- 02 -
- Defiance -
"This is Jin Kirigiri. Hope's Peak Academy — both the Main Course and Reserve Course buildings — are under full lockdown. You are asked not to leave the building…"
Hinata Hajime's eyes studied the ongoing events outside the window, listening to the pitter-pattering of the rain, the howl of the wind, the headmaster's lockdown instructions, and the chaos of his classroom.
"I don't care about some stupid lockdown!" Kuzuryu Natsumi screeches at the teacher, who could do nothing but stare back and sigh, "I need to get into the main building, my brother's in there!"
"Can you shut up!? He's not letting you go anywhere!" Sato yells at Kuzuryu, from the windows among the rest of the class.
"This is serious! Being put with you garbage is one thing on any other day, but right now—"
Sato groans. "Alright, fine, keep trying then! Maybe you won't make it." That last sentence was said through gritted teeth as its source turned back to the window, but it was heard loud and clear.
"Maybe I'll just go anyway," Kuzuryu grins; but it's a Kuzuryu grin — the type with evil in the eyes, "I'll find Koizumi. She's in the same class anyway, right? Can't guarantee she'll stay inside…"
"Wh-what, are you going to put her into that!?"
The two bickered back and forth for a while longer while everyone else was too involved in their own worries. Only Hinata could have been the third person in the class to have someone in the Main Course to care about anyway, and he knows making a scene won't get him any closer to Nanami. All he could do was watch the outside with his other shocked classmates.
Explaining what he saw would be a challenge. Hell, he figured even the Main Course students, the talented ones, couldn't make heads or tails of what was happening.
How is anyone supposed to respond to seeing hundreds of people attacking Hope's Peak's campus?
There didn't appear to be any footroom down there. The attackers, who appeared clumsy enough as it is, were even tripping over one another. Not like that was stopping them. Hinata watched as they sped towards staff and students on the ground, and left behind their corpse and a pool of blood in their wake. The attacks themselves happened too fast to see what happened. Between their sheer numbers and speed alone, it looked to be almost impossible for anyone to defend themselves.
Hinata felt chills run through his entire body as he continued to watch this continue.
Kuzuryu paced around in a circle, smartphone to her ear. "Come on, come on! Pick up!" she says to herself.
"Dammit!" Kuzuryu shouted. Shaking her head, her phone went into her bag, and she left without another word.
"Hey!" the teacher yelled after her, but made no move to follow her outside.
'Did she just leave? What the hell's she thinking?'
Kuzuryu…
Hinata wasn't especially close to her. So far, the only interactions they had was a snark-off when she first arrived and a long talk about talent. Even so, could he just let her go into the chaos unfolding outside? Alone?
'No…'
It didn't take much thought. Hinata shot out of his chair and followed her outside.
"Kuzuryu!" he calls out as he leaves the classroom, looking in both directions for the girl. Except, the hallway was bare, and she was nowhere to be seen already. Hinata was about to start making his way out of the building until he heard a door open behind him.
Sato lets the door close behind her as she approaches the fellow reserve student. Her eyebrows are drawn together and her eyes squinted in anger. "Hey. Hinata, right? You're looking for Kuzuryu?"
"Yeah," Hinata nods, "but she's gone already."
"God knows how far she is by now. Come on, let's go!" Sato says before taking off down the hall.
"Y-You're looking too!? You should go back inside!" Hinata protests, catching up to Sato.
"I'm mostly looking for Mahiru. She's not picking up her phone and I'm not going to leave her with Kuzuryu." Sato says.
"You should still stay inside…"
"I'm not going to leave her with Kuzuryu." Sato repeats herself.
Hinata sighs. 'If you insist.'
The two traverse through the empty halls of Hope's Peak. Or, rather, the uniform school that is the Reserve Course building. It really is just a high school that you pay immense fees for and carries the Hope's Peak name.
Despite that, an irrational (or so he hopes) fear that the Reserve Course may fall that day manifests in Hinata's stomach.
Hinata breaks the silence after going down a floor. "You've known them for a long time, haven't you?"
"Obviously. Since middle school." Sato says.
Hinata remembers something like that. When the two had a certain argument a couple days before, Kuzuryu mentioned a photography club.
"You were in a photography club, right? She doesn't seem the type to be into photography." Hinata comments.
