#kokoro is missing a finger in these. it's the one Emma cut off to keep using her handbook while pretending to be her

[laugtherhyena]

Ngl, I was not expecting the extremely rare Mikado W of him executing only Kanade cause she screwed up the reenactment, but I'll take it, lol. Anything to put Kanade in Despair cause fuck her and her nonsense.

Speaking of which, would you mind elaborating on survivor Hibiki in the -2+2 AU events of SDRA2?

Ik this ask is all about -2+2 Hibiki, but I don't think i can talk about her without talking about Kokoro and their deal through the post-ch3 game, so allow me to make this post about the two of them instead!

So first things first, -2+2 Mikado is a lot more serious about keeping his reenactment going just as planned. That's why he straight up exposes Emma by opening the door to the refrigerator Kokoro was in when he realized she was actually going to kill her, executes Nikei for messing up the entire fourth island and trying to throw a wrench at his plans, and most importantly to this topic specifically; Executes Kanade on her own even though both her and Hibiki were classified as the culprits of case 3 as a revenge of sorts because there weren't meant to be any crazy serial killers in his reenactment!

So he goes on this little rant after she's done bragging about her kills and puppet Hibiki and makes up a rule on the spot that in the case of double culprits only the one with most killing intent is executed, which leaves Kanade as the only real culprit in the case and subsequently the only one that will actually be executed for it.

Kanade is absolutely livid that she doesn't get to die with Hibiki now and yells at Mikado saying that thede rules shouldn't apply to them since they were made after the murder, to which he says this is his killing game and he can do whatever the fuck he wants. So commence the execution and as the chains start to pull her towards the executive site she grabs onto Hibiki's legs and tries to forcefully drag her along. Shinji and a few others run to help, but Hibiki snaps and kicks the shit out of Kanade's face until she lets go of her and is brought to her execution.

Afterwards the trial grounds turn dead quiet for a moment before Hibiki breaks down, kneeling on the floor while crying and screaming (basically this Au's version of that Cg/scene in canon where she's banging on the elevator door yelling).

No one approaches her or tries to do anything because they're exhausted and really don't know what they can even do for her in this situation, except for Kokoro who despite being half conscious and with a massive headache because of Kanade (She was drugged by her prior to the murder since she knew Kokoro would be the biggest threat against her in trial) pushes through that and sits next to Hibiki try helping her calm down.

She tells the others they can go and rest already, leave Hibiki to her so they do just that and she stays with her for a good bit until Hibiki is stable enough to go back to her room on the monocruise. And Kokoro actually stays with her for the night since she had in mind Hibiki could maybe get worse it have another breakdown after all that happened + Hibiki didn't want to be alone at all and asked her to stay.

From that point onwards Kokoro takes it upon herself to help Hibiki recover from all the trauma she's experienced in trial 3 and also to come to terms with the truth about all the muders through her life and Kanade's true nature. She spents pretty much the entirety of Ch4 checking up on/taking care of her, to the pount she's not around enough to read through Nikei's bulshit and put together his whole manipulation plan in the bell tower or even investigate the place all that much (even if she was really curious about what was going on) because she knew Hibiki needed her more than anyone else by that point.

By the time Ch5 rolls around they're basically the only people who are still together and not separated/on their own at the start like everyone else, though much to Hibiki's dismay Kokoro starts dissapearing here and there because by now she is very much sure there's something off about her because she can Teruya and Syobai look/treat her in a strange manner. They know something about her, something that Kokoro herself doesn't know thus far and the curiosity has grown to the point it's killing her from the inside so she starts leaving Hibiki to try and get answers out of these people.

This process is pretty rocky and weird for Hibiki, she's at a point where she feels a lot of guilt over Kanade's kills for not realizing the kind of person she truly was, she also feels absolutely terrible for what happens to Setsuka's and still thinks of herself as her killer even if she was in her puppet stage then and Kanade had full control over her. So it falls upon Kokoro to get her out of this terrible state by telling her he couldn't have known about Kanade and everything she did wasn't her fault, and even if she does still blame herself for what happened to Setsuka, there's still people out there that don't hold it against her at all and want to see her as the bright, energetic girl they know her best as. So they spent a lot of Ch4 daily life just on these borderline-therapy-session talks and through it Hibiki even manages to get Kokoro to talk a bit about herself since as the person who's helping her she's more open to talk than in a normal FTEs scenario.

