Hey, guys! Thank you so much for your patience – this is a much, much more manageable schedule for me. That said, I hope you like what I've got. I certainly do!

Also, one thing I'm worried about especially with all this content is redundancy – if anything's redundant, let me know!


The Future Foundation, Part Five

Makoto Naegi was alone when he woke up.

He had the vaguest memory of flying through the air, and seeing the entirety of Jabberwock Island laid out below him. The clouds had parted very dramatically as he'd passed, revealing a shimmering landscape that didn't look too different from the real thing. He saw the mountain at the center fly by him, growing larger as he headed for the fourth island, the one with all the spires and amusement park rides… and then he'd woken up on the forest floor, spitting out a mouthful of dirt.

He got to his feet, and brushed the dirt off his suit pants. There was no clearing in this area of the wood, so he wasn't sure how he'd managed to land on the ground without seriously injuring himself, but the smarting in his knees and chest told him that he might've crashed into a tree or two on the way down.

He couldn't see Togami-kun anywhere around, which was not surprising at all given the way that Togami-kun tended to avoid him when he could help it. But he didn't dare assume he was free to move before he checked behind every tree in his vicinity, looking out for anyone, or anything, that might be hiding from him. On the one hand, if any of the survivors were cowering back here in fear, he needed to find them and give them what they needed to feel safe. On the other hand…

Well, if he ran into that kind of a problem alone, there wasn't much he could do to save himself.

Naegi had no compass or any useful navigational landmarks, or anything at all except the clothes on his back. So, knowing he could do nothing just standing around, he closed his eyes, picked a direction, and started on it. He knew the island wasn't very large, and that sooner or later he'd get back to the path, as long as he stayed in a straight line. "Togami-kun?" he called out as he walked. "Er… Togami-kun? Kirigiri-san? Anyone?"

He didn't hear any response, or much of anything at all – just the quiet rustling of the wind in the branches of the endless expanse of pine trees. Pine trees… that didn't seem quite right for a tropical island. If he hadn't watched the video feeds from the rest of the island, day after day after day, he could have believed he was somewhere in a northern mountain range, if not for the flat land and scorching heat. Was it some kind of error in the programming? Or an attempt on Alter Ego's part to fill in the blanks in the landscape…?

A noise at the back of his ear gave him pause, but when he stopped walking and listened more closely he couldn't hear anything out of the ordinary – just the wind in the trees, constant and benign. But he stayed still for several more seconds, just to be sure, before he started walking again. But before long he heard the same sound, louder this time. It was a frenetic rustling, too fast and too uneven to be the wind – and along with it, he heard the sound of footsteps.

They weren't what he'd expect from someone trying to navigate a dense and treacherous wood, either – they were big, and fast, and coming up quick. Who did he know that could run like that? "Asahina-san?" he called out. "Is that you?"

There was no response, apart from another rustling noise behind him. He turned around in place, still seeing nothing, but the rustling continued, moving around and around, so that it was always somewhere just behind him, no matter where he looked. It was as if an unseen force was circling and cornering him, like a cat closing in on a mouse…

And then, just as it was close enough that whoever it was could pounce, the sound stopped moving. Whatever was rustling was now rustling perfectly in place.

This didn't sit well with Naegi's sense of reality, but he'd come into this simulation expecting to have it dashed to bits. "Who's there?" he said, without turning around. "I'm not going to harm you. Or… I'm not here to fight. One way or another…"

Nobody responded, but the noise filled his ears, drowning out all his higher thought. "M-My name is Makoto Naegi," he offered. "I'm a member of the Future Foundation …"

Again the rustling continued, but now Naegi could hear a faint voice underneath the sound of the leaves, growing slightly louder with every second that passed. "Wooosh…" It said. "Wooosh, wooosh…."

"Er…" Suddenly, Naegi felt a lot more confident about turning around. When he did… he found Ibuki Mioda standing only about a foot away, deliberately shaking a tree branch and making faint "woosh, woosh" noises.

He stopped, stunned, and so did she, or so he thought for a few seconds. Then she shook the branch again, and said "wooosh" just one more time.

