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Momota wakes up alone.
He startles out of his seat as he wakes, nearly falling over. The last thing he remembers… a rocket ship, space, and blood. It hadn’t even really hurt to die, besides the sharp scrape in his lungs he’d come to get used to.
Momota takes several deep breaths. Then a couple more. Then he doesn’t breath. He holds his breath for two minutes, then five, then fifteen, until he comes to realize that maybe you can’t hold your breath if you don’t need to breathe in the first place. It’s cruel, he almost wants to laugh. He regained his breath, but no longer felt any satisfaction in the action. Death made it unnecessary.
A sudden jolt in his surroundings knocks him out of his seat entirely and he snaps back to reality. First question: Where is he?
It doesn’t take a genius to feel the vibration of a moving vehicle in his seat and notice the interior decoration of the space he inhabits. He’s obviously in a train of some sort. By the decorations, he guesses it’s the old kind, not the high speed type he’d take to and from school every day before he was brought to hell. Maybe it wasn’t accurate to call the academy ‘hell’, actually. He’d met Shuuichi, and Harumaki. From what they said, they lived pretty divided throughout Japan, they never would have met otherwise. He couldn’t in good conscience call the academy ‘hell’ without that fact sticking in his mind.
It was more like… purgatory. Maybe the sixteen of them died as completely average and unremarkable people, and had to pay for the crime of being generic through life there. Maybe they were brought to the academy by angry spirits who wanted someone to punish. Momota knows that there are plenty of theories for their imprisonment that are far more grounded in reality, but he’s always been more sensitive towards ghost stories, so naturally they’re all that will pass through his mind. He shivers.
So he’s on a train. If the school was purgatory, is this hell? Because Momota knows he’s dead, and he knows that if this is the afterlife, it isn’t heaven. Killers don’t go to heaven. Momota has too many memories of a dying boy under a press to claim to not be a killer. Not when he remembers the way his heart thudded under his shirt when it was his turn to lay underneath the press for the camera, and he’d thought that maybe Ouma wouldn’t stop the press and just crush him into paste, but he did stop it. And Momota stood up, switched places, and allowed the press its slow descent until the crushing and cracking noises of Ouma’s bones and the disgustingly organic squelches and pops and gushing of blood came to an end. And then he’d stared. And stared. And stared, until maybe his eyes would burn out of his head, maybe they’d melt out of his skull because this isn’t real it isn’t real he isn’t a murderer this isn’t real
And then Momota discovers that he’s pulling at his hair and digging his nails into his scalp hard enough to draw blood, and comes back to reality. Or… unreality.
He leans back against the plush seat he’s in, trying to calm his unnecessary breathing and stop his arms and legs from shaking. He looks down at his shaky hands and the blood staining his fingertips from his scalp, except the blood is everywhere, it’s down his shirt and covering his chin and filling his mouth with the taste of iron and he can’t breathe
And then he breathes, and his lungs fill and empty smoothly, and the blood vanishes, leaving only the small stains at his fingertips as evidence of the stinging in his head. So he can bleed here. Momota wonders how far that goes, if he’d just keep bleeding forever if he’s stabbed, or if there’s a way he can somehow die again. Momota feels a sense of betrayal of his basic values when he realizes he would prefer the second option to be true. All hail Momota Kaito, the hypocrite who preached strength and perseverance and bravery, but is now reduced to a shaking boy alone in an empty train car.
“H-heh,” Momota laughs hesitantly, like anything about his situation is hilarious. His voice is strikingly loud in the train car, which is dead silent besides the sound of it rushing along tracks he can’t see. Momota heard his own voice and decides that he doesn’t want to anymore. It’s too loud for this quiet space, and for once he needs absolute quiet.
