teaserving | ⏪ INBOX

[It's something a bit more than a memory, then. Something that's reflective on her psychosis, her experience and emotions. Abbacchio keeps working it out in his head, but he does look at the desk properly now.

As she said, there's a picture Kirigiri and her father. Abbacchio picks it up and examines the photo.

She's a cute kid, he thinks. A sweet innocent laugh captured in time, unaware of the future waiting for her. That can be the cruelty of the past.]

You feel small in here.

[It's said as an observation. It might be why she'd been sitting like that a moment ago, keeping to herself, a little girl knowing to mind her hands in a professional setting.]

Something happened in this place. And not just the academy. This room, specifically.

I-- hey. Do you want me to stop? This is your memory, and if it's gonna fuck you up, I can back off.

Yes. That's right.

[She ducks her head, pressing her lips together. It's strange, the way she knows things without knowing how she knows them. How she feels trapped when rationally she knows she isn't. It's a little like being a puppet in a showcase, she eventually decides; she can move, but only in pre-approved ways, because this environment is hers and she is a part of it.

Abbacchio is the only thing that doesn't belong. He's the differing, deciding factor. So if this isn't something that she can escape from alone, then she must need to help him break it open, instead. That seems to make sense.]

I think it's a puzzle. A memory that needs to be solved like a mystery. You're the detective, and I'm...

[She considers, briefly.]

I suppose I'm "the dame in the red dress". I can provide you with information, but this won't end until it plays out to its natural conclusion.

[He snorts softly at the descriptions she makes, but he understands what she means. Whatever this is, they have to play it out in some way. Abbacchio has to crack this open, and... well. Maybe that'll be enough to let them go.]

All right. Tell me to quit it and I will, though.

[He sets the photo down. Despite everything, Kirigiri's father still loved her, didn't he? Even if he was kind of a fuck up, at least in Abbacchio's opinion. Love doesn't make a good parent.

Anyway.]

So the thing that happened in here. Was that while you were solving the murders, or before?

During. I came in here a number of times, but...the only time that mattered was during our final investigation. Leaving no mystery unsolved.

[She kicks her feet a little where she sits, tapping the heels of her boots against the carpet. A girlish action, while she sits and idles on the couch.]

There's a secret door into another room. That picture...isn't supposed to be out here. It belongs in the other room, but I don't want to go into that one.

[Even as she says it, the walls seem to ripple and crack, before returning to their otherwise unassuming state.]

The way in was impossible for someone like me to find, anyway.

The final one, huh.

[So something happened during the final investigation. Something that left a lasting impression on Kirigiri. She does well to put up a facade, but like this he can see her as she must feel. Vulnerable.

The walls. Something is up with the walls?]

So there's another room attached to this one. But not just through a normal door, huh?

Why was it impossible for you?

I couldn't guess the sort of password he would use.

[Now, instead of clutching the hem of her skirt, she resorts to hugging herself. It's unusual; normally, she'd be on her feet by now, wandering around, accompanying Abbacchio as he moves through the environment himself. As it is, she's confined to her seat like any other piece of furniture placed where it belongs.]

I didn't know him well enough.

Password...

[Looking at her, he can see how much this is affecting her. There's a part of him that wants to stop, but he knows what their mission needs to be. Afterward, he can spend time making it up to her. And he will.

For now, he can look at the wall behind the desk. The wall looks a bit out of place, but it's not that simple to open, so:]

The computer?

[So he goes to tend to that. There's a program here, waiting for a password.

She couldn't guess the password. She was certain how little her father loved her, but... if there was proof of anything, it's that photograph. No matter how much he fucked up on being a parent, there was that one fact still obvious to Abbacchio.

So he gives it a try, typing in her name.]

[The door opens, of course, just as it did when this memory was first made. It's the same reason that she's known all along what the password was — she must have, for the dream to "know" it, too — but that didn't mean she'd been capable of accepting it. She could no more type in her own name to the computer in this dream than she could've in reality. She'd been incapable then; it's left her incapable now.

But when the door opens, her invisible shackles seem to release; she gets up from the couch and moves stiffly over to Abbacchio, using her first few seconds of freedom to walk directly into his side and wrap her arms around him.]

