FIC - Rewind

[dalicious]

dangan ronpa; full cast
not!munich/time loop psl au
18450 words

The days immediately after they left Hope's Peak Academy were spent in safehouses, sometimes in neutral zones between rivalling factions, sometimes in places as inelegant as a sympathizer's basement; most of the time, they were grateful to just find somewhere indoors that wasn't in danger of getting a molotov cocktail through the window - something that happened three days in. If the way Fujisaki's lip was trembling despite how firmly he was trying to put on a brave face was any indication, the equipment that had been damaged in the assault had been vital, and he had been working ceaselessly to get his systems operational again ever since; it wasn't unheard of for the morning to find him slumped forward over various pieces of hardware, having fallen asleep somewhere near dawn.

Mondo worried about him, as much as he was capable of worrying nowadays; his thoughts were often in another world entirely.

Ishimaru kept him busy, of course, as Ishimaru tended to do; he was doing an admirable job at keeping everyone together, really, and the ceaseless energy and passion for organization and rules was a vital asset in the days after they were released into the world. Just the same, however, it stung to watch him - to look at him and see a perfect stranger behind Ishimaru's eyes, to know (and he didn't know how he knew, but it was something he just knew, the same way he knew that the sky had been blue once and that riding a bike felt wonderful) that there was no going back to that space between worlds, to his own private purgatory, where his fiancé was waiting for him.

His fiancé was always going to be waiting for him. Mondo knew him more than well enough to know that as a pure, concrete truth; the only thing that angered him more than the knowledge that he would never see his version of Ishimaru again was the fact that he had no way to tell him what had happened. He wondered if Kiyotaka knew, too, if he was able to feel the lack of connection between this world and his own; it stung deeply to realize that he hoped he did, just because maybe it would give his fiancé some closure. He tried not to think about whether Kiyotaka was even in control of his own body anymore, or if Ishida had taken over permanently.

He didn't have much time to dwell on it, over the first few months; it was both a godsend and something that made him feel guiltier than he could ever have imagined. But there was an organization to set up, and allies to contact; there was an effort known as the Future Foundation that turned out to be perfectly willing to give control over to the students that had escaped from Hope's Peak. It was only natural, really; they were supposed to be the chosen, the ones that would bring hope back into to the world. Mondo couldn't help but think it was ridiculous.

This wasn't a group of saviors; it was a group of kids.

Ishimaru - the version in this world, anyway, whom Mondo always, always referred to by last name - was in rare form the day that they were notified that command of the Future Foundation had gladly abandoned their posts in favor of letting a group of scared teenagers who had no damn memories of the last two years take over; they had been led to the society's headquarters only to find it largely abandoned, looking as though it'd been that way for months. Those that remained had been badly off, the time spent fighting against Super High-School Level Despair having taken its toll; Ishimaru had promptly dragged his classmates into a nearby conference room, and though he had claimed a chair on one of the sides of the long table, he hadn't sat down since, his hands braced firmly against the smooth wood in front of him.

"We need to instate committees immediately - the organization as it remains here is in no condition to restore order to themselves, much less the country!"

"We don't need committees," Kirigiri said, folding her hands in her lap and looking as calm as ever. "We need a central command force."

"Kirigiri-san is right." In contrast to Kirigiri, however, Naegi's voice was a bit less certain. "We need someone to keep us all connected and informed, and to provide leadership for the people here."

"Excellent!" That seemed to please Ishimaru rather well for the time being, some of the tension in his body releasing its hold on him. "We should elect our acting leadership immediately, then, and once that's - "

Naegi fidgeted a bit as Ishimaru spoke, before saying what at least half the table was thinking. "What about you, Ishimaru-kun?"

That seemed to stun Ishimaru into silence, and he looked at Naegi as though he had, in fact, just grown a second head; the quiet was broken by a sudden, derisive noise from Ikusaba, down toward the end of the table.

"He's not ready," she said, the skepticism apparent in her eyes just as much as her words. "Organizing troops and relief efforts isn't anything like organizing one of his little meetings in the morning. And besides, you put anyone at the head of this organization and you'll be painting a target on their heads. Super High-School Level Despair will eat him alive."

Mondo couldn't sit there in silence anymore. "Yeah, and in that case, why don't you either give him some information or shut the fuck up?"

The outburst caused another heavy round of silence to pass around the table; Ishimaru looked more surprised than anyone that Mondo was coming to his defense. "Oowada-kun...?"

Mondo ignored him for now. "Look, I know he's not whatever sort of general you were working under before, but he's the best we've got. I think he can do it, and if Super High-School Level Despair's that much of a fucking concern then we'll give him some fucking bodyguards. Hell, I'll stay here with him - uniting people's what I do. Between both of us, we'll manage just fine!"

Naegi smiled at him, despite the awkward air in the room. "I think you're right, Oowada-kun; you guys will be okay." He turned to Ishimaru. "What do you say, Ishimaru-kun? I think you can handle this just fine; extraordinary effort, right?"

The others at the table didn't seem to know what Naegi was talking about; Ishimaru and Mondo did. After a moment, Ishimaru nodded. "I...I'll accept your nomination to the position, then." He took a deep breath before continuing. "Are there any opposed? Ikusaba's opposition has been noted."

A few moments later, by majority vote, Ishimaru was given what had potential to become one of the most powerful positions in the country, should they be successful in restoring peace. Mondo was still in the room when Naegi pulled Ishimaru aside, saying something quietly to him, something that made Ishimaru start to cry; Naegi just smiled a little, the expression gentle but clearly uncomfortable, and sat him down at the table, laying a hand on his arm in an awkward attempt at being comforting. Naegi was the only other person with any memories of their classmates; even though Mondo hadn't been able to hear what he'd said, he suspected he knew what it had been anyway.

"Your grandfather would be so proud of you right now."




They had set up a stronghold within the Future Foundation's headquarters; in the end, Mondo, Ishimaru, Fujisaki, Asahina and Fukawa had stayed behind. Mondo had been the one to insist that Fukawa should stay back, and they had argued about it vehemently when she'd protested; much to Mondo's surprise, Togami actually did a decent thing for once and told Fukawa that she was going to stay put until he returned. That seemed to placate her, and Mondo could relax a bit; he could keep an eye on her this way, and it was the most he could do without outing her as Genocider Syo.

As little as Mondo wanted to acknowledge it, though, it quickly became obvious that Ikusaba had been right; Ishimaru hadn't been ready to take this sort of position. Hell, he doubted that his fiancé would have been ready, even with ten more years of knowledge and experience to his benefit. It was obvious that Ishimaru was trying to remain strong for the others; Mondo tried to not let him know that he could often hear Ishimaru crying at night, in that wing of the building that they slept in, away from Fujisaki and the girls. He couldn't keep it up for long; he knocked on the door to Ishimaru's room one night, about a week after the others had left.

Ishimaru had clearly tried to clean himself up a bit before opening the door; however, his face still had that red, vaguely puffy appearance that he tended to get after a particularly hard crying jag, and his words were oddly congested-sounding when he spoke. "Is something wrong, Oowada-kun?"

Mondo shrugged. "Thought you might want some company tonight. It occurred to me that I don't know our fearless leader too well, y'know?"

Lying to him was awkward, even if this wasn't the same man Mondo was in love with; it didn't help that Ishimaru's expression turned odd almost immediately, and Mondo was quick to press on. "And 'sides, you seem pretty lonely. It's hard leading shit by yourself; believe me, I'd know." Mondo laughed a bit, though the sound was more self-deprecating than anything. "You have a whole fuckin' lot of followers, not a lot of friends. But hey, I'm gonna go get coffee, are you coming or what?"

They talked well into the night, not stopping until long after their coffee had gotten cold; as little as Mondo wanted to think about it, everything Ishimaru did reminded him of his fiancé. It had been a long time since he'd seen Ishimaru acting so reluctant to open up, his tone blunt but colored by something that was almost shyness at times; just the same, his gestures and mannerisms were almost exactly the same. The way he held his head, and how he kept his hands wrapped around the mug tightly, even after all the warmth was gone from it; how expressive his eyes were, and the way he tended to get that sharp, almost cocky look when he knew something Mondo didn't...all of it was almost achingly familiar, and Mondo found himself not wanting to look at him and yet unable to look away.

After a long while, though, Ishimaru broke eye contact, his gaze darting down toward the table; his usually severe expression softened a little, unsure. "I think this must be why so many are willing to follow you, Oowada-kun."

Mondo shifted in his chair, leaning back as his eyebrows darted upward. "What do you mean by that?"

Ishimaru laughed a little, the sound nervous. "I had wondered why so many people would be willing to follow someone with such a reputation; I had heard you were a delinquent, one who ruled the streets through violence and intimidation. But after talking to you tonight, you're...well, you're a really good guy, Oowada-kun. No wonder people trust you so much." He twitched a bit, expression uneasy. "I guess I envy you, a little."

"Hey, don't talk like that." Mondo leaned back in his chair, trying to keep his words as casual as he could; he immediately felt terrible for how grateful he was that this version of Ishimaru still couldn't read him very well and probably couldn't tell how painful this was. It would just worry or upset him if he knew, though; Mondo may have felt guilty, but somehow, he wasn't sorry. "You're a really good guy, too! I mean, shit, no one else would be holding together half as well as you are in this position - they would have cracked a long time ago, and now look where you are, in charge of this whole operation we're doing! You're doing great; it's...it's actually really inspiring."

Ishimaru just gave him a look Mondo recognized too well - it was the one he tended to get when he wasn't sure what he wasn't understanding, when he thought there must be something he was missing, he just didn't have the social skills to know what; seeing that expression stung, knowing what it meant, but Ishimaru didn't seem to notice - he was more focused on fumbling out a reply. "Ah...do you think so?"

Mondo's response was prompt. "'Course I do!" He reached out and clapped a hand to Ishimaru's shoulder. "You're really strong, Ishimaru, don't let anyone talk shit about you and say you're not. And don't you go envying a guy like me, okay? You're better than you think you are." He pulled away then, leaning back in his chair again. "A lot of people say shit about how they're gonna change the world; it feels like I can believe you when you say it."

Ishimaru looked away abruptly, and again, Mondo found himself all too familiar with the reaction he was being given - the way Ishimaru's chest hitched when he tried to inhale, the way his body had started shaking, and he knew Ishimaru was crying long before he looked up again, trying to re-establish eye contact, his face streaked with tears. "Y-You don't understand how much it means to me to hear you say such a thing...! I...I'll try not to let you down - I won't let any of you down!"

