I was taken aback by his words. I didn't know what he meant, but if he was serious about saying something like that, then he likely had reasons for it. It was disturbing to think about. We were going to fight for our lives? Why? What could possibly motivate something like this? We were going to die? I had so many questions, but they barely left my mouth. After a while, standing still with my mouth agape, I finally spoke.
"Fighting for our lives?" I asked. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"You saw that announcer bear, right?" Yamato replied. "Did he say that he was Monokuma or anything to you?"
"I mean, I think he mentioned it," I replied. "Why?"
"Shit!" Yamato yelled. "I hope to god you're wrong, because if you aren't, then we're stuck with a homicidal maniac."
"What are you talking about," Goro said. "It's just a bear for fuck's sake."
"Monokuma s not just any bear, he's a character from a animated series called Danganronpa," Yamato said.
"So?" Goro said.
"There's ten Danganronpas. Do you know what happens in each and every one?"
"No," Goro answered.
"A bunch of students are forced to kill each other," Yamato said bluntly. "Specifically, a bunch of scholarship students at a prestigious academy: which was inspired by the author's own experience at Tsubaki."
"What!?" Goro exclaimed. "And you think..."
"Yes. I think that's why we're here," Yamato said, much more calmly now, as if he were resolved to and had simply accepted the ghastly nature of their own predicament. "I think whoever the person is that organised this game, they're copying it to the letter, and they're going to make us kill one another via sick and twisted means. They mean to make us all die."
"Why would they want us to die!?" I interjected. "We're just regular students, what the hell sort of grudge would anyone have with us?"
"Guys, we're worrying too much about this!" Sora said, interrupting the conversation. "I'm sure that nothing like that will happen, we're just getting stressed over nothing, that's all."
"I hope you're right, but there's really no point being optimistic for the sake of optimism," Yamato replied. "At the moment, there's more to suggest it will happen than evidence suggesting otherwise."
"So?" Sora said. "What evidence do you have, the name of a bear? Really?"
"If whoever this is really is a copycat killer replicating the killing games, then the bear's name should be indicative enough of what is to come," Yamato said. "I have no time for misguided hope that doesn't come to fruition. I'd much rather have my head remain on my shoulders. The second we go to that camping ground, we're trapped here. We need to get out of here before that happens."
"This is just paranoia," Sora said. "Why would someone want to murder us all?"
"I don't know, why would a terrorist run down a crowd of people in a semi-trailer then off themselves?" Yamato said. "The point isn't their motivations, it's the fact that they killed a bunch of people, and if we don't leave now..."
"...you think we're going to wind up dead." I concluded.
"Yes," Yamato said. "We have to get every single person involved in this game, and we have to run as far away as we can from here. That's the only way we're going to get out of this."
"I think the bear said there were 24 of us participating." I said.
"Well, let's split up into pairs of two," Yamato said. "What are your names again?"
"I'm Hitomi," I said.
"Goro, pleased to meet you." Goro said.
Sora waited for a bit, before saying his name. "My name's Sora." He was not a particularly large fan of Yamato, as had been made abundantly clear in the past few seconds.
"Well, Goro and Sora, you two can go together, as you seem like you already work well as a team," Yamato said. "I'll go alone for now, since I work best on my own anyway. Leiko, you can go with Hitomi. At least you won't pressure Hitomi for her undergarments."
"Heh, I'm sure I'll have as much fun with Miss. Hitomi as I would with any of you boy-toys anyway," Leiko said, with a hint of lasciviousness present in her voice.
"Um, can I please go on my own?" I asked desperately. "I'm afraid for both my sanity and chastity..."
"No can do," Yamato said. "We need to stick together for the most part, it'll make regrouping easier."
"Well, how the hell did you stop her then?" I asked. "She looked like she was fine with you, so what did you do to make her not so... rapey."
"I gave her my underwear," Yamato said. "I wouldn't recommend following suit, it's getting awful breezy in here."
