Do Hope Nana Hiiragi Gets Her Comeuppance

Nana Hiiragi

Of course the hate for her is well deserved.

First off, blaming "brainwashing" lets her off the hook far too easily. Patty Hearst tried the same trick in the 1970's and it didn't exactly work out well for her. Ironically, Patty spent more time in prisoner for her bank robberies than Nana does for her 10+ murders, which in itself is unfair - Nana gets away with far too much because she's a girl, instead of in spite of it.

Yes, she would be hated just as much if Nana was male (probably more so).

It should be noted that all Nana's murders were premeditated, on her own cognisance and with malice. Just because she was told to do so, doesn't mean she had to.

In addition to that, just because she may not have wanted to do kill anyone, she was certainly happy to do so (smiling when thinking about killing Mirichu as well as the "won't be shy in killing you" part). Nana is a person who would rather murder someone than think of any sort of alternative (as is the case later on).

Futher more, stating that she's a "child soldier" carries no weight - she's killing civilians, which if she was a soldier makes her actions even more odious.

The fact that people try to exonerate Nana because she was "mind controlled" doesn't hold much water considering she was fully aware of what she was doing; didn't need to; didn't bother querying anything and was fully cognisant during her pre-meditated murders; and she quite happily carried another one out, with no doubt more to come.

In addition, there is no reason why she couldn't have asked questions or even did her own reason about Talents and so forth.

I wasn't surprised that the anime didn't get a second season (if it wasn't just for boosting manga sales) because Nana is so unrelatable, unrelatable and pretty much evil personified. Even later on, she's totally dislikable, obnoxious character.

Considering she's supposed to be intelligent, you would have thought, at the very least, queries the morality, if not the legality and ethics of killing schoolchildren (let alone those she killed before she arrived at the island). She's fully aware of what she's doing, so it's all on her own head. She certainly deserves to be punished far longer than three years (that ends up around 3 months for every kid).

I wouldn't be surprised if Nana Hiiragi does enjoy killing people - she is always smiling happily when thinking about killing her victims.

Whilst she may say that she doesn't want to kill any more, later on - it certainly doesn't stop her (no doubt it would be the first thing she thinks of to solve problems, instead of anything else).

Hopefully, she won't have a happy ending (preferably meet a nasty end - with her own poison needs would be nicely ironic). Whilst she may have "changed" for dubious reasons she will have to end up killing people again at some point. Even though she's changed, she's still an insufferable, nasty little bitch. I've got very little sympathy for her, especially as she was sadistic killing everyone.

And yes, killing Nano led to more people suffering - all because of Nana (no idea why Nano should forgive her - obviously he forgot how Nana taunted him before he fell, although I do hear he did beat the crap out of her as well).

Hopefully she will pay some sort of price for her actions.

Whist Nanao killed more people than Nana, it should be noted that Nana was the cause. It was nice of him really to leave Nana alone, considering she had no compulsion about killing Nanao - he certainly would have had a good reason to seek revenge on her.

In addition, for those who subscribe to those who view Nana as a child soldier (which is dubious to say the least), there is still precedent for requesting reparations and the same for prosecuting child soldiers too (DOMINIC ONGWEN).

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Chapter 39: A Desperate Covenant

The dying embers of the fire in the cave cast long, flickering shadows, mirroring the uncertain, shifting thoughts of the fugitives huddled around its meager warmth. Arthur Ainsworth had laid bare his desperate, almost suicidal proposal, and now, the heavy silence was thick with unspoken fears, unvoiced objections, and the stark, terrifying absence of any readily apparent, less perilous alternatives. He had asked if anyone had better ideas, and the silence itself was a grim, eloquent answer.

Nana Hiiragi was the first to speak again, her voice low, almost rough with a new, unfamiliar emotion that Arthur couldn’t quite decipher – was it reluctant admiration for his sheer audacity, or a chilling premonition of shared doom? “If… if Jin-san truly believes he can create a convincing enough identity for you, Arthur-san… if there is even a ghost of a chance that you could get inside that… that place…” She paused, her gaze flicking towards Michiru, then back to Arthur, a fierce, protective light glinting in her violet eyes. “Then the information you could gather, the… the seeds of doubt you might be able to sow amongst those new students… it would be invaluable. More valuable, perhaps, than anything we could achieve by simply… running and hiding.” Her own past as Tsuruoka’s tool, her intimate knowledge of the Committee’s indoctrination methods, gave her a unique perspective on the potential impact of Arthur’s proposed counter-narrative. She knew how potent, how insidious, the right words, planted in the right minds at the right time, could be.

Kyouya Onodera, who had been staring intently into the flames, his face a mask of cold, hard calculation, finally nodded, a single, sharp, decisive movement. “The risks, as I have stated, remain astronomically high,” he said, his voice flat, devoid of emotion. “However, the potential strategic gains, should you succeed in establishing a foothold and disseminating even a fraction of the truth about Tsuruoka and The Committee, are… significant.” He looked directly at Arthur. “If Jin-san can provide the necessary logistical support – a credible identity, a viable insertion method – then this plan, for all its inherent lunacy, warrants further, serious consideration. We are currently… outmaneuvered, out-resourced, and largely reactive. This, at least, offers a proactive, if extraordinarily high-stakes, gambit.”

