Just kind of had a spark of memory about this VN and took a day getting re-acquainted with it. That ended up with me writing this over the course of an afternoon, something set in the timeline of the Mad World Ending but with one major change. Not an especially deep work, just an attempt at putting together two characters that don't really interact in canon. Notes at the bottom.
Arriving at his dorm mere moments after the end of his last class, Koji inhaled deeply, holding the breath before releasing it. With the exhalation, the university student allowed his frame to slacken, grasping the knob of his front door. He's rather relieved to be away from the public, unsure as to how much longer he could bear affecting this air of "normalcy." In the privacy of his room, he can drop the mask, be the neurotic loon that now lies at the core of his being.
Despite the relief such a notion gave him, he had to steady himself regardless for what is waiting for him on the other side of the threshold. Koji may not have to fake his way through everyday interactions here, but he was not going to find solitude within these walls. And the company he would find had their own… peculiarities.Steeling himself for the next step, the athletic young man pushed into his domicile.
"I'm back."
"WelComE hOME."
The first time hearing it after a significant absence was always disorienting. A pair of slaps to his cheeks helped to "reset" his cognition, smooth out his rising heartbeat. The sound of his palms impacting his face dragged a warbled round of giggles out of the unseen entity lurking around the corner of the hallway. Koji could hear the stove's flame going, something "decent" permeating the apartment with a pleasant odor. Shrugging off his jacket, the brown haired male stepped casually down the length of the corridor.
As he turns into the kitchen, he grins a little to himself at the lack of pause he has towards the sight before him. He's pleased that he seems to be building up an immunity to the sight. Or maybe he really has gone that far down the pit of madness.
At least the rotting silhouettes of his friends and associates aren't trying to interact with him anymore, surely that's progress.
Koji still has no way to describe the thing perched atop the wooden bar stool, its writhing, fleshy tendril stirring a metal ladle through a giant pot of stew. He'd given up attempting to do so weeks back, its amorphous nature making any description beyond "disgusting" one that never sticks. The best way Koji can quantify this being is simply by name…
Saya. This is Saya.
For remembering her name, the ghostly Fuminori claps his blood soaked hands in slow applause.
"Smells good today," the young man relents, tossing his jacket onto a nearby chair, "It's weird to think that you're the better cook between us."
Saya tsks at the observation and Koji can almost taste the smug smirk that would be playing across her features if she was human. "Typical boy, completely hopeless. Without me, you'd be surviving on a diet of ramen and fried trash. Just imagine the weight gain…"
"I don't want to hear that from the munchkin who put away five double stack burgers before I could finish my drink."
He thought the next movement was Saya turning around – those appeared to be eyes, of a sort – and sticking her "tongue" out at him. The display was somehow both grotesque and humorous, Koji launching into raspy laughter. Fucking monsters shouldn't have a personality this jubilant.
As he moved up beside his unofficial roommate, reaching for one of the hanging cupboards, he asked, "Anything out of the norm today?"
Saya stays focused on her cooking as she replied, "The guy above us is cheating on his girlfriend. Heard them slamming the headboard into the wall an hour after she left this morning."
Koji gave a quick snort as he withdrew a pair of drinking glasses, "Yeah, thought from the moment we met that he had an 'unfaithful' face. You recognize the mistress' voice?"
"The person in Four B." Saya turned off the burner and moved the cookwear from the hot surface. From the way her limbs trembled, it was a pretty weighty thing. Looks like he'd have leftovers for tomorrow.
Glasses clinking together in his fingers, Koji paused mid-stride. "Huh, I didn't think Four B was a woman."
"He isn't."
The much larger human plopped his cups onto the dining table, slamming his other hand onto the hard surface as he again allowed a fit of laughter to overtake him. Something like a pleased humm drifted from Saya and the young man mentally tallied a point in her favor. They went about the next interval in comfortable silence, Koji retrieving a pitcher of ice water as Saya prepared a pair of bowls.
The quiet gave Koji time to take stock of this whole situation. The fallout of that night between himself, his best friend, the mad doctor… and this creature he was now living with. The hard facts hit him first, his mercy kil – murder of the transformed Yoh, his desperate struggle with Fuminori, Ryoko's last second entrance and subsequent bisection courtesy of the former's axe swing.
It had been far too dark when the doctor had instructed him to pour out the liquid nitrogen. He'd gotten it on the fiend, but only on what constituted a limb. A terrible injury, but hardly life threatening for such a resilient being. Koji'd gone after her with the pipe seconds after realizing his blunder, forcing Saya to scramble back to avoid being pulverized. Between her cries of pain and the fact that Dr. Tanbo had been the one shouting orders, Fuminori had focused in on her as the main threat – the one who orchestrated Saya's pain.
