#despot despair

Solitary Confinement

Four walls boxed him in. Light poured in from the door. A pair of rusted handcuffs clamped onto Airi’s wrists. Bound by his ankle was an iron ball, weighing him down greatly. Soon after being pushed in, the door closed, dunking him into darkness. All Airi could see were his own two hands in front of him. They trembled.

How ironic for a detective to be the one in cuffs.

He resigned himself to his fate. This was his punishment for all his despicable actions. He couldn’t run from it, not after all he had done. That was his decision, but the decrepit walls seemed to sneer at him, taunting him from all angles. For a second, Airi believed he finally lost it. Until he realized…

The walls were slowly closing in on him. They were going to crush him.

Adrenaline and panic flooded his system. Death was approaching, bearing its scythe to reap his soul and bring him to Hell. Even if it weren’t actual death, it still filled the detective with a deep fear. “No…” Airi shivered. “No!” His body screamed for him to act, to save himself. He needed to get out of there.

With his first step, Airi collapsed to the floor, tripped by the weight of the iron ball attached to his left leg. With his hands bound, he couldn’t catch himself. His head crashed into the concrete floor, drawing blood which trailed down Airi’s forehead. Stars filled his vision... What constellation did she bring up back then? He couldn’t remember.

Once his balance returned, he searched the small room, patting down every inch with his hands, for he couldn’t see all too well. Meanwhile, the darkness he inhabited only shrunk in size.

His fingers grazed something, then his hand managed to wrap around it. It was sturdy metal. A crowbar, upon further inspection. He could use this! Invigorated yet fueled by fear, Airi rushed over to the door. Using all the strength he could muster, he jammed the crowbar into the crevice of the doorway. The grip on it was awkward because of his lack of free movement in his arms.

He pulled on it, trying to wrench the door open. Many times, he fell backwards into the wall, which stubbornly moved forward, thirsty for Airi’s blood. He kept going, over and over. Sweat and blood ran down Airi’s face. Soon, the walls were close enough for Airi to press his leg against the one across him for leverage.

The door opened. Light poured into the room. He threw himself forward, towards freedom, as relief washed over him. He did it… He survived. That high was swiftly destroyed as Airi’s vision adjusted to his current surroundings.

An execution chamber, with a grand throne set in the middle of the room. Perfect for the wretched king of Primrose Palace. On both sides were two prison guards, who immediately made their move. They grabbed Airi by his arms and started pulling him towards the electric chair. The weakened detective was no match for them. Even so, he desperately thrashed about.

“No! Let me go!” He cried as they forced him onto the throne, quickly strapping his chest to it. “You can’t do this!” They removed the handcuffs, restraining both hands to the arms of the throne. Airi screamed and struggled in vain until his voice was hoarse and he could no longer move.

Tears spilled from his ruby eyes. “You can’t…”

Then came the electricity. It seared his flesh with heat and sent painful jolts through his already frail body. A blood-curdling shriek filled the execution chamber. For what felt like an eternity, Airi was blasted with 2,000 volts of electricity.

…

… Silence.

Why did you do this? 

“Hm? Why, you ask?” He tapped a finger on his lips, tilting his head. “I was bored, I guess. The crime rate in Japan is soooo low that I’m lucky if I get a decent case on my desk that can actually make me think.” His arms spread out, as did the smile on his face. “That~ is~ why~ I made this… these killing games!” He stumbled on his words. “To solve the seemingly unsolvable! To experience complex murder mysteries you couldn’t find in the real world!”

“... Well, that was the goal at first.” The excitement dropped from his hands to the floor. “If I’m being honest, I lost my real reason for doing this a while ago. I just kept going because I had to. Something compelled me to.”

What is that something?

"I don't know. There was just something. Like a subconscious urge. Hahaha, are you feeling unsatisfied with my answer?"

STARS...  How much of that is true?

"I don’t know anything about STARS, that waiver, this Chiyo Oshiro, or synthetic talents! I don’t know! That video makes no goddamn sense!” 

