Aoi Miyake startled awake, then her heart took off faster than a bullet from a gun as she realized that she could not move. She was strapped to a chair, ropes around her wrists, ankles, and even her neck and torso.

"H-huh?! What the—?!" She cried out, thrashing uselessly against her restraints.

"KyahahahahaHAAAA!" A violent cackle bounced around the shadows just beyond Aoi's line of sight, and the figure that came lunging out of them was a sight to behold. The figure looked like a girl even younger and smaller than Aoi, perhaps a first-year high schooler. She had a wide, sneering visage; a long, twisted tongue; dark red eyes that seemed massive behind giant, circular lenses; and long, dark, jagged, wild hair.

"Oooohhhh!" she made a noise halfway between a squeal and a moan as she clutched her face. "Such an adorable little boy!"

"B-boy?!" Aoi recoiled with a strangled gasp. "I- I- I'm sorry, but I'm not—!" The figure whipped something out of the folds of her dress. They flashed under the harsh light of the basement in which Aoi was held prisoner. She gasped again when she realized what they were. Scissors.

ooo

"Pull yourself together, man!" Genocide Jack slapped the side of her head in disbelief, her other hand on her hip. She'd barely even started cutting through her victim's clothes and he was already passing out on her. "I thought you were supposed to be cooler than that!"

Although Aoi didn't know Jack, Jack had been watching for months. Ever since she happened to hear some of the music coming from the club near Hope's Peak—named ALTER-EGO—while stalking another victim, she fell in love with the lead performer, the handsome young man with long, lithe limbs and short, dark hair and bright, brown eyes. His DJing was just as pretty as he was, and Jack went to every RONDO concert ever since.

Then finally, opportunity struck, and so too did Jack. She was at last able to free her handsome DJ prince from his imprisonment with the three, unworthy hags that acted as the rest of his RONDO unit-mates. Now, though…? Well, it was a little disappointing to be honest.

"Guess it's true what they say! Never meet your idols!" Jack cackled, but with an unconscious audience, it wasn't any fun. She pouted, huffed, crossed her arms, stomped her foot, and more. Once the last of her temper tantrum was out, however, she heaved an impatient sigh and began swatting her victim's face. "Hey! Wake up! Wake up! WAKE UP!" she demanded.

At last, her CPR ("Cracking Palm Resuscitation", so named because she cracked people across the face and the sound it made resembled the word) worked and the handsome RONDO DJ finally opened his beautiful brown eyes again and—

"Woah, what the hell?! Who the fuck are you?!"

Jack reared back at the same time, equally stunned and outraged. "Woah, what the hell?! Why the fuck are you like that?!"

ooo

Aoi's eyes were open, but someone else was watching from behind them. What the hell?! Who the hell is this? How the hell did we get here? AOI?! AOI! Silence. She wasn't responding. Damn it! Whatever this freakazoid, creep-o, ass-wipe did to her, it got her pretty good…

Aoi's eyes narrowed. Her alter was the one who narrowed them. The alter had no name, for no name was ever deemed necessary by either of them. They could communicate in thought and feeling, and Aoi's alter so seldom fronted, so why did they need a name? The closest they ever came was jokingly calling Aoi's alter Yoyake or Shiyake, which were puns on their actual surname of Miyake.

"Yake" meant "house", "Mi" meant "three", and "Yo" and "Shi" meant "four". Aoi's alter was the "fourth house" of the family. "Shi" could also mean "death". As a Persecutor alter, and the trauma-bearer, not only was the name Shiyake fitting, but the duality of being able to use Shiyake and/or Yoyake fit the duality of Aoi and her alter. They considered themselves opposite in almost every way, including personality, intelligence type, and even gender. As Shiyake would joke, if Aoi was a masculine woman, he was a feminine man.

And it's always been up to me to watch her back since she's so damn oblivious she can barely watch her front! He thought crossly. This much was true ever since the fatal event in Aoi's infancy that led to the "birth" of Shiyake himself, the only one that protected and comforted her against the fear and pain of being left alone to die… And now, he recognized that which Aoi did not. The idiot! This is Genocide Jack, Ultimate Murderous Fiend! She's a legendarily infamous serial killer with a masculine name, feminine look, and specific taste in "adorable little men" whom she loves to skewer with her trusty, rusty Geno-scissors!