Mondo reached out toward him again, setting his hand on Ishimaru's arm much in the same way Naegi had earlier; he found himself sorely tempted to play with Ishimaru's hair, but ultimately, he didn't. He couldn't; it would be too similar. "Hey, come on. There's no need to cry, okay? I believe in you. And if you can't do it by yourself, I've got your back - that's what friends do for each other!"

Ishimaru seemed visibly shaken by that; it took him a moment to reply. "Friends...?"

The moment was abruptly broken before he could get any farther, Asahina's voice ringing out from clear across the room. "Hey - you guys had better not have been up all night!" She paused for a moment, suddenly seeming a bit unsure. "I mean, we've got a busy day today, don't we...?" Another pause. "...did I forget the schedule again?"

Ishimaru just laughed, standing up from the table and stretching a bit. "Good morning, Asahina-kun - you're early, as always! Keep it up, it shows good dedication to our task!"

The high spirits Ishimaru was displaying were infectious, due to another characteristic that he shared with Mondo's fiancé; when he smiled, it was difficult to believe that he could possibly be any happier than he was at that moment. It was such a simple, pure expression; again, Mondo found it both painful to look at, and yet impossible to look away.

The good news for the day only compounded when Fujisaki burst into the room a moment later, a rare amount of vigor and energy coursing through him, his fists clenched tightly in front of him in a display of both passion and excitement; though no one except Mondo quite understood what he was talking about at first, it was obvious that he'd had some sort of breakthrough.

Alter Ego was fully operational.




As much of an asset Alter Ego would prove to be, however, it wasn't long before the good vibes of that morning had dissipated; a few days later, Ishimaru vanished into a room alone with Fujisaki's laptop, lists of names that he had collected from the others clutched close to his chest.

He was gone for most of the day; that evening, he called them individually into the conference room to discuss what he had found.

Mondo was the last to be called in; even though it had been only a matter of weeks since they had really started working as Future Foundation, he was struck immediately by how much older Ishimaru seemed. He tried to tell himself that it was simply because Ishimaru was tired; Mondo couldn't say he blamed him, after hearing what he had to say.

He had given Ishimaru a set of names from his gang, what remained of the Crazy Diamonds when Mondo had left for Hope's Peak; in silence, Ishimaru passed him the list he had been given, all written in even rows in large but clean handwriting.

Across from every name Mondo had given him, one of two labels were written: "DECEASED" or "UNACCOUNTED FOR."

There was no variance outside of those two labels; it was the latter that made Mondo's blood run cold - without Ishimaru having to explain, he understood immediately. The unaccounted for were among those who were rioting in the streets, who were hunting them down; the masses doing the bidding of Super High-School Level Despair.

"I'm sorry, Oowada-kun." Ishimaru's voice was unusually quiet; he twitched a little where he was sitting, as though unsure of what to do with himself.

Even though Mondo knew it wasn't Ishimaru's fault - none of this was Ishimaru's fault - in that moment, he couldn't help but resent him for it. For apologizing when it wasn't necessary, for giving him the news in the first place, for being here at all when all Mondo wanted was to hold his fiancé again.

Then the moment passed, leaving nothing but guilt, and he could feel himself shaking and he couldn't even begin to explain why; before Mondo could make himself react properly he realized that Ishimaru had made his way around the head of the table to take a chair next to him instead, sitting down at his side and leaning forward to hug him. Mondo could feel a slight but spreading dampness near the collar of his coat, where Ishimaru's tears were starting to hit his shoulder; Mondo lost his own fight not to cry when Ishimaru shifted a bit and nuzzled against him, and even though Mondo knew that the gesture was likely purely instinctive it was so familiar that it hurt and he found himself pulling Ishimaru close, hugging him fiercely and barely managing to keep his hands out of Ishimaru's hair, and Mondo couldn't be sure how long they stayed that way before he eventually pulled away, swiping at his eyes and trying to will himself to be strong, to stop shaking and get his tears under control.

"S-Sorry about that," he said eventually, finally looking back up at Ishimaru once he was sure that he'd calmed down enough to do it without crying again. "This has to be pretty hard on you, huh? I'm probably not making it any easier."

Ishimaru shook his head; his own tears hadn't quite stopped, but Mondo had expected that - Ishimaru had always seemed able to just cry forever, after all. "I-It's not that...I just..." He trailed off awkwardly; took a second to catch his breath before forcing the rest out there. "I don't like seeing you in pain, Oowada-kun!"

Mondo could feel something cold wash over him, a sharp shock to his system; it was something that his fiancé had told him so many times before, something Ishida had told him so many times before, and hearing it from Ishimaru now hurt more than he could possibly express.

Instead, he smiled, the expression a bit bleary, and he clapped a hand to Ishimaru's shoulder reassuringly. "Hey, come on. I'll be all right; it was just kind of a shock, you know? But we'll do what we can for everyone - don't worry about me!"

But despite his own words, and despite Ishimaru's eventual agreement that everything would be fine in due time, Mondo knew that Ishimaru would be crying again that night, when he thought no one would hear him; this time, he couldn't bring himself to stop him.




The news that Ishimaru had given him about the Crazy Diamonds proved to be the breaking point, the thing that made him realize that he really had nothing here. The world wasn't going to be fixed in their lifetimes, despite what Ishimaru was trying so hard to believe, and Mondo had nine years' worth of previous experience to tell him that much besides. The remnants of the Crazy Diamonds were all either dead or otherwise gone, brainwashed by Super High-School Level Despair; he was never going to see the man he loved again. Despite what they had promised each other - to always come back to each other, to spend eternity together - his fiancé was going to die alone; he probably wouldn't even die as himself, but rather as Ishida.

He found himself becoming sullen and more withdrawn, and it just got worse with every passing day; thoughts of his fiancé occupied his time so much that he couldn't even be sure what was happening on a daily basis here. He couldn't cut off contact with Ishimaru entirely - he wouldn't have wanted to if he could, not really, not when he was honest with himself - but seeing him was painful. Ishimaru seemed confused, unsure as to what he'd done; he didn't try to force Mondo to attend meetings or socialize with the others, but for a while he tried to continue talking to him alone. For well over a month, eveningtime would find Ishimaru standing outside his door, having brought tea or coffee with him, depending on his mood; even though it was obvious that he was hurt and frustrated, not understanding what was wrong, Mondo couldn't even begin to imagine trying to explain it to him.

Mondo shouldn't have been surprised, the day the knock on his door came and it wasn't Ishimaru standing there; as it was, he was too confused by who was standing there to feel hurt by it.

"...Fukawa?"

While Mondo had kept an eye on her for any weird behavior and made sure she had her head turned away whenever Alter Ego provided them with any video from the outside that may have involved blood (he wasn't sure if just video would manage to wake up Genocider Syo, but it was better safe than sorry), he had mostly left Fukawa alone; even without taking the crazy serial killer in her head into account, the girl was weird as hell and horrible to talk to. But there she was, looking as mousy as ever and holding a tea tray awkwardly in her hands, the night's coffee balanced precariously on top of it.

Naturally, she managed to nearly spill it all within the first five seconds of conversation, her body twitching violently when she responded. "I-I know I'm not the person you want to see, so don't bother pretending that I am!"

The reaction was so vehement it was startling; Mondo reached out immediately to relieve her of the tray before she managed to upset literally everything on it and upend it onto the carpet. He couldn't stop the thought that the reaction was similar to something Ishida would say, however, when he was worried or feeling awkward about being around when Mondo returned from the hell that was Hope's Peak; the realization made his expression soften almost immediately.

"Hey, you drink coffee too, right? So you're fine. You coming in or what?"

He turned away from her then, setting the tray on the small table in the corner of the room; it was where he and Ishimaru always tended to drink it. He busied himself with setting the drinks up; he didn't look at her until he heard the door close with a soft click behind her, and when he turned around he had to admit that he was vaguely amused to see her hugging the wall like the rest of the floor was going to burn her. "You okay?"

She glowered at him. "I've never been in a boy's room before."

Mondo laughed a bit at that, the sound easy; he was quick to gesture at the chair across from him, though, to at least get the impression across that he was inviting her to stay, that he wasn't laughing at her. He took the chair closest to the wall; she couldn't see the door that way, which he didn't think she'd like, but at the same time it was better that she not be able to see the door than make her think he was trying to trap her in the corner of the room.

He realized suddenly that he had no idea where this knowledge on how best to handle Fukawa had come from, since he really hadn't spoken to her casually for any length of time; he wasn't going to question it too much. Not now, anyway, when he actually had to handle her.

Not that she was putting up much argument on that front - Fukawa took the seat Mondo had indicated, though she was perched so far back on it that she seemed to be trying to put as much distance between herself and Mondo as possible; she spent the next while in silence, pulling her cup of coffee over to her and settling it in her lap, where she seemed content to glare at it like it was her drink's fault that she was still sitting there in the first place.

"So, uh..." Mondo started after a while, toying with the handle of his mug absently. "Did Ishimaru send you?"

Fukawa was quiet for so long that Mondo wasn't sure she was going to answer. "...busy," she mumbled eventually, not looking up from that spot near her knees that she was so intently focused on.

"What?"

"Ishimaru-dono is busy."

"...'dono'?" Mondo couldn't keep the amusement out of his tone. "Is that what we're calling him now?"

"He refused anything stronger."

Mondo didn't say anything for a moment; he wasn't sure what to think of the sudden realization that Ishimaru was technically his leader now, not just his classmate. "Yeah, well."

Fukawa looked up at him, a dark look in her eyes. "I'll tell him that you don't want to see me anymore. That this was a waste of your time! Why would you want to spend time with someone like me anyway?!"

Mondo could feel his eyes widen. "What?! Hey, that's not what I meant!"

"You probably wish I was someone like Asahina - all breasts and curves and no brain to speak of!"

Mondo's voice rose along with Fukawa's. "I asked because I wanted to make sure he's okay, not because I want to get rid of you!"

"Why wouldn't he be okay?! He and Naegi think they've found something important, that's all! He'll probably be back in here in a couple of days so you can have your stupid coffee with someone you can actually like!"

"I never said I didn't like you!"

Fukawa stopped short at that, suddenly unsure; she raised one pale, shaking hand to her collar, tugging on it before she continued. "You...like me...?"

Mondo faltered at that. "I...well, yeah, I guess. I mean I don't have any reason to not like you, right?"

