Chapter Text
For a minute. He thought the door opening was just another hallucination. That the mastermind coming in, wearing that mask, was the byproduct of him finally losing his mind.
They prompted his name a few times. He stared in return. He didn’t have energy to waste on a hallucination.
The mastermind proved themself real by kicking him in the side. Hard.
“Ghh–!” Kokichi bit out, immediately curling in on himself. And yet the pain felt so oddly good– something that wasn’t white. Something new. Something different. “Hhgh… d-do you– you, y-you treat… all your teammates like this…?”
They tilted their head. “Is that you admitting you want to work with me?”
Kokichi bit his tongue.
He didn’t. He didn’t want to be the mastermind’s lackey. He didn’t want to hurt any more of his friends and he didn’t want them dead. This was not something he was forcing himself to do. So long as the killing game was in stalemate they would be okay. Kokichi just had to stay strong.
But.
He didn’t want to be left in this room. He didn’t want these white walls surrounding him. Any more of this and he might actually lose his sense of self. It had been… so long… and he already felt…
Different.
Different. He felt wrong. Like reality was in another world beyond him.
“Y…Yes.” Kokichi nodded the best he could from the ground. It was a lie. He was lying. He didn’t want to work with them. “I-I’ll… I’ll keep the game going. Make it interesting, even– even more than originally.” Just get me out of here.
“Mm…” The mastermind hummed skeptically. There was something in their hands. A plate, he realized.
“I will,” Kokichi gritted out. “I’ll do anything you want, just– just let me. I can put up h-hell of a convincing act.”
The mastermind gazed calculatively down at him. “I know. That’s why I know you’re so-ol’ plainly lying right now.”
Kokichi grimaced, but didn’t break his eyes away from them.
(They were a color. A black coat standing out against the endless, paralyzing white.
They couldn’t leave. They couldn’t leave him alone. They couldn’t.)
“But,” the mastermind continued, “that is what I want to hear. So I’ll feed you anyway.”
As embarrassing as it was, Kokichi perked up. It was probably going to be slugs or something like that, but the fact they were offering anything at all itched the hunger that he had been doing his best to ignore.
They placed the plate down on the ground, close to where he had pushed himself into a sitting position.
It wasn’t slugs. But maybe that would’ve been better.
White. Rice.
“I hate you,” Kokichi told them through poorly concealed fury. “So. Much.”
“If you don’t want it, you could just say that,” the mastermind said, sounding frustratingly amused. “Maybe another few hours will help…”
Few hours. Funny. He almost believed it.
But. Kokichi’s will was not one easily broken. And he wasn’t going to let one bad lie make him crumble.
What did ignite panic in his bones was realizing what exactly they had just said. And they were leaning down to pick back up the plate– to leave him in this horrible room for even longer! And if he lost his mind in here, there was no way he’d be able to escape!
Move onto something else. Anything else. I can handle pain. Just… anything but this.
Make them think it worked.
Make them think it worked.
Make them think…
“WAIT!” Kokichi frantically cried out, lurching forwards so fast he almost toppled over. With his arms bound, it was a little more difficult to keep himself balanced, but he managed not to face-plant into the floor.
Better yet, they stopped in their tracks, their mask’s empty, lifeless eyes boring into his.
Kokichi swallowed thickly, the words tasting bitter on his tongue. “Don’t leave! I’ll eat. So– so don’t leave. Please don’t leave.”
First thing he was doing once he broke out of here was throwing up. Sucking up to the mastermind wasn’t something that was easy to do, but damn it, he was losing his fucking mind in here.
(Maybe. Maybe his plea came from somewhere of genuinity.
He wasn’t used to being saved. Who would want to rescue him, after all? He had gotten used to the fact that the only one who had his back was himself.
Yet that didn’t stop him from hoping.)
“Alright, calm down. That’s not the Kokichi Ouma I know.” The mastermind flicked a dismissive wrist, stepping away from the plate again. “You can eat.”
Kokichi grit his teeth. “What, are you going to spoon-feed me? My hands are tied up.”
The mastermind shrugged. “Dogs manage without hands.”
