En was pissed.  Who the hell thought they had the right to use their own words against them like that?  The card metaphors were clearly written with intention.  Someone was trying to mock them, and for what?  What did they want to do so badly at the Pharmacy?  Blackmail?  En was always incredibly careful when it came to witnesses.  Of course, the only thing even worth blackmailing them over was illegal gambling and some involvement with major crime overlords choosing to take a gamble at their family's casino, but besides that and them having worked underage at the casino for years, there wasn't really anything.

And besides, En wouldn't let someone blackmail them that easily.  Especially not some lowlife scum who thought they could make a mockery of them like this. 

The Pharmacy was an odd choice of location.  Which was why En was incredibly confident that the writer of the note was one of the two doctors.  Well, either the veterinarian or the biologist.  Either way, it was painstakingly obvious from the handwriting that someone involved in the medical or scientific industry was responsible for this. 

They thought long and hard about the Pharmacy, and then the two potential people they could be meeting there. Neither of the two really seemed concerningly strong, and En's grip was like iron...

"If you kill someone, I'll give you any one favor, so long as it's not effective outside of the island."

That's what Monokumace had said. So long as the favor didn't involve En leaving the island, anything was fair game. Meaning if they were to ask for invulnerability during the trial... Monokumace never said that wasn't allowed. En lived by the idea that one must always look for the loopholes. Loopholes were the key to exploitation- that's one trick they learned from their father before they even learned how to do multiplication.

They didn't necessarily miss their parents- they were well-off without them- but they had respect for the people that had raised them to be independent and cunning. And besides, if the news of this "killing game" got out, En would be expected to win, of course.

So back to the Pharmacy.  En had done a good sweep of the place when first exploring the second island, and there was one thing they'd noticed that they now had on their mind- a certain area of shelves with... peculiar... labeled bottles.  And those bottles would be En's ticket to winning this killing game.  There was no way they could possibly bust now.  They were going all in on a bet that nobody would be able to beat.

All that was left to do was to get to the Pharmacy, find the best bottle for the job, and then wait.  Once the deed was done, it was a simple summon of Monokumace to discuss the details, and then it was all over.  En never lost.

So... who was it going to be?  Would it be the observant Marzy, who knew the body and its systems like the back of his hand?  Or would it be Ryn, with a heart of gold but the determined drive of a race car?  En could see it going either way.  It didn't matter to them who would be taking the fall.  They were going to be the only survivor regardless.  There was never a tie in blackjack- someone always had to lose.  And when it was En dealing, well... the house always won.

This wasn't just about the note, no, no, this was more than that.  It was never just about that.  En's ego may have been larger than the Pacific ocean- they recognized this, of course- but they were smarter than to let this get to their head.  This was just an easy way to finally make a move without having to plan anything themself.  All they had to do was get to the Pharmacy and catch the mystery writer off-guard.  That was all that kept them from winning this pathetic game.

Their yellow eyes narrowed as they squinted to see the building coming into view- the Pharmacy.  And as far as they could tell, nobody was there.  Perfect.  All the cards were falling right into place, as per usual.  They opened the door and slipped inside, squinting as their vision adjusted to the even darker atmosphere.  The curse of having light eyes was the increased difficulty of reading in the dark, but at the same time, En had grown used to reading numbers in the dim lights of the family casino.  So it simply undid the misfortune of light eyes and just made En, as usual, better than everyone else. 

They got to work quickly, making their way through the darkness towards a wall and carefully fumbling to remove a bottle without knocking anything over.  Through the murkiness of the shadows, they managed to read off some sort of antibiotic label.  Not what they were looking for in the slightest.  They continued to feel along the wall until they figured they were far enough away from the antibiotics and pulled another bottle.  Protein powder- absolutely useless.  Who even used protein powder anyways, try-hard athletes?  They hadn't even seen someone like Stolas consume such a thing.

Stolas... yes, En had a sliver of respect for Stolas.  In fact, he was the only one there that En felt any ounce of respect towards.  The combat pro had an impressive poker face and a strong sense of intuition, as well as incredible reaction speed and intelligence.  Of course, En excelled in some of these categories just as well, if not better, but even they knew when they were outmatched in something like combat.  So they chose to take him seriously, unlike the rest of the low-life fools that danced around the island like the naive children they were.  Did they seriously think that after just one pathetic excuse of a murder, everything would go back to normal? Especially now that motives had been introduced, absolutely not.

En continued traversing the room and pulled a third bottle. Arsenic. Just what they'd been looking for. Just a tiny bit of that stuff forced down the writer's throat and they'd be out. En had seen it happen occasionally in the casino, whether at the bar in broad daylight or behind the closed doors of one of the private event rooms. While it was never their business who rented out those rooms, they had known by the age of seven that their father had some frequent gamblers within a few mafia and mob rings.

But back to the arsenic. The plan was simple: force the substance down their target's throat, quickly fix up the crime scene if needed, and then return to their cottage as if nothing happened. It was as easy as that. Even if their little loophole somehow failed them, there would be no evidence that they'd done it- it could be pinned on whichever of the scientists was still alive, and then En would still be off the island in no time. No matter what, they would win. The house always won.

The house-

Without warning, a hand latched onto the back of En's head, and before they could react, their head met the metal shelf. Pain erupted throughout their head, and they let out a sharp gasp as they tried to fight back. No, this was wrong, they just needed to-

Bang.

Again, more pain. They could see blood splattered against the shelves and bottles, some of said bottles clattering to the ground. They fought again against this strong, firm hand. They tried to turn their head to get a look at their attacker, just able to glimpse brown-streaked dirty-blonde hair.

"Ryn!" they spat before their head collided with the shelf again.

Their vision was turning black and red as they kept trying to resist, but to no avail. Ryn was stronger than they'd realized. And for the first time in years, En felt a chilling sensation that numbed all the pain for a brief moment. They felt scared. They had to get out of this. Try as they might, though, they couldn't move as their head greeted metal again and again and again. Their head spun and everything felt overwhelming yet faint at the same time. They saw their blood all over the shelves, dripping and pooling on the ground.

There was so much blood. En had seen things, but never this much blood. And it was theirs. Finally, the grip released, and they spun around, ready to fight back. They were not, in fact, ready to fight back. They could barely make out Ryn standing there just a few feet away. Or maybe a few yards, or inches. She was going in and out of focus too quickly for them to tell.

But it was over just like that. They hit the ground with a thud that echoed loudly in their ears. They could hear their own rapid heartbeat. They couldn't tell if they were still alive or dead. As their eyes re-focused briefly once again, though, they saw someone else approaching. A different shade of blonde hair, and there was purple. Purple, like lavender, or a...

With all the remaining energy En could muster, they gasped out:

"Iris... Iris, please..."

To their relief, Iris drew closer. Oh, he was going to help. Maybe he wasn't so lowly and irrelevant after all. He was going to help...

Relieved, En let the world fade to black around them.

***

(1590 words)