Chapter Text
Aizawa was in a fast-moving elevator.
Very fast.
And going down.
His heart sunk with the feeling of fear and loss of balance.
Then the elevator started slowing down before it stopped - very different from the way it started - with a soft "ding". The doors slowly opened, and he walked out of the elevator wobbly. For some reason, walking was so hard.
It felt like his legs fell asleep for a few weeks and it was the first time he used them during that time. He could only shake his head at the thought- that was irrational. It was only his adrenaline acting up. Yeah, that was it.
There's no way he's not been walking for that amount of time, he's got plenty of responsibilities, like-!
Walking forward, he felt overwhelmingly weak. His head was throbbing with the pain, he reached out for a wall to steady the spinning vision when he tripped.
Shit.
"Are you alright?" Smooth baritone asked as Aizawa was held up instead of meeting harshly with the floor. Aizawa met with a strong arm of a man wrapping around his waist and chest holding him up. The man helped him straighten and lean on the wall. That felt so familiar.
What the hell is going on?
"Everything is spinning and my head hurts," Aizawa answered shortly reaching for his face as if he hoped that it would make it all better. "It's getting better." He added trying to focus his breathing, his heart raced as if he had just run a few miles.
"You sure?" Aizawa tilted his head up to look at the man. The first thing that hit him was how incredibly tall was that man, the second... how unhealthily skinny he was. The blond man had sunken diamond blue eyes and sunken cheeks with high cheekbones and thin lips. This most likely intimidating face to most people, yet somehow charming face... seemed oddly familiar.
What the hell is going on?
He only nodded in response.
"I think that you ought to get some fresh air either way..." the blond man looked distrustfully towards the elevators. So Aizawa wasn't the only one who had a crazy ride, huh? That's reassuring. "If these are here, that means that somewhere are stairs."
Aizawa gave another nod to the man, that was a logical assumption and he would gladly go out in the search of the exit himself, but his body refused to cooperate.
"I'll help you." The man said as he reached out a hand. "What's your name?" The throbbing headache went away as Aizawa stared at the hand for a fleeting moment. He took it and slowly got on his feet. His mind was completely emptied of any memories.
What was his name?
His full name?
"I'm Aizawa." He said shortly, he didn't want to reveal he didn't remember who he was. What the hell is going on?
Who am I?
"Just Aizawa?" the blond man asked with a small smile.
He looked good with a smile.
After not getting a suitable response, the man gave a dry chuckle before giving his name.
"I'm Toshinori Yagi."
Yagi-san... that rings a bell...
Toshinori helped Aizawa get up and led him down the hall looking out for any sort of indication of the staircase. The corridor's walls were covered in fancy wallpaper lit from the bottom by blue lights. The corridor made a turn to the left at the end, while making that turn, they walked past a tiny pond with bamboos surrounding it and few fishes swimming around in it. They walked past it and saw a bar.
The atmosphere changed slightly, perhaps due to the shift in decorations. The bamboo and fish pond definitely hinted Asian culture, but walking closer to the bar, it began to remind Toshinori of modern American location.
At this point, Aizawa felt just right to walk on his own, plus, he began to feel slight discomfort being held for so long by a stranger, so without a word he made a slight gesture to free himself from Yagi's hold.
He was let go off.
"Hello?" Behind an expensive-looking bar stood a young man that didn't quite fit the picture.
Toshinori's head was booming with an emptiness that should be filled with countless memories. It was unsettling, but the thoughts about his fear subsided when he walked out of the elevator next to a sickly-looking man. He was unbelievably pale and trembled all over his body.
Before Yagi made half a step to ask the man if he was feeling all right, he already managed to trip.
He reacted quickly. Involuntarily almost, as if he had done the same things thousands of times. Even if he didn't remember, the body did, and reflexes stayed intact.
The first few things he noticed about the man - Aizawa - was that he had a stubbly chin, was astoundingly pale, was extremely buff under baggy v-neck, and was what a person like him - 220 cm tall - would consider "normal tall". His long wavy hair was loose and when Aizawa gathered it out of his eyes, he was met with the darkest and prettiest eyes he has ever seen.
But also, the most tired ones.
He had no second thoughts about helping out the man, he couldn't think about anything else at the moment, to be fair. Even if he had the most urgent matter in the world, he felt like he wouldn't be able to pass by a person in need.
Yagi has helped Aizawa walk down the corridor and without comment, let go of the man when he asked for it wordlessly.
