Chapter Text
Having dual citizenship, Kanny had explained to Jumpy, meant that 2026's Christmas could start at 16:48 on the 24th—it was the next day in Japan, after all, even though she was stuck in a hotel room on the American west coast.
Even better, the identity-based reasoning she used (she argued that there was Japanese soil wherever she set foot; she could see the exact moment a ‘dirt-y’ pun had crossed Jumpy’s mind, and the exact moment he chose not to relay it—she applauded his restraint) had segued into the identity and existence of Santa Claus (commercialization kept Him in public consciousness, which in turn fueled belief in Him, especially in younger audiences, which made it profitable to target them using His image, ad infinitum, which made Him a mainstay concept with physical vessels in the form of Mall Santas), which itself had segued perfectly into Santa visiting her personally!
…Well. ‘Perfectly’ as in nearly an hour after the discussion had ended.
But it was a perfect segue! It was! Kanny organically brought up a topic, which was the last thing verbalized before a related event occurred!
Her mind cruelly pointed to her dry throat as a reason—which she refused to acknowledge because her legs were too weak to help her quench her thirst. At least Jumpy was kind enough to let the silence sit, let her have the last word.
Which meant it was still a valid segue~!
There was a beep and a clunk of a disengaged door lock—the suite didn’t have a chimney, but Kanny thought Santa would have at least used the balcony—then a set of footsteps that stopped right outside her bedroom—lighter than she expected and unaccompanied by jingle bells, the better to sneak through a hotel in the early evening, she supposed—followed by six quick raps on the bedroom door—ah.
“Aka?” Whoops, wrong Santa.
“Ao~!” (Right Santa. Better Santa. Her Santa.)
The call was for both of their benefits, really. It used to be mostly for her, to let her know that Aoi was approaching, because Kanny used to react harshly to new stimulus being introduced to her environment. And even when that reaction would be more harmful to her brother than herself, she would still hurt herself. But it soon began to serve a second purpose! Kanny's response, that Christmas that was Christmas Eve, came out raspy and weak on account of the dehydration, naturally, but that's something Aoi was used to hearing from her. But he wasn't always used to it, and it would shock him into panicked action every time he saw it.
Which made an amount of sense. It was hard to explain her dehydration and weakness and profuse sweating in a room with an open window leading to falling snow.
Where before her brother would rush around trying desperately to find a way to fix his broken sister, Aoi instead calmly paced over to her minifridge—placed in vain directly next to her bed specifically for this kind of situation—grabbed her water bottle, gave it to her to clutch close to her chest, and scooped both her and Jumpy in a bridal carry to take into the suite's central room.
Hm?
"It would be a living—" Kanny choked on her dry throat, prompting Aoi to tap the bottom of the bottle to prompt her to drink as he plopped her on the couch, pacing off to change her sweat-soaked sheets. She gasped as she took her lips off the spout, and while she really wanted to take another sip, and then another and another until the water was transposed from the bottle to her tummy, it would be rude to keep Jumpy in suspense. "It would be a living room in a normal house or apartment, but I don't know if it counts when it's a hotel room. 'Cause it's already a room, silly! It's in the name! You don't put a room inside a room~!"
Jumpy regaled her with every situation in which one would, in fact, want a room inside of another room, but unfortunately most of his situations created passageways to rooms that branched off and away to other parts of the living area, whih defeated the purpose of his argument. It was pretty funny watching him realize this in the middle of his point and then try to backtrack and refute the point he had just made, and she was having a hard time not laughing at him, because there was still water in her throat.
At some point, Aoi came back with a washcloth in hand and wiped away the sweat now drying on her face and under her chin and neck. Later that night, he would insist on helping her bathe, afraid for her safety, and she would get embarrassed and demand otherwise, and he would force her into a compromise of a cold cloth wash, which sucked, but probably sucked less than passing out due to trauma-induced heat stroke in the bath tub.
But that argument would come later. Aoi brought her another water bottle, which she didn't need because she was still working on—ah, there was the sound of a straw sucking up the last little droplets in a container, her brother was so perceptive! He took the empty bottle to the sink to rinse out and fill again and return to the fridge to chill before joining her on the couch, TV remote in hand.
Click!
A shopping channel displaying products that were neither needed nor wanted.
Click!
A highlight reel for a sports she didn't follow featuring teams he didn't bet on.
Click!
A movie featuring actors that didn't excite him, the outcome of which she could easily predict.
Click!
A colorful cartoon with a good amount of quality that he seemed to show interest in, but switched away from anyway after she flinched at some of the more action-packed sequences.
Click!
A news report about a murder victim whose body was left in a condition similar to others found earlier in the year in other areas, with still no similarities found either physically or historically.
Click—
"Go back."
You ignored Aoi startling at your tone and rearranged yourself to sit up in the seat putting your Jumpydoll on the coffee table beside you. Feet planted on the floor and elbows digging into the meat of your thighs just above your kneecaps, you slipped the nozzle of your water bottle between your teeth and stared intently at the television.
That the victims had nothing in common, combined with the desire to keep panic down to a reasonable level, had been what kept police from definitively declaring what was being reported now: there was a serial killer active in the southwest United States. While the one being covered in this news report was found in Henderson in Nevada, not too far southeast of Las Vegas, the first two reported victims had been found in Roseville and Sacramento of California, and at least two others found in Arizona.
