And here we are, with the next one!
I've discovered two things as I've worked my way through this new update schedule. One, I can absolutely put out a chapter in a week. Two, I can only put out a chapter in a week at the expense of every other writing project I want to work on, and vice versa. This isn't really a workable situation for me right now, alas. I think an update every two weeks would work out better for me in that respect; if I end up finishing a chapter in under a week though I think I'll post it early. :D Thank you all for your patience, and I hope you enjoy this!
The Future Foundation, Part Four
Souda's first instinct was to run and hide, or at least to duck further behind the tree. But then his curiosity got the better of his fear – that and the instinct he'd built up over the course of his time on the island to run from anything that was new or unfamiliar. He stayed put, which was an accomplishment for him, and peeked out from the sides, just enough that hopefully Kirigiri couldn't see him too clearly.
"Huh? He is?" Asahina took a few steps closer to Souda's tree, and turned her head from side to side. "I don't see him!"
"What do you mean? He's right over there." Kirigiri strode past Asahina, and raised her voice as she came closer. "Souda-kun, we're with the Future Foundation. We need to talk to you."
The Future Foundation…! Actually hearing the words sent a jolt of excitement through Souda's body. Before he knew it he'd stuck his head out from behind the tree, and when the girls both turned to look at him he sprung out in a split-second of panic.
"Gah!" he said, but he couldn't form anything else coherent. Now that Kirigiri and Asahina were closer, he could get a much better look at them than he could from a distance. Kirigiri looked like some kind of businesswoman or class president; she was tall and stately, and her long, straight hair was braided at the side, much like Souda's. The other girl, Asahina, was shorter, curvier, and darker-skinned. Her hair was a lot longer than he'd thought it was, and she wore…were those dress shorts with tights?! He'd never seen anything like them before.
"I-It's alright. We're not going to hurt you…" Asahina extended an arm, but then paused, and pulled herself back. "We're not going to hurt him, right?"
The pallor that came over Asahina's face made Souda feel as though he were already a ghost. "H-Huuuh?" he said, dribbling the words from his mouth. "But, wait, aren't you supposed to –"
"We're not going to hurt you," Kirigiri said sternly. She took another step closer, and Souda realized then that he'd been wrong about her height. He was rather taller than she was, but he still felt disoriented from the strength of her presence. "My name is Kyoko Kirigiri, and this is Aoi Asahina. Do you know where your classmates are?"
Where my classmates are? It was surreal enough to think of Hinata and everyone else as his classmates. But did he really want to admit to this terrifying girl that he had no idea? "Th-there was this explosion," he said instead. "At the castle. That guy… the robot…"
"We already know you've been separated from them." Kirigiri folded her arms. "But what you might not realize is that you'll be able to find them with your Electronic Student ID. Do you have it with you?"
"H-huh?"
"It'll give us an instant look at the locations of your classmates," Kirigiri said. "You understand it's absolutely vital that we find them."
"Before the Impostor does," Asahina said.
"I wouldn't put it that way," Kirigiri said, furrowing her brow.
"No, no, uh, yeah!" Souda babbled. He hardly felt more nervous from Asahina's statement – he was already pretty much at his limit. "Sure I got it! It's just…"
He moved for his breast pocket, only to find that he didn't have a breast pocket, as his boiler suit was long, long gone. Instead he patted his sides, and then stuck his hands deep into the waistband of his long, loudly-colored shorts. Then he checked his shoes, just for good measure. "It was right here… I-I dunno what happened to it –"
"Right." Kirigiri clamped a powerful hand on Souda's shoulder, and pulled him into an upright position. "There has to be someone on this island with a working map. When we meet with the others at the rendezvous point, we'll know what our resources are and how to plan our search."
"R-Rendezvous point…?"
"We don't really have time to explain, do we?" Asahina looked over at Kirigiri as she spoke. "If we don't find them soon…"
"You mean your ship, right?" Souda interrupted. "Or your plane, or whatever you came on?"