The fiendish serial killer was so infamous that there was even a giant, fiction-non-fiction series out about her called Genocider Genesis. It comprised of books, movies, games, documentaries, merchandise, and more. Its own genesis was because it was meant to be an informative and speculative look on the rise of Genocide Jack (hence the title), but as her legacy continued to grow, so too did the promotional material about her.

The hottest, latest trend was a video game—though this one was unaffiliated with the Genocider Genesis franchise—called "Dance 4 Dangerous Jack". It was a hardcore military/horror shooter many of them played, including Aoi, Shiyake, Jack, Toko, and many of their friends and classmates, though in Toko and Jack's opinion, the game was utter trash, from the writing to the graphics to the mechanics to the controls.

There wasn't a doubt in Shiyake's mind that Jack made the same mistake everyone else did the first time they saw Aoi Miyake. They mistook her for a man. There also wasn't a doubt in Shiyake's mind that if Jack realized her mistake, she would've let Aoi go. Now, unfortunately…

I may not be adorable or LITTLE, Shiyake smiled dryly. But I AM a man. What rotten luck! Aoi was safer with Jack BEFORE I arrived…!

From the thoughts and feelings they shared, Shiyake understood Aoi's gender as fluid, though her style and presentation were that of a masculine woman, as he'd noted before. That was why, to be her perfectly balanced and equal opposite, Shiyake did the inverse. And since Aoi was genderfluid, Shiyake took the label "genderqueer", though their genders technically were not related.

Genderfluid flag looks cooler, but oh well… Aoi got to it first, and even though they knew there was no limit on who could identify as what, Shiyake was fine with using a different label just to keep himself as Aoi's opposite. Far more important to him was his identity as Aoi's protector, her undisputed, undefeated champion. He would now use finesse and cunning to continue protecting her sorry ass.

"You do know I'm a woman, right?" Shiyake pressed his chest against the ropes around his torso, trying to sound as similar to Aoi as he could. Their voices, of course, were already similar, but Shiyake's timbre was always a little lower and raspier than Aoi's.

"What the hell?!" Jack reared back when Shiyake's chest did indeed become accentuated.

"Aren't binders wonderful?" Shiyake smirked. "Besides, aren't you one to talk?" Jack identified and dressed as a woman, but "Jack" was typically a guy's name, now wasn't it? Jack, however, wasn't concerned about any of that.

"Y-y-your personality!" she stuttered, which was most unlike her. "Why the hell'd you change so quickly like that?" She pointed one of her pairs of scissors at him accusatorily. Sure, she knew celebrities often had stage personas, but this was a huge contrast.

Unlike Aoi, Shiyake only raised an eyebrow and smirked. "Come now, Jack," he crooned patronizingly. "Aren't you one to talk…?"

ooo

"Great! Just great! I waste months stalking all of your shows and shit and now this?!" Jack's hands, arms, and scissors were as animated as her mouth and temper. She all but danced around Shiyake as she ranted and raved about all the planning and preparation that just got flushed down the shitter. Angry and embarrassed as she was, though she was curious too. "So… What is… Aoi's alter's… name?" she asked softly.

Pfft! As if I'm gonna fuckin' tell YOU! Shiyake smirked calmly. "ALTER-EGO."

"What? No way!" Jack shook his head, soft tone gone immediately. "Don't tell me that's why you work at the ALTER-EGO club?!"

"No!" Now it was Shiyake's turn to shake his head and snort. The irony was not lost on him or Aoi, but genuinely, the club's name was coincidence. The reason Aoi worked there was because it was close to Hope's Peak. As a bonus, this meant that it was very exclusive and high-end.

Really, Aoi shouldn't have been allowed to work there as a minor, but Ultimates had ways of playing strings metaphorically just as well as they played literally. The only condition was that they were always and directly supervised by the club owner. But Masaki was cool, a fellow queer nonbinary, and an eye-patch-wearer at that. "Eccentric" didn't even begin to cover them.

