Chapter 6 – Self-Confidence and Self-Remembrance
Part 1

Knock Knock Knock
"It's Byakuya." Togami said, the door in front of him was opened revealing a way too happy Komaeda.

"Come on right in Byakuya." And so he did, just like everyone else Komaeda had a small room with a desk and connecting bathroom equipped with a shower and lockable door.

"So what did you want, visiting me at this time of night." Komaeda asked with his signature creepy smile.

"Don't get excited, I'm just here to clarify something."

"Aw man, I knew no one wanted me around, I'll leave before the morning." Komaeda said with a depressed voice.

"No, that's not what I was going to say you fool. Your sticking with us, we're all sticking together now." Togami informed to him, causing Komaeda to gaze at him in awe.

"Well haven't you changed Mr. Imposter. What's with the sudden change of hope, I mean heart?"

"That's just who I am now, now back on topic. I want you sort out your differences with the others."

"Differences? Sorry, but I can't become an actual Ultimate." Komaeda misunderstood once again and Togami was getting annoyed at it, his temper showed slightly.

"That's still not what I mean you idiot, I want you to apologise for what you did."

"Apologise? What am I supposed to be sorry for?"

"For your trial, you saw what you put Hajime, Chiaki, Sonia, Kazuichi, Akane and Fuyuhiko through."
Komaeda took a moment to think about it.

"…I don't regret it. In the end we still are all Despair… but I don't think we deserve to die anymore. The world needs both Hope and Despair to carry on."

"I'm not going to challenge your conception if 'Hope' Nagito. I just don't want there to be any tension between us in our group."

"Alright, I can agree to that." Komaeda's sudden change in agreement caused Togami to doubt him.

"And how are you going to apologise?"

"Well let's see, a sorry for Sonia, Kazuichi, Akane and Fuyuhiko should be enough, they don't really look scarred."

"What?! Do you realise how horrific your death was!?"

"I was on the receiving end, I know how painful it was, but let's be serious here Byakuya. They investigated through five murders, I think they can handle the blood that came from mine."

"That's not what I mean Nagito, I'm talking about the psychological effect, you forced them to vote for Chiaki to be put to death!" Togami had more anger in his voice but tried not raise it, not wanting to wake up anyone else. Komaeda re-thought about it before giving his opinion with a large grin.

"So your also worried Hajime and Chiaki are scarred? There stronger then you think Byakuya."

"Step back Nagito, I simply asked you to apologise for what you did, nothing more."

"But your concerned about them as well riiight? Don't worry Byakuya, I'll do something special as an apology." The response was not reassuring to him at all.

"I don't like it when you put it like that Nagito, but we're done with this conversation for now." Togami said, abruptly ending the conversation.


"Are you not going to sleep?" Kirigiri asked to Tsuki, they were in a spare room due to the window being broken in Tsuki's room. She was personally going to watch him the whole night to make sure another issue didn't arise. Tsuki responded to Kirigiri in an unemotional voice.

"I can't, my body won't rest."

"You pushed yourself pretty far today, you should really get some sleep."

"I literally can't, just as I don't feel pain, I don't feel my body any more… closing my eyes gives no results."

"Well close your eyes then, even if you don't feel it your body still needs to rest." She was trying not to let the depressing words affect her.

"Does it? How am I supposed to know whether I'm growing or decaying?" Tsuki pondered, his psychotic disease getting worse every day to the point that all emotions were null. Kirigiri knew this and just ignored the words.

"Do me a favour and be quiet then." She asked and Tsuki listened, he simply just sat on his bed staring at his own hands in silent. Kirigiri tried passing the time by leaning in the corner thinking general stuff, what happened yesterday, today, tomorrow… her past life. She didn't want to think about that and tried to move away from it, but in the end she just went back to it. The knowledge that the boy before him knew part of her missing memory kept tempting her to ask about it, even though she had agreed before to discuss with Naegi there as well.

"Kettei, how close were we?" She asked, unable to resist curiosity after a large portion of time passed. The boy had also hinted knowing her well before.

"What do you mean? Intimately no, you were already in a relationship. As friends we knew each other pretty well, mainly because we both helped each other at the time." Kirigiri remained silent, considering the chances of what he said to be true, she couldn't find a reason as to why he would lie apart from maybe to mess with her again but she highly doubted it.

"There you go" Tsuki said.

"You didn't exactly go into any detail…" Kirigiri pointed out.

"Well… I don't want to."

"What? I know you can't feel emotions but you aren't dumb, you can tell these memories are important." Kirigiri showed some concern and looked at Tsuki, he still had his head down facing the floor.

"Your right, but I can't say more. I just don't know whether I would have told you."

"What do you mean by that?"

"If I still had my emotions, would I tell you all your memories?"

"Why wouldn't you?"

"Well before I seemed stuck on the idea of using it as an asset, a trump card, as I called it."

"But that wasn't you with your emotions, that was you with only half of them."

"Well I'm going to stick to that then, until I can figure out what real me wanted." Tsuki said, this was a pretty confusing conversation
He then lifted his head allowing Kirigiri to see his face, he had lost some his colour and was more pale then she remembered. Kirigiri cursed under her breath, she had really wanted to know more but it would have to wait. She then approached Tsuki and put her hand on his forehead.

"You aren't that warm, yet."

"In the end I didn't have to end it myself. Time works."

"We have enough time to get you back to HQ."

"And do what? There isn't anything you can do, I'm just going to slowly die in front of everyone." Kirigiri didn't respond to this, she couldn't tell him about the 'cure'.

"Just lie down on your bed until its morning." She commanded.


Knock knock
"Kyoko are you alright?" Naegi called through the door.

"Come in." She replied. He opened the door to see Kirigiri leaning in the corner, she had reddish eyes from staying up all night. Tsuki had just sat up on the bed revealing even redder eyes.

"What happened here?" Naegi asked, concerned for both there well beings.
"I stayed up watching Kettei and he apparently can't sleep. Makoto can you watch over him while I wash up." She asked but didn't even wait for an answer as she headed over to the bathroom and locked the door behind her.

"Sure… how are you feeling Kettei?" He asked, although he could tell from his face the answer.

"Is that a joke? I'm not a feeling anything." He asked, delirious to what Naegi really meant.

"Sorry I didn't mean it like that…" He didn't know what else to say, also knowing he wasn't allowed to mention the 'cure' to him. So instead he headed over and opened the curtains, the sunlight lighting the room and revealing Tsuki's pale face. The door to the bathroom opened, Kirigiri returned with a washed face but still showed her tiredness.

"Sorry but you're going to have watch over him for a while, I'm heading over to the boat to wash up properly." It was considerably odd for Kirigiri to allow tiredness to get in the way of any sort of work but she appeared to have the energy sapped out of her.

"Ok, take care of yourself." Naegi responded, desperately hoping she wasn't sick. Before she left, she updated Naegi.

"His condition did worsen in the night, but it looks slightly better now. Get him changed and fed." And with those words she left him to practically babysit. Naegi tried to sound as positive as possible.

"Don't worry Kettei, you'll be fine soon."

"I can't worry."

"Ah, er, sorry… can you get changed?" He asked awkwardly. In response Tsuki grabbed his clothes and headed for the bathroom.


"This is the final meal we'll be having on this island, so enjoy it with everyone around you." Togami announced, the Ex-Remnants plus Nanami had been met up for breakfast at the restaurant, excluding both Hanamura and Saionji. The all gave some cheers before eating and having small separate conversations.

