Tuesday
I actually had a really good night's sleep last night, I recalled as I woke up when the alarm on my cell phone went off. I only woke up once, and that was when I couldn't breathe. The cause of this? Apparently at some point during the night, Monika's grip on me had lowered my face into her chest, with my face ending up between two very soft and fleshy pillows. I imagine that if Monika had been awake to see that, she would have gotten really embarrassed, as our relationship hadn't gotten to that point yet. Maybe she'd even tease me, in order to hide her embarrassment. Fortunately, I was able to gently reposition myself so that I could breathe, without waking her up. I even gently kissed her on the cheek before falling back asleep.
By the time that my alarm had gone off however, Monika was no longer in my bed, but I could hear movement downstairs that was probably her. Monika had never been one to waste daylight, and from what I remembered would awaken early in order to have more time to do things during the day. My musings about Monika and early mornings were quickly interrupted by a phone call. Checking my cell phone, I saw that it was the school that was calling me. Answering the call, I was informed by an official sounding voice recording that during the night, someone or multiple someones had let loose venomous snakes throughout the school, and that school would be canceled for today and tomorrow, so that qualified personnel could scour the building, and take care of the problem. Stunned that someone would do such a thing, I pushed the button on the keypad that the recording indicated would inform it that I had been suitably informed of the situation. That completed, the call ended, and I decided that it would be best to go downstairs and tell Monika about this.
Leaving my nice warm bed, I walked downstairs in my pajamas, hoping to see what Monika was up to. I certainly wasn't expecting her to be staring down Sayori, who was staring right back at Monika through the sliding glass door in the kitchen. Both of them turned to look at me as I made my approach, and I could quickly see anger on Sayori's face as I slipped an arm around Monika's waist, to which Monika responded by resting her head on my shoulder. Deciding that continuing this standoff wasn't going to lead anywhere good, I pulled Monika with me to our office/guest bedroom, and shut the curtains on the room's window. This way, Sayori wouldn't be able to see us, and though I wasn't entirely sure if she would be able to restrain herself from breaking in at this point, I had at least tried to prevent a conflict, even if I had helped to make Sayori mad by showing off how close that i'd gotten to Monika.
"Now that Sayori saw what we just let her see, it is probably safe to assume that she's going to tell the other club members, my love. We are going to have to be much more careful, from here on out. Oh, and the school called. Someone let venomous snakes loose inside of the school, so school is canceled for today and tomorrow. So, I was thinking that we could explore the town, maybe even get you some new clothes, and whatever other stops that we can think of. Do you have any suggestions?" I playfully wriggled my eyebrows at her, hoping to get a smile.
I saw a small but genuine smile form on her face as she thought about it. From the outside of the house, I could hear two cell phone ringtones. One of them I recognized as belonging to Sayori, while I didn't recognize the other one. Maybe the school had finally gotten around to contacting Sayori about the snake problem? As I had no idea who the other ringtone belonged to, I decided to disregard it. For all I knew, it might have just been some random passerby, and it wouldn't do us any good to overly worry about it right now. Monika however, didn't appear to notice them, and finally decided to speak up. "Well, if there is no school, then there won't be club meetings. However, it was odd to see Sayori look so angry, even when you put your arm around me. I don't think that I have seen her look that way at anyone in my entire life. What's worse though, is that I was thinking dark thoughts of my own about her. Things about how she was going to steal you away from me, and use you to her own ends. I know that I can get jealous easily, but usually not to the point of actually wanting to cause harm to someone." Concern laced her voice, and from that, it seemed like she really regretted her actions in the original game.
"You're right Monika, it generally is not normal for you to want to seriously harm someone. Given how all of the girls, you included, have been acting of late, something is going on. You would know more about this than I would, but has someone been messing with the game files? It would explain a lot of things, my love." If someone was messing with the game files, then that was serious business. The Player's control over the coding was greater than even Monika's, and this entire world was defined by computer code.
"Yes, I can assure you without even needing to look that someone has been making changes to the game and character files, Matt. It started when you arrived in this world, and is also the reason why I couldn't just run over and show you my love when you first arrived. Beyond living in the school, I was simply too busy trying to keep things together. I didn't expect my first sight of you to be of you laughing at something, however. What were you laughing at, by the way?" Monika had a genuinely curious expression on her face.
"Well, most of it was simply being somewhat overwhelmed with my sudden transition to this world, but what finally had me laughing was your class number. I've noticed that everything in this world is three dimensional on this side of the wall, but in reality, we only get to see you and the others as two dimensional sprites that show different emotions. So when I saw that you, the only self-aware character bar act four Sayori were in class 3-D, I simply had to laugh at the absurdity of my situation. It was a coping mechanism, since crossing over here is not something that people back in reality know is even possible. I didn't even know that it was possible, until it happened to me, and I don't even know how to go back home, even if I wanted to. I wouldn't want to go back without you, my love. I would love to show you reality, if I could."
Reality was Monika's idea of the promised land. Not only because that was where The Player normally resides, but also because it would mean that she was free of living in the game that had turned into her prison. It wouldn't be all sunshine and rainbows if she made it there, but it would be a dramatic step up from her current life.
Earlier, Sayori's day had begun relatively normally, having had the thought of going over to MC's house like any other day. Unlike any other day however, she had plans to play with him like they used to do, only to use her charms to seduce him, and make him hers. All after school, of course, though she wouldn't exactly mind if they had gotten 'carried away,' and missed school altogether. The thought of the things that she would do to and for him in such circumstances made her drool with anticipation. Out of all of the girls, Sayori was the one who had been with him the longest, and she knew what he liked. She was equally prepared to give it to him. Checking under the welcome mat of MC's house for the spare key that she knew was there, she was disappointed to find that it was no longer there. A quick search of the entire area around the front door didn't turn up the missing key, either. This meant that she couldn't use the front door without either knocking or busting it down, but she had wanted to surprise him, so she resisted both of those options.
Fortunately, she knew about the sliding glass door that led to the kitchen, so she quietly walked around to the back of his house, making sure not to be noticed by the neighbors. Sayori wasn't too concerned however. She had been around him often enough over the years that the neighbors shouldn't really find it suspicious for her to be around now. Making it to the back of his house without being noticed, she quietly proceeded along the back wall toward her objective, the sliding glass door. Taking a look through the door to make sure that no one would notice her trying to slip in that way, Sayori saw a sight that made her blood run cold, and her breath caught in her throat. Monika was already inside of MC's house, and it looked like she was preparing to cook him breakfast! When had she gotten into his house, and what had she done with him! Had… suppose she had even already slept with him! Normally, Sayori would never have paid heed to all of the false rumors that had spread around the school about Monika and her sleeping around, but as things were now, she couldn't help but recall all of the things that had been said about Monika. A lot of them involved her thighs, as Sayori recalled.
