Hero: Please forgive me. For all I have done…and all I will do.
I'll find him
, otherwise known as the Pursuit AU, is an OMORI fanfic by otomerson. Set in the same universe as You're back, Mari, it follows the consequences of Sunny choosing to run away with Hero in its Bad Ending and the resulting fallout.
Five years after Hero and Sunny's presumed deaths, Kel hasn't given up on finding out what really happened to them so he can rescue Sunny. With concrete evidence that the two are alive and the location to prove it, he travels to the apartment Sunny is kept prisoner in and busts him out while Hero is at work. Despite the initial traumatic response, Sunny goes with him and returns to Faraway, noting how much has changed since he was kidnapped. Friends, acquaintances, and loved ones come to terms with Sunny's return and disgust with Hero's actions, while Sunny and Omori try to adjust to life away from Hero for the first time in years and make up for the time they didn't know they lost.
Elsewhere, Hero makes moves to find the person who kidnapped his beloved little brother and exposed him to the dangers of the outside world, so he can bring him back to safety...
The fic has three endings of increasing severity, respectively labeled as the Good, Bad, and Nuclear endings. A short followup to the Bad ending, Promising away your Tomorrow, was posted on April Fools' Day 2022.
I'll find him provides examples of:
- Aesop Collateral Damage: In the Nuclear ending, Kel and Hero's parents finally realize they've been neglectful and dismissive of their children after Hero breaks completely, Kel and Sunny commit suicide, and Sally dies chasing after Kel.
- And Now for Someone Completely Different:
- The epilogue to the Nuclear end is set from the perspective of Mari, represented by a lily-of-the-valley, despairing as each of her former friends and family (represented by their motif flowers) joins her in the afterlife.
- Promising away your Tomorrow focuses on a person from the small town Hero and Sunny moved to in the Bad ending.
- Battle in the Rain: Hero finally catches Sunny at the graveyard, leading to a chase and a standoff between him, Sunny, and Kel as it begins to rain.
- Big Sleep: In the Nuclear ending, the deaths that end each segment are tied to feelings of exhaustion and sleep. Every death but Sally's is described as "a beautiful rest [they] would never wake up from".
- Bloodier and Gorier: More blood is shed in this version of the story than both the Faraways of the original game and You're back, Mari.
- Changing Yourself for Love: Basil dyes his hair and changes his clothes after being told that wearing his old clothes reminds Sunny of how much time should have passed for everyone while he was gone. He bases his new look on the Basil in Sunny's dreams and drawings, which eases Omori as well as Sunny's regressed personality.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: In the Nuclear ending, Basil's final moments are spent literally tearing himself apart into a bloody heap to paint his magnum opus, using his viscera and hair as material. He then completes the piece by hanging himself.
- Detrimental Determination: Aubrey's obsession with living for everyone else's sake leads her to bury herself in work, not only to give her deceased friends the life she thinks they wanted in spirit but also the occupy her mind so she doesn't have to think about Basil's mutilated body and suicide. In the end, she dies from exhaustion, collapsing to the floor pale, skinny from malnutrition, and still desperately trying to get back up.
- Dissonant Serenity: Hero made sure to never raise his voice or show anger towards Sunny during his kidnapping, instead treating him as a clumsy and careless little brother to better guilt Sunny into believing his objections are irrational. This includes when he's in the middle of stabbing himself in front of Sunny, keeping a calm smile throughout it all.
- Doesn't Know Their Own Birthday: A variant. Sunny doesn't know how old he actually is thanks to Hero keeping any trace of time out of the apartment, and only learns he'll be turning 21 long after he'd been rescued.
- Driven to Suicide:
- Sunny is so broken down by his lack of agency under Hero that he's willing to kill himself if it means he loses.
- In the Nuclear ending, Sunny kills himself in the final confrontation, and Kel and Basil are so past the Despair Event Horizon that they follow soon after.
- Ear-Piercing Plot: Sunny goes into a boutique to get his ears pierced, as a symbolic act of rebellion against Hero's helicoptering. Kel, Basil, and Aubrey are roped into getting matching studs.
- Emotional Regression: Under extremely stressful situations under Hero, Sunny defaults to a younger, childlike personality to appease his Big Brother Instinct and survive. In the Bad ending and Promising away your Tomorrow, where Hero successfully kidnaps him again, he regresses to this state more or less permanently.
- "Everybody Dies" Ending: The Nuclear ending kills off all the main characters, starting with Sunny and ending with Aubrey working herself to death. Even Sally dies trying to save Kel from drowning.
