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Only three had risen and stumbled from the aftermath of the school's destruction.
Kaede, Maki and Ryoma.
Again, Kaede can't help but find the painful irony in the situation at hand. How the one man who had advocated so strongly for his own death in the favour of another, had lived to see the sun once more.
The same could be said for Maki, who seemingly had no regard for her own life. She didn't care if she was dead nor alive. She took each day as it came.
And Kaede? Perhaps in some sense she had taken life for granted beforehand. She gained a newfound appreciation for each slight inhale she took of the fresh air outside the enclosed space of the dome that had surrounded her hell once upon a time.
Yet something within her feels fundamentally broken.
A little unorthodox given her character. Once so determined and enthusiastic.
As if she feels disconnected from reality itself.
In hindsight, all this truly was just a disjointed departure. As far as Kaede can recall, nobody had any pre existing relations before the killing game had taken place. Nobody had shown any early correlation with another students memories. To put it short, everyone was no more than a stranger to the other.
And Kaede had enforced the far from lackluster determination onto those nonnative students. Upon people she probably wouldn't have even shared a glance with walking down the street. Yet there she was, heaving every ounce of her energy into fabricating some sort of synergy amongst the group.
and where did that lead?
Straight to twelve graves. Sans Tsumugi's. (For obvious reasons she didn't care to openly express.) Twelve graves of people who were mere strangers not a month before. Twelve bodies subjected to the suffocation beneath the earth's damp, dense surface.
The killing game, was nothing more than an excuse for bloodshed. But in the grand scheme of things, it had drawn together sixteen students. Bound in the exhilaration and tension of losing their lives to one another.
And Kaede had met them. Each individual. All with varying interests and backgrounds. Every last one of them, had a life before the killing game, and a life to return to. With expectant loved ones waiting at home, in anticipation for their fated survival.
Only to be met, with the irrefutable news, that the once they held so dearly, lies six feet deep. Or in the most likely case, discarded in a ditch somewhere.
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Kaede's breath hitches in her throat.
The future foundation had permitted a memoriam to be held for the twelve fallen students, excluding Tsumugi. While it was to be arranged on their terms. It was not to be held on their private grounds, and were more in favour of it being held at the remnants of where once stood the ultimate academy for gifted juveniles. Given they never were truly alumni of Hopes peak.
That part was hard enough, returning somewhere so ripe with death, and the constant reminder that mortality truly is a bitch.
The ceremony was also to be conducted by Kaede, Ryoma and Maki themselves, with little help from any third parties, given their branches often busy schedules.
What did she expect though? They didn't know everyone who participated in the killing game personally. To them, they're just names of the fallen.
But to Kaede they were friends.
And someone else seems to constantly persist, a nagging feeling which tugs at her heart strings.
somewhere, the dull reverberation of an inventors boisterous laughter plagues her mind.
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Evening had fell the night prior to the upcoming service. A vermilion tinge of the ethereal luminescence of the evening skies had reflected upon the one standing wall of the rubble of the ultimate academy.
In some way, it was strangely peaceful. Most noticeably being in the fact that the debris which had crushed Tsumugi's body was now absent. But that was more in terms of Kaede's personal preference of there not being a literal corpse within her sights. If it wasn't that which had brought the outlandish feeling of peace, what exactly was it?
Kaede had managed to find an old wooden board, salvaged from the rubble of a classroom, and wheeled it towards where once stood the entrance, smack bam in the middle for all to see.
Maki and Ryoma had been tasked with retrieving photos of each deceased student from loved ones. Photos specifically of them in better times. Back when the killing game held no significance in their lives, and they were simply teenagers.
teenagers who deserved to grow up. To live.
Obviously enough, Maki and Ryoma had returned with solemn faces, most noticeably being they had looked at each photo. And Kaede had been met with (to no surprise) a synonymous reaction as she pulled each print from the aged cardboard box, each one of the twelve ghosts, varying smiles and eyes inked into the photo.
