Chapter Text
Naegi started to get worried when he returned to his bedroom with a mug of tea and found Momoka as a marmoset. She was perched in front of the computer, pecking at the keys with her tiny fingers, teeth bared in an expression of intense concentration.
The image on the screen was the cover of some finance magazine, slick and minimalist, centered around a photograph of a bespectacled boy. Probably of more interest to Momoka than the Togami Conglomerate’s latest acquisitions was the lioness daemon lounging at the boy’s feet, mirroring his disinterested expression. Not a single hair was out of place; she looked like she’d been sculpted out of pure gold.
“Is that really how you want to turn out?” Naegi asked. He sat down, and Momoka shuffled away from the screen.
“Well…maybe not. It’s a big cat, which is still a cat, and I don’t think I want to be a cat for good.” Her voice was bright, but her tail was flicking nervously back and forth. “They’re okay for a little while, but too long and you just want to curl up and take a nap! Still, nothing wrong with an open mind, right?”
“You’ve never liked big forms like that, though,” said Naegi, and then hastily continued as her little monkey shoulders drooped. “I-It’s not like I would complain! I’m fine with anything. Absolutely anything. I’m just not sure it would really suit you.”
“As long as I’m still changing, you can’t say that,” Momoka replied. “There’s no way to tell what will suit me. There’s no way to tell what I’m really meant to be.” As if to prove the point, she swiftly downsized from marmoset to a gerbil and scrambled up his arm to perch on his shoulder.
Being unsettled had never particularly bothered her before. In elementary and middle school, as the daemons of Naegi’s friends and classmates started settling one by one, she’d been completely oblivious. When he’d turned thirteen, his father sat him down for an incredibly awkward conversation about what it meant to be a late-bloomer, but Momoka still insisted there was nothing wrong. Even when Komaru’s daemon settled, just a few days after her twelfth birthday, Momoka hadn’t taken it as a sign that maybe she should hurry things up a little.
It had gotten to the point where Naegi barely thought about it. Having an unsettled daemon at fifteen might be abnormal (probably the only thing about either of them that could be called abnormal), but it was all he knew, and perfectly normal to him. Besides, Momoka was a good daemon. Maybe she was a little timid, and maybe her attention span was a little short, but she almost never grumbled or nagged or picked fights with other daemons.
When the letter from Hope’s Peak Academy arrived, something had changed. Momoka had insisted he accept the invitation, batting aside all his half-hearted doubts and excuses. In exchange, she’d promised to finally choose a form before they started classes. But the days had passed quickly, and they’d found out that even if she wanted to settle, it wasn’t quite as easy as just wanting it to happen. Now Naegi’s last minute investigation of his classmates had brought the matter to a head.
You could tell just by looking at their daemons that the students of Hope’s Peak were a breed apart from ordinary people. Sayaka Maizono’s swan was even more impressive than Naegi remembered. When the ribbon-bedecked bird posed behind her with his wings spread, she looked just like an angel. Junko Enoshima, on the other hand, might give off an impression that was a little less than pure, but her snow-white peacock was just as beautiful.
Where no images existed, rumors and wild speculation flew on the message boards.
Oowada’s got a snake. A genuine Burmese python. This one time, one of his gang stepped out of line, and she wrapped herself around the guy’s motorcycle—crushed it into nothing but scrap metal.
Chi-tan’s daemon? It’s a secret~ Only the lucky few have ever gotten a peek~ I have insider info, but I’ll take it to my grave. Two words: MOE INCARNATE.
Sakura Oogami is not the strongest human alive. She’s not even human at all. She has no daemon. Here’s a message to any Hope’s Peak Academy students who might be reading this: if you value your life, stay away from this girl.
It was a lot to take in. Naegi was pretty keenly aware of all the ways he didn’t quite measure up to these Super High-School Levels, so he understood Momoka’s anxiety. But still…he hated to see her upset about anything.
“There’s no more time, anyway,” he said. “We might as well forget all about it and try to relax.”
“There is so still time,” said Momoka. “I have ten whole hours.”
“But you’ve been trying for weeks.” Naegi winced as soon as he said it. Momoka hopped off his shoulder to the floor, softening her landing with a flutter of wings. Then she was a tiny, bushy-tailed white dog, not too unlike the dog he’d had when he was younger. Momoka had a keen sense for what forms would get her the most sympathy.
