Chapter Text
The first thing he noticed was pain. An unbearable headache that was splitting his skull in half, along with paralyzing nausea that increased every time he tried to move. The second thing was the feeling of something wet that covered his head and was dripping on his face. The substance that was running across his face was warm and smelt like sharp iron. He didn't dare to open his eyes to gather more information about his situation out of fear—of what? he could not tell. Maybe it was instinct, self preservation. Or maybe it was something darker within him that had decided to give up and let the pain consume him.
A noise broke him out of his trance, footsteps and the voices of two people, a boy and a girl. He didn't recognize them nor the things they spoke, but he knew the emotions their voices carried. Confusion, fear and indifference, which were also the feelings he had regarding his current situation.
One of them approached him with cautious steps, kneeling beside him, and placed a hand on his shoulder. His immediate reaction was to recoil and run away from them, but the nausea made it impossible. Two pairs of hands helped him sit down, the change of position made him want to vomit and the weird liquid that kept running down his face made it hard to breathe.
He tried to open his eyes but as soon as he did the warm substance got into his eyes, making him rub them with his palms to clean it from his eyelids.
Finally, he opened his eyes and saw his hands painted with hot magenta. He flinched as the color made his headache get worse, it was an impossible color he couldn't comprehend, a bright and saturated pink that didn't make sense. He closed his eyes to get away from the eyestrain and carefully opened them again. The color was the same at first, then as he blinked it changed, the saturation decreased, the hue altered, until it became dark red, leaving behind all of the traces of magenta. It was as if he hallucinated the previous color.
A gentle hand on his chin made him look up, snapping him out of his trance. The sight that was in front of him was difficult to figure out since he could still feel the oozing of what he now realized was blood from his head, it blurred his vision and the smell was making him sicker than he already was. However, he could still make out that a boy was looking at him with a concerned expression next to a girl with emotionless eyes. The boy seemed to be talking to him, words becoming indistinguishable noises that he couldn't understand. But one of them was repeated constantly.
“Ouma-kun.”
Ouma.
Was that his name?
He heard a shaky laugh before realizing it was his own. The boy in front of him frowned in confusion, but his eyes were full of fear. That only made him, Ouma, laugh harder. It was truly bizarre, he thought, the situation he found himself in. He broke his head open making him see colors that didn't exist and turning him into an amnesiac that didn't even remember his name. The laughing turned into crying, clear teardrops mixing with the blood on his face. Ouma was scared and in pain, in a place he didn't know with people he didn't recognize. Trying to remember anything only made his headache worse.
The two people began talking more with worry staining their voices. Ouma recognized some of the words.
“What—”
“How—”
“... Okay?”
Ouma laughed at the last question, were they really asking him if he was okay? Were they stupid, or couldn't they see he was bleeding. For some reason the thought of being at the mercy of people who clearly were idiots made the pain and confusion decrease, he refused to let those people help him because clearly, even with amnesia and on the verge of a panic attack, Ouma was more competent than them.
Forcing the memories of what happened was useless, so he decided to figure it out by analyzing his situation. First and foremost, Ouma realized he had a concussion, not a mind blowing revelation, but useful nonetheless. He moved his hands along his head, trying to locate the wound, when he reached his forehead and sharp pain exploded he smiled triumphantly. With a finger he lightly skirted on the edge of the wound, it was a long, straight and clean cut, the deepness of it wasn't much, just broken skin. How he got injured, well that required more than a simple body check.
His first instinct was to think the people in front of him were responsible, that they were the ones that hurt him. The more he thought about that possibility, the more sense it made. Both the boy and the girl looked somewhat weak, and looked to be short in height, making the use of a weapon increase in probability. If they were tall and buff like his usual bullies then they would just use their fists to—
Where did that thought even come from? Was I bullied a lot?
The headache returns, stronger and sharper, so he drops the thought and focuses on the present. Ouma was sitting against a wall, with his back resting on it, the floor is old and made of wood, and the lack of blood is intriguing. However, a meter or so from where he was sitting was a pool of… magenta? He blinked. Once. Twice. No, it was dark red blood. It seemed as if he fell down at that place and hit his head on the floor, but the shape of his wound disproved that theory.
