"Everybody, stand up.

Move to the center of the room."

Everyone gasped in surprise.

Even Chie-sensei couldn't make everybody go so quiet all of a sudden.

Rena was gripping the shoulder of the student who came back from the bathroom... In her other hand, she had a big, scary-looking hatchet. It was the same one she had the other night.

Everyone immediately understood that Rena had taken a hostage.

"...Are you all deaf?

Move to the center of the room.

Push the desks to the sides."

Nobody grasped what she was asking us to do. We all froze.

Rena was the only one who was smiling... It was terrifying.

"Mii-chan,

you're the class president.

Tell everyone to move to the center."

"...R-R-Rena... what are you doing...?"

Bam!!!

A loud noise washed out Mion's voice.

...Rena hit the teacher's desk really hard with her hatchet.

...She pulled out the hatchet, making an ominous ripping noise.

...There was now a line of violence carved plainly into the desk.

...Uh-oh...

She broke it...

Chie-sensei is going to get mad when she comes back......

No, that wasn't it.

......What...

......the

hell...

"I knew I couldn't trust you, Mii-chan.

I'm going to ask Keiichi-kun, then.

...You're my only friend, right, Keiichi-kun?

So, I can trust you, can't I...?"

...R-Rena... Your eyes... You look so scary...

I've never seen eyes like that in my life.

...Your eyes are full of insanity!

Why are people afraid of insanity?

Insanity means that a person doesn't share the same values and the same common sense as us.

For example, say a thief breaks into your house, and he ties you up.

...You'll get scared and wonder if he's going to stab you before he leaves.

...But you hope that the thief has feelings too, and that he's not going to kill you for no reason...

No matter how bad the person is, we tend to believe in his goodwill as long as we share the same values, the same common sense, and the same morals as him.

But... we can't expect goodwill from somebody who doesn't have those things.

We can't expect goodwill from a person who can't communicate with us.

...When a burglar has a knife and you beg him not to hurt you, you expect him to listen to you and to show you mercy.

In other words, you can still communicate with him.

But... if he doesn't have the ability to communicate

...he's just like a monster that's trying to attack you... or like the blade of a guillotine that's falling down on you.

You fear him, because you can't communicate with him.

That's insanity.

It was the same fear we were feeling towards Rena at that very moment.

She looked like a human just like us... but there was no room for her to communicate with us like a normal person could do.

......Everybody understood that fear instinctively.

"Keiichi-kun,

make them move the desks to make room in the middle."

"O-Okay.

...E-Everybody... let's do as Rena says...!"

Rena was like a barrel of gunpowder at that moment.

...She seemed really calm and quiet, but she could explode any minute.

When she did, I doubt she'd show us any mercy.

...She probably wouldn't hesitate to use that hatchet on us.

...That's right. Just like how I didn't feel guilty or hesitate to kill Rena and Mion...!!

Everybody went all quiet while pushing the desks against the wall to make a space where Rena wanted it.

Rena, saying that we're moving too slow, hit the blackboard with the hatchet, making a horrible noise.

Every time she did that, she left an equally horrible scar on the blackboard, the thing that we looked at most in the school.

"Keiichi-kun,

can you get the jump ropes out from the lockers?

Use them to tie our classmates up."

"......I... I'm not good at tying knots...

I probably can't tie them up very well..."

"I'll check one by one if you tied them up well enough.

If I find the ropes loose, I'll kill the person, so you better tie them up really well."

".........Ah........."

We were still kids.

We saw the word "kill" all the time.

It was used a lot in comic books and cartoons, after all.

...So, normally you'd assume we'd be used to hearing the word "kill".

...But... when Rena said she'd kill us... it sounded so frightening. I'd never heard something like that before in my life.

To Rena, our lives were... like cards she could use for negotiation.

She'd get rid of one card every time somebody refused her request.

...Get rid of?

Damn it! Why did we use such scary words like "get rid of" for simple things like playing cards...?!

Anyway... there were about twenty students... in the class.

That was a little bit too many for Rena to handle.

...She might get rid of one or two just to set an example...

I decided to do what Rena said because I didn't want her to lose her temper... I got out everybody's jump ropes from their lockers.

"All of you, get on the floor.

Keiichi-kun, you can start tying their hands behind their backs.

...Tie them really tightly.

You're on my side, aren't you?

You wouldn't tie them loosely on purpose,

would you?"

"........................"

Mion tried to make eye contact with me.

...If everybody was tied down, we wouldn't be able to stop her from occupying the school.

There were more than twenty students in this class.

...Half of them were boys, but most of them were smaller than Rena.

But... there were enough people here to overpower her.

...But if we did that, Rena would probably hit her hostage with the hatchet.

And she'd use the hatchet to attack the rest of us without hesitation... It'd be a bloody battle.

...I'm sure somebody would get hurt if we tried to overpower her.

...The hostage...

would be seriously injured,

or... maybe even... die.

If that happened... it was over.

No matter how hard we tried to cover up, she'd never be able to live peacefully like before...

...Mion seemed to understand that, too.

...I could tell from Rena's eyes that she wasn't going to go easy on us.

...If somebody showed defiance, she'd break the hostage's head open immediately.

...Of course... Rena had done that before. She'd probably do it again with no hesitation...

But... as long as we did what she said, we could prevent that bloody tragedy.

