Lily's Point Of View

The door to the meeting room shuts quietly

"Seems like we are all finally here," Catarina says excitedly and pats the chair next to her.

Catarina, Helena, Jesmaine and Landon are already seated around a wide round table, and the chair Catarina is patting is... unevenly close to her. Not only that, but there is clearly only one free chair, indirectly indicating that Lionel isn't welcomed.

I thought that maybe this interval where I got my nerves numbed would return Catarina to the status of a human being, but no matter how you look at it, he is clearly still a cockroach.

Lionel let's go of my hand, and walks past me while glaring at Catarina the way he used to do towards me when we were kids.

"I see the maids that set the table have been lazy with their setup."

He grabs the chair and starts pulling it away, only for Catarina to actually grab the chair as well.

"Stop getting in the way, you damn sadist!"

Catarina scolds Lionel while finally letting her inner thoughts fly free.

"Again, Princess Catarina, I do not have that sort of hobbies, nor do I enjoy watching people suffer," Lionel responds with his very best attempt at remaining polite towards Catarina.

"Yea sure you don't. Now let go," Catarina growls and tries to pull the chair from Lionel. Unsuccessfully.

I stare at the ridiculous scene playing out in front of me somewhat dumbstruck. Catarina is pulling at the chair quite stubbornly, but of course it's barely moving in Lionel's grip. Still, I suppose the stupidity of this is keeping me from focusing on anything else...

"Princess Catarina, please release the chair. Princess Emilia made it quite clear that I should treat you as a man. Thus, being so physically close to you is unacceptable."

I break them up, only to be met with an awkard silence from everyone in the room.

"...you don't have to be formal. It's not like anyone other than the pervert here is listening," Catarina speaks quite calmly... still holding onto the chair.

"In that case," Lionel starts out as his otherwise forced polite expression fades and his eyes gleam with irritation.

"Let go of the chair you creep. Lily already told you to let it go as well," Lionel adds bluntly, immediately cutting away all sense of formality.

"A-anyway, let's not fight over a chair. We should just move on to the reason you called us, right Catarina-sama?"

Helena adds somewhat nervously while glancing to me.

I look back to Catarina that visibly pouts as we start using numbers against her, and then finally lets the chair go, but not without one last lash out at Lionel:

"See, your true nature is coming out."

...is this cockroach doing it on purpose, or does she really believe that Lionel is a sadist?

Lionel lets out a patient sigh and pulls the chair away from Catarina and motions for me to sit. Somewhat hesitantly I sit down, not having Catarina on one side, and Helena on the other... all this chaos over a chair.

Lionel places a hand gently on the back of my chair while standing by my side, partly getting between Catarina and I.

I look to Landon, who immediately forces an awkward smile to me. He has seated himself on the opposite side of the wide table... sadly a sword won't reach from here, but... Lionel was right, I will have plenty of opportunities to kill him. Right now I need to find out what I need to decide how to ensure that he is punished for his sin-

"With that, let's start the first meeting for reincarnatees!"

Catarina, seemingly unaffected by the earlier argument is now all smiles and excitement again as she stands up, gracefully putting her hand to her chest for a self introduction.

"As you all know, I, now Princess Catarina of Crinia, am one of the developers of Doki Doki Flower Academy. I mainly worked on the villainess Lily Celeste and her bother, the capture target Eric Celeste."

She pauses to wink to me that causes me to shudder in return.

"You did really well dealing with the battle of Castle Celeste, Lily-chan."

She then looks back to everyone else.

"As you know, we all reincarnated as characters that die during the game. Be it as villains of a love route, victims of Alstair's conquest by using Claire or Helena who was supposed to die to motivate Claire to go to war. However! We have successfully survived all of these death flags and won the game!"

Hah?

Won the game?

"So, since it's like that, I think we can take it easy and just bring prosperity from now on," she adds confidently with a smile... as though she has no idea how hard bringing prosperity is. Take it easy? Are you kidding me? I still have remainders House Salender's to deal with an reforming a nearly entirely corrupt country into something decent! How is that 'take it easy'?!

I lean back in the chair as I take in the expressions of the already convinced two actual girls, and the cautious glance from Landon.

Catarina sits down again and this time gives a seemingly innocent expression.

"So, since we all kind of know each other but never really had a chance to talk about ourselves before the reincarnation I thought this would be a good opportunity."

I glance to Landon again, and recall Lionel's words from earlier. I don't want to tell any of them about myself, but if I refuse then asking Landon about... my game... is going to be difficult.

"Then, as I'm the one that suggested it, I will go first. I was on my way home from vacation and was walking up the train station stairs when a girl fell down the stairs and hit me who was going up. So we both tumbled over and I hit the back of my head against one of the steps and died."

...stairs again? As far as I recall Helena fell down a flight of stairs as well.

"I... got stabbed," Jesmaine says out quietly. She even looks down at her hands that are folded on her lap. She looks quite pale.

"Eh, you too Jesmaine?" Landon says out surprised, bringing it to two stabbing and two stair incidents.

"You did too Landon-sama?" Jesmaine looks to Landon with teary eyes. To which Landon's eyes fill with pity and worry.

"Yes. I was helping a girl home with her luggage. But because we had to go around the train station that was closed because of an accident we were late and my girlfriend went crazy, thinking I cheated on her and killed both of us."

