Chapter Text
Log
Day: -2
Perspective: Saihara, Shuichi
-x-
The screen flickered on, revealing a person with short dirty blond hair and a feminine green uniform looking directly at the viewer…
“Good morning, everyone! I’ll give you a few minutes to get up! It’s 10 a.m.! Currently Day Negative Two! We’ve got a lot to discuss!”
Shuichi grumbled and sat up slowly. He rubbed his eyes and noticed that he couldn’t really tell where he was but chalked it up to his disorientation more than the fact that the room was nearly pitch black other than a light coming through a crack under a door.
When he looked to the television, he quizzically tilted his head, not recognizing the person he saw. Then, it continued.
“Ah! S-Sorry! I’m still giving you some time! But you’re totally safe alone in a dark room right now! Please be patient and do not panic! I’ll be turning the lights on in just a few moments as to let the late risers have some more time!”
The voice was timid, soft, nice. Shuichi seemed to immediately trust it despite his better judgement, again, blaming it on his disorientation and the fact that he heard the word ‘safe’. As he started to wake up more, he decided to feel about his surroundings.
He was wearing clothes, and they felt like his normal striped uniform. Good. He thought, then moved his hands to his sides. He was on something soft, plushy, clearly a bed or at least a mattress. The fact that it had been called a ‘room’ made sense with what he was touching. He then reached one hand up to his head, feeling his soft hair. The one strand that refused to cooperate with the others flicked over his middle finger and he let out a relieved sigh, feeling confused at why the lack of a hat was making him happy.
The last thing he tried was moving one leg over the side of the bed, slowly, and when it reached solid ground, he slung the other one to match it. He didn’t get off the soft surface, but having his feet planted made him feel more centered and in control of the situation.
When he was satisfied with his investigation, he let his mind wander. Where am I? How did I get here? What’s the last thing I remember? Things of the like.
The only one he was able to answer, kind of, was what he remembered. It was vague, choppy, like there were lots of pieces missing, but he knew for sure that he was looking up at a giant shattered dome and he wanted to escape. So, was this where he had escaped to?
Before his mind could continue, he heard, “Thank you for waiting! The lights are coming on in 3… 2… 1…”
Click.
The room illuminated and Shuichi had to blink a couple of times to adjust. When his vision started to control itself, he was overwhelmed. The room was perfect to say the least. It was a little bigger than average for a studio room and it included a nice tiled kitchen, a small closed off bathroom, a stand with an average television displaying the person on screen, a large, mahogany, three drawer desk with a puffy chair that looked so comfortable you could sleep in it, and a giant bookcase that he could already tell was lined with mystery novels. It would be no exaggeration to call it his dream apartment set up.
Suddenly, he heard a faint chuckle and returned his eyes to the monitor, “D-Do you like your rooms? We designed them especially for you! U-Uhm, if you have any complaints you can bring them up to me later! I promise! Oh a-and I’m sorry if you already tried… you can’t escape these rooms quite yet… but you will be able to, soon. Please, bear me some more of your time.”
Shuichi looked at the screen. Now that he had his bearings, he was confused as to why he wasn’t scared, but something in his gut told him that everything would be ok.
“Now… Let’s begin…
Welcome back, everyone! You might be a little confused because you’re alone right now, but I’m actually talking to forty-eight people. D-Don’t panic! No one can get to y-you! If you’re concerned, I must be absolutely adamant that you are safe.”
The voice stopped to let that sink in a moment, then got a little sad, “Out of those forty-eight people, thirty-four of you are just waking up from experiencing death. I-I’m really sorry… I’m… so sorry you had to experience that. I’ll explain more about it later, but I want you to know that if you need to talk about it, I offer therapy sessions, uhm…” It went quiet. Shuichi took a moment to contemplate the words. He hadn’t experienced death, but he did suddenly remember that he had just escaped a killing game. It was slowly coming back to him, but he could only remember vague shapes and faces.
“What I am going to do now…” The picture suddenly shifted to a girl with long blue hair, the color almost like his own. She was wearing a sailor uniform and a bright smile, and the voice was noticeably different, “… is start from the beginning!”
