isamew !

[superduperikebana]

Send in a ☆ to see what my muses opinion of you is!

[shslhellokitty-blog]

oh MAN here we are my dudes

tfw i felt like there were a? lot of points i wanted to bring up in this post but....... im gonna save the sap for Actual Endgame and i’ll probably wind up shitposting on twitter what i wanted lmao. 

so here’s the long as all hell explanation behind nya man. Exactly As Submitted And Suffered Through. if you only read one bit please make it the backstory bc im still super proud of how i wrote that?

im open to questions about him/in game stuff too !! ヽ(=^･ω･^=)丿

[shsl-meridian]

(=^-ω-^=) || isamu/ryuu || chapter 8 || re: chiyo

For all his recent talk about that kind of thing, it was the first time that Isamu had actually invited someone to come and beat him up. 

Every other time it had been faster, unnoticed by him until his attackers were literally on top of him, absolutely no chance to brace for anything save for the split seconds between their rapid unplanned kicks or hits. Just them trying to score any hits they could, what, come to try burn us to death again?, him doing nothing except trying to ride it out, no, y'don’t get it-! on and on until someone else came to break it up.

While he sat there at his podium, hand only dropping once to put in a vote in anticipation of not getting the chance to soon enough, Isamu actually decided he preferred the other kind. Much less sick anticipation, no matter what he’d said beforehand. Though his upper body seemed fairly calm one of his legs was nervously bouncing, as though trying to encourage him to spring away, getting faster with every second that passed without– 

‘She’s not hurting you on my watch. You haven’t done jack shit wrong.’

“H-huh?”

Eloquent. But Isamu was truly dumbfounded, even given everything, blankly staring over at Michiyo to meet their intense stare with a blank one.

('Jack shit wrong’? Alright, he still hadn’t managed to explain everything to them, he didn’t know if they wanted to know, but… well, to sum up a turbulant train of thought, it was a miracle that the relieved sob hitched in his chest rather than anywhere more obvious.)

Michiyo’s words were… flattering, truthfully, but they… didn’t get it, did they? The reasoning his mind had just thrown together to explain his rushing in? If Chiyo was rightly focused on him- then she wasn’t there to try skew anything more or distract the rest of them- if they just kept talking and he just dealt with his–

'“I’m not going to hit you, Nakanino.’

He couldn’t help himself: Isamu’s shoulders sagged a little and whatever his next words had been were reduced into a sigh, the boy slowly moving to sheepishly rub the back of his neck as he so often did. 

(Besides, it… probably hadn’t been fair to do that, had it? Isamu Nakano’s only crime was trying to help. Blowing something open that could have gotten far nasty. Putting a friend’s work to good use. Nothing like Ryuu, even if ignorance and following had been major players for him.)

(God. If he made it out of here, he had to stop thinking of them- himself as two different people. He was Ryuu Hamasaki, and he was Isamu Nakano, and maybe neither of them nor both of them together were made for this still but whatever because what mattered right now was him here and still alive and trying to help end this-!) 

“Kyeheh, I- well, uh… aight then. ’S… surprisin’, not gonna lie…”

He met Chiyo’s tearful gaze with an apologetic one, the smile that broke out in response to her wink being lazier and sadder than amused. 

“I… I still ain’t gonna buy that though. You got… you got no idea who the mastermind is, do you? ’S obvious from all… that stuff. But… call me a paranoid guy here - heh, though I think I got a right to be, how long we fuckin’ been here? - but you sayin’ to keep goin’ ahead, votin’ for Nyk, implyin’ that it’s wrong and that you’d… gain another victory, with us doin’ that… I ain’t good at this theory stuff at all, but that just makes me feel you think it’s Nyk too.”

Haruka started screaming just as Isamu’s softer tone dropped back into silence, the boy tearing his eyes away from Chiyo and staring back down at his podium. Knocked the lighter he’d left there round the surface a bit, much like a cat would. Thought a bit, in a rare action of his. 

Then he looked back up, somehow mustering that usual lazy smile of his. The look in his eyes didn’t quite match the expression, but compared to other moments he’d had?

It was something. 

“…I guess if we are fuckin’ this up, there’s still one more, right? There ain’t… many of us left, but we’re… not outta the game yet, yeah?”

And with his feelings still something of a mess he slunk back from the proceedings and retreated, gently closing his eyes for a moment or two just to listen to whatever came next. He debated heading over to Michiyo, giving them some company over there for whatever the hell might come next. But ultimately, his body nudged him back into doing what he was best known for after everything: riding it out. Going with the flow, for now anyway.

God.

Ryuu never thought he would ever think this, but he really just wanted to go home. 

[shsl-meridian]

Isamu quickly puts in a vote for Nyk as mastermind.

Vote recorded! Yeehaw!

[shsl-meridian]

man up this is it || isamu || chapter 8 || re: nyk, chiyo

For a moment, just for Isamu, everything was just 

still. 

It felt like his words had rushed out and disappeared in one straight instant shot, yet also like they were all still hanging in the air around him. Like letting several cats shoot out of the bag, but of course, they’d decided to stick around him. 