"Hey Hajime, can you and Chiaki quickly join me after dinner at the library?" Komaeda asked, he was seated to the right of Hinata.

"Erm, what do you want Nagito?" Asked Hinata, still weary of Komaeda.

"I have something… special in mind." He said with a smile which only caused Hinata to feel more uneasy.

"No thanks, I don't want any more surprises Nagito." His dismission of the idea was met with sadness from Komaeda.

"It's not like last time Hajime, I promise." He pleaded but Hinata was pretty sure he didn't want to get involved.

"I said no Nagito, now let me eat."

"I'll join you Nagito." Nanami said to the surprise of Hinata, she was sitting on the other side of him and had heard their conversation.

"Thank you Chiaki, could you maybe convince Hajime as well?" Komaeda asked, knowing it would be a lot harder for Hinata to say no to her.

"Chiaki, surely you're not serious?"

"I am Hajime, why not? I think we should give Nagito another chance." She said with a smile, Hinata was still not wanting to go, but he also didn't want Nanami to go alone either.

She's so forgiving…well I can't let her go alone

"Fine, I'll come but make it quick, we need to visit Kettei afterwards." Hinata used as an excuse.

"Don't worry it will. Speaking of which where is your hopeless twin Chiaki?" Komaeda asked with a bit too much interest.

"Naegi took him and Teruteru to the boat infirmary and have their condition checked on." Nanami explained.

"You should probably get some help Nagito, didn't you say you had dementia before?" Hinata asked, hoping he could get Komaeda busy so this 'surprise' wouldn't happen.

"I'll be fine Hajime, I wouldn't want to distract the doctor from helping Kettei. Also wouldn't want my bad luck to affect him." Komaeda admitted, he carried a sad look on his face.

"…Surely your luck was just the work of the Neo Reality World? The numbers could have been changed in your favour." Hinata said, unwilling to believe he was that lucky. Nanami dismissed the idea with an apologetic smile.

"Sorry but they weren't rigged, that was all real."

"Haha, reality or virtual, this curse is with me and I'm worried what the next wave is." Komaeda said, expressing his concern. Hinata had his hands in his hair and his head on the table, not wanting to deal with Komaeda's luck anymore.

"Don't lose hope Hajime, I'll try to stay away from you when possible." Komaeda offered.

"Why would you do that?" Nanami asked, unsure of what Komaeda meant although Hinata did.

"Well Chiaki, I'm either really lucky or really unlucky depending on what the last one was. It's pretty lucky that we're all alive and I caught Hajime yesterday wouldn't you say so?"

"I guess."

"Well then next is some bad luck and it's going to have to be pretty immense to top it all off." Komaeda said, both excited and worried at the prospect.

"Not like this, not like this." Hinata kept muttering to himself at the thought of it.


"My god, these boys have seen better days." The doctor said to Naegi and Kirigiri, they were with at the infirmary with Tsuki and Hanamura. Saionji was on the side, contained in a separate pod with her vitals being displayed on a monitor.

"Can you do anything for them now?" Asked Naegi desperately.

"You already know with Tsuki, but with Hanamura I'm not sure. Let's look at Tsuki's condition in depth first." The doctor said before examining the various graphs on the monitor and his notes taken about Tsuki's actions.

"Kettei Tsuki, originally developed Schizophrenia due to his little sister dying-"

"Actually we discovered the she was actually his older twin." Kirigiri corrected. The doctor scribbled some notes down to replace the old one.

"Makes more sense, twins are generally a lot closer than normal siblings, even more if they're same gender, though not for this instance. It is common for twins to get emotionally scarred at losing one another and in some cases develop emotion related diseases like Schizophrenia. Tsuki at your sister's death, what happened?" At being asked something directly, Tsuki looked up with his emotionless eyes.

"I heard her voice, it was slow and distant." The doctor wasn't surprised at all and just wrote down more notes.

"Not that uncommon for twins, what about just after that?"

"I had insanely bad head pains during my nightly walk, the only thing calming it down was planning the next day and what I would do."

"Just like your journal said, how about the psychologist incident?"

"I never got so annoyed before, she kept trying to convince me that my sisters voice was just a fake which made me really annoyed at the time… and then that agent came in, they both blamed me and I got scared and shot him." Naegi's heart sank at the story, he felt bad every time he heard it. The doctor was pretty disappointed.

"What a disgusting display, even amateurs should know better than to say it straight to a patient like that and to blame the patient, you never blame the patient." The doctor spat, Kirigiri tried to get things moving.

"She was fired later that day and sent to work in the janitor department, moving on."
The doctor continued the questioning.

"What about when Nanami was implemented in her body, did anything change?"

"…No. In fact, I left FF the moment the operation was done. The next time I saw her was on the boat I snuck on."

"Wait you were there during the operation?!" This was pretty surprising news to Naegi, in fact he was there as well and didn't remember Tsuki being there at all.

"I was, I wore a white lab coat like most others and kept my head down." Naegi then looked to Kirigiri to find that she wasn't surprised. She explained why.

"I found a scientist knocked out cold in his lab before with his coat missing around the same time. I told him to stay quiet about it and made sure he was ok."

"I remember that, initially I tried to steal the coat when he took it off but he caught me. He was about to call security so I had to stop him… It was only a mistake, he picked me up by the scoff and threatened to report me. I pushed him too hard and he fell on the floor hitting his head. I saw blood on my hands for days." Tsuki said, sparking interest in the doctor. Kirigiri quickly clarified something.

"That's metaphorical blood by the way, the scientist had no open wounds. Also from what I've heard it's a common occurrence for Tsuki to see blood on his hands."

"Interesting, that's probably his conscience projecting the severity of what he's done, this spreads out the pain to slow down his minds descent into madness. Tsuki, what happened when Nanami first woke up?"

"This was when… she was sat down on a bed with me and Hajime conversing in the room. I almost cried at the time but then things got heated, me and Hajime had an argument and I left the room before things escalated. Now that I think of it, it was my fault I said stuff that I knew would hurt him."

"There we go, that's the nail in this incident!" The doctor pointed out with confidence.

"Having mental issues over family members dying isn't abnormal, especially for twins. The shooting incident was caused by the inexperienced psychologist while Tsuki knocking out that scientist was an accident, these are not the problematic events. What I think is that the sight of his sister being alive yet not being the same person is what caused the real descent into madness. Someone so close to him being alive yet not alive is likely too much for a teenager, or anyone really, to accept. His emotions get mixed up while that combined with Schizophrenia and the fact that this boy is so determined to keep his sisters promise is what caused him to lose emotions at certain times. That's how it began, temporarily losing all emotion to follow his objective." He paused for a moment to let Tsuki talk.

"You're right, I tried desperately to pretend who I was. Trying to mask certain emotions, hold on to my identity as best I could." At the confirmation the doctor kept talking.

"Day by day, the more he saw his sister but not real sister walk the more emotions he lost permanently, but he tried to pretend to have these emotions, not uncommon. I read a story detailing the feelings of losing emotions, apparently it's a sickening experience that's worse than losing limbs, most victims desperately try to mask that they still have them, deceiving themselves and others that everything is fine and right here we have another victim under even worse circumstances."

"You've figured most of it out, but there's something you missed. Certain actions that Chiaki and others took helped me gain my emotions. Temporarily." Tsuki admitted to the surprise of everyone.

