Kagami was standing on the balcony of the annex. She was frozen in a mixture of fear and disbelief as her eyes watched the figure that was moving out of the smoke and towards the crowd.
"That hurt." Kagami heard the tall, heavily burned man groan and straight away she went cold at the sound of his voice, "If I could do it all over again, I'd use the fire of judgement to burn this whole place down!" He shouted. Kagami couldn't believe her eyes as she watched none other than Suguru Niragi limp into the annex. He had part of his shirt covering his burned face and had an even more crazed look in his eye than she had ever seen before. How did Niragi survive? "Then, I'd be the winner!" Niragi finally shouted before throwing the molotov cocktail into the crowd of people that scattered before he lifted his gun and fired it.
Kagami watched on as Niragi killed many of the militant and Beach members alike that tried to flee. Kagami, on the other hand, was frozen with wide eyes that watched Niragi's every move. She was holding onto the railing so hard that her knuckles had gone white. Chishiya was standing next to her, trying to get her attention but Kagami just couldn't hear him. It was as if everything had stopped,
"Namika, we need to move." Chishiya was telling her, grabbing onto her shoulders, but Kagami simply shrugged him off of her.
"You go. I need to deal with this." She said, getting ready to scream out Niragi's name to draw his attention away from the crowd. Once his eyes were on her she would be able to distract him long enough for everyone else to get Momoka's body to the Judgement of Fire. She knew that he would be angry with her. After all, she had tried and failed to kill him. Moments before she could scream out his name, Chishiya placed his hand over her mouth and pulled her away from the railing.
"He is not your responsibility anymore!" Chishiya told her, his hand moving from her mouth to her hand. "And I am not leaving you behind again." His words sounded so sincere, but Kagami just looked at him,
"We'll leave together, okay? I just have to finish this. It has to be me." Kagami's eyes were locked onto his and she could see that he was trying to think of something that would make her stay. But the longer he stood and watched her, the more he seemed to realize that nothing he could say would stop her. Kagami waited until Chishiya let go of her hand before she sprinted away from him and towards the burning staircase.
There was still enough of the staircase not covered in flames for her to slip down them, the heat causing her to sweat as she continued to run down into the annex. Usagi had already sprung into action and Kagami watched as she jumped onto Niragi's back in an attempt to take the gun off of him. Arisu moved to help her, grabbing onto the hand that held onto the gun while Niragi punched him in the back over and over again. But it wasn't enough. Niragi was quick to shove Arisu aside before he threw Usagi off of his back. The two of them landed together on the ground while Niragi aimed his gun at them. Kagami continued her sprint towards them, standing in front of Arisu and Usagi who were both looking at her in surprise.
"Kagami, you need to get out of here." Usagi yelled. But Kagami didn't respond, her eyes were simply locked onto Niragi who stared right back at her, gun aimed at her chest.
"Namika, why?" He asked. "I promised you. Why couldn't you give me the chance to prove it? Why would you do this to me?" He gestured to the burns that covered 90% of his body before he looked back at her, his eyes filled with hurt. "You'd really choose Chishiya over me?" He asked and Kagami knew that he was expecting an answer.
"Yeah, I would." She said lightly, nodding. If Kagami wasn't paying attention she would have missed it, but she was certain that she could pinpoint the very moment Niragi's heart broke as her words reached his ears. "He just... means a lot to me." She said, unable to find the words to describe how she felt about the blonde who, as she looked to the annex balcony, she saw he was staring down at her. Niragi looked as though the words hurt more than the burns ever could.
"That's okay." He said, his voice breaking as he spoke. "If I can't have you then he can't either." He said and this time Kagami was certain it was over. He had finally decided to kill her. "We'll both die and reunite in Hell." He told her and Kagami closed her eyes, waiting for the bullets to hit her. She just wished that she could have had just five more minutes with Chishiya before it came to this. But, thinking about it was only going to break her heart.
The gun went off but the bullets never came. Opening her eyes, much to her surprise, she watched as Aguni rushed forward, taking each bullet like it was nothing before he grabbed onto Niragi and ran into the smoke. The two of them were gone, but Kagami found herself staring into the smoke. She heard two more gunshots before everything went quiet again and she wondered if this time Niragi was really dead. Kagami felt Usagi run to her side and grab onto her hand, causing Kagami to turn and look at her as Usagi hugged her. While holding onto Usagi, Kagami's eyes flicked up to where Chishiya had been standing to find that he was now gone.
"Kagami, are you okay?" Usagi asked, pulling back away from her. Kagami's eyes shifted onto Arisu who was watching her before she looked back to Usagi.
"Of course I am. It was Arisu here who got the shit kicked out of him. Not me. You should worry about him." She smirked, looking to Arisu who gave her a nod and a smile.
