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@theartofmadeline
ojovivo
titsay
he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
d e v o n
sheepfilms
occasionally subtle
noise dept.
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TVSTRANGERTHINGS
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
❣ Chile in a Photography ❣
Sade Olutola
shark vs the universe
oozey mess
Alisa U Zemlji Chuda
Product Placement
cherry valley forever
seen from Malaysia
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@apathetic-despair
i was hoping i’d return to this blog, but
i just dont have the same energy for it. i feel like i cant focus on this blog without sprites i make myself and that takes so much work
i got some work done but realistically i think this will be an indefinite hiatas at best and leaving completely at worst
i’ll leave this blog up just in case
thank you all for sticking with me
i think it’s best to announce this now, but im going on a brief hiatus! i cant seem to get my inspiration up and i want to work on characterizing matsuda, so i’ll be gone for about a month.
when i come back, im hoping to have a surprise ready for you all :D
i’ll return to my threads when i return !
There was a knocking at the door. Matsuda was still going around for the Future Foundation, it seems. Will he ever get to rest...? -@apathetic-despair (hello! i hope you don't mind, i've admired you from the sidelines for awhile so! :3c)
“Aww, aren’t you happy to hear from me, Matsu-kun~?”
It took all of Mikan’s strength not to gag as she spoke into the voice modifier. Of course she would know her own Beloved’s speach patterns by heart. To her, she was simply writing dialogue for a character. But to make her so flirty with Matsuda…it made Mikan’s skin crawl.
Matuda’s hands are deft and precise from his years training in neurology. They are deft enough that, at the wound of a clicking gear, he moves his hands out of the way before a set of poisoned needles jam into his palm. The trap stays in the triggered position near the edge of the handle, but the door is ajar.
Sitting there in mute shock, his hands only trembled a little as he pulled it open completely, careful to avoid the handle.
Inside the drawer were a few items. A journal was in the center, its pages worn and its binding warped. It has clearly been used. There is no name or writing on the front of the leather-bound book. There were some spare pieces of parchment, as well as a set of headphones.
Lifting up the journal, he opened it up, slowly skimming through the pages. He touch anything else in the drawer, leaving it opened partially as he moved on.
He looked at the left drawer set next. He didn’t touch the handle this time, instead using his nails and a scalpel to try and wedge it open that way. It was inefficient at best, but he wasn’t taking a chance this time. Not unless he had to.
The journal was filled with ramblings about Junko. Lovesick notes of passion and madness were written in…was that dried blood? Some pages just had words repeated, like “love,” “forgive me,” and “mine”. Others were graphic and detailed how she would get rid of every person in Junko’s life that mattered…it might be a good idea to not read further.
The other drawer pops right open and there are [REDACTED] with some [REDACTED]. Yeah, maybe not this drawer either.
Mikan, in the meantime, has moved to her control room. A camera whirred in the Shrine Room, and focused on Matsuda.
That drawer can stay all the way closed. As soon as he recognized it’s contents he slammed it shut carelessly, his scalpel still in the way. Damnit. Now isn’t the time to lose his cool like this.
Okay. Calm down. He looked around briefly, catching sight of the camera. He at least took the time to think this time, but those thoughts weren’t very coherent.
The scalpel he was holding was sent flying, aimed at the camera.
Matsuda was a lot of things. Athletic was not one of them. The scalpel had a little bit of an arc, but it didn’t even come close to the height needed to hit the camera. It clattered to the floor.
Mikan snorted, giggling at the attempt. “D-does he really hate being around her th-that much?” Suddenly, she had a wicked idea. With a kick of her foot, her swivel chair rolled to another computer. Souda did install a voice modifier on Mononeko. Why not play a new role?
Matsuda stared at the scalpel for a moment. He considered not even picking it up, but he did have a limited supply. A rather sizable limited supply. He scooped it up, sitting back down on the right this time.
He tried the top drawer on the other side, so he may as well start from the bottom here. He tried opening it up the same way from before, attempting to wiggle his scalpel through the crack.
The other drawer pops open cleanly. It seems the owner of the desk only cared about that middle drawer…Inside are old schematics for monokuma. He can tell that these were written by Junko herself. As he shuffles through the papers, he finds one very old, white note.
Read it?
-yes
-no
He sets down onto the ground next to him. She had showed him the earliest ideas, but these were nothing like the sketchy doodles he saw. He lingered on her handwriting, overcome with her, revulsion, admiration, more and more feelings he couldn’t name. By the time he reached the note, his hands were shaking, his grip tight enough to leave light creases on the papers.
>yes
The note has two very different writing styles. The first is in black ink, and it is not a very happy message. It is a suicide note, one usually left to be found after death. The note is signed by Tsumiki.
In the space between the final words and the bottom of the page is another message. This one is written in hot pink gel pen ink. There is a faded kiss mark of red lipstick. It reads:
“I understand how you feel. You’re too special to throw yourself away just yet. Meet me at the fountain at 5pm. I promise I won’t bite~❤︎
—Junko Enoshima”
“My my my, what do we have here?” A voice that dripped with a sickening sweetness came from the overhead speaker. It was a voice that was all too familiar, and it certainly didn’t sound like Tsumiki.
As soon as he heard the voice, he was shoving the papers back into the drawer.
She’s dead. She’s dead. Even so, the voice was far too real to be a hallucination. He watched her die, but were things different here? He couldn’t remember.
“What do you want?“ His voice was pissed, but more than anything, he was panicked, nails digging into his arms.
“Aww, aren’t you happy to hear from me, Matsu-kun~?”
It took all of Mikan’s strength not to gag as she spoke into the voice modifier. Of course she would know her own Beloved’s speach patterns by heart. To her, she was simply writing dialogue for a character. But to make her so flirty with Matsuda…it made Mikan’s skin crawl.
“If I say no, will you leave?“ He should have made sure that camera broke. He should have never come here. He should-
didn’t you miss me? why would i- (why would she?)
“Why are you here?“ This is Mikan’s house, isn’t it? And yet…
What am I missing? Something doesn’t make sense, but he can’t think straight.
“I dunno…what do you think? Why do you think? It’s so boring when you ask questions you already know the answers to. It just makes me want to die…” Mikan was particularly good at mimicking the teacher persona, but her depressed persona was fairly good. Meanwhile, she searched around for some folio files on the internet.
“Then keel over already.” Focus. This back and forth isn’t going anywhere. Because of that, he opted to keep searching. He pulled open the top drawer, not bothering to wedge it open this time.
Something about her was nagging him. He was certain something was strange.
“Did Mikan bring you here to brag or some shit?“ It hadn’t been that long, had it? Unless his sense of time was warped, which wasn’t necessarily out of the question. It doesn’t seem likely that she was in the house when he got here, so did she just live extremely close by?
Taking Root (Promo)
The rustle of the wind wasn’t strong, this place didn’t look weak, yet the walls shuddered all the same. Paintings of various shapes and sizes littered the walls, each portrait had parts of the face missing. The eyes, nose, lips, ears, hands, no parts of any fictional portrait character was safe. The further you walked down the hall, the worse it became.
Finally, at the end of the corridor, the entrance-way was already open. Waiting for you.
A cackle of childish laughter split the air. Joyous and carefree, yet sinister and inherently up to no good. “Nyahahahahaha!!!”
Three figures occupied the large room. One, to the left, a mess of purple hair cloaking his face from clear view. His hands shook violently as he fiddled and mixed brightly colored elixirs together, their reactions causing puffs of smoke to cloud the air. To the right, this figure was clothed from head to toe. Jet black made up a majority of their outfit, being the turtleneck, gloves, and pants. A crimson colored jacket caught the eye, along with strands of green hair peeking out from the oval shaped hat they wore. A plague doctor mask covered any facial features, only their breathing gave any sign of this figure being alive or human.
And in the middle of them both, stood the source of the delighted sound from earlier.
“Oh me, oh my! Not even Atua could’ve given us this sort of luck!” She surmised, flicking the thick substance off her paintbrush. Gifting her full attention, she smiled. “You don’t mind Angie and company cutting in for a promo real quick, would ya, would ya?”
(( Tags below the cut! Feel free to ignore or jump in, tagged or not! ))
Keep reading
A promo fit for a Queen
“Shut up!” She was about to hit him again before someone took the pipe out of her hands. “Hm? I was looking for this! Thanks Miss Sonia!”
Matsuda didn’t flinch away, but he did look surprised when she was stopped.
“You… You’re that mechanic, aren’t you?“ He didn’t make for a good first impression, considering he was covered in blood and still had bits of glass stuck to him.
Of course I’m getting tired… what if he kills me… is he moving…... and she’s out.
To say he hadn’t thought about changing her, about killing her would be a lie. But of all the possible things to do, that’s would be the stupidest and shortest lived one. He wasn’t ready yet. They still need-
Matsuda cut off his idle thinking in the bud, settling for the simple monotony of surgery.
The amygdala can be conditioned to set off the nucleus accumbens, forcing it to associate a flood of dopamine with despair. Less SFG reaction when…
It took a few seconds to recognize when he had finished the last stitch. There was almost a sense of finality, but he immediately set to work stopping the anesthetic and cleaning up.
She slowly woke up, blinked for a bit and started to smile. “I feel… amazing…”
“Yeah?“ He sounded distracted, but did spare her a glance from across the room. ...Probably best to give the ‘disclaimer’ now, rather than risk being tracked down later.
“The first few times, it’ll feel best. It starts to become harder to get the same feeling, since it overloads the brain, causing the brain to respond by producing less dopamine overall, but should still be possible“
Matsuda knocked on the door, stepping back. "Hello, I'm here on behalf of the Future Foundation. Can I ask you some questions?" - @apathetic-despair (i hope you don't mind, i though this interaction would be interesting !)
She was in the kitchen when she heard the knocking. It wasn’t typically /usual/ for people to stop by, but it has happened a few times - usually it’s just people trying to sell stuff, though. Or break in and steal limbs.
So she approached casually, reaching her hand out for the doorknob, but froze when she heard the man’s voice. The fucking Future Foundation!? How the fuck did hey find her??? She thought she’d been doing an alright job with hiding from the officials, but apparently not.
She had to think quickly. She thought about not answering - but the lights in the house were visibly on, so she couldn’t pull off not being home. Shakily, she put on one of her other voices and responded, though didn’t open the door.
“Ohh? The Future Foundation? I don’t have much time to answer anything, I’m taking care of my sick sister…” It was probably a shitty lie but, eh, whatever works.
@apathetic-despair
She noticed the pause. She figured she probably asked a stupid question - assumed he probably didn’t want to talk about his Junko. Who knows, maybe there was some trauma involved. She wouldn’t be surprised. So, she did feel bad for asking. At the same time, she wanted to know, and hey - he was the one who walked into her house, so she felt a tad entitled to ask what she wanted.
