Chapter Text
Students Remaining: 13. 12.
— — — — — — —
Teruko wasn’t sure how much time had passed since she’d started crying.
Crying hard on the floor of the empty courtroom, her tears soaking into both the compression brace and the bruises and bumps (ones that never seemed to heal completely before more showed up) that called her knees home. Her sobs were the only sounds to break the room’s uncomfortable quiet, with MonoTV keeping its word about granting her a moment alone and the sounds of her classmates hurrying Levi’s body into the elevator nothing more than a faint memory.
And a fainter memory than that was the sound of Ace’s voice—demanding with all the vitriol and fire he could muster that MonoTV start the execution.
Finally lifting her head from her soaked knees, her gaze traveled to where the jockey’s lifeless body had been—discarded? Abandoned? Left untouched until she finally made the decision to leave and allowed MonoTV the chance to haul him off to wherever else it kept the deceased?
Despite the morbidity of the situation, such questions did have Teruko scrubbing the tears from her eyes while her mind raced with thoughts. What did MonoTV end up doing with the bodies once a trial was said and done? Any trace of Xander’s corpse had been wiped clean from the computer lab, and there was a high chance that there had been some remains of Min left after being torn to shreds.
Her features twisted with disgust as she finally pulled herself back to her feet, thoughts being pushed to the back of her mind with as much effort as she could muster. What good would it to her to question their fates now? Especially when—
“AAAAAH!”
“Huh?”
Her internal attempts to scold herself were shattered along with the silence of the courtroom by a blood-curdling scream. One coming from the aforementioned body that—by all logic—should’ve never been able to scream again.
And yet when Teruko jolted across the courtroom in a flash to investigate further, she was greeted by the sight of none other than Ace Markey moving—screams petering into sharp inhales of breath as he tried to pull himself up from the ground. Tried and failed; his arms trembled like jello as he used them to support his upper half, and any further attempts to flood his lungs with air simply resulted in him hyperventilating out of sheer panic.
Teruko’s hand hesitated above his shoulder for a few seconds, as if by some horrible luck (not an impossibility on her part) touching him would somehow break the illusion and he’d once again be nothing more than a corpse on the ground.
But when his own hands met his chest—gloves frantically clawing at the front of his jacket while the hyperventilating continued—any concerns were forgotten in favor of trying to calm him down. “Woah, woah, Ace, hold on, just take a second to breathe—”
A pause. “Like actual breaths, not what you’re doing now. You’re probably gonna make yourself pass out again if you keep that up.”
Her warning seemed to give him enough pause to slow down, and orange eyes met brown as Ace’s gaze was finally pulled from the floor to meet her own. He was silent for a few seconds (probably a record for him), before he finally choked out, tone noticeably absent of its usual brand of aggression: “I…I’m not dead?”
“Well, you don’t look like a corpse,” Teruko said, words echoing his retort from a few days prior. “Although I say that loosely, because—”
Another glance-over of him brought attention to the unhealthy paleness of his skin, even paler than usual. The dark circles under his eyes, likely brought on by his lack of sleep across the past week. Hands trembling against the front of a jacket that, upon closer inspection, hung over him in a way where his stomach seemed far more concave than what was probably healthy.
“—well, to be honest, you look terrible.”
“You look—”
Any attempt to bark on Ace's end was silenced before it could properly take form, and his eyes squeezed shut with discomfort. “...Yeah, fine, can’t argue with that one,” he muttered weakly. “Feel as shitty as I probably look.”
He finally pulled his hands away from his front to stare at them with utter disbelief. “So…this is real? I…I’m really not dead?”
“Not unless one of those bullets actually hit me instead of Levi and I just haven’t realized it yet,” Teruko replied. “Which I highly doubt.”
At the mention of the bullets, Ace’s attention snapped from her towards the messy trail of blood on the other side of the courtroom that lead all the way to the elevator. One he stared at for another few seconds of silence before turning back to her with a choked out: “...Levi?”