Michiru, her gentle face still pale with worry, looked from Kyouya to Nana, then finally to Arthur. She twisted her small hands in her lap. “I… I am still so very frightened for you, Arthur-san,” she whispered, her voice trembling slightly. “But… if Nana-chan and Kyouya-san believe this is… this is a path we must consider… and if you are truly determined…” She took a small, shaky breath. “Then… then I will support you in any way I can. I will pray for your safety.” Her quiet courage, her unwavering loyalty, was a small, steadying anchor in the midst of their swirling fears.

All eyes now turned to Jin Tachibana. He had listened to their deliberations with his usual unnerving, almost preternatural calm, his faint, enigmatic smile never quite leaving his lips. He tilted his head slightly, his pale eyes glinting in the firelight. “To create a new identity for Arthur Ainsworth, an identity as a qualified, unremarkable, and entirely Talentless foreign educator seeking employment in the Japanese school system,” he began, his voice as smooth and cool as polished jade, “will require… considerable finesse, access to certain restricted databases, and the cooperation of individuals with highly specialized, and often highly illegal, skill sets.” He paused. “It will also require a significant investment of time, and what few remaining financial resources I can… redirect.”

He looked at Arthur. “The alteration of your physical appearance will also be paramount. Subtlety will be key. Nothing too drastic, initially, but enough to ensure that the Kenji Tanaka who once walked the halls of that academy is no longer recognizable. We will also need to craft a comprehensive, verifiable, yet entirely fictitious personal and professional history for your new persona. Every detail must be perfect.” He made it sound almost mundane, like planning a particularly complex holiday itinerary. The sheer, almost casual audacity of it all made Arthur’s head spin. Becoming a convincing Japanese schoolteacher, complete with a fabricated past and forged credentials… it was a far cry from his predictable, meticulously ordered accounting routines back in his old life. The most acting he, Arthur Ainsworth, had ever done was feigning polite interest during Mrs. Henderson’s lengthy, unsolicited discourses on the blight affecting her prize-winning roses back in Crawley. Or perhaps when trying to look suitably enthusiastic about the tombola stall at the annual village fete, somewhere on a soggy summer green in the heart of Sussex… This level of sustained, high-stakes deception felt like preparing for a leading role in a West End stage production, with a significantly more lethal form of audience heckling if he flubbed his lines.

“As for gaining entry to that specific academy,” Jin continued, his gaze unwavering, “that will be the most… challenging aspect. Kyouya-san is correct. They do not advertise vacancies in the usual manner. However…” A flicker of something unreadable crossed his face. “…organizations, even ones as tightly controlled as Tsuruoka’s, are still comprised of individuals. Individuals have routines. Individuals make mistakes. And sometimes, unexpected… vacancies… can arise, or be discreetly engineered, if one knows where and how to apply the appropriate leverage.” The chilling implication in his soft-spoken words was not lost on anyone in the cave.

He stood then, a graceful, almost fluid movement. “I will make the necessary initial inquiries,” he stated, his tone conveying a quiet, unshakeable confidence that was both reassuring and deeply unsettling. “I will assess the feasibility of creating this new identity for you, Ainsworth-san. I will explore potential avenues for your… insertion. This will take time. I will need to travel, to access resources not available to us here.” He looked at Nana and Kyouya. “In my absence, your group’s security, your continued evasion of Committee patrols, will be paramount. Maintain vigilance. Conserve your resources.”

He then turned back to Arthur. “And you, Ainsworth-san. While I am… engaged… you must begin your own preparations. Improve your spoken Japanese beyond its current, shall we say, charmingly rudimentary level. Learn everything you can about current Japanese educational curricula, about the expected comportment of a teacher in such an institution. You must become this new person, inhabit this role so completely that even you begin to believe the lie. Your life will depend on it.”

With a final, enigmatic nod to the assembled group, Jin Tachibana turned and, with the silent grace of a phantom, slipped out of the cave and into the pre-dawn gloom, vanishing as if he were merely a figment of their collective, desperate imagination.

With a final, enigmatic nod to the assembled group, Jin Tachibana turned and, with the silent grace of a phantom, slipped out of the cave and into the pre-dawn gloom, vanishing as if he were merely a figment of their collective, desperate imagination.

A new kind of silence descended upon the remaining occupants of the cave – Arthur, Nana, Kyouya, and Michiru. It was no longer the silence of stunned disbelief or fearful hesitation, but the heavy, contemplative silence of individuals who had just made a pact, a desperate covenant, with an uncertain and terrifyingly dangerous future. The fire had burned down to glowing embers, casting their faces in a dim, ruddy light. The decision, however tentative, however fraught with peril, had been made. They were going to try. Arthur Ainsworth was going back to the island, if Jin could pave the way.