“You don’t think I can do it,” she whimpered, and buried her face in her paws. “And maybe you’re right. What if I’m broken somehow?”
“Of course you can do it!” Naegi protested. “There’s nothing wrong with you! When the time is right—“
“But what if the right time never comes?”
“You remember what Dad said. That’s impossible.” Naegi’s father, several doctors, and the reputable side of the internet were in agreement. All daemons eventually settled, whether it was at twelve, sixteen, or even twenty.
“I just don’t want you to be an outcast because of me,” Momoka blurted. “They’ll look at you like you’re an unreliable little kid. I’m supposed to be the one who protects you, and I’m going to end up holding you back instead.”
“There’s no way you could ever hold me back!” said Naegi. “It’s the opposite. I rely on you! I mean, if you hadn’t encouraged me, I probably would have chickened out and stayed at my old school.”
“So…you don’t secretly wish you had a daemon like those ones on the internet? You can be honest.” She raised her head from her paws, squinting at him doubtfully.
“Never,” said Naegi. He was being honest. What would he even do with a lion or a peacock or a motorcycle-crushing python? “I mean, even if—and this is just an example, I’m not saying it’s possible—even if you never settled, you’d still be my daemon. Neither of us can go back and get a refund.” His weak attempt at a joke only made things worse. Momoka was quivering now.
“I guess I just…don’t want things to change for real,” Momoka said quietly. “This school is going to be different from any place we’ve ever been to before. Of course we’ll be able to make it…we’ll both be able to make it…but I don’t want the way you look at me to change.”
“Momoka, I promise nothing’s going to change,” said Naegi, matching her tone for seriousness. “Nothing that matters. I don’t care what shape you take or what school I go to. We’re always going to be in this together.”
“Makoto…” Momoka’s quivering steadily increased in intensity, until she leapt to her feet and hurled herself at him like a little white cannonball. He scrambled to get his arms out in time to catch her, and by the time he’d gotten her settled in his lap, she was a loudly purring housecat. Naegi let her sit like that, and didn’t even complain about the way her claws were digging into his legs.
“Feeling any better?” he asked her after a while.
“Yeah,” she said. “I was just being silly.”
“You kind of were,” said Naegi. He hoped she hadn’t actually doubt him that deeply, and just wanted some extra reassurance. It was hard for Naegi to even wrap his mind around the concept of wanting a different daemon. Momoka was a part of him. Fantasizing about having a different daemon would be like fantasizing about chopping off a limb.
At least reassuring her had also helped distract him a little from his own worries. They were in this together—he’d needed that reminder, too. Naegi took one last look at the Hope’s Peak thread and found no new posts of interest.
“We should probably go to sleep early tonight,” he said, and Momoka’s wordless agreement tapered off into a yawn. After he’d gotten ready, he had to haul her limp, still-purring body to the bed, where she curled up by his head as a little red squirrel. Before he fell asleep, she murmured in his ear, half-asleep herself.
“Who knows? Tonight could still be the night. Don’t be too shocked if I’m settled in the morning!”
Naegi didn’t say anything, but he kind of doubted it. The scientific explanation of settling was something immensely complicated involving puberty hormones and trace elements in the atmosphere, but there was more to it than that. Momoka might be scared of staying unsettled forever…but she was even more scared of making the wrong choice, and somehow ruining what they already have. She wasn’t ready to move on.
To be perfectly honest, Naegi didn’t mind putting off growing up just a little longer either.
So in the morning, when Momoka hopped off the pillow as a squirrel and landed on the floor as a lizard, Naegi just raised an eyebrow and said,
“I was going to veto squirrel anyway. If I end up with the same daemon as Komaru after all this time, I’m never going to hear the end of it.”
“Oh, you just wait,” Momoka replied, pouting as well as a lizard could pout. “There’s still time. It could happen any moment now.”
She kept up that refrain on the train and through the streets, all the way up to the entrance hall of Hope’s Peak Academy. In her excitement, she shifted her forms even more quickly than usual, from bee to bat to mouse to a hummingbird, until she began to change into something entirely unreal, a jewel-bright spiral of fur and feathers and scales, and Naegi’s world went dark.
---
Naegi’s first thought, as he blearily raised his head from the hard desk, was for his daemon. She wasn’t there. Losing her was as impossible as his ears wandering away from his head without his knowledge; awake or asleep, even in his dreams, he always knew exactly where she was.
