Chapter Text
Sometimes, at the beginning of vaguely unique stories that begin after their respective backstories do, they add an insert about how the vast majority of stories start at the beginning. Which they certainly aren't wrong about. They then might begin to presumptously sing the work its praises about how it is not a normal story, probably unfamiliar to the readers, or something along similar lines.
This is a story that begins at the aptly-named Chapter Two.
The difference is that this backstory is one that the readers are completely, utterly, near-tiringly familiar with. One Hajime Hinata, eyes full of stars and ready for anything, finds that his new prestigious school (or rather, a certain animatronic bear heavily involved in its backstory) is out to morph his friends-to-be into masterminds of homicide, using their environments and classmates' own capabilities to their advantage to get away with grisly murder. Hell, all that he's seen is the metaphorical training wheels of prodigy-level investigation, with resident Porkfeet being skewered by the perverted chef at a dinner party gone terribly, terribly wrong.
This is not just a story about Hinata, of course.
This is a story about the babyfaced mob boss mourning the sister he didn't even remember dying.
This is a story about his sworn bodyguard hitwoman who has an unsettling tendency to take things too far.
This is a story about a calm, possibly too calm, spacey game addict.
Hell, this is even a story about the delusional occult fanatic who's more capable of a perfect crime than anyone could predict.
But more than anything, this is a story about the opinionated photographer who's about to take action about the crime she barely remembers being an accomplice to.
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The sun poured in through the windows of sixteen cabins to give fourteen sleepy teenagers the familiar slap-in-the-face reminder that they were still on Murder Island, despite what fleeting visions their minds eye had been entertaining themselves with for the past few hours.
Mahiru Koizumi still couldn't quite believe what was happening.
It was like something out of a Derren Brown experiment. She'd been given evidence of a murder and posed a scenario of her covering for it. And something from the dark recesses of her mind told her that it wasn't just that godawful bear feasting on misery again. There was the fact that she couldn't help projecting herself onto D-ko. There was the fact that the more she played of the game, the more she felt that itch, that unending feeling of her own subconscious hiding things from her that she'd never unearth without anything short of a neuroscientist. But worst of all, the most damning thing that fueled her dread was the strictly professional admiration she had for the photos in the envelope. Everything about correct distance allowing for proper focus, flash used only when necessary to garner scene-setting lighting... And would you believe it, they were all taken with an analog camera not unlike the one she was absent-mindedly staring at from her bed.
And Koizumi wouldn't be who she was if she didn't put herself at the center of the problem. This time, it wouldn't even be that hard to get away with being nosy, not least of all due to the lack of moral crusaders on the island. All she'd have to do is gather as many relevant people as possible to get a solid discussion going. The photos would get most of them over to her side in no time, and everyone would have to forgive her for playing the game under her circumstances, right?
So after a short bout of self-assurance and generally getting pumped up, she ventured into the outside world to find a couple of surprises waiting for her. For one, she had mail from Saionji asking to meet up at the beachhouse at 2:30. Somehow Koizumi wasn't too taken aback at the prospect of mind-readers considering what turns her life had recently been taking, but she had to guess that Saionji had played the game too and was making a decision that was frankly leaps and bounds above what the general consensus about her was. Of course, she pushed any suspicions that were growing to the back of her mind and prided herself on the choice of not looking a gift horse in the mouth.
The second surprise gave the gift horse a good hoof to the face. When she came back from feeding that damned parasite in the lodge, she learnt that the girls were going to get together and have a nice day out relaxing and generally getting the most out of the paradise that they were trapped in. At the beach right outside the meeting place. Instead of being useful to her. She was thankful at the very least that it was marginally later than the meeting she was now committed to, but that wouldn't get the other half of the gang to where she needed them to be. And now she had an appointment that she wasn't ready to cancel in case whatever possessed Saionji vacated by tomorrow.
After a few hours of thinking about it, the time had come and she was in the beachhouse with the last person she wanted to see about Kuzuryuu's dead sister: Kuzuryuu himself. He had the same old grimace on his face, the one that he seemed to always have when he wasn't shouting or giving death threats and generally raising his voice. Koizumi had an intense dislike for him, amazingly enough, though she felt like she didn't have to raise her voice on her own as Saionji would probably rip into him without holding back. All she had to do was wait.
