The next chapter will be the final chapter of Chapter Four.

Hello hello to all! Ah, summer. Summer means free time and free time means more SR! I hope you enjoy.

Chapter Text

Hinata didn’t see anyone within their immediate line of sight when they got back to the first island.

He looked wildly around before he went anywhere near the beach, and even ran ahead of Mioda for some distance in the opposite direction, just to make sure he wasn’t missing anyone. The announcement had to have played across the entire island, if it was anything like the others. But wherever the others were, either they hadn’t gotten back yet, or they were meeting somewhere else, or…

Or whatever the “or” could mean. It would do Hinata no earthly good to occupy himself worrying, when he couldn’t be sure. He ran back to Mioda, who’d followed him most of the way, panting with exertion. “No sign of anyone here yet,” he said. “Should we head to the hotel?”

Mioda, who had been looking off into the distance, took a second to come back to reality. “Ibuki doesn’t know if they’re there,” she said, “but she knows they’re coming here.”

Hinata wiped a layer of sweat off his forehead. Even if the sun was sinking in the sky, it only seemed to be getting hotter. “We don’t really have to wait here,” he said. “There’s still another hour…”

Mioda looked back over at the beach as Hinata spoke, and something in that move, even if she wasn’t conscious of it, pinched a nerve in his chest. “But we can if we want to,” he said quickly, hoping she couldn’t tell it’d been a second thought.

They walked back to the beach, which loomed larger and larger on the horizon until finally Hinata could feel the grains of sand making their way into his shoes. He stopped then, but Mioda kept going, walking down the path and into the sand, stopping only briefly to look left and right before she walked towards the ocean.

There wasn’t a single sign of the party she’d held there, four days and an eternity ago. They’d been very thorough in cleaning up; Monomi had made sure of that. He saw no debris from the fireworks, nothing anyone else had left behind, not even any indentations in the sand to mark where they’d sat…

But Hinata had a good idea of where everything had been. For a moment he resisted the urge to retrace steps, unwilling to face what would happen if he did, but he knew he had no other choice. He stepped down the path, down to the spot where he’d set up the fireworks – where he and Togami had set up the fireworks, he’d almost forgotten that. From there, from the distances to the palm trees on the opposite end of the beach, he could very nearly estimate where he’d been, and where the others had sat.

He stumbled across the sand to that spot, and set himself down. He didn’t know if he’d remembered right, but he knew he didn’t have to. His mind was filling in the blanks, and recreating the landscape as he remembered it, if there was anything in reality that didn’t match up. Like the size and shape of the dunes. Or the darkness of the sky or the roar of the fireworks in his ears as Nidai set them off...

Or any of them, as he’d fixed them in his mind. Saionji pulling on Tsumiki’s hair. Nanami listening raptly to Souda. Tanaka on the opposite end of the beach, looking back with what Hinata now realized was longing; Koizumi standing at the edge of the path and taking Kuzuryuu’s picture as he tried to hide behind the palm tree; Owari wandering away, disappearing into the distance…

And Togami, or the person that had used that name, looking up at the sky, mesmerized by the fireworks, lightly wrapping their arm around Mioda as she rested her head on their stomach... and then looking back, looking at Hinata, smiling at Hinata, communicating in a way that somehow no longer required words…

But did that have to be a memory? Or was Hinata only making up the second Mioda he could see in the distance, sitting and looking at the ocean by herself…?

“Get a hold of yourself,” he said aloud, burying his head in his knees so he wouldn’t have to look anymore. “There’s no one here.”

He sat in that position for what felt like an age, willing himself not to look up. This was ridiculous, he knew, and if anyone found him like this, they’d…

No, they wouldn’t make fun of him. But they’d be horrified, or angry that he was wasting time. They’d be just as hurt as he felt, and in any case he didn’t want to open his eyes and find out what he was or wasn’t going to see.

At one point he thought he heard footsteps. Was it Mioda, coming to join him? Or one of the others, just approaching him after they’d arrived? Either way, they might serve to bring him back into reality, and perhaps that was what he needed.

He looked up. And then a hand grabbed his arm, and another grabbed his mouth.

He moved as if to scream, but the grip was so tight that he couldn’t make a sound. His captor shoved him behind a nearby palm tree, then released him. In a second Mioda was by his side, also held by the shoulder and mouth.

Now that Hinata wasn’t captive himself, he could see who’d captured him, and even if he was surprised he knew it couldn’t have been anyone else.

“O-Owari!” he sputtered.

“AKANE-CHAN!” Mioda shouted, at the top of her lungs, before Owari clamped a hand over her mouth.

“Shh! Not yet!” Owari did a shoulder-check of the empty beach. “You’re gonna ruin my advantage!”

“Advantage –?!” Hinata could hardly believe what he was seeing. Owari looked an absolute and utter mess – her uniform was ripped in a dozen places, her hair was sticking up at odd angles, and dirt and sweat had been smeared over most of her skin. But there was a fire blazing in her eyes – the same fire he’d seen back at Chandler Beach. “Well, alright, but – where were you?! We’ve been –”

“Looking all over for you? Yeah, I know.” Owari released Mioda and scratched herself behind her ears. “Guess I should’ve said something after the announcement, but if I did you guys would just try and pull me back to the hotel.”

“Well, what do you think we’ve been doing?” Hinata sputtered. “The Impostor – they said if we didn’t find you –”

“I know! I just told you I heard!” For all her insistence on quiet, Owari’s volume was getting to a worrying level. “So what? Are you here to convince me to come back?”

“No, we’re here to take you back.”

It wasn’t Mioda speaking – it was Koizumi. Hinata spun to find himself at her eye level, with Saionji at her heels. He hadn’t heard either of them approach, although looking up he could see Nanami close behind her, followed by Kuzuryuu and Souda. She wasn’t looking at Hinata, though – her eyes were locked on Owari, and in the two weeks he’d known her, he’d never seen her so furious.

He could tell Owari thought the same – her grin was nervous more than anything else. “Uh, hey, Koizumi-chan –”

“I thought I told you we needed to stick together,” Koizumi said. “Why didn’t you listen to me?”