“Oh, wow,” Dated, huh? “I was pretty close with my own Yasuke when we were younger. We occasionally see each other around school, but we don’t talk anymore. Soooo, I’m guessing you dated her before all of this Despair shit?”
Matsuda scoffed.
"Yeah, it started before then. Kept going even after she got into it. If she hadn’t died, it might not have ended at all.“ ‘Sickeningly loyal’ she said sometimes. He scratched at his arm, not quite uncomfortable but certainly not at peace.
“Huh. Sounds like you’ve had it rough, then.” Her tone was rather flat, and it wasn’t like she wasn’t sympathetic, she just didn’t entirely know how to feel about this. Though, upon thinking about it, who wouldn’t feel a bit bad for someone who dated the bitch who ended the world?
“So. Okay, you were super close to her. So why are you working for the Future Foundation then?” She raised a suspicious brow at Matsuda. “If you dated someone in Despair, the person who started Despair at that, why are you helping those people? Like, I mean, it’s good that you are. But did you like, just turn all of a sudden? I’m kinda curious. This is all really weird.”
“Junko was dead by then.” He was silent for a moment, almost as if he didn’t plan to continue
“The Future Foundation caught me, Nagito, and Izuru. Well. Izuru wasn’t caught, but he had his own reasons for coming along. And I hadn’t seen Nagito up until he was in a cell across from me. But whatever.”
“I didn’t plan to help, but between Nagito’s weird hope ramblings and Makoto’s speeches, I didn’t care anymore. Hope or despair, it didn’t matter. They offered some of the best tech around, so as long as I could continue neurology, I guess.” And… Even though it was my fault, I had the chance to bring back that idiotic Reserve. To bring back that airheaded Nagito. All that, and I still fai-
“I guess it does seem weird. It doesn’t matter that much, I guess.”
“Hm. I guess that’s….fair.” She supposed it really would be a tricky situation, so she wouldn’t judge too much. Especially since the guy was apparently arrested. That was kind of a fear of hers ever since she got here.
“Well then I. Uh. Guess I can’t blame you?? I’m a huge advocate for Hope and all, obviously, but I think I can understand how someone wouldn’t really care during that crazy Tragedy stuff.”
“You’re still in school, aren’t you?“ He’s been dumping his shit on a highschooler - god, he needs to pull himself together. He reached into his bag, grabbing his medicine. Better late than never.
Oh. Yeah. Sometimes she forgot about the fact that most people she recognized in this timeline were older and had already graduated from Hope’s Peak. “Oh, um, yeah - I was supposed to graduate like…this year, in a few months. But that probably isn’t happening now. But how did you know?” She noticed the medicine he grabbed - was it some kind of anti-anxiety stuff? She nodded towards it. “What’s that for?”
“She was had a growth spurt, a little after the riots happened. At least, mine did.” He ended up with two very different looking pills, plopping them directly in his mouth. After he swallowed, he continued.
“Hallucination and anxiety meds. Sorry.” It wasn’t clear what he was apologizing for, exactly.
Huh, interesting. She had never met any version of the Original Junko, so she wouldn’t know. Apparently she /did/ look younger, though Matsuda was the first person to point it out - so far she had told others instead. It sort of just adds more to the weirdness of the situation…especially considering she knew her own Yasuke was in the same class as her, back in her timeline.
“Oh. Well, if you’re feeling sick, maybe you should lay down or something.” Not here though, as much as she was used to offerring to take care of folks. Plus this was /him/, and though she hadn’t talked to her own for awhile, there was still a soft spot for him. “Call off of work or whatever, you know?” Maybe it’d even get her out of being ‘checked in’ on, though that was probably just wishful thinking.
“I have a free day soon, so I’m fine there.“ ...She was probably talking more immediately than that. He still has more work to do, but,
“I don’t think I have any buildings after this one. I’ve overstayed my welcome by now, anyways“ If there was one, considering his abrasive entrance.
Re-Promo
"Hello everyone, it's been a while hasn't it?" Hajime smiled. This moment was nostolgic for him. When was the last time he had done a promo? Definitely a long while ago. He missed this. "I'm glad to finally be able to see you all again." He opened his eyes, the smile never leaving his face.
"Oh, right, those who don't know me, I'm Hajime Hinata. It's great to meet you. I hope we can become friends; and if not, I'd appreciate a promo at least." He didn't seem to mind either way. He was just happy to be back.
//hello gamers mod here!! I'm really happy to finally be running this blog again. I really missed interacting with everyone and all the love tou have shown towards my hajime! i hope to continue to run this blog for a much longer time than I did before my break. Love you all! -Moddy Elijah ❤️
Tag List Below!
tagged or not! ))
@ask-a-cool-spaceguy @the-ultimate-spaceboy @ask-the-ultimate-recluse @enoshimas-hope @askultimateluckytrash @apathetic-despair @1-up-girl @ultimate-waifu-bait @askthewritertsumiki @loudgothbf @mastermind-saihara @daydreamer-and-hypnotist @ask-a-gremlin @angie-answers @askhiyokosaionji @ask-theshadowcyborg @ultimate-anarchist @thehopingwarriors @ask-the-ultimate-cosplayer @ask-shslpianist @only-a-detectives-work @ask-a-sleepy-gamer @ask-the-ultimate-entomologist @ask-the-ultimate-robot @cooking-with-despair @ask-disaster-necromancer @askthe-ultimatejournalist @the-lying-mastermind @askdespairnagito @ask-postdespairhajime @theultimatemoralcompass @asktheultimatescienceexperiment @ask-despair-ultimate @askultimateprotag @a-lying-grape @thevoidslounge @expertspy @dream-poison @askdadgito @ask-anthropologist-shinguji @ask-the-ultimate-adventurer and anyone else!
“..Yo.“ Seeing Hajime, any Hajime, was a bit much to handle, considering what he did before-
Not now.
“Matsuda Yasuke. If you didn’t know, or your brain rotted away the knowledge, or some shit.“
Event: Truth
It had been several days, but no one had been able to find Amai Saitou. His classwork had been completed a month in advance, but no one is sure they saw him turn it in. The last time anyone saw him, he was going to his dorm room, but that had to have been over a week ago.
((Feel free to participate whether tagged or not. Using this to elaborate on Amai's backstory and mental state. There will be triggering themes that I will put in the tags now and when they come up. Thank you for your time and patience.))
@theultimatemoralcompass @happy-thoughtsandreams @delusions-and-dreams @apathetic-despair @the-secrets-of-the-game
Matsuda had a free day, for once. He normally just stayed at home, but...
You shouldn’t isolate yourself! Even though they didn’t talk often, Makoto still managed to nag him.
Eventually, he was begrudgingly convinced to visit some friends. Picking from one of the names in his notebook, he ended up searching for Amai.
He didn’t actually know where Amai lived, so ended up asking around the best he could.
There weren't many who knew him, but the few that did said they last saw him go to his dorm.
Being back at Hope’s Peak wasn’t the most pleasant experience - the last time he was here it was as a student, and that wasn’t exactly the happy school life his peers dreamed of.
But that didn’t matter.
As soon as he confirmed he was at the right room, he knocked, not planning to stop until he got an answer.
There wasn't an answer, but the door opened.
He stood in the entrance, looking around the room.
“Hey, uh. Amai. I brought jellybeans, they’re Starburst flavored,“ he called out.
The room was empty. The closet door was open revealing his uniforms and his sweater. There was a desk with anatomical drawings tabled to the wall and the desk itself was covered with books and candy bags. The only other thing of note was a journal and a set of keys on a plush bunny key chain laying on the bed. One of those were clearly the room key.
Not here, damn. Still, he came in anyways. Standing over the bed, he found himself thumbing through the pages of the journal.
When he opened it, a photograph fell out. On the inside of the cover, an address and a phone number was written down. On the first page, the first entry of the journal was written roughly 10 years ago.
He stopped to pick up the photograph, only taking a moment to look at it before he tucked it back against the cover. He jotted down the address in his notebook, just in case, and dialed the number. As he waited on the call, he read the entry absent-mindedly.
The photo was of a woman with long white hair, pale skin, and pink eyes. She wore a familiar pink sweater.
The journal entry had the month and day crossed out.
"Hello! Mom said I should write a jornal. My name is Yuuya. I'm...7 years old, and I live with my mom and dad. Dad works a lot. It makes Mom sad. Dad said when he comes home, we can play a fun game together. I'm really excited! I've never played a game with dad before!"
Meanwhile, the person on the other end was a gruff speaking, dispassionate man. "Hasegawa apartments, management speakin. How may I help ya?"
He skipped the second page, wanting to hurry. He wasn’t exactly eager to get caught in a student’s room, after all.
“Hello, is there an Amai Saitou living here? They lost something, and I’d like to return it.“
"Well, there was an Amai, and the Saitou family does live here...sorta, but only one left is Yuuya Saitou."
Meanwhile, the next page was dated a week later. It only repeated the phrase "it was supposed to be a game" over and over again on the second and third pages.
“Is it alright if I drop something off for them?“ He closed the notebook, drumming his fingers on the cover.
Yuuya was the name in the notebook. Did Amai move away? Why would Amai have Yuuya’s notebook?
"Yeah, sure. I don't care. Though if ya break a door or somethin, I'm obligated to call the police yadda yadda yadda."
“Yeah, got it.“ He hung up, pulling up the address he wrote down as he left. Just going all over the place, huh. He didn’t mind, exactly, but this was still more driving than he’d done in a long time.
Driving took a lot of time out of what would have been an hour long walk. The front door to the apartment was slightly ajar and the window was boarded up. The rest of the apartment complex was eerily dark and quiet especially for an area in Tokyo.
Looks like some second-rate horror movie... He knocked on the door frame as he walked in.
“Yuuya Saitou?“
A familiar voice yelped and turned on the lights revealing several boxes most of them sealed, a tv, vcr, an old couch, and a familiar but tired face.
"Huh? Who? Oh, Matsuda. What are you doing here?"
“Oh, Amai.“ Didn’t management say Amai didn’t live here? Well, it saves him the trouble of trying to track him down through relatives.
“You weren’t at your dorm.“
"No, I was here. Left through the window a few days ago."
“Is there a reason you’ve been isolating yourself?“
He gestured toward the boxes. "Just cleaning up some things from my past."
“In the dark?“
"Huh? Oh, no. There was something in another room. There wasn't much reason to keep lights on in here." He sighed. "Look, I'm a bit busy but feel free to look around. I'll be a better host when I'm done." He leaves the room. There are four boxes that are opened already: one without a label, one labeled "his things", one labeled "mom's things" and one labeled "Amai's things".
He wanders farther inside, closing the door behind him. He sits down in front of the box labeled “Amai’s things”, looking inside.
The box contained a small photo album and old children's books and toys.
Well, you’re already snooping. With that thought in mind, he began to sift through the pages.
The photo's showed a young girl who looked very similar to Amai holding a much younger Amai. Another photo showed the girl alone. Some writing on the photo revealed her name was Amai Kuroshiki. Another that stood out was a younger version of the Amai he knew wearing a preschool uniform with writing on the photo saying "Yuuya's first day of school".
