Plot: When Ace somehow manages to survive his execution, the realization that he's more stuck in the killing game than before— having severed any and all sense of trust he could've possibly gained in the eyes of everyone else—is nearly too much to bear on his own.
Luckily for him, there might still be one person left he can turn to when it comes to being stuck at rock bottom. Unluckily for him, it's the one person he might trust the absolute least. But with it being difficult to lose what never existed in the first place, the two might be each other's key to survival.
(An AceNico longfic/slowburn, enemies to friends to lovers, Ace Survives AU, canon continuation. When chapter 3 drops, canon divergence. More tags to come later. Content warnings will be posted before each chapter if needed.)
Nico’s room was exactly what Ace had expected it to be.
In that it was everything he hated about his own room.
Rather than horses, it was clear that MonoTV had gone for more of a general animal vibe with their decor, with the biggest emphasis being placed on cats. Various animal supplies and toys littered the room, and a carpeted cat tower was situated in one corner. Several stuffed animals were seated comfortably on the pawprint-blanketed bed, and even the large TV on their wall seemed to be displaying some kind of cutesy cat cartoon on a loop.
Aside from the lack of any real animals—as far as he could tell—the room gave off the same vibe as stepping into some random Mom-and-Pop-owned pet store that was a bit too passionate about what they did.
The realization that they were bringing someone new into their room suddenly shrank Nico's posture as the two of them stepped through the doorway. “Uh, feel free to sit anywhere,” they said, before making their way towards the bed. “I don’t have any tables or chairs that would work for eating at, so I usually just go to the cafeteria for my meals."
Rather than sit down on the bed itself, they opted to take a seat on the floor with their back pressed against the bedframe. "I don't like doing it, but it keeps me from getting crumbs everywhere and having to clean them up later."
Ace watched them settle, eyes narrowing with confusion. "Didn't you just say that you didn't have any chairs?" he asked, flicking a thumb towards the chair situated at the desk on the other side of the room. "The hell do you call that?"
"That's a desk chair, not an eating chair," they explained further. "Feel free to sit at my desk if you want to, though, I don't mind."
"Okay, so why the fuck don't you just eat at your desk?"
"It's a desk, not a table."
"It—fucking, whatever. Who gives a shit?"
After staring intensely at the desk for a few more seconds, Ace opted to storm his way past it completely—sliding down to the floor with his back to the adjacent wall. "It is kinda dumb how MonoTV didn't give us, like tables or whatever for our rooms," he muttered, setting the makeshift jacket-bag in his lap. "Bet that stupid robot did it on purpose, just so we didn’t spend all our time locked in our rooms."
“Maybe,” Nico replied. “Guess it would make for a pretty boring game if we did.”
"Tch, joke's on them. I don't plan on leaving my room or yours unless I have to at this point."
The sides of the jacket were peeled apart to reveal the gathered cans, one of which Ace pulled out to inspect before setting to the side. "What'd you snag for your stash?"
"Honestly, not much of substance," Nico said, as they began to shift through their own bag. "MonoTV did store a lot of unperishable food in the storage room. But a lot of it was stuff like crackers and nuts and other snack foods, so not exactly filling."
They pulled out a small, flat can. "I did find some tuna in there as well, but…"
"But what?" Ace asked sarcastically. "Not a good enough brand for you?"
"No, I…don't really like meat that much."
Their answer earned a raised eyebrow from Ace as he looked over to them. "You don't eat meat?"
"I mean, I can eat it in a pinch if I have to," Nico said, features scrunching with distaste. "But it's not my favorite thing in the world and I usually try to avoid eating it whenever possible."
Ace stared at them in genuine surprise for a moment more, before he shook his head and returned to his work. "Yeah, well…guess that makes two of us."
Nico tilted their head. "What do you mean?"
"I don't eat it either," he explained, setting another can aside. "Can't stand the feeling of having something that used to be alive in my mouth. Hell, I can barely stand the smell of it cooking sometimes. Just knowing that someone's got something dead roasting in their oven or on their grill is enough to make my stomach turn."
"Oh," Nico said with a thoughtful expression. "Huh, I never would've guess that—"
Ace's attention snapped back to them in an instant, gaze narrowed. "Never would've guessed what?"
"Ah, sorry—" they started quickly. "Nothing, I swear! It…it actually makes a lot of sense when you explain it like that. In fact, it's part of the reason I try and avoid it, as well. At least from distributors I'm not really familiar with, or ones I know don't treat their animals well while they're alive."
A scowl. "But figuring all of that out isn't always easy, so I usually just avoid eating meat entirely unless I have no better options. I just don't like the idea of eating an animal who wasn't treated well in life. Feels like such a cruel fate for them."
"Psh, figures your concern's with the animal part," Ace muttered. "I just don't wanna eat something I know had a heartbeat once. Feels…weird."
"Either way, my choices are usually pretty limited," Nico explained, setting the tuna aside. "So I'll just save it in case of an emergency. Probably won't taste as good without any mayonnaise, though, and I didn't grab any bread."
"Fuck—speaking of which, where'd that peanut butter go?"
Ace reached a hand deeper into the bag to try and feel around for the jar, his efforts earning nothing more than a wince and a sharp curse as his fingers smacked against metal. "God damn it, did I leave it back in the kitchen?"
"I think I heard Veronika mention something about bringing Arturo a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch," Nico said. "Said that Charles and Whit had been in the middle of making them when they went to the kitchen."
"Son of a bitch!" Ace hissed, tossing the bag aside in frustration. "I could've really used the protein!"
"Would peanut butter really be good for your stomach right now?" Nico asked, tilting their head. "After…well, what happened earlier?"
"Mind your business," Ace snapped, jutting a finger in their direction. "Actually, fuck it—go ahead and add that to the rules. Something something, no bringing up each other's secrets! If I ain't allowed to comment on your gender, you can't comment on my diet!"
"That phrasing seems a little…inaccurate," Nico pointed out. "I said you couldn't make fun of my gender, not that you couldn't comment on it at all. And I'm not really commenting on your diet so much as making sure you don't go and eat something that'll make you throw up again. I mean, we can't exactly look out for each other if you're too sick to focus, right?"
"Whatever, I don't wanna hear shit about my diet in any way!" Ace insisted sharply. "You think I don't know how to take care of myself?"
"…I didn't s—"
"Shut up, you know what I meant!"
"Okay, okay, fine."
They held up their hands, hair tufts flat against their head. "Fine, I'm not gonna say anything more about it. You probably do know your own body better than I ever could."
"Damn fucking right I do," Ace sneered back. "So just keep your mouth shut!"
Lips pursed, they returned to rummaging through their bag. "You know, I'm not trying to start a fight with you every time I say something."
"Oh, please," Ace scoffed. "We both know you've been itching to scrap with me from the goddamn start—"
"Am I the one who's been itching to fight, or are you the one who wants to fight?" Their gaze snapped back to him, irritated frown lowering further. "Because you seem to be the one jumping for a fight every time I say anything."
Ace bared a fist. "Oh, don't fucking pretend like you don't know what the fuck you've been doing—"
"I know what you think I've been doing," they interrupted firmly. "But I can tell you what I'm actually doing, and that isn't looking for a fight. Especially not now, when we’re supposed to be working together. Why would I want to fight you when that would just make things a lot harder for us to do that?"
Ace's shoulders tensed at their words. “Well…who gives a shit if you're not looking for a fight? You think that just because we’re working together doesn’t mean we’re not going to butt heads? Or did you expect us to hold hands and sing fucking Kumbaya?”
“No, I didn’t expect any of that,” Nico replied. “But I’m also not looking to start any fights with you, and especially not looking to end any fights with you.”
They cast him a cold look. “Especially since you already know how I’d end a fight…”
“Wh—are you threatening me, you little bastard?!”
“No, but I am telling you that I’m not going to keep fighting with you if we’re serious about working together,” Nico said. “And that if you do insist on fighting even when I don’t want to, I-I won’t be afraid to resort to ending a fight if I need to.”
Despite the stutter, they punctuated their sentence with a sharp glare. One that causes some of Ace’s vigour to falter, before he simply narrowed his eyes at them in return. “Tch, so you are threatening me.”
He returned his bag to his lap. “Think you’re so fucking tough now that you got in a lucky shot on me? Think just because you almost killed me that I’m suddenly gonna kiss the fuckin’ ground you walk on and bend over backwards to not get on your bad side—”
“No, I don’t.”
Once again, Ace found his attention being drawn back to Nico as they continued: “I don’t think I’m tough, and I definitely don’t expect you to do any of that to me. You don’t like me and I don’t like you, and I know nothing’s going to change that. Especially not after everything that's happened.”
They pulled a box of crackers out of their bag. “Which is why I don’t understand why you keep trying to start a fight with me. We already don’t like each other, and we’re trying so hard to actually work together to get out of here alive. Like I said before, why would you want to make that harder than it already is?”
“I…”
Ace’s features shifted in a number of ways—as if he wanted to argue their point, but simply couldn’t find the words—before finally pulling the can opener out of his bag with a huff of frustration. "Whatever…"
Instead of reaching for a can, however, he peered closely at the collection he'd gathered. "…Hey, did you bring that notebook from my room with you?"
Despite the affronted side-eye they cast at him, their head once again tilted to the side with mild curiosity. "Of course, why?"
"I wanna write down my food stock," he explained. "You know, keep track of both the food I got and what I might need later? I gotta make sure I'm getting the right amount of calories every day, and make sure my diet stays balanced."
The annoyance in their expression melted to a look of intrigue. "Oh! You mean like, if you're missing specific fruit or vegetables or a source of protein, you'll know what we need to grab the next time we need to step out to restock?"
"More or less," Ace said. "Plus I wanna keep track of what I have, just in case you decide to get cute and try to steal from me when I'm not looking."
"Cute?" Nico repeated in confusion. "…Wait, why would I steal from you when I have my own food right here?"
"Fuck if I know," Ace replied with a scoff. "I mean, you said you got nothing but snacks and junk, so you know my can stash is way better than your shitty snack bag. Maybe you're jealous enough to try and fix that, or whatever."
"…Uh-huh."
A snap of his fingers. "So hurry up and just toss it to m—wait, wait—"
His objections came too late, for the notebook had already left Nico's hands and was sailing right at his face—which it hit with perfect accuracy. "You little shit!"
"Catch," was Nico's deadpan reply before they returned to their bag.
With a growl, Ace yanked the notebook from his face. "Thought you weren't looking for a fight, jackass?"
"I'm not," Nico said. "But you were being a jerk and I felt it was the fairest and safest way to retaliate. You can toss it back at my face once you're done, if it makes you feel better."
Rather than oblige, Ace simply cast them a sneer before flipping to a fresh page and making a show of squinting hard at his stock of cans while he began to take notes. For the fit he had thrown about it earlier, there admittedly wasn't a whole lot in terms of food that would be good for his stomach after the reprised upheaval of his remaining stomach contents. He hadn't thought to snag any bags of rice (no way to cook it) or applesauce (none to be found in the cupboard he'd searched). The sliced carrots he'd grabbed might be the best option, although they'd be a lot better cooked than eaten straight out of the can.
Too bad there hadn't been something along the lines of, like—canned bananas or whatever. He'd seen a bunch of them in a bowl on the counter at one point, but they felt too easy for someone to tamper with—even with their peels. For all he knew, someone could stick them in a bucket of poison and let it soak through the skin to the bananas inside.
…Was that actually doable? Fuck if he knew, but he sure wasn't about to find it out the hard way!
"Kind of a shame we've got to rely on canned fruits and vegetables or snack-y versions of them for substance," Nico mused from their spot, a box of fruit snacks in their hand. "Would be nice if this place had somewhere we could get everything fresh."
Speak of the fucking devil. "I've seen some bananas and stuff in the kitchen before, so they have fresh food coming in from somewhere," Ace said. "I just don't normally go for them. Too easy for someone to mess with food that's not vacuum-sealed."
"Fair point," Nico mused, followed by a thoughtful hum. "Hmm, you know what people probably couldn't mess with? Eggs."
Ace looked up from the notebook. "Eggs?"
"They're protein, right?" Nico asked. "Uh, that was a rhetorical question, I know they're protein. Sometimes I need to mix in plain scrambled eggs with my clients' food to help them get more protein in their diets. And I usually hardboil five or six at a time, to make breakfast easy across several days. Anyway, it'd be hard for anyone to mess with them without cracking them open first, right?"
Ace's hand met his chin. Huh, he hadn't even considered snagging a carton of eggs. Only way anyone could really mess with them was by cracking the shell, and he wouldn't be eating them at that point anyway.
Oh, wait, there was one thing they hadn't considered—"And how the hell are we supposed to cook the damn eggs, genius? Unless you've got a stove hidden under your bed or something?"
"I think I saw an egg cooker in one of the kitchen cabinets," Nico mused. "You know, the kind where you just have to add water, put the eggs in and wait? We could probably grab one of those too, if you want to avoid cooking in the kitchen."
They pressed a hand to their own chin. "Although that would limit us to eating only hardboiled eggs. Maybe if it comes with one of those omlette or poached egg attachments, we'd also be able to eat them that way? But that's a big maybe."
Ace scowled. "Tch, look who has an answer for everything."
"…I mean, would you prefer I didn't?" Nico asked.
"I don't know…" Ace said, returning his attention to his work. "Whatever, I guess it's not a bad idea. Maybe we can also grab an electric kettle, so we can boil water for other stuff and—oh."
"What?" Nico asked.
Ace reached down to pick up one of the cans again, staring closely at the label that clearly read 'Beans'. "…Guess I grabbed something that'd work for my protein boost after all."
"Oh," Nico echoed. "…Is that bad? You don't exactly sound thrilled about it."
"Nah." Ace reached for the can opener and settled it in place on top of the can, before giving the knob a good twist. "Just would've preferred the peanut butter. Beans taste better cooked and I'm only going to eat about a spoon…ful—fuck."
"What's wrong?"
Nico looked over to the sight of Ace staring hard at the now halfway-opened can, features narrowed with annoyed realization. "…I didn't grab a fork or spoon."
"Huh," Nico said, with a glance into their own bag. "Guess I didn't think to grab any utensils either."
"Shit—" Ace muttered with a low hiss. "Should've checked before I opened it, can't set it aside for later now. Unless—"
His gaze darted around the room in a slight panic, before returning to the can. "No, there's nothing. Fuck, and I'm gonna need to drain them, too." His free hand grasped at his forehead. "God damn it, why didn't I think this through?!"
"Ace?"
"Whatever," he quickly muttered, before carefully setting the opened can aside. "It's fine, there's gotta be something here that's easier to eat—"
"Ace."
"No, shut up, lemme do this—"
"Ace, if you want something that's easier to eat," Nico continued firmly. "I could just trade you something from my bag instead."
"I—wait, what?"
"I know you said you didn't want to share your food with me," Nico said. "But a trade's different than sharing, I think? Or, at least, it's a different form of sharing—"
"Once again, don't need to lecture me on the importance of sharing," Ace said flatly. "But…fine, what else you got besides the shitty tuna? 'Cuz I ain't eating that even if it was easy to eat without a fork."
"Well," Nico began, as they pored through their stuff. "I've got nuts, raisins, crackers…some of those little snacks with that fake cheese dip—"
A grimace. "Again, it's not much but I was grabbing what I could."
"Yeesh, you really didn't get much good stuff, did you?" Ace muttered, with another glance down at the opened can. "…Fuck it, gimme a sleeve of crackers and the beans are yours."
A nod, before Nico rose to their feet and crossed the room to trade. "…Wait, weren't you worried about food that was too easy to mess with?"
"Yeah, I still am," Ace said, holding out the hand with the can. "And if you even think about touching these now that they're mine, you're gonna fucking regret it."
A wince, before his other hand move his stomach. "But…I'm real fucking hungry and I don't care at this point."
"Alright," Nico said. "Crackers are pretty good for your stomach after throwing up, anyway. So…that's good—"
"Shut up."
Ace's halfhearted demand was silenced by the crinkling of the plastic wrap around the crackers as Nico held them out for him to take, the sound increasing in volume as Ace snatched it from their hand in a hurry—promptly replacing the emptiness in their wake with the can. "Here, now hurry up and go back to the other side of the room."
Nico took a step forward to oblige, but stopped to stare at the can with a curious look, before looking back to him. "…What do you plan on doing for the protein you need?"
"The fuck does it matter to you?" Ace muttered, words followed by a grunt as he fought to tear open the plastic sleeve.
"It just seemed like a such a big deal for you," Nico pointed out. "And I know you'll probably get mad at me for saying this, but…crackers and beans by themselves aren't exactly a meal."
"Again, the fuck does it matter to you?" Ace asked, eyes narrowed. "Can you hurry up and get to the point so I can eat?"
"I know we both already pointed out how you weren't interested in sharing," they explained. "But…crackers might work as a spoon, right? So what if we just…combined the two and ate them together? Would probably be a lot more filling for both of us, and you can get the protein you needed."
Ace made a face. "Beans on crackers? What, are we British now?"
"You can always just say no if you don't want to," Nico pointed out. "It's fine if you don't, I'll just go eat them by myself. But I just thought it'd solve a couple of your issues if we did."
Despite the lingering grimace on his lips, Ace's gaze moved between Nico and the can of beans in an uncertain silence. As much as he could feel yet another opportunity to snip and snap at them lying in wait atop his tongue, he couldn't help but feel a sense of reluctant agreement once again preventing his complaints from being heard.
Another lurch of his stomach brought a hand to the front of his shirt. Damn it, they had a good point about neither being filling enough for a meal. And while he normally wouldn't care about that—he usually didn't eat anything for lunch anyway—a back-to-back throw up session was making that familiar ache a lot harder to ignore.
Could he somehow demand the can of beans back from them while keeping the crackers? No, even he knew that wouldn't work. Did he have a spare can he could just eat on his own? Nope, a quick glance at his stock answered that question pretty fast. No plates or anything either—man, he'd really screwed himself when it came to what he'd gathered in a rush.
"Not that you need to let this affect your choice," Nico continued. "But…it is a lot harder for anyone to mess with food that they're actively sharing with someone else."
…Damn it, another good point. And when combined with another painful gurgle of his insides, it was finally enough for Ace to gesture defeatedly to the spot on the floor before him. "Fine, whatever, just…sit down and don't talk too much. And keep everything in the center where we can both see it."
With a nod, Nico carefully lowered themself to the floor, hand moving to twist the can opener further and peel the lid off completely. And while they occupied themself with that, Ace finally ripped open the plastic—nearly sending a cracker or two flying in the process—and set the package on the floor before them. "We should get paper plates or something too."
"We can make a list of what we need after we eat," Nico said, copying his movement and setting the properly-opened can upright on the floor.
Ace merely hummed in response before reaching for a cracker, then the can. It was a struggle; he barely managed to scoop more than a couple beans onto the cracker before the entire thing grew soggy and threatened to dissolve in the cold bean juice, leaving him forced to retreat with one hand cupped beneath the entire thing. But eventually it finally made its way to his mouth, just as Nico followed suit and brought one to their mouth as well. Silence lingered around them as the two of them chewed, then swallowed—
"…This kinda sucks."
Nico was the first to break the silence, tongue poking out between their lips with a look of disgust. Rather than argue, however—Ace's scowl returned in full as he reached for another cracker. "No kidding. Told you the beans would be way better cooked."
"Not sure the crackers are exactly helping either," Nico mused, another cracker also finding its way into their hand. "Maybe it was a bad idea to use them as a spoon after all, the bean water's making them all crumbly and wet. It's just…salty mush on salty mush."
"Maybe that's why the British eat this shit on toast instead?" Ace muttered through a mouthful of his second scoop.
"Too bad Xander's not still here," Nico said, while they gingerly tapped a couple of beans onto their next cracker. "Maybe he'd have an answer."
Xander…
The name struck Ace silent as he shoved more food into his mouth, the events of the past week or so chilling him more than the unappealing flavor ever could. It'd really been almost a whole week since they'd gotten here, with three—almost five, potentially four—people having already died, and it had all started with Xander.
His hand began to tremble as he reached for another cracker. What had gone through Xander's mind in that final moment? Had he been scared? Surprised? He'd looked surprised when they'd examined his body, Ace's stomach once again churning at the thought despite the food within finally beginning to settle into place.
And what about before, when he'd—in the would-be victim's own words—tried to kill Teruko? How had he felt in that moment? Scared? Determined? How had Teruko herself felt during the attempt itself? How had Min felt when she took action to stop him, knowing it would seal her own fate? How had Arei felt—no, Ace could answer that one. He'd known how she felt, and the answer was that she hadn't felt anything. He'd made sure of that, made sure to make things as painless as possible for her.
Another lurch of the beans and crackers settling in his less-empty stomach. Had that been better for her, dying in blissful ignorance of her fate? Or had that been crueler on his end; denying her any chance to fight back or escape?
Was it better to know what was coming, or to be left in the dark?
And how did all of that compare to his own attempted murder and execution, a horrible mix of both? The knowledge that death was approaching, hanging over his head like an executioner's blade, no real knowledge on when it was finally going to come down until—
"You're getting your shirt wet."
Nico's voice dropped Ace's attention to the front of his shirt, where one hand—gloved fingertips soaked in bean juice—now gripped the fabric tight. With a shake of his head, he let his arm fall back to his side before he rose from his seat. "I'm done eating. Lemme look around your room now."
"Go ahead," Nico muttered through another mouthful of food. "I told you before I don't have anything to hide."
"I expect you're gonna want me to avoid your bathroom, huh?" Ace asked, hands on his hips. "'Cause fair's fair and all."