"Yeah, she was about as good at it as you think she'd be," Sato says offhandedly, rolling her eyes, "The whole reason she hates Mahiru in the first place is because her pictures were so much better."
"Well, I think it's safe to say she's the jealous type, then…"
"I'm surprised she hasn't killed Mahiru yet. It's probably just a matter of time." Sato says.
"Do you really think that?" Hinata asks, blinking.
"Didn't she tell you? She's yakuza. She could do it. Or get some kind of assassin to do it, or whatever the Kuzuryu-gumi does." Sato says, emphasizing 'Kuzuryu-gumi' with a thick layer of sarcasm.
"Would Hope's Peak really allow yakuza into the school?"
"Give them enough money and they'll do anything. Need to fund that project somehow."
Hinata nearly stops in his tracks, but keeps up. "Wait, what project?"
"You didn't get an offer? That Hope Cultivation Project or whatever?" Sato asks, raising a brow.
The Hope Cultivation Project.
When Hinata got the invitation, he wasn't told very much about it. All he knew was that he'd undergo some shady experimentation and come out with talent. He'd be regarded as the school's hope. The polar opposite of a Reserve Course student like himself.
"Yeah, I did…" Hinata says. "I kind of thought I was the only one to get an invite."
"Nope, a few others got one too. No one I know has said yes, obviously."
'Obviously…'
It was a stupid idea, right?
"I almost agreed," Hinata admits, "My parents need some way to pay off tuition…"
"And they'd let you go through whatever the hell Hope's Peak would do to you?" Sato asks.
"Everyone always says graduation from Hope's Peak guarantees success, so, maybe."
Sato sighs. "Once this is settled, don't do it, okay?"
"Why not?" Hinata asks.
"There's some crazy rumors going around about it, just… I'm not even going to try to explain it. We're almost out of here anyway."
The entrance and therefore hopefully the exit was in their grasp. Through the glass doors, they see the same crowd of attackers they saw floors above. And no safe way through.
"W-Woah. Did Kuzuryu actually go through that?" Hinata stops at the doors, looking through them.
"Tch. Maybe she did. And didn't make it through."
"Don't say that!" Hinata says, turning to meet Sato's eyes.
"What? Mahiru'd be safe then!" she says, before pausing for a moment and saying, "Well, we don't know that. So we still need to get into the Main Course building."
Hinata swallows. The trip doesn't look fun.
Now that the two are on the same level as the chaos, it's more clear what's happening. It didn't make any more sense, and if anything it only appeared more horrifying, but it wasn't so hard to make heads or tails of the outside. Hinata wanted to believe the attackers were wearing hyperrealistic costumes, but knew that probably wasn't the case — their bodies literally looked rotten, and it seemed as if he could see right through them at times. Campus appeared to be full of only attackers, but anyone who wasn't, was charged at and tackled to the ground. The attackers were doing it by leaping at them, and literally sinking their teeth into their flesh. Hinata would never be able to process what he was seeing in a million years. It felt like a horror movie.
Not real life.
"C-Can't we find another way? I'm not going through that." Hinata says.
Sato swallows as well. "Maybe that's a good idea."
The duo search the entire floor, looking through every exit for any signs of a clear pathway out. Eventually, they came to one certain exit. The Reserve Course's field was out this way, and it was void of any life.
"This might work, right?" Sato says, looking through the doors' windows. She can see the Main Course building in the distance. "We can pass through the field and get into the building!"
"Well, we'd still need to find an entrance in… It's walled off." Hinata says, "Even then, security might not let us in." he murmurs.
"With all this going on? No way," Sato shakes her head, "They'd have to let us in. So we don't die."
"We're still just Reserve Course students… They don't care if we die." Hinata says, in a murmur again.
"What?" Sato asks.
"You know we're nothing to the Main Course. Talentless, worthless, useless…" Hinata says quietly.
This whole 'talentless' talk reminds him of Nanami. How she's been trying so hard to stop Hinata from feeling that way.
He's also reminded of how her life may be in danger and how he can't leave her there alone. How he needs to find her.
"Never mind. You're right. They have to let us in."
'They have to.'
"Good. Don't you dare say anything like that again." Sato shoots a glare at Hinata, before pushing open the doors.
