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[It's late in the evening and the feed is giving a low level view across the lake. For a moment or two, it's totally still. Nothing is happening, as though the device were switched on by mistake.

Then, Satoru breaks the surface of the water, thrashing like he's drowning. It's a moment before he gets himself under control enough to drag himself out of the water, and even then, his movements are uncoordinated. He's visibly shaking with cold, as though it weren't a perfectly fine spring evening.]

Th-this is...

[He doesn't finish his statement, in part because his teeth are chattering too hard, and partly because it's obvious that he's back in Wonderland. He stares around himself for a moment before spotting the device, and when he grabs it, it shakes in his hands.]

Is K-k-kayo still h-here? She...she is, right?

[At least he's got it together enough to remember that, if he remembers this place, he probably wasn't gone for long.

He tries several times to get to his feet before he manages it. Then he starts to stumble toward the Mansion. He's probably suffering from hypothermia, he thinks, so getting inside and getting warmed up again is vital.]

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[He's quiet for a little while as he weighs what he wants to say versus what he should say.]

...I was already underwater at home.

[After saying that, though, he decides that she might not need to know that he's probably going to die. He switches subjects to something that won't be much easier to swallow--he still can't wrap his own mind around it--but that is more pertinent, he thinks.]

I know who the killer is.

[Kayo stares at him for a long moment, wondering for a moment if he actually is stupid. She frowns, but she doesn't look him in the eye.]

...Don't say those things together.

[She already suspects though, and the thought won't go away. Why was he underwater at home? Something must have happened that he isn't saying. For the moment she lets him get away with it too, because he has something else to say, and she needs to know. She finally looks at him, and she doesn't hide her worry very well.]

Who is it?

[Satoru's quiet for a second. He's not trying to draw out the tension or suspense. He just still has a little bit of a hard time wrapping his head around the truth.]

...Yashiro-sensei.

[Some part of her still expected her mother, or her mother's boyfriend, to be the culprit. Next would have been a total stranger. She doesn't know many adults.

She never in a thousand years would have expected their teacher.]

...No.

[It comes after a moment of shock, but it's instinctive. She trusts Satoru though, and knows he wouldn't lie about this. That...doesn't make it any easier to understand though.]

Why?

[Satoru shakes his head.]

I don't really... I don't know.

[He feels just as lost as she does. Yashiro might have admitted to his intentions, but he hadn't exactly given an explanation for them.]

He was going to kill Nakanishi Aya, from Izumi Elementary School. And he was supposed to kill Hiromi, too.

[Yashiro hadn't mentioned killing Hiromi, but that was what had happened in the future Satoru's from.]

He was... He helped save you from your mom. He went over there with Child Protective Services. I didn't think he'd...

[There's some measure of guilt in him for not having realized sooner. He was the adult, he was supposed to be able to figure these things out Never mind that there was almost no way he could have deduced this, as busy as he was just trying to keep Kayo, Aya, and Hiromi safe. He'd been totally blindsided by it.]

[That only makes the news harder to bear. She's still hiding in the bus at home, waiting for the right moment to make a move - for her mother to inevitably not call the police.

To know that Yashiro-sensei was instrumental in saving her, but that he was planning on killing both her and other children is just...devastating.]

Why would he do that? Why would he...

[It's hard to wrap her mind around the thought.]

...If he was going to kill me, why would he try to save me instead?

[He couldn't have had a change of heart. Not if Satoru still learned the truth about him.]

I think...by the time we got to that point, he'd lost the opportunity to kill you.

[The way Yashiro had talked, it sounded like it took a lot of planning, but that there was also a lot left up to chance. With Kayo in the bus instead of in her mother's shed, Yashiro had no opportunity to do anything to her.]

So...he probably helped me to throw suspicion off himself. Because you wouldn't suspect him if he helped you save me.

[She tries to keep her voice level, but this news is devastating. There aren't many trustworthy adults in her life - and apparently, there are even fewer than she thought there were.]

[There's still Mama Fujinuma? :(]

I think so...

[He frowns, feeling like this much be even worse for her than for him for precisely that reason.]

I'm sorry, Kayo.

[She's silent for a long moment, though she's never been one to blurt out her deeper thoughts without careful deliberation. It's terrible, but she suspects it's worse that she's imagining, worse than he's saying.

After a moment or so, very quietly she asks:]

Why were you underwater, Satoru?

[He's silent for a moment. Like before, he's not trying to leave her in suspense. But this is something else he's having difficulty getting his head around. And it frightens him, when it comes right down to it.]

...He tried to kill me.

[Maybe she won't ask how and he won't have to admit he's pretty sure he's going to be dead when he goes home again.]

[It's the answer she was expecting and she's glad he told her the truth, but her breath still hitches.

She doesn't ask for specific details. He was probably drowning, that much is clear from context. But the implications of that attempted murder are the thing that turns her stomach.]

...Because he couldn't kill me.

[Yashiro-sensei moved onto a new target. When he couldn't kill Kayo, he tried someone else. Satoru saved her, did something she thought was impossible, only to take her place.

She didn't want this.

It doesn't sink in that she's crying until the tears start hitting her cheeks, but as soon as they do the dam breaks.]

I'm-- I'm sorry.

[Satoru winces. He wishes she wouldn't think about it like that, even though Yashiro had outright told him that was the case--his death was going to keep everyone else in town safe.

He swallows, then moves forward and put his arms around Kayo. It's less awkward this time.]

[It's much less awkward than the first one, because Kayo doesn't fight it and doesn't startle. She hugs Satoru tight, as though he's going to drop dead on the spot if she lets go and openly sobs into his shoulder.]

Why does it have to be you? Why?!

[She knows he won't have an answer, but it slips out anyway.]

[He doesn't have any answer except the one she already knows. It's him because he didn't want it to be anyone else. Saying so won't help though, and he doesn't want it to sound like he wants to be dead. That is definitely not something he's ever wanted.]

...Maybe things will be okay.

[He doesn't think so, and despite his attempts otherwise, he doesn't sound very confident.]

You don't know that.

[Obviously not, but the uncertainty is hard to bear. He doesn't sound like he thinks it's true, because it probably isn't.

Kayo has never been very good at hope.

She rubs at her eyes and tries to stop crying. If she can't know what happens, then she'll hold onto something more certain.]

...I'm glad you're back. And that you're okay here.

[And that if he did die, he came back to life. She doesn't know what she would have done if he somehow washed up as a corpse.]

Me too. [He tries smiling at her.] We're still here together, and we're both okay here.

[Sometimes in acute danger, but okay in general.]

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wow this became action awhile ago

oops

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