Fukawa just sat there for a moment, her lower lip trembling; when she did move, it was sudden - she slammed her cup down on the table so hard it was a wonder that she didn't break it, jumping to her feet after the initial bang was out there. "You don't have to l-lie to me just to make me feel better! Y-You think I'm lonely, don't you? And that because I'm lonely, I'm going to be desperate for any sort of male attention! I know how boys like you think - it's not going to get me any closer to your bed!"

She stormed out before Mondo could say anything to her, leaving him wondering exactly what the hell he even did to get that reaction; despite that outburst, however, she was back the next night, knocking on his door and carrying a tray containing coffee, and two cups from which to drink it.




Coffee with Fukawa was suprisingly all right in the evenings, after a while; it was just a matter of working out how to get her to say anything without setting off one of the million conversational landmines she seemed to have set up. Pushing her just tended to get screaming and abuse hurled at him, followed by her storming out, long braids streaming behind her; the only way Mondo could see to handle it at all was to just let her sit there until she decided she wanted to say something, so in the end, that was what he ended up doing.

It worked surprisingly well; after a while she even greeted him when he opened the door.

"...You don't have some sort of disease, do you, Oowada?"

Well, no one said it was a good greeting.

Mondo shook his head at that, though, looking more than a bit confused. "Why would I have some sort of disease?"

"You don't come out of your room very much anymore. Ishimaru-dono is afraid you're sick; you're not contagious, right?" She didn't let him answer before continuing. "You wouldn't tell me even if you were, I'll bet. You want me to get sick and die and then you'll be rid of me, and maybe you can get a prettier girl to make your coffee in the evenings, and - "

Mondo rolled his eyes. "Good to see you too, Fukawa."

She glared at him for interrupting, but came into the room anyway, setting the tray down on the table. "...Likewise."

Mondo joined her after a moment; something she'd said left him feeling odd. "You said Ishimaru's worried?"

She hesitated. "...He...yes."

"Did he say anything to you about it?"

"He's usually too busy working with Naegi to talk much...they think they've found members of Super High-School Level Despair. They're trying to help them."

"Ah, yeah?" Mondo stared at her for a moment. "That...that's great news!"

The words were forced, as was the bright sentiment; judging by the way Fukawa arched an eyebrow, she knew it, but thankfully she didn't call him on it. "It is...Togami-kun is helping them with it..." She sighed a bit. "I wish he would come back."

Mondo paused for a moment, waiting for her to get on with it; when she didn't, he cleared his throat. "Uh, you were saying? About Ishimaru?"

"...Right, Ishimaru-dono..." She seemed displeased with the topic shift, but thankfully she seemed to go with it; it was a damn good thing, as Mondo wasn't in the mood to hear her wax poetic about Togami. "He asks about you, every night."

"But he seems okay otherwise? Like, it's not weighing down on him or anything, right?"

Fukawa bit her lip, looking at Mondo like it was some sort of trick question; in a way, it was, and Mondo knew full well that he was being unfair. He needed to hear the answer for a reason.

"N...No..." Fukawa offered after a moment, still seeming unsure.

Mondo relaxed then, changing the subject easily to something decidedly more boring; he even let Fukawa talk about Togami for a while, just because it seemed to make her happy to do it. There was some guilt to the interaction; he couldn't say that he didn't feel bad about using her like that, but he'd needed an answer.

He'd needed to know if Ishimaru would be all right here without him; he could no longer be all right here, knowing that he'd left his fiancé behind.




Mondo acted on it that night, the same way he had what felt like so long ago; he left a suicide note and prepared to hang himself in his bedroom, though he hesitated before moving to follow through.

He had no way of knowing whether or not he would be able to get back to that city that he'd shared with his fiancé; if anything, his gut feeling was telling him that he wouldn't, that that door had been long since sealed off. But at least this way he would have tried; maybe he would be able to meet his fiancé again somewhere, somehow.

Anything would be better than this.

He didn't realize what the sound he heard outside was, the loud banging against the door; he barely registered it when the door to his room opened, Fukawa's voice ringing out before promptly pitching upward into a scream. He was aware of the sudden feeling of the belt snapping for some reason he doesn't understand; he hit the ground hard before passing out immediately.




The place Mondo woke up in was neither Hope's Peak nor the private purgatory he'd shared with Kiyotaka; it took him a moment to recognize the infirmary in Future Foundation's headquarters. He lifted his head, the feeling hideous due to the sharp pain in his neck, the burning in his throat; he startled when he saw who was sitting on a rather sterilely-designed couch next to his bedside, keeping watch.

"Celes?"

Celes just smiled a bit in that odd, vague way that she tended to offer to people who knew less than she did, then raised a finger to her lips in a coy shushing motion; the gesture was followed by a slow, pointed look toward her left side, where Ishimaru seemed to have fallen asleep next to her. At some point, he'd flopped over against her, leaning up against her shoulder; his arm was wrapped lightly around her waist, though it wasn't in any sort of sexy way - from the look of it, it was just to give himself something to hold onto.

Something about the way he was sleeping against her so peacefully, completely trusting the girl who arranged his death in so many alternate timelines, struck Mondo as viscerally wrong; for a moment, the irrational fear and the mounting rage were enough to make him think he was going to be sick. The reaction only worsened when Celes reached over to gently run her fingers through Ishimaru's hair; he managed to choke it back, however, once she moved to stand.

It took her a moment of maneuvering to get Ishimaru into a reasonably comfortable position that didn't involve using her side as a pillow, and for a brief, tense moment she slipped badly enough to make Mondo legitimately concerned that she would either scare him awake or flat-out drop him; fortunately enough for everyone involved, however, Ishimaru had always slept heavily, and Celes managed to get him to lie down on the couch without him waking up fully. She sat primly on the side of Mondo's bed once that was taken care of, smoothing out wrinkles in her jacket and pressing her knees together, crossing her legs at the ankle.

"It was good of you to wake up and give me an excuse to move; he's been crushing me for what feels like an eternity."

"Sorry about that," Mondo said; it wasn't any sort of apology. "What are even you doing here? I thought you left with the others."

Celes looked at him as though she'd just realized all over again that she was, in fact, dealing with an idiot. "Did no one tell you? We're back for two weeks - it's been a year since we left the school and all."

"What - really?"

"Mhmm. You're lucky Fukawa-san found you - it would have been very cruel of you to have killed yourself on our anniversary." She smiled, the expression unsettling. "If you're going to do that again, try to wait until we're gone?"

Mondo could feel his lip curl at that. "Yeah. I'll keep that in mind."

Celes glanced back at Ishimaru, those large hairfalls she always wore obscuring most of her face from view for a moment. "You scared him so badly," she said, as though discussing the weather. "He's been watching over you since you were brought in."

For some reason, Mondo couldn't look at either of them; he focused his gaze downward, studying his hands instead. "I'll bet."

Celes reached out, patting his forearm gingerly before standing up; before Mondo could even get a full sentence out, asking her where she was going, she leaned over Ishimaru's sleeping form and said something quietly to him - he had no idea what she said, but whatever it was, it somehow got Ishimaru to startle awake immediately. The smile Celes gave him said everything without her needing to say anything at all - "I'll leave you boys to it, then" - and she sauntered out the door without another word.

It took a moment for Ishimaru to awaken well enough to realize what was going on; as soon as he seemed to become aware that Mondo was awake, however, he joined him on the bed immediately, wrapping his arms around him and hugging him tightly, the tears already starting in full force.

For a long time, Mondo just held him; Ishimaru wasn't able to form words, a fact which seemed to alarm him at first before he just dissolved into letting out a series of tight wracking sobs and soft cries. The frustrated nonsyllables somehow hurt more deeply than anything Ishimaru could have said; the first words he did manage - I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I should have been there for you - ensured that Mondo wouldn't attempt suicide a second time while Ishimaru was still alive to deal with the aftermath.




The next few days were a combination of incredibly busy and surprisingly casual; the daytime hours were filled with in-depth strategic discussions regarding where they all had been and where to go from here and what to do with the sixteen members of Super High-School Level Despair that they had located, only for the evenings to be occupied with games and other purely stupid things that allowed them to be kids themselves again for a while. Things like Celes breaking out a set of dice and teaching them all how to play things like Greed and Hazard - games of chance that Hagakure and Maizono were surprisingly good at, and that Naegi was...somehow unsurprisingly not good at, Super High-School Level Good Luck be damned; the best nights were those in which they could talk Ishimaru into joining them, managing to pull him away from the stress and the frustration and the long hours spent working with Alter Ego. They worked out early on that he had a hard time saying no to Fujisaki and so they often sent him to ask, after which he would return triumphantly with Ishimaru in tow.

Mondo usually spent more time paying attention to Ishimaru than he did the game; Ishimaru always seemed so happy during those evenings, whether he was winning or losing, and it struck Mondo hard just how young he looked - how he was, at the heart of it, just a kid with too much responsibility piled on him. He wondered vaguely if Ishimaru ever resented it; he knew him well enough to understand that he would never complain, even if he did.

His fiancé, after all, had been the exact same way.

Mondo knew his fiancé could never lie intentionally, but he had to wonder how much Kiyotaka had lied through necessity, without even realizing it; how much he kept to himself because he thought he had to, because a leader had to be strong for those who depended on him. While Mondo had always known, in some way, why Ishida existed, it wasn't until now that it really dawned on him why Kiyotaka had always been so bothered by Mondo seeing him - if he'd had his way, Mondo wouldn't have known; he would never have seen that side of him at all. As it stood, he'd managed to put enough of a buffer on it to keep Mondo from seeing the extent of it - at least, until he had something to compare it to, until after this latest suicide attempt literally an entire world away.

He would never know how much his fiancé had kept to himself, how much he had never complained about; as easily as he tended to cry and as difficult as it was for him to hide his emotions, he had always kept his pain hidden - the things that were really hurting him almost never came to the surface, not until he couldn't contain it anymore without breaking, and he always apologized immediately for letting Mondo see that he wasn't all right. When they were younger, Mondo had seen it as strength - even now, he didn't doubt that Kiyotaka was a strong person, far more than he'd ever given himself credit for; he'd always been a fighter, and Mondo didn't think that any of that had been an act. But something about seeing this other version of him, this person he could very easily have been, interacting with the others really drove it home - that for this week that they were all together, they would see what Ishimaru wanted them to see. They would see their classmate, a model student, the former head of the disciplinary committee. Their leader. Someone who sucked at dice games and couldn't laugh naturally for shit and still had no real idea of how to hold a normal conversation, but still cared deeply about all of them. They would see their friend.