He felt like it shouldn’t come as a surprise that someone called the “Ultimate Torture Technician” has some secrets in their past. Nonetheless, he was. Intrigued...
Right. Set the album back in the box. The box labeled “Mom’s things” was his next ‘target’.
Inside that box, there were some clothes, some handmade stuffed animals, a cookbook, and several unsent letters all to a man named Naomichi Fujiwara.
He looked through the letters, sitting back on his heels to read through them.
Most of the letters were her giving the other updates on their daughter, regretting her marriage to her husband, and saying she missed him. However, one stuck out.
Naomichi, I don't know what to do. He...why did he do that?! Yuuya is only a child. He's only a seven year old boy! He could've been killed! It may have been kinder to kill Yuuya...as awful as it is to say that. He wakes up screaming, he won't look me in the eyes, he won't even smile anymore...I saw him scrubbing his hands for hours yesterday. He said he couldn't get the blood off, he couldn't get the blood off. I can't leave his father. I would...I really would. Still, I can't leave Yuuya alone with this man. I'm sorry, Naomichi.
-Maika Saitou
This... He had his theories before, but this is pretty solid proof. Did he take a new name at some point?
...There isn’t really anything to do but keep looking. With that in mind, he chose the unlabeled box next.
The unlabeled box had a single tape, a photo graph of a man with dark hair and dark eyes standing next to the woman from the journal picture who was holding a small child, and medical text books with stickers on the cover.
He pulled out the tape. It’s been awhile since I used these.... Putting the tape in the vcr, he turned the tv on and the volume down low, and pressed play.
Yuuya stood in front of the camera. He seemed tired and emotionless. Tied to a chair was the man with dark hair and eyes from the photograph. With an empty and torn open chest cavity, there was no doubt that that man was dead.
"This is the last show any of you will get out of me. I'm tired. I'm so so so tired. I don't even care if I go to hell for this. I'm too tured to care anymore." The video ends in static.
Family problems, huh. He returned the tape to it’s proper box.
If I’m getting this right, that man would be...
He set to work opening up the dad box.
Inside the box labeled "his things", there was an eerily realistic looking model skeleton, a journal, and several tapes with dates with three bearing a red label instead of white with the latest being 2 years old and the oldest being 10.
He took out the red tapes and the journal for now.
Looking in the journal first, the rest can wait a second.
At first, the entries were normal for an expecting parent: excited, nervous, etc. It wasn't until the next to last entry dated roughly 10 years ago did anything seem out of place.
Someone found out. I thought that the deep web was supposed to be anonymous, but someone found me and gave me an opportunity. Tomorrow, I'll leave for a week. I'll be given some items to start up my own. Rich son of a bitch lost his favorite show...and well, I didn't care who spilled blood. The only downside is that they took an immediate intetest in my son. If it wasn't for their reassurance the only wanted him as a torture technician, I wouldn't be writing this as a free man.
Only...? Poor choice of words if you’re going to fuck up your son.
He closed the notebook with a vague feeling of disgust. Already committed...
He put the earliest red tape into the vcr, pressing play.
The tape was...oddly normal. It seemed as though the date had simply been printed wrong as it showed an infant Yuuya learning how to walk and talk while cooing happily at his parents..
Well, okay. He couldn’t deny that the break was welcome, but by now, he was supposed to be figuring stuff out, wasn’t he?
Matsuda changed the tape to the middle red tape.
The woman from the photograph in Yuuya's journal was tied to a chair. Her long white hair had been hacked short. She struggled and cursed at a man with black hair whose back was turned. Eventually he turned to her and the camera. A length of bloodstained barbed wire was in his hands. "Oh, what are you going to do?" He asked with a cruel smile on his face. "Kill me? You already tried to kill your son, I suppose your husband would mean nothing."
"Killing him would be a mercy compare-" She didn't get to finish as she was bludgeoned to death with a hammer. The video cut to static as the body became more and more unrecognizable.
God. He gagged as he changed to the final tape. No matter how often I see this shit, I’ll never get used to it.
The last tape showed a very very young Yuuya who couldn't have been older than 7 clutching an axe close to him as a man who appeared to be in his 20s approached him with a knife. An announcement went off:
"Ladies and Gentlemen, we are gathered here today to witness a battle for freedom! Only one may leave, only one will survive! Place your bets now!"
Yuuya began to cry as the man held the knife up. "Ain't personal kid...I...I gotta go home n see mah baby girl."
He came closer, and Yuuya backed into a wall. "D-dad! I...I don't want to play this g-game anymore! Dad!" He screamed and ran when the man lunged at him.
As Yuuya ran, small traps were revealed, and eventually, the man got caught in a bear trap. He screamed as he struggled to get out of it. Meanwhile, a man with black hair and black eyes appeared and guilded Yuuya's hands to bring the axe down over and over and over while Yuuya screamed and begged for his dad to let him go. When it was over, the boy appeared emotionless as his father patted his head and told him what a good boy he was.
Shit. When he turned it off, the resulting silence rang in his ears. Doing such a thing to a child-
He bit down on his hand as he moved the tapes back into their box. Uhn...
Yuuya came back into the room carrying a futon with dry blood staining it, some screws, and part of what appeared to be a cage. "Oh, sorry that took so long..." He put the screws and futon into a box labeled "to burn" before sealing it up.
“T’s no problem.” Matsuda sat there for a moment before continuing.
“So why the sudden need to clean this place up? You selling the place?”
Event: Truth
It had been several days, but no one had been able to find Amai Saitou. His classwork had been completed a month in advance, but no one is sure they saw him turn it in. The last time anyone saw him, he was going to his dorm room, but that had to have been over a week ago.
((Feel free to participate whether tagged or not. Using this to elaborate on Amai's backstory and mental state. There will be triggering themes that I will put in the tags now and when they come up. Thank you for your time and patience.))
@theultimatemoralcompass @happy-thoughtsandreams @delusions-and-dreams @apathetic-despair @the-secrets-of-the-game
Matsuda had a free day, for once. He normally just stayed at home, but...
You shouldn’t isolate yourself! Even though they didn’t talk often, Makoto still managed to nag him.
Eventually, he was begrudgingly convinced to visit some friends. Picking from one of the names in his notebook, he ended up searching for Amai.
He didn’t actually know where Amai lived, so ended up asking around the best he could.
There weren't many who knew him, but the few that did said they last saw him go to his dorm.
Being back at Hope’s Peak wasn’t the most pleasant experience - the last time he was here it was as a student, and that wasn’t exactly the happy school life his peers dreamed of.
But that didn’t matter.
As soon as he confirmed he was at the right room, he knocked, not planning to stop until he got an answer.
There wasn't an answer, but the door opened.
He stood in the entrance, looking around the room.
“Hey, uh. Amai. I brought jellybeans, they’re Starburst flavored,“ he called out.
The room was empty. The closet door was open revealing his uniforms and his sweater. There was a desk with anatomical drawings tabled to the wall and the desk itself was covered with books and candy bags. The only other thing of note was a journal and a set of keys on a plush bunny key chain laying on the bed. One of those were clearly the room key.
Not here, damn. Still, he came in anyways. Standing over the bed, he found himself thumbing through the pages of the journal.
When he opened it, a photograph fell out. On the inside of the cover, an address and a phone number was written down. On the first page, the first entry of the journal was written roughly 10 years ago.
He stopped to pick up the photograph, only taking a moment to look at it before he tucked it back against the cover. He jotted down the address in his notebook, just in case, and dialed the number. As he waited on the call, he read the entry absent-mindedly.
The photo was of a woman with long white hair, pale skin, and pink eyes. She wore a familiar pink sweater.
The journal entry had the month and day crossed out.
"Hello! Mom said I should write a jornal. My name is Yuuya. I'm...7 years old, and I live with my mom and dad. Dad works a lot. It makes Mom sad. Dad said when he comes home, we can play a fun game together. I'm really excited! I've never played a game with dad before!"
Meanwhile, the person on the other end was a gruff speaking, dispassionate man. "Hasegawa apartments, management speakin. How may I help ya?"
He skipped the second page, wanting to hurry. He wasn’t exactly eager to get caught in a student’s room, after all.
“Hello, is there an Amai Saitou living here? They lost something, and I’d like to return it.“
"Well, there was an Amai, and the Saitou family does live here...sorta, but only one left is Yuuya Saitou."
Meanwhile, the next page was dated a week later. It only repeated the phrase "it was supposed to be a game" over and over again on the second and third pages.
“Is it alright if I drop something off for them?“ He closed the notebook, drumming his fingers on the cover.
Yuuya was the name in the notebook. Did Amai move away? Why would Amai have Yuuya’s notebook?
"Yeah, sure. I don't care. Though if ya break a door or somethin, I'm obligated to call the police yadda yadda yadda."
“Yeah, got it.“ He hung up, pulling up the address he wrote down as he left. Just going all over the place, huh. He didn’t mind, exactly, but this was still more driving than he’d done in a long time.
Driving took a lot of time out of what would have been an hour long walk. The front door to the apartment was slightly ajar and the window was boarded up. The rest of the apartment complex was eerily dark and quiet especially for an area in Tokyo.
Looks like some second-rate horror movie... He knocked on the door frame as he walked in.
“Yuuya Saitou?“
A familiar voice yelped and turned on the lights revealing several boxes most of them sealed, a tv, vcr, an old couch, and a familiar but tired face.
"Huh? Who? Oh, Matsuda. What are you doing here?"
“Oh, Amai.“ Didn’t management say Amai didn’t live here? Well, it saves him the trouble of trying to track him down through relatives.
“You weren’t at your dorm.“
"No, I was here. Left through the window a few days ago."
“Is there a reason you’ve been isolating yourself?“
He gestured toward the boxes. "Just cleaning up some things from my past."
“In the dark?“
"Huh? Oh, no. There was something in another room. There wasn't much reason to keep lights on in here." He sighed. "Look, I'm a bit busy but feel free to look around. I'll be a better host when I'm done." He leaves the room. There are four boxes that are opened already: one without a label, one labeled "his things", one labeled "mom's things" and one labeled "Amai's things".
He wanders farther inside, closing the door behind him. He sits down in front of the box labeled “Amai’s things”, looking inside.
The box contained a small photo album and old children's books and toys.
Well, you’re already snooping. With that thought in mind, he began to sift through the pages.
The photo's showed a young girl who looked very similar to Amai holding a much younger Amai. Another photo showed the girl alone. Some writing on the photo revealed her name was Amai Kuroshiki. Another that stood out was a younger version of the Amai he knew wearing a preschool uniform with writing on the photo saying "Yuuya's first day of school".
He felt like it shouldn’t come as a surprise that someone called the “Ultimate Torture Technician” has some secrets in their past. Nonetheless, he was. Intrigued...
