A/N: Thank you for the feedback, everyone! It makes me happy to know how much attention this fic is getting.

Ramix: That potential plothole actually is going to be addressed! This chapter in fact.

It took Izuru most of his allotted hour to prepare everything and then cover his tracks, but there was still just enough time for him to fetch a clean set of clothes and wash the blood off his body. He was careful to ensure no traces of what he'd just done remained—Enoshima's analytical abilities rivaled his own, and she was sure to notice if even a strand of hair was out of place. Once he was properly attired, Izuru made his way to the meeting with the Ultimate Despair.

Ikusaba was pacing below the base of the throne in the trial room, and when he entered her gaze snapped to him hawkishly—she'd never liked or trusted him after his thorough beatdown of her and her sister. A natural reaction, all humans would be wary of someone they couldn't defend themselves against. Above her was Enoshima, reclining on the throne, legs crossed and smiling broadly as she played with the stuffed black-and-white bear on her lap.

When his eyes fell upon the strawberry blonde, another emotion built in his chest. Hot and cold, at the same time. Hostility, and a desire to inflict pain. Anger, he realized, the satisfying image of himself strangling Enoshima flashing through his mind's eye, this is anger.

He'd always had a slight dislike of her, after the way she'd manipulated and pinned the blame of the student council's murders on him, but not enough to actually want to kill her. Not enough to jeopardize the promise of an unpredictable future. So what changed? Nanami's execution, he realized. He was angry—furious—with her for what she'd done to Nanami.

Interesting as this development was, it was unexpected and now he had to account for it. Working to hide the anger before it touched his face, Izuru continued his approach with barely a pause in his steps.

"Kamukura-senpai~!" Enoshima tossed the bear aside and bounced down the stairs when she saw him. "So glad you could make it!"

He came to a halt, one hand clutching Nanami's hairpin, hiding it from her view. "What is the purpose of this meeting?" Izuru asked, carefully keeping his voice toneless.

She waved a finger teasingly. "Ah-ah-ah! Before we get started, I have a little something to ask you. See, on my way back I made a little detour to grab Nanami-senpai's body, and it was gone! Did you have anything to do with that?"

It was asked lightly, innocently, but her eyes were sharp and focused. Izuru kept his face exactly as blank as it usually was—no more, no less. Lying was just another of his many abilities, and she would get no tells from him.

"I removed it for disposal," he said calmly. "Then I cleaned myself up and returned to my room."

She studied his face a moment longer. He stared back at her evenly.

Then, with a little laugh, Enoshima rocked back on her heels, buying the lie. "Aw, that's so considerate of you! Don't you wish all guys were as considerate as him, sis?"

Ikusaba shrugged, and Enoshima whipped around, glaring at her. "Hey, I asked you a question!"

"If he were so considerate, he could have cleaned the blood off the floor too," Ikusaba grumbled, contrite solely because it was Izuru involved.

"You're a soldier, you're used to it. Suck it up and shut up, you flat-chested good-for-nothing pig." As Ikusaba flushed from her sister's words, seemingly pleased in that strange way of hers, Enoshima turned back to Izuru. "Now, I'm sure you're just dying of curiosity to know why I called you here, so prepare yourself, because the answer's going to knock you off your feet!"

She spun in a circle, arms spread wide. "IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII'm getting my memories erased!"

He blinked, slowly. "For what purpose?"

Coming to a halt, Enoshima tapped a finger against her chin. "Hmmmm, let's call it…an experiment. And a safeguard. You see, that Sakakura wasn't the only one the school asked to poke his nose in my business. You know Matsuda Yasuke-kun, right? Well, a little while ago I got word from him that the board asked him to interrogate me—with his talent it'd be a cinch. Such a pity his loyalty to his lover outweighs his loyalty to them. So he'll be helping me hide in my own mind for a little while."

Matsuda Yasuke, the Ultimate Neurologist. Izuru was indeed familiar with him; the doctor's work had played a part in his own memory erasure. Though apparently the procedure wasn't perfect if flashes were resurfacing. He contemplated telling Enoshima this and decided against it—it was more interesting this way. "I see. And how long will this experiment last?"

"Eh? You're asking how long I'll be gone? Could it be…you'd miss me?" She gave an exaggerated gasp. Switching into her shy kouhai persona, Enoshima brought her hands to her cheeks and lowered her head, peering up at him through her eyelashes. "Wah, for Kamukura-senpai to notice my absence…it's such an honor! But wait, what am I supposed to do about Yasuke-kun? I-I don't want break either of your hearts!"

