So! Clearly, I'm a bit late on jumping on the bandwagon this year, but I kind of had to be. For my own mental health sake I decided that while I would participate in the prompts, this year I wouldn't force myself to get them done within the week. This is my first chance to write for fun again really since September (I was swamped with writing assignments this semester!), so best not to make it stressful by self imposing deadlines, don't you think?

That being said, I have a small personal goal of trying to get all 7 done before the end of the year (Though if not I'll finish them when I finish them; I'm still doing all 7 regardless!)

All that out of the way, let's get on with the first day's prompt!

Day 1: Ill

The room was dark, but she didn't need the lights on to see the sight standing before her: the Mastermind. Clad in a menacing mask and white coat, the Mastermind of this entire twisted idea of a game they'd been forced to endure stood before her only a few feet away, carrying a sinister glint in their eyes that she was certain wasn't coming from the mask's design.

They stood only a few feet from each other, having ended up that way after their first tussle, with her shooting into the room and shoving them as far as she could from their original spot, and taking all the kicks and blows that came with such an action as well. Now, they simply stared each other down, neither one making any sudden movements. Her eyes never left the tip of a very familiar looking knife that the mastermind held in their hands.

Her heart was racing. Her breathing was heavy. Her body was sore from the assortment of bruises she was certain were currently forming. Every inch of her was screaming to get out of there, to get out of this dangerous situation and to find safety. Her body demanded she show some measure of trepidation.

But she refused.

Somewhere, in the back of her mind, a hazy yet familiar sounding, stern voice told her "Never show your fear, Kyouko,". She didn't know who or where she had heard them from, but she knew they were important; they were words she lived by.

And so she didn't. She clenched her fists to keep her fingers from trembling and kept her gaze focused squarely on the Mastermind. Kept her gaze focused squarely on their eyes. She wouldn't show her fear, couldn't show it.

Not when there was so much at stake.

The Mastermind seemed to hold her gaze for several minutes. They both stood as still as could be, neither making any sudden movements. And then, the Masterminds head turned just a bit; more importantly, so did the knife.

She held out an arm protectively. Not for herself, of course, but for who was behind her. For the person who's room she was in. For the original target.

Makoto Naegi.

The Mastermind froze again and held knife out toward her again. She didn't flinch at it. She held her ground. Another moment of stillness and silence passed. And then, finally the Mastermind took a step…

Backward. And then another, and another, and another. Until the door was to their back, at which point they grabbed hold of the door knob and quietly stalked out of the room. The tip of the knife was pointed at her the whole time while they moved. It was the last thing she saw disappear behind the door when it finally closed. A soft click echoed through the room. Silence followed.

They were gone.

She didn't let herself relax until a full three minutes had passed, and even then, only after she realized that the Mastermind wasn't currently able to view her through the cameras. She let her shoulders drop and she let herself sit on the edge of the bed. She could feel a headache coming on. Great. Just another problem to add to her ever growing list. She reached up and rubbed her temples.

Seeing the Mastermind out in the open like that… she hadn't quite expected that. She'd expected danger—the whole reason she'd come back down in the first place was because she felt something was amiss, almost like a sense for danger (And something about it was strangely familiar…). But to see the reason for that feeling being that the Mastermind had decided to take things into their own hands…

It had thrown her off more than she cared to admit.

For them to risk going out into the open like that and blatantly disregard their own rules—of which they'd been very strictly following until now—to try and kill someone without any reason…

They were getting desperate. For what exactly, she didn't know, but she fully intended on finding out.

An incoherent mumble and a slight movement on the bed pulled her out of her thoughts. Her gaze snapped back to the bundle of blankets lying on the bed behind her.

Speaking of that 'someone' who they'd tried to kill…

She stood up and looked down at him. His face was barely peeking out from the top of the blanket with a tired look on his face. He blinked up at her with a sleepy expression.

She clenched her fist at that. She knew he could be oblivious at times, but this was ridiculous. How could he not have heard or noticed any of what had happened in here?" "Naegi," she practically hissed. "Get up."

He blinked a few more times at her. His brows furrowed and finally he spoke up, "Kiri…?"

