Chishiya

I woke up from a fade click of the door closing and saw Niragi enter with two platters of food. He smiled while putting one down in front of me: two buns, some butter, chocolate paste and an apple. 'Good morning,' he said.
I glared at him with a fake mad look on my face. 'Where were you yesterday?,' I asked.
He raised his eyebrows and plopped down on the bed. 'Oeh, were you worried, Chishiya?' he grinned.
I pouted my lips but said nothing and took a bite of the apple.

We ate our breakfast in silence. After a while, I sighed and mumbled: 'I was just pondering about the things that could have happened. You didn't show up after the game.'
He smiled: 'so you wére worried! How cute. But no. Aguni just wanted to comb out every centimeter of the broad environment to find his lost team members.' He rolled his eyes and ran his hand through my hair. I waved it away but I coudn't oppress a slight grin.

'So, what's the next step, boss?' he jokingly asked.
I hummed and raised my eyebrows: 'We will take Hatters playing cards today and hide them until our escape. We better not make hasty moves. I will use Arisu to find them and then take them myself. You can act like taking Arisu with you to torture him, but actually just dispose him somewhere without really harming him. That way, everyone is happy.' I let out a long sigh and rolled my eyes while leaning back.

Niragi

I was listening to him in silence until he leaned back and looked at me. When he was done, I slowly blinked at him and smiled. 'So you assume that I won't hurt that loser of yours?' I asked.
He tilted his head and replied: 'frankly, I don't care what happens with him. But Kuina doesn't want to cooperate if my plan uses her 'friends' in a negative way.' We both started grinning about the idea of having friends in the Borderlands, but I stopped when I realised I had something else, something even worse to loose than a friend.

Chishiya saw that and raised an eyebrow, but just continued: 'so... You just have to guard Hatters room. Let Arisu pass without him seeing you, but let no one else pass. When he breaks in, I will inform Hatter. He will ask you to take Arisu away. You will do that, but you will put him somewhere safe. I can take the cards in the meantime. After you're done, we will meet at the back entrance of the Beach. Understood?'

I nodded. 'I already informed Kuina, Arisu and Usagi about the part of the plan they have to be aware of. We'll start now,' Chishiya smiled at me and we stood up to go to our starting locations when we heard a voice scream Chishiya's name. We went out of my room and saw An running through the hallway.
'Chishiya! There you are! Something happened,' she screamed and beckoned us to follow her.

Chishiya

All of the Board Members stood around the table while we looked down on the lifeless body. 'Fuck...' Niragi mumbled. I knew it was going to happen eventually, but I hadn't counted on it happening now. Hatter was dead. Shot in the chest. Even though everyone pretended not to know who did it, the atmosphere radiated awareness. Now that Hatter was killed by Aguni and the second one was on the verge of taking the whole thing over, I had to think of a plan B to steal the cards and run away fast.

Aguni cleared his throat. 'This will come as a shock for the Beach. So we will have to pick a new leader quickly to not stir up the panic even more,' he stated. 'As Hatter's best friend, I will take that role on me,' he continued. The militants that stood behind him took a step forward and threatened with their weapons. Everyone stayed silent. 'That's decided, then. I will give a speech at the balcony of the mezzanine in an hour. But before that, we will need to do the paperwork in Hatter's old office. Let's say we meet there in five minutes,' he said and waved his hand to make us leave.

Everyone walked towards the office, still in dead silence. Thinking about it once again, this was the perfect moment to steal the cards. Because while doing the paperwork, I was going to be able to find out with certainty what the numbers of the safe were.

Niragi

All the important Board Members sat around Hatter's big table, Aguni at the head. We stared at the big white enveloppe with our own signatures on it, which was wax sealed with Hatter's big 'BOSS' ring. The ring now glimmered around Aguni's finger, and all I could feel about it was anger. I always thought I would be proud of him when this moment happened.

'Inside of this enveloppe are the numbers of the code for the safe where the playing cards are kept. We were all together when Hatter sealed it and we are together now, when I reopen it. After looking at them, I will seal another enveloppe with them and we'll put our signatures on it once again,' Aguni declared.

My eyes constantly shifted towards Chishiya's face, trying to communicate about what would happen with our plan now. But he never looked at me; he seemed possessed by Aguni's hands, which grabbed the enveloppe and turned it around a couple of times before opening it. Chishiya's eyes followed every move and squinted, like Chishiya was thinking very deeply about it.

Aguni opened the enveloppe slowly and sighed before finally looking down to see what was inside of it. Chishiya's eyes shifted towards Aguni's face now. They widened like he had seen something very important, but when I tried to follow his sight, I just saw Aguni's neutral facial expression. Chishiya smirked while he signed the new enveloppe and handed it over to the one sitting right of him.

Chishiya

After the meeting for the paperwork, I ran through the hallway in a fast pace. Niragi tried to keep up with me and huffed: 'what now?'
I snatched at him: 'the plan goes on just as we planned. Take your place, I'll tell you what to do when the rest of us is ready.'

We split up and I went to look for Kuina and Arisu. I found them by the pool, playing a game of travel-sized monopoly. I sat down on a beach bed next to them and unzipped my hoodie.
'Oh, hi Shuntaro! What brings you here?' Kuina asked.
I grumbled: 'we have to start our plan nów.'
Kuina made a shocked face and asked: 'now? is there something wrong?'
I leaned closer towards them so no one else could hear us and whispered: 'Hatter is dead. This time bomb is going to explode soon.'

An hour later, Kuina and I were standing against the pillar in the mezzanine to overlook everything. 'So this is it, then...? You will split ways with Arisu, Usagi and me the moment we leave the Beach?' Kuina asked with a worried face.
I smirked. 'Indeed,' I said. I felt a bit of pity for her about the fact that Arisu and Usagi wouldn't even come with us, but I knew Kuina was perfectly able to take care of herself so she would eventually get over it anyway.

The scratching sound of my walkie brought me out of my pondering. 'Chishiya, are you there?' Arisu's voice asked me.
'Yes, I'm here. Just like every militant and guard, so the coast is clear,' I answered.
'Okay,' Arisu replied and we waited for some minutes. 'Chishiya, I think I found the place. There's a safe. Do you know the numbers?' he said after a while.

I mumbled in the walkie talkie: 'try 8022.' I uprighted myself to leave. I told Kuina to stay on watch and walked towards the other side of the mezzanine. I changed the channel of my walkie to speak to Niragi: 'okay boy, now it's your turn to shine,' and walked towards Aguni to inform him about the theft...

[End of chapter twenty two]

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Photo from the Alice in Borderland series on Netflix