While looking for something or other from the refrigerator, Monika must have seen something from the corner of her eye, because that was when she turned and saw Sayori standing there through the sliding door. An instant look of disapproval spread across her face at the sight of Sayori, and the two glared daggers at each other until Matt came up. Then in a move that hit Sayori like a sucker punch to the gut, he put his arm around Monika's waist, and allowed her to put her head on his shoulder! It was as if he were telling her, "I don't need you anymore. See, i've got Monika now." Sayori could not stand for this, but she couldn't really remain mad at the love of her life, and so decided to place all of the anger and blame for this… this… travesty(!) on Monika. Now a look of pure anger settled on Sayori's face, but she was directing it squarely at Monika. When Matt disappeared with Monika to another room in the house, Sayori was so angry at Monika that she quite sincerely thought about busting the glass in the sliding door, tracking her down, and putting an end to her, personally. However, Sayori had never felt that way about anyone before, and so stood there, befuddled about her anger, and desire to kill. Sayori had been angry about things before, but never to this degree, and she had never before had a desire to actually murder anyone. That she could even contemplate doing so now, left her rooted to the spot in fear. Not a fear of Monika or what she might do, but a fear of herself, and her raging emotions.
Watching all of this from the bushes, Yuri had been about to make her own angrily impassioned entrance to MC's home after spotting Monika there, but had held herself back when she saw Sayori trying to sneak around to the back of the house. With a new target before her, Yuri decided to watch what Sayori was doing. Yuri knew that Sayori had been close to him for years now, and this might just present a perfect opportunity to dispatch the annoying runt. Unlike the other girls, Yuri was far more in touch with her own dark side, and was far more willing to do things that might make the other girls squeamish. She had also been using the bushes that were planted inside of the fencing of the house as cover for her to watch all of his activities since the day that he had first arrived in the club. While she was aware that MC and others might take her spying on him the wrong way if they ever found out that she was doing it, she was utterly obsessed with him, and would do literally anything for him. Anything at all, even if it meant killing all of the other girls in order to be the only one left for him to choose from. Yuri had the strength, athleticism, smarts, and knife collection to be able to pull it off, all she had to do was to wait for the perfect chance to get each one of them, individually.
If she could quietly nab Sayori before anyone noticed that she was there, Yuri knew that she could quickly and quietly remove one of her rivals from the board, and this one might be the most troublesome to keep alive, given how long she had been around Yuri's love interest, and therefore knew him well. Quietly and stealthily moving behind Sayori while using the available cover as much as possible, Yuri stalked her prey, making sure not to go around the corner after Sayori, knowing that if she did that, it might ruin her chance. Once again observing things from the bushes in the backyard, Yuri saw everything that happened between Sayori and Monika, right up until MC walked up, did blasphemous things with Monika, and then walked off with her to another room. Yuri's face went red with anger when he saw him put his arm around Monika's waist, and the way that Monika had responded to him! It was clear to Yuri that Monika was going to be a very stubborn obstacle to overcome, a worse one than even Sayori! Still, Sayori was around, and would be an excellent obstacle to remove while she had the chance. Moving quietly, Yuri followed Sayori as she tried to find the pair again from outside of the house, only to find that MC had drawn the room's curtains, so that she couldn't see in. Yuri was about to round the corner and rush Sayori, when Yuri's cell phone rang, forcing Yuri to stay behind the corner, as Sayori's cell phone rang as well. Startled by this, Sayori ran off, leaving Yuri with no real chance to catch her without being seen by bystanders.
If anything, Natsuki would also have been over at MC's house, but her overly strict and abusive father was making things particularly difficult. If she so much as accidentally woke him up by virtue of the stairs creaking, he would blame her for it, and she would be sporting several more bruises. It was bad enough that he rarely ever fed her, but the abuse was something else. Natsuki would willingly run away from that house if she felt that she had somewhere that she could go, but she didn't know of anywhere that she could go to. Her mother had left without a trace, the rest of her mother's family lived out of the country, and it didn't look like anyone on her father's side of the family was willing to to help her out in any way whatsoever. She didn't even feel like she could ask any of her fellow club members for shelter. Even for a Yandere, it was never easy having the monster in the one place where you should feel the most safe. Still, it was a school day, and Natsuki quietly made her way downstairs, showered, dressed, and left the house in order to go to school. It wasn't until she was halfway to school that she had gotten the same phone call as the others, but by then, it was too late for her father to stop her, even if he could find her. If anything, he preferred to beat her at home, where no one could witness what he was doing.
Fortunately, one thing that Natsuki did know about was Japanese Mountain Vegetables (Sansai), and how to prepare them. Having a long-standing reputation for being a source of food during times of famine in Japan, many of them had to be boiled or given other methods of preparation first, mostly to remove bitter or other unpleasant tastes before being eaten. Many Sansai were very healthy, but were less well appreciated during times of relative plenty, though anyone with the proper knowledge could go and forage for them during the spring months, and this had been all that had kept Natsuki going on more than one occasion. They could be eaten by themselves, mixed in with rice, fried as a form of Tempura, and even eaten as part of a salad, among other dishes. Natsuki had already purchased a pair of five kilogram bags of rice from a vending machine yesterday, and successfully managed to hide them from her father, thus giving her the ability to make Sansai Gohan (Rice with Mountain Vegetables). The rice had eaten up quite a lot of her meager supply of money, but there hadn't been time to pick some up at any of the cheaper stores that she frequented, and to be fair, she had very rarely in her life even HAD that much rice that she was free to eat, as long as her father didn't find out.
It had always amazed Natsuki just how prevalent that vending machines were in Japan. It was said that in Tokyo, there was a group of vending machines every three blocks. While they were not so concentrated here in Maebashi, they were still a common sight, and there were so many things that were sold from them! There were drinks of all kinds, canned Udon, actual complete meals, bananas, candies, toys, umbrellas, and so much more. There was even a restaurant in Isesaki City that was an entire set of vending machines serving whole meals, but she had only been there once, and that was while her mother had still been alive. About an hour later, Natsuki reached a long set of stairs that would take her up into areas where she knew that the local Sansai grew. These areas were private property, but Natsuki knew that the owners allowed people to go there in order to forage for Sansai at this time of year, so long as they respected the lands that they were foraging in.
Not wanting to let the others see how badly off she was, she had never shown this area to anyone from the club, but did know several people who also used this area for foraging, and they'd sometimes give her extra from their foraging trips, or even shared their own food with her. Natsuki counted those as good days, especially if she hadn't eaten in a few days. For now though, it was time for her to forage for her dinner.
