Chapter 315 is now up! The flashback starts, but doesn't end. Yeah, it should not be much of a surprise at this point. While I was writing it more came to me to give Hiroshi further development and the story. It felt like just one chapter was going to be too brief to handle the weight of what it was. So I split it into two chapters. It's a short story, just one that helps to position Hiroshi.

Starting with the cliffhanger, yeah this is going to be one of those moments where you need to have a really good memory. Because this is a callback, a really far one at that. You have to go all the way back to chapter 56, which was years ago. So unless you re-read my story a lot, which is unlikely probably, you don't remember her. Sakura is the girl that Hiroshi knew from his time in middle school. She actually appeared in the other Hiroshi flashback. They knew each other, but their relationship was never really made clear. It was a brief sort of flashback. But Sakura is back now and well you probably know how this is going to end at this point. There is not a lot of mystery given the tone of this arc. All it is now will be seeing it play out. Which will be the next chapter.

I think I mentioned it before, but I drop a lot of names during this arc of students that get killed. They're all background characters that never really were addressed in any meaningful sense. So their deaths are a little weak, in that sure the whole thing is terrible, but you have no emotion connection to people that never had any speaking lines. Having Sakura really helps give more weight to things with Hiroshi, especially giving their history. The character defining moment in his life is the next chapter and it could only be done with someone important to him. A little sad I never had a lot of extra time to work with Sakura, but it largely would have been fluff or filler if I had. The story is already long enough as it is.

Tatsuya is someone that I don't really get to put a lot of time into. So it was nice to do this from his point of view. He's got a lot going on just like Hiroshi. The first part of this chapter is just as important as the rest. Since it does pick up the pieces from what is happening with Hiroshi and Tatsuya both everything went sideways. Something that I definitely wanted to show was that Hiroshi hasn't been handling Kazuhiro's death as gracefully as he is presenting. He was a friend and even more to Tatsuya a childhood friend. So they are both suffering in their ways, in very quiet ways. Showing how Tatsuya supports his friend, even though Hiroshi is often seen as the leader is a great moment for them. It clear through the arc at present that Tatsuya is the hand pushing Hiroshi forward and Hiroshi is struggling, even though Hiroshi plays a strong front. Something that Yuki is blind to, as he is not great as reading people yet. Ayumi would have picked up on and Nerine would as well since they are raised to being good at reading people, it's a necessary skill for them. It is the reason why I mention it a lot during their fights. When you're fighting where secrets are the thing that get you killed, reading the other person is the most important skill to learn. Yuki still has a long way to go, even though he has plenty of masks that he works around as well.

Enjoy!