Fighting

by i-took-an-axe

Headmaster of Hope's Peak, married to the woman he loves with a much-longed for son, life is perfect for Makoto Naegi - right until it isn't anymore. Even with personal heartache, his luck and enemies old and new, he's still the same guy, fighting not to give up even when it seems hopeless. (Part of my 'Hoping' series, but read as stand alone if you wish.)

4. Chapter 4

It was the first day of school again after the spring break - a break that hadn't been much of a break for Makoto at all, as he'd spent it buried in directoral paperwork in an attempt to find another deputy headmaster, this time temporarily, while Kane covered his position so he could take the next few months off. (What neither Kane nor any of the prospective candidates knew was that it had the possibility to become a permanent arrangement, which was why Makoto was being so picky.)

As he made his way down the hallway, he stopped dead in his tracks. There was a ghost outside of his office - an appariation of semesters past, the agitated presence of the first student in his eight years as principal that he'd failed to help. It was only the first day of term, and already Makoto was reminded of how haunted the place was.

"Itoh?"

"Mister Naegi!" When Itoh Sotan - who was not a ghost, it turned out - looked to him, Makoto was instantly struck with how dark and puffy the skin under his eyes was. Itoh tugged at the sleeves of his shirt with a closed hand, as if he wanted to cover himself up entirely. He swallowed hard. "Mister Naegi – I-I need to talk to you."

"Is everything alright?" Makoto tried to think, quickly, of what could possibly have Itoh in such a state why he would choose to come to him with it, ten months after his expulsion. "Is it your grandmother?"

"I need to tell you something. I need – " Itoh's voice broke off. He dragged a hand across his face, anguished and exasperated. "Please sir, I need to talk to you."

"Sure thing. Let's do this in my office." Makoto encouraged Itoh into the room, and gustured for him to sit down as he took off his coat and abandoned his briefcase on the chair by the door. "Itoh, relax. It's gonna be okay. Just take a deep breath."

"I can't, I don't have time." By now, Itoh was speaking with such panic that his words were blurring together. Drugs? Makoto wondered. Was Itoh high? And, as an afterthought, did that mean he could be dangerous? He had pulled a bomb threat on this very school less than a year ago. "I'm so sorry, Mister Naegi. I should have told you earlier. I was scared – so scared. He told me he'd hurt her if I told you but now…now I think she's in danger anyway."

"Itoh, what are you talking ab-" before he could finish his sentence, he was cut off by his cell phone ringing. Usually, he would ignore it when with a student – especially one as visibly distressed as Itoh – but Kyoko was eight months pregnant, and as much as she and the doctors and the counsellor he'd taken to seeing told him to relax, he was on edge, still, because of last time. A quick glance at the caller ID should have relieved him, but it only raised more questions. "Um, sorry, Itoh. It's my son's school. I have to take this."

"Mister Naegi, no! There isn't time." By now, Itoh was almost crying. Makoto figured he probably ought to get the school guidance counsellor to join them, which made excusing himself with the promise to be right back seem like a much better idea. As he eased out of the room – to Itoh's protests, growing more defeated by the second – he almost bumped into Kane, who was standing outside.

"Did I just see Itoh Sotan?"

"Uh, yeah." Makoto shrugged. "I think he's going through something, I dunno." He looked to his secretary's desk: it was empty. Strange - it wasn't like Hazu to be late. "Hey, when Hazu comes in can you have her reschedule my 10 o' clock? I think this thing with Itoh is gonna take a while."

"Of course." Kane's hand on his shoulder didn't startle him, but it did feel a little out of place. "Anything for you, Naegi."

"Uh, thanks." He gestured to the phone in his hand as it began to ring again. "Sorry, I need to take this."

He turned his back on Kane to answer the phone. "Hello?"

"Hi - is this Makoto Naegi? Koichi's father?"

"Yeah." Makoto glanced at the watch on his wrist. He'd dropped Koichi to school only twenty minutes ago with no complaints besides being sleepy. For him to have taken sick - the only reason his school ever called - this quickly was sure to be a new record. Makoto himself had been pretty sickly as a child, always picking up colds and stomach bugs easily, so it was no surprise Koichi was the same. Still, it didn't make the thought of juggling a sick kid on top of everything else right now any less daunting. "Is he okay? Does he need picked up?"

"Um, he's fine. Actually, that's why we're calling: there's a lady here asking to take him out."

Kyoko had still been asleep when he left that morning and there had been no mention the previous night of keeping Koichi home from school. There was, however, a check up at the dentists scheduled for the end of the week, as per the calendar in the kitchen - Kyoko must have mixed up the days. He made a mental note to tease her about 'baby brain' later.

"It's fine - a miscommunication between me and his mom, I think. Sorry about that." Even though Kyoko was around a lot more lately, Makoto was still the one who did the majority of drop off and picks ups. It wouldn't be the first time a hesitant office intern had called him to cross-check before letting Kyoko take their son, particularly as the school required ID when an unfamiliar adult came to sign out a child: one of the cons of having given their son both of their surnames was that it wasn't uncommon for one to be left off internal paperwork. Usually, 'Naegi' was omitted, and so it was Komaru who encountered the most trouble but Makoto figured today, it had been the Kirigiri part.

"It's not…" The office clerk's voice lowered then, like she was careful not to be overheard. "It's not his mother. She says...she says she's his babysitter?"

Makoto frowned. "But we don't have a babysitter."

He heard a noise behind him, like something being lifted, but before he could place it, he felt a sharp pain in the back of his head. Suddenly disorientated, he dropped the phone to the ground, barely able to comprehend I've been hit with something before he fell to his knees and his vision began to fade.

---

He woke up with a start to the sound of something slamming.

"Mm?" he mumbled, the throbbing at the back of his head making him wince as he touched a hand instinctively to it. He cracked open an eye to a white ceiling.

"Good - you're awake." Was that…Kyoko? "You can help me look."

His wife's voice was enough to have him sitting up, blinking his way to consciousness and trying to take in his surroundings. They were alone in a room that looked a lot like his dormitory in the original Hope's Peak. Kyoko was rifling through the drawer to his left, before slamming it shut.

"Am I – is this a dream?"

"No, and we don't have time to talk." Kyoko didn't look at him, too busy searching for...whatever.

He swung his legs over the bed, pain searing down the base of his neck and slowly, he began to remember. "I'm trying to figure out who's behind this. It must be an old case, something from when I was a teenager maybe. If it was recent, they'd still be in jail."

"Kyoko." Makoto felt sick. He looked down at her, at the curve of her stomach under her sweater, and felt sicker. What had he gotten them into? "I think I have a hunch."

"I doubt that. Stop wasting time." He watched her cross the room to the desk and begin opening the drawers there too. She cast him an impatient look. "Makoto, come on. Check the bathroom for clues."

"This - I don't think it's because of you. I think… it's me." His head throbbed as he struggled to recall how he got here. He'd stepped out of his office to take a call. Had the door been in sight? Had Itoh snuck out? What had the call been about? Kyoko? No, he thought. Worse. He stood up, pain forgotten in place of panic. "They tried to take Koichi."

"They? Who is they?" Besides the urgency of her voice, Kyoko was doing an excellent job of staying calm. Makoto was grateful for this, because he really didn't trust himself to be level headed right now. His heart was racing, his stomach was in knots. "Makoto, what do you know?"

"What if they have him? What if they hurt him?" Makoto thought of the moment just a few weeks ago when he'd taken his eyes off Koichi for a moment in the store and looked back to find him gone. The two minutes he spent racing up and down the aisles before finding his son charming the lady giving out free samples of candy had been filled with a fear so intense it left him shaking long after he had scolded, and then hugged, his son. He didn't think it could get any worse than thinking your child was lost - but here he was, dizzy with the suffocating fear that his son had been taken. "Oh my God, Kyoko."

"Stop." Kyoko pushed him back so he was sitting on the bed again. "Tell me everything you remember."

"I don't - I don't know, but someone showed up to collect him from school. I got a call about it."

"Someone?" Kyoko prompted. "They didn't give a name?"

"No. Wait, they did say it was a woman. She said she was our babysitter."

"A woman?" Kyoko pressed. She thought for a moment, and then looked at him very seriously. "Are you sure that's what they said? Or a girl?"

"I...don't know. Why does that matter?" Makoto realised then. Something - no, someone - had triggered Itoh's spiralling behaviour in the first place. "Maida?"

"If Koichi is to be believed, she seems to have quite the fascination with him." Since the incident in the woods, Koichi hadn't mentioned seeing her again. He'd been enamoured instead with an imaginary friend, who visited his room sometimes and played with him when they weren't looking. It amused Makoto, but Koichi was always reluctant to talk too much about it, because he knew they didn't believe him.

"Her ex boyfriend showed up at my office before I lost consciousness - you remember the kid who got expelled? For the bomb hoax?" He waited for Kyoko to nod before continuing. "He was upset. He said he needed to tell me something."

"It could have been a trap to get you alone."

"Maybe." Makoto wasn't so sure. Something about the terror on Itoh's face had been so...sincere. "Even if it was them - they hate me so much because...why? Their parents died during the despair?" Makoto asked, helplessly. "How's that my fault? How's that's enough to stalk my family, kidnap my kid and create a creepy replica of my old Hope's Peak dorm before knocking me out and -"

"- My old dorm room," Kyoko corrected, her hand resting on her chin. "There's a lock on the bathroom door. The sheets are pink. It's why I assumed I was the target." She bypassed Makoto to walk toward the room's exit. "Anyway. I think we have enough to work with for now. We should go look around."

He followed her, grabbing onto her wrist and turning her toward him. "No," Makoto said, firmly. "You stay here."

"You know I'm not going to do that. Stop wasting time."

"Kyoko, you shouldn't even be here." His eyes fell once again to her stomach, to the baby balanced between them whose safety he'd taken up praying for. "Whatever problem they have with me, to involve my pregnant wife is a whole new kind of crazy and I'm not going to put you at risk."

"I wasn't knocked out like you were - they gassed me, a low dose, obviously, given how easily I woke up. If they were going to kill me, they would have done it already. It's more likely I'm leverage to get you to do what they want." She shook him off. "And pregnant or not, I'm still your best shot at getting out of here." With a sigh and a flicker of something sympathetic in her eyes, she gestured to the bolted lock on the door. "You can go first if it makes you feel better."

It didn't really - but he didn't think much about this situation was going to. As much as he wanted to protest further, he knew it was pointless to argue with her. He tried to take comfort in her deduction about the differences in how they were abducted. Whatever this was about, it seemed like Kyoko and the baby were not the ones they wanted to hurt.

He took the lead. The adjoining corridor was all concrete walls and floors - "industrial" as Kyoko murmured to herself - completely unlike Hope's Peak. However, there were three other doors on the wall beside theirs, and another directly across from the room they'd just slipped out of.

"Do you think - ?" he began, but before he could elaborate or Kyoko could respond, the doors began to creak open, as if on command. It was...sinister, to say the least. He backed up, closer to Kyoko.

"Naegi?" From the room across the hall, Byakuya stepped out. His clothes were dusty and his hair was rugged; the skin on his neck was an angry shade of red as if he'd been strangled. "Kirigiri? What on earth - "

"Dudes!" Hiro was next to appear, running to them from the room a few doors down. "Can you believe we seriously time travelled? I like, totally did not see this coming!"

"G-guys?" Hina was weak and half-limping as she came out of her room and moved closer to them, using the wall to steady herself. "What's going on?"

"That much is unclear," Byakuya said, eyeing her for a second before turning to Makoto and Kyoko. "Which one of you was able to unlock the doors?"

"Um?" Makoto blinked at his friend. "You mean, they didn't just open when you tried the handle?"

Hiro shook his head so frantically his braids bounced. "N'uh man. Some kind of black magic opened mine!"

Byakuya rolled his eyes. "I believe it was more likely an automatic sensor."

"H-how come we're back h-here?" Another voice said. Makoto looked toward the last door, having almost forgot about it, and sure enough, there was Toko, peering back at them nervously.

"Obviously this isn't the school, you imbeciles."

"He's right - but some effort did go into recreating it." Of Toko, Kyoko asked, "Are you alone in your room?"

"Of course! I'm not some pervert." Toko blushed, furiously. "W-who else would be here?"

Kyoko didn't respond. Makoto wanted to ask, but he already knew she'd brush him off - he'd been through this kind of thing enough times to know it was too early to ask her to share her deductions.

"I imagine we were not dragged here to discourse in this hallway." Byakuya gestured to the corridor ahead. "Shall we?"

They all fell into step behind him. Makoto offered Hina his arm for support. "Did Itoh go after you when he was finished with me?" he asked.

"Itoh?" Hina shook her head. "No. It was...some guy I've never seen before."

Makoto looked to Kyoko, an attempt to gauge if this was relevant information. She kept her eyes locked ahead and said nothing.

Byakuya came to a halt when he reached a metal door. In black marker, and spoon and fork had been drawn on it, although they were a little smudged. It opened automatically as he moved closer, screeching against the floor and revealing to them a large warehouse space. In the centre of the room was a makeshift table composed of wooden crates and surrounded by fold up chairs. It looked nothing like it's counterpart from the old Hope's Peak, but the implication was clear - this was the dining hall.

"Well? Aren't you guys gonna come in?" The giggle that followed had goosebumps rising under Makoto's skin.

"Enoshima?" Byakuya hissed. "Don't tell me it's another AI."

