Finally. i hope you enjoy. little shout out to my main gurl Clarenspou, she's spurred me on and all art done in this chapter was done by her, she's amazing and is my inspiration. love ya girl. one more much shorter chapter after this, will be out asap and i mean it this time

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It had taken this long with so many failed attempts for them to escape. Shuichi was done with it all. Before he'd told himself not to murder, that it was evil and wrong, but truthfully he was foolish before to even give a shred of hope towards surviving the game without committing the dastardly, soul-shredding act himself.

He was gripping onto Kokichi's hand so desperately that the dents of his nails would leave permanent engraving on the back of his hands. Marks of their love.

Tripping over his feet, he stumbled and staggered, only noticing that his rash decisions had led to his shoelaces coming untied when he toppled over on himself, sending him falling to his knee, using his hand to steady his weight as to not fall completely over. With a glance down at his laces, he groaned through gritted teeth.

One thing going wrong after another and another and another and another and another and- it was enough to make anyone into a short fuse.

Kokichi was struck by the bolt of concern. He wasn't stupid by any means, he'd proven that, calculating what there was to calculate, estimating and co-ordinating plans to make sure they went well, without fault, to expert precision. Lately, he had been slacking, Shuichi had taken control, and by control, that's what he meant. Shouting instructions, cutting him off whenever he protested, biting his head off when he tried to ask him whether he was alright.

Same old, same old.

'Shumai, you're acting super odd, anything you wanna tell me, huh, huh?~"

There was a glare, then something along the lines of, 'Yes. Why wouldn't I be? Everything's okay. It's just this place."

He was edging towards totalitarianism. His boyfriend. And it hurt, but once they were out of here, it would all be okay. Yeah, it would.

But eventually, everyone snaps and self-justification doesn't quite work. "S-Shuichi.. y-you're hurting me! Get off!"

The golden eyes he gave back were harsh, strict and piercing but they were momentary, like a traffic light flickering from green to red, one to the other in canon succession with milliseconds differentiating them. There wasn't any amber, no cautionary signal between green for 'go for it' and the red for 'stop, this is a stupid idea'.

"That's it! What's wrong with you?!" Kokichi grabbed his arm back but Shuichi's nails dig in, leaving skid, carve marks, like a car on a racetrack turning a corner too fast.

Crap, that's not looking good.

"Why are you acting so scared of me? I'm trying my best... I..." He muttered, repeating it again and again as if the words didn't quite make sense in his head. Hands went to his head, grabbing at the sides of it as if it was burning. The syntax, the lexis... words didn't compute. Suddenly, his sanity slapped him round the face so he retracted his arm with an abrupt shudder, finally comprehending what he was doing.

All he could do was stare down at his own mangled hand, still looking like it had been put through a tumble drier, in disbelief, mind and heart racing. Images shot through his head and everything was suddenly too much, flashing clips from broken film strips, burst out in his head incoherently. Blue, reds, pinks and her dead body.

"We need to get out of here, it's poisoning us... that's the problem!"

This put the liar in a more than uncomfortably familiar position.

For the last couple of what he presumed were weeks, approximately around three, Shuichi hadn't been quite himself. He knew that sounded paranoid, untrusting or just desperate for a reason to explain his behaviour but... some moments he was exactly the same as usual, smiling, short 'if you'd look away for a second you'd miss it' romantic gestures, working and theorising as to how they were going to escape, searching every nook and cranny for an answer... he was the same! ...apart from he wasn't. If Shuichi was a 1000 piece puzzle, there would be the other 999 pieces, just not the final one.

Kokichi only noticed at parts but now he was anxious... ever since Tsumugi had been... Shuichi flinched at the mention of her name. They had a mutual understanding that they were not to mention her... or... Maki.

"Then let's get out of this shithole!~"

He forced a shit-eating grin. It was nothing. Just this place making him paranoid, it had a tendency to do that. Sometimes he swore he could hear whispers in the walls, little buzzes and clicks, like little robots or a giant, convoluted mechanism.

