Chapter Text
Monomoko didn’t want to do this anymore. It had given a hint in the last trial. It ruled out Tamba. It wasn’t allowed to do that, for the purpose of the game. Because the blackened deserved a fair trial, because they were testing…what?
The point of the game seemed beyond it in the first place, but now with the biggest rule broken, the pointlessness of the game overwhelmed it.
The students had gone quiet.
They were staring at it from their podiums. Yanagi tentatively began to approach it.
“Monomoko? Are you alright?”
It stared. Yanagi seemed concerned. Genuinely concerned. The girl he was in love with was dead and he was concerned for it.
A horrid feeling began to lap at its throat. It felt like acid. It couldn’t speak. It had done this.
If it could just go back -
—
Hitomi woke up slowly, which was unusual for her. Her head pulsed as she sat up.
“Mmh, my head,” she muttered. Her words echoed, just a little. The room she was in was pitch black. To her right, something moved. A shoe scuffed the floor.
“Who’s there?”
The light came on. Immediately, she squeezed her eyes shut. Her head felt heavier, the pain nearer.
“Hitomi?”
Hitomi froze. Ojima was staring at her, wide eyed, like she was a ghost. He took a step forward and she scrambled away. The killing game.
Her head, the sleep, the rice that went everywhere in the kitchen. Sticky blood in Isono’s orange hair.
Her fingernail snapping on the podium during the trial, desperate for Yanagi to do something. She didn’t know what at that point. Condemn her to death? Save her, and have her live with what she did?
Her own signature, over and over again. Sasaki Hitomi. How could she have even lived after that? She wouldn’t even be Sasaki Hitomi after that. There’s no way to shed her uniform and be done with that. Be done with being a murderer.
She remembered the panic, blinding panic, locking up her muscles as the pike inched closer. When it touched her stomach. Everything blurry with her tears, her panic, her hand that wouldn’t move fast enough.
She remembered -
“Hitomi,” Hiroaki whispered, staring at her.
“Excuse me?”
What kind of hell is she in where Hiroaki feels the need to first name her?
“Nagawa, is this real?” Ojima said quietly.
“Let's find out. RABBIT!”
Hitomi felt far too out of it. She hadn’t even noticed other people talking. Tsuno was talking to…
Isono.
“Is this some kind of punishment?” she muttered to herself. Maybe her punishment hadn’t ended. Maybe she wasn’t dead, and they gave her a hallucinogen or something.
She had felt Isono’s blood. It had been warm, sticky, too sticky. She had needed it off her body immediately. It felt like it was crusted onto her, in all the crevices she couldn’t reach.
Isono was dead. But she was there, being held by Tsuno and Wada.
“Rabbit!”
“It’s not gonna answer, Nagawa,” Watari snapped. She had her eyes on Okazaki as she said it.
“Hold on,” Hitomi got up slowly, slapping away Ojima’s hand when he offered it. “I feel like I’m missing something here. What happened? Everyone, tell me what you last remember.”
To her surprise, Hiroaki actually smiled.
“Second chance at life and you get right back to bossing people around. How very you Hitomi.”
“Okay, stop that right there. I barely know you, stop calling me that. Also, what do you mean?”
“Well, if I had to guess, nearly everyone here will remember what they last remembered before dying. Am I right?”
The students all agreed.
“Then there you go. We’ve gone back in time, or I’ve gone insane. One of the two.”
“Of all people to go insane, it would be you,” Kamimura muttered.
“Says you! You’re like a walking talking representation of mental illness!"
Hitomi sighed.
“Everyone!” she yelled.
“Don’t talk to him like that!” Hasegawa said, his cheeks flushed.
“OH I am NOT taking anything from you right now you psycho!”
“EVERYONE! Please listen! Right. Thank you for your attention. Can we please go over what we know right now?”
“We’re back at the start of the game?” Tsuno suggested.
“We don’t necessarily know if we’re still in the game though,” Wada said. “Monomoko hasn’t said anything.”
“Monomoko?” Hitomi asked.
“The rabbit’s name.”
“Ah.”
An oddly cute name for such a being.
“Okay. That’s a good point Wada. If the rabbit isn’t here to tell us, there’s no way to know if we are in the game or not.”