And as accurate as all of that was - as real as all of that was - if Ishimaru had his way none of them would ever know how often he cried himself to sleep at night and how painfully goddamn lonely he was; he would never mention the fact that he often questioned whether today was the day that he would stop fighting and had to convince himself that no, of course it wasn't. And even if he decided that he'd had enough, that he wouldn't be able to keep going on his own, in the end he would hide that, too; he would keep it from the others, just as Kiyotaka had somehow kept his own fiancé from realizing that the fact that Ishida existed at all was an obvious sign of exactly how sick he was. How scared he must have been.

He stood up from the table, claiming that he needed water; he was already swiping at his eyes when he entered the kitchen area, and he could feel the annoyance flare up at the realization that he wasn't going to be alone, even there - Ikusaba was leaning back against one of the counters, arms folded across her chest. She still dressed like her sister most of the time, and that night wasn't any exception; Mondo couldn't say he had any idea why, and he couldn't really make himself care.

"Dice just not your thing?" Mondo asked, trying to sound casual and failing miserably at keeping the agitation out of his voice.

Ikusaba shrugged, fingers tangling themselves a little in the ends of that long blonde wig. "Not really."

"It wouldn't kill you to talk to the others once in a while, you know."

"I know." She paused for a moment, glancing toward the door. "Your friend's doing well. Better than I'd thought he would, anyway."

"He's a fighter like that."

"Has your fighter told you what they want him to do?"

Something about the way she said it made Mondo's blood run cold. "What?"

"They want him to meet with Super High-School Level Despair's best." Ikusaba studied him for a moment. "I take it he hasn't told you."

"N-No, he...he never said anything about that!"

"Keep it down."

Mondo winced. "Sorry."

Ikusaba rolled her eyes. "We've reached a stalemate in dealing with those sixteen individuals we found. Representatives have been chosen on both sides; Ishimaru-dono and Naegi-kun are going to be meeting with two of theirs, guys named Izuru Kamukura and Nagito Komaeda." She trailed off for a moment, picking idly at her sleeve before continuing. "Komaeda is Good Luck, like Naegi-kun, and he's ill besides; he's insane, but he isn't a threat. Kamukura, however...if this goes south, he can easily outmatch both of them."

"So...what're you saying, you think this is going to end with them dead?!"

Ikusaba gave Mondo a withering look. "I think you'd better get out there and play dice."

"You can't just - !"

"Make sure he has a good time. When we leave next week, he's coming with us."




"Hey, Ishimaru?"

Mondo found himself knocking on the door to Ishimaru's room that night after his conversation with Ikusaba, ignoring the fact that the door itself was laying open; perhaps unsurprisingly, Ishimaru's room hadn't changed much since their time in Hope's Peak - the walls weren't that godawful shade of pink, but there were still motivational posters everywhere and whiteboards with hell-only-knew-what scrawled all over them, and what looked like a few class notes that Ishimaru had obtained somewhere lying on the desk across the room.

Ishimaru had been staring down at something on that desk when Mondo showed up; he startled a little, but he seemed pleased regardless. "Ah, Oowada-kun! Is everything fine? It's good to see you!"

"Huh? Yeah, everything's good." That said, though, Mondo hesitated for a moment before continuing. "Hey, look, I just wanted you to know that I haven't been trying to...fuck, I don't know. Push you away or anything."

"...I see," Ishimaru said, in that sort of tone that made it clear that he didn't.

Mondo looked away. "I know I haven't been very good to you lately, and that I've been...distant, I guess? It's not your fault. You haven't done anything wrong."

"Ah..." Ishimaru folded his arms across his chest, clearly feeling awkward; he shifted a bit, seeming to be trying to find something to say. "I-I thought...I thought maybe I..."

"You thought it was like before, didn't you?" Mondo made himself look at Ishimaru then, even though Ishimaru had long since diverted his gaze toward the floor. "Where people would suddenly stop talking to you, and not tell you why or what you did wrong."

Ishimaru tensed up sharply at that, though he didn't look at Mondo; rather, he continued glaring at the floor, his expression strange and tight. His left hand started fluttering a little, down by his side; at first it just looked like he was shaking, but it quickly became a pronounced gesture, obviously abnormal, and he was quick to form fists to get it to stop. Mondo could feel a strange sense of alarm when he noticed it; obviously, part of the response came from the knowledge that Ishimaru was so openly upset, but the more selfish part (the part that he would feel guilty for later, he had no doubt about that) was because he was immediately and acutely aware of the fact that he couldn't remember Kiyotaka ever doing that. Was it something new, caused by the stress of leadership here? Was it something that only this version did, something that Kiyotaka had never done at all, or something that he'd somehow never noticed despite all the time they'd spent together?

Or - and it sickened him to think it, to even have to think it - was he starting to forget his fiancé?

"I'm sorry," Mondo said, though he couldn't say in all honesty that he was apologizing for the current issue; Ishimaru twitched but didn't say anything, and Mondo pressed on after a moment.

"That probably looked pretty weird, huh?" Mondo forced himself to smile a bit, to try to look casual. "I've been getting some of my memories back lately, I guess. You know, from before. I didn't mean to freak you out or anything!"

Ishimaru's attention snapped back up, his expression quickly shifting into one of confusion. "You...you have? You've been remembering things?" He seemed unsure for a moment before his face lit up, that simple, incredibly pleased grin crossing his features. "That's amazing - I'm so happy for you, Oowada-kun!"

Mondo could feel himself flush a bit; again, he felt guilty for lying, but he couldn't say he was sorry for it. There was no way he could tell Ishimaru the truth; there probably would never be a way to tell him, but that was just how it was going to have to be.

For now, though, he reached out to lay a hand on Ishimaru's shoulder. "We were close friends then, too, y'know - really close!"

"Ah, were we?" Ishimaru sounded excited, despite himself. "I'm glad - like I said, you're a really great guy, Oowada-kun!"

"I considered you my brother, I think - we used to call each other 'kyoudai' all the time." Mondo hesitated for a moment before continuing, kneading his fingertips into Ishimaru's shoulder. "Would you...be okay with it, if we did that again? I get that it might be kinda weird for you, but..."

Ishimaru's eyes widened at that, his expression immediately falling into strangely guarded territory again; it was obvious that he didn't know what to say, and Mondo could see his hands tightening again. He didn't try to rush him, or prompt him in any way; he just continued to massage Ishimaru's shoulder gently, to try to calm him down.

He never did get a verbal response; the way Ishimaru nodded eventually before surging forward and embracing him tightly, tears already starting to stream down his face, was more than enough.




Mondo had spent as much time with Ishimaru as he could after that; the day before he left had found them both in Ishimaru's room. Ishimaru had become less shy about allowing Mondo to join him in there, though he'd confessed eventually that he only allowed Mondo in; it was nice, in a way, that Ishimaru would share his space with him like that, and Mondo often flopped down on the bed while Ishimaru sat at the table nearby, posture ramrod-straight as he made his preparations.

Ishimaru had been dressed differently on that last day, something Mondo hadn't been prepared for. The uniform wasn't unlike his usual outfit, military-influenced and covered in sharp creases and gold medals and embellishments; the epaulettes at the shoulders were larger and more elaborate, those of a high-ranking official, and the red armband usually pinned to the left side was gone entirely. What was most striking, however, was the color - immaculate white replaced entirely with black, and even though the fabric was thick and stiff-looking it still appeared far more luxurious than anything Ishimaru would have chosen on his own.

He was adjusting the cuffs a bit when Mondo had knocked and let himself in - something they had both decided was acceptable shortly after the conversation in which Ishimaru had agreed to be Mondo's brother - and Mondo could feel himself stop short in the doorway, obvious surprise flickering across his face. "Wow, shit," he said, the words leaving him before he could stop them; despite that, however, he sounded more impressed than anything. "You look - "

...amazing; he was barely able to keep it back. That was crossing into territory he didn't want to go near; a sharp blush crossed his features when he realized exactly how synonymous amazing was with sexy in this case.

"...god, you look really good, kyoudai, I've never seen you in black like that. Where the fuck'd you get that outfit?"

Ishimaru smiled; if he saw something wrong with the compliment or the faltering, he didn't show it. "Yamada-kun made it for me! Is it really okay? I'm not really familiar with how fashion works, I've never understood it..." He trailed off, tugging at the edges of his sleeves again; Mondo laughed and stepped forward, pulling Ishimaru's hands away and holding them apart to get him to stop fussing so much.

"You look great. Stop worrying so much."

And for a moment that felt much longer than it possibly could have been, they just stood like that; after a while, Mondo became aware that his hands had slipped down to get a better grip on Ishimaru's, entwining their fingers. Ishimaru didn't seem bothered, even though he had gone very still; he was simply looking at him in that strange way that he had sometimes - mildly confused, but still trusting him entirely. It was a jarringly innocent look, even though it was really no less severe than most of Ishimaru's facial expressions; the longer Mondo looked at him, the more he became aware that something about this entire encounter had shifted, though he couldn't think of any way to describe exactly what, and he knew he couldn't ask Ishimaru about it. All at once, something his fiancé had said to him once came to mind - one of those odd sayings that Kiyotaka was prone to, though he'd reserved this one for trying to explain to Mondo why he couldn't help reacting the way he did when emotions were running high.

It's like feeling everything at once - it doesn't hurt at all, but you can't get rid of it, and you can feel it vibrating under your skin.

And that was exactly it, as far as Mondo can tell; he couldn't explain what had changed but something definitely had, and he was very aware that Ishimaru could feel it too, and the air between them was so charged that Mondo had to do something about it, and before he could stop himself he'd already moved, stepping a little closer to Ishimaru and he was struck with the crazy urge to lean in and kiss him, and it was terrible but he was very, very aware that Ishimaru still trusted him entirely and wouldn't stop him -

The familiar sting of guilt was what stopped him in the end; this wasn't Kiyotaka, as much as he wanted it to be, and he found himself moving his hands to Ishimaru's back, pulling him into a tight hug instead. He kept his hands out of Ishimaru's hair; it would still be too similar.

He could tell from the light gasp of breath that Ishimaru hadn't been expecting that, and it took him a moment to return the embrace; eventually he did, however, even though Mondo could tell that he was confused as hell.