Arthur looked at their faces, etched with weariness, fear, but also a new, fragile determination. He, an unqualified former accounts clerk from Crawley, was about to embark on a mission that would make most seasoned spies blanch. The idea of needing to become an expert on an alternate Japan's entire socio-political history, on top of faking teaching credentials and a new identity, was daunting. His mother, he thought with a fleeting, absurd internal pang, would have a fit if she knew. Still, it certainly beat another dreary Tuesday afternoon trying to make sense of overly complicated departmental spreadsheets back in... well, back where things, however mundane, at least made a modicum of conventional sense.

He cleared his throat, breaking the quiet. “Thank you, everyone,” he said, his voice heartfelt, his gaze encompassing Nana’s newfound, wary resolve, Kyouya’s stoic acceptance, and Michiru’s anxious but supportive expression. “For… for being willing to even consider this. I know it’s… a lot to ask.”

He pushed himself to his feet, a sudden, restless energy coursing through him despite his exhaustion. “There’s much to do, and Jin-san is right, I need to prepare. Not just the language, not just pretending to be a teacher.” He looked around the cave, at the crude drawings Nana had been making on a piece of salvaged slate. “I also need to learn about the history of this world as well as well. Properly. Beyond the fragments I remember from that… that story. If I’m to be convincing, if I’m to understand the context of what I’ll be walking into.”

A small, determined smile touched his lips. He clapped his hands together once, a decisive sound in the stillness. “Well,” he declared, a spark of his old, almost forgotten pragmatic energy returning. “No time like the present!”

The long, dangerous road ahead was shrouded in uncertainty, but for the first time in a very long time, Arthur Ainsworth felt not just the crushing weight of a terrible, unwanted fate, but the faintest, most fragile stirring of active, defiant purpose.

Homebase is closing this Sunday

Chapter 19: Scarcity and Control

Arthur awoke slowly, his head throbbing with a dull, persistent ache, to find himself not on the cold, windswept cliff edge where he had collapsed, but tucked into the surprisingly comfortable confines of his own narrow dormitory bed. For a disorienting, heart-stopping moment, he thought the previous day’s extraordinary, impossible events – Michiru’s miraculous return from apparent death, Nana’s shattering emotional breakdown – had been nothing more than a vivid, desperate hallucination, a final, merciful product of his unravelling, exhausted mind. Then, a soft, hesitant voice, fragile as new spring leaves but blessedly, undeniably real, spoke his island name.

“Tanaka-kun? Are you… are you awake now?”

He turned his head, his stiff muscles protesting with every small movement. Michiru Inukai sat in a rickety wooden chair that had been pulled up beside his bed, a chipped teacup containing water held carefully in her small, still frail hands. She was terribly pale and gaunt, an ethereal, almost translucent waif-like figure, but her gentle, unmistakable eyes, though shadowed with a profound fatigue, were clear, lucid, and undeniably, wonderfully alive. A shy, almost hesitant, yet incredibly precious smile touched her lips when she saw him looking at her. The sight of her, truly, tangibly alive and present in the mundane, familiar reality of his small dorm room, sent a jolt of profound, overwhelming relief through him, so potent it brought an unexpected, embarrassing sting to his eyes.

“Michiru…” he rasped, his own voice hoarse, cracked, and unfamiliar even to his own ears. He tried to push himself up into a sitting position.

“Easy now, Tanaka-kun,” she said, her voice still weak but infused with a gentle, soothing warmth as she helped him prop himself awkwardly against the thin, lumpy pillows. “You were… very, very exhausted. Nana-chan and I… we managed to bring you back here after you fainted. Nana-chan was very worried about you, you know.”

Nana. The memory of her raw, uncharacteristic breakdown at the cliff, her tearful, fragmented, almost incoherent confession, her utter, soul-deep devastation at seeing Michiru alive, returned to him with a fresh jolt. He looked past Michiru’s concerned, gentle face and saw Nana Hiiragi herself standing awkwardly, uncertainly, in the doorway of his room. Her usually vibrant pink hair was slightly dishevelled, her bright school uniform rumpled and bearing faint traces of mud from the cliff path. Her usual effervescent, almost manic cheerfulness was entirely, strikingly absent, replaced by a hesitant, almost timid, and deeply uncertain expression. Her violet eyes, usually sparkling with mischief or cold, hard calculation, were red-rimmed, swollen, and shadowed with a new, unfamiliar vulnerability. The dynamic between the three of them, Arthur realized with a growing sense of profound unease and weary, almost resigned acceptance, was now irrevocably, seismically altered, suspended in a strange, fragile, and deeply, profoundly uncomfortable new reality.