You knew what it was.

[The password, she means.]

Why was I the only one who didn't know...?

[There's a pause at the embrace, and carefully Abbacchio places an arm around Kirigiri's shoulders, encouraging her to be as close as she needs to be.]

Because as far as you knew, he fucked off without a care about you.

Listen. [He gives her hair a little ruffle.] He messed up with you. He did leave you behind, and that makes him an idiot. Despite all that, he loved you.

That doesn't absolve him of shit, but he was still thinking about you. All evidence you had proved he wasn't. I would've guessed that too, until you revealed that photograph to me.

[As she leans into Abbacchio, something strange begins to happen to the wood of the surrounding walls; everywhere that isn't the panel where the hidden door just opened from, the surroundings start to grow darker and darker, narrowing down until they've faded out into silhouettes — still visible, still discernible, but leaving Abbacchio and Kirigiri standing in what almost resembles a halo of light, like a film noir moment beneath a streetlamp.

Then, with an industrial-sounding clatter, light pours in again — this time, from somewhere behind the surrounding walls, backlighting the shapes of machinery and gears in oppressive hues of yellows and reds.

Nothing else happens to the room, not yet; the metal simply grinds and clangs, menacing from afar but without any overt malice.]

He made mistakes, you mean.

[She keeps her face buried in his side, not wanting to look. She already knows what she'll see.]

And someone he cared about paid the price for them.

[It's almost like dream logic, how things appear or fade. So it's not quite an illusion, he thinks to himself -- it's literally Kirigiri's dream they're in, forming and changing, haunting her.

He rests his hand on the top of her head.]

Yeah, I guess so.

[Abbacchio's voice is softer than usual, determined to stand strong and be here for her. Because no matter how much of a fuck up he himself is, he does care about her. At least he's willing to do something with that.]

...I know what that's like.

I know you do. I'm sorry.

[The way she says it, it's less of an I'm sorry for what happened and more of an I'm sorry for reminding you. One is a sentiment that, while considerate, is sort of useless; the other is considerably more immediate, and practical.]

You're going to have to look in the other room, I think. I'm sorry about that, too.

Hey, it's all right. Just... know that I can relate. Don't worry about me.

[The old promise is still there. That he won't abandon her, and that's true right now. Though he lets her go, he's reaching for her hand to take.]

Do you need me to wait?

No. I think —

[But the thought gets cut off as, abruptly, something metallic slams loudly against the ground like a heavy weight falling, and a moment later the floor jerks underneath them, like a rickety conveyor belt ratcheting a foot forward before stopping again. A moment later, it continues to lurch — drawing them closer and closer to the door.]

...!

Shit--

[No matter what, they're getting dragged over there. Like it's a punishment waiting to be unraveled.

Well, fuck that. They agreed that's where they need to go, and it's of his own volition that they will be.]

Sorry about this.

[Without missing a beat, Abbacchio is sweeping Kirigiri into his arms protectively before he makes his way to the door, kicking it open so he can march right in with Kirigiri.]

...Huh?

[A little startled, she goes rigid for an instant before realizing what he's just done — and then she sags, holding onto him while he carries her over to the hidden door and takes them inside.

Strangely enough, the walk through the door seems to take considerably longer than it should; they pass through, and there's a way forward, but it's featureless. It's like a corridor of nothingness, gray and bland, but still with a distinct feeling of there and here.

Eventually, though, they arrive — for a given value of the word "arrive". It's more that one step of Abbacchio's is taken in the gray expanse, and the next is taken in the doorway of a new environment industrial walls and sparse furniture, with a floor that's either made entirely of glass...or just altogether nonexistent.

The furniture, however, seems to be perfectly sturdy, even amid the nothingness. Normal wood, sturdy but plain, a desk and a table and a chest of drawers.

The gift-wrapped box waiting for them, however, looks just as out of place in this dream as it did in reality.]

[It's surreal, how the distance seems to stretch on when it shouldn't be so far in, but that's how it is on a scape like this, he supposes. Eventually, they do manage to get inside, leaving the most obvious thing in the room.