"Interesting, I can't comment on this now, let's carry on. The fact that he thought he was dead only spread up the process, leading to his current state, every emotion drained from his mind. The only thing stopping him from killing himself is the animalistic will to live that every living being has." A tear came to Naegi's eye, it was a cruel twist of fate. The cost of reviving the life of Nanami was the cost of the very being Tsuki was. Even Kirigiri was shaken at the explanation.

"T-thanks doc… the 'cure' will still work right?" It must have been the first time Naegi ever heard Kirigiri stutter. The doctor took a second to think about it.

"…Yes. But you must make sure they aren't ever retrieved otherwise it's certain death for him." The doctor warned. Kirigiri knew he meant his memories and still wanted to confirm another fact.

"And while we can't explain to him what the 'cure' is, we can explain the situation to him afterwards? There isn't a problem with that."

"That depends on-" He stopped talking and instead approached Kirigiri and Naegi so that Tsuki couldn't hear him.

"Depends on who he really is, but considering that the Ex-Remnants of have managed to move past it he should as well. Young ones like them and you two have open minds. But it is imperative he isn't told his memories will be wiped now, otherwise he may go farer then suicide to avoid it." The doctor reminded. He then moved back and spoke normally.

"He has a few weeks max until his conscious fades like his emotions, then he'll end up like Hanamura, no longer a human, just a body with an unknown force moving it along. The fate of Hanamura here is already decided unfortunately, he's going to walk for a week or so until he drops dead. The body can't live long without the mind." Both Kirigiri and Naegi gave a sigh at the news, in the end they weren't able to save everyone, and the one they were able to save, they would have to take his memories of the whole event away from him using an Alternate Neo Reality World. The doctor dismissed them.

"That's all I have to say, I'll wright a full report detailing everything we discussed and have it printed before we leave the island. Afterwards I'll get examining on why Saionji isn't waking up."

"Thank you." Naegi replied before he and Kirigiri left the room in low spirits.

"We weren't able to do it Makoto, one of them is going to die while the other has to have his memory removed." She said in a sad manner.

"We tried our best Kyoko, be happy for the ones that are alive."

"But I could have saved Kettei, if I tracked him down earlier we could have cured this illness before it even began!"

"Kyoko it's not your fault, things happen that we can't predict. We weren't even apart of FF when this whole incident started! Stop thinking that your guilty."

"…Fine. But in the future we have to have taking people's memories as a last result, try to avoid it at all costs."

"I agree, but I guess right now we have no choice, just like we didn't with the others. Now look positive Kyoko." Naegi consoled, it appeared to have work as Kirigiri regained a smile.

"Your right, thank Makoto." And she gave him a hug to express her thanks, taking Naegi off guard, but of course he didn't mind. After it was over Kirigiri regained her usual professional manner.

"So, next problem is how we're going to drop the news that Hanamura is on a timer." She said.

"Yeah… and what about Kettei's cure? We need to tell them what it is without them telling Kettei."

"Sorry but we can't. It's simply too risky right now, if anyone even accidently speaks too loud for Kettei to hear then it's over." Kirigiri was right, as always, but Naegi didn't like it.

"But, if he isn't allowed to know his fate… surely his close friends should? We can tell Chiaki and a few others instead."

"No, we can't. We tell one person and they spread it to someone else. We're dealing with Kettei's life here Makoto, we can tell them all just before. Until then try to avoid the topic, please." She asked.

"I know… you're right anyway. We can't risk Kettei's health." Naegi admitted, Kirigiri was happy with his submitment and went back to giving orders.

"Good, I'll leave the Hanamura news to you. I need to go drill the agents." She said in a stern voice.

"Don't be too harsh on them Kyoko, I'm sure they're trying their best."

"Well I don't, they were completely useless during that forest search and one of them abandoned their post on watching Kettei, so it's going to be extra tough today. I'll be going now." And with that she left him, Naegi felt bad for the training the agents were about to receive, Kirigiri was notorious for being harsh but in the end it was because she didn't want anyone to come to harm due to a lack of discipline. Naegi exited the boat to find the group of Ex-Remnants.

"Koizumi, Tsumiki, Mioda, Nidai, Tanaka… plus Hanamura and Kettei in the boat… That makes seven in total. Where are the other half of you?!" He asked. Koizumi responded to him.

"Byakuya told us that they would come soon, he's getting Nagito to apologize to the others. He said it would go better if we weren't all around."

"Apologize? That's good."


"So Nagito invited you guys here as well?" Sonia asked to Nanami and Hinata, they had just arrived at the library to find that Sonia, Kuzuryū, Soda and Owari were already there. Hinata felt his nerves on edge, he was worried about what Komaeda had planned.

"Yeah he did… do you know what it's about?" Hinata asked, any information would be useful. Kuzuryū answered him, he clearly didn't want to be there either.

"I dunno, I can't seem to find the crazy idiot anywhere! What the hell is doing asking us here just to not show up!?" His annoyance was clearly showing. An equally annoyed voice could be heard from the second floor.

"He isn't up here either! I'm leaving." It was Owari, she proceeded to descend the stairs and head for the exit before a familiar voice halted her.

"Thank you all for joining me today!" Komaeda said, revealing himself to be on top of a bookshelf.

"What the hell are you doing up there?" Shouted Kuzuryū.

"Well I did some thinking and I wanted to say sorry for what I put you through in my trial." Komaeda said casually. Hinata could feel another 'I told you so' look from Nanami.

"Hell no! Apology not accepted you idiot! You know what you almost killed us all!" Soda shouted. Hinata tried to bring some sort of order from the shouting and asked a logical question.

"Nagito why are you on top of the bookshelf? Come down before you fall." But of course Komaeda had no such intention.

"Well you see, I though you wouldn't accept my apology so I decided to try and to find something for you all. You know how there's a secret FF base somewhere on the island? Well I was thinking it's somewhere in here." At the revelation Nanami gave her input.

"Actually that's a common theme in many games, usually pulling out a specific book reveals a secret corridor." She said matter-of-factly.

"Exactly Chiaki! And I think it's this book right here." Komaeda pointed at a book near him to further his point.

"No… there's thousands of books here, on this floor alone. There's no way that's the right one…" Hinata said, more for his own sanity, Komaeda's luck once again triggering him. No one else really seemed to know what to say so Komaeda just yanked the book out.

Soda let out a loud snort.

"Haha! Nothing happened you delusional fool." Komaeda looked at his hands, disappointed at himself.

"Huh, how unlu-" But before he could finish his sentence he staggered and fell off the bookshelf and landed on his front, his arms protecting his face.

"Owwww, that was even more unlucky." At the sight of him falling, Owari, Kuzuryū Soda took a moment to laugh while Hinata, Nanami and Sonia headed over to help him.

"Nagito, are you alright?" Sonia asked, concerned about the distant of the drop.

"Eh, give me a moment. I don't think anything's broken."

"Well that was anti-climactic." Hinata commented, glad his sanity was still in check.

"Hehe, I guess that's what it feels like when things don't go according to plan." Komaeda said with a smile. Nanami was still curious about something.

"Is this the bad luck you were talking about Nagito?" Of course the answer the Komaeda gave wasn't simple.

"Actually if this is the bad luck to counter my good luck, then I would say it's pretty lucky that no one died." Hinata could feel his headache coming from the talk of luck, he must have had a new allergy to it. Kuzuryū's patience was getting thin.

"Is that it? I'm leaving then." Kuzuryū headed for the exit but Nanami stopped him with her voice.