"Did Ibuki fool you?" she said.

Naegi's silence probably gave her enough of an answer – but fooled as he was, he tried not to be surprised. He'd read all the survivors' psychological profiles cover to cover, at least the ones that they'd been able to pull together from data past and present. This was about as typical a brand of Mioda behavior as you could get, and it was to her what a simple "hello" just wasn't enough for.

"Ah, well," he said, biting his lip. "You did, actually…"

"YESSS! Victory for Ibuki!" She shook the branch a few more times, and then leapt up in celebration, grabbing a higher branch and swinging back and forth on it. Her remaining shoe fell off on the way up, but she didn't seem to notice – and from the look of her left sock the other shoe was long gone. The rest of her clothes weren't in much better condition, and her ubiquitous hair-horn-things were only held together with twigs and leaves, which Naegi did not at all doubt that she'd put in there on purpose. "How about startling? Did she startle you?"

Naegi could not, for the life of him, think of why she needed to ask. "A bit…"

"Because you definitely startled Ibuki!" Mioda-san dropped down from the tree, and took a moment to brace against her impact before she leapt up again, good as new.

Then she started to pace around Naegi, moving back and forth, rubbing her chin and examining him with curious, but red-rimmed eyes. "Naegi, Naegi, Naegi…hmmmmm," she said. "Makoto-chan's nobody Ibuki's ever seen before." She tapped her chin. "That means Makoto-chan's a Future Foundation, like he said, or a hallucination, or a Future Founducination…"

Founducination? Makoto-chan?! Naegi had to try hard not to laugh, which was an accomplishment given that seconds earlier he'd been trying not to run scared. "Well, I don't think I'm a hallucination…"

She gasped. "Then you're a Founducination!"

"Uh…" Naegi blinked. "Sure?"

"YAHOOOO!" Mioda-san yelled, shaking Naegi's eardrums before, without warning, she pulled him into a bone-crushing hug. "You're here! You're real! You're – whooooaaaaahh!" She backed away quickly, though she kept her arms outstretched. "You're really short! You're even shorter than Ibuki is short, and Ibuki is pretty short, Ibuki thought!"

Naegi's eyes widened. He found himself looking down at his feet. "I… yeah, I am, I know that, but… why does it matter so much?"

"Well, when Ibuki thinks of the Future Foundation she thinks of a bunch of big tall bald guys in black suits! Kinda like fancy nightclub bouncers!" She folded her arms and smirked. "She was thinking she'd befriend them and we'd smoke cigars and play cards in dingy nightclubs after this was all over! Is there anyone in the Future Foundation like that?"

Naegi blinked. "Er, I'm sure there must be someone like that in the organization, but as for those of us who … well, no, not really." Maybe Hagakure-kun, he thought, but he wasn't sure that was what Mioda-san had in mind.

"Oh. Well, that's alright. Ibuki can still take Makoto-chan to karaoke and trendy cafes!" Mioda moved her hand to her chin, and examined Naegi closely. "Is that why they call you Naegi, 'cause you're like a teeny-tiny tree?"

"N-no, they call me that because that's my name." Naegi cringed, despite himself, and mumbled under his breath. "And I grew an entire centimeter this year..."

"Ooooooh, a step closer to victory! Congratulations!"

"Ah…thank you?"

"Annnnytime!" Mioda-san winked at Naegi, and then, without warning, she slid to his side, put her arm around his shoulder, and gave him a sincere grin. "Soooooo, Mako-chan – can Ibuki call you Mako-chan?"

Naegi hesitated, but only because he couldn't help but think of how unnerved any of his friends or colleagues would be by this, by her, knowing what they knew, and seeing what they'd seen. Even if they hadn't considered the past, and only judged her on her avatar's own merits… well, it wouldn't take much for the Foundation to argue that the pressures she'd been under might trigger similar levels of emotional collapse. But this was nothing like a collapse – it was more of an unthinkable, impossible triumph. "Well, I'm fine with –"

"Ibuki thinks you look like a decent dude, and she isn't just saying that to be nice, Mako-chan," Mioda-san went on, without waiting for Naegi to finish. "And she doesn't really know what the Future Foundation does, and she knows she might be totally wrong. But she knows a good-looking man when she sees one!"

