#ounagami

Rantaro had seen a lot of cults.

Like, a lot.

Mainly because he traveled a lot and liked free lodging, but also because there were people he needed to find, and he would follow any lead available to do that.

This specific cult was...attentive. That was the word for it.

It wasn't one of those cults that inundated him with the literature or made him go to some ceremony or prayer circle to earn a bed. They asked if he wanted a place to stay, they gave him a place to stay (albeit in a room full of people training to be devotees), and then they just...watched him. A lot.

But he was allowed and even encouraged to wander everywhere, so he wasn't one to complain too much.

It was while wandering around the cult's lush compound that he came across...

It must have been the art room. This must be where they came to paint and sculpt and carve. The evidence was all over the space, on easels which crowded the floor and in frames and shelves which crowded the walls.

In the back of the room, he heard humming, so he shuffled past the easels until he saw a girl his age, working away at an enormous canvas. She seemed not to notice him there, even though he'd made plenty of noise, navigating the room.

She just hummed to herself and painted.

He watched her work, transfixed.

Several minutes passed before she came out of her trance and startled at the sight of him. "Oh! Good morning. Angie didn't know we had a new guest."

The name "Angie" was one he'd heard before. The devotees whose room he was sleeping in talked about her a lot. Things like, "Does Angie know about this?" "Did anyone tell Angie?" "If they tell Angie, they have to tell the other one."

"I'm Rantaro Amami," he introduced himself politely. "Did you paint all these?"

She beamed but replied, "God is the true painter. Angie is just a conduit."

"I see."

The girl suddenly approached him and took his hand in both of hers. "What drew you here, Rantaro? What were you looking for?" In that moment, she had the same attentive eyes as the ones who had offered to let him stay here.

"I was just looking around. Not after anything specific."

Angie hummed dubiously. "I hope you didn't lose someone."

Rantaro frowned slightly. "What?"

"When you lose something, you have to look at all the places where you've been. When you lose someone, you also look in places you've never been. Did losses lead you here?"

Rantaro forced a calm response. "That's a pretty intense question, for a first meeting."

Angie blinked. "Super intense," she agreed. And she smiled. "Did you meet Kokichi yet? It's unfair if you meet me and not him."

"No, I don't think I've been introduced."

Angie immediately set down her paint supplies and led Rantaro to the opposite wing of the building, to a door which sat locked. She knocked on the door.

"What's the password?" a voice inside bellowed.

Angie looked to Rantaro expectantly.

"There's a password?" he asked her.

She just smiled cryptically.

"I'm Rantaro," he called out to the room's unseen occupant. "I'm new here."

The low hum of voices conversing inside, and then a large figure opened the door. "Kokichi will see you now."

The room was filled with random junk. Stolen road signs, bikes without wheels, one of those coin-operated plastic horses they had in shopping areas. Devotees (a few of whom Rantaro recognized) played card games and did knife tricks throughout the room.

The one named Kokichi sat on an exercise ball on top of a large, throne-like chair, in perpetual risk of falling.

"Angie," he greeted first.

"Good morning!" she sang back. "A new guest wandered into my studio, so Angie thought you should meet him, too."

"I'm sure it only matters if he came to see me first," Kokichi said, examining his nails boredly. "If he was drawn to you, it doesn't really matter if I meet him, does it."

"You let us in," Angie pointed out.

"That's just because I haven't seen you in forever." Kokichi was suddenly whining, throwing away his aloof disposition entirely. "The only time you talk to me anymore is when you're trying to even the score."

"What score?" Rantaro asked. The more they talked, the more it felt like he was being served up as some kind of offering.

Angie gave him a consoling smile. "Kokichi and Angie were both born in the year the last Good One died," she explained. "Every child in our year's harvest was tested, and we were singled out as the new Good and Bad."

"Who knows which is which," Kokichi said sarcastically.

Rantaro caught a momentarily troubled look on Angie's face, before she schooled it into the same bright smile. "Exactly," she said. "Until we turn eighteen, either of us might be the new Good One, so it's important that we stay on blessed land and receive all the same things."

