Chapter Text
Ending the killing game was supposed to be Shuichi Saihara’s greatest achievement.
He remembers it too clearly to doubt it. The final revelation that shattered everything: Tsumugi Shirogane standing at the center of it all, exposed as the mastermind behind the killing game. The truth that none of it was what they thought, no hidden conspiracy, no simple tragedy, but a manufactured spectacle, a “game” they had all willingly signed up for and shown to the public.
He remembers the horror of that realization. The disgust. The way every death suddenly felt even heavier knowing it had been broadcast, staged, consumed like entertainment. He remembers his classmates breaking apart under the weight of it. He remembers almost losing Maki to rage and grief. He remembers Himiko standing on the edge of giving up entirely.
And he remembers how they pushed forward anyway.
With Keebo’s help, they tore through the final lies, broke the cycle, and escaped the killing game at last. They stepped beyond the academy together, battered but alive, ready to face whatever came next in a world finally free of scripted suffering.
So why is he waking up in a locker at the Ultimate Academy, staring at Kaede Akamatsu. His classmate he clearly remembers watching die in a brutal execution?
The moment snaps into place like a broken film reel restarting.
He is in a classroom. The same classroom. The same green light. The same arrangement of desks. Kaede is right there, alive and talking as if nothing in the world has ever gone wrong. Like she isn’t supposed to be dead. Shuichi hears her voice, but the words don’t fully land. His mind refuses to accept the contradiction forming in front of him.
This has to be a dream.
Or a delayed afterimage of trauma. A hallucination stitched together from memory and exhaustion. He even woke up in that locker, he remembers it, so maybe that was the real moment and this is what comes after, some warped reflection his mind created to cope.
But those theories collapse immediately.
Kaede turns slightly, speaking more sharply now, irritation cutting through her confusion.
“Hey, are you listening?”
Shuichi looks at her again.
She is real. Too real. The way she stands. The way she breathes. The way her presence fills the room.
He answers automatically, voice tight and uncertain. “S-sorry…”
But he isn’t sorry. He’s trying to understand why this is happening. Why everything has reset. Why the impossible is happening again.
If Kaede is here, then none of it happened. Or it did happen, and it’s been undone. Or he is not awake at all. Maybe the killing game was the dream. Maybe he is about to wake up in a different reality where none of this exists.
Before he can stabilize any of those thoughts, the air shifts.
Laughter. Mechanical movement. Bright, artificial voices.
The Monokubs appear.
Shuichi freezes instantly.
A wave of deja vu crashes through him so violently it steals the air from his lungs. Not just familiarity, certainty. Like he has stood in this exact moment before, watched the exact same entrance, felt the exact same dread.
Kaede stiffens. “W-what are they? Why are they talking? They’re just…stuffed animals, right?”
Monokid snaps back immediately. “We’re not stuffed animals! We’re the Monokubs!”
Monosuke whispers, “Thank goodness he got his line right this time…”
That sentence lands wrong. Not just strange, but wrong in a way Shuichi cannot explain.
This time?
Kaede tilts her head. “Monokubs…?”
One of them perks up. “Oh! You’ve heard of us?”
“N-no! Of course not!” she replies quickly. “I’ve never seen walking, talking stuffed animals before!”
The Monokubs cheer among themselves. But, that is quickly interrupted when Monophanie turns and looks directly at Shuichi.
“Hey, what about him? He looks terrified.”
Shuichi’s body goes rigid.
What about him?
“Have you heard of us?”
All eyes shift.
The room narrows.
He can feel it, pressure building behind his ribs, thoughts breaking apart too quickly to hold. Every memory he has is screaming at once: deaths, trials, executions, escape, freedom. All of it collapsing into a single impossible contradiction.
His breathing sharpens. His hands feel unsteady. His mind stops forming complete thoughts and starts looping fragments instead, this can’t be real, this can’t be real, this can’t be-
He turns abruptly.
Walks out.
And he has a panic attack because what else do you fucking expect him to do right now?
Behind him, Kaede calls after him, her voice confused. The Monokubs bicker, chatter rising in mechanical chaos. None of it matters. It all sounds distant, like it’s coming from the wrong world entirely.
Shuichi steps into the hallway.
The academy stretches out exactly as he remembers it. Too familiar. Too intact. A place that should not exist anymore in this form.
His breath is uneven. His thoughts refuse to settle. Every step forward feels like it should correct something, fix something, but nothing changes.
This can’t logically be happening.
Logically Kaede can’t be alive.
Logically the Monokubs can’t be here.
Logically the killing game can’t be happening again.