She resisted the urge to roll her eyes, though just barely. "Yes, it's me," she said, unable to keep the irritation from leaking into her tone. She'd played this game with him the other night and was in no mood for a repeat of it. "You need to get up." When he didn't even move, she continued, "Do you have any idea what even happened here? I told you that you need to start locking your door specifically to prevent something like this from happening to you. What would you have done if I hadn't shown up? Wh-" She stopped. He still hadn't moved.

Something was wrong.

"Naegi?" she tried, giving him a closer look. His face looked pale, standing out much more in the dark room, and his breathing sounded tired and ragged.

A pair of foggy looking eyes met her own, looking dull and unfocused. "Kiri…" He repeated, and this time she noticed how low and raspy his voice sounded. It wasn't like how he'd sounded when she'd woken him up last time; his voice had been sleepy sounding, but not like this.

No, this was something beyond just general tiredness.

Naegi mumbled out something else she couldn't quite make out before his eyes fluttered shut again. It was then she noticed the slight sheen on his forehead. She frowned at it, and reached to pull off her glove. Another look at him, even if he was sleeping, gave her pause though, and she thought better of it. She instead rolled back a sleeve on her jacket and pressed the skin of her arm against his forehead.

He was burning up. He had a fever, to be certain.

Because of course he did. Leave it to Makoto Naegi to somehow catch a bug when in a place completely isolated from the outside world. How he managed such a feat, she was certain she'd never know.

She pulled her arm back and reached for a tissue to wipe the sweat off of it, then started dabbing it against his forehead. When that was done, she threw the tissue into the waste basket a few feet away. She away toward the door, but stopped after a few steps. Her gaze wandered back toward the sleeping lucky student.

A minute passed, and then another. At the realization she was just staring at him for no particular reason, she felt her face warm and forced herself to look away. She chose to study the wallpaper to her left instead.

Why was she hesitating like this? He was feverish, yes, but there wasn't much she could do about it. She didn't have any medicine on her to help him through it. Sleeping it off was all he could realistically do, and he could manage that well enough on his own. He didn't need anything else from her, and she had other things to attend to anyway.

Her eyes flickered over to the camera in the room. It was still for now, but for how much longer? She'd taken a gamble coming down here at all—one that paid off of course, but still a gamble. She didn't know how much time she'd have left where she wasn't being monitored. She needed to get back upstairs now, back to her investigation. She needed to-

Naegi suddenly let out another sleepy, incoherent mumble and rolled onto his side, curling himself into a ball. He shivered, then stretched out again, leaving one of his shoulders exposed when he turned again. From there, she could see the edge of a familiar shade of green poking out from the edge of the blanket.

...He'd left his hoodie on.

...Of course he had.

She let out a huff and walked back over to him. "Just how reckless do you plan on being?" she asked. She got only another groan as a response. She rolled her eyes, then pushed him onto his back and pulled the cover off.

Immediately a chill wracked through his body. He tried to curl back on himself, but she reached forward and grabbed his arms, pinning them. He put up a pitiful fight, letting out a small whine as he tried (though only barely) to pull himself free. He tried to kick her away, but it was barely even a tap against her leg. Eventually, he stopped, seeming to resign himself to his fate and became still, save for his shivering. When she was certain he'd given up, only then did she unzip his jacket.

He let out another whine though when she began pulling one of his arms out from the hoodie. "Perhaps, if you'd actually stopped and thought about the consequences of your actions for once, I wouldn't have to do this," she chastised him. He huffed at her. "Don't give me that," she said. In his sleep, he made a face that resembled a pout, and once more he tried to keep her from pulling him out of his jacket. And this time it was rather annoying ,because he tried to push her off of him. Apparently, his delirium brought out a stubbornness she didn't usually see from the boy.

...Or perhaps he was just very attached to the jacket. She couldn't recall ever having seen him without it, after all. She resisted the urge to smile at the thought. Of all things to get worked up over, the idea of him getting more defensive over his jacket than anything else about him was a funny thought.

...And kind of a cute one.

She felt her face warm again. She shook her head to snap her out of whatever stupor this was she'd gotten herself into. She had a job to do. She needed to focus on that. No distractions. Trying to have a conversation with an unconscious, feverish person qualified as one of those.

