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From the beginning, Kokichi Ouma was in it to win it. Despite all the odds stacked against him, despite all the necessary risk and unnecessary pain his ultimate goal would bring him -- he saw no other way, no other way to make all the casualties, the blood, the sacrifices meaningful.
And so he put on his mask, and let the show begin.
--
He never expected it to be so easy. On the other hand, he never expected it to be so hard.
Gonta Gokuhara, the Ultimate Entomologist. He was so stupid. Absolutely stupid. If only he wasn’t so stupid, he wouldn’t have died. If only he wasn’t so influenceable, so malleable… Kokichi wouldn’t have been able to play him like a puppet.
This, he realized now, a hollow feeling settling in his heart, was the first time he’d allowed himself to display his emotions. It was like a wave of guilt and despair threatened to swallow him as he watched the tearful Gonta apologize. Why was he apologizing? In the end, it was all Kokichi’s doing. Kokichi set him up, manipulated him into becoming the blackened. It was necessary, of course. He couldn’t lose the game now, not when he still had so much left to do. Yes, it was for everyone’s sake.
So why did it hurt so bad?
The accusatory looks, the tears of sorrow and anger running down their cheeks… nothing could compare to the guilt eating him up from the inside. He felt the mask crack, something in his chest strain. And still that idiot was apologizing.
But he wasn’t the hero of the story. He was Kokichi Ouma, the Ultimate Supreme Leader.
He was the liar.
As he covered himself with his usual facade once more, he almost wished they would see through him.
Almost.
--
“You’re alone, Kokichi. And you always will be.”
The steely look in Shuichi’s eyes was one he wouldn’t forget, whether a decade passed by or two. He felt his smile fade, his voice die down, something prick at the back of his head. Because he was right. And the sooner Kokichi accepted it, the better. The easier it would be on him. Those words cut down the disdainfully illogical hope he still harbored; hope that the detective could grow to know him, not as the liar, or the Ultimate Supreme Leader, but as Kokichi. Just Kokichi. And it would be enough for him. It wouldn’t matter what everyone else thought of him so long as he had that one person who knew, who cared about, who believed in the boy who cried wolf.
--
Which all led up to this moment, the final moment, as Kokichi lay on the cold metal of the hydraulic press. There was no comfort in his situation, no warm caresses, not even a drop of solace, just the maddening drone of the machine that served as a constant reminder of his impending doom. He’d done it. He’d accomplished all he could, tried his very hardest to achieve victory. It was all up to the others now.
To think that he would fade away without his true intentions being uncovered no longer bothered him. He didn’t mind being painted as the villain anymore, didn’t mind if the others thought of him as a pathetic, deranged sociopath...
No, that was a lie. Kokichi smiled to himself bitterly. Even when he had nothing left to lose, no one to lie to except his own pathetic, dying body, he couldn’t admit the truth. Truly a liar to the very end.
Kokichi blinked as a strange calm settled over him. The block of metal above him drew closer still, its threatening hum resounding in his ears, making his body tense up in morbid anticipation. He shut both of his eyes and inhaled deeply. There was nothing left to lose anymore. He could drop the act. Perhaps this small freedom consoled him, because amidst everything, Kokichi found it in him to hope -- no, believe -- that somehow, someday, Shuichi Saihara, the Ultimate Detective, would cut through his lies, and find the sad truths buried within the no-longer-beating heart of a liar.