ps this is my first time posting a vent hello
i love this ship to pieces don't fucking touch m e
the metal that was once labelled the surface of his skin was so cool. the edges were now jagged; split and shredded from the contact of the marble ground.
it felt the same against the smooth skin of akane's palms. the dulled metal was now pressed to her rapidly rising and falling chest, clutched within her grip as if it were to never be released.
she couldn't fucking breathe.
or, at least, that was the first observation she made. the room was spinning around her, blurred by her frenzy- as well as tears. the more she thought about it, the more her loss of breath increased, and eventually she was gasping, the only means of receiving oxygen being her inconsistent sobs.
she didn't realise she was practically screaming until her throat became dry and her incoherent noises hoarse. as chiaki, sonia and hajime all muttered amongst themselves, she shakily rose to her feet, setting aside nekomaru's head with the utmost intricacy. "hey," she sputtered, regaining the gaze of the others; "nekomaru got killed, right? that announcement means... what i think it means, right?"
the grief was flooded out of her veins in an instant, replaced solely with rage. "hey, who did it?! who killed nekomaru?" her fists were clenched so tightly that her nails dug painfully into her skin, likely drawing blood.
"whoooooa! someone's getting pu-"
akane's head snapped in the direction of the familiar, malicious bear. "you...! you know who did it, right? you know who killed nekomaru?! fucking tell me! tell me who killed him, right the hell now!" she roared.
monokuma made some snarky comment about nekomaru, but at this point, akane wasn't listening. all of her thoughts were occupied with nekomaru alone, and she couldn't shake it off.
she began to recall every last second she had spent with nidai. she reminisced upon each training session; each (rather steamy) massage, and certainly each time nekomaru had prioritised himself over her.
and... the time on the beach...
her mind became clouded with the indescribable shadow of despair that had overwhelmed her within those mere seconds. the sound of the deafening blow rang through her ears again; the sight of the blinding light flashed before her again, temporarily disabling her vision.
the sight of nekomaru laying before her, a gaping wound in his torso played before her once again.
she was in denial. her heart was pounding against her chest as if it were willing to tear itself free from her body, and damn right she didn't want to believe for even a moment that this was reality.
he was okay, right? nekomaru was going to be okay... everything was oka-
"akane..." nidai's voice cut through the haze of her mind: "the time i've spent with you... i-it... it wasn't... so bad..."
her entire body felt numb. the only thing she could do was yell. "s-stop! you're... you're gonna be fine! just get ahold of yourself! ...please..." she uttered the last word. she wasn't even sure if nidai himself heard it.
"don't... die... akane..."
and then, her entire body collapsed from the inside. for a moment, she simply stared at his body, stunned.
she couldn't... lose him...
akane was shocked back into reality when a loaf of some sort of bread was thrust into her hands, accompanied by a bottle of water.
trembling, she turned to monokuma with pure rage in her eyes. "you... once we find out who killed nekomaru... i'll beat them and you to death with my bare hands. i swear on it."
and then, she turned back to the three others, praying to god that none of them noticed how destroyed she felt, or how truly lost she was without nekomaru...
... because she knew, truly, that nothing would be the same anymore.