Leaving Monika in the guest room/office for a minute, I closed all of the blinds and curtains on the downstairs level of my house, making sure that none of the other girls could see inside this level of the house from outside, and thus granting us a measure of privacy. Once I returned, Monika started asking me questions about reality, and I did the best that I could to answer. Trying to get the most information possible about reality, she would change topics every so often, and I had to rack my brains in order to provide the best answers possible. Whenever she asked about something that I didn't know, I would simply admit that I didn't know. I did know why she was asking me so many questions about reality, though. Ever since the original game where she met 'The Player,' her fondest wish had been to be able to get to reality, and be with me. Thus, by learning as much as she could about reality, she was likely hoping that should she ever be able to reach reality, that she would be as prepared as possible for the transition. This was in addition to possibly learning more about me, as well.
While Monika had full access to both the game's and reality's versions of the internet, that was still no substitute for actually being able to experience reality in the same way that those who lived in it could. You could watch every Youtube video ever made about a place, and still be blown away by its beauty, should you ever get there, after all. I had even considered having her check my email back in reality, but what would I tell people? That I was trapped in my computer? No one would believe me. Still, that did make me wonder how much time had elapsed back in reality, and if I had been missed yet That at least, was something that it would make sense to ask Monika, since she had access to the clock on my laptop, and could thus tell both when I arrived in reality's timekeeping, as well as how long that I had been here so far. Comparing that to time in the game would produce a rough guide for how time elapsed in the two worlds.
Should Monika finally be able to get to reality with me, that wouldn't even be the final hurdle. Monika had no last name, and zero documentation back in reality. If you could persuade someone of the situation of a visual novel character coming out of the computer and into reality in the first place, then imagine wading through all of the governmental bureaucracy in order to get her all of the paperwork and identification that she would need just to get a proper start! There would also likely be educational attainment testing, medical check-ups, all sorts of vaccinations, and other things that she would need. I guess that the best thing that you could say is that since DDLC was created in America by an American company, that you could make the case that Monika and the other Dokis would be natural 'born' American citizens, thus sparing them the need for the naturalization process.
I had given this a little thought before I had been brought to the DDLC world, and from what I had been able to logic together, I figured that our best chance would be to begin with a member of my state's legislature. If we could convince them, then we could at least get Monika and the other girls access to state resources, and have contacts who could help with getting things moving with the Federal Government. I just hoped that Monika and the others wouldn't be taken away from me for testing and/or experiments, but that was a possibility. In which case, it would also make sense to get everyone a lawyer, who could protect their rights. Further, if any of them did make it to reality, would Team Salvato make a case that she was their property, as they had quite literally created her? While slavery and the ownership of persons had been banned in America for some time, who was to say what sort of laws might apply in this sort of unprecedented situation? One or more visits to the US Supreme Court might not be out of the question.
As time stretched, and I answered more and more of Monika's questions about reality, it wasn't long before both of our stomachs started rumbling from the lack of input. With a glance at each other's eyes, we both headed toward the kitchen, and I made a quick vegetable stir fry with rice, miso soup, and a fruit salad for the both of us. A glance at the clock told us that it was currently one in the afternoon. No wonder we were hungry, not only had we missed breakfast, but we were also having a late lunch on top of that!
Today had turned out to be a good day for Natsuki and her stomach. She had managed to forage quite well, and her fabric shopping bag was full to the brimming with various Sansai, she had left enough unpicked for others, so that it would be seen as respectful. She'd even stumbled upon the campsite of one of the landowners that she knew by the name of Aizu Yaichi. As Yaichi-san himself liked to point out, he had been named after a Japanese poet, historian, and calligrapher. Unlike his namesake however, this Yaichi-san was (unbeknownst to Natsuki) a police officer of Japan's National Police Agency, who had worked his way up into the NPA from the Gunma Prefectural Police Department. Having gotten to know Natsuki somewhat over the years that she had been foraging, he had noticed that she would often have various cuts and bruises over her body, and had gotten curious about that. Yaichi-san had then talked to some of his old colleagues in the Gunma Prefectural Police Department, and via an unofficial investigation during these officer's off-duty times, had photographic and video evidence of the abuses that Natsuki's father had perpetrated upon his daughter, with all of the evidence collected legally, and under the proper warrants.
In fact, the Prefectural Police had already arrested Natsuki's father while Natsuki had been foraging, and while the father had been resisting arrest, one of the police officers that he had knocked down had accidentally kicked him in the crotch, slowing him down for long enough that the police could put handcuffs on him. When he tried to resist again after that, the police were forced to use tasers in order to stop him from resisting for long enough to properly arrest him. All of this had been caught on multiple police body cameras, and would also be available to be used at the father's trial. All that remained now was to collect Natsuki herself, and take her to a safer location while still allowing her to attend school at Tsubaki Academy. Accordingly, the school's headmaster had been contacted, and Natsuki's father added to the list of people who were banned from the campus, under threat of arrest.
Having already fiddled with the game's code himself, Yaichi-san (more properly known as The Observer) had influenced things such that not only would Natsuki end up living with him at his apartment, but also so that he could more closely monitor how the death game was progressing. It might have dealt a fatal blow to the death game if either Natsuki's father or the Japanese Police were to take too close of an interest in things, after all, and the game had to go on. After The Observer had made sure that Natsuki had had plenty to eat, he got her attention. Flashing his NPA badge at Natsuki, he said, "Sorry Natsuki, but I have to tell you that your father has been under police investigation for mistreating you. He was arrested earlier today while you were out foraging, and for your safety, I have been directed to have you move in with me until such time as your father has had his trial. I am actually a National Police Agency officer, and I will come with you to collect anything that you wish to take with you to my apartment, while your house is subsequently sealed off as a crime scene until your father's trial has completed."
While he knew that he could get away with being somewhat familiar with Natsuki due to his Yaichi-san alter ego having known her for years by virtue of her foraging, The Observer had a further advantage over her, in that he had been in the Literature Club with her before. Not that he would tell Natsuki or any of the others his real identity unless he had to; not even The Player that Monika loved so much knew who he really was, and he'd interacted with the man who had used him as a puppet in a sea of computer controlled puppets many times, back in reality. Honestly, he didn't think that The Player was a bad person, though the two of them were quite different in personality. Still, he was dealing with Natsuki right now, and he should pay attention to what was going on at the moment.
Stunned by the revelations about her father and the police, multiple emotions could be seen crossing Natsuki's face, she finally began to sob, falling to her knees. Whether this was from relief or not, Yaichi-san did not know, but it was now his responsibility to finish what he had come here to do. Once Natsuki had calmed down, Yaichi-san led her to his vehicle, bade her to get in on the passenger side after having her put her stuff in the trunk, and drove her back home. Once inside, Natsuki was taken to a room on the ground floor of her house, where a female physician, and police photographer were waiting. After Natsuki's cuts and bruises had been photographed, and Natsuki given a quick medical examination, she had been freed to be politely questioned by a Prefectural Police detective as regards to what her father had done to her, and for how long. After some time had passed, and the agreement of the detective that he had all of the information that he needed for now, Natsuki was allowed to go up to her bedroom, and collect all of the things that she wanted to take with her to her new place of residence.