"Too much information..." I said.
It looked like I wasn't going to be able to escape from Leiko at any point soon, so I decided it would be better to just split off and find the other participants quickly rather than draw the whole ordeal out. We wandered down the walkway that stretched around out the front of the dining hall we had just exited, and followed it to the end. Honestly though, after a while you strangely enough get used to being verbally violated by unnecessary questions. In fact, it's rather cathartic in a messed up sort of way. After a while, she just stopped prying, figuring she wasn't going to get information out of me anyway. Maybe if Yamato had've done the same, he wouldn't have had to lose his underwear: or maybe she only really had a thing for men's underwear anyway. I suppose she was really bluffing when she said she'd have as much fun with me as she would with them.
"So, what is the deal with you anyway?" I asked Leiko.
"What deal?" Leiko asked. "I like a good-looking guy and I'm not a prude. I'm blunt and I'm honest about what I want, and I don't beat around the bush. Isn't that they way every girl wants to live?"
"You asked a dude you just met five minutes ago for his underwear," I said. "Don't you think that's a bit early?"
"So?" Leiko said. "Sometimes, a girl's gotta get on the front foot."
"You make no sense," I replied.
"I'm just open with what I want," Leiko said. "We're all perverts hiding. I'm just open about my true nature. What about you, missy. You a pervert?"
"Of course not!" I said, taken aback a little.
"Yeah, the only person you're lying to is yourself," she said. "We're all the just the same hun; monkeys in suits."
We reached the end of the walkway. To our right, there appeared to be a laundry. It was rather large, and lying on the floor in the centre was a very muscular woman wearing grey lycra, as well as a young man in a black jacket with a yellow t-shirt laying face-down on the floor. The pair of them were positioned back-to-back, about a foot away from one another.
"Leiko, go and wake up the muscular woman, I'll try and wake the boy up," I said.
"Why can't I wake him up?" She said.
"Because I don't trust you around the opposite gender," I replied. "Now go and do it."
Leiko mumbled under her breath as she poked the muscular woman repeatedly in a fashion reminiscent of poking a dead body. At first she simply poked the top of her head, but after a while her finger was drawn to... other places. In the meantime, I attempted to jostle the boy awake. It took a while, but eventually the sedatives wore off, and the boy opened his eyes. The muscular woman still appeared to be down as the boy looked up.
"Sup," the boy said. "You guys know what happened?"
"Nope, join the club," Leiko said. "Now, let me..."
Leiko was about to start on one of her perverse rants, but trailed off as she saw the boy's face. Her originally perverse and wicked grimace transmogrified into a genuinely giddy smile.
"Taro!" She shouted, giving the motionless boy a massive bear hug. I didn't know what I was watching, but it seemed... the two knew each other?
"Heya Leiko," the boy said. "Looks like you're caught up in this mess as well, huh?"
"Wait, so who's this?" I asked.
"Well, Taro here is Taro," she said. "How do you not know Taro?"
"Huh?" I replied. "I just don't, I suppose."
"Everyone knows Taro!" She piped up.
"Sorry Leiko, do you mind... not crushing me to death anymore?" Taro said.
"Oh, I'm so sorry!" Leiko said, immediately moving over. Watching her willingly move away after spending the majority of her time invading the personal space of others was strange indeed. They must've been good friends, I thought to myself.
"I don't ever think we really got the chance to bump into each other at Tsubaki, did we?" Taro said. "Sorry about that, I'm Kotaro Hino, nicknamed Taro. I'm a scholarship student at Tsubaki, known as the Ultimate Guru for being able to give advice to those in need. I'm more of a Counsellor than a Guru though. Don't let the title fool you, I'm not religious, I just have a knack for timing and good advice."
Kotaro Hino - Ultimate (SHSL) Guru
"So, who are you then?" Taro asked me. "I don't think we've ever been formally introduced."
