"Neo! God damn it! No!" Weronika roared in agony and frustration as she caught sight of the bloody body slumped up against the wall.
"Neo! NOOOO!" Predictably and unsurprisingly, Sophia's howl was the loudest of all, easily drowning out Elsie's disgusted, horrified hiss.
Had it been any other day, Weronika would've gladly given the wolf-hoodie heifer a good, hard Bear Paw Bash. But to wake up to Neo Lone, Ultimate Diva, dead at their feet? Even Weronika was left stunned and speechless. Sophia sobbed and flung herself at their leader's corpse.
"Wait! Smith! STOP! You idiot!" The Ultimate Brawler kicked the Ultimate Empath in the stomach to keep her from touching the Ultimate Diva's body at the last second. "We're tryna figure out which sonofabitch killed her, right? We can't do that if you get all covered in her blood!"
"Y-y-you care about m-me?" Sophia whimpered, looking up at Weronika with wide, tearful, purple eyes. Even Elsie couldn't resist a laugh.
"Don't tell me you've gone soft for the mangy, mongrel mutt! Then again, you are quite the cur—bitch—yourself!" The Ultimate Sponsor sneered.
"'S none of that shit! Just plain, simple, fuckin' logic! If we wanna find out who did it, I can't be gettin' confused if Sophia fucks it all up!"
Ah. That is… painfully astute… of Seperack… Elsie winced just as Weronika turned accusations on her.
"Besides, I'm thinking the killer is… YOU! Ultimate Rich Bitch!"
"What?! Why me?!" Elsie shrieked. They all seemed to have forgotten the importance of silence. It was not against any of their forbidden actions, luckily, but the FF was still afoot and a-prowl with other, potential predators. Did they really want to signal their location so clearly? In Weronika's opinion, though, what did it matter if there was already a traitor—a rat—among their ranks?
"Ain't no way in Hell it was Sophia. Ain't no way in Hell it was Neo or her forbidden action—" Weronika gestured to the deactivated bracelet on her limp, icy, bloody wrist. In black letters, it read, "uncovering both eyes". Although Neo was covered in blood and facial wounds, the makeshift eyepatch she made herself at the beginning of the game was still in place. "And I KNOW it wasn't me, so obviously—!" Weronika waved an impatient bear paw at Elsie. "You been shady since the day you got into this academy! Wouldn't surprise me if you were alreadya murderer long before any of this Tragedy Despair shit got started!" The Ultimate Brawler cracked her clawed knuckles threateningly.
"Weronika, I—!" Elsie reared back, raising her arms defensively in front of herself. She'd disposed of her Ultimate Bodyguards earlier that Killing Game for fear that they might be the killers, but it was only at the behest of her unit-mates that she took such… permanent measures. Had she made the wrong decision on who to save? For she most certainly was not the killer! The Largo family was not spotless, but they were not guilty of any of this! Had they been, Elsie would've been in much higher standing!
More importantly, although Elsie did not care for Neo as Sophia and Weronika did—for Weronika did care about Neo, whether she knew it or not—the Ultimate Sponsor still had use for the Ultimate Diva. So long as that remained true, why would she wish death upon the other girl? Elsie's bracelet shined through and beneath her little black lace glove. The glowing red letters read, "looking over your shoulder".
As cumbersome, inconvenient, tedious, unsubtle, and humiliating as it was, Elsie had to admit that having to turn her entire body any time she wanted to look at something wasn't the worst price she could've had to pay. It was only slightly more burdensome than Neo's forbidden action, as Elsie had to be very intentional about not looking over her shoulder, and could not rely on an external device or creation.
Weronika's forbidden action was most frightening of all, however. In glowing red letters, her bracelet read, "violence without killing". In other words, she could not fight—or even fight back—unless she was willing to kill the one she was fighting with. Despite being trapped inside a Killing Game, Weronika was restricted to defensive moves, becoming a human tank, enduring blows but never returning them. Except once. The leader of Elsie's Ultimate Bodyguards. Weronika swore she didn't remember who threw the first blow, or why, but she knew who threw the last.
But once Weronika was done sniffing out her suspicions of Elsie, she was forced to concede that the Ultimate Sponsor did indeed not have a single speck or drop of blood anywhere on her or her little black dress. Weronika could not blame Elsie for Neo's murder.
"Go hog-fucking-wild," she sighed, finally lifting her boot off Sophia and turning away from her two, surviving unit-mates.
"Seperack! Where are you going?!" Elsie shrieked. For once, the Ultimate Brawler did not answer her shrilly demands. In her mind, there was no point to an Abyssmare without Neo. Neo was the reason she joined at all, after all, for some of the fame and fortune attending the academy was supposed to bring her. But as the Tragedy had since made clear, there were no more perks to being under Hope's Peak's protection.