And yet, she was gone.
“Momoka!” Naegi called. He jolted back in his chair and wildly scanned the unfamiliar classroom. She had to be nearby. He wasn’t in any pain—if they’d been separated, if she’d been hurt, he would have felt it from the inside out.
“Here,” came a groggy voice from beneath the desk. “Urgh. I’m numb all over.” Momoka was right below him, and all was well; Naegi was reoriented so suddenly that it made his head spin. He ducked his head and looked at her, fixing the image in his mind.
She was in a form he’d never seen before: a smallish dog with curly brown fur. She was sprawled on her back, legs wildly askew, and there was a sizable puddle of drool on the floor by her head. Just how long had the two of them been asleep?
Naegi couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t quite right. Aside from the few terrifying seconds that he’d lost her, Momoka’s form was strange. The last thing he remembered was her as a hummingbird, buzzing a frantic halo around his head in the Hope’s Peak entrance hall. When exactly had she changed? Why this new dog, and not one of her usual favorites?
He’d have to write it off as a daemon quirk, because he had more important things to worry about.
“Momoka, c’mon. Can you get up on your own?” She twitched in response to his voice, and after a bit of wriggling and flailing, managed to get herself rightside-up again. Crawling out from beneath the desk, she stared at the classroom with bleary brown eyes.
“…Where are we?” she asked, looking up Naegi like he held all the answers.
“I think I fainted,” said Naegi, wracking his brain for any explanation. “Maybe somebody carried us here?” That didn’t explain the iron plates where the windows should be, or the crayon “pamphlet” he found on the desk, but…there was no explaining that.
“It’s past 8 already,” Naegi continued, glancing at the clock. “Since it’s past the meeting time, let’s see if we can find our way back to—Momoka? Momoka!” She was trying to stand, but it clearly took effort, and her legs wobbled dangerously beneath her. Every movement slow and careful, she turned in a circle craning her neck to get a good look at herself—and then all four legs collapsed beneath her.
“Ow,” she said, baffled, and didn’t try to get up again. Naegi went to her, of course, and crouched by her side. “Ah, I’m okay. I just need a second.”
“You’re not hurt?’ Naegi asked. He stroked her back tentatively, searching for injuries like he would on an animal. It was nonsensical; if she’d gotten so much as a scrape, he would be able to feel it. And he wasn’t at all dizzy, just a little tired out…so why was she stumbling around like she was drunk?
“No. It doesn’t hurt, exactly. I’m just…I’m too heavy.” Normally, he would want to laugh, but Momoka was avoiding his eyes. Was she hiding something? Why? She was his daemon, and they were alone together.
“It’ll going to be okay,” Naegi said. He couldn’t think of how to reassure her when he didn’t even know what was wrong. “I’ll get you out of here. Come on, ride with me.” He waited for her to change into something a little more portable. She could curl up in his hood as a mouse or a squirrel and rest, while he tried to figure out what was going on, or at least find someone else who could explain things.
“I can’t do it,” said Momoka quietly.
“Or we can stay here,” said Naegi, his panic building. “But you have to tell me what’s going on. Momoka, please--”
“I’m…stuck.”
“I don’t—“
“I’m stuck in this body!” she barked. “Makoto, I can’t change!”
”You’re stuck…as a dog?” Naegi repeated, still not sure he had understood. Momoka said nothing, but braced herself and managed to stand again. She was a little less wobbly now, but her tail and head were both drooping.
“Momoka,” said Naegi. When the realization hit, it was like the breath was being squeezed out of him, and he sat down hard on the floor. “If you can’t change…if you’re stuck…that means you’ve settled. You just settled!”
“I guess I must have,” she said, without conviction. Naegi stared at her. He was still worried about her, but he couldn’t help but catalogue every detail of her new form.
A dog. She was a dog. A poodle, or something along those lines. Her fur was apricot-color and messy, her legs lanky, with small, delicate paws. Was this really the shape she would have for the rest of their lives? It was hard to wrap his mind around it.
“You kept your promise,” said Naegi. “Well, you were close enough. This is great.” It wasn’t great at all. Those were just empty words, what he thought he was supposed to be saying and feeling. Of course he wasn’t disappointed in Momoka, or in the shape she’d taken, but he’d expected so much more. Settling was supposed to be a great shared moment of revelation, when you and your daemon finally found out who you were and where you belonged. At the very least, you shouldn’t be able to miss the moment entirely.