Hinata and Sato made their way across the field, only filling the silence with worried one-liners such as "I wonder how far Kuzuryu got" and "What's security doing?" and "Is this really happening?", all of them being concerns without any hope for a resolution. Though, to be fair, the silence wasn't all that silent — Hope's Peak had a lot of noise going on. Between the attackers groaning in pain and yelling when they attack, the chorus of the victims' screams echoing across the area, and the rhythm of gunfire slowly being added to the mix, it'd be impossible to block out the reality of what's happening, no matter how hard you wanted. That's what Hinata eventually concluded through the experience, anyway.
When the two managed to navigate to the main gates, they found the scene was just like the Reserve Course. The attackers flooded the gates with nobody around to fight back.
"E-Even the Main Course…" Hinata says, looking around the corner of the brick wall surrounding said course.
"I wonder where Sakakura is." Sato rolls her eyes.
"Eh?"
"He's head of security," she quickly explains, "Dammit, is this really the only way in?" Sato then says, looking behind her at the pathway they took, as if another one would open up all of a sudden.
"It can't be. Come on, let's try around back." Hinata says.
Sato reluctantly nodded. Getting through the front doors wasn't an option, but who knows what could happen in the time it takes to wrap around this massive school?
"Why haven't you gone back to class already?" Sato asks, as they turn around.
"What? Because I want to get into the Main Course right now as much as you do." Hinata replies, looking at her puzzled.
"Really? But I'm looking for Mahiru. Don't tell me you're looking for Kuzuryu." Sato says, "You don't like her or something, do you?"
"Where did you get that idea?" The idea was so absurd that Hinata didn't even get flustered, he just sighed. "I'm also looking for somebody else. So if you can handle finding Koizumi and Kuzuryu, I might split up once we get in."
"Oh. Who?"
"Nanami. She's the—"
"SHSL Gamer, I know." Sato finishes the sentence. "She's in the same class as Mahiru."
"Oh, I didn't know that."
"Mahiru talks about that class a lot. And Nanami, specifically. That she's always trying to… bond with the class or something." Sato says.
"Making memories, huh…" Hinata murmurs.
"What was that?" Sato didn't catch that.
"Well, Nanami's usually talking about making memories. And friends. And how that's more important than talent."
Sato gives Hinata a side-look. "More important than talent? Yeah, I can see why you're looking for her."
"Eh?" Hinata wasn't sure, but he could swear he caught some kind of tone with that sentence.
"Never mind."
"Right…"
Goals in place, the rest of the walk around was silent. Hinata and Sato were the only two outside, excluding the attackers, but they only appeared to go through main entrances for some odd reason. Like following a script. Everything seemed so planned.
Eventually, they found the Main Course's back gate, completely void of life.
"Are we really the only ones here?" Hinata asks, confused.
"Everyone's probably busy with the whole messed up early Halloween thing going on," Sato replies.
"This isn't really just an 'early Halloween thing'..."
"That's why I said it's messed up!"
It's around this point that any will Hinata had to argue with Sato was eliminated. He sighs, for the umpteenth time since leaving the classroom. "Let's just get inside."
For whatever reason, the doors opened. Maybe the doors usually are open, but, didn't the headmaster himself invoke a school-wide lockdown? Why wasn't this door locked? Better yet, no one was guarding it, too.
The halls of Hope's Peak's Main Course were an entirely different scene from the Reserve Course. Its lighting was bright, everything was kept clean, there was more space to walk around, things were actually decorated — Hinata assumed an SHSL Architect and/or SHSL Decorator were part of the team building the building.
Another thing splitting apart the two would be the fact that the inside was not empty. Maybe not in the hallway Hinata and Sato found themselves in, but they immediately heard the same groans and shuffling of feet that they heard outside. The attackers breached Hope's Peak Academy.
Their attention was suddenly directed to the creaking open of a wooden door. When they turned their heads, they seen another head peeking out from behind it.
"Pssssst! Come here!" they whisper.
Sato sighs heavily and literally drags Hinata behind her into the classroom.
"Kuzuryu!" Sato says rather loudly as Hinata takes care to quietly close the door behind him. "Have you been in here the whole time!?"
Kuzuryu, who indeed was the one behind the door, sighs herself. "Are you stupid? Why are you so loud? Shut up already."
According to the usual off-the-charts level of sass, nothing happened to Kuzuryu in the last fifteen minutes or so.