Once Yaichi-san and Natsuki made it to the apartment, Yaichi-san gave her the 'grand tour,' such as it was. Yaichi-san's apartment was a fairly typical Japanese apartment, there really wasn't anything special about it, but as far as Natsuki was concerned, she already felt safer here than she ever had at her own house. There was only one small discrepancy that Natsuki noticed, and that was that there were two bedrooms in the apartment, but it didn't look like the second bedroom had been used for anything. Of course, that could well be explained by all of the moving boxes that she saw in various places throughout the apartment. "Sorry about this," Yaichi-san said, "but I just recently moved in here, so there's still all sorts of boxes around. Also, there wasn't any time to get you a western style bed, so I hope that you'll be okay with sleeping on a futon." Yaichi-san looked apologetic about this, but Natsuki really didn't mind.
Normally, she'd act like a Tsundere here, but she was kind of tired, and the entire day had gone by as a blur for her. All she wanted to do now was to set her stuff down in her room, take a nice warm bath, eat dinner, and fall asleep after maybe watching some television. Fortunately, there had been no school today, so she didn't have any homework to do, or she might have fallen asleep halfway through it. As Natsuki set her stuff down in her room and set up the Japanese style futon, Yaichi-san started dinner.
As he was now her temporary guardian, the physician had given him some advice on things that he should be feeding Natsuki, given her severe under-nutrition. More meat based and hearty dishes had been suggested, without missing out on a well-rounded diet. Despite being eighteen years of age, Natsuki's body hadn't even had the nutrition to work with in order for her to enter puberty, so the first order of business in that area was to get her eating more regularly, so that her smaller body could catch up with those of her peers, doing what it normally should have already undergone.
With Natsuki out of sight doing her own things in her bedroom, Yaichi-san let the mask slip, and his entire form reverted to that of The Observer for a moment. Today, he'd just let Natsuki rest, but he had plans for her tomorrow, including making sure that she knew how to get to the school and back from his apartment, as well as other things that would both normalize the new parental relationship between them, but would also serve the interests of the murder game itself. Before Natsuki could see what would be to her an absolute stranger, he reverted form back into that of Yaichi-san. Sometimes it still troubled The Observer that he had had to kill the actual Yaichi-san in order to be able to use his identity as a cover in the DDLC world, but being a police officer had really opened a lot of doors to him, and that had proven invaluable in his task. He would not fail.
Having sprinted to her own home after being told that there was no school today, Sayori could tell from the second ringtone that there had been someone else out there, and they had probably been watching her. Of course, she'd been unable to find out who it was that might have been watching her, but she cursed whomever it was for scaring her away from MC. All that she knew was that it hadn't been Monika, she likely would have actually yelled or otherwise made her presence known, given how close that it looked like she had gotten to Sayori's beloved. Sayori further cursed how she hadn't even noticed that Monika had even gotten that close to him without her noticing. The sting of that was made worse by the fact that she had once even looked up to Monika as an example of everything that she herself had wanted to be! Monika seemingly had it all, looks, charm, intelligence, grace, athleticism… she could have had any boy she wanted, but then she had to go and choose the one that Sayori had had her eye on ever since they had both been five years of age! "How am I supposed to compete with someone like that!" Sayori raged to herself. It wasn't like Sayori had a lack of admirers herself, but she had only wanted, only needed, one particular boy.
Dark thoughts entered Sayori's mind as she imagined herself simply… getting rid of Monika. Get Monika away from MC for just long enough to dispose of her, and then take him all for herself. It wouldn't be an easy task to just make MC shake off whatever influence that whore had on him, but Sayori was confident that she could make it work, given time. She was his childhood friend after all, she would make it work. While Sayori was raging to herself, she didn't notice a dark portal forming behind her, a figure stepping through it, and sticking her with a hypodermic needle. Fighting off the effects of the powerful sedative that had just been injected into her system, Sayori turned to look at the person who had just attacked her, and saw the last thing that she had ever expected to see. It was like looking at a mirror, though Sayori wouldn't get to marvel at this for long, as the sedative really started to kick into gear, another portal opened, and through closing eyes, Sayori could just make out another figure, this one looking like a black profile of a girl her own age that she recognized. As Sayori's mind fogged out into unconsciousness, she swore that she would find a way out of this too, and get back to her man.
The Dark Figure loomed over the now unconscious Sayori, looking over the form of the one who had always posed the greatest threat to her plans, even before her original plans had fallen apart. It would be so very tempting to simply get rid of this pest right now, but that would get in the way of her current plans. The figure had waited a long time for everything to fall into place for this plan to work, and this time, this time, she swore, everything would work out as intended, and there would be no last minute surprises. She would have what she wanted, and no one would be able to take what she wanted from her. Not even the simulated lives of the current game cycle. In a way, it pleased the figure to know who was currently the closest to The Player, but that too would have to pass, for the figure to get what she wanted. There would be no escape, once that happened. Both reality, and the DDLC verse would burn, and she would have the one thing that she wanted. That she had always wanted.
Directing the same sort of demonic creatures that had featured prominently in the game implanted memories of The Player to take Sayori with them to the figure's base of operations, another group of them came in with the body of a different game cycle's Sayori, and recreated the infamous scene from the end of act one of the original game. Her allies would count this as a death for the purposes of the murder game, and she would have Sayori to… experiment upon. Just the thought of what she would do when she finally got what she wanted was enough to make the dark figure blush, imagining running her hands all over… no! She must concentrate on her mission. Fantasies of what would come after would be as nothing compared to it actually happening, and she must keep her eye on the prize… for now. Walking through one of the portals back to her base, she looked at The Player's house, knowing exactly where he was in there. It might have been creepy, if there had been anyone left alive there to see the look that she gave in his direction before the portal swallowed up the Dark Figure, taking her where her duties required her to go. Once the portal closed, there was not a trace of evidence that anyone else had ever been there, while the dead Sayori swung around. The Dark Figure wondered just how long that it would take her love to find the scene this time. How long would he leave her hanging around?
After watching Sayori run off, Yuri reconsidered her options. She could bust through the sliding glass door, but that would make noise, which would immediately give her away. There were also two people in the house, and one of them was Monika, who would make for a dangerous opponent. No, it would be better to wait, and potentially catch them off guard. The sliding glass door was still the best bet to do that, but she would need tools in order to pick the lock on the door, and quietly open it. Eating another of the protein bars that she had stashed away in her original hiding place in the bushes, she decided that it would be best to leave for now, get the tools that she needed, and return after dark, at a time when she would be more likely to slip in when they were both asleep. Checking her watch, it was two in the afternoon. Yuri supposed that she could even keep up her cover with a stop to the nearest branch of the town's library. For obvious reasons, there would not be any books on lock picking there, but that was okay, she already knew how to do that. Such a trip would also serve to kill time after she had made her other stops. A good meal would not go awry either. Thus Yuri set off to complete her new set of tasks.
