The killing game simulator had been an annual "class project" for first-year students at Hope's Peak Academy for only a few years, now, but already the rules were pretty well-established.
The participants ate a hearty "last meal" beforehand, like hibernating bears, and went into the pods late Friday night. The simulation itself started early Saturday morning, and as such, that was when the upperclassmen were allowed to start visiting, to watch.
(Always, it came at a point in the year where organized lessons gave way to free study, so it was common for senpais to watch their kouhais' simulation all day, even once it reached Monday, Tuesday, and so on.)
The second-year students were most frequently the ones watching for long stretches at a time, both out of genuine interest and concern, and because their kouhais' killing game meant that they themselves were no longer going to be on the receiving end of all the jokes.
(Who, in the past year, hadn't heard Souda joke that Owada was "a butter man than me"?)
All of that being the case, even as she was reeling from the sudden cessation of pain and the flood of memories to her head, as if waking up from a dream, Angie was not surprised when the first thing her bleary eyes saw was Hiro, offering her a hand out of the pod. (A hand he had once boasted had "a longer lifeline than you might think.")
Before they'd gone in, Angie had thought a lot about how she would wake up. She might wake up after being killed. She prayed she wouldn't kill someone, but she knew she wasn't in control of what might happen in the simulation; she wouldn't have these memories, then. But she had heard the horror stories about Mikan vomiting when she woke up, of Nekomaru waking up swinging, of Sayaka curling up in a ball and refusing to get out of the pod, so she had offered herself consolation in the promise that she would compose herself as quickly as possible.
As she took Hiro's hand, Angie felt simultaneously the fragile smile climbing into place and the tear streaking down her cheek, and she knew at once that she would be unable to keep that promise.
She heard her name being spoken from different parts of the room. Kaede and Rantaro approaching her from one side, Makoto and Mahiru from another.
She wasn't conscious of running, but she soon found herself sitting in the art room repository, wiping tears off her face only to supply more.
Well. She needed to stop crying. That was the first thing.
She would just...work on that...
"I killed Hifumi in this room, last year." Celeste's approach hadn't been without warning; her shoes were very loud. But it was a surprise that she was speaking without the accent she liked to put on. "I had tricked him into framing Hiro for killing Taka."
Angie kept her face turned away, but she did raise her head. She had intuited long ago that Celeste had been a murderer, in her class's game, but people didn't talk about that sequence of events much. Well, Hiyoko tended to bring up hammers when she ran afoul of Taka's hall monitor duties, and there was one incident where Angie had overheard Celeste snapping at Toko, "Talk sh!t about my execution one more time and I'll garrote you with those fvcking pigtails, b!tch! I don't care which one you are!" But other than that...
"I also warned my classmates not to go out at night," Celeste continued. "We all agreed to it right in the beginning. A bunch of them broke the promise, but still..." She cleared her throat daintily, and she had acquired the false accent again by the time she continued, "I was surprised by how resistant your classmates were, to the idea. They treated murderers better than they treated you."
Angie sniffled quietly. Celeste must have heard it, because she paused before adding:
"Do you need something?"
With a deep breath, Angie calmly requested, "Please tell Kaede and Ryoma that I'm sorry."
A rustle of fabric, as Celeste leaned against something. "Are you?"
"They weren't supposed to hear what I said."
"About the resurrection ritual? They don't hold that against you. They actually laughed it off."
She remembered the stories she'd heard about Makoto. How he surprised everyone, how he held nothing against Sayaka, who framed him, and how he inspired the "living" and the "dead"...She'd never let herself consciously hope that she would be that person, to her class. That they, like Makoto's class, would emerge with a sudden respect, a sudden admiration, for the classmate they considered a bit of a joke before...But it did float to mind, now, that she'd failed.
The way things were going now, Kaede would probably be hailed as the angel of their class. So maybe Angie shouldn't apologize. The angel was only more admirable if she accepted apologies she never received. Like Makoto.
The clarity of this helped Angie to stop crying. Being thrown out of the story was a shock, and reflecting that she hadn't gotten to be the angel was painful, but now she needed to think. If Kaede was the angel, then what was she?
...It occurred to her that Celeste had approached her alone for a reason. Though Angie hadn't killed anyone, it seemed like Celeste had found aspects of herself in Angie's...performance. So... "Are you sorry?" Angie asked her.
"No. Well...There are things I regret. But in the scheme of things, no. I played the game, and I'm not sorry for that. Though I find it very impressive that you managed not to, even when they pretended you were crazy for it."
Angie, with something close to desperation, was able to grasp onto Celeste's description. You managed not to play the game. They pretended you were crazy. It eased some of the disturbed feelings inside her. "I must have caught Korekiyo planning a murder," she mused.
"It's a pity. I was curious to see you take your influence farther."
Now Angie felt a real smile curving her lips. "It might have been interesting."
"I don't think anyone else has managed to do what you did, in a killing game before. Maybe Imposter-senpai; I've heard he was quite a leader. And of course, Chihiro sort of hacked the simulation from inside it..."
"Why did they resist the nighttime rule?" Angie wondered aloud. "And why did they think I was crazy?"
Celeste shrugged. "I suspect the religious talk was part of it. You didn't do yourself favors, in that regard."
"It's the way I speak."
"But you're good at tailoring that from person to person, aren't you?"
Angie forced a laugh. "Clearly not."
"Just be glad you're a victim and not a culprit. You can probably make Shinguji bring you drinks and carry your books, when he wakes up."
"Did you do those things for Hifumi?"
"Of course not."
Of course not. "I don't want anything from Kiyo." Which was a shame, because they'd been pretty good friends, before. She tried to find that Makoto Naegi forgiveness in herself, but she had to drop the matter pretty quickly. Maybe later, she'd get there, but right now she felt too slighted. She could have made it to the end.
"Well, at least try to be the first face your devotees see when they die. Then maybe you'll keep your influence over them."
"I don't think I want that, either."
"Well, don't pull a Komaeda on us." She'd dropped the accent again.
Angie wasn't sure what "pulling a Komaeda" meant. She knew Komaeda, fairly well, and liked him. She knew that he had acted drastically in his killing game and rather shocked his classmates, and that as a result, he was closer to his kouhais than most. What Celeste was saying seemed to imply that his behavior when he'd emerged from the simulation had been similar, in some way, to hers. She felt curious, but not actionably so.
"I might go make some tea," she finally said. "Would Celeste like to join me?"
Celeste smiled. "But of course. All of the interesting people from your year have already died, so I have no interest in watching anymore."
Angie giggled, taking the untruth as the compliment it was clearly meant to be.