctor did, however, suggest to her father that they move back to Hinamizawa if possible
Reina's grandmother had left them a house in Hinamizawa after her death and so between Reina's desire to move back and her father's desire had wanted a fresh start after the divorce, it wasn't surprising that they soon found themselves back in Reina's hometown. Although she'd lived there before Reina found that there were no familiar faces of street signs and few people recognized her; were it not for the distinctive atmosphere of the village and the blessings of Oyashiro-sama that came with it, it might have been no different than moving to an entirely new town. As she adjusted to her new life in Hinamizawa the curse started to disappear, though she was forced to take the vivid colored pills for a time after moving there. The memory of the maggots and Oyashiro-sama became unclear and eventually she was only able to remember the side effects of the pills she had taken.
At her first Watanagashi festival Reina chose to change her name. She wanted to remove the "icky" things from her memory and from her body and so she took out the "i," entrusting those things to the cotton ball that she sent down the river and leaving her to be known as "Rena." Rena was a new girl, free from the tragic past that Reina had suffered through. Rena began her new life as a member of a new school, where she quickly made friends and lived every day happily. Finally it seemed that she and her father had reclaimed their happy days.
Shortly after moving to Hinamizawa Rena was forced to watch as a tragedy unfolded. Satoshi and Satoko, two of her classmates and also a pair of siblings, were abused horribly by their aunt. Satoshi went to all the people who he considered friends, two of which who should have had influence over the village, but found that they could only sympathize with him. He went to Rena as well, but just like his other friends Rena could only offer him her condolences; unlike her classmates, however, she could also advice him about the footsteps that followed him.
One day after school she met up with Shion, who was pretending to be Mion at the time. Shion had only intended to walk home with her, but when a storm forced them to take shelter at an abandoned bus stop they began to discuss Satoshi, who had distanced himself from his friends almost entirely. Rena announced that he probably on the verge of the breakdown, but also suggested that he would only become more despondent if he were to see Mion so dispirited and told her to smile for him. As the conversation continued it almost seemed as though she was reading Shion's mind, easily determining that she was in love with Satoshi and that she felt jealous of Satoko as a result. She also announced to her that Satoshi was thinking about leaving the village and so, like Rena before him, he was suffering from Oyashiro-sama's curse.
At some indeterminate time Mion decided to form a school club in order to keep Satoko and Satoshi away from their evil aunt, if only for a little longer, and Rena became one of its members. The club mostly consisted of playing indoor games, but with a slight twist. One of the rules was that the club members were to do anything to win. Failure to do this (and consequently failure to win) would lead to punishment games. These punishments ranged from wearing embarrassing outfits to preforming chores to any number of other things; though in spite of the fact being called punishments, they were still meant to be fun for all of the club members, even the one receiving the punishment.
Satoshi and Satoko's aunt was killed during the next Watanagashi and Satoshi himself disappeared just a few days later. It was obvious to everyone, including Rena, that Satoshi had killed his aunt, even after a drug addict came forward to take the blame. After his disappearance the subject of Satoshi became something of a taboo, as a result when speaking of him the members of his class would generally just say that he'd transferred out.
Nearly a year later a boy named Keiichi Maebara moved in. The two hit it off quickly and Rena, knowing better than anyone what it was like to be new to the village, did her best to take care of her new classmate. She walked to and from school with him every day, along with their mutual friend Mion. Soon after he was inducted into their after-school club. Things were more lively than ever.
About a week before Watanagashi another new classmate was introduced to them, Hanyuu Furude. The shy, flustering girl was introduced to them as a relative of Rika's. Later the girl joined their club and officially became a part of their little group. After snapping out of her adorable mode, Rena herself also expressed that she thought having Hanyuu there was great, because she was sure that this girl had watched them play before and had wanted to join in. Keiichi assured her that it was impossible for Hanyuu to have been there, but that didn't quite shake the feeling.
A couple days later Rika went to her clubmates for advice under the guise of asking for help with the scenario for a comic that she hoped to write. She soon after informed them that what she had told them wasn't just a work for fiction; it was a description of her life. In order to protect her from Takano and the Mountain Hounds, who would be try to kill her due to her status as the Queen Carrier they came up with three plans: the first of which was to hide Rika in the Sonozaki house, while claiming that she was already dead and her body had been found 48 after her death. The purpose of this plan was to disprove Takano's theory of the entire village going insane 48 hours of her death and preventing Takano from executing Emergency Manual #34, which would lead to the death of all of the residents of Hinamizawa.
With the help of Ooshi the plan was executed a couple days later. They hid themselves away in Sonozaki family's secret underground basement, with Mion and Rena watching the monitors while the others stayed in a secret room, until Kasai and Shion suddenly appeared in front of the house with Irie in tow. Rena, Mion and Keiichi rushed out of the basement and to the front gate to greet them, while the other three club members remained behind. As soon as they began to question the three they caught sight of more vehicles approaching, making it clear that the three had been followed due to a tracking button on Irie's lab jacket. The group retreated to the underground basement once more, but their enemies were clever, stripping them of their phone lines and electricity before finding ways to take down the basement's heavy metal door, leaving them with no choice but to make use of the underground escape route.