And they continued running, in unison but Shuichi leading the way triumphantly out, taking individual detours around the blackened hallways to hunt down everyone else so they could escape as one big, happy family. The audience would be happy to see this, who didn't like a happy ending?

There was a childhood song that came into his head as they charged forwards, Shuichi acting like the leader. He'd let go of his hand. The song was an old nursery rhyme jingle called, 'We're going on a bear hunt.'

Now what, when the bear had been hunted?

No, this wasn't an angsty story, the audience wouldn't like that. They wanted a happy ending, as we all do.

They passed all the emotional milestones in the school littered around, little hallucinations lit his mind, engulfing himself in euphoria, little reconstructions from dodgy, lust-filled memories took hold. The grass. The benches. Kokichi hadn't yet removed the bandage, he'd replaced it to prevent infections, and didn't need it anymore, but the sentiment was more crucial. It was malleable, touchable... so Shuichi would always be close to him, even if he lost his mind.

A full day had passed since the killing of... you know who.

....................................................................................................................

The school hadn't magically unlocked and nothing seemed to be working to lever it open so they were confined with finite resources and food. Calculating, collectively, they had two and a half days of food left, and that was considering rationing resources and borderline starving.

They joined the others with fraudulent smiles on their faces and Kokichi tucked the scraped hand into the side of his trousers to hide it. Eyes poured into every detail of the plan as the others scurried around, pointing and gesturing all over the place for plans the detective could only consider.

Seeing him there, Kokichi froze, almost paralysed. Why wasn't he like that with him. He lost footing, clumsily, stumbled back, only to be caught in the muscular arms of Maki, red-eyed Maki. 

He screamed, belted out a harrowing yelp from his throat, then regained consciousness as he blinked, still screaming. 

Kirumi leant down close to him and whispered, "Kokichi, you will be alright, I've got you." Adding after a brief pause, "Did it happen again?" Ever since it happened, he'd suffered from hallucinations. She was in the corner of every room, every smile, laugh. Every corridor, the library mostly, he refused to enter there. Her look wasn't just condescending, she was coated in blood, holes in her back, blood trails and leaks from her mouth, and they were convincing. Kirumi knew, of course, she'd been there when he called her Maki the first time, and she saw how certain he was that she was the dead assassin.

It was terrifying.

He struggled against her grip but soon gave in and let her carry him up back to his feet, "Kaito is keeping the attention far away from you, all is well."

Standing up, he groaned, aggravatedly slamming his palm into his forehead over and over again until he felt Kirumi take it in her silk, tender hands. "Please tell him, for your own sanity."

Kokichi shook his head.

"Very well." The conversation ended, but she still was gripping his hand. "It happens to me too." If he was a detective, he would've noticed the shaking of her hands and the tremor of her voice.

............................................................................................................

On the morning of the second day, news spread that there was a plan. Kokichi hadn't woken up early enough to hear the initial conversations about it but Kaito filled him in vaguely in his unsubtle, abrupt way, "Tenko n' erm... Gonta are going to get some stuff from Miu's lab. Then... they're gonna go outside, Shuichi's told them where to go, fire it using Keebo's super-speed rocket thing. He'll chuck it, then we'll all be able to get outta this dump and have some good food for a change! Ahaha, aint that great?!"

"Oh, so it's resorting to throwing things at a wall, real classy!~" He jested back, making Kaito roll his eyes. He ran his tongue over his teeth voluptuously, "Now excuse me astro-boy, I've gotta go check on my Shumai, don't miss me too much nishishi!" As he walked off, he shot Kaito a wink, hoping to send him into a full-blown sexuality crisis.

As he skipped out of sight, his pace quickened, resulting in him, in the end breaking into a bolt of a dash, steering and tilting over as he raced around corners, bumping into someone and falling to the floor, "God Maki, watch where you're going! You could've KILLED me!" He laughed widely, glancing up expecting to see the bright sight of red stockings when he was greeted with his boyfriend, tears streaming down his face in suspended animation, "M..Ma.. Maki..? W-Why would you... say that... t-to m..me..?"

Kokichi's eyes glazed over with tears as he slapped a hand over his mouth, focusing in on Shuichi's face.