Right. Set the album back in the box. The box labeled “Mom’s things” was his next ‘target’.
Inside that box, there were some clothes, some handmade stuffed animals, a cookbook, and several unsent letters all to a man named Naomichi Fujiwara.
He looked through the letters, sitting back on his heels to read through them.
Most of the letters were her giving the other updates on their daughter, regretting her marriage to her husband, and saying she missed him. However, one stuck out.
Naomichi, I don't know what to do. He...why did he do that?! Yuuya is only a child. He's only a seven year old boy! He could've been killed! It may have been kinder to kill Yuuya...as awful as it is to say that. He wakes up screaming, he won't look me in the eyes, he won't even smile anymore...I saw him scrubbing his hands for hours yesterday. He said he couldn't get the blood off, he couldn't get the blood off. I can't leave his father. I would...I really would. Still, I can't leave Yuuya alone with this man. I'm sorry, Naomichi.
-Maika Saitou
This... He had his theories before, but this is pretty solid proof. Did he take a new name at some point?
...There isn’t really anything to do but keep looking. With that in mind, he chose the unlabeled box next.
The unlabeled box had a single tape, a photo graph of a man with dark hair and dark eyes standing next to the woman from the journal picture who was holding a small child, and medical text books with stickers on the cover.
He pulled out the tape. It’s been awhile since I used these.... Putting the tape in the vcr, he turned the tv on and the volume down low, and pressed play.
Yuuya stood in front of the camera. He seemed tired and emotionless. Tied to a chair was the man with dark hair and eyes from the photograph. With an empty and torn open chest cavity, there was no doubt that that man was dead.
"This is the last show any of you will get out of me. I'm tired. I'm so so so tired. I don't even care if I go to hell for this. I'm too tured to care anymore." The video ends in static.
Family problems, huh. He returned the tape to it’s proper box.
If I’m getting this right, that man would be...
He set to work opening up the dad box.
Inside the box labeled "his things", there was an eerily realistic looking model skeleton, a journal, and several tapes with dates with three bearing a red label instead of white with the latest being 2 years old and the oldest being 10.
He took out the red tapes and the journal for now.
Looking in the journal first, the rest can wait a second.
At first, the entries were normal for an expecting parent: excited, nervous, etc. It wasn't until the next to last entry dated roughly 10 years ago did anything seem out of place.
Someone found out. I thought that the deep web was supposed to be anonymous, but someone found me and gave me an opportunity. Tomorrow, I'll leave for a week. I'll be given some items to start up my own. Rich son of a bitch lost his favorite show...and well, I didn't care who spilled blood. The only downside is that they took an immediate intetest in my son. If it wasn't for their reassurance the only wanted him as a torture technician, I wouldn't be writing this as a free man.
Only...? Poor choice of words if you’re going to fuck up your son.
He closed the notebook with a vague feeling of disgust. Already committed...
He put the earliest red tape into the vcr, pressing play.
The tape was...oddly normal. It seemed as though the date had simply been printed wrong as it showed an infant Yuuya learning how to walk and talk while cooing happily at his parents..
Well, okay. He couldn’t deny that the break was welcome, but by now, he was supposed to be figuring stuff out, wasn’t he?
Matsuda changed the tape to the middle red tape.
The woman from the photograph in Yuuya's journal was tied to a chair. Her long white hair had been hacked short. She struggled and cursed at a man with black hair whose back was turned. Eventually he turned to her and the camera. A length of bloodstained barbed wire was in his hands. "Oh, what are you going to do?" He asked with a cruel smile on his face. "Kill me? You already tried to kill your son, I suppose your husband would mean nothing."
"Killing him would be a mercy compare-" She didn't get to finish as she was bludgeoned to death with a hammer. The video cut to static as the body became more and more unrecognizable.
God. He gagged as he changed to the final tape. No matter how often I see this shit, I’ll never get used to it.
The last tape showed a very very young Yuuya who couldn't have been older than 7 clutching an axe close to him as a man who appeared to be in his 20s approached him with a knife. An announcement went off:
"Ladies and Gentlemen, we are gathered here today to witness a battle for freedom! Only one may leave, only one will survive! Place your bets now!"
Yuuya began to cry as the man held the knife up. "Ain't personal kid...I...I gotta go home n see mah baby girl."
He came closer, and Yuuya backed into a wall. "D-dad! I...I don't want to play this g-game anymore! Dad!" He screamed and ran when the man lunged at him.
As Yuuya ran, small traps were revealed, and eventually, the man got caught in a bear trap. He screamed as he struggled to get out of it. Meanwhile, a man with black hair and black eyes appeared and guilded Yuuya's hands to bring the axe down over and over and over while Yuuya screamed and begged for his dad to let him go. When it was over, the boy appeared emotionless as his father patted his head and told him what a good boy he was.
Shit. When he turned it off, the resulting silence rang in his ears. Doing such a thing to a child-
He bit down on his hand as he moved the tapes back into their box. Uhn...
A promo fit for a Queen
“Shut up!” She was about to hit him again before someone took the pipe out of her hands. “Hm? I was looking for this! Thanks Miss Sonia!”
Matsuda didn’t flinch away, but he did look surprised when she was stopped.
“You… You’re that mechanic, aren’t you?“ He didn’t make for a good first impression, considering he was covered in blood and still had bits of glass stuck to him.
Of course I’m getting tired… what if he kills me… is he moving…... and she’s out.
To say he hadn’t thought about changing her, about killing her would be a lie. But of all the possible things to do, that’s would be the stupidest and shortest lived one. He wasn’t ready yet. They still need-
Matsuda cut off his idle thinking in the bud, settling for the simple monotony of surgery.
The amygdala can be conditioned to set off the nucleus accumbens, forcing it to associate a flood of dopamine with despair. Less SFG reaction when...
It took a few seconds to recognize when he had finished the last stitch. There was almost a sense of finality, but he immediately set to work stopping the anesthetic and cleaning up.
Event: Truth
It had been several days, but no one had been able to find Amai Saitou. His classwork had been completed a month in advance, but no one is sure they saw him turn it in. The last time anyone saw him, he was going to his dorm room, but that had to have been over a week ago.
((Feel free to participate whether tagged or not. Using this to elaborate on Amai's backstory and mental state. There will be triggering themes that I will put in the tags now and when they come up. Thank you for your time and patience.))
@theultimatemoralcompass @happy-thoughtsandreams @delusions-and-dreams @apathetic-despair @the-secrets-of-the-game
Matsuda had a free day, for once. He normally just stayed at home, but...
You shouldn’t isolate yourself! Even though they didn’t talk often, Makoto still managed to nag him.
Eventually, he was begrudgingly convinced to visit some friends. Picking from one of the names in his notebook, he ended up searching for Amai.
He didn’t actually know where Amai lived, so ended up asking around the best he could.
There weren't many who knew him, but the few that did said they last saw him go to his dorm.
Being back at Hope’s Peak wasn’t the most pleasant experience - the last time he was here it was as a student, and that wasn’t exactly the happy school life his peers dreamed of.
But that didn’t matter.
As soon as he confirmed he was at the right room, he knocked, not planning to stop until he got an answer.
There wasn't an answer, but the door opened.
He stood in the entrance, looking around the room.
“Hey, uh. Amai. I brought jellybeans, they’re Starburst flavored,“ he called out.
The room was empty. The closet door was open revealing his uniforms and his sweater. There was a desk with anatomical drawings tabled to the wall and the desk itself was covered with books and candy bags. The only other thing of note was a journal and a set of keys on a plush bunny key chain laying on the bed. One of those were clearly the room key.
Not here, damn. Still, he came in anyways. Standing over the bed, he found himself thumbing through the pages of the journal.
When he opened it, a photograph fell out. On the inside of the cover, an address and a phone number was written down. On the first page, the first entry of the journal was written roughly 10 years ago.
He stopped to pick up the photograph, only taking a moment to look at it before he tucked it back against the cover. He jotted down the address in his notebook, just in case, and dialed the number. As he waited on the call, he read the entry absent-mindedly.
The photo was of a woman with long white hair, pale skin, and pink eyes. She wore a familiar pink sweater.
The journal entry had the month and day crossed out.
"Hello! Mom said I should write a jornal. My name is Yuuya. I'm...7 years old, and I live with my mom and dad. Dad works a lot. It makes Mom sad. Dad said when he comes home, we can play a fun game together. I'm really excited! I've never played a game with dad before!"
Meanwhile, the person on the other end was a gruff speaking, dispassionate man. "Hasegawa apartments, management speakin. How may I help ya?"
He skipped the second page, wanting to hurry. He wasn’t exactly eager to get caught in a student’s room, after all.
“Hello, is there an Amai Saitou living here? They lost something, and I’d like to return it.“
"Well, there was an Amai, and the Saitou family does live here...sorta, but only one left is Yuuya Saitou."
Meanwhile, the next page was dated a week later. It only repeated the phrase "it was supposed to be a game" over and over again on the second and third pages.
“Is it alright if I drop something off for them?“ He closed the notebook, drumming his fingers on the cover.
Yuuya was the name in the notebook. Did Amai move away? Why would Amai have Yuuya’s notebook?
"Yeah, sure. I don't care. Though if ya break a door or somethin, I'm obligated to call the police yadda yadda yadda."
“Yeah, got it.“ He hung up, pulling up the address he wrote down as he left. Just going all over the place, huh. He didn’t mind, exactly, but this was still more driving than he’d done in a long time.
Driving took a lot of time out of what would have been an hour long walk. The front door to the apartment was slightly ajar and the window was boarded up. The rest of the apartment complex was eerily dark and quiet especially for an area in Tokyo.
Looks like some second-rate horror movie... He knocked on the door frame as he walked in.
“Yuuya Saitou?“
A familiar voice yelped and turned on the lights revealing several boxes most of them sealed, a tv, vcr, an old couch, and a familiar but tired face.
"Huh? Who? Oh, Matsuda. What are you doing here?"
“Oh, Amai.“ Didn’t management say Amai didn’t live here? Well, it saves him the trouble of trying to track him down through relatives.
“You weren’t at your dorm.“
"No, I was here. Left through the window a few days ago."
“Is there a reason you’ve been isolating yourself?“
He gestured toward the boxes. "Just cleaning up some things from my past."
“In the dark?“
"Huh? Oh, no. There was something in another room. There wasn't much reason to keep lights on in here." He sighed. "Look, I'm a bit busy but feel free to look around. I'll be a better host when I'm done." He leaves the room. There are four boxes that are opened already: one without a label, one labeled "his things", one labeled "mom's things" and one labeled "Amai's things".
He wanders farther inside, closing the door behind him. He sits down in front of the box labeled “Amai’s things”, looking inside.
The box contained a small photo album and old children's books and toys.
Well, you’re already snooping. With that thought in mind, he began to sift through the pages.