Mondo turned his head a bit, murmuring words into Ishimaru's shoulder. "I don't want to lose you," he said, not knowing where the words were coming from but somehow still aware of how right they felt. "Promise me you'll come home safe?"

Ishimaru's grip tightened in response to Mondo's words; after a moment, he nuzzled against him. "I'll do what I can, kyoudai."

The fact that he didn't promise wasn't lost on either of them, and they ignored their usual talk that night in favor of sitting on Ishimaru's bed, holding each other so tightly that it was hard to tell who was clinging to whom anymore; when Mondo awakened the next morning, his first thought was to find Ishimaru, to see him one last time before he went to face Super High-School Level Despair on his own.

Ishimaru was already gone; Mondo couldn't help but think that even though he'd never lied to him, not intentionally, Kiyotaka had been wrong about one thing.

Those moments he'd so clumsily described, where a person felt everything at once and could feel the weight of it all vibrating beneath their skin, hurt more than anything Mondo had ever experienced.




The day Ishimaru left was utter hell; most of the others knew to leave Mondo well alone, and he couldn't say that he was expecting the sudden knock on his door that evening.

In hindsight, he probably shouldn't have been surprised to see Fukawa there; sure enough, though, there she was, and there he was, and neither of them really knew what the hell to do with each other and it was incredibly obvious.

"Uh," he started, reaching up to rub at the back of his neck awkwardly. "Do you want to come in, or...?"

"Ishimaru-dono told me to start up with this routine again," she said, practically spitting the words as though she were disgusted with the thought. "I know you probably just want to get it over with - you don't have to pretend!"

"Hey, come on, you don't have to start with that...!"

The evening was business as usual from there on; it was strangely comforting, how easily they settled back into the usual routine - Mondo taking the tray from her and actually preparing the coffee while she crept along the wall like some sort of particularly jittery spider, both of them sitting at the table, silently thankful for the company and yet unable to say that either of them really enjoyed it very much.

"I never really thanked you afterwards, did I?" Mondo said, trying to keep his words as casual as he could while studying Fukawa's face to make sure she wasn't about to snap at him. "For, you know, saving my life a couple of weeks ago."

"...oh, that," she said, her voice going strangely blank; despite that, though, she reached up and tugged at her collar, her eyes going wide and her body tensing up. Panicking, despite the oddness of her words. Oh, that. As though it wasn't anything to be spoken about.

"I heard you come back in..." Mondo said, trying to prompt her, to get her to do something that wasn't sit there quietly freaking out; she jerked a bit, bringing that hand at her collar up to pick at her face.

"I couldn't find my billfold. I thought maybe you'd stolen it out of my pocket to try to get me to come back into your room." Her words were picking up speed, one of her fingernails dragging sharply down the skin of her cheek. "Boys do that sometimes."

"I wouldn't steal your shit, Fukawa - "

"Boys do that sometimes," she repeated flatly, a red trail making itself apparent next to her mouth in the wake of one of her nails.

Mondo rolled his eyes. "Leave your face alone, okay? I'm not pissed at you. I just want to know how you did it."

Fukawa did as she was told, sort of; she just moved on from picking at her face to tugging at one of her braids, her expression tight and angry. "D-Did what?" she said, the panic finally reaching her voice properly. "I didn't do anything!"

Mondo paused for a moment; now that he thought about it, the answer was simple, wasn't it? Almost stupidly so. "...You used those scissors, didn't you? The sets she makes and keeps under your skirt..."

The question hung between them for a long, horribly awkward moment. Mondo had expected another explosion; what he got was far worse than that.

What he got was the worst scream he'd ever heard come out of another human being in his entire life; it ripped clear through her body, hoarse and primal and painful, and once it had left her she promptly dropped forward, not seeming to care that she'd probably spilled that coffee she'd been holding in her lap all over her skirt, and she'd buried her face in her arms and just stayed like that. Her body was shaking, but she didn't seem to be crying; really, if he had to take a guess, he'd say she just broke.

Mondo was on his feet quickly, letting out a shouted nonsyllable of his own, though for a moment he wasn't sure if he should approach her; not doing anything was infinitely worse, however, and when he finally reached out and touched her shoulder she flinched, but surprisingly didn't have some sort of conniption.

He pressed back on her shoulder a bit to try to encourage her to sit up; she did so slowly, but she moved with him well enough, finally allowing him to prop her up against the back of the chair. She was still shaking, her breath hitching quite a bit in her chest, and her head lolled back in a bit of a sickening manner once her shoulders were off-balance enough to force that sort of response, but at the very least her eyes made contact with his.

Her face was flushed with fear; she swallowed multiple times but didn't seem able to form coherent words for all the trembling. Mondo crouched down next to her, trying to get more on her level, and when she finally managed words, they were almost jarringly cold.

"Don't...don't you ever tell anyone..." She was practically snarling, forcing the words out with the sort of tone that one usually reserves for delivering threats; Mondo didn't flinch from it, and the next word she offered was whispered, so desperate that it made him ache.

"...Please..."




Whether Fukawa believed him or not when he said he wouldn't tell was a bit hard to figure out, but either way, she still checked in with him at the end of the day; her visits had become short, terse, and he imagined they were just enough for her to report to Ishimaru that, to her knowledge, he hadn't done something stupid. He couldn't say he blamed her; as the days wore on, he wasn't entirely sure he cared.

He'd made up his mind either way; if Ishimaru was killed by Super High-School Level Despair, then Mondo would kill himself. It was something that he didn't want to happen, but it gave him an out if it did; it was sick, how much comfort he took in it, but it got him through the days that followed. The rest of his time was spent on autopilot; he checked on the girls and spent some time with Fujisaki, even though the latter's explanations of what he was doing - though very enthusiastic and admittedly kind of adorable as a result - often went completely over Mondo's head.

They couldn't risk keeping communication channels open for too long, no matter how solidly they were encrypted; Fujisaki insisted that that was just asking for trouble, that nothing he could do would be perfect and keeping a solid, constant connection would just risk giving away their location - and even if it didn't give away anything on their end, he couldn't say the same for the others. However, Fujisaki clearly felt bad about it, and he seemed to grow more fidgety the longer Ishimaru was away; a week into his absence, he had smiled when Mondo came in, saying that he had a surprise for him that evening; it wasn't quite ready yet, but he told him to come back at seven that evening, if he didn't mind.

Mondo had come back at the time Fujisaki had given him, admittedly curious but not terribly enthusiastic; his heart had leapt when Fujisaki had turned to greet him, giving him a view of the screen in front of him, where Ishimaru was clearly visible.

"Hey, is that - is it Alter Ego, or...?" Mondo was pretty aware that he probably sounded stupid; he couldn't say he cared.

Fujisaki shook his head, a shy smile playing across his features. "No, that's Ishimaru-dono; we've been talking for a little while, and things seem to be running smoothly - I think you can have the next hour with no problems, at least." His expression clouded a little after that was out there, however, his gaze dropping down to where he was playing with his fingers in his lap. "I-I'm sorry there's no sound, we couldn't quite get that working on his end, but..."

Mondo grinned. "Don't apologize - this is great, Fujisaki! Thanks!"

Fujisaki had smiled again, blushing a little as he slid out of his chair to let Mondo have it. "I...I'll be over here, then; I can't see the screen from where I'll be, so you can have privacy, but I'll stay in the room in case you need help with something."

Mondo nodded as he seated himself in front of the console; the keyboard was unfamiliar and it would take him a while to get used to it, but the fact that Ishimaru seemed so pleased to see him made it more than worth it - he was grinning and waving a little, and then he was quick to turn his attention to the keyboard in front of him, red eyes alive and more than a little manic-looking.

>Kyoudai! How have you been? It's good to see you!

Mondo could feel himself smile as he read it; it took him a moment to reply, and when he did the response was incredibly simple, but he found himself looking back up at the screen once it was out there, watching Ishimaru's reaction.

>good to see you too, kyoudai
>you been ok?

Ishimaru obviously couldn't tell him much about what they were doing, but that didn't mean that they didn't have anything to say to each other; looking back on it later, Mondo would realize that they hadn't said much, in the scheme of things - it had been incredibly repetitive after a while, each of them mostly expressing excitement or pleasure that the other was still alive and well - but that first night, they definitely said enough.

Their hour was over more quickly than he would have liked, the ending signaled by Fujisaki moving to stand behind him and tapping him so gently on the shoulder that Mondo didn't feel it the first three times he did it; his attention was finally drawn away from the screen by the sound of Fujisaki clearing his throat, quietly and awkwardly but at the very least audibly, and Fujisaki had looked so guilty after the fact that he couldn't bring himself to be properly disappointed.

>i'll talk to you later, kyoudai
>time's up
>Of course.
>I miss you!

Mondo hesitated for a moment, glancing back up at the video on the screen; the smile Ishimaru was giving him was a bit of an awkward one, but it was genuine, and he returned it easily.

>miss you too.




They had conversations every evening after that - always typed, never spoken, with Ishimaru sequestered in some completely nondescript room that gave nothing away about his location; Fujisaki never interrupted until their hour was up, sitting in some corner of the room and seeming completely disinterested in what they were talking about; once in a while Mondo would hear something random in Alter Ego's "voice" emanating from that corner, perky and helpful as always, but it was easy enough to ignore.

Three nights in, however, Ishimaru seemed far more awkward than usual; Mondo could tell that much, even with the screens and so much distance between them.

>something wrong?
>No, I'm fine.
>Can I ask you something?

Mondo tipped his head a bit, feeling apprehensive for a reason he couldn't figure out.

>sure
>Why did you try to kill yourself?

Mondo's gaze shot back up to Ishimaru's image on the screen immediately. Ishimaru was glaring down at his hands, his lower lip drawn into his mouth; the resolution wasn't quite good enough for Mondo to be able to tell whether he was just concentrating or trying not to cry. It didn't take long for Ishimaru to start typing again.

>I'm sorry for asking so suddenly.
>Not having an answer to that has been troubling me, however.
>I understand if you don't want to answer; I probably shouldn't have asked in the first place.
>It's none of my business.

Mondo responded immediately; his typing still wasn't fast, but it was passable, through he couldn't bring himself to look back up at Ishimaru while he worked.

>no
>it's ok
>i mean i guess it wasn't ok then
>but it's ok now
>so don't get like that
>i hate it when you get like that
>but i don't really know what happened
>i guess i lost track of that hope we're always talking about, you know?
>hard to have it here
>especially after all the shit that's happened

Ishimaru didn't respond right away; Mondo still couldn't make himself look at him, and when the reply finally did come, it felt like he had been punched in the chest.