“And Hinata-kun, Mioda-san, what are you doing here?” Nanami didn’t look angry – but she did look disappointed. “Why didn’t you come and find us?”

Mioda tensed, and twisted her fingers together. “Ah, well. We tried to find everyone, but we figured that if this was where we were told to go –”

“But we weren’t,” Nanami said. “The announcement was a call-out, but it wasn’t an order.”

Hinata’s stomach twisted – he hated the looks on all their faces. “I wasn’t thinking of it as showing up to a fight,” he said, though he was realizing the folly of his actions. “And, anyway, we found Owari –”

“And we shouldn’t be acting rashly like this.” Koizumi grabbed Owari by the arm, just as she had the previous night. “If they want to kill one of us that bad, well – let them come and find us, but I’m – none of us are going to let you go into a fight you’re not going to win!”

“And what makes you think I’m not going to win?” Owari wrenched her arm out of Koizumi’s grasp, which was not a difficult feat. “I beat them last time, didn’t I? I can beat them again!”

“Yeah, but you beat them at an eating contest, stupid,” Saionji said.

“Yeah, t-this is totally different!” Souda said. “You don’t even know what you’re up against!”

“Yeah, I do.” Owari pounded her fist into her palm. “Sure, they have a lot of advantages I don’t. But if we’re just fighting hand to hand, it doesn’t matter!”

“Just fighting hand to hand?” Kuzuryuu said. “Who told you that?”

“They did,” Owari said. “I ran into them –”

“Wait, you RAN INTO them?” Hinata couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Where were they?”

“On the fifth island.” Owari pointed across the ocean, past the bridges. “It’s really different over there, too. All this smoke and broken down-machinery. Kinda reminded me of home a bit –”

“Back up a second,” Kuzuryuu said. “The fifth island is open!?”

“Yeah, and the fourth one, too,” Owari said. “I’ve been bouncing back and forth. One of the Monobeasts’s been smashed up, so the other one’s doing double duty. But it’s kinda like that smasher machine at license plate factories – you gotta wait til it’s gone to go through.”

“That – never mind. That doesn’t matter right now.” Koizumi lifted her arm again, as if to grab Owari’s, but this time she hesitated – and she even looked afraid. “Akane-chan – listen to me. You can’t do this. This is a suicide, and you know it!”

“Huh? No, I don’t, and neither do you.” Owari folded her arms. “You’re just assuming it is.”

“You don’t know what the Impostor is capable of, Owari-san,” Nanami said. “Everything that Monobear was, they could be now. And if you take them up on their challenge…”

“What, you think I was afraid of Monobear?” Owari said. “I wasn’t, and even if the Impostor is just the same now, I’m not afraid of them either.”

“You saw what they did to Nidai and Tanaka,” Hinata said. “You can’t seriously think of beating them, not when –”

“Of course I can!” Owari whirled on them. “The Future-whatever’s not here, and if we all just go back to the hotel and wait to get killed, then that’s what’s going to happen. If I don’t give this a shot, then we’re all going to die. For sure.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I’ll tell you one thing I don’t get, though. The Impostor…” She paused, thinking for a second before she spoke again. “They’re different from before. I mean, they look different. It’s…” She screwed her eyes shut, and shook her head. “I don’t know how to describe it. It doesn’t matter.”

“Doesn’t matter?” Mioda said, sounding surprised. “But how does Akane-chan not know how to describe someone?”

“It’s almost six,” Owari said, as if Mioda hadn’t spoken. She put her Electronic Student ID back in the waistband of her skirt, and started stretching her arms. “They’ll be here any minute –”

“Owari-san!” Nanami stepped forward, past Koizumi, looking Owari directly in the eye. She took a long pause before she spoke again. “Don’t you remember the rule?” she said. “The one that says that you’ll die if you attack them?”

“Nanami...” For just a second, Owari seemed to hesitate, and Hinata could almost believe she was going to turn back. But then she smirked. “Of course. Old man Nidai drilled that into my head already. But I only have to worry about that if I lose.”

“Owari-san, NO!” Nanami and Koizumi stepped forward at the same time, but Owari had already walked out from behind the palm trees. From there Nanami didn’t dare follow her, and neither did Koizumi, or anyone else.

=====

Owari stepped out to the middle of the beach, just between the path and the palm grove. She smacked her hands together, pummeling her fist against her palm. “HEY!” she shouted, looking back and forth. “Impostor! Or whoever you are!”

She paused, but there was no response – not from the monitor and not from anywhere else. Hinata didn’t see a single thing move, or anyone coming up in the distance. “All that talk and you’re really not gonna come out?” Owari balled her hands into fists. “The old man never stood down from a fight, y’know? Even when he was losing, he wasn’t a coward!”

The beach sat empty and still. If anyone was listening, they showed no sign of having heard. Next to his shoulder Hinata could see Koizumi’s hands trembling, and could hear the cold, constant clatter of her teeth, but she didn’t dare move, and neither did anyone else. Saionji was curled into a ball at Koizumi’s feet, her hands over her eyes, Kuzuryuu was glaring down at his bandaged hands, and Nanami… she was forcing herself to look, but Hinata could see the fear in her eyes…

“So that’s how you are, huh?” Owari cracked her knuckles, first on one hand, then the other. “You already know there’s no winning by default!”

Hinata could barely stand to look anymore. “I don’t understand,” he said. “If they’re not going to face her the way they said, then…”

“Then they’re going to cheat? Is that what you’re thinking?”

“I…” Hinata turned to Koizumi. “I don’t know, but we still don’t know if…”

He stopped when he realized Koizumi was staring blankly at him. “If…what?” she said.

“If they might just…kill her,” Hinata said, mouthing the last two words. “Wasn’t that what you were saying?”

“Hinata, I didn’t say…” Koizumi’s eyes went wide, and her face blanched in shock. Behind you, she mouthed.

“Huh?” Hinata whipped his head around – just in time to see Mioda, Nanami, and Souda jumping back from the person who, until a few seconds ago, had been shoulder to shoulder with Hinata. He knew in an instant who it was; not only from their body, but from the look on Mioda’s face.

But how did they get here without anyone seeing? he thought. And how in the hell did I mistake their voice for Koizumi’s?!