The photo's showed a young girl who looked very similar to Amai holding a much younger Amai. Another photo showed the girl alone. Some writing on the photo revealed her name was Amai Kuroshiki. Another that stood out was a younger version of the Amai he knew wearing a preschool uniform with writing on the photo saying "Yuuya's first day of school".
He felt like it shouldn’t come as a surprise that someone called the “Ultimate Torture Technician” has some secrets in their past. Nonetheless, he was. Intrigued...
Right. Set the album back in the box. The box labeled “Mom’s things” was his next ‘target’.
Inside that box, there were some clothes, some handmade stuffed animals, a cookbook, and several unsent letters all to a man named Naomichi Fujiwara.
He looked through the letters, sitting back on his heels to read through them.
Most of the letters were her giving the other updates on their daughter, regretting her marriage to her husband, and saying she missed him. However, one stuck out.
Naomichi, I don't know what to do. He...why did he do that?! Yuuya is only a child. He's only a seven year old boy! He could've been killed! It may have been kinder to kill Yuuya...as awful as it is to say that. He wakes up screaming, he won't look me in the eyes, he won't even smile anymore...I saw him scrubbing his hands for hours yesterday. He said he couldn't get the blood off, he couldn't get the blood off. I can't leave his father. I would...I really would. Still, I can't leave Yuuya alone with this man. I'm sorry, Naomichi.
-Maika Saitou
This... He had his theories before, but this is pretty solid proof. Did he take a new name at some point?
...There isn’t really anything to do but keep looking. With that in mind, he chose the unlabeled box next.
The unlabeled box had a single tape, a photo graph of a man with dark hair and dark eyes standing next to the woman from the journal picture who was holding a small child, and medical text books with stickers on the cover.
He pulled out the tape. It’s been awhile since I used these.... Putting the tape in the vcr, he turned the tv on and the volume down low, and pressed play.
Yuuya stood in front of the camera. He seemed tired and emotionless. Tied to a chair was the man with dark hair and eyes from the photograph. With an empty and torn open chest cavity, there was no doubt that that man was dead.
"This is the last show any of you will get out of me. I'm tired. I'm so so so tired. I don't even care if I go to hell for this. I'm too tured to care anymore." The video ends in static.
Family problems, huh. He returned the tape to it’s proper box.
If I’m getting this right, that man would be...
He set to work opening up the dad box.
Inside the box labeled "his things", there was an eerily realistic looking model skeleton, a journal, and several tapes with dates with three bearing a red label instead of white with the latest being 2 years old and the oldest being 10.
He took out the red tapes and the journal for now.
Looking in the journal first, the rest can wait a second.
At first, the entries were normal for an expecting parent: excited, nervous, etc. It wasn't until the next to last entry dated roughly 10 years ago did anything seem out of place.
Someone found out. I thought that the deep web was supposed to be anonymous, but someone found me and gave me an opportunity. Tomorrow, I'll leave for a week. I'll be given some items to start up my own. Rich son of a bitch lost his favorite show...and well, I didn't care who spilled blood. The only downside is that they took an immediate intetest in my son. If it wasn't for their reassurance the only wanted him as a torture technician, I wouldn't be writing this as a free man.
Only...? Poor choice of words if you’re going to fuck up your son.
He closed the notebook with a vague feeling of disgust. Already committed...
He put the earliest red tape into the vcr, pressing play.
The tape was...oddly normal. It seemed as though the date had simply been printed wrong as it showed an infant Yuuya learning how to walk and talk while cooing happily at his parents..
Well, okay. He couldn’t deny that the break was welcome, but by now, he was supposed to be figuring stuff out, wasn’t he?
Matsuda changed the tape to the middle red tape.
The woman from the photograph in Yuuya's journal was tied to a chair. Her long white hair had been hacked short. She struggled and cursed at a man with black hair whose back was turned. Eventually he turned to her and the camera. A length of bloodstained barbed wire was in his hands. "Oh, what are you going to do?" He asked with a cruel smile on his face. "Kill me? You already tried to kill your son, I suppose your husband would mean nothing."
"Killing him would be a mercy compare-" She didn't get to finish as she was bludgeoned to death with a hammer. The video cut to static as the body became more and more unrecognizable.
God. He gagged as he changed to the final tape. No matter how often I see this shit, I’ll never get used to it.
Event: Truth
It had been several days, but no one had been able to find Amai Saitou. His classwork had been completed a month in advance, but no one is sure they saw him turn it in. The last time anyone saw him, he was going to his dorm room, but that had to have been over a week ago.
((Feel free to participate whether tagged or not. Using this to elaborate on Amai's backstory and mental state. There will be triggering themes that I will put in the tags now and when they come up. Thank you for your time and patience.))
@theultimatemoralcompass @happy-thoughtsandreams @delusions-and-dreams @apathetic-despair @the-secrets-of-the-game
Matsuda had a free day, for once. He normally just stayed at home, but...
You shouldn’t isolate yourself! Even though they didn’t talk often, Makoto still managed to nag him.
Eventually, he was begrudgingly convinced to visit some friends. Picking from one of the names in his notebook, he ended up searching for Amai.
He didn’t actually know where Amai lived, so ended up asking around the best he could.
There weren't many who knew him, but the few that did said they last saw him go to his dorm.
Being back at Hope’s Peak wasn’t the most pleasant experience - the last time he was here it was as a student, and that wasn’t exactly the happy school life his peers dreamed of.
But that didn’t matter.
As soon as he confirmed he was at the right room, he knocked, not planning to stop until he got an answer.
There wasn't an answer, but the door opened.
He stood in the entrance, looking around the room.
“Hey, uh. Amai. I brought jellybeans, they’re Starburst flavored,“ he called out.
The room was empty. The closet door was open revealing his uniforms and his sweater. There was a desk with anatomical drawings tabled to the wall and the desk itself was covered with books and candy bags. The only other thing of note was a journal and a set of keys on a plush bunny key chain laying on the bed. One of those were clearly the room key.
Not here, damn. Still, he came in anyways. Standing over the bed, he found himself thumbing through the pages of the journal.
When he opened it, a photograph fell out. On the inside of the cover, an address and a phone number was written down. On the first page, the first entry of the journal was written roughly 10 years ago.
He stopped to pick up the photograph, only taking a moment to look at it before he tucked it back against the cover. He jotted down the address in his notebook, just in case, and dialed the number. As he waited on the call, he read the entry absent-mindedly.
The photo was of a woman with long white hair, pale skin, and pink eyes. She wore a familiar pink sweater.
The journal entry had the month and day crossed out.
"Hello! Mom said I should write a jornal. My name is Yuuya. I'm...7 years old, and I live with my mom and dad. Dad works a lot. It makes Mom sad. Dad said when he comes home, we can play a fun game together. I'm really excited! I've never played a game with dad before!"
Meanwhile, the person on the other end was a gruff speaking, dispassionate man. "Hasegawa apartments, management speakin. How may I help ya?"
He skipped the second page, wanting to hurry. He wasn’t exactly eager to get caught in a student’s room, after all.
“Hello, is there an Amai Saitou living here? They lost something, and I’d like to return it.“
"Well, there was an Amai, and the Saitou family does live here...sorta, but only one left is Yuuya Saitou."
Meanwhile, the next page was dated a week later. It only repeated the phrase "it was supposed to be a game" over and over again on the second and third pages.
“Is it alright if I drop something off for them?“ He closed the notebook, drumming his fingers on the cover.
Yuuya was the name in the notebook. Did Amai move away? Why would Amai have Yuuya’s notebook?
"Yeah, sure. I don't care. Though if ya break a door or somethin, I'm obligated to call the police yadda yadda yadda."
“Yeah, got it.“ He hung up, pulling up the address he wrote down as he left. Just going all over the place, huh. He didn’t mind, exactly, but this was still more driving than he’d done in a long time.
Driving took a lot of time out of what would have been an hour long walk. The front door to the apartment was slightly ajar and the window was boarded up. The rest of the apartment complex was eerily dark and quiet especially for an area in Tokyo.
Looks like some second-rate horror movie... He knocked on the door frame as he walked in.
“Yuuya Saitou?“
A familiar voice yelped and turned on the lights revealing several boxes most of them sealed, a tv, vcr, an old couch, and a familiar but tired face.
"Huh? Who? Oh, Matsuda. What are you doing here?"
“Oh, Amai.“ Didn’t management say Amai didn’t live here? Well, it saves him the trouble of trying to track him down through relatives.
“You weren’t at your dorm.“
"No, I was here. Left through the window a few days ago."
“Is there a reason you’ve been isolating yourself?“
He gestured toward the boxes. "Just cleaning up some things from my past."
“In the dark?“
"Huh? Oh, no. There was something in another room. There wasn't much reason to keep lights on in here." He sighed. "Look, I'm a bit busy but feel free to look around. I'll be a better host when I'm done." He leaves the room. There are four boxes that are opened already: one without a label, one labeled "his things", one labeled "mom's things" and one labeled "Amai's things".
He wanders farther inside, closing the door behind him. He sits down in front of the box labeled “Amai’s things”, looking inside.
The box contained a small photo album and old children's books and toys.
Well, you’re already snooping. With that thought in mind, he began to sift through the pages.
The photo's showed a young girl who looked very similar to Amai holding a much younger Amai. Another photo showed the girl alone. Some writing on the photo revealed her name was Amai Kuroshiki. Another that stood out was a younger version of the Amai he knew wearing a preschool uniform with writing on the photo saying "Yuuya's first day of school".
He felt like it shouldn’t come as a surprise that someone called the “Ultimate Torture Technician” has some secrets in their past. Nonetheless, he was. Intrigued...
Right. Set the album back in the box. The box labeled “Mom’s things” was his next ‘target’.
Inside that box, there were some clothes, some handmade stuffed animals, a cookbook, and several unsent letters all to a man named Naomichi Fujiwara.
He looked through the letters, sitting back on his heels to read through them.
Most of the letters were her giving the other updates on their daughter, regretting her marriage to her husband, and saying she missed him. However, one stuck out.
Naomichi, I don't know what to do. He...why did he do that?! Yuuya is only a child. He's only a seven year old boy! He could've been killed! It may have been kinder to kill Yuuya...as awful as it is to say that. He wakes up screaming, he won't look me in the eyes, he won't even smile anymore...I saw him scrubbing his hands for hours yesterday. He said he couldn't get the blood off, he couldn't get the blood off. I can't leave his father. I would...I really would. Still, I can't leave Yuuya alone with this man. I'm sorry, Naomichi.
-Maika Saitou
This... He had his theories before, but this is pretty solid proof. Did he take a new name at some point?
...There isn’t really anything to do but keep looking. With that in mind, he chose the unlabeled box next.
The unlabeled box had a single tape, a photo graph of a man with dark hair and dark eyes standing next to the woman from the journal picture who was holding a small child, and medical text books with stickers on the cover.
He pulled out the tape. It’s been awhile since I used these.... Putting the tape in the vcr, he turned the tv on and the volume down low, and pressed play.
