Chapter Text
It was bright. The light pierced his irises and left him wondering if he’d gone blind.
He closed his eyes. It was a little better now, the pain. It still hurt, with some light making it through his eyelids, but it was tolerable now.
He laid there, and assessed his situation. The pain from the light made thinking, made remembering , hard but that wouldn’t stop him from trying. He didn’t know who or where he was, and something told him that not knowing would be bad. Questions came to his mind, unbidden, like an ingrained instinct to figure things out, to investigate .
Name? Shuichi Saihara.
Age? Sixteen.
Talent? Ultimate Detective.
Now he remembered. He was Shuichi Saihara, the Ultimate Detective (in training), and he was currently in an unknown place with an irritatingly bright light shining into his eyes. He should try to figure that out next.
What was he doing before this light got here? Before he got here?
And with that thought, all of his missing memories came rushing back to him.
The Ultimate Academy.
Monokuma and his Kubs.
The Killing Game.
Everyone killing or being killed.
Tsumugi’s betrayal.
The TRUTH being revealed.
Despair. Hope.
Both rejected in order to fight against an unfeeling world.
Until there were only three left.
Maki. Himiko.
Shuichi’s eyes shot open, the light in his eyes ignored in favor of finding his friends. The only two left alive after the ballots were left blank and K1-B0 dealt out the punishment that was meant to kill them.
Shuichi could feel his muscles strain in his struggle to rise up from his prone position on what he is only now identifying as a bed. He could hear his heart beat frantically in his ears, perfectly in sync with the beep beep beeping that he’d just noticed.
Hospital. Okay. How’d he get in a hospital? He’s supposed to be dead!
Freaking out now. The beeping is getting faster.
Is he breathing? He feels his chest move, feels the air going in and out of his windpipe. All evidence points to him getting oxygen from the air to his bloodstream, but he’s not feeling any better.
He’s hyperventilating. That’s not good. He can’t find Maki and Himiko if he passes out.
Guess his body didn’t get the memo because his breath is still short and the light in his eyes seems brighter and black is creeping around the edge of his vision.
“Shuichi!”
He turned his head slightly, vision blurry from the tears in his eyes (when had those gotten there?).
Long, ash blonde hair. Plum colored eyes. Familiar, musical note shaped hair clips.
He felt gentle yet grounding hands grasp tightly to his shoulders.
“K-Kaede?” He rasped.
Then everything went dark.
When he next awoke, it was to the sound of a piano playing a familiar song. The only classical song he knew by name.
Clair de Lune by Debussy.
Shuichi let the rise and fall of the notes lift him from his doze. The light above his head was still bright, he could tell that even through his closed eyes, but no longer painful.
He opened his eyes.
Bright light? Check.
Bed? Check.
Beeping? Still there, and somehow keeping beat with the music.
Speaking of music…
Shuichi turned his head towards the soft clicking of piano keys, his laden eyes widening at the sight that greeted him.
“Kaede.”
He’d thought it was a dream, her appearing before he blacked out. One final gift from the universe, given to his dying mind as he succumbed to his inevitable death beneath the Academy’s rubble.
At the sound of his voice, the figure glanced over her shoulder, the keyboard on her lap looking like a grand piano as her nimble fingers continued to play that familiar melody. She smiled at him, a smile he thought he’d never see again.
“Good morning, sleepyhead.” She said, her hands hovering above the keys as she let the final notes ring throughout the room.
His vision was blurry again as tears came from his eyes. He didn’t try to stop them.
“Kaede? H-How are you- Where are we? Are- Are we de-”
He stopped his question when he felt a small smack to his head. Kaede had made her way to his bed and sat down, her keyboard left in her previous seat.
“Now, none of that, mister,” she scolded playfully, “Everything is probably sore, right? I don’t think you’d feel so horrible if you were dead.”
Shuichi couldn’t argue with that. “But, how- How are you here ? You died . I died. Everyone died. So how? Where is here, anyway?”
Kaede looked to the scaling in contemplation, trying to find the right words to say.
She looked at Shuichi with sad eyes and said, “She lied.”
“Who lied?”
“Tsumugi. Everything she told us, especially to those of you who made it to the final trial, was a lie. From the truth of the outside world, to the true mastermind and the audience. Everything was a lie, because none of it was real.”
Shuichi was lost. “None of it was… real?”
Kaede shook her head. “None of it. Everything that took place in the Academy for Gifted Juveniles took place in a simulation. A prototype of a virtual reality program, like the one Miu put you all in.”
Shuichi couldn’t make sense of any of it. Everything was a lie? Then, did anything he knew hold weight anymore? What was fake? What was real? Was he really fiction, or did the past he remembered fit into this new reality he found himself in? Was this reality, or just another layer in the dream?
Kaede must have seen his quickly spiraling thoughts in his eyes because she gave another soft smack to his forehead. She had a strained smile on her face.
“I’m probably not explaining things very well, huh? Maybe they’ll have better luck.”
There was a quiet knock at the door on the other side of the room.
“Oh. That must be them now.” She arose from her spot on his bed and made her way to the door.
Shuichi gathered his strength and finally sat up. He didn’t want to be in such a vulnerable position anymore. “Who?”
She smiled as she turned the knob, “Our hosts, of course.”
The door opened, revealing a young man with spiky brown hair, a very prominent ahoge not unlike K1-B0’s, and hazel eyes. Despite his professional looking black suit and tie, his eyes conveyed a boyish attitude that didn’t necessarily clash with his twenty-something face.
“Good to see you’re awake,” he said, stepping into the room, “I’m Makoto Naegi, of the Future Foundation’s 14th Branch.”