"Hold on Fuyuhiko… I just wanted to know. Do you forgive Nagito?" It sounded insane, the person who Komaeda got killed was the very one who seemed to be on his side. Kuzuryū told Nanami straight what he thought.

"No I don't! And you shouldn't either, just look at him. He hasn't changed at all, still completely obsessed with hope. He would kill for it again." They all looked at Komaeda to see what he had to say, although most of them thought it was true.

"Hope is the most important thing in the world and I would kill and or killed for it. But I don't need to anymore." Komaeda clarified. Sonia then asked the obvious.

"I don't think you should ever do that, but what's with the change?"

"Look I get it, you all don't understand my logic but I'm alright with that. But think on my end, why would I stop?"

Of course he wouldn't say it straight, why do I have to figure everything out.
However Hinata was a lot more deductive now, after five trials with his and his friends life on the line and he had gotten use to catching the penny before it dropped. He also was the only one who spent free time with Komaeda so he knew him the best, unfortunately.

"Nagito was absolutely banana's over that thing he called 'Absolute Hope', and if he's no longer willing to kill or get killed… that means he found it." Komaeda couldn't help but smile as Hinata gave his deduction.

"You're right, but don't get too excited Hajime. I was wrong before, it's not you."

"I know that, and thank god may I add. I'm sorry to say, but Izuru Kamakura is gone. A bit after the Neo World he's was no longer inside me. He just vanished." Hinata revealed, he thought he would be more glad to have Komaeda's gaze off his back, especially after his personal event with Nanami before. But the gaze Komaeda gave was still there.

H-He wasn't just obsessed with hope that was inside me… oh man.

"I know that, you no longer have even a fifth of the hope that you had before. But I know he's out there, and I'll find him. Also as respect for all the hope you all gave back to the others by waking up, I promise I'll stop killing." Komaeda admitted. While no one 100% trusted him, it was a relief.

"Is everyone ok with that? This ended up pretty well… I think." Nanami asked.

"If he's serious about not killing, then sure… I guess?" Soda admitted to the surprise of everyone else.

"Well tha-"
But Komaeda's voice was overlapped by a loud squeak sound.

"What was that?!" Asked Hinata, worried at how close sounding it was.
At that moment the same bookcase Komaeda fell off started to collapse on top of them, Hinata, Nanami, Sonia and Komaeda were too slow and threatened to crush them

CRASH.

"Kyaaah!"

"Ow."

"Arghh."

"Ughhh."
Komaeda, Sonia, Hinata and Nanami were all knocked onto the floor by it, Komaeda kept it slightly aloft with his legs. Kuzuryū, Soda and Owari instantly ran to help them by also attempting to keep it up.

"Get out!" Kuzuryū shouted, they had barely lifted but it was enough as Hinata and Sonia helped keep it up. Nanami crawled out and joined them in trying to keep it up but her fragility wasn't much help.

"S-Sonia, you move next!" Hinata ordered but as Sonia stopped offering her strength to keep the bookcase up it started to fall again.

"Ack!"
She was quickly forced back into holding it up. The situation seemed pretty bad, none of those underneath able to move and each second sapped strength from each of them. Togami and Pekoyama then ran out from the shadows to help.

"W-What are you d-doing h-here?" Asked Soda, the weight getting to him. Togami and Pekoyama helped lift the bookcase up, reliving some of the pressure.

"I asked Peko, to j-join me to make sure nothing bad happened. Now Sonia p-proceed to leave." Togami stuttered. Sonia didn't make the same mistake twice and this time released her support gradually, not to over whelm the others before grabbing Nanami's hand to escape. Afterwards she returned to helping them. Now things got more complicated, Both Hinata and Komaeda were at pretty far from the edge and they were both providing a lot of strength to the support. To make it even worse they would have to traverse through the books that fell to the ground to get out.

"H-Hajime…g-go, I can… hold it up." Komaeda gasped but Hinata knew otherwise.

"N-no way… you can't k-ke-eep this up without me."

"I-I stabbed myself wi-ith a knnnife, I think I can do thi-is…" To test out his point Komaeda kicked Hinata in the back forcing him to stutter forward. Seeing the situation Togami shouted at Hinata.

"Move!" Hinata leaped through the books and made it to the other edge, but it was too late. Togami and Pekoyama were supporting the most weight but the sudden lack of strength from Hinata caused them both to drop lower.

"Arghhh!" Komaeda shouted

"C-Chiaki, take my sword and wedge in, in, ahh… the bookcase." Pekoyama ordered with her arms shaking. Nanami did as told but due to the sharpness of Pekoyama's sword she instead turned it over stabbed it between multiple books on the floor so the handle kept up the bookcase. At the sudden help in weight he Komaeda dropped from exhaustion a clawed his way out.


"Well that was eventful." Togami commented, they were all sitting around on the floor to recover their aching bones.

"Peko, I told you not to come." Kuzuryū said.

"And I told you something bad would happen." Pekoyama responded. Togami explain what they were doing there in more detail.

"Last night, I asked Nagito to apologize to you all for what he did. Every other murder was forgiven, this was the last one. Of course it would be irresponsible of me to make sure nothing else bad happened so I asked Peko to join me."

"Well it was good you were here, otherwise we may have been crushed." Hinata praised.

"You could call it good luck." Komaeda countered.

"We should all head back, the others are waiting and I need to see the report on Kettei's condition. I'm sure some of you want to know that as well." Togami said as he got up, he offered his hand to others.


"Ibuki see's them!" Mioda shouted. Hinata and the others joined up with everyone.

"Well? How did it go?" Koizumi asked, Hinata responded to her.

"Well Nagito did apologize and promise to stop any killing."

"And then a bookcase fell on top of us and almost crushed us alive." Komaeda finished.

"WHAT?! Are you all alright?" Nidai asked. Togami eased their worries.

"We're fine, no one got too hurt." Naegi wanted to sorry again but he knew it wouldn't help so instead got back to business.

"I'll show you all round the boat. Saionji has already been taken aboard so Just follow me." And they did, it was a pretty large boat that would easily hold all of them.

"This is the deck, you can get a pretty nice view from the ocean here but I wouldn't recommend it if you're sea sick. There's also a lounge to hang out in if you want. Down these stairs is the next floor." He led them all down the stairs which connected to a large corridor.

"If its ever raining, then you can spend time with each other here. An inside lounge and dining table, the walls are traditional Japanese sliding doors so you can split this large floor into 4 smaller rooms if you want." He walked down another flight of stairs.

"This connects to the infirmary, kitchen and some storage rooms. Saionji will be living in the infirmary so you can visit her at any time. You can collect food from here every morning. Those doors at the end lead to the luxury rooms where the higher ups like me and Kirigiri stay. No offence, that's just how the hierarchy works." Still feeling bad, Naegi then led them all down another set of stairs.

"This is your floor. All the rooms here are free and fit for use, each one contains a bed and a wardrobe. Sorry but you don't have personal bathrooms, the doors at the end lead to the bathrooms, girls left boys right. Kirigiri made these bathrooms unique to this floor only, so these are reserved for you all, is that ok?"

"Yes, it will be quite fine." Togami assured.

"Ok, the bottom floor is the where all the FF agents live, but I wouldn't go there right now. Kirigiri is drilling them." Naegi warned.

"Drilling? What do you mean by that?" Soda asked.