"So, the Good One becomes the new leader?" Rantaro guessed. A wary feeling beginning to build... "And what happens to the Bad One?"

Kokichi opted to answer, "Stripped naked and thrown into a freezing lake!"

Angie clarified, "The Bad One and their devotees go away. We won't know how, until it happens."

"Yeah," Kokichi said. "We don't know if they'll be served with rice or noodles."

"Kokichi is silly," Angie said.

"Hey." And suddenly, Kokichi's purple eyes were locked onto Rantaro. "It wasn't your fault, you know."

The words were stunningly impactful, for how casually the boy said it. "What?" Rantaro said hoarsely.

Kokichi was back to examining his nails. "I see failure in you. It's all over your face."

Before Rantaro could answer, Angie took his hand. "Let's go. Kokichi gets cranky sometimes."

...

Rantaro stayed with the cult for a full week, and he spent half the time searching to see if any of his sisters were (or had ever been) there, and the other half planning how to get Angie and Kokichi out of there.

They refuse to make time commitments without checking in with each other.

Someone asks Rantaro if he wants to hang out at a specific time, and he answers, "Sounds cool, but can we push that back? Angie's waxing Kokichi's legs that day, and it's a whole thing. We do mani-pedis after."

("Kokichi, you wax?"

"Duh. The lack of friction makes it harder for cops to catch me. Plus, Angie likes the noises I make.")

When asked to set a time, he spends a full minute coordinating with his two best friends before he'll reach a conclusion.

The first time Korekiyo tries to invite Angie somewhere one-on-one, Kokichi repeatedly finds reasons she isn't available at the proposed time and offers up wildly impractical times instead. The consequence of this is Korekiyo and Angie actually agreeing to have a museum date at three in the morning on a weekday.

Taka gives Kokichi a detention, and he tries really hard to convince him to give Angie and Rantaro detention, too, because (his own crush on Taka aside) he wants to hang out with his friends.

They deserve to hang out as a trio. Each of them alone is kind of weird and off-putting, but all of them together become the intimidating cool kids.

Angie's the one with the beaming smile who seems nice, Kokichi's the one with the smirk who seems mean, and Rantaro's the one with the almost lazy grin who seems quiet.

I'm picturing them all at the mall, getting mani-pedis together. Picking stuff out for each other.

In the food court, Rantaro is the one who waits in line while Angie and Kokichi wait at the table.

Some of their classmates wander past (because this mall is a hangout spot for Class 79), and Angie's like, "Oh, Kaede! That's a pretty skirt!"

Kaede thanks her, and Miu is like, "You didn't say my skirt was pretty!'

"That's because it's not," Kokichi answers. And Angie just keeps smiling.

Because Rantaro is typically the one who waits in line for their food and drives them places, it would be easy for him to come across as a kind of underdog within their trio, but actually he's often the only one who can tell either of them what to do.

"Okay, two milkshakes and a lemonade," he says, gliding into his seat.

"I asked for a milkshake," Kokichi whines, as the lemonade is placed in front of him.

"The last time you got a milkshake from here, you texted both of us at 4 in the morning to tell us you were throwing up, and you said that milkshakes are 'literally, karmically evil'. You're having a lemonade."

"You're karmically evil," Kokichi grumbles, but drinks his lemonade. Then almost spits it out, because, "Sh!t, Ishi-senpai's here!"

"Yeah, with his boyfriend," Rantaro teases.

"Wasn’t Kokichi just saying he could beat Mondo-senpai’s a**?" Angie teases, resting her head on Kokichi’s shoulder.

Kokichi rests his head on hers. "We can take him if we work together."

"Then we have to cut Taka-senpai in half."

Kokichi giggles, hiding his face in Angie’s neck. "I get his legs."

"Keep it up," Rantaro says. "I’ll call them over."

(part 1)

Rantaro was correct in guessing that Kokichi would be the easier one to get on his side.

The only hiccup was that he was the harder one to get alone.