It had been extra unfortunate that Ryoko had had to aim around Koji. He could never be sure nowadays if he should feel grateful that the disturbed woman hadn't simply blown through him to reach her foe… or guilty for having ruined her chance to end this once and for all. Ryoko must have died almost in time with the shotgun going off, her crazed grin of savage victory not wavering in the least even as the burst of buckshot only shattered Saya's frozen limb.
Again, a terrible injury… but hardly life threatening.
But the darkness concealed too much. If Fuminori could even tell that the wound was not a mortal one – through whatever strange affinity he had with this creature – he couldn't see it through the shadows. All he had to go on were the screams, those horrible, inhuman screams. Koji's friend had come to his own conclusions. With quiet certainty, he yanked the axe free of Ryoko's body and turned the blade on himself.
Neither Koji or Saya realized what was happening until the thwack of metal upon meat sounded in the gloom. By the time they turned to face Fuminori, he was already lined up for a second impact.
Saya almost overcame the agony to call out his name. Her pipe wielding opponent denied her that chance, her uncanny movements prompting Koji to spear his weapon down into her alien form. The pair stilled as Fuminori drove the axe head into his face with a sense of finality. They could do nothing but watch as his paused form hung upright for a moment… then slowly toppled onto his side.
"Here Koji, try."
Coming out of his thoughts, Koji glances down at Saya. The being seated across the table from him nudges the stew filled bowl forward, the spoon resting within sliding across the rim. He stares silently with no expression, an air that Saya seems to reciprocate. After a time, he grins and reaches for the pitcher and glasses.
Koji sits down easily, as though there isn't some apocalyptic monstrosity sharing the table with him. He fills one cup before passing it to Saya, noting that her own bowl is filled with chopped bits of raw meat. A small concession on her part for the sake of their cohabitation. It had been an easy give – Saya hadn't been able to truly savor taste since that night…
Thinking back again, he can remember when one of them first moved after witnessing Fuminori's death. It was her who reached towards his friend's fresh corpse, dragging her sludge covered body across the floor. Koji was still in shock, losing his grip on the length of pipe. The stabbing rod fell free of the monster's body, allowing her to advance.
Upon understanding the abomination's intentions, Koji immediately picked up his weapon once more. Though it was difficult to discern, he could make out the wounded side of Saya's form. That was what he aimed for, raining heavy blows down upon the crawling beast. The way her body undulated with unparalleled agony at every impact was reassuring, informing him that this thing could be hurt.
But regardless of his assault, Saya pressed onward. Koji redoubled his efforts, swinging harder and faster. His aim failed spectacularly and, in his desperation, he cried for the slithering mass to leave his friend in peace. Then Koji miss-stepped, plummeting forward and landing on his side. He'd fallen right beside Fuminori… and right beside Saya. She'd made it to him.
There was a pause. Koji couldn't say for how long, only that he held his breath the entire time. He wasn't sure what he expected to happen next: for Saya to consume his dead friend, for her to attempt to crawl inside his husk and attempt to "incubate." He never would have seen the loving caress coming, the genuine show of affection between partners. That he could recognize the gesture for what it was… that was the moment his grasp on sanity was lost.
In the present, Koji spooned another mouthful of the tasty meal into his maw. "Ish ghud," he comments, not bothering to swallow first. He feels he should be more alarmed by the fact that he's getting quite adept at reading Saya's "expressions," the flat stare being thrown his way absolutely full of admonishment.
"Don't eat with your mouth full, it's nasty." So speaking, Saya thrusts an odd proboscis down into one of her uncooked meat chunks. The sinew bubbles as acid melts the cube of beef into a more digestible state. Koji looses a humored hiss, honestly surprised by how much he's been able to laugh today.
The standing corpse of Oumi, her nearly naked body riddled with vicious bite marks and torn chunks, smiles at his show of happiness.
From here on they eat in silence, Koji occasionally groaning and cooing in pleasure at the food. Though it's better than anything he could put together, it's hardly worth that much praise. But the real prize is seeing his roommate squirm at the animal display of approval. If he had a means of perceiving it, he was sure Saya would be blushing in embarrassment.
"How do you think Fuminori saw me?"
It was a weird question to end dinner on. Koji paused partway through rising from his chair, face screwing up in question and then deeper thought as he plopped back down. The athletic young man pondered that for a good while.
"Prolly someone young, you are a bit of a munchkin." The desire to noogie her is something he finds a bit disturbing. He's acclimated far too much to this.
In thinking of how Fuminori may have seen Saya through his twisted vision of the world, Koji suddenly pictures it like an overlay. He can almost see the young girl in Saya's place, his mind supplying the puffed out cheeks and stern gaze that were the human approximate of her current "expression." It comes with shocking ease to him and, in the background, he can see Fuminori's silhouette attempting an "I told you so" look through the large trench bisecting his features.