The process is gradual, as she takes her time to linger on each photo. Like the one of Himiko, who had been looking up expectantly and innocently at the camera. It felt so uncanny, seeing everyone in such casual clothing, noticeably devoid of the uniform she had once seen them in everyday.
If she knew no better, she'd assume they were all just teenagers. Nothing more.
A particularly harsh heartthrob seems to ache through her when she lifts Shuichi's from the box, someone she had once held dear in the matter of a few days. Who had sacrificed his own life in likes of her own.
Blood had what she had thought at the time, stained her hands. And he had wiped her clean, inevitably staining himself in the process. And he died for it.
She had so hopelessly blamed Miu, for the deaths of Kokichi and Gonta, when in retrospect how was she any better? When she herself had trekked in Shuichi's and Rantaro's blood, which ran stale against the ground she walked on?
Pinning shuichi's picture to the board, she takes a marker from her blazer pocket, etching his name into the hard board. To be read. To be remembered.
She reaches for the box again, rummaging through the remaining pictures, pulling one out with a swift flick of her wrist. And for some reason, she winces softly as she flips it over to look at who exactly it was.
oh.
"Miu." Her voice heightens, threatening to crack, her calloused fingers digging into the already worn print.
Her way in mourning Miu had been nothing short of abnormal. She had once been so adamant she hated Miu, following the fourth trial and Gonta's eventual Demise. Where Miu had imposed herself as the mastermind, willingly dragging everyone around her own falsehood. Some twisted manner, that of course could only be fabricated by her, to stop any killings.
She had killed herself, with no second thought to halt the killing game once and for all. Crushing herself to a bloody pulp beneath that hydraulic press, under the disguise of Kaito Momota. Truly tricking every one for one final time.
And that familiar dull heartache, reverbs against her hollow ribcage, each ache coursing throughout her body. How was it she mourned so strongly for Miu? Someone she was once so sure she despised the very existence of.
nothing really made sense anymore.
Looking down at the photo, Kaede can't help but make a hushed remark at how normal Miu seems in the photograph. The familiarity of Miu's once detached expression is noticeably astray.
Kaede had seen Miu, every waking moment within that hellhole. Looked into that ocean of blue which pooled into something sinister beneath the surface every day, and truly believed that was who Miu was.
But who was she to believe her own inquiries on Miu? When she had been proven so pitifully wrong by Miu's sacrifice in retaliation to the killing games continuation?
She finds herself, tracing the outline of Miu's form, her fingers outlining Miu's face, looking down at the picture with lidded eyes, almost absent mindedly, as if caressing the girl.
It had never really dawned on her, why exactly she had spent each moment of free time within the vulgar girls presence. Even going so far as to tolerate the over the top persona, staying around and watching the mask wilt, second by second, day by day.
She had managed to uncover a portion of Miu's true self, to be exposed to her and her alone.
And she'd be lying, (much in likeness to Kokichi and Miu) if she were to say she didn't enjoy each second she spent with Miu. Each word the two exchanged. The ones in secret being her most treasured. An intimate moment shared between them, and them alone.
"lemme guess kaeidiot. A fraction of ya hates me," her fingers trail up Kaede's sweater, inching dangerously to the hem of her v neck.
"And the other part..."
How exactly could she refute, the feelings she had harboured for Miu within their entrapment? The slight feeling of attraction which only intensified as it interlaced itself within Kaede's body.
Did Miu even reciprocate such feelings? The inventor was a mystery, an embodiment of her own lies towards the end. To be read by no one, understood by no one. Perhaps she held no significance to Miu, and was simply dragged along for the inventors process.
And yet, a nagging feeling, pitted deep within her stomach tells her 'no.' that in some way, the time her and Miu had spent within the seclusion of the others comfort had all been genuine. That each word that fell out of her mouth held credibility.
"well I suppose that part fuckin' loves me."
She didn't even realize, when her sudden prolonged mourning had condensed into tears, which dropped onto the photograph gripped so tightly within her grasp.
Just how long, had she remained blissfully ignorant of Miu's detoriating facade? That went from that of feigned confidence to something so ominous and overbearing it made Kaede just want to retch.
