That is the Path to Paradise, Likewise the Road to Ruin

[Catche Jagger]

((Mizuho Inada continued from Six White Horses))

Mizuho spent the whole morning attempting to track down Tsukioka and Motobuchi, only to get turned around in the woods and fail to find any trace of them. Still, she wandered for hours, hoping that she might find something, be granted some sign of where they had gone.

The sun had fallen low when she was finally broken from this cycle searching only to find nothing. The voice of Sakamochi, the man from the classroom, blared from the speakers for the second time that day to rattle off the names of those who had died. Immediately, Mizuho could feel the muscles in her back and shoulders tense as she anticipated hearing of Motobuchi’s death at the hands of Kiriyama’s gang.

But his name never came, and it was another which stuck out among the bunch.

Kaori, who Mizuho had not seen since everyone had been sent out from the classroom, had died somewhere on this island, her killer and the circumstances of her death left a complete mystery. Just another casualty of the Program.

Mizuho had been standing among the trees which seemed to dominate much of the island’s landscape, doing her best to remain alert for any signs of her ally, but at this news her knees buckled and her legs fell out from under her.

She clutched at her chest, for the crystal that rested there, but she found that her shirt now felt thick, and she could get no sense of the crystal’s texture, and could receive no reassurance. It didn’t feel like it was supposed to, but instead like a cold stone. Or a piece of glass.

Tears came then, sobs, as she failed to control her breathing. Her best friend had died without anyone to protect her.

What kind of warrior did that make her? One who couldn’t stop Motobuchi’s kidnapping or Kaori’s death?

She bent forward, hands balled into fists before they began to flail and pound into the ground again and again. Mizuho so badly wanted to scream, for help, for anything, just to howl aimlessly into the setting sun in mourning of her friends, and of herself.

But she stayed quiet.

This was still the Program.

((It would be hours before she found the strength to stand again…))