like getting his laptop back was part of my responsibility... Especially since I was the one who'd given it to Kanna in the first place."

"Oh! That must be why you were willing to give me a whole... 100 tokens." Sou said. People made sounds and faces of surprise but no one really spoke up, "Yes, really surprising, hm? But he still made sure to keep a bunch for himself too... In case he needed to trade off that Sacrifice. How cunning. Pretending to sacrifice yourself for the good of others, but still making sure you had an out. You're a disgusting person, and this explains what happened with Gin." A moment of clarity. Maybe Sou was right, this time. "I sent your Sacrifice to Joe so you wouldn't leave anyone panicked without a single chance of being saved."

"Are you telling the truth?" Joe asked hesitantly.

You responded. "Would you believe him even if he was?"

"Probably not," Sou smiled to himself, "But it is the truth. You surprised me, though. The fourth trade was yours, correct?"

...No?

"What are you talking about?"

"Well I saw you run down the hallway. Chasing after coins... and then trying to get Reko's. It was the Sacrifice that had killed Sara, after all, hm?"

"...Well, first of all... I didn't have any tokens. And neither did Reko."

"And Y/N?"

"...I didn't need Y/N's tokens."

"It couldn't have been them..." Nao spoke up reluctantly, "Uh, Gin, Y/N, Joe, and I were all together during the fourth trade. It wasn't... them."

"Then perhaps... Keiji?" He turned to the blonde, "Keiji had been manipulated into forcing a trade between Joe and someone else... Maybe even his darling Y/N? In that case... Y/N is the Sacrifice. And someone else must've traded during the fifth trade. Maybe two commoners? Just to get our minds racing. Or... well... I guess Y/N couldn't be the Sacrifice, otherwise they'd be on the roster, too."

"How fucking smart do you think I am?" Joe asked, completely dumbfounded, "You think I, the fucking seventeen-year-old that you've been so immaturely pressing and prodding at since the first Main Game... is smart enough to think of all that shit? You really think so? I'll have you know, I have, like, a 2.4 GPA. Get over yourself."

"Well, maybe Y/N wants to die?" What. "Who knows. All I know... Is that you guys have something going on. The fact that your Sacrifice is suddenly missing... You claim you had no tokens, but who would want to trade with you?"

You looked around.

"Either way, my second theory was going to be that Nao was the Sage."

Nao made a surprised sound, "Wh— I'm the Sage?"

"Just a guess. So... Yeah. I think it's safe to say that Nao is who we should vote out."

"But you... were claiming that you were a Sacrifice in the beginning!" Nao shouted.

"Right?! God, I'm good." Sou smiled, holding his face with a hand, "I'm a Commoner."

"Then aren't you in the same boat as me!!?" Nao asked, looking extremely frazzled.

"Hm... Yeah. I suppose so..." Sou thought for a moment, "Okay, then I guess we should vote for Kanna!"

Clarity. All just one big distraction.

"You're a highly distrusting person, Sou." You said. "Your lack of trust in your allies is what's going to cause your inevitable death in this game. It could be minutes away, and yet you hold on to your bullshit. You're throwing out... a child. The one person who has ever believed in you during this shit. You're honestly... pathetic."

A flash of something on Sou's face had you thinking that maybe he did have a conscious. Maybe he did actually give a shit.

Maybe you poked a bruise.

"Well, we should still be trying to figure out who the Sacrifice is," He continued, ignoring what you'd said. "If what I'd said earlier about Joe and Keiji teaming up was true... then Keiji would have the Sacrifice. But he'd be an idiot to not have voted for himself into the prelims."

"Nope. I don't have any tokens. Not only that, but I'm the Keymaster."

Sou pulled back a little, "What? No. You're lying. Q-Taro's the Keymaster."

Q-Taro's laughter filled the room, "Right? Guess we got 'im good. Nah, I'm actually the Sage. I can confirm that Keiji is also the Keymaster."

"But that's impossible! That can't be true!"

"You were right to think accomplices... But it wasn't me and Joe." Keiji said. "So let's talk about what really went down. After the third trade, Q-Taro was walking around all upset because of your antics, so I proposed a deal to him. And... I traded our cards. But it happened while he was knocked out."

"But you said you didn't have enough tokens..!"

"Oh, yeah." Q-Taro said, "He didn't. I gave 'im the rest of mine."

"What?!"

Keiji smirked, "Didn't see that coming, huh?"

"S-Shut up..!" Sou hissed, his fingers attempting to dig into the desk.

"Grasping at nothing?" Keiji teased.

"I still have my doubts! How did you even know that Q-Taro had the Keymaster?! We hadn't started the Main Game yet!"