"No." Makoto swallowed. "Her name is Maida. She's one of my students."

"Ya sure, Naegi bro? Cause I'm with Togami, she sure sounded a lot like - "

"I thought you guys were supposed to be brave!" Maida looked older than her supposed sixteen when she stepped into their line of view. Her blonde hair was slicked back in a high ponytail and she wore a dark turtleneck and army pants. "Aren't you gonna come in here and have some fun with me?"

"Whoa - I do know her!" Hiro staggered backward. "She brought her dead bird to me for a reading."

"That's...not how I thought your talent worked." Makoto shrugged this off to glare at Maida. "Why are we here? Why are you doing this?"

"Take a seat, headmaster," she crooned, gesturing to the chairs. "Or I'll have my friend here make you." Out of the shadows came a large man, barrel-chested and dressed in white, his hands already fists by his side. Makoto couldn't place him at first but he was sure he'd seen him before, somewhere...but where?

"My security manager," Byakuya said, by way of explanation. He pushed his glasses up his face and scowled. "I hired a traitor, it seems."

"He's the one who attacked you?" Kyoko asked Hina, her voice low so their captors couldn't hear. At first, this question made Hina hesitate, but but after a few seconds, she nodded.

"Y-you said you were a fan of my forgotten novel!" Toko accused, pointing at the man. "I s-signed a copy for you!"

"The least plausible dupe of all," Byakuya scoffed. "As if they are not all equally forgettable."

"Deguchi?" Maida called, holding her hand out to the man. He passed her a gun after a moment of reluctance, its silver steel side glinting under the overhead lights. She tapped it against her palm, a threat. "I'm not going to ask you losers again."

They filed into the room. When they were all sitting, Byakuya crossed his legs and yawned. "This is dull. Let me guess, we are required to kill each other to leave?"

Even if it was an obvious rule - because it was always the rule, wasn't it? - it hadn't actually occurred to Makoto. Every other time they'd woken up in a situation like this, there had been casualties - he looked around the table at his best friends and felt an overwhelming sense of dread. But I need all of them.

"That kind of behaviour certainly reaps a reward!" Maida winked. "Still, you might think you know how this is going to work - but news flash! You don't. There are some serious changes since the last time you played a game like this. For instance, my colleague and I here will be functioning as your helpful Monokuma this time."

"I prefered the bear," Byakuya said, blankly.

Maida pressed the gun to Byakuya's temple with such lightening speed even he seemed surprised. "Wanna say that again, pretty boy?"

"You need to explain to us why we're here," Makoto said, quickly, in an effort to distract Maida. "I still don't get it."

"That's simple! I guess that much hasn't changed. You're here to die, silly headmaster!"

"Um. Right. But, uh, why?"

"Revenge." Maida dropped the gun to her side again and shrugged. "I'm avenging the lives you

stole."

"Listen, Maida." Makoto sat forward. "I know your parents were victims of the despair. I'm sorry you had to grow up without them." He'd grieved the loss of his own parents a long time ago, but that didn't keep it from cutting him fresh again in moments when he least expected it - when he'd hear his sister's voice in the phone and be thrown for a second by how much she sounded like their mother; when Koichi has asked him, out of the blue, why they never spent Christmas with his mommy and daddy. He looked up at her, hoping she would identify with the pain in his eyes. "We understand, you know. A lot of us lost our parents - "

" - I don't care about those dummies." Maida rolled her eyes. "God. I'm not pathetic. Being orphaned is actually pretty cool. It makes everything you do seem complex and haunted. Sweet deal!"

Well, that was unexpected. Makoto frowned. "Then...who are you avenging?"

"You're so sloooow," she said, flipping her hair, and it was then, in that second before she said it, that Makoto saw it clearly. He didn't have to look at the others to know they saw it too: you'd have to be blind not to. "I'm avenging my sisters," Maida said sweetly. "I'm avenging Junko and Mukuro."

After a beat of silence, the room erupted.

"Unlikely," Byakuya scoffed.

Hiro banged his fist against the table, yelling, "Hey, that Mukuro chick dying had nothin' to do with us!"

"Y-your sisters were disgusting just like y-you -"

"There's no way. We would have known!" Hina cut in above the noise. She looked to Makoto, her eyes wide and trusting. "Right?"

He didn't know what to say to that. In his mind's eye was Monaca Towa, her flippant mention of Junko's real little sister. She was my age.

Maida wasn't a freshman - she'd just been posing as one. Was Maida even her real name?

"You okay, headmaster?" Maida teased. "You're looking a little pale."

"My son," Makoto said, sounding strangled, "What did you do with my son?"

"Relax. Your brat is fine." Maida shrugged. "I thought it'd be cute if he could join us - a real family affair! - but he pitched a fit about how he'd get in trouble with you guys if he came with me and his teachers were threatening to call security and well - I had places to be."

"How can we believe you?" It was the first time Kyoko had spoken since they'd come into the room. She sounded so neutral Makoto almost thought he'd misheard what she said next: "How do we know you haven't killed him?"

"Well, you don't. Guess you guys just gotta 'hope', huh? Haha."

"You're horrible!" Hina protested. "He's innocent in all of this. He's just a little kid."

Maida wandered over to where Hina was sitting, to Makoto's left. She tilted Hina's chin upward gently and then, with a sigh, whacked her on the side of the head with the barrel of the gun. Startled and hurt, Hina flinched off the chair and fell onto the floor, clutching the side of her face and whining in pain. "That's for giving me detention when you caught me and Itoh screwing the gym store," Maida said, triumphantly. "Anyway. If I wanted to kill the kid, I'd have done it months ago. I had plenty of opportunities." She looked at Makoto and smiled. "That dinosaur he sleeps with is adorable."

Makoto felt panic lurch in his chest. Overwhelmed, he banged his fist against the table, ignoring Kyoko's kick to his ankle. Don't react. "What do you want?" he demanded. "I'll do whatever. Just...let everyone else go."

"Sorry, but I can't do that. You guys are a package deal. Boss's orders. Now, who should I get rid of first?" She juggled the gun in her hand and then paused, in pretend thought. She trained it on Hina, still wounded on the ground, and smiled. Just then, the pager clipped to her hip began to go off. "Oops. Speak of the devil." She handed the gun back to Deguchi and Makoto felt everyone around the table exhale. "Come on. Duty calls."

"Where are you going?"

"Don't worry headmaster, we'll be back soon! In the meantime, make yourselves at home." Makoto watched, defeated, as Maida and the man left, stepping over Hina's legs as they did so. As soon as they were gone, Makoto crouched beside his friend.

"Are you alright?"

"Y-yeah." She pulled her hand back from her face, blood on her fingers.

"The kitchen should be through there, right?" Makoto pointed to a door on the other side of the room. "I bet there's a first aid kit, or at least some ice. We'll get you fixed up in no time, don't worry."

At the sound of a chair leg screeching against the ground, he turned to see his wife already on her feet. "Where are you going?"

She met this question with a withering look and so Makoto, regrettably, already knew the answer. "To investigate, obviously."

"No way. That's not a good idea. It's not safe and - Kyoko!" He got up, but Kyoko had already slipped out of the room. He tried to go after her, but Byakuya - who, at some point during all of this, had come around to their side of the table - stepped in front of him.

"Let her go, Naegi."

"I can't! She's pregnant."

"Yes, I think we can trust she is quite aware of that herself." Byakuya fixed him with a stern look. "But in addition to being the mother of your children, she is also a excellent detective. Our enemies likely assume your protectiveness will keep you from utilising her. It would be foolish to play into their hands."

"I can't just -" Makoto let out a frustrated sigh. He knew Byakuya was right. "Fine, but I'm going after her."

"You're needed here." Byakuya looked, pointedly, to an injured Hina; to Toko, who was shivering and mumbling nonsensically; to Hiro, who had his eyes shut and was clicking his fingers frantically, as if he could transport himself somewhere else. "I'll go. I have my own investigating to do anyway."

At the sound of Hina wincing in pain, Makoto relented. After Byakuya left, he scoured the kitchen. There wasn't a whole lot of anything - enough food and bottled water to do them a few days at most. There wasn't a first aid kit or ice or even hot water to properly clean Hina's head wound, but there were some frozen peas and few worn kitchen towels. He did the best he could, apologising frequently for the certain-sting, but Hina was a trooper and after a few bites of a donut he found in the kitchen, she was back to her usual self, if a little shaken up.

"The dead bird tried to tell me that girl was crazy," Hiro said, coming to sit cross-legged beside Makoto and Hina on the floor. "I shoulda listened, man."

"Mast - ahem, Togami was right. I should have known better than to think that guy was a fan of my forgotten novel," Toko huffed.

"He's just a jerk, Toko," Hina said kindly as she licked icing sugar from her fingers. "I'm sure lots of people like it."

"It wasn't popular because it was about two g-girls who m-meet and... fight robots together." Toko seethed. "Het still sells better."

Hina raised an eyebrow at Makoto and he knew what she was thinking. Sounds autobiographical. "Ah."

"They s-save the w-world from the robots and then they...have a lot of...steamy sex - "

"- Oookay, Toko," Makoto interrupted, not needing this much detail when he was very aware her inspiration was her escapades with his little sister. "We got it. Thanks."

"Yeah, no spoilers!" Hiro insisted.

"Hey guys?" Hina was looking up at the ceiling when Makoto turned back to her. "Do you notice something different this time?"

"Yeah, didn't Brogami tell us this isn't Hope's Peak?"

"It's definitely not," Makoto assured Hiro. "It's just supposed to remind us of the first game. It's probably just to mess with us."

"Right. But - " Hina looked around, frowning. "Where are the cameras?"

She made a good point. There were no surveillance cameras in the rooms corners. Had there been some in the dorms? Makoto couldn't remember.

"You're right. And doesn't it seem a lot less...I dunno, elaborate?"

Hina nodded. "For sure. It's like they only half-cared. I mean, they didn't even bother with a proper Monokuma."

"Exactly!" Makoto forced himself to smile. "This is good, guys. It means we're dealing with a lesser threat."

This newfound hope was extinguished upon the return of Byakuya and Kyoko. When Makoto explained their finding, the two exchanged a look he didn't understand and then Kyoko sighed. "While the lack of cameras is a worthwhile observation, it would be naive to assume it works in our favour."

"Why not? I mean, come on, this is completely unlike the other games!"

"I agree, and while I'm not sure why there hasn't been the same amount of theatrics, I don't think we can necessarily equate it to a lower risk of danger." Kyoko sat down on one of the chairs, looking a little apprehensive about what she was going to say next. "And another thing - I'm not convinced that this is a game at all."

"What do you mean?" Makoto wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer, but everyone else was being a little too quiet, so he knew he didn't have a choice but to ask.

"We found what we think is a door to the outside," Byakuya explained. "The lock is configured on the outside. Besides that door and the one leading to the room where our captors are conferring, there's nothing else here."

"Nothing?" Makoto echoed, looking from his friend to his wife and back again. "Are you sure?"

"We combed back through the dormitories, but we didn't find anything of note." Kyoko paused. "Except - well, it's as I thought, the door of the room we woke up in triggered the opening of the others. No one else was intended to leave before us." Kyoko tilted her head. "From that, I think we can deduce this was supposed to start with you walking into that corridor."

"Me?" Makoto shook his head. "But it was the door to your room."

"Yes, that is something I keep coming back to myself. Why were put in the same room? Why don't you have a room of your own?"

"Maybe they just miscounted how many rooms they needed," Hina said, shrugging. "Maida's homeroom teacher was always complaining about how disorganised she is."

"The number of rooms had to be deliberate," Kyoko insisted, "their order is exactly the same as it was the first time, so I doubt they just forgot to add one, especially Makoto's. And even if it was an oversight, that doesn't account for why we would be put in the same room, when we weren't the ones kidnapped together."

"Idiots! It's p-probably because you're married." Toko gestured to Kyoko's stomach and turned to the others. "They obviously do d-dirty things."

"Toko," Hina chided, sounding disappointed. "Come on, you were super sex positive, like, twenty minutes ago."

"What do you mean, 'the ones' kidnapped together?" Makoto asked, halting the conversation. "Do you mean Hina and me? Because we were both attacked at the school?"

Kyoko went quiet. Behind him, Hina fidgeted. Byakuya cleared his throat.

"I wasn't...attacked at the school," Hina mumbled. When Makoto turned to her, her head was ducked, and she was pretending to be preoccupied adjusting the frozen peas on her ankle. "I was...somewhere else when I got taken."

"Somewhere else? Where?"

"An apartment in the city." Her cheeks flushed. "Byakuya's apartment."

"What were you doing the -" Makoto looked between them, at the way they were both looking everywhere but at him or at each other. "Wait, what?"

"Yeah, I don't know what I was thinking either," Hina said, darkly. "It was a waste of time."

Byakuya snorted. "Well, it's not like you were invited."

Makoto whirled around to Kyoko. "You knew about this?"

She nodded. "I suspected it when they came out of their rooms. They were both surprised to see us, but not each other, and they seemed to have been in an altercation with their attacker before being knocked out, which would only be possible if, given the strength of the security guard, they had been able to outnumber him." Kyoko looked past him to Hina. "Prior to that, I was under the impression it was over."

"It is," Hina insisted, frowning. "Last night was just...a stupid lapse in judgement, okay? Now can we stop talking about it?"

"I assure you, I would like nothing more than to forget the whole thing myself." Byakuya folded his arms. "Surely we have more important things to be discussing?"

