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Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
Sayaka inhales finally. Her lungs burn worse than any tour she and the girls have ever been on. She cradles her wrist as the pain catches up to her, traveling rapidly through her veins and throughout her body. It throbs as if her heart moved locations, and without it there, she wouldn’t know she’s alive. Pain and a heart beat, that’s all the confirmation she needed.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
She keeps her eyes shut. If she opens them, she’ll wake from this dream, and this moment—living and breathing—ends. Sayaka pats the floor with her good hand, splashing water on her clothes, until she finds the shower handle to ground herself. When the drip slows to a steady adagio, she wills herself to look.
A boy lays still on the floor, centimeters away from the tip of her shoe. Unsure if it’s a blessing or a curse, he stays facedown. Blood seeps into the damp tile, lightening in color and spreading into the grout of the tile.
Sayaka draws her legs closer before the blood touches her. Swallowing her fear, she uses the tip of her shoe to push red hair out of the boy’s face. His features stay shadowed, but trails of blood run down his cheeks onto the floor.
The dryness of her tongue keeps her from speaking, but a single word sits on the edge of her lips.
Leon?
A tune to the same BPM as Makato’s dripping shower plays through her head, slow and agonizing.
Drip.
A song that once meant so much to her.
Drip.
A song she sang with the girls at the start of their career.
Drip.
The girls.
Sayaka gasps again, releasing herself from those mental chains around measure twenty-four. Leon tried to kill her—no, she planned to murder him for the girls. They needed her because without her, what would they be? Dead? Alone? Breaking apart? It’s hard to tell from that video Monokuma showed her, but it was enough.
She needed to survive for their group’s sake. More importantly, she needed to survive for her sake. As much as she loves them, she’ll always be her own number one. That’s how her whole life has been, and that’s how it’ll always be.
Drip.
Her dad started a chain reaction when her mother died. He worked to provide for their small family, but she took care of herself. She built her skills from scratch to become an idol. She hand-selected her girls to make her sound, look, and feel better. Sayaka built herself from the ground up, and without her, everyone around her falls apart.
She called this span of her life her rubato era: she controlled the spend of everything and everyone in her life. If she wanted to move fast, they followed. If she needed to slow down, they forced themselves to move with her. Sayaka was in complete and utter control.
Everyone’s lives that she made herself important to would fall apart without her, she’s the soloist, and that’s the perfect place to be. Which meant she needed to look after herself and survive by any means necessary because she refused to let the world rotate without her, take away what she earned, and lives continue without her presence.
That’s why this had to be done. That’s why she made herself important to Makoto. Without his care, her plan fell apart.
Drip.
At first, she meant everything she said to him. Having someone familiar brought comfort to her in an unknown situation, but once Monokuma explained the killing game, she knew she needed him one way or another. Is she wrong for manipulating him? Probably. Is it wrong to survive by any means necessary? Never.
She kept him close. Makoto became her secret weapon. He never hurt anything ever, going as far as nursing a crane back to health in middle school, so he’d protect her. His presence meant they’d never be alone, and in a twisted way, he became her shield. With him following her like a trained puppy, no one would target her. And it’s not like he came out with nothing from this. He stayed safe, too. So who cares, right?
Then the motive came, and the rest fell into place. Her shield morphed into a sharp, deadly weapon that she held with a vengeance. Swords are only useful until they grow dull or break, and she used hers. Escape and survival were one battle away, so she planned. Everything fell into place as she predicted.
Until it didn’t. Until it turned out she was in way over her head. She learned she can’t live in rubato if she wished to survive a killing game, a place where everyone lived in rubato.
Drip.
The knife she stole from the kitchen rests across the bathroom floor. The knife meant to murder Leon almost ended her life much too soon. Her life had been calculated for years, and she even calculated what would happen if this situation went wrong, but he never calculated what would happen if Leon was prepared.
She rushed the tempo of her plan. If she stayed moderato when she began, her pace matched it, but no, she found herself in an accelerando, reaching a presto BPM. Leon moved at a fast speed naturally, she should have heard it.
So it came down to who wanted to survive more. Despite the pain coursing through her when he broke her wrist, despite the fear of dying, despite the shame of disappearing and ruining what could be a survival story that would have her living forever, Sayaka fought.
