superordinary | 2nd rebuttal; voice (backdated to june 9th)

[ The past few days have been really strange, really. And just when Naegi thought things had gone back to normal, he went ahead and got himself into some trouble. Having some actual good luck is apparently too much to ask for. ]

Can anyone hear this? [ The audio is disrtorted with static, making his voice difficult to pick out. ]

I...I'm stuck on the roof of the tower in Violet City. I don't know how I got here-- I encountered a Pokémon and then I fo-- [ The audio cuts abruptly here for a split second. ] --yself here.

I'd really appreciate some help.

[ He hastily ends the transmission there and hopes for someone with a Flying-type Pokémon to come to his rescue soon. He isn't exactly about to fall to his death any second now, but he'd really rather not sit on this roof longer than necessary. ]

( filtered to Ishimaru and Mondo later that afternoon, video; )

[ The PokéGear seems to be behaving normally now, thank god. Now that he's safe and sound on the ground, he decides to toss up a message for his classmates as there is something he really needs to address. ]

Um, guys...? Please respond as soon as possible-- I found something you ought to see. I think it's from the school.

[ Having said that, he holds up this lovely endgame spoiler in front of the camera. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Well, if Ishimaru were more rational than he is when he's worked up (and less...Ishimaru, let's all be honest with ourselves), he would have been able to at least say that the misunderstanding was justified, given that, you know, Naegi'd nearly just been killed there. Unfortunately, Naegi is going to have to deal with him being a mess for a little while longer, but at the very least the new information seems to have calmed him somewhat. He's not completely placated, but at the very least he seems a little less willing to continue freaking out in Naegi's general direction, though his words have become very, very tight.]

S-So...to your knowledge, everyone else is safe, and you're still alive. But the person behind this - whoever they are - thought they could...benefit, I guess? From having you removed from the proceedings. Is that it?

The others are safe...I'm sure of it. I don't know why the mastermind wanted me gone, but they must've had some sort of reason for breaking their own rules to get rid of me.

Whatever reason they may have had isn't an excuse - defying the rules that were set down for us in the first place is completely unforgivable!

[...well, the whole thing is completely unforgivable but you know what he meant.]

Nothing like that is going to touch either you or my brother here - I can promise you that much! Even if it's no longer possible back home, I intend to do whatever I can for both of you, and for any of our classmates that may join us!

...

...You know what, Ishimaru-kun? I'm really glad to have you around.

[ He may be weird as hell and prone to yelling and Naegi will probably never fully understand the guy or how he can be so intense all the time but goddammit, he is a good person and a good friend. ]

...Ah.

[And for a moment it's incredibly clear that Ishimaru has no idea what to do with that; while his sense of eye contact is often tenuous at best anyway - he's usually focused somewhere over a person's shoulder as opposed to looking straight at them - it's completely gone now, shot somewhere low and just off to the side of the device. There's still a severe edge to his expression (because really, when isn't there) but...well. He definitely isn't displeased by that, all right.]

I'm very glad to hear that from you, Naegi-kun.

[He seems to recover a bit from that bout of uncertainty, now that he's found something to say.]

It's good to have you around as well, of course! I think it's very fortunate that we're here together, and I...I'm very grateful to have met you in the first place.

[ Naegi seems pleased to hear that, and offers him a small smile. ]

You too, Ishimaru-kun. I just wish we had met under different circumstances.

[ But that probably goes without saying -- any other circumstances would've been a vast improvement over the hellhole that is Hope's Peak. ]

So what do we do with the photo? Is there a way to check if it's been edited?

[Well...well, yes, there's not much denying that...

However, that question seems to catch him a bit off-guard; he doesn't really even consider such things most of the time.]

That question is likely better suited for Fujisaki-kun, as I'm sure she would know; I haven't spent much time around computers beyond what's required for school, and that would be the most obvious way to do it, right?

[...the fact that he has to question that is kind of cementing the sheer amount of "hell if I know" in the answer, but...details...]

Fujisaki-san isn't here yet and it might take a lot of time before she arrives, though. [ He brings a hand to his chin, thinking about what to do. ]

If she shows up, I'll ask her, but in the meantime I think I should look into it elsewhere. I'd really like to know for sure.

Of course - and naturally, I'll be interested in whatever you manage to find out, if anything.

[The entire business is odd; the longer he thinks about it, the less sense it makes, really.]

It seems a lot of trouble to go through, editing something like that - I don't see what the purpose would be.

I don't either, to be honest. [ No matter how he looks at it, nothing about the damn thing makes sense at all. If it's fake, then what is the purpose -- and if it's real, how and when was it taken? This is going to be a thing that will keep him up at night, that's for sure. He really could use Kirigiri and her brain right about now. ]

There has to be some reason behind it, but who knows what the mastermind is thinking?

There are reasons, Naegi-kun, but they don't seem to have any real point behind them - the only reason images like that would exist in the first place would be to make it seem like we knew each other before the incident. Right? We all would have had to have been together in the same place for those pictures to be taken.

What I mean by there being no point is that we all know it's not true. Why bother showing us something like that if we all know there's no way the pictures can exist?

It's possible he was just trying to screw with us. I was the only person who saw those other pictures since he took them away almost immediately...

Why leave them around in the first place, then, if he's just going to -

[...tch.]

While I shouldn't expect too much from anyone so willing to do such hideous things, this would be much simpler if his actions made any sense at all!

[One of the people he's spoken to here has said that this entire situation is obviously calculated, by someone with a lot of time and resources on their hands to plan it out; Ishimaru has a hard time reconciling that with the fact that this person has to be completely and utterly insane to even consider doing it in the first place.]

2nd rebuttal; voice (backdated to june 9th)

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pretend I actually tagged this in a timely manner

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