THIS is just beating a dead diva. Besides, if it ain't me, and it ain't Neo, then it's GOTTA be… one of THEM! And I don't wanna be around when they finally snap. I got a family to look after, after all! Weronika grit her teeth in grim determination. She couldn't afford to die here. She'd already proven her will to live when she killed Elsie's Head Bodyguard. She truly did not know who threw the first blow or why, but what she did know was that it wasn't as hard as she thought. I'd do it again if I had to, even though I don't want to…
ooo
Sophia clung to Neo's corpse, ignoring the cold, sticky blood darkening and hardening against her tattooed cheek. The emotional pain of losing her beloved Neo Lone made the physical pain from Weronika's earlier kick less than nothing to the Ultimate Empath. As she shivered, wrapped around Neo, her tearful, purple eyes caught sight of a dull red glow through the thin, purple and black sleeves of her shirt. The letters read, "tell the truth about your Talent". Was it time? Did she pull the metaphorical trigger?
She could tell Elsie about some bullshit prophecy before she left. Let the bracelet's poison activate and reunite Sophia with Neo… But did Sophia really have the guts? Although, even if she didn't, who knew how her Talent and demons would haunt her now that her savior and muse was dead. What if she went mad and accidentally committed her forbidden action? Then again…
A f-f-f-future w-w-w-without… Neo… No… I c-c-cannot see or f-f-f-foresee… anything… Is it even worth…?
Sophia was not shivering just because Neo was dead. At least not in the way one might've assumed. While Elsie and Weronika could only speculate, Sophia already knew the truth. She had seen it through Neo's own eye(s). It was indeed… a suicide. But just as with Sophia's trembling, it was for reasons far beyond what anyone might've ever imagined.
One, sapphire-blue eye opened slowly. All around her, six other eyes were still closed. The eighth and final—her second eye—was also open, but remained hidden behind a makeshift eyepatch. As her bracelet pulsed red beneath her long, dark red coat sleeve, a screen on the wall above and opposite of her pulsed yellow-green. Sophia could not see it, but she could see the single sapphire eye watching the video. It widened in horror, slowly at first, then tears began to gather and fall. Then, the screaming began.
Neo howled, a guttural, nightmarish, and Despair-inducing sound. Sophia was so horrified that she couldn't even cover her ears or cry out either. She could only watch in silent terror as the Ultimate Diva began to thrash and writhe in front of her, as if she was being tortured. And then suddenly, Neo lunged, right through Sophia. The Ultimate Empath heard screaming and smashing, then the sound of glass cracking, and just as realization dawned on the Ultimate Empath in all its sickly gory, Abyssmare's DJ was finally able to turn around.
Neo was flinging herself violently into the screen over and over again, screaming for it to stop, seemingly heedlessly to the blood, glass, and pain she should've been feeling. When she finally reeled back, as if some of the pain had at last settled in, Sophia gave a silent scream, reaching out as Neo lifted her makeshift eyepatch. In what little, fragmented and bloodstained remains of the screen were left, Neo stared with two, wide eyes. She and Sophia gasped at the same time, Neo with the sudden inability to breathe, and Sophia with the horror of knowing why.
Her bracelet's poison! Neo succumbed quickly, hand falling from her face, eyepatch falling back into place. She fell forward, then slumped down the wall. Sophia's stomach churned. So. Now she knew the truth. There was no traitor in Abyssmare after all. But alas, she could not tell a soul, for as much as she wanted to die, it was still so scary… Perhaps most Despairful of all, however, was the other epiphany Sophia received from her vision of Neo, that nightmare from before the Killing Game coming to hideous fruition. It wasn't just that there was no traitor in Abyssmare.
There was no true killer in the Killing Game! At least not in the way they all had thought and feared for so long… It was not that one person was randomly selected to wake up from a gas-induced stupor and kill someone else. It was that one person was randomly selected to wake up from a gas-induced stupor and witness a video that drove them to suicide. So, in that way, the words of that awful, evil little teddy bear (what was his name? Monokuma?) from the beginning of the Game rang true. Any and every single one of them could've been the killer…
Because the thing that made them a killer was so powerful and Despairful that even Neo Lone, the Ultimate Diva was completely powerless in comparison. No, even worse. The vision was over, but Sophia could still clearly see the harm Neo had inflicted upon herself in her frenzied state. And again, Sophia still couldn't have told anyone about this even if she wanted to.
And to think she died like that… While we were right there… And none of us knew… I don't even think SHE knew we were there… Not after whatever she saw in that video… Sophia could only wonder, wonder and pray, wonder about Neo, and pray that she would soon join her.
ooo
While Sophia stayed with Neo's corpse, Weronika proactively hunted for a way out of the FF, but even after learning the truth behind the location of the Killing Game, it was still far from easy to escape. She traversed the labyrinthian tile halls of the facility, pausing only when she heard stumbling, gasping, and coughing. She rounded a corner to hide, not out of fear, but to obey her forbidden action and avoid physical confrontation if she could. Then she realized who she was looking at, and she gasped quietly to herself.