“Cool. Gonna go break a wall then,” Hayashi said. Yanagi and Tamba started protesting, following her like a set of terrified ducklings. Weird. Tamba was usually scared of everything that moved, but not for Hayashi. Yanagi was never this openly scared, always becoming angry first.
A lot of things about the group didn’t make sense. Watari wasn’t clinging to Okazaki, for starters. Watari wasn’t doing anything, actually. Hitomi distinctly remembered her being full of energy. But she was just sitting on the floor, curled up. Hama wouldn’t take his eyes off her.
Kamimura was trembling, and Hasegawa was shielding him from the rest of the group. Hasegawa himself seemed…different. She couldn’t put her finger on it.
Tsuno herself was also trembling, being half supported by Isono and half supported by Hiroaki. He wasn’t looking her in the eye.
“Ojima,” Hitomi began. “Can you please tell me what happened after I…left? I don’t understand the way the group is operating right now.”
“It will have to be somewhere private,” Ojima said slowly. “If I start talking about it in the open people are going to fight. A lot.”
She scanned the room. She didn’t like the idea of the group splitting off, but if it was going to happen anyway, she at least could use the information.
There was a bang in the distance -
Hitomi woke up slowly, which was unusual for her.
–
“Mai, if you send us back to when my head hurts most ONE more time I’m gonna lose it,” Kazutoshi said.
She crossed her arms.
“What do you want me to do, just give up?”
Kazutoshi sat down slowly. Ken was there at his back, hovering very close. Ordinarily, he’d say something about it. But Okazaki was in the room. Okazaki’s mask concealed where she was looking. He didn’t want her to look at him.
“We’re up against literal time travel, Mai, what do you think busting down a wall is gonna do?”
She groaned.
“I hate not knowing what’s happening,” Tamba whined.
“Wow, your whole life must suck then,” he muttered.
“I can hear you!”
“So,” Sasaki interrupted. “We know that breaking the school rules sends us back to when we first wake up. Or just sends us unconscious and back to this room…I’m not sure which yet.”
“It is the former,” Monomoko said.
“Fuck!” Hasegawa flinched.
“Jesus!”
“What took you so long?” Sasaki demanded. Kazutoshi hadn’t missed her bossing him around, but he hadn’t realised how much he had actually missed Sasaki’s order. Commanding it out of everyone, no matter how much stronger than her they were. The audacity to boss Mai the first time was enough to impress him. But now, a time controlling creature? Damn Sasaki.
“I was giving you time to get adjusted. I didn’t think my presence would be welcome while you were figuring this out.”
“This being whatever you’ve done with time,” she responded.
“Yes.”
“Rabbit,” Watari spat. “What’s happening? Why are we going through this again? Was the first time not enough?”
“Allow me to explain. I am trying to help you.”
“Bullshit!” Hama yelled.
“I am. You can choose to believe me or not. I do not want to see any of you die. This is why I have brought you back to now. I have not yet allowed time to begin moving again. I am figuring out how to get you out of here. But I need your cooperation.”
“How?” Chiba asked.
“I am not running this experiment alone. I am not in a position to stop it currently, though I will be working on that. In the meantime, everything needs to play out like normal.”
“We’re not killing anyone!” Isono said, clinging tighter to Tsuno.
“I am aware. That is not what I’m asking of you.”
“Then what are you asking of us?” Ojima asked. “Be specific.”
“I am asking you to play through the first motive of the killing game. The first chapter, as my colleagues have called it.”
“Chapter?” Tamba cried. “Thats so!-”
“Shut up,” Kazutoshi said. He turned to the rabbit. “How exactly are we gonna do that when the motive is something like sleep? Eventually someone is gonna snap again.” He purposefully didn’t look in Sasaki’s direction. He didn’t need her yelling at him right now.
“I will periodically pause time to allow you to sleep. Understand that I cannot do this for long.”
“How long are we talking?” Hayashi asked.
“I am currently struggling to maintain this pause. It has been three hours.”
“Okay, so we’ll be tired, but it won’t be unmanageable,” Hayashi said.
“Yes. My colleagues cannot know about my time abilities. This means that you must not reveal any information about your previous killing game experiences.”
“Won’t that be…a little difficult?” Hasegawa asked. His voice was much louder than Kazutoshi remembered.
“Yes. But it must be done. If my colleagues find out about my time abilities, I will be nullified, and you will remain trapped.”
