#hnnkn | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

cynthiaandsamus · 2 years

Text

Higurashi Sotsu: Kamishuri-hen

The Alternate Ending Fanfic for Higurashi Sotsu I’ve been working on is finally complete! Thanks to everyone that showed interest in it and I hope you can read and enjoy! Please let me know what you think if you give it a read!

Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni Sotsu: Kamishuri-hen

When The Cicadas Cry: Graduation: God-Repairing Chapter

The red gleam in Satoko’s eyes bore right through Rika as she leveled the gun at her in front of the rest of their friends while the light-hearted party quickly became a tragedy. She hesitated just a moment, as if daring to ask Rika ‘how did you know?’ repeating the question Rika had asked her about the disguised box with the bear inside, now discarded on the floor in the commotion. The truth was Rika had help, remembering Rena’s words to her from yesterday.

-------------------------------------------------------

“A birthday party for Satoko-chan? That’s a great idea Rika-chan, it is, it is!” Rena swooned and held her cheeks. “Maybe I should get her a party dress, she’d look so cyuuuute~ She usually wears pink or blue, maybe something different for a party? Oooh, what about some red? Satoko-chan would look super cyute in something… r-red.” Rika was ready to let Rena rant as she usually did, however she was her freeze, eyes wide with fear as if a distant memory had suddenly come back to her.

“R-Rena…?” Rika reached out to her. “Are you alright, mii?” She tried to throw in a little cute to snap Rena out of it. The look of fear plastered across Rena’s face stayed for a moment, but faded as she visibly put some effort into smiling. It was something Rena did quite a bit when things weren’t right and Rika had gotten used to it over the past century.

“M-Mhm!” Rena added sweetly, smiling like an angel but still visibly putting effort into it.

“Rena…” Rika pushed the issue tenderly, knowing from her experience she couldn’t force Rena to talk about it if she didn’t want to, but also to be persistent with her friends when it came to communication.

“It’s just a bad dream is all.” Rena rubbed the back of her head, having no idea what her memories from the prior loops creeping into her mind meant. “I just remembered a bad dream I had where Oiishi-san was a very bad man… and then… Satoko…” Rena trailed off, not wanting to spoil the birthday celebration with such morbid, and in her mind entirely fictional, thoughts.

“Satoko…?” Rika’s eyes widened, the spots where Ooishi beat her to death previously still ached with some phantom pain, so she knew Rena was absolutely telling the truth. “Satoko… did something bad, nipah?”

“I-It’s just a dream!!” Rena blushed, waving her hands in front of her. “I’ve been hanging around Keiichi-kun too much, he has weird dreams like that too. Our Satoko would never do something like that, right? Right?” She smiled sweetly.

Rika forced a smile as her face too wanted to freeze in horror. Things were making too much sense. She’d long suspected someone was controlling the nature of her loops to their desired end. Things had only corrected themselves now that she’d embraced her discarded love for Hinamizawa, something she now remember Satoko talking to her about several times over the course of several loops. Maybe she’d known before now, but she hadn’t wanted to believe it.

“Yeah, our Satoko is a good girl, Nipah~”

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Satoko pulled the trigger, shooting Rika directly through the forehead and pulling the gun on herself, both girls hitting the ground before the rest of the club around them could even comprehend what was going on. Their screams of surprise and anguish quickly faded as the life drained out of both girls before they hit the ground.

The next thing the blonde child knew she was back in her house with Rika, at the start of the loop an instant before Rika’s consciousness followed her. The brief moment of shock and surprise at being drawn into the new loop was all the clue Satoko needed, gripping Rika’s arm and grabbing a kitchen knife.

Rika flailed and threw herself away from Satoko, landing on the ground before she could kill her again. “This is going to be much harder now that you know…” Satoko growled, brandishing the large knife. “Why do you have to be so difficult? Why can’t you love Hinamizawa for the beautiful place it is!? Why can’t you stay here with me!?”

The sweet innocent look melted from Rika’s eyes, showing the side of herself that only a few ever witnessed as she got back to her knees and quickly backed up, facing Satoko head-on. “I thought I hated Hinamizawa, after spending one hundred years of tragedy here I really did think I hated it. But even then I never wanted to leave forever… I want to experience more out of life, what kind of sin is that!?” Some part of Rika really had come to appreciate Hinamizawa again after all of this, but she wasn’t budging on her dreams either.

Satoko lunged at her, slashing away with the knife angrily and blindly. “Is Hinamizawa not good enough for you!? Am I!? This “hick town” is the only place I will ever belong, if you hate this town, you hate me! And no matter how hard I try I cannot change for you Rika! So I have to change you instead, no matter what it takes!!”

Rika weaved away from the slashes, staying out of Satoko’s admittedly short reach. “You aren’t this town! I don’t hate you! More than anything in the world I wanted to share my dream with you! Nothing that happened to me here was your fault until now, but I can’t stand to stay here the rest of my life!”