There was no way Naegi wasn't blushing in the most embarrassing way possible. "Ah – wha?"

"And she isn't just talking about looks," Mioda-san said. "She's talking about good-looking vibes, an element of goodness that envelops the entire being! A spirituality of good!" She tapped her chin with her free arm. "Is it your face? Hm, might be. If it is, then it could be that when people look at you they think, 'Hey, I gotta follow this guy! I'm gonna be rich if I do!'"

She said this all in an exaggerated imitation of an older man's voice. When she was done, she looked back at Naegi for a reaction, which he wasn't quite ready to give her. "Er," he said. "That's a lot to say about someone. Especially if you've already said you don't know or trust me…"

"Ibuki knows," Mioda-san said. She began tugging slightly on Naegi's shoulder, leading him along, though she did not appear to have a destination in mind. "But Ibuki also considers herself an expert in intuition! So Ibuki's been thinking. And Ibuki's thinking she can't really think what she's thinking, not unless she knows what she's thinking is something she can think she can think!

"Did Ibuki make sense just then, Mako-chan?" Mioda-san stopped, and turned to face Naegi. "She was really just trying to see how many times she could say "thinking.""

"Ah…" Naegi tried not to show that he felt overpowered. He was in control. He had to be. "I don't," he said. "Not at all. I don't have any idea what you're thinking."

To his surprise, Mioda-san didn't answer, at least not right away. She started pushing him forward again, but much more slowly, as if only to give her hands something to do.

"The Future Foundation," she said, in a somber tone. "They're not… no, no, no, Ibuki's not gonna assume the worst. They're here to help us, right?"

That was a loaded question, but Naegi wasn't about to discourage her. He had to tell her the truth, impossible as it might be to back up. "We want to help you more than anything else," he said. "And we're here because we think we can. And right now – well, things might seem bleak, or even impossible. But if our plan works…"

"…Your plan." Mioda looked from left to right, her expression growing grave. When she spoke again she dropped her voice to a whisper. "You're not just here to kill them, right?"

"Them?" Naegi said, confused – but then he realized who she was talking about, and a trickle of icy fear ran through his chest.

He… oh god, how he wished he could promise her everything. How he wished he could shape her dreams and desires as easily as he and Alter Ego had been able to shape the world they'd trapped her in. Because that was the other important part of her psychological profile: the crush. Or was it actual, deeply held affection? Kirigiri-san didn't seem to think so, mostly because of how long Mioda-san and the Impostor had known each other. But love wasn't often something that was dictated by logic, and given the kind of stress that Mioda-san had been under… it wasn't unknown for those kinds of bonds to form under stress, as Naegi knew all too well.

"No," Naegi said, finally. "I don't want to kill them. I would never want to kill them." It didn't seem fair, not at all. It wasn't the Impostor's fault. It could have happened to any of them, and it had happened to Tsumiki-san, too. But… if he said that to her, would it sound like a promise? Would Kirigiri-san and the others, and even the greater Future Foundation, accuse him of pushing an impossible agenda on an unstable group that couldn't be trusted? If they did, and they thought this would make the survivors more dangerous…

"I don't want to disappoint you, Mioda-san," he continued, looking crestfallen. "And I definitely don't want to lie. I'm not… I can't be sure of what we can do. We want to stop them. But before we can, we have to figure out just how they came to be… how they are. And if it's not something we can stop…"

"Ibuki knows." Mioda-san stopped, rocking back and forth on a ground-level root. Her face betrayed her grief more clearly than ever, now. "She's prepared to know the truth. She can take that it's impossible."