"She's disciplining them due to… recent performance and unless you want to take part I highly recommend you leave them for now, maybe you should all pay a visit to Kettei, Hanamura and Saionji?" Naegi offered, worried at their curiosity. Koizumi spoke up.

"Well it's good she's putting the lazy ones in their place, I'm heading over to see Hiyoko. You all joining?" She gave an expectant look.

"Of course, lets head over there." Togami responded leading them back up the stairs. Soda and Hinata were at the back.

"Hey Hajime, you wanna see what they're doing?" Soda asked with a devilish grin.

"What?! Do you want to be running laps for Kirigiri?" Hinata asked but Soda's face gave answered it for him.

"Kazuichi, you remember when you offered me to stalk Akane and Nekomaru with you?"

"Man, don't bring that up."

"Well its good I denied, we ended up being watched by FF on camera. We would have ended up being called creeps for ages."

"What's your point?"

"My point is all your ideas end up being terrible!" And with that Hinata left leaving Soda dumbfounded.

"What? I thought you were going to say something more philosophical that!" He shouted before following him.


"Edward!" Sonia shouted before rushing over to the doctor to give him a hug.
The doctor was a tall foreign man with blond hair.

"This is the lead doctor and psychiatrist on my team." Naegi explained to everyone else. After the hug Sonia explained in more detail.

"This is Edward Hanzbert, he was my personal doctor back at home. I've known him since I was a little girl, he's helped me out in a lot of situations and even came to japan with me." Something was instantly fishy to Togami.

"For that long? He appears to be only about six years older then you." His scepticism was responded by Edward.

"That's because I was raised to be Sonia's personal doctor. Over a decade ago before we we're born my family did a great service to the royal family and one of the rewards was that the next child of the family would be given the honour of taking care of the next royal child. So even though I'm only five years older I've been raised knowing how to cater to any needs. I started at the age of 13, so when Sonia was 8."

"But Edward is much more than a doctor, he's been a good friend." Sonia clarified as most of them seemed to be shocked at the privileges a princess got.

"So how did you get here?" Togami asked, being the first to recover.

"When the tragic incident hit I was in a hospital, I was asked to help out their while Sonia was at school, they wanted my medical knowledge to help patients there. Luckily me and the rest of the hospital inhabitants were saved by Future Foundation, since then I've been helping by recording information on your conditions for FF."

"That sounds familiar…" Owari mentioned, a few others had a similar expression. Togami felt like face palming when he noticed this.

"So were you at the same hospital Kettei was wasn't you? You must have examined his sister correct?"

"Yes, your right. It was an unfortunate fate for his sister although how she lived for so long is beyond me. She lived for over a month longer than expected. Although I met Tsuki briefly beforehand to explain her condition, I never saw him after the tragic incident until now." Edward said.

"Well how is he?" Nanami asked, wanting to know what's more important. At the question Edward sighed before grabbing some recently printed paper.

"Kirigiri asked me to write up this report on his condition for you all, feel free to read it up but it isn't something that will brighten your day." He handed Togami the paper, it contained the details he had discussed with Kirigiri and Naegi excluding the 'cure'.

"What about Hiyoko, why isn't she waking up?" Koizumi asked, worried why her best friend was the only one not to wake up. Edward couldn't look at her in the eye.

"I don't know, there's nothing inconsistent in her vitals, we'll need to bring her back to HQ for a full examination."

"Could it be due to the fact she's grown so tall in between now and then?" Pekoyama theorised but it had already been thought of by Edward.

"They have no relation…in fact I haven't seen any sort of patterns. The order in which you all woke up seemed random."

"Well what do you think Mikan?" Koizumi asked, desperate to get some sort of reason as to why Saionji wasn't waking up. Tsumiki was already reading various medical papers and notes.

"S-Sorry, but he's right… the data shows no correlation or reason as to why she isn't waking up."

"Ok then what about Teruteru?" Togami asked, not forgetting the little guy. Edward exchanged a worried glance with Naegi, Naegi scratched the back of his head before speaking.

"I'm sorry, but he has a few days before he stops moving at all. We can't do anything… I'm really sorry." The whole rooms descended into a despairing silence at the revelation, after a while Tsuki broke the silence after keeping quiet himself for a while.

"I told you this before." His voice was emotionless as always, it carried no recognition at all.

"Have some respect, we just lost a close friend!" Koizumi scolded but of course it didn't affect Tsuki at all.

"How ironic, you call him a friend yet in the end he ended up like this because of your lack of friendship with him. None of you carried his soul remember?" Tsuki pointed out which caused Koizumi to stay silent, it was hard to respond to.

"Don't take what he says to heart, he's not himself as explained in the report." Edward said. Togami was pretty interested in the report and had already read it while the conversation was going on.

"I see what you mean, this is really… depressing. But what I'd like to discuss is what the cure is? The illness is one of mind, you can't simply cure that. I already spoke to Mikan, it's far too late for therapy." Of course Togami knew something was up, you can't simply claim to be able to cure a mental illness.

"I'm under orders not to say anything, for Tsuki's own good." Edward put bluntly.

"What!? Why not?! Why are we still getting stuff hidden from us!" Kuzuryū shouted, causing Edward and Naegi to move back slightly. Edward tried to defend himself.

"Now we ar-" But he was interrupted by Soda.

"Things haven't changed at all! No one ever trusts us with anything!" Owari also joined in.

"I've had enough someone is getting punched!"

"THAT'S ENOUGH!" Togami shouted at the top of his lungs, no one dared to talk, allowing him to carry on.

"Edward here is a respectable man, proven by Sonia. If he says that it's for Kettei's own good, then we will respect that. Now just to clarify, Edward, do we have your word that this is for Kettei's own good?" Edward took a moment to think about it, it wasn't directly for Tsuki's own good but if you tell something to 15 teenagers, the likely hood it stays a secret is low. As a doctor he knew he couldn't take that risk.

"It is." He announced confidently. Togami wasn't happy that he was having information concealed but if it was for the best.

"Thank you, I advise we all get comfortable in our rooms for now and cool off. You're all dismissed." Togami put rather forcefully, causing most of them to leave the infirmary. Those left were Togami, Edward, Sonia, Naegi, Hinata, Nanami and Tsumiki while Tsuki and Hanamura still sat down on chairs and Saionji lay in a pod.

"I'll be off as well, here, you may want to read this Hajime." Togami handed him the report before leaving.

"That was abrupt. Sorry you had to see that." Hinata apologized. Edward responded to him.

"No, it quite alright, considering the mental pressure you've all been through I understand. Anyway, I'm assuming most of you stayed to read the report?"

"I believe so, but I also wanted to catch up with you Edward." Sonia replied, happy to see him again. Naegi quickly excused himself, worried he would cry again at the report.

"I'm going to see Kirigiri, the boat should leave soon by the way." And he left.

"The words on that piece of paper… be careful." Tsuki warned, although it sounded a lot less of a warning when there was no emotion in the voice. Hinata was curious as to what he meant.

"What do you mean by that?" He asked.

"I can't tell by myself weather the words are disturbing or not, but Kyoko was one of the mentally strongest people I knew, and she was shaken up by those words." The foreboding words seemed to entice Sonia and she made her way next to Hinata and started reading the report out loud.