"What happened?" Hinata asks.
"Well, I think I did the exact same thing you two did. By the way, what's up with that? You two dating now? Came lookin' for me so I can be your third wheel?" Kuzuryu teases.
'Again? Really?' Hinata's palm makes direct contact with his face.
"Tell us what happened!" Sato raises her voice to direct that conversation elsewhere.
"Jeez, fine. But seriously, be quiet." Kuzuryu glares. Hinata nods, saying 'she has a point', which doesn't really help Sato's nerves. "Like I said, I probably did what you guys did. I couldn't get a hold of my brother, so I decided I'll just head over and check up on his ass. But when I got here, the school was kind of full of these braindead zombies or whatever, so I put myself in here and was gonna wait 'till the coast was clear."
"Did you find him yet?" Hinata asks.
"No, dumbass! I literally just said I came in here as soon as I got in!" Kuzuryu snaps. "His class isn't even on this floor."
"Oh…" Hinata flinches. "What floor, then?"
"Fifth. I've never been in here, so I don't know how to get up there. All I know is his classroom's 5-A."
"Do you know anything?" Sato says, and Hinata flinches again. "Did you really plan on coming here, alone, and make it all the way up to the fifth floor, through all of this… this?"
"Shut up!" Kuzuryu snaps, shouting at Sato. "Just- for one day? Think you can handle that? Not bitching until the whole zombie apocalypse thing is over?"
"Says the bitch herself — you know, maybe you should've been in the Main Course. You'd be the SHSL Bitch!"
Had this been any other day, Hinata probably would've been watching the slinging of words in mild amusement, but considering all this yelling might attract the evils outside, he (reluctantly) interjects.
"Guys! Did you forget to be quiet?" Hinata cuts in. "Kuzuryu, you were literally just telling Sato to be quiet, weren't you?"
Kuzuryu frowns.
Sato frowns as well, also silent.
"Now, can we try to figure out what we're—"
Kuzuryu walks to the other end of the classroom, sitting at a desk and pulling out her phone to play games.
"Kuzuryu. Don't do that." Hinata says.
"Do what?" Her voice is much softer than it was before.
"Walk away…"
"Hmph. You two lovebirds go on ahead. After you get eaten I'll head out."
"Are you implying you alone would do any better than the two of us?"
Kuzuryu reaches into her bag, and her hand comes out with a hot pink handle. She flicks it and a blade comes out.
"See? I can handle myself." she says, before using her index finger to push the blade back in and put it away.
"You're still carrying that knife around?" Sato asks without even a flinch, clearly having expected her to have something like an actual switchblade. Hinata, on the other hand, backed away and had to fight the urge to run out of the classroom. 'Why does she have a knife!?'
"Obviously. But I would even if I wasn't yakuza. You don't know who's gonna start shit."
"So what would you do if someone did start shit? Stab them?"
"You think I'm the only one with a weapon? Tell me the SHSL Marksman doesn't carry around a gun…"
"She actually doesn't."
"Oh, that actually exists?" Kuzuryu raises a brow. "Well, how do you know she doesn't?"
Sato doesn't reply.
"Yeah, exactly." Kuzuryu says after a few moments of silence, before turning back to her phone.
At this point, the room turned into something of a stalemate. Kuzuryu refused to leave with Hinata and Sato, and Hinata and Sato refused to leave without her, considering a third head would always be better than two, not to mention that knife of hers. Well, Hinata didn't care to see it in action, but they couldn't deny that the knife would be invaluable for self defense against these monsters.
Sato broke off from Hinata to go look outside one of the classroom's massive windows, and takes her phone out. She attempts a call. Hinata sits at a desk nearby and pulls his own phone out. The first thing he notices, however, is the lack of reception.
"Hey. Do you guys have service?" Hinata asks, looking at the words 'No Service' in the corner of his screen.
"Yeah, I—" Sato started, before actually looking at her phone and cutting herself off. "Wait, what? It says 'no service'…"
"Yeah, me too." Hinata says.
"I got nothin' either." Kuzuryu says as well. She's still idly tapping at whatever game she had open.
"Why were you two trying to call anyone, then…?" Hinata couldn't help but ask.
"I had service earlier! What the hell happened?" Sato says.
