"Alright, let's get started," Kaito announced.

"A-Are we really gonna be okay?" Tsumugi asked.

"Wh-Wh-What are you afraid of? Of course it's gonna be okay...right?" Himiko began to sweat.

Kaito held up a thumbs up and gave the girl a reassuring smile. "Heh, there's no need to worry! Of course it's gonna be a little dangerous, but... We've got all these Ultimates here! If we all work together everything will be all right!"

You tuned out after that. Your anger had settled down for the time being, just to be replaced with anxiety. It wasn't that you didn't trust Kokichi with this, but... Where is he? Didn't he say that he'd be watching us from a distance?

You glanced around. Through the midst of your thoughts, you swore that you could hear the others mention Kaede's wish or something like that. I don't think that we can really fulfill her wish at this point, you thought pessimistically. You then mentally groaned. Kokichi...why'd you have to leave so soon...

He's only been gone for about a day. Are you really that needy? He better not die, or you'll be so lost...

It's true though.

"I thought you wanted us to go through the passage," someone spoke to you, grabbing your attention. "You need to do this too."

"Of course, I was planning on doing that. I just got distracted." You turned to the tunnel's entrance. I've been here... I've forgotten how many times that I've been here before. But now I can finally get through to the other side...and see whatever Kokichi found.

You took a few small steps forward, hearing the others rush to your side to walk with you. Everyone seemed to look around at each other, exchanging looks and nods before running forward. After a small second of hesitation, you followed after them.

All throughout the tunnel, everyone ran around while swinging their Electrohammers around. Like it was a normal thing. Like it was just a casual stroll in the park. A park with bombs flying everywhere and pitfalls.

You swung your hammer at a bomb that was flying right at your face. You paused for a second, panting to regain your breath, and continued. Even though everyone seemed to be growing more tired the farther they ran on, you noticed that no one dropped out. You didn't even trip once.

Before any of you all knew it...the tunnel had ended. You all made it to the end of the tunnel.

"Is this...the exit?" Maki asked, a small bead of sweat rolling down her face. She glanced at the large door.

"It seems like it. Look there." Kaito held up a shaky finger.

"Oh! It's a door!" Himiko exclaimed through pants. "On the other side of that door..."

"Yeah! It's probably the outside world!"

"Nyeeeh! We diiid iiit! We can finally escape!"

"...Don't get your hopes up," Maki said, frowning slightly. "We need to know if this is actually the outside world."

"Y-You're right... We don't know what the outside world looks like now."

Kaito just shrugged and smiled. "Heh, it's fine! Monokuma was probably just lying to us! The skies over this academy are normal, so the meteorites are probably gone. Everything's fine out there."

"Anyway, let's open that door. We'll have plenty of time for talk afterward," Kiibo declared. "That looks similar to the electric barrier in front of the Exisal hangar... Unless we disable that, we won't be able to open that door."

Exisal hangar? I guess that I haven't been in there...

"...Even though we've come this far," Maki spoke up, "Monokuma hasn't appeared yet. How strange..."

"He thought we couldn't get through the underground passage, so he wasn't worried," Kaito answered confidently. "But now, he's probably freaking out! I bet his face is all blue!"

"Maybe Kokichi is distracting him?" Tsumugi inquired.

"...There's no way Kokichi would do that," Maki snapped.

"I can't believe he'd do that, either... But the hammers were just like he said, so maybe..." She trailed off, seeming to get lost in her thoughts.

You looked around near the the door with the weird electric barrier. Next to it, you noticed what looked to be an operation panel. You walked over to examine it more closely.

You heard shuffling behind you, and soon you saw a certain detective at your side. "Ah, so this must be a control panel for the barrier," he mumbled, mostly to himself though. "If it's like the one in the Exisal hangar, I should be able to disable the barrier with the password."

"Have any ideas as to what that password might be?" you asked quietly.

Suddenly, Kaito seemed to have appeared from thin air. "Heh, we don't need that!" With a confident smile, he held up his Electrohammer. "If it's electronic, we just gotta destroy it with these hammers!"

"It does seem like it's electronically controlled...so I guess that that would work."

"Alright! Let's destroy this control panel with the hammers and open this big dumb gate... Then everything will be over! We can say goodbye to this academy and this killing game!"

"Finally...this death game is going to end," Maki spoke quietly.

