Mai Tsurugi

鶴城(ツルギ) 舞(マイ), *Tsurugi Mai*?

## Identification

### Aliases

* Woman with big hat (大きな帽子の女性, *Ōkina bōshi no josei*?, lit. "Woman with a big hat")

## Physical Description

### Species

Human (Formerly)
Doll

## Personal Status

### Status

Deceased
Determinant/Inactive
(as a Doll)

### Date of death

Chapter 2, Part Two, The First Trial (Victim Video)
 Chapter 3, Part One (as a Doll)

### Cause of death

Shot herself with the wrong gun. (as a Human)
 Pierced by Maple. (as a Doll)
 Drilled to death in a coffin at The Banquet. (as a Doll)
Ran out of Battery after The Banquet. (as a Doll)

**Mai Tsurugi** (鶴城(ツルギ) 舞(マイ), *Tsurugi Mai*?) was a baker and one of the 20 participants in the Death Game. She died in the First Trial.

## Appearance

Mai is an adult woman with wild short dark red hair and bright orange eyes.
She wears a large cream puff shaped hat, a short dress with a beige bust and dark red skirt held up with bright red ribbon straps that tie around her neck, and detachable dark red sleeves that have white frilly accents and red long high heel boots. As a human, she wore a pair of red gloves that were later taken by Rio Ranger. Her doll counterpart's hands were Midori's human hands.

Being a participant of the Death Game, She wears a collar as do all participants, Dummies, and Floor Masters. Like all of the Dummies, Mai wears one that was specially made for Doll usage.

## Personality

Mai comes across as friendly and flirtatious. She is talkative and excitable, occasionally making remarks that make people uncomfortable such as asking Sara to rub her cheek out of appreciation for her doll-form. She tries her best to help the group, though sometimes her ideas lack foresight. This is shown in the optional bad ending, in which she lights a firework inside of a library to fight monsters, leading the room to be engulfed in flame with no exit.

Mai, like the rest of the dolls, was given the task to kill her partner to ensure her own safety. She was the first to attempt it, stabbing Q-taro in the back, as she stabs Q-taro she explains the true intentions of the dolls to him and unknowingly to everyone watching the scene unfold from the security room on the 5th floor. She seemingly displays an act of remorselessness however after she wakes its clear that it was just an act as she acts extremely remorseful after Q-taro forgives her claiming "How can you say that to... to someone who stabbed you in the back...? Stop it...! I'm horrible... I'm... the worst..." she then repeatedly claims she doesn't get Q-taro no matter how he explains it.

In her First Trial, Mai is shown to be panicked to the point of sobbing. Unable to make a decision, she decided to go with a random choice that would seal her fate. She exhibits this behavior during the Banquet as well, being unable to defend herself when she is accused of being a human traitor. This suggests that Mai is generally quite indecisive, and is unable to think clearly while under pressure.

## History

### Background

Mai worked as a baker prior to the Death Game. Due to her favorable appearance and demeanor, she was often appointed to dealing with customer service. She acted as the poster girl for the town bakery, making an effort to dress conspicuously and charmingly as to incite customers to chatter about her. This had reached a point where the frequency of customers coming in exclusively to see, or even photograph, her instead of purchasing items from the bakery became a notable problem. She wasn't particularly fond of these bothersome customers, but kept her prospects high and a smile on her face in hopes that they'd one day try out the bread the bakery she and the bakery she worked at produced. Though disappointed to be playing this role of the poster girl, Mai was content at her job, as being surrounded by bread all day brought her great joy and she considered it to be her calling.

### The Death Game

Mai was one of the victims of the First Trial, as revealed by Disk F which can be found on the first floor and played in Miley's Room in Chapter 2, Part Two. Her First Trial involved Mai having to choose between two guns in a Russian-roulette like game, where she had to shoot one against her head to be set free. Her collar tightens as a result of her hesitating to shoot, so she panics and chooses a gun randomly. Once pulling the trigger of one of the guns, when the time limit was close to the end, a bullet shoots out of it and through the side of her head.

After her death, Rio Ranger takes her gloves from her corpse.

### Mai Doll

After her death, Mai's AI was uploaded into a doll that looked identical to her in order for her to help the Death Game participants during the third chapter. She is paired with Q-taro as his support.