Was Naegi just naïve? Had he built settling up into something it wasn’t, after waiting for it all these years? Or was he the problem, somehow?
“I’m sorry, Makoto,” said Momoka. “I’m sorry. I tried so hard, and I still messed it up somehow.”
“What are you apologizing for? You haven’t done anything wrong.”
“It’s more like…something I didn’t do.” She shook her head, ears flapping, and even snapped at the air in frustration. “Something important!”
“Maybe this is what happened,” Naegi suggested. “When you settled, it was such a shock that I fainted! That’s why we’re both so out of sorts. It makes sense, right?”
“None of this makes sense,” Momoka murmured.
“Well, whatever happened, it’s finally over with,” said Naegi. “We never have to worry about it again.” He had a feeling as he spoke that this was something that couldn’t be fixed with words. It was like they had both blinked for a single vital instant, and now there was no getting that instant back without a time machine.
So what was the use of dwelling on it?
“I guess…that is the best way to look at it,” said Momoka. “Are you all right with it? With this form, I mean. You don’t think I’m too plain, do you?” It was something of a change of subject, and one that he Naegi seized on eagerly. If she was asking him what he thought, it meant she was accepting her settled form; for a few seconds there, he’d been worried that she wouldn’t.
“Believe me, you’re perfect,” he said, without a second’s hesitation. “Look, I can even still carry you!”
“I can walk by myself!” Momoka yelped as he wrapped his arms around her and lifted her into the air. Naegi wondered if it was his imagination, or if she really did have more weight to her now…as if she’d become more solid. At any rate, she squirmed with surprising strength, her blunt claws scrabbling at his shoulder until he set her back on the floor.
“You’re perfect,” Naegi repeated, noticing her staring down at her own paws.
If he said it enough times, he might be able to make her believe it.
They left the classroom and navigated the dim, windowless halls that were nothing like those Naegi had imagined. Momoka trotted close at his heels. When they found the entrance hall again, now filled with strange faces (and stranger daemons), she pressed even closer, concealing herself behind his legs so that just her head peeked out. Although she usually wasn’t quite so shy, she still wasn’t entirely back to normal…and this was a pretty intimidating bunch.
If Naegi could have gotten away with hiding like Momoka, he might have. Seeing a lioness daemon in a photograph was one thing. Having one glaring at you from only a few meters away was downright chilling. He tried to avoid her eyes, but in the process caught the cold yellow gaze of a wolf. He should probably trying focusing on his classmates’ faces.
“Um, nice to meet you,” he said. “My name is Naegi Makoto. I don't know what happened, exactly, but somehow I fell asleep and now I'm late...” He guessed from the eruption of uneasy whispering between daemons and their humans that he wasn’t about to get any easy explanations here.
One daemon broke away from the pack. She was a slender, weasel-like creature with pale fur that stood straight on end. It was only when she stood on her hind legs, the better to peer straight at Momoka with red eyes as sharp as her voice, that Naegi recognized her as a meerkat.
“You there! Could we have your name as well, please? Come out and let us see you. You are aware that it is most proper and expedient to introduce yourself alongside your human?”
Momoka slowly emerged from behind Naegi’s legs. There was no reason to apply formal etiquette and put her on the spot, but as much as Naegi wanted to interfere, he had to let her handle it herself.
“My--my name’s Momoka,” she said in a small voice. There was a low murmur of acknowledgment from the assembled daemons, or at least from most of them, and that seemed to bolster her courage.
“Excellent!” The meerkat dropped back down to all four feet. “And I am Ishimaru’s Ritsuki! I will provide you with a word of advice, Momoka-kun! You must not be afraid to be bold! A man is nothing but a ship lost at sea without a watchful daemon to keep him on a steady course! Is it not so?”
“It is so!” A boy in a white uniform, presumably Ishimaru-kun, gave the meerkat a satisfied nod. “But more importantly, you have kept us waiting, Naegi-kun! Being late on the first day of school is outrageous! I will report this to the school officials and ask for appropriate punishment--”
“What the hell are you saying? It’s not like he had a choice, you know,” said a blonde-haired girl, and her wolf daemon shifted in place, baring the slightest sliver of his teeth. Luckily, Ishimaru-kun’s daemon took no notice, and the topic turned to introductions. Naegi was going to be able to see what his Super High-School Level classmates were actually like when compared to the scattered information he’d gotten from the web.