“And I can’t stand to leave, but I can’t stand to be without you!” Satoko leapt forward again, moving to jump at Rika and stab her with tears in her eyes, the other girl grabbing both her wrists to keep her at arm’s length, earning a few cuts to her arms but staying safe for now. Rika winced as she tried to hold Satoko back, the blonde was a small bit stronger than her and slowly but surely the knife got closer and closer to her.

“You’re the most important person to me! How can you see everything I went through, to truly understand my suffering and want more of that for me!? How can you drag me back into my worst nightmare and claim it’s love!?” Rika shrieked, tightening her grip in vain as she tried to push Satoko away.

“It doesn’t matter! The world where you and I are happy together is the only one I’ll accept! Everything else is just like a bad dream!” She growled, forcing the knife down more.

“You know that’s not true! Those other worlds aren’t fake, they’re real! They leave a mark on your heart, people who live in loops are never unphased by the worlds they live in! Every single one of the tragedies I’ve lived through lives on in my heart, along with all the joy I shared with all of you in those hundred years! I never forgot a single one of them and I know the worlds you’ve lived through changed you too!”

Satoko’s eyes widened briefly, faltering for a second as Rika’s words festered in her mind, knowing what she was becoming the more she played with people as toys and got addicted to it. Rika took the opportunity, shoving Satoko back and kicking her in the stomach to knock her away and knock the knife out of her hand.

SCCHK!!

The shock of the clash shot through Satoko and she tried to get up, but found she couldn’t. She looked over at Rika, a look of despair and regret washing over her face. Glancing back she saw she fell back on the umbrella rack by the door, and looking down she saw the sharp point of one of the bigger umbrellas sticking out from her chest, blood spreading across her pink top.

“W-Wait, no…” Satoko tried pulling herself off, but felt the strength leaving her arms already, eyes widening in terror. “I can’t die first… no, no… after all this… not like this…” She scrambled around for anything that could make Rika die faster than she currently was but her vision was already fading. “What was this all for…? For it to end like this…” Her arms hung limply as she crashed down to the floor in a heap.

“R-Rika…”

----------------------------------------------

“Oh my, how interesting…” Satoko woke to Eua’s voice and the twinkling of thousands of prisms spinning around them in the Sea of Fragments. “I did tell you to be more careful, Vier.” She chided, sprawled across her lounge chair with an amused smile.

“Rika!!” Satoko shot up off the floor of the stone platform they were floating on, eyes wide with terror. Eua had told her if she failed to kill Rika before she died, she would no longer be able to loop into a world with Rika in it. “What happened!? Is Rika gone!?” She stared shocked at the goddess before her.

“Not exactly.” Eua smirked, lazily floating in the air now. “The Cat was the focal point for your looping, therefore because you died first this time, your “Sea of Fragments” and hers are now eternally divorced. Either world in which you exist cannot contain her, and vice versa. You are like oil and vinegar. Your attempts to remain together have resulted in you two being fated to never meet again, never even existing in the same fragment, how deliciously amusing.” She purred.

“W-What…” The realization washed over Satoko like a wave, dread covering her face, arm twitching with fury and regret and disappointment. The twitching hand quickly grasped her neck, as if half of her was trying to choke the life out of herself. “LOOK WHAT YOU DID!!!” One of her eyes had a thick stream of tears flowing down it while the other glowed a devilish red with a look of annoyance filling it.

“What I did!?” The red side growled, forcing the hand away from her neck. “It was your selfishness and greed that called me out! You were the one that wished to do things over! I am merely your wish, your curse given form! I am the strength you asked for!”

“Oh my, I thought we’d buried that side of Satoko for good.” Eua’s eyes shone with dull surprise. “It looks like that death was a shock to both of you and split you up again…” She waved her staff and yawned. “Let’s do something about that before this gets too confusing…” Out from the middle of Satoko split two girls, one with the girl’s normal rose-colored eyes and one with the bright red of a Looper: Satoko and The Witch.

“We lost Rika and it’s all your fault!” Satoko shouted at the Witch. “You made me hurt my uncle, and do all those awful things! And now we don’t even have Rika to show for it!”

“Made you!? Ohoho! Even now you’re more concerned about Rika than any regret for what you’ve done! You enjoyed the game as much as I did, don’t be upset just because it’s over.” The Witch cackled. “You started this, don’t throw a tantrum just because you lost. Your lust for pity and addiction to manipulation is the only reason I’m here at all!”

“No, you’re…” The words stung deep into Satoko, deep down she knew she couldn’t blame all of this on the Witch despite how much she wanted a scapegoat, her grief turned in on itself and became self-loathing and she backed away towards the edge of the platform. “You’re right… this is all my fault. I wanted so desperately to be with Rika that if the world told me I couldn’t, I would gladly destroy that world and find a world that would give me a more palatable answer…”

“You are a sinner, Satoko Hojo.” A grin split the Witch’s face in half. “Just like me.”

A defeated look crossed Satoko’s face as she hung her head, heels at the edge of the platform, there was nowhere else to go.

So she leapt.