Yuuya stood in front of the camera. He seemed tired and emotionless. Tied to a chair was the man with dark hair and eyes from the photograph. With an empty and torn open chest cavity, there was no doubt that that man was dead.
"This is the last show any of you will get out of me. I'm tired. I'm so so so tired. I don't even care if I go to hell for this. I'm too tured to care anymore." The video ends in static.
Family problems, huh. He returned the tape to it’s proper box.
If I’m getting this right, that man would be...
He set to work opening up the dad box.
Inside the box labeled "his things", there was an eerily realistic looking model skeleton, a journal, and several tapes with dates with three bearing a red label instead of white with the latest being 2 years old and the oldest being 10.
He took out the red tapes and the journal for now.
Looking in the journal first, the rest can wait a second.
At first, the entries were normal for an expecting parent: excited, nervous, etc. It wasn't until the next to last entry dated roughly 10 years ago did anything seem out of place.
Someone found out. I thought that the deep web was supposed to be anonymous, but someone found me and gave me an opportunity. Tomorrow, I'll leave for a week. I'll be given some items to start up my own. Rich son of a bitch lost his favorite show...and well, I didn't care who spilled blood. The only downside is that they took an immediate intetest in my son. If it wasn't for their reassurance the only wanted him as a torture technician, I wouldn't be writing this as a free man.
Only...? Poor choice of words if you’re going to fuck up your son.
He closed the notebook with a vague feeling of disgust. Already committed...
He put the earliest red tape into the vcr, pressing play.
The tape was...oddly normal. It seemed as though the date had simply been printed wrong as it showed an infant Yuuya learning how to walk and talk while cooing happily at his parents..
Well, okay. He couldn’t deny that the break was welcome, but by now, he was supposed to be figuring stuff out, wasn’t he?
Matsuda changed the tape to the middle red tape.
Event: Truth
It had been several days, but no one had been able to find Amai Saitou. His classwork had been completed a month in advance, but no one is sure they saw him turn it in. The last time anyone saw him, he was going to his dorm room, but that had to have been over a week ago.
((Feel free to participate whether tagged or not. Using this to elaborate on Amai's backstory and mental state. There will be triggering themes that I will put in the tags now and when they come up. Thank you for your time and patience.))
@theultimatemoralcompass @happy-thoughtsandreams @delusions-and-dreams @apathetic-despair @the-secrets-of-the-game
Matsuda had a free day, for once. He normally just stayed at home, but...
You shouldn’t isolate yourself! Even though they didn’t talk often, Makoto still managed to nag him.
Eventually, he was begrudgingly convinced to visit some friends. Picking from one of the names in his notebook, he ended up searching for Amai.
He didn’t actually know where Amai lived, so ended up asking around the best he could.
There weren't many who knew him, but the few that did said they last saw him go to his dorm.
Being back at Hope’s Peak wasn’t the most pleasant experience - the last time he was here it was as a student, and that wasn’t exactly the happy school life his peers dreamed of.
But that didn’t matter.
As soon as he confirmed he was at the right room, he knocked, not planning to stop until he got an answer.
There wasn't an answer, but the door opened.
He stood in the entrance, looking around the room.
“Hey, uh. Amai. I brought jellybeans, they’re Starburst flavored,“ he called out.
The room was empty. The closet door was open revealing his uniforms and his sweater. There was a desk with anatomical drawings tabled to the wall and the desk itself was covered with books and candy bags. The only other thing of note was a journal and a set of keys on a plush bunny key chain laying on the bed. One of those were clearly the room key.
Not here, damn. Still, he came in anyways. Standing over the bed, he found himself thumbing through the pages of the journal.
When he opened it, a photograph fell out. On the inside of the cover, an address and a phone number was written down. On the first page, the first entry of the journal was written roughly 10 years ago.
He stopped to pick up the photograph, only taking a moment to look at it before he tucked it back against the cover. He jotted down the address in his notebook, just in case, and dialed the number. As he waited on the call, he read the entry absent-mindedly.
The photo was of a woman with long white hair, pale skin, and pink eyes. She wore a familiar pink sweater.
The journal entry had the month and day crossed out.
"Hello! Mom said I should write a jornal. My name is Yuuya. I'm...7 years old, and I live with my mom and dad. Dad works a lot. It makes Mom sad. Dad said when he comes home, we can play a fun game together. I'm really excited! I've never played a game with dad before!"
Meanwhile, the person on the other end was a gruff speaking, dispassionate man. "Hasegawa apartments, management speakin. How may I help ya?"
He skipped the second page, wanting to hurry. He wasn’t exactly eager to get caught in a student’s room, after all.
“Hello, is there an Amai Saitou living here? They lost something, and I’d like to return it.“
"Well, there was an Amai, and the Saitou family does live here...sorta, but only one left is Yuuya Saitou."
Meanwhile, the next page was dated a week later. It only repeated the phrase "it was supposed to be a game" over and over again on the second and third pages.
“Is it alright if I drop something off for them?“ He closed the notebook, drumming his fingers on the cover.
Yuuya was the name in the notebook. Did Amai move away? Why would Amai have Yuuya’s notebook?
"Yeah, sure. I don't care. Though if ya break a door or somethin, I'm obligated to call the police yadda yadda yadda."
“Yeah, got it.“ He hung up, pulling up the address he wrote down as he left. Just going all over the place, huh. He didn’t mind, exactly, but this was still more driving than he’d done in a long time.
Driving took a lot of time out of what would have been an hour long walk. The front door to the apartment was slightly ajar and the window was boarded up. The rest of the apartment complex was eerily dark and quiet especially for an area in Tokyo.
Looks like some second-rate horror movie... He knocked on the door frame as he walked in.
“Yuuya Saitou?“
A familiar voice yelped and turned on the lights revealing several boxes most of them sealed, a tv, vcr, an old couch, and a familiar but tired face.
"Huh? Who? Oh, Matsuda. What are you doing here?"
“Oh, Amai.“ Didn’t management say Amai didn’t live here? Well, it saves him the trouble of trying to track him down through relatives.
“You weren’t at your dorm.“
"No, I was here. Left through the window a few days ago."
“Is there a reason you’ve been isolating yourself?“
He gestured toward the boxes. "Just cleaning up some things from my past."
“In the dark?“
"Huh? Oh, no. There was something in another room. There wasn't much reason to keep lights on in here." He sighed. "Look, I'm a bit busy but feel free to look around. I'll be a better host when I'm done." He leaves the room. There are four boxes that are opened already: one without a label, one labeled "his things", one labeled "mom's things" and one labeled "Amai's things".
He wanders farther inside, closing the door behind him. He sits down in front of the box labeled “Amai’s things”, looking inside.
The box contained a small photo album and old children's books and toys.
Well, you’re already snooping. With that thought in mind, he began to sift through the pages.
The photo's showed a young girl who looked very similar to Amai holding a much younger Amai. Another photo showed the girl alone. Some writing on the photo revealed her name was Amai Kuroshiki. Another that stood out was a younger version of the Amai he knew wearing a preschool uniform with writing on the photo saying "Yuuya's first day of school".
He felt like it shouldn’t come as a surprise that someone called the “Ultimate Torture Technician” has some secrets in their past. Nonetheless, he was. Intrigued...
Right. Set the album back in the box. The box labeled “Mom’s things” was his next ‘target’.
Inside that box, there were some clothes, some handmade stuffed animals, a cookbook, and several unsent letters all to a man named Naomichi Fujiwara.
He looked through the letters, sitting back on his heels to read through them.
Most of the letters were her giving the other updates on their daughter, regretting her marriage to her husband, and saying she missed him. However, one stuck out.
Naomichi, I don't know what to do. He...why did he do that?! Yuuya is only a child. He's only a seven year old boy! He could've been killed! It may have been kinder to kill Yuuya...as awful as it is to say that. He wakes up screaming, he won't look me in the eyes, he won't even smile anymore...I saw him scrubbing his hands for hours yesterday. He said he couldn't get the blood off, he couldn't get the blood off. I can't leave his father. I would...I really would. Still, I can't leave Yuuya alone with this man. I'm sorry, Naomichi.
-Maika Saitou
This... He had his theories before, but this is pretty solid proof. Did he take a new name at some point?
...There isn’t really anything to do but keep looking. With that in mind, he chose the unlabeled box next.
The unlabeled box had a single tape, a photo graph of a man with dark hair and dark eyes standing next to the woman from the journal picture who was holding a small child, and medical text books with stickers on the cover.
He pulled out the tape. It’s been awhile since I used these.... Putting the tape in the vcr, he turned the tv on and the volume down low, and pressed play.
Yuuya stood in front of the camera. He seemed tired and emotionless. Tied to a chair was the man with dark hair and eyes from the photograph. With an empty and torn open chest cavity, there was no doubt that that man was dead.
"This is the last show any of you will get out of me. I'm tired. I'm so so so tired. I don't even care if I go to hell for this. I'm too tured to care anymore." The video ends in static.
Family problems, huh. He returned the tape to it’s proper box.
If I’m getting this right, that man would be...
He set to work opening up the dad box.
Inside the box labeled "his things", there was an eerily realistic looking model skeleton, a journal, and several tapes with dates with three bearing a red label instead of white with the latest being 2 years old and the oldest being 10.
He took out the red tapes and the journal for now.
Looking in the journal first, the rest can wait a second.
At first, the entries were normal for an expecting parent: excited, nervous, etc. It wasn't until the next to last entry dated roughly 10 years ago did anything seem out of place.
Someone found out. I thought that the deep web was supposed to be anonymous, but someone found me and gave me an opportunity. Tomorrow, I'll leave for a week. I'll be given some items to start up my own. Rich son of a bitch lost his favorite show...and well, I didn't care who spilled blood. The only downside is that they took an immediate intetest in my son. If it wasn't for their reassurance the only wanted him as a torture technician, I wouldn't be writing this as a free man.
Only...? Poor choice of words if you’re going to fuck up your son.
He closed the notebook with a vague feeling of disgust. Already committed...
He put the earliest red tape into the vcr, pressing play.
Matsuda knocked on the door, stepping back. "Hello, I'm here on behalf of the Future Foundation. Can I ask you some questions?" - @apathetic-despair (i hope you don't mind, i though this interaction would be interesting !)
She was in the kitchen when she heard the knocking. It wasn’t typically /usual/ for people to stop by, but it has happened a few times - usually it’s just people trying to sell stuff, though. Or break in and steal limbs.
So she approached casually, reaching her hand out for the doorknob, but froze when she heard the man’s voice. The fucking Future Foundation!? How the fuck did hey find her??? She thought she’d been doing an alright job with hiding from the officials, but apparently not.
She had to think quickly. She thought about not answering - but the lights in the house were visibly on, so she couldn’t pull off not being home. Shakily, she put on one of her other voices and responded, though didn’t open the door.