He would have preferred the situation of that simile over the trial room, to be honest. Here and now, it was just the waiting game. Letting everything he’d said sink in, desperately trying to throw together another point underneath the static starting to crackle through his mind and take up all space in there, stand firm at his podium when everything was telling him to 

just

run away. 

(It was the same kind of stomach-churning feeling as before: when it only just started to dawn on him as they were tugged out of school in the spotlight that this could maybe actually be bad, when he noticed Yukiko subtly yet desperately playing with the lock on the back of the car, when he learnt just what he’d been doing as it came from someone else’s mouth–) 

Kayoko spoke. Similar points to him. Only just registered. 

Nyk spoke. A little more attention, thanks to suspicions. But still nothing. 

Chiyo opened her mouth, and Isamu’s hands gripped his legs as though to hold them in place to stop him bolting.

…

But.

Actually, he was okay. Stomach churning in nerves and sickness, yes, but… a strange kind of calm washed over him. Acceptance, almost.

Or maybe he was just being a bit of an ignorant idiot again. Whatever. He’d take it.

“…Y'know what, Chiyo? Yeah. Maybe y’were right on that one. The… everyone has somethin’ they’d kill for thing. I kinda… got my shit resolved in the past week, yeah, but… I ain’t gonna fight that." 

A deep breath, and Isamu held up his hands in surrender.

"Come ‘n hit me if you want for all that. I’ll take it. If it’ll save more shit goin’ down, and wouldn’t be near the first time someone’s beaten me up for shit I’ve wound up doin’, kyehehe… ain’t gonna change the fact that there’s everyone else here who me 'n Mei spread this to to keep talkin’, or what’s happened, but y'can’t… you can’t blame 'em. They… didn’t want this to happen either, y'know?”

Even disregarding the fact that, for a good few weeks now, Meridian had felt like the only safe space Ryuu Hamasaki had left. 

“Though I… I don’t like hatin’ on people just for the situation they wound up in. 'N what they did in it.”

But they weren’t here to debate Chiyo’s actions, per se. 

“Maybe the file is a bad lead, seein’ as the… mastermind wasn’t even sure on it themselves. Coulda just been a goose chase even for Chiyo to hide 'em? But guess it couldn’t hurt just in case, y'know?”

Isamu tipped his head to look at Nyk next. 

“See, you’re sayin’ that people could do this… online roleplay kinda thing, or whatever the hell y'talkin’ about, but… y'just went usin’ the very same speech pattern that we’ve been describin’? Chono-chan and Red-kun. I mean, you… can’t deny that it fits, really…”

A low groan, and he ran a hand through his hair in such exasperation that it was mussed up the worst yet. 

“Buuuuut I… ain’t gonna go try accusin’ someone on speech patterns, so… guess we do have everythin’ else, but…”

For all his talk about being free to take Chiyo’s aggression, he sure didn’t know how to keep up coherent speech when he was anticipating such a thing. 

[shsl-meridian]

you have to set yourself on fire || isamu..? || chapter 8 || re: results, mastermind trial start

As ever, the end of the trial passed in a blur, because long gone were the days where they were fairly sure of their culprit of the week early on with time to spare to get rational. The checks worked- presumably, anyway, Isamu just blindly followed Kayoko as he best did- and then the new mayor confirmed it- and then their second mastermind vote had gone through- and the fingers on the hand that had pushed in his vote for ‘yes’ were suddenly burning with something that wasn’t the memory of what had caused the burns on them-

Oh, God. 

Oh, fuck. 

This was happening, wasn’t it?

The past week with Mei flashed through his mind, and Isamu dragged his still-hovering hand down his face. 

They were in a mastermind trial again.

This was what they had been working towards. What Mei and Kayoko had presumably been working towards, before they wound up here prematurely. And with Mei dead, and Kayoko in no fit state to be here… he couldn’t help but feel it forced onto him.

But how, exactly, did Isamu Nakano go about grabbing such a thing and running with it before someone else did? How did he, someone who only ever went with the flow of things, push in? Be as brave as he’d found Mei and the reason behind the name pick? Make people listen? 

(Isamu: from Japanese, meaning 'brave’.)

(Ryuu: from Japanese, meaning 'dragon’.)

(He didn’t feel much like either right now, for once.)

Without thinking at all his hand dove into his pocket, pulled something out and held it up briefly, dropped it from there onto his podium with a clatter. 

A lighter. 

“’M- ’M gonna need y'all to let me speak, okay? Before we go any direction w-with this, anywhere- I-I won’t pretend to be good at this, a-and truth be told ’m brickin’ it right now, kyehehe, but- but I need y'to listen to me, and if y'can’t, I- Ryuu here's got several pretty good ways of divertin’ some attention from right wh-where he’s sittin’.”

(Was it really regressing if he started accepted it now? And didn’t actually want to?)

His eyes closed for a little longer necessary for a blink as his subtle threat flew out, completely alien-sounding probably not just to the remaining class. 

(Why was he doing this? Alright, one of his skills used to be being unassuming, blending in, he knew and was capable of nothing, Yukiko always said it was endearing- and yes, he had shifted look to stand out - but that was different..!)