The official explanation for Michiru Inukai’s miraculous return from the “dead” was, when it came, as predictably flimsy and insultingly inadequate as Arthur had expected. A few days after the incident at the cliff, once Michiru was deemed strong enough to leave the infirmary (where she had been kept under observation, much to Nana’s now fiercely protective, almost possessive anxiety), a visibly flustered and deeply uncomfortable Mr. Saito made a brief, stammering announcement during morning homeroom. He explained, his voice cracking several times, that there had been a “most regrettable and unfortunate series of diagnostic errors” by a “very junior, inexperienced mainland doctor” who had initially, and incorrectly, pronounced Michiru-san deceased following her sudden, severe illness at the end of the previous term. Further, more thorough examinations by the island’s own “more experienced medical staff,” he’d continued, his gaze skittering nervously around the room, had revealed that Michiru-san had merely been in a “profoundly deep, coma-like state” from which, through the miracle of modern medical science and her own youthful resilience, she had now, thankfully, fully recovered. “A simple, yet almost tragic, misdiagnosis, class,” was the best, most pathetic explanation the homeroom teacher could apparently come up with, his face slick with nervous sweat.

Michiru being alive again, having been officially declared dead and her passing mourned (however briefly and superficially by most), certainly surprised a few of the more observant pupils in the class. There were some whispered exclamations, a few wide-eyed, incredulous stares directed at the pale but smiling Michiru. Arthur watched their reactions with a kind of detached, weary cynicism. Back in England, back in his old life, such an event – a person returning from the dead after weeks, months even! – would have been a nine-day wonder, a media sensation, a cause for profound existential debate. Here, on this island where the bizarre was rapidly becoming the mundane, where death was a casual acquaintance and survival a daily struggle… well. Not that the surprise, the mild titillation, lasted very long. Within half an hour, Arthur noted with a grimace, talk among the students had soon moved on to more immediately “interesting” and pressing topics, like who had managed to hoard an extra bread roll from breakfast, or the latest outrageous rumour about Commandant Ide’s new, even more draconian camp rules back on the mainland (as news of the internment camps had, by now, become common, if terrifying, knowledge). This strange, unending, almost timeless May, which had now bled into a sweltering, oppressive early summer on the island, felt so utterly disconnected from any concept of season, or normalcy, or rational human behavior he had ever known; it was just an endless, surreal expanse of dread, punctuated by moments of sheer, stark insanity.

Over the next few days, as Arthur slowly regained his own physical strength and Michiru continued her own gradual, delicate, yet steady recovery – a process that seemed to draw on some deep, internal, almost inexhaustible wellspring of her miraculous healing Talent – an unsettling new tension, a different, more insidious kind of menace, began to grip the island. The already dwindling food supplies in the school canteen started to diminish with an alarming, noticeable rapidity, just as Arthur had grimly “predicted” to Kyouya Onodera weeks before. At first, it was subtle, almost deniable: the portions became slightly, almost imperceptibly smaller, the more popular, palatable dishes ran out much quicker, the once-generous fruit bowls looked suspiciously less bountiful. Then, the choices became starkly, undeniably more limited, the quality of what little was available noticeably, appallingly poorer. The usual comforting, if unexciting, variety of snacks and drinks in the small, usually well-stocked school store vanished almost overnight, replaced by sparsely, almost grudgingly stocked shelves displaying dusty, unappetizing, and often near-expired items.

The teachers, led by a visibly stressed, increasingly harassed, and clearly out-of-his-depth Mr. Saito, offered a series of vague, unconvincing, and often wildly contradictory explanations: unforeseen, severe logistical problems with the regular mainland supply ships; unexpected, unseasonable, and particularly violent storms delaying crucial deliveries; sudden, inexplicable, and entirely unforeseeable issues with their long-standing mainland procurement contracts. Their excuses sounded hollow, almost insultingly flimsy, even to the most naive or least suspicious students. A low, anxious hum of discontent, of fear, began to spread like a contagion through the dormitories. Whispers of hunger, of being forgotten and abandoned by the outside world, of the island’s carefully maintained, picturesque isolation becoming a terrifying, inescapable, and potentially lethal trap, grew louder, more insistent, more desperate with each passing, increasingly meagre, unsatisfying mealtime.

Arthur watched it all with a grim, weary sense of vindication, the bitter taste of unwelcome prescience like ash in his mouth. He saw Kyouya Onodera observing the rapidly deteriorating situation with a keen, coldly analytical, almost predatory gaze, their earlier, urgent conversation in the dusty library clearly at the forefront of his sharp, calculating mind. Kyouya began to spend more of his free time away from the main school buildings, his movements quiet, purposeful, almost furtive, as if he were methodically scouting for alternative, hidden resources or making discreet, necessary preparations for a coming siege that Arthur wasn’t yet privy to. He would occasionally catch Kyouya’s eye across the increasingly tense, half-empty canteen, a silent, almost imperceptible nod passing between them – a grim, unspoken acknowledgment of Arthur’s unwelcome, terrifying prescience.