Falling through the thousands of shards, into the abyss, falling and at the same time not falling, but moving away from the area with Eua and the Witch all the same

“Should we… do something about that?” The Witch looked back at Eua with a puzzled look.

“The Sea of Fragments is but a temporary stop, humans aren’t meant to exist here indefinitely, that is only for Witches like us. If she doesn’t loop again she will eventually cease to exist entirely. Let’s just see what happens. Despair is its own form of entertainment~”

-----------------------------------------------------------

Rika awoke in her own sea of fragments some time later. Memories of what happened after she killed Satoko were fuzzy but she had a feeling she hadn’t lasted much longer than that for one reason or another. She glanced around and a feeling of deep emptiness washed over her. It had been a few loops since Hanyuu’s memory disappeared in front of her but with the drive of trying to solve the mystery kept her going for a bit. Now that she had the answer she was struck by just how quiet and empty this world was without her guardian deity and now that she had the answer.

“Every time I try to find the truth in a sea of keys, it just opens the door to something even more tragic…” She lay onto her back and closed her eyes. She couldn’t place it but for some reason she felt particularly empty, not at peace per se, but not in anguish about the revelation like she’d expected to be.

Why go on at this point? Her closest friends had either disappeared or betrayed her. If she looped again she knew she’d only be killed by Satoko again, or worse, find a world where she wasn’t there. She dug into her pocket, pulling out the shard of the Onigari-no-Ryuuou she’d retrieved earlier, noticing that it stayed with her when she looped as if it existed outside normal time. She briefly contemplated finally using it on herself, not overcome by despair as she had been the first time she thought of it, but filled with emptiness and apathy that prodded her with the possibility.

“So are you going to use it?” A voiced called to her from across the distance. It was somehow familiar despite her knowing she’d never heard it before. She sat up and saw a woman about her height, with her hair color, yet with a bored expression spun across her face.

“Who are you…?” Rika gripped the shard of the sword tighter, toying with the idea of defending herself if it came to that but quickly shelving the idea.

“Eua calls me The Cat, that’s as good as any name I suppose.” The woman murmured. “You didn’t answer my question. Are you going to do it? As long as someone’s entertained, this story won’t end. You’ll keep getting dragged into loops whether you like it or not. Stories shouldn’t be without endings. An end, even a bad end, might be worth it.”

“Are you… me?” Rika asked on a hunch, glancing down to the shard in her hand.

“Yes and no.” The Cat responded. “I am the frustration and madness and grief of a hundred years of torment. In a moment of agony you wished to be rid of that, to cast off the fatigue of those who live in loops. It’s not exactly that easy, but I am a response to that wish at least.”

“It would be a waste.” Rika finally responded, putting the shard back in her pocket. “I’ve gone through too much wanting to live to die now. To admit at all that suffering was for nothing, it would be far too cruel.”

“We are no strangers to cruelty. The curses of witches often create worlds where there are no good ends.” A sadistic smirk briefly crossed the Cat’s lips. “It’s ironic that Satoko’s desire not to lose you has now put you two out of reach forever. It would’ve been more deliciously ironic if it caused the cessation of your existence entirely, but I won’t be greedy for now.” The cat gave a cruel chuckle.

“She what!?” Rika winced, she had a feeling about what Satoko had said, she was no expert on how the fragments worked but she could feel as if Satoko had been somehow lost to her.

“Do you care? Do you care that the girl that dragged you back into hell for her own selfish means is now gone? I suppose I could go for a girl like that, but I think we have different tastes.” The Cat’s stoic face showed a slightly bemused smirk.

“I do… I’ve been hurt by all my friends at one time or another, they’ve all murdered and hurt me and I knew it wasn’t their fault. Satoko may not have been under Hinamizawa Syndrome, but she was hurting all the same. I won’t say I didn’t try to help her, but at the same time I failed to adequately see how deeply troubled she was. I was so blind that I didn’t even see that she was the one that was upset at me enough to pull me back into loops. I can’t forgive what she did so easily, but I know… in the end, she just wanted the same thing I did, for us to be together…”

-----------------------------------------------------------

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” The words croaked out of Satoko’s throat, she wasn’t sure how many times she’d said it but she’d long passed the one thousand apologies demanded of an offense to God. Eventually she just stopped talking altogether.

Satoko wasn’t sure how long she drifted, it could have been hours, years, decades, she had no idea how time worked in the sea of fragments and her mind was too blank and numb to try and make sense of it all. She kept replaying the events in her head, trying to see where she’d gone wrong. It was obvious the more she looked at it, even if her crimes didn’t last through loops, living in a world where death didn’t matter and each new life was just one of a million chances to make her ideal world deeply affected her, warped the way she saw things.

She bumped into a fragment from behind, looping into it. She was walking home with Keiichi and Rena, the house she and Rika had lived in was hers alone and the distance between her and her friends was more noticeable without Rika there to bridge the gap. This wasn’t the first loop she’d bumped into mindlessly, some the villagers had been more hostile to her without Rika there to help her. Some of them her uncle was still there, sometimes nice, sometimes cruel, some loops were relatively pleasant, though the emptiness of Rika’s absence persisted.