"Well, my name is still cooler than yours!" Jack insisted with a huff and pout, hands on her hips as she looked Aoi up and down in disdain. "Genocide Jack" was her main name, but she'd also been called "Genocide Jill" and "Genocider Sho". It was her own little Unholy Trinity.

But I DO have multiple names. Shiyake. Yoyake. ALTER-EGO. At least now, I guess… "Wanna call me Aoi-Ego and give me another?" he deadpanned, and Jack clutched her sides, howling with laughter.

"KyahahahahaHAAA! Gotta say, girl, you're annoying as SHIT, but you can make me laugh! So fine, I'll cut you some slack just this once!" Shiyake saw two bright flashes of silver-white, and he heard metal on metal. Then all at once, the ropes binding him to his chair fell away. Jack looked pleased with herself as she stood back and admired her work, giving Shiyake space to stand and rub his wrists, arms, and even neck. A silent promise passed between them as they locked eyes. Not a word of that night would ever leave them. Not to the police, or their hosts. No one.

ooo

"All right. Loser. Go on. Git." Jack jerked a thumb over her shoulder as she led Shiyake to the front door.

"Thanks, I knew you'd get it, girl to girl." Shiyake elbowed Jack and smirked while Jack seethed at the reminder of her giant faux pas.

"Your vocalist sucks, by the way!" she said crassly, crossing her arms and pouting, scissors dangling from her fingertips.

"Are you questioning our judgements?!" The question was out of Shiyake's mouth before he even knew what he was doing. It made him far angrier than he thought it would, but because he shared emotions with Aoi, it wasn't as if he didn't know where it had come from. God damn, girl, didn't realize you liked her THAT much! he thought with a teasing, taunting laugh as he thought about his host and her vocalist.

"Ooooh, hot girl-on-girl action, huh?! Kyahahaha!" Jack cackled at the same time, clutching her stomach again. "The butch and femme!"

"Dare you disrespect the power of the Ultimate Protector!" Shiyake pointed a warning, persecutory finger at the snickering psychopath.

"Ultimate White Knight, eh?!" she snorted mockingly, as if she hadn't given herself an equally, obviously self-proclaimed Talent.

"Smiling Knight, actually." It was Aoi's title in her favorite card game, Vanguard, because she defeated people so easily and always smiled so charmingly as she did so. For Shiyake, though, the name had a much darker etymology. "Our system"—which they called the Black Rose and Blue Thorns—"has legitimately kicked ass to protect itself. Guess what I did the whole time." A sickening smile twisted across his face.

"Huh. So you do have some superhero/villain names after all." Jack raised her eyebrows and nodded, looking Shiyake up and down again, but no longer with so much disgust and disdain. Even though the two alters still did not like one another—on the contrary, they both wanted to murder each other just out of sheer annoyance and anger—they did not have egos so big that they wished to risk their hosts or systems.

If anything, ego protected the alters, for although they certainly were not friends, they could at least recognize kindred spirits in one another. That type of vanity and ego, liking and allowing something to live purely because of similarities, was actually good. Truly, it was a battle of alters and egos, and somehow, they all came out on top. Shiyake even left Jack with a handshake as they parted ways.

"Care for an autograph? Even if you're not a fan anymore, you can at least sell it off and get some monetary compensation," he teased.

"Kyahahahaha!" Jack was so tickled by the idea that she actually accepted. "How 'bout you?" she asked, turning the offer back around on Shiyake. "I may not be a DJ, but I'm still famous!" There absolutely were horror freaks who would die or kill for Jack's autograph.

"All right, I'm game," Shiyake chuckled darkly. Only alters with egos as big as theirs could've made it work, and only alters with egos as big as theirs would've even tried in the first place.

AN: Aoi having DID was inspired by "RONDO Side: Origin" and Toko.

Names for Aoi's alter include: Shiyake, Yoyake, ALTER-EGO, Aoi-Ego, the Ultimate Protector, the (Ultimate) Smiling/White Knight.