Koji does pointedly ignore that his vision of "human Saya" is missing her left arm. That one spot, both from what he could see and what Saya had said, had never healed…
"Younger than any of you?" The tone was curious ad Koji had to remind himself that Saya probably had little experience with anyone younger than a college student.
"Definitely. Besides your tiny body, he'd have to collaborate that bratty attitude of yours somehow."
Saya plucked out one of her meat squares and flung the juicy bit at Koji, hitting him right in his fat forehead. The succulent piece bounced off his brow and smacked wetly onto the table. Koji, as though having a eureka moment, snapped his fingers before pointing between Saya and the discarded beef. The she-beast ignored this and sipped water from her cup, Koji adding a mental tally to his own counter.
From beneath the table, almost on his lap, Koji spotted Yoh peeking up at him, both hands raised in a double thumbs up. Then her human form contorted into a Saya-like monstrosity.
"Fuminori saw you all as monsters…"
Again, the statement feels weird. It's not said to take a stab at Koji and his friends, of which group he is the only survivor, the phantoms on his peripheral a testament to that fact. In Saya's tone, he can sense hesitation, like the prospect of continuing the conversation fills her with some unidentifiable emotion. But the die has already been cast.
"That's true," Koji speaks evenly. He believes by now enough of Saya's recounting of his late friend's condition. It lined up so easily with Fuminori's change in attitude; Koji could scarcely say how he'd handle a world bathed in writhing meat and populated by flesh golems. Particularly if they looked anything like Saya.
Well, the sane him would have had a hard time. He wondered if the Koji of today would even by phased by such a nightmare realm.
"That's why it was so easy for him. The terrible things he said to all of you. How quickly he got over what happened to the people around him. Killing his neighbor, killing that doctor, trying to kill you." Saya maintained a flat affect. But the taller human could tell it wasn't fully out of a lack of care. She was suppressing those strange emotions, keeping them inside until she reached the point of her little diatribe.
Koji settled against the back of his chair, appearing relaxed. "There's a lot of studies about that kind of thing. Dehumanizing your 'opponents' so you can can obliterate them completely, free of guilt. Just that much more simple when the things you're fighting are so… inhuman."
From the far corner of the room, Dr. Tanbo grinned like a savage as she reloaded her sawn-off. She paid little heed to the fissure parting her torso from the left shoulder down into her stomach.
The air hung stagnant as no one spoke, Koji keeping a small smile in place as he cupped his hands in his lap. Now two of Saya's "fingers" were rolling some of the remaining beef chunks around her bowl. Taking a long breath, the college student pushed forward, "What do you want to ask?"
"What are we doing?"
The young man blinked, turning his head in confusion. Oumi mirrored his perplexed look beside him, managing it even with her left eye being gouged out.
"Here. What are we doing here? Why are we living together… we hate each other."
Koji closed his eyes, his smile lessening but still visible. He recognizes the hidden question capping off the others. "Why haven't we killed each other?"
"Because we're all we have." Saya froze and Koji continued, "You're right, I hate you. You killed my girlfriend, mutilated Yoh, and you helped turn Fuminori into a psychopath that had to be put down. You took a massive part in ruining my life, whether you fully intended to or not."
The academic drew in a sharp breath, his features now rather dour. He gave his roomie a moment to digest his words. Fuminori, floating at her side, beamed a heated look towards his old friend.
"And you should hate me. I took your love, I took your purpose, I took your world. The two of us living together is an absolute joke. But at the end of the day, the only person we can fully interact with in the world is each other. It's almost fucking poetic, like this is our God-given punishment or something."
Koji let his arms go limp, dangling off the sides of his chair. He'd gone from energized to exhausted way too quickly today. The wriggling flesh of the mutated Yoh tickled at his hanging fingers and wrists, her scale like skin battered and beaten.
Saya kept her head down, staring a hole into the tabletop. "… I don't know what to do now."
… neither did Koji. As he said, all of their support networks were gone. Mutually destroyed by the efforts of each other. They were the ones left standing, isolated and directionless, only themselves to serve as confidants. How long could they last like this? Was it even worth it?
He could see beyond Saya that Ryoko was approaching, striding around the circular table with her typical confidence. He doggedly tracked her movements with his entire head, not seeing when Saya slipped out of her chair. As the good doctor strode into place beside Koji, her lips parted to deliver the first words he's heard from any of his phantoms in weeks, a very real tendril coiled firmly around his left arm and wrist.