And it did, in fact, start from the beginning. It talked of a wonderful place called Hope’s Peak Academy where students with talents could come and harness their skills to become the future leaders of the world. It introduced itself as one ‘Sayaka Maizono, The Ultimate Popstar’, a girl who was in the new 78th Class and how she dozed off in a main hallway around 7:45, fifteen minutes before her orientation was going to start.
When she woke up, she was in a classroom, dazed and confused, but successfully made her way back to her original destination. Eventually, she met fifteen other students, all strangers, all confused and some frightened.
Then, the bear, the dreaded Monokuma, made his appearance, and he introduced them to the killing game. Shuichi could hear his breath stop short. He didn’t know the girl on screen, but he knew Monokuma, and he was shaking. Sayaka looked terrified, but continued with, “He’s not here. This is just a story. I need everyone to stay with me.” And he relaxed slightly. This voice wasn’t as comforting as the first, but it still felt trustworthy… err… more… charismatic.
She then got to the first murder and talked about… a motive. Shuichi understood. This same tactic, a video of your loved ones, had been used in his own killing game. Though, it seemed her story was different as everyone got to watch their own video.
“When I saw my friends… my group… injured on the ground, I-I had to get out. I… made a plan. I got the help of someone who trusted me and tried to lure someone into killing them.”
After a pause, she disappeared and a gentleman with a white jacket and bright orange spiky hair took her place, “That would be me, Leon Kuwata, who fell for the trap. We fought in ‘her room’ and she eventually locked herself in the bathroom.” He scoffed a moment before continuing, his confidence feigning, “I went back to my room and… I could’ve stopped but… I got a tool kit that was provided, opened the door… and… I killed her.”
It switched back to Sayaka, “But I was alive long enough to leave a dying message! One that would help everyone at the trial to discover the blackened!” Shuichi was surprised that the idea of a trial wasn’t explained and assumed the mystery forty-seven other people must’ve already come from killing games.
This… storytelling went on for hours. It changed between many faces, many different trials. People Shuichi didn’t know telling stories he didn’t know, but not once did he look away or lose focus.
He learned the original person was someone named Chihiro Fujisaki, but the speaker, playing every character in this performance, was named Alter Ego.
He was trying to keep count of how many different names and faces and murders he was hearing about. He especially got lost with the number of people living double lives. Count one Toko Fukawa, though there was a ‘Genocide Jack’. Count two different Junko Enoshima’s, one being Mukuro Ikusaba. Count two Byakuya Togami’s, one being literally just named ‘Imposter’. Count one Hajime Hinata, though there was an ‘Izuru Kamakura’… It was tough, but he did successfully count thirty-two people by the time he learned of the ‘Remnants of Despair’ and the five survivors trying, post ‘Tragedy’, to wake up their sleeping classmates. He wasn’t sure if he should count the AI ‘Chiaki Nanami’, but she didn’t seem to be anyone else. If these other dead people were here, which he wasn’t sure was the case or not, then it was totally plausible that she was here. Thirty-two was a good number. Thirty-two out of Forty-Eight meant… sixteen left. Sixteen.
The other two stories were both of sixteen person killing games. His heart skipped a beat, eyes glued to the screen.
And when Hajime Hinata turned into Rantaro Amami, Shuichi began to cry. Memories flooding back.
“Now we come the most recent story. First, Hope’s Peak. Then, Jabberwock Island. Finally, welcome, to the Ultimate Academy for Gifted Juveniles.” The detective didn’t know how to respond other than breathing heavily. How long had it been? He had no idea. It felt so good… so, so good to hear this voice. Maybe he wasn’t alive, but just hearing him was enough. Please… keep talking… tell me… tell me about the killing game, Shuichi begged mentally, pleading to remember everyone.
Rantaro almost seemed to read his mind. He spoke all about the students, ordinary people dressed in everyday clothes, who turned into ultimate students. He introduced himself and how he, out of all of them, seemed to have any idea about a killing game and an ‘Ultimate Hunt’. He talked about appearance of Monokubs compared to Monokuma and Usami. The Road to Despair. The two-day killing time limit. Then he talked about… her.
To say that Shuichi was sobbing would be an understatement. He couldn’t breathe when the blonde woman in a pink sweater vest appeared on screen.
“I’m Kaede Akamatsu! And I’m the protagonist of this story.