A nervous swallow.

“It’s not Butterscotch. It’s not Kimi. ’S not Chiyo either, or Toshio, or Ran, or Starre… s. Probably. First two, nah. Someone’s been… t-tryin’ to waste our votes on them.”

Not the definitive opening statement he’d wanted, but hey. 

“The thing I was dancin’ around at the beginnin’ of the trial. After our last trial, I… went to the laser maze with Mei. Found that secret room down there with a computer- turns out the m-mastermind and a… traitor round us were leavin’ messages to each other on it. Th-the mastermind just… just went by Zero on their message board thing, the… other one’s more easily i-identified, when y'look-” An apologetic smile through nerves. “'nd I ain’t gonna do the callin’ out myself, cause I… it wasn’t me wh-who worked it out, it was Mei, and she… she wanted to l-let her explain herself before we jumped. Also, I… kinda like livin’ peacefully with her, y'know..?”

Did you even try?

“On that board, there wasn’t… any real indicator of who the mastermind could be, but… typin’ style, I have pictures of the messages here, I…”

His nerves leaked out more into the open in the shaking of his hands as he pulled out his keycard, dropping it next to the lighter and starting to flick through photos.

“…If y'wanna see, they’re kinda… passive most of the time, business like really, but there’s… some stuff. The mastermind - Zero - they’re… not too concerned 'bout their own life. At all. What’s it, uh-” A frown at his screen. “’The consequences of me dyin’ are largely null’, human life and their’s got little meanin’, shit like that. Kinda formal, but… they got moments of fuckin’ around. Suggested Mitsusuke could be a zombie? They also… refer to Kimi as 'Inaba-chan’? And… Mitsusuke as 'Abiko-kun’, though I guess that’s… less specific than the Kimi one… oh, and- and messages kept goin’ until after our first mastermind trial, then they stopped talkin’, so un-unless Zero could access that thing while dead–" 

A low whine to himself as he did a huge swipe through his photos, flicked the lighter round his podium three times in a nervous action, and eventually picked back up again. 

"Listen, I- there’s more, I-I know more 'bout this place now, but right now- j-just standin’ here as we are right now, I- I just wanted to s-say the stuff that seems most… useful for findin’ an identity? Right now? O-out of all of it, I- f-fuck, I dunno- there’s one thing though. If you got a file out the Monomachine- you gotta tell us, you gotta t-tell us the number and who y'think it is, if… if we finish this now, that info won’t… matter any more, right? Cause… Zero, ’m referin’ to… ’Subject Zero’… 'nd those files are… y'know… maybe…”

He couldn’t help it: he ground to a halt. Took some deep breaths. Stared straight down at his podium, gaze flicking between his keycard and his lighter, anywhere down there rather than up ahead. 

But then a slightly nervous but lazy grin spread across his face, and he looked up and offered two finger guns to the general class. 

“Oh, 'n by the way? Y'were actually wrong 'bout me and Michiyo at the time. But I dunno… thanks for makin’ a bunch of things obvious? Kyehehe…”

It was times like this that he was pretty glad of his inability to look ahead at consequences, to be honest. 

[shsl-meridian]

Ever the bandwagoner, Isamu votes for Jinzaemon and yes to a mastermind vote.

Vote recorded! Yeehaw!

[shsl-meridian]

ฅ/ᐠ｡ᆽ｡ᐟ \ || isamu || chapter 8 || re: kayoko, jinzaemon

“There was a knife by Mei’s body, it… it didn’t match most of the wounds she had. Save for the shallow one on her shoulder…" 

Ah, there was Isamu again; sounding a little more dead and tired and with blanker eyes than he had opening the trial up, but speaking nonetheless. Even if his next words sounded surreal, painful to say; dripping in the kind of hesitance someone has when fighting someone they don’t really want to hit too hard.

"Kayoko, I… I think y'just stabbed Mei when she was already dead. ‘N that’s why she wasn’t movin’. That… well, y'shoulder ain’t your heart, is it…”

No more elaboration. Was there really any need?

Then apparently it was time for their usual check; one which Isamu was apparently automatically cleared from this time, but he still engaged anyway. 

“Kyehehe, uh… just so y'know you’re secure if anythin’, I’ll do the check anyway. Since we’ve missed stuff in checks before through clearin’, probably…”

Isamu went for it right there and then, holding his arms up and out before him and letting the class look at both sides in turn. Nothing remotely like a fresh graze. 

“…Hang on… Kayoko, did y'just say you bit yourself free from the killer? I’m uh- ’m more familiar with cats, heh, but… do y'think that’d leave a mark too?”

[shsl-meridian]

( ^..^)ﾉ || isamu || chapter 8 || re: haruka, chiyo

There was a certain kind of look that Isamu Nakano had not had directed at him many times in his life; in fact, he could probably count the number of occurrences on both his hands alone. Knock out the jokey, ‘oh you wouldn’t dare’ versions from the running and it went down to one hand. It had a number of descriptions: a scolding parent’s glare, a disdainful teacher indicating that you really should stop whatever it was you were doing, just any kind of look that pierced in an attempt to tell you no. 