Asahina fell silent, and she and Kirigiri exchanged wide-eyed looks. "Ah," Kirigiri said. "That's…"
"Listen, y-you're gonna take us out of here, right?!" Souda barked. "I don't care what I have to give you, just get me outta this place!"
"You don't have to give us anything!" Asahina said, a little awkwardly. "But… well, given the situation, it's going to be difficult…"
"Yeah, but who cares?" Souda's voice grew louder as he spoke, until his voice was very clearly cracking. "I've been waiting so long… I almost died, man… and It's not like they can stop us. They can't stop you, right? You guys got here, so you can definitely get us out –"
"Souda-kun, this isn't helpful," Kirigiri said. "I'm sorry, but getting you or anyone else off this island is going to be a much longer and more complicated process than you think."
"I'll hide! I'll stow away in the cargo hold if I have to!" Souda shouted, cutting off whatever she was going to say next. "Please, you gotta take this serious –"
"I am," Kirigiri said. "The only remote chance of any of us getting out of this situation alive involves your cooperation. Do you understand?"
"But…" Souda wanted to retort, but one look in Kirigiri's eyes told him that it wouldn't be worth his while. He was scared, but he wasn't accomplishing anything. Beyond being Future Foundation, whatever that meant, Kirigiri seemed to know what she was doing. It was reassuring, in a way that he hadn't felt in a long time.
"Good." Kirigiri turned away from Souda. "Alright. Let's go while we can."
"It'll be dangerous out there alone, though." Asahina bit her lip. "Maybe we should wait until Naegi gets here."
"Not necessarily," Kirigiri said. "Of course, when it comes to the situation at hand… well, we can cross that bridge when we come to it. Naegi-kun isn't here, and we have to get moving."
"Naegi…?" Souda turned the name over in his mouth. It was a little difficult to say. "Uh, who's Naegi?"
Kirigiri's gaze shifted from left to right. "Naegi-kun is…" She sighed. "I'm afraid we don't currently have the time to spare for explanations. When we meet with the other members of our division, we'll be able to inform you all at once. Indeed, if the Impostor puts their plan into motion, we may not have the time for anything else…"
Souda had a sudden image of a guy who looked a lot like Nidai punching the Impostor – as close as he could picture them, anyway – in the face. "Then you know what they're doing," he said in a small voice. "I mean… there's gotta be a reason they wanted you guys to come, right?"
Kirigiri furrowed her brow, and brushed a lock of hair away from her face. "That's not… no. I didn't mean to imply that I did. It's actually more likely that you'd have more clues about that than I would. All we can do is guess, based on…"
She hesitated, but then seemed to think better of hesitating. She shook out her hair, and took Souda by the arm. "We're out of time. We can talk as we walk. Unless…" Kirigiri did a double take at Souda, and glanced down at his chest. He remembered that his bandages were clearly visible, and certainly not in good shape.
"I'm fine," Souda said quickly, though it was mostly a lie. "I've done a lot worse."
Asahina nodded, apparently not feeling the urge to question him, and took off for the path without a word. She didn't look back to see if Kirigiri and Souda were following behind her, but it wasn't long before they were. At first Kirigiri pulled Souda along by the arm, trying her best to get them caught up to Asahina, but she let go after a few seconds, apparently confident that Souda could hold his own. Thankfully Asahina wasn't going too fast, so they were at her side before she got too far away.
They walked in silence for what felt like an age, passing rows of trees and dead, half-constructed carnival rides. Somehow Souda must have made his way to the opposite side of the island when he escaped the castle, as he didn't remember seeing a rollercoaster or a fun house on his way over from the bridge. "So… uh…"
Kirigiri and Asahina turned to look at him together when he spoke. "Where are we going?" he continued. "You didn't tell me that yet…"
He gritted his teeth as Kirigiri and Asahina looked at each other, conferring wordlessly. Finally, Asahina turned back, her expression unreadable. "If nothing else happens to us, then there's only one place we can go," Asahina said. "The place the Impostor wanted us to be."
