Author's Notes: When I played through the axe ending, someone had hinted to me in advance that there was some serious fridge horror lurking beneath the actual ending, when you stopped to think about it. So I lay awake in bed after finishing the game and put it together, and what a horrifying picture it was. I'm going to add another author's note at the end to avoid spoiling the fic here, but suffice it to say that I needed to write this. Warnings for language, violence, and fridge horror.

An Ending

Aoi Kurashiki looked between his sister and the man they had spent the night calling Seven. "Now, just a goddamn minute," he said. "He's as big as a house! Don't pull this 'Someone has to be a gentleman,' bullshit and then bat your eyelashes when you fucking well know he's not gonna fit."

Akane had the grace to look ashamed- an act, much as the earlier suggestion had been, but it was a convincing act. She put her hands out and twisted her fingers together, staring hard at the floor. "I didn't mean it that way," she said quietly. If Aoi's half of the exchange hadn't been an act, as well, he'd actually have felt guilty.

Seven, predictably, was already speaking up in her defense. "Quit giving her a hard time and man up, man. You gonna make a lady sit down in that thing?"

"Can it, asshole." Aoi made a 'tch' sound in the back of his throat. "I don't see you in a hurry to get your brain fried out by some mad scientist's idea of a wet dream."

But he threw himself into the chair, regardless- and when the restraints closed around his wrists, he didn't have to fake the shudder that ran up his spine. Nine years later and the thing still freaked him the hell out. "There. Happy?"

Akane put a hand over the manacle encasing his left wrist and gave him a smile that was meant to be reassuring. He was not certain whether this, too, was intended for show, or if she had seen through to his real discomfort. "Thank you, Santa," she said. "Don't worry. We'll be careful."

"Yeah, yeah. If I bite it cause one of you geniuses screw this up, I better get a hero's fucking eulogy at the funeral." He turned his head toward the panel that glowed green on the machine beside him. Even though he knew that it was safe- even though he had reassembled the machine in question personally prior to the game, leaving out the parts that would cause the chair to electrify- he could not quite stop the twinge of unease that turned his stomach over at the sight of it.

"I'll get it right." The words, surprisingly enough, belonged to Clover. They were scarcely more than a whisper- fitting for the ghost of a girl she'd become since they'd discovered the corpse presumed to be her brother. Santa turned to face her- noted how pale she was was and the way she hunched her shoulders. They couldn't reach that damn church fast enough, he found himself thinking. For her peace of mind, the sooner they "discovered" that Snake was alive, the better. "This is important," Clover said, and her words were more steady this time. "I'll make sure it's right."

Santa found himself dredging up a smile despite an anxiety that was perfectly genuine. "Yeah? Thanks." He twitched his hand toward Akane and then Seven, his current full range of movement. "Keep these dunces from melting me into the chair, okay?"

Clover did not return the smile, but he hadn't expected her to. The smiles would have to wait until they left here- and after room 2 was a not-so-distant memory, Aoi told himself, it wouldn't be much longer. She would be seeing her brother soon enough.

"If you're done predicting the end of the world," Seven rumbled, moving to peer at the green-lit screen, "let's get this started. Sooner we get you out, the sooner we're off this tub."

Aoi had to twist to see what he was doing- but even with the sidelong view and a poor angle, he knew what to make of the small, green arrows. He'd programmed the puzzle himself, after all- tested it no less than seven times in preparation for this day. By the way the man seemed to be working his way through it, methodical and steady, it wouldn't take him long. However he might look, the man they'd been calling Seven was nothing like an idiot. With him at the controls and Akane there to offer helpful hints, he'd be free of these goddamn manacles in no time flat. After that, it was smooth sailing: the coffin, the pair of 9 doors, and finally- finally- the guarantee that his sister would still be safe when all of this was over.

His thoughts were hours away. His eyes were on the screen.

Consequently, the first he saw of the axe was when it came down on the back of Seven's skull, lodging there with the sound that a ripe melon makes upon being split open.

The big man went down without a word, but Akane filled the sudden silence instead, her scream shrill and piercing. Aoi was moving to stand before he remembered- found himself yanking against the arm restraints without effect. "Clover? What the fuck-? "

There was blood on him already; more splattered up, soaking warm and wet through his pants, as Clover planted a foot on Seven's back for leverage and yanked the axe free. "Did you think I wouldn't know?" Her voice was as low as before, barely a whisper- but when she looked up from the body on the floor, something was wrong about the light in her eyes. "It was just simple math."

Akane stood frozen by the screen, still; she swayed slightly, face stricken, cheeks suddenly red. She was going to faint, Aoi realized with a rush of panic. The fever was back, and she was going to faint right there on the floor. His gaze flickered from her to Clover, suddenly, petrifyingly afraid that the girl's next target would be his sister.

Clover's words, when they came, laid that fear to rest- and kindled a new one, sharp and primal, to take its place. "Two plus seven plus three is twelve. One and two is three." The girl took a lurching step forward and smiled- or rather, the skin around her mouth pulled upward, stretching to reveal teeth. It was a parody of a smile; in its terror, Aoi's mind scrambled backward through the years to seize upon the image of a doll Akane had requested for Christmas, once. Its smile had been like that: too, too wide below glassy, lifeless eyes. "Can you add, Santa? I can."