Mai tells Sara that the real versions of the dummies died in the First Trial, and they were shown videos of the moments of their deaths. After everyone is introduced to each other, a monster called an Obstructor comes to attack, and everyone works together to defeat it. Afterwards, they begin to explore the fourth floor.

Upon trying to pass through the boxing ring, the passageway closes, and liquid begins to fill the room. The group works together to solve the puzzle. Sara discovers the ropes of the boxing ring can be cut so Mai uses the knife found on the ceiling to do so. The posts are colored to match the ropes, and the room is solved. Mai keeps the knife for later without anyone knowing.

After searching all the rooms on the fourth floor, Mai is seen searching the locker room with Q-taro.

Once Sara and Ranmaru manage to power on the elevators, the group rides them up to the fifth floor. They search all 6 rooms on the map given to them by Midori, but notice in the middle of the map, where there should be a room, there isn't. Inspecting the library again, the participants discover Midori's Security Room. After leaving, they hear a deafening noise coming from somewhere in the library, that brings out another Obstructor. Gin can sniff out some fireworks, and choosing to go with Mai's idea to use them will result in the library being set on fire, and a game over.

Eventually, Sara finds four colored books and places them back into the shelves in the library. This opens up a passageway to a stadium-like area where Midori waits. All of the pairs arrive and confront Midori, when Kanna/Shin realizes that Mai and Q-taro aren't with them. Everyone rushes to the security room and finds Mai stabbing Q-taro in the Doll Graveyard. She reveals that the dummies' task is to kill their partner before Midori dies in order to survive. However, she failed to actually kill him and ended up getting knocked unconscious.

After a while, Mai wakes up, feeling guilt and remorse for her attempted murder. Despite what happened, Q-taro forgives Mai and says that she's still an ally. Mai doesn't understand why he forgave her, but goes with the group regardless. She then uses the fingerprint scanner in the control room, and to everyone's surprise, it works and disables the first level of security, Mai herself has no cue as to why only her fingerprint worked with the scanner, however the group decides to move on from this and try to unlock the third level of security.

During the first fight against Maple, Mai asks to read the letter wrote for Maple, and finds that it is not a love letter, but a guide on how to deal with her. Mai also points out the friendship meter on Maple, and the group realizes that they have to build a friendship with Maple and then reconcile with her. After Maple is reconciled with, (or the player runs out of time and runs away) Q-taro decided he's still too weak to keep up with the rest of the group, and Mai decided to stay behind with him.

Mai is next seen during Keiji's POV, before Keiji woke up, she and Q-taro hid inside the coffins while Maple rampaged. Mai then explores with Keiji and Q-taro, and finds the hurt Maple. When Maple explains that her love program is a "gimmick" Mai seems angered at the idea that Maple's emotions are treated like a game mechanic. After giving Maple Midori's head, she says that there's a way for the dummies to win with the participants and be brought back if everyone does the Banquet. Mai then exclaims that ASU-NARO would never bring them back, and Q-taro comforts her saying that him and the rest of the group will bring them back. After Keiji goes up the elevator, Q-taro realized that he doesn't have much longer to live due to Mai's knife wound being worse than he initially thought it was, and gets in the coffin Midori was in to create a trap during the banquet. Mai then begs him to get up, blaming herself for his death. Q-taro tells her not to cry, and to use the AI-Ceiver to make a doll of him. Mai then goes upstairs and asks Sara for the ID card, once Mai obtained it she used it to create a Q-taro doll, just as he asked and keeps quite about the plan.

Still having the knife originally for the boxing ring puzzle, Mai can use it during the fight against Maple 2.0 to break one of her monitors. If the player takes more than 11 turns at the fight, Mai gets penetrated by Maple's tendrils, and tearfully apologizes to Q-taro for being unable to fulfill her promise. Otherwise, Mai survives the fight, despite being attacked by Maple 2.0 multiple times.