Momota gathers himself, smooths the drippy clay that makes up his being back into a sloppy mold of what used to be Momota Kaito, and stands up. He looks out a window, and sees nothing but an endless expanse of inky black beyond the walls of the train. It’s so black that his brain almost can’t comprehend it, as if reality and light are folding in on themselves to form a singularity of darkness. Like a black hole. That’s a theory to consider. Maybe the entire afterlife is contained within a black hole. No one would know. No one would ever know. Anyone who tried to see for themselves would end up within the afterlife, but they’d be joining the ranks of the dead. Like Momota. He’s dead.
He hadn’t imagined in his wildest dreams that he’d somehow end up dying before his grandparents.
This train car is cold, like an ice bath Momota is submerged in, so he decides he can no longer stay within this car. He shapes his clay body slightly more until he feels as if he might actually be Momota Kaito, and opens the door connecting the car he’s in to the next one.
The next car is exactly like the first. Cold, empty, dimly lit. Momota wonders if there’s anyone else in this train at all, or if this is his own personal hell. Alone for eternity. It’s not as if he doesn’t deserve it.
Momota doesn’t know what else to do besides keep moving. The blood running through his veins had always been hot, coursing through his body and refusing to let him sit still and do nothing. He has to do something, and seeing as there’s nothing to do besides keep moving forward, that’s exactly what he does.
He doesn’t know how long he spends walking through the train cars. He can make the hesitant claim now that the train either has an infinite amount of cars or at least a large enough number of them to make him believe as much. Even if there is anyone else on the train, the odds of Momota coming across them are slim to none at this rate. It feels like hours he spends walking, but it could actually be days, or weeks. He doesn’t feel hungry or thirsty or tired, so he just keeps walking. He wishes the void outside the window had at least a few stars to keep him company, but it wouldn’t exactly lend credence to his black hole theory if there were.
There’s nothing else to do but keep walking, and no physical limitations to make him stop, so he just keeps going. If there’s an end to the train, Momota is determined to find it, even if every single car on it is empty, and there’s no satisfaction in doing so. He can’t just sit down for eternity and do nothing, and he doesn’t exactly see anything to kill himself with. He doesn’t even know if he can die. Again.
It’s the hundred thousandth or maybe the millionth or maybe even the billionth car in the eternity he’s spent walking when he stops dead in his tracks. He walks through the car door, closes it behind him as he did all the others, turns, and has his breath die in his throat.
“And here I was thinking I was all alone here,” Ouma comments, standing on the other end of the car. “Well, I suppose since we’re heading in separate directions we were bound to cross paths eventually.”
Momota is silent. For once, he doesn’t know what to say. A casual greeting, as if nothing is strange? An apology for killing him and yelling at him and chasing him like he always did? A joke to cut the tension? The possibilities run through Momota’s mind like television static, clouding his ability to think properly, and he finally realizes that he’s exhausted.
He collapses onto his knees on the thinly carpeted floor, vision darkening and brightening and fading in and out and swirling and pulsing and he isn’t sure why he thought he wasn’t tired, why he pushed the exertion to the back of his mind as he trekked on and on.
“Momota-chan? I appreciate you kneeling down before my feet, but I’m kind of in a hurry.”
At that, Momota raises his head sharply. “A hurry? To get where? It’s just… it’s all nothing.”
Ouma sighs. “I guess that was a lie. You really never got any better at discerning truths from lies.”
Silence.
Ouma sighs dramatically. “Well, I guess if Momota-chan insists, I can sit down and talk for a bit. But then I have a very important meeting with Hitler and Stalin and Mussolini to get to, so make it fast!” He flops down on the plush seats by the window, and for a moment he seems too bright to look at as his pale skin contrasts the void behind him.
“I’m not doing this,” Momota wheezes, still catching his breath. “I’m not playing this game with you anymore.”
Ouma tilts his head to the side, finger at his cheek like he’s legitimately confused. “What game? The game is over, dear Momo-chan. And what’s so unbelievable about me being invited to a meeting for dead supreme leaders, huh? I’m a dead supreme leader, I deserve a chance to attend!” He announces, false tears springing up at the corners of his eyes.
Momota rolls his eyes, pushing himself back up into a standing position. “I’m fairly certain I would have come across a board meeting like that.”
