"Kaede, I'm the Mastermind."

The words hit Kaede like a freight train.

She...she must have misheard that. Her expertly trained ears clearly screwed up, because there was no way the cute girl she'd just spent the morning on a date with had just revealed that she was somehow the Mastermind.

And yet...her eyes.

Normally, Tsumugi didn't really look Kaede in the eyes. They tended to point down at the ground, just one of a dozen signs of what Kaede thought was depression.

But now, her gray eyes were aimed directly at Kaede, and the effect was chilling.

Tsumugi looked like a completely different person. Her expression was cold, bitingly so, like a blizzard from the dead of winter. The sunlight reflected off of one of her glasses' lenses, letting Kaede see the reflection of her own stunned face in the glass.

Kaede had never seen a person look at another person the way Tsumugi was looking at her. The closest thing it reminded her of was...the possessive rage of someone about to have something that belonged to them taken away. But far chillier, infinitely more precise.

"Y-you're joking, right?" Kaede managed to ask, her voice shaking. Even as she asked it, she felt like she knew the answer. But...she couldn't accept that. She couldn't believe it.

"No. I'm not."

Sweat started to pour down the back of Kaede's neck, even though the exterior of the Academy hadn't grown any warmer.

Trying to sound stern, Kaede replied, "Tsumugi, this isn't something that it's okay to-"

Tsumugi sighed. "Kaede...I'm not lying to you. Let's go sit under the tree, and I'll explain everything."

Then, seemingly confident that Kaede would do as she asked, Tsumugi walked back over to the nearby tree and sat with her back against its trunk, looking up at Kaede.

There was nothing keeping her there. Kaede could easily ignore this outburst, and just go to see Korekiyo like she'd planned.

That was probably the best idea, right? After all, it wasn't like Tsumugi was serious. It was obvious she was feeling jealous, this was another attempt to get her to stay.

But...what if that wasn't true. What if she somehow was the Mastermind?

Something about the strange, almost entrancing confidence that Tsumugi was exuding, the authority with which she told Kaede what they were to do, led Kaede to follow her. She sat down and looked at Tsumugi, trying not to feel scared.

"Where to start..." Tsumugi murmured, looking a little more like her normal self...

...though that strange disconnect, that terrifying break from any emotions that would be normal for this circumstance, was still there.

"Like I said, I'm the Mastermind. I know you and Shuichi found the hidden door to my lair in the library, but there's another entrance that I usually prefer to use somewhere else. The room on the other side is where I was able to exert my control over Monokuma and the Monokubs."

That...definitely lent some credence to what she was saying. Shuichi and Kaede were supposed to be the only ones who knew about the door.

"If you're telling the truth, then why? Why did you trap us all here?! Why did you make up that stuff about a Killing Game?!"

Tapping a finger to her chin, Tsumugi seemed to consider how to answer those questions. "I'm not the one responsible for us all being here. I'm just the one who was controlling things inside the game. Speaking of, the Killing Game wasn't made up. If things had gone according to plan, there probably would have been two or three Class Trials by now, at least."

The idea of it made Kaede nauseous. How...how could Tsumugi talk about those things, like they were normal?

"Why are we here?! How do we get out?!" Kaede's voice was getting louder, and tears were welling up in her eyes. After weeks trapped there already...was this a way to finally escape?

When Tsumugi looked directly into Kaede's eyes again, they were once again completely empty of empathy. "Do you really want me to answer that question?"

"Yes!"

"This was supposed to be the fifty-third season of a show called Danganronpa. It's an immersive reality television series about gifted teenagers killing each other. However, the day before the second Motive was going to be dropped on you, the show got cancelled."

It sounded ridiculous. Inane. Impossible.

"But how can...they can't just kidnap us and film us committing murder! That's illegal!"

Tsumugi rolled her eyes, looking a little exasperated, and testily gave an answer to that. "It would be, if you were all real people. But you're not. You're characters, stuffed into the heads of actors to play the part."

