“That’s…frustrating. It sounds like running away might be the better option here. You said there’s another trope besides the final girl that guarantees survival?”
“Huh?” Chisato stopped in her tracks. “Ah, that… Yeah, but it’s not as mainstream as the final girl. If anything, it’s an exception…”
Chisato was squirming, not giving her a clear answer, so Takina stood in front of her and looked her straight in the eye.
“Tell me what it is.”
“Well, um… The couple survives… As in, romantic partners…”
There was silence, so acute it was hurting their ears.
“That is a…difficult condition…”
“Right…?”
Chisato was fidgeting and stealing glances at Takina. As for Takina, she thought that given the extraordinary circumstances, extraordinary measures were perhaps justified, but she didn’t know what they would need to do in order to meet the definition of romantic partners. Married people would get a marriage certificate, but there was no such thing for unmarried couples. Would it be enough for them to declare that they were a couple? Or would they need to kiss first?
…Something wasn’t right. Takina’s contemplation was interrupted by the realization that something had felt wrong to her that whole time. It was a dream. Of course, there was that, but something else felt particularly odd to her, and she was looking at it right at that moment—it was Chisato.
And then she figured it out.
“Chisato, I have to tell you something. This is— Huh?!”
Something cut through the air between her and Chisato. They instinctively jumped away. The item rolled on the asphalt with a clatter… It was a pair of glasses, smudged with blood. They were Mizuki’s.
The girls turned in the direction the glasses came from… They saw the killer in the Gokigen mask standing with his legs wide apart, far ahead of them on the road they were following. He had his chainsaw with him. He raised it high, started the engine, and roared.
How was it possible for him to have caught up with them so quickly despite his leg injury? Takina was greatly confused. She looked to Chisato, who scratched her head, making a face as if she just remembered something bad.
“Dang, I forgot!” she said. “Killers in movies often have this teleportation-like ability!”
“How is this even possible?”
“It’s not teleportation per se. They just have some mysterious way of overtaking the protagonists and ambushing them, even if they’re slow.”
“…How convenient for them to be able to do that.”
The killer was slowly walking to them, the chainsaw at the ready. He was still about twenty meters away. They could easily run away from him now, but that wouldn’t help if he just teleported to them again…
Chisato grabbed Takina’s hand and brought her face close to Takina’s to gaze intently into her eyes.
“What is it, Chisato?”
“Takina, we have to do this.”
“Do what?”
Instead of replying to her, Chisato turned toward the killer. She raised her hand, joined with Takina’s, above their heads.
“Mr. Killer! Can you hear me?! We’re…actually a couple!”
“Wait, Chisato, why are you—?”
“Takina, play along! Tell him we’re girlfriends. We go on three. One, two, three! We’re girlfrie— Hey, why aren’t you saying it?!”
“Do you think that if we announce we’re girlfriends, he’ll just say, ‘Fine, I’ll leave you alone, then’?”
“Hmm… Well… Maybe I’m being too optimistic.”
Throughout this whole thing, the killer kept walking, getting closer and closer to them.
Giving up on her idea, Chisato let go of Takina’s hand, put her hands on her hips, and hung her head.
“Chisato, listen. I figured something out about this dream.”
“Oh yeah?”
“It’s my dream.”
“Huh? Are you sure it’s not mine? Because it’s right up my alley.”
“I know it is. You’ve probably influenced me to dream this… But you wouldn’t abide by the rules.”
That was what seemed so off about Chisato in this dream. She was self-centered, freewheeling, and unstoppable. Just because there were some rules didn’t mean she’d follow them.
She was enjoying being chased around by a killer, but real Chisato would quickly get bored with being on the losing side. In her dream, there’d be a dramatic turnaround at the climax. Maybe a divorced topless muscleman with sparse hair would suddenly jump out of a helicopter and duke it out with the killer. But nothing of the sort was happening in that dream. If it wasn’t Chisato’s, whose could it be? Who always followed the rules to the letter? Only one member of the Café LycoReco crew fit the bill—Takina Inoue.
“This is definitely my dream, and I don’t like these rules giving the killer an unfair advantage.”
“Well, okay, but he’s coming at us right now, revving up the chainsaw.”
“There are no immortal killers. If he’s alive, he can be killed. Anything that has a physical form can be destroyed.”
“I guess so, but…um…what are you thinking of doing?”
“We could fight him, but it’s too much effort. There’s a quicker way.”
It happened as soon as she said that—two beams of bright light appeared behind the killer. He couldn’t ignore that, so he turned his head to look, lifting the chainsaw above his head…and the incoming trailer truck rammed into him. The killer’s body bounced off the road like a ping-pong ball and rolled away into the woods.
Chisato’s mouth dropped open, almost looking as if she’d dislocated her jaw. She was staring in absolute shock.
The truck stopped. It had the name of a delivery company on the side, with a squirrel in the logo.
“You getting in?” asked Kurumi, leaning out from the driver’s seat nonchalantly.
“Yes, thanks,” said Takina. “Come on, Chisato.”
“No, Takina… You’re throwing all the rules out of the window! But wait. Actually, you do get ridiculous plot twist endings like this in B movies or C movies… Still, no, this just isn’t right…!”
Takina chucked away the broken machete before climbing up the side of the cabin. She opened the passenger door and extended her hand to Chisato.
“Let’s get out of here, Chisato.”
“Eh, I guess it is what it is!” Chisato reluctantly conceded. She took Takina’s hand and got into the truck’s cabin with her.
The cab had only one row of seating, but the seats were flat and very spacious, so the three girls could sit next to each other without being too cramped.
“Okay, we’re leaving!” Kurumi said, starting the engine.
Takina had been wondering how Kurumi managed to drive a truck despite her small size, but it turned out she was using something like a console controller instead of the steering wheel, and she was sitting in a booster seat resembling a movie theater chair to be able to see out of the windshield. The panel with the meters and such had “self-drive” displayed on it. That explained it.
“Hang on,” said Chisato. “Actually, this still fits the movie tropes.”
“How?”
Chisato took Takina’s hand and lifted it up.
“Because we announced we’re a couple!”
That did tick the box for one of the tropes, but also, they had been saved by a truck, which was what Takina had wished for. Besides, joining hands and having one of them proclaim they were a couple didn’t make it a fact. Even Takina knew that more was required to be considered a couple… But thinking about the word couple… Besides meaning people in a relationship, it also simply meant “two of something.” And two of something was a duo, like Takina and Chisato were a Lycoris duo. They were partners, and again, the word partners could also mean a couple… So did they actually semantically meet the requirements for “the couple survives” rule from the beginning? But if so, then it could have been Chisato’s dream, too, and the fact that she thought of a truck and one appeared was merely a coincidence…?
“Well, I don’t care anymore. I’m too tired for this,” Takina said ostensibly to Chisato but in fact more to herself.
She was soaked with sweat. It wasn’t just from running earlier. It felt hot in the truck, as if the heating was on. Her throat was parched, too.
Chisato wasn’t satisfied with Takina dropping the subject, but Takina really couldn’t be bothered to think about it anymore. They got rid of the killer and were alive, which was all that mattered as far as she was concerned. She leaned back in the seat and closed her eyes. She must have been more tired than she’d realized, because she had the sensation of sinking into the backrest. Letting go of Chisato’s hand seemed like too much effort. Takina’s body seemed to be growing heavier and heavier, her consciousness fading. Only her awareness of Chisato’s hand in hers, of its warmth, remained sharp as she drifted off.