“HEY!” he shouted, but the Impostor didn’t turn back to him, or to anyone else who’d called out – they stepped out from between the palm trees and set off across the beach. Hinata had been well within distance to grab them, though of course he hadn’t dared – but now his legs seemed to be moving on their own, and they were running away from the trees, and across the beach, out to where Owari had placed herself.

He only got a few paces beyond the palm trees before he felt a rough jerk at his shoulder, forcing him to come to a stop. He looked down to find Nanami at his side, staring up at him.

“We’re staying here,” she said. “We can’t do anything right now.”

Hinata couldn’t speak – he could only nod, and look back. He was the only one who’d run out, and only Koizumi and Kuzuryuu were still visible behind the trees. But he wasn’t about to move again. He wasn’t going to retreat, and if Nanami was going to hold him back, then so be it.

The Impostor moved to place themselves with their back to the water, facing Owari, whose back had been to the path. “It’s only just now six o’clock,” they said, stepping into position. “If I’m a coward, then you’re a fool for not taking the extra time.”

If Owari was at all surprised to see them, then she’d taken great care not to show it. “What do I care about time? I’ve wasted enough!” She slammed her hands together. “What are you waiting for now?”

“Only for you to start,” they said. Owari had been right about the Impostor. Their appearance… it wasn’t that it was outlandish, or that he couldn’t find the words to describe it. He couldn’t realize a fully accurate picture of them in his mind at all. He’d never experienced anything like it before, unless the experience could be likened to looking directly into the sun and seeing spots at the corners of his vision.

Details did come through, little by little. Something about their hair wasn’t what it’d been before. The color was darker, and the length was different. And their voice, their voice was different too – the tone had shifted, and the cadences were rougher. The shirt was the same – a white-button down – but even then something about it was still…

He couldn’t watch for long. Owari flew forward, blurring Hinata’s view, her fist aimed directly at the Impostor’s face.

Their arm flew up, blocking hers, and she was knocked back across the beach – but she crouched, braced for the impact, and then jumped back up, and raced forward with all she had.

From there, the flurry of the battle went so fast Hinata could barely follow it. She punched, they dodged; they charged, she sidestepped; she kicked, they grabbed and they threw; she fell and she stumbled again and Hinata could see the raw pink marks on her thighs from where the sand had scraped them, but she still got up, and she still ran back. They exchanged no words, and they hardly even made any sound, but neither of them seemed to tire, and neither of them showed any break in their resolve.

Every bone in Hinata’s body was telling him to do something. To run in. To interfere. It was the hardest thing in the world to accept that he couldn’t. That the difference between life and death lay beyond him, and that it might even hinge on a split second.

He could focus on the others, but there wasn’t much more he could do for them either. Koizumi was even more far gone than he was – she couldn’t take her eyes off the fight, and her face was still bone-white. “She’s dead,” she said. “She’s going to die…”

“Not if she wins.” Kuzuryuu’s voice was toneless; he sounded like he didn’t entirely believe in what he was saying.

“But… can she win?” Souda, Hinata noticed, had moved to stand directly behind him. “I mean…they’re…they’re the way they are...”

“If you think about it, her odds are pretty good,” Hinata said. “She’s a trained gymnast, and they’re…” He looked back up at the fight. “They’re…evenly matched…”

“She’s not going to win.” Hinata was surprised he could hear Nanami at all. Perhaps it was only because she was still standing close, and holding him by the arm – now with her nails digging into his flesh. “This was a losing battle from the beginning.”

“Nanami?” Hinata said, but Nanami didn’t answer. She let go of his shoulder, and turned away, as if to pretend she hadn’t spoken. But he couldn’t get her words out of her mind. He remembered the swirling shapes above Nidai’s head, and in the back of his mind he wondered if she really did have a chance.

He realized he hadn’t heard Saionji or Mioda speak. Saionji was standing not far from Koizumi, looking extremely agitated. Had she sensed Koizumi’s distress? Was she simply too afraid of the situation at hand to assert herself at all? Those were the only two guesses he could make about someone he barely understood. And Mioda…she was standing far away from the entire group, following every one of the Impostor’s movements with her eyes, never daring to look away, hardly seeming to blink, and muttering to herself, under her breath, as if she were saying what she was thinking aloud only to herself.

And now things were starting to change. They both appeared to be tiring. They were missing shots they shouldn’t have missed, and letting in blows they could easily have avoided. He could see both of their chests heaving, and sweat glistening on their faces, but even then there was no talk of giving in, not even as a taunt.

But as the minutes went by, even when the punches connected they didn’t seem to be doing much damage. Owari’s nose was bleeding profusely, the Impostor had a black eye swelling on their left side, and both their legs were purple with bruises, just to start. But they’d been sustained at the beginning, and they were taking their toll over time.

Owari aimed for the face again, but only barely connected with the nose before the Impostor shoved her back. She kicked, they shoved, she lunged, they blocked. Hinata had never seen Owari look so worn out, never seen her truly struggle with any kind of physical task. Even if she had a will, Hinata wasn’t sure she had a way… but her will was still strong, and her will was propelling her forward…

But then, she didn’t. She hesitated for longer than Hinata had expected her to, clutching her shoulder, teasing her fingers against her bruises, looking the Impostor dead in the eyes. All the while they stared down at her from their height, their expression stone. Her shoulders heaved, and she lunged again –

But then the Impostor’s arm flew forward, with inhuman speed, and their hand closed around her flying fist, stopping it in its tracks. Her eyes went wide, and she pushed hard against them, and for the first time in the fight she called out in a wordless yell. But they didn’t move, and she was rapidly wasting her energy.

“You’re not conceding defeat,” the Impostor said, straightening their back. Then, without warning, they kicked Owari in the gut with a speed and strength they’d all thought they no longer had, sending her flying into the sand.

Hinata’s screams mixed with the rest. Owari landed some distance from them, so they stepped forward, cracking their knuckles. For the first time in the fight he got a good look at their face – but even then, had he only imagined the sweat, the heaving, or the black eye? Because either he had, or they’d disappeared in an instant. But that was impossible – there was no way he could get himself to accept that…

“You’re not going to beat me,” they said as they approached. Owari didn’t answer – she was just getting to her hands and knees. She was shaking, and only making progress by halves – but she was moving. “I agreed to fight you, hand to hand. I didn’t agree that would make us evenly matched.”