Despite the dissimilarity of the victims, it was declared that they were all victims of the same killer, newly given the title of Heart Ripper due to the gruesome nature they left their victims' bodies in. Gaping wounds in their chest—sometimes cleanly cut into, but other times savagely ripped open—with rib cages pried apart but not broken, and blood trails to suggest that they had lived while the killer worked on them.
As implied by the name, every victim had their heart removed, reportedly with damage to the arteries consistent with the organ being manhandled and pulled free from the torso. And yet, not a single heart was actually missing, usually found somewhere near the victim it belonged to. It was as if the killer was searching for something, some quality that their internal logic had defined for them, and was disappointed by their findings upon actually examining the organ in question. What they were looking for was a mystery to the police, but it had remained consistent for all five victims.
But not the sixth.
When Sally Valentine was killed fifteen years prior, she had her heart removed and it was not found anywhere within the confines of the park where she was found. And it was never found, because the man they questioned for the murder had no idea where it was, because your father didn't murder her!
And now the person who got your father framed and executed for their crime was active once again. Had been active for ten months at this point.
And it went unreported because the police didn't want to cause a panic.
That was fine. You were on the case now. You had precious little to do after giving your brother all the information you had to offer for both the Second Nonary Game and his stock manipulations, which was used to acquire the capital necessary for the Second Nonary Game.
…Speaking of.
How necessary was, say, Kashiwabara-san, in the plan?
Would it be possible to replace her?
Kashiwabara's location, as a single mother still earnestly supporting two children transitioning into adulthood, was known. Her movements were and would remain the easiest to find and follow. Now, logic and caution would dictate that, because you have this information, you should use it and add Lotus to your plan. Logic dictated that it would be better to keep everything consistent with your visions of the future.
And Akane Kurashiki was nothing if not a creature of logic. Which is why you're sure that there was another Akane Kurashiki in another universe that yielded to that logical wisdom, that went with the plan that she saw in a vision of the future and worked with her brother to bring back to life.
And yet.
While it'd be better to keep everything consistent with your visions of the future, you were dead in that final vision. You were trying to fix that, but you could only assume that everything went exactly as planned, that Junpei made the correct choices to bring you back.
The reality remained that, at that moment in your vision, in every universe—and while there were countless, infinity was not a concept you or anyone could grasp, and thus you visualized it as an equation of every path that could be taken every nine hours between burning endlessly inside of the incinerator and finally, mercifully, being rescued by your hero, Junpei. And so, in every single one of a hundred and forty thousand, two hundred fifty-six permutations—you were dead.
Junpei would succeed, because you saw him succeed, because you were here, alive on the couch, looking at coverage of a serial killer.
In some universe, a version of you would choose to follow the plan that you made specifically to save yourself. You would choose Lotus. You would take Kashiwabara Hazuki. You would live.
It was the safest choice to make. The easiest.
You didn't make it.
Not this you, at least.
The walls of your box required Aoi as your floor, grounding you to reality, with Junpei as the foor that would open and reveal you as healthy to the world, unharmed by the vial of poison also placed within.
Seven—actually, now that you're thinking about it, you could take the chance to find out his real name! But… would discovering his name change the outcome at all? You're already considering changing one thing, maybe it'd be best not to risk it. Seven was necessary as an observer who previously saw your ashes but didn't have any influence within the morphogenetic field to contest your rewriting of reality.
Light, who had also witnessed your death but did have an amount of influence within the field, did not actually see such, and cound not reassert reality with his own version of events with his own sight. But he could reinforce your version of reality if the image was transmitted to him. And the only one who could transmit to him the definitive image of your return to life was Clover, who had never seen you in the first place.
Now, was it a good idea to put her in close proximity of a serial killer when management of her temper under pressure was so key in this plan of yours? No, but maybe a couple things could use a bit of adjustment, anyway.
Now, it was reasoned that Kashiwabara Hazuki would serve as the fourth side wall for your cat box as someone closely related to Nona, who you made friends with in that otherwise hellish nine hour period, to add a bit of resonance to the scenario without being able to influence the morphogenetic field. But didn't it make some amount of sense that you could replace that resonance with the person who ensured that you would be in a position to get grabbed and thrown into that fucking Game in the first place? Couldn't you, on your end, exert that much more effort into the morphogenetic field to resonate with yourself from the first Game?
What amount of resonance could Lotus offer anyway? She wasn't part of the experiement, wasn't present for the immediate aftermath, could neither afford to travel to Nevada for Ennea nor the coast where the rowboat beached for Nona.
Wouldn't it be better to not traumatize someone who's already gone through so much, and instead punish someone who deserved it?
You thought so, at least.
And so you explained all this to your dear brother, who didn't necessarily agree with your points but couldn't offer refutation, and thus agreed to help you with your search. And, when you eventually found them—found her, Valentine's killer, your father's killer, well.
It'd be his revenge too.
More than anything, more than the dual citizenship that your Jumpy accepted so easily, that broadcast at 16:48 was what made the 24th of December truly feel like Christmas.
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