“Weeeeell, you never know, right? Maybe the meeting is in the other direction from where you woke up, or- or maybe they only just set up the table and complimentary water after you passed the car they’re in!”
“Whatever,” Momota replies, running a tired hand through his hair. He sits down across the aisle from Ouma, leaning forwards with his elbows braced against his thighs. “Don’t make this weird, but I’m glad you’re here. I was worried I was alone on this train.”
Ouma bursts into fake tears. “MOMOTA-CHAN IS GLAD I’M DEAD?! THAT’S JUST SO CRUEL I MIGHT DIE!” He pauses. “Wait.”
“I’m not glad you’re dead, I’m glad to have company,” Momota corrects him.
“Ohh, so are you telling me you aren’t glad I died? Sad that the big mean mastermind kicked the bucket? Don’t lie to me,” he hisses, tone shifting drastically. “I hate liars. Don’t pretend you didn’t enjoy it.” He changes his voice back to his teasing tone as he continues, “After all, I’m sure my crushed body made such a nice sound! Like a little ‘squish, squish’!”
Momota grimaces as he forcefully recalls the exact noises Ouma made under the press. “What the fuck, man. Cut the bullshit. You weren’t the mastermind. Of course I didn’t enjoy it. What the hell do you think I am, some kind of psychopath?!”
Ouma pouts. “I guess not… but I bet it was still pretty cathartic to give the evil villain exactly what he deserved.” He sounds almost sad as he says it, like he’s making some kind of attempt to hide his feelings but they’re showing through anyways. Momota’s gaze softens in sympathy.
“Ouma…”
“What,” Ouma snaps in response.
“You weren’t… an evil villain.”
“Wooow, Momota-chan can hardly say that with a straight face!” Ouma jeers, cackling at his own statement. “You’re such a bad liar!”
Momota’s face flushes with frustration. He grips his pants so tightly his knuckles turn white. It’s the only way for him to vent his immediate instincts— to smack the shit out of the boy in front of him. He’d always been hot-blooded, and he had probably hit Ouma more times in the past than was strictly necessary.
“I’m not lying, you little shit,” Momota snaps. “You weren’t evil or bad or whatever you wanted all of us to think. I don’t know why you’re so intent on painting yourself as the embodiment of evil, but it’s not going to work on me anymore. I’ve seen what you’re really like. You didn’t like the game any more than the rest of us.”
Ouma pouts. “I knew I shouldn’t have given in like that at the end. For all I knew, I’d never see you or anyone else again, but now I’m all filled with regret!”
“You shouldn’t feel regret for showing how you actually felt about the situation,” Momota sighs.
“Yes, I should, because now Momota-chan is looking at me like that,” Ouma snarls, standing up suddenly and pacing the length of the train car. “All sympathy and regret and pity. It’s disgusting.”
Momota bites his cheek to stop the wave of angry comments begging to escape. Ouma’s just lashing out to push him away, he tells himself. It’s like how he acted in the game. He doesn’t trust anyone, so he vilifies himself so he doesn’t have to trust, because everyone doesn’t trust him anyways. Even now, when he has literally nothing to lose, he’s still keeping up his persona of mystery and lies and cruelty. Momota has had enough.
“Ouma, stop.” Momota demands firmly. “You might regret breaking down like that, but it doesn’t change the fact that I’ve already seen the truth. So you might as well stop now, because I don’t believe you anymore.” He pauses for a second. “Isn’t it kind of boring to keep trying to trick someone who won’t be fooled anymore?”
Ouma’s face falls into a neutral expression. He sits back down, picking at the fabric of the seat. “...Way to kill a mood, idiot.”
“I didn’t kill anything- well, I guess I killed you but-”
“-Why do you hate me, Momota-chan?” The question is short and succinct, and it rings out across the train car with such clarity that Momota is sure he’d be able to hear it from where he woke up. Ouma twirls a lock of hair around his finger for a second before letting it uncurl and spring back into place.