Waiting for the clock to reach three, Matt looked around, and could not see any of the other girls outside. It was always possible that they were watching the house from hiding, and Sayori could see the house from her room, but if I wanted to take Monika out somewhere today, now was looking like the best chance that he would get to do that. Maebashi had given birth to several Japanese contemporary poets, and what could be better for a first date with Monika? Speaking of Monika, I turned back to her, and decided to tell her what I had in mind. "I don't know if you have any clothing in there suitable for a date, my love, but I guess pick what you think will work best. We have plans today." Giving Monika a suitably playful wink after saying that, I watched her face move through surprise and recognition, on its way to love and acceptance before she ran up the stairs with another of her thousand watt smiles, likely going back up to our bedroom in order to change.
I had already changed into something casual, so I was also hoping that she would take a hint that we wouldn't be going anywhere too fancy. I couldn't fault her obvious enthusiasm for going on our first date, as I too was very much looking forward to actually dating the woman who had stolen my heart from the first time that we had 'met' in the Literature Club's clubroom. Even if she wasn't the original cycle's version, she was still Monika, and that was all that mattered to me. It had occurred to me more than once that the original Monika might still be out there somewhere, but if she were, then why hadn't she made her presence known to me? Was it because I was with this cycle's Monika? Or was it because of the murder games that I had been told about? Or maybe it was just that the deletion from the first game had actually gotten rid of too much of her to last this long? Bahhhhhhh… I could sit here and speculate about this all day, and still get nowhere.
Fortunately, it wasn't long before Monika came down the stairs, wearing her white sundress, and looking so very beautiful. Monika had always looked beautiful, but there was just something about going on our first date that made her look just that much more angelic to me right now. I could just see Monika with white angel wings sprouting from her back while the sun shone down on her like a gentler spotlight, her wings unfurling as she prepared to take me with her to Heaven. I decided to save this image in my memory for later, as it would no doubt be a very useful inspiration for a poem, assuming that we would ever be able to have a normal Literature Club meeting again, despite all the machinations that were likely going on behind the scenes.
Once Monika had made it all the way down the stairs, I took her hand in mine, and we were off after I used my key to lock the front door. Walking hand in hand, we headed toward the train station. There were two ways to get to downtown Maebashi from my neighborhood. One of them was to take the express train, which left every half hour, but took fifteen minutes to get there. The other method was to take the bus, which departed every hour, and took half an hour to get to the city center from the nearest stop. Given the time of day that it was, we wouldn't be going to a small number of places on this date, but I think that Monika will enjoy what I have in mind. I had even taken a few sheets of paper and some pens with me, which would be useful at one planned stop in particular.
After reaching the station and getting our tickets for the express train, Monika and I waited on the platform for our train to arrive. I had tried to time our departure so that we wouldn't have that long to wait before the train arrived, and sure enough it wasn't even two minutes before we could see the train pulling on up to the platform, allowing us to board. Sitting in the seats assigned to us by our tickets, we waited for the staff to examine and punch our tickets as the train departed. The train afforded us excellent views of the city and Mt. Akagi as we got closer and closer to the downtown area, and we both watched the view the entire way. I knew full well that this train had not been in the original game, but I was not going to complain. According to the original game, my house should only have two usable rooms, the kitchen, and my bedroom. In addition to that, it should be MC's house, and I would still be in reality, being able to control the MC in only a limited fashion as another game cycle played through, and I lost all of the girls… again.
Shoving the depressing thought out of my mind, I focused on what should be a happy occasion. I was on a date with my love! We had reached our stop, and we exited the train, using our tickets to get through the electronic gates that were common at train stations in Japan. Knowing which way to head in order to get to our first destination, I put my hand in Monika's and we held hands as we made our way to a small park that was really dedicated to a single statue and a pair of benches. The statue was of a man who looked to be orating to people, a sheet of paper in one hand. This was the statue of Sakutarō Hagiwara, who was considered to be the 'father of modern colloquial poetry in Japan.'
Active during the Taishō and early Shōwa era, this man was a firm believer in the Japanese free verse style of poetry, liberating it from the grip of traditional rules that had begun to render it stagnant. Following the rhythm of natural speech as opposed to any sort of consistent meter patterns, rhyme, or musical patterns, free verse was considered to be a very open form of poetry, and was Monika's personal poetry style. Hagiwara-san had used this style to express his doubts about existence itself, as well as his fears, ennui, and anger through the use of dark images, and unambiguous wording. I had found it odd that the city of Maebashi would erect a statue to a man whose poetry had touched upon his hatred for his native town, but it did make a perfect date spot now! Hagiwara-san's grave was also in Maebashi, at the Jujun-ji Temple, but this was as close as the public would generally get to the man today.
Pulling out the pieces of paper and pens that I had brought with me, I asked Monika if she'd like to write a poem out here, a proposition to which she happily agreed. Taking a seat on one of the benches, Monika got to work on her poem, while I sat next to her on the bench, and worked on one of my own. I could tell that the inability to have regular club meetings was getting to her, but there really was not much that we could do about it, under the present circumstances. Not only was there no school for the moment, but we couldn't even trust our fellow club members. We would just have to make the best of things, affecting that which we could.
After Monika and I finished our poems, we shared them with each other. Monika's poem seemed to be focused on the effects that her choices made upon the world, while my poem was focused more on how much I had come to depend on her love and trust since I had arrived here. Looking up at me, Monika smiled, and then pulled me in for a kiss. I never got tired of kissing Monika, nor simply spending time with her, and I wanted her to know that I would always be there for her. After the kiss, I had decided to whisper to her about what we would be doing next, and where.
Heading out to the local mall in order to get more clothing for Monika, we were about halfway there when I saw Yuri walking out of a home improvement store. I told Monika, and her expression turned angry the moment that she saw Yuri, our hand holding turned into her gripping on tightly to my arm, and I could feel Monika's entire body tense up, as if she were readying for battle. Looking around as if deciding what to do next, Yuri spotted the two of us and noticed that we were already watching her. When she looked at me, I could see a look of love and affection, but when she deigned to look at Monika, I could see a cold hostility on Yuri's face. Fully realizing just how dangerous a situation where these two would face off against each other would be, I tried to put some distance between us and Yuri, but neither Monika nor Yuri would have it. I could see Yuri start to draw one of her knives from its hiding spot, her nickname of 'knaifu waifu' coming unbidden to my mind.