…
…Oh.
Okay.
“I’m not eating it like a dog.” Kokichi’s voice was hardly above a whisper, dread almost keeping him entirely silent. “I’m not. You can’t make me.”
“Yes I can,” the mastermind replied simply, as if it was the basic matter of life. “I want to see you eat that like a dog. I’m not freeing your hands until you do.”
Kokichi felt nauseous. Maybe that was the hunger.
“I don’t want to,” Kokichi reiterated.
“Hm… might have left you in here a little too long…” the mastermind commented under their breath. “Come on, where’d all your character go? A few days in here shouldn’t have messed you up this bad.”
He knows. He knows that. Here he was, not wanting to eat like a dog, yet begging like one all the same. The false bravado he had put up, made to make himself seem untouchable, had tricked even the mastermind, and now he was being ridiculed for reacting like a person.
“You left me in a straitjacket and white room,” Kokichi growled, “for days. I’m not acting like Kokichi Ouma because I’m pissed. You bored me so much I forgot what I even act like. So really, this is your fault. Hang yourself in the streets.”
“That’s a little better, I guess,” the mastermind observed, completely ignoring the message he was trying to get across. “The white room torture will end once you eat. All you have to do is show me how hungry you really are.”
Kokichi stared at the plate. He was hungry, he couldn’t deny that. The pangs of hunger were worsening in intensity, like knives twisting repetitively in his gut.
But he didn't want to humiliate himself by licking up food from a plate like an animal.
Maybe, he tried to reason with himself, maybe I can trick them. If I do everything they say, I’ll make an opening for myself to escape.
To where, though? The outside world was seemingly in ruins. If there was an audience, he doubted they’d want to see him out of place from his “setting”. And he couldn’t go back to the Ark either– his classmates were all there, and after what he did to Kaito, Maki would place a target on the back of his head the minute he so much as breathed in the academy air. There was nowhere for him to run to.
Maybe there was one person, but…
…no. He wouldn’t. Kokichi had long since shattered the trust between them. He doubted Shuichi would believe him at all, much less help him.
(Shuichi was right, after all.
He really was alone.)
…
…fuck.
He’d really have to do this.
Kokichi dropped his gaze to the ground, ever-so slowly scooting towards the plate. He could feel the mastermind’s eyes searing into him as he moved, like barbs prickling his skin. He hated it. He hated it so much.
It took a bit of effort, but Kokichi managed to bend down enough so he didn’t totally slam his face into his food, but also enough that he could reach it. His cheeks burned with embarrassment as he carefully took his first bite.
The rice tasted plain. Bland. Nothing special to it, it just tasted…
…white.
Kokichi almost spit it back out.
But he persisted. He chewed and swallowed, his jaw aching all the while.
Just finish it. He needed all he could get, even if he was being forced to lick it up like some starving stray.
It took a little while to finish. Kokichi almost choked on multiple occasions from the awkward angle, which he especially didn’t want to do with the mastermind here. They’d probably try to “help” him, and he didn’t want their hands anywhere near him. Even worse, the taste reminded him of the horrible time he spent alone in the stark white room. No shadows, no color, no temperature or feeling, simply… white.
White. White. White.
Kokichi stared at the empty plate. He felt as if he were in the backseat of his own mind, watching through a stranger’s eyes.
“That wasn’t too hard, was it?” the mastermind commented. He felt a gloved hand on his head, and yet he didn’t even flinch away from it. The touch was so real. Affectionate.
Lie. That's a lie. There was no affection left in the world for him. He ended that the minute Gonta’s life had been cut off.
“Alright, here. I promised I’d take it off, so just hold still for a moment.”
Was he drugged? Is that why he felt so frozen? His mind was cloudy, and his heart was pounding, yet he couldn’t feel anything. As if the minute he resigned himself to his fate, most of his brain had simply decided to shut off.
The white had numbed him. He couldn’t breathe.
The tightness around his arms fell away. His bare chest and back were exposed. A dangerous position to put himself in. He could see some lingering bruises on his wrists from those ropes.