While Angie seemed to be understood by most as the clear choice for Good One (whatever that meant; it still hadn't been made clear to Rantaro who got to decide which was which or how that was determined, when the time came), Kokichi still had his share of devotees. And they tended to spend more time with him than Angie's spent with her.

When Rantaro knocked on Kokichi's door, his fifth day with the cult, a voice that wasn't Kokichi's responded, "What's the password?"

"It's Rantaro again," he said. "I just want to talk."

"Who?" Kokichi's voice called back.

"Rantaro Amami. I'm new here. I came over with Angie a couple days ago." When he got no answer, he added, "It's important."

After some deliberation from the room's occupants, the door opened a crack and a girl's voice said, "You may enter. Stay on the duct tape path."

As indicated, as soon as he was allowed in the room, he noticed a trail of duct tape stuck to the floor, leading him around...presumably, the same junk that had been inhabiting the room before, only now it was all covered with large tarps.

Rantaro followed the trail of tape deeper into the room.

Kokichi, as usual, was sitting on the exercise ball on the seat of his throne. A devotee (in their usual all white) sat nonchalantly on one arm of the chair, intermittently playing with a ball and paddle toy.

Rantaro started the conversation bluntly. "A lot of people here think you're the 'Bad One'."

"Wowww," Kokichi condescended. "And you've only been here four days. So observant! Quick, guess how many fingers I'm holding up."

Rantaro humored him by answering, "Two," before he continued, "You said that something bad happens to the Bad One when they turn eighteen."

"Is that what I said?"

"It's what Angie said. The Bad One and all their devotees. Would that be these guys?"

"If I am the Bad One. They believe I'm not."

"I figured they must; otherwise, they wouldn't risk it." And then, not because it was relevant but because he was curious, Rantaro added, "What do you do all day? I know Angie mostly does art and takes daily walks through the common area."

"Cheating, stealing, and lying take up most of my time," Kokichi answered with a smirk. "When I'm not setting fires or befouling holy places."

"I've never seen you outside this room before."

"See no evil. When you're bad enough, you can command the shadows to hide you from the innocent. I can teach you how, if you give me your soul."

"I don't think you're evil. I think you're throwing the game."

Kokichi grinned broadly. "If I were throwing the game, wouldn't that make me kind of selfless? And if I were throwing the game so hard that even an outsider could tell, wouldn't that mean I was pretending to be selfless to make people think I'm the Good One? Which would be pretty selfish of me, if you think about it. Unless I want you to think that I'm pretending to be the Bad One to make you think I'm the Good One to make you think I'm the Bad One, which would make me the Good One."

"I don't think either of you is the Good One or the Bad One. I think you're both just trapped in a tough situation." Rantaro carefully gaged the mood of Kokichi's silence before adding, "I want to help you get out, if I can."

Kokichi managed to slowly roll the exercise ball out from under him and land on the seat of his throne.

As the ball had rolled in his direction, Rantaro opted to sit on it, himself. "I travel a lot," he continued, bouncing slightly. "I get in and out of all kinds of things. Angie said the two of you aren't allowed off of 'blessed land' until you turn eighteen."

Kokichi held up one finger. (Rantaro wondered if the only reason he hadn't made an 'incorrect buzzer' noise was because he didn't have the pop cultural context for such a sound.) "The Good One isn't allowed off of blessed land for as long as they live," he corrected. "The Bad One isn't allowed off until they turn eighteen, at which point they're stuffed into a canon and shot into a busy traffic street." (And that, too. A "busy traffic street". Clumsy wording. Like he was using vocabulary he understood in theory but hadn't been exposed to very much in practice.)

"So, I assume that even if you tried to leave, someone here would stop you."

"You could say that." The wryness suggested there was some story there to cast Rantaro's words as an amusing understatement.

"I can get you out. If you let me, if you both agree, I can sneak you out of here safely, and you won't have to worry about which of you the 'elders' thinks is good or bad. You'll both be safe."

The devotee with the ball and paddle was staring at Rantaro now. It was obvious, the kinds of concerns he'd left unaddressed. Where would they live, without the cult? Who would take care of them? Feed them?