"I dunno. When I got in here, I didn't have any service, either." Kuzuryu adds.
"Weird." Hinata mutters. Not in the mood for games, his phone essentially became useless, so he puts it back in his pocket.
There's silence for a moment.
Sato sighs. "I can't stay here any longer. I'm heading out there."
"Wait, hang on!" Hinata, being closer to the door, puts himself in front of it, "Are you just going to go on your own?"
"Better than waiting for your lazy asses!" Sato snaps.
"Do you know how to get up to the fifth floor?" Hinata asks.
"It's Hope's Peak. It can't be that hard to get around." Sato replies.
"Really? I'd say that'd make it more complicated. They need to facilitate all of the different talents, after all." Hinata retorts.
"And? There has to be signs. Even the Reserve Course building has signs."
"This building's still bigger, and you have to go through all those attackers outside!" Hinata says, before sighing. "This is crazy. Maybe we should try to get back to the Reserve Course building. Or just stay here."
"You kidding? That building's probably overrun now too." Kuzuryu comments. "You saw how many there were, didn't you?"
Hinata doesn't reply, because despite his want to argue, he knows it's impossible. They left the building when it was safe, but chances are, it's not safe anymore. And clearly, it's not as if the Main Course building is any better.
"Shit." Hinata curses.
"If you're worried about dying, or getting eaten alive or whatever, you should probably just sit your ass down and wait it out." Kuzuryu says. She's been on her phone the whole time, so she was definitely practicing what she was preaching.
"I can't just wait it out!" Sato says, "Mahiru might be in danger!"
"You think I'm not thinking the same thing about my brother?" Kuzuryu says, turning to look over her shoulder at Sato, "I should've been up there by now, but I'm not about to get fucking killed before I get there!"
"B-But…"
Kuzuryu pauses to look at her for a moment longer, then turns back.
"Fine." She eventually says, as her hand goes in her bag to put the phone away and take her knife back out. "Let's go."
Kuzuryu meets Hinata and Sato at the door, and nobody objects. The three are finally ready to head out into the chaos and find their closest friends.
Not another word is said before Kuzuryu opens the door wide, and immediately stabs an attacker.
"W-Woah!" Hinata exclaims. His eyes widen and his pupils shrink as he steps back.
"Piece of crap…" Kuzuryu says, but her trembling arm betrays her intimidating words.
One of the attackers was near the door, so Kuzuryu had stepped out and sunk the knife into its chest without as much as a second thought. It's not as if it reacted in any way, not even making a noise. There was the sort of squish as the attacker's chest absorbed the blade and its almost black blood splattering on the tiled floor, however. It slumped down into a lifeless, unmoving position right after.
"H- He- You- Wh— What the hell, Kuzuryu!?" Hinata sputters, staring at Kuzuryu.
"Self defense, okay? L-Let's keep moving." Kuzuryu replies. She flicks her knife to get some of the blood off of it, before turning down the hallway.
The three remained quiet as they began to slowly traverse the halls of the Main Course building. Every so often, they'd be unable to sneak past one of the attackers and Kuzuryu would have to stab them (much to Hinata's disgust, despite the fact he can't really argue against it). This pattern continued until they were about to move up to the third floor, and found the stairs blocked off by silver bars, instead.
"Hey!"
When somebody shouted, they turned their heads away from the bars. Somebody dressed in riot gear advanced towards them. He didn't have a rotting body, could speak, and was moving with speed — he wasn't anything like the attackers.
"Oh, thank god," Sato says, "You're not one of them, right?"
Their response was for the man to pull a pistol up from his side and aim it at them.
"I should be asking you that," he says, "Are you even part of the Main Course?"
Of course, they were still wearing their Reserve Course uniforms. With everything going on, they didn't think it'd pose a problem. They didn't really think about their uniforms at all, actually.
"What's the difference?" Sato asks.
The man glances behind him for any of the attackers and quickly looks back. His gun lowered a bit as he nods upward. "Backs against the wall."
"Huh? We're not—" Hinata tries to protest.
"Backs. Against. The wall!" he repeats himself, reinforcing his authority by pulling the gun's barrel back up to meet eye level of the students.
"What the fuck?" Kuzuryu grits her teeth, but does it anyway. Sato says nothing and complies with an angry, tense face. Hinata, who was already terrified, was the first one on the wall with his hands up in the air.