"I mean, I guess," Makoto conceded. "But we're not done with this topic. I don't even know how I didn't know -"

Just then, the door to the hallway opened, and in came Maida and Deguchi again. There was a ticking noise coming from their pagers.

"Where the fuck is it?" Deguchi demanded. "Where is my gun? Which one of you bastards -" his eyes fell on Kyoko. "You. I saw you poking around." He attempted to lunge at her, and in that moment Hiro yelled, Toko shrieked and Hina cried out Kyoko's name, but Makoto couldn't think, couldn't speak - instinctively, he threw himself between them. Still - he would have been a second too late if Maida hadn't kicked the man to the ground first. Kyoko blinked down at her almost attacker, unfazed, but Makoto yanked her to her feet anyway, so he could stand in front of her and put more distance between them.

They watched as Maida wrestled against Deguchi, kicking at him still and throwing what seemed to be all her weight into dragging him to the furthest corner of the room. In only a matter of seconds, the ticking stopped, and Maida drew back. Makoto heard the man gasp once, before they heard a single 'pop' noise, and an explosion of blood and flesh came.

It took Makoto a beat to realise what had just happened. He swallowed hard. "Is he -"

"Oh my God." Hina covered her mouth. "That smell."

"Nnngh!" A thud indicated Toko had fainted.

"Hm," Byakuya said, quietly. "Interesting."

"Very," Kyoko acknowledged.

The one half of their Monokuma that remained alive and in tact, Maida, struggled to her feet. She wiped the blood of her colleague off her face and sighed. "Well. Oops. That's what you get for not following your order." She looked over at them and smirked. "Oh. So pretty boy is the gun thief, huh?"

Makoto followed her eye and sure enough, Byakuya was holding the gun. "Where did you get that?" Makoto hissed.

"It was located during our investigation," he said simply. "We couldn't have predicted it would cause his death, of course, although given the fact he was about to attack a pregnant woman, I personally won't be losing too much sleep about that fact."

"Why didn't you just give it to him?" He turned to Kyoko. "He could have hurt you."

Kyoko frowned. "I was testing a theory."

Byakuya's hand on Makoto's shoulder wasn't a comfort as much it was an attempt to steady him. "We already discussed the possibility of that very scene occuring - it was quite predictable, really. I would have pulled the trigger before it got that far."

"You left it pretty close," Makoto pointed out, shrugging Byakuya off. He glared at Kyoko. "Quit it." He knew she wouldn't take kindly to him scolding her, but he didn't much care in that moment. It wasn't the time or the place to show off how smart she was.

"Sucker!" Maida teased, coming to stand in front of them. "I'm wearing a full bodysuit of bulletproof under these clothes." She lifted up her turtleneck to expose a thick layer of black velcro across her stomach. "So. Let's not be lame! That gun is how you guys die, not me."

"There's always your head." Byakuya drew the gun so it was pointed at her.

"Um. Byakuya?" Makoto whispered, previous anger forgotten in place of the much fresher feeling of horror-tinged confusion. "You're not actually going to…"

It wasn't like they could just wound her and then extract information from her, or that her being injured would allow them to escape - if Byakuya pulled the trigger, it was a clear shot: Maida would die, instantly. Makoto knew Byakuya was a ruthless guy, but this wasn't taking someone's room keys and leaving them to fend for themselves against a mastermind; it wasn't sitting on a gun to prove a theory, even if it cost a stranger his life - it would just be straight up murder.

"Of course he's not," Maida sniggered. "He doesn't have the manhood for that."

"If you do that, you could be taking away our means of escape." Obviously the prospect of this wasn't as distressing to Kyoko as it was to Makoto, as it didn't deter her from edging around the scene to begin her investigation of Deguchi's body. Over her shoulder, she gave Byakuya one last warning before turning her attention away completely, "Think carefully. If this is a decision based on emotion, you need to give Makoto the gun."

A bead of sweat broke on Byakuya's forehead, but only Makoto was standing close enough to spot it. Don't do it, he pleaded silently with his friend, don't, Byakuya. I'll find another way.

"I can't take this guys," Hiro cried, burying his face in his arm. "Too intense."

"I can't take any more death," Hina said numbly, staring into space. Only this broke Byakuya's focus. He glanced at her on the ground and then, before Makoto could register what was happening, the gun was being thrust into his hands.

"Very well. I will refrain," Byakuya said, through gritted teeth. He turned his back to them all, simmering with disgust. "I hope you are all prepared to stand by your decision."

"Sweet, glad we got that over with." Maida dusted her palms together, nonchalant. Makoto wondered if she even cared if they killed her.

"Yo, Naegi." Hiro tugged on his sleeve and confessed, "I think I blew up that guy with my mind." He brought his fingers to his temples. "Like, whoa."

Makoto figured it was more likely that Hiro was just stoned, but he didn't have time to explain this to his friend before Kyoko interrupted with her own conclusion. "It looks like his pager was set to trigger an explosion when he was unable to locate his gun." She rose up from the body and looked back to him. "It would explain the barcode on the underside. It must require scanning after a certain period of time."

He turned the gun over in his hand and sure enough, there was a barcode. Makoto looked to Maida, who was now adjusting her ponytail. "Why aren't you trying to take this from me?"

"Why would I? Kill your friends if you want. They're all going to get shot eventually - who cares what order it happens in?"

"Makoto?" Kyoko called. "Can you turn him over for me?"

As Makoto moved closer, he saw there really wasn't much to turn over - the guy was in pieces. Hina, who had attempted to stagger over to help too, backed away, gagging.

"This isn't making you feel even a little nauseous?" Makoto asked, eyeing his wife with caution. As he touched his hands to what had once been a torso, the flesh came apart under his hands and he felt his own stomach retch.

When she was pregnant with Koichi, Kyoko complained frequently how the smell of blood made her sick, and how inconvenient that was given her job but now, she was completely unaffected. It made Makoto think about something Fuhito had said, when they first announced this pregnancy to him, before they'd known they were having a girl. Brimming with excitement and relief, off the back of an appointment with the midwife and a week past the point where they'd lost the last baby, Makoto had asked, Do you want a great-granddaughter or another great-grandson? Fuhito met their smiles with a somber look. I want a detective, he'd said, flatly.

(They never talked about it, but Makoto didn't miss the way Kyoko shut down after that and left him to do the rest of the talking. It was the first time he'd witnessed his wife want something other than the truth. All Fuhito had to say, having been privy to what the last loss had done to her, was that it didn't matter, that he'd love the baby no matter what. That he loved Kyoko that way, too.)

If Kyoko's ability to withstand the gore at their feet whilst heavily pregnant was anything to go by, maybe Fuhito had gotten lucky after all. Before he could say make the joke, Kyoko crouched down beside him. "I know you're frustrated," she said, low enough that the others couldn't hear, "but I need you to trust me - last time, I promise. I know what I'm doing."

Makoto realised then that she wasn't at all interested in the parts of the man he'd just turned over. She had beckoned him to her so she could give him a heads up for whatever the hell she was planning next. She put her hand on the gun he was still holding. Trust me. He met her eyes, saw the same determination staring back at him that he'd fallen in love with in the first place and, with an apprehensive sigh, he relinquished the gun to her.

Kyoko disappeared into the kitchen while the others were distracted by Toko (or, more accurately, Genocide Jill) moaning into consciousness. Maida followed her immediately. Makoto hung back for a moment, but quickly caved, equal parts worried and curious.

He didn't know what he expected Kyoko's plan to be, but it certainly wasn't holding a gun to her own chin. "Kyoko!" he demanded, but she ignored him and kept staring at Maida with blank eyes.

"You need to chill out, lady." Maida made an attempt to swipe the gun from her, but when Kyoko's hold tightened she froze. "Seriously. Quit with this drama. The damsel in distress shtick is so unnecessary. You got the guy last time!" Maida gestured to him.

"My son's dead," Kyoko said, quietly, and for a second, she sounded so convinced Makoto's breath caught in his throat. Did she know something he didn't? Surely she would have told him if she found something when she was investigating? Stop, he scolded himself. She warned you for this very reason - so you wouldn't freak out.

"I already told you he's not!" Maida dug a phone out of her pocket. She keyed in a code into the keypad and brought up something on the screen. Makoto stepped deeper into the room to see.

It was some kind of greyscale security feed, but the picture was clear enough to make out the scene: Koichi, in the living room of Komaru's apartment. He was being read a story by Emi. Behind them, on the couch, Komaru was on the phone, probably trying to get a hold of one of them.

The anxiety Makoto hadn't even realised he'd been carrying dissipated at the sight of the messy haired boy laughing in his quasi-cousin's lap. Kyoko reached for the phone, but Maida snapped it out of her touch.

"How do we know that's live?"

"Take my word for it," Maida said, dryly. This time, when she went to snatch the gun away, Kyoko let her. "Now chill out and stop being such a hormonal wreck. Jeez."

When Maida stormed back to the others, Makoto took his wife's gloved hand in his and squeezed hard. Tears sprang to his eyes.

"Koichi's safe," he said.

Kyoko's touch was stiff under his. "Hm."

His heart sank. "You think - you think that was a lie? That it was pre-recorded?"

Kyoko took a second to process this question. Then, she shook her head. "No. No, I think it was live. I think Koichi's fine."

"Then...?"

"You know how it seems that guy's 'order' was that he had to have the gun on him or he'd die?"

Makoto nodded. "A forbidden action, except it's like the only thing he had to do. An essential action, I guess."

"Right. Well, I think Maida's is something to do with me." Kyoko frowned. "That I can't get hurt, or that I can't be killed. Maybe both."

"Oh?" Makoto didn't know why that had her so shaken up. If anything, that made him feel immensely better. "Well, that's good then."

At the sound of Hina yelping in the other room, their conversation was cut short. Makoto ran into the dining room, expecting to find Maida beating on Hina with the gun again, stopping short of himself when he realised Maida was the one on the floor (laughing maniacally) and Genocide Jill had the gun. Perhaps most shocking of all was that it was pressed to Byakuya's forehead, not Hina's.

"Makoto!" Hina cried. "Make her stop."

"H-hey now, there's no need for that." Makoto put his hand on Genocide Jill's arm. "We're friends, remember? Besides, it's Byakuya. You lo-like Byakuya, remember?"

She shook him off so violently he lost his balance. "If I kill him, I get to leave."

"No. That's not how the game works this time." He turned to Maida. "Right?"

Maida was still laughing as she dusted herself off. "Yeah, you're not leaving. Sorry! But I can offer some footage from back home as an incentive." She glanced at Kyoko and Makoto. "Wouldn't want you to think I'm playing favourites."

When Genocide Jill turned to them she...wasn't Genocide Jill. "I can s-see Komaru?"

It was Toko. It had been Toko the whole time. Makoto remembered Komaru mentioned they were working on a treatment plan to help Toko better manage her split personality, so that even when triggered by blood or a sneeze she could find her way back to herself - he just didn't think it would be all that successful.

If he'd been shocked that Gencode Jill had pulled a gun on Byakuya, he was astounded that Toko had.

"Toko, wait!" Makoto protested. "Listen to me - Komaru's fine. We just saw her on a live feed from Maida's phone. She's at home with the kids. She's safe."

"You're just s-saying that!"

"It's true," Kyoko agreed, when he turned to her for backup. "I thought something might have happened to her too. It's why I asked if you were alone in your room. I couldn't understand why she wouldn't be here too, if this was all about Makoto." Kyoko paused. "But - I have more information now and I think it's fairly likely she isn't in any danger."

"Fairly likely?" Byakuya hissed, whatever allyship the two had struck up earlier seeming to have expired. "My life is on the line and that's the best you can do?"

Makoto stepped forward. "Toko, I promise. Emi and Komaru are good. They're missing you, I bet, but that's why we gotta focus on getting out of here. You can't go home to them if you're in jail for killing someone."

With a cry of, well, despair, Toko threw the gun across the room and ran out of the dining hall, tears rolling off her cheeks.

They shared a collective sigh. Maida smirked at him once more before she left the room - and the gun - behind. "You still think you're getting out of here, headmaster! When will you learn?"

"Guys?" Hina asked when they heard Maida's footsteps fade away. She pulled her knees to her chest, eyes wide. "There's no way she's telling the truth, right? There has to be way out, doesn't there? I mean, there always is."

"I dunno. I have major 'we-gonna-die-here' vibes," Hiro said, his head in his hands.

Gingerly, Makoto picked up the gun. In the last half hour, it had been pointed to three different heads - it felt a lot safer in his trouser pocket than it did laying on the floor, waiting for someone to use it as a bargaining tool again. He turned back to his friends.

"Listen, we're just low on energy. I saw some soup in the kitchen earlier. I bet we'll all feel a lot better after we eat something." Makoto looked at each of the defeated faces in turn. "Trust me, okay?"

He dragged Hiro along with him to the kitchen. Kyoko excused herself - for the bathroom, he presumed, or maybe just a walk to clear her head. This left Byakuya and Hina alone and although at first they seemed to favour silence, as Makoto unwrapped the plastic from the single loaf of bread he found, he could make out the soft buzz of conversation from the other room.

He left Hiro to dish out soup to the others while he took a serving, some bread and a bottled water to Toko. He knocked once on her door, announced he was leaving food for her and then left the tray on the ground. He was already walking away when he heard the door open.

"M-makoto?"

"Toko!" Her eyes were red from crying. "Hey. Come eat with us. I don't want you to be alone."