"It would be fair," Nico agreed. "But again, I have nothing to hide and I did say I'd planned to let you go through all my stuff. So look wherever you want."
Ace stared hard at them for a few seconds before turning his gaze to the bathroom door. But while he did approach it at first—hand coming to rest atop the handle—he eventually shifted his attention to the nearby desk, choosing instead to poke and prod through its drawers. "Yeesh, you've got next to nothing in here, huh?"
"There wasn't much in it to begin with, and there's not really anywhere to get stuff to put in it," Nico pointed out.
"Well, nothing aside from—"
Ace picked up one of the little toy mice from the surface of the desk, studying it closely for a moment before crossing the room to their bed. "Yeah, think it goes without saying, but you got a shit ton of animal stuff in here," he said, peering beneath and reaching for a box labelled 'Supplies'. "I mean, cat toys. Pet food?"
After rummaging through the box (the contents inside consisting of—unsurprisingly—pet supplies), he slammed it back underneath and flicked a thumb towards the TV. "Even a fucking cat cartoon on the TV?" He clasped his hands together with a sickeningly-sweet bat of his eyelashes. "Surprised you don't have a whole-ass animal in here to go with the cutesy-wootsy kitty-witty look."
A pause, before his gaze darted around the room in its entirety. "…You don't have a whole-ass animal in here that you've just been hiding until now, right?"
"Sadly, no," Nico replied. "And I didn't decorate the room, it came pre-furbished with all the various pet supplies. Which I don't really mind, but it does feel a little hollow without any actual animals to use them."
A flat look. "And for as much as I don't mind the cartoon, it does feel a little condescending that MonoTV assumed I'd like it. Like, yes, I like animals and don't mind the cutesy-ness of it, but the assumption that I would like it by default is the part that bothers me."
The condescendingly-saccharine look on Ace's face disappeared as he moved to their dresser—one drawer pulled open to the sight of a dozen similar blue shirts. "Yeah, well, guess I can understand that," he said as he poked through them. "It's like with my room and all the goddamn horse shit that the little bastard set up for me."
Nico fell silent, focus fixed on nibbling around the edge of a lone cracker. "You know, it would be nice if they had some kind of store in the building. One where we could buy stuff to decorate our rooms with, preferably how we'd like?"
"And where the fuck would we get money to do that?" Ace asked, pushing the drawer closed before yanking open another. "Unless you're suggesting that MonoTV should give us jobs or something? Yeah, just what we fucking need. More stuff to worry about on top of trying not to die."
"I guess that's a good point," Nico said, hand pressed to their chin. "Maybe it could hide money around the building for us to find at our own leisure? Even a killing game is a game, after all."
"Tch, like I'm gonna crawl around on my hands and knees looking for coins in the nearest potted plant," Ace said. "What the fuck does it think this is, Easter?"
"…It could be," Nico pointed out, turning back to the food. "We don't know what day it actually is."
"Yeah, well I—AHH!"
Ace's scream was immediately followed by the sound of something heavy clattering to the floor, causing Nico to jolt with surprise and crush the cracker in their hand to pieces. "What?! What's wr—"
The words were cut off as their gaze fell on Ace's pointed finger, and followed it to where the object that had fallen. And as Nico stared closer, their features twisted with grim realization at the sight of a familar, square container now lying sideways on the floor.
"Oh, right. The turpentine."
"Get rid of it."
Ace's words were sharp, vicious. Barely more than a growl as his trembling hand pointed at it as sternly as he could manage. "I don't fucking care how, that shit's not staying anywhere near you or me! You fucking understand?!"
He'd backed himself against the nearest wall, with little indication that he was even aware that his body had moved there. "I mean it, get it out of here! And I don't wanna hear shit on me trying to start a fight or nothing, get it out of here—"
"Okay, okay—"
Nico bolted to their feet and hurried over to scoop it up as quickly as possible. "Okay, getting rid of this," they assured him. "Should I throw it out somewhere outside of the room?"
"I—fuck, wait, don't do that!"
Despite the lingering panic, Ace managed to detatch himself from the wall he'd flattened himself against and stood up straight again. "Someone might snag it from the trash if you just throw it away willy-nilly."
"Okay," Nico said. "So…what should we do, then? Give it back to Rose?"
"Sure, fine, whatever," Ace said quickly. "Let's just go knock on her door and give it to her."
Before Nico could even respond, Ace had stormed his way to their door—yanking it open and gesturing for them to follow. "You go ahead. I don't trust you to walk behind me with that shit."
"That's…fair, I guess," Nico said. "Do you want to carry it instead?"
"Hell no," Ace insisted. "Like I need anyone to see me walking around with shit like that! Nah, you're handing it back to Rose yourself."
Despite the scowl on their face lowering further, Nico did as instructed and made their way out of the room—with Ace following closely behind on their heels. "Alright, which one of these rooms are hers?"
"Probably the one with her name on it?" Nico said over their shoulder.
"Shut up, I meant which direction!"
"…I mean, my room's at the end of the hallway so probably the other one?"
"Oh my fucking God—"
With a growl of frustration, Ace turned and stormed further down the corridor in the opposite direction—attention snapping from one room to the next until his eyes landed on Rose's name. And without hesitation, he slammed his fist against the front of the door with a series of loud bangs. "Rose! Open the fucking door! We gotta give you something!"
"Hold on—" Nico said, coming up behind him. "How do we know she's even in there?"
"We don't," Ace said, fist not ceasing its speed for an instant as he continued to knock. "If she doesn't answer, then we just go find her—"
"What the hell's going on out here?"
The knocking finally stopped as both Ace and Nico turned to the sight of Teruko standing in her doorway, a look of irritable confusion on her face. "Oh, that explains it," she said flatly. "Look, I know you two have your reasons for it at this point, but can't you go five minutes without fighting?"
Her glare grew more pointed at the sight of the turpentine in Nico's hand. "...Don't tell me the two of you were jumping right back in to trying to kill each other. You're both already in enough hot water as it is…"
"And who the fuck said we were doing any of that?" Ace asked. "Also aren't you supposed to be fixing my door?!"
"I was," Teruko replied sternly. "Until I heard you two yelling out here. What's going on?"
"Uh, well, actually, we were looking for Rose," Nico explained. "We…need to give her back her turpentine."
"I—" The frustration in Teruko's face vanished in favor of curiosity. "Wait, we?"
"Yeah, we," Ace confirmed. "Nico and I decided it'd be better for the both of us to work together going forward."
The confusion lingered as Teruko continued to stare at them. "…No, seriously, what's going on?"
"Believe it or don't, but it's actually what we're doing," Nico said. "Like you said, the two of us are already in a lot of hot water. So—"
"So you decided to team up with the only other person in the group in as much hot water as you?" Teruko guessed. "That's—"
A pause, hand pressed to her chin. "—actually not a horrible idea, much as I want to say it is. And as much as I doubt that the two of you will last five minutes before tearing each other apart."
"Yeah, yeah, get all your smart-ass remarks in," Ace said. "But after you're done with that, can you tell us where Rose is?"
"I've been stuck in my room since MonoTV dropped that electric fence down in front of your room and stuck me with the task of fixing your door," Teruko explained. "I know about as much as you do when it comes to where anyone is right now."
"And you haven't seen anyone between now and then?" Nico asked.
"Oh, I didn't say that," Teruko clarified. "A couple of folks came to check on me after I dragged David off to talk, but MonoTV popped up shortly after they arrived and I didn't keep tabs on everyone after that."
"The hell did you want to talk to David for, anyway?" Ace asked. "Other than being a loudmouthed jackass during the meeting, I mean."
"Nah, that was pretty much it," Teruko confirmed. "As for Rose, I know she was with the group that came to check on us, but I think she retreated to her room almost immediately. If she's not there now, you could always check the dressing room downstairs, since she likes to paint down there."
"She does?" Ace asked.
"She does," Nico confirmed. "I laid on the floor and watched her the other day, although she didn't remember notice I was there until Teruko tripped over me. That was before I…"
Their words fell alongside their gaze to the turpentine in their hand, which caused Ace to take a step away from them. "What, before you fucking stole that from her to try and kill me?"
"Yeah, remind me again why the two of you are working together?" Teruko said, before her expression flattened. "Wait, actually—I don't care. All I ask is that neither of you go and do something stupid as a result. Again."
"Whatever, we got what we needed," Ace said, and turned to point back down towards the other end of the hall. "You, start walking. We'll check the dressing room for her."
"You don't have to order me, I'd already planned on going," Nico said with a glare over their shoulder as they began to walk forward.
While Ace continued to gripe back at them—their voices growing quieter as they drew further away—Teruko lingered in her doorway for a few seconds longer as she watched them head back down the hallway. Once both had vanished out of sight, her eyes travelled down the various doors that lined the hall—scowl lowering further as it came to rest between the two closest to her own room. "Working together with someone in the same boat as you, huh?"
A sharp pain in her side drew her attention back, hand moving to grip her injured spot with hiss of discomfort. "D-damn it…"
When her withdrawn hand revealed blood, she turned back to her room with a drawn-out sigh. Guess figuring out how to repair a door would have to wait until she swapped out her bandages. Again.
"You don’t have to read it out loud, asshole! We can both see it!"
Despite the tantrum being thrown to their right, Nico's attention remained fixed on the small sign that now hung in front of Ace's doorless doorway—the room within barred from entry by an excessive amount of police tape that stretched from one side of the frame to the other. "Oh, this must've been what MonoTV meant earlier when it mentioned having to fix a door," they mused, finally turning to face Ace. "What happened?"
"The fuck you mean what ha—" Ace started, before crossing his arms with a scowl. "Right, guess you weren't there. Just before we were all called for the meeting, Teruko tripped and fell into my door and broke it."
"And that's why she's in charge of fixing it~! (≧▽≦)"
The sudden sight of MonoTV appearing before them from a panel in the wall jolted Ace a few inches into air with a surprised yelp. "What the hell?! What're you doing here?"
"Waiting for you to return to your room," MonoTV explained, a paw raised with delight. "So I could explain the door situation~! "
"You mean how Teruko fell into a door and broke it?" Nico asked, repeating Ace's earlier words. "Is she…alright?"
"That's a loaded question," MonoTV said amusedly. "But if you meant in terms of being punished for property damage, she's just fine~ (●ˇ∀ˇ●)! I figured that since it was merely an accident, her punishment should be much lighter than an execution."
A wink. "Plus according to Whit, it was really funny~! (> ω・)"
"You have a really bad sense of humor," Nico said.
"And you have a really bad haircut~!" MonoTV countered, before tilting its head. "By the way, what're the two of you doing within three feet of each other without some kinda argument happening?"
Despite Nico's expression going flat at the haircut remark, the question perked them right back up again. "Oh, well, after a discussion between the two of us," they explained, "we decided that our best method of survival was to, tentatively, put aside our differences for the time being and work together."
"You got a problem with that, metal mouth?" Ace added, baring a fist.
"Wo~ow, the two of you must be real desperate at this point," MonoTV said with a chuckle. "But nope, no problem~ \ (≧∇≦) ! Would love to see how long that trainwreck lasts before going off course and crashing into a ditch! It'll make for some good entertainment for the audience, that's for sure!"
"Whatever," Ace muttered. "Can you just point us in the direction of Teruko so I can get my goddamn door back?"
"Oh, she's in her room," MonoTV explained. "But I don't think pestering her's gonna fix your door issue any quicker."
A wink. "In fact, I know it's not going to fix it any quicker~! (> ω・)"
"What do you mean?" Ace asked. "Can't you tell her to hurry the fuck up with the repairs?"
"Oh, I coooooould," MonoTV said. But once it's actually fixed, I'll still have to double-check her work, fortify the material, make sure the door can withstand a series of durability tests—probably involving her to make sure she won't break it again—actually screw it back into place…"
They pressed a paw to their screen. "And that's on top of all the stuff I've still got in my backlog, thanks to Ace's little stunt down in the courtroom! Between making sure both the motive and new floor are ready by tomorrow, I can't promise that your door will be back to normal any sooner than…well, tomorrow. (=‸=;)"
"Tomorrow?" Nico asked in surprise.
"Tomorrow?!" Ace repeated, far more anger in his tone as his fist was jutted back in the air. "You're seriously just gonna put some shitty police tape across my doorway and leave me with no door until tomorrow?! How the hell am I supposed to sleep in my room tonight when anyone could just come barging in and slit my damn throat while I'm lying in bed?!"
"Sleep with a neck brace~? (> ω・)" MonoTV suggested playfully. "Plus let's be honest with ourselves, it's not like you were gonna sleep anyway!"
"Fuck you," Ace snapped back.
"There's also the matter of people sneaking in and out in general to take into account," Nico added thoughtfully. "With open access to his room, anyone could just go in and out whenever they wanted. Evidence could be planted for a later murder, or things taken to plant at the scene of a crime later."
A scowl. "Honestly, it sounds like MonoTV's doing all this just to spite you for what happened earlier."
"Tch, you would know about spiting me, wouldn't y—" Ace started, then paused with a scowl of his own. "Hey, wait, yeah—it does! Fuck you, you mechanical bastard! What, were you seriously that pressed about me punching you that you've gotta leave me a sitting duck for someone else's murder plans?!"
The last line he directed at MonoTV, fist once again raised as it smiled brightly at him. "Oh, of course I'm absolutely livid about what happened~!" it confirmed. "You broke my screen and stuck me in recovery mode for a full hour, it's your door that's gotta get fixed…oh, and let's not forget the six-foot-something brick wall of a man currently recovering in the infirmary because of your little stunt! And all of that made me have to push back revealing the new floor by a day (ಠ益ಠ)!"
"I don't really know if you can blame him for those other things," Nico pointed out. "I feel like Teruko and Levi are to blame a bit more in that regard."
"Regardless of my frustrations towards Ace for his part in all of it," MonoTV continued. "I'm still nothing if not fair to every student participating in the killing game. Besides, Ace has a point about how easy it'd be for someone to kill him if I just leave his doorway wide open."
Its tail flicked unhappily. "As much as I'd support it, that just makes things far too easy and way less fun. I'm looking for over-the-top and super-complex murders, not just 'Go in person's room and slit throat'. It's about as interesting as Levi bleeding out in a hospital bed! Boring~! (￣︿￣)"
"Y—"
Ace's fist was forced back down to his side, wrist gripped tight with his other hand as he fought desperately to keep both from trembling. "Oh, yeah, because you being bored is soooo much more important than my fuckin' safety…"
"So, you've got a replacement option in mind?" Nico asked.
"We~ell, I've got something to keep his room safe in mind!"
It gestured a paw towards the doorway. "Go ahead, try and break past the police tape~! Doesn't matter who does it, one of you just go right ahead and get a real good grip on the stuff!"
"…Yeah, I'm not doing that," Nico said firmly. "Not if you're suggesting I do it. That feels suspicious."
Despite any lingering discomfort, Ace's features twisted into a smug grin at Nico's comment. "Heh, what, are you scared?"
"…Are you not?" Nico asked in return. "MonoTV just admitted to being mad at you. Who knows what it's done under the guise of 'keeping your room safe'?"
"I—" A scoff. "Whatever, I wasn't gonna touch it either. Like hell I'm gonna do something just because someone's telling me to do it!"
"Yeesh, and you're supposed to be the impulsive one ( = ‸ = ; )," MonoTV said sadly, before perking up again. "No matter, though~! I can do it!"
With that, it moved its paw towards the tape at the bottom of the doorway. Barely had the tip of its claws made contact when a sharp burst of electricity sent its body rocketing up towards the ceiling and back down to the floor with a shout of delight, causing Ace to jump back several steps in surprise with a shrill: "Wh-what the fuck?!"
"Yeah, that sounds about right," Nico said, stepping closer to peer at the doorway. "Is there some kind of electric fence or exposed wires behind the tape or something?"
"Right on the money, cat breath~!" MonoTV confirmed. "Zappy zappy police tape's gonna guard the room until the door's back tomorrow! With this blocking the doorway, not a single person's gonna be able to get into your room, Ace~! Not unless they're looking to get barbequed of course."
"Isn't that a huge fire hazard?" Nico asked.
"No," MonoTV replied, without further elaboration.
"And how the hell am I supposed to avoid getting barbequed?!" Ace added irritably. "Unless you're suggesting I just stay out of my room for a day, in which case: fat fucking chance!"
"Just swipe your MonoPad against the card reader like you would a regular door, dumbass," MonoTV explained. "And don't worry, I've got one set up on the other side of the wall too, so you can get in and out without touching the tape itself~!"
A wink. "Just make sure you don't linger in the doorway for too long (・ω<)~!"
"Oh, well, that's just fucking fantastic," Ace muttered. "So not only am I stuck without a door until tomorrow, now I've gotta worry about getting electrocuted every time I wanna go in and out of my room?!"
"No, not if you don't linger in the doorway for too long," MonoTV repeated. "I just said that."
"It also seems pretty counterproductive," Nico pointed out. "I mean, if you're going to spend all this time setting up this type of security, why not just replace his door with another door instead?"
"Hey, yeah?!" Ace added. "The hell are you wasting all this time for when you could just—oh, I dunno—put a whole new door there instead?!"
MonoTV's expression fell with an emoticon face to match. "You break my screen, Markey, you gotta deal with the damn consequences ( ಠ_ಠ ). Hell, you should consider yourself lucky I'm even bothering to have your door fixed at all, and not forcing you to sleep somewhere else. Like the trash can with the rest of the garbage~!"
"Why you little—"
"Well, if neither of you have any more questions, then I guess it's time for me to take my leave~! Toodles ★~(◠‿◕)~!"
Before Ace could argue further, MonoTV disappeared into the wall from the direction it had came—leaving Ace to angrily kick the spot with the toe of his boot. "Fucking great. Now what the hell am I supposed to do?!"
"I know you wanted to sleep in your room tonight," Nico said. "But to be honest, I don't trust MonoTV's method of security in the slightest and it poses as much of a danger to us as it does to anyone else. So maybe we should sleep in my room instead."
“Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?!”
Ace’s fist was raised yet again as he snapped at them, causing them to flinch into their cloak. “Mmm, not really, since you don’t seem to like the idea," they replied quietly. "But I like sleeping in a room with an electric doorway even less.”
"I—"
The fist was lowered with a scoff. "Honestly I…I don't really like the idea of sleeping in a room with a doorway that can light me up like a damn Christmas tree, either," he admitted. "You might have a point, much as it fucking sucks."
When their words were met with accomadation rather than more ire, they dared to peek out at him again with a curious look. “I-if you want, we can still do a sweep of your room right now. That way we can at least take notes on everything and you can get a change of clothes, or whatever else you might need.”
"Take notes?" Ace asked. "The fuck are we gonna take notes on?"
"It's like you suggested back in the storage room," Nico explained. "We're going to want to do a sweep of both our rooms if we're serious about working together. Which probably means we'll want to take stock of everything, make sure neither of us are carrying anything dangerous—"
"You want to go through my stuff—?!"
"—before you yell at me any further, just know I fully plan to let you go through all my stuff as well. It'd only be fair, after all," Nico continued quickly. "Also…is that not what you meant when you said do a sweep of each other's rooms? Did I misunderstand? I figured you would want to be thorough about keeping track of everything we both have, just so we can't spring any surprises on each other."
The last part was added at the sight of Ace's eyebrows furrowing and fist twitching to be raised again. But after a beat or two, their words thankfully succeeded in getting his features to relax with nothing more than a grumble of annoyance. "You swear to God you'll let me go through all your stuff too? No takebacks?"
"So long as I'm allowed to do the same in return," Nico said, expression flat. "After the last motive, I don't have a whole lot that's worth hiding anymore anyway."
Their remark earns a set of pursed lips on Ace's end as he made an indigent gesture to the doorway. “Fine, whatever. You first then, asshole.”
“Eh? Why me?”
“So I know you’re not gonna stab me in the back when I turn around!” he explained matter-of-factly. “Just because we made the choice to work together doesn’t mean I’m just gonna drop my guard willy-fuckin’-nilly.”
The fist was back, this time with a fierce expression to match. “I ain’t lookin’ to get any more scars…”
Rather than retreat into their cloak again, a thoughtfulness crossed Nico's features as they raised a hand to their chin again. “...How do I know I can’t say the same for you?”
“Huh?”
“Well…I know earlier you said you weren’t looking to jump right back in to another execution,” Nico reminded him. “And I do believe you when you say that, to some extent."
They raised an eyebrow. "But…people don’t necessarily die every time they get stabbed. So…how do I know you’re not just trying to stab me when my back is turned? You know, leave me with some scars of my own?”
“Well, I—”
Ace’s mouth opened, then closed, then opened again—
—before finally snapping closed once more with a huff. “...This is gonna be a whole damn thing, isn’t it? Us finding reasons to not trust each other.”
“Probably,” Nico agreed. “And, to be fair, we probably shouldn’t trust each other after everything that’s happened. But if we’re serious about trying to keep each other alive, maybe we should at least come up with some general rules. You know, establish lines that we don’t cross, and things like that? Feel like that’d be beneficial for both of us, don’t you think?”
“Fine, we can work out the details on that as we take stock of my room,” Ace said, with another glance towards the doorway. “...Although we still haven’t figured out the whole ‘who goes in first’ issue.”
Nico fiddled with the pawpads of their gloves for a moment. “...I go in backwards and you follow forward? That way we can both see each other.”
“Fine, but raise your hands as you do, so I know you aren’t carrying a weapon.”
“Ace—”
“Just do it, alright?”