“Ohh? The Future Foundation? I don’t have much time to answer anything, I’m taking care of my sick sister…” It was probably a shitty lie but, eh, whatever works.
@apathetic-despair
She noticed the pause. She figured she probably asked a stupid question - assumed he probably didn’t want to talk about his Junko. Who knows, maybe there was some trauma involved. She wouldn’t be surprised. So, she did feel bad for asking. At the same time, she wanted to know, and hey - he was the one who walked into her house, so she felt a tad entitled to ask what she wanted.
“Oh, wow,” Dated, huh? “I was pretty close with my own Yasuke when we were younger. We occasionally see each other around school, but we don’t talk anymore. Soooo, I’m guessing you dated her before all of this Despair shit?”
Matsuda scoffed.
"Yeah, it started before then. Kept going even after she got into it. If she hadn’t died, it might not have ended at all.“ ‘Sickeningly loyal’ she said sometimes. He scratched at his arm, not quite uncomfortable but certainly not at peace.
“Huh. Sounds like you’ve had it rough, then.” Her tone was rather flat, and it wasn’t like she wasn’t sympathetic, she just didn’t entirely know how to feel about this. Though, upon thinking about it, who wouldn’t feel a bit bad for someone who dated the bitch who ended the world?
“So. Okay, you were super close to her. So why are you working for the Future Foundation then?” She raised a suspicious brow at Matsuda. “If you dated someone in Despair, the person who started Despair at that, why are you helping those people? Like, I mean, it’s good that you are. But did you like, just turn all of a sudden? I’m kinda curious. This is all really weird.”
“Junko was dead by then.” He was silent for a moment, almost as if he didn’t plan to continue
“The Future Foundation caught me, Nagito, and Izuru. Well. Izuru wasn’t caught, but he had his own reasons for coming along. And I hadn’t seen Nagito up until he was in a cell across from me. But whatever.”
“I didn’t plan to help, but between Nagito’s weird hope ramblings and Makoto’s speeches, I didn’t care anymore. Hope or despair, it didn’t matter. They offered some of the best tech around, so as long as I could continue neurology, I guess.” And… Even though it was my fault, I had the chance to bring back that idiotic Reserve. To bring back that airheaded Nagito. All that, and I still fai-
“I guess it does seem weird. It doesn’t matter that much, I guess.”
“Hm. I guess that’s….fair.” She supposed it really would be a tricky situation, so she wouldn’t judge too much. Especially since the guy was apparently arrested. That was kind of a fear of hers ever since she got here.
“Well then I. Uh. Guess I can’t blame you?? I’m a huge advocate for Hope and all, obviously, but I think I can understand how someone wouldn’t really care during that crazy Tragedy stuff.”
“You’re still in school, aren’t you?“ He’s been dumping his shit on a highschooler - god, he needs to pull himself together. He reached into his bag, grabbing his medicine. Better late than never.
Oh. Yeah. Sometimes she forgot about the fact that most people she recognized in this timeline were older and had already graduated from Hope’s Peak. “Oh, um, yeah - I was supposed to graduate like…this year, in a few months. But that probably isn’t happening now. But how did you know?” She noticed the medicine he grabbed - was it some kind of anti-anxiety stuff? She nodded towards it. “What’s that for?”
“She was had a growth spurt, a little after the riots happened. At least, mine did.” He ended up with two very different looking pills, plopping them directly in his mouth. After he swallowed, he continued.
“Hallucination and anxiety meds. Sorry.” It wasn’t clear what he was apologizing for, exactly.
A promo fit for a Queen
“Shut up!” She was about to hit him again before someone took the pipe out of her hands. “Hm? I was looking for this! Thanks Miss Sonia!”
Matsuda didn’t flinch away, but he did look surprised when she was stopped.
“You… You’re that mechanic, aren’t you?“ He didn’t make for a good first impression, considering he was covered in blood and still had bits of glass stuck to him.
He wiped the blood off of the pipe and looked at Matsuda. “Yep! Kazuichi Souda at your service!”
“Matsuda Yasuke. Neurologist.“ He pushed himself to his feet, wiping blood off his forehead and only succeeding in digging shards of glass further into his skin.
Sonia still sadly hadn’t calmed down, swiftly yanking the pipe out of Souda’s hands. “He’s part of the future foundation Souda.” “Oh…”
“At Junko’s own request.“ Well, no, but they didn’t need to know that.
She glared at him. “Why didn’t you say that earlier? Are you lying to us?”
“I tried. Kinda hard to think when someone’s hitting you over the head.“ You would assume he’d have learned his lesson by now…
“What have you done for her then?” Souda opened his mouth to interject but Sonia quickly shut him up. “Sh! Be quiet for now darling.”
“While Junko was alive, I performed surgeries that caused people to crave despair.“ He had to hold back his shudder as he spoke. what, regretting your romantic gesture?
“The Neo World Program was supposed to rehabilitate the Despairs. Adding Junko’s AI allowed her to take over the minds of her followers and spread further.“ In truth, the AI Izuru brought was neutralized. The Despairs still haven’t left the NWP a year later, but they are reformed, sorta, if only in the program.
If it weren’t for that AI…
“Well in that case…” she gave Souda the pipe back and took Matsuda by the arm, leading him away from the garden and smiling at him. “You can do some work for me..”
“Like what?“ Godamnit.
“Do I get to clean off first?“
“No, you don’t. Don’t forget that you did annoy me Matsuda. As for what you’ll be doing, I think you already know.
Okay. This was. Maybe workable.
“What types of equipment do you have?“ The prefrontal cortex could be lived without, technically. The main issue is the latter portion of the surgery causing effects on the amygdala, permanently affecting the emotional regulation - ideal for causing despair. But is there a way to make it temporary enough to please Sonia, but not permanent? Blood loss was not helping his thought process now. The head bleeds extensively and easily, is that good or bad in this case?
It’s fine. Maybe. is this how far you’ll go to save your own skin? an impressive will to live from someone who claims not to care about living! it’s never been for my sake, just shut up already-
She shrugs. “You should be fine with whatever we have.” They end up in more or less an operation room. There’s plenty of equipment for him to work with.
Wasn’t there an animator that made brainwashing videos? If there was a way to mimic it’s effects….
“Alright,“ he said, more to himself than anything. Alright.
“If you mess anything up Souda, Gundham and all my guards will be after you.” She points to a camera on the ceiling.
“Yeah, got it.“ He sounded more dismissive than anything as he began rummaging through drawers and taking note of equipment. This might be easier with a nurse. Or maybe not, if you’re trying to get away with shit.
God, my bosses are going to be riding my fucking ass after this.
She sat on the table and waited for Matsuda to say he was ready.
He approached her, holding a gas mask in his hands.
“This is a general anesthetic. Yes, it’s necessary, your head shifts too much even using restraints without it.“ Considering he only had a basic knowledge of anesthesia., he’d usually have an anesthesiologist on hand, but he’d just have to be careful.
She layed down. “If you say so.”
It’s been awhile, but that’s fine. Just be careful.
He put the mask on her without a word. Setting up.... After a few seconds, he began counting down from 20.
Event: Truth
It had been several days, but no one had been able to find Amai Saitou. His classwork had been completed a month in advance, but no one is sure they saw him turn it in. The last time anyone saw him, he was going to his dorm room, but that had to have been over a week ago.
((Feel free to participate whether tagged or not. Using this to elaborate on Amai's backstory and mental state. There will be triggering themes that I will put in the tags now and when they come up. Thank you for your time and patience.))
@theultimatemoralcompass @happy-thoughtsandreams @delusions-and-dreams @apathetic-despair @the-secrets-of-the-game
Matsuda had a free day, for once. He normally just stayed at home, but...
You shouldn’t isolate yourself! Even though they didn’t talk often, Makoto still managed to nag him.
Eventually, he was begrudgingly convinced to visit some friends. Picking from one of the names in his notebook, he ended up searching for Amai.
He didn’t actually know where Amai lived, so ended up asking around the best he could.
There weren't many who knew him, but the few that did said they last saw him go to his dorm.
Being back at Hope’s Peak wasn’t the most pleasant experience - the last time he was here it was as a student, and that wasn’t exactly the happy school life his peers dreamed of.
But that didn’t matter.
As soon as he confirmed he was at the right room, he knocked, not planning to stop until he got an answer.
There wasn't an answer, but the door opened.
He stood in the entrance, looking around the room.
“Hey, uh. Amai. I brought jellybeans, they’re Starburst flavored,“ he called out.
The room was empty. The closet door was open revealing his uniforms and his sweater. There was a desk with anatomical drawings tabled to the wall and the desk itself was covered with books and candy bags. The only other thing of note was a journal and a set of keys on a plush bunny key chain laying on the bed. One of those were clearly the room key.
Not here, damn. Still, he came in anyways. Standing over the bed, he found himself thumbing through the pages of the journal.
When he opened it, a photograph fell out. On the inside of the cover, an address and a phone number was written down. On the first page, the first entry of the journal was written roughly 10 years ago.
He stopped to pick up the photograph, only taking a moment to look at it before he tucked it back against the cover. He jotted down the address in his notebook, just in case, and dialed the number. As he waited on the call, he read the entry absent-mindedly.
The photo was of a woman with long white hair, pale skin, and pink eyes. She wore a familiar pink sweater.
The journal entry had the month and day crossed out.
"Hello! Mom said I should write a jornal. My name is Yuuya. I'm...7 years old, and I live with my mom and dad. Dad works a lot. It makes Mom sad. Dad said when he comes home, we can play a fun game together. I'm really excited! I've never played a game with dad before!"
Meanwhile, the person on the other end was a gruff speaking, dispassionate man. "Hasegawa apartments, management speakin. How may I help ya?"
He skipped the second page, wanting to hurry. He wasn’t exactly eager to get caught in a student’s room, after all.
“Hello, is there an Amai Saitou living here? They lost something, and I’d like to return it.“
"Well, there was an Amai, and the Saitou family does live here...sorta, but only one left is Yuuya Saitou."
Meanwhile, the next page was dated a week later. It only repeated the phrase "it was supposed to be a game" over and over again on the second and third pages.
“Is it alright if I drop something off for them?“ He closed the notebook, drumming his fingers on the cover.
Yuuya was the name in the notebook. Did Amai move away? Why would Amai have Yuuya’s notebook?
"Yeah, sure. I don't care. Though if ya break a door or somethin, I'm obligated to call the police yadda yadda yadda."
“Yeah, got it.“ He hung up, pulling up the address he wrote down as he left. Just going all over the place, huh. He didn’t mind, exactly, but this was still more driving than he’d done in a long time.
Driving took a lot of time out of what would have been an hour long walk. The front door to the apartment was slightly ajar and the window was boarded up. The rest of the apartment complex was eerily dark and quiet especially for an area in Tokyo.
Looks like some second-rate horror movie... He knocked on the door frame as he walked in.
