Chapter Text
“Don’t you feel sorry for him? Arisu, I mean.” Kuina bites down on her lollipop stick, chewing it nervously. Chishiya turns to face her. Is she really having second thoughts? Now? After so many months of planning, so many failed candidates, she chooses to reconsider right when they finally have the chance to leave the Beach for good?
“Feel sorry?” Whether or not Chishiya feels sorry for Arisu is completely irrelevant. They are leaving. Now.
“Yeah. I feel really sorry for him.”
“Is there anything we can’t do in order to survive?” The words come out sharper than Chishiya really intends. He knows himself well enough to know there were very few lines he wouldn’t cross to survive. He doesn’t understand how Kuina, who has so much more riding on her getting out of this hellscape, could be so willing to risk everything for a stranger. A smart, charming, good looking stranger, maybe, but a stranger nonetheless. It didn’t matter, though. Chishiya knows her resolve is weak.
He exhales, smiles. “If you’re so worried, then you should help him, Kuina.”
Saying what Kuina was obviously thinking out loud would at the very least remind her of the reality of what she’s considering, what she’s putting at stake. It works. She looks down, her resolve clearly weakening. Chishiya turns back towards the exit.
A flash of red, barely perceptible, catches his eye..
“Don’t tell me-”
Kuina strides up from behind him towards the doorway, shoulders set in resignation, oblivious to the danger. Panic shoots through Chishiya’s veins.
“Stop right there!” She freezes.
He tosses his keycard through the doorway. Instantly, a laser flickers down from above, searing a perfect circle of ash into its center. The Beach has become a game arena. There’s no getting out now.
“Seriously?” Kuina’s voice is tight.
Shit.
---
There are fifteen minutes remaining.
Chishiya stands in the alcove overlooking the hotel foyer. He has stood here hundreds of times before, and somehow, even with all the horrors and monstrosities taking place below, it feels familiar. Almost comforting.
Almost.
The game is over. That much is clear. Chishiya’s plan to kill the executives has proven useless. Mira and Kuzuryu are nowhere to be found. He’s certain it wasn’t Ann- her frantic detective work over the last hour has proved that much. Last Boss is nowhere subtle enough to be the witch, and he knows Kuina can handle him. That leaves one person- Aguni. And it’s not him.
The answer feels obvious in hindsight. A hearts game. Make everyone freak out and kill each other, when the person responsible was already dead. Momoka herself.
Whoever is in charge is nothing if not cruel.
The only thing left to do is to wait and see whether someone else will figure it out in time. Chishiya will either be walking out of the Beach, headed towards the center of the map he had stolen, or he will be dead. He feels strangely calm at the prospect.
A shout echoes from below.
“Just stop this already!”
A man stumbles through the crowd, supported on each side by Usagi and Tatta. The lanky frame and tangled mess of his hair is unmistakable. Arisu.
Chishiya had hoped, somewhere in the back of his mind, that he could get through this without having to see him ever again. There was a temptation, somewhere early in the game, to free him. In the end there were just too many variables. He likely wouldn’t have helped Chishiya at all, given his all-too-recent betrayal. (And maybe, just maybe, Chishiya was just too proud to look him in the face once more, let alone ask for his help.) A shame. Arisu would have made a valuable ally. Arisu was smart, and he had survived a hearts game once already. Most people Chishiya knew of who survived hearts games hadn’t lived much longer afterwards, simply waiting for their visas to expire. Except for psychopaths like Mina, of course. And Arisu. Arisu had persisted. And he is persisting even now.
He steps toward Aguni.
“I was imprisoned by you the entire time, even when the murder happened. I’m sure you know I couldn’t have been the witch. If you aren’t the witch, then there’s no need to kill me. Let’s just work together and search for the witch.” Chishiya sighs. This is not going to go well. Arisu is smart, maybe, but he trusts far too quickly. Aguni is hardly about to give up his position as unquestioned leader. His chance to take the whole Beach down with him.
Even knowing what was about to happen, Chishiya still flinches when the butt of the gun makes contact with Arisu’s face. That has got to hurt. Arisu’s body is thrown across the floor, colliding with the feet of the bystanders. Usagi makes to tackle the attacker, but she's quickly cast aside as Aguni strides towards Arisu once more.
“I get it now. The reason you attacked Arisu, even though he’s the only one with an alibi. It’s because it’s you! You’re the witch!” Usagi's voice is sharp.
Aguni flings Arisu to the ground again. Even from the balcony, Chishiya can see that muscle in his body is tensed.
“Well? Are you the witch?”
“Yes! I am the witch.”
He walks towards the line of militants, who now have their guns leveled at his face, and goads them on to shoot.
“Stop! Aguni is not the witch! This is a ten of hearts game! One that toys with people’s feelings. It’s not one you can win by killing Aguni!” Arisu sounds so certain.
Aguni turns to face Arisu, who is stretched out on the ground next to Usagi. And yet his head is held high. He doesn’t look afraid. He looks pained.
“So why do all of this? It’s because you have a different motive. The person you killed wasn’t Momoka. It was Hatter.”
The crowd stirs uneasily. Chishiya smiles.
“I realized it when I saw your eyes. It was as if you’d given up all hope. Those eyes. They were the same as mine that day. The eyes I had after I killed my friends.”
Oh. The hearts game.
“You’re not stupid. And yet you wanted to kill everyone right from the start. That’s not like you! You must have had some ulterior motive.” Arisu stands, painfully pulling himself to his feet.