Ishimaru-kun was the first to introduce himself in earnest, and as tiresome as he was, something that he said stuck with Naegi.
“If I may say so, you have a magnificent daemon. A dog, I think, is the finest daemon out of them all. It symbolizes a truly honest and dedicated character. But of course, you must not grow complacent, either. You must be constantly vigilant, and prove yourself worthy of the daemon at your side!”
Naegi’s first instinct was to correct Ishimaru-kun’s misunderstanding, before he remembered that Momoka was settled. From now on, her form would be part of everyone’s first impression of him….for better or for worse, since he certainly didn’t feel any more honest or dedicated than he’d been an hour ago. It made him hyper-aware of the other students’ daemons in a way he might not have been otherwise.
--
Some of the daemons were exactly in line with Naegi's expectations.
Byakuya Togami’s lioness refused to acknowledge Momoka’s existence. She sprawled across the floor of the entrance hall as if it were her own personal domain, and when Momoka made a tentative greeting, she just gave a long, luxurious yawn that just happened to show off her canine teeth to full effect. This was the queen of beasts, daemon of an heir to millions, the elite of the elite; it was expected that she wouldn’t want to mingle with a commoner’s daemon.
He just hoped Momoka hadn’t gotten her feelings hurt too badly.
Maizono Sayaka’s swan daemon also suited her well. Until now, Naegi hadn’t been able to observe her daemon up close, and he was struck by just how big the daemon was. Still, he kindly bent his neck downwards so that he could speak to Momoka at her level.
Naegi felt as if his attention was being torn between the daemon and the girl. If Maizono-san looked like a doll, her daemon was like some kind of figurine, too white and elegant to real. No sooner had the thought passed through Naegi’s mind then Maizono-san spoke.
“I'm not a doll.”
“And I’m not made of glass,” her daemon added, and Momoka let out a yip of surprise. She’d probably been thinking the exact same thing as Naegi.
“We’re both very much alive!” finished Maizono-san. She and her daemon exchanged only the briefest of glances, but something certainly passed between them. Were they one of those rare pairs so in tune with each other that they no longer needed words? When Maizono-san joked that she could read minds, Naegi could almost believe it.
---
Two of the daemons served as living proof not to believe everything he read on the internet.
Mondo Oowada’s introduction was short and to the point. His daemon wasn’t obvious until he crouched and held out his arm. A brown, scaly head poked out of his sleeve, before rest of a dappled snake daemon followed, pouring fluidly out onto the floor.
“Lucia,” she said to Momoka, who was too astonished to speak. “Good to meet you.” Then she retreated back into Oowada-kun’s sleeve and he stood once again, leaving a noticeable bulge where she coiled around his arm. Naegi would have thought the boss of a biker gang would have a showy, threatening daemon…but he didn’t actually know that much about it. Maybe Oowada-kun had risen as high as he had because he knew how to protect his daemon.
In any case, although she was pretty sizeable, Naegi doubted Oowada-kun’s daemon could crush an entire motorcycle in her coils. That was a relief, although not much of one. Oowada-kun was probably dangerous enough all on his own.
Even after that encounter, Naegi still had a moment of doubt when he encountered Sakura Oogami. The things he’d read online were absolutely ridiculous. He’d thought it was an obvious joke: She has no daemon. Now that he was actually in front of her, it suddenly seemed a lot less like a joke. And unlike Oowada-kun, Naegi didn’t see anywhere she could hide a daemon in her clothing. Asking her something along the lines of, “Excuse me, you are actually human, right?” seemed like a good way to get himself turned into mincemeat.
But once Oogami-san had made her introduction, a tiny black thing leapt all the way from her ear to the flor in a single arc. Naegi squinted it—not it, he. Oogami-san’s daemon, a tiny black cricket, had landed right in front of Momoka’s paws. The cricket said something too quiet for Naegi to hear, but Momoka seemed to catch it.
Then the he twitched, lowering his front half in what was unmistakably a tiny bow, before hopping a good half-meter into Oogami-san’s outstretched palm.
--
A few of the daemons were surprisingly typical—relatively speaking.
