"Naegi…" Called a familiar voice.
"Five more minutes…" I groaned as I flipped myself to the other side of the bed and partially covered my head with the covers of the bed.
Footsteps made their way to the other side of the room, only to be followed by the noise of curtains being pulled apart.
"Naegi, Ikusaba told me to get you up" The voice persisted.
Now that my brain had partially woken up, I could recognize the voice as Kirigiri.
"Do I have to?" I moaned as I tried to bury my head deeper into the pillow which was way too comfy for its own good.
"I'm not going to drag you" The detective said as she made her way to the door.
"Fine…" I huffed as I kicked the covers off of me. "Give me a second"
I sat up in bed and cleared the bleariness from my eyes with a short rub. I looked to my right, only to be blinded by the light of the emerging sun. By the height of the burning sphere, I could tell that it was still pretty early. To my left, Kirigiri was leaning up against the door's frame. Waiting for me with a small amused smile.
"Not the morning type I see" She observed.
"Yeah, not really my strong suit" I conceded. "That's more of Oogami's, Hina's and Mukuro's thing"
"Ikusaba because of her mercenary background and I'm guessing Oogami and Hina had a morning workout regime, correct?" The young detective deduced.
"Yeah, Hina would always wake me up to bring me along to their sessions"
I smiled at the memory of being dragged out of bed by the swimmer at the early hours of the morning. Rain, sleet or snow they would run around the school track until it was time for breakfast.
"I never took you for the workout type" Kirigiri mused.
"I'm not" I replied. "It all started around the beginning of our first year at school. I got ill within the first month or something. Hina said that I should improve my immune system and come running with them and I stupidly agreed, mainly because it didn't want to disappoint her and it was early in the year so I wanted to make friends. She would come by my room every morning and practically break my door down. At first, I hated every second of it. However, I guess her energy and enthusiasm rubbed off on me and I started to actually enjoy them"
"I see" The detective responded after my ramble.
"So why are you awake?" I asked as I swung my feet out of bed.
"I was on lookout when Mukuro woke up about fifteen minutes or so ago. She told me to come wake you up before anyone else"
"Ah, Mukuro probably wants to talk to me before we talk to the rest of the group" I muttered as I slipped my shoes on.
The room went quiet as I picked myself up, grabbed my hoodie from the bottom of the bed and slipped it over my shoulders. However, I decided not to grab the blazer that was a part of the uniform at my middle school. It was pretty warm yesterday and wearing it would only serve to remind me of memories of old friends, besides, it felt weird having it when I wasn't even at school anymore.
"Let's get going then" I said as I walked past the detective while zipping my hoodie.
The purple-haired girl followed and strolled along side me.
"So where's Mukuro then?" I whispered as we made our way down the hall, careful not to wake up any of our slumbering class mates.
"In the same living room we were in last night" She said in her own quiet tone.
After a moment of silence, the girl spoke up again;
"Can I ask you something Naegi?"
"Yeah, go ahead" I encouraged.
"You call everyone by their surname except Ikusaba, who you call Mukuro. Why is that?" She inquired "Are you two…"
"Ah, no, nothing like that" I interrupted quickly while shaking my head quickly.
"So why then?"
"Truth be told, we all used to refer to each other by our first names with some exceptions like Togami who insisted that we used his family's name" I explained. "I just didn't want to weird people out by suddenly throwing around people's first name"
"So we were pretty close then" She concluded.
"Yeah, like a big family in a way" I added while pushing a door open.
"Like a big family" She echoed
"If you want, you can call me Makoto. It feels kinda weird you calling me Naegi after everything at the academy. Only if you're comfortable, that is" I quickly tacked on the last bit while awkwardly rubbing my neck.
"….I'll think about it" She said quietly after a short pause.
I stole a glance at the girl walking beside me. She was looking forward, but I could see a smile tugging at her lips.
I opened the door to the apartment that the soldier was apparently waiting for us in.
"Mukuro?" I called out in the dark.
"Good morning Makoto" The Monotone voice of the mercenary greeted. The noise came from beside me, nearly scaring me straight out of my skin.
"You scared me" I said after a deep breath.
"Sorry" She apologized as she opened the curtains, letting light pour from windows.
"So did you want to speak?" I collapsed on the sofa and put my feet up on to the table. Usually I wouldn't do such a thing in someone else's house, but it wasn't like they was anyone here to berate me for doing so.
"Yes, I wanted to speak with you about the destination. Also, it would be uncouth for the leader to be the last to wake up"
"What about our destination?" I inquired.
"The Togami family… Their all dead"
"Wha-What?!" I nearly screamed.
"Junko had them executed and their facilities destroyed" The soldier's tone took a remorseful edge as she spoke.
"C-crap" I ran hand through my hair, trying to remain calm. "Are you sure?"
"Positive. Unfortunately, I don't know about anyone else's families. I only know of their fate because I walked in on Junko giving commands to her underlings" She reaffirmed. "I'm sorry I can't give you any more information, but as I said, Junko did not about things that I was not directly involved in"
"Neither of you can tell Togami. Ill break it to him, just not yet" I sighed.
"We are going to need a different destination then" Kirigiri walked over and sat down in one of the few armchairs.
"Yeah…I don't know any of the top of my head but we still need to get out of the city, so for now the plan doesn't change" I agreed.
"Agreed then" Mukuro reinforced. "I'll go get everyone up then"
Ten minutes later or so, everyone had gathered in the living room.
"So what's the plan?" Leon furiously rubbed sleep out of his eyes as he spoke sleepily.
"Well we need to find a map" I announced
"Why do we need a map? Can't we just take the first highway out?" Maizono pondered while pulling a finger to inquisitively sit on her lip.
"A couple of problems with that" Mukuro said. "One, a lot of the highways are broken because of the fighting. Some may still be fine but it'll be trial and error"
"Of course it wouldn't be that easy" Oowada grumbled while reclining back in his chair.
"Secondly, there may still be poisonous gas in the atmosphere"
"P-p-poisonous gas?!" Hiro shrieked.
"A lot of the air became tainted after the wars. The academy has an air purifier which meant we would suffocate"
"Why aren't we dead then?" The Shaman itched his head in a dumbfounded matter.
"Junko cleaned a lot of it up, can't raise an army full of rioters and monokuma's if nobody can breathe" Mukuro explained. "However, there might be some pockets that may still be toxic"
"Basically then, we only have half of a plan?" Togami complained.
"Basically" I admitted.
"I do not know what else I was expecting" Togami rubbed his temples as he sighed heavily.
I clasped my hands together and stood up in front of my friends.
"I suppose that's that then. Let's go and get out of this nightmare of a city"
A/N: Well hellooooo there, look at that, I remembered to do author notes on . So hey there… ughhh yeah… This is an If continuation that will span the whole franchise so far. That's all you need to know I guess for now
Also if got any AO3 account under the same name and that has another story that I won't be putting on this site so if you want to read it, go on there. Lastly my laptop broke so don't expect a chapter on this for a while. I had to finish this on my family's pc which I can't go on all the time so yeah just giving you a warning. I may get tumblr so I can keep you guys informed and shit, anyways please review and arrivederci