"I…wouldn't say that –"

"She already had her good times, anyway." Mioda-san let go of Naegi's arm and skipped ahead slightly, goose-stepping through the underbrush. "She got to meet Byakuya-chan to begin with, which is already better than Ibuki not meeting Byakuya-chan at all. And Byakuya-chan's speeches kept Ibuki afloat when everything else was sinking around her, and they inspired Ibuki to keep her friends as happy as Byakuya-chan wanted them to be! And she got to see Byakuya-chan in a yukata, too, and rest her head on their belly, and have a breathtaking experience with them in the moonlight…

"But she hasn't nearly had enough!" She stopped, suddenly, and spun around on her threadbare foot. "And Ibuki needs Mako-chan to know she's prepared to die for more!"

The energy and life she'd had before had bounded back into her voice, and she leapt up again, swinging from a tree branch before falling back down. "Even if it's impossible, Ibuki's not going down without a fight! Living at the edge of Ibuki's seat kinda gives Ibuki a new lease on life, and suddenly she's willing to risk it all! She doesn't just want a smooch, either! We're talking old age and two dogs. Maybe three! Or is Byakuya-chan a cat person –"

"M-Mioda-san!"

"Hm?" Mioda-san said.

Naegi shuddered, and realized he was out of breath. Had he been swept away by her words? It was pretty likely. Kirigiri-san had warned him about being pulled in by her impulsivity. "She has a history of throwing herself into danger for her ideals and beliefs," she'd said to him, before they'd stepped into the pods and closed their eyes. "And not all of that history has been good. You understand what I mean, of course."

"But that's not who she is anymore," he'd said in response. "You and I have worked so hard for that, for all of them. And can we really give up on the Impostor, after all we've done for them?"

"We… we can't let what we want affect what we have to do, Naegi-kun." Kirigiri-san's words had cut him deep, but he could tell it had hurt her just as much to say them. "We already decided this was a great risk, and it's gone wrong enough already. But I'm going in because I have faith in you. I've always had faith in you."

"You think Ibuki's crazy," Mioda-san finished for him, before he could get out of his own head. "But you think Ibuki's got a point, right? You think she's got her heart in the right place?"

Naegi had to tell her the truth. "I do," he said. "I really do."

"But it sounds like you don't know what to do about it, do you?"

"I –"

"Well, then you're in luck," Ibuki said, grinning madly. "Because Ibuki knows just what she's going to do to save Byakuya-chan, and she's been wandering and thinking about it for as long as she can remember since the castle blew up. She's going to need help, though, and even if it's crazy she knows in her deepest and downest self that she can succeed –"

CRACK.

The world around them froze, just for a second, as the fabric of spacetime opened up somewhere in the simulation landscape, just long enough for someone to come in. Why had he taken so long? Naegi thought. And would the Impostor realize they'd fulfilled their game's conditions, and start to put their plan into motion? Or was it not too late? Did they still have time?

"– And when she does she'll just have to find out if Byakuya-chan's a cat person," Mioda-san finished, continuing as though she'd never been stopped. "Well? Are you with me, Mako-chan?"

Naegi swallowed. He felt more out of control now than ever before. "Well, hold on," he said. "I know what you're trying to do, and I want to believe in you, but you still haven't said what you're doing –"

"Ibuki'll tell you on the way! Don't worry, it won't be that complicated!" She grabbed Naegi's hand, and jerked hard on it as she ran ahead. "C'mon, Mako-chan! There's no time to waste!"


Hinata knew in an instant that Enoshima's words were a trap.

He'd thought of almost nothing but the Future Foundation for weeks. He'd tried his hardest not to funnel all his hopes into them, or to pray that whoever they were, they'd show up and save the day… But he knew enough about trust to know that this was something he had to know, even if it was a lie.

"What was it?"

Enoshima blinked. "What was what?"

"What did they do?" Hinata said. "I already know they trapped us here and took our memories."

"Oh. You do?"

"Yeah, I do."

"Do you." Enoshima nodded, and pursed her lips. "Well… is that the end of it, do you think? Do you want to know if there's more, and spend a few minutes puzzling it out with me? Because –"

"I'm not in the mood for these games anymore," Hinata said. "Are you going to tell me or not?"

"Oooooh. Someone's gotten bold." Enoshima leaned back, smiling up at Hinata with all her perfect teeth. "Fine, whatever. It's not like it's some big secret. In fact, knowing Naegi-kun and how sickeningly goody-goody he is, he'll probably want to air out all the dirty laundry as soon as he can."