"I'm Hitomi Itou," I said. "I'm just your standard, run-of-the-mill philosophy buff really. Nothing particularly special about me. I mean, I do spend a lot of my time trying to contemplate the mysteries of the universe, but I suppose a lot of the time I never really draw a conclusion anything. Life of a philosopher, huh?"
"Yeah, I was never all that good at philosophy," Taro replied. "I don't have the knack for really thinking about that sort of stuff, I'm more of an in-the-moment sort of person anyway."
"I'm sure you could do it if you set your mind to it!" Leiko said, her persona changing entirely. "I mean, you can do anything Taro!"
Taro chuckled a little. "I don't think I'll ever be the next Descartes," he said. "May as well stick to what I know."
Leiko stood up from the floor, and helped Taro to his feet.
"What about her?" I asked, pointing to the muscular woman in grey lycra. She had messy black hair with grey highlights, which seemed to reach her shoulders. She looked like a rock, and was certainly sleeping like a rock.
"Maybe I should go back to poking her..." Leiko started.
"No," I cut Leiko off. "We should try something else. That wasn't working at all."
"Maybe I can jump on her?" Leiko said.
"If she wakes up, you're going to get murdered for doing that," I said.
As Leiko and I continued to spitball ideas, Taro knelt down to the girl on the floor, and proceeded to slap her in the face several times. After a while, the girl awoke with a menacing look in her eyes, but couldn't do anything. Taro stepped back.
"What the hell have you done, Taro?" I said. "She's going to rip you apart the second she gets off the floor."
"Relax, and have a little faith in me," he replied, before addressing the girl on the floor. "My name is Kotaro Hino, and I'm sorry for the rude introduction, but we're all in this mess together whatever the hell it is. So, if you wouldn't mind suspending your judgement for a little bit, I would be greatly in your debt."
"...You didn't have to slap me," the girl on the floor said.
"Nobody else could wake you," Taro replied. "If I had any alternative, I would have taken it. Can you move?"
"Not without a hell of a lot of effort, I can't," the girl said.
"Well, it appears this is quite the predicament," Taro said. "I'm not sure we would be able to lift you either, you seem a little too well-built to carry."
"No, that's fine," she said. "I am rather heavy, and you three don't look like the sporting types anyway."
"Hey!" I said. "No need to be rude about it!"
"Oh, I was rude?" The girl on the floor replied. "Apologies if you got that impression, I'd much rather trade in the sportsman's life. Personally, I'd much prefer to have the skill of deduction, I think that would be a lot more useful."
"So, who are you?" Leiko asked. "And why are you so... beefy?"
"I'm Jitsuko Saito," the girl on the floor said. "The reason I'm so 'beefy' as you put it is because I spend a lot of my time training my muscles as a deadlifter. It is a heavy workload that requires a lot of training and regimenting, but the result is the woman you see before you. I'd trade in my athleticism any day though, it leaves little room for having a real life. However, everyone at Tsubaki needs to pursue something at some point, and deadlifting is the only real avenue that's open to me."
Jitsuko Saito - Standard (HSL) Deadlifter
"So wait, you go to Tsubaki as well?" I asked.
"Yes, I'm just a generic student at Tsubaki, nothing special," Jitsuko replied.
"Well, including myself, that makes seven out of seven of us Tsubaki students," I said to myself. "Maybe Yamato was right about this whole thing, maybe this really is a copycat event arranged like a Danganronpa game. If we're all from Tsubaki, and Tsubaki was the inspiration for Danganronpa, maybe this whole scenario is organised to be like Danganronpa. What then is the organiser's motive? There's no common thread between us, we barely know each other, and it's not even like we're just scholarship or just standard students. Why us? Is there some reason that the organiser of this chose us? But then again, there's no evidence that Yamato's fears are founded in reality, it's just as likely that..."
"Yo, hit-on-me!" Leiko said. "Get your head out of the clouds."