For a second Hinata feared they’d kick her again, but they didn’t. “It was never a fair fight,” they said. “Did you not realize that? Are you really so thickheaded you’ll –”

“You don’t get it.”

Owari lifted her head, and pulled herself to her feet. Her legs were shaking, her body was at its limit – but she was still standing. “I’m not…gonna lose,” she said. “I can’t. And I’m not.”

“What…?” Koizumi’s voice was small and still in the ensuing silence. “What… what does she mean, she’s…”

“That’s the same as saying you’ve lost.” The Impostor fixed her with steely precision. “What are you trying to do?”

Owari laughed, weakly, painfully. “If I’d just listened… if I’d gone with Koizumi and everyone else, and I’d just run and hid… then I’d be the one who’d lost. You would’ve killed one of the others, or me before I could fight…”

“No,” Hinata said, speaking under his breath. He looked around at the others, whose eyes were just as wide – with awe, or with terror, or with despair, he had no way of telling. “That’s not…that’s not worth –”

“So it doesn’t matter whether I could win or not,” Owari went on. “If I knew I couldn’t, that’d be different, but still…” She laughed again. “Old man Nidai… either way, I still got your revenge…”

But he wouldn’t want her to do this, Hinata thought. He’d want to get her as far away from this as possible. He gave his life so she could live…

“So that’s it,” the Impostor said. “That’s how it is…”

For a moment, they remained still – but then they began to tremble, and their face contorted, twisting into a look of disgust. “Then… then all this time, and all this despair, and you still aren’t going to – RAAAAGGGHHH!”

With a roar they thrust their arms out in front of them, and the next thing Hinata could comprehend was a burst of light over his vision. He didn’t know if it was some kind of reflection off the bridge, or if his eyes really weren’t deceiving him, and there was some kind of beam of energy shooting from the Impostor’s hands…

And then the light died down, and Hinata could see in front of him again. Owari’s expression hadn’t changed. She still held her arm across her body, and her face was frozen in a smirk. But a perfectly round hole had been burned through the top of her chest, straight through her heart – and without the will remaining to hold them up, her legs were beginning to shake.

Her body fell to its knees, then dropped to its side, without a single twitch or other sign that she’d somehow made it out alive. She didn’t bleed, but only because whatever it was that had made the hole had also cauterized the wound.

=====

“OWARI!!”

Hinata charged ahead of the rest, his vision blurring and stinging as his sweat flew into his eyes. He was closely followed by Nanami, but as he approached Owari’s body Koizumi pushed him aside. She knelt above Owari’s head and pulled her up onto her lap, and though her back was turned Hinata could see her shoulders heaving up and down, and her hands shaking as they drummed against her arms.

“No…” she was repeating, over and over. “No, no, no no no, you idiot…”

She didn’t say anything else, and she didn’t move. She could have hunched over in despair, or she could have screamed and cried and lashed out in some way – but if her thoughts were anything like Hinata’s, then she knew neither of those things would satisfy her, and nor would they bring Owari back.

Saionji was standing near her, staring fixedly at Owari’s frozen face and hugging herself across her chest, at the level of her heart. The rest of them stood some distance back, but not too far – apart from Kuzuryuu, who had stopped far enough out that Hinata couldn’t read his face. Nanami still clutched Hinata’s arm. Souda stood hunched, his hands clamped tight over his mouth. And Mioda stood some distance away from them all, looking back and forth between the girl on the ground and…

And the Impostor, who stood across the beach, watching them. Their arms were extended in front of their body, their palms open as if in giving, and their entire body seemed to be heaving and shaking with exertion, or some other kind of distress.

“And that’s it,” they said, struggling to speak through their own laughter. “That’s all it is, that’s all there is… all the reasons in the world to give up, to acknowledge she couldn’t win… ”

“Shut up,” Souda said, starting at a whisper and getting louder. “Shut up, shut up, shut UP –”

“But isn’t it worse that she didn’t wait for you?” they said, lowering their arms and looking up at the sky. It was clear that whoever they were talking to, it wasn’t them. “Is the hope of victory the product of the despair of abandonment? Could the despair of having the despair that you can’t control take over the despair that you were expecting?”

Hinata expected someone to run forward. Someone to shout an insult, someone to take Owari’s place in the fight or attempt to avenge her. But Owari had run that impulse out. They’d all seen what would happen. They couldn’t even tell themselves that they could tough the Impostor anymore.

“Six twenty-four,” they went on. Their voice was slowing down, and drawing itself out. “It’s a while before the deadline, but I told you that I’d kill them at any time. It didn’t have to be anywhere near ten o’clock. Even if you’re the slightest bit late in the morning, I could always cut to the chase…”

“SHUT UP!” Souda shouted, clutching at his head.

“Yeah, GO ON!” the Impostor shouted back, snapping their head back. “Scream if that’s the only despair you have to give!”

A wicked grin spread across their face, and one look was enough to stop Souda in his tracks. “What? What are you stopping for? Keep going! Scream, or I’ll kill you! Scream at me if you’re stupid enough! Beg me for mercy if you’re stupid enough! Appeal to my humanity if you’re stupid enough! What the fuck are you waiting for, huh?!”

An odd change came over Souda’s face – far from looking afraid, he looked confused. His mouth was open, and he could have screamed – but somehow he no longer could. Instead, Saionji screamed, looking more like she was forcing it out to keep from dying than anything else.

“Ah…you can stop, now. That was all a joke, actually.” Their voice dropped to almost a whisper, and they tugged at their hair. “As it turns out, as soon as you order someone to despair, that despair becomes fake, tarnished, weak, unusable. The true despair in this situation comes out of their silence – HEY, I TOLD YOU TO FUCKING STOP!”

Saionji slowed to a stop, shaking in surprise. Or so Hinata thought, as far as he could tell. He could hardly look at her, not without looking down at Owari, and when he looked down at Owari he felt his blood boiling under his skin.