Says the person who nearly killed their classmate, you thought in the back of your mind. Even if that classmate has done some questionable stuff before, still... You shook your head. I really shouldn't be thinking like this. It's inappropriate for this situation, I should just think about the positives...

The positives that will come if this door actually leads to the outside world. And even if it does, how do we know whether or not the outside world is actually hell?

You shook your head, trying to push the thought to the back of your mind. Kaito's loud voice helped you snap back into reality when he started to shout, "Let's go! It's finally time to graduate from this academy of lies!"

Kaito grabbed his hammer and held it over his head. "Hraaaaahhhhh!!" And with that dramatic sound effect that the astronaut generously gave, he swung his hammer down full force. The Electrohammer crashed down on the control panel. The panel sparked a bit before seeming to shut down.

Everyone looked at the door. The electric barrier disappeared within a matter of seconds. From loud, hidden speakers came the announcement, "Lock disabled..."

"Yay! The door's unlocked!" Himiko cheered.

"Now we just gotta open up this gate! Let's all work together!" Kaito shouted.

"Yes! We can do it!" Kiibo shouted in hopeful agreement.

"Finally... Finally we can get out!" Tsumugi chimed.

As everyone ran towards the door, your heart began to beat faster inside your chest. The reality had set in. The reality that this was actually happening, not a dream. That this might actually be the end to the killing game...!

But still no Kokichi around...

The thought had been spoken in a very quiet voice. You already found yourself running with everyone to help them pull the door open. There were grunts of frustration, phrases of encouragement from voices that were slowly growing more tired...

And then the door was open.

Everyone stepped back from the door to get a better view of what was on the other side.

You saw...a bright flash of light from the door. You quickly glanced at everyone else's eyes.

Their eyes reflected a red landscape. It was hard to see everything just in the reflections, but you could piece together that they saw something awful. The hell that Gonta mentioned.

You looked back yourself. It...was still only a bright flash of light. What? There has to be something there. You stared in confusion until the light started to hurt your eyes.

You looked back at the others. The look of shock faded from their face, only to be replaced with pure horror and despair.

"What...is this?"

"What's going on? What is this—Ugh...! I-I can't breathe!"

You tried to breathe. And you were perfectly capable to do so. However, the students around you slowly started to collapse, all of them fainting one by one. Confusion flooded all of your senses. Just what was going on...??

You looked back at the door. The bright light flickered—green peered through. What was that? Show me, show me, show me!

All of a sudden, you felt your entire body go rigid. Your legs weakened until they felt like jello, eventually giving out underneath you and making you collapse to the ground.

I... I can't move...

Your vision started to blur. Darkness started to fade in from the very edges of your vision. A soft buzzing noise in your ears grew louder as more time passed.

Through your blurry line of sight, you swore that you saw a figure running in, but your mind wasn't working enough to figure out who it could be. Through the buzzing in your ears, you could just barely hear the now soft announcement, "The door...is now...locked."

You blinked. When your eyes opened again, only more darkness had seeped into your line of sight. You could still see, though, the figure...was it coming closer to you, or was it leaving?

There was a weird feeling. Your vision was rocking, and your shoulder quickly began to feel numb. There was another buzzing in your ears, but it wasn't like the constant one that you were still listening to.

Before you could even think of trying to figure out what was happening...

...It all went black.

...

BANG!

The floor shook with the force of something heavy hitting the floor. Your eyes shot open instantly, and your instinct was to jump...but your body still wouldn't move. And now, you were able to realize that there was still a terrible buzzing in your ears.

What was important though was that you made the most of the senses and abilities that you did have. Like sight. You were able to look around. The other students were back on their feet. Exisals had managed to get inside...but how? And they all seemed to be in a half circle around...

...Kokichi!

You could see their lips moving. Angry expressions on the student's faces, all directed at Kokichi.

You tried to move again. Although it felt like your entire body was filled with lead, you managed to twitch a finger. That was a start, at least.

More lips moving, and then Kaito charged at Kokichi—then an Exisal grabbed him. You noticed the remote that Kokichi had in his hands. Kokichi, what did you do while I was...unconscious?

The buzzing was still in your ears, but you felt yourself able to move again. You were able to stand up. No one seemed to noticed you yet, so with terribly shaky legs, you slowly stumbled your way over to them. You realized that you had been placed into a safe little corner. Despite all of the confusion you had felt, you swore that you weren't there before you blacked out.