"I don't w-want you losers," she sniffed. "I want Komaru."

"I know you do." Makoto felt a pang of sympathy for Toko then. He knew how much it had to take for her to admit that - she was usually so...defensive about her feelings. He was also struck by how, in a weird kind of way, he'd gotten lucky. As much as he would have given anything for Kyoko to be safe at home, the fact they were together meant he didn't have to wonder if something terrible was happening to her, right that second; it meant that if something terrible did wind up happening to him here, he could say goodbye to the woman he loved. Toko didn't have that.

"Y-you better not tell her I said that. Ever! Or- or else."

"I won't, Toko," Makoto assured her, gently. He offered her a smile. "Just - make sure you eat something, okay? Komaru will kick my butt when we get out of here if she thinks I let you skip meals."

Toko didn't say anything else, but she did take the tray into the room with her. On his walk back, Makoto saw Kyoko waiting outside the dining hall for him.

"Is she alright?"

"She will be. She's just missing the girls," Makoto explained. His hand on her back, he asked her what she was thinking, almost afraid to hear her answer.

"I can't be sure - not yet, but doesn't it seem like this time, they're committed to us dying here?"

"Junko was committed. Tengen was committed," Makoto reminded her. "We didn't let it happen then, and I'm not going to let it happen now. We're going to survive this."

"Right," Kyoko said. She returned his smile, but it didn't reach her eyes. Instead of the determination Makoto had seen shining back at him earlier, she looked...sad - like she was humouring him. She looked down at the swell of her stomach, and he watched her stroke the side of her thumb against it, as if she were communicating something to their daughter inside. After a moment, she looked back up at him. "We should go eat," she said, and although he followed her into the dining hall and forced himself to put on a fresh smile for their friends, he couldn't unsee the defeat on her face.

They spent dinner debating the identity of the mastermind, with Hina and Byakuya convinced Munakata had something to do with it, while Makoto felt it was obvious at this point that Itoh Sotan had been involved. Hiro didn't have much of an opinion, especially considering he was lacking his trusty crystal ball. Kyoko was quiet during the entire exchange, which wouldn't have seemed uncharacteristic were it not the one thing Makoto expected her to have a strong opinion on. Instead, she didn't even seem to be listening and she'd barely touched her food, despite Makoto giving her half of his portion as well when dishing it out, certain she'd be hungry by now.

He was not the only one who noted her lack of participation in the conversation. "Hello?" Byakuya snapped, waving a hand in front of her face. "We are attempting to solve a mystery here. This is supposed to be your forte."

Makoto half expected her to recap their discussion and shoot down their attempts at theories just to prove she had been listening - but she...didn't. Kyoko blinked at Byakuya, as if she'd genuinely been somewhere else. "Hm?"

"Um, Kyoko, are you feeling okay?" Hina asked, frowning. "I mean - all this is stressful and you're like, super pregnant. The baby's okay, right?"

Kyoko stared at Hina for a beat before nodding. Makoto watched her rub the side of her stomach. "She's fine."

"She?" Byakuya raised an eyebrow. "I didn't realise you found out the sex this time. Or was it supposed to be a secret?"

"No secret," Hiro said, licking his spoon. "Naegi told me before I could even predict it!"

"Oh?" Byakuya was looking at Makoto now, his mouth a thin line. "Do I wager then that I am the last to know?"

"Uh, I didn't really think you'd...care," Makoto admitted, scratching his face awkwardly. It was such an un-Byakuya-like thing to take an interest in. "I mean, it's not like you're around a whole lot these days."

"Ah, yes. I forgot you require constant attention and affirmation." With that, Byakuya stood. "I'm going to my room."

"Byakuya, wait." Byakuya, ignoring his protests, walked toward the door. Makoto followed him. "Are you seriously gonna be mad about that? And right now? I'm sorry, I never meant to hurt your feelings, but you don't have a lot of room to be righteous here - you didn't tell me about you and Hina and that's a way bigger deal!"

"There is no 'me and Hina'," Byakuya said, with a scowl. "And as to why it was kept from you - I urge you to consult her."

Without another word, he left. Makoto turned back to the others, who seemed content to pretend they hadn't been listening. Even with her head ducked, Makoto could tell Hina was blushing by the pink of her ears.

"I think I'll go lie down," Kyoko said. Hiro followed this with an excuse about needing to 'recharge' his abilities or something. Makoto let them go, knowing it was just an excuse to leave him and Hina to it.

"So?" he said, taking the seat next to her. "Are you going to tell me?"

Hina sank lower in her chair. "I was...ashamed."

Makoto winced. "I know Byakuya's a lot, but that's kinda harsh."

"Not of him." Hina pressed her forehead into the palm of her hand. "I guess I just felt...guilty about it."

"Guilty? Why? If it's because of Toko's thing for him, you're totally in the clear for that. She's been all about Komaru for years."

"Not Toko." Hina's bottom lip quivered. "Sakura."

"Oh." Suddenly, Makoto understood. He put a hand on his friend's shoulder, but he didn't know what to say.

"I know it's been years. I know she had a boyfriend back home or whatever. It's not like we were even - you know, during the game. It's just - I can't explain it, but it's like I know that during that year at Hope's Peak, the year we can't remember, we were...something. We had something." Hina tugged at the end of her ponytail with dejection. "I mean, don't you ever think about it - about what we can't remember? Who did we fight with? Who did we date? What if we were closer to the people who died than we were to each other?"

Of course he thought about it. Once, one night shortly after they got engaged, he raised it with Kyoko, wondering aloud if they had been a couple during the lost year. Kyoko had snorted and said, dryly, that he was probably dating Maizono. Do you really believe that? He'd asked, a little bummed out. Do you really think you were my second choice? He felt like shit for making her feel that way when all he'd ever tried to do was be open about his childish crush on Sayaka.

If Kyoko had had concerns before, his reaction then seemed to distill them. Without missing a beat, she'd rolled her eyes and put her head on his shoulder. It's okay, she'd said, I'm sure I would have found some way to lure you away. Like I'd have ever let you marry her. The unknown that was that missing year didn't seem so frightening, or important, once he decided to believe that one way or another, he was always supposed to belong to Kyoko.

"The Sakura we knew during the game cared about you a lot, Hina. She wanted to protect you, above all else. We might never know what that one year looked like, but I don't think there's any doubt how much you mattered to her." Makoto gave Hina's shoulder a squeeze. "She taught us all a lot about honour, and love, and sacrifice." He thought of Byakuya - the same man who hadn't been able to wrap his mind about Sakura's care for Hina all those years ago, who today had held a gun to their captors head: the same gun Maida had used to hurt and threaten Hina with. Knowing what he knew now, Makoto didn't think it was a coincidence that Byakuya just happened to stumble across it while assisting Kyoko. "She wouldn't have wanted you to grieve forever. She would have wanted you to be happy, with someone who loves you. I don't know if that person is Byakuya, but I do know you shouldn't feel guilty about getting back out there."

"I don't know how to not feel like I'm betraying her," Hina conceded, her eyes filling with tears.

Makoto gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. "Don't you think you're betraying her by stopping yourself from living?"

When Hina was done crying, she wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her sports jacket. "You know how Byakuya quit so suddenly? He - I think he was starting to like me. Like, really like me and I wasn't ready for that." She looked up at Makoto with wide eyes. "It's why he feels so left out now, why he was hurt that you don't make so much of an effort with him anymore, or confide in him as much. It wasn't you that he left, Makoto. It was me."

Makoto nodded. It made sense - Byakuya was the proudest man he'd ever met. If he felt like he'd shown too much vulnerability to Hina only to be rejected, it made perfect sense why he hadn't been able to work alongside her and why he'd pushed Makoto away so hard in the aftermath. "I'll talk to him tomorrow, don't worry about it."

They walked back to the dormitories together. Outside Byakuya's door, Hina hesitated.

"Eh, I'd give it a minute." Makoto forced a smile. "He's stubborn, Hina. Let him cool off."

"Right." She nodded, but at her side, her hands were curled into determined firsts. "Thanks, Makoto. G'night."

Kyoko was lying down, but still awake when he came into the room. He sat down on the edge of the bed to take off his shoes.

"If us sharing a room is, like Toko said, a couple thing," Kyoko said, sounding thoughtful as she stared at the ceiling, "why isn't there a double bed?"

Makoto took that as a hint. "I can sleep on the floor if you want." He wasn't offended - if anything, he would probably rest easier knowing she was more comfortable. He didn't think he'd be sleeping much anyway.

Kyoko let out a frustrated sigh. "I don't care where you sleep." Still, she shifted over to make room for him, before grabbing one of his hands and placing it on the left side of her stomach. Instantly, Makoto felt the tell-tale poke of one of their daughter's limbs. "Just get her to relax first."

Usually, such a request came when Kyoko was tense - Makoto was never sure if their daughter was reacting to her mother's stress or if she was just as active all the time and it only bothered Kyoko when it was a distraction from whatever she was obsessing about.

Regardless, Makoto was happy to help. "On it." He placed a kiss to Kyoko's fringe before moving down the bed. He rolled up her jumper and pressed another kiss to the stretched skin underneath. "Hey honey. It's dad. You're probably pretty confused right now, huh? Yeah, well, me too." He smoothed his palm over a ripple of motion. "I don't really have a lot of answers. But I do know I love you and your mom and your brother a whole lot. And even if I don't know how yet, I know I'm gonna fix all of this before you get here."

Kyoko's hand in his hair made him lift his head. "Makoto...what if you can't?" As if on cue, Makoto felt another sharp movement under his touch. Kyoko winced. "Ugh. She's in rare form tonight."

Tenderly, Makoto rubbed at the spot where their daughter had kicked. "Maybe she's telling you to stop doubting me," he said.

---

Makoto wasn't sure who got less sleep that night. Without a clock, it was impossible to tell how many hours passed with them both tossing and turning. After he some time spent rubbing circles into the small of her back, Kyoko eventually drifted off - for what couldn't have been longer than thirty minutes, before she was jolted awake by a cramp in her leg.

Makoto felt sorry: sympathetic to the fact she was uncomfortable, but remorseful too, that because of him she had to be so uncomfortable here.

"I'll get you some water," he said, after she batted off his attempts at easing the spasm. "Be right back." He found Byakuya in the kitchen, rifling around for coffee.

"It appears we were not granted even a semblance of pleasure," he declared, having come up empty handed.

"Um, yeah, that sucks." Makoto grabbed a bottle of water and then paused in the doorway. "Hey, Byakuya? I'm sorry I wasn't there for you - with all the Hina stuff. I should have picked up on it."

"I hardly require your support." Byakuya folded his arms. "And even if I had - which I definitely did not - your loyalties would have surely been divided."

"I guess." Makoto shrugged. "I can't help it. I love both of you guys."

Byakuya's cheeks darkened. He cleared his throat and turned away, embarrassed. "Yes, well, be that as it may - "

" - So sorry to interrupt, gentlemen." Shocked, Makoto toward the very familiar voice and the bottle of water fell out his grasp. "And, apologies for the early hour." Yuugo Kane smiled, a smile that made the hair on the back of Makoto's neck stand up. "I'm a busy man, what with a school to run and all."

Earlier fluster forgotten, Byakuya stood up a little straighter and glared. "Ah. So I take it you are our mastermind? And just who the hell are you?"

"I'm the replacement for you," Kane said, simply. He turned to Makoto then, still smiling. "Isn't that right, Naegi?"

"Why are you doing this?" Makoto asked, his brain still struggling to catch up. His deputy? Seriously? "Because you want Hope's Peak?"

In another few months, he may well have given him it anyway. Makoto had never been so horrified by his own poor decision making.

"That cursed school," Byakuya muttered, as behind them, the others began to file in, led by Maida. At the sight of Kane, Kyoko met Makoto's eyes, but he couldn't tell if she was surprised.

"Where even are we?" Makoto demanded. "What is this place?"

"Why, it's yours," Kane said, with mock-surprise. "You bought it, remember?"

"Uh?" He looked to his friends, who were looking expectantly at him. If they knew how much of a mortgage he was still struggling to pay off, they wouldn't have been so easily taken in at the thought of him buying some random old warehouse. "No?"

"Well, you certainly signed the paperwork - and, of course, the funds used can be traced back to the school's executive account."

Inwardly, Makoto groaned. The mysterious missing money that he'd assumed was his own ineptitude to juggle a budget had in fact, been squandered by his new deputy. He should have consulted with Byakuya, who knew the numbers better than anyone; he should have fought harder against cuts to the budget - but he hadn't, because he was hurt Byakuya had left him high and dry and that Hina didn't trust his authority.

"What, you have no money of your own?" Byakuya asked, with obvious scorn.

"Oh, but I didn't do all of this," Kane insisted. "Naegi did - or at least, that's what the media will say. It was premeditated, this gathering together of old friends. An attempt for him to recreate the feeling of being a hero before shooting every one of you - execution style."

"No one's gonna believe Makoto did this," Hina argued. "That's crazy!"

"It is inconceivable to anyone who's met the man that he would be strong enough to overpower any one of us, nevermind us all," Byakuya added. He glanced at Makoto. "No offense."

"Um, none taken? I guess."

"Well yes. I imagine there'll be talk of a co-conspirator." Pointedly, Kane walked over to what was left of the body of the former security guard. "Of course, Naegi turned on him the first chance he got. Typical."