“This isn’t right,” he said, mumbling at first, and then speaking more loudly. “This shouldn’t be happening. You shouldn’t be doing this -”

“…Huuuuh? I shouldn’t be doing what?” The Impostor pressed their finger to the side of their lips, and stared Hinata down with an unthinkable intensity. “I shouldn’t be ‘killing’? I shouldn’t be ‘following my own rules’? Is that what you’re going to say? There’s not anything else you had in mind, right? Because if there is, I don’t want to hear it.”

“You still killed her,” Koizumi said, pulling herself to her feet. She wasn’t shouting, or trying to start a confrontation – but then, she wasn’t saying anything they didn’t already know. “You killed her – after you promised her a fair fight –”

“I shouldn’t be wasting my time on this,” they went on. “Not when the Future Foundation isn’t taking any of your despair to heart. You know that, don’t you?” They looked back up at the sky. “I could put all of this to a stop at any time. Any minute. Any second. It’s your insistence on not arriving that’s keeping this game going –”

“That’s not going to work, Impostor-san.” Nanami released her grip on Hinata’s shoulder, and stepped in front of him, blocking him from the Impostor’s view. “You’re reusing Monobear’s tactics, you know? You’re trying to make us doubt something we don’t know anything about, and shifting the blame off yourself …”

Hinata heard Mioda drawing breath from just next to his ear. He turned to find her staring, mouth open, moving her lips as if she were speaking, but making no actual sound. If the Impostor had taken notice of this, they showed no sign. “But does that matter in the end?” they said, tugging at their hair again. “If you believe what you say, and you trust in them so much… then where are they? Can you answer that, Nanami-chan?”

Nanami’s lip trembled. “They’re…they’re coming.”

“You don’t sound very con-fi-dent –”

“I have faith in them,” Nanami interrupted. “I know they’ll come.”

“You ‘know’…” Their voice trailed off again. “But I know that you can’t know for sure. And isn’t that more properly ‘hope’?”

Nanami remained still, and she did not reply. The Impostor stood their ground for some seconds, and then they started moving, pacing back and forth, looking each of them over, again and again, each time with an increasingly odd half-interest…

And then they stopped, and lingered on Mioda. For ten agonizing seconds they caught her gaze and held it. They didn’t blink, and their hair didn’t even seem to move in the breeze. Mioda’s lip trembled, but the Impostor remained still, as though she had not moved.

“You –” she started, but then they turned their head, putting her entirely out of their vision. “I wonder if you’ll have them with you when I see you again,” they said, before, in a blink, they were gone.

Before Hinata could even begin to wonder how they could’ve disappeared, he heard a series of shouts from behind his back. He turned to find the others gathered around Koizumi, who was crouching, mouth agape, at the top of the empty patch of sand where, just minutes earlier, Owari’s body had lain.

=====

“She’s gone,” Nanami said. “Owari’s gone!”

“But where did she go?” Hinata said. Even as he said it, he didn’t feel like he was able to process the proper level of shock. He felt as though all the blood and adrenaline in his body had rushed into his head at once, and rest of his body felt remarkably light, as though it had ceased to exist altogether. “Who could’ve taken her? And how?”

“M-maybe this is a good thing!” Mioda said, looking unsure of herself even as she spoke. “M-maybe she got back up again, and –”

“That’s not funny,” Koizumi snapped, stopping Mioda’s words in their tracks. “How can you joke about something like this!?”

“Mahiru-chan…” Mioda took a step closer to Koizumi, then thought better of it. “Ibuki wasn’t trying to be funny, she was…” Her voice trailed off as it became clear to her that Koizumi wasn’t going to turn around. “Never mind.”

No one moved, and no one spoke, not for a long time. Saionji shook where she stood, Nanami hung her head, and Souda clenched and unclenched his fists, looking both terrified and frustrated. “We should’ve done something,” he said, a tremor of fear returning to his voice. “We should’ve … why the hell was I just screaming…”

“What would we have done, though?” Hinata hated to hear himself say it.

“We already knew we couldn’t beat them with blunt force.” Koizumi said. “And even if Akane-chan hadn’t done this…”

“We’re all still going to die. She killed herself for nothing.” Kuzuryuu didn’t look at her as he spoke. “You’re thinking it. We all are.”

“Shut up,” Koizumi said, but there was no energy in the response, not even any anger. “It doesn’t matter.”

“No, it does matter.” Nanami stepped past Hinata to stand between Koizumi and Kuzuryuu. “We’re not going to be stuck in this forever. The Future Foundation, we all know they’re coming –”

“We don’t know that,” Kuzuryuu said, rounding on Nanami in anger. “So stop saying we do!”

“Kuzuryuu…” Koizumi gritted her teeth. Hinata had never seen her look so defeated. “There really is nothing else we can do but wait,” she said. “And if they don’t come…”

“Hey, no!” Saionji grabbed at Koizumi’s arm, pulling her back to face her. “We’re not gonna die, you already said!”

“They are gonna come,” Mioda mumbled. “And no one else is gonna die, not Ibuki or anyone else…”

“I know that, I know…but…” Koizumi turned away again, balling her hands into fists. “Let’s…”

She didn’t finish her sentence, and none of the others finished it for her. Kuzuryuu didn’t even have a retort, beyond the shaking of his hands. It was as though they were still under the Impostor’s eye, and they were still talking to them, shouting over them, emphasizing just what they’d gotten themselves into. He didn’t want to admit he’d lost his hope. He could tell the others didn’t, either. But could he honestly lie to himself like that? Could he really believe that there was anywhere else to turn? Or anything else he could do but wait for a help that might not come? And worse still…if they all gave up on hope, would they tear themselves apart?

Is this our message to the outside? he thought. Can they hear us? Do they know what we’re experiencing? Wherever they are… do they really know or care what’s happening?

He felt his vision blurring, but it wasn’t the kind of blur, all too familiar now, that came with a flow of tears. It was something inside, something that was making his head feel like it was lurching back and forth, even when he was standing still. Was he going to be sick? No, this was different…

This was worse. He could feel himself losing his sense of where he was. He didn’t want to pass out, he couldn’t pass out, but he also couldn’t stay awake. He had to be alert, he had to stay on task… But something seemed to be pulling him away from the moment, and the voices around him felt as though they were blurring at the edges…

He fell to his knees, and had the vaguest feeling that he’d caught the others’ attention, and that they were yelling his name. He tried to call out to them, to tell them that he was okay… but he couldn’t move his mouth or keep his eyes open, and once he closed them he knew no more.

