The Future is Ours and Ours Alone [DRV3 Spoilers]

Prologue - By the Stars

They did it. They had escaped. With everyone, thankfully. Their arrival had brought about grateful, celebratory cries of joy from the rescue crew. "We were so worried," the captain of the expedition said, wiping tears from his eyes. "Once the ship had gone through the wormhole, we had feared it had been too late. But if it weren't for the built-in distress signal, we never would have located you guys, even if the signal were very very small, in which this case, it was." The captain gives out a hearty laugh. "But now that that's all over and the world is fine, we've made this place an institution for you all. Kind of like a school, you could say." The captain then walks off, smiling. "You kids've got a bright future 'head've yer'selves."

"What was that about?" Kaito inquired, being the first one to speak to break up the awkward silence. "How long were we gone for? We were only gone for a few days, right?"

"Yes, however..." Kirumi replied. "It'd seem that in the so called "wormhole", time has progressed significantly in the real world."

"Use real people terms, fuckin' whore." Miu rudely responded.

"For example," Shuichi continued where Kirumi left off. "If a day were to pass in the wormhole, a, say, a year would pass in the real world."

"Nyeh?! A y-y-year?! How long have we been gone?!" Himiko stammered, taken aback by this discovery.

"Hm... I'd say about a fortnight at most." Shuichi replied, after thinking about it for a few moments.

"So... fourteen years, huh..." Rantaro commented, not being too surprised by this.

"H-Huh?!" Tenko exclaimed. "H-How can you be so calm about this?!" She then regained composure. "Oh, I get it. It's because all you degenerate males care about is S-E--"

"So..." Kaede muttered to herself. "This is our new home, huh?"

"Kinda gives off the college vibe, doesn't it?" Kaito said, looking around.

"Down the hall should be our dorm rooms..." Shuichi said, looking at the map that had been given to the group earlier. "Ah! There's a special rule when picking out dorm rooms. They don't allow people of different genders to sleep in the same room."

"Haha, well too bad Shuichi, looks like all you're gettin' tonight is a tug session!" Miu laughed.

"Uh..." Shuichi tried to ignore that comment. "There's also only 2 beds per room, however, if you want, you can move beds in and out of the rooms. There's space."

"Shall we settle this beforehand?" Korekiyo suggested.

"Prolly," Ryoma replied. "It'd be a pain if we were to fight over these things later."

This is the arrangement they had settled on.

First, the females: Kaede would be with Kirumi, Maki would be with Tenko (however Maki preferred to be alone and so Tenko would move out of the room into the next), Angie would be with Himiko (and Tenko), and Tsumugi would (unfortunately) be with Miu.

Last but not least (Tenko would disagree), the males: Kokichi would be with Gonta, K1-B0 (or Keebo) would be with Ryoma, Korekiyo would be with Rantaro, and Kaito would be with Shuichi.

Shuichi felt as if he was going to regret this decision later. The loudest guy with the most timid? Not a good contrast there. "C'mon," Kaito said, as he gave him a pat on the back and a cheesy smile, "Let's go, Shuichi." And for some reason, that sparked a form of confidence in Shuichi.

"Y-Yeah."