"You can see who the Keymaster is at any point. That's what the tablets are for, y'know? Hm. Guess you didn't."

"Right." Sou glared.

"So, the fourth trade, I gave Q-Taro my Sage, and I took the Keymaster. There's not even a point in discussing the fifth trade anymore. Convinced of your success... you already admitted that you were a Commoner earlier. It's safe for you to die."

"You..." Joe said, "Liar..!" You were taken aback by his volume, "You... lied to me..!"

"Wait—!" Nao spoke up hesitantly, "Are... you really gonna vote for Sou? I-I feel like we need to be discussing this a bit more..! It can't be that easy!"

"Then will you be our Sacrifice?" Keiji asked, giving her a glare, "You won't just accept this? We know how this will all go down."

"Well... Of course I'm afraid I'll die... but I just... I can't trust any of this! He keeps lying about his role card! Sou... is smart! He could've been a million steps ahead of us... and we wouldn't know until we all voted him out... and he ended up being the Sacrifice."

"Not only that, but I feel like finding out who took Joe's Sacrifice is important!" You said, "You claimed that there was no point, but I feel like... it's so strange! Because in return he was given a Commoner. Who would trade their Commoner for a Sacrifice!?"

"We don't need to discuss that," Keiji said harshly, "The Sacrifice will die whether we figure out who they are or not. We just need to focus on killing Sou."

"What has gotten into you?!" Joe shouted. "As long as we have time, we should always try harder to learn information on what's been happening. You lied to me Keiji. I won't just sit here and let you get what you want. We need to continue discussing things. The Sacrifice must be one of the three in the prelims. There's no way the Sacrifice wouldn't have voted for themselves. Not only that, but you're just plain wrong! If we vote Sou and he really is the Sacrifice, he wouldn't die. Where is your mind?!"

"That's exactly why we need to talk about this more!" Nao stressed, "I-If Sou really is lying... He could be the Sacrifice. We need to reason everything out."

"It can't be him," Keiji said, shaking his head, "He was convinced Joe had traded away his Sacrifice this whole time. It has to be between Kanna and Nao."

"There's no way Sou could've known anything about anything." Q-Taro said. "Our plan... He couldn't have accessed my tablet because I'd had it on me the whole time."

"You're taking away from the discussion—" You tried to stop him.

"Wait." Joe said, "No... Q-Taro, when you woke up where was your tablet?"

"...It was on the table."

"Right. I'd call that being off you. It was on the ground when I found you. Gashu said that no one could've accessed your role because you were knocked out, but since you were right there, unconscious, he could've just grabbed your hand and forced it open. Which means, Sou might've seen through your plan... and you're wrong."

Everyone turned to Sou, and he chuckled, "Hehe... maybe? I could've been lying... or maybe I'm lying right now? Hm... I guess you'll never know."

"He's thinking much further ahead than any of the rest of us," You rolled your eyes, "Which brings me back to my earlier point... We need to work out who has the Sacrifice. We can't prove that Sou didn't do anything just to fuck with us. He's such a good liar, he'd provoke us to the point of us voting him out... and in the end, it'd be us dying."

Keiji groaned, rolling his eyes, but didn't argue more on it.

"Exactly, Mx. Y/N... so, vote for Nao or Kanna."

"N-No..." Joe said, but hesitated before continuing, "We can't just... We need to talk about everything..."

"Then let's just fucking get into it, hm?"

A/N:

are we loving long chapter or are we hating it? cuz if ur hating it that really sucks because i'm pretty sure the next one is gonna be long too lol. I got used to compressing a whole bunch of information and events into one chapter for WU&IO and now i can't stop i love it. I don't even know if anyone reads this story anymore but yeah i hope ur enjoying me taking 2 years to rewrite this story lmao. the quality is better tho! I have to reread the old version of this story to know what key details i want in this one and holy shit i hated that stuff. sometimes i wonder why i started rewriting it but then i remember.

I'd like to say i've improved. maybe i'm full of myself 🤭

just cleaned my glasses for the first time in abt 2 months and im seeing the world with new eyes and also depression i love writing fanfiction again so im putting my whole ashussy into it.

anyway read YCGMA and WU&IO 🫶 i'll love u forever and ever since not very many people interact with that story haha.

as always ur comments are appreciated :] i don't really show it but it means a lot to me. I like it when y'all comment a shit ton on ur feelings throughout the story. I don't often respond because i'm busier recently (applying for college uuuhhgghhh) but i always read them and i giggle a little at the out of pocket shit u said like that one time someone made a joke about alice getting hung or something i don't remember but I think about it every once in awhile. actually i found it here

if this is u then u get the funny award this year

love u guys remember to eat (because i can't rn do it for me) and hydrate (i need to piss so bad)