=============================================

“Hinata-kun? Hinata-kun!”

Nanami ran to Hinata’s side as soon as she saw him drop. She placed one hand at the bottom of his stomach and the other behind his head in an attempt to pull him back up, while Mioda and Koizumi held him from the other side. His eyes were still open, but they were glassy and unseeing, and all they got out of him was a moan before his head dropped and his body slumped.

“Water – someone get some water!” Nanami shouted back at the rest.

Kuzuryuu looked briefly at the ocean, then right back at Hinata. “With what?”

“One second, one second!” Mioda let Hinata’s head go, leaving Nanami and Koizumi to struggle to set him down, and pulled the Four Dark Gods of Destruction out of her Monobear tote. “Ibuki’ll be back in a flash –”

“No, I’ll get it!” Kuzuryuu ran forward, wrapped his arms around the Monobear tote, pulled it out of Ibuki’s hands, and sped for the ocean.

“Fuyuhiko-chan?” Mioda shrugged, and then turned back to Hinata. “HEY! HAJIME-CHAN!” She grabbed him by the lapels and shook him back and forth violently, but this did nothing to bring him out of his stupor.

“Mioda-san, that’s not going to work!” Nanami grabbed Mioda by the shoulder. “We should wait for Kuzuryuu-kun to come back –”

She was cut off when Saionji pushed past her and slapped Hinata full across the face. But there was no response – he didn’t even groan. “Saionji-san!” Nanami said, indignant.

“What? That’s all I wanted to do,” Saionji said, stepping back.

Nanami gritted her teeth, and looked back at Hinata. “Well, he’s breathing,” she said. “If the water doesn’t work, we should get him inside, or get something from the supermarket…”

“But what’s going on with him?” Souda crouched by the top of Hinata’s head, looking into his closed eyes. “He was just fine a second ago…”

“I didn’t think he’d be making a scene now.” Koizumi folded her arms, and looked away from Hinata. “Typical, unreliable Hinata-kun. Always making everything more difficult for everyone else…”

“We should just leave him until he wakes up on his own,” Saionji said.

“That’s not what I was saying,” Koizumi said, more for Nanami’s benefit than for Saionji’s. “Let’s just – never mind.” She looked out across the beach. “Where’d Kuzuryuu go?”

Souda scanned the coastline. “Uh…he’s…far away, where he should be.”

“I can’t even see what he’s doing,” Koizumi stood, and cupped her hand around her mouth. “HEY, HURRY UP –”

“Wait, look!” Mioda pointed down at Hinata. “Ibuki thinks Hajime-chan’s coming to!”

Koizumi dropped down in an instant, joining the others as they gathered around Hinata. His eyes were still closed, but his arms were moving, and his hands were feeling their way through the sand.

“Hinata-kun!” Nanami said. “Are you alright? Can you stand?”

“Did Hajime-chan get sand in his eyes?” Mioda tapped her hand against her chin.

There was no way Hinata couldn’t have heard them, but he didn’t react to their words at all. Instead, he rose to a sitting position, then pulled himself up on his hands and knees, and stood still in the center of the group.

“Hinata-kun?” Nanami’s face was crossed with confusion and worry. “Are you really feeling okay?”

Hinata ignored Nanami entirely, and remained standing still. Koizumi bit at her lip, hoping her nerves weren’t showing through too strongly. “Well, if you can stand,” she said, “we should probably get inside. Or to the supermarket, we can get some water there –”

SPLASH! Koizumi been so focused on Hinata that she hadn’t seen Kuzuryuu return with the rapidly-leaking tote-full of water hanging from his wrist until he’d sloshed the remains of it across the back of Hinata’s shirt. The others’ eyes widened with surprise, but Kuzuryuu simply shrugged. “I got it,” he said, before nonchalantly extending the soaking-wet bag to Mioda.

“Er…” Koizumi gave Kuzuryuu a look, but she still didn’t want to hold his attention for too long – so she gave it to Hinata, instead. “Does that help?”

Hinata didn’t respond, and didn’t even have any kind of reflexive reaction to having water dumped on him. But after several seconds of standing so still he hardly seemed to be breathing, he started to move. He walked away from the group, almost plowing through Kuzuryuu on the way, and headed up the beach at a fairly brisk pace.

“Hey –” At first Kuzuryuu looked annoyed, but then he saw Hinata’s face, and his eyes bugged out of his head. “Is he still asleep?”

“I have no idea,” Nanami said, taking a few steps forward. “Hinata-kun! Where are you going?”

“Hinata!” Souda took off ahead of Nanami, clutching his chest as he went. Running as fast as he could, it took him several seconds to catch up and grab Hinata by the arm. “You’re kinda weirdin’ me out –”

Hinata wrenched himself from Souda’s grip and continued on at the same pace. Souda stumbled backward, clutching at his chest. “HEY!” he yelled back, once he’d gotten his breath. “Th-the hell do you think you’re doing? This isn’t funny!”

Hinata continued up the path without looking back. Nanami stared after him for a moment, tapping her trembling lower lip, before she turned back to the rest. “We need to follow him,” she said. “Come on!”

She took several steps backward towards Souda and the path, but only Mioda ran to join her, skidding to a stop at her feet. Koizumi and Saionji stayed still, with Kuzuryuu standing just behind them. “Well-” Kuzuryuu gritted his teeth. “How do we know this isn’t another trap?”

“We…we don’t,” Nanami said. “But we don’t have a choice.”

She took off without another word from the others, but the sound of footsteps in the sand told her they were all close behind. She still looked back to make sure; not only was she correct, but Koizumi had come forward to join her and Mioda.

By the time they caught up to Hinata he’d left the beach, and was heading for the bridge to the central island. His eyes were still closed, and his pace still somewhat faster than the rest of them. “I don’t understand,” Koizumi said, narrowing her eyes. “Where does he think he’s going?”