- Family of Choice: Played with in Promising away your Tomorrow. The protagonist lives with a woman they love and cherish as a grandmother figure, and they come to see Hero and Sunny as extended family members the longer they visit the pair. Trouble comes when Hero returns the sentiment and wants to bring them into the family. In the end, it's not wholly by their choice that they stay: It's also thanks to Hero's gaslighting and Sunny's attachment.
- Forced to Watch: Sunny vividly remembers being forced to watch Hero stab and stitch himself with the broken plate shards he used on himself from under a weighted blanket.
- Foreshadowing: When Hero stays over at Keith's house in chapter 5, the argument the boys have over Kel coming by to investigate abruptly cools down before Keith can process the info he's heard. When they decide to watch a movie instead, the film (a tragedy about two close men) feels too familiar to Hero and unnerves Keith with its violence, and the gunshots are the loudest sounds in the room no matter how much the volume is adjusted. By the next chapter, Hero's "Groundhog Day" Loop is triggered specifically by a struggle between the two that ends in Hero accidentally pulling the trigger on Keith, indicating Hero has delusionally been using the loops to make sense of why he killed him.
- Gaslighting:
- Sunny's life under Hero involved a lot of manipulation in order to make him less likely to question his circumstances. Hero subtly shifts the blame for his overprotectiveness onto Sunny to guilt him into complying, he makes Sunny rely on him for simple tasks in order to make him helpless, and he leaves no trace of time passing around their apartment to trick Sunny into believing he's been gone for far less time than he actually was.
- In Promising away your Tomorrow, Hero leaves just enough modern amenities in their new home, and even lets Sunny go outside every once in a while, to trick him into believing he has more agency. He also gaslights the protagonist into believing they were considering moving in with him and Sunny when they ask why he has all of their belongings from their house; he pretends to bring it up and "drop" the subject when it seems like they don't "remember" having the conversation last night.
- "Groundhog Day" Loop: After killing Keith, Hero hallucinates experiencing the last hour or so before the event over and over again. By the time he finally comes to his senses, it's been a month, and he finally "breaks" the loop by setting Keith's apartment on fire.
- Heel–Face Door-Slam: In the Nuclear ending, Hero only comes to his senses and realizes he could have done something different with his life when he's in the middle of being stabbed to death by Kel.
- Homoerotic Subtext: Aside from Mari, the only other person Hero feels calm around is his old friend Keith. When he accidentally kills Keith, Hero essentially goes catatonic thinking about his last moments and recalls a fond moment they had in the past in the middle of his spiral. Hero later takes Keith's gun as a Tragic Keepsake and wears his favorite ring on his right hand in his memory, matching the ring he bought to represent Mari on his left.
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Chapters 5-9 are named after lyrics from "My Time": "Hands of Time", "Where's that Chime", "In my Head", "I'll just...", and "Goodnight" (from "oyasumi", its Japanese equivalent).
- Ignored Epiphany: During the "Groundhog Day" Loop, Hero is repeatedly told by the Keith hallucination that he has to accept that the actions he's done were for selfish reasons and consider that he had opportunities to do better. In the final loop, Hero finally allows himself to process this, but he instead embraces his selfishness and decides he'll take Sunny back for his own happiness rather than justify himself any longer.
- Improvised Weapon: Due to the lack of sharp objects in Hero's apartment, Sunny tried to stab himself with broken plate shards. Hero later uses them on himself in order to teach Sunny a lesson.
- Karmic Death: After the whole game, and even this AU universe, started with Basil suggesting they make Mari look like she hung herself, it's only tragically fitting that Basil's Nuclear End death is a suicide by hanging. His flailing body in shadow looms over his floor portrait of Sunny, basically turning him into a spiritual embodiment of a Something (a resemblance appropriate for what his suicide does to Aubrey's psyche); and only has his left eye when he dies, making him resemble Sunny's Something.
- Literal Metaphor: A particularly disturbing one. In the Nucular ending, Basil becomes a Mad Artist, and literally puts his blood, sweat and tears into a last painting of Sunny.
- Mad Artist: In the Nuclear ending, Basil starts using his own body parts to paint one last portrait of Sunny. He uses his hair as bristles, his blood as paint, pulls out his eye to use for Sunny's, and is described digging into himself to get more "material".
- Manchild: Enforced. Sunny was forced into a little brother role by Hero. He was given a room with kids' furniture and plushies, only was provided crayons and stickers to draw, and was made to believe he was so helpless he had to be carried and tucked in and their apartment had to be baby-proofed. When Kel first finds Sunny, he's horrified by how much he's been infantilized. Sunny ended up developing a childish alternate persona as a result.