JUZO SAKAKURA?! The Ultimate Boxer limped and staggered his way down the hall, arm around his badly-wounded abdomen.
"S-Seperack!" He gasped weakly, eyes widening when he noticed her standing at the other end of the hallway, proud and strong and tall.
"Fancy meetin' you here, boss," Weronika snickered, arms crossed. She kept her bracelet concealed. Even though they'd worked together in the past, he still didn't know what exactly her forbidden action was. And that don't gotta change now!
"The control room! We must cut power to this Game!" Juzo continued to gasp, pushing forward. Weronika's eyes widened slightly. Upon seeing Juzo's limp, she realized it must've been bad to put the Ultimate Boxer in his place, but for him to not challenge her and be the threat she expected was a greater surprise. Thought for sure he was lookin' for an excuse to cut a bitch! But… control room…?
The last time the Ultimate Brawler had seen the Ultimate Boxer was around the time that crazy, stupid Ruruka bitch manipulated her blacksmith boyfriend and super hectic, Sophia-level, confectionary friend into dying. Abyssmare knew when it was time to peace out, and that was when all the Super-High-Whatever-Levels started going crazy on each other like that.
Seriously! We Ultimates are WAY better! Weronika thought. Though there was never a time when their Killing Game wasn't an endless string of discord, distrust, and Despair. The Ultimate Brawler thought back to some of the earliest deaths of all, including that of the Great Gozu and Daisaku Bandai. Those were two of the most impactful for Weronika. Aside from Neo, the only other really notable one was… Kazuo.
That crazy old grandpa… is dead… It was the first time Weronika started losing Hope. Much as she didn't like her senile old boss, she liked hearing about his death, and the circumstances surrounding it, even less. Then it only got even worse after Ruruka fucked them over. Then Neo died and scattered Abyssmare to the wind! Now, Weronika was all alone… No, not entirely. She still had her three younger siblings…
"Weronika…!" Juzo wheezed again, and Weronika shook her head, not to deny him, but to return to the present.
"All right, old man, Sucky-cur-a!" she growled, clapping his arm and supporting him even as he growled weakly at her. "Let's get it done!"
ooo
Elsie grit her teeth, noise of frustration escaping her lips, hands tightening into fists. She hid fear and indecision behind annoyance and disdain, scoffing at the pathetic pair of bodies lying at her feet. One was dead, and one was alive, but from the way they both acted?
Pfft… Elsie refused to acknowledge either one, though she could admit that at least one of them was a loss to her. She'd bet so much on Neo, and now Neo was dead. Predictably, it left Abyssmare headless and directionless, which was exactly what Elsie didn't want, and had invested so much in trying to prevent! That made the loss of Neo Lone all the more painful, frustrating, and humiliating for the little Largo.
Elsie sacrificed all of her Ultimate Bodyguards for you! She picked them off and turned them on one another one by one…! But what did it matter? Neo was dead either way, and nothing was going to bring her back. Elsie was only putting herself in unnecessary danger the longer she lingered without any reliable allies to hide behind. It was time to make like Weronika—something she never thought she'd say—and find her own way out of the Killing Game! And as the Ultimate Sponsor, and a Largo, she had more than a few tricks and connections up her sleeve…
A lot of Elsie's power stemmed from mind games, and she had the wealth and resources to aid herself with technology, including a device disguised as a necklace meant to increase influence she had over other people while simultaneously psychologically protecting her from the impact and mental sway of others. How else did people think she kept such a tight leash on her guards and other subordinates? Persuasion was a deadly useful tool for a negotiator and Sponsor! And it was about to be deadly useful to a bunch of other young Ultimate Japanese high schoolers too…
"H-huh?! What the heck?! Who the heck are you?!" Elsie reared back into a defensive position again as she rounded a corner and nearly ran into a young man with spiky brown hair and one olive green eye. The other was bright scarlet. And following after him were 15 others…
"Elsie! Hey! Hey, Elsie!" That voice… Elsie had worked with that voice in the Killing Game before…!
"Naegi?!" Elsie choked out the name as, sure enough, the annoying little luck boy with too many manners and not enough spine or brain came pushing through the crowd, even the boy with heterochromia at the front of the group whom Elsie nearly collided with.
"I see you've met my new friends, Hajime Hinata, and his Class of 77B!" Makoto chuckled. They were on a mission back to Japan, to stop another young Ultimate from broadcasting a video of Hope that would brainwash the entire world just as thoroughly as the videos of Despair from some of the Killing Games. Unfortunately, a hoard of brainwashed FF soldiers were waiting just outside the facility… So, for the first time in her worthless, useless, pathetic, little life, Elsie Largo was about to become very useful indeed, and her villainous technology turned to the side of good!