She took another step forward. Seven's blood dripped quietly from the blade of the axe. Numbly, Aoi wondered to himself how, with all of the planning, with all of the details they'd discussed, with all of the thousand and one interlocking parts they'd seen to personally, this one small thing had escaped their notice. This one, small assumption- so obvious, in retrospect- had been overlooked.

"Fuck! Clover!" Aoi yanked against the arm restraints with all the force he could muster. The chair was every bit as unyielding as he recalled from nine years ago, however; the skin on his wrists chafed and then tore, wetting the inside of the manacles with blood, and he came no closer to escape. "You've got it wrong! Listen to me, goddammit!"

The girl did not show any signs of complying. She did not show any signs of slowing. Up went the axe- and Aoi flinched backward, waiting for its descent.

It was Akane's arms that held her, Akane's arms that pulled her back. "Clover," she was saying. "Clover, it wasn't Snake." Her face was red, breathing ragged. She looked barely able to stand, much less hold another person in check. "Your brother isn't dead."

"Let go of me." Those dull eyes turned to fix upon Akane now, a hint of anger like a flickering flame in their depths. "I know what I saw." Clover twisted sideways, trying to shove the older woman away, but though his sister's arms shook with the effort, the grip held. "Let go."

"Please. Listen." Was Akane crying? It had been a long time since he'd seen his sister genuinely cry- but her face was visible over Clover's shoulder, streaked with tears. "It wasn't Light. It was another man."

Clover lowered the axe, and for an instant, Aoi thought that the words had reached her. Relief flooded him, so thick that he forgot to breathe. She would ask, now. "How do you know my brother's name?" she would say. There would be time to explain, and if she did not believe, they could show her. There was still a chance.

"Listen to her, Clover," he managed. In his chest, his heart thundered wildly, still operating on panic mode. "It was a douche move, but we had to do it. Let me out of this fucking chair and we can go see your brother right now. There ain't a scratch on him."

Akane was talking at the same time; their words overlapped, ran together. "He was wearing your brother's clothes," she was saying, "so it makes sense that you thought it was him. But the person in room 3 wasn't Light."

Clover stood staring at him, eyes blank. His sister's arms were still wrapped, trembling and desperate, around the girl's waist. He waited for the questions that would surely come, now.

There was no warning. Clover did not even speak. She only shifted her grip on the axe handle- and this time, she struck from the side. The blow took Akane across the ribs, or perhaps between them, for the blade went deep.

His sister made a small noise as her eyes widened: a hurt, surprised noise. It wasn't until Clover pulled the axe free again that she began to scream.

A gush of hot blood came out with the blade, onto the glass floor, and onto the chair, and onto Aoi. Akane's face was not red any longer; it had gone a terrible, hideous white. She stood an instant more, one arm clutching at her side, and then pitched slowly sideways to fall across her brother's lap. Her blood was stunningly warm- it gushed out in pulses, ran down his legs, soaked the shoes he had just bought.

It had been Akane that had picked those shoes. She'd discovered them in the back of the store and come to show him, smile teasing. "You wanted the dumb punk look, didn't you?" She'd pressed them into his hand. "Here, try these."

Through the recollection, through the unbearable heat of the blood, Aoi became aware of a noise. It filled up room 2; it echoed off the walls. It sounded the way it had when, nine years ago, this room had been in use. It sounded as though something wild and not precisely sane had gotten free. It sounded as though someone was being murdered by slow degrees. If he hadn't noticed the way his throat burned, tense and raw, he would not have realized he was screaming.

Up went the axe again, and the wordless cry of denial raised in pitch- morphed into a name. "Akane!"

Down came the axe- and was he crying? It had been a long time since that had happened, too. "Akane!" When the bones in his wrist gave under the force he was applying in a bid to pull them free, he scarcely noticed the pain. "Akane!"

She was still moving, but it seemed languid, slow-motion. His sister's hand, white and chill to the touch, reached for his; it brushed his fingers, but the restraints prevented Aoi from taking it in his own. Her voice was a breath, her smile fainter still. "We'll get it right next time," she said, and there was something wet behind the words, a soft gurgle. Blood was on her lips.

Then the axe lifted once more, and when it landed again, it put an end to everything he had lived the past nine years for.

He should have cared that Clover was speaking. He should have cared because the axe was still clasped in her delicate hands, immediate and real and hideously red. The words washed over him, though, lost in the sound the blade made as it was pulled free from Akane's corpse. His cheeks were wet; something dripped down from his chin, unheeded.

"Your first mistake," Clover told him, "was not understanding what it means to lose a sibling." The words were background noise; they were so much static.

"Your second," said the girl, "was picking mine."

When the axe came down for the final time, there was not enough left of Aoi Kurashiki to care.

Author's note: To elaborate: Clover kills Seven, Santa, and June behind door 2. The easiest way to imagine a girl her size taking out two grown men on her own and remaining uninjured, weapon or no, is if one of them is restrained when it happens... which coincides conveniently with door 2 housing the Emergence room. Seven won't fit in the chair, as is stated when you go into the tortue room with him and Lotus. June is presumably free to try and protect the people in the room with her, if what Clover tells Junpei at the end can be believed. The mental picture those conclusions left me with was... this, essentially.