“... It’s confusing to me,” he starts explaining, his prior malice all but vanished. “As far as I know, this is my first killing game. Yet, the evidence shown to us, and these fuzzy memories that I can’t quite grasp, keep telling me otherwise. I don’t understand! How many times have I done this already?! And why don’t I remember any of them?!”

“If we believe all the facts presented to us. It seems like our memories and our talents aren’t real at all. Chiyo Oshiro also mentioned the world being in ruins, but none of us remember that, right? Which means a big portion of our memories have been altered. Right now, we’re in a simulation. Since Yuko Kuwashima is talking to us through Yunime, that must mean she’s alive, right? Even though she appeared as a ‘ghost’ alongside people who died from our killing game.”

“I think that means... that no one who died in this simulation actually died. They were just removed from the simulation.”

“But then... who am I...?”  Panic returned to his eyes as his thoughts ran amok.

What was the purpose behind all the simulated killing games then?

“... Was it to prevent me from taking actual lives in the real world? Does it have something to do with this urge I have?”

“Even after Chiyo Oshiro was executed, memory and talent augmentation research continued. It was supposed to help, but...there is a bit of a bug in the system. It's rare, but...every now and then, something will fail in the augmentation and it will create something...dangerous, to say the least. Chiyo Oshiro masterminded over fifty killing games, what would happen if that trait resurfaced in one of the augmented subjects? They would be a danger to society...would they not? What would happen if someone received the Mastermind trait during their augmentation, something that gave them an overwhelming compulsion to harm others, to create killing games. What do you think...would happen if a person like that was left to their own devices? At least, that's how S.T.A.R.S. sees it."

“It wasn't supposed to be like this. They wanted to fix you, but nothing they did worked. So they just left you here to rot to protect everyone else."

“What..?”

“............” 

5 games.

“No, no, no, no, no, no… No!!”  This was wrong. This was very, very wrong. Airi collapsed to his knees and screamed. Cracked memories, too distorted to truly make out, filled his mind until they were crammed against the walls of his skull.  Faces, names, friendships, rivalries, pain, tears.

5 games.

Memories of red splashing from his own body like rain. Over and over again, he died. Four times now, to be exact. The pain of death seeped into Airi’s nerves and he screamed until he choked.

It hurt so much. 

And it was all their fault.

“What have you done to me?” His voice was low, growling like a beast. “WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO TO ME!?” Both fists slammed onto his podium in pure rage, not caring for the damage done to them. “You… You took everything from me!! You did this to me! You made me this way!!” He took a second to catch his breath, his chest rising and falling violently as he neared the brink of hyperventilation. “I don’t want this! I didn’t want to be this way, and you-! You threw me here to make up for your mistake! You took away 4 years of my life, and for what!? Nothing has changed! How long do you plan to keep this up!?... How many more years will you rob me of?” His voice cracked and moisture pooled in his eyes.

“Why…? … Why…?”

...

“So, let me get this straight. All of us were experimented on, apparently with our consent. We were given fake memories, fake lives, fake talents. But! There's a possible side effect. You might develop mastermindosis or something! Which is what Seta contracted. And you've been trying to cure him by letting him manage five killing games? Wow!” (Ricardo)

"Silence! You all could not be MORE mistaken! If it were solely to satiate Airi's bloodlust, we could easily repeat simulations with artificial intelligence, to keep him busy and satisfied until we could find a permanent solution. You all are here for your own reasons. The nature of the experiment does not matter so much as the end result, that being, witnessing the impact of trauma on the recently augmented subjects. This is the safest environment to do so. Killing two birds with one stone, keeping Airi's mind sharp through the simulations and seeing the impact trauma has on you all. This is the best way to see if any of you are a danger to society." 

“.....”

"No," he glares at Mukuro. "You can't keep doing this! You can't keep hurting people like this! These games and this simulation have to stop!"

"I won't let you!" (Sujaku)

“You morons have no idea what you're talking about!" (Karaju)

"Our experiments aren't wrong!" (Mukuro)