Nana Hiiragi, too, seemed to view the unfolding, manufactured crisis through new, deeply troubled, and profoundly disillusioned eyes. Her emotional implosion at the cliff edge, her raw, unfiltered confrontation with her own buried guilt and manipulated past, had irrevocably cracked her carefully constructed facade of cheerful, unquestioning obedience. While she hadn’t confessed the full, horrifying extent of her past actions as Tsuruoka’s assassin to either Arthur or Michiru, her interactions with Michiru, in particular, were now tinged with a fierce, almost desperate, suffocating protectiveness and a profound, soul-deep, sorrowful guilt. When the teachers stammered their increasingly unconvincing, almost pathetic excuses for the rapidly dwindling food supplies, Arthur saw Nana listening with a deep, thoughtful frown, a dangerous flicker of bitter doubt and dawning, angry understanding in her expressive violet eyes. Perhaps, he thought with a sliver of grim hope, she was finally, truly beginning to see the callous, manipulative, bloodstained strings of the Committee she had served so blindly, so devotedly, for so tragically long. Perhaps she was beginning to question the supposed benevolence, the absolute authority, of the monstrous Commander Tsuruoka.

“This is precisely what I told you would happen, Onodera,” Arthur said quietly to Kyouya one evening, his limited Japanese surprisingly steady, his voice low and urgent, as they stood observing a near-riot that had broken out with shocking suddenness in the canteen over the last few pathetic, fought-over servings of stale, mould-flecked bread. Several desperate, starving students were shouting, pushing, their faces pinched and pale with hunger and a growing, frightening, animalistic desperation. “The Committee. They’re tightening the screws, deliberately, methodically, applying unbearable pressure.”

Kyouya Onodera nodded, his chiselled expression grim, his pale eyes as hard and cold as flint. “Your foresight, Tanaka,” he said, his voice a low, dangerous rumble, “continues to be distressingly, if predictably, and I must admit, increasingly useful, accurate. They create desperation, they foster internal division, then they will undoubtedly offer just enough insufficient relief to maintain a semblance of control, all while callously, dispassionately observing how we react – who breaks under the pressure, who fights for scraps, who leads, who crumbles. It is a classic, if particularly cruel and inhumane, method of psychological assessment and brutal social control.”

And indeed, just as Kyouya had so cynically predicted, just as tensions in the camp reached a fever pitch, when open, violent fights were beginning to break out with alarming regularity over hoarded scraps of often inedible food and genuine, gnawing, debilitating fear had taken firm, unshakeable root in the hearts of even the most optimistic or naive students, a supply ship was finally, dramatically, sighted on the distant horizon. A wave of ragged, desperate, almost hysterical cheers went up from the starving students. But it was, as Kyouya had so accurately predicted Arthur would have foreseen, far, far too little, and far, far too late to fully alleviate the worsening, deliberately manufactured problem. The shipment that was eventually, grudgingly unloaded onto the pier was significantly smaller than usual, the quality of the provisions noticeably, insultingly poorer – mostly low-grade dried goods, suspiciously discoloured preserved vegetables, and very little in the way of fresh produce, protein, or medical supplies. It was just enough to prevent outright, widespread starvation, just enough to quell the immediate, simmering panic and prevent a full-scale, violent breakdown of order. But it was not nearly enough to restore any sense of security, or to dispel the growing, chilling, terrifying realization among the more astute students that their very survival was fragile, tenuous, entirely dependent on the cruel, capricious whims of unseen, uncaring, and utterly malevolent forces who could withdraw their meager lifeline at will.

The Committee’s manipulative, bloodstained hand was subtle, almost invisible to the untrained eye, but to Arthur, and now to Kyouya and perhaps even Nana, it was undeniably, chillingly apparent. They were master puppeteers, coolly, dispassionately orchestrating events from afar, content to let hunger, fear, and profound desperation do their brutal, dehumanizing work, systematically weeding out the weak, identifying potential threats or future assets, all under the carefully constructed, plausible guise of unfortunate, unavoidable, and entirely unforeseen logistical circumstances.

Michiru Inukai, though still physically weak from her own miraculous, near-fatal ordeal, instinctively, selflessly shared her meagre, often insufficient portions with those students she felt were more in need, particularly the younger, more frightened ones, her innate, unwavering kindness a small, flickering, precious candle of compassion in the rapidly encroaching darkness of their desperate, deteriorating situation. Nana Hiiragi, her own internal, unspoken torment a constant, silent, brooding companion, often, almost furtively, supplemented Michiru’s share with her own, a quiet, almost unconscious act of profound, desperate atonement, her gaze when she looked at Michiru a complex, almost painful mixture of overwhelming guilt, profound awe, and a fierce, new-found, almost suffocating protectiveness.

