“Answer me, Kei! What the hell is this!”
“You seem to be under a misapprehension.” Kyoukei Mira, or Kagami, wiped the blood from her face and smiled the most awful smile I had ever seen. “‘Kagami’ is the true self. ‘Kyoukei Mira’ is the facade. The version of me you called friend was always the fake.”
For a moment, I was in denial. Then denial turned to anger. Then anger to rage.
“Bastard! We searched for you! Tore ourselves apart worried for you! Fucking traitor!”
“Traitor implies I was ever on your side. The moment you stood against us, you made yourselves my enemies.”
“Every day we saw you in class, every smile and casual chat, the whole time you were trying to kill us!”
“Me? Whose shoulders does this all really fall on, Shin? I told you back then, didn’t I? I told you to keep them out of danger, and what did you do? Follow them straight into the hornet’s nest.”
“You’re the fucking hornet in question!”
“I never asked to be, you stupid son of a bitch!”
The whole area went quiet. Both my friends and hers were dead silent, listening to Kagami and I screaming at each other. Seething with rage, I waited for her to continue.
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“Kyoukei Mira isn’t the first identity I’ve assumed. I’ve become a new person so many times even I struggle to remember who they all were. All because that fucking man wanted to use me for his own benefit.” Kagami spat as she talk, her voice full of spite and her words full of vitriol. “I’ve lied, stolen and killed all at the will of that bastard. And what do I have to show for it? Demon blood in my veins and a target painted across my back? You think this is fun for me?!”
I didn’t need her to say it. I knew exactly who she meant.
“The Director.”
“Yes. That bastard took my life from me and turned me into his own murderous fucking pet, and you have the audacity to whine about betrayal?! You don’t know a damn thing, Shin.”
“Then why are you helping him, you damned fool! Turn your back on the bastard, help us take him down! There’s still time to fix all this so turn away from that rotten piece of shit and fight with me!”
“I can’t do that!” The rage seemed to slowly wear away from her face, leaving an expression of dejection and utter defeat. “It's my final revenge. I’ll give him the world he thinks he wants, and when he looks out over the miserable state of it all and realises he’s made the gravest mistake in human history, I’ll gut the bastard myself. You want revenge for everything he’s done? Then stay out of my way. I’ll do it for you.”
“Dammit, Kagami, don’t you fucking da-“
Kagami’s body, along with all those of her teammates, burned into ash and cinders. They had slipped through our fingers and returned to hell.
The entire area was dead silent. None of us could bring ourselves to say a word. After all, how could you react to a situation like that? None of us knew.
After a long silence that was so suffocating I thought it would never end, Saki finally broke the ice.
“I… I think we need a talk.”