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“Wh-what do you mean, Kaito wasn’t wrong about you being possessed?” Kaede looked… well, startled was putting it likely. More like an electric shock had run through her body. “K-Kaito, come in here! You were right!” She was practically shrieking.
Kaito rushed in accompanied by a grin. “You can’t doubt the Ultimate Magician, the Emissary of the Uncanny on such matters!” Ultimate Magician seemed somewhat fitting for him, honestly- the flair for theatrics suited him. Still weird for him not to be going off about space, but not as weird as some, at least.
His grin faltered after a moment, though. “Oh- wait, Shuichi is possessed! Kokichi, get away from him! The phantom is using his unholy powers to lure your innocent soul into darkness!”
“Hey, I’m not being lured anywhere!” Kokichi protested. “Shuichi’s way too much of a dork for tactics like that. If anyone’s an innocent soul here, it’s him.”
Before Shuichi could react, he found himself being dragged off of his bed. For a moment he thought Kaede was hugging him, but instead found himself pinned to the ground. “Unhand Shuichi, you fell demon!” Kaede threw something at him that he could only recognize as salt from the small amount that ended up in his mouth.
He sputtered. “Gah- Kaede, knock it off! I’m not possessed!” This body was even weaker than his was back in the Killing Game. He presumed Kaito wasn’t as diligent in his insistence on training here, as his noodle arms weren’t at all capable of fighting back as Kaede tied his hands behind his back with a tie pulled from his closet.
“You said yourself you were!” Kaede’s eyes narrowed into a glare as she turned to Kokichi. “Ugh, think he’s possessed too?”
“It was a metaphor!” Shuichi protested. “I was speaking metaphorically!”
Ignoring his dissent, Kaito attempted to push Kokichi out of the door. “Kokichi, I would have thought better of you than to fall for such enchantments!” He scolded. “Were you simply blinded by the fact it’s inhabiting Shuichi? I knew we should have brought the holy water…”
Shuichi attempted to get to his feet, but ended up just falling into an even more uncomfortable position. “You can’t seriously believe him, right Kaede?”
“Yeah, he was just gonna tell her how he’s from another timeline!” Shuichi cringed at the casual revelation of his secret to someone he hadn’t agreed to tell. But, Kaito would have had to know eventually, surely, and it wasn’t as if they had much of a choice right now.
Kaito, however, just rolled his eyes. “Kaede, he’s definitely possessed too, or just being a little shit, maybe. Can you spare another tie?”
Kokichi kicked him in the shins. “Knock it off! I’m definitely telling the truth! I wouldn’t lie in matters of Shumai’s health, and I’m not stupid enough for a ghost to convince me with cuddles!”
“I’m not saying you’re stupid, just that he’s consistantly been a laspe in your judgement!” Kaito exclaimed, still fighting to get him out the door. “Remember your surprise party last year? ‘Oh, I just wanted to distract you for a few hours-’ you seriously didn’t question that ?”
A sound like a boiling kettle came from the small purple menace. “I- I totally knew what was going on! I was just going along with everyone! You know, to be polite!” He insisted. All Shuichi was getting from that was that both he and Kokichi were much worse liars in this world.
Before much more squabbling could erupt, an exasperated sigh pierced the air. “What in the actual hell are you doing?” Maki’s familiar voice huffed as she entered the room, dragging Kokichi away from Kaito and sitting on the bed.
Her presence felt a bit… diminished here, in a sense, but she was still rather imposing. He still struggled to believe Ultimate Gamer was her real title, as she didn’t seem like the type to have ever even touched a video game before, but it was more believable than Child Caretaker. She glared around the room before noticing Shuichi on the floor. “Seriously, what the hell?”
“We need to perform an exorcism!” Kaito explained. “He admitted to being possessed!”
Maki had the familiar “are you shitting me” expression on her face. “Kaito, even if he was possessed, would he admit to it?”
“Well, would someone who isn’t possessed admit to it?” Kaede countered.
Shuichi lamented his poor word choice. “It was a metaphor,” he weakly protested. “Maki, please.” He’d given up hope that she remembered too, but maybe, just maybe, she’d at least believe him.
She approached him, and he felt the tie around his wrists loosen. “Both of you, knock it off,” Maki said, helping Shuichi back to his feet. “Wasn’t he sick this morning? You’re probably making his condition worse.”
“Yeah!” Kokichi protested, arms crossed. “I’m juuust here to help my bestest friend, and you all accuse me of being useless enough to be fooled by a ghost!”
“To be fair, you did say Shuichi is from another timeline,” Kaede objected. “If you’re both talking nonsense-”
“You are all talking nonsense!” Maki exclaimed. “Look, let’s put the possession thing aside and just agree to let Shuichi rest, alright? Look at him, he looks like he hasn’t slept well in a year.”
He wanted to say she wasn’t wrong, but last time he tried to allude to things coyly, it had definitely gone horribly. Besides, did he want to tell this many people? It seemed dangerous- the more people who knew, the faster something could go wrong, right?
“Yeah, I just want to rest,” he said, shaking his head. “I- I’m fine, I’m just tired.” Clearly, if he was going to come clean about this, he’d need to find a better way to do it, because he’d definitely convinced Kaito and Kaede of this whole being possessed thing. “You guys can do the exorcism later if it makes you feel better… just as long as it doesn’t hurt…”
Kaito seemed oddly excited at the prospect, his eyes lighting up. “Wonderful! I shall make the preparations, we shall do it at the stroke of midnight!”