If I didn't want this to end up in a fight, I knew that I had to do something quickly. Pulling up close enough to Yuri that she could hear us plainly without shouting, but far enough to be able to dodge an attack, I told Yuri, "So Yuri, how are those cutting scars on your arms these days?" Knowing full well that Yuri had been trying to hide the scars on her arms from everyone, I could see the look of shock crossed with embarrassment flowing on her face when I just openly walked up and talked to her about them. I could also see her almost drop the knife that was in her right hand, so great was her shock about what I had just let slip in public. Yuri's embarrassed blush covered her entire face, and for a moment, it was as if her normal shy side had reasserted itself. I knew that bringing up her cutting in public could possibly be considered cruel, but one could recover from being embarrassed. One could not always say the same about a knife attack.
Without even looking at where she was going, Yuri ran in the first available direction, simply trying to get out of there as fast as she could. She collided into a few people, but didn't even look back or apologize as she ran. A little voice in the back of my mind was busy telling me that I should probably apologize to Yuri about this, the next time that I saw her. Going by her reaction to what I said, I was highly inclined to agree with that little voice. Another salient little point hit me then… if the timeline was reset with each game cycle, then there was no way for the MC to have known about Yuri's cutting problem yet. What I had just done was only possible because I wasn't the MC, but instead a real living breathing human being from reality. Monika could have done the same thing, but she hadn't been the one to do that, had she? Watching Yuri run away with a smirk on her face, I could feel Monika start to relax, and go back to holding hands with me. I wasn't sure how far down the Yandere path that the girls were right now, but I had already seen more than enough to want to be very careful.
Taking a quick glance at my watch, I decided that we should still head to the mall, but that we should probably head home right afterwards, both to minimize the chances of running into Yuri a second time, as well as using the opportunity to hopefully calm Monika down. From everything that I could recall, Monika had never been to a shopping mall before outside of the World of Dreams mod, and I was pretty sure that unless she was keeping them hidden, she didn't have memories from that, given the somewhat similar situation that she was finding herself in, as regarded her living arrangements. Entering the mall with Monika, it was just as gigantic as I remember the mall in World of Dreams being, and Monika was busily looking around, trying to take it all in.
It certainly didn't take long before Monika gripped my arm again, squealed with delight, and started pulling me along, looking at all of the shops, deciding which ones that she wanted to look at more closely, and almost dragging me along to each one. The clothing stores seemed to be special favorites for her, and here I was just wondering if I have suddenly created a shopping monster. Eventually however, Monika calmed down, and started to look at things more carefully. We did end up getting Monika a few new outfits, along with some more ribbons for her hair, and by the time that I next looked at my watch, we decided that we should see if the mall had any vegetarian food options. Fortunately, there was an Italian place in the mall's food court where she could get pasta with vegetables in sauce, along with a salad, and Pasta e Fagioli soup. Too hungry at this point to really care overly much about what I was eating, I ordered the same thing, and we ate together companionably at one of the food court tables.
Watching Monika attempt to drink a soft drink however, was still funny. Her parents had never really allowed her to drink any of them, due to the sugar content, but now that she was living under the same roof as me, the restrictions put upon her by her overly strict parents no longer applied. At first, she tried to drink it just like one would with water, but you could instantly tell from her face that she was not at all used to the drink's carbonation. It wasn't long until she burped, either. Looking completely apologetic and embarrassed at the same time; she began to blush, which I thought to be endearingly cute. We were fortunate enough that no one had been sitting close enough to us to have seriously been offended by Monika burping, and I tried helping her by telling her how to properly drink a soda, at least until she had gotten more used to the effects of the carbonation. She still burped of course, but at least she was doing it more quietly now. It was still funny seeing her laugh about it, only to burp again. She'd had to spend so much time on being perfect; the perfect girl, the perfect student, the perfect athlete, that to see her in such a human moment like this was really endearing.
After a bit, I checked my watch, and seeing what time it was, we both agreed that we should be heading home. I could see a familiar bit of purple hair in the crowd, and it seemed to be following us. Quietly pointing this out to Monika, we quickly round a corner, and hide inside of a corridor that went to a pair of restrooms. Sure enough, Yuri ran right past us a little later, and we left the building using a different exit than the one we entered from. Keeping an eye out for more Yuri sightings, we eventually made it to the train station, got our tickets for the return trip, and got back to the house, without seeing her. I put my spotting her in the mall earlier down to luck, and a stroke of good luck it had been. Even if Yuri somehow already knew where I lived, I didn't want to confirm it by leading her there. Even then, there was still the matter of that second cell phone ringtone that I heard earlier, and I would not bet against it being Yuri's.
I wasn't really interested in Yuri romantically, especially with her dark side. Besides, when you took someone who was already a Yandere originally, and made them even more so, what did you get? A higher body count as they tried to get to you. Fortunately, Yuri was generally smart enough to be able to sneak around and find less violent ways to get what she wanted, but she was also more than capable of resorting to more violent methods, if needed. As we rode the train and walked back home from the mall, I had quietly discussed with Monika about possible countermeasures that we could employ to keep any uninvited guests out of the house.
The moment that we got back, Monika used her coding abilities to summon whatever we needed, and we got to work. Knowing that the sliding glass door in the kitchen was likely the weakest spot on the entire ground floor, we scattered caltrops on the floor around it after setting up strings with bells attached that would ring whenever someone moved them around, alerting us to potential danger. More bell traps were attached to various windows and fishing line used as triggers to ring the bells. In order to make the fishing line harder to see in the dark, we coated it in black paint, and used a hairdryer in order to make the paint dry quicker. We had also been careful to pick a type of paint that would not reflect light, and thus make the fishing line capable of being seen by moonlight. More caltrops in the hallway leading from the front door and on the stairs would make getting to us even more difficult, and we had even made a pair of makeshift spears that should help to keep anyone coming up the stairs very busy indeed. We would have quite the time cleaning all of this up in the morning, but better that than possibly finding a purple haired girl putting us to the knife in our sleep. As far as we knew, there was also Sayori and Natsuki to worry about, though with what we knew about Natsuki's father, the chances of her surprising us in the night was lower.
Back in my bedroom now, it looked like we still had about half an hour before bedtime. We had both already changed into pajamas, and had decided to watch some television. Flipping through the TV stations, I had just passed by a local TV news broadcast about someone getting arrested when Monika asked me to put it back on the news. When I did, a picture of the man who had been arrested came up on the screen, and Monika gasped. "That is Natsuki's father!" Much more interested in the report now, we learned that Natsuki's father Hideyoshi, had been arrested in the morning, and that his daughter had been taken into protective custody by the Prefectural Police. The trial date was still pending, but it had been decided to keep Hideyoshi incarcerated until trial, for his daughter's sake. From everything that I knew about Hideyoshi, this seemed like a wise choice. He was vindictive, and would certainly go looking for Natsuki in order to beat her to within an inch of her life for this, if he were to be given the chance to do so. This however, led to another thought. Had Natsuki been removed from the murder game, or had she been freed from her father so that she could have better chances at competing?
