just jumping from one topic to another

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[Half-mended doors and blown-out windows shudder in their frames as Hajime walks past, and patches of the sidewalk that weren't previously damaged in the last Arehtei incursion crunch into rough gravel under his feet. He's noticed, of course. Part of him even remembers hearing and reading about why. (Did he pick that leaflet up a few minutes ago? An hour? Three?) Those are the rules of this world, set in stone, just as alien and washing just as far over his talentless head as those of the one he left.

What he doesn't know is where the hell he's going. But if he stops moving, his train of thought will get going again instead. And if his train of thought gets going, it'll only circle back around to the same place - the same chill in the cavernous class courtroom, the same silence so different from the heat of the earlier trials. The same despair.

There's no way he can handle that. On his own, there's no way someone like him can handle that...]

Damn it!

[For a moment he makes as if to bodily ram all of his frustration into the partly-crumbled wall beside him, but in the end he just slumps. He's tired. Every cell inside him is tired. He's tired, he can still see her smiling at him from the opposite podium when he screws his eyes shut, and there aren't many people who could make a day like this worse.]

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[Hajime physically flinches - he'd expected something after all the ankle-deep gravel outside, but the intense wave of nervous discomfort that hits him isn't exactly a gentle introduction to this. He's nervous too, maybe more than he was before managing to fall asleep and shutting everything out for a little while.

He's not too nervous for a pang of exasperation to make it into his reply, though. For all this guy claims to hate himself, he sure enjoys the sound of his own voice sometimes.]

If you don't want to explain any more, I'll go do something else.

[Yeah, it's kind of blunt, but in his mind Komaeda has no room to talk.]

[eyeswideopen]

[There's a brief burst of irritation from his end. He'd been trying to warn Hinata but no. He tries and fails to pull up some measure of calm. He's too nervous.]

That's not it. I'm not sure where to start. All of you ignored the signs and warnings that were all around us. It would be tedious for both of us if I started from the beginning.

[There's a whisper of confusion that grows in a grey colored haze. He can't even deny it. Not here in a mental link between the two of them.]

...I'm not sure starting right off with what you actually are would fare any better. It's tied directly to Hope's Peak itself and that's...

[He sits up on his couch, burying his face in his hands for a moment. He needs to breathe. When he'd first found it all out he wanted to kill them all, including himself. Now...he can't do that without snuffing out his own hopes. His bond with Hinata like all the others he's forged are part of his life. He doesn't want to lose them. ...It gives him an idea.

His emotions sharpening into that calm he wanted are a hint he found the right words to say.]

Do you remember what Tsumiki said at the end about her beloved?

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["What you actually"...? To Hajime, the room seems to darken even more rapidly than the sound of Komaeda's voice. Of all the things to bring up, coming from someone who shouldn't even be alive -

- no, one step at a time. He breathes in, then out. If he starts thinking he can take things easy again, there's far more waiting in the wings of his recent memory to drag him back down to hell than the simple fact of Komaeda being a dick. ...Now that, that would unsettle him if it turned out not to be true.]

What are you getting at?

[eyeswideopen]

[The calm he'd been holding onto shatters, exposing a spiraling world of emotions - envy, fury, admiration, confusion, hope, despair. They're too tightly woven together to even guess at all the emotions present in the sudden storm and just as quickly as it arrives, there's suddenly nothing there.

Just Komaeda's voice is left and even that sounds flat.]

You had better not expect me to just give you the answers. The time you'd have trusted anything I say on my word alone is long over! Let's not insult ourselves by acting like I'm someone you trust.

[The anger is back, giving his frustrated snap a slap to it. He grips his arms and scowls at his boots and wonders why he bothered at all. Oh right, because he doesn't want him to become a pawn. Against him or himself.]

All of it is there, Hinata. We didn't see it. She was despairingly gleeful to exploit that. I suppose, I can give you a little more to work with. Since you are too reluctant to really consider the facts.

[A flicker of memory rises like smoke from a fire, the details show a library but the two tucked away in the corner are like night and day...what's visible of them, anyway. Komaeda Nagito looks as if he hasn't been from the islands long, his hair a tad shorter and his clothes the green coat and shirt he used to wear. The girl across from him is a dark shadow with red, black, and white clothes. The only physical features immediately obvious is her red nails. “But all that changed when the 78th class showed up, though I'm sure I don't need to say why.”

"I don't know why we're going over the facts we both already know. But, for now I'll humor you. That's when the Most Despair Inducing Incident in the History of Mankind happened, didn't it?" Komaeda pauses in the memory, his eyes widening as the air grows thick and heavy with his mounting turmoil. "No. ...that's when you arrived."

He tears at his hair with a frustrated snarl. Hinata is sharp as a sword when he wants to be.]

LITERALLY A YEAR LATER

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[When he wants to be, maybe. He doesn't want this, now. More games, more questions, more answers without rhyme or reason. They drive home just how far in over his head he's been since - no, apparently this whole time.