"The entrance to Hope's Peak Academy, on the second island," Kirigiri said. "Of course, you would know that place as the entrance to the ruins."
Hinata stood stunned for several seconds, but Enoshima – if indeed that was who she was – seemed pretty content to wait on him. By the time he was ready to answer again she'd moved into a much more alert position, with her legs crossed under her, which had to be a feat given the weight of her chains, and her posture as perfect as she could manage.
"You know my name," he said.
"Oh yes I do," Enoshima said. "Name, height, weight, date of birth, irrational fear of spiders, you name it, I got it."
For a second Hinata was stunned – and then a feeling of revulsion shot up his chest. "That's – Hold on, I'm not afraid of spiders –"
"Oh, you certainly are," Enoshima said, in a brusque, authoritative tone. "When you were eight years old, you were at a public bath when you discovered a spider's nest under one of the washing buckets. The spiders were harmless, of course, but you never quite recovered from the experience –"
"Alright, alright!" Hinata blurted, much louder than he'd meant to. "I get it –"
"You do?" Enoshima said, gracefully stretching one of her legs. "That doesn't look like the face of a man who 'gets it', Hinata-kun."
If this girl was trying to get Hinata frustrated and angry, she was really doing an excellent job, no matter how chained-up she was. "What – no, not like that, definitely not like that," he stammered. "No, I don't 'get it' at all! I've been hearing your name everywhere I go, and trying to figure out what it means, and now…"
"My name?" Enoshima interrupted. "What do you mean by that?"
Hinata blinked. "I said it when I came in," he said. "Enoshima…"
"And how do you know that's my name?"
Hinata's throat went dry. "Well, didn't you –"
"I could've just responded because you seemed like you wanted to talk, even if you were just yammering nonsense." Enoshima shook her head. "But either way, you were totally wrong. My name is Yuki Koyuki. I'm actually the secret seventeenth student. I was admitted to Hope's Peak as the Super High School Level Psychic, but my powers were so super powerful that if they don't keep me chained here –"
"What?!"
Hinata hadn't even finished turning this new information over in his head before Enoshima chuckled, and shrugged her shoulders best she could. "Hmmm. It doesn't seem as though you bought that one." She screwed her eyes shut, and then opened again. "Well, how about this? I'm actually one of the members of the Future Foundation. My name is Kotoko Totoko. I already tried to come in and save you, but –"
"I already know you're lying," Hinata interrupted. "There's no point to any of this. What are you doing it for?"
Enoshima sighed, and rolled her eyes. "Oh, nothing. I'm just trying to make the biggest fool of you that I possibly can. You're still thinking about it, aren't you? You're still wishing some part of what I was revealing about the world around you was true! Creating hope at the same time that you're crushing it, without control over your desires and fears…!" Her chest heaved, and she let out a shuddering sigh. "It's the most delicious despair there is…"
Hinata didn't answer, because he didn't know how. But he took a step back, and when he did Enoshima slumped, and rolled her eyes. "But what's the point of you knowing the truth, anyway?" she grumbled. "If the name "Junko Enoshima" makes a difference to you then I know some great twelve-step programs you could join. Only teenage girls and perverts would know her for whatever she did in magazines, you know?"
Hinata blinked. "Whatever you what?"
"Did in magazines," Enoshima went on. "Stood around, wore clothes, you know. No, no, you're a good boy. You don't take notice of those kinds of things. Buuuut…" She tapped her foot against the ground. "Would you recognize me if I sounded like this?"
Her mouth curved into a wicked grin, and when she spoke again her voice had been twisted into a strange and very familiar falsetto. "Upupupupu!" she said. "Hello naughty children, it's murder time!"