Just like the others she had no interest in this world. The only reason she didn’t entirely avoid fragments on her mindless drifting was in the vain hope that she’d bump into a fragment with Rika in it. Still she knew this wasn’t one of those, stopping in the middle of the street. Ren and Keiichi turned to see what was wrong, though they didn’t ask. She dug into her pencil bag, finding the sharpest pencil she could and jammed it hard into her eye. She screamed in torment but she’d gotten used to this by now and knew where to go to make sure she died quickly.

Soon enough she was back in the sea, drifting listlessly, eyes hollow and lightless. “When I was little, I broke Oyashiro-sama’s statue and Rika was blamed for it… was I cursed since that day? Or even before that… have I been cursed since the day I was born? Born into the family of outcasts that supported the dam project, broken and abused, my Nii-Nii stolen from me… it seems God’s been angry at me from the start… not this time though, this time the Curse is all on me…”

“Satoko… curses don’t break easily, but that’s not all there is to the world either…” A voice called to Satoko from the darkness. A brief flicker of light shone in the blonde’s hopeless eyes, willing herself to at least look over and acknowledge the voice.

“Your sins can’t disappear.” Hanyuu floated in front of her. “I’ve learned that myself, just like when you erase a blackboard, it’s never as clean as before you wrote on it. The Witch is real and reflects your sins, that will never change. There will always be a part of you that can’t forgive the world and curses it. My hatred of the world of men became a blight on the land that spread farther than I ever intended…” Hanyuu sighed, thinking of Hinamizawa Syndrome and Eua. “But that’s not all of you. Forgiveness is a miracle, many people prayed to Oyashiro-sama to forgive them, but a Miracle isn’t something gifted to you by divine providence. A Miracle is something you make with your own two hands, little by little. If it takes a hundred years, even if that sin never disappears, the miracle of forgiveness can be yours.”

“I don’t deserve forgiveness, I don’t know if I even want it at this point…” Satoko sat upright, glancing away from Hanyuu. She remembered her from the fragments she’d viewed through Rika and though they hadn’t spoken much she couldn’t bear to look her in the eyes now.

“Then what do you want, Satoko?” Hanyuu nodded patiently. “I may be a failure but I am still a deity, let me hear your prayers.”

The question brought Satoko to tears, after all she’d done to selfishly pursue her own goals, after all her agony and self-loathing, to be asked what she wanted, to still consider her desires as valid, to think she had a future to aspire to.

“I… I WANT TO SEE RIKA!!!” She shouted into the void, tears streaming down her face. “I want to apologize, even if I don’t deserve forgiveness, I want to see her one more time and cherish the brief moment I have with her to make up for all the worlds of time with her I threw away!!”

“I can’t grant your wish Satoko… but you can.” Hanyuu smiled sweetly, tears creeping into the corners of her eyes as well. “There’s nothing that can’t be done. Rika rolled the dice of fate thousands of times and made a miracle, and you worked towards your goals, misguided as they were, to meet them with certainty. Even if it’s just one time, you can overcome your own consequences and find the one world where you can get your wish. Seek it out with hopes and dreams instead of curses and despair and you will certainly find it.”

“RIKA!!!’ Satoko charged forward, finding no footing in the floating void but touching shard after shard, flashing through dozens, possible hundreds of worlds. Each world erupted into shards of light as she passed through them, like digging through a pool of glass, ignoring the pain each defeat found her, crawling through years and years in what seemed like instants and eternities all at once. The light from each broke shard formed a rift, lighting a crack in the void that she was finally able to step through.

And came out on the other side.

--------------------------------------------------------

“RIKA!!!!!” Rika turned her head, spying the chasm of light above her as Satoko reached out through it. The priestess took her hand with a gasp, pulling her through, eyes wide with shock.

“Satoko!?”

“Oh my, how interesting…” The Cat smirked, disappearing into the void while her eyes stayed glued to the two.

“Rika… I’m sorry… I don’t want to feel that far apart from you ever again… so even if it’s just right now, even if this is the last time I see you… please just know I’m sorry. You don’t have to forgive me, I don’t want you to, just please hear my apology…”

Rika was stunned, seeing the look of anguish on Satoko’s face, completely changed from the smug angry expression she’d had in the kitchen.

“I… forgive you.”

“No! Rika you dummy…” Satoko sobbed. “I don’t deserve forgivness…”

“Whether you deserve it or not, you’re getting it.” Rika patted Satoko’s head. “Poor, poor Satoko. Pain fly away, Mii~” Her voice was briefly cute and fluffy as it had been in class before returning to a more stern tone.

“Please don’t be sad, even if the world doesn’t forgive you, I will forgive you. Please don’t be sad, even if you don’t forgive the world, I will forgive you. So please tell me, what shall I do so that you’ll forgive me?” The Cat repeated the lines from the poem as she watched the scene unfold.