I must look like a newborn giraffe on roller skates, you thought while grimacing. Ah, but now isn't the time to be joking around. Finally, someone turned around, and that caused others to look back at you.

You saw the looks on their faces. Maybe some relief, but also a lot of panic and distress. Their lips moved in repeated patterns, but you couldn't hear them. They must be asking me something...? Agh, I don't know. This not being able to hear anything is already so annoying.

Then you turned to Kokichi. He too was saying something to you, but then he smirked and looked at the other students, announcing something to them. It only seemed to cause more of an uproar than what there already was.

All of a sudden, something cold wrapped around your waist. In a matter of seconds, there was no ground beneath your feet anymore. You blinked a few times to try and register the situation... Ah, an Exisal was suspending you in the air next to Kaito... Great.

You thrashed around a bit, kicking your legs and trying to hit the hand of the Exisal, even though you weren't really putting all of your effort into it. After a while, you decided to stop. Looking down, it seemed like...Kokichi was laughing at you?

...I should probably just trust him, right?

Kokichi stopped laughing after a few seconds, but continued to smirk devilishly at the other students below you. They just continued to talk back and forth, back and forth, until...the small boy started to lead the Exisals out of the room.

Everything felt surreal as the Exisal carrying you walked straight forward at a moderate pace. All of the traps had been disabled from when you and the other students had ran through, so there were no disturbances.

Every once in a while, Kokichi would turn his head around and say something to either you or Kaito. Sometimes, you knew that he would be talking to you, just based upon him directly looking into your eyes. But when he realized that you weren't going to answer, he just started to pester Kaito.

After some time, you crossed your arms on the giant hand of the Exisal and laid your head down. Unwillingly, your eyes began to grow heavy and flutter. The wave of drowsiness seemed to have came from nowhere. But, you couldn't do anything about it as your eyes finally shut.

"Hey... HEY! Wake up!"

"Ngh... W-What...?"

Your eyes slowly opened. There was still a buzz in your ears, but with each second that passed, the noise faded out of existence. You blinked a few times to get your vision to focus, but when it finally did, you saw Kokichi sitting right in front of you.

"Finally! You don't know how long I've been trying to get you to wake up!" the boy whined, forcing tears to his eyes. "And you're such a meanie for ignoring me back at the end of the tunnel..."

You rubbed your temples for a few seconds. "...Sorry?" You took a glance around the area, only to find yourself sitting in a place that you didn't recognize. You could see some sort of large gate with an electric barrier, similar to the one that was at the end of the tunnel. "Are we in the hangar?"

"Yes! I'm fairly sure that before you, Kaito, and I went on a trip in our favorite rocke—Exisals, I mentioned that I was going to the hangar!" The boy looked over to the side, running a hand through his hair. Then he looked back at you through the corner of his eyes. "Why don't you remember anything?" he asked quietly.

"I remember when the Exisal picked me up. But...I couldn't hear anything."

Kokichi turned to look at you entirely again and tilted his head. "What do you mean?"

"I... I don't know," you admitted. "I just remember... The other students and I opened the door to see what was on the other side. Then they fainted because they 'couldn't breathe'. I remember looking back at the door, and then my senses got messed up before I fainted too. When I woke up again, everyone else was awake already and you were there. Yeah, I could move and see stuff, but..."

"Hm... That's strange... Have any idea as to what may have caused that to happen?"

You shook your head and looked to the floor. "...Sooo, what did I miss?"

Kokichi seemed to cringe a bit. "Well..."

This doesn't seem like it could be good.

"Did something bad happen? You're starting to make me worry..."

The boy huffed, and drew in a deep breath. "Well, do you remember when I stole that card key from Monokuma? The one that was supposed to be a motive?" You nodded. "And you remember how I didn't tell you where I went when I had it?" You nodded once more.

"Well thennn... Have any guesses? You need to work for this, (Y/N)!"

You furrowed your brows and groaned at him. "If you saw something that was actually important, then I would like for you to treat it that way and take this seriously..."

Kokichi brought a hand up to his mouth, chewing on his thumbnail for a moment and seeming to be collecting his thoughts. "...Those weren't all of the Electrohammers that Miu made. Y'know, the hammers that you and the others used in the tunnel? There was one for me. And when I had the card key, I immediately had an idea as to where it could be used...so I grabbed my hammer and made my way through the tunnel.