Then, eyes set on each other, they both fell to their knees and balled their eyes out, Shuichi shuffling over to hug and cry along with him into the safety of Kokichi's shoulder. "I'm sorry.. I'm so.. I... m... miss her.... s-so, so.. so...!" the last word wasn't needed, they both knew what it was. .

They kept crying, however, for literal hours on their knees, until their cheeks were puffy and faces stung as if they'd been attacked by a swarm of unrelenting, emotional bees. It was crushing and raw, raw emotion, raw tears, raw everything. Maybe this is why they say never to bottle up your feelings, as one day, after small cracks, the bottle will crumble, then implode in a fantastical wave of colourful relief and guilt.

Half an hour after that, they were slumped down together, knees to their chests, Kokichi leaning on Shuichi's shoulder, sniffling into his jacket with the occasional whisper and choke, the type you had after crying so hard your body needs to reset.

"Truth is..." The detective took a deep breath, then had a hard staring contest with the floor, forcing tears to stay in his ducts, "I see her. When I close my eyes, a... all the time. Tsu..."

"-I thought you'd see me when you closed your eyes, seeing her seems like cheating on me. Now, now, that really is soul-crushing!" He kicked it off with a joke, jeering and rubbing his hands together, legs jittering up and down restlessly. He must've developed a tremor, "You still want to date me, don't you, Shuichi? Thought I'd give you an out, nishishi.."

Shuichi scrunched his face up, disgusted with the sheer idea of them splitting up, grimacing with his mouth and using wide gestures with his hands, palms wide and spread, "Absolutely not! After all this time-"

He was cut off abruptly again by his boyfriend who stuck up a contended finger with an attitude of 'told-you-so', "The only reason we stay together can't just be because of the past, we've changed since then, done things... kinky things... do you remember when you were on your kn-"

"You always say sexual things, Kokichi... you don't have to keep that act up when you're with me." He gave him a little supportive nudge and pulled him in even closer, "Let's go on a date when we're outside. A nice one, with a picnic, glasses and strawberries." He, giving a glimpse to Kokichi, then returned to gazing up at the ceiling, imposing a picture in his mind, projecting the imagery skyline onto it, painting the best word picture and using his hand to gesture up to make everything much more vivid. "Let me tell you what I imagine."

In response, there was only a ruffling of fluffy, well-conditioned hair, rubbing like little cloud-needles and a crackled, chirpy hum. So he painted the clearest picture he could, using words and intricate knowledge of the English language. "I imagine," this was going to be the fairytale to end all fairytales. "I'll pick you up at your place, a small yet stylish apartment, designed to your specific tastes. You have this Panta wall which I despise but I put up with it because I know you love it. I live with you but you made me wait outside to make it feel like a date. As we walk down the street, we hold hands. It's a beautiful evening, sometime in Winter, nearing Christmas. The lights are hung in the shapes of reindeer and angels, they flicker all around us and I wrap my arm around you. You pull me into a nearby cinema to watch something I've never heard of, it's Italian or French, a romance language, but I don't pay attention to the film, I just stare, in awe, of you. I think to myself, 'how did I get a partner like you?'. My hands are sweaty, but you don't care, you love them anyway. And, at the end of the evening, I kiss you sweetly on the lips and you invite me in after a bit of teasing."

At the end of the story, without any explanation, Kokichi was in tears.

It was his dream.

but you know what they say about dreams.

'Dream as if you'll live forever, live as if you'll die today.'

"Shuichi, I need to tell you something... I see Maki... and I can't not see her... she's a g-ghost but..."

"I understand."

Yeah, equally as haunted.

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The others had busted open the dome surrounding the school. Turned out, Miu had some missiles, bombs, and a rocket launcher along with some rather perverted items, one of which Kiibo thought was a vibrating torch. It wasn't. When Ryoma told him, he went into remission momentarily, making the dial-up internet intermission tune.