“No matter the error, nothing is unforgivable. There’s no such thing as a mistake that can’t be fixed. If it is something that can’t be fixed, that all the more reason to forgive you because nothing will be changed by you apologizing now.” Rika gave a tender smile as she embraced Satoko gently.

“Come on, let’s go back. Whether or not we’ll be together in the future, we’re together now. The rest we can figure out later.” Rika pulled back gently, tears streaming from her eyes as she gave a laugh of relief.

“That’s hardly any fun.” Eua grumbled from above as she and the Witch floated down to join the Cat. “I demanded to be entertained for my payment of granting your wish Satoko, and I am not satisfied just yet.”

“I have no intention of entertaining you any longer…” Satoko gave the faintest of smiles. “I plan on my life being very boring from here on out.”

“That’s dumb, you’re dumb.” The Witch blew a raspberry at Satoko.

“Well if you’re not a willing participant that doesn’t bode well… I suppose I’ll have to get my fill with one last game. I could always just revoke the power of looping from both of you and leave you stranded here forever, but that does sound boring… I will let you return to the future, for one last high-stakes game. Watching your little club play has gotten me in the mood to perform a game of my own.” The goddess’s face bent into a wicked smirk.

“Oooh, what game are we playing?” The Witch leaned in as the Cat joined her beside Eua.

“Onigokko.” Eua’s grin grew wider.

“Tag? You’re going to have them play Tag?” The Cat tilted her head, perplexed.

Eua held up her hand, a black fragment appearing in it. “Your final test to prove your resolve. During Satoko’s looping, the accumulation of memories irreversibly grew exponentially and so more and more people began to branch out with memories of dying in the tragic Hinamizawa Disaster or succumbing to Hinamizawa Syndrome. This fragment represents the buildup of those accumulated memories, it represents your foolish desire to try and infinitely loop through time as if you could do so forever without consequence. If you can enter and defeat it, you will earn your return to your original future. However if you fail or are to die, your worlds will once again be separated forever, erasing this little miracle for eternity. The rules are simple: all of the infected townspeople, driven mad by their resurfaced memories are the “Oni” make it to the Saiguden, the ritual storehouse where Satoko first met me, and you will return to your future. However if you are killed beforehand, you will return to your separate, parallel seas of fragments.”

“Oooh, I like this game!” The Witch grinned, giving a haughty laugh.

“That’s not fair! Satoko already apologized for-“ Rika protested, interrupted by a hand on her shoulder.

“It’s okay Rika… I’ll confront my mistakes. Whether it’s punishment or forgiveness that awaits me, I can’t keep running from it.” Satoko hung her head solemnly before looking up at Eua with determination. “But if we’re playing by club rules, you know we have to give it our all, and I don’t intend to lose.”

“Oh you are endlessly entertaining Vier, good luck.” Eua chuckled before tossing the fragment to Rika and Satoko, sucking them into it in a brilliant light.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The night sky of Hinamizawa was blood red, blotched with smoke and filled with the sounds of screams and crashes overtaking the normal roar of the cicadas. Standing in the fields, Rika and Satoko could see the glow of fire working its way through the small buildings of the mountain town and the shadows of hurried figures at they ran back and forth.

“This is how people react to loops.” The Cat floated ethereally behind Rika as Hanyuu once had. “See how easily they break to all that you’ve endured?”

“The conflictions of memories and murder and death have driven everyone mad and detached them from reality, what a marvelous game to play.” The Witch gave a haughty laugh from behind Satoko. “I won’t take your body again though, it’s much more fun to watch you play in this instance.” She gave the blonde a smug smirk.

Rika looked pensive for a moment, watching the people scream in torment in the distance as the town she’d wanted to protect and be liberated from so badly burned in front of her. It wasn’t the Great Hinamizawa Disaster, but in a way this was something of their own making, the result of the fight between her and Satoko. She was torn from her thoughts by a hand grasping hers.

“Come on Rika, we have to get to the Saiguden.” Satoko reminded. “If we go to the shrine this way we can avoid going through the bulk of the village.” She led Rika along the dirt path. Running down the rural street on foot reminded her of how frail her childish body was after so long in the Sea of Fragments. Her footing wasn’t sure and her stride was short, if they were found by someone and chased it wouldn’t end well for them.

They made their way down the road and for a time it was quiet, the top of the Furude Shrine’s torii gate could be seen on the horizon, they were getting close. However the closer they got to the shrine, the slower their footsteps got, eyes widening with sudden realization.

There were people moving about the shrine: a lot of them.

“Oh my, there certainly are a lot of them. Did Eua put you back on the day of the Watanagashi Festival? Ohoho~” The Witch cackled.

“RIKA! RIKAAA~~~!!!” A familiar voice pierced the darkness. It was Mayor Kimiyoshi, leading a mob of people on the shrine. “Come out so you can die for the village!” Several of the people were holding makeshift weapons, many already had bloodstains on them.

“Damn…” Satoko cursed under her breath as they tried to get out of view, but it was too late.