Naegi had seen Leon Kuwata’s daemon in the photos of her human online. Foxes weren’t all that uncommon as far as daemons went, but in the pictures…well, she looked half-mad, frothing at the mouth with determination to win. In reality, much like Kuwata-kun, she was hardly recognizable as the same daemon. Although she was constantly darting around underfoot, there was nothing feral about the grinning little vixen, who chatted happily with Momoka…even if the conversation was a one-sided one.
“No one really gets how rough it is to be a sportsman’s daemon, y’know? You work like a dog—no offense or anything—just to keep up with your human, and what do you get for it? None of the fame or the glory! These paws were made for the stage, not for scrabbling around in the dirt.”
Aoi Asahina’s daemon was nothing all that strange, either. He was a dappled green frog, only a few inches long, who sat atop her head and seemed to be in a perpetual state of wide-eyed surprise. Asahina-san had no qualms about scooping him up and holding him to her ear while they exchanged poorly-muffled whispers.
“Hey, what’s this guy’s name again?”
“Has he even introduced himself? Don’t get ahead of yourself.”
“He definitely has. It starts with M, I think.”
“That’s his daemon. She said her name was…Maraca?”
“No way! What kind of name is that for a daemon?”
“A trendy one. Trendy names are big these days, Aoi. It’s not my fault if I can’t remember them all! My head is a lot smaller than yours!”
After both names were straightened out, Asahina-san also obligingly lowered her daemon to the floor so that he could greet Momoka. Whatever their memory problems, both of them seemed friendly enough.
Celestia Ludenberg’s daemon was one of the most shocking, in that it was the most typical of typical. A petite brown tabby cat sat beside her, his tail curled neatly around his paws, a lace-edged black ribbon tied in a bow around his neck; he murmured a polite greeting to Momoka and inclined his head, but remained close to his human.
Celes-san’s ruthless reputation preceded her, and Naegi could sense that she wasn’t one to underestimate. But her daemon was…actually, he was kind of cute. To Naegi’s chagrin, Celes-san caught him staring, but she just gave a bell-like laugh.
“There is no need to be embarrassed. You may look all you like. It is not every day that one encounters a Malifaux, after all.”
“I’m sorry, a what?” Naegi asked.
“You do not know the breed? My.” Celes-san seemed shocked to hear it. “The Marlifaux were once the prized pets of the French nobility. But the brutality of the Revolution did not spare even innocent beasts. Their bloodline was sadly extinguished to the very last.”
“Uh, I see,” said Naegi, glancing down at her daemon again. He didn’t seem all that different from all the housecats Naegi had seen in his life, but then again, all cats looked the same to him.
“I do not know what strange whim led my Sebastian to settle as a breed that is…no longer with us, but he matches the descriptions found in books from the period. To the letter.” Her smile was soft, but the look in her eyes was very pointed.
“That’s…really amazing,” said Naegi.
“Oh, do you think so?” Celes-san beamed, and Naegi escaped while he could, deciding that asking had probably been a mistake.
---
A few of the daemons were a little off the wall…but no more than their humans.
Hifumi Yamada took it upon himself to introduce his daemon once he’d finished his own self-introduction.
“This is Bibiko,” he said. “My lovely assistant, my partner in crime, my Sun WuKong. You can call her however you like, of course. Bibi-tan, Bibi-rin, Bibi-bi…feel free to be creative. Neither of us mind.” How exactly Bibiko felt about that was hard to tell. She was a small, restless, white-furred monkey, who clung to the straps of Yamada-kun’s backpack and squinted at both Naegi and Momoka with suspicion. Or was it suspicion? Unlike Asahina-san’s daemon, her voice was too low to be heard when she whispered in Yamada-kun’s ear, which she did near constantly.
“I believe in giving credit where credit is due,” Yamada-kun continued. “When you get a chance to look at my work, Naegi-dono, I hope you’ll understand how much of my success I owe to Bibiko. She’s an endless font of ideas—though if she always had her way, I’d have to expand my genre range a good bit, fufu! I may consider myself a pioneer, but even I have my limits.”
Naegi didn’t have the faintest clue what Yamada-kun was talking about. He decided he didn’t particularly want to know.