But none of those questions came out, aloud.

Kokichi crossed his legs and asked, "When?"

Rantaro smiled, at the implied interest. "Tonight or tomorrow night."

"Tomorrow night. You need to give Angie at least a full day to pray through it, or else she'll default to 'no'." He rolled his eyes as he spoke. "And don't tell her she's saving herself," he added firmly. "If you tell her she has to leave to save herself, she'll think she's being tested by God. She'll probably lock herself in her room for a week and come out of it with a wall-sized painting called Temptation."

"Okay. Well, what do you suggest?"

"You have to tell her she's saving me."

Rantaro nodded, internally marveling at the certainty in Kokichi's face. "You know each other pretty well, it sounds like."

"The Good One and the Bad One have to be given the same of everything." He shrugged, like that was a full explanation, in itself.

And indeed, Rantaro could imagine how a rule like that could result in them spending a lot of time together, at least as children. (They didn't seem to anymore.) "Do you want to come with me to talk to her?"

(previous post)

He would!

This is a guy who's well-practiced at exploring and surviving, someone who taps into a single-minded determination when he's looking for people he's lost, someone who is protective and controlling but with a laidback disposition.

First of all, on the familial side, one imagines his sisters had to be indoctrinated and manipulated to even have them serve as his pirate crew. Maybe he picked up several people who weren't his relatives, but he calls them his siblings/brothers/sisters once they're on the crew, so the term essentially just becomes an endearment to subordinate the crew members.

The flags for his ship look like his canon shirt, as far as the pattern and design.

It strikes fear into other seafarers, naturally; he seizes other ships very personably, killing some and coercing others to join the crew. He decides which to do to whom based entirely on vibes.

"Well, I guess that's it," he says to the captain of a ship he's just taken over. "I could tell you to walk the plank, but...that'd be pretty cliche. You can go ahead and jump overboard, if you want, or tell us how else you'd like to die, and we can try to make that happen."

Whereas occasionally he'll look at a crew member and just start talking to them like they're already his sibling, already on his crew.

(His tendency to do this causes people to wonder whether anyone on the crew is actually related to him. It definitely crosses someone's mind that maybe he just found strangers to call his siblings when his actual sisters died, or maybe he himself killed them?? It's not necessarily true, but it's something people start to wonder. How much of his behavior is just manipulation, controlling people by telling them how he will refer to them, etc., and how much of it is him trying to create siblings for himself out of grief? There's no way to ask him which crew members are actually his siblings, because he'll just say "All of them," and the crew members are too indoctrinated to say whether they were originally his relatives or whether he just stole them.)

For Despair V3 cast, I had Angie forming a non-despair commune to keep Kiibo from destroying the world, and I had Kokichi meticulously running a secret organization.

Keeping that arrangement, while making Rantaro a factor, I'm going to say that he kind of zeroed in on the two of them as soon as the class took to despair, because Angie and Kokichi were the two who tried to go their own way. While most of the class basically followed Junko's guidance, Kokichi had his own idea of despair, and Angie rejected despair (at least as a concept; maybe not quite as a practice).

And Despair Rantaro felt an immediate need to bring them around, not for Junko's sake or because he has a problem with other people being leaders, but just because he found it dangerous for them to do their own thing.

Maybe Despair Kokichi is running his organization while constantly on the move. He's sending his orders to his many, many underlings without ever staying in one place for longer than a day. Keeping to landlocked areas because at this point he's prepared to see Rantaro's ship in any dock anywhere, the moment he's near water.

(He could have some of his underlings protect him from Rantaro, but his determination not to get close to anyone and his conviction that he can handle himself keep him from doing that.)

Angie isn't on the move; she's just carefully staying disconnected from the outside world and relying on faith that Rantaro won't find her.

One day, Rantaro saunters into Angie's commune with a bunch of his crew, EMP's Kiibo to sleep, and abducts Angie to his brig.

She doesn't have to join the crew; she doesn't have to kill anyone; she just has to be along for the ride. And maybe make some art for the ship. (This really feels like it's merging with the Peter Pan AU, lol.)