With a roll of their eyes, Nico held up their hands—one palm revealed while the other kept a tight grip on their bag of gathered supplies—as Ace raised his MonoPad to the card reader. Almost immediately, the wall of police tape and wires rose up into a hidden slit above the doorway and completely out of sight; leaving the entryway cleared and the bedroom exposed.
Keeping their arms up, Nico backed slowly into the bedroom, with Ace's piercing gaze locked onto them like his life depended on it. "Alright, stop, you're gonna hit my bed," he said. "I'm coming in."
"You raise your arms too," Nico instructed.
"Fine."
After reswiping the card reader, Ace quickly shuffled into the room with his arms raised before coming to a stop. "Alright, so when is it supposed to close aga—ACK!"
A quick swoosh of air as the barrier of electrified tape fell back into place made Ace jump a couple of inches in the air, his determination to keep his eyes on Nico momentarily forgotten as he spun around to investigate. "A warning next time would be fucking nice!"
He stared hard at the waiting police tape before him, muscles twitching with every little audible zap from the wires within. "God forbid I get a new fucking door instead of one that'd make Veronika beg to switch rooms with me."
"I guess she would be the type to enjoy a door that doubled as a harzard to her life," Nico said. "…Did you want to reopen it?"
"And risk someone else wandering in and stabbing me when my back's turned?" Ace pointed out. "Fat chance."
"Yeah, but," Nico started, a hand to their cloak. "Now you're in a closed room with someone who tried to kill you."
"I—"
Their words once again clamped around any that Ace might've wanted to say, silencing them in their tracks as he turned back around to face them. Once again, they had brought up a pretty good point. Why they were bringing it up at all, he wasn't entirely sure. Wasn't the point of working together to prevent them from killing each other?
…Oh, duh—"L-like that matters!" he said aloud, baring a fist. "We made a deal, didn't we? We can't kill each other, otherwise we'd just be putting ourselves at risk! What, you think you can just intimidate me by reminding me of what you did?!"
"Not really," Nico said. "I just wanted to make sure you weren't stressed to the point of forgetting that and doing something dangerous. Again."
Ace's eyes narrowed. "And what the hell's that supposed to mean?"
"What do you think it means?" Nico asked flatly.
"You'd better watch your fucking mouth," Ace warned. "Or I might take you up on that offer to do something dangerous."
"Didn't you just say it'd be a bad idea, because killing each other would only put ourselves at risk?" Nico reminded him.
"Didn't you just say stabbing someone doesn't mean killing them?" Ace countered in return.
Nico let out a sigh and dropped their bag at their feet. "Alright, you don't have to keep the door open if you don't want to," they said. "Let's just get started on looking around at your room, and maybe work on that list of rules we wanted to make. Do you have a notebook or something we can write in?"
Despite Ace's shoulders remaining tense—like he was still prepped to keep the argument going—he followed suit in setting down his makeshift satchel of gathered food. "Yeah, pen and paper are both in the desk, top drawer," he confirmed. "Go ahead and get 'em. Feel free to look through it too if you want."
His hand balled into a fist. "Just know that whatever you search in here, I'm gonna look through in your room, too!"
"I'm aware," Nico said, easing their way towards the desk. "Anything I should look out for in the notebook itself?"
"Tch, if you're asking if I left anything related to my murder in there, then no," Ace confirmed. "I mean, I did write down a list of shit I'd need for it, but flushed it as soon as I got everything. Like hell I was gonna keep that kinda evidence lying around."
Nico paused, a hand inches from the top drawer's handle. "Oh!"
"Oh?" Ace asked, narrowing his eyes. "The fuck's 'oh' supposed to mean?"
"Nothing!" Nico said. "I'm just impressed, that was a very smart idea."
"Like I said before, I'm not a fucking idiot," Ace pointed out. "No matter what you or anyone else here wants to think!"
"I d—" Nico started, then shook their head as they finally pulled open the drawer. "Well, I still say it was a really smart idea. I didn't…"
A pause as they reached their hand inside, which shot one of Ace's eyebrows up his forehead. "What? What didn't you do?"
They hesitated to reply for a moment—too preoccupied with taking out the notebook and pen as slowly as possible—before finishing their thought with a quiet: "…I didn't think to do that."
"Oh. Right…"
An awkward silence fell across the room, Nico shifting uncomfortably in place while Ace simply folded his arms as tightly as possible. "…Maybe that should be rule number one, then?" Nico finally suggested. "Don't bring up either of our murders, or murder attempts?"
Ace's fingers gripped the sides of his arm tight, lips flattening into an irritated look. "Tch, you don't gotta go and make that a whole rule," he said. "I might be pissed the fuck off about what you did, but you don't gotta dance around the topic like I'm made of goddamn glass."
"I mean, that's fair I guess," Nico said. "But in return, do you think you'd want to talk about what you did to Arei?"
His posture tensed at their question, and his allegedly-unshakable determination to keep an eye on them at all times faltered in favor of turning towards his dresser. "Whatever, put something down about it if you want. I don't give a shit."
"Uh, alright," they said, tapping the pen to their chin. "How about this? 'Talking about our murders or attempted murders isn't off the table, but we have to discuss them together'? Makes it a little more fair, and gives both of us a chance to back out of a conversation we don't want to have?"
"Tch, what, are we back in fucking preschool or something?" Ace asked. "All this talk about fairness and shit? Feel like I'm being lectured by my mom about not sharing with one of my brothers or something."
"I just think it's the best way to go about handling this kind of thing," Nico explained, a hand moving to their cloak. "It's…going to be really hard for both of us to work together like this without bumping heads all the time. Be it because of the murders, or our interests, or just because we can't stand each other..."
A shrug. "So…trying to make things fair where we can seems like the best compromise we're going to get. Don't you think?"
"Whatever," Ace muttered. "Just write it down."
With a nod, Nico moved to flip to a blank page—
—and suddenly a huff of annoyance turned Ace back around to the sight of them holding the notebook out in front of them, an exasperated look painted across their features.
The page was now opened to a messy, scribbled drawing he'd done of them—one far from appealing, and focused on giving them comically-sharp teeth, claws and an angry expression. All topped off with the word 'Stupid Cat Asshole' beside them, with an arrow pointed directly at them to further emphasize the point. "…Oh, like you're so perfect!" Ace snapped. "Whatever, toss it out if you're that fucking pressed about it."
Rather than oblige, Nico merely tore out the page as neatly as possible and tucked it away in their pocket, before flipping to a fresh page to write down what they'd said prior. "Let's see, that can be rule number one," they muttered, pen dancing across the page with their words. "Rule number two can be the one I suggest earlier—oh, while we come up with more rules, we should probably start taking stock of the stuff in your room."
A wince before Nico let their gaze travel around the room, annoyed expression quickly shifting into bright awe at the sight of all the horse-themed decor around them. "…You have a lot of horse stuff."
“No shit,” Ace said in an unimpressed tone. “Jockey, remember?”
“Oh, right…” Nico said, hair tufts flat with disappointment. “I forgot you don’t like your talent that much.”
After scribbling down some of the room's decor on another page, their gaze moved to a framed picture of a horse on the wall. “I wonder why MonoTV chose to decorate your room to this degree, then.”
“Probably as a way to torture me,” Ace said, then snapped his fingers. “Focus, though. You said we gotta take stock.”
Nico turned back to him, an eyebrow raised. “...Wouldn’t that mean that me examining all your stuff is important, then?”
“Nice fucking try," Ace scoffed. "You just want a reason to look at all my dumb horse stuff, don’t you? Don’t you spend enough time with animals, with your talent and all?”
“It’s never enough time,” they replied softly, scribbling down a few notes as they made their way around the room. “Plus I spend even less time with horses. There's not a lot of farms out near where I live, and so I don’t get many as clients.”
Their attention fell to a little horse figurine atop his dresser, stopping them in their tracks. “I sure would like to spend more time with them, though. They feel so misunderstood…”
“Tch, what is there to misunderstand?” Ace asked. “They’re a combination of teeth and pipe cleaners and hooves who want nothing more than to die and take you down with them.”
Nico cast him a sour look, before a hand reached out to touch the figurine. “Well, if you don’t like them, you wouldn’t mind if I took this?”
Ace’s gaze shifted from them to the figurine, before he hurried over to snatch it away from them. “Hell no you can’t have this! Just because I don’t like them doesn’t mean I’m just gonna give you something you can use to bludgeon me in my sleep!”
Despite their initial flinching, Nico gave him a confused look. “How could I bludgeon you with a small horse figure? …Also why would I want to? That might break it.”
“I…” Ace paused to think. “I don’t know, okay? But you can’t have it!”
“Okay, okay,” Nico said with a scowl. “That’s all you needed to say. I won't take it from you.”
With an unsure look, Ace set the figurine back down again and began to rummage through the dresser itself. “Here, so you can see everything I’ve got in here,” he said, pulling one drawer out after another. “Hey, random question, but did that stupid robot also give you like… a dozen versions of the same outfit?”
“Y-yeah, I got the same stuff as my current one,” they explained, peering into the dresser to write down the contents within. “Everything but my cloak. Only got one of those.”
One hand reached up to grip the hood tight. “Guess it makes sense. I’ve had it for years, and I don’t know if they could replicate it…”
“Tch, lucky you,” Ace said, pulling open a smaller drawer to reveal several pairs of matching gloves. “I'm perfectly fine with my current pair of gloves, yet the little fucker went and stocked me with a whole drawer of ‘em. Dunno what it was thinking, I’m not gonna wear any of these.”
He slammed it shut again and moved to yank the handle of an already-halfway opened drawer. “Once again, doubt it really had any of our best interests in mind. Not when it went and gave me this shit as a goddamn weapo—wait a sec."
He frowned and pulled a few shirts out one by one, tossing them to the floor behind him before giving up and dumping the rest out in one swift motion. "Where the hell's my riding crop?!"
"Your riding crop?" Nico asked.
"Yeah, the weapon that MonoTV gave all of us," Ace explained, as he bent down to rummage through the mess. "Mine was a riding crop. I stuck it in this drawer since I wasn't gonna use it, and now it's gone!"
When his results turned up effortless, he gave one of the nearest shirts a frustrated kick. "Don't know why the fuck it'd give me that as one, though, aside from the shitty horse reference. I mean, how the hell am I supposed to kill anyone with that? Smack them to death?!”
While he delivered another kick of annoyance, Nico's expression fell into a thoughtful look. "Could always hold it over someone’s throat to suffocate them,” they mused. “Might take a while, but it’s not impossible.”
“Oh yeah, you would know that, wouldn't you?” Ace spoke up bitterly, a hand moving to his throat. “You'd know alllllll about the best ways to strangle someone, wouldn't you?!"
With a small noise of surprise, Nico's gaze fell to the notebook. "Oh, uh…does that mean you want to talk about it now?"
“You wanna talk? Start fucking talking, then,” Ace demanded. “Or better yet, start fucking apologizing like you should’ve done back in the trial!”
“I told you, you weren’t going to forgive me if I apologized,” Nico pointed out. “And I…I think you understand that more than you want to admit. It’s why you backtracked on your apology about Arei, right?”
Ace froze, fist clenched at his side while Nico waited patiently for a response. When all they received from him in return was an agitated grumble, they returned their eyes to him with a raised eyebrow. "Didn't you want to talk about this?" they asked. "That was the rule we established, wasn't it? That we both talk about it if the topic comes up?"
"Fuck you—"
"If you don't want to talk about it, then fine," they continued. "And if you do, that's fine too. But…I'm not just gonna let you yell at me about what I did while you say nothing about what you did—"
"Okay, fuck—I get it!" Ace snapped at them, hands tossed in the air. "You wanna make this shit fair or whatever! Fine, we don't have to fucking talk about it! Since you're so goddamn insistant on me following your stupid rules!"
One hand fell back to the dresser with a slammed fist, while the other moved to clutch at his hair with a frustrated growl. And despite their instinctive flinch in response to Ace's anger, Nico's fear was momentarily forgotten in favor of an observant head tilt as they stared at him in a prolonged silence. "They're not my stupid rules," they pointed out. "They're for both of us to follow. I swear I'm not just doing this to be mean to you."
"Sure doesn't feel like it," Ace started, teeth grit—before he shook his head. "Whatever, though, let's just…finishing looking at my room so we can move onto yours…"
"Are you s—"
"I said finish looking at my fucking room, okay?!"
The hints of desperation amongst the vitriol being spat at them once again paused Nico's hand halfway towards the hood of their cloak, curiosity overtaking any sense of fear or discomfort. But after more silent hesitation, they finally turned to face the rest of the room with the hand instead being pressed to their chin. "Hmm. Bed."
"Bed? What are you—"
Before Ace could finish his question, Nico had crossed the room to his bed. And before he could question further, they had dropped to their knees and began to shimmy into the space under the bed—leaving Ace to sputter out a confused: "The fuck are you doing?!"
"Checking under your bed," Nico's muffled voice explained as they crawled further beneath the bedframe. "I don't know what you might be keeping down here."
"Wh—the fuck would I even be keeping down there?!" Ace asked.
Their head popped back out into view. "…Riding crop?"
"I already told you I don't know where that went!"
"And I'm supposed to believe that?" they asked, before shimmying back under again. "For all I know, you could've just told me that you kept it in your dresser, and are actually hiding it somewhere else."
"Are you fucking serious?!" Ace asked irritably. "I'm telling you, I don't fucking know where it is!"
"And how would you react if I said the same thing about my laser pointer?"
"I—" A huff as he crossed his arms. "Fuck you."
"Don't worry, I promised to let you look through my room this thoroughly, remember?" they reminded him as they crawled out again, with a shake of their hair to free it of any dust. "Wow, you don't really keep much under there, do you?"
"Again, the fuck would I even keep down there?" Ace asked. "And don't say my goddamn riding crop again!"
"The cans of food you gathered?" Nico suggested. "Or maybe all the horse decor you don't like? Seems like a good place to store it if you don't want to look at it."
Ace opened his mouth to reply, only for it to snap shut again with a look of cross realization. He really hated how he hadn't thought of that first. "What, you wanna check my mattress for knives or whatever next?"
"Not a bad idea," Nico said, picking the notebook back up from where they had set it down. "But probably not super necessary. There's no boxspring and I didn't see anything while I was under there."
They raised an eyebrow. "Unless I should check it for knives?"
"Wh—no!" Ace said, tossing his hands in the air as he turned back to the dresser. "What the fuck ever, you've checked the dresser and bed now. Don't have a closet or anything else of note to check, so lemme just get some clothes so we can g—"
"What about your bathroom?"
Ace froze, hand hovering over one of the dresser handles. "What about it?"
"We haven't checked it out?" Nico pointed out. "I don't know what you could be keeping in there?"
"And you're not gonna know!" Ace insisted sharply. "My bathroom's off limits!"
"That…seems counterproductive for when we're spending the night in your room," Nico said. "Not to mention hypocritical. I highly doubt you'll let me get away with not wanting a spot in my room investigated."
"Yeah, so what if it is?" Ace asked. "I just…got stuff in there I don't want anyone to see."
"Once again, I'm just supposed to believe that?" Nico asked. "To be fair, I do to some degree. But it still isn't very fair when we're supposed to be working together and not hiding things from each other—"
"I said no!"
Nico fell silent as Ace's hand met his arm, the glove doing little to hold back the nails digging into his skin. "I know how fucking hypocritical it sounds," he said through clenched teeth. "Especially since it's nothing you probably wouldn't know by now, and you already don't believe me about the fucking riding crop. Even though I swear I don't know where it went! But—"
But what?
His shoulders tensed as his fists once again met the surface of the dresser in a hard slam. God, what the fuck was wrong with him? Why was letting them see his bathroom suddenly such a big goddamn deal? Like he'd said, they already knew about his eating disorder—hell, they'd had his secret so they'd known about it for a lot longer than everyone else. They'd seen him throwing up earlier, they already knew how goddamn pathetic he was in that regard.
Of course he couldn't just let them see without throwing a fucking tantrum about it. Always the hot-tempered asshole with everyone else being so goddamn burdened by his presence. And now they were just gonna insist on seeing his bathroom: countertops stained with the faintest hints of blood that he hadn't been able to scrub away, ground littered with discarded mint wrappers and crumpled plastic cups, all settled next to permanent knee indents in the rug around the toilet's edge.
They were just gonna pull some more bullshit about the rules again, how unfair he was being. Or they were just gonna get frustrated or scared or both and leave him alone again because he couldn't shut the fuck up and just respond to things like a normal goddamn person—
"Okay."
Ace spun back around on his heels, blinking several times in confusion. "Huh?"
"Okay," Nico repeated. "You don't have to show me your bathroom."
"I—" Ace started, before narrowing his eyes. "That's all you're gonna fucking say? You're seriously not gonna run your mouth and spout more bullshit about how you don't believe me or how it's not fair or whatever else?"
"I mean, I can't say I do believe you completely and I'd definitely say it isn't fair," Nico said. "But if you really don't want me to see it, then fine, I won't press you to show me. It's not like I'll need to use your bathroom much, we can just go to my room for that or use the ones further up the hall."
"But—" Ace started, then bared a fist. "Y-you don't know what the hell I could be keeping in there!"
"If it's anything that could kill me, then I don't think I need to worry," they replied. "Our jobs are to keep each other alive, so I doubt you'd use anything like that against me."
While Ace continued to stare in disbelief, they let their gaze fall to the notebook. "Plus…I think maybe we might've jumped into all this rule stuff and room searching too soon," they continued. "Don't yell at me for saying this but…you're really stressed out. And after everything that's happened today—the trial, your execution, what happened in the storage room, and now your door—I don't blame you."
Their fingers tapped against the paper, almost absentmindedly. "So…so I think maybe we should take a break and get some lunch in my room before we continue any of this. If you want, you can always look through my stuff while we're in there. Or we can just sit and eat in silence. Either way, I…I think it's time for a break."
They paused, form tense as they waited for him to respond—be it in agreement or in anger. When no response of either sort met their ears, they looked back up from the notebook. "…Was that a bad idea?"
"I—"
Ace continued to stare at them in bewilderment for a beat longer, before his gaze fell to the pile of clothing at their feet. "Gimme a sec—"
He bent down to scoop up a shirt and a pair of pants, before finally moving to scoop up his jacket of food. "Alright, hands up before I let us out."
"Oh?" Nico said in surprise. "So…it was as good idea?"
"Didn't you hear me?" he repeated firmly. "Hands up so we can get outta here and eat. Unless you just wanna stand there and keep running your mouth."
Nico's eyesbrows shot up in surprise, but they eventually bent back down to grab their own bag of supples before raising their arms like Ace had instructed. "And don't even think of asking me for any of mine," Ace said, as he made his way to the card reader. "I'll let you use my can opener, but that's about it. And no using it when I'm not looking."
"…Because you're afraid I'll use it to bludgeon you in your sleep?" Nico guessed.
"Exactly, now hurry up."
After a quick swipe of it with his card, he gestured for them to move forward. Which they did, slippers shuffling across the floor as they made their way to the doorway. Before they could step out of the room proper, however—Ace's arm blocked their path. "Hold on a sec."
"What?" they asked. "Did you forget something?"
"No, not that."
His arm lingered in the air alongside a bout of silence as Ace tried to find his words. One that last longer than he'd clearly intended, and one he finally gave up trying to break before his arm jutted back down to swipe his MonoPad against the card reader again. "…Nothing, forget it. Just go."
While Nico's expression remained skeptical, the clearing of the doorway kept any questions they might've had unanswered as they hurried out into the hallway. Leaving Ace's gaze to wander back towards the waiting horse figurine on the dresser, then to the rest of the room as he followed behind them—the bathroom door the last thing to catch his eye before the electric barrier once again slammed back into place.
Rage-induced adrenaline once again kept Ace moving as he stormed his way through the dining hall and out into the main hallway—despite the wobbling in his legs from the additional weight of the cans on his back or familiar burst of queasiness bubbling up in his stomach.
The latter of which left him propped against the nearest wall in an attempt to steady himself, with a frustrated growl finally bringing some external vocalization to his anger. Teaming up with Nico? What the fuck had Whit been thinking to even suggest such an idea?
Sure, both Whit and Charles had actually made it pretty clear as to what Whit had been thinking, with a surprising bit of logic to back them up. But the last thing Ace gave a shit about was logic, especially when it came to what was possibly the stupidest fucking idea he'd ever heard in his life. No amount of logic or dumb finger puppets could erase the fact that the two of them had seriously expected him to be willing to put his trust and life in the hands of someone who had formerly tried to kill him. Even Levi hadn't gone so far as to actually follow up on his threat—
His grip on the jacket tightened, legs moving on their own to close the distance between him and the infirmary before he subtley perked an ear to the door. Aside from the occasional shuffling of feet and a scattered remark of general annoyance from Arturo towards the task at hand, there was no real sounds of concern to be heard within the room.
No anger or panic, no frantic beeping of any heart monitor machines or unfiltered grieving from the loss of life. That was probably a sign that nothing had changed—good or bad—for Levi.
It was probably a sign that everything was still fine, right? No news was good news, so that probably meant Levi was still alive, right?
…Right?
"—not sure if he'd be willing to listen."
"Oh, I'm sure even someone with his levels of stubborness wouldn't refuse an offer like this!"
Voices from up the hall jolted Ace back into action, feet once again desperate to carry him to the nearest adjacent room in a instinctive panic. One that only blossomed further as Ace quickly weighed his options. Back to the dining hall? No, Charles and Whit were still there. Kitchen? …Wait, since when was there a second door to the kitchen? Why the hell hadn't he used that sooner?! Whatever—same excuse from before.