… Is what I’d really like to say, but that’s not true.” He stood up on his feet for the first time, slowly walking towards the television, “I desperately wanted to find the mastermind. I wanted it so bad that I… killed someone. I killed Rantaro…”
“THAT’S NOT TRUE!” Shuichi screamed at the top of his lungs. He hadn’t talked this whole time, and he was shocked at how painful it had been to yell. As he lightly messaged his neck for relief, he listened back in, realizing this had jogged his memory completely.
He remembered the mastermind’s trick. He remembered not playing the game.
Kaede, even after death come to life as this AI, was already saving him again by pulling him out of his thoughts, “… by… by setting up a trap in the library. I didn’t know it would be him… I just… thought the mastermind would be…… Anyway, I had made a good friend in the killing game! You’ll meet him later. He was able to solve everything, figure out that I did it. I was so, so proud of him. Then, I was executed.” She talked more about herself, her thoughts on the game, then finished. She turned into a short man with a beanie, and Shuichi felt like he could breathe deeply for the first time in minutes.
They all spoke of the awful truth he knew so well. Ryoma, Kirumi, Angie, Tenko, Korekiyo, Miu and Gonta… all telling their stories. This was so much different than before. Seeing people he knew talk about crimes that he solved was… hard. It wasn’t scary, it wasn’t new, it was just hard to hear again. Nevertheless, when he heard Gonta say his last words, then vanish, his heart started racing.
You’re alone, Kokichi. And you always will be… The last words Shuichi had ever said to him. They rang in his ears like poison. Yes, he had been angry. Yes, Kokichi had done something awful in the name of self-defense. But he didn’t deserve to be…
“Well, well, well~, Did you miss me, Shumai~?”
… crushed to death.
“And I guess everyone else, too. Hmph. For those of you who don’t know, I’m Kokichi Ouma, the Ultimate Supreme Leader. Usually, I’m made of up lies, but for the sake of actually getting information across to the upper classmen, I promise that everything I’m about to say is the complete truth.” It truly sounded like he meant it too. Granted, this wasn’t really him, just an AI pretending to be him, so it made sense that the character would be broken for the sake of knowledge.
Shuichi didn’t realize that his hand was touching the television. When did he do that? Was it when he heard that signature nickname? Focus, his thoughts told him, and he retracted his arm and listened.
At this point, he already knew the big reveal. Kokichi was, in fact, not the mastermind of the killing game. He was the leader of a small, but effective, organization that played harmless pranks. He was harmless, save Gonta’s manipulation. And, most importantly, he had done everything he could to defeat the mastermind, including ruining all his friendships in the process. He was attacked by a poison arrow to the back, he pretended to drink some antidote, and, he sacrificed himself in the name of winning an unwinnable game.
All because Shuichi figured out his plan. In his mind, he had disgraced Kokichi’s hard work and sentenced his second-best friend in the game, Kaito, to death by execution.
Reliving it was excruciating, self-deprecating, but also… cathartic.
When Kokichi spoke again after a pause, he looked up. How long had he been in his head? “Ahh, and I would’ve gotten away with it, too.” The voice was so serious and quiet, almost like the real deal was talking right into his head, “If it weren’t for that meddling detective... a really, really good one who knows people well enough to say the things they want to hear the least.
Ok, ok, that one was a lie!” It wasn’t, “Aaaaanyway, here’s that idiot astronaut with his side of the story! C’mon, killer, want to reiterate what happened to me?” And just like that, he was gone.
Shuichi relived a sigh when Kaito appeared on the screen and introduced himself with a loud boisterous, “I’m Kaito Momota! Luminary of the Stars! And I am NOT an idiot!” To which the detective chuckled happily to himself through the tears that hadn’t stopped since the beginning of their story time. Kaito, begrudgingly, did as he was told. He explained the whole plan again from his perspective. He talked of his time since the beginning and all his memories.
He especially talked about ‘his sidekicks’, but the special tone in which he talked about Maki was not lost on Shuichi. He remembered, post Kaito’s victorious passing, the conversation he shared with her about feelings and emotions. It made him smile knowing the two felt the same way about one another. Though, Maki’s turn wouldn’t be for a while.
