Work Text:
Kazuichi Soda fiddles with the mecha husk in front of him.
I’m gonna fix her. I’m gonna—
He glances up and notes the clock above him. This doesn’t help. He’d taken out a lot of its innards to direct towards his current project, so the clock doesn’t read anything. Its hands are set in a specific location to give the appearance of working, but it’s so hulled out that those hands won’t ever move again. Just like—
Kazuichi gulps. He’s never been very good about working under pressure, and a lot of the mecha’s specs.... He feels like he’s making things up as he goes along. This entire Game has felt like that, making things up as he goes, and for the most part, he’s managed to avoid most of the gory…. Well, everything. He hasn’t died. He hasn’t had the inclination to kill anyone. He actually got to live his island fantasies for the most part. There are girls here! Pretty girls!
And standing above all of those girls was one princess – no, queen of them all: Sonia Nevermind.
Kazuichi’s breath quickens. He rubs the sweat from his forehead with the back of one greasy hand and ignores that it comes back spotted with pink blood. If it was an accident, then that doesn’t count, right? If he fixes her, then it doesn’t count, right?
He fiddles with the mecha husk, and he tries to attach and reattach things, and his throat tightens enough that it squelches his scream.
It was an accident.
Kazuichi isn’t lying to himself when he thinks that.
He’d just—
He hadn’t done anything, actually!
Sonia, his perfect princess, went after him!
…yeah! That’s it!
The fourth island opened only a few days before, and it was an amusement park, full of wonders the likes of which Kazuichi had never seen. He’d spent the day exploring with his beloved Sonia and their third wheel, Gundham, excited to see everything. Sonia was only recently returned to them after another small mishap during the first trial. Gundham thought her new mecha form was abhorrent, but Kazuichi found it fascinating. Maybe even more fascinating than his beloved princess was before her transformation!
Gundham fought with him over this, of course, and Kazuichi almost conceded the point. If Sonia was perfect before, then she couldn’t be more perfect. He would never say she was less than perfect before. And if this was a Frankenstein’s transformation of who Sonia was, then she was nothing more than an abomination.
Which, of course, left her squarely within the domain of Gundham, who thought he was some dark lord of ice or something like that.
But she was MECHA.
She was a ROBOT.
Which, of course, left her squarely within Kazuichi’s domain!
Not that, uh, Sonia was under anyone’s domain other than her own. Obviously. Of course. It’s not like she was some carnival prize or anything like that. She was just a normal human girl.
Okay, okay, so that’s a lie, too, because clearly, she was a princess, which made her more than a normal human girl, and now she was mecha, which made her not entirely human.
So she wasn’t just a normal human girl, she was a princess mecha girl, but that still didn’t make her a carnival prize or under someone else’s domain or anything like that! Is the point!
Sonia should be allowed to make her own decisions!
Which is why, despite Gundham clearly taking all of her time in that whole sweeping ballroom dance thing in the upper level of the castle (where Monokuma couldn’t get them because something to do with rats, apparently), Kazuichi had asked her to meet him near the rollercoaster! So they could talk! Or something!
Because honestly, Kazuichi was a mechanic – the Ultimate Mechanic – and Monokuma clearly made some mistakes with her design. She was crying soda! People don’t cry soda! And even though he thought that was super cool, it was clear his beloved princess Sonia didn’t! So he just!
….
He didn’t mean to push her in front of the roller coaster.
That was an accident.
Actually, a part of him is pretty sure that she tried to push him in front of the coaster, and he just….
He dodged.
And she tripped.
And despite being a fantastic dancer, like wow, she wasn’t used to the weight of her new mecha body.
So she fell.
And the roller coaster just….
….
The point is that it wasn’t his fault!
Kazuichi isn’t so sure he’s going to be able to fix her.
He’s tried to harvest some spare parts and machinery from the roller coaster itself. It’s not hard for him to tell the difference between those parts and Sonia’s parts – both were quite a bit wrecked when the shuttle hit her – but some of the parts of both were completely broken. If he can just find the right replacement parts, then…then….
Then no one will ever have to know.
No one.
He just needs to—
I’m gonna fix her, he tells himself. It’s going to be okay. I’m going to—
The sun rises, and the morning announcement rings out through the island.
Out here, it sounds the same as a body discovery.