“Yuuya Saitou?“
A familiar voice yelped and turned on the lights revealing several boxes most of them sealed, a tv, vcr, an old couch, and a familiar but tired face.
"Huh? Who? Oh, Matsuda. What are you doing here?"
“Oh, Amai.“ Didn’t management say Amai didn’t live here? Well, it saves him the trouble of trying to track him down through relatives.
“You weren’t at your dorm.“
"No, I was here. Left through the window a few days ago."
“Is there a reason you’ve been isolating yourself?“
He gestured toward the boxes. "Just cleaning up some things from my past."
“In the dark?“
"Huh? Oh, no. There was something in another room. There wasn't much reason to keep lights on in here." He sighed. "Look, I'm a bit busy but feel free to look around. I'll be a better host when I'm done." He leaves the room. There are four boxes that are opened already: one without a label, one labeled "his things", one labeled "mom's things" and one labeled "Amai's things".
He wanders farther inside, closing the door behind him. He sits down in front of the box labeled “Amai’s things”, looking inside.
The box contained a small photo album and old children's books and toys.
Well, you’re already snooping. With that thought in mind, he began to sift through the pages.
The photo's showed a young girl who looked very similar to Amai holding a much younger Amai. Another photo showed the girl alone. Some writing on the photo revealed her name was Amai Kuroshiki. Another that stood out was a younger version of the Amai he knew wearing a preschool uniform with writing on the photo saying "Yuuya's first day of school".
He felt like it shouldn’t come as a surprise that someone called the “Ultimate Torture Technician” has some secrets in their past. Nonetheless, he was. Intrigued...
Right. Set the album back in the box. The box labeled “Mom’s things” was his next ‘target’.
Inside that box, there were some clothes, some handmade stuffed animals, a cookbook, and several unsent letters all to a man named Naomichi Fujiwara.
He looked through the letters, sitting back on his heels to read through them.
Most of the letters were her giving the other updates on their daughter, regretting her marriage to her husband, and saying she missed him. However, one stuck out.
Naomichi, I don't know what to do. He...why did he do that?! Yuuya is only a child. He's only a seven year old boy! He could've been killed! It may have been kinder to kill Yuuya...as awful as it is to say that. He wakes up screaming, he won't look me in the eyes, he won't even smile anymore...I saw him scrubbing his hands for hours yesterday. He said he couldn't get the blood off, he couldn't get the blood off. I can't leave his father. I would...I really would. Still, I can't leave Yuuya alone with this man. I'm sorry, Naomichi.
-Maika Saitou
This... He had his theories before, but this is pretty solid proof. Did he take a new name at some point?
...There isn’t really anything to do but keep looking. With that in mind, he chose the unlabeled box next.
The unlabeled box had a single tape, a photo graph of a man with dark hair and dark eyes standing next to the woman from the journal picture who was holding a small child, and medical text books with stickers on the cover.
He pulled out the tape. It’s been awhile since I used these.... Putting the tape in the vcr, he turned the tv on and the volume down low, and pressed play.
Yuuya stood in front of the camera. He seemed tired and emotionless. Tied to a chair was the man with dark hair and eyes from the photograph. With an empty and torn open chest cavity, there was no doubt that that man was dead.
"This is the last show any of you will get out of me. I'm tired. I'm so so so tired. I don't even care if I go to hell for this. I'm too tured to care anymore." The video ends in static.
Family problems, huh. He returned the tape to it’s proper box.
If I’m getting this right, that man would be...
He set to work opening up the dad box.
Inside the box labeled "his things", there was an eerily realistic looking model skeleton, a journal, and several tapes with dates with three bearing a red label instead of white with the latest being 2 years old and the oldest being 10.
He took out the red tapes and the journal for now.
Looking in the journal first, the rest can wait a second.
Event: Truth
It had been several days, but no one had been able to find Amai Saitou. His classwork had been completed a month in advance, but no one is sure they saw him turn it in. The last time anyone saw him, he was going to his dorm room, but that had to have been over a week ago.
((Feel free to participate whether tagged or not. Using this to elaborate on Amai's backstory and mental state. There will be triggering themes that I will put in the tags now and when they come up. Thank you for your time and patience.))
@theultimatemoralcompass @happy-thoughtsandreams @delusions-and-dreams @apathetic-despair @the-secrets-of-the-game
Matsuda had a free day, for once. He normally just stayed at home, but...
You shouldn’t isolate yourself! Even though they didn’t talk often, Makoto still managed to nag him.
Eventually, he was begrudgingly convinced to visit some friends. Picking from one of the names in his notebook, he ended up searching for Amai.
He didn’t actually know where Amai lived, so ended up asking around the best he could.
There weren't many who knew him, but the few that did said they last saw him go to his dorm.
Being back at Hope’s Peak wasn’t the most pleasant experience - the last time he was here it was as a student, and that wasn’t exactly the happy school life his peers dreamed of.
But that didn’t matter.
As soon as he confirmed he was at the right room, he knocked, not planning to stop until he got an answer.
There wasn't an answer, but the door opened.
He stood in the entrance, looking around the room.
“Hey, uh. Amai. I brought jellybeans, they’re Starburst flavored,“ he called out.
The room was empty. The closet door was open revealing his uniforms and his sweater. There was a desk with anatomical drawings tabled to the wall and the desk itself was covered with books and candy bags. The only other thing of note was a journal and a set of keys on a plush bunny key chain laying on the bed. One of those were clearly the room key.
Not here, damn. Still, he came in anyways. Standing over the bed, he found himself thumbing through the pages of the journal.
When he opened it, a photograph fell out. On the inside of the cover, an address and a phone number was written down. On the first page, the first entry of the journal was written roughly 10 years ago.
He stopped to pick up the photograph, only taking a moment to look at it before he tucked it back against the cover. He jotted down the address in his notebook, just in case, and dialed the number. As he waited on the call, he read the entry absent-mindedly.
The photo was of a woman with long white hair, pale skin, and pink eyes. She wore a familiar pink sweater.
The journal entry had the month and day crossed out.
"Hello! Mom said I should write a jornal. My name is Yuuya. I'm...7 years old, and I live with my mom and dad. Dad works a lot. It makes Mom sad. Dad said when he comes home, we can play a fun game together. I'm really excited! I've never played a game with dad before!"
Meanwhile, the person on the other end was a gruff speaking, dispassionate man. "Hasegawa apartments, management speakin. How may I help ya?"
He skipped the second page, wanting to hurry. He wasn’t exactly eager to get caught in a student’s room, after all.
“Hello, is there an Amai Saitou living here? They lost something, and I’d like to return it.“
"Well, there was an Amai, and the Saitou family does live here...sorta, but only one left is Yuuya Saitou."
Meanwhile, the next page was dated a week later. It only repeated the phrase "it was supposed to be a game" over and over again on the second and third pages.
“Is it alright if I drop something off for them?“ He closed the notebook, drumming his fingers on the cover.
Yuuya was the name in the notebook. Did Amai move away? Why would Amai have Yuuya’s notebook?
"Yeah, sure. I don't care. Though if ya break a door or somethin, I'm obligated to call the police yadda yadda yadda."
“Yeah, got it.“ He hung up, pulling up the address he wrote down as he left. Just going all over the place, huh. He didn’t mind, exactly, but this was still more driving than he’d done in a long time.
Driving took a lot of time out of what would have been an hour long walk. The front door to the apartment was slightly ajar and the window was boarded up. The rest of the apartment complex was eerily dark and quiet especially for an area in Tokyo.
Looks like some second-rate horror movie... He knocked on the door frame as he walked in.
“Yuuya Saitou?“
A familiar voice yelped and turned on the lights revealing several boxes most of them sealed, a tv, vcr, an old couch, and a familiar but tired face.
"Huh? Who? Oh, Matsuda. What are you doing here?"
“Oh, Amai.“ Didn’t management say Amai didn’t live here? Well, it saves him the trouble of trying to track him down through relatives.
“You weren’t at your dorm.“
"No, I was here. Left through the window a few days ago."
“Is there a reason you’ve been isolating yourself?“
He gestured toward the boxes. "Just cleaning up some things from my past."
“In the dark?“
"Huh? Oh, no. There was something in another room. There wasn't much reason to keep lights on in here." He sighed. "Look, I'm a bit busy but feel free to look around. I'll be a better host when I'm done." He leaves the room. There are four boxes that are opened already: one without a label, one labeled "his things", one labeled "mom's things" and one labeled "Amai's things".
He wanders farther inside, closing the door behind him. He sits down in front of the box labeled “Amai’s things”, looking inside.
The box contained a small photo album and old children's books and toys.
Well, you’re already snooping. With that thought in mind, he began to sift through the pages.
The photo's showed a young girl who looked very similar to Amai holding a much younger Amai. Another photo showed the girl alone. Some writing on the photo revealed her name was Amai Kuroshiki. Another that stood out was a younger version of the Amai he knew wearing a preschool uniform with writing on the photo saying "Yuuya's first day of school".
He felt like it shouldn’t come as a surprise that someone called the “Ultimate Torture Technician” has some secrets in their past. Nonetheless, he was. Intrigued...
Right. Set the album back in the box. The box labeled “Mom’s things” was his next ‘target’.
Inside that box, there were some clothes, some handmade stuffed animals, a cookbook, and several unsent letters all to a man named Naomichi Fujiwara.
He looked through the letters, sitting back on his heels to read through them.
Most of the letters were her giving the other updates on their daughter, regretting her marriage to her husband, and saying she missed him. However, one stuck out.
Naomichi, I don't know what to do. He...why did he do that?! Yuuya is only a child. He's only a seven year old boy! He could've been killed! It may have been kinder to kill Yuuya...as awful as it is to say that. He wakes up screaming, he won't look me in the eyes, he won't even smile anymore...I saw him scrubbing his hands for hours yesterday. He said he couldn't get the blood off, he couldn't get the blood off. I can't leave his father. I would...I really would. Still, I can't leave Yuuya alone with this man. I'm sorry, Naomichi.
-Maika Saitou
This... He had his theories before, but this is pretty solid proof. Did he take a new name at some point?
...There isn’t really anything to do but keep looking. With that in mind, he chose the unlabeled box next.
The unlabeled box had a single tape, a photo graph of a man with dark hair and dark eyes standing next to the woman from the journal picture who was holding a small child, and medical text books with stickers on the cover.
He pulled out the tape. It’s been awhile since I used these.... Putting the tape in the vcr, he turned the tv on and the volume down low, and pressed play.
Yuuya stood in front of the camera. He seemed tired and emotionless. Tied to a chair was the man with dark hair and eyes from the photograph. With an empty and torn open chest cavity, there was no doubt that that man was dead.
"This is the last show any of you will get out of me. I'm tired. I'm so so so tired. I don't even care if I go to hell for this. I'm too tured to care anymore." The video ends in static.
Family problems, huh. He returned the tape to it’s proper box.
If I’m getting this right, that man would be...
He set to work opening up the dad box.