Hinata had never heard of this Naegi-kun before, though he had to be a member of the Future Foundation, from the way Enoshima spoke of him. He couldn't say whether he was a friend or foe, but "sickeningly goody-goody" could only be an advantage in a situation like this.

"At least, he will now that he knows he could be killing you if he doesn't," Enoshima said. Or endangering his friends! He was perfectly happy not to talk about anything when you'd just arrived, remember?"

When you'd just arrived… Hinata could barely remember when he'd just arrived, in that short time before Monobear took over. But he did remember the strangest part of the experience the most vividly – the singing and dancing rabbit that was always avoiding all their questions. "Naegi…was he the person controlling Monomi?"

"Egggghhhh," Enoshima said. "Controlled? Hardly. You can't control something that acts on its own. But created? Maybe. Kinda. It's tough to explain."

Hinata bit his lip. "That doesn't make any sense. Monomi had to be some kind of robot. How could she –"

"Act on her own? Have a mind even if she didn't get it from a living brain?" Enoshima grumbled. "Can we just skip all the parts where you don't believe in the impossible?"

Hinata very well could, and at this point it'd be very easy. But he wasn't about to give in to her. "Fine, whatever," he said. "That's not the point."

"The point is what they did and why." Enoshima said. "Who told you all this, by the way? Was it the traitor? Did she really say that much?"

"Don't call her that." Hinata felt a stabbing pain in his chest. He hoped he hadn't let Nanami in any kind of danger, now that he couldn't go back to get her.

"But that's who she is."

"I know."

"And you trust her completely, I'm sure."

"I…" He wasn't sure whether or not he wanted to tell Enoshima the truth. "I don't know. They… the idea of kidnapping us and making us be friends with each other was weird as hell, no questioning that. And I still don't know why they did it." Because Nanami wouldn't, no, couldn't tell us, and we couldn't figure it out. "But they're not the ones that pitted us against each other..."

"But why do you think they'd want to do that?" Enoshima said. "Pull you away from anyone you knew and everything you'd known, wipe away all recollection of having known each other, or having spent any time at Hope's Peak…?"

She leaned back against the wall. "Why would they go through that effort? Invest all that time, and all those resources? I think that's a lot more impossible to justify than intelligence that works on its own. At least, not without a little critical thinking…"

For a moment Hinata was confused – and then he realized he'd already had all the answers. Less than twenty-four hours ago, he'd watched Nanami explain all he should – at least, all that he could get her to say by guessing. "The Future Foundation would never have taken your memories without a reason," she'd said. And it didn't take him long to go down the same path that his mind had taken back then.

The Memory Fever. The contagion, the destruction of the Impostor's mind... "It's something big," he repeated. "It's something we need to forget…"

"You're almost there, you can do it." Enoshima said. "But remember, I didn't say a word. It was all you. And the traitor too, of course…"

He couldn't say for sure what it was. But he couldn't stop the pieces from coming together, and he didn't like where it was getting him. If a "Memory Fever" could make monsters out of Tsumiki and the Impostor… and if the Future Foundation was so desperate for a bonding, healing experience for them… and if his own memory was so fractured that he still couldn't remember his own worthless talent

He felt panic welling up inside his chest, but tamped it down just as quickly, and stored it away until he needed it. He still knew for sure what Enoshima was trying to do. And he wasn't about to let her win.

"I'm not going to learn the truth by standing here and talking to you," he said. "If the Future Foundation's out on the island, then I want to hear their side of the story, first." He turned away, and tried to put her face out of his mind. "I'm leaving."

"So you are."

"…And I'm taking you with me."

It was a split-second decision, made in sound mind, and one he certainly still had the wiggle room to get out of. But he wanted to watch Enoshima's reaction first, and more than anything she was surprised – even intrigued. "So you are," she repeated.