Koji's gaze shot to Saya so fast that her entire body undulates, the equivalent of a human flinching. His troubled mind again supplies that image of a young girl in her place, concerned eyes gazing up into his own.
"Not yet."
The university student screwed up his brow in question. Then his eyes widened as he took note of the sudden weight in his hand. The arm that Saya had seized is holding that old revolver, the one he'd hidden in his jacket pocket. He had the thing halfway raised when Saya caught him, Koji himself unsure of what his next choice of action may have been.
A cursory glance about the room revealed the shades had gone. His breathing evened out – when had it even picked up – as Koji jerkily uncurled his fingers. The bulky gun clacked onto the table.
Swallowing the issue, Koji directed his attention towards the ghostly child imposed over the nightmare of flesh. "Thank you, Saya." He couldn't come across as truly genuine, but neither was it a show of completely empty gratitude. A heavy tentacle curved around his back, between Koji and the chair, giving him a single squeeze. The young man bit the bullet and dropped a palm onto Saya's "head," offering a few rubs.
It was certainly a cruel joke of the universe, having the two of them together like this, reliant on each other. They were equally broken, both by the efforts of the other, and Koji knew that such actions would never be forgiven on either end. There were times when he did think about it, ridding the world of this abomination once and for all, even if his reasons would be largely personal. He knew Saya felt the same way, the lingering glares when she thought he wasn't paying attention were telling.
But then… weathering each other was better than facing the world alone. She had kept him alive just now, Koji was fairly sure this was one thing he and Saya agreed upon.
Then the creature pulled back slightly, fixing her cohabitant with a "service smile."
"Okay, now go take a bath. You smell."
Koji collapsed his face into his palm, body wracked with halting chuckles. Maybe she just enjoyed getting to toy with him.
So one thing I wanna talk about is the exact point I feel that Koji goes insane in the canon Mad World Ending. It's been a while since I saw the scene exactly, so I don't have the precise wording of it, but I believe the moment that breaks Koji is witnessing Saya give that loving, final caress to his dead friend's face. I feel like his desperation prior in keeping her from reaching Fuminori is his mind screaming at him that he cannot allow himself to see this show of affection. Because once he sees this, he has to acknowledge that Saya isn't simply an alien monster that manipulated his best friend into abstract insanity, that she isn't just this force of evil that needs to be eradicated. He has to understand that Saya is a thinking, feeling being and that what she and Fuminori had, twisted as it became, was genuine.
This was the part where he realized that he, essentially, helped murder two people in love. This is the final push that drives him into madness.
Here though, Saya manages to survive the final conflict, albeit not without receiving her own scars. Even more than the missing limb (whatever that particular tendril counts as) she's fundamentally without purpose and without place now. The man she loves is gone and she's basically back to where she was before meeting Sakisaka at the hospital. The mutual state of loss and vulnerability between the two lead them to drawing together.
Koji and Saya's relationship probably more mirrors her interactions with Ogai than Fuminori. They're certainly not going to enter anything romantic, so they fall back on things that are familiar to them. Saya was always the cook when living with Sakisaka so she takes up the same task in Koji's dorm. Koji has even less of an idea how to deal with whatever Saya is, but he knows that she's small and affects a youthful demeanor. So he treats her like a kid, albeit in a more sibling fashion than the fatherly manner ascribed to Ogai.
They keep their interactions light and jovial but every now and then some darker notions come to the surface. They understand that they can attribute the shattering of their lives to each other in some degree and they acknowledge that there is some "justifiable" hatred shared between them. But, as Koji says, all they have is each other. There is simply no one else they can relate to and confide in, Koji because he has seen too much to ever come back to normalcy and Saya… because she's Saya, though she certainly has her own traumas. The whole thing boils down to this bittersweet arrangement, but ultimately more hopeful than Koji carrying on in his madness alone.
To that end, Koji is still seeing things. They've ceased to interact with him much anymore, Saya's presence both alleviating the desire for social interaction and helping to keep him mentally grounded (how ironic). But the gang's still there, ready to take advantage of any openings.
Some clean up topics: I elected to follow the example of the VN and keep Saya's physical description as vague as possible. Even though we have Koji to serve as a medium to relay precisely how she looks, he really just doesn't have the words to describe her.
This whole work is meant to be lighthearted overall, just a somewhat twisted slice-of-life story. Koji's able to laugh more than even he expects and he keeps this odd tally of who "one-ups" who, Saya gets to act like a pouty brat, and even Koji's hallucinations have a degree of humor to them. It's an atmosphere that's being forced by the characters themselves, but it's not completely ingenuine. I just wanted our unfortunate cast to experience a lighter situation, even the heavier elements don't linger beyond the end of the story.
Alright, that's all for my contribution to the fandom. Thanks for your time, readers.