>Did you ever find it again?

Mondo swiped at his face, willing away the tears that were threatening to well up; when he looked up at the screen again, he smiled, trying to make the expression as reassuring as possible.

>yeah, i did
>i mean you're here, right?




Whether Ishimaru was there or not, however, another hit to morale came early the next day - negotiations with Kamukura and Komaeda had ultimately failed. Their current relations didn't seem to be hostile, at least, but the knowledge that they'd only just managed to reach stalemate hung heavy in the base; just the same, Mondo couldn't help but feel anxious for another reason entirely.

Surely, this meant Ishimaru would be returning soon.

He wasn't Kiyotaka, and he never would be; just the same, Mondo found himself wanting to see him, to hold him and know that he was real, to be able to see for himself that he was still alive and well. Ishimaru returned two days after news had reached them, flanked by Oogami and Ikusaba, who had been serving as bodyguards during his time away; none of them were prepared when gunshots rang out as they were crossing the asphalt, directly outside the doors to Future Foundation's headquarters.

Mondo had been waiting for them in the lobby, and he'd jumped to his feet as soon as the first splash of blood had hit the glass doors leading outside; he didn't need to see exactly what had happened to figure out whose blood it was - there was some part of him that simply knew, even before Oogami had burst through those doors, holding Ishimaru tightly in her arms.

Mondo had all but grabbed him from Oogami, who was more than fine with handing him over before dashing back outside as not to leave Ikusaba alone out there; Ishimaru was bleeding heavily from the back of his head and didn't appear to be conscious, but the soft noise of protest when he was passed over to Mondo was more than enough to verify that he was somehow, miraculously, still alive.

Even so, however, Mondo knew that wouldn't last long; they didn't have anywhere near enough medical experience between them to treat this. He tried to avoid touching the utter mess that was the back of Ishimaru's skull, instead kneeling so he could set his brother down on the ground; that just got another pained noise out of him, though this one was sharper, more desperate in pitch, and even after it died down Mondo could still hear quiet cries in the back of Ishimaru's throat, sounds that he didn't seem to be aware of making when he exhaled, and Mondo could feel the panic coursing through his body - even if there was nothing that he could do, Ishimaru was in pain and he had no idea how to alleviate it.

He moved almost on instinct, slinging his coat off in one fluid motion before pulling it over Ishimaru's shoulders, wrapping the fabric around his body as tightly as possible before folding him into a firm embrace, nuzzling into his shoulder and speaking as softly as he could into his ear; he didn't know if Ishimaru could hear him, and even if he could Mondo had no way of knowing whether he was in any condition to understand, but he kept talking - telling him that everything would be all right even though it wouldn't, telling him that he would miss him, telling him that he would see him again someday.

He didn't say that he loved him, not now - not as a lover, but as his brother; just the same, saying it would make it too real.

He could feel Ishimaru beginning to go slack in his arms, those soft cries finally quieting down, and for a cold, frightened moment Mondo wasn't sure if it was because he was managing to soothe him or if Ishimaru was truly beginning to die; the uncertainty just made him pull Ishimaru closer against his body, and for the first time in over a year, he found himself crying. His words shifted into something he couldn't remember saying since Kiyotaka had died the first time in their own private purgatory; that realization would hurt later (why hadn't he been there for him?) but for the time being, they were the only words he had.

Kyoudai, I want you to know that I'll always love you, and I'll never forget you - I'm going to be here for you until the end.




Ikusaba had been injured in the firefight outside of headquarters; she had insisted they were flesh wounds, that she could deal with it, and for the most part she was right. If anything, she seemed annoyed that she had gone for so long without a single nick or scar courtesy of the battlefield, only to be hit in the damn thigh during an ambush on their own soil. None of them were sure what to do with the bullet; it was decided that it would be best for them to just leave it there.

Oogami was less fortunate - she'd taken way more than one shot - but knowing how much she could live through in all those alternate timelines was more than enough for Mondo to not be too worried; their biggest concern was most likely that she'd deal with the bullets herself - something that Asahina was keeping a close watch over by now, besides.

Mondo couldn't sit still in the infirmary with them; not while he knew that Ishimaru was in one of the cold chambers of the morgue one flight of steps down, still wrapped in his coat. He would be there until they could work out what to do with his body - burying him seemed like too much of a risk right now, and if he were more rational Mondo could see why they wouldn't want to chance the outside world at the moment. But for the time being he wasn't rational; he scared the hell out of Fujisaki when he slammed into that office he'd taken over, the door bouncing back and closing itself after whacking solidly against the wall, and he was quick to demand that a connection be put through to Naegi.

After all, it was likely that the others didn't know yet.

Fujisaki had secured a connection as quickly as he could, his hands shaking so badly against the keyboard that Mondo immediately felt guilty; he tried to talk to him, receiving only headshakes or nods for his effort while Fujisaki's eyes brimmed with tears, and after a while Mondo had fallen silent, trying not to distract him while he worked.

After a while, however, the connection had gone up, and it had taken a moment for the other Hope's Peak graduates to be notified; Mondo had taken up his position behind the keyboard, insisting that Fujisaki didn't need to be the one to break the news and trying to pretend that he didn't notice how relieved Fujisaki looked, in spite of his best attempts not to.

By the time Mondo returned his attention to the screen, someone was visible over the feed, waiting for him to notice their presence; he was incensed to see that it wasn't Naegi.

>i didn't ask for you, togami
>and i don't have time for this shit
>where's naegi
>He's not here.
>Any problems you people are having over there can be taken up just as easily with me.

Mondo could feel his lip curling; he glanced up just in time to notice Togami was doing the same through irritation. The realization was enough to make him want to punch the screen.

>i just said i don't have time for your shit!!
>where's naegi
>And I just said that he's not here. That should be good enough for you.
>Come on, Oowada.
>Read.
>I know it's hard, but you can do it.
>look, you smug son of a bitch
>i'm not discussing this with anyone but naegi
>so you'd better find him
>Believe me, if I could just foist you off on Naegi, I would have done it already.
>You know it's not always that simple.

Togami seemed to hesitate then, a flicker of uncertainty crossing his expression before he bit it back hard and sent another line of text, one simple word that set off another flurry of messages.

>"This"...?
>yeah
>that thing i'm not going to discuss with you
>get naegi or so fucking help me togami
>Stop being a child.
>Did something happen?
>Where are the others? Did they not arrive?

Mondo swore under his breath, not caring if Togami could see it over the feed.

>they arrived
>So what's the issue?

Mondo returned his attention to the screen for a moment; Togami was leaning a bit closer to the screen, his expression odd - it wasn't exactly concerned, but somehow Mondo was becoming aware that it was probably the closest Togami was capable of getting. That expression, along with the sudden and very unwelcome knowledge that Togami was probably just as scared as the rest of them, made Mondo both hate him and trust him entirely; for that brief moment, Togami was a person instead of just a sadistic asshole that Mondo could write off entirely, and it was uncomfortably easy to allow himself to respond to him.

>ishimaru's dead
>What??
>do you see why i wanted to tell naegi instead of you
>make a snide remark and i swear to god
>i'll kill you
>the next time i see you i will fucking kill you
>there will not be any forgiving that shit
>so don't start
>ishimaru is dead
>What you're going to do right now is calm down and knock it off.
>Or just knock it off, if you can't calm down.
>What happened?
>i don't know
>How useful.
>what the fuck did i just say
>don't start
>...Continue, then.
>look
>shots were fired
>shit happened really fast
>the girls are ok
>ikusaba's ok
>oogami's ok
>but ishimaru was hit bad
>took a bullet to the brain, through the back of his head
>right now he is in the morgue
>wearing the jacket i put on him when he died in my fucking arms
>and i am not in the mood for your shit
>do you believe this is serious now??
>go get naegi
>It has nothing to do with whether I think it's serious or not; I meant what I said earlier.
>He's not here, and he's not in a place where I can contact him easily.
>I would have done so already if I could.
>I'll notify him as soon as possible, however. Naegi and Kirigiri both.
>thanks i guess
>It's not a favor; they deserve to know.
>After all, we're going to need a new leader.

And even though Mondo knew that the statement was true and that it was pragmatic enough and that Togami probably didn't know what to say that didn't involve somehow being an asshole, it was the wrong thing to say; Mondo simply got up and stormed out, leaving Fujisaki to deal with Togami.

To his credit, the kid had followed up with him later; Fujisaki had approached him that night, in his room, to tell him that Naegi had been notified, and he only had two incredibly shaky words to offer when Mondo asked how it had gone.

"...He cried."




Kirigiri's first move as their temporary acting leader was to get in contact with headquarters and tell them to remain under lockdown until given further instructions. Her second was to order them to sequester Mukuro Ikusaba.

"Just for the time being," she'd said, though her voice was cold as she said it. "Until we find out how Super High-School Level Despair was tipped off."

To her credit, Ikusaba went easily; it was enough to make Mondo believe her when she'd kept her head high and insisted that she wasn't responsible, her words quiet but shaking with anger. She wasn't dressed as her sister that day; her expression might as well have been carved from stone, severe under the dark fringe of her hair.

He'd locked her up anyway. Until they could be sure.

Ishimaru was cremated that day; as much as it hurt to know that he was going to have to break yet another promise he'd made, Mondo wasn't able to be there for it. He couldn't stand to watch; in the end, he'd allowed them to burn his bloodstained coat along with his brother's body.

He spent the short while dedicated to Ishimaru's funeral in the room they'd modified to lock from the outside, sitting with Ikusaba; at one point she asked him, bluntly and insensitively, why he'd wrapped Ishimaru up like that. At the time she'd interpreted it as trying to bind him, to keep him from thrashing or fighting, but that didn't make sense to her - she'd been able to tell that Ishimaru was dying, to the point of telling Oogami to leave him for now, he was a lost cause, to try to help her find the source of the shots.

Mondo was glad that Oogami had ignored her; he wasn't surprised at it, because Oogami wasn't a goddamn sociopath.

Deep down he didn't think Ikusaba was either, really; just the same, he wasn't able to explain to her why he'd acted as he did. It was just something that he had done, without thinking; however, the question resurfaced at the back of his mind late that night, after he'd dropped back heavily onto his bed, arm draped over his eyes.

It was then that he remembered Kiyotaka.

