Super High School Level Misdirective Compass - Mastermind! Ishimondo

Truth

I'll be completely honest. I felt so terrified, so unbelievably shocked, that I felt that first true sting of hatred. Taka was being so horribly selfish, dragging all of us down to a level I never thought possible. And then it hit me. That horrible grief and despair. I felt like I had suddenly become the selfish one. Taka had lost everything. I just lost my brother, and that was my fault. Taka did nothing. Taka was pushed to his limit, and his whole world came crashing to the ground. I just had to attend a goddamn funeral. What kind of friend am I...?

Taka's eyes were resting on me. I could feel it. It felt so... uneasy like he was pitying me. I hated being looked down upon like this, but I couldn't look up at him. I felt paralyzed with fear, and I just couldn't. I couldn't take this, feeling so lost and confused. This was true despair, and it was tearing me apart. He was making me think way too hard about all of this, harder than I had about anything in my whole life. I felt like I was shutting down. The world was fading around me, and all I heard was the faint buzzing of voices now.

It was all happening too fast, like being hit by a- nah, a truck is an understatement. A fire truck. It hurt. A lot. And I couldn't take it.

I had lost another brother.

—-

It all felt like a bad dream. The trial, my classmates, Taka. All of it.

Literally, I woke up in my room after what felt like three seconds.

So I basically thought it had been me dreaming. I was super confused cuz I hardly remembered falling asleep. That was great. At least, the whole Ishimaru-isn't-dead-and-he's-the-mastermind nightmare deal, that wasn't real. Still trapped in a killing game, the rooms told me that, but honestly that was normal now. At least at this point we still had hope.

Taka was gone. I need to accept that to move ahead, I guess that's probably why I had that terrible dream.

It was just a dream.