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Amidst all the chaos, Aoi barely sees any of her friends in the weeks following their rescue from Hope’s Peak Academy.
The Future Foundation, the organisation that saved them, is a benevolent entity. At least, that’s the impression that Aoi gets from all the kind-looking people who talk to her, reassure her that her ordeal is over and that she—along with Makoto, mostly Makoto—did a great thing for the world in defeating Enoshima Junko and that they’re going to do everything they can to return the world to normal.
In fact, everyone who Aoi talks to is really, really nice. She and the other five are brought to a big hospital on the outskirts of Kyoto and given their own rooms in a ward on the far end of the fourth floor. There, Aoi meets other patients; children and parents who were injured in the Tragedy, teachers and police officers who managed to escape the chaos, politicians and business owners who don’t know what to do with themselves now, the like. Nobody knows what to do with themselves now, and Aoi supposes she’s the same, but she doesn’t really fit in with these people, not in the way that they and the Future Foundation fit in with each other.
While Aoi was locked up in Hope’s Peak Academy, hiding from the world as it tore itself apart, these people have been here, fighting on the side of hope. Aoi doesn’t even remember the beginning of the Tragedy, doesn’t remember the circumstances that led to her being hidden away and doesn’t remember the devastation that she returned to. It’s all so… disorienting, and what’s worse is that, while the Future Foundation seems so well-meaning, Aoi has been sequestered from her friends for almost three weeks now.
The doctors and nurses explain that their isolation is intentional, that they need time to adjust to their circumstances, the world that they came out into and its nasty, polluted air. They always make it sound so logical, but Aoi would be lying if she said that she actually understands. Wouldn’t it make more sense if they adjusted side by side? Wouldn’t it be easier for them to come to terms with their reality if they were together for it? After all, aren’t the six of them the only people in this hospital who had forgotten the Tragedy?
She tries to be patient about it at first. The Future Foundation saved her and everyone else from Hope’s Peak Academy and the wreckage that surrounds it, after all. Were it not for the helicopters that swarmed them as they stepped out into the rubble, they might have died within minutes of escaping, been killed off by what the Foundation keeps calling the “Remnants” for voting for Enoshima Junko’s execution. Aoi really has no reason to fight them.
After the second week passes, though, Aoi starts to lose patience. By the fifth day of her third week away from her friends, she’s outright done with being alone. She waits for a nurse to finish checking her over and slips out of her hospital room when the woman has gone, bare feet padding against the tiled floor as she makes her way down the hall.
Being able to find any one of her friends would be a blessing. Even someone as antagonistic as Touko or Byakuya would be a familiar face, if nothing else. But as Aoi creeps down the hallway, occasionally slipping around a corner to hide from medical staff, she knows that there’s only really one person who she wants to see right now.
Back in the killing game… so little had been certain. By the arrival of the sixth trial, even Aoi’s memories were called into question. It’s the most scared she ever remembers feeling for as long as she’s been alive, and if she ruminates on it for too long, she can feel her eyes starting to tear up over Sakura and everyone else they lost, all the pain they suffered within those walls. The Future Foundation wants to help them with that, too, but at this moment, the only person Aoi can imagine giving her any peace of mind, the only person who did, back in the game, was Kyoko.
After a while of slipping down the halls, chewing her nails as she attempts to locate the room she watched Kyoko go into back when they all first arrived, she catches a glimpse of lavender through the window on top of one of the doors. Aoi stops in her tracks, makes sure the coast is clear, and then beelines for it, popping up onto her toes to peer through the window and make sure that she saw correctly. Sure enough, the Ultimate Detective herself is seated in her bed, legs bent, staring vacantly out the window at her elbow.
Aoi has never been a person who hesitates. She grabs the door knob and thrusts it open, stepping inside Kyoko’s room. The other girl doesn’t startle at first, head turning slowly in her direction, but when she and Aoi make eye contact, Kyoko straightens up, her lavender eyes going wide.
“Asahina-san? What are you doing here?” she asks, just a hint of emotion in her voice. Aoi thinks it’s… bewilderment, but Kyoko’s face is a mask of neutrality even in her obvious shock. It’s hard to tell. Still, Aoi takes the fact that she doesn’t seem upset as a good omen and closes the door behind her, bounding over to sit down on Kyoko’s bed.
“Seeing you, obviously!” she chirps. “Aren’t you just going crazy in here, Kirigiri-chan? I needed to see a familiar face!” It sounds a little more impersonal when she puts it that way, which Aoi doesn’t quite think she likes—but then, Kyoko has always been emotionally distant at best, outright cold at the worst. Not that Aoi can blame her, circumstances being what they were, especially knowing that Kyoko had forgotten her talent on top of everything else… still, all this to say that it’s maybe for the better that she doesn’t act like she came out specifically seeking Kyoko. At least not yet. “How’re you doing? It feels weird being in a hospital room when we’re not exactly sick, doesn’t it?”
