Notes: I wanted to write a fic involving the girl at the beginning of the film who won the last game, perhaps try and explain some things. That, and I've wanted to write a BR fic for a while now. So I hope this suffices as a first try.

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We made a pact at the beginning, to stay together, to not let the government win. They were not going to make us kill each other. …It wasn't long before we started fighting back. What choice did we have? Everybody else appeared to be playing the game. We laid eyes on the first of our dead classmates the moment we left the abandoned school building…somebody was already lying in wait…to kill us off one by one before we got the chance to fight back, too scarred and bewildered to even consider defending ourselves. I don't know how or, if I'm honest, why she did it; waited for me, hid herself away from whoever was already playing until I ran from the building, terrified, out into the night. As soon as she saw me, she ran to me…and the shooting began. We were running for our lives only ten minutes into what were supposed to be our last three days.

She was my best friend. Had been since we were six years old. Shika Seiko; tall, thin and beautiful, my friend, my confident, the only one who knew the real me. We were one and the same. Both had sides we would only reveal to the other, put on another face for the rest of the world and its people. I loved her as a sister and I know she felt the same. Where she was weak, I was strong, where I couldn't cope, she would take charge, when we cried we would find each other. Because that's the way it was. Maybe that's what made it so easy for us to comply. There was us and there was them…so we slipped into the trap and started to take lives. After everything we said. We weren't going to kill…but we weren't going to go quietly either…and so there was a body at our feet before we knew it. Self defence, we silently reasoned. Shika had drawn back with the baseball bat that had been her weapon, crying out as she cracked the skull of the boy who tried to kill me. Us. Nobody was going to touch us. Hurt her, they hurt me. Simple. Self defence. Of course.

But soon it wasn't. On each report list there was at least one name, one life, that we had taken and ended. They couldn't trust us and we couldn't trust them. We had witnessed one friendship we thought was so strong fall to pieces right before our eyes. One took the life of another. Suspicion, fear and the will to survive ruled here. He shot him and turned to us. He was the first I killed…and not to be the last. I don't know what happened…to any of us. You say in your mind you will never take a life, won't ever hurt anybody, even if you're forced. You'd be amazed how the survival instinct kicks in and overrides your heart and mind…even your soul. You can be an innocent child one minute and a soulless killer the next. I'm not sure which I was…or which she was. Only I saw Shika's soul. The times when we ran, when I saw the anger flare and the mad desperation overcome her, to protect me, herself, to live at all costs…she never could quite hide her heart. The looks in the other's eyes, the fear and sheer panic…could instantly turn to hatred…that look I knew well by the end. She tried. She really did. Perhaps that's why I so often saw shock and the uncomprehending flash in their eyes before they fell. They didn't understand how she could do these things and still appear human. Shika was more skilful than me at the game itself. She could hide her soul from herself…but never from me…or them.

She always protected me. Even when we were at school. I remember what it was like back then, when classrooms were half full or empty, when nobody listened. Teachers were so desperate to have some order in their classrooms they became cruel. And twisted. I admit I was a dreamer. I didn't always pay attention, but I attended, and I hoped that was what counted. But they didn't trust us, any of them, adults, last of all the teachers. One day I was so far lost in my own world, tipping back on my chair, that I lost my balance and fell straight to the floor, causing a brief moment of chaos. He thought I had done it on purpose. About to defend myself I heard her speak;

"No, Kanaye-sensei, it was me, I pushed her."

Shika was punished instead of me. She never once spoke about it, or even mentioned why she had done it, as if she took it as her duty, as my best friend. She was stronger than I will ever be and I adored her for it. Me? I was small, delicate and looked young for my age, perhaps could be called pretty. I knew what I wanted to do with my life, it was why I attended school still, and was determined to get there one day. …She had no idea what she wanted from life. What she wanted to do, be or become. She was just as good as I was at every subject, was praised for her strengths, yet she still couldn't find her path. …Which was why it ended as it did.