With pure force of will, Ouma stood up, the change of position made the nausea unbearable, so he took a deep breath to stop himself from vomiting. The boy was saying something, hands grabbing him as if to make him sti down again, but he couldn't, not when he was seeing a trail of drops of magenta—no, red blood that moved farther from where they were, leading into a room. For some reason the sight reminded him of what happened.
“I… I think I stepped… through the floorboard. T-There was no crosspiece…”
He must have said something bad because the boy was looking at him with worry, “what do you mean by 'you think'. Ouma-kun, do you not remember?”
Ouma groaned, he wasn't going to accept to a bunch of strangers his weaknesses, especially when he was already injured. He needed to leave immediately.
“Doesn't matter. Thanks for nothing, I'll go home now.”
Now he must've said something worse since the girl that, up to this point, was looking at him as if he was dirt on her shoe, opened her eyes with worry. That's what he gets for opening his mouth when it's not necessary, he already knew that the smart thing to do was to go along with whoever, but in his defense, he almost got his skull broken in half so he gave himself a pass for acting dumb.
“Don't you even know where you are?” The girl said carefully in a strong voice.
Just as he was about to answer her, a familiar announcement bell began playing from a monitor. What played made Ouma's blood cold with fear. There was a black and white bear—Monokuma, he remembered—drinking champagne, saying a bunch of nonsense that wasn't important, except for the mentioning of the killing game and a class trial.
His breath became faster, he couldn't believe it, this wasn't real, this couldn't be real. His whole body began shaking with panic, the palms of his hands felt cold and clammy, and he could feel his heart try to jump out of his chest with how fast it was beating. Moreover, the headache was back tenfold, since quick and erratic contradictory memories of his life flashed through his brain. Growing up in an orphanage, and escaping as soon as he got the chance, contrasted with living in a house devoid of life that was occupied by himself and two neglectful parents; stealing books and newspapers to learn beyond what kids his age were thought in a place he could never attend, but at the same time getting the best grades in school since if he didn't a beating would be waiting for him at home. Having a no killing policy yet coming up with scenarios of a perfect unsolvable murder.
Which one was true and which one was a lie. Ouma didn't know. As much as he hated to admit it, he felt utterly hopeless. He felt despair.
However, Ouma knew he couldn't give in to that feeling, or he was as good as dead. Which was ironic since he was inside a killing game. There was nothing he could do besides win and get out, or follow the flow and survive. Besides, it was his own fault for being inside the killing game, he chose to participate in this, or at least that's what half of his memories told him, so he had to turn off his emotions and confront his actions.
The announcement stopped playing and he took a deep breath. He still felt light headed but the pain and nausea were manageable so he began walking with steady steps towards the stairs.
“Wait, Ouma-kun! Where are you going?” The boy asked with worry.
“To the class trial, wasn't it obvious?” Ouma smirked with certainty that his teeth were stained with blood.
“You can't go to the class trial like that,” the scary girl said. He opened his mouth to make an ironic remark but he shut it. She looked dangerous, something of her stance and pose made him nervous, and her eyes were the ones of a killer. Pissing her off would not only be stupid but downright suicidal, so he abstained to do any witty banter with her.
“I'll be killed if I don't go.” Ouma made his best effort to not put any hint of sarcasm, making his voice and expression as serious as possible.
The girl sighed, “don't be so dramatic. I meant that you should at least clean up, you're a mess.” With that she walked past him, when she got to the stairs she talked again, “go and help him Saihara, I'll explain to the others what happened.”
Ouma smiled, now he didn't have to ask for Saihara's name, though he needed to learn the girl's name, and the ones from the others she mentioned. Saihara offered him his arm to hold, Ouma wanted to decline but giving a look at the stairs… Yeah, if he would definitely fall if he attempted to go down on his own.
