Marionette ¦¦ Chishiya Shuntarou x OC

Ten of Hearts - Part One

"Please proceed to the lobby where the rules will be explained to you."

The sudden transformation of the Beach into a game arena had thrown everyone into a frenzy as they rushed to the lobby. As soon as they gathered, there were screams suddenly.

"Momoka!"

One particular girl was screaming the name of her friend. Peeking between bodies and jumping to see over the crowd, Kurenai managed to catch a glimpse of a girl laying in the middle of the lobby with a knife sticking out of her chest. She was obviously dead and the same question plagued everyone: who murdered her?

"It's game time. The game everyone will be participating in is: Witch Hunt. Difficulty level, Ten of Hearts. The rules, an innocent girl has been robbed of her precious life in front of you, and the evil witch who took her life is hiding among you. In order to clear the game, find the witch and burn them in the fire of judgement. Remember, the role of the witch is not limited to females only. You have two hours. Happy hunting. Game start."

Ten of Hearts.

It was the last card they needed, excluding the face cards. It was the one card they had so desperately searched for. Who would have thought that it would appear like so? Then again, the timing of it was much too coincidental in Kurenai's opinion. Almost as if it was designed especially for the Beach.

"A witch hunt? Well, isn't this interesting," Niragi smirked, walking through the crowd with his rifle resting on his shoulder as usual. "Let's all put on our Hearts caps. First of all, would the witch please step forward and confess?"

No one moved.

Of course they would not. Who in their right mind would step out now and admit they were the witch?

"Well, it was worth a try. Since the witch is not confessing, let's start interrogating people. Starting with the person closest with the dead girl," Niragi said, pointing his rifle at Asahi. "Do you mind telling us where and what were you doing when your friend was murdered?"

"I was in my room," Asahi answered.

"Seems suspicious that the moment you separated from your friend, she got murdered."

"Yeah! She must be the witch!"

"Let's just burn her and see!"

Soon, the entire crowd was agreeing that Asahi had to be the witch, advocating to throw her into the fire.

What idiots, Kurenai thought.

Chishiya squeezed her hand and tugged on it a little, walking off with Kuina following behind them. Havoc would run amok soon with the way Niragi was inciting the crowd, and it was better to get out of there before it got out of hand.

They made their way to the security office where the monitoring screens were for the cameras around the hotel. If there was a place to start looking for clues and to keep an eye on things, it would be this place.

Kuina attempted to rewind the footage of the camera in the lobby to see who was the murderer though whoever designed the game was clever enough to wipe the footage. Everything before the first person entering the lobby after the game was announced was gone.

Kurenai was sitting next to Chishiya, staring at nowhere in particular but it was obvious that her mind was elsewhere.

"What's on your mind?" Chishiya asked, holding her face in both hands, brushing her hair out of the way. He looked into her eyes and smiled softly. She figured it out. "You know who the witch is?"

"What?" Kuina frowned. "You know? How do you know?"

"It's a game of Hearts," Kurenai sighed softly, closing her eyes.

"Yeah, so? How does that tell you who the witch is?"

"Hearts games are designed to play with people's hearts," Kurenai explained. "Not just player versus player, but the game designer versus player too. Almost all of these games are just mind games, even before it starts. Humans are very simple, in a state of panic and fear, the only thing you see is what is put in front of you. That's why cowards, and people who don't deal with stress well, they will never win a Hearts game."

While she had played plenty of Hearts games, Kurenai only played two high level difficulty ones: eight and nine of Hearts. She learnt the mechanics of a Hearts game early on during her sojourn in Borderland, and that was how she had been surviving them. The one thing she needed in these games, more so than intelligence, was a clear mind.

Once they started panicking, they were set on a path of doom.

"Well who is it? Why don't you tell them who the witch is?"

"Do you think they will listen to me?" Kurenai asked, pointing to the monitoring screens.

Since they left the lobby, it only took about five minutes before they descended into chaos.

The militants had completely taken over the Beach under Aguni's orders, and people like Niragi and Last Boss were going rampant, killing everyone in sight and throwing their bodies into the fire in hopes of finding the witch like so.

They were never going to find the witch like this.

"If I go out now, they will kill me," Kurenai said. "But there is one person who can help me. One person who is definitely not the witch."

"Is there a person like that? Honestly, I don't even know who to trust anymore," Kuina sighed, hanging her head. "You guys too...how do I know I'm not hiding in here with a witch?"

"You could be the witch too, Kuina," Chishiya stated.

"I trust Shuntarou," Kurenai said, holding Chishiya's hand.

With a smile, Chishiya kissed her on the forehead. He trusted her too.

Leaning on Chishiya, Kurenai's eyes were glued to the monitoring screens. She watched as the members of the Beach were running and hiding, while the militants were sniffing them out. She watched as bodies would lay lifeless on the floor while others were being dragged out to the fire.

This was the result of voting the militants into power.

When violence was their way into power, then violence would be their only solution to any and all problems.

"You want to go look for him, don't you?" Chishiya asked.

Kurenai straightened herself and looked at Chishiya, nodding. There was one person in the hotel who could help confirm her theory. One person who was definitely not the witch, and someone others would listen to. The one person who was tied and locked up in a room somewhere, waiting for his death to come.

"Hey, look, whatever you want to do, you better do it now. Time's running out, and it won't be long before the militants find us too," Kuina said.

"What about you, Shuntarou?"

"I have some business to deal with myself."

"Be careful. Stay alive until we meet again."

"You too."