During the preparation for the banquet, Mai shows enthusiasm, although Sara notes that her personality changes from the cover she put up before. During the Banquet suspicion falls over Mai because she was able to perform a fingerprint scan and lacked her red gloves from her Victim Video, implying she might be a human traitor. A conclusion is then drawn that Mai has Midori's human hands, and Midori cut off his own hands for the fun of it, giving them to Mai. Mai stares down at "her" hands in horror, swearing to kill Midori for this. Mai can die during the Banquet, in which she asks Sara and Q-taro to avenge her by stopping Midori, while the others cry out for her.

If the correct steps are followed and Kurumada and Hayasaka are sacrificed, Mai can remain unharmed at the end of the Banquet, If so, as she is about to run out of battery, she says she still wants to live, and that she owes her life to Q-taro. Sara promises to bring her back, and Mai thanks her and deactivates.

## Relationships

### Q-taro Burgerberg

Like the other dummies, Mai's requirement for survival is different from the humans participants. To live, you must murder your master before the Floor Master, Midori dies. Mai took the opportunity to talk to Q-taro in the Graveyard after everyone went off to track down Midori. Mai then stabbed Q-taro in the back with the knife from the Boxing Ring mini-game earlier in the chapter. Mai cheerfully celebrates, explaining to Q-taro her goal. Q-taro, still having enough strength, knocks her out. He doesn't kill her because he felt bad for her situation as support. Mai would always flirt with Q-taro to get his trust and be ignored more easily. After Q-taro states that they're all allies and that he doesn't hate her for stabbing him, Mai is confused and seems to feel very guilty. She is later shown to be genuinely kind and thankful to Q-taro and they end up forming a close bond. When Q-taro sets up his plan to sacrifice himself she pleads with him and feels horrible for what she's done showing she's has really come to care for him.

### Sara Chidouin

Upon meeting Sara, Mai immediately acts friendly towards her, seeming to take an immediate liking towards her. The two cooperate from time to time throughout Chapter 3, Part One, such as in puzzles and fighting enemies, but they otherwise do not interact. It is unknown whether these were Mai's true feelings for Sara, or if she was faking them to make herself appear more trustworthy to the participants.

### Maple

Mai showed immense sympathy for Maple after learning about how Midori had manipulated and used her for his own benefit. She feels guilt in taking Midori's head away from Maple, even after her body had run out of power, and she encouraged her to stay strong during the fight against Maple 2.0. If Mai is not killed by Maple during the fight, she expresses disgust in Midori after he insults Maple by calling her a useless piece of junk. Before the Banquet, Mai can be seen sitting down next to Maple's burnt remains.

### Sou Hiyori

Mai has an especial hatred of Sou, due to him tricking her into killing her partner, and his cruel treatment of Maple. She was also horrified to learn that Sou had her doll hands replaced with his own human hands, and swore that she would kill him.

## Appellations

* Participants A
* Participants B
* Organization members

## Trivia

* The kanji that makes up her first name is 舞, *mai*?, lit. "dance".
* The kanji that make up her last name are 鶴, *tsuru*?, lit. "crane (bird)" and 城, *gi*?, lit. "castle".
* Mai is the only participant whose clothing/accessory taken from Rio Ranger doesn't appear in their doll counterpart.
* She had a 7.5% chance of winning the Death Game.
* It is possible for her to die while fighting Maple 2.0. and continue the story without a game over.
* If Mai is still alive by the start of the Banquet, she can potentially be the only Dummy to live by the end of Chapter 3-1B, similarly to Hayasaka and Kurumada.
* Along with Anzu Kinashi, she is one of the two Dummies who currently has not disclosed their hidden information.
* Mai is the only Dummy to successfully accomplish their task by killing their partner/target before the Murderer Game's end.
	+ While Ranmaru may optionally succeed in killing Reko/Alice, his target was Sara.

## References

1. ↑ Chapter 3, Part One, Section A. *Your Turn to Die ―Death Game By Majority―* (キミガシネ　―多数決デスゲーム―) by Nankidai. February 25, 2020.
Nankidai. 2023. PDF. *Kimi ga Shine Character Settei Materials: Survivor and Dummies Roster*
3. ↑ Kai's Story. *Your Turn to Shine: Island Existence* (キミガシネ番外編　～生存島～) by Nankidai. March 3, 2022.
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Mishima's Story. *Your Turn to Shine: Island Existence* (キミガシネ番外編　～生存島～) by Nankidai. December 20, 2019.