He comes in front of Kuzuryu, scanning her up and down with just his eyes. "You fuckin' perv." Kuzuryu bites.
"What's with the blood?" he says, glaring at her.
Kuzuryu's outfit was covered in blood, thanks to the amount of stabbing she got done that day. "It was self defense, okay? I had to kill some of the—"
"Drop the knife!" he suddenly shouts. Kuzuryu's hand went up to show him the knife, since he apparently never noticed it. He looks behind him again to make sure nobody's coming. Attackers could be seen in the near distance, but for some reason, they managed to not notice what's going on.
Kuzuryu rolls her eyes, saying "Okay, okay," before opening her grip and showing her palm. The blade bounces on the floor with a metallic sound.
"Kill some of who?" the man then asks, getting right back to business.
"Those crazies behind you, that's who." Kuzuryu says, pointing at the attackers behind him.
"Why are you all here?" he asks, barreling through this interrogation of his.
"We're all looking for someone," Hinata says.
"I'm looking for my brother." Kuzuryu says.
"I'm looking for my best friend Mahiru, and if we don't get going, they might be dead by now!" Sato says.
"And I'm looking for my friend Nanami…" Hinata finishes.
"Tch… Fucking Reserves." He shakes his head. "You know why you haven't seen any of them yet, right?"
The trio didn't reply. For some reason, they got the idea that they won't like where this is going.
"Because they're going about this the safe way, and they're following lockdown orders. What, did you not get the announcement?" he continues.
"No, we sure got it." Kuzuryu says.
"Did no one stop you?"
"Our teacher definitely didn't try." Sato says.
"Goddamn… That whole building's messed up." The man says, closing his eyes. "Okay. Give me one reason why I shouldn't arrest you."
"Huh? For what? We didn't do anything!" Hinata protests.
"Really? Stabby McStabberson over here just admitted to killing her way up here! Not to mention you all are trespassing, so…?"
"You've got a gun!" Kuzuryu is next to protest, "Don't tell me you haven't had to kill them!"
"I haven't." He says.
"We just really needed to get in here, okay? Nobody was answering their phone, and we got worried!" Sato says.
"And you thought to leave during a lockdown? How did you even get here?" he asks.
"The field was empty." Sato says.
The guard sighs.
"Fine. I'll take your word for it that it was self defense, not like I can throw you back out there anyway."
He reaches past his utility belt and into his pants pocket, pulling out a ring of small keys. "Don't tell anyone what you told me. They might not be as forgiving." He puts one in the keyhole near the stairs and unlocks it. With that, the bars split in the middle and go into the walls, leaving the stairs free for anyone to use.
"Thanks," Kuzuryu says rather sarcastically, before heading upstairs.
'Hope's Peak security is nothing to mess with…' Hinata thinks to himself before following suit.
The worst of it appeared to be over. The top two floors were free of the attackers, and in fact, students and staff alike roamed the halls like it was nothing. They even heard somebody playing a piano upon passing the music room. Some classes still went on. Again, like nothing was happening just a floor below.
"Isn't it funny how in a time like this the headmaster's office is locked?" Hinata overheard somebody.
"Heh, like he cares enough to come out and see us. Or at least give another announcement." Someone replied.
Sometime later, he saw a tanned girl with a ponytail talking about it all too. "But isn't it weird that we don't have internet?"
"Indeed." Another girl, dressed in purple with long hair to match said back, "We just conveniently lost service and internet as soon as this all began…"
"This might be more widespread than we thought." A black-haired girl with a look as icy as the purple-haired says, "Maybe service towers were attacked as well."
"But the timing… Mm. Maybe you're right." The purple girl says.
"W-Well, we can't really do anything about it, can we? I don't think we should be talking about that…" a male dressed in a blazer over an olive green hoodie says. The black-haired girl almost instantly nods and agrees. ('He sure got a different response,' Hinata had thought)
On the way up to the fifth floor, people started noticing them.
"Hey, aren't those Reserve Course students?"
"Who let them in here?"
"I-Isn't that a Kuzuryu?"
"Did they actually come from the Reserve building? What idiots…"
"Hey!" Kuzuryu suddenly stopped at the stairs, whipped around and shouted loud enough the whole floor should hear. Everybody immediately stopped whispering and stared.