"Kettei Tsuki…originally developed Schizophrenia due to his twin sister dying…twins are generally a lot more closer than normal siblings…causing him to hear voice…forced into shooting due to miss practice of a psychiatrist…delusions started after operation...the sight of his sister being alive yet not being the same person is what caused the starting loss of emotions…tried to pretend to have these emotions to keep his promise…socialising with others showed to slow down the process of losing emotions…the thought of being dead sped the process to its final form…his current state, every emotion drained from his mind, he can only make emotional decisions based on what he previously would have done…IQ not dropped for now…Predicted a few weeks to live at most…"

"N-No… C-Chiaki living in Kettei's sisters body… caused his illness?" Hinata stuttered.

"Another ironic twist… I'm sure I would have found this hilarious." Tsuki said, the only one not affected. Tsumiki asked something in an even sadder tone that she usually used.

"So Kettei… you simply pretended to have certain emotions when you came on this island? I'm s-so sorry…"

"Mikan… you probably are the one here who has the closest experience to what I feel." Tsuki admitted.

"I-I do?" She asked, confused what he meant.

"Not you, the other you. Your Despair form, she explained the pain she felt, it seemed to be worse than my own, much worse. Clearly Despair is a much worse fate, which I why I killed her."

"What?! You said they combined their souls!" Sonia argued but to no avail.

"I'm surprised you all bought that, that's a complete lie. Both me and her, we felt unbearable pain every day but I ignored mine and carried on. She couldn't though, hers was much worse than mine and we both couldn't end the pain… by ourselves. What was it called… The will to live. The animalistic instinct that this Mikan possessed stopped the other one from killing herself, so I ended it for her without killing this Mikan. By creating a situation that forced the other Mikan to take control permanently." The revelation caused great unease amongst the others, they could barely stop their mouths from hanging in shock.

"Y-You Kill-lled her… s-so she wouldn't feel the pain… and lied to us because we wouldn't forgive that?" Hinata slowly asked, having trouble forming words.

"Correct."

"My god…" Edward said slowly.

"So what are you going to do? Tell the other? I'm not trying to hold an image anymore." Tsuki said.

"I'll pass this on to Kirigiri, as for your friends I wouldn't advise it." Edward said. Hinata then noticed Nanami was still silently staring into nothing.

"Chiaki, are you ok?"

"Yeah… this is really sad to hear, but… Kettei's going to be ok once we cure him… everything will be fine… I think…" Hinata had never seen her so spaced out before or stutter so much.

"I'm going to head to the toilet, I'll see you all at dinner." Nanami said before leaving, leaving them all concerned.

"Tsumiki, could you check up on her please?" Edward asked, knowing the Ultimate nurse would be inclined to check up on her.

"O-of course." Tsumiki responded before leaving.

"That was very unlike Chiaki." Sonia commented. Of course Hinata already knew this.

"She'll be fine, I know she will." He said, although he didn't sound very sure. Sonia tried to help convince them both.

"Y-Yeah, she was alright with being tricked into killing Nagito… she even forgave him…"

"Again, I'm the problem." Tsuki pointed out.

"Kettei please just shut… be quiet." Hinata responded, his constant depressing comments were not helping the situation. Edward then spoke up.

"She's one of a kind, I have faith. Anyway i want both of you to relax and de-stress. I highly advise a long hot bath. I'll keep watch on Tsuki."

"I don't really feel like one…" Hinata commented but the doctor wasn't having any of it.

"Lying on your bed won't help Hinata. Go take a shower." Edward enforced.

"You should listen to him Hajime, his advice goes a long way." Sonia recommended.

"Fine. But will there be enough water?" Hinata asked, Edward then explained the situation to them.

"This boat was originally a holiday one so it supports all those needs, plus it has technology the FF implemented on it, so don't worry."


"Man, I need to head to the toilet again!" Nidai said before getting off his chair and leaving the rest of them. Everyone, from Naegi, Hajime and Edward, were having dinner at the inside lounge.

"Why am I not surprised he's the sea sick type." Soda said in between a mouthful of food.

"Finish your food before talking, jeeez do you not have any manners?" Koizumi once again scolded Soda for his actions.

"What's your problem, can't you just let me do what I want?" Soda asked, annoyed at being criticised on everything he did.

"I would if you ever did anything useful!"

"What do you mean by that?!"
At the question Koizumi simply rolled her eyes so Tanaka enlightened him, relishing the moment.

"You left the door to your fortress open, exposing the dump of metal all over your desk to the rest of the world." This with met with laughter by multiple people, a lot of them had noticed the door in Soda's room left wide open showing scraps of metal sprawled around.

"I did what? Why do you have to speak in riddles all the time?" Soda asked aggressively. Tanaka didn't even dignify him with an answer so Sonia did for him.

"Gundham just speaks with more flare than you understand Kazuichi, if you were cultured you would understand." Soda flinched at the burn.

"There's no need to be so harsh Sonia, we are all different and should respect." Togami said, hoping the banter stayed at just that, and not escalate at all. Instead it just died out and multiple small conversations started instead.


"So Kirigiri, when did you start drilling people?" Koizumi asked, interested in the strong female before her. Of course respecting that she was already in a relationship.

"Please, call me Kyoko during non-work affairs. A week after me and Naegi joined FF we rose to a rank of enough power to command others. At the time a lot of agents were not disciplined due to just being normal people so I took it upon myself to start drilling them." She explained, Naegi added on top of it.

"Most of them end up completely shattered by the end of the day, but she had, and still had, the highest rate of success out of all the officers." He bragged, clearly proud of her achievements. Kirigiri wasn't pleased at this and clarified something.

"I didn't do it for the achievement, I did it so we had more skilled agents to command. It's a risk to have unskilled agents on the field, every life matters."

"Wow, you are right. That's a good way to look at it, every life does mean a lot." Koizumi complimented.


"Hey Chiaki how are you feeling?" Hinata asked, as always he was seated next to her.

"A lot better, I just needed to think about it." She replied in a happy manner.

"Oh, that's good…" Once again Hinata was dumbfounded by how quickly people recovered from things. Nanami being alive was the main cause of Tsuki illness no longer seemed to bother her.

"Hajime are really surprised?" She suddenly deducted.

"Am I that transparent…?" He asked, it seemed everyone was reading his mind.

"Well to me you are, at times, but isn't that just because we know each other well?"

"Yeah, I suppose. So you're completely alright?" Hinata asked, just to make sure.

"I am, it wasn't my decision to hurt Kettei, just like it wasn't with Nagito. And in the end everything will be fine when we get Kettei cured. I don't like being the reason for it, but in the end all I can do is try to help." She explained, calm as always. Hinata gave a sigh of relief.

Calm and collected as always, nothing ever seems to faze Chiaki for long. I guess I was just acting worried for no reason, of course Chiaki isn't the type to get depressed.

"Hey Hajime, after dinner can you come to my room?" Nanami asked, taking Hinata off guard.

"Oh, sure. What do you need?"

"There's something I want to ask…in private." She responded.

In… private? Chiaki's never invited me to anywhere before, I'm always the one inviting her to places… except for when she invited me to the beach for a date…
Hinata's thoughts was interrupted by an elbow to his ribs. He turned to see it was Komaeda's elbow.

"Well isn't that cute, you two finally got together." Komaeda said with only a tiny hint of jealousy.

"Is there a problem Nagito?" Hinata asked, he had a suspicion on what it would be, and didn't like it at all.

"No, of course not. Relationships help bloom hope, regardless of how they end." He said ominously.

"Well I would appreciate it if you find your fill of 'hope' somewhere else and leave us to our privacy." Hinata warned, wanting to lay down the line without getting aggressive.