Needless to say, I did not like the pun on my name, but was forced to accept it regardless. I returned to reality. By the time I turned my attention to the events around me, Jitsuko was already standing. She looked like a formidable woman, not the sort you really wanted to keep waiting.
"Sorry, I sort of get caught up in my own thoughts sometimes," I said.
"Apology not accepted," Leiko said. "Let's not dawdle here, we've got shit to do."
"Don't be so judgemental," Jitsuko said. "We need to work together here."
"Agreed," Taro said. "There's no point starting arguments over nothing."
"So, what now then?" I asked.
"Let's check around outside," Taro said. "If this really is a camping ground like Leiko said when you were distracted, then there should be a set of lodges around here. They would be our best bet."
Great, I thought to myself. Looks like I missed out on a pretty important conversation then. I followed Taro and Leiko, who seemed to have some idea of where they were going. Jitsuko also trailed behind with me.
"So," I asked Jitsuko in an attempt to break the ice. "Why did you choose to do deadlifting? Isn't that a very male-dominated sport to enter?"
"Yes it is," Jitsuko replied. "However, most of my family have had the natural figure that gives them a natural edge in something like deadlifting. I like to think that the natural advantage gives me an edge over other competitors, but that isn't always the case. Still, I don't think deadlifting is for me."
"Why is that?" I asked.
"I don't want to deadlift. My entire family is known for their sporting accomplishments, with my mother being an olympian and my father having played football professionally, but I do not particularly enjoy sport," she said. "However, Tsubaki raises talented graduates, and sports were the only thing I ever had a talent for. That's why I ended up deadlifting. What about yourself, do you have a particular talent you want to pursue?"
In honesty, I didn't really know the answer to that question, even though I had been asked it a hundred times before. I told myself that I wanted to pursue philosophy, but the actual fact of the matter is that the only thing driving me to pursue that was a need to find a talent. I didn't really know who I was, or what I was trying to be, and I suppose with all these people who had now resolved to embrace what they were going to become, I was one of the few who hadn't really embraced any clear-cut path into the future. Goro skis, Sora writes music, Yamato does biomedicine, Leiko makes and cracks locks, Taro inspires people, and Jitsuko seems almost inhumanly strong. Each one of them had chosen a path.
Why hadn't I?
"We're here by the way," Leiko said.
They entered the dormitories. There seemed to be a group of three crowded around a single sleeping individual, trying to wake them up. They noticed the four of them and greeted them.
"Hey," one of them said. He was a cool and composed boy, who wore a yacht captain's hat and a pendant round his neck, as well as a white shirt with naval epaulettes. Despite that, he didn't look like he had spent much time on the ocean, and his hands looked like they belonged more to a city boy. "I'm guessing you guys have all been captured as well, huh?"
"Yeah, looks like it," Kotaro said. "Not exactly sure how we ended up here, but well, I guess we're here aren't we?"
"What's with the hat?" Leiko chimed in.
"Oh, this?" He said, pointing to the yacht captain's hat he wore on his head. "My parents got it for me because I like boating, I suppose. In truth, I don't wear it all that often."
The hat in question was a rather well-made sea captain's hat, featuring a golden laurel insignia around an anchor. It was by no means a shabby hat, and probably cost a fair amount to produce.
"Can I wear it?" Leiko said.
"I'd rather you don't, as it has..." The boy began, but was swiftly cut off by Leiko nicking his hat and running around with it, as if the act of stealing the captain's hat was somehow more advantageous to her than any pair of underwear ever could be. She bolted, but as she was wearing high heels at the time, she didn't go particularly fast at all as she stumbled her way into the hall with the captain's hat. He chased after her.
"Huh, that was interesting," I said.
"What a shame..." A girl in a black dress and corset said. "I was going to introduce us all, but it looks like our interpreter is running amok."
"Interpreter?" I asked. "Why would you need an interpreter?"