This in turns leads to Hibiki going after Sora and forming a duo of sorts with her by telling her they need to get eveyone back together because they're not beating Mikado all scattered like this, so they investigate Higa city together and try to get Yuki and Yoruko to come back to their senses. This means she was with Sora when they saw Yoruko trying to kill Yuki and later worked on making things up again, she decides to bring the two back to their rooms and it's when they part ways that Sora is kidnapped by Syobai.

But surprise! Surprise! Kokoro was stalking the guy and follows them after the fact. She decides to act and try to free Sora, taking Syobai by surprise as she pushes him to the floor, but in doing so his handbook falls and she sees that it has an emergency exit code. So Kokoro steals the handbook and runs off with Syobai chasing after her, it's when they leave that the others come in to rescue Sora and Kokoro activates the code herself. So after things have calmed down Hibiki brings up that she can't find Kokoro or Syobai anywhere and by the time the trial rolls around and she's also nowhere to be found she grabs Syobai by the collar and starts yelling at him to tell her where Kokoro is and what he did to her, to which Syobai refuses to awnser and just brushes it off by saying Kokoro is the one who's "Got it good now".

While the rest of the cast goes through trial 5, Kokoro is back at the real world so she's the one who later causes the shutdown/emergency reset that saves everyone from the mass execution, but only after she managed to break herself out of her own mind due to the sheer horror that came from her memories returning and the terrifying realization of why those three treated her so strangely. So for a while she's kinda in this state of shock hardly being able to process things amids this clash between her real memories and the memories from her time in the sim.

She's brought back to her senses when the Kisaragi foundation breaks into the building and she rushes to turn the simulation off so that the other's can wake up as well, she also wants to go and delete it as fast as possible since that's the one way she knows to stop Ai Mikado but she's restrained by the foundation agents shortly after the shutdown (they were already yelling at her to stop right there when she was shutting it down). By the time the others are coming out of the pods Kokoro has a gun on her head and Kinjo is threatening to arrest everyone.

Hibiki and Yoruko immediately try to run up to her and help but are stopped in their tracks by Kizuna and Ayame holding them back, it's in this moment that Hibiki sees there's something really wrong with Kokoro just out of the way she's acting. Her eyes are wide open, she looks super anxious/on edge constantly and stranest of all she's stuttering and quiet in a way she appeared as before, as if she's scared of doing as much as speaking to them.

Which she kinda is, in a way. Knowing that she's responsible for putting all these people in the killing game and much much worse has left her in a state where she feels like she doesn't even deserve to look ot direct her words to them, she's just anxiously waiting for everything to come crashing down and take in every insult, disdain and disgust they have to throw at her because for Kokoro this is what she deserves. And everything does go downhill for her, Ai Mikado shows up calling her "mother" and as the foundation agents explain her relationship with him and involvement on the killing game shortly after, soon enough they're back in the simulation for the last trial and then it's just blow after blow as more of her wrongdoings get exposed for all of her friends to see and turn into despising her.

So pretty much everyone hates her, obviously, but then you have Hibiki who's in a weird position in this whole mess. Yes, the others liked Kokoro or were even friends with her, but what they feel towards her is not nearly as much as Hibiki does because that's still the person who stayed by her side and helped her through quite literally the worst moment of her entire life, the same that comforted her when she had nightmares about Kanade and guided her to steer away from self-deprication and guilty over what Kanade's done (and forced her to do, in Setsuka's case) to the people she loved. And even now that everyone knows about all the awful things she did, Hibiki can't just ignore everything they went through during the killing game.

It's a sentiment of; "I don't know why you did all those nasty things and the fact still disturbs me, but for everything we went through and all you've done to me I will not turn my back on you now that you need someone by your side the most."

Gratitude and care I suppose + Kokoro is genuinely torn up and regretfully about these things so seeing that she did change and isn't the same cold women that did all that helps Hibiki be more inclined to stay by her side and give her another chance. Which is part of why she sticks around the Kisaragi foundation during the time Kokoro was working on bring Teruya and Rei back + deleting Ai Mikado for good, she just wants to be there for her even if Mitsume herself can't understand why she still considers her a friend knowing all she's responsible for.

She does genuinely appreciate her for staying though!