Yasuhiro Hagakure’s daemon was the opposite of restless. Even though it should have been impossible for her to be asleep while her human was awake, when Naegi first walked up to the two of them, she was doing a very good impression of a thick brown fur rug. When Momoka said hello, Hagakure-kun gave her a surreptitious nudge with his foot. The daemon lifted her dark, pointed face from the floor and sat back on her hind legs, blinking in confusion. A tanuki. Weren’t people with tanuki daemons supposed to be sharp-witted? Maybe that was an unfair thought.
“What’s that you’ve got?” Momoka asked, leaning forward curiously. Only then did Naegi notice that the tanuki had something small and silvery clutched between both paws. It looked like a button…or maybe a school pin.
“Well, it was just lying there on the floor, ‘right?” Hagakure’s daemon said blearily. “No way to know who it belonged to. Finders get to be keepers. That’s what Yasuhiro always says.”
“Ah, don’t listen to her,” said Hagakure-kun, rather hurriedly. “She has the wildest dreams, ‘right? She hears things, and she has these visions. Only, they don’t ever come true. Whatever she says, it’s definitely not true! Funny how that works, ‘right?”
“I thought daemons always told the truth,” said Naegi.
“Well, lying’s actually kind of…a nebulous concept, ‘right? What’s’ true’ and what’s ‘not true’ is all kind of a matter of perspective…’right?” Hagakure-kun glanced at his daemon, as if looking for support, but she’d planted her face against the floor again, and this time even another nudge failed to rouse her. Hagakure-kun shrugged as if to say ‘what can you do?” and gave a forced laugh.
Naegi checked to make sure his own pin was still firmly attached to his jacket before he moved away.
--
Two of the daemons were hard to get much of a read on at all.
Chihiro Fujisaki carried a small brown bag, and kept fiddling with it throughout her introduction. Judging from the holes poked in it, it wasn’t just a purse; her daemon was inside. Maybe it was unusual, but Naegi wasn’t going to hold it against her if she wanted to keep her daemon hidden from view. Some daemons were just that shy.
Naegi assumed Fujisaki-san’s uncomfortable glances at Momoka were just expressions of embarrassment and self-consciousness, but what she said surprised him.
“I’m probably just imagining things, but have we met somewhere before? Your daemon…seems familiar, somehow.”
“Nope. We’ve never seen each other until now.” Normally, Naegi might have wondered; it wasn’t completely impossible. But since Momoka had settled less than an hour ago, Fujisaki-san had to be mistaken. She seemed a bit upset, so Naegi did his best to reassure Fujisaki-san that he wasn’t at all angry, and that was when the slip occurred. Fujisaki-san was so focused on Naegi that she stopped minding her bag for a few moments. There was a rustling sound from within, and then top flap came undone. All Naegi caught was the briefest flash, an impression of huge black eyes on a tiny pale head, before Fujisaki-san let out a squeak of dismay and hurriedly refastened the flap.
Poor Fujisaki-san. So this was why her internet fans were treating information on her daemon like it was precious currency. Naegi couldn’t say he didn’t understand their curiosity. And even though he couldn’t be sure…it almost seemed like her daemon had been trying to poke his head out of the bag.
Kyouko Kirigiri, on the other hand, did nothing to hide her daemon, but the pair of them were just as inscrutable as they would have been if she kept him in a case. He was a thin, lengthy black lizard stretched across her shoulders, clinging tightly with sharp, spindly claws. Occasionally, his tongue flicked out to taste the air, but he was otherwise motionless. He didn’t speak, even to Kirigiri-san, and for her turn, she acted as if the tail curled around her throat was of as much concern as a necklace.
He was a hard daemon to look at for long, but one thing about him did catch Naegi’s eyes. Two long, pale grooves in his scales ran down both of his sides. At first Naegi had thought they were stripes, but he wondered if they might actually be scars. Naegi had never seen a scarred daemon before, so maybe he was just mistaken. Either way, neither Kirigiri-san nor her daemon were about to give up any clues, and the longer Naegi stood there, more icy they seemed to become.
---
The final two daemons were complete and utter contradictions.
It really wasn’t right to judge a person just by what their daemon looked like, or to say that they were mismatched. But still…when Naegi had read about Touko Fukawa’s literary exploits, he’d imagined a princess type with a tiny, cute daemon. The reality was, well…
Fukawa-san held a simple cloth sling in the crook of one elbow. Wrapped in the sling was a daemon that looked like a picture-book monster. Kirigiri-san’s daemon was a bit intimidating, but this one was downright frightful. He was a massive turtle with a spiny black shell and a fierce beak. He said nothing and cast both Naegi and Momoka a baleful look…or maybe that was just his natural expression? Maybe he was actually friendly?