The escape route was hidden inside of a well, about thirty meters down into a supposedly bottomless well, and only allowed for one person to go down at a time. Mion, Rika, Irie, Satoko, Hanyuu, Rena and finally Keiichi were able to go down; however, Shion and Kasai stayed behind with the intention of holding the Mountain Hounds back with machine guns. Of course no one wanted to lose any members of their group, but when when Keiichi suggested that Rena take Rika, Hanyuu and Irie and run to the hills she had no choice but to hesitantly agree.
Rika, on the other hand, refused to lose anyone in what would be her final world. She boldly declared that she didn't want to live in a world where Shion and Kasai didn't exist. The Mountain Hounds that had been pursuing them took advantage of this fact and chose to use Shion and Kasai as bargaining chips, threatening to drop one after another down the well if Rika and Irie were not handed over. Rika chose to accept that deal in spite of Rena's protest, knowing that Takano would not kill her immediately and believing that her friends would save her from her fate. All Rena could do was promise that they would save her as she held back her tears.
Thanks to a small miracle Rika was saved by Akasaka and the group was able to reform in the basement to discuss their grand counterattack. It was decided that the club members would serve as a diversion unit in the hills, with Rika using the tracking device that had been put on Irie in order to ensure that the majority of the Mountain Hounds would follow them, while Irie, Kasai and Akasaka would go to the Irie Clinic to rescue Tomitake, who could then call the Watchdogs to suppress the Mountain Hounds. At the last minute Shion decided to go with Irie and the rest to rescue Tomitake. When Rena expressed concern Shion simply assured Rena that she wouldn't die even if they killed her and the exchanged high fives.
Rena's group, also known as the decoy group, stationed themselves at Satoko's hill. With Mion acting as their fearless leader, the group worked together and took advantage of their knowledge of the area in order to take down as many of the Mountain Hounds as possible by luring them into the traps that Satoko had set up over the years. As they took more of the units down the Mountain Hounds and the remaining units started to become fearful the group even engaged in psychological warfare.
It soon became apparent that the Mountain Hounds were fighting a losing battle, so much so that even their leader, Okonogi, realized it. Rather than continue their exercise in futility he ordered his remaining units to ease out before finding the shack that the club members were staying at. Once there Okonogi requested their leader, Mion. Soon after she'd stepped forward both the club members and the Mountain Hounds watched as the two leaders engaged in a dramatic battle that ended with a complete victory for the club members. Soon after the Watchdogs arrived, forcing the Mountain Hounds to retreat. The Watchdogs begged them not to say anything and of course they agreed--who could they talk to that would believe such a crazy story, anyway? The club members themselves, Rena included, thought that they might later think that all of this had been a dream.
With Takano's group defeated and the rescue group and Tomitake were confirmed to safe it seemed as though the nightmare was over, but fate had one more card to deal and soon after Rena and the rest realized that Hanyuu had gone missing; by the time they found her Takano was already pointing a gun at her. Takano demanded that Mion step forward. Mion complied, in spite of Rena's protesting, fully prepared to take a bullet if it meant protecting her club mates. The group could only watch in horror as Takano threatened to shoot if anyone were to move and as Mion gave what might have been her final orders to the club members.
Hanyuu stepped forward, shielding Mion and announcing that if a human sacrifice was necessary, then it would be her who would act as one. This time Takano didn't hesitate to pull the trigger, but then a peculiar thing happened--the bullet stopped just in front of Hanyuu's chest, almost as though she was protected by an invisible barrier; then Takano called her a monster, the barrier shattered, and time froze. The club members found themselves unable to move, as they had in the previous world before Keiichi was shot; no matter how much they screamed it wouldn’t change the fact that they would only be able to watch as their friend was shot.
What happened next was surely a miracle. In that space where time was frozen Rika was able to move forward and take the bullet. She announced to their group that after her thousand year journey the conclusion that she had come to was that this world didn't need a loser; her wish for a miracle, a complete world where everyone could be happy required no human sacrifice.
When time resumed they found that the bullet had missed, and also that the sound of the gunshot had attracted the attention of the Watchdogs, who then appeared to take Takano into custody. Tomitake stepped in to save her a moment later, directing their attention to the scratches on her body and suggesting that she may have been in the terminal phase of Hinamizawa Syndrome. It was significant because it meant that her actions might been the direct result of someone taking advantage of her delusional state, but in the meantime she would need to be hospitalized and have her actions monitored carefully.
After that everything was over and Rena and the others were able to resume their normal lives. They attended Watanagashi, visiting various stands and fooling around, and at the end they transferred their sins to the cotton and sent them floating down the river.