Momota blinks in surprise. “I don’t hate you.”
“Still lying? Well, I suppose that’s to be expected from-”
“No!” Momota growls, curling up a fist against the train seat. “Can you fucking stop for one second?! I don’t hate you! You’re goddamn annoying most of the time, and creepy the rest of the time, but I don’t fucking hate you!”
Ouma avoids eye contact, hunching forwards in his seat slightly. He doesn’t speak for a few moments before bursting out into little giggles that shake his small frame. It sounds a touch hysterical, like he’s going crazy. Maybe he always was. When the giggling dies down, Momota realizes it wasn’t really genuine laughter at all. Just an awkward placeholder acting as a ghost of the real thing.
“It’s funny,” Ouma explains after a moment. “I know Momota-chan is lying, but either you got much better at it since you died or I got worse at being able to tell when you do so.”
Momota huffs in frustration, bringing a hand up to card through his hair. It’s down to his shoulders and messy. Apparently gel didn’t hold up well in the afterlife. “That’s because I’m not lying, dude. I don’t hate you. I may have thought I did, back when you were getting people killed and pretending to be the mastermind and shit, but seeing you like that in the hangar, I…”
“I get it,” Ouma responds coldly. “You feel bad for me. ‘Poor little Ouma, all small and afraid and weak and vulnerable. Someone should protect this small fragile soul,’ right?”
Momota grits his teeth. “No. Literally the opposite. I…” He sighs. “I have so much respect for you now.” Momota glances at Ouma’s raised eyebrow and moves to defend himself. “Look, dude, I know it’s hard to believe, but you were actually pretty cool in there. You thought on your feet and your plan was so put together- you’re a fucking genius or something, I don’t know. And when you revealed that everything up to then was just an act… I… I don’t know. I don’t hate you.”
“You should hate me,” Ouma replies, in a voice so quiet and hushed Momota would’ve thought he imagined it if he hadn’t been sitting so close. The walkway between seats wasn’t wide, there were only two or three feet separating them from each other.
“I don’t,” Momota replies simply. “Sorry.”
“Aaaaaaaaagh,” Ouma groans, throwing his arms up into the air. “What the hell is wrong with you?! I tormented you! I hit you! I killed Gonta-chan and Iruma-chan and you! I pretended to be the mastermind! How much does it fucking take to get you to drop your hero act and just hate somebody?!”
Ouma doesn’t do a good job of hiding the flinch when he says Gonta and Iruma’s names. Momota notices.
“You also killed yourself,” Momota points out. “Self-sacrifice is a weird trait to have for someone I’m supposed to hate.”
Ouma sneers at Momota, but a single look at his eyes say that it isn’t genuine. “What do you mean?! Sacrifice? I didn’t care about helping the others. I just wanted to end the game to prove that I’m superior to it.”
“I never said anything about helping the others,” Momota replies blankly. The rest goes unsaid. ‘Sacrifice’ could have simply meant that Ouma sacrificed himself to prove his point. Not once did Momota mention saving anyone.
Ouma grits his teeth. “Fuck you.”
“That’s some strong language for someone who just about looks toddler age,” Mokota jokes.
“I do not look like a toddler.” He’s right. He does look his age, he’s just rather short, and somewhat feminine in the softness of his facial features.
“Ah, you’re right,” Momota responds, continuing the joke. “I meant ‘infant’.”
Ouma pinches the bridge of his nose. “I’d say that I’m going to send my super secret evil organization after you, but I’m dead.”
Momota raises his brows. “You never know. Maybe they’re dead too-”
“-Don’t.” Ouma’s face is more serious than Momota’s ever seen it. He looks almost grim, sort of like he might be sick.
“...Sorry.” Obviously they mean a lot to him, even if Momota can’t really comprehend the idea of Ouma really caring about anyone.
Ouma’s staring at the train seats again, picking at the fabric with jagged nails, uneven from a bad habit of biting them. Momota stands to move over and sit next to him.
“Are you okay?” Momota asks. He knows it’s probably a stupid question.
