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IT TOOK AKUJI A few minutes to find a container that had a shiny, red button for her to press and get points from. As she stepped toward it, she heard footsteps behind her. Spinning around as quickly as possible, she caught Isamu trying to sneak up on her.
Thinking quickly, Akuji pulled her revolver out of the waistband of her skirt and pointed it at her. Isamu simply laughed.
"Didn't you see the 'no weapons' sign? Shoot that and you're dead." She said.
Akuji shrugged, acting unbothered, "My team has less points than yours, I'm dying anyway. This will just speed up the process and take you with me."
Isamu looked less confident now, eyes anxiously shifting from the revolver to Akuji's face as she awaited the girl's next move. Neither of them moved a muscle for a minute. Then, Isamu, realising she would be okay as long as she made no sudden movements - it was clear to her that Akuji didn't want to die -, opened up conversation, "Why do you want to live?"
Akuji stared at her in puzzlement, "Someone should survive. Why can't it be me?"
She'd sacrificed too much already and if she died now, it would be for nothing.
Akuji flicked her head at the other girl, "What about you? Why do you live? You look like you've been through enough, why don't you just give up?"
"My parents wanted me to live and be happy, so that's what I'm doing." Isamu replied with a shrug, "They died during a tornado when I was fifteen. I want to honour them."
Akuji's eyes widened for a second before she quickly forced herself to act nonchalant, "Do you mean the tornado on January 15th?"
Isamu nodded, raising one eybrow at the girl's sudden surprise.
Akuji shook her head as if silently telling Isamu that there was nothing interesting for her to pry about. She played it off with a shrug, "On that day, I was in Thailand with my mother. She wanted me to know my culture. If it wasn't for that, we would have both been killed."
Just like her father was.
"Your culture?" Isamu repeated in confusion - and this would have been a normal conversation if Akuji hadn't been pointing a gun at her and biding her time, making sure Isamu was distracted and away from her team's base.
"Both my mom and dad are Thai but I was born in Tokyo and given a Japanese name." Akuji explained, "My mom didn't want me to stand out with a Thai name."
Isamu laughed, "That's where our parents are different. My mom always wanted me to stand out."
"What about the rest of your team? Are you related to any of them?"
Isamu shook her head, "No, but it doesn't mean they're not my family. They took me under their wings and taught me a lot about life and music - especially Shitara." She said the last two words bitterly, spitting them out in a rage.
Before Akuji could respond, the announcer told every player that the Player team had succeeded in getting points, and Isamu instantly rushed away to help her own team. Grinning to herself, Akuji punched the air happily like a little kid, before putting away her gun and pressing the item button inside the shipping container, giving her team 2,500 points.
As Akuji left the shipping container, she looked up at the display screen to see the scoreboard - and her heart sank to her stomach. The plan didn't work.
Her team was still 3,000 points behind.
And there was only twenty minutes left of the game.
"Dammit!" Akuji cursed as she kicked the container's door shut with a slam. She stared at it for a few seconds, trying to collect herself, trying to think of a way out of this situation; but no ideas came to her.
All of it, everything she'd done, was for nothing. She sacrificed her best friend for nothing - she'd killed her best friend for nothing. She would never see her mom again and she would never be able to go home or see her father's grave - it was over.
"Fuck you!" Akuji screamed. She punched the container, immediately pulling back her hand with a hiss of pain. She rubbed her thumb across her knuckles, trying to soothe the physical pain because she could not soothe the emotional anguish she was going through. Tears pricked in her eyes but she forcefully blinked them away. She had a rage stored deep inside of her. There had to be something Akuji could do, right? So she had to go back to the base and brainstorm with her team
There had to be something. She needed there to be something.
When Akuji arrived at the base, everyone stared at her in surprise and Kuina rushed up to her, giving her a tight hug. "Where the hell were you?" She demanded, clearly worried sick.
Akuji pushed Kuina off of her, not in the mood for hugs, "I got us an item but it was worthless. What went wrong? Why didn't you get another 10,000 points?"
Kuina gulped guiltily and bowed to her team, "It's my fault, I'm sorry."
Suddenly, Akuji felt a deep resentment for her. She stepped away from her, feeling anger burn through her veins. How could Kuina have been so stupid? Everyone was counting on her; how could she let them down?
"No," Arisu said firmly, shaking his head. "We gave it all we had."
"And it still didn't work!" Akuji burst out angrily. She balled her hands into fists, chewing on the inside of her cheek as her mind raced for a solution to her problem, "There has to be something we can do!"
"There's nothing and it's all because of this piece of shit." Niragi said, lightly shoving Tatta, "We should all accept death now. Because of you, we're goin' to fuckin' die, asshole." With that, he stalked off.
"I'll look for items." Usagi decided, dazed, and she, too, turned and left.
"Me, too." Akuji said before leaving as well, trying to leave before everyone saw her tears.
AUTHOR NOTES oooooh y'all got to learn a bit about akuji's backstory !! more will be revealed as the story progresses, don't worry. i don't wanna say too much so all i'm gonna tell you is look out for akane heiya & akuji parallels 👀 also the next chapter has sexual assault in it so please, please skip it if you don't want to read that!!