Arthur Ainsworth, watching them both, felt a strange, almost imperceptible, yet undeniable shift in the island’s oppressive, death-haunted atmosphere. Nana’s murderous, Committee-ordained crusade, for the moment at least, seemed to be on hold, overshadowed, perhaps even temporarily derailed, by this new, more widespread, and insidious threat of starvation, and by the profound, ongoing emotional upheaval of Michiru Inukai’s impossible, miraculous return. But he knew, with a weary, bone-deep certainty, that the Committee’s cruel, inhuman game was far from over. This was merely a new, more subtle, perhaps even more sadistic phase, a different kind of insidious pressure designed to test them all, to break them down, to see what, if anything, of value emerged from the unforgiving, brutal crucible of manufactured desperation. And Arthur suspected, with a cold, sickening dread that settled deep in the marrow of his bones, that the tests, the trials, the suffering, were only just beginning, and were destined to get harder, more brutal, and far more unforgiving.

Chapter 25: Tsuruoka's Monsters

In the chaotic, fear-drenched aftermath of Nana Hiiragi’s public unmasking and the subsequent savage beating by her terrified peers, a semblance of grim, heavily enforced order was slowly, painfully restored on the island by the few remaining, deeply shaken teachers and a grimly determined, stone-faced Kyouya Onodera. Nana, battered, bruised, and her spirit utterly shattered, was confined to the stark, unwelcoming island infirmary under the constant, wary guard of two stern-faced school orderlies. Her future, everyone assumed, would involve mainland authorities and a lengthy prison sentence, if not worse.

Akari Hozumi, the quiet, intense catalyst for this brutal upheaval, meticulously compiled her damning findings – detailed witness statements elicited with her unnerving, truth-compelling Talent, her own chillingly precise forensic reconstructions of multiple murder scenes, and the fragmented, tearful, partial confession Nana herself had made amidst the chaos by the lake. As soon as the next heavily guarded transport to the mainland was available, Akari, clutching her meticulously organized dossier of irrefutable evidence, departed the island, her expression one of grim, unwavering satisfaction. She presented everything to a Detective Maeda at the nearest mainland police precinct, a man whose calm, reassuring professionalism and apparent dedication to justice she found commendable. She was entirely unaware, of course, that Detective Maeda’s calm professionalism was bought and paid for, his primary loyalty sworn not to the law, but to the shadowy, all-powerful Commander Tsuruoka. Maeda assured Akari Hozumi that the matter would be investigated with the utmost thoroughness and urgency, then, as soon as she had departed, he promptly contacted Tsuruoka, who listened to the report with cold, silent interest. For the moment, Tsuruoka decided, it was best to let the official police investigation stall, to become mired in bureaucratic delays. He preferred to deal with his now dangerously rogue asset, Nana Hiiragi, personally, and far more… creatively.

A few disorienting days later, Nana, still nursing her extensive physical injuries and her profoundly fractured spirit, was abruptly, unceremoniously removed from the island infirmary by a team of silent, black-clad Committee agents. She was transported, not to a mainland hospital or a secure police detention facility as she had expected, but back to the cold, sterile, and deeply foreboding confines of Commander Tsuruoka’s isolated military base.

The debriefing, when it came after hours of being left alone in a featureless, windowless interrogation room, was a masterclass in psychological torture. Tsuruoka didn’t bother with pretenses, with veiled threats or subtle manipulations this time. He flayed Nana’s psyche with cold, surgical precision, recounting in meticulous, agonizing detail the horrific circumstances of her parents' tragic deaths, subtly, cruelly twisting the known facts to imply her own childish culpability, her inherent monstrosity, her predisposition to violence. He spoke with chilling calm of her myriad failures on the island, her rapidly declining kill rate, her inexplicable and operationally disastrous sentimentality towards certain targets, her ultimate, unforgivable betrayal of the Committee’s trust by allowing herself to be so comprehensively, so humiliatingly, exposed.

“But perhaps,” Tsuruoka said at last, his voice a silken, venomous whisper that seemed to slither into the deepest recesses of her mind, “you simply lack the proper, fundamental motivation, Hiiragi. Perhaps you’ve forgotten what it is we are truly, desperately fighting against in this shadow war.” He stood, his movements precise and economical. “Come with me. It is long past time for a… refresher course. A practical lesson in the true nature of our enemy.”

Flanked by two heavily armed, impassive guards whose faces she didn’t recognize, Nana, her body aching, her mind reeling, was escorted out of the interrogation room and down a long, blindingly white, sterile passageway deep within the bowels of the facility. The air was cold, recycled, smelling faintly of strong antiseptic and something else, something metallic and vaguely unsettling. As they passed a series of heavy, unmarked steel doors, one was inexplicably, fractionally ajar. Through the narrow gap, Nana caught a fleeting, disorienting glimpse of a figure inside a dimly lit observation room – a pale-faced man with stark white hair, his features indistinct in the gloom, who seemed entirely out of place amongst the banks of complex monitoring equipment. The man’s eyes, cold and piercing, met hers for a single, unnerving, unforgettable split second, a look of unreadable, almost alien intensity, before he slowly, deliberately, closed the door, plunging the room back into darkness. “Eyes front, Hiiragi! Maintain your composure!” Tsuruoka barked sharply from ahead, his voice echoing in the sterile corridor. Nana didn’t know it, couldn’t possibly have known it, but she had just seen Jin Tachibana – or rather, Kyouya Onodera’s sister, Rin, in her male disguise, a fellow prisoner or perhaps even an unwilling operative within Tsuruoka’s monstrous machine.

