Chapter Text
The last thing I remembered was the feeling of my body going limp as I succumbed to oxygen deprivation and my vision and hearing faded to nothing. A dull numbness cascaded my body from my head. The last of my life had finally been choked out of me by that laughable, discordant mockery of Der Flohwaltzer. Ah...it doesn't hurt anymore...The thought of all of my friends, their identities already having been taken from me by the absolute hand of death with only their rapidly-fading concept remaining, surviving and escaping together eased my regrets as the cool, inviting touch of death grabbed my hand and pulled me down into the nothingness as the piano creaked shut with a loud bang until "down" eventually ceased to exist for me, too. Or perhaps it was I who had ceased to exist; my memories, my personality, my concept of self was rapidly fading away with my friends. I guess I'll never know. I never knew what came after death because it's not like anyone has ever been able to return from it before. I'll never be able to go back. And, just before I had faded away completely, one final regret was to speak up before I could finally surrender myself, all of my grief, fears, and regrets, to Death's Land of Nothingness.
Ah...I never got to play Clair de Lune for Sh u i
I spent an unknowable time suspended in that nothingness until finally, a door was flung open to reveal a blinding light, permeating the unknowable vast nothingness in a vain attempt to reveal what was behind it. And a sharp jolt of pain traveled up my legs as my knees made hard contact with the hard, tile floor. It was as though I had never experienced that nothingness; the ability to feel pain returned in full resolution as I shifted into a seated position and examined my knee. It looked like it was probably just going to be a bruise, but I guess even minor discomfort would be almost unbearable when you've been suspended in that pleasant nothingness for so long. I couldn't believe my eyes. My head flipped to that LED blackboard, the gaudy wallpaper, the gaudy floor tiles. I was in a classroom. The classroom I woke up in, where I met...my head began to throb as I struggled to remember his name, his face, absolutely anything about him whatsoever. It had all been absorbed into the nothingness. All of the game had been absorbed into that nothingness but a single person: Rantaro. Rantaro Amami. The boy I killed. The boy who is dead because of me. Wait...pain. I felt pain. I...it's impossible. I am alive. Very, impossibly alive.
And Rantaro Amami is dead. But I am alive. My thoughts were interrupted by a loud banging noise from inside of something behind me. I turned around. I had fallen out of a locker, just like before. And just then, another person fell out of a locker. A small, brown-haired boy in a hoodie. He had some hair that stuck up, just like me. But unlike me, it looked like he fell from the locker onto his back. He sat up slightly, with his gaze fixed on the metal box he just plopped out of and started scooting backwards, away from it, his skinny little legs moving at a million miles an hour until he crashed into a desk.
"Aah!" he cried as the leg of the desk broke, causing the top of it to fall on his head. I limped over to him, my knees protesting slightly.
"Oh my God! Are you okay?" I asked, my heart pounding in my chest. So that, too, had been rescued from the nothingness. I pushed the broken desk off of him and reached out my hand. But he looked like he'd been knocked unconscious. "That's just great!" I spat to myself, a bitterness of unknown origin erupting from my chest. "Ugh..." I crouched down near his body and roughly placed my hand on his neck to check for a pulse. What do I do? This guy I've never met is just. Unconscious! I shifted my hand around his neck, searching desperately for any sign of a pulse. in my panic, I didn't notice that I was nearly strangling him until his eyes suddenly shot open and he shoved my hand away.
"Huh?!" His head shot up, and then he grabbed the back of his head. "Ow...my head." I fell backward a little bit in surprise, feeling the cool tiles intensely on the back of my bare legs.
"Hey! Are you okay? You shot back and hit your head pretty hard on the desk." I explained, averting my eyes as a sheepish smile crept its way onto my face. "It broke and fell on you."
"Yeah, I feel fine, just a little sore." he replied, still rubbing the back of his head, which was strangely large compared the rest of his thin body.
"Okay. Can you stand?"
"Yeah, I think so." he grunted. I stood up and reached out my hand to help him up. His small hand was really warm and soft. "Thanks. So...uh..." A thought then occurred to me as he steadied himself and began taking in his surroundings. From the way his eyes darted around the room, I didn't think the room was so familiar to him as it was to me.
"Oh, I guess I should tell you my name." I chuckled, sheepishly averting my eyes again. "I'm Kaede Akamatsu. What's your name?"
"Oh. I'm Makoto Naegi. It's nice to meet you, Kaede." he replied. Ah...Makoto.
"That's a nice name." I smiled at him. "So...you wouldn't happen to know where we are, would you?" The gaudy decor of the room was beginning to get to me, and the strange, green lighting of the LED blackboard was absolutely not helping, as were the cameras. And the monitor. And the fact I've been here before.
"I think we're in a classroom of some kind, but judging by all the plant growth in here and how dilapidated everything looks, I think it's been abandoned for a while now." To prove his point, he stepped back and part of the table disintegrated.
"But if it were abandoned, then why's the LED screen still on? That doesn't make a lot of sense."
"Well, I don't know if common sense really applies here..." he replied, bringing his finger up to his chin. "But that is really weird. I wonder why--" At that moment, he was interrupted by another loud clanging sound that came from behind me.
"Hey, what's that noise?" he exclaimed, looking up at the ceiling.
"It sounds like it's coming from...over there?" I pointed in the direction the sound was coming from. We both ran over to where the noise was coming from, but there didn't seem to be anything that could be making that loud noise. "It might be from another room!" I concluded, prompting the both of us to run to the door. Considering the dilapidated state of the building we were in, I wouldn't have been surprised if it just fell off, but the hinges looked pretty new and the door itself felt fairly solid; when I turned the knob, it opened with ease into a dark hallway that was in a similar state to the classroom, overgrown plants included. But unlike the classroom, there was nothing in that hallway to light the way. But there were no barricades; I don't really know why I expected there to be some kind of barricade, but I did. I looked left, and I looked right. There didn't look like there was anything there. But then I heard the sound again, still coming from the same direction as the last time, but somewhat louder this time. Makoto and I felt our way down the hallway towards the sound.
"It seems to be coming from behind this door!" I observed.
"Then let's go! But...carefully!" I nodded, and stood by the door as Makoto slowly opened it. Behind the door, it just looked like there was a normal, strangely decorated classroom, pretty similar to the one that we had woken up in. I heard that clanging sound once more, and turned to the source.
"It sounds like it's coming from the locker!" I whispered.
But before either of us could react, a tall boy with long, black hair who was tied up with what looked like a red rope fell out of the locker with a cry.