She pulled Naegi's other arm out of his jacket, even in spite of his attempts to stop her, and pulled the jacket away from him. He was left in a plain looking t-shirt; he looked a lot smaller without the bulk of his jacket on. She knew he was smaller than the other boy, but the jacket helped to lessen that appearance slightly. Maybe that's why he was so attached to it?

She shook herself again. Not the time.

Once she backed away he curled into himself again, another chill going down his spine. She pulled the covers back over him, and his shivering diminished greatly. He let out a much more contented sounding sigh and wrapped the blankets around himself tight.

There. That should take care of that—hopefully he'd be fine by the morning. She took a few steps back and over toward the desk in the room. She draped his jacket over the back of the chair and started toward the door again. She'd done all she could do, certainly more than she'd intended on doing, and now she had to get back to her investigation before the Mastermind-

The Mastermind….

Her hand stopped above the doorknob. She glanced back at the camera again.

It still hadn't moved.

She looked back at Naegi again, still wrapped up in the blanket. He let out another drowsy murmur as he turned again, now having his back face her. A sinking feeling grew in her chest as a realization came over her: he was an easy target.

Truthfully, he'd always been one, but it was even more so the case in his current state. And after what had just transpired… that had her worried.

The Mastermind had planned on killing him. They would have succeeded if she'd been just a few seconds late. They probably would have succeeded even if he were more coherent, but as he was now… he was defenseless.

She clenched her fists at her side. She needed to get back her investigations. There were still so many parts of those dorms she needed to look over, so many nooks and crannies and crevices she needed to comb over. She needed to get back before the Mastermind could watch her every move again. And yet…

She needed him too.

Because truthfully, one of the only reasons she and the other five survivors had made it this far was because of him. Yes, she had the investigative ability to figure out the truth, but he… he had the ability to inspire people. To convince them of the truth. To get them to see reason and believe fully in what the evidence showed. He could break things down in such a way that made the disjointed pieces of logic make sense to the others. He had the social ability to do all those things that she couldn't. They balanced each other out like that.

And she liked that fact. And… though she would never admit it to him, she was growing to enjoy his company. There were few things she could take pleasure in while trapped in this school, and he was quickly growing to be one of them. She liked how he stuck to his beliefs, sappy and unrealistic as they could be sometimes, that he could push himself forward when they were challenged, and defend them when necessary. She liked how optimistic he tried to stay, even a situation as hopeless looking as theirs. She liked that her genuinely tried to get to know her, even though she had little she could share with him. She liked so many things about him she normally saw as a weakness in a person and...

And… she just liked him. It was as simple as that; she liked having someone she could call a friend. Trust wasn't something she could give out often or easily. She'd been burned by doing such a sing before—literally—and couldn't afford to do so easily again. And yet somehow, he'd earned just a bit of hers.

They couldn't lose that. She couldn't lose that. She didn't want to lose that—it was too important.

Her shoulders heaved with another sigh. "It seems you've left me no choice, Naegi," she said. She walked away from the door again and back over to the desk. She pulled the chair she'd draped his hoodie over out and sat down in it. She folded her arms across the desk, then let her head rest against her hand as she glanced between Naegi and the door.

She was going to have to watch over him. The Mastermind probably wouldn't come back so soon after having their plans foiled, but she couldn't be certain of that. So, better safe than sorry.

...But just until the morning. Then she would get back to work.

The sound of Naegi shuffling in the blanket caught her attention again and pulled her gaze over to him once more. He let out another muffled noise as his head poked out from the top of the blankets. His eyes were open again, and he squinted to look at her from where she sat.

"What are you…?" He was interrupted by a few strong coughs.

She suppressed the small smile trying to form on her lips. "Go back to sleep, Naegi," she ordered, leaning back in her chair and crossing her arms. He blinked at her once, twice. Then unceremoniously let his head fall back onto the pillow like it was a bag of bricks.

At that, she did let the smile show. "I'll be right here…" she whispered. The Mastermind wouldn't be getting a second shot at this particular plan.

Not if she had anything to say about it.