It was little things, really, things Mondo had dismissed as quirks at the time - the way he'd always try to get clothes that were just a little too tight, even if he was purchasing them new, until Mondo finally realized it was something he was doing on purpose and had gently tried to get him to stop swearing vengeance against clothes that actually fit; how much he liked fabric that was stiff enough to make Mondo's skin crawl just looking at it; the way he'd undress after days that they'd both known were going to be stressful and Mondo couldn't help but notice that he'd pre-emptively wrapped his abdomen in sarashi like a cagefighter. How he had been wearing that long embroidered coat that first time that Mondo had come back from the hell that was Hope's Peak, how he'd refused to return Mondo's embrace for a long period of time because he'd been overwhelmed and he'd simply twisted his fists in the fabric, pulling the coat tightly around his body; how he hadn't fought against that embrace, either, and if anything he'd encouraged it with nuzzling up despite his tears until Mondo was holding him so tightly he would have been concerned about breaking him if he weren't so fucking relieved.

It occurred to him that the tightness and constriction was a comfort thing, something Mondo had known about without really realizing that he'd known about it; after all, Kiyotaka had always seemed to feel safest when Mondo was holding him, and he never tried to squirm or pull away from his embrace unless Mondo's grip was tight to the point of hurting him.

Thinking about Kiyotaka burned in ways that Mondo hadn't experienced in a while, and he found himself unsure if using the same sort of comfort Kiyotaka would have preferred on his counterpart in this world was really okay; he'd always known that they were different people, and that one horrible moment of line-blurring - that time he'd almost kissed Ishimaru before letting him leave for the last time - hadn't amounted to anything in the end. Most of the time they had been so similar it hurt, but Mondo couldn't forget that time he'd noticed that strange fluttering motion that Ishimaru had started doing when he was upset - that thing he still couldn't remember Kiyotaka doing, no matter how much he'd tried to recall it.

He'd snapped over onto his side on the bed then, punching the mattress hard; it didn't do much to stop that thick, heady sense of guilt flooding through his system, but it did release some of the confusion and the frustration it brought with it, enough to let him lie back down and drop his arm over his eyes again, teeth gritted, the skin of his forearm quickly becoming soaked with tears.




The worst part about it was how he expected Ishimaru to come back someday.

He knew it wouldn't happen, not in this world; this world wasn't like his private purgatory, where everything was hell but it would always fix itself if he just waited long enough. That didn't keep him from tensing up a bit at those increasingly rare occasions when someone knocked on his door; it didn't erase the ache that came when he opened the door and realized that he wasn't going to be greeted by some version of the man he loved. That he was never going to see him again.

Sometimes his thoughts turned morbid; sometimes he wondered if he'd feel it if Kiyotaka died, too. Would he be able to tell at all? Would it be something he knew, in that same innate way he had of knowing that there was no going back? On particularly dark days, he had to wonder if it even mattered anymore; he didn't fault Kiyotaka at all for it because he was simply surviving the best way he knew how, but Mondo couldn't help but think that any day now, one of his deeper fears would be realized - that Kiyotaka would lose himself, that he would force Ishida into taking control and refuse to wake up again.

Mondo had never really understood how Ishida had come into being; in all honesty, he wasn't sure he wanted to understand. The idea of becoming someone else, of something going so wrong in your head that your personality changed and you no longer recognized your own name, was terrifying; sometimes, during those particularly dark days, he tried to imagine what it would feel like. To have someone else in your head, to not be in control of your body, to know that there were periods of time when you would have no control over anything - when what you did and what you said and what you thought were dictated by someone else, someone you didn't even know and had no way to speak to, and you wouldn't remember any of it but you would still have to live with the consequences of whatever 'you' had done.

Trying to fathom it all was horrifying; Mondo couldn't think about it for longer than a few minutes at a time before the fear would get to be too much. After a few instances of this, of thinking about it and imagining it and trying to understand, he was hit by a realization that scared him on a second, far deeper level - that realization being that if he wanted to, he could back off; he could calm himself down and tell himself that it wasn't anything that was really happening, that he was okay, that there wasn't any danger of losing himself like that. If he wanted to, Mondo could stop thinking about it.

Kiyotaka couldn't.

...now I can't even die on my own terms, because there's that thing stuck in my head and I can't get it out -

Mondo was certain those words had been spoken in anger; they had been fighting when Kiyotaka had screamed them, and it was likely that they weren't anything that he meant, at least not in any sort of complete way. Kiyotaka had always been a fighter, and Mondo doubted that 'giving up' was even an option for him; if it had been - truly had been - then Ishida wouldn't have come into being in the first place. But even so, he couldn't shake off the implications behind Kiyotaka's words, now that they had shown up unwanted in his head - the thought that he hated Ishida, not just because he was a sign that Kiyotaka wasn't mentally stable, but because Ishida was standing firmly in the way of Kiyotaka killing himself. And could Mondo really blame him for thinking that way? He only had a vague understanding of what it must be like to live like that; he couldn't even begin to fathom having to do it all the time, all while keeping up an appearance of everything being completely normal on the outside.

And that wasn't even taking into account the problems on Ishida's end - Mondo couldn't be sure if Ishida had started out as an entirely different individual or if he was just some sort of weird defense mechanism in the beginning, but it was obvious that being active so long had made him into his own separate person, with his own thoughts and feelings and memories; what must it be like to know that you weren't supposed to exist? To have no memories for most of your physical life, yet be expected to handle every crisis that was thrown your way, even if you didn't know what had caused the crisis in the first place or what the crisis even was? How many times had Ishida awakened only to be forced into a fight immediately, with no time to think or prepare or understand what was happening to him? No one was ever around to explain it, after all - it was no wonder that Ishida was such a mess.

Mondo didn't know what to do with these sorts of thoughts; in several ways, he came to loathe the realizations. After all, there was nothing he could do about them now. One thought, however, did remain constant - if, by some miracle, he was ever reunited with Kiyotaka and Ishida, he would never allow either of them to call themselves weak again.




He must have looked crazy.

That was about the only constant that Mondo was aware of - he must have looked completely and utterly insane. Maybe he was; maybe this had finally been too much. Was it something he should feel guilty for - that he'd settled into a state of complacency and no longer caring about anything after Kiyotaka had died one too many times, but after this world's counterpart had died, he'd finally just dissolved into a state of despair that would have made Enoshima proud? He didn't know anymore, and worse, he didn't know what to do about it; he just knew that this time, the pain wasn't stopping.

He talked to them daily; sometimes it was this world's counterpart that he was addressing, but usually it was Kiyotaka. He spoke to him as though he was there, as though he could answer; sometimes he would ask for advice that he knew wasn't going to come. Sometimes he would scream at him, demand to know why he wasn't there with him, though that often left him feeling worse than he had when he started; more often than not, he would just tell him how he felt, tell him how much it hurt before just sitting on the bed and losing hours crying.

They'd been under lockdown for the last week.

The others spent a while debating what should be done with Ishimaru's room; Mondo hadn't been able to stay for the discussion. That didn't change the fact that one of Mondo's 'sessions' with Kiyotaka had been interrupted late one night by a firm knock on the door from Asahina; she looked awkward, playing with her hands a bit before she just started in on it.

"They want to go through Ishimaru-dono's things tomorrow," she said, the words leaving her all in a rush; she was quick to form fists in front of her body, determination in her eyes as she continued. "You were his best friend; I don't think it's right for the others to go through his belongings before you have a chance to."

Mondo just stared at her; Asahina's resolve hadn't wavered, and her next words were enough to get him to follow her.

"I think it's what he would have wanted."

Asahina was obviously nervous when she let Mondo into Ishimaru's room; he didn't know where she'd gotten the key, and she seemed too anxiously chirpy to answer him properly even if he'd managed to ask her - she was obviously trying to make it out like everything was okay and this was perfectly normal even though that was horribly wrong on both counts, talking about things that were completely irrelevant to anything at all.

She fumbled with the keys somewhat before finally getting the door open; she let Mondo go in before her, but he turned around to look at her in time to catch the way she shivered a little, rubbing her arms despite the fact that it wasn't cold in the room at all.

"Everything okay?" he asked; she smiled sheepishly, clearly trying to look less awkward than she felt and failing miserably.

"I...I've never been in a dead person's room before," she admitted. "It feels weird. Like trespassing."

Mondo shook his head, turning his attention to the shelves over Ishimaru's bed, looking for those familiar boxes of cards that he figured Ishimaru must have remade at some point. "I don't think he's haunting the room or anything, Asahina. Even if he was, it's Ishimaru - he wouldn't hurt anyone." He smirked a bit, in spite of himself. "He'd probably just yell at us for breaking the rules about entering someone's room without permission."

Asahina laughed a little, though it wasn't exactly a happy sound; if anything, it seemed to startle her. Like she wasn't sure it was okay. "That's what's so weird," she said; Mondo could hear her move to lean back against the wall behind him. "I keep thinking that he's going to come in and catch us. Being in here with all his stuff makes it feel like he's not really gone, you know?"

Mondo closed his eyes, trying to will away the sudden mental image of Kiyotaka curled up on that bed they'd shared, looking rough around the edges and wrapped up in Mondo's coat; he'd found him that way often, shortly after one of them would return from Hope's Peak. That coat had always been loose on him, but there had been times when Kiyotaka was obviously not taking care of himself, when he'd lost weight to the point that it'd been visible in his face; was he okay now, or had he stopped eating again?

He breathed deeply before he responded. "Yeah, I know."

Asahina shifted a little; he could hear her clothes rustling. "I'm really sorry," she said eventually. "About what happened."

"Was the funeral nice?" Mondo didn't know where the question had come from; he just knew that suddenly he had to ask.

"It was as nice as it could be, I think." For a moment, it seemed like that was all she was going to say on the matter; her voice was tinged with something painful when she spoke again. "It was terrible seeing him so still."

Mondo found those boxes he was looking for, stacked neatly on top of a small pile of those class notes; after a moment's consideration, he took the notes too, setting them on that small table near the bed as he turned to face Asahina again. He was surprised to see that she was crying, face downturned and small streams of tears trickling down her cheeks; her shoulders were shaking a little, but overall the crying was understated, downright delicate compared to what he was used to.

He moved toward her without thinking, stopping in front of her and laying a hand on her shoulder awkwardly. "You okay?"

She nodded, sniffling a little. "It was just...really awful, you know? He was always so..." She gestured a bit, moving her hands in tight, small circles in front of her. "I don't know, so active, and seeing him like that..."