...

..

My eyes widen a bit. His girlfriend did what?! What is this god given irony?! My guess is that what he means by a girlfriend here is a lover or a betrothed. So the idiot pushed and tormented my fiancé until he killed me and then the idiot went and got killed by his own fiancé?

"Both of you? Shouldn't you be strong enough to fight her off?" I ask while sitting up straight into the chair. Let's not be gleeful too quickly. He could just be making this up, and I need to know how in the world this happened.

Landon shifts his attention to me and looks rather guilty.

"I... didn't actually think she would stab me. It was such a shock that I froze up at seeing... at seeing the knife in my stomach, and it knocked all of the air out of me. She pulled it out and stabbed me in the chest before pushing me over and chasing Yuriko-san down and killing her."

So she hit him properly in solar plexus, and left him to struggle with his injuries, while she killed the girl he was supposed to like, who was next to him. A lesser and more cruel me might have ordered a duel against Michiko for a similar effect.

"Yuno...san?"

Jesmaine pipes up, still sheet white like a ghost, but now staring at Landon in horror. Landon's eyes widen, then his jaw drops.

"You... know me?"

Jesmaine trembles as she points to herself.

"I- I am Yuriko."

Landon's time to go white. I stare at this exchange and soak everything up with a feeling similar to glee.

"Y-yuriko..."

He's dumbstruck.

"I- I am so sorry for what happened," he stutters out helplessly, clearly having no idea how to react to this. Jesmaine looks just as flabbergasted and even more upset at those words, like they're not enough.

"I really didn't know that my ex-girlfriend would react like that. She was never aggressive like that. I mean, she was a bit controlling but never violent."

He starts attempting to explain, but of course Jesmaine is still upset. She probably never thought she would be faced with that situation again. The stranger with the crazy girlfriend that killed her without listening.

The best part is how Landon is sincerely worrying about Jesmaine's feelings for him through all of that and how she just looks at him worriedly.

"I... see," Jesmaine answers hesitantly.

With that an awkward silence begins to spread. The topic got a lot heavier than they apparently thought it would.

Okay, so Cockroach died at a train station from a girl falling into him down the stairs. Landon died escorting Jesmaine home, but they were late because they had to go around a closed train station, and thus Landon's girlfriend stabbed Landon and killed Jesmaine in front of him. Then finally there's Helena who also fell down a flight of stairs.

...wait... didn't Helena say she hit someone on her way down those stairs? She never mentioned this train station thing, but the situation kind of matches the cockroache's doesn't it?

I look to Helena who is staring hard down into the table, her hair mostly covering her face as though she is pretending not to exist.

"By chance, what date did you die?"

I admit, I am way more into this conversation that I thought I would be. The people I've endured for the last year are all currently troubled and uncomfortable. Even Catarina looks a bit worried.

They all stare at me quietly as I interrupt the painful silence. Landon gives me a bitter look, but there is no way I am letting this topic go.

"The 4th of may..." Jesmaine answers... causing a jolt to go through Helena.

"Seriously? Me too..." Catarina mumbles in disbelief.

So if they all died the same day, judging by Helena's jolt just now, then Helena fell down the stairs of the train station to catch the boy she liked, fell into cockroach Catarina and gets them both killed. The train station gets blocked off due to the accident in a way such that Landon and Jesmaine had to go around it, which caused them to be late, which sent Landon's girlfriend into a fit of jealous rage.

"Which city?"

"Tokyo... in the Nakado district near the Nakado-fumichō station," Landon adds this time.

I've never heard of any of those things, but the way their expressions twist at the answer, and seeing each other's reactions to the answer is far too enjoyable. Especially when Landon realizes that since Catarina now froze up all wide eyed while looking guilty, it means that Catarina probably died and caused the train station block that got him and Jesmaine killed.

Ah how fast you can see part of Landon's guilt vanish as he pushes the blame onto Catarina without a word.

"Sorry... I'm sorry Jesmaine..." Helena finally chirps up in a choked up voice with tears streaming from her eyes.

"I'm the one that fell down the stairs and died- hic -and I'm probably the one that hit Catarina-sama too. I'm sorry. If not for me then you wouldn't have gotten killed!"

She's brawling. Crying her eyes out to Jesmaine even though Catarina is the one she killed.

"I'm sorry Catarina," she whimpers out... seems like she didn't forget. What a pity Catarina, seems like you are merely the second thought here.

Now Jesmaine starts crying too, probably finally realizing that this is real and reacting to Helena's tears. Landon immediately shifted the part blame he had tossed onto Catarina and onto Helena. Probably excusing all of his part in this as an accident. Or it may just be me despising him enough to read it like that.

"W-well, it's not like you could help it, it was an accident," Catarina forces out, but the smile accompanying it is so false, that it looks like her facial features broke.

"Indeed, you were just in a rush and a bit clumsy, it surely couldn't be helped," I agree with Catarina while folding my hands on my lap and then continue.

"It's not like Landon- well, Yuno here who has such a bad sense of character, that he were lovers with an insane person, never bothered to get to know her well enough to realize she was insane, and then on top of that failed to protect the person he was escorting from being killed by his insane lover," I add, happily watching Landon's expression deteriorate into anger.