"Any of you got something to say? Huh? Maybe wanna say it to my face?" she continued, glaring at each and every one of the Main Course students who were talking behind their backs.
"Kuzuryu, we should—" Hinata attempted to grab her arm and try to pull her away, but she got out of his grip without any issue.
"Sorry, I'm not like you, Hinata. I have pride." Kuzuryu says, "I'm not gonna let anyone talk like that."
Just as she expected, nobody actually rose to the challenge.
"Try and talk about me again," she taunts as she begins to turn back to the stairs, "I dare you. You'll see what happens…"
After dropping that bomb of a threat, she goes up. Hinata and Sato followed, the former giving out a weak apology that fell on deaf ears.
"What the hell, Kuzuryu? Was that necessary?" Sato asks.
"Yes."
"If someone reports that and the security guard changes his mind about us, it won't be my fault…"
"Then I'll threaten him too. You know the three of us just took control over this whole school, right?" Kuzuryu says.
"What? How?" Sato doesn't buy it.
"Well, everyone was talking behind our backs, but no one actually wanted to say it to our faces. Now that they know I don't mess around, they aren't gonna mess around with us."
"Guess they did recognize you as a Kuzuryu." Sato rolls her eyes.
"Obviously." Kuzuryu grins.
The fifth floor was a different story than any of the others. Its style was much more modern with the white walls, spotlights along the walls, and the greenery around. Each floor was designed a different way than the last. Another thing splitting the Main Course and the Reserve Course.
"I see our tuition money's being put to good use," Sato says bitterly.
"This is probably just half of it," Kuzuryu says, "other half's probably in ol' Jin Kirigiri's pocket."
It doesn't take very long for them to find a door labeled 5-A. Kuzuryu said earlier that this was the room they were looking for all this time.
"Finally," Hinata says. He tries to open the door only to find that it's locked.
"Of course it's gonna be locked, dumbass," Kuzuryu says, pushing herself in front of Hinata and knocking on the door.
Muffled chatter came from inside the room before the knob turned and the door swung open.
"Yes?—Hinata!"
A young woman dressed in blue answered the door. She immediately recognized Hinata.
"Uh, hi Sensei." Hinata waves. Despite not being in her class, he still referred to her as his teacher, and she saw him as her student.
"What are you doing here!? Did you actually come from the Reserve building!?" she says, putting her hands on her hips and giving an angry look, though Hinata knew she was just being protective.
"Y-Yeah, maybe…"
"Hinata, you know her?" Kuzuryu asks, pointing a thumb at the teacher in question like she wasn't right in front of them.
"This is Yukizome," Hinata explains, "And she teaches Class 77, right?"
Yukizome nods. "Mhm! Did you all come here just for us?"
Kuzuryu forces herself past Yukizome and into the room. "Yep. Fuyuhiko! You in here!?" she calls out.
Yukizome laughs. "Come in." She says, stepping aside.
Sure enough, everyone from Class 77 was inside. It didn't take long for the three to find who they were looking for, and not any longer for them to criticize their decision to come all the way over.
"Are you stupid or something?" Fuyuhiko says, "You could've gotten fucking killed!"
"Sato! Oh my god, are you okay? Hey, Hinata! You were looking after Sato, right?" Mahiru says, glaring at him.
"Uh… Yeah, sure." Hinata decided not to tell her about the fact that it was Kuzuryu who did the protecting.
Nanami doesn't bother to look up from her game. "You came all this way to see me?"
Hinata scratches his neck. In hindsight, admitting that was going to be a little embarrassing. "W-Well, you see, Kuzuryu ran off so I—"
"Bullshit," Kuzuryu says, overhearing Hinata, "Sato came too, you didn't need to come."
'D-Don't expose me like that!'
"Oh…" Nanami eventually got the idea. "Thanks." She says, still rapidly tapping at her game.
"Ah! I-I think I got it!"
Up at the front of the class, a projector screen had been rolled down and something was displayed on it. With the lack of audio and the presence of light, it was hard to tell what.
"Oh! Good work, Fujisaki!" Yukizome says to the girl next to her, who had been behind a computer the whole time. "I'll make sure your teacher gets your grades up for doing this."
"Y-You don't need to do that…" Fujisaki says, but smiles anyway.