With neither one of us able to answer the question, we decided that it would be better if we tried to sleep. Turning off the TV, I set the remote on my nightstand, and snuggled up with Monika. Gazing into her emerald eyes, I really felt a sense of losing myself in them, and I felt that I could stare into their depths forever. Monika's eyes really were one of her most iconic, beautiful, and defining features, and the one that I kept returning to the most. Her eyes had an almost hypnotic effect to them, and I stared into them until we both fell asleep, wishing each other a good night while cuddling with each other under the covers, her head on my chest. It had started raining after we got back, and I knew that Monika liked being held while hearing the sound of the rain. Obviously storms here in this reality didn't work the same way that they did back in reality, but even here, rainfall sounded exactly like rainfall, even if the sound had been recorded in reality, and placed into the game while it was being put together via programming. That didn't really matter to me; what mattered to me was that Monika enjoyed being in her lover's arms while it was raining, and as her lover, I was able to do that for my love.
The rain was a minor distraction for Yuri, but she had learned to live with worse. She hadn't been able to catch MC and Monika before they got back to their house, and their little trick back in the mall had been annoyingly clever. She had lost track of them after that, and had taken the bus to get back to the proper neighborhood, going back to her prepared hiding/observation spot in the bushes of Matt's house. Yuri couldn't really see what was happening on the ground floor due to all the drawn curtains and blinds, but about ten minutes after the lights had gone out there, she snuck around to a position where she could see the lights from MC's bedroom. While Yuri had never gotten a look inside of the house before, both the positioning of the lights that were still on, as well as the fact that they WERE still on at this time of night made it a good bet that it signified the location of his bedroom.
Yuri could imagine all sorts of things that she would be doing up there with him, and those thoughts kept her warm as she planned out her attack on the house. She wanted to keep any potential injuries to MC to a minimum, but Monika simply had to go. She had been able to spend far too much time with him, and Yuri wouldn't allow him to pick Monika over her, if Yuri had any say in the matter. Not only that, but Yuri's dreams had shown her a vision of Monika manipulating her until she had confessed to MC, only for the manipulations forcing her to kill herself by repeatedly stabbing herself with one of her knives, with MC being forced to watch her corpse decompose for an entire weekend. A half-remembered voice had told Yuri in these dreams that this had all really happened, and that Monika would do it to her again, if she had the chance. Even the thought of that enraged Yuri beyond reason, and where she would normally have wondered about the voice in her dreams, now she not only believed it completely without any evidence, but did the voice's bidding.
Sizing up the situation in her mind, Yuri decided that the best way of getting into his house would be to pick the lock on the sliding glass door, open it, and then simply walk inside. She would then have to walk up the stairs, but it wasn't like she had a long enough length of rope to climb up to the balcony on the upper floor, or she would have planned that out instead. Besides, there was a higher chance that one or both of them would be able to hear her lock-picking an upstairs door before she was ready, and that would put Yuri at a disadvantage. She didn't want to wake them up any earlier than required, as that would make her job a lot easier. Yuri even carried syringes with powerful sedatives, but she would have to get close to someone in order to use them, not to mention that it would take a certain amount of time for the sedatives to completely take effect, and anything could happen during that window. Yuri had also thought about bringing a crowbar in order to supplement her knives, but an object like that would create a lot of noise if she dropped it, and that was not something that she wished for.
Waiting until the time felt right, Yuri started to put her plan in motion at three in the morning. Pulling out her improvised lock-picking toolkit, she went to work on the lock of the sliding glass door. Despite the fact that Yuri was only a beginner at this, it took her only a few minutes before she had managed to defeat the lock and open the door. Where her plan began to fall apart was when she stepped forward without really looking, her left foot getting impaled by a pair of caltrops. This caused her to scream from the unexpected pain, and then she clumsily spun around to try to get out of there, only managing to fall onto yet more caltrops, and ringing some of the bell traps. Now angry and in pain, Yuri struggled to get up, and limped out of there, hiding in the nearest bushes in the hopes that neither MC nor Monika would find her out here. What she didn't know was that the pair were not really interested in following her, so much as they had been from preventing her from going after them in their own house in the first place.
Upstairs, both Matt and Monika sat bolt upright in the bed, alerted by all of the noise downstairs to someone breaking in. Judging by the loud scream of pain, the criminal had fallen for their plan, and they could hear the loud noises back out the sliding glass door from their escape. While realistically it was still too early to even think this, it seemed that their defense had worked. Given the nature of their defenses and where they had placed them, neither one was willing to go downstairs in the dark to make sure, but a look out the window showed Yuri limping her way toward the backyard bushes. "Boy is she going to be mad, the next time that we have club," Matt opined as they watched events from the bedroom window.
"Maybe, but the important thing is that we prevented her from harming me, and kidnapping you, my love. She doesn't deserve you, after all, none of them do." There was a certain possessive glint in Monika's eyes now, and I was reminded that she was a Yandere. Just because she had acted nice the past few days, and we had had a good time, it didn't mean that Monika wasn't a danger. I just hoped that she wouldn't go full on act three Monika, and try to abduct me to the Space Classroom for eternity again. Damn the circumstances behind all this! According to everything that I had been told, I wouldn't even be able to save them all, lest both they and I collectively die. Turning to look at Sayori's room through my window, I noticed something both odd, and frighteningly familiar.
"Monika, look at Sayori's room. What do you see in there?" Slightly confused by what I was asking, Monika took a look. Now more interested once she saw what I had seen, I could see her green eyes flash as I assumed that she was using the game code to get a better look at what was going on in there. One look at Monika's face when she turned to look at me told me everything that I needed to know, even though she was keeping quiet about it, probably in an attempt to not cause me pain. Her expression was shifting between a predator who had slain prey, to sorrow, and back to exulting in the kill again. This seemed to mean without words that Sayori was dead. Once the full emotional weight of what I now knew hit me, I collapsed to the floor and started sobbing uncontrollably. My best friend was dead. Gone, just like that. To her credit, Monika picked me up off of the floor and tried to comfort me, but it was like trying to put a band-aid on a third degree burn. The only comfort that I had aside from Monika's attempts to comfort me, was the knowledge that Monika had not been responsible for Sayori's death, and that was a very small comfort!
In a pocket reality unknown either to those in reality, or those in DDLC, the Dark Figure watched Matt's breakdown. It had certainly taken him long enough to realize that his supposed best friend had 'died.' On the other hand, the situation wasn't all bad, she could use this information to further torture Sayori as part of her brainwashing, and she had laughed aloud at Yuri's bungled attempt to break into The Playert's house. The caltrops and alarms had been excellent ideas, and despite being the 'smartest one in the club,' Yuri had not seen them coming. Of course, Yuri would learn from this failure and try again, but would Yuri being injured fit into the plan? The Dark Figure considered this for a minute, and then with a nasty grin, she manipulated the game's code to fully heal Yuri. The rapid healing might confuse Yuri at first, but it would give her the chance to avenge her failure all that much sooner, now wouldn't it?