In his arms, he's still carrying Kirigiri, and he's loath to put her down, but he needs his hands free.]

Here, back on your feet, kid.

[Gently, he eases her down.]

I'm still here. Not going anywhere.

[Reluctantly, he approaches the brightly wrapped package. It's begging to be opened, taunting, a clear mockery even before he knows its contents.

A sick game, he bets.]

You probably shouldn't.

[She's resorted to holding up the wall now, backing out of the center of the room and retreating to one of the standing walls until her shoulderblades are pressed up against it — not out of fear, seemingly, but purely from an unconscious desire to put as much distance as possible between herself and the table. Under the perfectly clear glass beneath their feet, far down below, there are the tops of trees, flowers, grass. It's almost like they're standing in a terrarium.

As Abbacchio approaches the box, he'll see that there are six black rectangles set into the lid — which doesn't actually seem to be held shut with anything, but which is stuck fast with dream logic for the moment anyway — that, like the computer, seem like they're waiting for a password of sorts to surrender the lid.]

I tried to warn Naegi-kun, too, but he looked.

If I don't, what are the odds that we don't get the closure needed?

[His fingers rest on the top of the box, looking at the rectangles. Is there something he should be doing? He isn't sure.]

Don't worry about me. Is opening this going to be bad for you?

...That's true. We don't escape until all the mysteries have been solved.

[She looks away, lips pressed together into a thin line that has them turning white.]

It's six letters, isn't it?

[She didn't even look at the box, how could she possibly know th— oh, right, it's a dream.]

F-A-T-H-E-R.

[Hell of a password. It's not a good sign for the contents, is it? His first thought is a severed head. That'd be the kind of thing he's dealt with before. Maybe something else?

Abbacchio puts in the password as indicated.]

All right. I'm opening it.

[The worst thing is, in real life, Kirigiri never looked into the box, and in her dreams that just makes it all the worse.

Naegi had remarked aloud that it was bones — human bones. She hadn't expected them to be dried out by that point, herself. She'd assumed there might still be meat stuck to them, for all that the room didn't smell of anything rotting. She'd assumed —

She doesn't know what she'd assumed. But her dream fills it in for her, anyway — a cardboard box that somehow manages to be partially filled with thick black blood yet never warps or soaks the material it's constructed of. The bones are arranged in a pile, because there are only so many ways that a human body can be made to fit in a box of this size, after all. The head is ghastly, mostly a skull but still with patches of flesh and hair attached, still just enough to tell that it belonged to the man Abbacchio had seen in the picture outside.

The mouth is open, the jaw half-broken. It makes it look like he died screaming.]

[Though he's good at keeping his reactions muted, Abbacchio still grimaces at the gruesome sight. He's still otherwise, holding the lid in his fingers as he looks down at the horrific arrangement. There's a part of him that suspects it's exaggerated by the dream, but the truth of it is still likely there: her father's body was left for her to find.

Slowly, he places the lid back down.]

Shit.

[He lets out a slow breath, desperately wishing he had something to drink. But he doesn't; it's Kirigiri's dream, and he has to tend to her. Because he does care, so much.]

Do you know what happened to him?

...

[She doesn't answer right away, which is probably half an answer in and of itself. She's leaning heavily against the wall, now, her body the third side of a triangle between the wall and the floor. If her feet were to slip, she'd fall for sure.]

He must've been executed. I don't know how long before we all woke up.

[She clutches at her arm, her bare fingers digging heavy into the sleeve, the scarred burned skin of her hand still lighter than the dark violet of her coat.]

We thought all along that being locked in was a confinement. Something to escape from. But it was his plan all along — to put barricades between us and the outside world, to keep us safe inside.

He didn't realize he was locking the source of it all in with us, when he did. That mistake cost him his life, and set our killing game in motion.

[Another mistake, but this one motivated to protect the students of the school -- and by extension, his daughter. People still died anyway, regrettably. Nothing can take that back now.

Abbacchio steps back from the box, turning to give Kirigiri his full attention. As he approaches, he stops just a bit away, then holds out his arms.]

...Come here. If you want.

The person who set the killing game in motion, they must have left this here on purpose I take it.

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