“There she is!” One of the villagers shouted from the overlook of the shrine, calling down to the mob on the steps. Taking Rika’s hand, Satoko had no choice but to dash into the thick forest and up the hill, Rika taking her hand away so both could climb up the hill together through the brush.

“You’ll never get away from me in this village Rika!” Kimiyoshi’s shrill shout came from the bottom of the hill as the mob had raced down the stairs to confront Rika.

“I’ve lived in this village for over one hundred years.” Rika’s voice grew harsh, her eyes showing a faint red gleam. “No one knows every inch of it better than I do.” The girls scrambled up the hill, leading them away from the stairs had taken them towards the path where the house Satoko and Rika shared was.

“I found you!” A voice called as Keiichi appeared in front of the two girls. “I knew you’d try something sneaky… now tell me! Why am I feeling this way? Why is my mind full of blood and death and despair!? Kimiyoshi says if we sacrifice you, all this will clear up!”

Rika winced, staring at the dented bat in Keiichi’s hands. “You’re feeling it because of us, everything’s happened to you all at once and it’s too much for anyone…” The Cat’s words to her hung heavy on her. She’d lived these infinite loops many times but this all hit Hinamizawa at once and it would break anyone, whether it was the mob at her back or the friend in her way, she didn’t have much recourse.

“Keiichi-san!” Satoko moved to protect Rika as Keiichi started to swing. “You remember everything, don’t you? When death and destruction flow through your mind it’s easy for that to be the only thing you think about. But once remembering these loops gave you strength. The regret you felt in remembrance gave you the strength to apologize to Rena, it let you hear her apology through the madness.” She outstretched her hands upward, remembering the flashes of the first fragment Eua had shown her.

Keiichi froze, bat still hanging high in the air as he looked down at Satoko’s outstretched hands. He remembered Rena doing the same, remembered breaking those outstretched hands, remembered asking for her forgiveness when she could no longer remember his sins. All of the tragedy that they’d been through, the times he’d killed Rena and Mion, the ones where he’d went on a rampage at Angel Mort, but also the times he’d fought to defend Rena, the times he stood against the village to protect Satoko and Rika. Everything was so vast and the blood of it all had floated to the surface, but deep down the kindness and forgiveness stuck with him.

“Satoko… Rika…” Keiichi sighed, lowering his bat. “I don’t know how long I can keep that pain from my mind, but I have faith in my friends. You guys have a plan, right?”

“Yes!” Both girls gave determined nods.

“Alright, I’ll slow everyone down as much as I can.” He gave a confident smirk, feeling more capable than he probably was. “You guys do what you have to do.”

Rika nodded as she and Satoko ran in the opposite direction, Keiichi heading off part of the mob that was trying to cross the bridge to the shrine. “The will to fight… it’s still so awe-inspiring.” It didn’t come naturally to her, to spit in the face of adversity, but it was something she’d slowly learned over time.

As they passed by the house, the familiar glow of flames overtook their shared home, catching Satoko’s eye as the mob sought to burn out any place they could hide. Just as had happened in the future, the place where Rika and her could be together was disappearing, making her heart sink, all her efforts to prevent that only hastened the process.

“Rena…” Rika whispered, stopping in front of Satoko, causing her to bump into her from behind.

The red-head’s hands were shaking as she gripped the axe tightly in her hands until her knuckles turned white. “I don’t want to hurt my friends… why are we doing this, I wonder, I wonder?” Her mind was flooded with thoughts of trying to protect her father, of doing her best, but failing to protect him or stop her friends from resorting to murder. “Why… why is it like this…?”

Rika stepped forward this time. “Rena, you’re the most caring person I know. You’ve been hurt a lot but you keep reaching out your hands to forgive and comfort others. Even if you think our existence is a sin, I need to ask you to forgive us once more. Just one more time.”

“I’m the one that’s a sinner…” Rena gently itched her wrist, faintly as if scratching a memory. “Rika-chan… Satoko-chan… why does everyone keep getting hurt no matter what we do? We’re trying our best but… it keeps happening over and over.” The axe trembled in her hands.

“It’s not your fault Rena!” Satoko winced, remembering Rena was the first person she deliberately manipulated in her quest to torture Rika, promising her happiness she was never quite sure she could deliver. “We aren’t being punished by an angry god… we’re doing this to each other, and it’s up to us to forgive each other. Please Rena, don’t let the confusion and blood make you forget everything we shared. I’ve done you wrong, but you’ve always managed to see the best in people and kept reaching out to them even when they couldn’t hear you…”

“I don’t know what I can do… but I won’t hurt you, I won’t…” Rena nodded firmly, stepping down towards where Keiichi was to stall the mob a little longer. Her hands were shaking still but her determination to not shed more blood seemed solid.

Satoko and Rika kept moving, finally reaching the storehouse and finding two people there. To their surprise, Mion and Shion weren’t standing in their way, but confronting each other. “We have to end this!” Shion shouted, flailing against Mion as the other sister tried to hold her wrists. “This damn village, everything that runs it is a corrupt pile of shit! This has to end here, Granny, Rika, Kimiyoshi, they all have to die!!”

