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The previous day had been utter chaos.
Tamba’s broken leg. Hasegawa and Ojima suddenly going missing whilst supposedly going to the medbay. The stupid fucking notes. The game. The bomb.
Yanagi’s confession.
Hayashi’s mind swam restlessly. She could hardly think straight.
She’d stayed in her dorm that night. Yanagi had convinced her of such, telling her that if there was any danger in her way, he was going to be the one to take it, noting her now missing left pinky finger and the traps she’d been faced with.
Yanagi told her he’d wander the halls that night, with a weapon in his hands - a dagger. It was a small dagger that he’d managed to get from the armory, but he insisted it was enough.
She just hoped he was right.
She stretched, her toned muscles bending themselves behind her head as she tried to personally straighten out any kinks.
Knowing she couldn’t eat, she, at the very least, wanted to keep herself hydrated for the journey ahead. It was almost guaranteed to be long.
Counting the days in her mind as she headed to the student cafe, she and the other six survivors had lasted thirty-six days. Who knows how much longer they would have to last.
She walked in.
Yanagi’s familiar blue coat was seen draped over his figure. Hayashi found it kind of cute, how he was sleeping there at one of the tables, hunched in a chair and laying his head on what must have been a particularly comfortable hunk of wood.
She went over to him.
“Hey, Shige.”
No response. ‘Must be fast asleep,’ she thought.
She briefly left his side to grab a glass of water, before returning.
“Shige, hey, wake up.”
She shook his body.
…
It flopped around. Almost like a fish.
And at that moment, Hayashi’s face went white.
“Sh-Shige, wake up, ” she said in a much more forceful tone.
She kept shaking him. He kept flopping around, until he fell out of his chair, landing face up on the linoleum below.
A gaping, blood-lined hole was now visible in his stomach.
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—
Hayashi, in a moment of utter weakness, fled to the nearest garbage bin and vomited.
Completely unlike her, that. She never vomited.
It took every remaining ounce of strength contained within her soul to not scream to the heavens right then.
Hayashi then ran back over to him, picking him up.
His body was stone cold.
In her arms, his icy body lay.
As it did, she realized that the medbay’s disgusting stench had subsided overnight.
It was real.
It was real.
Yanagi Shigeki was dead.
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Attention students.
A body has been discovered.
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—
“AAAHHHH!!!”
Tamba.
Her characteristic scream.
A scream of that caliber, nor the announcement beforehand, was really needed at all.
She already knew.
As Tamba fully entered the student cafe, hobbling along on a crutch, Hayashi crumbled to the ground.
Yanagi’s body fell out of her hands and onto the floor in front of her, and that’s when Hayashi joined him there.
She assumed a position as if she was crawling, but in this case, all she was doing was taking out her misery.
Over and over again, the strong girl slammed her fists relentlessly into the linoleum.
It wasn’t until Tamba weakly grabbed one of her arms that she stopped.
“M-Mai…wh-what happened…?!”
Hayashi couldn’t answer. She just looked up at Tamba, the first time she’s ever had to, her normally vivid and chill maroon-colored eyes now seemingly darkened. The color inside them reminded Tamba of blood.
Any life left inside those eyes was gone.
Wada and Hiroaki soon arrived.
“Wh-huh?!”
“Yanagi?!”
Hayashi said nothing, still crumbled on the floor as the other three discussed a course of action.
“We need to hurry, because someone gave us half the time to investigate. I’m gonna go find Ojima and Hasegawa. You two need to explore.”
Wada and Tamba just stood there like a pair of deer in headlights. Tamba didn’t even retort like she’d been doing recently. Even Hiroaki himself was surprised.
“Wh-What are you standing there for?! GO!”
Under Hiroaki’s command, the two split up, one of them going to explore the school and the other staying with Hayashi. Wada ended up going to explore. Tamba stayed by Hayashi’s side.
“...I…I’m not really that good with bodies, but…I…Mai…”
Hayashi said nothing.
“...I…I can examine the body for you, if you want…”
That sparked Hayashi’s vocal cords back into life.
“No.”
“...wh-...b-but Mai-!”
“I said NO."
“...”
“I’ll…I’ll examine it. Go fucking help Wada. Or Hiroaki. Or fucking anyone else.”
“...b-but-”
“LEAVE.”
“M-Mai-!”
“FUCKING LEAVE!”
Hayashi had thrown a punch at Tamba without any warning, hitting her in the chin.
The punch was strong enough to throw Tamba completely off balance, knocking her down to the floor, where Hayashi and Yanagi still laid. Thankfully enough for the group’s investigation, she hadn’t been knocked out cold.
“...j-just…just leave me alone!”
As Tamba staggered back to her feet, trying to recombobulate her head…she could hear gentle sobs.
The gentle sobs of Hayashi Mai.
She’d always been strong. She’d always been strong.
She’d never been so fucking weak. Not in any situation, not for anything, not for anyone.
Yet…Yanagi, of all people, had made her weak.
He’d made her weak. With his smile, and his kindness, and his protection, and his love…his love. His confession.
As more parts of him flew into her memory, she sobbed more and more, greater quantities of teardrops flowing from her eyes. She wasn’t even trying to hold herself back anymore.
All she wanted to do was cry.
This was the first time, throughout this whole, fucked-up experience, that she hadn’t cared about escaping.
Yanagi Shigeki was dead.
And she couldn’t save him.
It would’ve been her instead. It shouldn’t have been him, he shouldn’t have taken up the front line of defense, he should’ve just let her take it…
All of that was in the past now.
And so, those prior words kept repeating endlessly.
She couldn’t save him.