Unfortunately, having not received this kind of look many times in his life at all, Isamu’s instincts had absolutely no idea how to react upon receiving one, and so when Chiyo Chono’s gaze sharpened into a glare the only look she got in return was an expression that, for all intents and purposes, was just a blank stare. A little touch of his mouth pressed into a thinner line than normal, like he’d been about to speak again but decided to catch the words instead. But other than that, Chiyo may as well have just spoken Italian to him for how much he seemed to have registered anything. 

Anyway! Truthfully Isamu hadn’t expected to be addressed again so soon, and though he’d jumped in surprised acknowledgement when Haruka spoke up, it took him a while to piece together any kind of response other than a nod. 

Partly because he was a little embarrassed. 

“I-I, uh- I dunno… I just know it was a good few inches shorter than me, 'n I didn’t wanna… drag Mei over, 'nd I thought… runnin’ round tryin’ to find people to compare was gonna waste time, I… sorry…”

So much for trying or getting better, huh. 

Still, Isamu wasn’t one to dwell on anything for too long at all, even if it didn’t seem that way by him taking a… small diversion. A few prrps rolled from his tongue in thought, the boy rubbing at the back of his neck awkwardly, before clenching his hands into fists in his pockets tightly as he spoke, even softer and gentler than usual:

“Ehh, Chiyo..? Y'probably… ain’t gonna get anywhere pushin’ for Butterscotch or… anyone right now, so uh… how 'bout we… just know we’ve agreed? To one? Kyehehe… no-one go rushin’ into anythin’, 'kay..?”

He did follow up his words with 'Comin’ from me’, but by that point, the volume of his voice had died down so much that it would have only been picked up by those either side of him. 

Idly rocking back and forth where he sat Isamu frowned down at the picture he’d left his keycard on, taking his left hand out his pocket to swipe through it where it sat on his podium’s surface, before suddenly perking up again and… rushing in with something. Yep. 

“Y'know, speakin’ of blood on Mei, actually- she had part of a bloody handprint on her shoulder? 'N I kinda tried to… uh…”

A brief pause, before Isamu folded his left arm across his chest and rest his hand on his shoulder. 

“…With Mei’s arm, and her own handprint didn’t match it. If anythin’, her hand was… much bigger than it? Dunno what that was about, but… if we’re talkin’ weird stuff… and matchin’ sizes of people to stuff, I dunno? Also, to be fair 'bout talkin’ about Mei and blood, her… the front of her dress was kinda soaked in it.”

[shsl-meridian]

Σ(;Φ ω Φ) || isamu || chapter 8 || re: trial start attn: all

As it turned out, eighth time was not the charm for being able to finally cast away any sense of nerves or nausea upon entering the trial room. Then again, Isamu supposed this time around, he was always going to be starting from a losing angle with how much he’d worked himself up. 

(Especially when he realised the absence among them, his heart sinking as the emptiness currently around him suddenly felt much more pronounced.)

Follower, not a leader, that’s what he’d been considering when his eyes had met with the sight that was Mei’s bloodied corpse. But today was the fastest he had ever spoken up in trial, Isamu seeming to want to jump in and play damage control right off the bat- though he was hardly the most confident sounding person to have ever taken that role, every word wavering to give away it was chosen carefully and deliberately. 

“‘Ey, uh… look, I… realise there’s prooooobably at least one thing that people… kinda wanna jump at, now we’re… all here, and I… get it, really, buuuut… kyehehe, askin’ as the, uh… last remainin’ one here at fault for gettin’ and spreadin’ it, can we… maybe focus on dealin’ with this first..? For Mei? We just… might not… get anywhere if we…”

His smile was apologetic, Isamu’s hands clenched into fists before him, and quite close together as though they’d been going to clasp each other in a beg but hadn’t quite made it. But then it faded as he cleared his throat, shook his head as though to physically clear certain thoughts away, and fired a question right out into the middle of the trial room.

“So, uh… who here is noticeably shorter than me?”

Gee. Who could thatpossibly be! At least Isamu quickly realised the sheer scope of his admittedly-stupid question, and rushed to expand on it. 

“See, there’s… blood on the wall by Mei’s body, and ’s… kinda person shaped? Round the edges, like… if y'stood someone against the wall, then threw paint at them or somethin’, and it’d make an outline behind ‘em. When I stood next to it, I was taller by a good couple of inches… didn’t wanna… try movin’ Mei to see if she matched it, but…”

He left that hanging, gaze and volume drifting off, before Isamu suddenly pulled himself back into life. 

“Only got to checkin’ these places, soooo I might be kinda biased, but… I think most of… everythin’ happened where Mei was with that blood splatter and in the kitchen. The kitchen was… trashed, honestly, blood and bullets everywhere, some random shit left out, then all the blood trails in the picnic area, I-”

Okay. Stop. Breathe.

One thing at a time, maybe.

God, he really wasn’t good at this.

(But still trying, he reminded himself.)