Two fingers snapped in his face, and to his credit, he did flinch. It pulled him back to his senses a little. Not by much though.
“I’ll change your pants when you fall asleep,” the mastermind informed him. “And maybe I’ll give you a shower… you kind of smell. I mean, that's not really your fault, but still.”
Kokichi squeezed his eyes shut tight, trying to reorientate himself. He couldn’t go zoning out right now– not when the mastermind was standing directly next to him.
“I need a bathroom,” Kokichi told them in response.
“Now?” they asked dubiously. Before he could even begin to process that, they hummed. “I can bring you a bucket, but I wouldn’t be too plainly excited to clean that every day.”
Discomfort made his stomach churn unpleasantly. He didn’t want to talk about this. He just wanted to leave this room and…
…where would he go…?
They put their hand on his head again, and he had the sense to jerk away from their touch. His arm ached as he caught himself from falling backwards, and unfortunately for him, his clear rejection didn’t sway their efforts. In fact, it seemed to irritate them, because they gripped a fistful of his hair to hold him upright.
Tears stung his eyes, but he made no move to fight them. He just needed to breathe in and out. He wouldn’t allow himself to cry in front of this person.
“I’m glad to know this didn’t totally ruin your character,” they remarked. “And gave me a good head start… alright.”
Without a shred of sympathy, they shoved him to the ground, making him wince. Oh, his arms and shoulders were so sore.
“I’ll go get you your bucket and turn the mirror back on,” the mastermind decided. “So don’t freak out when I leave.”
Kokichi watched them head towards the open door, straitjacket slung over one arm.
…straitjacket…
He wasn’t sure what came over him in that moment. Maybe it was finally having his arms free– the ability to use all of his limbs again. No matter how much it hurt, what mattered was that he could move. He wasn’t confined to a chair or by some stupid jacket.
Or maybe…
Maybe it was the idea that he didn’t want to give up yet.
Kokichi stood up. His blood felt warm with adrenaline. The open door was so close.
He didn’t want to play nice or patient. He didn’t want to act complacent. Because if that lie grew to be the truth, he’d have a whole new world of issues on his hands.
Fuck. That.
Kokichi wasn’t going down without a fight.
He lunged for the straitjacket, running into their back at the same time. And before they could turn around, his hand closed over fabric.
Kokichi hardly paused to look at what he was doing. He pulled the straitjacket back, stretching his other arm around their side to seize the other end of it. The mastermind let out a furious shout, attempting to grip his wrist, but he already got what he wanted. He yanked the straitjacket up, and pulled against their neck.
After starving for a few days, exact time still unknown, Kokichi didn’t have much strength left in his body. Just getting up had entirely winded him, and even now he felt lightheaded and weary from exhaustion. But this person, the mastermind, had been the one to force him into that position. They tied him down, waterboarded him, let him lose his mind for a few days, and then had the gall to make him eat his food like a dog? Kokichi thought his anger was well justified!
Kokichi pulled as hard as he could, pushing his head against their back at the same time to try and force them forwards. They stomped down hard on his bare foot, which admittedly made him wince, but he had a pretty decent pain tolerance. He could keel over and cry later, when this son of a bitch was dead and the killing game was finally over and maybe, somehow, Kokichi could find a way to repent for what he led Gonta to do.
(If DICE could see him now, he wondered what they’d do. Reel back in horror at the sight of their leader, their friend, trying his damndest to choke someone to death? Or would they cheer him on, knowing the kind of person he was removing from an already ruined world?)
“Damn it–!” The mastermind choked out.
And Kokichi had been trying to avoid their grasp. He really had. But he was powerless to do anything as they all but threw themself to the side, slamming him into the wall and jarring the straitjacket loose from his hands.
Well, he thought defeatedly as hands closed over his neck, pinning him against the wall, at least I tried.
“You little– how’s about another three days in the white room, huh!?” The mastermind spat in his face. They raised their fist, and Kokichi braced himself on habit, weakly gripping the wrist to the hand still wrapped dangerously around his throat. “If I wasn’t so worried about your character I would’ve left you in here for weeks! You’d be so much easier to use like that!”