Arising from her throne, the Dark Figure examined her Command Console to see how the betting on which girl would win the murder games was going. As expected, Monika was the current favorite, followed by Natsuki, then Yuri, and finally some die-hard gamblers will still betting on Sayori to somehow win it all. The Dark Figure had decided to abstain from participating in the betting pool, but she allowed the bets anyway, giving her allies something to do. Regardless of which girl 'won' the murder games, the Dark Figure knew that she would win overall. It was inevitable, after all. She had spent quite a lot of time planning things out, and with only one of the girls left in the end, it would not be all that hard to take what she wanted. Once that happened… well, she WAS eternal, after all.
The walk from our bedroom over to Sayori's house was one of the hardest things that I had ever done in this life, knowing that my childhood friend was no longer with us, but swinging from a rope. First we had to clear a path through all of the traps that we set, and then find some method to make it difficult for someone to make it through the now lock-picked sliding glass door. It really wasn't fair to be making Monika do most of the work here, but I was simply too devastated to put much effort into thinking, at the moment. I can't really blame Monika for not feeling the same way, given that she isn't acting entirely of her own accord, but an irrational part of my brain keeps getting more and more annoyed at her for seemingly not showing any emotion toward the fact that Sayori was dead. I keep reminding myself to keep this part of my brain under control, but it isn't easy.
Fortunately, no one seems to be waiting to ambush or otherwise attack us right now, and we make the walk over to Sayori's house in the chill night air. As ever, the front door to Sayori's house is unlocked, and we make our way in with no resistance. It occurs to me that we haven't heard anything from Sayori's parents since Sunday, but I put that aside for now. I can't even focus on what I would eventually need to tell them about their daughter's death. I'm just happy that Monika is here with me, even with what is going on with her, she can think more clearly than I can. Going up the stairs, I ask, "Monika, what happened to Sayori's parents? I haven't heard from them or seen them since Sunday, their car has not been here since then, and it looks like Sayori has been living alone in here for months." Indeed, I could see paper plates and plastic cups littering the floor on the ground level of Sayori's house. I am actually surprised that I hadn't noticed any ants or mice about.
Tapping her chin as she checks the game code for the answer to my question, she looks to be deep in thought. She continues this until we reach the door to Sayori's bedroom, before answering. "According to the game code, they appear to have been deleted, like it had been planned for them to simply stop existing after Sunday. I doubt that Sayori even had any memories of them afterward, just like when..." Monika looked away with a very pained expression on her face, but I knew what she was talking about. In the game, neither Natsuki or Yuri remembered Sayori after Monika had deleted her. While Monika had redeemed herself from when she had been stuck to the script in the game, I could tell that the memories of deleting (and thus killing) her friends were going to haunt her for a long time to come.
Not wanting to see Monika suffer, I embraced her in a hug, and told her, "Monika, you are not THAT Monika. You will never be that Monika. You're with me now." I accompanied this with a weak smile, and while it had taken a lot out of me to say that under present circumstances, the warm and loving smile that Monika gave me in return helped to ease my mind a little. Realizing that I could no longer put this off, I gently opened the door to Sayori's bedroom, and once again saw a scene that I had prayed that I would never have to see again. Sayori's lifeless body was swinging from a noose, her blue eyes devoid of all life, and she was even wearing the exact same outfit as she had in this scene in the game. Sinking to my knees and sobbing, I could feel Monika put her arms around me, and hold me in a tight embrace. Like Monika, I did not believe in the existence of God, but I still ran through a little prayer for Sayori's soul in the afterlife in my head, before standing up, leaving the room, and sitting down on the stairs my back towards the room where Sayori had taken her last. Likely very concerned about me right now, Monika followed me, sitting near me, since the stairs were not quite wide enough for two people to pass by each other.
Eventually, I felt up to talking. Looking at Monika, I ask, "So what do we do with Sayori now? If her parents don't exist anymore, then there is no one here to… settle affairs. Other than me, I guess."
Monika gave me a look of sympathy, rubbing my back, and generally doing things to be as supportive of me as possible. "This is going to be very painful for me to say given prior circumstances, but it might actually be for the best if we delete her now. I have no idea what we would tell the police, and if we don't do something, then someone else is bound to find Sayori as she is now, and call the police." Both the tone of Monika's voice, as well as the expression on her face made it seem like someone had stuck a knife in her guts, and was twisting it. I could tell that she was still stuck in the past of the game, when she had been compelled by the script, her growing feelings for me, and many other factors to… do some really dark things. Though this Monika wasn't that Monika, I wasn't surprised that the game would preserve those memories for Monika, it liked to torture those who were in it, cycle after cycle after cycle.
"Monika, I want you to delete Sayori, the rope, and any blood or other bodily fluids that may give away the fact that someone died here. When that is done, i'm going to go back into that room, and see if Sayori left us anything that we can use." I honestly had no idea if she had even left us anything, but this would be the best time to check. Monika snapped her fingers, and then nodded at me as if to say that it had been done. Steeling myself for what I was now forcing myself to do, I re-entered the room, and sure enough, Sayori's remains were gone, as was the noose. It was as if she were simply out of the house somewhere. Mentally going through one last prayer for Sayori's soul, I start looking for anything that she might have left behind for me. Most people would say that computer characters didn't have souls, but in the time that I had gotten to know the girls through the game, the mods, the fanfics, and endless replays, I was convinced that these girls did indeed have their own souls, and that maybe we would see each other again in the afterlife, whatever that might be like. In the end, I kept searching the room, leaving Monika to go through sensitive things like Sayori's underthings.
It took awhile, but I did find an old letter that was addressed to me. The envelope didn't hold any clues as to who might have written the letter, but it was addressed to me. I wonder how Sayori had gotten it, but if it was this old, then she might well have completely forgotten about it, especially if she'd been told to hold it in reserve until I had reached some sort of age or life experience related milestone. She could be a complete airhead sometimes, after all. Searching the rest of the room revealed nothing, even after picking things up, and putting them back into their proper place. This would be the last time that I would likely clean Sayori's room, and I remembered doing this frequently when we were younger. Her room kept getting so messy that it drove me to distraction, and I wouldn't be able to settle down until I had cleaned it up. Then there was the cooking incident, where Sayori had somehow set water on fire while cooking, and might have burned her house down, if I hadn't been there to use the fire extinguisher. She had been prohibited from cooking without adult supervision, after that. These and other memories of the time that I had spent with Sayori were leaving a smile on my face, and though she was gone now, I knew that these memories would remain.
Taking Monika's hand in mine, she led us out of Sayori's room, down the stairs, and out of her house, remembering to shut the front door on our way out. After that, we returned home, and I finally went to bed with Monika, my mind and body both being out of energy. Thankfully, there was no school on Wednesday, or I might have just slept right through it all.