[HorridSubs] Puchi Pura Sana! - 06 [1080p HEVC 10bit AAC][052134B3].mkv (2/2)

"I can't," says Sana. "… Hana-chan's my friend."

Midori (Fake), wearing Hanako's face and glasses, simply smiles. "And?"

"And … I love my friends."

"Of course you love your friends! I never gainsaid that. … But that's not the problem, is it?"

Sana purses her lips.

"The problem is that they don't understand you. You're the odd one out. They don't understand your"—Midori/Hanako (Fake) gestures like she's turning a doorknob—"pachinko jokes. Your sense of humor. … That'd be frustrating for just about anyone."

Sana looks away, down to the ground. She mutters, "… It's not just that they don't get me."

"Hmm?"

Sana continues, voice uncharacteristically shaky: "It's the way they try to make up for it. Hanako with her with polite laughs, when it's clear she has no idea what I'm saying. Or when they all rush to help clean my desk, when Igarashi vandalized it that one time. As though they feel … sorry for me. They can't meet me as I am, so they have to try and protect me to compensate for it."

Hanako (Fake) raises a open palm. "Say no more, Sana-chan. I get you. I'm probably the only one that gets you."

And with her other doll-hand, she pulls out, from behind her, a wooden board about the size of a cafeteria tray.

Down the length of the board are a pair of leather straps; and nailed down to the board, near the top edge, is what looks like a nail clipper, with a lever arm pointed upward at an angle.

Sana, eyeing the contraption, asks, "What … is that?"

"Oh, it's my favorite toy," giggles Hanako (Fake). "See, you strap my arm down, and put my finger here"—gesturing to the device—"and then …" She mimes slamming a fist down on the lever arm. "Bam! Bam! With each smack, it'll rip my fingernail clean off! … Neat, huh?"

Sana blanches.

The doll, on seeing Sana's reluctance, smiles, and assures her, "It's just for fun. I'm just a doll, remember. It's not real. No matter how much I cry or scream or plead. It's not real. … Come on, you know you wanna. Blow off a little steam."

But Sana is still clearly uncomfortable.

Hanako (Fake) lays the device flat down on a nearby spare desk, takes a seat, and begins strapping her left arm into it. "… Here, why don't I get things started?" Sliding her fingernail into the pincer-like groove of the nail-tearing apparatus.

Sana walks over, slowly to the desk.

The false Hanako snaps her fingers, on her free arm. "I know! How about this. If you want to stop, at any point, why don't one of us just say … Hmm, let's see … Why don't we just say, 'Usagi'?"

"Usa … gi?"

"Yeah! If either of us wants to stop, we just say the word 'Usagi', and we both stop. How's that sound?"

Sana fidgets, scratches her arm.

Saying nothing, she raises a hand, slowly—

—and brings it down on the lever arm, pushing it down with a Smack!

The sound of tearing.

Like seams coming apart.

The doll howls in pain, stares up at Sana with Hanako's face and pleading eyes, and screams, in her friend's voice:

"S-Sana-chan! I-It hurts! It hurts s-so much!!"

Sana recoils, horrified.

A sound escapes her mouth, involuntarily.

"Usa—!!"

… But she doesn't finish it.

She covers her mouth, stuffs the word back in before it can escape fully.

Hanako (Fake) thrashes around in her seat, sobbing hysterically.

Reverb-soaked echoes of the doll's voice, heard in recollection.

It's just for fun.

I'm just a doll, remember.

It's not real.

No matter how much I cry or scream or plead. It's not real.

Sana takes a step forward, approaches the desk.

"Pl-please Sana-chan! W-Why are you doing this!? I'm y-your friend!"

Sana, face blank, places her palm over the lever of the device once more.

And then—

Smack!

Smack!

Smack!

Tear tear tear.

The doll's screams, echoing into the eternal dusk.

It's not real.

It's not real.

It's not real.

*

Bell rings.

Another day at school.

Sana, at her desk.

Unable to keep her eyes off the bandage over Hanako's left thumb.

"Oh, this?" smiles Hanako, at her desk. "D-Don't worry, Sana-chan. I-It's nothing. Accidentally cut my thumb last night while cutting the vegetables."

"Oh. … Okay," responds Sana. "Are you sure you're—"

A piece of chalk flies past the two girls' heads.

Kanemoto-sensei, standing with her hands on her hips.

"No talking in class!"

"S-Sorry, Ms Kanemoto."

*

Sana and Midori (Fake), in the gym equipment room, after school.

"It's just another coincidence," insists the doll. "You worry too much."

"Maybe we should stop," says Sana, visibly rattled.

"Ehh? You want to stop? … I mean, that's fine by me, I guess. … Though, it'd be a real shame to let the new toy go to waste."

"New … toy …?"

The false Midori walks over to something covered beneath a blue tarp.

Sitting among piles of stowed-away spare desks and chairs and other equipment, what Sana had assumed was just another piece of furniture is revealed to be, as the doll pulls off the tarp …

… a wooden, medieval torture rack.