"Even if you could link it to me, there's no reason for me to hurt anyone here." Makoto shook his head. "Without a motive, this would never stick."

"Yes, that did occur to me. Luckily - ha - I'm sure your old enemy Munakata will vouch for how disillusioned you were with your own ideals on a recent visit. He'll tell the press he had to ask you to leave, because you were so angered by your lack of control of the world and it disturbed him."

"But that... didn't happen."

"The truth doesn't matter. He can't risk another stain on the reputation of his company - that's was any kind of association with you will become, by the way...a stain, ruining everything that once was so good, so pure." Kane snapped his fingers, like he'd just then thought of something. "Speaking of pure things you've ruined - how could I forget your son! I feel bad for the boy. I mean, the despair he's bound to fall into when he's older because of the traumatic childhood he had. How you tortured him with dead animals for months before murdering his mother with your bare hands." At this, Kane turned to Kyoko, and put a hand over his heart. "You're the exception. I think strangulation is so much more...personal than shooting, don't you?"

Kyoko remained unexpressive. "Oh, please. As if you'll be able to convince anyone that Makoto would lay a finger on me."

"I wouldn't be so certain," Kane said, half-laughing in a manic kind of way that made Makoto really uneasy. "I've seen the notes his therapist took during their sessions - the man has a lot of unresolved anger toward you, you know, for the whole 'walking out on him in the wake of a dead baby' thing. Oh, and for forcing him to have another," Kane looked down at Kyoko's stomach, "when he didn't even want it." Kyoko, to her credit, stared him out and eventually, he turned back to the others. "I didn't even have to make that part up!" he cackled.

"Why are you doing this?" Makoto demanded, a lump forming in the back of his throat. "Why are you so invested in ruining my life? I thought you were my friend."

"I don't think you deserve what you have acquired," Kane said, nonchalantly. "So I'm taking it from you. But don't worry - I'll raise your daughter like my own."

It was then that Makoto lost it. As he lashed out at Kane, he was only vaguely aware of Byakuya holding him back by the collar. "Naegi - Makoto. Stop."

"Tell me what you want," Makoto half-yelled, half-pleaded. "Just tell me what I can do to make you stop this and let them go. If it's my life - "

" - yeah, yeah, I know, you'd die for them, that's real sweet, but it's not what's gonna happen here. That's too easy." As if to illustrate his point, Kane yawned. "When all of them are dead, then you can kill yourself. If you do do it before then, whatever, but it's not gonna stop the rest of them dying. Face it, Naegi, there's nothing you can do this time."

"No! I don't believe that! I'm not just gonna give up."

When Kane announced he had 'better things to do' and Maida retreated back to the room where she was staying with a bowl of cereal, Makoto repeated the sentiment to his friends.

"There's a way to stop all of this, I know there is!"

The silence he was met with was more than a little discouraging, but Makoto tried not to let it deter him. After all, it was his job to be the one who inspired hope.

"Naegi-bro," Hiro said, scratching his head, "what'd ya do to make that guy hate you so much?"

"That's just it - I didn't do anything. He lost someone he loved who was on the side of despair. I thought - I thought he was different than that, he told me he'd always believed in hope. I guess…" Makoto looked away. "I dunno. I guess I was dumb to believe him. I let him close enough to ruin all of us." He thought of Itoh. He really had been trying to confess, and Makoto had walked out on him. "I let him close enough to corrupt my students." Feeling terrible, Makoto ducked his head. "I'm sorry, guys. I trusted someone I shouldn't have and I put you all in danger."

"You shouldn't have even had to hire anyone else," Hina defended, her arms folded across her chest and her eyes wide and rimmed with tears, daring the others to argue. "We were all supposed to be in it together, remember that? Somehow it all fell back on me and Makoto."

"Yes, how wrong of the rest of us to want better for ourselves," Byakuya scoffed.

"You can want better and still honour your commitments!"

"Hina's right," Kyoko said, frowning. "I usually do thorough checks on new members of staff. This year I didn't. I was too..." she glanced at Makoto, fleetingly, "busy." More accurately, she was wrapped up with the IVF process and the cases she threw herself into so she wouldn't think about it.

"The usual police checks came back clear," Makoto reasoned.

Kyoko sighed, regretful nonetheless. "I'm better than the police."

To Makoto's surprise, it was Byakuya who took the lead. "Regardless, there's no sense blaming ourselves and each other. It cannot change our circumstance now. Let's focus our attention on putting together a plan."

With some back and forth, they came to the agreement that Hiro, Hina and Toko would distract Maida, somehow, to allow Kyoko, Makoto and Byakuya to get into the room she usually occupied. Before they parted ways, Byakuya made a remark about how weak the other team was.

"I feel like when we get out of here, we're gonna need to have a long talk about how you should go about woo-ing Hina," Makoto said. The three of them were waiting in the dormitory hallway, for Maida and the others to return to the dining hall so they would make a beeline for the other room. "I mean, I get you're trying to act like you don't care, but she probably wants a little more...kindness, you know?"

"And since when are you the authority on relationships?" Byakuya cocked a brow. "If our captor is correct, yours isn't quite as perfect as you'd have it be perceived."

"Kane was twisting things. We've had a rough time is all. It's not how I feel." He looked to Kyoko, who for years, had known what he was thinking even before he did. There was no way she'd take a strangers word over his. "Right?"

As Maida and the others disappeared into the dining hall, Kyoko shook her head, irritated. "I don't care about that right now. Come on. Let's go."

"Well," Byakuya said, as Kyoko took off without waiting for them. "I can certainly see why you're confiding in a therapist and not your wife."

Makoto chose to ignore this and followed Kyoko. The room was another replica of the girls dormitory, although it looked considerably more lived in than the others, with half-eaten potato chips and a stack of dirty places on the desk. On the table by the bed, there was a book titled The Diary of Despair: The Junko Enoshima letters. Byakuya picked it up and made a noise of disgust. "I thought this drivel was banned years ago. How this baseless conjecture was even cleared for publication is beyond me."

It was one of the many biographical accounts of Junko's life and reign written by someone who'd never had the terror of meeting her. Some were factual, recounting her early years in obsessive detail in an effort to determine where it had all gone wrong; some were more of a work of fiction, embellished heavily to paint her in a certain light. He could still recall the debate they'd all had about which ones to prohibit from the school library catalogue. Isn't that kind of...censorship? Makoto had questioned, but he was quickly outvoted by the others, who insisted having them available would only give the students ideas. In the end, he'd rationalised it to himself as a way to protect the kids.

Now, Makoto felt like a idiot for letting himself be convinced that it could be that easy.

"What are we even looking for?" he asked, turning toward Kyoko.

She was rummaging through a backpack - the same backpack Maida had lugged around school or, more often than not, had Itoh lug around for her. Where was Itoh now? Makoto wondered. Had Kane killed him?

"This." From Maida's makeup bag, Kyoko pulled out a key. She pointed to the locked closet against the wall and Byakuya nodded knowingly. "We noticed it when we snuck in to steal the gun."

As she twisted the key in the lock, Makoto looked between Byakuya and Kyoko. "Uh, guys? What are we expecting to find?"

Neither of them responded. He got the impression Byakuya might have been as unsure as he was, but Kyoko's hands went straight to a box on the bottom shelf, bypassing the collection of other banned books about Junko. She lifted the lid, revealing a stash of supplies. A folded plastic sheet; surgical scissors and gloves; a roll of thick string. She unpacked each thing without pause, until it came to the final item - a small white sleepsuit with a monokuma printed on the stomach. She looked up at him.

The thought of Kyoko giving birth to their baby in a place like this made Makoto shudder. "Jeez. How long do they plan on keeping us here?"

Byakuya set about repacking the box, presumably so Maida wouldn't know they had seen its contents. Makoto almost wished they hadn't. "Perhaps it's just a precaution."

"We were wrong," Kyoko said quietly. "They don't want you, Makoto. They want the baby."

Of course. It was why Maida couldn't let Kyoko get hurt. It was why Kane had said Kyoko's death would be different than the others - they were accounting for the fact she would fight them when they took the baby. It was why, he realised, Kane had been so stricken by their miscarriage, so curious about their plans to try again, so elated for them when they announced they were having a girl. It was even why he hadn't pursued his own daughter: Someday, I'll get a second chance to be a father.

Byakuya was returning the key to where Kyoko had found it when they heard yelling from the hallway. Makoto, who really didn't think things could get any worse, stared at the door for a long moment before opening it.

Hiro and Hina were hauling an unconscious Maida down the hallway, Toko following behind with her scissors pointed and ready to strike. Maida's hands were tied together, as were her feet, bound with wire. As Hiro pushed past them to dump Maida onto the floor of her room, Makoto blinked at his friends. "Um?"

Hina put her hands on her hips, her ponytail bouncing as she shrugged her shoulders. "So much for the weaker team, huh?"

Byakuya cast her a sidelong glance and smirked. "I stand corrected."

"How did you guys knock her out?" Makoto couldn't see any obvious wounds or bleeding.

"I tackled her," Hina explained, proudly. "I haven't used martial arts in a while - I thought I wouldn't be able to remember what Sakura taught me, but guess when it counted, it all came back."

"And the wire?" Kyoko, like Byakuya, sounded impressed.

"She had it on her." Hina turned to him, then. "You know, cause she's the the ultimate poacher - or she would be if ultimates were still a thing."

This was new information to Makoto. He'd made a point of turning the focus away from talents, wanting everyone to seen as equally valuable and important. Now, he wondered if that had really been for the students benefit, or if it was because of his own insecurity. It seemed more ignorant than altruistic, in hindsight.

"Well, that explains the dead animals. She was snaring them." Kyoko looked around at them, her arms folded over the swell of her stomach. "Now what?"

"Eh, we were kinda hoping you guys woulda figured that out." Hiro seemed alarmed to have been put on the spot. "You're supposed to be the thinkers! We handled the physical stuff."

"When she wakes up, I wanna talk to her," Makoto decided. This was met, predictably, with a fair bit of opposition - mostly from Byakuya, who was certain Makoto was the most susceptible to manipulation and that the very fact they were in this situation was compelling evidence of that - but he stood his ground. "Go back to your rooms, or go eat something. I've got this."

Eventually, they relented. Before she left the room, Kyoko offered to go get the gun for him - he'd stashed it under their mattress for safekeeping, although he had hoped it would be a secret from her too. No such luck when you married a detective, he figured.

"I don't need the gun." When she didn't seem to take this as an answer, he frowned. "Kyoko, I'm not going to threaten her. She's just a kid who got wrapped up in this."

"Our kids are wrapped up in this." Kyoko lifted her chin a fraction. "As such, I'm not above violence right now."

"Well, I am." He stepped closer to her. "I know you're scared. I am too. But all of this - it's because Kane wants people to think I'm a monster, because if I can be corrupted by despair, then what kind of message does that send about hope? I'm not going to fall into that trap!" He put his hand on Kyoko's shoulder. "I swear to you, I'll do anything to protect our children - but I'm also not going to let fear turn me into someone they're not gonna proud of."

The look Kyoko gave him was a weary one, but as Maida began to stir, she left him to it all the same. His first action was to loosen the wire around Maida's wrists: as it was, it was leaving an angry indent against her skin.

"Wh-uh?" Maida tried to shake him off, before realising what he was doing and stilling. Next, he offered her some water which she declined, eying him suspiciously."Why are you helping me? I'm the bad guy, dummy."

The bad guy. It made him think of Koichi, who had tried so fiercely to warn them they were being watched, only to be brushed off. Makoto made the mental promise to buy Koichi all the ice cream he could eat when they got home as both an apology and a reward.

"I don't think you're a bad person," Makoto said, simply. He sat down on the ground beside Maida. "You could have brought my son here if you really wanted, but you didn't."

"Cause he's super annoying." Maida shifted away from him, so she was sitting on her sleeping bag. "He talks too much. Once he stopped being scared of me, I couldn't get him to shut up. He would have gotten in the way. It's not cause I like, care about him or anything."

"I just meant...well, I guess that I owe you for that." He looked up at her, sincere. "Thank you."

She shrugged. "Whatever. He amuses me. He's got a lot of...spunk! The first time he caught me in his room after the dead fox, he gave me a lecture about how I should be nicer to animals. The audacity. What does he expect from a villian?"

Makoto did not think it would be too helpful to point out that after that, Maida had in fact stopped killing animals. He was starting to suspect Maida had been Koichi's 'imaginary' friend the whole time. "Uh, yeah. That sounds like Koichi."

"Maybe I just have a lot of sympathy for the forgotten sibling." Maida yawned. "Mukuro wasn't much, but Junko's a hard act to follow and it sounds like Kane wants your girl to really be something else. He calls her his 'despair daughter.'"

Makoto tried not to dwell on how creepy that was, on how protectiveness flared inside him. "What I don't understand," he said instead, "is why Kane wants my daughter when he could have you. I mean, you're a blood relative of Junko's."

Maida laughed. "Right. You'd think I'd be the perfect poster child for despair, huh? But the world knows Junko was crazy. They wouldn't fall for it again." What they would fall for, Maida explained, was a girl with the same 'puppy dog eyes' as the Ultimate Hope. "Think how worshipped she'll be, that even in the height of your madness, you couldn't kill her. The people who hate you will call her a survivor; the people who loved you will say she's the hope you left the world."

It was a pretty chilling plan. Maida even admitted that Kane had links to the terrorist groups wrecking havoc across the world. She spoke about it as an outsider though, which made Makoto wonder why she was involved.