Mion’s face contorted in conflict and sadness, but no malice. She too now remembered all the pain and torment her family had seemingly caused throughout the village over numerous interations. She now even remembered getting her own hands dirty as well when her affection for Keiichi drove her to madness. Still that solitary sin in a century’s worth of memories filled her with regret and conviction rather than madness.

“I thought I was trying to be strong as the head of the family, but even I walked down the same path as you with a little prodding, I know where you’re coming from Shion. I wasn’t strong enough to resist that madness myself, nor was I brave enough to stop you when you had succumb to it. Our relationship’s never been easy, taking your place and that meaning I had to be stern against you, it’s no wonder you feel this way. It’s no wonder you have such a trail of blood behind you, I tried my best to be the head of the Sonozaki Family, but in being your sister I was sorely lacking. I wasn’t able to comfort you, I wans’t able to change our Granny like Keiichi did, I didn’t have the bravery he had to stand against tradition, nor the charisma to break it, and you suffered because of that.” Tears streamed down both twins face at Mion’s confession, her grip on Shion’s wrists turning to an embrace as she hugged her twin tightly, weeping between her words.

“I love you, Shion.”

Rika and Satoko rushed past the twins while they were engaged with each other, the mob hot on their trail as the glow of torches enveloped them from behind. Spotting them smaller girls, Shion’s eyes widened as she pushed them into the Saiguden and barred the door shut behind her. “That’s right… I promised I would protect Satoko…”

Mion stretched her arms out, placing herself between the angry mob and the storage warehouse. “You’re not going to sacrifice someone on a superstition! As head of the Sonozaki Family I will not stand for this!” She roared, glaring into the furious cries of the crowd. “This curse ends here!!”

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Inside the storehouse, Rika and Satoko barricaded the door, the banging of the crowd threatening to knock it down at any moment despite the rest of the club’s efforts to stop them. “Well we’re here, what do we do now?” Satoko growled in frustration, looking around the bloodstained room of torture devices and the statue of Oyashiro-sama.

“Well it’s a game of tag~” The Witch teased in Satoko’s ear. “You all haven’t been tagged yet, but apparently you haven’t found home base yet either.” She gave a smug giggle.

“Eua said this is where we first met…” Satoko looked towards the statue, poking at its midsection and opening another crack as she had before, though instead of the broken horn that came out the first time she’d been here, a light erupted in front of them, a vision of Rena, Keiichi, and Mion searching the storeroom for them as they were in the future.

“There it is!” Rika reached out to touch the portal to the future, but finding it was solid, like touching a pane of glass. “…why can’t we get in?”

“Satoko knows…” The Cat chirped boredly over Rika’s shoulder as a glow from Rika’s pocket caught both of their attention.

To the girls’ surprise, the shard of the Onigari-no-Ryuuou ripped its way out of Rika’s pocket, joining with the full sword as it appeared in Satoko’s hand. “The sword… I hid it here before… I guess it’s the only way to break through into the other world…” She gripped the hilt and raised it to swing at the portal.

“Think about this Satoko Hojo.” The Witch narrowed her eyes. “If you do this, everything you’ve done until now will be for naught. You’ll go back to that lonely world where everyone’s moved on without you and you and Rika are drifting apart.”

“Even staying here I can’t stop Rika and I from drifting apart.” Satoko closed her eyes and took a deep breath, though her hands were still shaking and she couldn’t bring herself to make the swing even with the banging on the storage room door growing louder.

“You can’t stop the future.” Rika sighed and nodded, taking Satoko’s hand. “You can delay it, you can close yourself off from it, you can try and try to do better, but you can’t stop it forever. Still, it’s something you have to choose to be a part of. I know you desperately tried to change your fate as I tried to change mine. It’s a very painful process, but as much as knowing when to reject fate is important, knowing when to accept it is just as important. If you can accept the future as it is, I can promise you we’ll face it together.”

Satoko had heard such promises before, and knew they couldn’t always be trusted, no matter how hard she tried, she and Rika ended up in different places, worlds apart. But still, she wanted to trust Rika one more time. She wanted to move forward and at least try to start to be forgiven.

“Okay… I’ll choose the future…”

Rika and Satoko’s hands gripped the Ongari-no-Ryuuou and swung down into the fragment.

-----------------------------------

The two girls tumbled into the storehouse with a whimper, rubbing their sore backsides as they were greeted by their friends, still on their break from school after picking them up at St. Lucia’s, just as they had left them. The three older kids had looks of concern on their faces at they spotted Satoko and Rika fall from seemingly nowhere.

“There you two are, geez what’s with you guys?” Keiichi huffed. “You disappeared and we looked everywhere for you! Lucky Mion had the keys to this place, how’d you know they’d be here?”

Mion rubbed the bridge of her nose. “This old man just had a hunch is all. Don’t you remember that game of hide of seek we played where we found Rika here?”