After just over two days, there were just three of us left. Shika, myself and another girl neither of us knew well, by the name of Kaida. The shots fired in our direction were just a warning. She wanted to kill us herself, with her skill, not with projectile weaponry. It was her downfall. Kaida didn't understand that there was no way she could win. This time it was me. I punished her with the shinobu I had stolen from our last victim. Battered her body, quickly, efficiently, until she couldn't take any more. The shinobu was the one weapon I knew how to use well. In a way, I was merciful, I could have made her death slow and painful. But her blood poured onto the grass as swiftly as any of the others. This time it was shock I saw in Shika's eyes.

"It's time I protect you."

A simple sentence that was meant to convey so much more. I wish I had told her exactly how much she meant to me. I had never been good with words…but I tried to tell her with my eyes. Hopefully she could see my soul.

Two left.

I should have known. I should have realised something was wrong. She hugged me so tightly, as if it were her last goodbye. I thought it was sheer relief…and fear of what was to come. We had never spoken of what was to happen in the end. I silently assumed, and hoped, we would wait out the time together, until we died together, until they killed us by remote. By the collars that would eventually become a blessing.

It wasn't to be.

"I'm sorry."

I looked up from the floor; I had been kneeling, rummaging around in my bag for some water, when I realised what she was doing. The weapon she held in her hand…not aimed at me…but at herself.

"I love you, Maeko-chan."

We never used honorifics, except when we were very young, ill or trying to convey deeper feeling than we ever uttered aloud. That was my second sign.

I didn't get a third.

Shika didn't hit home with the first shot. She did a lot of damage, caused herself a lot of pain, refused to cry out, and fell to the floor, blood flowing from the hole in her chest.

"Shika-chan!"

I was still on my knees, crawled to her, pawed at her, trying to get her to respond, until she opened her eyes and smiled ever so slightly.

"…You'll…"

"Shika-chan…!" I couldn't stop the tears that flowed from my eyes and fell on her body.

"…Always be my…sister…" a sudden pressure on the hand that grasped mine, the hand that still held the weapon reaching for my other, "…Please…" she had managed to raise and point the gun herself…but she hadn't the strength to pull the trigger, "…Please…"

"…No!" was my immediate reaction, "No! Shika-chan, please, no, no…!" panic, grief and overwhelming pain made my whole form shake.

"…Maeko-chan…please…" escaped as barely a whisper, "…live…please…"

And I could see her soul.

And I did as she wished.

I pulled the trigger, ended her pain and began my own.

I removed the gun from her limp hand before I searched her bag, withdrawing a single item. A doll. She had owned it since she was a little more than a baby, and, even at fifteen, she couldn't sleep without it. Our overnight class trip…and she took it with her. Shika…

They found me barely an hour later, draped over her body, sobbing, clutching the doll tightly.

I lost my mind that day and I have never been the same since. Some thought I was sane, others thought I was too traumatised to be allowed back into society. The soulless glint that had been in my classmates' eyes was ever present in mine. I smiled for the cameras, a forced smile, maybe out of hysteria…I was nothing. I felt nothing. I was the survivor.

The winner.

Through no choice of my own.

I have a daughter. A four year old girl whose utter dependence and limitless faith in my still shocks me to my very core. How can such an innocent being trust a woman like me? A religion I barely remember said that the pains of childbirth were punishment for the first woman's original sin. If that is so, mine were for my sin, my deeds and the wrongs I did others. I don't deserve to be alive. But I have given life to another and I will love and protect her until my last breath leaves my body. Her name is Shika.

I am sure my husband, Mikado, knows who, and therefore what I am. I thought I had done a good job of hiding the autographed card from the Dictator, with the Battle Royale Act symbol stamped on it. I discovered it lying on the bed in our bedroom. Therefore he found it. He must have wondered why I never needed to work, though I never said a word about the 'lifetime pension' that came with being the 'winner'. Nor the new life and silence forced upon me. Not that I would ever want to speak of those two days ever again. He knows. …And he's still here. He's stayed with me. He knows the monster I am…and he still loves me. He's seen the dangerous glint in my eye when something or somebody threatens our daughter…or when I'm overcome with passion and need when we make love. Mikado knows what I am capable of…he has faith in me…and I love him with all of my soul that remains.

Murderess.

I am a murderess.

But of course, they don't call me that.

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Fin