They arrived at a heavy, reinforced steel door at the end of the long corridor. Tsuruoka paused, then, with a faint, almost anticipatory smile, he opened it, revealing another vast, white, sterile room. In its exact centre, illuminated by harsh, shadowless overhead lights, stood a large, heavily barred cage, constructed of thick, gleaming metal alloys. Inside, a creature of impossible, nightmarish geometry writhed and pulsed, its form shifting and coalescing in ways that defied sanity and the known laws of physics. It was an abomination, vaguely, disturbingly humanoid in its basic outline, but utterly, terrifyingly alien in its execution, a living воплощение of a madman’s darkest fever dream.

“This, Nana,” Tsuruoka said, his voice resonating with a strange, almost proprietary pride as he ushered her and the two guards into the room, the heavy door hissing shut behind them with a sound of absolute finality. “This is what we’re fighting against. This is the true face of our enemy.” “What… what is it?” Nana whispered, her voice trembling, her eyes fixed in horrified fascination on the grotesque, shifting entity in the cage. “The Enemy of Humanity,” Tsuruoka replied, his tone matter-of-fact. Just then, the monster in the cage stirred, its multi-jointed, chitinous limbs twitching, and a horrifying, guttural, stuttering voice, like stones grinding together, echoed in the stark, white room: “H…help… me… Please…” Tsuruoka’s face tightened in a brief spasm of annoyance. He gave a curt, almost imperceptible nod to one of the guards, then gestured dismissively for Nana and the other guard to follow him out. As they exited the room, Nana heard faint, high-pitched, almost childlike screeching from within, abruptly, sickeningly, cut short. The door hissed shut behind them, sealing the horror within.

Tsuruoka, his composure perfectly restored, led them to another identical steel door, further down the echoing corridor. He pushed it open without ceremony. Inside this second room, the immediate, overwhelming stench of stale blood, chemical disinfectants, and visceral decay made Nana gag and her stomach heave. Another reinforced cage stood in the centre, containing a different, though equally grotesque and pitiable, monster. But this room was far worse than the first. It was a charnel house. The corpses of several uniformed Committee guards lay strewn haphazardly across the tiled floor, their bodies mangled, their weapons discarded. And lining the walls, stacked three deep, were rows upon rows of ominous, filled black body bags.

Tsuruoka, seemingly oblivious to the carnage and the stench, strode purposefully over to one of the body bags on the nearest stack and, with a theatrical flourish, unzipped it. Nana’s breath caught in her throat, a strangled, horrified gasp. Inside, lay the lifeless, greyish-white, waxy form of Etsuko, one of the female bullies Nana had so clinically, so callously, poisoned with tainted contact lenses during her first year on the island. Her eyes were wide, staring, her expression frozen in a silent scream of terror.

“I believe you know this girl, Hiiragi?” Tsuruoka stated, his voice cold, almost conversational. Wide-eyed with a dawning, sickening horror, Nana could only nod, backing away instinctively. The remaining guard, his face impassive, grabbed her arm in an iron grip, forcing her closer to the horrifying display. “A very… creative and deniable method of elimination, this one,” Tsuruoka mused, tapping the body bag thoughtfully. “A clear victory for you at the time, Hiiragi, a demonstration of your early potential. Though your operational record has, I must say, slipped quite considerably since then.” He gestured to Etsuko’s corpse. “Now, touch the body.” Nana recoiled, trying to pull her arm free, but the guard tightened his brutal grip, his fingers digging into her flesh, forcing her reluctant hand onto Etsuko’s cold, unnervingly clammy skin. Nana snatched her hand back as if burned, a small, choked cry escaping her lips. “Still warm, isn’t she?” Tsuruoka said, a predatory, almost gleeful smile playing on his lips. “That’s because, you see, whatever arcane, unfortunate force creates a person’s Talent also keeps them… lingering, their essence tethered, even when they appear quite dead to our conventional, unenlightened eyes. And eventually…” He gestured dramatically towards the gibbering, miserable monster currently confined in the cage. “…that is what they invariably become. No matter how many times you ‘kill’ them, Hiiragi, no matter how thoroughly you believe you have extinguished their lives, they just won’t truly, permanently die. They transform.” He strode over and casually kicked another body bag, then another, some of them showing clear evidence of multiple, massive gunshot wounds, others bearing the marks of even more esoteric, violent ends. “And yet, their bodies, their core temperature, remains inexplicably, unnaturally warm. This, my dear Nana, is the true, horrifying nature of our enemy. This is what we’re truly up against. And you, Nana,” his voice hardened, “you have failed. Badly. Profoundly. Perhaps The Committee no longer has any use for you. Perhaps it’s time you were… discarded. Like your unfortunate, less effective predecessors.”