“...Peachy.”
“We’re dead, there’s no point in lying anymore,” Momota reminds him firmly.
“...No.” Ouma turns away. “Nothing about this is ‘okay’, if you haven’t noticed.”
“I’ve heard worse stories about where you end up when you die,” Momota shrugs. “This isn’t too bad for a murderer and one sad rat.”
“...Wow, calling yourself a rat, Momota-chan? Get some self confidence.” His voice has a sad sort of tone to it.
“No- it’s… that was- it was supposed to be a joke- goddamn it.” Momota sighs. “Sorry, man.”
Ouma curls up on himself in his seat. It seems that now that he’s gotten all his anger and frustration out, he doesn’t really have much left in him to fight Momota with. He seems tired. And sad. Ouma wouldn’t like that Momota recognizes that.
“Hey,” Momota calls, putting a hand on Ouma’s shoulder to bring him back from whatever imagined world he’s currently living in. “You aren’t a murderer.”
“Bull-fucking-shit,” Ouma hisses, but he doesn’t hold as much acid in his tone. “I personally think Iruma-chan in particular would disagree. Gonta-chan was too much of an idiot to understand,” he adds as a soft after-thought.
“No, that’s wrong,” Momota corrects him. “Gonta obviously knew what was happening, and why. He wasn’t brain dead. He was a scientist, after all, an entomologist. Not just any idiot can do that. He only had some issues with grammar.”
“...I know.”
“So you need to stop blaming yourself for their deaths,” Momota asserts, trying his best at petting his shoulder soothingly..
“Is your memory as bad as your fashion sense?” Ouma snaps, shrugging off Momota’s hand. Maybe he did have some bite left in him after he exploded earlier. “I masterminded the whole event. I played with them like puppets, and cut their strings at my will. The world was mine to mold and shape as I saw fit. Shut up, Momota-chan, about things you clearly don’t understand.”
Momota frowns. He was definitely oversimplifying it. “What else were you supposed to do? Iruma was going to kill you.”
“Tell someone. Not enter the simulation. Kill her my own damn self. You’re so obsessed with forcing everyone into your little box of morality. Not everyone is a good person, you know.”
“I know that,” Momota argues, “but I don’t think it’s as simple as you say. Sure, you could have told somebody, but you must have known yourself that no one would believe you. Even me. And if you’d tried not to enter the program, someone would have just forced you in anyways. And you know why you couldn’t kill her yourself.”
“Are you justifying my manipulation of Gonta-chan?!”
“No!” Momota exclaims. “Of course not. That was a shitty and fucked up thing to do! But I’m just trying to explain that I don’t hate you for it. I… understand your reasoning.”
“Of all the times for Momota-chan to try and understand me, it’s when we’ve both died and it’s too late.”
“I don’t think it’s too late,” Momota replies softly. “We’re still here, right? I’m sure the others have to be somewhere, too. We might not be in the same place as before, but we’re alive in some sort of form. It’s just a little different is all.”
Ouma looks away, curling in on himself further. “You’re such an idiot,” he murmurs, burying his face in his knees.
Momota knows he’s only trying to get a rise out of him, so he pushes any angry rebuttal back into his chest and settles for mussing Ouma’s hair instead.
“Momota-chaaaan,” Ouma whines, pushing his hand off his head, “you’re ruining my hair.”
“That’s what you get for being a rat.”
“I’m already dead, what more do you want from me?” Ouma asks sardonically.
Momota doesn’t really have an answer to that. What does he want from Ouma? The simplest answer is that he wants nothing, just company. Momota doesn’t feel like delving into the more complicated answers at the moment.
“I knew it,” Ouma says when Momota doesn’t respond, “you’ve been talking to me all this time so you can seduce me. How disgusting!” He cackles maniacally.
Momota lurches back with a sudden flush covering his face. “W-what?!”
