Headcanon that the reason Real!Gekkogahara rarely speaks…
Isn’t because she’s painfully shy, but because as a former Super Highschool Level Therapist, her words hold such a potent sway over people that she chooses to speak as little as possible out of simple personal responsibility. The shyness cover story is simply to keep others from poking around and getting too close for fear that her words will come off as more comforting/empathetic/understanding to them than she originally intends and be letting them down from this version of herself (”therapist mode”) and go back to being quiet breaks her heart every time.
This habit of not talking may have gotten stronger following The Tragedy, after learning what Enoshima’s charisma had been capable of. This became such a tremendous source of regret for not using her talent effectively as she could have (like an anti-Enoshima) that she threw herself into completing Matsuda and Fujisaki’s work on the Neo World Program in order to fix as many of despair’s victims as possible.
Had she not been killed by Monaka, she’d probably have been on Naegi’s side during the third Mutual Killing.