“Everyone else took him upstairs,” she explained. “Elevator opened as soon as you hit the ground.”
“A call, it seems, I made far too soon.”
Both jumped in surprise at the sound of another voice, and Ace instinctively flinched as the form of MonoTV ambled out of the shadows towards them. Despite the glaring damage to its screen—the face that had once been projected onto it no longer visible—it still shifted to Ace as if it were still able to see him regardless. “How strange,” it remarked with a subtle tilt of its head. “The readings on Ace Markey’s heart rate originally informed me that it was no longer beating. I suppose with the recent damage to my body, it’s possible an error could’ve occurred—”
“And what, you’re here to fix that now?!”
The frightened spirit in Ace’s tone had returned as he scrambled backwards on his hands like a startled rabbit until his back hit the nearest podium. “Are you seriously gonna make me go through all of that again?!”
“It’s an action of consideration,” MonoTV confirmed. “After all, the point of the killing game is to ensure the death of every single student playing. And if a blackened student fails to die in their execution, it hardly seems fair to give them a second chance at participation.”
Every word out of the robotic creature only succeeded in getting Ace to cower further—a sight that Teruko observed with a mix of thoughtfulness on the part of MonoTV’s words.
Even if Ace had been mostly talking a loud game ever since the first she’d met him, there had always been a clear, underlying cowardice that would arise whenever he was presented with the tiniest bit of pushback. All attempts to appear tough squashed just as soon as someone tried to meet it with their own. And even as the trial had progressed, his vitriol and rage had gradually shifted to exhausted acceptance once he’d been backed into a corner. All of which had come to a head in the seconds before his execution, in the form of tears and an admittance of unfiltered fear towards his horrible fate.
And there was no disguising the fear that had creeped its way back into his features since the moment he’d first awakened. That usual spark of rage that everyone who knew the jockey had come to expect—the burning passion that had constantly gotten him into more trouble than was worth—had dwindled significantly in favor of a look of pure, unfiltered terror.
Terror that put all of the anxieties he'd tried so hard to bury with loud words and aggression on full display, tears once again welling up in tired orange eyes as he cowered like a cornered prey animal before the jaws of a hungry predator. “Please…” he begged, an arm raised to shield his face. “I don’t want to die…”
“I believe the rules were made clear to you from the beginning,” MonoTV said in its usual flat, unfeeling tone. “All murderers must be held accountable for their crimes. If you are voted as the blackened student, you must be executed.”
It began to pace before him in a cat-like manner, its tail twitching contently behind its body. “However, I do retract my earlier remark about considering the idea of making you go through your execution again. It seems like a lot of additional effort, one our audience might find more redundant than anything.”
“Wh-what does that mean?” Ace asked, arm lowering the slightest amount. “So…you’re not going to execute me?”
“Oh, I never said that.”
The floor of the courtroom rumbled ominously for a moment as a trapdoor slowly opened beside MonoTV, before the machine gun from earlier rose up and out of the waiting darkness. “I simply think doing this the easy way would suffice.”
And now the little color left in Ace’s features had completely drained away, the sight freezing him in place like a deer in headlights. “W-wait—”
“Such a shame,” MonoTV droned on. “The true cause of death being fear-induced cardiac arrest would’ve been far more fitting for someone like you. Not to mention this will leave more of a mess for me to clean later.”
The gun let out a low humming sound, as if it were preparing to activate. An action which MonoTV confirmed with a calm: “Firing in ten seconds. Nine. Eight—”
“Wait—” Ace begged frantically, hands clawing at the podium behind him and clinging to it for dear life. “Please, I-I don’t wanna die—!”
“Seven, six—”
While Ace continued to beg and plead for his life, Teruko remained where she stood in thoughtful silence, gaze quickly shifting back towards the waiting elevator.