"Well, because of her," she said, pointing to the girl next to her. She looked up and smiled honestly. She had vivid bright orange hair and a teal miniskirt, and wore brown boots and a cream sweater. She looked like a menagerie of different colours. "...At any rate, it seems I'm charged with introducing everyone then. I'm Mayu Amari. I'm good at making dolls; it sounds a lot more exciting than it is."
Mayu Amari - Ultimate (SHSL) Dollmaker
Mayu turned her attention to the girl next to her. The girl sat, eagerly awaiting her own introduction, as if she wanted to see what Mayu had to say about her.
"This is Kiyoshi Tachibana," Mayu said. "She is on a scholarship as a linguist, though you probably wouldn't guess it from the fact that she doesn't talk. She only communicates via Japanese Sign Language, but the one other person who speaks it here is off outside at the moment. She says she has Selective Mutism."
Kiyoshi Tachibana - Ultimate (SHSL) Linguist
She gave a thumbs up and smiled, as if to confirm what Mayu was saying. At that point, he returned, carrying the captain's hat and panting like he had run a half-mile marathon.
"Did a girl in heels really give you that hard of a time?" I asked.
"I don't want to talk about it," he said.
Leiko returned to the room a few seconds later, slapping the boy on the rear-end on her way into the room.
"So, who are you guys exactly?" The boy asked. "Actually, hold on, my psychic senses are tingling..."
As he held his hand to his head, he pointed to me.
"You're Hitomi, right?" He said.
"How did you...?"
"I'm psychic," he said. He then laughed it off. "Truth be told, I'm pretty sure we ran into each other once."
I remember seeing his face around campus, and probably talking to him one or two times. He didn't exactly stand out in normal clothes, and perhaps the only reason why he had any presence in the room now was due partly to the ridiculous garb he was wearing.
"...That makes you... Kenji, right?" I said.
"Yup, that makes me Kenji Nakasone," He said. "I have a thing for boating, and I have a supervising role over the yachting club at school, though I'm by no means a scholarship student. Mainly though I act as a boatswain, checking equipment and ensuring that everything sails smoothly."
Kenji Nakasone - Standard (HSL) Boatswain
"So, does anyone know who that is on the floor then?" Kenji asked. "Has he still not got up?"
"Apparently not," Jitsuko replied. "He has been on the floor for quite some time, and he has not moved since we entered. Are you sure he isn't dead?"
"I checked his pulse a moment ago," Mayu said. "He's breathing."
"Well, that's a relief," I said. "We should probably head back to Yamato now."
"Who's Yamato?" Mayu and Kenji said in unison. Kiyoshi signed something out as well, but it didn't take a translator to figure out what she said.
"He knows something about this thing, and says we need to leave apparently," I replied. "We split up in three groups to find all twenty-four of us, so I figure the others will probably find the remaining sixteen."
"If that is the case, I will grab the boy on the floor," Jitsuko said.
"Yeah, let's head off then," I said.
Jitsuko heaved the boy onto her shoulders. As we left the dormitories, we saw Yamato with a large crowd of people, and approached them.
"What's the hold-up?" I asked. "Is there some reason we're waiting?"
"Yeah," Yamato said. "I sent Goro, Sora, and Hisoka on a round-trip to check if anyone had been left behind. We're just using this opportunity to talk a little amongst ourselves."
"Hey, sounds like a party then!" Leiko said. "I wonder what wonders I can find here?"
"Jitsuko, please keep an eye on her," Taro said. "For her own good."
"Acknowledged," Jitsuko said. "Leiko, you can follow me."
"No, I want to do what I want to do," she said. "I want to do who I want to do, you know?"
"No buts, you're staying with me." Jitsuko said.
Leiko began to murmur under her breath. "No buts, huh? You're all butts to me." With that, the two of them left. With them leaving, I now had time to talk to the rest of the group, and get to know everyone. For a moment, I almost felt as if nothing bad could happen, with the worst of it already befalling us.
I would be proven wrong in a short while of course, but for now I was left blissfully unaware.