If the door really did only open from the outside, then she was as much at Kane's mercy as they were. Not to mention that at any time, they could kill her themselves, or something could happen to Kyoko which would in turn seemingly mean she would die too. It didn't seem like the kind of lot a co-conspirator wound up with. Had Kane tricked her?

After some pressing, Maida told him that Deguchi had been in love with Kane, which explained his involvement. When asked what was in it for her, Maida replied, "Knowledge. Duh."

"Knowledge?" Makoto blinked. "Of what?"

Maida nodded toward the book on the floor. "Of my sister. I want to know what she was thinking and since I can't ask her thanks to you, this is the only way I can understand her."

Makoto looked around then, able to see the room more clearly. It wasn't Maida's dormitory - it was Junko's. It wasn't the first game she was trying to recreate, but the year at Hope's Peak when her sister descended into madness.

"I don't think you're going to, Maida," he admitted.

He had seen Maida make a flower crown for Itoh on the front lawn of the school one day last spring; he'd watched her cheer for the boy at his track meets. He knew now that she'd reassured Koichi about his bedwetting, that she'd spared him when she could have dragged him into this. Maida had felt love, hope, compassion. Makoto didn't Junko had had the capacity for those things, although he wished even now that she had - maybe if she were more like Maida, it would have wound up very different for her, for all of them.

"She brainwashed everyone else." Maida pouted. Makoto had noticed the way she talked about her sister now, how it differed from the way she had when she was performing in front of the others. She wasn't delusional at all - that was just an act, an imitation. She knew Junko was crazy; she knew Junko had brainwashed people.

"But she didn't brainwash you," Makoto pointed out. "Is that what you're trying to understand? If that was because she cared about you or because she didn't; if you were spared or forgotten?"

"And Kane was worried your wife was the smart one." Maida chuckled. "You're quite something, headmaster. Now, if you don't mind - I have reading to do." She flicked the pages happily with her tongue. He had some thinking to do, so he left her in peace.

They all ate together, which was nice, until Hina confessed that Maida had told her earlier Kane would be back tomorrow to kill them all and it began to feel like a last supper. Makoto insisted he had a plan - that, if they could get Maida to unlock her cell phone, they could call for help. Toko was excited by this, because presumably Komaru would be their best shot, but Byakuya and Kyoko were skeptical.

"How do you expect to get her to co-operate?" Byakuya asked. "She hardly seemed perturbed by the gun before."

"I'm not going to use the gun," Makoto corrected. "I'm going to talk to her - don't look at me like that, I think I can get through to her."

Half of them optimistic and half of them cynical, they disbanded to their own rooms for the night. As he adjusted the pillows to make the bed more comfortable for Kyoko, he caught her staring down at her stomach.

"Is she causing trouble again?"

"No." Kyoko sat down on the bed and frowned. "Quite the opposite actually. She's been quiet. It's why I think it we haven't been here as long as we think we have - I don't think it's even been a day yet. She's always the least active right before bed."

"Hm, get that," Makoto sat down next to her and smiled. "She's not even born yet and she's already helping you solve mysteries."

Kyoko didn't smile. She looked away, blinking - blinking away tears, he realised.

"What's wrong?" He moved closer, his heart pounding the way it always did when he saw her upset. "Kyoko?"

"I don't remember my mother. I couldn't tell you what kind of person she was, what kind of parent. I wouldn't recognise her voice if I heard it now - and I was seven when she died." She looked back to him then, a sad indigngnance shining in her eyes that he understood to mean it's not fair. "Koichi's not even six yet. If we die here - he won't remember how much we loved him."

"Kyoko." He took both of her hands, slipped off her gloves and placed kisses to her scarred palms. "Listen to me: we're going to get out of here. Alive. I promise you. We're gonna have the rest of our lives to remind both our kids how crazy we are about them."

Kyoko didn't respond directly to his optimism that they would escape, but she did take a deep breath before continuing, with a heavy voice, "I knew you weren't ready for another child. I knew I was pushing you into it. I shouldn't have done that."

"No! I'm glad you did." He dropped to his knees from the bed, so he was facing her. He placed his hands on either side of her stomach. "Kane's wrong. I do want her. I love her so much already," he insisted fiercely.

"I know you do. I knew you would as soon as I got pregnant, no matter what." Her touch to his cheek was a soft gesture, but her tone was very serious. "But that just means you're a good father. It doesn't mean I did the right thing by pressuring you."

"You didn't. I wanted another baby. I just - I was scared." He frowned, knowing now he hadn't been innocent in that scenario either. He had lied to Kyoko about what the problem was but still resented her for failing to solve it. He hadn't consciously run away to the Future Foundation to avoid confrontation, to avoid acknowledging this relationship he'd put on a pedestal for years had flaws, but he knew it had made it easier to accept Munakata's offer. "I should have been honest with you. I just...I felt helpless. I felt like I couldn't fix your pain, after the miscarriage, I felt like I couldn't fix our marriage." It was why he had wanted to badly to do good in the world; he'd needed to feel like there was still something he could repair.

"I thought another baby would be the fix." Kyoko looked down at her stomach again, and then back up to him. "I always thought the worst way I could fail was as a detective, but then I saw your face when the nurse said there wasn't a heartbeat."

"Kyoko." Makoto's chest ached for her, for the blame she hadn't been able to shake off since the first negative pregnancy test years before. He thought, not for the first time, that he would give anything to take it away from her, to switch places. "That wasn't your fault. You didn't fail at anything."

"In the moment," she continued, clearing her throat to hide the hitch in her voice, "At the time, I didn't know how to come back from that. So I just made the decision not to try. It was easier to not be around you, to not have to feel like I let you down."

"That's where I'm supposed to come in," Makoto reminded her. He hesitated. "But I didn't. I let you go and I didn't fight for you and when I did fight, I fought the wrong things."

Now, Makoto could see where he'd gone wrong. When Kyoko isolated herself, he'd been too stung by the rejection to leave voicemails or make the first move. When he found out she'd gone back to work, he let bitterness take the place of encouragement. When she came onto him in his office at Hope's Peak and he pushed her back, what he should have done was hug her to him so tightly there was no more space between them for misunderstanding.

Now, Kyoko's eyes narrowed on him, focused, but there were tears more stubborn than she was threatening to fall. He pressed their foreheads together.

"I badgered you to come home," he said, "but I should been telling you that I would wait as it took - forever, if that's what you needed. I let anger and hurt stop me from being the guy you believed in, the guy you married. The guy who doesn't give up."

"You've always been that guy," Kyoko chided. She brushed her lips in a small kiss against his forehead before drawing back and sighing."We made a mess of things, didn't we?"

"Yeah." Makoto wiped his eyes with the side of his hand and chuckled. "It turns out marriage is kind of brutal."

"Hm. That it is," Kyoko agreed. She paused for a moment, considering, and then she reached for his hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. "Still. I loved being your wife."

"Loved?" Makoto echoed. He stood up, but didn't let go of her hand. "Unless you have divorce papers hidden away somewhere, cut it out with the past tense, okay? I told you. We're gonna get out of here. You can't stop believing in me now."

"I'm not. It's just - " Kyoko frowned. "Makoto, why do you think Maida would help you?"

"Because as much as she talks about despair, she's not all gone, not yet," Makoto said, adamant. He smiled at Kyoko then. "I still have hope for her."

---

When he woke up after a slightly better sleep than the previous night (or day, he still had no idea what time it was) Kyoko was in the bathroom. He waited for her emerge and when she did, he was struck by how exhausted she looked.

"Did you sleep at all?"

Kyoko shook her head. She eased herself onto the edge of the bed and rubbed at the underside of her stomach. "I want to go home."

"I know." He kneeled behind her on the bed to rub her back, but she tensed under his touch. "If I have anything to do with it, we'll be home by tomorrow. A warm bath will make you feel better."

"Hm." Kyoko looked over her shoulder to him. "You're going to go talk to Maida?"

She sounded hopeful, which was an improvement from the goodbye she had tried giving him the night before. Makoto smiled. "Sure thing. You wanna go grab some food first?"

"I'm…" Kyoko shut her eyes before bringing her hand up to pinch her nose. "Um I'll pass, actually. I just need some rest."

"I'll stay with you until you fall asleep," Makoto offered.

"No," she said quickly. "Go talk to Maida. I'm…" she blew out a breath, "curious. How that's all going to turn out."

"Sure." He figured he was getting on her nerves. Makoto could take a hint. "Do you want me to bring you anything?"

Kyoko shook her head and waved him off. "I'm fine, really. Just...go say whatever you need to say to get us out of here."

"Deal." He kissed her cheek and then hurriedly got dressed while she fidgeted and winced in an effort to get comfortable. As he slipped out of the room, he banged right into Hina, who was coming out of the door across the hall. Byakuya's door.

She blushed instantly, knowing she had been caught. "Uh, hi Makoto! Morning!"

Even with the impending doom of Kane's return, Makoto couldn't stop himself from smiling at his friend as she attempted to smooth the wrinkles from her clothes. "Morning Hina."

"You're um, up early."

"Yeah. Figured if Kane's going to come back, we don't have a lot of time left to escape. I wanted a head start." He looked to Byakuya's door. "How 'bout you?"

He waited for her to fumble over a lie, but instead, she pulled him into a hug. "I was taking your advice. Living, like you said." When she stepped back, her eyes were bright in a way they hadn't been in a long time. "Like Sakura would have wanted."

He felt a rush of pride for her then, even if he wasn't entirely sure that Sakura would have wanted her to be sneaking out of Byakuya's bedroom hours before their scheduled deaths. Hina had been so loyal and loving to all of them over the last few years, she deserved to be free from the things she'd imposed on herself. She deserved, maybe more than any of them, to be happy.

While she went back to her room - "to actually sleep," she giggled - he went to the kitchen and gathered some food and water for Maida. He knocked on her door, surprised when she told him to come in after just one knock.

"I thought I might wake you," he said.

"Kinda hard to sleep when you gotta pee," Maida grunted, still tied up. "Since you wanna be a hero so bad, do you think you can untie me?"

"Uh, sure." The second both her hands feet were untied, she sped into the bathroom. When she returned, he had laid them out some toast and cereal. "You hungry?"

Maida didn't need to be asked twice. They ate in silence, Makoto content that she hadn't immediately bolted. She didn't seem to mind the company, either.

"For what it's worth, you're a decent guy, you know," she said, with a shrug. "I asked your stupid kid if he was gonna be a detective when he grew up - cause he's supposed to be, right? - but he said no, since you're not one. He said he'd rather be like his dad than be cool."

"That's really cute." Makoto furrowed a brow. "Um, I think." He thought for a moment. "Was your dad cool, Maida?"

"The people who raised us weren't great people," Maida said airly, abandoning her half-eaten bowl of cereal to rip apart a slice of toast with her teeth. "But they died, so it worked out. That's when I met Kane. He's not a good guy either, but he let me live in his place until the stuff with you. He was worried your wife would look into one of us and figure out we were connected."

"Where did you live after that?"

Maida shrugged. "The streets. Until Itoh found out, then he made me stay with him."

Itoh. Of course. Maida's parents weren't the key to unlocking all of this - Itoh Sotan was. "Did Itoh know what you and Kane were planning?"

"Eventually, yeah." Maida didn't seem interested in eating anymore. She laid down on the floor, but continued to rip apart pieces of the toast apart. Koichi played with his food when he was trying to make sense of strong emotions too, so it confirmed to Makoto that Maida had genuinely had feelings for Itoh. "Kane knew he wouldn't risk his future as an athlete to help us, so he made sure Itoh couldn't be a part of the track team anymore." Right - the cutting of Hina's sports budget. "After that, all he had left was me, so he went along with it for a while, especially because Kane was offering to pay his grandma's medical bills. Itoh's been screwed out of a lot of things his whole life. It wasn't hard to pit him against the system."

"And the bomb threat?"

"Was nothing." Maida scoffed and rolled over, to look at Makoto. "Itoh changed his mind about helping us when he realised Kane wanted your baby - it's so annoying how kids turn everyone to mush. He was gonna give you all the evidence he had on Kane and me - that's why he was delivering a package that day. Kane got to the package before you, I guess," because he'd been with Munakata at the Future Foundation, "and he had to discredit him." Maida started to twist her hair around her finger. "Itoh told me I was going to hell and then he cut town. I haven't seen him since."

She said it so casually. Makoto frowned. "But...you loved him. Didn't that hurt?"

Maida stroked a hand over the cover of the book she'd been reading. "Maybe the despair is gonna bring me closer to her."

"Maida," he said, carefully, "before I was knocked out, Itoh came to see me. He was upset. I think he was trying to tell me this was all about to happen. He said he was scared for you." Maida didn't respond to this. Makoto's eyes fell on the pager attached to the waistband of her pants. "Kane only contacts you using the pager. He doesn't know you have a cell phone, does he?"

Maida gave him a mischievous wink. "He's dumb. He should know better than to think a teenager can go without their phone for this long."

"What if you used it to call Itoh?"

She glared. "Why would I do that? We broke up, dummy, I told you."

"Even so, he wanted to help you. If you let him, I bet he'd still want to." Makoto looked down at the book. "Don't you think it's a little…'dumb' to be so focused on what your sister was thinking? Junko's dead. Itoh's alive. Aren't you curious about what he's thinking?"

Maida didn't shoot this down. She thought for a moment. "For all I know, Kane's already offed him."