Leaving the storage room as his only remaining option.
His back hit the inside of the door once it'd swung shut, ear once again pressed to the side as he waited for any sign that he'd been spotted. When no footsteps drew near, he dared to pull the door open a crack to investigate further—
"Come onnnnn, Artie, let us in~!"
The cheery and unexpected boom of Veronika's voice combined with what sounded like loud banging on the infirmary door nearly made Ace drop his jacket in a panic. While his free hand moved to clutch his chest from fright, the sound of Arturo's voice echoed his concerns with a frustated greeting of: "Would you cease that infernal racket? Last thing I need is to be startled in the middle of trying to sew up a damn bullet hole!"
A huff. "Besides, did I not already tell both of you to leave me alone?"
"Now, now, Artie, you know isolating yourself's a dangerous move in a game like this," Veronika continued.
"Be it for your own safety or for Levi's," Hu added, with far less enthusiasm in her tone.
"As I explained to you before," Arturo said firmly. "I have zero intention of doing anything to Levi while he's in this state. Besides, even if I did, I would be the first person suspected. What would be the point?"
"And we're simply supposed to take you at your word?" Veronika pointed out with a giggle. "Of course, I could care less what you do to him if it makes things interesting. But given the fact that you tried to lie in the trial about having a sister, it does cast a shadow of doubt over your claims~!"
"Don't you dare—"
"Not that I'm here to judge~!" Veronika added quickly. "What you do or don't keep to yourself regarding your home life is far from anyone else's business. Even if it does sprinkle a bit more intrigue on why you are the way that you are~!"
"You're damn right it's not any of your business," Arturo replied sharply. "It's not your business, or Eden's business, or anyone else's business in this goddamn building! And if you're seriously only here to poke and prod at me for what happened, I will turn back around and lock the door behind me without so much as a second thought."
"Ah, wait, we are here for more than just to do that," Hu interrupted, before Arturo could lambast further. "I believe Veronika did also bring up a valid point that you would be needing food while you're working. And how it would be difficult for you to retrieve it for yourself, even with the assistance of the robot provided for you by MonoTV."
A sigh of indignation. "While I won't deny my…frustration with your behavior during the trial, and my disdain for the way you spoke to Eden, I can put both of those aside for the time being and agree that you won't be able to do your job properly if your own health suffers as a result."
"Precisely~!" Veronika said. "Which is why I was offering to assist you in getting food! Or even suggest the idea of a schedule where people can bring him food for each meal."
"Even if I were to agree with the fact that I would probably need assistance in retrieving my meals, I can simply throw your initial suspicions back at you with the same concerns," Arturo said. "How do I know none of you underhanded peons will take the opportunity to poison my meal while preparing it? Or, at the very least, do something to it that'll incapacitate me and prevent me from keeping Levi alive, thus enabling yourselves a kill without actually having to spill blood yourselves?"
"Ooh, good catch, Arturo~!" Veronika praised. "I hadn't even considered that as an option!"
"Perhaps you could have the robot follow us and watch as we prepare your food?" Hu suggested. "This way you see each ingredient added as they're added? On top of that, I assume both Veronika and I will be preparing it together. With multiple eyes on the task, it'd be near impossible for anyone to mess with your meal."
"Ugh, if I agree, would the two of you please leave me alone?" Arturo asked irritably. "If I spend too long chitchatting with you heathens, Levi might—"
Loud beeping from inside the infirmary earned a panicked gasp of "Shit, Levi—" and the sound of the infirmary door slamming shut was mirrored by the click of the storage room door shutting as Ace quickly pressed his entire weight to it, desperate to further drown out any sound from the outside and desperate to once again stop the wobbling in his legs and queasiness in his stomach.
Unfortunately, it seemed like both were destined to overpower him; the makeshift jacket bag of cans clattering to the floor as Ace darted across the room for the nearest receptacle to vomit into—this one being the trash bin against the nearby shelf.
Was it a bad idea to upend his stomach contents after doing it so recently, especially after what his body had been through the previous day? Probably.
And yet here he was: following up on what his body had been threatening to do since he left the meeting room and spilling nothing more than stomach acid into the trash bin. Throat and eyes once again burned like hot fire as he purged, the memory of the room of fire from his execution sending another shudder through his entire form as he gripped the edges of the bin for support. “D-Damn it…”
Fucking hell, he might’ve overdone it on that one. Throwing up once in an hour was managable, but twice? Well, it left him nothing more than a crumpled mess against the side of the bin, frame trembling as he tried to catch his breath through uneven sobs and a few strands of saliva clinging stubbornly to his chin.
Fine, this was fine. Everything was fine. Nobody had seen him go into the storage room, and Veronika and Hu probably hadn't heard him vomiting—at least, he assumed as much, given how neither of them had come running by now.
It was fine. He could take as much time he needed to compose himself, then book it back to his room and promptly pass out on the bed. …Unless his door was still broken.
Whatever, he'd figure it out later! It was fine. He was fine.
Everything was…
After slumping down into a sitting position on the floor, he let his head lull forward between his knees forward and attempted to clear his head with slower, deeper breaths. Okay, so this sucked. But the silver lining towards being in the storage room was that he could always just snag some additional supplies once he stopped the trembling in his everything. There was extra non-perishable food, and additional supplies like—
A glimpse out of the corner of his eye landed his gaze on a vacant spot on the nearby shelf, empty stomach surging at the memory of the rope that had laid there previously.
At the time, he hadn't known it'd originally belonged to Arei. While he did recall hearing her yell something about a rope in the cafeteria, but he'd been too busy arguing with Nico to pick up any actual details. What he had known after a moment of staring at it was that it would probably be the perfect length for his plan.
And while he had managed to save his vomiting at that point for when he was safely back in his room—anxiety hammering the idea into his head that his secret would point the 'evidence' back to him somehow if anyone checked for clues in here—he had nearly lost that battle as soon as the fingertips of his gloves brushed the rope. As if the act of actually picking it up would seal Arei's—and his own—fate right then and there.
After a scrub of his mouth using the bottom of his tank top, he reached for his jacket that had fallen near him. And as he tugged it closer, a few of the cans were jostled further and sent rolling across the floor, only to come to rest against a foot near one of the shelves.
It took a few seconds longer for Ace to truly process that someone else was there in the room with him, chalking the sight up to either fatigue or exhaustion. But his weary gaze traveled up the leg connected to the foot, further up the torso—
—and finally landed on a familiar set of cat-ear-shaped hair tufts and bright red eyes, the only part of their face not covered by the cloak they were clearly trying so hard to pull up out of fear.
His back hit the nearest shelf behind him in a fear-induced panic, one hand immediately slapping over his mouth to muffle a scream. A reaction that pushed Nico further back against a shelf of their own, hair tufts flattening with discontent as the hood of their cloak was yanked higher. "D-don't—" they started quietly. "Someone might hear you."
Something about their request flipped the switch in Ace's mind from fear to anger, and he was back to his feet and crossing the small room in an unprocessed instant—stopping only once he had them pinned against the wall. "The hell do you think you're doing in here?!" he hissed, an arm pressed to their throat with an enraged growl. "Bet you thought you could just sneak into the storage room behind me and get the jump on me at a moment of weakness, huh?"
"I-I was in here first!" Nico insisted frantically, curling further into their hood. "You're the one who raced in while I was already here! And…and—"
"And?!" Ace added, pressing harder. "The hell else do you have to say to me?! C'mon, don't cower behind your stupid cloak and suddenly act like you're too chickenshit to talk to me after what you did—"
"…Um, your breath smells really bad."
Their body was dropped in an instant as Ace slapped a hand back over his mouth, face red with embarrassment. "Fuck you," he said, before he slowly backed away from them with a finger pointed towards the door. “Now either get the hell out of here or I’m gonna…I-I’m gonna...”
The rush of adrenaline that had initially fueled Ace to pin them to the wall in the first place was already beginning to wear off, the shelf he'd originally cowered against now a means of supporting his body as he once again struggled to stay upright. “...I-I’m gonna wait for my legs to work…” he finished weakly. “So just…get the f-fuck out of here and leave me alone…”
Rather than quickly take him up on that demand, Nico’s movements were slower and more cautious—gaze never once breaking from Ace as they crossed the room to the door. “Y-You should probably go to the infirmary,” they muttered, hand lingering against the doorknob. “If you’re sick, that is. I, uh, assume you’re sick at least. That’s why you were throwing up, right?”
A bitter scoff was Ace’s reply as he hunched over the trash can again. “Tch, you and I both know it ain’t a fucking illness."
"…Right."
After shifting uncomfortably in place, Nico finally turned to face the door and slowly pulled it open just enough to peer out into the hallway—
"Arturo, we're baaaaaack~!"
A scowl crossed their lips at the sight and sound of Veronika and Hu once again in the hallway, plates of sandwiches in their hands. "Turns out Charles and Whit were already making lunch for themselves," the former continued. "So we were able to get you lunch pretty quick! Hope you like fried PB&J!"
A giggle. "And not to worry about any sort of poison, there were four of us in the kitchen and I'm pretty sure the two of them planned on eating this one before we joined them."
"How's Levi holding up?" Hu added.
"He's fine," Arturo snapped. "It was just a scare, but my goodness, this man sure does want to put me through the damn wringer—"
"Hurry up and fucking leave!"
A hissed whisper from Ace prompted Nico to shut the door again. "…I can't leave."
"Why can't you—"
"You and I both know why I can't leave."
Their echoed reply of his earlier words earned a huff before he shook his head and sank back into a sitting position. "Fucking—look, if you really wanna stick around and keep mouthing off to me, at least get me a pack of mints from the shelf near the left wall. Second from the bottom, near the other candy."
With a groan, he pressed a hand to his head. "Either that or finish what you fucking started and put me outta my goddamn misery."
He half-expected to hear some kind of smartass remark from them that doubled as a rejection towards his request. Another quarter of him expected them to actually follow up on his backhanded reminder of what they had tried to do to him a few days prior.
But the quiet sound of slippers against the hardwood floor met his ears as Nico made their way towards the shelf he'd instructed, then back towards where he was hunched over before he felt something slip into his hand. "…I wasn't sure if you wanted sugar-free or not, but I figured it'd be better on your stomach."
"S'fine, that's what I meant."
He popped open the small container and tossed a couple into his mouth, punctuating the act with a grimace as if he were downing medicine that was difficult to swallow. "The hell are you even doing in here, anyway? What did—"
His words trailed off as his gaze landed on a small bag—one he had somehow missed in all the commotion—clutched in their other fist, clearly full of various objects they'd pulled off the nearby shelves. "I didn't want to gather food from the kitchen," they elaborated further. "Less of a chance that I'd run into someone else if I came here. And judging by what I just heard in the hallway, that was the right call."
Ace's grip on the mints tightened with a pointed look. Of-fucking-course they would've taken the approach to gathering food that would make more sense than his own. They probably felt so damn smug about it, too—even if their tense demeanor and general unease implied the exact opposite.
And of course, there was the fact that they'd chosen to stop and gather food at all. Implying that they were probably attempting to do the same thing as him; gather as much food as they could and probably hide out in their room.
A balance…
His scowl lowered further at the memory of Whit's words, and he tossed back another handful of mints to try and drown them out. "Yeah, well…aren't you fucking smart? Especially since you were right, because Charles and Whit came in to make lunch a few minutes after I got there."
"Y-yeah, I just said that," Nico said flatly. "Veronika and Hu were just talking about it in the hall."
"Whatever…"
Heavy silence fell between the two of them, Ace remaining still where he sat while Nico stood nearly still—with the occasional twitch of their hands and nervous glance back at the door. As if they were simply waiting for the perfect opportunity to finally leave him here—a crumpled, pathetic mess of a person.
As soon as they had a chance, they'd take off and he would be all alone again. Just like he was before, and just like he was now.
He squeezed the mints even harder as his gaze returned to the empty spot on the shelf beside him. Ace wasn't much for poetry, but even he couldn't ignore the comparison to Arei herself. Something that had once contained substance—be it for good or terrible purposes—now lay empty and bare due to his own actions and fears.
And hell, it wasn't just Arei. What was he, if not the spitting image of someone who now sat empty—figuratively and literally, the trash can's contents proof of the latter—due to his inability to change? Due to his inability to not be such an aggressive asshole all the time, his inability to stop punching down as a means of avoiding a fist himself?
"Arei died because you're a coward, Ace."
To take responsibility for his wrongdoings—
"Um…"
The sound of Nico's voice shattered Ace from his thoughts, grip so tense that the plastic container threatened to give way beneath his nails. "You…look like you're feeling better than you did and I think Hu and Veronika are finally gone," they continued. "So if that's all you needed from me, I'll leave you alone."
“Wait—”
His words moved on their own to stop Nico; a successful request that they seemed to oblige, given how their hand stilled against the doorknob. "Ah, you need more?"
Blunt, as usual. Something they seemed to pick up on quickly with a flustered sound of disapproval. “I mean, I didn’t mean it like that, I swear—”
“Just…fucking save it, alright?” Ace ordered, holding up a hand as he used the nearby shelf to pull himself back to his feet. As annoyed as he wanted to be with them—and was, given how tense his form was in an attempt to do anything but yell at them—he knew letting his temper get the better of him would only cause them to turn down his offer. Something he really couldn’t afford for them to deny. “Listen, I…have a favor I need to ask.”
They blinked twice with a tilt of their head. “A…favor?”
“Yeah…”
Rather than elaborate right away, Ace opted for another slow inhale and exhale as he averted his gaze from them. Geez, alright, it was now or never. “...You tried to kill me.”
“Oh…” They shifted uncomfortably in place. “Are you…about to yell at me again for that again?”
“God, I fucking want to,” he muttered. “But…no, not that. I was gonna say that you tried to kill me and I…killed Arei.”
With a huff, he pressed a finger to his temple. “And because of that, neither of us are exactly in everyone’s good graces right now. And we can kid ourselves all we want, but you know damn well that as soon as someone else in this place gets the itch to kill, one of us will probably be the ones they target first. It's why we're both loading up on food to keep in our rooms, right?”
A sigh. “And as much as I fuckin’ hate to admit it, neither one of us are gonna make it outta here alive…without help.”
Nico’s eyes shot wide open, curiosity peeking through their features. “What…are you saying?”
“Probably the worst fuckin’ thing I’ve ever had to say in this stupid place,” Ace said, then after a pause: “I don’t wanna die again, and I doubt you wanna die at all. So…what if we worked together to make sure neither of us die, or whatever?”
Another pause, more heavy silence draping across the room as Ace waited for their answer. He half-expected them to turn him down in an instant—such bluntness wasn’t beneath them, and they’d already made it pretty clear that they didn’t like him.
When all that greeted him was a silent look of surprise on their end, his own features narrowed defensively. "And before you get all uppity like 'Oh, how do I know you're not just trying to lull me into a false sense of security to kill me?’ or any bullshit like that,” he added. “I know everyone here thinks I'm a fucking idiot, but even I’m not so stupid that I’d immediately try going for another kill after the last one. Believe me or don't, but it's true. Besides, if I killed you, it'd kinda defeat the purpose of teaming up because everyone in this damn building would know it was me in a heartbeat.”
His posture sank, a hand reaching up to clutch his forehead. “Already survived one execution, and I’m not lookin’ to deal with another—”
“Yeah, I know you wouldn't do that.”
Their words were spoken as if it was the most obvious statement in the word, which painted surprise across Ace's own features. "I—huh?"
“I saw how you reacted to the possibility of dying," Nico pointed out. "There was never a doubt that you wouldn’t want go through that again."
Ace blinked at them in disbelief, gaze once again shifting with an indignant huff. “Tch, look who knows sooooo much about me…”
“I mean, you did say as much in the trial and before your execution,” Nico reminded him. “It’s…a little difficult to forget.”
Their shoulders sank. “Difficult to forget a lot of things that's happened in this place…”
“Preaching to the fucking choir on that one,” Ace muttered. "So, is that a yes to the idea?"
“I…”
Nico pressed a hand to their chin, their silence lingering for another moment as they contemplated his suggestion. “You…do raise some good points,” they finally said aloud. “You’re right in that we’re probably two of the most untrustworthy people in the group right now. Aside from David and maybe Levi, although Levi hasn’t woken up since yesterday and David—”
"Is a royal prick, yeah," Ace said with a scowl.
"Not the word I'd use, but not wrong," Nico said flatly. "Regardless, I…I do see some merit in the idea you're suggesting. We both wasted any chance we might've had to get out of here alive, by either trying to kill someone or actually killing someone. And as foolish as it sounds to rely on each other for survival, we're the only ones in the group with those wasted chances. Which…ends up evening things out and puts us on a pretty even playing field."
Unease shifted into surprise, their hair tufts perking up with sudden realization. "Huh, you know…it's actually not that bad an idea, the more I think on it!"
It was almost exactly what Whit had explained to him earlier and Ace's expression fell flat at the realization that he had to admit Whit had been onto something with his idea. Well, that and— "You don't have to sound so surprised," he muttered. "No matter what you and everyone else in this hellhole thinks, I'm really not as big of an idiot as I look."
"I don't—" A pause, before they shook their head. "Actually, I do have a question for you about this idea. Are you really sure that you want to do this? I…tried to kill you, remember? Do you really think you could trust someone like that with your life?"
Any retort Ace might've had prepped was bitten back in favor of of considering their follow-up questions with folded arms and a sharp glare towards the floor. Did he really think he could trust someone with his life that had tried to kill him? Absolutely fucking not, he knew that for a fact. If anything, he could feel a ball of anxiety finally beginning to swell in his gut from the realization that he was currently alone in a room with his attempted murderer. Hell, not only was he alone with them, but they were blocking his only exit out of the room.
“If you don’t want to waste this second chance you’ve been given…what other choice do you have?”
But as much as he hated to give any of Whit's bullshit the time of day, Ace couldn’t ignore that he'd had a point of his own. Not only had he failed to escape the game, but there was a good chance he’d never be able to escape the game on his own at this rate. Look at where his previous attempt had landed him; back where he’d started with not only another body (potentially two) on his conscience, but with even less trust from the rest of the group than before.
Which meant if he hadn’t been a prime target for murder before, he was now slotted into the role permanently.
"I never said I trusted you," he said. "Honestly, I think I can safely say I'd trust one of the cans of tuna in here before I'd trust you in any sense."
His shoulders faltered. "But I…I don't want to die again. So what other choice do I have?"
Nico's gaze scanned his features thoughtfully, as if they half-expected him to go back on the idea or reveal that he'd actually just been pulling their leg the entire time. And despite his best efforts to stand firm, Ace couldn't help but shrink uncomfortably beneath the shift of their cat-like pupils. "…So, that's a yes, then?" he asked. "Do we have a deal or not? Because if you need more convincing—"
“Fine. I’m in.”
"I—what?"
"You've convinced me," Nico explained further. "You actually managed to make the idea sound like the only logical chance we have to survive. And while I can't trust you either, I…do think at the very least, you're serious when you say you don't want to die again. Honestly, the fact that you actually approached me with the idea probably proves how desperate you are to survive. So…I'm in."
Normally, Ace would've been happy upon hearing those words. Happy that he’d actually managed to successfully convince someone to listen to him without screwing up or letting his temper get in the way of logic. Happy that maybe, just maybe, he actually had the chance of a snowball in heaven when it came to surviving the game, or however the phrase went.
Unfortunately, that someone happened to be Nico. Not only that, but he’d just managed to convince them that sticking with him at all times would be the best way to survive the game.
And on top of that, he—
—he had no idea what to do now. Suggesting the idea to them had been as far as he'd gotten in terms of thinking this plan through, and now he was stuck without a clue as to what they should do next.
Fucking fantastic. Thanks a lot, Whit. Couldn't have bothered to give him a full game plan after all the annoying yapping and finger tricks?
“Uh, so…what should we do now?” Nico asked, practically vocalizing Ace’s own insecure thoughts. “I mean…we won’t be able to explore the next floor until tomorrow, right? Maybe we should take the day to start planning out exactly how we want this to work? You know, schedules, sleeping arrangements—”
A pause before their clutched their cloak with an embarrassed look. “I mean, if we’re gonna be sticking together as much as possible, I, uh…assume that carries over to…sleeping in the same room together…right?”
“I…”
Shit—as much as he hated to admit it, they’d raised some pretty good points. With how much he'd been stuck on the initial idea, he hadn't even thought to consider room or sleeping arrangements. “Y-yeah,” he said quickly, trying to cover up the way his voice faltered with a swell of nerves. “Probably a good idea to do a sweep of each other’s rooms, figure out which one’s safer to bunk in.”
He pressed two fingers to his head. “Although I guess I can just answer my own question with that one. We’re bunking in my room.”
“What?” Nico asked. “Why yours?”
“Uh, because outta the two of us, one of us tried to kill the other and it wasn’t me,” Ace reminded them. “I ain’t setting foot into unknown territory of a goddamn murderer-to-be.”
Rather than reply, Nico simply blinked at him several times with a flat expression. One that Ace was quick to silence with a hasty: “Yeah, yeah, don’t fucking say it. Last time I checked, your name wasn’t Arei and I think we already confirmed how if either of us kills the other, this whole plan goes out the fucking window. We’re staying in my room.”
Nico grumbled miserably at that, before looking contemplative again. “...What if we just switched the rooms we sleep in every night?” they suggested. “You weren't wrong when you said we're likely to be targeted by someone else, so it’d probably be best for both our safety to not sleep in the same place twice in a row.”