“Three days?” Kokichi echoed hoarsely. “Wow– hghk, th-three days and I’m still k-kicking!”
To illustrate his point, Kokichi jutted out his foot as hard as he could, capping them in the ankle hard.
The mastermind only flinched, proving his efforts futile. Their fist shook, as if they were putting in a conscious effort to not knock his lights out.
“At least you’re still acting like yourself,” they mused through gritted teeth. Hesitantly, they lowered their fist, opting to instead grip his jaw and tilt his head up, so they were glaring at each other eye-to-masked-eye. “Bratty and infuriating. More of a challenge for me I guess, but that’s fine. A hiatus only builds more enthusiasm, I guess.”
A hiatus, Kokichi thought.
So the killing game can’t continue without me?
As long as I’m here…
Kokichi felt the strength in his grip falter, though he wasn’t sure whether that was because of this new opportunity being opened to him or that he was passing out from oxygen loss.
Okay, mastermind. Maybe he did have a way of ending the killing game. Just not in the way they'd think. It was going to suck for him, sure, but he had long since accepted he would do whatever it took to end the killing game. Even if that meant giving up his life.
Even if that meant intentionally prolonging this torture.
It was a risky move. The chances of him breaking were palpable, but he only needed to hold out until the identified the mastermind’s true identity. After that, he was sure he could put up enough of a convincing act to “work” for them and be released from this hell. There he could double-cross them, seek out Shuichi and expose the mastermind through him (assuming he wasn’t the mastermind, in which case, his next best bet was K1-B0), and go from there.
And they don’t want to break my “character”, Kokichi thought, desperately fighting the darkness tickling the edges of his vision. So I can avoid the white room torture if I act out of character enough… I can tough out the pain, I just need… to…
The hand around his throat left abruptly, leaving him to crumple to the ground. He coughed and wheezed, the sudden, large intake of air making him go light-headed for a different reason.
“I’ll be back,” the mastermind told him coldly, turning.
Drive home the point. Don’t let them leave you here again.
Out of character… out of character… come on, you can act!
“NO!” Kokichi cried out so loudly it burned his throat. It didn’t take much to push tears into his eyes as he put his all into a pathetic display, collapsing into a weak heap on the floor and reaching helplessly for them. “D-Don’t leave me here! Please don't… please… not again…! Please not again!”
“Egh…” The mastermind visibly grimaced at his desperacy.
However, his pleading was in vain (god, not again–), as they left him alone in the vast white void of the… the room.
Kokichi let out a shaking breath, letting his tears cease. He pushed himself up, sitting on his knees as he anxiously looked around.
The best lies were rooted in truth. Maybe some part of him truly didn’t want them to leave. Because if they did, that meant he was alone here again. Nothing to look at, nothing to feel. It wasn’t hot nor was it cold, and all he was left with in the white was his racing thoughts. The straitjacket was gone, but did that change much? It just left him shirtless sitting in this room. Not even a lack of a shirt made it any colder.
A shiver wracked his body, but again, he wasn’t cold.
Three days. They left him here for three days. Plenty of time for Kaito to escape the hangar. Plenty of time for them to realize he was gone. They would think the killing game isn’t a threat anymore.
And it won’t be. So long as Kokichi could hold out, the killing game wouldn’t hurt his friends. He’d be hurt, but really, did anyone care about him at this point? Any empathy he might have garnered would have been lit aflame the minute Gonta was. Kokichi put himself into this position, so he only had himself to blame.
Himself, and the mastermind who caused all of this in the first place.
Kokichi laid back down on the ground, curling up into a little ball. He could wait. He already survived three days, what were a few more? They’d have to come back eventually. They wanted to keep his “character” in tact.
Just keep yourself occupied, he told himself, closing his eyes against the white.
9,999 bottles of beer on the wall…
***
A hand on his shoulder jolted him awake, and he almost fell out of his seat with a startled yelp.
“Ah–!” The person who woke him up jumped back, surprised. “Sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you. Are you okay, Shuichi…?”