Even after death, Kaito still made Shuichi feel better, stronger. He knew that the astronaut had picked him and Maki for a reason. They were both reserved and unable to come out of their shells. As Kaito finished his tale, Shuichi even wondered for a moment if he could’ve extended that incredible spirit to Kokichi, but smushed the thought before returning his attention to… Tsumugi.
Seeing her on screen made him want to throw up, but he kept it under control. She had been their friend, their trusted ally. She cried at their deaths and helped solve the mysteries. And she created a killing game all for the sake of a reality TV show!? He was livid, but too weak from the hours crying to do anything about it.
Though, strangely, he wasn’t nearly as scared of her as he had been of Junko once he learned about her. Tsumugi seemed almost… pathetic… in comparison. Not even with her ability to cosplay could she pull off that kind of evil. Yet, he still latched onto her words; every single one of them. He was looking for a sign of if she had been telling the truth or not, but he never got it. Just the same story.
For a moment, he considered what the other thirty-two people thought of that one? A woman, claiming they were fake, and constantly switching pretending to be them. Shuichi only recognized them after the revelation from Kaede but… how were they reacting to this? Were they reacting to this? He gripped his pants, frustrated. So many of his classmates had just called him a good detective but in the end, he couldn’t decipher any of the lies.
When Keebo popped up on screen, he finally sat back down on his bed, not feeling the energy to stand any longer. He was the last one to die: flying into the dome and secretly saving three of his treasured friends. The robot talked of his antenna, and the people known as his ‘inner voice’. He talked of his life, the robophobia, the game, then, “I knew I wanted to save them. We talked about all dying together, but I couldn’t let them do it. I… had to!” Shuichi felt the largest sob escape his throat, yet.
Hearing Himiko and Maki’s stories didn’t help it relent. Being the survivors meant you had the most stories to tell. Stories of pain, of losing people you loved. Himiko, already losing her master, lost two women that she held above all people. Maki, already losing her freedom, lost the only man who ever made her feel human.
And, as the assassin faded, Shuichi counted forty-seven.
Just… one more…
“H-Hi there, I’m Shuichi Saihara, the second Ultimate Detective.”
To say that seeing himself on screen frightened him would be an understatement. The person was wearing a hat and looked… shy… feeble. That wasn’t him. Not anymore.
The Shuichi on screen started telling his story: waking up in a locker, meeting Kaede, learning of the killing game and planning to stop the mastermind. When he talked of Kaede’s execution, he violently threw his hat off and continued, which finally helped the physical Shuichi relax. That was at least someone recognizable, now.
The AI version continued for a long time, not leaving out any detail.
“… Then, we saw the exit. We climbed out and made our way towards it. I don’t remember anything after that. This is the end of our story.”
Watching his own self disappear to be replaced with Chihiro Fujisaki, no, Alter Ego, was relieving.
The soft voice he hadn’t heard in a long time spoke up, “I understand. That was… a lot. Now everyone knows everything. There are no secrets. I’m going to let everyone rest up and collect their thoughts for the rest of the evening. I will wake you back up at 10 a.m.! I hate to tell you this, but tomorrow is going to be even tougher on you. If you need me there is a button next to your beds with the label ‘AE’ on it. Press it and I can talk to you one-on-one. Please, really, take this time to process and recover. You’ve all been through so much. You’re all so strong and you’re only going to get stronger!
Have a good night.
I-I love you, all!”
The monitor went silent for the first time in hours. Shuichi had no idea what time it was now, but he found he didn’t care. What was he going to do now? That was much more important.
His eyes drifted to the desk in his room and noticed a pen and paper on top of it. Perfect! He snatched it up, brought it back to the bed, and began scribbling his thoughts. He was going to take everything he was feeling and write it down.
When he was satisfied, he stripped to his undershirt and boxers, leaving the striped uniform over the chair, and crawled under the covers. He felt safe, but anxious. What would tomorrow bring? Alter Ego said ‘day negative two’, so what were they counting down towards?
Shuichi fell asleep thinking about it and the mountain of stories he had just heard, but his dreams were peaceful and nonexistent.
He was ready for the day when Alter Ego came on the screen the next morning.
“Good morning, everyone! It’s 10 a.m.! Currently Day Negative One! I hope you slept well! Are you ready?”
Then, they switched to one Makoto Naegi, “So you’ve learned about everyone who’s here. Now let’s learn about why you’re here!”