A shrug. “This way we can still give both rooms a thorough look-through so we both know what we’re dealing with on each side, and keep anyone outside of them on their toes.”
“Alright, that’s fair,” Nico said. “It was your idea, after all.”
Their hand returned to the doorknob and they gave it a turn. "So, uh…should we go?"
"Yeah, yeah, gimme a sec—"
He hoisted himself back to his feet and chucked the crumpled mint container into the trash before striding forward to join them. Before he could take a step past them, however—they barred his way with their arm. "One more thing."
"Yep, thought that felt way too easy," Ace griped with a roll of the eyes. "What, do you want me to beg like a damn dog—"
"The second you say another word about my gender, the deal is off."
Once again, Ace found his mouth snapping shut in a dumbfounded silence under the return of that catlike look to their glare, one far more threatening than the first. "I mean it," they continued, tone low and serious. "I…I won't try and kill you again, but I'm not going to just sit back and take it, either. So…so I'm just putting this out there right now. You try and treat me badly again for being nonbinary, then…then you're on your own."
"I didn't—"
His response was cut off by a frustrated exhale, nails once again making themselves at home against his forehead. "Fine. Deal. And in return, you don't go trying to hang me from any more ceiling fans. ...I know that shit comes with the whole 'don't kill each other' thing, but I'm putting that out there just to be safe."
After a few more seconds of staring, Nico finally lowered their hand and held it out in front of themself for a handshake. "Pretty sure a lot of deals are sealed with handshakes, right? Unless you prefer something like a pinky promise?" A shudder. "I'm pretty sure there's deals that involve swapping blood, but—"
"Like hell I'm gonna spill more of my damn blood around you!" Ace said sharply, a hand instinctively moving towards his neck.
"Yeah, I was gonna say we don't have to do that," Nico finished with a flat look, before holding out their hand again. "So…deal?"
The hand that had been inching towards his bandages fell to clasp theirs in a halfhearted shake. "Deal."
After a beat or two longer, Nico withdrew their hand again and finally turn to push the door open—the fluroescent bulbs of the hallway flooding the dim storage room with light and causing Ace to shield his eyes with one hand. An action that made him freeze for a split second, the weight of what he'd just agreed upon suddenly paralyzing him with fear. As if the lights beyond the room were the headlights of a car about to barrel into him, the helpless deer. A comparison that would've likely triggered yet another horrific memory of one of the rooms in his execution, had he not been too distracted with his current bout of anxiety.
Was this truly the best course of action for him? To pair up with Nico, of all people? What if he was just walking himself into another trap, setting himself up as easy bait for a bloodthirsty predator? Did he really have no other choices?
…Did he even deserve this chance at safety to begin with?
His gaze shifted back to the empty spot on the shelf. Maybe still being here after everything he'd done was more than he deserved. Maybe any attempt to keep surviving—to indulge in something his victim would never get the chance to do herself—was just him being selfish on his end. Maybe what he truly deserved was to simply roll over and let death finally catch him after this constant, agonizing game of cat and mouse.
"You forgot your jacket."
Once again, Nico's voice snapped him out of the makings of yet another spiral with a finger pointed towards the makeshift jacket-bag at his feet. "You said you got all that from the kitchen? Canned food is a good idea, makes it harder for anyone to tamper with it."
With that, they gripped their own bag tighter and headed out further into the hallway. And after a moment, Ace reached down to swipe up the jacket and—carefully—sling it back over his shoulder again to follow after them.
Fuck it, like being selfish had ever stopped him before.
Ace had snuck out of the room as soon as Teruko had disappeared with David.
He'd already been on the verge of it before that point, every judgmental word from David another crushing weight against his shoulders and another sharp twist of his stomach. The latter of which earned a propped hand to the kitchen doorway as he took a second to rest, tears of pain being blinked back as he swept a glance around the room. Food, he needed food—
More than that, he needed a way to carry as much food as he could back to his room. Canned food would be safest, less of a chance for him to grab something poisoned.
He forced himself towards a cabinet where he swore he'd seen some kind of bag or something the last time he took stock of the kitchen, only to let out a frustrated curse when his efforts left him with nothing but pots and pans. Fuck, had the other students shifted everything around when he wasn't looking?
Whatever—he'd just use his jacket.
Said jacket was quickly unzipped and laid flat on the counter before he moved with purpose to the cabinet where the canned goods were kept. "Swear to God if they moved that shit, too—"
Luckily for him, it seemed that at least one thing was destined to go right for him that day and the sight of several cans of food greeted him the second he yanked open the cabinet door. With an exhale of relief, he immediately got to work sorting between the cans he'd be able to eat and cans he could easily leave behind—the former being halfheartedly tossed atop his waiting jacket.
Sliced carrots? Jacket. Pears? Also jacket. Canned meat? Ew, no, fuck that, and said can would be promptly tossed to the floor behind him for good measure. Re-fried beans? Too fatty, but regular-ass beans would do in a pinch for protein. Of course, he'd also have to find some way to heat them up before leaving. And probably grab a can opener while he was here too; there was a pretty high chance he wouldn't be able to return to the kitchen after this without running into anyone else.
"Fact of the matter is, MonoTV's granted permission to stay in the game to not just one but two people who have proven that they're willing to kill someone else to survive. Two people who have proven to all of us that we cannot trust them."
His grip on the next can tightened as he stared down at it, another surge of discomfort swelling in his gut as David's earlier words echoed through his head. One further strengthened by the fact that despite everyone's initial gripes about such confrontational behavior, no one in the room could truly disagree with the words that had been lobbied at Ace.
Bad timing? They could agree on that. David being a raging dickhead? Absolutely. But the words themselves? The idea that because of what he'd done—because of the blood he'd been willing to spill—Ace was now considered untrustworthy by the rest of the group?
No matter how many of them had tried to get David to stop talking or insisted on checking on him earlier, their silence on that point spoke more volumes than any words that could've been said in its place.
The can met the counter and a hand met Ace's forehead with a tired exhale. Not that he could exactly blame any of them for thinking such a thing. He wasn't there to try and pretend that he was proud of what he did, that he hadn't gone and killed Arei simply because he'd been so paranoid over everyone else in the building coming for his head first.
But because of what he'd done, he was right back in the same boat he'd been in when the game started—without a single person in or out of said building truly caring if he lived or died. Possibly even more so, now that everyone knew the lengths he'd been willing to sink to in order to save himself.
Just as stuck as before, as helpless as before, as trapped as before—
"Hey, looks like we found him without even meaning to!"
A sound at the doorway behind him caused Ace to freeze, knocking the nearby can to the floor in a panic as he spun around to face whoever now joined him in the kitchen—their identities being revealed as soon as his gaze met heads of purple and bleach-blonde hair. "Hey, Ace!" Whit continued cheerfully. "Wild meeting, huh?"
"That's certainly one way to describe it," Charles said.
Despite their casual demeanor, Ace's gaze stayed fierce and threatening as he blindly fumbled behind him for one of the remaining cans on the counter. "Fuck off, both of you," he snapped, rearing his arm back as if he'd planned to throw it at them. "Get out of here and leave me alone."
The smile on Whit's face faltered ever-so-slightly as he raised his hands in a defensive position. "Woah, woah, hey—take it easy, buddy! We're just here to get something to eat."
"I'm not your fucking buddy and I don't care why the hell you're here!" Ace continued frantically. "If you don't leave, I…I'll—"
His free hand jerked up to the bandages around his neck. "I'll rip off my bandages! The scars on my neck haven't healed yet and are probably still all fucked up and bloody! You seriously wanna push me into showing you that shit, Charles?!"
Despite the sickly shade of green threatening to overtake Charles' features, he pointed a finger in Ace's direction. "Calm down, you impulsive idiot," he ordered sharply. "Unlike you, Whit and I have enough common sense to not go around attacking people at the slightest provocation. Not even someone who's already proven that they're willing to spill blood."
A huff. "What the hell are you even doing, anyway? Don't tell me you're going the Teruko route of locking yourself in your room with as much food as you can possibly carry."
"It's none of your fucking business what I'm doing," Ace insisted. "I told you to get the fuck out! What, are you two deaf and stupid?"
"Alright, little hurtful," Whit said. "But it sure does look like that's what you're doing. Hey, while you're in the cupboard, could you tell me if there's a jar of peanut butter in there? If you want, you can just slide it to us from the other side of the room along with a loaf of bread. This way you can keep your space and we get some grub, easy peasy!"
"Peanut butter," Ace muttered to himself. "Shit, that's a good one. I wonder if there's an unopened jar—"
Making sure to keep as much of his attention on the other two as possible, Ace set the can down and fumbled his arm behind him in the cabinet again, until he managed to grab something that felt as close to a jar of peanut butter as possible. Still keeping his eyes forward, he pulled it into his line of view and twisted the lid off to investigate. "Seal's still there, that'll work."
"See? Easy!" Whit said encouragingly. "Now just toss it to me—"
"Hell no," Ace said, setting the jar among the cans on top of his jacket. "This shit's coming with me back to my room. Thanks for the idea though, asshole."
While Ace set the peanut butter on his jacket, Whit's expression fell with a laugh. "Heh, guess I should've seen that coming."
"So what's your plan then?" Charles asked. "Gathering up food, presumably to take to your room and avoid as few people as possible. Hide until the end of the game, surviving on canned fruit and peanut butter…"
He pressed a hand to his head. "It really is just like Teruko…"
"Surprised he didn't go for the gym's fridge first," Whit added. "I'm pretty sure MonoTV's restocked it by now. Unless Teruko went and cleared it out again—"
"I said leave."
Ace's hand met the handle of something blunt and hard on the counter behind him, and he instinctively whipped it out in front of him to reveal the sight of a meat tenderizer clutched in his fist. Not the best option for a kitchen-based weapon, but it'd do in a pinch. "What, do I gotta say it in goddamn Morse Code to get it through your thick skulls?!"
"Ah?!" Whit exclaimed with surprise.
"Are you seriously out of your mind?!" Charles added with far more annoyance. "You just got out of a trial for murder by the skin of your teeth and you're already going and waving a weapon around?!"
"Hey, you heard David during the meeting, didn't you?" Ace asked. "Are you seriously gonna stand there and tell me you don't think I have it in me to kill again? Or are you gonna stand there and feed me some bullshit about how 'David's wrong' and 'No, we can totally trust you now'. Come the fuck on, you know that's a crock of shit. Even if it came from the biggest crock of shit himself."
His hand began to tremble. "Tch, if I wasn't the biggest target in this damn game before, I might as well paint a target on my back now that says 'Most killable bastard around'."
"Putting a lot of words in our mouth, aren't you?" Whit asked. "…What David said really got to you that badly, huh?"
"I—" Ace's arm faltered. "The fuck's it to you?"
"Well," Charles added, "the fact that we're on the receiving end of a—a—"
"Meat tenderizer~!"
"—on the recieving end of a meat tenderizer is a pretty good indicatior that this is now our business."
"Too bad we're not on the recieving end of a whisk," Whit said. "Then it would really be our whisk-ness!"
Rather than laugh at his pun, a sad smile crept across his lips. "…You're scared, aren't you, Ace?"
"Oh, someone give Pinkie a medal for being able to spot the goddamn obvious," Ace said sarcastically. "Of course I'm fucking scared. I'm still stuck in this goddamn game, I blew my only chance at getting out alive, and Arei—"
Another shake of his arm, before it fell completely while the other moved to clutch his forehead. "Fuck, who…who wouldn't be scared if they were as screwed as I was?"
"Mmmm, yeah, sounds like you've got it pretty rough!" Whit agreed with a sudden cheerfulness. "Can't say I'd wanna be you right now!"
"Oh, fuck you," Ace growled. "I'm half-tempted to come over there and smack you with this just for being a smarmy piece of shit!"
"Don't even think about it," Charles said, with a look to Whit in return. "But I will admit that I cannot see how poking the sleeping bear could possible help right now."
"Well, then get to cleaning your glasses, Ceci~!" Whit said. "Because I'm about to explain it~!"
He pointed a finger up with a wink. "What's the thing you told Teruko when she was acting this exact same way in the infirmary?"
"Uh, that the best way to get through the killing game is by working with others?" Charles repeated, a hand pressed to his chin in thought. "If not for sentimental purposes, than at least pragmatic ones?"
"Precisely~!" Whit said. "Ace, You're stuck in a bad situation. Probably even worse than Teruko was, since we only thought she'd killed someone while you actually did! And while I can't say that I approve of what you did, I can still say that your current situation is pretty wack. Eden was right when she said this killing game was unfair for everyone, you included. Sure, it doesn't make murder okay, but…how is anything else about this game okay? How is anything that MonoTV's making us do okay?"
His features darkened with a sudden hint of anger, one that lingered for just a beat too long before the sunshine returned. "Right, I had a point~! My point is that while I can't entirely agree with what you did, naturally, I also don't think it's entirely fair that you've got to fend for yourself now that you survived your execution and are still stuck here."
"Oh, well, aren't you Captain Obvious today?" Ace asked. "So do you have an actual solution to the problem or are you just gonna keep flapping your gums for no reason? Unless you're about to volunteer for the job of helping me stockpile food, in which case; lemme offer a big fat 'Fuck off!' I don't trust anyone here to not mess with my food."
"Ahaha, no, I wasn't going to do that," Whit said. "But you're not far off the mark! You don't trust anyone here, and unfortunately, being willing to kill someone makes it a liiiiiiittle hard to trust you in return. Just a little bit."
He pressed a finger to his lip. "Hmm, but you know. There is one other person in the game in a similar boat to you. Someone who also proved that they were willing to spill blood, while also not trusting anyone else around them." Tap, tap. "Now, whoever could that random person be? Their name's just slipping my mind so thoroughly…"
A huff of frustration. "Along with a proper cat pun to end the sentence with, which makes me sad. You'd think it'd be so easy to come up with one—oh, purr-oper! That works!"
Ace's gaze lingered on Whit for a moment—face scrunched up in confusion—until the shock of realization finally set in, narrowing his features in a rage. "Are you fucking serious?!"
"Wh—" Charles began, before a contemplative pause brought the hand back to his chin. "Oh, oh…I see what you're suggesting. You think Ace should team up with Nico."
"Ding ding ding, give my man Charles Cuevas a prize~!" Whit cheered. "And give Ace a prize, since I'm pretty sure he also knew who I was gonna suggest, judging by that answer."
"An answer I'll repeat again, since I'm still in goddamn disbelief you'd even dream of saying that shit with your mouth: are you fucking serious?!" Ace said. "Nico?! You think it's a good idea for me to play all buddy-buddy with Nico?!"
A cold laugh. "What're you gonna tell me to do next, make friendship bracelets with them and sing fucking Kumbaya?! I swear to God, you must have a box of those shitty candy hearts where your brain should be, if you're seriously telling me I should go team up with the person who tried to kill me."
Any faint traces of amusement vanished from his expression completely, in favor of a look dripping with silent malice. "News-fucking-flash, Whit: this isn't a summer camp. It's a goddamn killing game."
"If you would stop yelling your head off and insulting him, he'd probably be able to explain his reasoning a lot quicker," Charles pointed out. "I assume, at the very least. While I do see where your thought process is at, Whit, please tell me you have a very good reason for even suggesting that Ace team up with someone who not only tried to kill him, but whom he spent a fair portion of the past week harassing and tormenting."
"I do indeed~!" Whit said, a finger raised. "Charles, do you remember that thing you were telling me the other day?"
"That thing?"
"You know, that thing!" Whit elaborated further. "The thing with the chemical equations, and balancing them out so they don't explode or something?"
"You mean the general practice of balancing chemical equations?" Charles asked. "Well, yes, I remember. I wouldn't necessarily say it's to stop them from exploding—sometimes that's the desired effect. Balance between equations allows the law of conservation of mass to be upheld, which is a key part of making any sort of chemical reaction happen."
A shrug. "It's far more complicated than I'm explaining here, and this doesn't even take into account things like mass being converted into energy, or the other basic laws of chemistry that follow the first. But the general point behind balancing equations is…well, that's how chemistry works. You have to have a balanced equation in order to get your desired results, because you can't create something from nothing."
"Are you gonna keep rambling on and on like my tenth-grade science teacher?" Ace asked. "Or are you gonna get to the fucking point?"
"What he means is, in order to create a desired result, you have to balance things out," Whit repeated. "Yet another thing that chemists and matchmakers have in common! Not that I'm necessarily viewing this as a traditional matchmaking scenario, don't get the wrong idea. There's plenty of non-romantic ways and reasons to bring people together, and I'd be a pretty poor Ultimate Matchmaker if I wasn't flexible in that regard."
A playful wink. "Unless you want this to be something romantic, then we can discuss your options there~!"
"…Alright, forget the meat hammer: I'm just gonna throw the jar of peanut butter at your head."
"No romance, got it!" Whit said quickly. "But the actual point I'm trying to make is that in order to keep you safe during this killing game, you need to find someone you can trust and who can trust you the same amount in return. You gotta find that same kinda balance to succeed, like in chemistry. Ceci, hold up your hands for a sec."
"My hands?" Charles asked.
"I don't have sixteen fingers," Whit explained.
Charles opened his mouth to reply, but promptly snapped it shut again in favor of raising his hands as instructed. "Okay, so let's pretend that mine and Charles' fingers are everyone here," Whit said, holding up his own hands with four on his right hand lowered. "Sixteen students. Take away the three who've already died, boop, boop, boop—" Down went two fingers on his left, along with the only remaining finger on his right. "—we've got thirteen."
Using his now-free right hand, he pointed at his upturned pinky. "Let's pretend this one's you, Ace, while Charles' furthest pinky is Nico," he continued. "Now, let's put down the fingers of everyone in the group who—as far as we know—haven't attempted a murder or successfully murdered someone. Teruko? Ehhh, she's been a little on edge lately, but who could blame her after what happened with Xander?"
He paused to tap his chin with his free hand. "Hey, didn't J mention earlier that Teruko pulled a knife on her?" Whit mused. "Hmm, that might make things a little more complicated."
"I think she's still a no-go in that regard either way," Charles said. "Can't really see her wanting to share a room with someone who's killed someone—or even anyone in general—and threatening someone isn't quite the same as nearly hanging them."
"Boop! Finger goes down, then," Whit said, one of his other two fingers lowering alongside the sound effect. "Me and Charles? Definitely not. Boop, boop—"
Down went the remaining finger—sans his pinky—before he reached over to lower one of Charles' fingers in tandem. "I can lower them myself, you know," Charles pointed out.
"Will you do the sound effects?" Whit asked.
"…No."
"Spoilsport," Whit said. "Well, anyway—we'll move on to Rose, Hu, Veronika and J. All nos—sad, boopless nos."
"I'm not making the sound effects, Whit."
"Arturo's also a no, even if we go by what we learned in the trial about him threatening Eden," Whit said. "Feel like if Teruko's thing doesn't count, then neither does his. Not to mention how he's probably stuck in the infirmary—oh, also, go ahead and put down Eden's, too. Let's see, how many fingers are left now? Four? Not including you and Nico, that leaves Levi and David."
Another tap to the chin. "I guess Levi's kind of a gray area, if we count the whole ‘keeping his former murders prior to the game a secret.’ And given his behavior in the trial, I also feel David could probably also be added to the list of 'willing to kill'. I would argue otherwise, but I can see why some people would believe it."
He pointed to two of Charles' still-raised fingers. “However, forming an alliance with either of those other two people would be difficult, given how Levi is currently unconscious and bed-bound—” He lowered one with his own hand. “—and David trying to lead the trial in the wrong direction proves that he probably cares little for his own life and safety, and even less the lives and safety of others. Which probably doesn't make him a very safe candidate when it comes to trying to keep yourself alive.”
And down went the other, this time snapped down by Charles himself before Whit could touch it. "I get the idea."
“And taking them both out of the equation, that leaves two remaining fingers," Whit continued. "And since one of those fingers is you, Ace, that only leaves Nico as the safest possible candidate to turn to when it comes to you trying to stay alive."
A wink. "See? A balance!"
"I do see how you might've come to that conclusion," Charles said. "But before Ace pops a blood vessel about it, I must bring up the glaring flaw in that plan once again: who's to say Ace and Nico wouldn't just tear each other apart the second they're in the same room together?"
"Yeah, thank you, Bill Nye The Dipshit Guy," Ace chimed in, a fist raised towards Whit. "Think that lovey-dovey matchmaker bullshit is fogging up what little brains you actually hav—"
"Do you think you could go through with killing someone again, Ace?"
The anger in Ace's features vanished, fear creeping in through the cracks for a brief moment as he stared at Whit. "Wh-what? What does that have to do with anything?"
The fist that had somehow fallen when he wasn't looking was raised again in an instant. "A-and for that matter, why the fuck would I tell you if I did?"
"Well, you did kill Arei in the least-bloody method possible," Whit pointed out. "And in a method that involves the least amount of direct contact with the victim as possible, right?"
A weak laugh. "Of course that doesn't necessarily mean you wouldn't have it in you to kill again, but…after what you said in the trial, I imagine you probably aren't in as much of a hurry to do it."
"Y-you don't know what I'm capable of doing!" Ace insisted, stance shifting into a defensive pose. "Don't fucking stand there and pretend you know what the hell I would or would not do!"
"I'm just saying that between everyone being so suspicious of you and the threat of another execution, the likelihood of you succeeding at another murder is next to zero," Whit explained. "So, I just can't really see you going out of your way to do it again."
He held up a finger. "Something that could probably be said for Nico, too! They tried to kill you and got caught. Meaning that if you were to go and get killed for real, they'd be the first one everyone suspected."