He walked calmly towards the reinforced steel door. “Perhaps a more… direct lesson is required for you to fully appreciate the stakes.” He opened the door. “Guard!” he barked. “Open the cage!” The remaining Committee guard, his face suddenly pale with stark, unconcealed terror, stammered, his voice cracking, “N-no, sir! I can’t! You know what will happen if… if that thing gets out unrestrained! It’s too dangerous!” Tsuruoka, his patience clearly, finally, at an end, his eyes glinting with cold, murderous displeasure, drew his sidearm with blinding speed and shot the disobedient guard through the head without a moment’s hesitation. The man crumpled to the floor in a heap, his eyes wide with surprise and sudden, terminal understanding. “That,” Tsuruoka said, his voice chillingly calm as he holstered his weapon, “is the inevitable price of failing The Committee, Hiiragi. A lesson you would do well to internalize.” With that, he raised his weapon again, aimed it carefully at the cage’s complex locking mechanism, and fired twice, shattering it. He then stepped swiftly out of the room, a grim, satisfied smile playing on his lips, and the heavy steel door slammed shut behind him, its locks engaging with a series of definitive, echoing thuds. Nana Hiiragi was trapped. Alone. With a monster.

The grotesque “Enemy of Humanity” in the now-open cage let out a deafening, ear-splitting screech, a sound that seemed to resonate with all the pain and madness in the universe. “THIS IS WHAT EVERYONE BECOMES!” it shrieked, its voice a horrifying, discordant chorus of countless suffering souls. “THIS IS YOUR FUTURE! OUR FUTURE!” And then, with terrifying speed and agility, it launched itself at Nana.

The fight was a desperate, brutal, almost primal struggle for survival in the bloody, gore-strewn charnel house Tsuruoka had so callously, so deliberately, created as her final, horrifying classroom. Nana, driven by a surge of pure, undiluted adrenaline and a fierce, unyielding will to live, used every ounce of her assassin’s training, her agility, her cunning, her sheer desperation. The creature was inhumanly strong, terrifyingly relentless, its attacks bizarre, unpredictable, and sickeningly violent. Finally, after what felt like an eternity of pain, fear, and brutal exertion, Nana, bleeding from numerous deep wounds, her body screaming in protest, managed to exploit a momentary weakness in the creature’s defense, using a jagged shard of metal she’d wrenched from the broken cage lock to deliver a decisive, severing blow to the monstrous entity’s primary neural cluster, or what she desperately hoped was its equivalent. It collapsed with a final, gurgling shriek, its unnatural form dissolving into a viscous, rapidly evaporating ichor.

Exhausted beyond measure, bleeding freely from numerous wounds, but astonishingly, miraculously alive, Nana frantically, desperately searched for an escape route from the horrifying, sealed room. Her eyes, wild with adrenaline and a dawning, desperate hope, fell upon a small, almost hidden maintenance hatch set high in one of the walls. With the last of her strength, she managed to reach it, pry it open, and narrowly, miraculously, bypassed a series of sophisticated security measures within the narrow, suffocating crawlspace beyond. Somehow, running on sheer, unadulterated will, she managed to flee the nightmarish facility. She emerged, hours later, into the indifferent, sprawling anonymity of the vast, uncaring city, a wounded, traumatized, and hunted fugitive, her illusions shattered, her understanding of the world, of Talents, of good and evil, irrevocably, horrifically, and permanently altered.

Back on the distant, isolated island, life – or what passed for it in the wake of Nana’s dramatic exposure and removal – continued in a state of uneasy, fearful chaos. Arthur Ainsworth watched the fallout, the fear and anger amongst the surviving students slowly, inevitably giving way to a confused, rudderless, and deeply pervasive anxiety. He was entirely unaware of Nana’s current, even more horrific ordeal at the hands of Commander Tsuruoka, entirely unaware that she was now on the run, her entire worldview, her very sanity, demolished. He only knew that Nana Hiiragi, the island’s most prolific, most dangerous, and most enigmatic killer, was gone, and the future, for himself and for everyone else trapped in this terrible, unending game, was now more uncertain, more perilous, and more terrifying than ever before.

Thank you @sku-te and everyone who got me to 5 reblogs!

Hej

Nana is an evil little bitch

Grendel Jinx in Talentless Nana: A Tale of Talents and Deceptions (on Wattpad) https://www.wattpad.com/story/393719322-grendel-jinx-in-talentless-nana-a-tale-of-talents?utm_source=web&utm_medium=tumblr&utm_content=share_myworks&wp_uname=MrTAToad 

The last thing Grendel Jinx remembered was a frying pan swinging toward her face in a Chichester warehouse, courtesy of some goon from a rival secret organization. Then, a flash of green light, a sensation like being sucked through a straw, and now-this. She blinked against the sterile white ceiling of what looked like a hospital room, the faint hum of fluorescent lights buzzing in her ears. Her head throbbed, but her limbs were intact, and her trademark leather jacket was neatly folded on a chair nearby. Not bad for a girl who'd just been yeeted across dimensions.