- Multiple Endings: Like You're back, Mari, the story has three endings depending on Sunny's Last-Second Ending Choice:
- Good ending: "Sunrise" — the canon end according to Otomerson. Sunny uses the gun to disarm Hero. Hero is arrested and committed to an institution, and the rest of the gang is left to pick up the pieces. Sunny is able to celebrate his 21st birthday surrounded by his friends and loved ones, and even though they have much to work on, their first step is to scream cathartically together.
- Bad ending: "Golden Hour" — Sunny relents and goes with Hero in order to save Kel, giving him one last hug goodbye. In the aftermath, Basil retreats into his mind and becomes a
Reclusive Artist, Aubrey enables him and sells his paintings, and Kel once again begins a search for Sunny. Hero and Sunny, meanwhile, have moved to a small town; Hero takes care to make sure Sunny believes he has more agency than he did before, while Sunny regresses to his childish mentality. - Nuclear ending: "A requiem for their rest" — Sunny decides to truly make his own choice and kills himself. Kel snaps completely and stabs Hero to death, with Hero realizing just how far he's fallen as he dies; Kel later drowns himself at the dock, while Sally drowns trying to rescue him. Basil becomes a Mad Artist and paints increasingly detailed portraits of Sunny with his viscera, hanging himself after he completes his magnum opus. Aubrey puts herself entirely in her work to carry her late friends' memory and becomes a workaholic, eventually dying of exhaustion.
- Never My Fault:
- Hero considers everything he's done to Sunny necessary for his survival, and that any discomfort he has is merely just childish refusal of care or outside manipulation against him.
- In the Nuclear end, Kel's mother refuses to put any blame on herself when she discusses the deaths of all her children, saying Kel was always no better than the monster Hero became and was a danger to Sally simply because he was the one who put an end to Hero. While she acknowledges Kel's not in his right mind, she doesn't accept any responsibility for his deteriorating mental state and her years of neglect.
- Oblivious to Their Own Description: Hero kept Sunny in line by warning him that the outside world was filled with liars, manipulators, and monsters looking to abduct and traumatize people. Despite matching the description to a tee, Hero reasons that he can't be any of those things because he's too good of a person to hurt his loved ones.
- Original Generation: Keith, a college friend of Hero's that he uses as fallback, is original to the fic.
- Point of Divergence: This scenario is the result of Sunny saying yes to Hero's offer to run away in the Bad ending of You're back, Mari.
- Radish Cure: Played for horror. After Sunny expresses wanting to die and take Hero with him, Hero forces him to watch himself stab himself with the same broken plates Sunny used and stitch himself up. By the end, when Hero asks Sunny if he still wants to die, Sunny's too traumatised to respond and succumbs soon after.
- Repressed Memories: Due to the trauma of living with Hero interfering with Sunny's ability to survive, Omori had to reconstruct the lightbulb in White Space to reseal the truth about Mari's death. Omori also keeps a memory of Hero at bay that was too horrifying to experience, which turned out to be Hero forcing Sunny to watch him stab himself.
- Terms of Endangerment: Hero constantly calls Sunny "Sunshine" and "(My little) Sundrop" while taking care of him. When he starts to develop the same overprotective feelings for the protagonist of Promising away your Tomorrow, he calls them "Starlight".
- Through the Eyes of Madness: In addition to the lilies from You're back, Mari, Hero sees an alternate form of Something that manifests as shadowy, mutilated versions of Sunny, which represent his fears of failing to protect him. The "Groundhog Day" Loop he experiences from chapters 5-9 are also a hallucination, as he had actually been in Keith's apartment for a month talking to his decaying corpse.
- Together in Death: Played for drama in the Nuclear end. As most of the crew lay dying, they see visions of their loved ones calling out to them. The epilogue reveals that they indeed get to go to either Sunny or Mari like they wanted, but Mari is horrified that they all ended up in the afterlife so soon. All she can do is cry while they join her, and eventually hug Sunny and blame herself for everything. Oddly enough, this is subverted with Sally, who isn't mentioned or implied to be with her brothers in the afterlife despite dying right after Kel. It can be chalked up to her not having a motif flower, however.
- Too Good for This Sinful Earth: Keith is the only character in the fic with any kind of consistent emotional stability and was Hero's Only Friend. Hero kills him when Keith pieces together that he's Sunny's kidnapper.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: If Keith's body is ever recovered is never explained.