"They did mention earlier how they had no real reason to try and murder someone again," Charles mused. "Of course I'm not about to take such a claim at face value, but looking at the variables behind why they tried to kill Ace combined with a lack of any real ability to get away with it a second does put a point in favor of working alongside them to stay alive. By Whit's logic, you'd be safer than ever teaming up with Nico because of their attempt to kill you."
"Exactly~!" Whit said. "A balance!"
"A balance…" Charles repeated.
A cruel laugh escaped Ace's throat. "You know what? I was standing here thinking Valentine Boy was outta his gourd, but now I'm starting to think you're both insane," he said, reaching a hand for his coat. "But what the fuck ever, I'm out of here."
He pulled the ends closed and swung his makeshift knapsack over his shoulder with a groan of pain, immediately remembering how there were several metal cans in the pack. But despite his knees threatening to buckle beneath him, he remained upright with the meat tenderizer still clutched tightly in one hand. "Move away from the door, now."
"Alright, alright," Whit said, raising his hands. "Again, no need to get aggressive—we were just here to get some food after all."
Despite Whit's reassurances, Ace didn't drop his arm until the two of them had stepped a clear distance away from the exit. After which he promptly surged towards it in a rush—
"Wait, Ace, hold on a sec!"
Up went the arm again as Ace spun around to face Whit. "What?! What the fuck else do you want?"
"Can opener!"
With a flourish, Whit reached for the closest drawer and pulled out the aforementioned can opener—seconds before crouching down and sliding it across the floor towards Ace. "Figured you might need this if all you're gonna be eating are canned goods," he explained. "But also I did want to say one last thing."
Despite Ace reaching down to take the can opener for himself, Whit's follow-up remark furrowed his eyebrows. "Jesus fucking Christ, do you ever stop talking?"
"Lotta people asking me that lately," Whit said. "But I swear I'll be done after this."
The sad smile returned to his face. "You don't have to take up our advice. I wouldn't blame you if you didn't. It's even harder for you to trust everyone now, and…well, I can't lie and say I'd be able to trust you completely after what happened."
A pause. "But…you said yourself in the trial that you’ve been having trouble sleeping, and the bags under your eyes only strengthen that fact. Your secret involved your bad eating habits, and you pretty much just survived what should've been a fatal heart attack.”
His expression grew unusually solemn. “If you don’t want to waste this second chance you’ve been given…what other choice do you have?”
Ace continued to stare at him in silence, pale face even more drained of color than usual and grip so tight on the jacket in his hands that the fabric threatened to rip—
—before he turned on his heels and raced out of the kitchen, leaving both Charles and Whit behind to stew in the awkward silence that followed. "That was surprisingly profound of you, Whit," Charles said.
"What do you mean surprisingly?" Whit asked with a dramatic press of a hand to his head. "Believe it or not, I've got a flowing wealth of profoundity—"
"Not a word."
"—of profoundity inside me," Whit continued. "Especially if it means helping others find what they're looking for. I am a matchmaker after all."
Charles let out a thoughtful hum as he looked towards the mess Ace had left behind. "You know, I have to wonder. Did you want to come to the kitchen because you knew he was here?"
"Had no idea," Whit insisted. "I was really just hungry, but hey! My intuition never fails—oh, looks like he dropped something."
He crossed the room to get back to the door, and reached down to scoop up the object in his hand. "Guess he's not gonna be able to eat peanut butter like he wanted."
"Probably for the best on his end," Charles said. "He was so panicked, that he forgot to grab a loaf of bread to go with it."
Whit turned the jar over in his hand for a moment, before he smiled back at Charles. "Hey, you looking to try something new today~?"
"New how?"
"I got a great grilled-peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich recipe I could show off to you," Whit explained, approaching the stove. "Unless you'd prefer to eat a sandwich the old-fashioned way!"
"Does the recipe boil down to 1) put peanut butter and jelly on bread, then 2) grill bread?" Charles asked. "Seems like a lot of additional effort for what is basically just a PB&J."
"No, there's plenty more to it than that!" Whit insisted. "…Okay, well, those are the main parts but I swear I can make it worth your wild! I even add slices of banana for a little extra flair~!"
A pout. "C'mon, Ceci, are you telling me you don't wanna learn another recipe?"
"Fine, fine," Charles said, lifting his hands in faux defeat. "I suppose I can't complain when I'm getting yet another free lesson in cooking."
"No you can't~!" Whit said with a cheerful little blep of the tongue. "Now fetch the jelly and bananas for me and I'll make you a lunch that'll blast your socks off!"
"Putting a lot of hype behind such a basic sandwich," Charles said, already reaching for the fridge door. "But I suppose if anyone here can turn something as simple as that into something worthwhile, it'd be you."
A smile tugged at Whit's lips, faltering slightly as his gaze moved back towards the kitchen door. "I sure hope so…"
The elevator itself was far from quiet, gears and pulleys rumbling loudly outside the metal box as it made its way back up to the top floor.
When it came to the occupants of the elevator, however—the silence was almost deafening.
Neither Teruko nor Ace hadn’t moved an inch since the two of them had began their ascent; Teruko moreso as a precaution to keep any of her bad luck from interfering with their journey. A lack of movement was never a surefire way to do that, but keeping whatever bad luck she could secluded to as small an area as possible certainly didn’t hurt matters either.
Ace, on the other hand—
Keeping the rest of her body still, Teruko cast a glimpse at him out of the corner of her eye. Now that she could get a proper look at him in better lighting, his worn physical state was more prominent than ever. Dried tears stained the sides of his face, with several still beaded at the corners of his eyes—likely as an aftereffect of being forced to endure yet another near-death experience. Shoulders were tense with fists balled at his sides, as if he also thought moving would also somehow interrupt their journey. Line of sight locked to the floor like his life depended on it.
And when her own gaze followed said line of sight, she could see the potential reason why in the form of the drying bloodstains beneath their feet.
The elevator slowed to a stop, and its doors slid open with a merry little ding. And before Teruko could even utter a word, Ace had already taken off like a shot out into the hall and towards the direction of the dorms. The thought to follow him did arise as she exited the elevator herself, but a sharp jolt of pain in her side had her propped against the nearest wall for support—expression twisting into a grimace as she pressed a hand to the source.
In all the commotion, she’d nearly forgotten about her knife injury; the trial and aftermath moving in such a blur that everything else had been pushed to the back of her mind as an issue to deal with later.
Another ache bubbled a slow groan out of her, hand shifting up the wallpaper as she tried to steady herself. “Urgh, looks like later just became now…” she muttered, daring to pull her hand away from the injury in favor of fishing it into her skirt pocket. “Let’s see, do I have any—”
A sigh as her efforts and palm revealed nothing more than an empty gauze roll. “Of course not,” she said in resigned defeat, before returning it to her pocket. “Guess I’m restocking at the infirmary…”
Her gaze fell to the floor, landing on the continuous trail of blood that lead out from the elevator and onwards down the hallway. And with another sigh, she forced herself back up into a standing position and slowly ambled after it. Well, at the very least she could tell everyone about Ace while she was there. Whether or not it would be a good idea to leave him alone was irrelevant if nobody else knew he was still alive.
And depending on the news that waited for her once she arrived, perhaps she’d receive a similar update on Levi.
A thought that lingered for about five seconds until she rounded the corner to a sight straight out of a funeral.
Nearly everyone had gathered outside of the infirmary—save for the obvious Levi and Arturo, the latter of whom Teruko could only guess had stationed himself inside the room itself—and the air in the surrounding hallway was thick with a sense of unease, with varying levels of sadness and concern making themselves at home in everyone’s expressions.
Some like J had opted to hide their concerns in the form of a crossed-arm lean against the wall. Others like Eden and Hu hadn’t even bothered to make an attempt to stop the tears from flowing. Others further like David, Rose, Veronika, even Whit—his usual smile and bright energy replaced with a somber scowl as he comforted Charles, who was taking great efforts to keep his eyes off the stained floor—were merely silent as they…
…well, Teruko wasn’t entirely sure. Waited for news from Arturo that Levi was stable? Took a moment to digest the fact that he was already gone?
At the sound of Teruko’s footsteps approaching, the more-vocal mourners perked up with a faint burst of hopefulness. One confirmed by a delighted “Teruko!” on Eden’s end, before she bounded over to greet her. “You took a long time to come back up, is everything okay?”
“Of course, we can’t exactly blame you if it’s not,” Hu said, reaching up to dab at her eyes with a tissue. “The good news is that Levi’s still hanging in there. Arturo forced the rest of us to wait out here while he worked, but we did manage to get him up here in time. All thanks to…”
Her expression shifted to a look of conflict. “Well, despite everything else that surrounded it, I…suppose a thank you to Ace is in order for doing what he did. There was a likely chance that Levi wouldn’t have made it if we’d stayed down there any longer.”
Eden sniffed sadly in reply. “I-it’s a shame we won’t get to give him that thanks directly…”
“Uh…yeah, about that—” Teruko said, then paused with another look around at the group. “Wait, hold on, before that. You said the rest of you are out here?”
“Arturo said he didn’t want ugly people distracting his focus,” Rose said near the wall.
“And then he said I could stay if I wanted to,” J muttered with a roll of her eyes. “So I booked it out of there as fast as I could.”
“Why do you ask, Teruko?” Hu asked.
“I ask,” Teruko began, “because haven’t you noticed someone’s missing from the group?”
— — — — — — —
Nico had made a break for their dorm room the second the elevator had hit the top floor.
Quite honestly, they would’ve preferred to get off on the second level if it’d been possible to do so without drawing too much attention, or hadn’t been too much of a risk to Levi’s safety. The sight of the minnows in the relaxation room would’ve been a welcomed chance to let their mind wander, so long as they kept their attention off the sudden and obviously decrease in their numbers. And in hindsight, they could’ve simply opted to go back down the second everyone else piled out of the elevator with Levi’s body and made their way to the infirmary.
But considering the previous events of the last few days, one might be able to forgive their inability to think straight.
They should be happy.
That was one of the first thoughts they’d had after finally reaching the comfort of their dorm and seating themself on their edge of the bed. Ace—the person who had poked just about every single button they’d had this entire game, to the point where they had finally pushed him back in retaliation—was dead. Lying cold on the courtroom ground many floors beneath their feet.
They should be happy.
It was what they’d wanted.
It was why they’d tried to kill him in the first place. To finally push back against all the injustices they’d suffered throughout their life, to finally feel like they had any sense of control.
They should be happy.
And yet happiness seemed like the most foreign concept imaginable as they stared at their gloveless palms, with a slight wince at the faded cuts that rested horizontality across their fingers.
Exactly what emotion they were feeling at the moment, they couldn’t put into words. Any sense of relief over his death? Well, naturally. Some might claim such a feeling to be insensitive or harsh, but Ace had spent the entirety of the Killing Game making their life a living nightmare. And for what reason? Why them, of everyone there? Because they appeared to be weaker than him?
A possibility; given how much of Ace’s actions had been focused on masking his own fear and insecurities and taking them out on other people. It only made sense that he would go after someone he perceived to be an easy target. It was always the case for those who had bullied them in the past—targeting them for appearing weak and defenseless.
Such similarities had been why Nico pushed back against Ace in the first place. Finally, finally stuck it to someone who thought they could just keep pushing and pushing and pushing without facing any sort of consequences.
And in a weird, roundabout way, it had worked. Ace was dead, thanks to his own attempts to frame them for a murder. He would never be a problem for them again.
They curled their fingers with a scowl. So why weren’t they happy? Or at least, why was it not the only emotion they were feeling at the moment?
Perhaps it was the overall cruelty of the situation that was souring what should’ve been a good thing to them. The events that had transpired in the back-half of the trial—Ace’s eventual resignation by the end, Levi’s sacrifice which had shifted into Ace’s sacrifice, pure, unfiltered fear towards his death now on full display for everyone to see—had ended up painting Nico a much bigger picture of who Ace was under all that rage and torment.
Where they had once seen a ruthless bully determined to ruin their life now lay nothing more a frightened, starving—their own stomach tightened at the thought of the crumpled secret still buried in their pocket—shell of a man who had simply been terrified to die. Lashing out not because of any true malice towards them personally, but more like an aggressive dog who hadn’t been shown an ounce of kindness in its life thrown into an even worse situation and baring his teeth as a defense mechanism.
On top of that, Ace had willingly walked off to his own death in a desperate hope of keeping Levi alive. A sign that despite his insistence towards his inability to change, there was probably some semblance of a good person buried under the anger and fear.
And while Nico couldn’t say that was enough to get them to mourn Ace or excuse any of his previous actions—a buried good person was no good to those who had been forced to deal with the unburied jerk—they couldn’t exactly admit to being happy towards his death either.
It was all so oddly bittersweet. Like swallowing a spoonful of terrible cold medicine—probably healing for you in the long run, but a struggle to swallow effortlessly in the moment.
With a sigh, they slipped their gloves back into place and headed for the door. It would probably be safe to head down to the minnow pond, they assured as their hand touched the doorknob. Everyone was probably still busy with Levi, there wouldn’t be—
Loud, frantic footsteps greeted Nico as they pulled their door open, seconds before a flash of red came racing down the hallway towards one of the doors across from their dorm. At first, their mind instinctively jumped to Veronika—she was the only one left with red hair and it was simply the most logical guess.
Logical until their gaze fell to the orange of the jacket across their back and gloved hands frantically pulling at the doorknob, and their blood chilled with realization.
“A…Ace?”
They hadn’t meant to say it out loud and especially hadn’t meant to make him jump a good few inches in the air, before spinning around on the heels of his boots to face them with an aggressive huff.
Well, the being before them definitely looked like Ace. Red hair that was even messier than usual, piercing gaze that now looked more scared than scary, and overall demeanor only furthering their view of him as a frightened stray dog—trapped and cornered by those looking to restrain him.
And much like a cornered and frightened stray dog, he still possessed enough energy to bare his teeth—a last-ditch effort to protect himself—in the form of a venom-laced: “What the fuck do you want?”
An odd question to be asked for the current situation, one that Nico wasn’t entirely sure they could answer properly. What did they want? An explanation as to why the man who they had all watch drop dead of a heart attack was now standing before them, alive and well? Well, of course—but they had a feeling Ace wasn’t exactly in the mood to give them that.
Assumedly, at least. “How are you…alive?”
Their question earned a hollow, bitter laugh from Ace as hands once again fumbled with the doorknob to his dorm. “Tch, what, were you in the middle of celebrating the fact that my ass was pushing up daisies and I threw a wrench into your little party plans?” he asked—or more growled than anything. “Yeah, well, sucks for the both of us, doesn’t it—why the fuck isn’t my door opening?!”
“...Your MonoPad?”
“Shit, right—”
After fishing around in his pocket for a moment, he violently slapped his MonoPad against the card reader several times before yanking open the bedroom door and slamming it behind him with as much force.
A sound that momentarily snapped Nico out of their daze with an instinctive flinch. Well, he definitely looked and sounded like the real Ace. There was probably little chance of brushing it off as a trick of the light or some kind of otherworldly specter; not that they believed in the latter, anyway.
Still, they couldn’t help but stare hard at Ace’s closed door for a few more minutes, before their own door was pulled shut behind them and they began to make their way up the hall towards the elevator. Whatever might've just happened, if it happened, it wasn't going to stop them from their initial plans—
“Nico!”
Their hand had been lingering over the down button when the sound of Teruko’s voice gave them pause with a flat grimace. Despite how easy it would be to ignore her and press the button anyway, they turned to face both Teruko and the following crowd approaching them from the other direction. A group that Nico took quick stock of; outside of Teruko, there was Veronika, Whit, Charles, Eden, J—
And lingering at the back of the group appeared to be Hu and Rose, both of whom seemed to deflate to varying degrees upon meeting their gaze. A sight that should’ve probably made Nico feel some semblance of guilt, but moreso just brought them a sense of confusion towards the group as a whole. “Uh, hi, Teruko?” they began with a tilt of the head. “Did you need something? Did Arturo manage to save Levi?”
“That I’m not entirely sure of yet, but we have to talk to you,” Teruko began. “It’s about Ace—”
“Um, Teruko,” Eden interrupted with an unsure look. “I realize a lot’s happened across the past morning, a-and I’m not saying I don’t believe you—”
“But are you suuuuure that you actually saw Ace wake up like his heart didn’t give out on him completely?” Whit finished for her. “Not that I don’t believe you either, but you’ve gotta admit it’s a pretty wild story!”
“Exactly why would I lie about that?” Teruko asked with a flat look.
“It doesn’t haaaave to be a lie necessarily~!” Veronika said cheerfully. “Ghostly apparitions are known to appear to those riddled with a sense of guilt or deep melancholy towards their passing. Your brain could’ve simply tricked you into believing that you thought you saw Ace Markey somehow survive his execution, as a defense mechanism to cope with the horrific events that actually unfolded.”
“While I’m not entirely convinced of that theory myself, a lot certainly has happened across the past morning,” Charles added, the faintest hints of a tremble in his tone as he forced his gaze to stay off the bloodstains beneath their feet. “And there is a chance your brain could’ve been playing tricks on you.”
“I know what I saw,” Teruko said, a glance down at her hand. “And what I felt when I touched his shoulder. Ace is still alive, and as soon as we find him—”
“He’s in his dorm.”
It was the first sentence Nico managed to get out while the rest of their brain played catchup with everyone else’s words, vocally confirming what they had seen as real and truthful. Not some ghostly specter or hallucination, no matter what Veronika and the others claimed. Even despite their own feelings towards the concept, it just seemed too outlandish to be true anyway.
If Teruko had actually reached out a hand and successfully touched him, then it was unlikely that she had only been seeing things or hallucinating to any degree. Combined with the fact that they had seen the exact same thing without any sort of outside influence or prior knowledge of what had happened, there was only one possible explanation.
Ace Markey was alive.
A thought that made them shift with sudden realization, that feeling from before twisting itself into an entirely different flavor of bittersweet. Ace Markey was alive.
Despite their internal conflicts, their external response earned a collection of surprised looks on everyone’s faces. “Oh, so you saw him?” Teruko asked. “Well, guess that means I don’t have to explain what we’re talking about.”
“Yeah, he…yelled at me as I was leaving my room,” they explained further. “For a split second, I also thought I’d seen...well, not a ghost, but still something completely unexplainable.”
A grimace. “Although I guess it doesn't really stop being unexplainable, since he didn’t exactly explain how he was still alive.”
“I can’t exactly explain it either,” Teruko said. “One second he was on the floor, next second he was screaming and yelling like nothing had happened.”
“So, it’s true?” Eden asked in disbelief. “Ace really is alive?”
“Ohohoho, an unshakable confirmation~!” Veronika chimed in with a sparkle in her eyes. “And from the person who probably benefits the least from this news, no less~! How are you feeling about this, Nico? The man you tried to kill and probably hoped was dead is getting all nice and comfy back in his dorm—”
“I feel like I want to go down to the minnow pond,” Nico said bluntly. “If you want to go check for yourselves, be my guest.”
Teruko rolled her eyes. “Fine, I just wanted to know where Ace was—”
“Wait a second.”
Rose’s soft voice cut through the conversation, earning a shift of attention towards her. “Do we…think that’s a good idea?” she continued quietly. “Letting Nico, you know…wander around by themself?”
An uncomfortable silence was the response to follow from the insinuation that her words had hung in the air around them. And at first, the rest of the group seemed hesitant to reply—with one Whit taking a particular interest in the paintwork of the nearby wall and one Veronika simply opting for a wide, knowing smile. “Well…they’re allowed to, aren’t they?” Eden finally asked aloud. “It’s not like they need to ask permission to go somewhere.”
“Th-that’s right,” Hu added. “Nico’s a grown adult, with the freedom to go wherever they please.”
“Yeah, I don’t think them being a grown adult is the issue Rose was talking about,” J pointed out. “And since no one else is going to bring it up, I might as well. Nico, do you really think it’s a good idea to be wandering around on your own after…well—”
“Your bloodthirsty attempt on Ace’s life~?” Veronika finished sweetly.
“...Sure, that.”
“Don’t phrase it like that!” Hu protested. “It wasn’t… I mean, I wouldn’t call it that—”
“Then what would you call it~?” Veronika asked.
“I…” Hu tried, pressing a hand to her head. “Well, I don’t know! But surely there are softer ways to phrase that.”
“They made an attempt on someone’s life,” J stated firmly. “I feel like there’s no real way to soften the blow of that fact without outright ignoring how serious it is.”
“Well, even so,” Hu countered. “I still think that—”
“If you’re worried about me trying to murder anyone else, you don’t need to be,” Nico said. “I realize me saying as much doesn’t really prove much of anything, as it shouldn’t. Why would anyone trust the words of anyone they barely know, let alone an attempted murderer, after all?”
A hand reached up to touch their cloak. “But…I explained my reasons for what I tried to do to Ace. I know it was wrong, even if I can’t say I regret it. Believe me or don't, but I have no real reason to do it again.”
The hand twitched against the fabric. “Besides, I’ve made it clear how important the minnows are to me. All I want to do right now is to check on them. Hold whatever grudge you want against me, but I don’t want them to suffer.”
“Th—” Hu started. “There, you see? A reasonable request! One they should be allowed to go through with without all this suspicion!”
“Well, when they put it like that, it does seem like a fairly normal and unsuspicious thing to want,” Whit said. “Besides, the rest of us are all up here on the top floor, right? What could they do to anyone while a whole floor away?”
