01. Lonely Hide and Seek (Part 1)

Lonely Hide and Seek (Part 1) is the first chapter of the Shuuen no Shiori Manga.
==Summary==
The chapter starts with a detailed introduction to the rules of the demise game.
Afterwards, A-ya, who is lying in his room, apparently listening to the news on the television, when breaking news are broadcasted, is introduced. The breaking news tell about the death of a male student in some unmentioned city's high school. While it is mentioned that the investigations are considering the possibilities of either a crime of an accident, A-ya calmly closes his eyes.
The incident is shown in a flashback. A girl in school uniform is searching for a lost ball, in rather high grown grass, when she accidentally hits the legs of someone with her head. It turns out that those legs do not feature an upper body and fall lifelessly to the ground. The girl is said to be the first witness to the happenings.
Around the same time a boy, who wears the same uniform, stumbles upon a half dead, male student, who misses his lower body parts. It is said that this half body seemed like it was dragging itself towards his lower side. However, both witnesses are said not to have seen anyone who could be the culprit.
The next moment A-ya is again seen, this time in his bed, one day before the incident, saying "boring" to no one in particular, before he gets up to prepare for school. As he gets dressed, he has an inner monologue about how he thinks that someone has been watching him for days, although his parents, who are the only other people to live with him, are usually gone before he wakes up. Although he is scared of this fact, he thinks that the feeling of fear is pleasuring and enriched his daily life. Before he leaves the house, he calls out that he would be off now, telling that these words are not meant for anyone, but are merely a good luck charm for himself.
On his way to school, he wishes for someone to destroy the boredom of his daily life, when suddenly he is greeted by a school mate, who he seems to dislike. Latter asks him if he had heard about rumors that have been going around their school lately. However, despite A-ya being interested in these rumors, it turns out that his school mate only wants to ask about rumors considering B-ko - a girl from the class next to them, who is said to be the school's top-class beauty - and a possible crush or boyfriend of hers. A-ya denies to have heard anything about this topic, then starts to talk about a different rumor that he has heard, mentioning that an impostor of B-ko appeared. Although it is obvious that A-ya is the one starting the rumor, his school mate falls for it and wants to hear more about it. After another small monologue - in which he tells how everyone has at least one person they trust enough to not tell anyone else about the rumor they heard, and how he figures that this way the rumor would reach each student quickly in a short time - he tells him that earlier B-ko had been seen by one of her classmates from out of a bus window after school, heading into the opposite direction of her home. Curious, that classmate had sent her a mail, asking what B-ko was doing at that moment, and got a reply which said she would be home studying. A-ya questions if she had written the truth, but then says that her neighbor confirmed that she was at home at that time and that it could not be a lie with so many witnesses. This implies that there would be an impostor of her wandering around. Pleasured about his school mate's panic reaction, he starts to think that this day could work out less boring for him than others.
Over the morning A-ya gets to see how the rumor is slowly spreading and he is satisfied that people are interested in his made-up story. It is told that making up false stories is his hobby and that he finds it interesting how one person's drama can be considered comedy by others.
Later, he is confronted by B-ko with this matter, who is visibly in a bad mood about it. A-ya tells her that it was meant as a little prank, but of course she still does not forgive him so easily. Her rant is interrupted by D-ne, another girl that visits their school, who comments that she likes B-ko's dual nature. The latter, however, only responds his this sounds like she has a split personality. An additional acquaintance of them, named C-ta, appears in the same room they are in and says that B-ko has always had a soft spot for D-ne and that it sometimes really seems like there are two different versions of B-ko around, then asks A-ya for reassurance on this comment, but he stays silent about it.
A-ya's thoughts tell about one thing the four of them have in common, although they are not really compatible with each other - they love extreme rumors. Beside not being befriended with each other, they meet in the same room on a regular basis, to talk about urban legends and occult stories. A-ya tells the others how he feels like he is being watched each day. Other than normal people would react, the three of them seem seriously worried about this matter and start to think of possibilities for its background. Due to the fact that he, B-ko and C-ta did Kokkuri on an earlier day, it might be related to the Bookmark of Demise.
After explaining about the Bookmark of Demise and how to obtain it in another monologue, B-ko disagrees with him, saying that their attempt to do Kokkuri failed. Tempted by the thrill of getting the Book and Bookmark of Demise, A-ya demands that they try it again. At the end of the chapter, he comments that this is how they became involved into the worst demise game.
Category:Manga Chapters