...If we could somehow solve this situation without shedding any blood... with Mion's influence, we might still be able to pretend that this never happened.

...At the least, we had to make sure she didn't kill anyone.

"...Let's do as Rena says."

"Kei-chan..."

Mion tried to think of ways to overpower Rena.

...But she couldn't come up with any good ideas to save the hostage.

That's how easy it would be for Rena to kill them...!

...The best thing to do at that time was to wait for a chance without agitating her further.

Mion lay down on the floor, and everyone else followed suit, sluggish with terror...

And I was left alone... standing rooted to the spot with jump ropes in my hands.

...All my classmates were lying face-down on the floor... while Rena was pointing the hatchet at the hostage, watching our every move from behind the teacher's desk... I just stood frozen in the middle of it all...

"Keiichi-kun, there are many things I want you to help me with.

So hurry up.

...If you take too long, some of them might have to die."

Some of the little kids started crying when they heard the word "die"...

"It's all right, everyone.

Keiichi-kun will save you.

So nobody is going to die.

...Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!"

...Damn it...

What a bold threat...

She said I was her friend, but she was just playing with the meaning of the word...

I was the last person who could still fight against Rena under these circumstances.

...But it wasn't going to be easy to overpower her by myself.

...I wasn't sure if I could do that.

Even if I tried to act tough, once Rena pointed the hatchet at somebody's neck, it was over.

I shouldn't fight against her for now.

...I should just wait for a chance.

As long as Rena was alone, there would be a chance.

...She made me tie them up because she couldn't do that by herself.

...There was a limit to what she could do, because she was by herself...

If we could cover this up somehow before Chie-sensei came back... we'd still be able to pretend like we were kidding around.

...I finally realized something.

...I realized why Rena called Chie-sensei to meet with her.

...In order for Rena to take over the classroom, she needed to get rid of Chie-sensei.

Chie-sensei had a very strong sense of justice.

Even if Rena had a gun, she wouldn't hesitate to overpower her.

She was the kind of teacher who would risk her life for her students... Rena needed to figure out how to get rid of Chie-sensei. That was the key to her plan.

Rena probably thought about attacking her from behind at first,

but there was risk there, as Chie-sensei was a grown-up woman. So, she probably thought that attacking her directly wasn't a wise choice.

...So, naturally, the next option was to lure her out somewhere...!

Rena called Chie-sensei and told her she wanted to talk to her in private... in order to lure her out to some place far from here.

Most people, including Chie-sensei, thought Rena was just running away from home.

...So, Chie-sensei must've thought Rena had some problems she wanted to talk to her about.

.........It was too easy to deceive her.

Where did she make the phone call from...?

She probably used the phone in the school.

Well, not in school, to be exact.

She probably used the phone on the second floor of the school... the one belonging to the forestry service.

This school was using part of the forestry service building, but this particular location was more of a branch office,

so it's not like somebody was here all the time.

Rena knew that, and she had probably been hiding there for a while.

She called the phone on the first floor from the second floor... and she made Chie-sensei leave the school.

I didn't think it was a coincidence that the principal was on a business trip today.

...She probably snuck into the school yesterday.

She saw the principal's schedule, learned how to call the phone on the first floor from the second, and carried out her plan.

...She planned it perfectly...

...Yeah, I knew it.

...Rena was insane... but I knew she was also actually really calm.

...She was possessed by her delusion, but she was also unbelievably calm about it.

...So... she could still think fast.

...I knew that very well, because I'd been through the same thing before.

What was worse is that Mion's bodyguards were gone.

...Mion told them to follow Chie-sensei because she thought Chie-sensei was going to meet with Rena.

...Damn it... Everything seemed to be working out in her favor...

"...I'm done..."

I tied up the last person, and I looked in Rena's direction.

If I didn't tie them up really tightly, Rena would kill them.

...But when I tied them too tightly, they suffered in pain.

...Their pained cries made me feel useless.

"Thank you, Keiichi-kun.

...I don't mean to doubt you, Keiichi-kun, but I'll make sure just in case.

Please put your hands on your head and lie face-down on the floor.

......And I'm saying this to everybody.

If you stand up without my permission, I'll kill you!!

I'll kill whoever stood up, and one more person randomly, to set an example!!

...It's not nice to be chosen randomly, huh?

Oh, there's a good idea.

I'll kill the person who didn't listen to me, add 10 to his or her student number, and kill that person too.

For example... let's say Okamura-kun didn't listen to me.

I'd kill him and Watanabe-kun

because his student number is 11.

Get it?!

I'll always be killing two of you at the same time!!

You'd better remember that you involve another person's life besides your own when you attempt to stand against me!!!"

...How awful...

She totally understood how to threaten people...

Normally, you stand against an attacker at your own risk. If you fail, you're going to die.

...But if you were responsible for someone else, then you couldn't try to resist.

You can't risk somebody's life with your own decisions...!

"...Okay. Everybody is tied up nice and tight.

...You said you aren't good at tying knots, but you did very well, Keiichi-kun.

You should be proud of yourself.

Well, you can stand up now."

...It was too late to fight back.

I followed her orders.

I just had to wait for a chance.

We could still turn this into some kind of a bad joke...

I had to... I had to do something...!

...Anyway... What were you planning to do, Rena...?

Don't tell me this is the come-from-behind victory you were talking about!