—X—
Saihara guided through the school, it was massive, but deep down Ouma already knew that. When they arrived at the bathroom on the first floor Saihara quickly gathered paper towels while Ouma washed his bloody hands, then Saihara told him to sit on the counter, in the middle of two sinks, so that he could clean Ouma's injury and his face. He opened the tap to damp the paper towels and began cleaning his face, taking extra care of his wound. It was awkward since neither of them spoke, Ouma because he didn't know how to act in front of Saihara, especially since he noticed how tense Saihara was. It almost looked like he was scared of Ouma.
Drops of water mixed with blood ran along his face and on his neck, Saihara noticed and cleared his throat to signal he was about to talk.
“Maybe you should take off your scarf. Even though it's already stained, it's better to keep it as clean as possible, if you want to, of course.” Saihara sounded so nervous, it was kinda cute but also annoying.
“You're right! It's a miracle the rest of my clothes didn't get dirty,” Ouma said while untying his scarf and taking it off completely. Which turned out to be a mistake since Saihara was looking at him with horror, most especially at his neck. Ouma got down from the counter and stared at the mirror. What greeted him was dark purple bruises surrounding his neck, and if he looked closely they resembled the shape of a hand. They looked somewhat recent, maybe 4 or 5 days old, but what was intriguing was the size of the hand. He put one of his hands against the bruise, trying to mimic the shape. It was a bit bigger than his hands but not by much.
His prime suspect was the scary girl from before, she was maybe 1'60cm of height, taller than himself but still short nonetheless. It would've explained why she looked at him as if he was trash, but he didn't know the rest of the people he was stuck with. He looked at Saihara, who was still horrified, and sat again on the counter.
“Are you going to keep looking at me like that or are you going to continue,” Ouma said in a teasing voice, snapping Saihara of his shock, and resumed cleaning the blood, hands trembling whenever he got close to his neck. Ouma noted that Saihara's hands were bigger than the shape on his neck, which made him relax, but not completely. Now he wanted to test the waters.
He took a sharp breath deliberately when Saihara was rubbing away dried blood on his neck. The reaction was immediate, Saihara pulled away his hand, as if it had burned Ouma, and began shaking.
“I'm so sorry, Ouma-kun.” He looked on the verge of tears. Ouma wanted to laugh but he held it in.
“Don't apologize, this wasn't your fault,” Ouma said quietly. What he said plus the tone of his voice had its effect since Saihara was looking at him with regret. Now all he had to do was wait for Saihara to spill the beans on what happened.
“It was, I should've stopped Harukawa-san, or made sure you were okay… I didn't realize how badly she hurt you.”
Was this Harukawa-san the scary girl? Ouma thought. He needed to meet the others to figure it out, but he was 87% sure she was the one that choked him. Still, he didn't know why.
“I already told you not to apologize, silly. Besides, it was my fault,” he made sure to put on a self-deprecating smile while talking, that way his statement could be interpreted in different ways. Either he truly was at fault and made her do that out of anger, or she did it on her own and he was blaming himself for it. It was Saihara's job to pick the option that fitted more the events.
“It's true that you were rash outing her Ultimate Talent like that… But I understand why telling us she was the Ultimate Assassin was important. So I don't think you deserve what she did to you.”
Fuck, he was so dead, wasn't he? The Ultimate Assassin almost choked him to death, and if he understood correctly, in front of Saihara. He knew he was going to die as soon as he was alone with Harukawa. That was… troublesome to say the least, and despite how scared for his life he was at the moment, he had better things to focus on.
Or maybe he could use that fear to gain an ally.
“Can I be honest with you, Saihara-san?” That shocked the boy in question a lot, maybe it was the use of the honorific, or maybe him claiming honesty. He couldn't continue since Saihara was interrupting him.
“Wait, before you say anything, can I ask you something?”
Ouma nodded.
“Y-You don't remember anything, do you?”
There was no use hiding it now, was there. However, he couldn't exactly say that he did remember things, even though those confused him even more than not having any. Two past lives so distinct from one another that even trying to examine them for a second made his head explode with pain. It would make him suspicious to even try to articulate his distorted memories, and he wanted to avoid that at any cost.
“How did you know?”
