Editing A Simple Survey:Volume2 Reaper02 (section)

===Part 6===

Two gunshots rang out.

Higashikawa had fired the two handguns with a real bullet inside straight up.

The situation seemed over.

Matsumi grabbed a gun away from Higashikawa and pulled the trigger while aiming at an empty wall. However, it seemed all but the first shot had been loaded with blanks. The cylinder turned again and again, but no bullets were fired. It would clearly be of no use as a weapon, so she tossed it to the operating room floor.

Once more, all five of them had survived.

They had no idea when or where the 3rd attraction would begin, but it seemed they were doing quite well.

However, the situation was not that favorable.

After that game of aiming a gun at each other and pulling the trigger, Matsumi alone knew the truth.

In the final instant, Rachel had fired the handgun in her left hand.

Rachel had been told the right one had the blank and the left one had the real bullet.

And yet she had fired the left gun.

Saying she panicked and got mixed up was not an acceptable excuse. Rachel had clearly chosen the left gun she knew would fire a real bullet.

And Matsumi had predicted it would happen.

She had handed Rachel a safe pair of guns, but Rachel had then asked that they swap guns. Matsumi had no idea what foundation Rachel was working off of, but she had clearly grown suspicious. And so Matsumi had secretly swapped out the guns in her right and left hands before handing them to Rachel.

That had saved her life.

If she had faithfully handed over the guns like normal, Matsumi would have been killed.

“Hoo…”

Giving the guns to Higashikawa afterwards had also had meaning.

A handgun with a real bullet loaded was a powerful weapon, but it was too dangerous for Rachel to hold. However, Matsumi doubted Rachel would have agreed if she had demanded Rachel hand over her gun. Anyone would want a weapon in this situation.

If Matsumi had tried to force Rachel, there had been a risk she would have been shot.

And so she had left her own guns with Higashikawa first. She had created an illusion of fairness on the surface. And if Rachel did snap and grow violent, the danger would fall on Higashikawa rather than Matsumi.

Fortunately, Rachel had agreed to hand her gun over to Higashikawa.

(But…)

Matsumi still did not know what had led Rachel to try to shoot her.

The attraction’s rules gave no reason to want to eliminate the other participant.

However…

''Beware the traitor.

The words written on that sign tore into Matsumi’s chest.

She doubted those words had been referring to Rachel. The opposite was more likely. Rachel may have somehow realized a certain fact.

She may have realized that Matsumi Shirauo was on Attraction Land’s side.

(Either way…)

She quietly thought while overcome with the relief of overcoming that great hurdle and the tension of the danger she had yet to escape.

(It seems simply accepting that everyone is working together for our mutual survival will not be enough to survive.)

On the surface, everything appeared to be going well.

But unseen cracks had definitely begun to spread.

<noinclude>
{| border="1" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" style="margin: 1em 1em 1em 0; background: #f9f9f9; border: 1px #aaaaaa solid; padding: 0.2em; border-collapse: collapse;" id="nav"
|-
| Back to [[A_Simple_Survey:Volume2_Intermission4|Progress Report #201]]
| Return to [[A_Simple_Survey|Main Page]]
| Forward to [[A_Simple_Survey:Volume2_Intermission5|From the Items Left Behind by a Dead Freelance Writer]]
|-
|}
</noinclude>