What the hell is he even looking at?

Think, Hajime, says the part of his brain that has always been harder to shut off. Komaeda is insufferable (and died for it), averse to giving people straight answers (and died for it), and, you know, bugfuck insane (and died for it). But there's always at least some twisted logic to whatever goes on inside his skull, to whatever awful things come out of his mouth. He doesn't bring things up for no reason, even if you're left guessing and guessing again at the reason. And with logic comes some faint, scant possibility of understanding.

He wants to understand. He wants to understand so badly it sends a chill down his spine, wrapping around his limbs and sinking into his probably-empty stomach. But maybe that's the voice, or the image. Hard to say.]

That person... You know them? They're here?

No worries!

[eyeswideopen]

[He realizes Hinata isn't going to get it unless he says it outright the way he talks to Silver. Komaeda digs his fingers into his arm. He would rather he come to the conclusions himself but even if he could...they don't have the time for it.

He'll just treat this, yes, like he has conversations with people here. Even if he likely won't be believed for telling the truth. The memory fades away, as he sighs mentally.]

Junko Enoshima, Ultimate Despair. She operated Monokuma in the previous killing lives, and she's dead. Just like I assume I am in your time. I don't know who is operating Monokuma on Jabberwock. I don't have all the pieces yet.

Hinata-kun, we all know her. The Future Foundation just made us forget we were once her inner circle. That is Tsumiki's beloved she was talking about. It's possible you didn't know her, but the man they made of your mind and body did.

Kamukura Izuru, a testament to the depravity of the place we loved so much. His birth was the beginning of the end for them especially when she got her claws into him. He was perfect, made to be that way, and so utterly bored with the world because of it.

You may not believe me. No, I'm sure you don't! But we don't have time for you to reach the conclusions yourself. She is here and she knows us better than we know ourselves.

And the Tree of Memory at the center of the city shows forgotten memories as well as ones we can easily recall. Even if you doubt me, the past is coming for you just like it has been hounding my every step here.

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[The only thing coming from the other end of the line, for now, is a blank, stunned silence. Saying that Hajime doesn't follow would be charitable. More accurate to say he has no idea where or who or what or whether he's even supposed to follow.

But he can't tune out. ...Can he? If he ignores Komaeda now, will this twisted bastard turn on him again, like before? Won't he be adrift again, and lose his best hope of figuring any of this out?

...Hope. As if.]

It's... hard not to doubt. [A response that Nagito will undoubtedly find some way to shit on, but that's the best response he can come up with in his head while his mouth feels this dry. The floor is beginning to feel drier and grittier, too.] But you're right. I saw you dead.

[Which means they're already far beyond the boundaries of what makes sense. That, in turn, means there must be something more to this. Still thinking, still thinking. Still thinking, despite his every wish to plunge back into the dark and let it swallow him whole.]

Did... that... happen to me? And the rest of us? That can't be it. That doesn't fit with any of the other executions...

[eyeswideopen]

[Were he operating by his old island rules he'd pick the whole counter-argument apart. But he'd thrown that rulebook out just now. It's strictly the Verens rules from here on.]

I doubt it. The living and the dead come here, Enoshima's sister is very much alive, and from the point I came from just opening the file, so was I. [It's not like he's upset he's dead. Actually, it makes a lot of things so much easier. He's far calmer than he probably should be. No need to look beneath the flooring to why he so desperately wants Hinata to understand.

No need to think of any of it.]

As far as we can tell this world is crying out for help, from the depths of its coma. It's trying to survive, Hinata-kun and somehow we're the solution. All those who come here, anyway.

From all manners of universes and species. It's a bit like a novel. [A fondness enters his voice. This is home, now. He doesn't have to worry about going back. There's no need for that either.]

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[The object of that affection is lost on Hajime. Then again, the way it feels to him, so is everything else. What if he makes himself black out again? Would he wake up somewhere else? Would he be able to do it over and over until, at long last, he got away? From Komaeda, from... admittedly, mostly from Komaeda.

That is what would bring this extended nightmare to an end, right?]

Then... how do we leave? [Because it sounds like they don't. It sounds like they're trapped, again. And the sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach at the thought is one that Nagito probably recognises.]

[eyeswideopen]

I don't know. But I will find the way to return you to where you belong. [Hinata is alive. He deserves to go back. Whatever happens to him, will happen. Death isn't so bad. In a way, it's a freedom he craved so badly.

Here he can be someone else. Something else.]

It will have to be after the interdiction. It's a barrier that is supposed to slowly fade.

[It isn't lost on him that Hinata wants to be away from him. The feeling is mutual but he can't ignore him either. Not with Junko around.] You might leave all on your own. That happens at times.

No one has to kill anyone here. Not that we'd stay dead if we did. [The reason Junko isn't dead, really.]