“You've been acting strange,” Saihara said, “at first I thought it was because of your injury but… You were more cautious around me and Harukawa-san, and the way you looked at the bruises, it was as if it was the first time seeing them. Also, the way you examine them, you were trying to figure out who could have done those, and if I remember correctly, you also did that when we found you. Besides—” Saihara chucked—“you always use the suffix chan with everyone.”
Ouma stared at him. “Don't tell me you're the Ultimate Detective,” he said with a light laugh.
Saihara also laughed and nodded, “yeah, I guess I should introduce myself again. My name is Saihara Shuuichi, and I'm the Ultimate Detective.”
“Well, I'm Ouma first name unknown, and I'm the Ultimate Amnesiac,” he grinned and stepped down from the counter. He quickly looked at himself in the mirror checking if he looked alright, brushing his hair with his hands in an attempt to make it less messy. “But I guess I don't need to introduce myself since Saihara- chan already knows me.”
“Maybe I could help you? There's a lot that has happened, I could tell you if you have any questions?”
“I do have many questions, but those aren't important right now. Tell me whatever you think it's vital to know about the others and this case while we go to the class trial.” Ouma said while tying his scarf around his neck.
“Wait, we don't have time for that. Just tell me things about myself,” he said quickly as he opened the door and left the bathroom. Saihara followed, surprise written all over his face.
“What kind of things, there's a lot that I don't know about—”
“No no no—” Ouma interrupted him—“I don't need my backstory, just tell me how I behaved, how I talked, important stuff that I should know so that the others don't notice anything suspicious. Like with the honorifics, are there any exceptions?”
Saihara looked at him astonished. “You're not going to tell anyone?”
Ouma stopped and looked at him with a blank expression. Inside he wanted to scream at him for being so stupid, or laugh at his naivete. He frowned, looking down to avoid Saihara's glaze. Maybe making him an 'ally' was a bad idea, either he was too trusting or a dumbass, but he already knew of his condition, and him being the Ultimate Detective must be useful somehow. Even though his talent wasn't real. Ouma sniffed, and rubbed his eyes, letting some fake tears fall. He made sure to hide his face but not fully, just enough so that Saihara could definitely see him crying.
“Ouma-kun…” Saihara moved towards him with hesitation, then he carefully placed a hand on Ouma's shoulder to offer comfort.
“We're in a killing game, right?” Ouma sobbed, “I don't want the others to know I don't remember, that makes me an easy target.” He dropped his voice and pretended to shiver. “I'm so scared, I don't wanna die!”
With that last sentence Ouma knew Saihara was his. He felt strong arms hugging him and a hand gently caressing his back.
“You're not going to die, I will help you remember and I'll get us out of the killing game, all of us!”
Ouma rolled his eyes, thankfully his face was hidden against Saihara's chest so he wouldn't notice. But no matter how cheesy that was, he couldn't help but feel proud of his accomplishment. He let the hug draw out for a bit longer murmuring a quiet “thank you” under his breath.
“Well we better get going, we have to survive the class trial first. I'll try to be useful, I don't want to become your liability.” Ouma said with fake nervousness in his voice as he separated from Saihara.
“You don't have to worry about that, I think it's better for you to rest, I've got you covered.” Somehow that made Ouma irritated, he knew that what he wanted was for the detective to pity him, but to dismiss him like that made him angry. He didn't show it but still frowned.
“Ouma-kun, what's wrong?”
“I… I don't know you nor the other people in this place but… I hope that you're not doing this on your own.”
“What do you mean?” Saihara asked, confused.
“I'm sorry if I'm wrong, the last thing I want is to wrongly assume things but… You're smart. And that's good! But I wonder if everyone is relying a bit too much on you in the class trials because of that…” Ouma blushed and shook his hands in front of his face. “Wait, no! That sounded so inconsiderate! I haven't met the others and I'm already saying—”
“Don't worry, Ouma-kun,” Saihara interrupted him, his expression was pensive and a hand was resting on his chin. Ouma wanted to laugh, the seed of doubt was already planted, he was excited to see how that developed.