Sana gasps. (In … horror? Or some other emotion?)

"See," explains the false Midori, "you lay me on this rack, and bind my hands and feet—and when you pull this wheel, it'll slowly streeeeee-eetch me out, until all my limbs break! Crack my spine in half, too! Neat-o, huh!?"

Sana scratches her arm, nervously.

The doll then runs her hand over her face.

Her hair grows out, turns jet-black.

Her doll-face taking on the shape of another's.

"Now, then," says Tomoe (Fake). "Shall we begin? … Of course, it's your choice."

*

Bell rings.

Next day at school.

Start of homeroom.

Sana, already at her desk.

Tomoe limps in, Lotte supporting her.

Hanako stammers, "To-Tomoe-chan! Are you okay!?"

Tomoe smiles, somewhat embarrassed. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just tripped last night. Hurt my back."

Sana looks away, out the window, at the blood-orange sky.

*

The bell rings.

After school.

Equipment room.

"Look," says the doll, "even if—and big if—even if what you're saying is true … and I'm not saying that it is … But EVEN IF it were true, the injuries aren't even that serious. Hanako hurt her thumb, big whoop. Tomoe pulled her back. Yeah, and? Hanako's already healed, and Tomoe will too. … I think it'd be a small price to pay, for you to blow off some steam. … Assuming that, your absurd theory is even true in the first place."

Sana stands around, unsure.

"Which, of course," smiles the doll, "it's not."

The false Midori claps her hands.

"Now, then!"

She walks over to a storage container, bends over, and pulls out several fireworks. … Even some illegal-looking ones.

When the doll turns back around to face Sana, she's wearing a new face.

Clutching the fireworks in her arms, Lotte (Fake) smiles at Sana.

"Well? Let's have some fun. … Sana-chan!"

Sana gulps—

It's not real.

It's not real.

She's just a doll.

It's not real.

—and picks up the lighter sitting on the desk nearby.

*

Sana heads home alone, a few hours later.

She walks through the residential streets of Umehara, a strange dazed grin on her face. Her fingers, covered in black soot. Smelling of gunpowder.

At the front step of her house, her parents are waiting for her.

Sana's grin fades, as her mother begins to speak.

A high-pitched whining noise, tinnitus-like, drowns out the audio.

We don't hear the words, but we see her lips moving.

We see Sana's face fall, in reaction to her mother's news.

*

At the hospital.

Sana comes rushing in, her parents behind her.

Tomoe and Hanako are already in the waiting room.

They're crying.

*

At the door to Lotte's hospital room.

Lotte's mother stands at the entrance, eyes red, speaking in a dead monotone, as though still in shock.

"… I'm afraid Lotte won't be able to play with you kids anymore. She'll need time to rest. … Sweet Lotte. … She really loved you all."

Sana, peeking in through the doorway.

Lotte, in bed, lying motionless.

Head wrapped fully in gauze and bloody bandages.

… A single eye, unblinking, looking back at Sana, through the wrappings.

Sana clutches her head, screams, and then flees from the doorway.

Screaming all the way as she tears down the sterile, fluorescently-lit hallway.

*

"You did this!" screams Sana.

"… Me?" asks Midori (Fake), pointing at her own chest. "I was with you this whole time. As I recall, you were having the time of your life."

Sana clutches her head, nearly tearing her own hair out. "Stop … lying to me!"

The false Midori crosses her arms. "You're being ridiculous again. … Let's say, you're right about things. (Though you're not.) … Lotte was injured hours before. Possibly even before our little fireworks playdate. … You're telling me we caused something to happen back in time? Are you listening to yourself?"

"Shut up. SHUT UP. SHUT UP!"

Sana winds back, as though about to hit the doll again.

Midori (Fake) smiles.

After a while, Sana, trembling, puts her arms down.

And runs back home, away from the abandoned park.

*

Sana, in bed.

Some midnight hour.

Curtains drawn, and taped shut, to black out the terrible dusk outside.

Her eyes wide open, blood-shot.

She can't move.

She hears a sound in the corner of her pitch-black bedroom.

And she can't move.

She sees a shape out the corner of her eye.

She wants to turn her head. To look at it. To dispel it.

… But she can't move.

The shape creeps closer and closer to her.

She knows what it is.

She knows that if she just turns, just angles her head ever so slightly, she would see—

"Saaaa-naaaaaaa," the shape rasps.

Tears begin welling up in the corners of her eyes.

"Saaaaa …. naaaaaa …"

She feels a cold hand grip her neck.

Two hands.

And then the image of her own face, begins filling the center of her vision.

Her own face, on the straw doll's.

"SANA!"

The cold hands tighten their grip.

Sana (Fake) leans in close, and whispers, "Remember that word? All you have to say it, and it'll stop."

Sana tries to open her mouth. To say the three syllables. To say anything.

… But she can't move.

The doll laughs.

It's the last thing Sana sees.

Her own face, laughing at her in a cruel, twisted grin.