"You're staying in the arm restraints," Hinata said. "I'll… I'll find a way to take the chains off your legs, so you can walk. But…" He took another look at her, and then back at the nearest shelf, where the assortment of handaxes stood waiting for him. They looked terribly sharp, but also very heavy – and very cumbersome to smash through iron with. "Oh no…"

"You don't need to go through all that," Enoshima said. "In fact, I'm going to show you how you should." She pointed her toes at the shelf again. "One of the many gadgets and doo-dads up there is the key that unlocks these chains. Attached to THAT key is ANOTHER key that unlocks the cuffs, but I'd suggest keeping the cuffs on my feet, so I can't run very fast!" She grinned. "Isn't that exactly what you were hoping for? A way to get me from place to place without having to be afraid of me?"

Hinata gave the shelf another look, and sure enough hidden between two of the handaxes was a ring of four silver keys. He took the ring off its hook, and looked over the keys in his hands; they were all of different, but similar configurations.

Then he moved back across the hall, coming much closer to Enoshima than he had before. She grinned as he approached, but did not speak. He went for the chain that tethered her to the floor first, unlocking it with the third key he tried. Then he moved up to her ankles, trying his best not to look at her as he unlocked the tether from the main set of cuffs – though, as she had suggested, he kept her ankle cuffs on.

"Soooo," Enoshima said, "If I just headbutted you in the face and ran off, how betrayed would you feel, on a scale from one to ten?"

Hinata didn't answer, but he made a mental note to keep one hand on Enoshima's chain at all times as he moved up to the wall. Briefly he wondered whether cuffing it to himself was a bad idea, but it wasn't one he could put into practice, as the ring that connected the chain to the wall was too large to stay securely on his arm. He still hooked the ring into his elbow before he unlocked the upper chain, and immediately took hold of it as soon as the keys were out of his dominant hand. The chain was heavy, but as long as he held it she only had about a four-foot berth.

He felt another rash decision coming, one that he could do a little more feasibly. He struggled to his feet and started walking back down the hall, tugging slightly on Enoshima's chain to signal her to follow, which she did without complaint.

As they walked, Hinata searched each of the shelves, looking desperately for something that would be quick and easy. The closest he could find was a blowtorch, which hung next to a metal mask on the opposite end of the Octagon. But just as he was about to work himself up to using it, he spotted something better on the nearby wall – a window.

He walked over to it, and discovered a latch on the bottom that he could unhook. Once he had, he pushed the pane open and looked outside. It was probably the middle of the day; Hinata didn't know what direction he was facing, but he couldn't see the sun. He could see a forest surrounding whatever building he was in (a pine forest, strangely enough), one that extended so far that he could not see its end. He could see one of the walls of the building out of the corner of his eye – a large, ugly expanse of nondescript red brick.

What was most important here was that they were very high up, and that the woods were thick and inaccessible. Hinata wound his arm up, stepped back, and threw the keys out the window with all his might. They didn't sail too far, but they still landed somewhere in the trees and out of sight. Not even he was able to spot where they'd landed.

"If the Future Foundation really wants to release you, they can find another way," Hinata said.

"Fair enough," Enoshima said.

Again Hinata did not respond. His second step was to search for something that he was only half-sure would be in the Octagon, which he found on the table of objects that could be tools and weapons alike – a carabiner, or rather a carabiner attached to several other carabiners in a variety of sizes. He took the largest on the ring, hooked it several notches down the chain, and hooked it again to his own belt loop. His belt would probably have a good sized dent in it forever, but the carabiner held, and his pants didn't fall down.

"You're a resourceful boy, Hinata-kun," Enoshima said. "I didn't even think of that."

"Mmm." On a whim, he took a length of rope, tied it around his left wrist, and tied the other end to the ring at the end of Enoshima's chain. It would be easier to undo than a cuff, but still thick enough to be secure. Then he took hold of the ring again. "Alright. We're going."

"If I pull hard enough, you're going to lose that hand," Enoshima said.

"That's a risk I'm willing to take."

He looked back at the door he'd come in through. The opposite door, the one that had led into the Final Dead Room in the first place, was open and unbarred. He could see the blinding red expanse of the rooms outside through the small space. "I'm going to see what Nanami has to say about you, before anything else."


See you soon!

- Carth