Fill for this prompt:
The people who survive go on to find out that the Monoworld isn't real, and that the police have been surrounding Hope's Peak in a siege for quite awhile now, and their families are okay and it's seeming all okay- but it's really not.
Because how could anyone forget what happened, and how could you forget if you lived it?
(AU where everyone's just shell shocked and everyone has their different reactions- id love to see the kids refusing to be apart because a part of them still thinks they're going to die. PTSD, everyone)
They didn't know what they were expecting when they stepped out the door. Riots, maybe, or absolutely nothing. The crumbled remnants of a ruined city, no life left in sight. Just what was a despair-ridden world supposed to look like?
However, when the surviving six stepped out, what they saw at first was an ordinary school lawn surrounded by a fence. Bright sunshine stung their eyes and for a moment they were all too much in awe at being outside to do anything else but stand there and take it in.
The tranquility was shattered by a sudden shout of "The door's opened!" and then they were surrounded by police officers.
For a brief moment their minds tricked them into thinking these were the rioters Junko Enoshima told them about. Asahina gasped sharply and grabbed onto Hagakure's arm on her right and Naegi's hand on her left. Naegi himself stumbled against Kirigiri, suddenly aware he was in pain and likely wouldn't be able to run if they had to. Kirigiri gave him a sharp look and steadied him, keeping a firm hand on his elbow. To their left, perhaps by instinct, Fukawa cowered behind Togami, who was obviously surprised but trying hard not to show it.
The officers, probably more than twenty of them, halted their advance upon seeing their fear. One pushed his way to the front and walked cautiously to the group.
"I'm the chief of police, Souji Akasaka," he introduced, flashing his badge. "Are you students of Hope's Peak Academy?"
Still in shock, Naegi nodded.
"But there are six of them," a confused voice spoke up from the back. "There were fifteen students who went missing. Where are the others?"
The group gave each other uneasy looks, and Kirigiri spoke up for them, collected and calm as always.
"They're dead."
No trembling voice, no sugarcoating, just the plain and simple fact that nine students, ten with the real Enoshima, had been killed in the few weeks they'd been trapped inside the school. Naegi was immensely grateful, not for the first time, that Kirigiri was there with them, and allowed himself to lean on her a little more. She let him.
"D-Dead?" Akasaka spluttered. "It's a school, how did nine kids-"
"I'm sure you have a lot of questions," Kirigiri interrupted smoothly, "but for right now we could use a paramedic."
Just like that, Naegi dropped to his knees, acutely aware now of how much everything hurts. He should have figured there was no way he'd gotten out of his execution unscathed; free-falling quite a long ways while pinned to a desk and shattering into a concrete floor was taking its toll now. With everything that had been going on, with revealing the mastermind and Enoshima's trial and execution, he hadn't even paid it any mind. Adrenaline sure was an amazing thing. Naegi grimaced and held a hand to his ribs. Something was definitely broken, and there was a throbbing pain in his left leg.
Maybe feeling the pain is his body's way of telling him he was safe now, and could show weakness.
Asahina shrieked when he fell and shakes his shoulder. "Naegi-kun?! Are you okay?!"
Togami scoffed, "He fell down a trash chute."
That was probably the closest thing to concern Naegi would ever get from him.
"Dude, going on for so long after that is probably the most hardcore thing I've ever seen." Hagakure shook his head. "You're completely mad, Naegi-chi."
Fukawa muttered something about Naegi being stupid.
Officers were bustling around them now, apparently having recieved orders while they weren't paying attention. They entered the school heavily armed, just as Akasaka told the six of them that an ambulance had arrived. With one arm around Kirigiri's shoulders and Asahina's hand on the other (which didn't help much, honestly, but he appreciated the sentiment) Naegi hobbled over to it and they're all packed in to go to the hospital.
The paramedics tried to convince the others to stay behind and assist the police, but a sharp "We stay together" from Togami and Kirigiri both shut them down. Kirigiri gave Togami an appraising look, to which he responded with a glare. The others smiled.
They left just as the news reporters arrived.
Naegi has to stay in the hospital overnight, if not possibly longer. Two of his ribs were broke, as he thought, and his leg was badly sprained but thankfully not fractured. Apparently he was lucky to have gotten away without a serious concussion, or worse. The other five were checked for injuries or other trauma. Kirigiri was a bit bruised from hiding in a trash bag and plummeting down after, but nothing severe. Everyone else was fine.