“…The kitchen was covered in bullet holes, casin’ still there, lights shot out, and… the gun Mei pulled out last trial was there. Guess either Mei was shootin’ all over the place or the… killer was. With her gun. Mei was definitely campin’ out in there, I think, there were some socks 'nd shoes in there that matched Mei- oh, yeah, she was barefoot out there - and her notepad, annnnd… well, I ain’t sure if the laptop-smartphone combo in there is hers, but it… went up and runnin’ with a bunch of clues 'bout this place that we put together. I guess maybe… either Mei was just lookin’ over that stuff in there or she was showin’ someone…”

Isamu wasn’t used to talking for so long and laying out so much in trial, and it was starting to show, the boy’s eyes nervously darting back and forth to see if anyone else seemed to be getting ready to jump in. Though really, it was a state of conflict- there was some kind of rhythm he was falling into, and he was still managing to run with the feeling that he was really trying to help and maybe succeeding rather than just talking shit, but at the same time…

Ultimately, he decided to try and offer the best of both worlds. 

“Did, uh… anyone get anythin’ different..? There’s… I investigated Mei’s… body, cause I didn’t know if… anyone would know, y'know, k-kyehehe, 'nd I’ve got some more stuff, but… if someone’s got somethin’ different, I don’t wanna start pushin’ us down somewhere totally wrong just cause I’m assumin’…”

…Actually, perhaps he shouldn’t have shut up, because now he could feel and hear his heart pounding in his chest. 

[shslhellokitty-blog]

isamu’s room is currently locked so you’ll have to catch him to let you in!

[shsl-meridian]

(=;ェ;=) || isamu || chapter 8 || re: body discovery

Truthfully, Isamu Nakano had no idea how he was, in any form, still alive. 

Alright. He would perhaps give their first incident a free pass, and not just because he maybe couldn’t have fit into that Storage Room box. That was free game, so to speak, back when there were a lot more of them and they weren’t so hopelessly tangled together in various ways and they didn't know each other’s habits or traits or helpfulness in hell.

But no less than seven times from then on? 

It didn’t really bear thinking about, his mind so often determined in a ‘what happens happens’ kind of way; how Yutaka could have left him for dead down in the depths of the Mechanical Room before Rover got to him. How Chiyo could have turned so much back against him any time in their isolated dorm space. How Michiyo had surely had more opportunities than he was even conscious of. That wasn’t to say Isamu hadn’t had complete trust in them, in everyone here for a very long time despite everything; still finding no-one on the side of dislike, the most being a desire to not get on someone’s angrier side. 

However, looking down at the horribly cut up body of someone he’d only just managed to let know of the bravery she held in his eyes, his mind couldn’t help but open those kinds of mental trails back up.

Why Mei instead?

How? 

“Mei..?”

Not Izumi, because whatever she had told him that day, it was the name she wanted as far as he knew. Isamu hadn’t started to cry yet, even with his memory changing from past opportunities to the girl he’d finally, properly got to know over the last week or so, but he was certainly on very shaky ground. 

“H-hey, Mei…” A breathless laugh; Isamu knew this was pointless, he’d seen it enough times now to know the consequence of something like this, but he had to let it out. “Y'can’t go now, we’re- we’re gettin’ closer, ain’t we? I… d-don’t leave it to me, I’ll j-just… I’ll just…”

He wasn’t cut out for this. He wasn’t cut out for this investigation-trial business and Isamu had known it since trial one; always terribly unsure of every point he had to offer, probably avoiding death in investigations by the skin of his teeth multiple times, his opinion and attitude gently pushed along any which way until his vote likely wound up on the majority whatever. Classic case of follower, not a leader, to the point it was a huge weakness. 

With Mei dead and the last week playing out how it had, from ice cream headaches to sudden secret meetings, Isamu suddenly felt very

very

front and centre. 

It was admittedly terrifying. 

Still, this was the point where he swore to end this for them all, right? Promise to his dead ally, his friend that he’d keep going with what they had started to uncover? In the trial for her murder, maybe, as perhaps the most fitting time he could put all her work to best use? He wanted to, he desperately wanted to for the girl he’d seen as so brave and putting herself out for them all and had only kept on sharing more and more moments of understanding that he hadn’t even announced sometimes-

Thoughtful idea, had Isamu’s throat not started closing up on any words that tried to force themselves out around fear and upset and grief. 

He’d move in a minute or two, probably. But all Isamu could do for the time being was stand there, one fist pressed up to his mouth as though ready to try catch any of the choked upset noises he let out, the other shaking by his side. All but frozen, the sight of Mei’s body before him finally starting to swim proper. 

I’ll fix this up, he wanted to say. But the last time he’d said that, he’d ended up in Meridian. 

[shsl-meridian]

(=´ﻌ｀=) || isamu || chapter 7 + 8 || re: execution, motive

No-one was shot, no-one was blown up, somehow the cycle ran wild and drove itself into the ground but then still looped itself back to the usual consequences of a murder and a trial. Isamu guessed it made sense, but it was no less nerve-wracking. 

And just like usual, Isamu had nothing to offer. Perhaps he had come a long way from the noisy sobbing he’d burst into when Kohaku’s fate was made clear, but really, his effort still amounted to nothing. All he could do was stay huddled against the wall that Michiyo had pulled them to, holding onto them as best he could while ready to spring away out of nerves. 

