Chapter Text
The first half hour at the Future Foundation was… Boring, to say the least. Meeting new people, getting a brief explanation of everything, and finally, reintroducing Kokichi to his old ‘friends.’ Future Foundation’s words, not his.
“This little maggot finally kicked the bucket, huh? Good! That’s what ya fuckin’ get for gettin’ me killed!” Miu shouted the moment she saw him.
“Aww, I love you too, Miu!” Kokichi said cheerfully. If it was physically possible, Kokichi swore Miu’s eyes would’ve turned red when he said that.
“Did you actually get Miu killed?” Kaede asked hesitantly.
“Yeah, but… She wanted to kill me! She had a brutal murder plan!” Kokichi started wailing, crocodile tears flowing from his eyes. Everyone, or at least everyone that was there and paying attention, saw right through his tears.
Korekiyo was the only one of the people present that wasn’t paying attention. He had an almost haunted look on his face, not meeting anyone’s gaze and staying unusually quiet. Kokichi’s memories were still recovering, but he was certain he remembered Korekiyo being more talkative than this prior to the killing game. What changed?
Kirumi wasn’t there, as much as Kokichi wanted her to be. It made sense, she had a much more important job: Acting Prime Minister. That still didn’t mean Kokichi didn’t miss her. She was genuinely a source of comfort for him, even if she didn’t realize the full scale of what he was doing.
“Alright. Enough chatting,” a woman who Kokichi recognized from earlier, Kyoko Kirigiri, approached. She had a tablet in one hand, a stylus tapping away at it. “Seeing as Kokichi was most likely killed, we will be waiting for his killer to wake up before starting your training again.”
“Hope they wake up soon, so I can thank them!” Miu glared at Kokichi, who only stuck his tongue out at her.
“Don’t fight. You’re only going to set us back if you fight like that,” Kyoko didn’t even look up from her tablet as she said that.
“You expect me to be best fuckin’ friends with the little shit that got me killed?!”
“Not best friends. I just expect you to not fight,” Kyoko corrected. She finally looked up from her tablet, holding it close to her chest. “We can’t see into the simulation, so we don’t know who-”
“It was Kaito,” Kokichi announced unceremoniously.
“Kokichi, you shouldn't lie about him like that. Kaito wouldn’t kill anybody,” Kaede said after a few moments.
“Weeell, I guess I can't really stop you from believing what you want to believe,” Kokichi shrugged dramatically. It didn’t matter that Kaede and likely the others didn’t believe him. The seed was already planted for Future Foundation. All that mattered was that they’d know he wouldn’t lie in these circumstances normally. He wasn’t sure why, but he felt that they needed to know that.
Kokichi only told those lies during the killing game to make the one about being the mastermind more believable. Normally, he didn’t like telling lies that he knew would hurt people, but the killing game was a different story. They all thought their lives were actually in danger. The pain felt real, the trauma was real. So even if it ended up being fake, Kokichi found some comfort in knowing that his plan succeeding would prevent further trauma for most of them.
“It doesn’t truly matter who it was that killed him, it’s not like we’re actually persecuting you. It’s only good information to have so we know what to expect,” Kyoko interrupted Kokichi’s thoughts, and any fights that might’ve started otherwise. “But Kokichi, if you really are lying, I advise you to stop now.”
“Tch, as if he’d ever do that,” Miu scoffed.
“Kokichi, now that you’ve met your friends,” Kyoko glared at Miu before she continued, almost daring the other woman to interrupt. Miu whimpered and shrunk back. Seeing that Miu wouldn’t be interrupting, Kyoko continued. “Come with me. We need to assess your physical capabilities.”
“Why didn’t you do that before?”
“We’ve found that allowing people to see those they care about,” another glare. “Makes the assessment process easier.”
“Hm… But that sounds really boring!” Kokichi whined.
“It’s not meant to be fun,” Kyoko said plainly. She turned, not giving Kokichi the chance to argue any further, and started walking. Kokichi felt it’d just be awkward if he didn’t, so he followed her.
“Are all of you guys so strict?” Kokichi asked. There wasn’t much of a point to the question, other than trying to mess with Kyoko, who seemed to see right through him.
“If you think that's going to work on me like it did Byakuya, you’re wrong,” Kyoko’s tone was flat. Kokichi tried to get a good read on her, but she was either telling the truth or an even better liar than himself. He leaned towards the former, due to her body language only being confident, not tense.
“And here I thought everyone here was a nepo baby,” Kokichi’s joke at least got to Kyoko in some way. She closed her eyes and took a slightly deeper breath than normal, but that was it.
Kyoko led Kokichi into one of the rooms he had seen before. A gym of sorts, with medical equipment attached to the machines. Kyoko explained that a nurse would be coming in to monitor his vitals while she had him do various workouts.
It all sounded really boring, but bringing that up would just get him another ‘It’s not supposed to be fun’ comment from Kyoko. Seeing as even that response was equally boring, he stayed quiet.
A few moments later, a nurse came in like Kyoko said. She was a bit older than Kyoko, had long, dark purple hair, and bandages visible on her arms. Admittedly, it wasn’t very comforting to see that on a nurse that was actively working. Kokichi swore she looked like someone he’d seen in old news articles, but he couldn’t be sure.
As the tests went on and the nurse took notes on Kokichi’s vitals, he was growing increasingly bored. If he wasn’t working out, he was sure he’d be asleep by now.
Finally, after an hour, the tests were finished. The nurse gave Kyoko the results, who then looked over them carefully. She recorded them on her tablet, then spoke to Kokichi. “Physically speaking, your performance was subpar.”
“Ouch! Couldn’t you have put it more nicely?” Kokichi wailed dramatically.
“You will be placed in Kaede’s group for your training. But keep in mind you will occasionally do practice missions with everyone,” Kyoko completely ignored Kokichi’s question. She was a tough nut to crack, which made it extremely difficult for Kokichi to get a read on her.
One of the other workers suddenly appeared in the doorway. The words that left their mouth made Kokichi’s heart sink. “Kaito Momota has woken up.”
No one else woke up.
Kokichi’s plan failed.