“Okay,” Sasaki began, arms stiff at her sides. “But if we do make a mistake, then what?”
“Then I will have to pause time while we discuss how to fix it. Understand that this will take away from my ability to allow motive reprieve.”
“Miss Monomoko, if I may ask?” Yanagi began. He did not continue until the rabbit nodded. “Why are you doing this?”
“Disclosing such information would be unwise. I am unable to keep the pause for much longer. Prepare yourselves.”
-
Kazutoshi opened his eyes. The room was pitch black.
“Ugh, my head,” Sasaki groaned.
His own head pounded. He tried to keep his eyes open. The lights were about to come on, so he should pull his hoodie up. But then, wouldn’t that be suspicious?
Someone was at his back. Someone who smelled like floral laundry detergent. Hasegawa.
Ken was clinging to him, hand shaking as he gripped Kazutoshi’s black hoodie. Fuck. Fuck. Shit. He was totally gonna give them away.
“What’re you do-”
“Ah! Sorry!” Ken said. His hand remained on the hoodie. “I just don’t like the dark very much.”
–
Wada could barely keep up with what was happening. Another chance. He had another chance to keep people safe. To do something. Anything.
To make sure people wouldn’t lose their lives because of him.
The rabbit kept talking about a motive. He heard something about sleep. He heard something about dorms. Sasaki had sent them to explore again. To report back, like last time.
Mai and Nagawa seemed less resistant to her leadership this time. They argued less. He wondered if that seemed suspicious to Monomoko's mysterious colleagues.
Tsuno seemed withdrawn, and Isono was clearly lost. She had no idea what happened to them after she died. Maybe it was better that way, that they had to keep it quiet.
The gym came up again. Chiba stared up at the vent with tears in her eyes. Harada had retreated to the dorms, and came out again without Sawa. Chiba clung to Hamas' leg. Hama, at the very least, seemed too out of it to give them away.
“Harada,” Okazaki called. Wada tried not to jump. “Where’s Sawa?”
Tsuno finally seemed to stand up on her own, ready to tell off Okazaki. Wada couldn’t help how his breathing began to pick up. The way Okazaki had spoken about her during the trial…if they were trapped together again, Okazaki wanted to make her suffer. She enjoyed making her suffer.
“S-Sawa’s a tiger, Okazaki. She can’t be out,” he said. He surprised himself as he said it. Both the fact that he could get the words out, and that he had the audacity to try and put Okazaki’s attention on him.
He tried to comfort himself with the fact that he didn’t matter to her, Tsuno did. Everything she did to him was to get to Tsuno. Really, it wasn’t personal. Not to him, anyway. So it shouldn’t matter.
“I suppose she could take anyone out quite easily. Especially someone small,” Okazaki said.
Wada met Watari’s eyes. Her guilty expression. He hated that he couldn’t say anything. That he couldn’t tell her that Okazaki wasn’t her responsibility.
Chiba whimpered, sobbing into Hamas leg.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Hama seemed to whisper, over and over again.
Harada was frozen. This was getting too suspicious.
“Everyone calm down!” he yelled in Sasaki’s voice.
It had an extraordinary effect. Everyone turned to stare at him.
“Right. Sorry. Um, I know this is stressful but I think we should probably try to…keep as calm as we can, right? If we want to um…escape…I mean.”
“How would we do that?” Mai asked.
“Well,” Nakamigawa began, “we just need to get someone up into that vent, right? Someone petite who can fit, like Kamimura over there.”
“Have you got a problem with me or something?”
It was almost like reading lines. Almost.
–
Kazutoshi lingered in the doorway. Ken was sitting in the dining room, just like last time. He seemed anxious, tapping his fingers on the table. He was mouthing something.
“Well well well,” he said. Ken chuckled, anticipating his next line.
“You’re not the only one who couldn’t get any sleep,” Ken said.
“Clearly.”
“You should probably be a little more freaked out,” Ken suggested with a self conscious smile.
Kazutoshi snorted.
“What, because of you?”
Ken raised his eyebrows a little.
“We’re in a killing game,” he said softly.
“You’re different,” he shot back. “You’re….you’re fine.”
“You don’t know that,” Ken said. “You don’t know me at all.”
Kazutoshi frowned. Even if it was just to avoid suspicion, he couldn’t help but be offended.
“Fine then. Tell me about you.”