It would be so easy, to leave now and not turn back as Ace was once again dangled before the waiting jaws of death before being devoured whole. To turn away as yet another person was ripped apart by this horrific killing game.
“Five—”
“Fuck, fuck—”
Technically Ace should’ve been dead already, nobody else would know that it took a few extra minutes and several extra bullets to get the job done proper.
“Four—”
“No! No, no, no—”
Teruko’s gaze shifted from the elevator to the blood trail on the floor. A slowly-drying memory of the man bleeding out many stories above her head. A reminder of all the other blood spilled, be it physically in the form of Xander or Min, or metaphorically in the form of Arei and, if she did nothing—
“Three—”
“Teruko, someone, anyone—fuck, help me!”
A reminder of how this was all her fault.
“Two, one—”
“Wait—”
Before MonoTV could finish its countdown, Teruko was standing between the two of them in an instant, with her arms spread out in a defensive pose. One met with a series of stuttered gasps of relief from the man behind her—as if breathing hadn't even been a consideration for him until that point—but she kept her eyes forward as she continued with: "Hold on a second, you can't kill him."
“I highly suggest you do not interfere again, Teruko Tawaki,” MonoTV said. “You already managed to evade one execution of your own today. Any further rule-breaking and I shall have to resort to—”
“You said it wouldn’t be fair to give him a second chance,” she interrupted. “That all murders must be held accountable for their crimes, and that all blackened students must face execution.”
She pointed a finger towards MonoTV. “But if your sensors indicated that his heart stopped at some point, wouldn’t that technically mean he’s not only been held accountable for his crimes but that he’s actually followed through on the rule of facing execution as well?”
“Wh-what?” she heard Ace choke out behind her.
“I second his confusion,” MonoTV said, the barrel of the gun faltering beside its body. “However, I am intrigued enough to let you continue speaking, if you can prove your claim to be true.”
“You said it yourself, your sensors were damaged when Ace swung his fist into you,” Teruko said. “Either that means Ace simply survived the execution from beginning to end, or that his heart actually stopped and restarted at some point. Meaning that, by all definitions of the word, he did in fact die.”
A shrug. “And since your sensors are clearly unreliable due to the state of your body, there’s no real way to go and prove that the latter didn’t happen. And if there’s even a small chance that it did, it would make no sense to punish him further after he’s gone and followed your rules to the letter.”
She pointed a finger at its screen. “Besides, you’re broadcasting this stupid show to someone, right? You’re telling me the audience watching this wouldn’t be the tiniest bit interested in keeping a contestant in the game who managed to get killed off as a blackened student and somehow came back to life?"
MonoTV tilted its head curiously. “I see. Allow me to process this information for a brief few minutes, and see what conclusions can be drawn.”
The robot fell into a thoughtful silence, one that echoed throughout the rest of the courtroom until Teruko heard a frantic whisper hissed from the ground behind her: “Teruko, what the fuck are you doing?”
Daring to pull her attention away from MonoTV, she peered over her shoulder to meet Ace’s gaze as best she could. “Uh, saving you?” she whispered back. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“Well…yeah, no shit,” Ace replied slowly, one hand tentatively declawing itself from the podium. “But, like…why? Also what the fuck took you so long?”
Teruko gave a flat look in return. “Hey, if you’re gonna complain, I could still make a break for the elevator and just leave you to deal with this by yourself—”
“No—”
Ace’s answer cut sharply through her words, tears beginning to prick at the corners of his eyes once again. “I-I mean, just—fuck, don’t leave me alone—”
“Then shut up and just be grateful you’re not being pumped full of lead right now,” Teruko said firmly.
“I—”
A pause, before Ace returned a hand to the front of his jacket. “Wait, speaking of that…you said my heart stopping was what killed me. But I’m pretty sure they fired a gun at me, right? So how the hell’s that supposed to work?”
“Uh…yeah, about that,” Teruko said. “It was a blank. Only shot out confetti.”
“...What?”