Both of them stood opposing a bar.
The bartender looked as if he was barely in a legal age to drink. He had pale blue hair - dyed probably - and bright red eyes, which would've been scary for a few people. Yagi had a feeling that even if red eyes should be unusual, he wasn't new to seeing them. Underneath the eyes, rested dark circles indicating lack of proper rest. The young man had pierced ears and a few scars a both edges of his mouth. Right by one of the scars, there was was a mole.
Ah.
He thought as he saw a fleeting image.
Blurry and distant.
Two... no, three people. Three friends, two of them were leaning on the one in the middle, draping their arms around him and laughing while holding their drinks. He watched them contently, laughing as well.
Who was that?
"Welcome to Hana." the bartender bowed respectfully, his bright hair fell into his eyes. "My name is Tenko, I'm the bartender and the game's host. Please take a seat, gamers." he extended his hand pointing to the stools in front of the bar. The bad was made of dark wood, so were the stools, no cushions, that couldn't be nice for the backside to sit too long at. Despite the comfort flaw, it was a very lavishly decorated place and seemed to be nice to spend time in with friends after work.
"Pardon, but where is exit?" Toshinori wasn't in the mood for any games and was slightly set off by how the place lacked... people.
"The only exit from here is out in these elevators." the bartender said calmly.
There must be a different exit.
Aizawa seemed to agree as he hadn't bothered to even talk to the bartender and began walking around. First, he went right.
He found a few tables with comfortable chairs and stocks of books to read and some board games, even a TV was there. There were two doors, but they lead to bathrooms.
There must be a different exit.
But there wasn't.
Stressed out, both of the men spent at least half an hour to look for the exit. The first two-three rooms weren't surprising, all of this indicated that spending time in this place had a high price and thus it could afford to be that big, but more they got around, the more apparent it was that nothing of that sort was there. No exit, and no windows even.
Just... bathrooms, alcohol storage, big open space with a piano, few couches and stairs leading up to seats that gave an excellent view on what was happening down.
All over the place, there were hung chandeliers - quite small compared to the one that was illuminating the light over the piano in the biggest room. There was also a difference in the kind of light they gave off, the smaller ones were bright and gave a clear view, but the big one shone with delicate blue and purple light. It didn't provide a good light source, barely enough to move around without bumping into anything - not that there was much aside to the stairs and piano.
It was all so unnervingly beautiful.
"Where the hell is this place?" Aizawa said in a low annoyed voice, messing with his hair. He wasn't a people-person, but loneliness and sense of captivation were getting to him. The weak sensation in his knees returned as he got off the stairs and walked past the piano.
Then, a fleeting image. Memory.
Loud bar with plenty of people laughing, dancing, and drinking. There was a group of people, familiar people.
His friends?
His friends having fun in a bar, while he watched. He wasn't a type of guy to dance nor get tricked into dancing. It seemed more fun to observe them, sober and sometimes holding the camera for Nemuri to film what kind of dumb thing was drunk Emi and Hizashi were doing.
"I'm afraid I can't answer, but this is Hana." the bartender called out, motioning towards the bar. He stood above the three steps that led to this open space and he watched Aizawa and Toshinori attentively as they searched for the exit. "But allow me to ask, what do you recall just right before you came here?" then, he turned around and left to attend the bar, urging the two men to follow.
Confused and anxious, they did.
This time, they set down and waited for a moment in silence. Now that they have, they paid more attention to the decorations. In the center - opposite to the bar's center - there was a beautiful art piece of glass (at least it looked like colored glass) with a circular design mixing eight colors with a soft harmony even if they were supposed to look disastrous together.
"Tenko" observed the two men silently - there was an odd detail about his eyes. More like, an eye, due to the hairstyle; it looked as if his eye had something of a cross on the pupil. Perhaps the young man was wearing eye contacts, and his true eye color wasn't unsettling at all. The young man crouched down and pulled out two glasses on the counter, and then turning his back to both of them and shuffling with few bottles as if he didn't quite know which one to open. To his credit, he had several shelves stocked with what seemed a fine wine and other types of alcohol. All looked costly.
Toshinori spoke up first.
"I remember that I was at home." That didn't calm Yagi at all, how did he end up so far from home? Well, he didn't know if it was far from it or not, but it was not fun at all. At least his head wasn't so empty anymore. When he walked around, he recalled little bits. Especially while he climbed those stairs up that led to nowhere in particular. He recalled his resignation letter from the previous job and applying and eventually getting accepted into another one - at a private high school as a teacher.
