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She's under no delusion of what she is.
While it may be for the great or good, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Tsumugi knows that, in this thriving pure world of hers, she will be one of the little few that gets dragged down into the depths of hell when her time comes. Keeping society stable does not negate the killing of others, consensual as it may be.
(At least, at one point it was. Before they forgot. Now they're just scared and confused but it's fine, they signed a waiver. They gave their lives away.)
Needless to say, she understands the area where she is is grey. She understands that the small minority of people who don't like the Killing Games would consider her evil. Hell, before this game started, when they were all getting prepared, when the others wondered who would be the mastermind while Tsumugi had already been told it was her. She'd talk to the others and smile and laugh with them and knew she'd remember it all. The others made friends because they knew they wouldn't remember, Tsumugi had no such benefit.
She had been preparing herself for what she knew would happen, so when it did, she stayed calm.
Blood stained her fingertips. She stayed calm.
Fear filled his eyes. She stayed calm.
The game has begun.
She.
Stayed.
Calm.
It is only when she is back with the others, her crime well hidden, that she sees him.
The boy she killed. Standing right there. Half of his head bashed in, blood running down his skull. His eyes are hollow, unseeing. Milky white and missing their pupils.
He's looking at her. He can't be and yet he is. Tsumugi stands with the others and yet the others don't react to him. Like he's not there. Like he doesn't exist.
A ghost. She's staring at a ghost. A ghost is staring at her.
She stayed calm.
Turned to the others with a serene smile, mentioned checking for the stragglers. The ghost continued to stare at her. Tsumugi acted like she didn't see.
Was this normal? Did a murderer always see the ghosts of their victims? It wouldn't be well documented, in their society. If not, maybe she's just lost her mind. Is this guilt? Tsumugi doesn't feel guilty about masterminding this game - for the lives of 16 she's saving billions. And the boy had been cocky - he came back after surviving one game just to test his luck.
The trial begins. The ghost stands right in front of her, the entire time.
She can't touch it, but she can feel it. Something cold, something angry, something not quite right.
A girl is voted for. She is found guilty for a murder she did not commit. She is not fully innocent, but that does not matter.
When she is finally dead, Tsumugi stays a moment longer. Icy claws run along her neck. The ghost glides towards the corpse, more a spectre than a human.
Tsumugi blinks. The boy holds the girl’s hand. She is no longer on the noose. Her eyes are dead, milky white. Red and purple line her neck. Her face is an ugly shade of blue and green.
The two spirits look at one another. Then, as one, they turn to her.
She stayed calm.
But she did not sleep that night.
Somehow, she is the most sinful here.
Two people are dead, the murdered and murderer. And yet, she was the cause of both their deaths. She will soon orchestrate a second motive, just like the first. Everyone here is working on fear and adrenaline. She is calm.
The ghosts won't leave her alone.
She wakes up to them standing over her bed. Tsumugi ignores them, goes to shower and thinks of her sins as the molten liquid washes over her. Maybe this'll wash them off.
The girl ghost is not in her room when she awakens. She finds her following one of the other boys, her closest friend in life. She leans against his side and seems to whisper comforts. The living boy is distraught. She holds his hand between pale translucent fingers.
The boy ghost continues to follow her. Always too close, like he knows how it unnerves her.
Tsumugi ignores him.
She stayed calm.
She gets used to them.
And then more appear.
One of the murdered always sits in a corner, staring blankly out at the living. Another tries to dust and clean to no avail, stopping only to lace her hands together primly and stare at Tsumugi. Then two more are murdered, and they follow around one of those still living. They hold her between them even as she hides her crying face within her hat. They leave Tsumugi alone.
Until the class trials. Always until the class trials.
Each time, she watches as these spectres float around, only to be pulled towards the first ghost, the one she killed.
That's when they turn towards her. That's when they realize that she can see them.
The third murderer disappears entirely. Tsumugi catches him sometimes, crying without tears in rarely treaded hallways. She wonders if, in death, they remember their real lives. Do they know just what they lost, or is it all just the game's delusions?
She doesn't know which one is worse.