"Of course, of course. I respect you two for all you've done… I'll just find someone else." He muttered that last part but Hinata caught wind of it. However he wasn't sure what to say in response.


"So Edward, what do you know of my time at Hopes Peak Academy?" Sonia asked.

"Well, you were very happy there I remember that. You spoke a lot about your friends there, in fact a lot of them are here right now." Edward responded

"Really? So have you met everyone here?"

"No, I never met Kirigiri or Naegi before, probably because they were in the class above you. I do remember Koizumi and Tsumiki, you invited them over a lot." At hearing herself be mentioned, Tsumiki joined in.

"W-We use to know each other?" She asked timidly, at this Edward gave a sad breath of air out.

"Yes, its ashamed so many of you had to forget me but I understand the reasons. When Sonia came back one day saying she would introduce me to the Ultimate Nurse I was pretty excited, we spent a long time discussing various medical practices."

"O-Oh, I-I'm so sorry I forgot! I d-didn't mean to…" Tsumiki sobbed.

"It's fine, you haven't changed at all." Edward said to comfort her.

"Who else did I know?" Sonia asked, unable to hold her curiosity.

"Hmm, there were a lot of Ultimate's in your year… but I have seen most of the people here. Soda, Owari, Saionji, Mioda and Nidai all look familiar but I don't believe I've talked to them." He replied to Sonia's disappointment.

"So you never saw Gundham?"

"No, I do recall an Ultimate breeder being at Hopes Peak Academy but you never mentioned him before." He replied with a sorry smile.

"Oh… things must have been a lot different back then." Sonia commented. Togami, who had been paying attention to the conversation, decided to give his input.

"Well that world is a lot different to how it is now Sonia. It's likely we all socialised differently, we weren't under any sort of pressure and or limited to just 15 other students. In that scenario I think things were a lot different, Fuyuhiko may have never changed, Nagito may have never shown his real colours, I may have stayed concealed, Hinata was in the reserve's course so we wouldn't have known him and none of us would have known Chiaki either. We all could have been completely different people." Togami explained.

"You are right… but considering how good friends we are now means we all would have been good friends then?" She considered, more in desperation then actual logic.

"I don't like it either, but that friendship could just not exist. If we all met and got together it probably would but hearing what Edward said it doesn't sound like we all knew each other." Togami responded.

"Wow… maybe, just maybe… things turned out for the better." Sonia said to the surprise of both Edward and Togami.

"Are you just saying that because you dislike the idea of not having your friendship?" Edward asked.

"It's a… scary thought, we've all come so far, we even found a way to wake up most of our friends. For all that not to exist, I don't like it at all." She said, clearly not happy with herself. Togami added on to this.

"I get what you mean, we can't let everything we've gone through be for nothing. We all saw terrible things and even lost Teruteru in the process, and honestly, even though I didn't like him, we still have to do this, not just for him, but each other as well. This group of ours, we're all going to stick together from here on out, and I'm going to make sure nothing bad happens." Togami announced confidently.

"I agree, we're a team now. All…" Sonia stopped talking to count the others, but was unsure at various points.

"Byakuya… I know Chiaki and Hajime are a part of our group even though they weren't in our year, but what about the others?" Sonia asked. Togami took a thought about it.

"Hmm, Kirigiri and Naegi… they owe their allegiance to Future Foundation so no. But Kettei… while he's part of FF, he also ran away from them… and he's Chiaki's twin brother, they shouldn't be separated. It would be easier knowing what the condition of the cure was." Togami stopped to take a brief look at Edward who just looked down at his food.

"But if we assume that he recovers from the condition then I say have him permanently along." Togami finished.

"Yes, that's what I was thinking." Sonia confirmed, but something started to worry her, the fact the Togami had mentioned 'condition'.

Could there be a drawback to this cure? If there's a risk to it, I need to discuss this with Edward.
Edward knew Sonia well enough to be able to tell what she was thinking.

"Don't worry about Tsuki, we'll explain everything once we arrive there."


"You still aren't eating much Fuyuhiko." Pekoyama said.

"I'll eat as much as I want Peko." Kuzuryū said, trying not to growl in his voice.

"You didn't eat much before." Pekoyama commented.

"What? Were you watching me during your death?" He asked, slightly annoyed.

"Of course, what else was I supposed to do?" At the simple comment, Kuzuryū started growling.

"Peko I asked you to stop watching out for me."

"You know that's not going to happen." This only angered Kuzuryū further.

"Damn it Peko, just stop! Go talk to someone else." He said, raising his voice before leaving the table.

"What's up with him?" Mioda asked, seeing the event unfold.

"I'm unsure, while I know how to protect someone physically I can't do much mentally." Pekoyama admitted.

"Ditto." Tsuki added on, causing both girls to look at him.

"Don't be so sad! Ibuki will cheer you up." Mioda announced, clearly not liking Tsuki's emotionless tone.

"Mioda, how are you going to make someone who's lost their emotions cheer up?" Tsuki asked, not expecting to be answered but he was.

"Well first you have to stop being so serious! Alright Kettei?" She pestered, Tsuki agreed but not because he believed it would work though.

"Go on Ibuki."

"Well first you need to put on a smile!" She said and put a large one on to prove her point. Tsuki took her advice and gave small, clearly forced, smile.

"See, there we go!" Mioda said, clearly pleased with his effort. At this Tsuki dropped it.

"What's the point in smiling if you don't mean it? I'm not trying to pretend anymore."

"Aww, c'mon! There's no need to be so down!" Mioda insisted but to no avail.

"Ibuki let him be, if he doesn't want to smile don't force him." Pekoyama advised.

"Huh? Why not?" She asked but Tsuki responded instead.

"It's not that I don't want to, it's that I don't feel the need to."

"Well maybe you should start trying, what's the point of being so determined if you're just going to give up?" Mioda suddenly said seriously, causing Tsuki to start thinking in silence. Pekoyama looked at Mioda, bewildered at what she just said.

"Ibuki, how can you be both serious and so… joyful?" Pekoyama asked.

"That's because Ibuki isn't serious most of the time like you are Peko!"

"You're right… I've been brought up to be serious my whole life." Pekoyama admitted.

"Well how about you do what Fuyuhiko asked? Try talking to other people." Mioda recommended. In truth Pekoyama wasn't really sure on how to do this, before she maintained iffy relationships with others, the only one really helping her was Hinata. But now that she no longer considered herself a tool maybe it was time to start being a teenager. She then looked at the emotionless drought that was Tsuki.

I've never really had many friends or experienced feelings with them. But, I know I still have those feelings, and I don't want to end up like Tsuki.


Knock Knock

"Chiaki it's me." Hinata called, he was at Nanami's door.

"Come in, slowly." She replied from inside, Hinata wasn't really sure what she meant and slowly opened the door so he could see inside, the bed was empty and her desk had her backpack on it with various game cartridges strewn around. Hinata walked in and closed the door behind him.

"Chiaki? Where are y-" He called but the lights were suddenly switched off.

"Chiaki? Are you here?" He called out, unsure what was happening. He heard her voice again, but couldn't pinpoint where it was.

"I'm over here." She called out.
Hinata tried walking forward but it was completely pitch black. After a few moments he lost all bearing of his position in the room.

"Chiaki, I can't see anything… are you ok?" He called but he wasn't met with a response.

"C-Chiaki?!" He suddenly felt a pair of hands touch hold his own.