Miu in herself, was a rose. One of the most beautiful roses Kaede had ever stumbled upon. Pitifully wilting away, wasted within in its own neglect and deprivation, waiting to be saved. To be met with love. And Kaede could have given that.
And of fucking course, roses had to adorn their thorns. And Miu certainly had her thorns. Ones which pricked Kaede harshly any time she stepped too close, dangerously neared to unravelling yet another hard fit layer of the frantic inventor.
Sleepless nights were spent, accompanied by the plaguing feeling of guilt and an onslaught of tears, in wondered confusion of just what Miu had thought of within her final moments. Whether she had truly been ready to lay down her life. Or if she was scared. And died alone.
What explanation was there for it? That Kaede had so pathetically fooled herself in believing she hated Miu for her past actions within the game, yet the moment Kaito had risen from that exisal that faithful day, her knees had given way from beneath her?
That she had wailed miserably, wishing hopelessly that it was Miu who had climbed out of the metallic structure? Just so she could hold Miu one last time, to feel the warmth of the strawberry blonde against herself. The living warmth of Miu.
And what had ripped her heart in two, her throat restricting and wanting to just fucking vomit was when Kaito had turned to Kaede within his own final moments, blood trickling from his mouth as he placed a shaky hand on her shoulder.
"she called for you before she died."
And that was when it had dawned on her.
The two's contrasting personalities which had roamed the school's hallways within the night, expectant to find one another had been similar to that of old lovers, the abrasive yells of Miu, echoing down the hallways, the luminescence of the moon bleeding through the school's windows, her velvet so perfectly concealed beneath the jagged spikes of her own falsehood. And the gentle calls of Kaede, forged into that of a fragile ivory of her own truth. And so amazingly laced with the other, gratifying a beautiful melody to Kaede, and something of an exquisite creation to Miu.
Where they had so purposefully bumped into one another, each and every night, endless excuses formulated just to see one another again.Where they found their comforts within the other, trapped within the hellish confine of such a harrowing ordeal.
"one day, I'll take you to see the stars with me." A promise made by Kaede, extended into the ether of her undeniable feelings.
"Oh Yeah? Better not be fuckin' lying! "
And expectant pleading eyes look to her, fathoms deep.
Please don't leave me.
And still everything remains so indistinguishable.
How had it been, that Kaede had allowed Miu to slip through her fingers, to incite her own death march, to initiate her very own end.
How had it been, that they had managed to carry unbridled hatred for one another within their shared moments, yet they were so wretchedly in love with each other?
And if Kaede could have done something, anything, to preserve Miu's life, her existence. To precede an escape from that school that didn't result with Miu's broken body subjected to the crushing pressure of that hyrdraulic press, god help her she would have done it. She would have done whatever it took,
Just to hear that laugh once more.
--
Kaede rubs at her eyes, unable to repress the unrelenting torment of Miu's death, bearing a harsher grip on the girls photo, hunching over as she bites her lips, sobbing weakly with each shaky exhale of her chest.
She doesn't know when she finally stopped crying, or even how long she had been crying for, her grip still tight on Miu's photograph. With each breath, her lips part, trembling.
Shaky hands fumble for a roll of tape, which she forcefully rips from the sellotapes base, sticking it to the inventors photo, before then attaching the photo to the wooden board. Kaede steps back, fumbling for her marker, she finds it with an audible 'ah!' and begins to scrawl Miu's name beneath her picture.
For a final time, Kaede takes a few steps back and beholds the aftermath of her memorial to the deceased students, her eyes all too often drifting to Miu's spot.
And with Miu's picture planted on the board, that marked twelve.
Twelve photos, twelve stars that would shine brighter that night.
And one star in particular, which would forever remain intertwined with Kaede. Two soulmates, disconnected, in a broken world, to never know the normalcy of waking up alongside eachother, or to cradle on a cold winter's night, but to suffer, by the world's cruel design.
How did that saying go again? Right person, wrong time.
A story of love. Forged in a pianists tears and an inventors blood.
-Iruma theatre.