Ouma's POV:

I found myself back inside the mind-trip room, the other me was sitting in the corner as he seemed to be cowering in fear, shaking as he seemed to cradle himself in a cocoon trying to calm down.

"Hey, you!" I called out, the other one quickly turned over to me, his eyes widening in fear as he quickly got up and backed up against the wall as if I was pinning him to it, "h-how...h-how are you h-here?!" he asked.

"Uhm the same way as always, something traumatized me and I guess I end up fainting or am dazed out and had to go back to...whatever this is," I told him nonchalantly, "what's up with you? You're acting weird," I asked.

"I...I..."

"OUMA! OUMA HANG IN THERE!" 

My eyes widened as Saihara's voice seemed to ring into the room, I searched around for the source of the sound only to be left with nothing but the regular decor...I turned back over to him, "what was that?" I asked.

He didn't answer me, and tears were forming in his eyes, "I d-didn't...I d-didn't..." he mumbled as he shook his head and covered his head with his hands as he continued to sob.

"What did you DO?" I asked, "and what the hell is going on here?!" I yelled, "I-I'M SORRY! I'M S-SORRY! P-PLEASE DON'T HURT ME! D-DON'T HURT ME!" he screamed. 

"OUMA! Saihara what happened here? What did you two do?"

"Maiko?!" I called out, foolishly might I add, as I looked again for the source of the voices, the room...

The room was closing in, as the walls started the crack, and the floor started shaking as I turned back over the pregame as he didn't even seem to register the surrounding areas "no...no t-this can't...I c-can't..." he muttered his voice cracking.

"OK, SOMETHING IS HAPPENING! And you have something to do with it so you either tell me right now or I swear to god I will-"

"HE'S LOSING TO MUCH BLOOD!"

"SAVE HIM! PLEASE YOU HAVE TO SAVE HIM!"

"OUMA! DON'T DIE!"

...

"I'm dying?" I muttered, my eyes widened as I felt myself shaking... "you're going to explain right now exactly what is happening..." I told him dead seriously, pregame finally seemed to have caught their breath, their eyes widening in shock as they finally seemed to register their surroundings.

"P-Please...promise me..." He started, he then turned to me doe-eyed, "please...d-don't hurt me..." he begged. For a second I felt pity for him, but I tried to not let that show and instead just nodded.

He took a deep breath, and for the first time since we met, didn't stutter "from the second you woke up from the simulation...so did I...during the game my consciousness would bury deep down, it was like being in dreamless sleep, and when I woke up with you I was scared. I was scared because I heard a voice in my head that wasn't mine, had memories that didn't belong to me and was plagued by scenes of deaths of people I had never met, unlike you I didn't have any sort of escape from this, such as sleep, no instead every second of the day I was plagued with the verbal abuse from you, and the confusion of the world I woke up into...I was scared...so scared, and alone with no one who could hear me no matter how much I screamed except for you...

"You told me that the reason you hated me so much was that I made you exist, and that hurt because...it's true, the reason you suffered so much, the root cause for all your pain was because of me. So...I tried to become friends with you, because I felt bad for you, and I wanted to redeem myself in any way I could.

"I opened up my heart to you, told you all about my suffering, I tried to reach out to you, knowing what I knew about you, I tried to help heal your scars to make up for the fact I gave them to you...I failed. I wish we could have become friends.

"After that, the abuse got worse, and I began to feel...tired. I didn't understand, all I could do was sit inside of this room, unable to do anything, I couldn't even tell what was going on in the outside world, instead, I had to remain here...waiting...waiting for something...anything to change. For a miracle to come...and that miracle would eventually reveal itself.

"I was resigned to my fate for a while, to just live on forever trapped inside of your mind...when I realized something. From the start you had no control of your legs, right? Well...that was because your legs were given to me. I had control of the lower half of the body, and that shocked me, I didn't know what to do with this ability, I knew if I revealed this to you since you're such a stronger person I would lose that control if you knew in an instant, so I kept it a secret from you, I worked hard to try and come up with a plan on what exactly I should do...

"Then you met Saihara, and I realized the only way I ever could win in this battle for control...when you lost control of your arm it was because you were emotionally unstable, and when that happened I subconsciously gained control of your arm...I didn't know what to do with it for a while, I...I didn't like doing this to you. I didn't want to win this way...so I gave it back.

"I gave you back your arm and attempted to rekindle our relationship, and once again you kept lashing out on me! I...I felt bad...I hope you know I'm sorry...I'm sorry...I'm so sorry and I hope one day you can forgive me but...

"I need you to understand my actions- I did this because...I was afraid. I'm not like you...I'm not strong...I'm not able to stand on my own two feet, I didn't even have your will to live life till the bitter end...but that didn't mean I wanted to die. 

"Around this time I finally realized the tiredness I was feeling, it wasn't just because of my boredom and sorrow, I realized...I was fading. With each passing day more and more of my memories became yours, and with that...I forgot. I forgot the faces of my friends, I have forgotten what my hobbies were, and instead, I have been left with only my worst memories.

"I thought maybe this was some kind of fair exchange, and that you were also experiencing this switch but no...like, don't take this as an insult, but a virus or some kind of parasite you began to steal my memories without my consent and day by day I faded away, and I realized...I realized I was becoming consumed by your mind.

"I realized I was dying. I'm terrified..I'm terrified because I have no idea what I was going to do, if I couldn't stop what was happening I would die, I would die with no memories of my own and I would disappear, I would disappear and then another thought scared me...

"Tell me, do you believe in the existence of an afterlife? I do...I do...and I believe every person has a soul, and that we all go somewhere...but what am I then? A person, a personality, I had become more similar to a flash drive than a person, and what happens to me once I became part of your mainframe? What happens to me?

"Do I die? Do I disappear without any sort of afterlife? Without ever having a chance to see my family again when they're gone? I can't accept that! I didn't want to die! I refused to die without even fighting- for the first time in such a long time I wanted to live! I wanted to fight for my life! So I made my plan...and waited...waited for the perfect moment.

"And almost as if fate itself orchestrated the event, Kiibo died. When I figured out what the area was, and after your encounter with your fellow participants...forgive me for this, I intervened, I intervened by repeating what happened when you and Saihara met, I purposely inflicted trauma upon you to weaken you...and unlike last time I took full control of the body.

"I knew I had a limited amount of time to enact my plan before you woke up, so to stall for the time I decided to give you one last moment of bliss...I gave you everything I wanted if I was going to die. I let you see your family, your friends, one last time letting you sleep because I thought it would give you some mercy before I killed the two of us allowing us finally to exist without each other, everything had gone perfectly.

"Then Shuichi Saihara found me.

"In an act of sure destiny, your friend found me, he found me and when he did...I couldn't go through with it, he begged me, begged me not to die, begging you not to die, and that was when I realized...I had my life and threw it away...that this body...this body and life wasn't just mine to discard anymore...it was yours...and so...I decided to sacrifice my chance...and I gave up.

"But I didn't think I would survive this, the mind can only take so much strain, the two of us existing is already giving you so many medical problems so you can only imagine what it was like for the person in power to all of a sudden fall and someone else to take the reins, it couldn't take the strain and so...here we are." Ouma finished, he wasn't looking at me, maybe out of shame as my eyes widened.

"I'm going to die" I realized.