By this point, the words Tsumugi were saying didn't even make sense any more. "What do you mean? I'm...I'm real! We're all real!"

"You really feel like you are, don't you?" There was something...pitying, about how Tsumugi said it. Life returned to her face, just a little, a spark of the light Kaede was used to. "I'm sorry, Kaede, but all your memories are fiction. So is your personality, your abilities, even your name. Focus-tested and editorially approved for the audience."

Kaede got up, she couldn't just listen to this. She felt the sudden urge to pull out her own hair, to claw at her skin, something to prove to Tsumugi, to herself, that she was real. "That's insane!"

"Do you remember," Tsumugi said, voice a little more lively, "when you were four years old? You and your sister had been left home by yourselves, and she stuck a fork into a wall socket. The electric shock knocked her out, and you pulled on a phone cord until you could get your hands on the receiver. It was a good thing your parents had already taught you how to dial emergency services, or you'd be an only child now."

Was she getting a fever? Kaede's skin felt cool and clammy, her clothes soaking with sweat, as she listened to this story. "How? I never..." She'd never told Tsumugi about that. No one at the school knew.

To Kaede's confusion, Tsumugi pulled out her Monopad, and brought something up, turning the screen around to show Kaede a page that didn't look like anything she could find on her own tablet. It had that story written on it, in even more detail than Tsumugi had given. And all of it matched Kaede's memory perfectly.

"As the Mastermind, I have access to everyone's files. All your memories, everything that makes you who you are, is in there. Look around a little more, if you want. It should prove my point."

She did just that.

And...it was true.

Memory after memory of Kaede's, in more detail than even she could remember them in, all detailed in a writing style that felt oddly familiar.

Something strange was starting to happen. Kaede was feeling...weirdly detached from her body. Her mind was in a haze, and it felt like she was a passive observer as her arms handed the Monopad back to Tsumugi.

There was only one more question Kaede could manage to get out.

"Why? Tsumugi, why are you doing this?"

"Do you mean 'Why am I the Mastermind?' or 'Why am I telling you all of this?'?"

"..."

It was too much. Kaede...couldn't respond. She couldn't even gather up the willpower to make the decision.

"Both, then. I'm the Mastermind because I'm a writer for the show, I have been for a few seasons. I got special permission to be inserted into the cast, to be the hidden Mastermind pulling the strings. I've always wanted to be a part of the show, and I felt like it would make for a great twist that no one in the audience would see coming."

Somehow, even more distressing than what Tsumugi was talking about was how easily she seemed to talk about it. It sounded like she was discussing an after-school job, or a class project she'd been working on.

"As for why I'm telling you..."

Something changed.

Tsumugi blushed, and like a switch had been flipped, she suddenly looked like the Tsumugi that Kaede knew again.

"It's because I like you. And if I hadn't told you, you'd be dead by now."

Kaede really wished she could have an explanation for why, even being aware now that Tsumugi was apparently the Mastermind, hearing her say that she liked Kaede was enough to make her giddy.

That rush of glee was immediately met with the cold hard wall of confusion at what else Tsumugi had told her. "Dead?"

Raising a finger, Tsumugi explained, "I really tried to warn you more subtly. How many times did I tell you that Korekiyo was dangerous?" Tsumugi sighed. "But you were still going to spend your afternoon with a serial killer, being tied up and murdered."

Bile rose in Kaede's throat, but she swallowed it down.

She didn't say anything, her mind was running through those words. Korekiyo...was a serial killer? And he was planning on killing her?

"Are you sure?"

Even as Kaede asked for confirmation, she felt strangely confident Tsumugi was right. After all...there was something about Korekiyo that had been unsettling from day one. He talked about human beings like he was an outside observer, creating a detachment that Kaede could see as being genuinely dangerous.

Still, just because it felt right didn't mean she should just believe it.