Yukizome opens a drawer and pulls out a cord. "Can someone hit the lights?" she asks as she starts hooking up the speakers.
"I got it!" a student dressed in yellow with pink hair shouts, practically jumping out of his chair and dashing toward the light switch.
However, a girl closer to it had gotten up first, so the pink-haired student crashed into her on the way there. She falls on the ground.
"Are you kidding!?" a short girl in a kimono says, "You fell again!?"
"I-I'm sorry!" the girl on the floor exclaims.
"Why are you apologizing!?" a massive mountain of a man shouts, "It's not your fault! It's Souda who should apologize!"
"Hey! I said I got it, didn't I!?" Souda, the pink-haired one, tries to defend himself.
The lights were, of course, still on.
"Is your class always so… active?" Hinata asks Nanami.
She nods. It was just another day for the gamer.
Yukizome sighs and walks over to the lights, personally helping the fallen girl back to her feet. "There's no need to make fun of her, you guys!" she says, before turning off the lights herself.
Souda and the girl were back in their seats soon after, and with all that squared away, the class watched the screen.
The screen shows a live news channel. There's currently a helicopter view of the city's downtown core, and the kids were going to ask how Fujisaki got the internet working, but the warzone on screen was more of a bigger issue.
The roads were filled with hundreds of people, and at first glance, it looked as if they were all simply running one way, but there was more to it than that. The people in front were running away from another crowd behind them, and they looked exactly like the people attacking Hope's Peak. Some cars were on fire. Many different loud sirens played in the background. The people had to navigate around roadblocks the police set up at one point, and as they did, SWAT soldiers began opening fire on the attackers — you could see them dropping, one by one. However, there were simply too many of them, and they overran the police roadblock. This all happened on live TV.
As this scene played out, the very plausible fears everyone had were confirmed. This is bigger than they thought.
"—so we tried escaping through the parking lot, but some of them tried getting into their cars and driving away, but obviously that wouldn't work," a voice says, speaking very fast. The corner of the screen reads 'On the phone: Takano Dai'.
"How many of you escaped?" a clearer voice asks.
"I'm the only one!" Takano says. He starts breathing fast. "I-I don't know about the ones in the cars, but everyone I left with, they're— they're—"
"Takano, please try to calm down. We need to know what happened in that hospital."
As he says that, a headline flashes across the screen.
At least 500 dead, many more injured
"Oh my god!"
"No way that's true…"
"What!?"
"Th-this is it… The end times…"
"Haha… Is this really happening?"
"That wasn't a laugh, was it Komaeda?" a girl in a green and white dress asks.
"Ah… sorry." That's all Komaeda has to say in response.
Hinata drowns out the chatter of the class as he continues watching. Takano eventually regains enough composure to get out that he was a doctor working at a hospital, and at some point that rainy afternoon, every hospitalized patient suddenly became very violent and aggressive, while not listening to reason or being responsive at all, at least in ways other than killing others.
With shaking legs, a result of being hammered with such news, he walks over to a nearby window and looks outside. What he sees is basically a mirror image of the news: violent, aggressive, and unresponsive people throwing themselves at the ones who are responsive and actually killing them.
Hinata turns back to look at Nanami.
"It doesn't make a difference whether you have a talent or not."
Her words ring in his mind. Everything she's done to help his pitiful self. How she went out of her way to be friends with a worthless soul like Hinata.
"There's more to life than just talent."
The only real bond Hinata has.
He then looks to the projector screen, where the headline '500 dead' remains and a hyperventilating doctor tries to explain the horrors he saw firsthand.
And when he turns to look back at Nanami, who suddenly wasn't safe anymore (just like him), he felt something he could only describe as despair.
[Chapter 2! Yaaaaay finally
I wanted this to be out Halloween weekend but that clearly didn't happen oh well. Anyway, take some more characters. Reserve course squad and DR2 squad will definitely be around in this story. Also, as you can probably tell already, there might be a decent amount of POV/time jumping. I think there'll be a little more time jumping at the beginning of the story (as in right now) just to explain everything that's happened. ...Well, not everything. You'll see.
Also sorry for the really long delay... I'm a slow writer plus real life kind of exists and stuff. I'm also Nanowrimo'ing this year, so my focus will probably be on another story of mine for now, at least until after November.
I think that's it for now. See you next update!]