One Starre was shot, the other scrambled away, and the booming sound of the cannon applied itself to the thudding layer already present by his temples and stayed. Kayoko started screaming, something about Kayoko herself, and any attempt Isamu made to grab hold of reason and though slipped away in a mess of head pain and adrenaline come-downs and other feelings he couldn’t quite put a label on.

“…C'mon, let’s get outta here.”

* * *

The next day, time became something of a blur. 

Running. Just running nonstop. Over to the laser tag, when he realised how and where he may have left Mei alone and practised weeks of worry snapping at his heels. Into the Roadrunner dorm and zapping right back out again as soon as his frantic hands settled half-securely on his laptop, like a bomb was about to go off in the space he and Chiyo shared. Right around Meridian, conversations seeming to pass far too fast for everything he dropped in them, getting more and more careless as he skidded down ladders and stopped checking for who might be in rooms before darting in as he grew ever more aware of just how fast talk could be spreading even past their plan.

(If anyone knew that, it was him.)

But then he ran into one person, and time didn’t just slow down, but dragged itself backwards with an impact like he’d been stabbed in the gut. 

* * *

Nothing he said was the best confession in the world. But at least they came out, to a degree.

* * *

It was a shock but it was sweet, and the entire weight wasn’t exactly lifted from his shoulders just yet, but undoubtedly, it was starting to be pulled off. 

Funny, really, how the one place he felt he had left - which was already a minefield in itself, given that it was Meridian - would also be the one to start making him come to terms with the reasons behind that thought.

‘Whatever happened before doesn’t matter. Just the you that’s here now.’

Then again, maybe it wasn’t the place itself, but the others with him in it. 

* * *

The morning of the motive, he picked up a box of brown contact lenses, considered it briefly, then dropped it back into the drawer without cracking one open. 

Isamu had always come off as a fairly chill guy in Meridian, even as time progressed and the body count increased and he started to slip more and more. But today there somehow seemed to be something… even more calm about him; something subtle, but unmistakably present. Perhaps it was down to his demeanour not being his usual lazy kind of calm, but the quiet kind. 

Still, a motive was never good, and as it was laid out to them Isamu couldn’t help but feel his heart sink and start to ache. 

The last time a video had been sent to his keycard, Isamu had sprinted back to his room, slammed his back against the door as he slid to the ground, and wailed. 

But there was surely no chance to take himself somewhere safer right now. All he could do was glance down, snatch a breath to hold and prepare himself for what he would probably see.

Of course it was her again. Who else would be the one to give him such reassurance where others had failed back home? Who else would this place choose to show to him after that video they’d dropped on him weeks back? 

He didn’t cry noisily this time. Didn’t even bolt off straight away. He just stood where he was as the video ended, ducking his head and gently resting his keycard against it as he might have done trying to hug the person herself. 

“’M tryin’.”

He’d said it a couple of times, but right now, it rung truer than ever. 

[shsl-meridian]

(^._.^)ﾉ || isamu || chapter 7 || re: mei, michiyo, and make it double

Isamu didn’t have much to offer after his little outburst. A few confused blinks at Chiyo. A nod. A couple of words to Mei when she replied: “I don’t mind comin’ with ya then. I dragged it up, right?”

Still, despite his quiet understanding of Chiyo’s words, perhaps it was for the best they didn’t go right into a mastermind trial.

Given that they, y'know, may have all been blown up during it anyway. 

The only thing Isamu did upon staring down a grenade, however, was… quietly close his eyes. Not even any tension there, as was admittedly perhaps fitting of his general demeanor: one hand ran over the surface of his podium, fingers trying to trace any lines in the material there with a brief flash of helplessness across his features, but that was all. 

(Well. Yukiko always figured they’d die in an explosion someday. She’d come up with a number of tragic or dramatic ends, but that was by far the most frequent.)

Shigure’s movements right next to him did cause Isamu to flinch though, the hand still resting on his podium trying to dig fingers into the surface and his eyes becoming the squeezed tight kind of closed rather than calm. Anticipation more than worry, but still a far cry from the usual lazy air Isamu carried. The gun wasn’t even pointed at him - probably, anyway, his eyes were still closed - but Isamu was still bracing himself, childish instinct that he naturally fought against these days screaming at his to cover his ears as soon as possible.

(Not to mention his other hand slowly slipping into his pocket too, bunching into a fist in there- like hell did he intend to join this standoff though, no, if worst came to worst his legs were already instinctively tensed and ready to spring off to get him the fuck outta there-)

–And then his eyes shot open again, Isamu jolting with a sharp tug on his arm, though it didn’t take Michiyo much effort at all to pull him back, away from the sheer hellscape that their trial circle had become. 

It took him a moment or two to adjust to where the two of them now basically huddled against the wall; catching his breath, dropping what he had hold of back into his pocket so he could use both hands to try and gently keep Michiyo upright, stamp down the relief that he really had no business feeling in this situation. His eyes were focused in the distance too though, mismatched gaze flicking between everyone with a weapon, until…

“Y'gotta be kiddin' me…”

Perhaps he would have sounded more stunned or even enraged, had he not happened to be a very, very tired Isamu Nakano. 