“Ever since I came to the Beach, I found it strange. If you had this many firearms, the militants could’ve taken control of the Beach a long time ago. Yet that didn’t happen until now. You and Hatter were never enemies. You were working together, weren’t you? You wanted to make sure that dangerous people, like Niragi, didn’t go on a rampage. You were trying to hold them back.”
Chishiya nods, the hint of a smile playing on his lips. It took Arisu less than a week to figure it out. Of course. Below, Arisu takes another step towards Aguni.
“You and Hatter were best friends, weren’t you?” Chishiya huffs a breath of humor. Something like that, at least. The kind of best friends who cast longing looks in each others’ direction, who disappear into dark corners together and reappear with bruised necks and swollen lips.
“Then why did you kill him?” That was the question indeed, wasn’t it?
“For some reason, you couldn’t forgive what he did. You wanted to stop Hatter and his crazy ways. You wanted your best friend to regain his senses.”
Aguni snaps.
“What would you know?” He swings again and again, raining blows down on Arisu as Tatta and Usagi make futile attempts to defend their friend.
Grabbing Arisu by the collar, Aguni yanks him to eye level. Arisu’s face is covered in blood.
“What would you-” His voice is small. Broken. Chishiya can see light reflecting off Aguni’s now damp face.
“I killed my friends too. I understand the pain in your eyes.” Arisu’s voice was desperate. “You killed your friend. And so you wanted to kill everyone at the Beach, because they were the ones who made your friend go crazy. It was your broken feelings that the game master was playing with. That’s why this is a hearts game!”
“Shut up!” Aguni flung Arisu to the ground once more, as shocked murmurs began to filter through the crowd, accusations towards their former leader.
“I know who it is. The real witch.” Chishiya has to strain to hear him. Brave, stupid Arisu. He’s trembling now, gritting his teeth against the pain. A pang of guilt flashes in Chishiya’s chest. He brushes it off quickly.
“You can always see the game master’s characteristics in a game. In a hearts game, it always makes a fool out of everyone. Maybe… maybe there really was a way to end the game without killing everyone. A solution where no one has to die.”
A girl from the crowd speaks up. “But that’s impossible- we have to hunt down the witch and burn them in the fire of judgement, right?”
“No.” Arisu fights his way upright once more, standing to face the crowd. “There’s a witch candidate that makes it possible. It’s possible… if the witch is Momoka herself.” He points. And there it is. Finally.
There’s a tense, shocked moment.
“Are you saying that Momoka… stabbed herself?
“Yes.” Arisu takes a breath, worn. “If I were the game master… that’s what I would do.”
Hm. Is he- No. Arisu is far too altruistic to be a game master. But that kind of thinking is a useful skill nonetheless.
Aguni is desperately trying to regain control of the situation, insisting that he’s the witch. Poor lovesick fool. That’s what happens when you care too much.
“You all want to kill me, right?” He rushes towards the group of militants, stirring them up to a violent brawl.
“The beach made him crazy. You guys made him crazy! I’m the witch!” He roars in anger. So this is how it ends. Another fucking bloodbath.
Suddenly, Momoka’s friend rushes forward. Ahasi, wasn’t it?
“Listen up, everybody! I’m the dealer of this game.”
A laser cuts down from the sky.
Ahasi crumples, dead. Holy shit. Well this is new.
“The knife had a reverse grip.” Ann, supported by Kuina, walks to the center of the ring. “Momoka grabbed the knife herself, and stabbed it into her own chest. She’s the witch.”
The crowd is in shock once more. Chishiya shakes his head. Yes, yes, you were all being played. We were all being played. Momoka and Ahasi were no different. Simply puppets, being controlled by… someone.
“Aguni.” Arisu is fighting, painfully, to his feet once more. “Let’s just end this. Don’t let the deaths of the innocents go to waste. I understand how it feels to kill your friends. But we shouldn’t take out our frustration on those who are still alive! We are still alive! We’re all looking despair right in the face, and fighting to the very end! Don’t look down on those who are still alive!”
He takes a gasping breath, tears and blood mixing together on his face. He's beautiful.
Suddenly, gunshots erupt from the back of the hotel, followed by screams as smoke begins to waft forward. Chishiya turns, and gets down the stairs as quickly as possible. He’s about to make for the doors before the crowd presses in when he hears an all-too-familiar voice.
“That… hurt. I should’ve just burned down the Beach with the Fire of Judgement from the beginning!”
Niragi? How is that motherfucker still alive?
The madman screams, throwing the Molotov cocktail he was holding and shooting aimlessly into the crowd of survivors.
Chishiya watches as Arisu stumbles through the chaos, picking up Ahasi’s phone. Smart. Then he leaves, waiting in the courtyard as the Beach- or what is left of it- burns. In the end, it’s Arisu who’s the last to leave, dragging Momoka’s body with the help of Usagi, and tossing it, finally, into the fire.
It’s him that stops Usagi from attacking the surviving militants, pulling her close, and holding her.
“We’re still alive,” he tells her. “That’s all that matters now.” He really believes that, doesn’t he?
Something a little too close to jealousy pulls in Chishiya’s chest. He heads back into the burning building, and picks the ten of hearts that now lies on the table.
“You’re quite persistent, too, aren’t you?”
Kuina must’ve seen him leave. He smiles.
“I started to think it was pointless to collect all the playing cards.”
“Say what?”
“But with this, we’ve got everything except the face cards. I wonder what the game’s management team wants us to see.”
With Ahasi’s phone, Chishiya has no doubt that Arisu will be able to deduce the same information that he got from the map. No matter what comes next, or what lies behind them, Arisu will be invaluable as an ally.
Chishiya turns back to face Kuina, who is looking at him expectantly.
“Come on. It’s time.”