But it is.
And Shuichi doesn’t understand how he has ended up back at the beginning of a story that was already supposed to end.
That he ended.
Shuichi wanders the halls, trying to force his breathing into something steady, something rational. Every turn should bring familiarity that helps ground him, but instead it only deepens the wrongness. The academy is exactly the same. Every corridor feels like a memory forced back into place, and with every step that sinking pressure in his chest grows heavier, sharper, impossible to ignore.
He stopped at some point without fully realizing it.
His back presses against the wall, and only then does he notice something light resting against the back of his head. Thin. Soft. Almost weightless, but it doesn’t belong there.
He raises a hand slowly.
A hat.
He pulls it off, staring at it like it’s an object that shouldn’t be anywhere near him. Because it shouldn’t. He hasn’t worn this in forever. The last time he remembers it clearly is…
Kaede’s execution.
The thought detonates through him.
His stomach twists violently. Saliva floods his mouth. The world tilts.
He barely makes it to the bathroom before he’s on his knees in front of a toilet, vomiting hard enough that his body shakes with it. It feels endless, like his body is trying to reject everything it knows. Everything it remembers. Everything that makes this situation impossible.
When it finally stops, he stays there for a moment, dizzy and hollow, before forcing himself upright. He flushes. The sound feels too loud.
He stumbles out, unsteady, trying to rebuild something resembling control.
Think. He has to think.
Running away will only make him suspicious. Panicking will only make this worse. If someone else remembers too, he needs to find them. If no one does…then either he’s alone in this, or he isn’t sane at all.
Either option is terrifying in a different way.
When he steps back into the hall, Kaede is there.
She’s standing near his discarded hat, looking at it like she’s trying to decide what it means. When she notices him, she smiles.
“Hey,” she says lightly, “you walk really fast.”
He forces a sound that might be a laugh. It doesn’t feel real leaving his throat.
He needs to act normal. Investigate. Stay composed. Even if everything inside him is collapsing.
Kaede tilts her head, stepping closer, her expression soft with concern. “Are you okay? You ran off really suddenly.”
Up close, she’s exactly the same. The same voice. The same face. The same warmth that used to anchor him through everything unbearable. It makes his thoughts blur in ways he can’t afford.
He nods quickly. “Yeah. Sorry. I just, ah, uhm, got sick all of a sudden.”
It’s a lie. She knows it. But she doesn’t push.
Kaede glances at him for a moment longer, then exhales like she’s accepting it anyway. “Well, after you ran off, the Monokubs said this place is some academy built for us and there are Ultimates here.”
She hesitates, then adds, “I was going to look for them, but I wanted to make sure you were okay first.”
She picks up his hat and holds it out to him.
Shuichi stares at it.
It feels wrong to touch again. Like putting it back on would set him back entirely. He can’t do that.
“...You can just throw it somewhere,” he says quietly.
Kaede blinks, but after a beat she shrugs and tosses it aside without argument.
Then she smiles again. “You’re weird, but I like you! Honestly, I think you look better without it.”
Heat rises faintly to his face before he can stop it. Of all things, that shouldn’t matter right now, but it still lands somewhere human in him. He looks away. “T-thanks…”
Kaede straightens, energy returning to her voice. “I’m Kaede Akamatsu. Ultimate Pianist.”
She gestures around. “And if those weird stuffed teddy bears were right, then you’re an Ultimate too, right?”
For a split second, Shuichi forgets to breathe.
Right.
She doesn’t know him.
He has to remember that. She doesn’t know anything that came before. And he isn’t supposed to know anything, either.
He swallows. Forces himself into the version of reality that matches her.
“Shuichi Saihara,” he says. “Ultimate Detective.”
This time, he doesn’t clarify that he’s only an apprentice.
Kaede’s eyes light up. “That’s so cool! An ultimate detective, wow, you can help figure out what’s going on here then, right?”
A weak laugh escapes him before he can stop it. “Maybe.”
"Maybe" is definitely an understatement considering the fact he already knows everything.
Kaede turns, already stepping forward with purpose. “Then let's stick together, Shuichi! And, let’s start looking around!"
Shuichi follows automatically.
His mind is still racing, still breaking apart and rebuilding itself in the same breath. Dream. Delusion. Insanity. Loop. Anything. Something. There has to be an explanation that doesn’t end with him being trapped in an impossible contradiction.
There has to be.
And as he walks beside Kaede through the identical halls of an academy that should not exist anymore, Shuichi Saihara clings to the only thing he has left…
the need to find out which version of reality is lying to him.