But Kuzuryuu was too eager for that, apparently. Plainly dredging up cockiness in his expression and tone, he turned to face Koizumi and said "Solved the mystery yet?"
He well and truly had her there, much as her voice concealed it. "I can atone if you'll stop being smug about your own sister dying."
"Coming from the one who let my sister die herself!"
Silence. Part of her wished that Saionji would burst in and start being as nonsensical and loud as he could be, maybe say stuff about her "big sis" doing no wrong and such. And yet she persisted in her absence for whatever reason.
But then the connection formed in her mind, and it was hard not to fly in the face of her own safety for the sake of her justice.
"If we're saying that the game was accurate, then that would mean it was you who killed E-ko, right?"
The reaction was instant. "That's not what this is about, and you know it!"
She pressed on. "What happened to your sister was tragic, sure... But you didn't have to kill, either!"
"J-just shut up and answer my question, dammit! Do you or do you not remember what happened in the game?"
"You didn't have the right!" Of course her sense of justice would come into this. "Judging people's sins like that... nobody has the right to do that!. No, revenge as a whole... is just wrong!"
Pause.
The silence carried on, at least for Koizumi, as the split second it took for Kuzuryuu's rage to boil over was the one that she felt was the longest. His eyes weren't staring daggers into hers, not anymore. They had shifted to glare at a table with a list of emotions that she could barely believe she was registering. Anger. Fear. Determination. And she could sure as hell feel the adrenaline like it was spraying out of his open mouth. She felt stupid that she hadn't seen the table before, not least of all after the party fiasco just a few days ago. The damning metal bat that made her feel like she was looking at that photo - taking that godawful photo once again. But the world was moving at a snail's pace to her, like the world itself hinged around this single moment.
And then his eyes darted back to face her, only they were more looking through her than at her. Behind her. Eyes that screamed surprise. She could even feel the glare of a third party making the back of her neck feel cold in this split second, this damn headache of an experience that felt more like she was looking through the lens of a digital camera dated a century from now. But she'd already been reaffirming herself with the knowledge that she shouldn't look million-dollar gift horses in their spouts of life-rejuvenating miracle water. Besides, whatever she was about to not do was probably going to end up with a bad afternoon in general for both her and the still suspiciously missing Saionji. She was just glad that the bat she had glimpsed in a fraction of a fraction of a second wasn't drenched in blood.
Her knees clicked forwards, her body sunk lower towards the ground and her head lolled back to watch the metal bat fly across where her mop of red hair would have been a few seconds ago. But the adrenaline had yet to subside to the overwhelming terror, and the deafening sound of her own heartbeat pulsing through her head wouldn't let her register any semblance of the photographer's well-loved common sense for the next few seconds.
And what a beautiful next few seconds they were.
Time snapped back to its relative speed as the tension in her legs built like never before, sending the skull that the attacker was so ready to bludgeon a split second ago, a mortifyingly long split second ago, careening into her chin. Her momentum didn't stop there, of course. Sending her legs up to meet her own upper-body, she made a V shape that met Pekoyama's belly as she laid dumbfounded on the ground after an already painful fall. And still barely conscious of what she was doing, she used the momentum from the sickening bounce to straighten her body and land on her two feet, bracing and stopping herself from tumbling on her face with her outstretched arms.
Nekomaru would have been proud.
And it all came rushing to her when she was done. The sounds of it all, the clattering of metal hitting the ground and the heavy breathing of the woman she would have called a friendly stranger not half an hour ago. The pain of the back of her head that made her feel like she would never quite be as objectively intelligent ever again, and the irony that came with the feeling. Confusion, of course, that oddly flew in the face of the three things that she realized in the moment of normalcy she had to catch her breath.
For one, she was still in a closed room with a murderer and an amazingly hypocritical accomplice.
She also knew a place rather close by that was probably swarming with potential witnesses.
And finally, she knew exactly who just witnessed that miracle of a stunt that she just pulled.
She sprang off her arms and rose to see the man who so perfectly reflected the bewilderment that flooded her mind. And as she turned and made a break for the door closest to the diner, she could hear the words escape Kuzuryuu's mouth with what little oxygen he could muster up.
"...a photographer?"
And she embraced the sunlight she was bathed in like she would a son.