Rather than dignify that with a response, Izuru narrowed his eyes at her.

"Wah, from hot to cold so suddenly? Could Kamukura-senpai be what they call a tsundere?" As suddenly as her coquettish behavior started, it stopped, and Enoshima flipped back to what passed as her normal. "I'm not really sure how long this will take—I don't expect it to be more than a few weeks."

A few weeks. Enoshima and her sister would be occupied for a few weeks, affording him the time necessary to watch over the most critical parts of Nanami's recovery and plan for the long term. That was perfect. His luck was once again coming through for him.

Though speaking in the long term, simply killing Enoshima and Ikusaba was the best way to ensure Nanami's safety from them, and part of him was tempted to do exactly that. But doing so would destroy the only chance he had of having his boredom relieved. Enoshima had promised him an unpredictable future, and he wanted to see if she could carry it out.

Though Nanami's actions, first in the trap and then with me, were quite unpredictable as well, even though she wasn't acting in despair. She was acting in hope. What could that mean?

Pinning the thought for another day—another time when he could philosophize—Izuru returned his attention to Enoshima. Between the facts that she was going undercover for a while and that he had no plans to leave Nanami during her recovery, the Ultimate Gamer was in no immediate danger from the strawberry blonde. Nothing would be able to hurt her as long as he was by her side—that wasn't arrogance, just plain fact. If Enoshima did try to attack Nanami again, then he would be there, and he would stop her. Kill her, even. But that was a last resort.

Killing her permanently closed off a door. He didn't want to be trapped in a boring world. Speaking of which… "And this is supposed to be interesting?"

"Oh, don't worry, I've left this trashy dumbass plenty of instructions on how to make this experiment entertaining!" Enoshima clapped her hands gleefully. "And my precious new despairs will be keeping up the masquerade of high school students during the day, but for a few hours each night they'll be practicing, improving their skills in the art of despair-spreading. You can watch, or you could always jump in and lend a—hey, where are you going?!"

"We're done," he called over his shoulder as he began heading for the door, "You have informed me of your plans. I will be watching; try not to bore me."

"Awww, I made Kamukura-senpai mad at me. What's a girl to do, sis? I try and I try and he just doesn't care…"

He ignored her ramblings as he walked away, hands in his pockets to hide how they were clenched into fists.

Enoshima lived solely because she was still of use to him. That didn't mean he had to like it, or her.

Even Izuru wasn't certain he was fully human anymore, after what the Steering Committee had done to him, but he knew he shared the same functions as one. He still needed food and sleep, albeit perhaps a little less than average. So rather than tend to his survival separately, Izuru migrated to what he had unconsciously deemed "Nanami's room". He would spend nearly all his time in there watching over her anyway; it was simply logical to bring all the necessities he needed as well.

He left his bed behind, simply dragging one of the spare cots next to Nanami's. He carried in two portable fridges, one stocked with food, the other with extra blood (O—he'd looked up Nanami's blood type as soon as he could, and found she was an O). Changes of clothes, and a laptop that allowed him to continue his observations of the school in his spare time—their security was so lax that even if he hadn't had talent, he could probably have hacked into their system. That was all he brought, but that was all he needed.

As for where he got everything…well, Hope's Peak was so busy in the wake of the murders, they wouldn't notice a few stolen amenities here and there.

Over the next three weeks, he watched Enoshima wandering about with her muddied memory and false life. He watched as the Reserve Course students' Parade grew steadily worse outside the gates. As the Main Course blissfully pretended nothing was wrong, as the board lied and covered up their corruption, as the media started sniffing around.

The world outside was slowly succumbing to chaos and despair, but inside the hidden room with Nanami, that world didn't seem to exist.

He'd expected that caring for her would soon grow boring, like everything else. Possibly even faster than normal—she was comatose, unresponsive, unable to provide the answers he so desperately wanted. And while the routine quickly did become boring, it didn't become a chore. Each action had so much weight for her survival, and that made each action precious.