"I'm here Hajime." Nanami consoled, the lights started to flicker back on and Hinata found himself staring into her eyes… her beautiful, pinkish glowing eyes… she stared back at him.

"Hajime?" Nanami asked after a few moments had passed, she released his hands.

"Yes…?" Hinata asked, still confused at the events but he suddenly started to feel bad. Nanami put her hand to her cheek before speaking.

"Why didn't you kiss me?" She asked out of the blue. Hinata's eyes widened as he wasn't sure what to say.

"Erm…I don't know." He admitted disappointedly.

"…Ok, what do you want to do?" She said asked, suddenly getting away from the topic.

"Chiaki…I'm sorry." He felt really bad but Nanami shrugged it off.

"It's ok, I just wanted to see what would happen." Nanami admitted, while Hinata was surprised he wanted to get back onto the important bit.

"You set- no it doesn't matter. I was just surprised… I didn't know you wanted me to kiss you."

"Hajime, I wanted to see if you would kiss me." She corrected.

"What?" He was even more confused.

"I just wanted to see where we were in this relationship."

She wanted to see… what point we were at? I don't think I've ever regretted something so much before… she says its ok but… did Chiaki want me to kiss her?

"Well… don't switch off the lights like that next time. I was er… in shock."

"Oh, I thought it was more romantic like that. I don't really know much about romance." She said.

"Well… neither do I, I never had a date in high school." Hinata admitted.

"Hmm, I thought you would have more experience than I did at this."

She's… really serious about this… even though we never really talked about it… Maybe I've been too slow, I did take a while to share my feelings… actually we never told each directly how we feel. Everything we've done is through actions and looks…we never actually talked about it…I never told her…
Hinata started to feel even worse about himself.

"Hajime? Are you alright? Don't make that face, I didn't mean to-" But she was interrupted as Hinata suddenly gave her a large hug.

"Chiaki…I need to ask you something?" He whispered

"W-What is it Hajime?" Nanami whispered back enjoying the warm hug

"We… never really talked much about our relationship did we?"

"No…I didn't know what to say. I always got stuck on this part of dating sims and didn't want have to reset."

"Chiaki… I'm sorry. I'm really really sorry." He had tears almost coming to his eyes. Nanami and whispered back, worried at his sad voice.

"Sorry for what Hajime?"

"I…. er, I said I was going to help you with this so… I really like you Chiaki."

"…I… don't really know what to say but maybe…I like you too."

"No it's more than that… I'm not good at saying this sort of thing but… I love you." He admitted with a loud breath of relieved air coming after. Nanami seemed to do the same thing.

"I think…I love you too Hajime."

"I'm um, sorry I took so long."

"No, its fine. Really, everything is just fine… I think." The last part seemed to spoil the mood.

W-why did she say that…what…is there something I'm missing?
"C-Chiaki? Is there a problem?" Hinata asked, breaking the hug and staring into her eyes.

"No…" She said, seemingly sad at the break in hug.

"Really? You didn't sound so sure…" He said, almost heartbroken.

"Well… that's because I'm not so sure on these things, including romance. I never got this far in a romance game before."

"Well neither did I in reality, but… we can figure it out. Together. All right?"

"Yeah, we can figure this out together… but I think the moment is over." She admitted sadly.

"Yeah, I do too…Sorry…" Hinata admitted… but he tried to keep positive and asked something.

"Well that's something we can work on right?"

"Yeah but…b-but, you're done with this level so… I think I need a rest." Nanami said with a yawn. Hinata realised it was starting to get late, and Nanami was one to go to bed early.

"Oh, I'll leave you to sleep then… good night."

"Good night Hajime… and thank you. This was a nice new experience." She said, stopping Hinata from leaving the room.

"Yeah, for me too. I won't ever forget it."

"Neither will I, you give really warm hugs Hajime." Nanami admitted.

"O-Oh, thanks. I don't really hug many people though." Hinata responded.

"Well, this is only my third hug ever."

Her first hug was with me…the second hug was to.. Kettei? That's so sad…

"Good night Hajime."

"Good night Chiaki."

As Hinata closed the door he laid his back onto it and looked in the air.

That was…unexpected. But… it turned out well…I still didn't kiss her… Ahhhh was I supposed to? What's the point in being able to give good advice to people of I don't have any for myself…? I messed up… but how was I supposed to know Chiaki would set this up!? Even though I know her true identity she's still full of mystery… hold on she pulled something like this earlier… in the hospital. There was that dark room, and she had switched the lights off…
As Hinata was pondering Tsuki exited the toilet and was walking down the hallway.

"Kettei? What are you doing by yourself?" Hinata asked, concerned that the potentially suicidal boy was alone. Tsuki turned to look at him.

"Ibuki gave me a pep talk so I'm trying something. Also I made a deal with Kyoko for my freedom, and Edward convinced them I'll be fine on my own." He replied, emotionless as always.

I remember Ibuki talking to him at dinner, but, something seems odd, since the attempted suicide he's been completely down but now… he isn't.
Hinata wasn't fully convinced that Tsuki should be alone but he trusted the judgement of others.

"Hajime… you saved my life." Tsuki suddenly said.

"Er…Nagito helped as well."

"I would be grateful… right now I would be feeling that." Tsuki said more to himself then to Hinata.

"It's doesn't matter, you'll be fine after you get cured."

"No I won't, but if I could talk to the version of myself with emotions… what would I say?" Tsuki thought out loud. Hinata noticed that Tsuki was holding some sort of demeanour once again and life in his eyes.

"Kettei… what are you trying to do?"

"If I had emotions, and I saw myself like this, what would I want myself to do?" He asked louder, again more to himself. It took Hinata a few seconds to understand what he just said.

"Well I thi-" Hinata was about to give Tsuki advice but he was interrupted.

"No, you didn't know who I really was, you wouldn't know. Kyoko use to know… but not anymore… my real sisters dead and my blood one doesn't know me… my parents are dead… everyone that knows me is either dead, missing in action or has forgotten. So I have to do this myself…" He then gave a forced smile, and put some life in his voice.

"Thank you Hajime." He said as he forcefully shook Hinata's hand, he then proceeded to let it go and put on his usual neutral face and walked off muttering to himself.

"That's the best I can do for now old me."

That… was even stranger, why is everything that boy does so strange. Right now… he looked determined to try… try and do what he would have wanted. Isn't 'determination' a feeling? Ugh I don't know but now I wonder, if I lost all my emotions and feelings, what would I want my self to do? He's trying to figure out what he would have wanted to do and boy is he determined. Even after the point of almost killing himself he's able to recover and try to act for the best. Why can everyone recover from something so bad so quickly but me?! Kettei isn't even an Ultimate and he's able to do it!

Hinata started to feel his self-confidence slip.

No, Chiaki told me before that not being an Ultimate doesn't matter and that hasn't stopped Kettei. He isn't so different from Chiaki now that I think about it… they are twins, kind of. Well this just got a lot more awkward, I just told his twin I love her…

Even though he tried to raise his own confidence he could feel it shake.


Journal entry xx/xx

I need to find out who I was, who that happy joyful boy used to and act in his honour. I knew he protected people's privacy no matter what so I need to follow that… but what else? This is impossible… I have nothing to lose though, my life isn't even a life anymore. I may have to ask someone for help.


Initially I planned the boat journey to be short but then I realised that the character relationships are just as important to the story so this whole chapter will be dedicated to that. I'm happy to see how things are going and hope you are two.