“Hmm, I would argue that makes them even more dangerous!” Veronika pointed out. “I mean, wasn’t it because they spent so much time alone and out of the way that they were able to formulate their plan to kill Ace in the first place?”
A giggle. “Also, with how easily they managed to trick us, who’s to say their desperation to take care of the minnows is also not another act on their end~? They could very well be playing up the animal-lover role just as a means of having an alibi for later~!”
“Veronika!” Hu said sharply.
“Hate to admit it, but she’s got a point,” J said. “Although I highly doubt anyone who cuts their hair in the shape of cat ears is only pretending to like animals, it’s still good to be suspicious anyway.”
“...Why and how would I fake that?” Nico asked. “I didn’t even know the minnows were here until a few days ago, and I talked about how much I loved animals before that point.”
“That’s right!” Hu agreed. “We’re just going in circles trying to find reasons to restrict what they can and can’t do, which isn’t going to help anyone.”
“...Yes it is?” J countered with a confused gesture. “Being suspicious of a would-be murderer means that they’ll have less of a chance to hurt anyone else! Which would in fact help everyone here!”
“Listen, if anyone’s that concerned about them going off by themself, then why doesn’t someone just go with them?” Teruko suggested. “All they’re doing is going down to the relaxation room, and probably won’t end up leaving it any time soon.”
Nico’s features shifted into a look of mild annoyance. “Honestly if I’ve got to bring someone down with me, I’d rather just go back to my room.”
“Nico, you don’t have to do that,” Hu protested. “Here, if you need someone to go with you, I can—”
“No, what I meant was; how do I trust that the person I go with won’t end up trying to kill me?” Nico explained. “I realize nobody here trusts me after what happened with Ace. Again, I don’t entirely blame you.”
They gave the group a flat look. “But I meant it when I said I couldn’t trust anyone here, either. So how do I know I wouldn’t just be a sitting duck down there if someone came with me? Especially with how suspicious you all are of me now?”
“And another good point,” Whit chimed in. “Great debate all around, team.”
“Probably not a good time, Whit,” Charles said.
“Uh, no offense, Nico,” J said. “But out of everyone here, you’re far more untrustworthy than we are. Hell, I’d probably trust being alone with Teruko more than I’d trust being alone with you at this point. Although she did hold a knife to my throat, so that’s not really the best example—”
“I’m sorry, did we want to stand around talking forever,” Teruko interrupted sharply. “Or did you all want me to prove that Ace was still alive?”
“We seem to do that a lot,” Veronika said with a small laugh.
“Like Whit said, Nico should be fine going to the relaxation room by themself since the rest of us are currently up on the top floor,” Charles added. “And I doubt they would be so stupid as to attempt another kill this soon after their first, even if attempting that first kill was a very stupid move on their part. I say we take a risk and let them go on their own.”
“...Was that supposed to be a compliment?” Nico asked with a look of annoyance.
“From Charles?” Whit asked. “...Actually, yeah, it was.”
“...He’s not very good at giving them.”
“Fine,” Rose said quietly. “I guess it’s okay if they go by themself, then.”
“But—” Hu started.
“No buts,” Teruko said. “If you’re that concerned, go down with them and just keep some distance between the two of you or something.”
“Hu can come down to the second floor if she wants, but I would prefer she not do that,” Nico said. “I guess I’d be fine if she waited outside the relaxation room, but I still think I’d rather just go back to my room in that case. No matter where she waits down there, I doubt either of us would feel safe.”
“Nico, I—”
Hu’s words were cut off by the sound of the rest of the group continuing on down the hallway, Veronika’s cheery tone peppering over the crowd with a delighted: “C’mon, Hu, our resurrected jockey awaits~!”
Hu watched them go, before turning back to Nico with a feeble sparkle of hope in her features. One that was quick to diminish upon meeting their own, unchanging expression.
She watched them for a few more seconds, before letting out a sad sigh and trailing after the rest of the group towards the dormitories. A sight that Nico only caught a glimpse of in their peripheral vision as they turned to finally press the button to the elevator, frowning hard as the doors slid open and they attempted to avoid the dried blood on the floor when they stepped inside.
If Ace’s sudden appearance hadn’t given them such pause, they would’ve likely made it to the relaxation room before running into anyone else. Even after everything that happened, even after somehow coming back from the dead, Ace somehow still had it in him to do nothing but cause them trouble.
A thought that earned a tired sigh of their own as the elevator doors slid shut before them.
Fuck it, A Game of Cat and Horse prologue be upon ye:
Students Remaining: 13. 12.
— — — — — — —
Teruko wasn’t sure how much time had passed since she’d started crying.
Crying hard on the floor of the empty courtroom—her tears soaking into both the compression brace and the bruises and bumps (ones that never seemed to heal completely before more showed up) that called her knees home. Her sobs were the only sounds to break the room’s uncomfortable quiet, with MonoTV keeping its word about granting her a moment alone and the sounds of her classmates hurrying Levi’s body into the elevator nothing more than a faint memory.
And a fainter memory than that was the sound of Ace’s voice—demanding with all the vitriol and fire he could muster that MonoTV start the execution.
Finally lifting her head from her soaked knees, her gaze traveled to where the jockey’s lifeless body had been—discarded? Abandoned? Left untouched until she finally made the decision to leave and allowed MonoTV the chance to haul him off to wherever else it kept the deceased?
Despite the morbidity of the situation, such questions did have Teruko scrubbing the tears from her eyes while her mind raced with thoughts. What did MonoTV end up doing with the bodies once a trial was said and done? Any trace of Xander’s corpse had been wiped clean from the computer lab, and there was a high chance that there had been some remains of Min left after being torn to shreds.
Her features twisted with disgust as she finally pulled herself back to her feet, thoughts being pushed to the back of her mind with as much effort as she could muster. What good would it to her to question their fates now? Especially when—
“AAAAAH!”
“Huh?”
Her internal attempts to scold herself were shattered along with the silence of the courtroom by a blood-curdling scream. One coming from the aforementioned body that—by all logic—should’ve never been able to scream again.
And yet when Teruko jolted across the courtroom in a flash to investigate further, she was greeted by the sight of none other than Ace Markey moving—screams petering into sharp inhales of breath as he tried to pull himself up from the ground. Tried and failed; his arms trembled like jello as he used them to support his upper half, and any further attempts to flood his lungs with air simply resulted in him hyperventilating out of sheer panic.
Teruko’s hand hesitated above his shoulder for a few seconds, as if by some horrible luck (not an impossibility on her part) touching him would somehow break the illusion and he’d once again be nothing more than a corpse on the ground.
But when his own hands met his chest—gloves frantically clawing at the front of his jacket while the hyperventilating continued—any concerns were forgotten in favor of trying to calm him down. “Woah, woah, Ace, hold on, just take a second to breathe—”
A pause. “Like actual breaths, not what you’re doing now. You’re probably gonna make yourself pass out again if you keep that up.”
Her warning seemed to give him enough pause to slow down, and orange eyes met brown as Ace’s gaze was finally pulled from the floor to meet her own. He was silent for a few seconds (probably a record for him), before he finally choked out, tone noticeably absent of its usual brand of aggression: “I…I’m not dead?”
“Well, you don’t look like a corpse,” Teruko said, words echoing his retort from a few days prior. “Although I say that loosely, because—”
Another glance-over of him brought attention to the unhealthy paleness of his skin, even paler than usual. The dark circles under his eyes, likely brought on by his lack of sleep across the past week. Hands trembling against the front of a jacket that, upon closer inspection, hung over him in a way where his stomach seemed far more concave than what was probably healthy.
“—well, to be honest, you look terrible.”
“You look—”
Any attempt bark on Ace end was silenced before it could properly take form, and his eyes squeezed shut with discomfort. “...Yeah, fine, can’t argue with that one,” he muttered weakly. “Feel as shitty as I probably look.”
He finally pulled his hands away from his front to stare at them with utter disbelief. “So…this is real? I…I’m really not dead?”
“Not unless one of those bullets actually hit me instead of Levi and I just haven’t realized it yet,” Teruko replied. “Which I highly doubt.”
At the mention of the bullets, Ace’s attention snapped from her towards the messy trail of blood on the other side of the courtroom that lead all the way to the elevator. One he stared at for another few seconds of silence before turning back to her with a solemn expression. “...Levi?”
“Everyone else took him upstairs,” she explained. “Elevator opened as soon as you hit the ground.”
“A call, it seems, I made far too soon.”
Both jumped in surprise at the sound of another voice, and Ace instinctively flinched as the form of MonoTV ambled out of the shadows towards them. Despite the glaring damage to its screen, the face that had once been projected onto it no longer visible, it still shifted to Ace as if it were still able to see him regardless. “How strange,” it remarked with a subtle tilt of its head. “The readings on Ace Markey’s heart rate originally informed me that it was no longer beating. I suppose with the recent damage to my body, it’s possible an error could’ve occurred—”
“And what, you’re here to fix that now?!”
The frightened spirit in Ace’s tone had returned as he scrambled backwards on his hands like a startled rabbit until his back hit the nearest podium. “Are you seriously gonna make me go through all of that again?!”
“It’s an action of consideration,” MonoTV confirmed. “After all, the point of the killing game is to ensure the death of every single student playing. And if a blackened student fails to die in their execution, it hardly seems fair to give them a second chance at participation.”
Every word out of the robotic creature only succeeded in getting Ace to cower further—a sight that Teruko observed with a mix of thoughtfulness on the part of MonoTV’s words.
Even if Ace had been mostly talking a loud game ever since the first she’d met him, there had always been a clear, underlying cowardice that would arise whenever he was presented with the tiniest bit of pushback. All attempts to appear tough squashed just as soon as someone tried to meet it with their own.
Even as the trial had progressed, his vitriol and rage had gradually shifted to exhausted acceptance once he’d been backed into a corner. All of which had come to a head in the seconds before his execution, in the form of tears and an admittance of unfiltered fear towards his horrible fate.
And there was no disguising the fear that had creeped its way back into his features since the moment he’d first awakened. That usual spark of rage that everyone who knew the jockey had come to expect—the burning passion that had constantly gotten him into more trouble than was worth—had dwindled significantly in favor of a look of pure, unfiltered terror.
Terror that put all of the anxieties he'd tried so hard to bury with loud words and aggression on full display, tears once again welling up in tired orange eyes as he cowered like a cornered prey animal before the jaws of a predator. “Please…” he begged, an arm raised to shield his face. “I don’t want to die…”
“I believe the rules were made clear to you from the beginning,” MonoTV said in its usual flat, unfeeling tone. “All murderers must be held accountable for their crimes. If you are voted as the blackened student, you must be executed.”
It began to pace before him in a cat-like manner, its tail twitching contently behind its body. “However, I do retract my earlier remark about considering the idea of making you go through your execution again. It seems like a lot of additional effort, one our audience might find more redundant than anything.”
“Wh-what does that mean?” Ace asked. “So…you’re not going to execute me?”
“Oh, I never said that.”
The floor of the courtroom rumbled ominously for a moment as a trapdoor slowly opened beside MonoTV, before the machine gun from earlier rose up and out of the waiting darkness. “I simply think doing this the easy way would suffice.”
And now the little color left in Ace’s features had completely drained, the sight freezing him in place like a deer in headlights. “W-wait—”
“Such a shame,” MonoTV droned on. “The true cause of death being fear-induced cardiac arrest would’ve been far more fitting for someone like you. Not to mention this will leave more of a mess for me to clean later.”
The gun let out a low humming sound, as if it were preparing to activate. An action which MonoTV confirmed with a calm: “Firing in ten seconds. Nine. Eight—”
“Wait—” Ace begged frantically, hands clawing at the podium behind him and clinging to it for dear life. “Please, I-I don’t wanna die—!”
“Seven, six—”
While Ace continued to beg and plead for his life, Teruko remained where she stood in thoughtful silence, gaze quickly shifting back towards the waiting elevator.
It would be so easy, to leave now and not turn back as Ace was once again dangled before the hungry jaws of death before being devoured whole. To turn away as yet another person was ripped apart by this horrific killing game.
“Five—”
“Fuck, fuck—”
Technically Ace should’ve been dead already, nobody else would know that it took a few extra minutes and several extra bullets to get the job done proper.
“Four—”
“No! No, no, no—”
Teruko’s gaze shifted from the elevator to the blood trail on the floor. A slowly-drying memory of the man bleeding out many stories above her head. A reminder of all the other blood spilled, be it physically in the form of Xander or Min, or metaphorically in the form of Arei and, if she did nothing—
“Three—”
“Teruko, please help me!”
A reminder of how this was all her fault.
“Two, one—”
“Wait—”
Before MonoTV could finish its countdown, Teruko was standing between the two of them in an instant— arms spread out in a defensive pose. One met with a series of shuttered gasps of relief from the man behind her, as if breathing hadn't even been a consideration for him until that point, but she kept her eyes forward as she continued with: "Hold on a second, you can't kill him."
“I highly suggest you do not interfere again, Teruko Tawaki,” MonoTV said. “You already managed to evade one execution of your own today. Any further rule-breaking and I shall have to resort to—”
“You said it wouldn’t be fair to give him a second chance,” she interrupted. “That all murders must be held accountable for their crimes, and that all blackened students must face execution.”
She pointed a finger towards MonoTV. “But if your sensors indicated that his heart stopped at some point, wouldn’t that technically mean he’s not only been held accountable for his crimes but that he’s followed through on the rule of facing execution as well?”
“Wh-what?” she heard Ace choke out behind her.
“I second his confusion,” MonoTV said, the barrel of the gun faltering beside its body. “However, I am intrigued enough to let you continue speaking, if you can prove your claim to be true.”
“You said it yourself, your sensors were damaged when Ace swung his fist into you,” Teruko said. “Either that means Ace simply survived the execution from beginning to end, or that his heart actually stopped and restarted at some point. Meaning that, by all definitions of the word, he did in fact die.”
A shrug. “And since your sensors are clearly unreliable due to the state of your body, there’s no real way to go and prove that the latter didn’t happen. And if there’s even a small chance that it did, it would make no sense to punish him further after he’s gone and followed your rules to the letter.”
She pointed a finger at its screen. “Besides, you’re broadcasting this stupid show to someone, right? You’re telling me the audience watching this wouldn’t be the tiniest bit interested in keeping a contest in the game who managed to get killed off as a blackened student and somehow come back to life?"
MonoTV tilted its head curiously. “I see. Allow me to process this information for a brief few minutes, and see what conclusions can be drawn.”
The robot fell into a thoughtful silence, one that echoed throughout the rest of the courtroom until Teruko heard a frantic whisper hissed from the ground behind her: “Teruko, what the fuck are you doing?”
Daring to pull her attention away from MonoTV, she peered over her shoulder to meet Ace’s gaze as best she could. “Uh, saving you?” she whispered back. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“Well…yeah, no shit,” Ace replied slowly, one hand tentatively declawing itself from the podium. “But, like…why? Also what the fuck took you so long?”
Teruko gave a flat look in return. “Hey, if you’re gonna complain, I could still make a break for the elevator and just leave you to deal with this by yourself—”
“No—”
Ace’s answer cut sharply through her words, tears beginning to prick at the corners of his eyes once again. “I-I mean, just—fuck, don’t leave me alone—”
“Then shut up and just be grateful you’re not being pumped full of lead right now,” Teruko said firmly.
“I—”
A pause, before Ace returned a hand to the front of his jacket. “Wait, speaking of that…you said my heart stopping was what killed me. But I’m pretty sure they fired a gun at me, right? So how the hell’s that supposed to work?”
“Uh…yeah, about that,” Teruko said. “It was a blank. Only shot out confetti.”
“...What?”
“From what we saw, you got so scared of the idea of being shot that you just…dropped from fright,” she explained.
“I…”
The hand at his front gripped his jacket tighter as a pitiful smile tugged at his lips. “Fuck…of all the goddamn ways to go out,” he said, tone laced with shame. “I…I’m so fucking pathetic…”
“Alright, scenario processed.”
Both their attention snapped back to MonoTV at the sound of its voice, with Teruko’s defensive stance returning to full height. “And?”
“I have considered the evidence presented to me in regards to Ace Markey’s survival,” it continued. “And I have come to a conclusion.”
Ace narrowed his eyes. “Are you gonna hurry up and tell me whether or not you plan on putting me through Hell a second time, or—”
“Since Ace Markey has in fact taken the brunt of his execution and has therefore technically paid for his crime—” MonoTV continued, “—and since my current state does not allow me to make a fair call on whether or not the execution was successful in truly killing him or not, he will be allowed to continue participating in the Killing Game with no additional punishments.”
“—not?”
Behind her, Teruko heard the snap of teeth, as if Ace had promptly shut his mouth, while MonoTV continued: “The only way you will die is if someone decides to take your life, or if you commit another murder and are voted as the Blackened,” it explained. “Such is the rules of the game.”
Beside its body, the machine gun slowly descended back into the floor. “However, I have concluded that Teruko’s argument was interesting enough to take into consideration,” it continued. “You have been thoroughly punished enough for your crime, and there is technically no rule saying that anyone who comes back to life after dying during their execution must be punished further.”
More movement behind Teruko followed by the sight of orange peeking its way into her peripheral view turned her attention to her right, where Ace now stood at her side. “Wait, you’re…you’re really serious?" he asked. "I really don’t have to die again?”
“I do not joke about these sort of things,” MonoTV explained. “And to prove the legitimacy of my decision further—”
Their sentence was punctuated by a sound across the room, and both Ace and Teruko’s heads turned to see that the elevator doors had been opened. “I think you two have spent enough time down here,” MonoTV said. “And I firmly request that you return to the top floor before I retract my decision—”
Whether it was due to MonoTV’s threat or just the chance at freedom alone, Ace’s footsteps echoed loudly through the courtroom as he took off for the elevator like a shot fired from a gun—speed only faltering the faintest amount as he crossed through the trail of blood on the floor. “Get me upstairs, get me upstairs,” he muttered frantically, finger slamming against one of the buttons on the keypad just out of view.
“Guess that’s my sign to go, too,” Teruko said. “Otherwise I’ll be waiting forever for it to come back down.”
MonoTV was silent at this remark for a moment, until Teruko had already taken a few steps away from it: “You truly are the Ultimate Lucky Student, Miss Teruko Tawaki,” it said. “Not many others would’ve been able to try that and have it work out so well in their favor.”
Teruko paused in her tracks as it continued: “However, make no mistake. This will not solve the problem you are hoping to fix by saving his life. This game will continue until it has achieved its goal, not a moment sooner.”
Teruko lingered in place for a few more seconds, the weight of its words keeping her feet glued to the floor—
—before her footsteps started again with a flat: “I know.”
Despite Ace’s best efforts to shut the doors, the elevator remained open long enough for Teruko to join him inside. Leaving MonoTV to continue staring at them from across the room. “Get some rest, you two,” it said, tone just as calm as ever. "While is it is now veering towards midday, I'm sure it will be needed regardless. Oh, and one more thing just for the sake of formalities—”
Its screen appeared to shift in Ace’s direction once again, as if it were an eyeball following his movements, before a small trapdoor on its right shot out a burst of confetti. “Congratulations, Ace Markey. You get to stay in the Killing Game. Aren’t you happy?”
Ace’s finger froze in place atop the button he’d pressed at least a hundred times by that point, gaze remaining firmly fixed on MonoTV until the doors finally slid closed.
"I once again thank all of you for arriving as requested," MonoTV began, before its cracked screen tilted with curiosity. "Oh, we appear to still be missing some students."
While several heads turned towards one another with confusion, Whit was the first one to hop back to his feet and scan the crowd proper—finger bouncing from one person to the other as he did a silent count. "Hey, yeah, wait a second," he finally said aloud. "There's only nine of us in here. Where the heck is Hu?"
"Hu's missing?" Eden asked with a sudden look of worry.
"She was right behind us, right?" J added. "She couldn't have gone too far."
"Sorry, I'm here!"
The sound of Hu's voice turned everyone's attention back to the doorway, just in time to see her to hurry into the room. "My apologies, I wanted to stop by the infirmary first and check on Levi," she said, quickly making her way to an empty seat. "Although Arturo wasn't exactly in a hurry to let me in, so I'm afraid I've little to report in that regard."
"Oh, that reminds me," Eden said. "Didn't MonoTV say all able-bodied students were to attend the meeting? Does that mean Levi's not going to join us?"
"Yes, I also assumed that caveat was added specifically for Levi," Charles said. "Logically, one would not be able to attend any meetings if they are currently lying unconscious in a hospital bed."
He pressed a hand to his chin. "Although I suppose it doesn't cover Arturo, who is able-bodied but currently in the process of trying to make sure Levi doesn't die."
"I mean, does Arturo have to be here?" J asked with a scowl. "I know we've been harping on Ace, Nico, and David's bullshit, but let's not forget the bullshit he was trying to pull these past few days."
"I…admit I wouldn't mind if he stayed in the infirmary," Eden said. "But at the same time, this meeting could be important! And no matter our feelings about him, Arturo deserves to be kept in the loop on that sort of thing."
"If we really need someone to fill him in, I'd be more than happy to do the job myself!" Veronika said cheerfully.
"You wanna do it, be my guest," J said.
"As helpful as that is, Veronika," Hu added. "Arturo seems pretty determined to not let anyone into the infirmary, or to even talk to him while he's working." She pressed a hand to her head with a sigh. "And while I can understand his reasoning, with him being a surgeon and Levi being in such a delicate state, it doesn't make trying to interact with him any less frustrating."
"Not to worry," MonoTV spoke up again. "I realize that there are students that are unable to join us in person, so I have made accommodations to ensure that they are still present at the meeting."