“...Kaito, he’s sick, we are not keeping him up until midnight, exorcism or not,” Maki objected. “Surely the unholy energies will work before class tomorrow or something.”
He huffed, but conceded. “Fine, we shall create a suitable atmosphere for channeling my powers at eight tomorrow morning.”
Kaito reminded him of someone, but it sure wasn’t Himiko. Who was it he was acting like? He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but it was a strange sense of Deja Vu. Maybe one of those costumes Tsumugi had worn during the final trial?
“Uh… sorry to bother you,” Kaede apologized. “Kaito was just… very set on the whole ghost thing. I guess I got swept up in his enthusiasm!” She wouldn’t quite meet his eyes, as if embarrassed she’d gotten so into the whole thing. “I- I’ll be going now! Have a nice rest!”
She pulled Kaito out alongside her, leaving just Kokichi and Maki there with him. Considering Maki could bear to be in the same room as him… yeah, that was pretty good confirmation she didn’t remember shit.
“So… Maks, thanks, I guess,” Kokichi muttered. He didn’t quite meet her eyes, instead settling for glaring at the wall beside her. Seemed they still weren’t the best of friends.
Maki sighed. “Just… stop skipping class. I’m not taking any notes for you, Trust Fund.”
“I don’t need notes,” Kokichi almost boasted. “I’ll just figure out what I missed.”
“Sure you will, Professor Naegi will probably just tell you all the answers to the test questions if you ask him,” she snipped, before shooting an apologetic glance at Shuichi. “...sorry, I shouldn’t say things like that with him here.”
“Just leave,” Kokichi said, looking away from her. “We shouldn’t do this right now.”
She left without another word, and Shuichi just stared at the blank space where she’d been. Trust fund? And what Professor would show preferential treatment to him? Wait, the name…
“Who is Professor Naegi?” He asked. “That name sounds familiar.” Had he been the guy who made Keebo? No, that wasn’t right… Was he another person who’d been in the Killing Games before them?
Kokichi stared blankly at him. “He’s the headmaster,” he said after a moment. “Sorry, that just felt like a weird thing to question. Why are you asking about that and not why Maki hates me so much?”
“I mean, she hated you back there too, so that’s not too out of the ordinary to me,” he admitted. “I just feel like the name is familiar, but I can’t remember where I’ve heard it before.” Was it possible they weren’t the only ones from the world he came from and this one? If so, wouldn’t that leave the possibility of Monokuma and the Monokubs or something being here? Would that matter?
Kokichi just shrugged. “I mean… uh… maybe you just remember his name? Or maybe he was in your world too, I dunno. He was the Ultimate Novelist before Tenko was when he was younger, he went to this school too.”
“I think he was in a previous Killing Game? I don’t quite remember…”
Another blank silence. “...there were other killing games?”
“There were 52 other killing games,” Shuichi explained, deadpan.
“There were 52 other killing games!?”
“That’s beside the point,” Shuichi said. “It’s just interesting is all. If we aren’t the only constants across both worlds, that must mean… something. I’m not sure what yet, but it has to be important.”
Kokichi nodded in agreement. “Yeah, it sounds like something important. Uh, by the way, are you seriously planning to go through with the exorcism thing?”
“Yeah? I mean, it’ll get them to calm down,” Shuichi said. “Why, are you scared it’ll actually work?”
“What? No, of course not,” Kokichi assured him with the air of not at all being sure it wouldn’t do anything. “Just like… are you sure you wanna humor him? Also, like, it involves me getting up at a normal time, and I’m pretty sure I’m not going to sleep much tonight while trying to puzzle all this out.”
“Then, take the night off,” Shuichi offered. “You’ve done a lot for me today already, but I kind of just want to sleep, to be honest.”
Kokichi looked at him, and then the clock on his bedside table, and then back at him. “But it’s like, one in the afternoon?”
“Like you, my sleep schedule is also shit,” he said flatly, sitting back down on his bed. “And I just want to take a nap. I’ll let you know if I feel up to talking later, but I kind of just need a minute.”
He got a sweet smile that looked a bit odd on Kokichi’s face for that. “I get it,” he assured him. “You rest up, just lemme know if you need anything. I’ll tell the others to leave you be today too.”
Going towards the door, he looked back for a moment before giving a sideways smile. “I’ll see you later, I guess?”
“Yeah, see you later,” Shuichi said. The silence settling over the room as Kokichi left felt odd, but a bit calming. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to be alone, but he didn’t want to keep worrying him over all of this either. Really, he just needed a good nap. So, he laid down, curling into the comforter, and closed his eyes.
But, before he could nod all the way off, his phone buzzed. He assumed it was just Kokichi asking something he’d forgotten, or maybe Maki or Kaede apologizing for earlier, but instead, it was someone whose name was marked as “☘️Taro☘️” meaning it seemed his other self had a very particular way of putting people’s names in his phone. Had to be Rantaro, right?
The message was short but simple: “I want to talk to you sometime this evening. Let me know when you feel up to it.” It seemed simple, but it filled him with some ominous dread with the second part that came through shortly after.
“It’s important.”
That could mean so many things, but for some reason it made him feel uneasy. What was important? Him asking that just got a “we should talk in person” from it, and a greater sense of unease. But, he agreed to it. Not like anything could go worse today.