Hinata felt a spike of fear in his gut. He thought he'd never hear that voice again, not after he'd seen him torn in two. "No…" he said. "You can't, you're not…"
"I sure the fuck am!" Enoshima screeched in Monobear's voice. "Mono-fuckin'-bear in the HOUSE!" She laughed. "See, it's funny, cause we're in the Fun House, and I said house just there."
Hinata had barely heard the second half of Enoshima's words. As soon as he'd heard the voice of Monobear from her lips his head had started spinning, making connections faster than he could comprehend them. The latest and most vivid image Hinata had of Monobear was of the Impostor holding him over their face, speaking through his lips, but his mind didn't stop there; he remembered every school trial he'd been forced through, and the gleeful look in Monobear's eyes as he watched them all struggle, and laughed at their pain, and activated the devices that sent Hanamura and Sonia to their deaths, and lied, and cheated, and manipulated…
"Why…?" Hinata could barely form words of his own. "Why would you ever admit it…? Just – at least tell me you're lying again."
"Nah," Enoshima said. "It's not actually any fun to lie to you. You've taken all the despair out of it. Should I rattle off my exhaustive list of events and facts that only Monobear could know, instead? It'll be real boring!"
He didn't want to believe it. He couldn't believe it. She'd lied to him by her own admission, and it wasn't like she had any proof. He couldn't even begin to think of how a girl his age could set up a situation on this scale… but he'd saw her react to the name "Enoshima." A name she'd heard from Mikan's own lips, before she maimed Souda, and killed herself. It was the name Monobear himself had used in the third trial, as a password. And she'd added on a first name, too, just now…
"You're a monster," Hinata said, uncomfortably aware that he'd used the same words Hanamura had used for Komaeda. "You murdered my friends…!"
"Ohhhh, my god. Are we really going to go through this?" Enoshima's eyes glazed over, and she looked almost as inert as she had when Hinata had entered. "Okay, first of all. 'Friends'? You didn't know Komaeda-kun or Hanamura-kun for more than three days. You hardly know anyone now. Second, did you see me murder anyone? No, you didn't. But you saw the evidence. You figured it out yourself. And the culprits merely got what was coming to them- hey, who said you could leave?"
Hinata didn't pay any attention to her – or at least, he tried not to as he turned and made his way back down the hall. He didn't have time for this. Nanami was gravely injured, and nothing in this room was getting him any closer to finding her treatment, or an exit. Even if Enoshima was who she claimed… well, she was so full of double-talk anyway that nothing she could say to him would be of any use. If she'd been locked away, it had to be for a reason, and until the Future Foundation got there it was just as well that he left her where she was…
But just as he was about to round the corner, he felt it again – the urges in his limbs that most certainly were not his own. At their command he stopped and turned back around, though he would only let himself take as many steps as he needed to be back in Enoshima's line of sight.
"Well, aren't you conciliatory," Enoshima said, when she could see him again. "What, did you think I'd shoot you full of holes if you didn't come back?"
Hinata would never tell her that he'd been afraid of just that, on some level – or, even less, why he'd actually come back. "You didn't," he said.
Enoshima was silent for a good long time, and her eyes even started to glaze over again. "I didn't, and I can't," she said. "I can't actually do anything. Not anymore." She paused. "Come on, ask me what I'm talking about."
When Hinata didn't respond fast enough for her liking, she groaned loudly, and rattled at her chains. "Oh, come on! You're not even a little curious? You've been here for two weeks, you've seen what Monobear could do. What, do you think I'd really keep myself chained up if I could turn all the chains into fluffy bunnies and burst my way out of 'em?" She snorted.
For the first time, Hinata thought a bit too hard about everything he'd seen Monobear do. "You mean all the stuff that should have been impossible," he said. "All the magic. The distortions. The robots…"
"Yep, you got it. I used to rule the world, seas would rise when I gave the word. But now the worst I could probably do is fart on you or something." She pursed her lips. "Okay, unless you're into that. Oh well, too late. I've farted like eight times since you got here!"
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"What? The farts?"