Michiyo sank to the floor and so did Isamu’s heart, his wild confusion at whatever the fuck was happening now tossed out the window in favour of also dropping to the ground. Carefully, with a little bit of tenseness ready to pull himself away should they refuse, Isamu slid one arm round Michiyo’s back to hold them, his other hand resting on the floor. If the grenade had still been in play, one would have been forgiven for misinterpreting the hug as Isamu being ready to dive over Michiyo in defense of it. His head ducked down beside Michiyo’s too, practically resting next to or on theirs with a soft ‘hey, hey’; as tempting as it was to try and help ease the situation, given that the two of them had been pulled out of the way, drawing attention to their spot in the trial room didn’t seem like a fantastic idea. Even for him.

(His murmur went on for a little while longer though, even if it was dangerously close.)

[shsl-meridian]

ヾ(=ﾟ･ﾟ=)ﾉ || isamu || chapter 7 || re: look im as clueless as you now really

Even though it took him a good few blank moments to register what Haruka wanted from him, helping out felt… more comfortable to Isamu. In a way it was reassuring, as much reassurance as one could get in this kind of situation anyway; just knowing that he was actually contributing some way eased the strange kind of nerves he had. 

(Nerves was a pretty bad catch-all term for everything churning within his stomach and building up pressure behind his eyes right now, but it was all he had.) 

Haruka’s words in his voice hung in the trial room, and… didn’t have as much of a consequence as he’d expected. Perhaps back in their first week he might have been a little more stunned by the way their discussions split up and snowballed and smashed back together again sometimes, but now… it just felt par for the course. Just the normal consequence of being in here. 

At least until a creature- Kimi crawled out of Mei’s bag, and Isamu’s next breath hitched into his throat and came out a high pitched strangled noise.

“Th-this is… this is so wrong-”

His voice was thicker than normal, if it was was even caught before Isamu buried his head in his hands and remained there for a while. 

‘A while’ being until votes started coming in, anyway, and his expression came back up looking stunned. 

“W-wait, wait, I-! I- I guess I ain’t one to talk 'bout not just- rushin’ into stuff, but… do we even have anythin’ more for a mastermind vote? We… we fuck this up and it’s… just one left, right? I don’t- I d-don’t want anyone else dead, but I… I dunno…”

For a second, Isamu sounded dangerously closing to trailing off like he always did making points in trial: a shrug, a nervous laugh, a reiteration of how he was definitely not the best guy for this investigator job. But then his mind latched onto something Mei said, egging him on again to pull himself back up and into the discussion. 

Whatever that even was anymore. 

“I’ve been- I’ve been tryin’ me best, but there just… there just still seems to be stuff we gotta check out to get p-proper answers maybe, right? Like- didn’t someone say ageeeees ago that there was a password needed in the laser tag maze or somethin’? There’s a hidden room somewhere round there, like between the floors, I- I ain’t got any clue what’s in it nor how to get there, I just… read 'bout it in the Archives, if… if you’ve got passwords, Mei?”

At least Isamu managed to finish the question before the sensation that he was talking absolute utter shit sank into him, the boy’s groan being muffled as he buried his face again. 

“I… I dunno, I… sorry, I just… I d-dunno what to do anymore…”

[shsl-meridian]

Hollyhock and Mint | Haruka + Isamu | Chaper 7: Trial 003 [ATTN: Starre]

While others spoke, Haruka wrote. She scribbled messy words on paper, pushing them towards Mei once more - but this time, it seemed to be a private conversation. Nothing more was read aloud, and any words passed back to Haruka were quiet.

There was a pause, and an attempt by Haruka to speak again, but all she managed was to mouth her words distinctly enough for her roommate to understand.

And then… and then she simply listened.

She listened to the subtle accusation against Starre.

She listened to the subtle accusation against Rover.

She listened to Starre’s defense, and to the new mayor’s explanation, and felt the subtle bubble of realization that curled in her stomach, and maybe, for the first time since stepping foot in Meridian, she didn’t want to scream, or sleep, or cry, or wish she could feel nothing at all.

It wasn’t that she suddenly, miraculously, knew how she felt. She didn’t. She didn’t. And again she doubted that whatever it was, it was something any person should feel. Everything this place had to offer her - was it anything that someone should have a name for? That tight feeling in her chest, that sick feeling in her stomach, that sticky residue wrapped around her heart - those weren’t feelings any normal person should know or have a name for.

She was… quite convinced of that. 

So maybe being angry was an easy default. And maybe it didn’t fit the situation at all. And maybe it was, quite frankly, the only feeling she had that she knew how to identify anymore, and that’s why she tried it on. And maybe, even to her, it felt incredibly fake to do so.

But maybe she was a little glad that losing her voice meant she didn’t have to verbally keep up that particular facade of anger, and could instead settle into that cool state of calm that could only hold up for a short while.

She could curl her fingers, sure.

She could bare her teeth, of course.

She could stomp her feet, make jerky, violent movements, and put on that particular show because she’d known it for years now. But in her head, about the only place she cared about right then, she knew anger wasn’t the answer, and knew it wasn’t what she felt even if she wished it could be that easy.