A paw gestured to the stage at its left as a panel slowly opened up in the flooring, just in time for a small pedestal to come rising up out of the floor beneath the newly-opened space. And as the class watched further, the objects seated upon the top of the pedestal began to make themselves clear—
"What the hell?" J asked.
"Three MonoTVs?!" Eden added in surprise.
Sure enough, two identical robotic bodies to the original MonoTV now sat before them, with the most obvious difference being that the newer screens did not contain the same cracked glass as the original. "The reveal of this was an inevitability regardless, due to Ace's actions down in the trial grounds," the original MonoTV explained. "However, thanks to the fact I am in possession of an infinite number of bodies, I see no reason to put some of them to good use outside of simply as a unit to house my system."
"What exactly do you mean by 'good use?'" Charles asked.
"One body will be used to host my system once it has fully finished restoring itself," MonoTV explained. "And the other…"
A tap of its paws against the podium and the second body's screen lit up with a hum, moments before a projection of Arturo fizzled into view. And not just the image; for it was merely a few seconds before his voice echoed through the room with an affronted: "It's about time! Do you know how long I've been stuck staring at this stupid, and quite frankly tacky, screen?"
A scoff as he pressed a hand to the bridge of his nose. "I realize that the name MonoTV likely comes from your monochromatic color scheme, but that doesn't make it any less unappealing to be projected by such a dull and uninspired form."
"Allow me to tuck my offense towards you remarks away for when my system is finished restarting," MonoTV replied calmly, followed by a small beep. "…There, I will remember to be offended later."
"Ohhh, I see!" Veronika remarked. "With Levi being as unstable as he is, it would be unwise for Arturo to leave the infirmary, even just for the length of a single meeting. So you're providing him a means of joining us that doesn't involve him leaving Levi's bedside."
"While I would prefer all students to attend meetings in person," MonoTV explained, "and while my end goal for this killing game is for your students to murder each other, I realize that Levi simply bleeding out in a hospital bed would make for a rather uninteresting death for the audience. So if Arturo's current goal is to prevent such a thing from happening by simply remaining in the infirmary, I will grant him such privilege and allow him to attend the meeting via video message."
"So what you're saying is that Arturo's stuck in the infirmary?" J asked, mouth suddenly turned upwards in a smile. "And completely unable to interact with us in person?"
"Oh, not to worry, Miss Rosales~!" Arturo chimed in dreamily. "The horrid little beast has informed me that the current screen I'm using does in fact have mobile use." He pressed his hands together with a lovey-dovey sigh. "For all the unfortunate side-effects of being confined to the infirmary, at least we won't be separated for too long~!"
A pause before the aforementioned hands darted below the edge of the screen. "Just as soon as I'm able to get a handle on the controls, that wretched pile of scrap metal didn't give me clear instructions on how to move this thing."
"God damn it," J muttered, expression flat.
"And by the way," Arturo said, a finger jutting towards the rest of the group. "Before the rest of you get any funny ideas about me potentially using this to my advantage, a la killing Levi in his weakened state, don't even start. As I'm so keen to remind you—despite knowing you pea-brained peons won't remember it in a matter of seconds or when it becomes inconvenient for you—I am a surgeon. One of the best, if not the best in my field! I've already fought tooth and nail to keep this man alive, and I don't intend to let all of the hard work I've already exerted go to waste."
“Excluding Levi, all of us are currently in this room,” Rose pointed out with a sleepy yawn. “There’s nobody else who could kill him.”
“Oh, come now, Rose, I’d think even someone as simple-minded as you would know to not underestimate people,” David spoke up with a hollow laugh. “Or is that so-called photographic memory of yours failing and making you forget everything that happened in the last trial?”
His grin twitched wider as it moved to Ace. “By the way, Ace, that warning extends double to you~!”
Ace’s shoulders tensed, both out of rage and from the sudden, unwelcome feeling of every eye in the room once again fixed directly on him. Before he could respond, however, the Arturo-controlled MonoTV abruptly scooted a few inches forward—followed by the sight and sound of Arturo himself scrambling to regain the machine's footing on the other side.
And even as he'd finally straightened it out again, his eyes remained wide as dinner plates and skin paler than usual—even behind the static and backlight of a television screen—as he rotated the screen toward the jockey's seat. And once it was set on Ace proper—the sight of him undeniable proof that Arturo hadn't been mistaken by what he'd heard—he choked out a sputtered: "A-Ace?!"
"Ah?" Eden spoke up.
"You're…but how are you—" Arturo started, before a hand was pressed to his forehead with a groan. " …Oh, good Lord, usually the stress-induced hallucinations don't start until at least my sixth consecutive hour of nonstop surgery! I cannot handle this, I need to keep my focus!"
"Oh, right," J said. "Nobody told him, huh?"
"Uh, yeah, should probably fix that now," Whit agreed. "It's less a hallucination and more a…hello-cination?" A scoff. "No, wait—lemme try again, I got a better one. Less a hallucination, more a reanimation?"
He hummed with discontent. "Ugh, it's better but it's not a pun," he bemoaned, before giving a shrug of his shoulders with a grin. "You know what, I'll just stick with the first one. I think I Ace-d it anyway!"
"To elaborate," Charles added. "According to Teruko's testimony, Ace suddenly rose up from the floor out of nowhere, with no clear explanation as to how or why. Ace wasn't able to give us a clear answer as to how it happened, either."
“Hmm, you know—” David began thoughtfully. “We never did get a real explanation as to why he’s suddenly back with us. Or why MonoTV even let him leave the trial grounds without any issues.”
A laugh. “I mean, letting a murderer just walk around freely? That's gotta go against the rules, doesn't it? It's why the whole execution thing exists in the first place."
"Ah, yes, the first topic of business to discuss," MonoTV said from the front of the room. "I realized Ace Markey's current presence has raised some confusion among the students, so I am here to clear a few things up in that regard."
It tapped its paw against the podium again before it continued: "When Ace proved to still be alive after his execution, I had initially planned to rectify matters in a matter of seconds. However, Teruko brought up an excellent point to me regarding my current state: it did not allow me to make a fair and just call on whether or not Ace actually died during his execution."
"Wh—" J started. "The hell does that mean?"
"Because my body was damaged and my system is still in the process of rebooting itself," it continued. "I could not and cannot confirm whether or not the execution was truly successful. And if it was successful, it would mean that Ace Markey had been technically punished for his crime already."
Its screen straightened out before them before shifting itself to Ace. "And if there is even a chance that Ace was already punished for his crimes, then much like what happened after he destroyed my body, I see no reason to punish him a second time."
"I think I understand!" Veronika said. "Because Ace was executed and—assumedly—died, it means he's taken his punishment already! It doesn't matter if the death didn't stick, it still happened!"
A giggle. "Looks like we've found an unexpected little loophole in the game's rules! How fun!"
"Hold on a second," David spoke up with a glare. "Are you seriously telling us that just because there's a chance that Ace somehow survived his execution, he suddenly gets to just get back up and walk around like nothing happened?"
He flicked a thumb at Teruko. "And for that matter, why are you taking ideas from Teruko? Based on what we've been told, her excuse to keep him alive is flimsy at best. Whether or not Ace managed to get back up afterwards doesn't matter, when the intent of an execution is for him to die."
"Huh?" Eden said with a concerned look. "David, you're not suggesting—"
"Oh, I'm suggesting," David confirmed. "'All murderers must be held accountable for their crimes'. That's the damn rule. If they get back up after their execution, then it's only fair to hit them again until they stay down. That's what happened when Min killed someone, isn't it? You don't see her up and walking around after what she did to Xander, do you?"
A laugh. "Hell, even Nico knew that rule, even if they didn't end up sticking around long enough to get it done~!"
"David, do you really think this is the right time for that?" Hu asked sharply.
"We're on the topic of execution, aren't we?" David asked. "If anything, I think it's the perfect time to point out unfair it is that when someone like Min committed murder, she was forced to endure a brutal execution and die. Whereas when Ace killed someone, he was just allowed to get up again and keep walking around like it's no big deal. How unfair it is that he gets to keep living, while the person he killed is still dead."
His expression darkened as he turned towards Ace. "What the fuck makes him so special that he gets to keep existing in this damn game, while people like Min, Xander and Arei aren't given that same chance?"
"If you have any complaints regarding my decision, then you know what you need to do—"
MonoTV's words trailed off as the cracked screen flickered in a mess of static, resulting in a sudden wave of quiet washing over the rest of the room. "What's going on?" Eden asked.
"Shit, did Ace actually break that thing for real and its only now kicking the bucket?" J asked.
"Highly doubtful," Teruko said.
"What? What's happening?" Arturo asked from his screen, hands once again darting just beneath the line of view. "Damn it, that stupid robot couldn't give me a manual or something?!"
While the second screen shifted in place—as if Arturo was attempting to make it move again—the original MonoTV's screen finally dimmed to black with a low hum before the entire thing shut down completely. Before anyone could inquire further, however—
"—get a goddamn knife and finish the job yourself~! ♪(^∇^*)"
A faux-cheeriness from the first new body shattered the room's silence with a delighted little cackle, screen now bright with its usual happy emoticon face as it raised a paw in the air. "You heard me: if you want Ace to stay dead, you'd better get a jump on that yourself!" it elaborated further. "Just because I granted him a pass this time doesn't mean he's off the hook completely~! Just means that keeping a killer around rather than executing them might actually make things a little more interesting! ✧～(ゝᴗ ∂ )"
"Looks like that's a no," Teruko muttered quietly. "Again, of course it wouldn't be that easy."
"Back to the status quo, I guess," Charles sighed with annoyance.
"Oh, it feels sooooo good to be back~!" MonoTV said, its gears whirring contently as it stretched its whole body out across the platform. "That might've been the longest hour of my life, but the important thing is that I'm officially back to full power~! (≧∇≦)ﾉ"
Their expression switched to a glare at the group. "By the way, if any of you bastards try that again, I will not even give you the privilege of another countdown before I fill your body with lead! Do you know how inconvenient it is to have to wait for my systems to reboot? Don't try that shit again unless you actually have a death wish, is what I'm saying (ಠ_ಠ)."
"Even after a full reboot of its system, it seems like nothing has actually changed," David said. "Wow, Ace, you really can't do anything right, can you?"
A scoff, fingers pressed to his temple as his eyes slowly traveled over to Teruko."Can't exactly give him all the blame there, though. Who was it again that told him to try killing MonoTV in the first place?"
"David—"
"No, no—pumping the breaks on this latest argument!"
While Teruko glared daggers at him return, MonoTV's insistence on smacking a paw against the platform as loudly as possible kept her from actually replying out loud. "If you could all stop arguing for five minutes so I can go ahead and move on to the next order of business, that'd be spectacular," it said. "This chapter scene's gone on long enough and I'd like to move on. ヽ(༼ ಠ益ಠ ༽)ﾉ "
A wink. "Once I'm done, though, please feel free to continue insulting and fighting with each other! The audience loves this kind of drama~! ★~(◠‿◕✿)"
"Five minutes?" David asked. "Fine, I can wait. That is to say, if Teruko has enough emotional maturity to do the same."
Teruko's furrowed gaze lingered on him for a moment more before she sighed with resignation. "Fine."
"Now then, the next part of the meeting~! (≧∇≦)ﾉ" MonoTV continued. "As you all might recall after the first trial, another floor was opened up for you after the trial was concluded, along with revealing a new motive.”
“Are you about to do both again?” Eden asked nervously.
“Unfortunately due to spending so much time rebooting, I have been unable to prepare either for your use and amusement,” MonoTV said. “However, both the next floor and motive should be ready for your entertainment by tomorrow.”
"You're telling us that despite plotting out this entire killing game," Charles spoke up, "you didn't have these things planned out in advance?"
"Oh, I had things planned in advance," MonoTV said. "But with shit being fucked six ways from Sunday across the past few days, I feel it's in everyone's best interests to give both myself and you students a day to clear our heads and do a bit of schedule-rearranging. That, aaaaand I feel like it'd be better to wait for Levi to no longer be dying of bullet-poisoning to give you students access to my original plans for the third floor, and maybe save it for the fourth one instead ( – ⤙ – )."
"What does that mean?" Eden asked.
"Don't worry about it~!" A wink. "We'll talk motives and the new floor tomorrow, alright? Great, glad everyone agrees! Any further questions, comments, concerns?"
Before anyone could speak, it raised a paw. "Too bad! I'm completely beat from that system reboot, so I'm gonna go take a nap before I get started on fixing that door Teruko broke. Toodles~! (≧ᗜ≦)"
Without another word, it hopped down from the podium and disappeared through a trapdoor on the other side—leaving the rest of the room to once again stew in an uncomfortable silence. One eventually broken by a small remark from J in the form of: "Yeesh, thought we'd at least get a full day without that little shit being weird and annoying."
"Suppose that's what we get for putting all our faith in the idea that Ace would do something right, I suppose," David spoke up with an amused tut. "Aside, from—"
A scoff. "Well, I'd say it, but something tells me that everyone's going to yell at me again. Instead of, you know, the people who actually deserve it. Names start with an A and an N—"
"David," Hu interrupted with a scowl. "Do you honestly believe acting like that is going to help anyone right now? Constantly poking and prodding at what they did whenever you open your mouth?"
"Not this again," J muttered. "Seriously, dude, we get it. They're murderers. You don't need to keep hammering it in."
"A murderer and an attempted murderer," Rose said quietly.
"Hmm, first Eden was jumping to Ace's defense and now I'm getting pushback from Hu and J of all people," David said, with a turn towards the former. "Surprised you're still willing to defend Nico after what they said and did in the trial. Surely you must feel embarrassed behaving this way after throwing all your stock into defending someone who'd planned to throw you to the wolves, right?"
"I—" Hu started, features twisting with frustration. "That's not important right now!"
"And as for J, weren't you the one going on and on about how murder is wrong in the trial?" David continued. "Where's this sudden defense of those who actually have blood on their hands coming from?"
"I'm not defending either of them," she insisted, hand pressed to her head. "Honestly, I…I kind of agree with you, I also don't think we should just let them sweep this shit under the rug."
A scowl. "But also you're being really fucking annoying about it."
"Not to mention redundant," Charles added. "We are all aware of what Ace and Nico did, and I see no reason to keep harping on it in such a petty and unhelpful fashion."
"Sounds more like a you problem than anything," David said with a roll of the eyes. "But I once again return to my original point from earlier: if you're all so aware of what they've done, how can you all stand there without feeling the urge to do what I'm doing?"
His expression darkened. "How can all of you just stand there, twiddling your thumbs, and not feed into the incredible urge to lambast these two murderers at every turn?"
"Uh—" Nico started quietly.
Quick as it had disappeared, David's condescending grin returned as he flashed it in their direction. "Right, sorry: murderer and attempted murderer~!" A laugh. "I know there's only a minimal difference between someone we can't trust at all and someone we can't trust only a little bit. But given what they said in the trial about not trusting anyone else here, it's only fair we return the favor~!"
"To be fair," Rose added. "We did question whether or not it would be safe for Nico to go off on their own, when they wanted to go down to the relaxation room by themself."
"Y-yeah," Eden added. "It's not like we aren't thinking this kind of thing through. It's just…so much has happened in such a short time that it's hard to focus on what to focus on right now. Whether its Ace and Nico, or Arei's death, or Levi nearly getting himself killed—"
"It's definitely a lot to process," Whit agreed. "And standing around insulting each other's just gonna stress everyone out even more, you know?"
"Wowww, Whit, how much self-control did it take you to get through that entire sentence without a single shitty pun?" David asked.
Whit's expression fell with a dramatic pout. "C'mon, David, I'm trying my best here."
"And I'm just trying to be realistic," David said. "Fact of the matter is, MonoTV's granted permission to stay in the game to not just one but two people who have proven that they're willing to kill someone else to survive. Two people who have proven to all of us that we cannot trust them."
His expression darkened as it traveled from Ace, to Nico, then swept across to the rest of the group. "And quite honestly, I don't give two shits if all of you want to get harp on me for constantly pointing that out. Because are you seriously going to stand there and tell me that not a single one of you aren't thinking the exact same thing, but are just too 'niiiiice' to say it out loud? That you're not saying out loud how those two are selfish bastards who don't care about anyone but themselves because it's too 'stressful' or 'mean'?"
Two fingers were pressed to his temple as his eyes landed on Teruko. "Is it really better to keep silent about how we cannot trust someone like that, or is it better to speak up as often as I can about their untrustworthiness?"
"Alright, that's it."
Before anyone could reply, Teruko's hand was gripping David's shirt in a tightened fist as she made her way to the door, dragging the latter behind her. Rather than protest, however—David raised his hands in an amused shrug. "Ah well, guess I'll have to get my answer later~!"
The door was slammed shut behind them, leaving yet another uncomfortable quiet in their wake. One Whit was quick to shatter with: "I'd make some kind of remark like 'Well, that just happened!', but I already feel like a walking cliche just by pointing out how cliche it is."
"The nerve of that guy…" J muttered. "As if we didn't have enough headaches to go around."
"Hard to really say he's wrong, though," Veronika said. "Even if he's been a bit much with how he's handing it, Ace and Nico are in fact two people who've proven to be the most untrustworthy among the group. Unafraid to spill blood, and unafraid to throw everyone here under the bus in the process!"
A giggle. "Not that I particularly mind! If anything, it's just made things all the more interesting around here~!"
"Even so, it still feels…wrong somehow," Eden said quietly. "I know David's not wrong to some degree, but to treat both of them like he does…"
"Whether or not he has a point hardly matters when he's behaving in such an immature fashion," Hu insisted, hand pressed to her head. "Not to mention hypocritical, with how eager he was to try and steer us down a path towards the wrong culprit himself. And how much he's been lying to us since this game even started…"
"Even if he's raised some good points, everything feels laid out in such a way that seems like he's moreso trying to get a rise out of us over actually helping us," Charles agreed. "And given his behavior during the trial, I wouldn't be surprised if that was his overall intent. To put all of us on edge about Ace and Nico and prevent us from thinking clearly."
"Hey, uh, speaking of Ace and Nico," Whit added. "Did anyone see where they went?"
Her question turned heads around the room as the group tried to located either of them, expressions shifting into concern when it was apparent that the two of them were gone. "Should we…go look for them?" J asked. "Again, I don't give two shits about what David says, but…you know."
"It'd probably be a good idea to at least know where both of them are, right?" Rose asked softly.
"R-right," Hu added. "There's nothing wrong with wanting to at least know where either of them are, right? If anything, it would probably be smart to keep tabs on everyone's location anyway."
"Hmm, and yet none of you volunteered to go check on Teruko while she's busy having a conversation with David," Veronika pointed out with a grin. "Interesting~! It seems as if David's attempts to get under everyone's skin is working far more effectively than he'd planned~!"
"That's not—" Hu began, before cutting off her words with a groan. "I mean, that's also a good idea, Veronika. There's nothing saying we can't do both."
"Should we split up?" Eden asked. "Maybe some of us look for Ace and Nico, and some of us go make sure Teruko's alright? I'd be happy to go check on her with anyone else who'd like to come."
"Yes, excellent idea!" Hu said. "Eden, Veronika, you two can come with me while we check on Teruko. The rest of you may go searching for the other two at your own leisure."
"Mmm, but I wanted to go look for Ace or Nico," Veronika said pitifully.
"Sounds good to me," Whit said, flashing a pair of finger guns. "We'll start with the kitchen~!"
"Is that because you think one of the might be there?" Charles asked. "Or because you're hungry?"
"Yes~!"
"I guess if we're really going to do this, Rose and I can check the second floor," J added. "Since, you know, Nico seemed pretty interested in going there earlier."
"Hey, so, what do we do if we find them?" Rose asked.
"Uh…" J started.
"Good question!" Whit said. "What do we do once we actually locate them? It's not like we can just tell everyone else where they are, right? No cell phones, no way to chat with each other over text…Geez, you would think MonoTV would've given us some kinda social network on our MonoPads or something."
"I mean, I guess not," J said, expression faltering. "I…I don't know—"
"Wasn't this your idea?" Charles asked. "Shouldn't you have the answer to that question already?"
"Sh-shut up," J said, pulling the strings of her jacket tight with an embarrassed look. "It sounded like a good idea at the time! Just…forget it, do whatever you want and look for whoever you want!"
"Well, I know I still want to go to the kitchen," Whit said. "Charles was right, I am hungry."
"Eden, I assume you still have plans to go check on Teruko," Hu said. "Would it be alright if Veronika and I still accompanied you?"
"Of course," Eden said, eagerness beginning to poke through the unease that clouded her features. "And yes, I especially want to check on her after that fall, make sure she's not hurt too bad. Especially since she's still recovering from her stab wound."
"Ah, I'm being volunteered for something by someone else again," Veronika bemoaned. "Well, perhaps I'll catch the tail end of an interesting discussion between the two of them. Since David's dropped that mask of his, the two of them are like a pair of firecrackers just moments away from setting the other off in a blaze of fire and sparks~!"
An amused giggle punctuated her sentence as the group piled out of the movie screening room, leaving a final silence in their wake. Silence quickly interrupted by the sound of Arturo's voice from the second MonoTV's body with a curious: "Hello? Is anyone still there? Damn it, I still don't know how to control this…"
With a curse of frustration, his hands met the unseen controls again in an attempt to move it—and it rolled forward in a dash before plummeting off the side of the platform and falling to the stage in a crumpled heap.
An action that earned a slamming of his fist to the nearest infirmary surface. "Could someone please teach me how to move this stupid thing?!"