"I tried using the card on the door at the tunnel's end and it actually worked. Then I saw it. The truth of the outside world." He started to hesitate with his words now. "It was at that point that I made my plan..."

"..." When Kokichi didn't continue, you just tilted your head at him, anticipation levels rising. "And what would that plan consist of?"

The boy tried to scoff, but it came out weak and unconvincing. "Oh, come on! You saw the outside world too! You're smart enough, you should be able to connect the pieces!"

You flinched a bit. "H-Honestly, I have no idea what you're talking about."

"The outside world is hell. Just like Gonta said...remember? I... I just don't want anymore killings to happen... I mean, why should we kill if there's nothing to even return to...? So my plan was..." He started shivering a bit.

You reached over and carefully grabbed one of his hands, trying to soothingly rub circles on the back of his pale hand. 'Take your time' was on the tip of your tongue, but you realized that if you said it out loud then it might sound weird. "...What was your plan? Please, please tell me."

He held his breath and spoke as steadily as he could, "I figured that if I pretended to be the mastermind and exposed the truth of the outside world, no one would want to kill anymore and they'd all have to peacefully live together..."

It seemed like everything stilled. You weren't sure of how to respond to that. You kept repeating his words inside of your head, trying to comprehend them and find the best response.

"...Do you know how much it hurts to do this. To lie to everyone in an attempt to help them, and they just yell at you and give you the most awful looks... To be seen as the absolute scum of the earth... And I like all of them to a certain degree, so that just makes this worse." His voice was oddly flat at the beginning, but the tone seemed to soften during the last sentence.

"And then...there's you. I... You don't know how I...!" Kokichi cut himself off. "I should never have brought that part up," he muttered to himself, but you could still very faintly hear it.

"I'm... I'm sure that you have no intent on finishing that sentence..."

Kokichi crawled over to you and wrapped his arms around you in a tight embrace. "Y-You don't think I'm actually the mastermind, right? Do you think I'm the real mastermind...!? Are you mad at me for getting in this situation in the first place? Are you... A-Are you upset that I'm acting so pathetic? I-I'm sorry, I'm just feeling exhausted, and, um, and I'm just...feeling paranoid and anxious and all that bad stuff." He pulled back from you, only just enough to look at you in the eyes.

"Please don't tell me... Please! This is the one time that I want Shuichi to lie! I don't... I-I don't wanna be alone for the rest of my life...!" The boy hid his face from you but continued nevertheless. "I feel like I'm just digging my grave even deeper and I... I-I don't know how to save myself anymore, if I even can!" His body started to tremble unevenly with uneven breaths.

You pulled Kokichi back from you to look at him in the face. Fat tears were welling up in his eyes, and it seemed like his lip was bit to stifle his whimpers. Just the sight of it left you heartbroken.

"We'll find a way through this." You were a bit unsure of those words yourself, but you hoped that it would help the situation for the time being.

Kokichi's eyes widened, and the tears came down. Slowly, you began to wipe them away with your thumb. You were a bit hesitant at first, not knowing how Kokichi felt, but he made no move against it so you continued.

Kokichi's tears lessened over some time. He was still sniffling, but for the most part, his breathing had evened out.

When you wiped away most of the tears on his face, you pulled him into a comforting embrace. You couldn't remember a time when the boy had held onto you this tightly, but you didn't complain. You just threaded your fingers through his hair and hoped that he would completely calm down soon.

He really does seem to be a bit out of it right now... I just hope that he'll be back to normal soon...

...

His breathing evened out all the way.

"...So you won't abandon me?"

"Never."

"...I-Is that--"

"No."

"Th-Thank...y-you..." He took a deep breath. "I l-love--" Your heart started pounding inside your chest, but then you noticed how the boy tensed up as soon as those words came out. "--...your company. And sleep. It should actually be quite late right now."

At least he's somewhat back to normal. "Do you want me to help you to your dorm?"

"I'm..."

"Nervous someone will see us?" You felt a nod on your shoulder. "They won't. If it's dark and late enough, then we can get by without them noticing."

"If you say so..." Kokichi repeated slowly.

You smiled softly. "...Come on. I think that we both need some rest."

Word Count: 3699