Ouma leans back, draping an arm dramatically over his forehead in a mock swoon. “You heard me! Such a brute, taking advantage of my pure, innocent-”
“Shut the fuck up!” Momota shouts, interrupting whatever he was going to say. “That’s not true! It’s just that talking to you is better than being alone here.”
“But that’s not the whole truth, is that, Momota-chan?” Ouma asks in a sing-song voice.
“Of course it is! The Luminary of the Stars never tells anything but the whole, unfiltered truth!” Momota responds, trying his best to hide the way his voice wavers.
“Your voice wavered! And either way, that was really an abysmal lie. You lied to keep people happy, to make sure they didn’t know their origin of moral support was dying! You lied and lied and lied until you lied so much that now you’re laying in a grave. You’re just like me.”
Momota’s voice gives out on him when he tries to respond. There’s nothing inherently incorrect about what Ouma said. He’d lied, and lied, and lied, to avoid facing the truth of his illness. He’d thought himself immortal, and now he’s paying the price.
“You’re right. I’m sorry.” It’s a line the Momota from the academy couldn’t have possibly imagined saying. Admitting that Ouma was right and even apologizing to him would have seemed absurd. But now… it wasn’t the time or place to keep up unnecessary pretenses.
Ouma’s jaw drops to the floor. “‘I’m sorry’?! Who the hell are you?!”
Momota doesn’t have the emotional energy to puff out his chest and declare in a booming voice that he’s ‘Momota Kaito, Luminary of the Stars’, so he just shrugs and replies, “The guy who’s tired of lying.”
“Hm.” Ouma hums his acknowledgment with a sliver of respectful appreciation. “At least you’re not going to be a raging hypocrite anymore. That’s what I hated the most about you guys. You’d all tell me how awful lying was, and how terrible I was for lying, but then you or Saihara-chan or Akamatsu-chan or Harukawa-chan would lie and lie and lie. If you say all lying is bad, then that includes lying for a good cause, right? I hated it.”
“...I can see why that would be frustrating,” Momota admits, and wow, he really can’t believe how often he’s finding himself in agreement with Ouma. It seems all they needed to align themselves with each other was a mutual killing plan and death itself.
“You can?” Ouma replies in disbelief. “Seems the meathead is increasing his intelligence stat. You better stop, or I won’t be able to call you ‘idiot’ anymore, and that would make me sooooo sad!” Fake tears well up in his eyes, and Momota nudges him with his shoulder.
“Stop that. I already told you, there’s no point in lying here.” There was no point in the sly words that usually fell from Ouma’s honeyed lips. There was no point in the cunning look in his eyes when he pulled off a lie. There was no point to any of it, here. There’s nothing to accomplish, nothing to gain. Just talking in an empty train car for eternity.
“If Momota-chan says so,” Ouma replies with a yawn. “...Wow, I’m getting sleepy. I didn’t even know that was a thing that could happen here.”
Now that he mentioned it, Momota was feeling sort of tired too, like he’d taken a bath in warm milk and his brain was just getting hazier and hazier. “Me too,” he replies slowly.
“This must be some weird afterlife thing,” Ouma concludes, fiddling with one of the buttons on his jacket. “I’m sure Momota-chan won’t mind if I use his lap as a pillow, right?”
Momota wants to respond that he minds, but firstly, he’s too tired to do so, And secondly, he’d already promised himself that he wouldn’t lie anymore. So the artificial lethargy overtakes them both and Momota slumps into his chair, Ouma laying across his lap like a cat. He’s sort of cute, in a gremlin way, Momota thinks before he’s pushed into the realms of unconsciousness.
Momota spends a few moments in blissful nothingness. No dreams, no thoughts, no Ouma to talk to. He floats in an inky pool of black like the view outside the train window, and simply exists for a couple fleeting seconds.
Then his eyes shoot open and he inhales suddenly, filling his lungs with air with air with air and he wakes up in a pod. And the pod lid opens and there’s too much light and sound and noise so Momota goes to sleep again. And then he wakes up on a hospital bed.
And the killing game simulation for Danganronpa V3 was an immense success.