"No, no!" Anything but that, he thought. "All this… I haven't even had the energy to think about it. But it's impossible. How are you able to do all this stuff…?!"
"How was I able. I told you." She nodded. "Well, it's simple, really. All I have to do is –" She stopped, and then grinned haughtily. "Oh, I just remembered! You have no idea, do you? Well, never mind then! Here's the short version. Once upon a time I could do whatever I wanted on this island! And then the Impostor came along and took all my powers for their own and locked me up here. The end." She leaned back. "Even if you don't understand it, Hinata-kun, you have to admit it's the only logical explanation."
Hinata's mind was racing so quickly he could hardly parse out any explanation. Oh how he wished he could just leave. "But they're just…" He stopped himself from saying "they're just a normal kid." It reminded him far too much of who they'd been, before this all happened. "They could never do anything like this before," he said instead. "Even if you're right… even if you did do all this, and I don't understand… how could they 'take' whatever you had?"
"That's really not up to me to explain to you." Enoshima shrugged again, way too quickly. "It's so unfair, Hinata-kun… all I wanted to do was keep you on this island forever unless you killed each other to death, and now that fatass is going ahead and just… well, why should I tell you what that fatass wants in any kind of detail? I'm not your mommy, I don't need to tell you how the world works."
She glared directly into Hinata's eyes as she spoke, and punctuated every word very clearly. But then, suddenly, she relaxed, looking very forlorn. "And now I can't even do anything. I'm just a helpless little girl." She pointed to one of the nearest weapon-filled shelves with her immaculately manicured feet. "You could go ahead and take one of those axes, and chop my arms and legs off, and even my head, and there's nothing I could do to stop you…!"
Hinata did a double take at the axe she was pointing to. "Oh, come on!" Enoshima yelled. "I know you're not actually going to! Fuckin' hell!"
"Of course not…!" Hinata had to take a few seconds to steady himself before he could begin to form a response. "If you are telling the truth… if all of this is true, even if I don't understand it… then what are you looking for me to do? Really?"
"Huh? I dunno!" Enoshima shook her head, in a "look-at-this-idiot" kind of fashion. "I wasn't expecting to be conscious ever again, honestly. I don't how you got here, or even why…"
Neither do I, Hinata thought, but there was no way in hell he was going to talk about that. A part of him was relieved that Enoshima had played her whole hand before he let that slip.
"But I'm really not useful to you at all. I can't help you, I can't harm you. The only reason I'm here… well, I don't quite know myself."
"The Impostor left you here," Hinata said, though it was painful to even consider. "After they took your… power. They left you alive…"
"Oh… I wouldn't say 'alive'." Enoshima looked to the side. "I was alive when I had everything. I'm only a shell now, a collection of the bits and pieces they didn't need." She perked up. "I guess you could take revenge on me or something, but I know you won't. But if you were going to, I wonder if I'd try to save myself by telling you I knew how to beat them…" She laughed. "That's a lie, of course. I have no clue."
Hinata wrinkled his nose. "I thought you were done with lying."
"Oh, I could be. That's only what I said. But what is the meaning of a lie, anyway? Is a lie really a lie if I could possibly not know what I'm talking about?" Enoshima grinned. "I could have hit my head, and lost my memory, just like someone I could mention. I could even be some girlfriend of yours you forgot about! And you wouldn't want that to be the case if you just forget about me, right, Hinata-chan?"
"That's not –!"
"Or maybe everything else I told you is a lie, even all the parts about being bored of lying!" She laughed, a high and cold and cruel laugh. "You don't know at all, do you? All you know is that I'm here, and that someone chained me up for a reason. All you have left to go on is what I say. But I can tell you one thing. In fact, it might be the only useful information I have to offer up, out of the goodness of my heart…"
Enoshima grinned. "It's about that Future Founation, the one that's so precious to you. They're here now. Right as we speak. And you'll never want them near you once you find out what they did."
See you in two weeks!
Carth