"I think he's probably being used as leverage to make sure you do what he wants." It wasn't like Maida seemed to value her own life that much. Sure, she'd protected Kyoko in an effort not to break her order, but she'd also let them toss around a gun they could have easily used to kill her. Maybe death was a part of her plan all along - a final act of despair, the legacy left behind by her sisters."I bet he would come and help if you called him."

He wasn't sure if Maida couldn't believe that, or if she just wouldn't let herself. How sad must her life have been, Makoto wondered, if she'd spent it trying to make sense of the senseless and sabotaged her own chances of happiness in the process. It was no way to live and it was certainly no way to die.

"You might never know if your sisters cared about you, Maida," Makoto conceded. Maida sniffed, resigned, but she was still watching him, tentatively. "But you know for a fact that Itoh does."

Despite spending a few minutes arguing hotly that Itoh probably wouldn't come, she gave in and made the call. Makoto watched the way she began to rock herself, nervous, when he answered. Makoto stood, declaring he'd give them some time to talk, but Maida held up her hand to stop him.

"Itoh says he's glad you're not dead yet," she said. "He always liked you." She turned back to her phone. "Will you come? I can tell you where Kane keeps the key."

Makoto helped out with this part himself, because neither Itoh nor Maida knew the combination to the safe in his office where Kane had hidden the key. Maida gave him the address or where they were, a bunker somewhere in the same forest where she'd spooked Koichi, which made sense, because she'd had to live somewhere once Itoh had kicked her out. She warned him not to take his car, because he was quicker on foot and anyway, it might tip off Kane if he returned and saw an additional set of tire tracks. As they were hanging up, Makoto watched Maida hesitate.

"Itoh?" she said, sounding, for the first time, like nothing more than an uncertain teenager. "Thanks...I guess."

With a spring in his step, Makoto returned to the dormitories. He knocked on Byakuya's door and told him to gather the others. "We'll meet you in the dining hall," he promised.

Kyoko was leaning against the desk when he came into the room, her hands on her lower back.

"Good news." He came to stand in front of her. "I got through to Maida. She called Itoh to come get us out. She told him where he could find Kane's key for the door and he managed to snatch it. Kane's gonna notice, obviously, but with any luck, Itoh will be faster." Makoto paused, the joke about Itoh being a runner dying on his tongue as he realised Kyoko had shut her eyes while he was speaking. She let out a slow, shallow breath. "Are you okay?"

"Not quite." She ducked her head and whined. "I'm having contractions."

"No." He gave a quick, panicked chuckle. "Heh. Very funny. You have like, a month to go."

"It's possible the food was laced with something to induce labour." Through gritted teeth, she added, "Or we have your luck to blame."

The fact she was even considering his luck as a culprit usually meant she'd reached the end of her tether, which really didn't happen often. All other thoughts in Makoto's mind ground to a halt. "You're serious? But you can't! Not here."

"It's not exactly up to me, Makoto." She lifted her head to glare at him, before shutting her eyes again and clutching the side of her stomach. "Ugh."

Makoto tried to compose himself. It was important to stay calm, right? "Okay but like... are you sure?" He frowned. "I mean, maybe it's just those fake ones."

"You have asked me a lot of stupid questions over the years but seriously Makoto?" Kyoko demanded, sharply. "Am I sure?"

Makoto took in the sight of her then - the line of sweat on her neck, the tension in her shoulders, the way her stomach seemed to hang lower than it had before. He swallowed hard. "It's okay. It's fine. Because we can leave really soon - yeah, that's what I was saying. Itoh's on his way and then we can get out of here and go to a hospital." He reached for her hand.

She batted him off, annoyed. "I'm not going anywhere."

"But what if he comes back?" Makoto asked, sounding - and feeling - desperate. "Kyoko, listen, you need to think about this. Staying put is not a good idea."

"I'm too busy to think right now." She turned away from him and began to pace, breathing deeply as she did so. "We don't know what's outside or how far away from everything we are. I'd rather give birth here, where there's blankets and heat and supplies, than take my chances out there."

"We have time though, right?" He too was thinking of how far away from help they might be - and how long it would take for the others to get a ambulance to them. "It took most of the day for Koichi to come."

Her silence was telling.

"Kyoko! How long have you been having contractions?" He already knew he wasn't going to like her answer.

"A while." She winced and lowered herself onto the edge of the bed. "I figured you didn't need the extra pressure."

Makoto let out a strangled laugh. "Um, yeah, finding out now is definitely not less stressful."

"Oh, really? I can't imagine how terrible it must be to be you right now," she said, darkly, before looking up at him. "Listen, let the others leave, we'll figure out what to do later. Go get the kit Maida was keeping in her room."

He protested a bit, but then another contraction came and she snapped at him to hurry up with such venum that he decided it was probably best to just do as he was told. By the time he got to the dining hall, where the others had gathered, Itoh was already there.

"This is your great plan?" Byakuya asked of Makoto, eyeing the stranger up and down. "Another student?"

"Uh, former deputy headmaster, I'm not technically a student anymore. I got expelled."

"Oh, well then in that case -"

Hina interrupted to insist Itoh was a good kid, that they could trust him, but when she turned to him for backup, Makoto could only nod, before relaying the situation with Kyoko to them.

To their credit, they were as equally horrified as he was.

"Kyoko can't have a baby here!" Hina cried. "What if something goes wrong?"

"Aoi," Byakuya tsked, before stepping in front of her to meet Makoto's eye, looking very serious. "What do you need us to do?"

"You guys need to get out of here," Makoto said, without hesitation.

"No way!" While the others looked conflicted by his instruction, Hina was resolute. "There's no way we can do that. We leave here together!"

"The best thing you can do for me and Kyoko and the baby is to get to safety and send help back here to us."

Makoto watched as Hina's eyes filled with tears. "But I can't just leave you."

"You heard him," Byakuya said, firmly. "We are of more use on the outside. I doubt Kirigiri wants an audience, anyway."

"Uh, right - that too. Listen guys, stay safe, okay? And stay together. I gotta go." Before he left, he gave Hina's hand a squeeze. "I'll see you soon, I promise."

He retreated to Maida's room for the delivery kit they'd found the day before. He touched his hands to the little sleepsuit and hat and swallowed hard against the lump in his throat. After gathering up all the bedsheets and blankets he could find, he spent the walk back through the now empty facility to Kyoko's room trying desperately to recall any information he had retained from online searches and antenatal appointments and television. Weren't babies lungs the last to develop? How early was too early to be born healthy?

He didn't have too long to worry about that or Kane's imminent return before his mind was occupied with ensuring Kyoko was comfortable - well, as comfortable as possible, given the circumstances. From a folded up kitchen towel, he made her a cool compress; each time a contraction tore through her, he let her lean against him, murmuring words of encouragement and rocking with her, because the motion seemed to ease some of the pain.

When her water broke and she told him she wanted to try pushing, he helped her to the bed and out of her jeans and underwear. He sat between her legs and tried his best to guide her and, when she got irritated with him telling her to push or breathe ("are there other options?") he changed tactics and tried complimenting her instead. You're so beautiful. You're so strong. You're so annoying, was Kyoko's heated response, before another contraction came, too soon, and she reached for his hand.

"This is going to be a funny story to tell her one day, you know - full of bravery and heroics." He paused, giving Kyoko's hand a squeeze. "I'll be sure to say you did good too."

That at least earned a breathless huff of laughter, before her face twisted in pain again. "Makoto," she whined, and when he glanced back down, he understood.

"I can see her. Hey, how long do you think it's been? Twenty minutes? Thirty?"

"I don't care." With the next few contractions, he lost her. All of her energy channeled into pushing, she didn't react to his soothing or his jokes or even his touch. She was so focused as she fisted the sheets impossibly tight, so determined despite the agony. Makoto had never been more amazed, or more terrified, by her.

The flicker of relief he felt when the baby's head emerged was extinguished instantly when he realised the umbilical cord was around her neck.

"Stop. Stop!" he instructed Kyoko sharply, but it took her a moment to absorb this command. With his heart in his mouth, his hands moved of their own accord - his wife's confused, still breathless, 'Makoto?' sounded a million miles away - as he slipped the thick, heavy cord over the baby's head. He felt Kyoko's body tense up again, muscles clenching, a telltale sign of another contraction.

"It's okay," he said, as the cord fell in a loose loop. "You can push again. It was just the cord. I got it."

It took another two pushes before the baby was forced out completely, into his waiting hands.

"Hi, baby," he whispered, already crying tears of relief and joy, before his mind registered that she was too still, too quiet, and his throat tightened. Even coated with...whatever, Makoto could tell the baby's skin was tinged blue. He laid her down on the bed and began massaging her chest, all wonder at the moment gone, replaced with a terror he'd never felt before.

She's not breathing.

"Makoto?" Kyoko, having recovered enough to question the silence, struggled to sit up to look. Kyoko didn't do hysterical, not ever, she didn't have that setting - but right now, the escalating pitch of her voice was suggesting otherwise. "Why isn't she crying?"

The whole thing only took a matter of seconds - Makoto, pushing his finger into their daughter's mouth, clearing out any fluid she'd swallowed, before leaning over her and pinching her nose, blowing a few gentle breaths between her tiny lips. Her eyelids were the first to twitch, and then her fingers curled, and then colour blossomed on her cheeks. She let out a tiny squak, like a baby bird, and Makoto hurried to wrap her in a blanket and bring her up to her mother.

Kyoko was still asking, frantically, why she wasn't crying. He placed a kiss to her head and laid the baby against her skin. "She's fine," he murmured, his instincts to reassure and calm Kyoko as her shaky hands came up to cup the baby. "See? She's all good."

Makoto knew the sound of their daughter beginning to screech would probably never be as endearing as it was in that moment. He watched a hundred different things cross his wife's face as she looked down at the baby, breathless and in awe. He sank down beside them, his own body beginning to shake now he'd passed the baby over.

"She's small," Kyoko noted, after a beat of silence. She sounded instantly happier as she pulled back the blanket to examine the baby.

"She's alive," Makoto marvelled in response. He rubbed his face, a panic attack on the cusp of his lungs, a sob lodged in his throat. "I thought - fuck, for a minute, Kyoko, I thought…"

"So did I. Not the greatest time for you to abandon your running commentary, by the way." Kyoko looked at him carefully over the top of the baby's head. "How did you know what to do?"

"I didn't." Even though his body still felt it was made of jelly, he forced himself up, so he could take in the sight of his newborn daughter properly. "I think it was just an instinctive thing."

"Well, that certainly was lucky."

"Heh." The baby was beginning to settle down now, her face pressed to Kyoko's skin. His wife's hand came up to touch his cheek and immediately, he felt fresh tears sting in his eyes.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm supposed to ask you that," he said, huffing out a shaky laugh.

"You might actually have gotten the worst of it," Kyoko reasoned. She ran a hand through his hair and then turned back to the baby, whose cries had subsided to confused coos. "Bravery and heroics indeed, hm, Chiyo?"

Chiyo. After his mother. Hearing Kyoko say their new daughter's name with such tenderness made Makoto feel like he was going to burst with love. They were both okay. They were both okay and so, so beautiful. They were both okay and beautiful and they were his, forever. Even as he waited for the afterbirth (more gross than he remembered) he caught sight of Kyoko feeding Chiyo and a gasp caught in his throat at how intensely he felt relief and love and pride.

It wasn't long at all before Kyoko glanced toward the bathroom. "Cut the cord and then you can take her while I get cleaned up."

Makoto frowned. "I dunno, Kyoko. I feel like we should wait for paramedics to get here."

"You wanted a plan," she said, bluntly. "This is it. You said yourself Kane is going to come back. I don't want our daughter to be here when he does. We have to go."

He did the best he could at clamping and cutting the cord with the equipment in Maida's box and then he took the baby from Kyoko. "Take it easy," he warned, watching her ease herself up from the bed gingerly.

When she was in the bathroom, he wiped the baby down with a damp cloth. "You're so beautiful," he cooed, while she squirmed under his touch, her little lips pursed in an 'o' shape, not understanding why her feed had been interrupted so abruptly. "I get it. You're all about mom right now, but just you wait. I'm gonna win you over. You're gonna be a daddy's girl before you know it." The sleepsuit hung too long on her little legs, but the hat fit her head just right. "That's better, huh?"

"Stand up." He hadn't even heard Kyoko come back into the room. She was dressed again, although her clothes fit a little more oddly now, and she'd fixed her hair into a neat bun. Aside from being paler than usual and looking a little worn around the eyes, he didn't think it was at all obvious she'd just given birth.

"You look great."

She picked up the baby and handed her to him, holding her in place on his chest as a demonstration for him to keep her there. "I feel like death, quite frankly."

As the baby started to whine, he rocked himself from one foot to another, gently, his hand cupped against her head. At the feeling of soft fuzz under his fingers, he brightened. "Is she blonde?" He hadn't noticed she even had hair, it was that fair. He craned his neck to look at her from this new angle, while Kyoko tore up the spare bedsheets he'd brought along. "Or is it just a light lavender? I was blonde when I was born, you know. She might get it from me."

"Stand still," Kyoko commanded as she set about wrapping the stips of material around him.

"Do you hear that, Yoyo? Mom makes all the rules. But I'll teach you how to break them, don't worry." He smoothed circles on his daughter's back and she quietened. "Yoyo. Yoyo?" He turned the nickname over on his tongue. "Or Chi?" He looked to Kyoko. "I used to call Koichi 'chi' when he was a baby, do you remember? Sometimes I still do. Is it cute for them to have the same nickname or confusing?"