“Ah? I don’t remember that, I don’t.” Rena gave a puzzled look and tilted her head. “Are you making up stories again Mion-san?”

“Ehehe, maybe it’s kind of fuzzy…” Mion chuckled and put her hands on her hips. “At least everyone’s here, I’m glad things have changed around here, if Granny found us all in here like this a few years ago there’d be hell to pay.”

Satoko’s eyes widened as she silently looked at the statue of Oyashiro-sama, the head, chest, and even the hand were unbroken, reminding her of how much trouble Rika had gotten in when she had been blamed for Satoko breaking the statue’s arm.

“Oh, you noticed that huh?” Mion grinned, spying Satoko looking at the arm. “A few years ago I snuck in here and fixed the statue’s arm. Rika-chan got blamed for it when you guys were little, but it was you, right Satoko?”

Satoko looked like a kicked puppy as she hung her head with a small nod.

“Don’t worry, like I said things are different now. Plus there’s no harm done, you can hardly see where it was broken.” She ran a finger over the seam where she had diligently worked to repair it.

“There’s a crack… it wasn’t like that before and it’ll never be the same…” Satoko huffed, glancing to the corner of the storehouse where the Onigari-no-Ryuuou lay tucked away in a corner under some other instruments, the seam where Rika’s shard had fused into it was still clearly visible.

“That’s true I guess, once you break something it’ll never be like new again.” Mion pondered while looking over the statue. “Something perfect and unbroken is very beautiful, but something that’s been broken and repaired has something more than beauty, it has wisdom. Like a scar…” She gingerly reached to her back, where the demon tattoo was branded onto her. “They’re like an experience, a reminder of something you learned from. Breaking this statue made you empathize with how Rika felt, right? It may even have made you closer friends. Then in that case you’ve learned from that scar.” She smirked.

Satoko looked up at her and nodded slowly, looking at Rika who gave her a tender smile. “That’s right, Mii~”

“Rika, I…. I don’t want to go to St. Lucia’s anymore. I want to stay here in Hinamizawa.” Satoko finally admitted to Rika and herself.

“Oh, so that’s what this was all about…” Keiichi rubbed the back of his head, feeling a little awkward that they’d seemingly drug up this disagreement. “I thought you guys were a little cold to each other on the ride out here…”

“I know… I wanted to share St. Lucia’s with you, but I know I can’t force you into somewhere you don’t want to be…” Rika nodded softly, a faint smile tinged by sadness crossing her face.

“Heyyy, listen to me.” Keiichi growled, flicking both their foreheads.

“Ow!”

“Hey!”

“We all went to different schools right? And yet we’re here now. Just because we’re not together every day and we want different things doesn’t mean we’re not friends. That’s why Mion organized this whole thing. After everything we’ve been through, do you think we’d forget each other just because we’re not constantly together?”

“That’s true, loving someone means wanting them to be where they’ll grow best, right?” Rena smiled and giggled, watching the two rub their foreheads, swooning a bit at the cyuuute scene. “Everyone’s different and nothing’s guaranteed, so we have to cherish the time we have together and work harder to stay connected while helping each other grow.”

“Alright, this old man’s sick of all this mush, let’s get out of here and go get something to eat.” Mion cracked her knuckles and grinned. “Shion’s waiting for us down at Angel Mort, so let’s get going.”

“Yeah…” Satoko nodded, taking Rika’s hand gently as the other three led them out of the storehouse, into the light of the sunset.

“I don’t know what kind of future I’ll have with Rika, but trying to force it will only divide us more, I’m going to cherish the time I have with her now, and keep growing into who I need to be to stay connected with her, even if from a distance… if we do drift away, I’m going to love her now as best I can… I’ll remember everything I’ve had with her and the unbridled joy it’s brought me. I won’t be sad.”

“I won’t cry.”

-------------------------------------------------------------

“Awww, that was so much fun! Just one more round!” Eua pouted, watching the fragment with a frustrated growl. “I just want to torture them a little more!”

“You promised!” Hanyuu growled angrily, her eyes turning red. “Besides, the way they are now, I don’t think you’ll have the same kind of fun playing that sort of game with them again. Let Rika and Satoko live their lives.”

“That’s true, playing the same game over and over again is boring.” The Cat sighed as she floated by.

“We should find a new game to play, with brand new pawns to mess with.” The Witch cackled, shifting as she grabbed the Cat’s hands and twirled her in the air.

“Maybe my next game will be without you.” The Cat’s eyes lowered despondently.

The Witch chuckled loudly. “I’ll find you whatever game you play, and we can play together!”

The Cat huffed. “If you come after me, I’ll run away.”

“If you stop coming after me, you’ll find me.”

“If you go north, I’ll go south.”

“If you go east, I’ll go west.”

“We’ll see each other again someday.”

“Sooner than we think.”

“When they Cry, whoever they are.”

#ooc #Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni #Higurashi Sotsu #Higurashi #HNNKN #Fanfiction #Higurashi Gou #When They Cry #Satoko Hojo #Rika Furude

22 notes · View notes