"Don't you remember? I have everyone's files, and his is very detailed." Tsumugi must have pulled it up on her Monopad, and Kaede could see her flicking the screen to move through the document. "Had an identical twin sister, who died, now he kills girls he thinks she would like to be friends with in the afterlife. Oh, and he also has some kind of split personality thing going on?" The cosplayer clicked her tongue, sounding dissatisfied. "I don't know how this passed revisions, honestly."

A shiver of fear, or at least a close cousin to it, passed through Kaede's body as she heard Tsumugi casually talk about another of their class as a fictional character, critiquing the writing decisions that made him who he is.

For a second, Kaede almost let her mind wander into dangerous territory. The questions raised by their apparently fictional existence. But...this wasn't the time for that, she thought.

Instead, Kaede knew she had to focus.

What had she learned?

One, they were fictional characters made for some kind of strange reality show, but it had been cancelled. Presumably, that was why Monokuma wasn't around anymore, not because he 'died'.

Two, Tsumugi worked on the show and was helping control all of it. At the same time, she seemed to actually like Kaede.

Three, Korekiyo was planning on surprising Kaede and killing her if she went to the Gym as planned.

These, as far as she could tell, were all facts, even if they were mostly bad ones. Kaede couldn't change them, at least not immediately, so she turned her mental efforts to what she could do.

Stopping her pacing on the Academy grass, Kaede walked back over to the tree and sat next to Tsumugi. She'd seen things in the girl that were frightening...but she'd also seen enough of the awkward teenager she knew that Kaede had to believe that Tsumugi was, on some level, who she'd first appeared to be.

And...even knowing that she worked alongside the show's creators, Kaede did still like her. Tsumugi was spacey, sure, and far too hard on herself. The strange detachment she seemed capable of for her position as the Mastermind, the depression Kaede had seen in her. But Tsumugi was also...intelligent. Interesting. Sexy.

"Tsumugi?" The Mastermind looked away from her Monopad and met Kaede's eyes, and the pianist could see fear in them, naked and palpable. "Are you okay?"

"No." Such a strange bundle of emotions, buried into one syllable. Tsumugi sounded lost, resigned, downtrodden, and calm, all at the same time. "The show I built my life around is over. I'm stuck here with the rest of you until I die. Now that you know who I am, that probably isn't too far away." The corners of her lips tilted up, but Tsumugi's eyes were too sad for the smile to seem real. "At least I saved you? Even if it means you'll never want to see me again."

The last word had barely left Tsumugi's mouth before Kaede leaned in and kissed her, the movement firm and her lips unyielding. The other girl had clearly not expected that, but still started kissing back much sooner, and with better technique, than she had in their first kiss.

When Kaede pulled away, Tsumugi's mouth was still agape, and she could see a clear question in her eyes.

"I'm not...I don't know how I feel about everything you told me about, Tsumugi. We're going to have to discuss it more, and we're going to have to tell the rest of the class." Kaede smiled. "But that said, I still like you back. You might be the Mastermind, but you're not some evil villain. You're hurting right now, and you don't know what to do. I want to be here for you, to help you through all of this."

Tsumugi took some time to absorb all of that, before nodding her head, her expression once again distracted, far off. "Okay."

Giving one of her usual Kaede grins, she got up and brushed off any grass that might have stuck to her skirt. "Alright, ready to head to the gym?"

"The gym?"

"Yeah, we need to go tell Korekiyo what you told me. We don't want him to kill anyone else, right?"

For a second, it looked like Tsumugi was going to argue against that idea, but instead she sighed and said, "If that's what you want to do."

"It is!"

After all, he was only trying to kill because of what those show-making people did to him. If he knew the truth, Kaede was sure he'd be willing to give up the whole 'murder' thing.

Even if Tsumugi didn't seem as convinced.

Kaede would believe in Korekiyo.

She'd believe in Tsumugi.

It was what she was made to do.