Work Text:
"It's over for you, Kiyotaka! Give up."
Kiyotaka looked at the average-looking boy with an angry grin. He had on black and white attire with bits of red here and there, accompanied with a black and white hat.
"That's it? You really got me..! Haha! How hopeless…You all would rather live in that dust cloud of a world than live splendid lives here?" The mastermind stared in disbelief, looking around at the others in the courtroom before locking eyes with a certain programmer. A mockingly pleading look was in the madman's eyes, as if he was about to cry.
"My my..my own partner, betraying me so easily. Are you really going to take their side?!" He shouted, the facade falling oh so quickly. He was going to say more when they cut him off.
"I n-never wanted to work with you..!" They cried, their hands trembling as their eyes welled with unshed tears.
"You..You took him from me…You p-promised he'd be s-safe if I helped."
"Oh please! No need to act so innocent anymore." He guffawed, making his way off his pedestal and over to his partner in crimes. He grabbed their face, an action that made them freeze. An action that had happened multiple times before. So many times he spared them and so many times he threatened his life.
"I know you're just as sick as me. You may not like despair directly, but you sure do enjoy how nervous it makes you." Kiyotaka grinned, staring down the shorter. "You're even smiling as I talk down to you, are you thinking about what I could do to you? What the consequences of talking to me- of betraying me!.. Since these fools pity you enough to 'find forgiveness in their hearts', ugh, you won't deserve to feel the despair of defeat." He finally let go, the programmer shaking with a small smile on their face. Was it fear? Was he telling the truth and they really did like the nervous rush they got from defying the mastermind? Or could it be happiness from being free? It was anybody's guess.
Their peer walked back to his pedestal and pressed a button, causing two large televisions to descend behind him. With a large smile on his face and eyes full of despair, a chain quickly shot out from a wall and clamped to his neck before pulling him away.
Kiyotakas execution was…something, but it didn't feel complete. There was silence, and it wasn't the comfortable kind. After a few minutes something started beeping. Everyone looked around to find the sound, quickly noticing the look of dread on Chihiros face. It was coming from him? A bracelet on his wrist that had unclamped during the execution laid on the floor beeping continuously. But the look of dread wasn't at the bracelet, it was for what had shown up on screen.
It was a man on screen, his hair was a brownish-blonde color and some of it stuck to his face, sweat dripping down his face as he tried to loosen his binds. His glasses were close to sliding off his nose, his frantic movements making it hard for them to stay on. A few seconds passed before a door opened, a light shining through it before two silhouettes came crawling out on all fours, an animalistic growl coming from one of the monsters. The man let out a worried shout and struggled faster, the monsters stalked closer…slowly. He pleaded at the animal, desperately looking for some way to get out without harm.
Sadly, this story doesn't end as happily as the highschoolers would like.
"No…No- Please no no NO! PAPA!!" Chihiro shrieked, reaching out for the screen with wide and teary eyes as the beasts pounced at the man. The tearing and crunching of his flesh and bones — along with his pained screams — were all Makoto and the survivors could hear, Fujisaki's sobs and pleas the only things audible when the broadcast was shut off.
The room was devastatingly quiet, no one knew what to say, everyone was either too freaked out about what just happened or just thinking about the fact that they actually beat the mastermind. Makoto felt horrible, seeing his former classmate in the state he was in.
Chihiro was muttering at this point, trembling and hanging his head. The lucky student couldn't just let them suffer in their own silence.
"Um…F-Fujisaki? Are you-"
They giggled a little, interrupting Makoto. Then he lifted his head up and shakily stood up, tears still streaming down their face. They turned to Naegi and approached him, grabbing his hands and bringing them up to their chests. He was too shocked at the assumed recovery of Chihiros reactions. They looked up at him with a smile, a smile that filled him with all kinds of dread.
"Kill me."
"Wh-What!?"
"Please, I…I'll do anything, please just kill me.." They begged.
"No! I'm not going to let another of our friends die!-"
"Please! He's all I had, I did it all for-for him and- and he's.." They choked, a dejected laugh coming from them. "This is what he loved, this horrible feeling. I want you to kill me! I don't want to be like him!" He yelled, his hold on Makoto's hands getting tighter as he got more aggressive with his pleas.
"Please! I don't want to live in a world without my dad…Just kill me..!" They said with a manic smile, their eyes clouded with despair, their tears racing down his face in teams. "Don't let me be like-!" They go limp, almost falling to the floor but (barely) being caught by Makoto. He'd assumed the programmer had passed out from the stress, but the biker in front of him said otherwise.
"Holy shit, that worked-!" Mondo exclaimed, the worried looks in the room prompted him to explain himself.
"I just knocked 'im out! The kid was freakin' out, the fuck'd you 'xpected me ta do?" He huffed and took the inert assistant from Makoto considering he looked like he was about to drop the poor thing. He picked up their light figure, looking down at his now relaxed face. Chihiro looked like they hadn't slept in days, the bags under their eyes very apparent and their tears — now dry — left very faint marks on his face.
The biker looked up and over to Makoto, as if asking 'what do we do now?'
The Ultimate Hope looked around the room, quickly finding a remote with one big button on it. He went and picked it up.
"If he kept his word…this is our way out of here. Come on, everyone!" He called out and led the way to the vault door.
They were finally going to leave this hell.