Or maybe not. When Momoka tried to creep towards him, he closed his beak with a loud crack, and she hastily scrambled back behind Naegi’s legs.
“I know what you're thinking... I know what you're dying to say...” Fukawa-san muttered. “You're thinking how you've never seen such a freak in your life, aren't you...? Laughing behind my back...?”
“N-no... I wouldn’t...” Naegi hastily tore his gaze away, but he was too late.
“It's no use trying to trick me! I-it's the truth. If it wasn't... you wouldn't have any reason to look at my daemon, would you?”
Naegi tried to protest, to no avail. As it turned out, Fukawa-san had quite the persecution complex. Maybe it all came down to imaginative power. They said that those with big imaginations tended to have very unusual daemons. If that was the case…Fukawa-san’s imagination was off in another realm entirely to have produced that creature.
As for Junko Enoshima’s daemon…Naegi hadn’t noticed the contradiction at first. But after her introduction, he gave her daemon another look, and then another, wondering if he was losing his mind. Her daemon was a wolf. There was no mistaking it. Naegi had known the instant he saw the daemon that he wasn’t just a big black dog; those weren’t a dog’s eyes. But, much more important than the distinction between a dog and a wolf was…
“You, uh…give off a different impression in real life,” Naegi said, trying to cover up for his awkward silence. He remembered seeing Enoshima-san’s cover shots. Her daemon had been a bird…a white peacock! There was no way he was misremembering. Was Enoshima-san…she couldn’t be unsettled, could she?
“You’re talking about my daemon, right?” Enoshima-san rolled her eyes, and the wolf laid back his ears. He’d said nothing so far, and Momoka didn’t even try to talk to him. Naegi didn’t blame her. Although he was sitting calmly beside Enoshima-san, there was something hard and unapproachable about this particular daemon. And maybe it was natural for a dog to be a bit wary of a wolf.
“Haven’t you ever heard of a stand-in?” Enoshima-san continued. “What, did you think every model has to use her own daemon? That they all just happened to settle as kitties and birdies and cute little bunnies? I mean, it makes live appearances a pain in the ass, but there’s no way I could’ve made it this far with the daemon I was born with.”
“Well, I did…kind of think…” Naegi trailed off feebly, and tried not to look at Maizono-san. Her daemon, at least, was real. But he still felt as if his dreams had been shattered, somehow.
“It’s the way it’s done these days,” said Enoshima-san, sounding a little miffed. “Of course, for an idol, it’s a whole different ball game. But not everyone gets held to that standard, and thank goodness. It’s about the fashion, not the state of my soul.”
“Well, it’s not like there’s anything wrong with him,” Naegi said. “I think your daemon looks fine. Even for a fashion magazine.”
“Makoto!” Momoka yelped, forgetting herself, and Naegi belatedly realized what that must have sounded like. He just kept putting his foot in his mouth today, it seemed.
“Are you serious?” Enoshima-san let out a strangled cackle of laughter. “Oh, wait, I get it—you work awfully fast, don’t you? You know, I may not look like it, but I actually take my chastity very seriously. And more to the point, so does he. You might want to keep that in mind.” Her tone made it sound like she was joking…but her daemon shifted in place, ever so slightly, and Naegi decided that she was actually quite serious. He made sure that Momoka was keeping a respectful distance, but she didn’t need any kind of reminder, and was giving him a reproachful look.
“I don’t think either of them are that bad,” Momoka said to him, once Enoshima-san was out of earshot. “Just kind of blunt.” Naegi nodded in agreement. She probably had to deal with way too much attention from men…an intimidating daemon and a sharp attitude would be useful weapons in her arsenal.
He really hadn’t meant it like that.
--
As expected from Super High-school Level students, all that they really had in common was their title. Naegi could try to compare them, but they were all very…individualistic. Adding their daemons into the mix, and they were even harder to figure out.
Of course, at that point in time, it still hadn’t yet begun. Naegi was still thinking in terms of a normal school life. It hadn’t sunk in yet just what sort of situation they were in.
The stuffed toy that moved and spoke on its own, and called itself “the headmaster’s daemon” hadn’t yet appeared.