Every day he swapped her IVs—at first giving nutrients in addition to blood and crystalloid solution, then solely nutrients when her intravascular volume was within acceptable parameters—, washed her body with a sponge, cleaned her wounds, changed her bandages, and disinfected everything that entered her proximity. Once her stitches weren't at risk of tearing open, he adjusted her body every four hours to prevent her from getting bedsores. He eventually removed the chest tube and ventilator. He monitored her body temperature, blood pressure, respiration rate, and pulse rate, marking even the most minuscule of changes in a log. The constant surveillance gave him very little time for prolonged hours of sleep, so he sustained himself through multiple cat naps, nodding off lightly in his cot.

It was good that things were uneventful. It meant that her body was healing smoothly, even if her mind remained unresponsive. A combination of the oxygen deprivation, blood loss and general emotional trauma had sent it fleeing to the depths of unresponsiveness. But by his estimate, she should move from her coma to a persistent vegetative state in a week or two; from there, it was simply a matter of waiting for her to "wake up".

When he wasn't treating her, monitoring the school, or tending to his own needs, Izuru would stare at Nanami for long periods of time, one hand playing with her hairpin as he watched her chest rise and fall. He often pondered the mystery of her and her behavior. Even unconscious, she fascinated him. Despite being in the midst of what had to be terrible despair—betrayed by her teacher, locked in a death maze, tortured and left to slowly bleed to death—she hadn't succumbed. She had pushed through unfathomable odds, all based on a hope to see her friends again, with a shocking kind of fortitude.

And then there were his own actions. Never once in his existence had he been pushed to act in anything other than self-defense, but with Nanami, it hadn't even been a question. He'd wanted to save her, and he had. Could that be classified as hope, in a way?

Could hope be as driving as despair?

He sighed, pulling himself out of his musings so he could start his daily examination of Nanami's injuries. They were healing well, he noticed as he swapped out the bandages; the laceration on her forehead was the shallowest and faring the best. It had scabbed over, the skin around it pink and puffy. A few stray hairs were sticking to the edges of the wound, and Izuru brushed them away.

Once he'd done so, though, he inexplicably found his fingers lingering, stroking her pink strands. Red eyes examined them curiously; this was something he found himself doing occasionally, his touches turning to caresses without his permission. It confused him why, but he found the actions soothing—grounding, in a way. So he permitted himself these irregularities.

Philosophy aside…there was still that pull to her. That bone-deep need to ensure she was alright. This…tenderness that welled up, from out of nowhere, when he gazed at her sleeping, fragile-looking form. The tightness in his chest whenever he thought of how she'd almost died, not just by Enoshima's hands but by his own inaction. It was maddening in its unfamiliarity, and at the same time, fascinating.

She was an unknown variable, one he wanted to solve. To analyze. Why she cared, why she struggled, why she so strongly believed in hope...these things piqued his curiosity. For once, he was curious about an individual, and about the feelings she could stir in him. Not the ones she was showing him, like Enoshima, but actively making him feel, for either no logical or a highly improbable reason.

He had questions, and for once no answers.

But no, Izuru thought suddenly, inspiration dawning as he recalled a flash of red hair, fed from the security footage, perhaps that isn't entirely true.

It was perhaps the only time he'd left the complex since he'd started watching over Nanami. Izuru didn't intend to be away long—he knew where the amnesiac Enoshima was going, and he knew the fastest way to get there before she did. So when she arrived at the corridor leading to Matsuda's office for her appointment, flipping through her notebook, he was there, waiting, a black shadow on a white wall.

The girl faltered when she saw him. "Eh…can I help you?" She attempted a brave smile, even as she took a step or two away. All the nerves in her body were buzzing uncertainly, even if she didn't know why.

All she knew was that this young man had a certain presence…a presence that scared her.

He studied her with unnervingly piercing red eyes. "Does the name Kamukura Izuru mean anything to you?"

She shook her head slowly, frightful eyes darting around as she clutched her notebook to her chest.

"Ikusaba Mukuro?"

Shake.

"…Enoshima Junko?"

Shake. She peered up at him, a bit fearful at his reaction to her lack of knowledge on these people she should, apparently, know. His face was completely blank, unreadable, and it only made her more agitated. "L-Look," she stammered, "if we've met before, d-don't take offense that I don't remember! I have really bad memory, so—I'll just look through my notebook—"

The stranger snatched it out of her hands, crossing the distance between them in the time it took her to blink.

"No, wait, please give that back, I need—eh? Eh?"