"Thank you, Kagami... for helping Usagi." He said softly and Kagami returned his smile. It made them even now after she and Chishiya had betrayed them. Opening her mouth to speak, Kagami was cut off by the familiar chime followed by the serene female voice.
'Three minutes remaining in the game.'
"We need to hurry!" The voice came from Kuina and Kagami stood back and watched as Kuina, Usagi and several other Beach members ran towards Momoka's body and lifted it into the air to take her corpse to the Fire of Judgement. Kagami used the chaos and distraction to move back towards the staircase. She was looking for Chishiya.
"Namika. Over here." Chishiya's voice rang in her ears and she couldn't help but smile as she heard it.
Kagami turned her head to see that Chishiya was down on the same level as everyone else was. He had somehow been able to sneak down the stairs without anyone noticing. As soon as Kagami's eyes found him, she ran over to him and wrapped her arms around his waist, hugging him tightly as he held her. She didn't think that she would ever get to touch him again.
"When did you get down here?" Kagami asked.
"I thought you were going to die." He said, placing one of his hands on the back of her head as he spoke and Kagami could feel him bury his face into her shoulder.
Looking passed Chishiya's shoulder, Kagami's eyes fell onto Arisu, who watched them quietly before he gave her a nod and picked up Asahi's phone. Kagami watched as Arisu and the remaining Beach members made their way out of the building, leaving just Chishiya and Kagami.
'Congratulations' The voice caused Kagami to pull back away from Chishiya and pull out the Game phone. Arisu was right: Momoka was the Witch the entire time and now they had cleared the Ten of Hearts game. The final game before the Face Cards. Kagami looked to Chishiya who she noticed was looking around the burning building.
"The Ten of Hearts Card will be here somewhere. We need to find it." He told her. Kagami gave him a nod in return before the two of them split up to look for the card. They needed to act quickly before the building went up in flames completely.
Kagami moved to the opposite end of the annex while Chishiya moved his way up the staircase. Just as Kagami was about to reach the end of the long hallway, her eyes fell onto Kuina who was making her way back into the Beach. When the two women locked eyes, they both ran to each other and embraced.
"I'm so glad you're okay." Kagami said, fighting back her tears of happiness. Kuina pulled back to look at Kagami with a wide smile that calmed Kagami.
"I'm glad you're okay as well. I'm sorry about Niragi." She added and Kagami paused for a moment before she forced a smile.
"It's okay. I'm okay." She lied, looking to where Niragi had disappeared. This time, surely, he was dead. "Let's go, Shunta-Chishiya is up here." She said, ignoring the way that Kuina was looking at her when she nearly let his given name slip.
"You two are really close, aren't you?" She asked as the two women headed towards the staircase where they could see Chishiya standing in front of a round white table.
"I guess so." Kagami shrugged, avoiding Kuina's eyes as she watched her. Kuina wanted more of an explanation, but Kagami wasn't sure what to tell her. She hadn't considered what type of connection her and Chishiya had. She just knew that one was there.
"Do you love him?" Kuina asked and the question made Kagami whip her head around to look at her with a look of confusion. Kuina watched Kagami's face for a few seconds before laughing lightly to herself. "You don't need to answer that. I already know the answer." She teased and Kagami simply bit her lip and tried to hide her smile as she walked up the staircase.
Chishiya was still standing in front of the round white table, one hand in his pocket and the other holding onto the Ten of Hearts card. As Kuina and Kagami approached, he didn't even both to turn and look and them. Not even when Kuina spoke,
"You never quit, do you?" She said and Kagami couldn't help but smirk. Chishiya turned his head in her direction, but his eyes didn't quite meet with hers.
"I was starting to think collecting these cards was pointless." Chishiya said, looking back to the card in his hand.
"And what do you think now?" Kuina asked, crossing her arms over her chest as she spoke.
"I'm thinking that... we still haven't seen any of the face cards. And so what is it that the game's controllers want us to see?" Chishiya asked and it was clear that he was speaking more to himself than to Kuina or Kagami.
"You'll work it out, I'm sure." Kagami said, drawing Chishiya's gaze as he placed the card in his pocket with the others.
"Let's get out of here once and for all." Chishiya said, moving past the two women who followed in suit and headed back down the stairs and towards the exit.
Kagami's eyes wandered around the annex as they moved. She had spent so long here that she had grown comfortable and it felt almost strange to leave. So much had happened and changed and she never expected to leave the Beach the way that she was. Looking back ahead of her, her eyes fell onto Shuntaro Chishiya who leading them out of the building. If Kagami would have told herself when she first joined the Beach how much the blonde man would mean to her, she was pretty sure that her past self would have slapped her. She never expected Chishiya to have a hold over her that he did and yet here she was, ready to follow him to the end of the Earth.