“He’s going crazy,” Saionji said.

“Or maybe he’s cursed by the spirits of the dead…” Mioda hugged the Four Dark Gods of Destruction closer to her chest.

“We don’t know,” Nanami said, as they crossed the threshold of the bridge. “And we can’t make any assumptions until –”

“They may think they’ve considered everything.”

Nanami skidded to a stop. It was Hinata’s voice, she could tell, even when he wasn’t facing her. He’d stopped in the middle of the bridge, and was now looking up at the sky, even though his eyes were still closed.

“Er,” Koizumi said, her voice barely audible. “Hinata…?”

“They may think they’ve mastered all that they have and that they can’t understand,” the voice went on. “That if they can take despair’s name and they can wear despair’s face, then they can embody despair, and take charge of despair’s destruction…”

“What…” Kuzuryuu looked rapidly back and forth, and then met Souda’s eyes. “What the hell’s going on…?”

“That’s not his voice,” Souda said, staring wide-eyed at his friend. “A-and I’ve heard him say a lot of weird stuff, but this…”

“But the bounds of this world and the bounds of the world outside are not for hope or despair to take. They may press against each other and they may fight and they may consider themselves opposites….”

For once in his life Souda was right, Koizumi thought. It wasn’t Hinata’s voice. Its tone was soft and slow, where Hinata’s voice had been sharp and fast. If Hinata had been deliberately faking the voice he might have been able to recreate the sound, but Koizumi didn’t think he’d go to those lengths. Unreliable as he’d be in the worst moments, he could always be counted on to be genuine, and clear, and steadfast…

“But until the ultimate hope can form and show itself, the only thing their despair can be is an imperfect force cowering in fear.” Hinata’s voice trailed off, and then, just as suddenly as he’d stopped, he started moving again.

The rest of them looked back at each other, but they didn’t stop to work out what he’d just said – they continued on behind him. All they had was the wordless understanding among themselves and with the “sleepwalking” Hinata – they had to follow, if only until they could catch him.

He led them across the bridge, and around the perimeter of the first island, all without looking back or making another sound. Any attempts they made to try and get ahead of him only resulted in him walking faster, and after the second attempt Saionji complained that her feet were hurting and she didn’t want to try again. Koizumi concurred – mostly because, if Saionji were to grow tired, she feared that she might want to be carried.

As they passed the remains of Monobear Rock, a thought entered Nanami’s mind. The Impostor. If they had the power that she thought them to have – that she knew them to have – they must have seen that this was happening. And if so, where were they? Weren’t they the least bit concerned, or at least just as frightened? She couldn’t say for certain what had come over Hinata. But she hoped against hope that it wasn’t a repeat of the past.

The humidity seemed to thicken with every step, even as the sun went down. In the distance the buildings of the third island shimmered in the haze – or was it something else? None of them wanted to think of that. But just as the fourth island bridge was coming into sight, where the moisture was at its greatest, Hinata stopped again, and turned to face them. His eyes were still closed, and water still dripped from his shirt. He held out his arm, with his palm directed toward them.

The message was clear: stay here. They all obeyed without a word, except for Kuzuryuu. “Oy, Hinata, this isn’t funny anymore,” he said. “Spill the beans or – HEY!”

Hinata turned away from Kuzuryuu in mid-sentence and continued up the path. Kuzuryuu continued calling after Hinata until it was clear he wasn’t coming back, but before he could comment on that, Mioda pushed past him. Her face was lined with shock; Nanami had never, not once, seen her look so upset. “Hajime-chan!” she shouted. “The Monobeast –”

CLOMP. CLOMP. CLOMP.

A loud, mechanical noise grew louder and louder –and Hinata took off at a run for the bridge. Just as he’d crossed the planks, an enormous mechanical horse leapt into view, and dropped with an earth-shattering THUD across the entryway to the fourth island bridge. They could see Hinata still running across the boards, until, as the bridge disappeared into the distance, he was out of sight. The horse remained by the bridge for several minutes, and then turned to CLOMP back the way it had come.

“H-Hajime-chan avoided it…” Mioda sported a shaking grin, and then stepped back, holding the Four Dark Gods of Destruction close to her chest. Nanami couldn’t always predict what Mioda was thinking, but her body language spoke volumes. She was beyond exhausted of having close friends act in ways she didn’t understand, too.

They waited by the bridge for a long, long time. Every few minutes the beast would come back, cast its glance around, and then leap back again, but it never gave them any notice, not as long as they didn’t move. The sun sank lower in the sky, and the sound of cicadas filled the air, making the hairs on the backs of all of their necks stand up and adding another dimension to the emptiness.

“T-this is bullshit,” Kuzuryuu said suddenly. “We gotta get out of here –”

“Hey, quiet,” Koizumi said. “We have to wait.”

“Why? Cause Hinata said so?” Kuzuryuu gestured wildly at Saionji before putting his hand to his head. “It’s like you said, he’s lost it.”

“We’re safe as long as we stay here,” Nanami said. “I…I think…”

Kuzuryuu gritted his teeth, and kicked at the ground – but only once. Then he sat down on the path, and several of the others followed suit. Mioda sat with her back to the rest, holding on to the Four Dark Gods of Destruction for dear life. Saionji rested her head on Koizumi’s lap, and in the back of her mind she wished she wouldn’t. Nanami and Souda remained standing, staring at the path. Souda was shaking, but Nanami was standing still.

The humidity didn’t let up, not even when the air fell heavy and wet on their shoulders, and they’d sweated through almost every inch of their clothes. Kuzuryuu had pulled his suit jacket off, and was just attempting to rub it across his face with his arm when he paused. “Hey,” he said. “Do you hear that?”

Nanami started, and then looked back. “Hear what?” she said. “The cicadas?”

“No, not them… I’m not the only one hearing this, right…?” Kuzuryuu lifted his bandaged hand up to his face, and then held it over his mouth.

“No, it’s something…” Souda’s fingers twitched across the sides of his arms. “Something like…like a voice, it’s…” His eyes went wide as well, and he said nothing else. Nanami looked around at each of them in turn, very confused, as they all turned their heads back and forth and then froze.