It didn’t really matter, either way, how she felt. It couldn’t stop her from moving on to do something else than linger on her thoughts. 

Soon enough she left Mei’s podium for Chiyo’s instead, where she pulled out her keycard and wound up showing it to Chiyo, and when Chiyo spoke to her she offered her a mixture of a nod and a shrug, then a glance towards Isamu instead. And when Chiyo nodded back - whether in sign of understanding what Haruka was trying to say or because she was on the verge of dozing off, Haruka didn’t know - Haruka moved again, past her own podium and around a dead body and stopping at Isamu’s podium instead.

Waving for his attention, she gestured towards the flier he had shown off before, pulling it towards her when he handed it over. She looked between it and her keycard, back and forth, back and forth, before taking the pen still clasped in her free hand and scribbling along the bottom of the flier. Pushing the flier back towards Isamu, she tapped at it as another request.

It took him a short moment to click what to do with Haruka’s returned note. But eventually, Isamu picked up the flyer, waved a hand for attention, and read it off… with something of a sheepish smile. 

“Kyehehe, uh, don’t shoot the messenger… or the sender… or anyone, buuut… Haruka here’s sayin’ that this is the same handwritin’ on the drawin’ in the fort. Guessin’ she… means this flyer here…”

Once he finished delivering her message, Haruka nodded before looking to Starre. She pointed straight at her, to make absolutely sure Starre knew Haruka meant her-

You.

-before moving her hand in a mimic of someone speaking-

Get talking.

and returning to her own podium to put in a vote. Only then did she look up again, back towards Starre, and offer her a shrug.

[shsl-meridian]

(=^‥^=) || isamu || chapter 7 || re: mitsusuke, chiyo

Isamu generally wasn’t a very big player of certain types of game. ‘What If’s, those 'interesting’ questions that went something like 'if you could go back in time and have five minutes to change something’, anything that related to one’s present somehow being different from, well, what it was at the time of asking. 

Yet in the time it took Mitsusuke to start falling and for him to slam to the floor with a sickening air of finality, such questions uncountable had flashed through Isamu’s mind. 

Mostly in regards to not winding up leaving for this trip, a Super High School Level title tacked onto his name all of a sudden. There were far too many possibilities, he realised now that he was involuntarily entertaining the thought, that would surely have taken him somewhere other than this horrible, horrible place watching Mitsusuke die right before his eyes. Hell, he’d nearly accidentally thrown his invite out, what had made him hang on for the split second it took him to recognise where it was actually coming from?

(Even going way, way back too, into memories that he really tried not to drag up these days but right now couldn’t help but wonder about.)

(Would he have been better or worse off if he, as usual, hadn’t dug his heels in and said no? Insisted on not staying in town? When had he been set on becoming, well, Isamu Nakano? There was… far too much, really.)

(Urgh. Fate was hard, and not really much fun to dwell on too somberly like this.) 

Isamu wasn’t one for such games, because what happened, happened, and he didn’t usually have much of a problem unless it felt terrible. 

This was terrible.

He was still riding the sheer relief of finding out that Rover still seemed to be alive, so to say Isamu was knocked from a high place was quite the understatement. His mental state plummeted with about the same force Mitsusuke literally crashed with, expression flinching up out of that relief and freezing there to once again leave a hollower looking smile on his face. Their small area of the trial room was suddenly a lot busier than normal yet Isamu stayed put; not quite frozen where he sat but not exactly one diving down to crowd Mitsusuke’s body either, eyes wide and the corner of his mouth struggling to stay up where it had pulled itself. If he’d had any crying left in him at this point his view of Mitsusuke’s body would surely have started to blur, but now? All Isamu could manage was taking note of the building pressure near his eyes that came when one was on the edge of crying, but go no further to express it. 

Robot or not, other’s opinions or not, his heart was starting to ache. 

…

…

But… surely there wouldn’t be any harm in continuing the trial around this, right? A question had been asked. He wasn’t the one under fire, but… maybe he could help. Still not made for detective work, Isamu knew that much about himself after all this, but maybe…

With a wave of his hand to Chiyo, then an awkward moment of digging in his pockets as he realised he wasn’t quite ready to show off what he had, Isamu eventually held out something: a now rather crumpled flyer. 

“Did we ever, uh… tidy up after this party? Cause if I remember right… there were a bunch of, uh, couch pillows and stuff for us that… maaaaybe match the ones in the dorms? You… organised this party, right, Starre..? Kyehehe, I mean… ’m just guessin’ cause of, y'know, the whole star thing, but…”

The hand not holding the flyer ran through his hair, accompanied by a sigh that perhaps could have been exasperated-sounding if it wasn’t coming from Isamu, and his eyes fluttered shut as though that could stop him seeing certain possibilities. 

“Did we… did we really decide that Rover ain’t the Mayor’s killer? The killer’s alive, 'pparently, and if Rover… is still alive…”

Isamu couldn’t help himself: his tone of voice lifted a little in hope at the last words, the implication of what he was suggestion evidently not having crossed his mind fully yet.