Mondo shifted a bit, wrapping an arm around her in an awkward, one-armed embrace. "Yeah, I know."

Asahina turned toward him, burying her face in his shoulder. "Was it at least peaceful, when he died?"

His thoughts flashed to those quiet sounds Ishimaru was making, the way those pained cries had slowly tapered off into cold, slack nothingness; after a long moment, he nodded. "Yeah...yeah, it was peaceful."




In the end, Mondo had taken the study materials, the class notes, and that red armband that Ishimaru had always worn with his usual school uniform; he'd left the rest for the others. He tried to respect Ishimaru's privacy after that day in his room with Asahina; it wasn't long before Mondo couldn't contain his curiosity anymore and had gone through those class notes that Ishimaru had been keeping.

There weren't any deep secrets in there, but Mondo hadn't really expected any; the majority of what Ishimaru had written down was surprisingly clinical, detailing life within the headquarters - mostly notes from meetings in some sort of ridiculous shorthand that Mondo couldn't even begin to figure out. There were a few personal things in there that brought with them a sick, dull ache - thoughts on what could possibly come of that disastrous meeting with Super High-School Level Despair, some musing about the future where Ishimaru had had to start over again on another page because his hand had started shaking so badly that his writing had gone illegible - but there were some unexpected good things as well, buried among all the fear and anxiousness about the unknown: small drawings in the margins once in a while (simple things likes cubes and eyes and poorly-drawn crystals) and little notes to himself, the date when everyone had returned to headquarters to celebrate that one-year anniversary written in large numbers and followed by about half a million exclamation points, a few random lines detailing his excitement over simple things.

It hurt, but it felt good to know that there had been some good times in there, too; it seemed that Ishimaru had stopped updating that particular notebook shortly after the date had been settled, however. Mondo set it aside, not wanting to think about why Ishimaru had stopped updating that one but suspecting it may have had something to do with his suicide attempt; he hesitated, then reached for another that he'd seen a reasonably short while before.

It was one that had been among Ishimaru's belongings when he'd returned to headquarters; it had been laid in his room after he'd been shot.

It was thicker than the others for some reason, the pages laying strangely, though opening it immediately revealed why; it wasn't a proper notebook, or even a journal - instead, it was filled with pictures, taped onto the pages in meticulous order.

They weren't proper photographs; no one in the base had a camera, after all. Instead, they were printouts, and judging by the fact that they were timestamped in the corner they must have been taken from security videos, from the feeds set up around the building. Mondo supposed in some ways that was probably creepy; however, there was nothing indecent in there (as though Ishimaru would dare do anything that out of line) and if anything, the longer he looked at them, the more endearing Mondo found it.

Some of them, the early pictures, were simple - Asahina braiding Fukawa's hair; a few shots of Fujisaki sitting behind his laptop, a rather placid smile across his features; Mondo and Ishimaru drinking coffee and laughing over something that was probably extremely stupid in retrospect but at the time had seemed like the most amusing thing on the planet. The majority of the book, however, seemed dedicated to those two weeks when everyone had been there - everyone gathered around the long table in the meeting room, arguing about something; Yamada taking Ishimaru aside to show him that black uniform he'd made for him; a few images of Mondo himself, usually with Ishimaru but sometimes with others, having conversations that Mondo can't remember by now; Kuwata and Hagakure playing Beirut while Togami and Ishimaru looked unimpressed in the background.

It had been good times, really; Mondo found himself smiling despite the sting.

The rest of the images were against nondescript backgrounds, somewhere Mondo couldn't even begin to identify; they were the only pictures that appeared to have been taken with a proper camera. There were a few that served to establish who was there in general - group shots of Ikusaba, Oogami, Kirigiri, Togami and Naegi, and once in a while Ishimaru as well if someone else, some unseen seventh person could be found to hold the camera - but even though Mondo had no way to know if it was intentional or not, it soon became obvious that Naegi had been Ishimaru's favorite out of the people he was staying with. It was natural, if he thought about it - the only other guy there that Ishimaru knew well was Togami, after all, and he'd never really seemed to bond with girls very well - but it still felt strange, to see how many pictures Ishimaru had taken of Naegi (many were casual, seemingly taken without Naegi's knowledge) and decided to keep. It took him a long time to place the feeling; he didn't like the conclusion he came to.

It wasn't jealousy, exactly, because Ishimaru wasn't his fiancé; just the same, it was strange to think of someone so similar to Kiyotaka being so fixated on someone else. He wondered, vaguely, if Ishimaru had fallen for Naegi instead, or if he had just been taken in by Naegi's kindness and considered him a close friend; he pushed those thoughts away as quickly as he could. There was no point in thinking about it; he'd never get an answer.

He gave up on the notebook shortly after that, flipping through the pages backwards as he moved to close it; something he had missed at the very beginning caught his eye, however, and he was quick to open it again, taking a look at the picture taped to the inside of the front cover.

It was one of all of them, sitting around a table in one of the common areas; Mondo recognized it immediately - it was one of those games of Greed that Celes would start up in the evenings. It had been a night when they'd gotten Ishimaru to sit down and play with the rest of them; even Ikusaba was there, sitting with a notepad in her lap and keeping score. Maizono had the dice, and she seemed to be concentrating on rolling a five as though her life depended on it; everyone seemed relaxed, however - relaxed and actually happy, despite how moments like that were few and far between nowadays.

The words written beneath it were simple: We must not lose hope.

Something deep inside his chest seemed to crack at that, a sharp, cold feeling trickling through his body like slowly-melting ice; he was standing before he registered deciding to do so in the first place, making his way to that room where they'd been keeping Ikusaba since the incident.

Ikusaba looked up as he entered, running her fingers through those longer locks of hair framing her face, tucking them back behind her ears; Mondo studied her for a moment before saying anything.

"You think you can take out whoever's responsible for us locking down the place?"

Ikusaba stared at him. "I think so." She hesitated, then shook her head as though to clear it. "Yes. If I have a direction, I can find them and stop them."

It wasn't convincing; if anything, it just served as a reminder that Ikusaba was just as much of a kid as the rest of them. Mondo reached toward her anyway. Gestured. Indicated she should follow.

She let him lead her outside the room, though her expression was skeptical. "Did Kirigiri send you?"

"Nah, I'm doing this on my own."

A pause. Then one word. "...Why?"

Mondo glanced over his shoulder at her. "Because we didn't escape that hellhole just to lock ourselves away again."




The only thing Mondo was really aware of by the end of the battle was that getting shot hurt like hell.

He didn't even have time to register what was happening before the world outside quite simply exploded into a hail of gunfire. He could hear Ikusaba spring away, boots heavy against the ground when she came down and took off at a run; he remembered the vague, inane thought of give 'em hell registering in his mind before he quite simply passed out hard.

He awakened to what felt like fire spreading throughout his body, radiating outward from at least six points by his count, though he wasn't really conscious enough to tell; that didn't seem to be what had actually succeeded in waking him up, however - that was credited to the sharp sting on his left cheek.

Ikusaba sighed heavily when he woke up, relief apparent in her eyes even if it wasn't visible on the rest of her face; she lowered her right hand where it'd been raised to slap him again.

"Hey...is it over?" he asked, knowing that the question was stupid as soon as it was out there.

"Yeah," she said, her gaze darting down to the ground; Mondo had to wonder if there was a lot of blood, or if she was just trying to find somewhere else to look. Probably both. "It's over."

"Get 'em all?"

"I think so. They've left us alone for now, at any rate."

"Go get the others and get them the fuck out. Take them with you, meet up with the others."

She paused for a moment, then nodded again, closing her eyes. "Of course."

Mondo laughed a bit, the sound breathy; it wasn't exactly a happy sound. "Fuck, you never told me how bad this shit burns."

Ikusaba was quiet long enough that Mondo was almost convinced she wasn't going to reply; he was on the verge of passing out again when she finally spoke, and it took more effort than he wanted to admit to wake up again. "Sorry, what?" he said; for a brief moment she looked mildly alarmed, and he realized how badly slurred that must have been.

"I asked if you even had a plan," she repeated, sweeping her hair away from her face again. "For when we came out here. You didn't have to come with me."

Mondo could feel his body relax a bit against the ground; the burning was starting to subside into cold nothingness. "Hey, you said you needed a direction; easier to tell if you're not the one getting shot at, right?"

Ikusaba fell silent after that, which was fine with Mondo because there was really nothing else to say; she simply reached out and took his hand, then stayed sitting on the pavement with him until he died.




As he'd thought, Mondo wasn't returned to their private purgatory after his death; however, he wasn't prepared for where he did wake up - sitting in one of the classrooms in Hope's Peak, his head cradled in his arms as though he'd simply fallen asleep during class. It took a while before the darkened room registered in his mind - the empty desks, the heavy steel plates blocking any sunlight from outside, the Monobear-themed graffiti on the blackboard, all things he'd seen too many times before; he could feel himself standing up, dimly registering that his long black coat was here and no longer coated in Ishimaru's blood as he did so, and he made his way over to those plates covering the windows.

He drew his hand back and punched it, once, hard, drawing a dull, resonating thud from the thick metal; he could feel the skin over his knuckles split as he did so and he swore loudly, but in some sick way it was almost worth the pain.

He took the lower hem of his shirt between his hands and tore off a section of it, wrapping the strip of fabric around the injury as a sort of makeshift bandage until he could get his hands on something better; he didn't have much time to dwell on it, however, before something else immediately came to his attention.

The sound of doors down the corridor being shoved open and abruptly slammed shut again; the heavy clatter of someone walking quickly through the hallway. Mondo closed his eyes, smiling a little despite how hideous the entire situation was - he would recognize that particular tread anywhere, and the brisk pace, just short of running, amused him more than it probably should have given the circumstances.

After all, running in the halls was against the rules.

Mondo turned when the door behind him swung open; there he was, alive and not looking a day over seventeen in the immaculate white uniform and knee-high boots and that red armband of his, the steady rise and fall of his chest heavy as he tried to catch his breath.

"Ishimaru, right...?" he said, the words guarded; if the kid questioned how he knew, he could always tell him that he'd looked him up on that ridiculous website.

Mondo wasn't prepared for what he got in return - the uncertain smile, the recognition in his eyes. The absolute last response he would have expected came as the uncertainty faded away, replaced by that smile that implied that everything was suddenly right with the world. That everything was going to be okay.

"Mondo?"