There are old teachings, not really believed in anymore. They speak of good and evil, of virtues and sins. Not necessary, in Tsumugi's society. And yet, in her free time, she finds books on them and reads them under the watchful milky eyes of the undead. She finds that some get away with heinous acts all the way till death, and some are struck down after only so little. Some are given fortune or misfortune, cursed or blessed.
In her world, everyone is pure, sinless. Only those in the games are not, and yet they do what they do for good reason as well.
Is it possible, that given the lack of evil, divine punishment strikes immediately for her?
Is that the reason behind her plight.
She closes her book. She is surrounded by ghosts. They stare and stare and stare, and she knows that, one day, their hands won’t go through her but will instead latch on. One day, they will drag her deep into the depths of hell and there’s nothing she can do to stop them.
Tsumugi puts her book away.
She stayed calm.
The newest murdered follows the robot around. She always jerks to attention right before the living creature mentions a bolt out of place or a servo malfunctioning, like she had noticed it before even he did. Her murderer follows the smallest boy around, big hands alternating between wrapping around the boy’s throat and wrapping around his own.
The one she killed reaches them, eventually.
She has not slept since he died.
She is vague, when she mentions to the show producers her plight.
It’s an offhanded comment, asking if they believe in ghosts. They laugh and say that ghosts don’t exist because no one dies angry. Their society is perfect, no one has any reason to wander the earth after death when the afterlife awaits them all.
Tsumugi cuts the connection, squeezes her eyes shut and tries to breathe.
The boy is there when she opens her eyes, too close, too cold, face blank and eyes even blanker.
She stayed calm.
She knows which of the two are dead.
It’s obvious, with how the tiniest boy hangs off of one of the living. The girl who died in her place stands on the living boy’s other side, unmoving as the trial goes on. The dead boy hooks his chin over the living boy’s shoulder and watches her, unblinking.
The living boy asks if she’s okay.
She stayed calm.
The game is nearly over.
They’ve figured her out. They don’t want to play anymore. They know they signed up to play and yet they’re still angry. They barely keep to their podiums, wanting to reach for her, wanting to kill her.
She stayed calm.
The spirits seem to sense that the end is near. Even the two who stuck to themselves appear, all standing at their bodies, mocking the class trial and a symbol of death and injustice. Their eyes bore into her, unseeing and unmoving.
She stayed calm.
Those living asked why she did it. She shows off her talent, explains everything they want to hear and puts on a show to those at home watching. They wonder where her remorse is, as if she’s the one in the wrong when she’s the reason the world is still running smoothly. The spirits don’t seem to like her answer. Blood spills from death wounds, staining the ground red and pink.
She stayed calm.
It’s only then that her vision flickers. It’s only then that she blinks and finds the room more full than it was before. It’s only then that she sees dozens, if not hundreds of other ghosts, crowding the room and bleeding out onto the floor. White milky eyes all locked on her.
She-
It’s the end, she suddenly knows. This was going to happen, but she never thought it would be like this. These ghosts, she recognizes some from previous games. Some are gruesome, some look as if they had fallen asleep peacefully - poison doesn’t always leave physical marks. They go all the way back to the beginning and yet they all stare at her as if she is the reason for their plight.
She…
The first death ever, a kind girl who loved harshly and was terrified of the world around her. The first murderer, tricked into killing and unable to take the blame he deserved. They stand on either side of the one she killed - but that’s not fair, is it? He’s not the only one she killed. His blood may be on her hands, but the sins of them all are what wraps around her throat.
The living boy raises his hand, finger pointed straight at her. The ghosts, all few hundred of them, follow. Everyone, pointing at her. Everyone, condemning her to death. Everyone, delivering justice without acknowledgement of the society she did it for.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
This is her punishment. Those who sin will be dealt with, sooner or later.
Someone’s calling her name. She looks up, eyes darting between those still living. Finds no one looking at her.
Dread curls in her stomach. Her name is still being called, soft and luring. A lullaby calling her to sleep.
Her eyes drift over to the left.
The boy who started it all stands at his podium, milky eyes focused on her, burning into her soul even without pupils. For the first time since he died, his mouth is open. It’s moving. His lips are forming words. It’s forming her name.
She cracks.