“From what we saw, you got so scared of the idea of being shot that you just…dropped from fright,” she explained.
“I…”
The hand at his front gripped his jacket tighter as a pitiful smile tugged at his lips. “Fuck…of all the goddamn ways to go out,” he said, tone laced with shame. “I…I’m so fucking pathetic…”
“Alright, scenario processed.”
Both their attention snapped back to MonoTV at the sound of its voice, with Teruko’s defensive stance returning to full height. “And?”
“I have considered the evidence presented to me in regards to Ace Markey’s survival,” it continued. “And I have come to a conclusion.”
Ace narrowed his eyes. “Are you gonna hurry up and tell me whether or not you plan on putting me through Hell a second time, or—”
“Since Ace Markey has in fact taken the brunt of his execution and has therefore technically paid for his crime—” MonoTV continued, “—and since my current state does not allow me to make a fair call on whether or not the execution was successful in truly killing him or not, he will be allowed to continue participating in the Killing Game with no additional punishments.”
“—not?”
Behind her, Teruko heard the snap of teeth, as if Ace had promptly shut his mouth, while MonoTV continued: “The only ways a student in the killing game will die is if someone decides to take their life, or if they commit a murder and are voted as the Blackened before promptly being executed for their crime. Such is the rules of the game.”
Beside its body, the machine gun slowly descended back into the floor. “However, I have concluded that Teruko’s argument was interesting enough to take into consideration. You have been thoroughly punished enough for your crime, and there is technically no rule saying that anyone who comes back to life after dying during their execution must be punished further.”
More movement behind Teruko followed by the sight of orange peeking its way into her peripheral view turned her attention to her right, where Ace now stood at her side. “Wait, you’re…you’re really serious?" he asked. "I really don’t have to die again?”
“I do not joke about these sort of things,” MonoTV explained. “And to prove the legitimacy of my decision further—”
Their sentence was punctuated by a sound across the room, and both Ace and Teruko’s heads turned to see that the elevator doors had been opened. “I think you two have spent enough time down here,” MonoTV said. “And I firmly request that you return to the top floor before I retract my decision—”
Whether it was due to MonoTV’s threat or just the chance at freedom alone, Ace’s footsteps echoed loudly through the courtroom as he took off for the elevator like a shot fired from a gun—speed only faltering the faintest amount as he crossed through the trail of blood on the floor. “Get me upstairs, get me upstairs,” he muttered frantically, finger slamming against one of the buttons on the keypad just out of view.
“Guess that’s my sign to go, too,” Teruko said. “Otherwise I’ll be waiting forever for it to come back down.”
MonoTV was silent at this remark for a moment, until Teruko had already taken a few steps away from it: “You truly are the Ultimate Lucky Student, Miss Teruko Tawaki,” it said. “Not many others would’ve been able to try that and have it work out so well in their favor.”
Teruko paused in her tracks as it continued: “However, make no mistake. This will not solve the problem you are hoping to fix by saving his life. This game will continue until it has achieved its goal, not a moment sooner.”
Teruko lingered in place for a few more seconds, the weight of its words keeping her feet glued to the floor—
—before her footsteps started again with a flat: “I know.”
Despite Ace’s best efforts to shut the doors, the elevator remained open long enough for Teruko to join him inside. Leaving MonoTV to continue staring at them from across the room. “Get some rest, you two,” it said, tone just as calm as ever. "While is it is now veering towards midday, I'm sure it will be needed regardless. Oh, and one more thing just for the sake of formalities—”
Its screen appeared to shift in Ace’s direction once again, as if it were an eyeball following his movements, before a small trapdoor on its right shot out a burst of confetti. “Congratulations, Ace Markey. You get to stay in the Killing Game. Aren’t you happy?”
Ace’s finger froze in place atop the button he’d pressed at least a hundred times by that point, gaze remaining firmly fixed on MonoTV until the doors finally slid closed.
— — — — — — —
Students Remaining: 12. 13.