"How far did you fall?" the doctor asked incredulously.
"A long way."
Despite offers from the police to give the other five rides back to their homes so they could rest, reunite with their families, and meet up again in the morning, the whole group again refused to be parted. They crammed into Naegi's single-person room. Togami naturally took the one chair, Kirigiri perched at the foot of the bed, and that left Asahina, Hagakure, and Fukawa to get comfortable on the floor. Officers were posted outside the door to keep news reporters out.
They sat quietly for a long time, deep in thought, and then Hagakure was the first to speak.
"So Enoshima lied."
Togami glanced at the officer outside the open door and ordered Fukawa to close it before they continued.
"Are we really surprised?" Kirigiri sighed. "We're lucky the escape switch actually was an escape switch, considering her nature. It could have just as well have been a detonation button."
"All that stuff she said," Asahina said in a small voice, "about the Monoworld, and all that... It was all a trick? To get us to want to stay in the school?"
"H-How dirty," Fukawa added, scowling darkly. "T-To think we almost fell for it..."
Naegi stared ahead, pondering. "They're going to want to know," he said slowly. "How everyone died. There was a lot of variety, after all."
Asahina bit her lower lip. "Will they even believe us? The murders, Monobear, the executions, our memories. How one person set it all up. The whole thing, you know. You gotta admit the whole thing's pretty insane. I wouldn't believe us if I hadn't been there."
"They'll find the bodies in the morgue," Kirigiri assured. "We can also tell them where to find the trial and execution rooms, if we didn't want to go back and point them out ourselves."
The group fell silent for a moment. They certainly did not want to go back.
"Well, I figure we'll cross that bridge when we come to it!" Hagakure put on an air of cheerfulness and optimism, but everyone knew he felt the same as all the rest. How could he not? They wondered how they were going to move on from the despair game, how the future would play out. How would they begin to explain everything that went down in Hope's Peak? How would they explain to the families of those killed that their loved ones were dead, murdered in horrible ways by the instigation of one person?
Maizono's fans, Oowada's gang, Kuwata's teammates, Yamada's readers... It wasn't just family members who were going to be affected by their deaths. Naegi's stomach twisted to think of it. And it was their job to tell the story.
"It's over but it's not," he mumbled, so quietly he wasn't sure anyone heard him, but Kirigiri reached over and squeezed his hand in a rare show of empathy.
Akasaka came in a little while later and told them that there would be a full search of the school the next day, their families had been informed of their safety and will meet with them then also, and at some point he would like to hear the whole story.
"As soon as you're ready," he said. "No big hurry, though."
They all knew it was a lie. The man was itching to hear everything, the spiriting away of fifteen teenagers, hiding them right in plain sight, in a place tantalizingly close but unbreachable. He must have been going mad with curiosity.
"Tomorrow," Kirigiri said. She'd taken on the role of de facto leader, since nobody else really wanted to speak to anybody on the outside. "It seems we're doing everything else tomorrow anyway. It'll be good to get it out while we still remember the details."
Akasaka nodded and left. Later, the hospital was kind enough to procure five of what look like yoga mats for those not as fortunate to get a bed like Naegi, and the group of six settled in for the night.
It had been the longest, most exhausting day of his life (when was the last time he'd slept? Before they first found Mukuro Ikusaba's body, he thought) but Naegi can't sleep. Every time he closed his eyes he heard the rhythmic bang bang bang of the trash compact behind him, growing louder and louder as he gets closer. He can't move or make a sound, and in his dreams there is no Alter Ego to open the hatch and send him falling through the floor to safety.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
The mad, leering face of a blonde girl with no freckles waving as she's to the same fate, completely delighted with her own failure. The same face, with freckles, impaled with countless spears and a look of complete shock and betrayal. That face burned beyond recognition. That face looking up with a confused expression when the compact takes a second too long to come down.
She was dead and gone and Naegi couldn't get Junko Enoshima's face out of his head. It also belonged to Mukuro Ikusaba, he supposed, but she had also been Junko in the beginning.
The cause of so many nightmares the past few weeks, and the cause of many more to come. Junko Enoshima, he was sure, was going to haunt him for a good long time.
Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.