At first Koizumi thought she’d been left out as well, that she’d somehow missed what this voice could be – but then she heard something, the vaguest of impressions, as though it were only being spoken in her mind. But they were familiar, terribly familiar, and the thought of them chilled her. Koizumi, she could imagine they were saying. Koizumi-san…

“I don’t want this anymore,” Saionji said, shuddering. “I don’t…”

“Quiet, quiet,” Mioda said. “Ibuki can’t hear them anymore…”

“They’re…you’re right, she’s gone…” Kuzuryuu shook his head rapidly. “No, that can’t be, she’s…”

And then his voice died in his mouth. Hinata was coming back, starting as a pinprick on the horizon and growing larger as he grew closer. His eyes were still closed, but now he was holding something large and green across the top of his shoulder. At first Koizumi couldn’t tell what it was – and then she recognized something she’d seen a hundred times before, in all her mother’s old war photographs.

“A bazooka,” Souda mouthed, and then spoke louder: “That’s a fucking bazooka!”

The rest of them looked at each other, then back at Hinata. They hardly knew which strange thing to focus on first – but now that whatever had happened had stopped, if it was ever anything but a hallucination, the top priority was clear. “HINATA!” Koizumi shouted. “What the hell – HEY!”

Hinata stopped, beckoned briefly to them, and then ran back to the bridge at breakneck speed. “Hajime-chan’s heading for the fourth island!” Mioda said. “At least that’s Ibuki’s guess based on the things she doesn’t want to do –”

“But we’re not going to let him take off with it by himself!” Souda said. “Come on!”

Koizumi very highly doubted that Souda’s presence would make a difference. He was very quickly tiring – the brisk pace was the last thing he needed in his condition – but now that the firearm was involved he took off even before Nanami, pushed forward by adrenaline if nothing else. There was no other question – they had to follow.

The Monobeast CLOMPED past them on one occasion, but as long as it didn’t directly catch them trying to enter one of the islands it paid them no mind. The shaking of the ground nearly knocked Saionji off her feet, but as long as Koizumi held on to her, she was able to stay steady.

Just as Mioda had predicted, Hinata stopped at the fourth island bridge. He looked to his left, then his right, and given that the Monobeast was nowhere in sight, he charged ahead, just across the threshold, and then turned back again. He held out an arm to them, beckoning them ahead with a speed that communicated his urgency.

“I’m not doing it,” Saionji said.

“We have to,” Nanami said. “Before the Monobeast comes back.”

“I’M NOT GOING –” Koizumi scooped Saionji into her arms, cutting her off mid-sentence, and charged ahead before she could get too scared to go herself.

The rest of them quickly followed suit. Souda was the last one to reach the bridge, and just as he did, the Monobeast pounced behind him. Then it turned and CLOMPED away again, without having caught a single one of them.

=============================================

The fourth island met their eyes with a flash of color and sound.

It appeared to be set up like an amusement park, given the tents, the stalls, and the midway rides they could see poking up in the distance. This, Nanami knew, was where Monomi would have taken them to see, if the third trial had gone as planned. But now it felt as though they were treading on forbidden ground, and that anything at all could try to stop them from going on. But while the place was certainly strange – Nanami could swear they’d passed the same rollercoaster three times – it was not, for the moment, threatening them, and nor was it hiding the Impostor behind any of its many structures.

Hinata stayed several steps in front of them, leading the way through the endless twists and turns of the park. The RPG sat on his left shoulder, its barrel bouncing slightly with every step he took. Nanami followed its every movement with her eyes, as did every one of the others.

As they walked across the park, a large castle loomed in the distance. It was all white stone, with several streamers flying across its ramparts, and it stood out from everything else in the park in that it wasn’t lit up like the rest of the buildings. As they grew closer they could see an entryway in front of it, topped with a dim cartoon caricature of a mouse, leading to a very large and very sturdy-looking closed door.

Just as it came into view, Hinata turned and held out his arm again. He didn’t take it down again for several seconds, not, it seemed, until he was certain that none of them were going to move.

Then he turned back and continued on, before stopping at the entryway. He dropped to one knee, slung the strap of the bazooka over his shoulders, and appeared to be adjusting the gun, readying it to fire.

“Does he really know how to fire one of those things?” Souda said.

“No he doesn’t!” Koizumi shouted. “HINATA –”

BANG. The missile flew out of the gun and connected with the doors of the castle with a CRASH. They crumbled to dust and splinters in an instant, and several of the surrounding bricks fell in their wake.

Hinata waited for the cascade to stop, and then he took the RPG off his body, set it on the ground in front of the entryway, and walked inside, as though he were in no danger.

Many of the rest of them were frozen in their tracks, but Nanami walked ahead of them, without showing a shred of fear in her eyes, and entered the gap in the wall. Buoyed by her confidence, Koizumi followed behind her, and the others trailed behind, waiting to see what would happen before they dared step in.

The great hall of the castle was unlike any building Koizumi had ever encountered in Japan. It looked more like the photographs she’d seen of ruined European cathedrals. The ceiling was high, and vaulted, and seemed to carry the lingering sound of the explosion into the heavens. There were no other doors that she could see, and the only windows were stained glass, set high into the wall. The only other things in the room appeared to be several large decorative spears set into the wall, too high for any one of them to reach.

And there was Hinata, in the middle of it all, standing on a small, square plaque in the floor. It appeared to have some writing on it, but none of them could see what it said, as it was obscured by his feet.

“Hinata-kun, please,” Nanami said. She looked back, to see if any of the others were dying to speak, but they didn’t appear to be. “What is this place? And why did you bring us here?”

“The future has outwitted the past,” Hinata said without looking back. “The forces of hope have collected themselves and the hour of despair is at its end. The end result of that despair is impossible to say. But that’s not anything that you should be worrying about. They’re mistaken, after all, if they think they can kill me.”

He lurched backwards when he’d finished his words, stumbling as his knees buckled beneath him. Mioda rushed forward just in time to keep his head from hitting the ground, and the others gathered in her wake, examining his face and waiting with bated breath for whatever came next.

But whatever had come over Hinata had left him. He’d fallen completely limp, and now appeared to be in a calm, deep sleep, as though he’d never been active at all.