Shuichi blinked a few times, trying to reorientate himself. His back ached as he sat up, and he winced as pins and needles prickled the back of his neck. Tsumugi was apparently the one who woke him up, as she stood beside him with a worried look, anxiously squeezing her hands together.
Damn it… He must have fallen asleep at the pavilion.
Yesterday had been pretty mundane, especially after Maki, Tsumugi, Himiko and K1-B0’s declarations that they weren’t going to put any effort into looking for Kokichi. Shuichi, regretfully, didn’t put much work into his investigation– he checked the library’s hidden door, where yesterday, he had set back up his little trick with the card reader. It hadn’t been touched when he checked then, but that didn’t mean nothing changed today.
As for why he was sitting at the pavilion, Shuichi had attempted that stake-out last night. During last night’s training– which consisted mostly of them sitting under the stars and talking– Kaito had told Maki about Shuichi’s plan, and asked if she wanted to join him since he wasn’t able to. She had rolled her eyes at their investigative efforts, but it was a big relief when she said she’d join him for a little while.
Seeing as Tsumugi was waking him up, he must have fallen asleep soon after Maki went back to her room last night. Shuichi sluggishly rubbed his eyes, biting back a groan at his aching muscles.
“Shuichi…?” Tsumugi prompted again.
“Ah–? Sorry.” Shuichi stood up quickly, offering her a small, weary smile. “I was trying to stake-out the dorms… but I guess I fell asleep.”
“Ohh…” Understanding washed over Tsumugi’s expression, and the tension in her shoulders slipped away. “You’re still trying to find Kokichi?”
Shuichi nodded. “Me and Kaito aren't ready to give up on the investigation yet.”
“I plainly don’t see a point in trying to find him,” Tsumugi admitted. “He’s the mastermind, isn’t he? I’m just relieved he’s gone…”
“It is nice not having to worry about the killing game…” Shuichi slowly agreed. “But I can't just leave such a strange mystery unsolved. I want to know what happened to him.”
Tsumugi gazed at him, appearing earnestly surprised. “Even if he is the mastermind? It almost sounds like you care about him, Shuichi.”
“Well…” Shuichi trailed off, opening and closing his mouth uselessly for a moment as he struggled to process those words.
Did he care about Kokichi? He wouldn’t deny that his feelings had always been a little more complicated towards him. Kaito and Maki were his close friends, as simple as that– he enjoyed the time he spent with them and didn’t mind going far out of his way if it meant helping one of the two. His classmates were all his friends as well, of course, but none of them had helped him in the way Kaito and Maki had. They trained together every night, of course they’d come to be close.
When it came to Kokichi though, Shuichi wasn’t sure how to describe it. Kokichi was his friend, back before he revealed himself as the mastermind, but somehow Shuichi felt there was something… more to it, in a sense. When Shuichi spent time with Kokichi, it felt as if he were talking to a walking contradiction; every word out of his mouth was like another puzzle to pick apart, paired with a mischievous laugh or another game. Shuichi had supposedly been playing for his life, something that started because Kokichi told him about his secret organization entirely unprompted, but that turned out to be another one of Kokichi’s typical rug-pulls.
“I stole your heart, so now I’m satisfied! I don’t need to steal your life anymore!” Shuichi had been puzzling over that sentence for days, and he still had yet to figure it out. Kokichi stole his heart? What did he mean by that? Was that just his way of declaring that they were friends; that he had successfully captured Shuichi’s interest?
He didn’t know. And he wasn’t sure he ever would, if Kokichi truly was the mastermind.
Yet that was the keyword, wasn’t it? “If”. If Kokichi was the mastermind. He had such little proof in favor of Kokichi’s innocence, but something about him being the mastermind just felt… wrong. It was too easy to pin him as the ringleader behind this killing game.
It was all so confusing. Shuichi’s thoughts about him were so strange compared to his thoughts about his other friends, he didn’t know how to approach it. He was angry with Kokichi for all that he had done– to Gonta and to Miu, for holding Kaito prisoner and allowing them all to wallow in despair for so long, and yet some part of him couldn’t help but wish Kokichi was still… here. He missed the playful, confusing bundle of lies and games he had presented himself as to Shuichi. Was that just a lie, too? Or was his uncaring, cold-hearted mastermind demeanor the lie?