Kyoko’s expression becomes thoughtful. She glances away, a gloved index finger coming up to touch her cheek. “I’m not unfamiliar with hospitals, but I do find the experience to be a bit eerie,” she admits. Her eyes flicker back in Aoi’s direction. “And you…? You said you’ve been going crazy?”
“I asked if you were going crazy,” Aoi huffs. Kyoko only smirks at her, so with a sigh, Aoi concedes, “But yeah, I’ve been a little… lonely, honestly.” She scratches the back of her head, chuckling sheepishly. “It’s like… I don’t know. There’s plenty of people around, you know? And the nurses have even let me talk to some of the other people on my hall… but it’s not the same as talking with you or even Naegi or Hagakure.” Admitting that she’s desperate enough to talk to Byakuya or Touko is a possibility that she only briefly allows to cross her mind; it would be much too embarrassing.
“Right… I understand.” Kyoko leans against her headboard and gazes out the window once more. “Maybe I’m just being cynical… but a part of me wonders if they’re keeping us sequestered intentionally. It’s difficult for me to get a read on the Future Foundation’s plans for us thus far, but I can’t imagine that they’re completely innocent.” Her brow knits with thought, the slightest of creases in her face. “Or… maybe that’s too strong of a way to put it, but it’s too soon to say that they don’t other have plans with us, is all.”
“You mean, aside from our recovery?” Aoi frowns, mirroring Kyoko’s furrowed brow and staring into her lap. “You think they want something else…?”
In the corner of her eye, Aoi catches it as Kyoko looks back at her. “Think about it. Naegi-kun ended the killing game, essentially proving himself to be the Ultimate Hope, the one who could stand up to Enoshima… the Future Foundation aims to end the Tragedy. He’ll be invaluable to them.”
Geez… hasn’t Makoto already been through enough? But then again… have any of them done enough? Aoi scoots closer to Kyoko, inadvertently brushing shoulders with the other girl in her haste to get a look out the window. It’s a bit foggy with condensation, but through it Aoi can make out slate grey skies, dark streets, and blood splatters on the buildings across the road. Their surroundings are as bleak as they were the last time Aoi saw them, and it’s doubtful that that’ll be changing any time soon. Not unless they do something about it.
But… Aoi’s stomach twists. “Kirigiri-chan, if the Future Foundation has been fighting for so long and the world looks like this… how do we know that we’ll be any help? I know we’re Ultimates, but they’re Ultimates too, aren’t they…? Or at least most of them are?” She bites her lip and looks back down at her lap. “What could we possibly do that they haven’t already thought of?”
Caught up, Aoi only notices Kyoko moving when she feels the smooth leather of Kyoko’s glove, surprisingly strong fingers wrapping around her own. Heart skipping a beat, Aoi lifts her gaze, meets the unwavering edge in Kyoko’s, and feels her breath catch in her throat at the smile she finds there.
“We aren’t just Ultimates, Asahina-san,” Kyoko says quietly. “We’re the Ultimates who defeated Enoshima Junko. A large part of that was Naegi-kun, but it was us, too.” She squeezes Aoi’s hand. “The world will start to change. It already is, now that Enoshima is dead… we just have to see things through to the end without wavering, keep looking to the future. You can do that, can’t you? You’ve never been the kind of person who gives up easily.”
Kyoko speaks with so much… certainty, like she knows this about Aoi despite only remembering knowing her for a month. It brings a lump in her throat, in part because she’s touched to be believed in—but mostly because Kyoko has seen her at her worse, languishing in her grief over Sakura and spitefully trying to kill off everyone else, and believes in her anyway.
“I… If Kirigiri-chan thinks I can do it, then,” Aoi sniffles and brings up a smile; it comes easier than she expects it to, “then I will! I’ll fight no matter what our opposition looks like!” She falters soon after. “A-As soon as the Future Foundation will let us.”
“I imagine they have a lot more that needs discussed,” Kyoko says, her lip curling. Despite her smirk, there’s a glow in Kyoko’s eye, an odd warmth that wasn’t there before. “Thank you for coming to visit me, Asahina-san. It might not seem like it, but I needed the company, too. You have a way of brightening a room.”
Aoi knows that Kyoko isn’t trying to flatter her. The detective is as perceptive as she is shockingly dense at times. She’s probably just saying what she feels. Still, that, if anything, makes Aoi’s face heat even more than it would have if Kyoko had been intentionally trying to make her blush. She looks away and swallows against a suddenly-dry throat, then grins so hard her cheeks hurt.
“I’ll come by again tomorrow,” she decides. “And the day after that, and then again until we’re let out of here. And then, we’ll work together! We’ll fight for our future together, won’t we, Kirigiri-chan?”
Kyoko squeezes Aoi’s hand; Aoi’s grip tightens to match it.
“We will,” Kyoko agrees, inclining her head. “That much is certain.”