What did he teach?
Other than that, he retained that walking up and down stairs usually gave him a hard time, but today... or tonight, he was rather fine. No coughing up his lungs yet...
But the last memory he had was his prescription bottles and getting the right dose. God, he was on so much medication...
"I'm sorry, but I can't drink with my medicine." It's only half-lie.
"Thank you very much." Tenko bowed his head at Yagi, but when he turned to Aizawa, the man didn't even speak up, he just shook his head.
Nothing.
"Thank you very much." His tone was emotionless almost, hoarse, but very respectful. "Allow me to explain the circumstances, please listen carefully."
Aizawa was going to remark that they didn't seem to have a choice but halted his tongue. Probably for the best, this whole place gave such a horrible vibe. It was almost booming with how empty the halls and rooms were. Literally nobody other than three of them.
"First thing, I cannot tell you where you are." Neither of them liked that, but they stayed quiet not as eager and curious as they were afraid. "Second thing, both of you are players in a game. I am the NPC whose only task is to provide you information about the game." This annoyed Aizawa. The last thing he wanted to do when he couldn't recollect anything about himself or what he was doing, was to play a stupid game. "Third thing, the game will be picked randomly by the board." he reached behind the bar and put a button on top of it. His hands were pale and roughed up. "Press this button to start it. Ah... and fourth thing, the game's stake is your life. Player versus Player." Toshinori's eyes widened and Aizawa tried to stand up, but then his knees felt weak again and he didn't attempt it.
"The school isn't for you to slack off and play games where your parents can't see you!" Aizawa scolded two high schoolers with his arms folded on his chest, holding two gaming consoles."This is not a playground, if you want to go to one, then say so and I will expel you immediately!" He threatened, with his voice cold and serious, but far from yelling volume. The girl on the right, had dyed bright pink hair and so did the boy on the left, he had blond instead with few streaks left black and so were the roots - dyeing hair was against the dress code, but he could care less about that. The education he's - and all other teachers - are trying to provide and is blatantly ignored was what he was so enraged about.
"'M sorry Aizawa-sensei..." Ashido said with a pout, he was certain that it was no sincere. She was most likely grumpy over her console getting snatched.
"But the lecture was quite boring- and-" With a glare and darkening frown, Kaminari suddenly changed playing defensive and went to retreating and asking for mercy. "We shouldn't have done that! We're so sorry!" Kaminari bowed and so has started Ashido. They kept bowing and it looked funny.
"That better not happen again, or else you won't be getting these back." With a hopeful look, they straightened their backs. "Now, these will be confiscated nonetheless. Until the next winter break." They both deflated.
"Yessir..."
"Good, now I believe you have a period with-"
What the fuck...?
"What the fuck is that supposed-!" The ravenette interjected angrily but was cut off. Tenko wasn't finished.
"Fifth thing, until the end of the game, you can't leave this place. There's no exit screen. The elevators won't work at all until you finish and there are no stairs." he seemed amused by this situation.
Shit, is this a psychopath?
"I also don't advise you to refuse to play the game." His hand raised and pointed at the button. "Now, please press the button."
Aizawa tried to think rationally - but that did seem like a no-exit situation... unless this was a prank set up by his friends- no that was impossible, they wouldn't put him in this kind of twisted scenario... besides, how would they make him forget everything? Even his own name?
Despite numerous emotions wracking him up, he didn't tremble as he pressed the red button.
He never liked playing games at all. He preferred to sit down with a book in hand.
The board played, a few seconds passed, and then one of the pieces flipped. The big bold letters read in a foreign language...
"Darts."
Just as the words left Toshinori's mouth, there came a deafening explosion, suffocating dust and a tall pillar of ash. The open space disappeared for a few moments. This commotion had Aizawa nearly fell off the stool in surprise.
"What the hell was that supposed to be?" He murmured to himself under his breath. Instead of open space, there stood two poles with dartboards. The piano was moved from the center and stood by the wall now.
Tenko proceeded to move towards the dartboards and showed two neat sets of darts, one blue, the other one red. Hesitant, the two men stood up and followed his suit. Even from this distance, it was easy to see that this kind of boards for darts, you're not going to see someplace else.
"The rules are simple. You throw the darts at the board and the one with a bigger number of points wins. Each of you has eight darts. Please be mindful of your throws." The bartender said politely and went over the punctation of the game, but neither of them could've listened to a word that was being said.