It was only the morning, and Shuichi was already giving himself a headache.
“It’s hard to say,” was what Shuichi settled on. “I mean… I know he’s the mastermind. He did a lot to make us believe that. But, ah… maybe it’s just because we were friends, but I’m still having a hard time believing that Kokichi was the mastermind.”
Tsumugi’s eyes stretched wide. “Huh…?”
“I’ve been thinking about it a lot since the Death Road of Despair,” Shuichi explained nervously. “And some things just… don’t add up.”
He didn’t know why he was telling her this– she wasn’t even invested in his investigation like Kaito was, but… maybe that was the reason in itself. Kaito had always had a very open disdain towards Kokichi, and although Shuichi wasn’t sure what his opinion was on him now, he was a little afraid to test that with an extremely loose theory.
“How could you think Kokichi isn’t the mastermind?’ Tsumugi questioned. “He was controlling the Exisals! He brought Monokuma onto the ship, didn’t he? He’s the leader of that awful cult!”
“I know,” Shuichi replied quietly. “But it’s just… if he is the mastermind, he started the killing game. He would have organized all of the motives, the rules, the Flashback Lights… that’s a lot of work to put into the killing game. What I don’t understand is, why would he put so much effort into all of that… just to end it so abruptly?”
Tsumugi opened her mouth to argue, but closed it, furrowing her brows in thought.
“If he loved the killing game so much,” Shuichi continued, “why would he stop it? He said if we had “figured out the mastermind sooner, there wouldn’t be so many victims”... but he revealed that he was the mastermind. We didn’t know he was the mastermind at all until he showed us the proof.”
“That does sound plainly suspicious…” Tsumugi agreed, though he could still detect uncertainty in her voice. Disbelief. “But how was he controlling the Exisals then…?”
“I’m not sure about that one…” Shuichi murmured. “And like I said, I could be wrong. Kokichi could be the mastermind. But… it’s not wrong to have hope, is it?”
“Not at all!” Tsumugi assured him brightly. A smile perked up her lips. “In fact, I think it’s kinda cute how dedicated you are to him.”
Shuichi wilted. “C-Cute…?”
“I mean, if he wasn’t the mastermind… then him disappearing would be a lot more worrying,” Tsumugi mused, entirely disregarding his question. “Because wouldn’t that mean he’s in some sort of danger?”
A cold chill shot down Shuichi’s spine.
He hadn’t considered that. What could be happening to Kokichi if he wasn’t the mastermind. Because if he wasn’t the mastermind… that meant it was someone else.
And Shuichi didn’t think the true mastermind liked Kokichi putting their game on halt for so long.
“I’ll figure it out,” Shuichi vowed. And speaking of the mastermind… “I’m going to go check something real fast. Is everyone at the dining hall?”
Tsumugi squinted at him. “The morning announcement was an hour ago… all of us already had breakfast.”
Shuichi blanched. “S-So all of you just… walked past me and didn’t think to wake me up? Not even Maki or Kaito?”
“You are kind of in the shadows over here,” Tsumugi reasoned with a sheepish smile. “Maki said you were probably sleeping in since you stayed up late, and none of us really thought much of it since Kaito agreed with her.”
His friend’s poor vision aside, Shuichi let out a sigh. “Okay… thank you for waking me up.”
“Sure!” Tsumugi grinned at him. “And since I’m plainly curious now… can you tell me if you find anything on Kokichi? I’m having a hard time believing he’s not the mastermind, but if anyone’s going to prove he isn’t, it’d definitely be you!”
“Ah… sure.” Shuichi stretched out his arms, wincing as his muscles creaked. “I’ll see you later, Tsumugi.”
“Bye, Shuichi! Good luck! ♪”
Even if she wasn’t going to actively assist in his investigation, at least she was interested in it. He waved her farewell and started off towards the school, trying to fix his unkempt hair as he went.
He did wonder what she meant about his dedication being “cute”, though. His friends all had a bad habit of saying wildly vague things and then never elaborating.