More images came the longer he tried to sleep. In perfect order he saw Sayaka Maizono's dead, stabbed and bloody body in his shower, and the look of sheer terror on Leon Kuwata's face as he was dragged off to a batting ring to pay for what he'd done.
Chihiro Fujisaki, who just wanted to be strong, bludgeoned and crucified with his eyes wide open. Mondo Oowada, who hadn't even said a word in his own defense, unable to raise his head and look Kiyotaka Ishimaru in the eyes. A motorcycle going faster and faster until there was nothing left of the person on it.
Celestia Ludenberg, hiding behind a facade of lies and big dreams, who only just wanted to get out more than anyone. Who was so terrified of becoming Taeko Yasuhiro again she orchestrated the death of one too broken to fight back, and one whom she'd once trusted completely. Celestia Ludenberg didn't even get the dramatic death she'd craved.
Sakura Oogami, who killed herself for the sake of everyone else. Alter Ego, who paid the price for it.
Mukuro Ikusaba, betrayed and murdered by her little sister, the little sister she adored and who didn't understand that maybe, just maybe, her twin didn't get off on despair the same way she did.
Junko Enoshima came back to the forefront, gleefully clutching her Monobear and cackling as she sent herself to her death.
Giving up on sleep for now, Naegi rolled over in bed and thought of his own little sister. Had she changed much in the time since he'd seen her? Was he going to see her tomorrow? What was he going to say to her, and their parents?
He laid there for a long time, and around three in the morning, the still of the night was broken by the sound of Asahina crying. She sniffled for a few moments, loudly, until Togami snapped, "Keep it down, will you?" and Naegi knew they weren't the only two having a sleepless night.
"I'm sorry," the swimmer whispered into the darkness. Naegi imagined her wiping her eyes. "I'm just...I'm really scared. What are we going to do? I didn't want to be apart from anyone..."
"It'll have to happen eventually." Togami was, as always, the picture of logic but not of tact. Asahina dissolves into tears again.
"It's not as though we'll never see each other again," Hagakure said softly.
"Unfortunately."
"Shut up, Togami-chi."
Naegi snorted at the heir's coping mechanisms, those being 'keep acting like as much of a jerk as possible'. He wondered when he got so good at reading Togami, who was obviously (to him) burdened with the same uncertainty as the rest of them. After all, he wasn't sleeping either.
He also wondered if Kirigiri was awake with them, or if she actually was sleeping. Her yoga mat was right next to the bed, close enough for Naegi to touch her if he dropped his arm down, but he didn't. If she was awake, he knew she prefered listening instead of talking, and if she was asleep, he was not certainly not going to bother her.
"I know what I'm going to do," Fukawa chipped in finally, speaking more steadily and with more confidence than they'd ever heard. "I'm going to write a book."
"Don't you usually write romance, though?"
She gave an offended sniff. "A good writer isn't restricted to just one genre. I can write whatever I like. Y-You think I can't? You're not the only one with t-talents, you know..."
"That's not what I meant." Naegi could hear the smile in Asahina's voice. "I'm sure it'll be wonderful, Fukawa-chan."
"Of c-course it will."
The conversation petered down to a halt after that, and one by one, starting with Hagakure, everyone's breathing evened out and in some cases loud snoring fills the room. One conversation in the middle of the night had somehow put everyone at ease, just for a little while. Tomorrow would be hard, and they didn't know if they would be together at the end of it, but for right now they were safe and together.
Naegi, however, still couldn't bring himself to sleep. He saw Junko Enoshima in the darkness, turning and beckoning him closer. He laid and listened to the sounds of everyone else sleeping, until a familiar voice spoke up.
"I have to tell my grandfather about my father's death," Kirigiri said.
That's all she said. Her voice was carefully controlled, but Naegi remembered the slump of her shoulders when they found that photograph in Jin Kirigiri's office, and felt touched when he realized she spoke to him when she didn't speak to anyone else.
He dropped his arm down then. Kirigiri took his hand and laced her fingers through his, and the two slowly drifted off like that. While he was holding Kirigiri's hand, Junko Enoshima and the trash compact left him alone.
I'm so late to the game with this one. Anyway, might continue with this, might not, certainly could if people wanted.
Some things have been edited since original posting. Some character/medical inaccuracies were corrected and the speaking tense was changed from present to past.