The redhead looked around wildly. He was gone, completely gone, how could anyone just disappear like that? And he'd taken her memory journal! She could feel panic starting to swell in her—she was already starting to forget what he'd looked like, and then she'd forget he was there at all, and then she'd never get her journal back, and then—

"Why are you standing about with your mouth gaping like a fish? It makes you look dumber than usual."

She wheeled around and oh, the heavens were parting, the sun was smiling, Matsuda-kun was standing before her. His handsome face was scowling, as usual, and her journal was still gone, but he was here and that was all that mattered. Everything would be fine now that he was with her. Everything was always fine when he was with her.

"M-Matsuda-kun! It-it was terrible! There was some guy—I can't remember what he looked like, but I know he was here—and he took my memory journal! It's gone, we have to find it, he stole it—"

He scoffed. "Or you just dropped it, you idiot."

"Eh?" She turned to see it lying on the floor behind her. She blinked. "How did you get there?"

Wasn't someone else here?

But when she picked it up and flipped to the latest entry, there was no mention of another person. She frowned, feeling a vague sense of uncertainty. As if somehow, that shadowy person was important. But if it wasn't in her journal, it wasn't important to her. And if it wasn't important to her, it didn't have anything to do with her, and so she allowed the last vestiges of memory to slip away. She clutched her journal to her chest, bouncing on the balls of her feet, blissful to have it back even as she forgot why.

Matsuda-kun was turning back to the door, holding it open for her. "Maybe your brain's finally breaking down and now you're hallucinating as well as forgetting."

Hallucinating? Hallucinating what? "Eh?! That sounds scary! I-I don't want to start hallucinating!"

As the two entered the examination room, Izuru emerged from his hiding place in the shadows, head cocked.

So that was Enoshima without her despair.

It was fascinating how…similar she was, to the Enoshima he'd known. Still vapid and peppy, but much less sadistic. He'd already seen how despair could warp a personality—first with the student council, then with Class 77—but it was something else to meet a person twisted by despair, then meet their original self. It offered a different perspective, and he valued perspective.

And there was something else interesting, too, the very thing he'd come here to test. The confusion in her eyes when he'd recited those names hadn't been fake, and neither had the panic she'd shown when he'd taken her journal. She genuinely didn't remember anything of him, her sister, or even herself, and she genuinely believed the lie she was living.

But he'd recognized the emotions in her eyes when she'd beheld Matsuda. They'd been full of admiration and happiness and love. She couldn't remember whatever past she had with him, probably couldn't even remember why she loved Matsuda, but she still did. Every single memory she had, had been stripped away, yet that emotion survived.

…just like me…

If the memory erasure had failed to take those emotions from her, then it was logical to conclude it had failed to take them from him as well. The paradox he'd hypothesized was true after all: he retained Hinata Hajime's feelings for Nanami Chiaki. And judging by some of the patterns and connotations of his behavior around her, they were romantic in nature. He retained Hinata Hajime's romantic feelings for Nanami Chiaki.

Izuru turned the sentences over in his mind, a bit of uncertainty prickling at him. He had the root of his actions, now, but what was he supposed to do with this newfound knowledge? What did it change?

Nothing, he finally concluded. Knowing that he was romantically attached to Nanami surprised him, certainly, but nothing had really changed. He still wanted the gamer to survive, he still wanted to get the chance to talk to her, and he was still willing to look after her. His goals were the same as before. All he'd done was put a label on his motivations.

So quietly, he melted away to return to Nanami's side, leaving no sign he'd ever been there except for a slight scuff on the floor.

A/N: A persistent vegetative state is actually what most people think of when they hear the word "coma"—a coma patient is completely unaware of what's around them. A patient in a persistent vegetative state is aware of their surroundings; they can hear you talking to them, for example, but they're still unresponsive. Comas rarely last more than a month, but a persistent vegetative state can last years.

Izuru strikes me as the kind of guy who wouldn't deny any emotions he feels—he's driven by logic, and denying something's existence in the face of supporting evidence isn't very logical. That doesn't mean he has any idea how to handle them, however, or that he'd ever be ruled by them.

If you're wondering who the characters in the last section are, they are Ryouko Otonashi and Yasuke Matsuda, the protagonists of DR0! If you haven't read it I recommend you find a translation and do so, it's very good. Though if you haven't read it…well, I just spoiled the big twist for you, sorry. But I couldn't resist giving them the cameo they didn't get in the anime (one look at Yasuke through a window doesn't count), and I wanted to draw comparisons between Ryouko's situation and Izuru's.