"It's unnecessary. Their given names are fine." Somehow, in the ten seconds he'd been contemplating their daughter's name, she'd fastened a makeshift sling, held together with an impressive knot. Kyoko tugged on the material. "How does that feel? Is it tight enough?"

He nodded. "Uh, shouldn't you carry her? Then I can go ahead and make sure things are safe."

"You're warmer than I am."

"Oh." Makoto watched her cross the room. "I don't feel good about this, for the record."

Kyoko shimmied the mattress on his side and held up the gun. "Relax. We have this."

Gun in hand, she led them out of the room, down the dark corridors and to the main door which had been helpfully propped open by the others. He was hesitant about leaving with a baby in tow, still, but the prospect of staying wasn't exactly less daunting and so he followed his wife out the door down another concrete hallway to a bricked up dead end. A single steel ladder stretched up the wall, further than Makoto could make out.

"Oh. I meant to tell you we're underground," he said, squinting up at a crack of light.

Kyoko frowned. "I'll have to go first. If you fall - "

"- I know, I know, you can't catch me." She'd given him the same warning as they'd climbed out of the trash disposal room at Hope's Peak. He'd found it as unhelpful then as he did now.

"Actually, I was going to say if you fall I'll kill you," she corrected darkly, eyeing the baby in a way that made it clear she was regretting giving her to him. "Be careful."

"Got it." He tried to sound confident, but he didn't think he'd ever concentrated on anything as much as he did his footing and maintaining a distance from the bars so as not to hit the sleeping baby's head as he moved upwards. He lagged behind Kyoko - who was slower than usual anyway, given the fact she was clearly still in pain - but he couldn't let himself even think about speed.

By the time he reached the top, Kyoko had given up on waiting for him. Clamoring to his feet, he spotted her a few yards away, among the dense forest of trees.

"Look," Kyoko said, beckoning him over to whatever she'd found. He smiled when he followed her stare to a trail of donut crumbs leading away from them.

"Hina." Even in a hurry, she had left them a trail so they could find out way out. Makoto began to follow, stopping after a few steps when he realised Kyoko wasn't following him. "Kyoko? Come on."

Kyoko held up her hand to silence him. "Listen."

"I don't hear anything."

"I do." Just then, a hum of a car engine somewhere he couldn't place made him spin around.

"Kane. Shit. We need to go."

Kyoko took a step back. She looked to the bunker entrance for a second too long before turning back to him. "Go," she said firmly. "I'll go back inside and distract him. You need to go."

"No. We all need to go." When he attempted to grab her wrist, she dodged him. "Kyoko! I'm not leaving you here."

Her eyes fell to the baby. "You have to." Suddenly, it didn't seem like such an accident that Chiyo had wound up tied to his chest. "We can't run with the baby. He'll catch up to us. You have to take her and go."

"You're insane!" he hissed.

"You're going to get us all killed if you don't get out of here now," she warned. "Makoto, I'll be fine. I have the gun. I'll catch up with you." She gestured for him to shoo. "Now go."

Makoto wanted to protest, insist they swap the baby over right then and there so he was the one in danger. He tried to reach for her again, but she'd already turned away, was making her way toward the bunker. Their daughter stirred against his chest, and he could hear the car engine, closer now; he noticed, for the first time, the tire marks where Kane was set to pull up, any second now. When he spoke, all that came out was, "Kyoko, please don't die me."

"I won't." The way her eyes lingered on him, on their daughter, gave him chills. "Now go."

---

Makoto didn't know how far or long he walked. Fifteen, maybe twenty minutes? Distance and time were pretty relative when you spent each step, each minute, wanting to turn back around. More than once, he almost convinced himself to - but then he'd look down, at the newborn anchored to his chest and he forced himself to keep going. If it weren't for Chiyo, he would never have left Kyoko, but he knew that if the roles were reversed, he'd want his wife to do the same thing. All he could do was hope it wasn't a decision he would ever have to justify to his children.

When, finally, a road came into sight, he felt torn between relief and guilt. He stood a better chance at getting his daughter away from here, to safety, but it meant leaving his wife stranded. A car came into view, like fate forced his hand before he could think too much, slowing when it saw him, even before he began waving it down.

Best case scenario, he figured, was that it was his friends. Worst case scenario was that it was Kane himself - a possibility that had him taking very tentative steps to where the car pulled over. His expectations were quickly exceeded when he saw Kyoko get out of the driver's side.

She didn't seem too thrilled by him running to her. "Makoto, the baby," she scolded, peaking around the fabric to check on Chiyo, who was awake and whining. Makoto cupped Kyoko's face in his hands and kissed her. Hard. He made the conscious decision to ignore the blood on her cheek.

Despite kissing him back and smiling, for a second, against his lips, Kyoko broke away, cutting their reunion short. She opened the door to the backseat, exposing an infant car seat, already perfectly installed and ready for use. As she helped him ease Chiyo out of the material sling, Makoto pointed out that it had actually worked in their favour that Kane had had such a ready plan to kidnap their daughter. It meant they were able to deliver her and escape with her much more safely than if he hadn't.

"That might be your optimism and not your luck." Kyoko adjusted the straps of the car seat to fit snugly around Chiyo's tiny body. "Anyway, since you're so glad to see me again, you can drive. I'm going to sleep. Wake me up when we're at a hospital."

As he climbed into the car, he noticed the gun on the passenger's seat. Kyoko noticed him staring as he keyed up the ignition and she sighed.

"I didn't kill him," she said, matter-of-factly. In the mirror, he watched her lean in to admire their daughter. "I thought about it. I wanted to. But I figured you would never shut up about it if I did, so I shot him in the leg and locked him in one of the bathrooms instead." Kyoko yawned. "I imagine the police will be there soon, so it's unlikely he'll bleed out."

"You did the right thing." He knew this was true, but he also knew the roaring love Kyoko had for their children - how difficult it must have been for her to walk away from someone who had wanted to take them from her. "We can tell our kids that no matter what, we were still the good guys." Makoto smiled, although she wasn't looking. He watched her eyes drift shut, the baby's fingers curled around hers. "The good guys always win," he said and that, he truly believed.

When they got to the nearest hospital, they were reunited with their friends for only a few minutes before being swarmed with well-meaning nurses who found the appearance of them, clothes stained with dry blood, deeply concerning. Makoto put his hands on Kyoko's shoulders as one tried - and failed - to ease the baby out of her arms.

"We can examine you in the same room," the nurse tried then, despite not knowing why Kyoko was so protective, "you don't have to leave her." Kyoko turned to him, unsure, and he nodded.

"You guys go. I'll wait for Koichi." Toko had informed them Komaru was on her with the kids and as much as Makoto didn't want to be apart from his wife and newborn daughter, they needed to be looked over and he needed to see his son. He stood aside and let them get whisked away.

"I knew you guys would be fine," Hina said, hugging him for what was now the third time since he arrived. "We all did. It was only Hiro who thought you might die."

"I totally didn't Nagei! I had faith in you. You have like, five whole lives left."

"Heh, well, we got out of there a lot quicker thanks to your donut trail." Makoto rubbed his eyes, tired and emotional now the adrenaline had fully faded. "You guys are the best, you know."

"Yes, well, I shalln't argue with you there." Byakuya held out a duffle bag to him. "I had my assistant bring these. A change of clothes. They will be much too big for you, naturally, but they will have to do. Unless you wish to traumatise your child by having him see you as you currently are?"

Makoto took the hint. He changed in a bathroom cubicle, while outside, Hiro and Byakuya relayed Maida's surrender to the police and Itoh's attempts to hire her a lawyer.

"I took it upon myself to put in a call to Munakata on her behalf. Thanks to Kirigiri's deduction that he was the one who instigated the fire in my building, I had some leverage to entice him into overseeing the case. I imagine he'll be handling the imprisonment of Kane and the rehabilitation of the girl." When Makoto emerged from the cubicle, double-folding the sleeves of the dress shirt he'd been given, Byakuya was fixing his hair in the bathroom mirror. "Assuming, that is, that she can be rehabilitated."

"She can be," Makoto promised. "Thanks. That was really great of you."

"Yes, well, I knew it would be your wish."

"You're like a genie, man," Hiro marvelled.

"I simply would prefer Naegi take this time with his family than be preoccupied with what happens to our captors next." Byakuya adjusted his glasses. "Aoi and I will meet with the board of directors first thing tomorrow and get affairs of the school in order. I'll step in, if need be, until such time as we can all get together and determine the best way forward." When Makoto began to interrupt, Byakuya met his eyes in the mirror. "Don't even think about arguing - you can't do everything. Prioritise, Makoto," he insisted.

"Fine," Makoto conceded as he tossed his old clothes in the trash and they left the bathroom. As much as he felt responsible for Hope's Peak, it was a weight lifted to hear someone else say they would take care of it. He didn't know if he still wanted to be headmaster - even before all of this, he'd planned to take time off when the baby came to figure that out - but it was reassuring to know that it was a decision he could make later, when his head was clearer and the panic of the last few days wasn't so loud. "I owe you, Byakuya."

"You can compensate by putting in a good word for me," he said, measuredly. Makoto followed his eyes to where Hina was laughing with the doctor who was examining her ankle.

"Heh." Makoto smiled. "I'd be happy to."

"Daddy!" Koichi's little voice echoed against the bare walls of the hospital corridor. He bound into Makoto's arms with such fierceness it almost knocked him from where he had crouched.

"Hey, you." He was vaguely aware of his sister and niece passing by, quick squeezes against his shoulder before running to Toko, but Koichi was babbling against his neck about a cool car he saw in the parking lot and he smelt like home and he felt so warm and so big and so right in his arms. "Oh, Koichi, I missed you so much."

"I missed you too." Koichi pulled back, touching his little fingers to the tears on Makoto's cheeks with caution. "Are you sad? Don't you like the new baby?"

As far as Koichi was concerned, they'd been gone for the last day because the baby was being born. Makoto hoped it would be a long time before he'd have to tell his son the truth.

"No, I do." Makoto chuckled and wiped his face with his long sleeves. "I like her a lot. I think you'll like her too. I just - I feel really happy now, because you're here and she's here and we can all be together."

"Where's mommy?" Koichi asked then, predictably.

"I dunno." Makoto stood, still sniffing, and closed his hand around his son's. "Come on, let's go find her."

They were forced to wash their hands before going into the room where the baby was being kept. She was even smaller than she had seemed to Makoto before - although, it may have just been that now he had Koichi for comparison - in a little glass cot, with blue lights shining on her skin and a white strip of bandage over her eyes. Kyoko was sitting on a window seat in a hospital gurney, far more appealing to Koichi than his new sibling. Makoto watched his wife wince in pain as Koichi thrust himself into her lap, but her arms closed around him, holding him against her tight, all the same.

"Everything okay?" he asked, while she pressed kisses to their giggling son's forehead.

"She just has a touch of jaundice, apparently. She'll be fine in a day or two."

"Poor baby." Makoto touched his hand to his daughter's soft cheek before looking up. "And you?"

"You don't want to know how many stitches I have right now." As she said this, she was shifting the weight of their son in her lap. "I hope you like the two we've got, because I'm officially done having kids."

"That's fair." He passed by the baby's cot to ruffle Koichi's hair. "Hey, come say hi to your sister."

Obedient and curious, Koichi slid off his mother's lap and approached. He was barely tall enough to see in. Makoto crouched next to him.

"What do you think?"

Koichi frowned. "Doesn't she...do anything?"

Behind him, Makoto could hear Kyoko laugh. "She's just a baby right now. She'll be able to play and talk when she's older."

"Oh." Koichi sighed. "Well, can I hold her?"

"Tomorrow," Kyoko promised. Makoto rose and sat down beside her, leaving Koichi to mumble a begrudged introduction to the baby. "They want to keep us both in overnight."

"You okay with that?" Kyoko had hated hospitals even before the miscarriage and he'd suspected she'd been dreading spending time in one again. Being back here himself made it hard to shake the memory of too much blood and muted heartbreak.

Kyoko, who had always been tougher than him, shrugged and nodded towards the baby's cot. "She needs to be here and I can't leave her." He noticed the way she stiffened as Koichi inched around the cot, just out of their line of sight. It would take a while for either of them to be able to relax when it came to their children, it seemed. "Did you hear that they got Kane?"

"Yeah. Byakuya said Munakata is going to handle it from here." Makoto inched closer to his wife. "I'll give it a few weeks and then I think I'll fly out there and talk with him."

"I'd rather you didn't."

"I know, but he's still Emi's father. Some day, she might want a relationship with him." Makoto leaned his head on Kyoko's shoulder. "Who knows? Maybe the hope of that will be enough to get him on the right path."

"Hm." Her head fell to his. "You and that undying optimism of yours."

"As annoying as ever, huh?"

"Well, yes, but as impressive too," Kyoko admitted. "I wouldn't change it." She lifted her head, before lifting his with her gloved hands and kissing him. "I wouldn't change any of it."

"Oh. Good." He smiled and leaned their foreheads together, not moving even as Koichi pushed to sit in between them and the baby started to cry. "Because I wouldn't change anything either."

---

If you made it this far, thank you from the bottom of my heart. I know it sounds stupid but this fic has been /my/ baby for the last two months. I'd love to hear your thoughts & thank you again for reading!