Rubato wasn’t working. She needed a new tempo. One that would clear her head and help her long term, help her survive.
Sayaka made it to the bathroom and slowed herself to adagio.
Adagio.
Leon banged on the door.
Adagio.
He screamed at her.
Adagio.
Until he stopped. Out of nowhere, he reached a caesura.
Drip.
That’s when she heard the shower drip beside her. When she showered earlier, she swore she turned the handle completely to the side, but it dripped through it all. The water refused to be denied freedom regardless of the hurdle of the handle closing its exit, and it fought through resiliently even if it’s only one drip at a time.
No one’s more resilient than Sayaka Maizono. And she needed to prove it again and again, this time wasn’t any different. Her sword’s sharp, so she’ll fight until the end.
Sayaka laid a hand on the tile. In her haste, she never noticed the floor’s wet. Makoto’s shower leaked all over the floor. She crawled to the farthest corner of the bathroom. If Leon returned, he had about four steps from the door to reach her, but one’s all she needed for him to slip. All she needed to survive was for Leon’s feet to slide out from under him.
Leon lived in presto. Sayaka stayed in adagio. Could he ritardando into her tempo?
Drip.
The bedroom door rattled.
Drip.
The lock came off the hinges.
Drip.
A shoe squeaked.
Adagio.
Sayaka blinks. She survived. She survived, and on top of that, Leon died by his own actions. She didn’t make the shower leak all over the floor. It leaked on its own. So it doesn’t fall under Makoto either, right? His shower’s broken. No one killed Leon. He just… died.
To make sure, Sayaka keeps her eyes on his back. She continues the song from the measure she paused at before to gauge the passing of time. Her song grows louder the further she goes, and before she knows it, she mumbles the words and smiles.
Leon died. She survived.
If she was anyone else, she would panic. Her murder plan flopped, she’s stuck here, and the world turns without her. Everything she wants to avoid grows into fruition.
Wrong.
This is better than she could ever imagine. An immediate plan forms in adagio.
Drip.
Sayaka stands. She steps over Leon to stare at herself in the mirror. Her skin glows, untouched by the loser on the floor. Not a single hair falls out of place (a bit frizzy from how humid the bathroom became, but she can deal with it). Only sign she went through hell is the black bruising on her broken wrist. That’s all she needs for her new song—her lie—to begin.
She continues to mutter as she unties the bow from her shirt. Giving it a few hard yanks, it stretches and wrinkles. Leon yanked her around by it. Yeah, they’ll believe that. She messed her hair up just enough. Leon snatched her at some point. She forces tears to well up until she cries enough to form tear tracks and her eyes burn red. Leon scared her so much!
Sayaka gives herself an encouraging nod as she reaches the apex of the song. Thanks to Leon, she finds herself in a better placement than she planned. Her hands are clean. When they go to trial, she won’t be labeled as the blackened. She finds a new label that works better.
“You’re the victim,” she states. Her throat burns, but she smirks anyways. “They’ll all protect you now.”
She steps over Leon, careful not to touch any of the crime scene. Leon left carnage in his wake: slices across the walls and room trashed. He really played the part she writes for him in her mind as she makes her way through the scene. She’ll tell them she thought Makoto came to check on her, she opened the door, and he forced his way inside the bedroom. Such a simple, easy lie.
When she strides out into the hall, she makes sure to remove the nameplate. The only sign that she had malintent, that she intended for Makoto to be her sword and shield. She switched the plates around with precision, silently and carefully in case a curious mind wandered the halls.
Sayaka knocks on Makoto’s door. If she sold the lie well enough, everyone would protect her. Not only would Makoto never leave her side, the others would hover. Her victim label’s her new shield, and they’d protect her. Her resilience earns her that.
Adagio. Her plan’s long term instead of short term. She can’t fluctuate the speed to her will anymore, but there’s a beauty in singing at this speed. It’ll build a stronger, emotional voice—a more compelling story for when she makes her return to the outside world.
Because of the other students, she’ll survive this with her hands clean. She earned their protection, and she covered all of her tracks.
…right?
Makoto opens the door at moderato.