And as anticlimactic as it was, they all simply walked out of the school, stamping down one foot over the mental barrier of where the dome edge had separated them from the outside world for so long. Tenko collapsed into a ball on the floor, slamming her fists down onto the pavement, shards of glass hammering into her skin, like deadly splinters. Lowly whimpering, tears steamed down her face. Shuichi huddled in and sat down beside her, noting her body language and approaching her like a startled baby deer, he began by asking her formally whether he could comfort her, little by little, gesture by gesture. 

"H..."

Shuichi thought maybe it was a plea for help but the words that came out, they surprised him, "H... Himi... ko!!" 

He hadn't heard that name in an awfully long time, now there were more ghosts in his eye-line. Got. to. keep. it. together. Hopefully, this 'Team Danganronpa' had a good therapy social network of support. Heck. They all needed it. All.

..........................................................................................................................................

Moving out into the open air, they took choked up inhales, small and varying levels of tears welling upon their faces, decorating their skin like little stars, the perfect addition, main attraction of a night sky. Tears are beautiful, little gemstones. Shuichi simply looked up at the sky.

Shuichi never thought he'd see the day where they would be free again.

They walked until it was dark and there was no more light in the sky so collectively, sleep was agreed, with no fire, no light, no heat. Hours past, tales were told, ghost stories, personal anecdotes, recounts of the best experiences from each person, one by one, going around a circle. Tenko spoke of the time where she and Himiko shared a meal, she said, "We cooked smores, just the two of us! Yes, the biscuits were very stale but the marshmallows made the texture! She had chocolate all around her face!" 

Gonta's was a weirdly wholesome story involving Miu where they caught butterflies together.

Kiibo's was Rantaro enlightening him about the wonders of astrology. 

Shuichi's was Kokichi's card games. 

Then, in a small commemoration, they laid stones in memory of the fallen. 

 A chorus of goodnights chirped around each participant in the 53rd Killing Game as they all slowly settled down on the hard gravel, head protected by their hands, flimsy yet strong. Peaceful sleeping faces, stomachs rising then resetting, motioning their sentience. 

But... Kokichi couldn't get to sleep. He'd tossed and turned, flipped positions, laid in all directions, head on the gravel, hovering above it, on his hands, on his leg, yet nothing could soothe him. Then, a familiar voice.

"Hello, please don't be alarmed." The pink rabbit waddled over and perched down opposite him, as if she had never seen him quite before. "My name's Monomi, I heard what you and the others were talking about earlier and I want to help you!" 

"Nishishi~ Help me? Now you stupid rat, what are you on about? We're out, we're free. Duh."

As if her dialogue was fixed, she replied autonomously, "You said you wanted a second chance to things right, didn't you? Well if you were serious about that, I can make it happen."

Oh. Shuichi. This is the same thing. What. What's going on here. Is this some cyclical shit?! 

"Mmm hmm, exactly. So, yes or no?" Monomi chimed.

"No." His voice was like a snap, low and dark, and brooding. He expressed his disdain with a chuckle, childish yet experienced, he cocked his head to the side with a smirk, only for the lights to go down, like a stadium area, floodlights flicked off furthest away to nearest, mirroring that of a horror film. 

An automation sounded and a voice, from a feed of a single laptop or microphone, bellowed through the whole blackened, dim area, approaching and becoming more thunderous as the moments passed. 

"Quick, Steve! -Steve get over here! Cut the power! Code fucking red! Induce the rest of them, pump power to the docks, everybody prepare yourselves for hostility. Steve cut it n-!!"

.

.

.

Then, Kokichi woke up in Team Danganronpa Headquarters, ripping at the electrodes attached to his scalp and panting hyper erratically, jolting upright from the pain. He was in some sort of bathtub shaped contraption, a pod complete with conducting gell to stop his muscles and body functions from decomposing. the wonders of very modern technology. A dozen practitioners wearing lab coats rushed in various tools in hand. Palms smothered his body, hands straddling his neck and arm, pens clicking down on notepads on clipboards.  

"Vitals, slightly erratic. Blood is calming. Nerves intact. We have our first awakened everybody!" Cheers went around as high-fives were exchanged. 

Well, he was in such a state of shock, Kokichi fumbled over a couple of words until he hissed out, like a serpent, "Where the... fuck is my Shumai.?!"