Part 1:

Chapter 6:

When I told people that I had been invited to Hope's Peak Academy, they often asked how remembering things was a talent. It doesn't come naturally to me. Or, at least, it didn't. I had to learn how to remember things in detail and store them away in my mind so I wouldn't forget. I also had to learn to not forget old things when I memorised new things. Eventually, those things did become more of a habit than a talent. But there's more to it than that. I need to have complete control constantly. I can't let memories come back to me as and when they please. I can't let myself wander down Memory Lane. If I do, I will be overwhelmed. I will be consumed by every negative memory I keep locked away. The ones I would rather forget. Every tiny regret, pang of guilt, pain, things I would rather not have seen… All of it…

Keigo stays silent. He still holds onto my hands firmly. I can't even begin to read what he's thinking or how he's reacting to what I've said. I take a moment to breathe. I've told him how I feel. I've told him why I don't want to stay trapped on this train.

"Do you feel better now?" he asks.

"Yeah…" I say. It's strange. I do feel better. The release of getting the truth of my feelings out does take away the pain. It's not entirely gone, but it certainly does help.

Keigo truly is amazing. He knew this would help. That's why he pushed me to come out with what I couldn't bring myself to say. I know that he listens to people's problems and cares about them. He knew that and that was how he managed to get me to talk. I want to hug him and thank him and all sorts of things like that.

"What kind of things can we do to keep you occupied then?" Keigo asks.

"I don't know," I say, "I need to go for a walk and get some fresh air to clear my head…"

It takes me a moment to realise what I just said. There is no fresh air. Not without killing… Thankfully, Lancelot seems to realise something else that snaps me from those thoughts.

"Ah, if we're cut off from the outside world, then how can we survive?" he asks, "Surely we'll run out of air and perish soon enough?"

"Wrong!" Monokuma calls out. Suddenly, the black and white bear is standing next to our table. How did he do that?

"Stay back foul beast!" Lancelot cries out, "I have fought the Vicious Chicken of Bristol and survived, you are no match for me!"

Vicious Chicken… of Bristol?

Lancelot stands in a fighting stance with his sword at the ready. I'm not sure if he is actually going to fight Monokuma. We have learned that it warrants a punishment since his last attempt. Still, it doesn't seem to be deterring him from his threat.

"Do you really not value your life?" Monokuma asks, "You were very lucky that I didn't punish you before."

"If it means saving the lives of those I have sworn to protect then I shall gladly die!" Lancelot declares.

"I'm not here to kill you," Monokuma says and jumps up onto the table, "I'm leaving that bit to you guys. I'm just here to give you a handy bit of information. Because I'm nice like that."

"What kind of information?" Keigo asks sceptically.

"Well, you guys were talking about fresh air and I wanted to reassure you that you won't run out of oxygen during your life on board this train," Monokuma says, "Each carriage has very special air filters that feed the finest air that money can buy into your lungs. Assuming you're not being choked that is."

I grit my teeth. Monokuma keeps bringing in mentions of us killing each other so casually. It is really unnerving. What sort of person can do that? At least Lancelot's fear is quickly quashed. We're not going to suffocate after a short time. I wonder if the filters could lead to the outside world…

"And don't even try to think about messing with the filters. They're too small for you guys to fit through and I can easily make them feed you poisonous gases. Wouldn't that be fun?" Monokuma says. Again, he has thought of everything. "Anyway, that's all I wanted to say so I'm outta here!"

With that, Monokuma jumps off the table and runs off behind some seats. Lancelot chases him, but stops and looks back to us.

"He's gone!" he cries out angrily.

"Why don't we go for that walk and explore a bit?" Keigo asks, quickly changing the subject away from Monokuma.

I nod and we get out of our seats. Keigo gestures for me to lead the way. I decide to head back in the direction of our bedrooms. I've been as far as we can go in one direction, I might as well find the other end. Our dutiful guardian follows close behind. We pass Ayaka and Yui sat together towards the end of the carriage. Yui appears to be doing some more origami while Ayaka watches. It looks to be a bit more complicated than the glasses she made, but I have no idea what it's supposed to be yet. Maybe I'll get to see the finished creation later.

When we enter Coach D, where I first woke up, we see Nami and Shiki together. Nami is holding onto the fisherwoman as she bends over clutching her chest and hyperventilating. Keigo rushes over to them and we follow him close behind.

"What's happened?" Keigo asks. He's so concerned. He was so concerned about me too. I feel bad about it. He's so busy worrying about other people, has he even had chance to think about himself?

Nami looks up at us. Her face is still blank and expressionless. Though I expect she is relieved to have someone helping with the situation. "I believe her to be claustrophobic," Nami says.

"Come on Shiki, let's get you sitting down," Keigo says. He tries to take the fishing pole from her to help, but she clings tightly to it. Realising that she isn't going to let go of it, Keigo has to work around it as he supports her. With Keigo's help, Nami is able to open a door and get Shiki inside.

I guess I'm not the only one who reacts badly to enclosed spaces. Keigo could have his work cut out for him if he decides to help everyone. Lancelot and I wait outside the room. There isn't space for us in it. Even if there were, it wouldn't be a good idea to fill it and reduce the amount of space. This seems to be why Keigo actually comes out of the room after a minute.

"She should be alright, Nami's going to look after her," he says.

I have to agree. My experience with Nami is that she is a safe pair of hands to be in. Even if she does appear to be cold and emotionless from appearances.

We move on to the next carriage. It looks just like the one we've come from. A dark and dull corridor with bedroom doors on one side and blocked off windows on the other. I didn't count the number of rooms in the previous carriage, but it certainly wasn't close to sixteen. This must be the rest of the rooms. None of us say anything as we walk along the corridor. There really isn't much too say. I'm just taking everything in and thinking about that instead of anything else.

In Coach F, we find Akari and Yuuhei coming out of a door together. The carriage seems to be like the previous two with a corridor at the side of the carriage and doors leading into other rooms. We stop to greet them.

"Have you found anything?" Keigo asks.

"Yep, yep!" Akari says in her usual cheery way.

"Monokuma was correct about our e-handbooks," Yuuhei says, "They are required to access the bathrooms and they prevent either of us going into the girls' bathroom."

Prevent either of them… Wait.

"Akari… You're a boy?" I ask awkwardly. Akari nods. "Oh no, I'm so sorry, I've been thinking you were a girl! It was the outfit. Really, I'm-"

"It's fine," Akari says, not losing his cheeriness, "I don't mind what you think I am, really. I'm used to it."

"You really are the Ultimate Cosplayer," I say, still feeling very embarrassed about the mix up, "You pull the look of a girl off brilliantly."

Akari giggles. "I'm glad you like it," he says.

"Miss Mizushima, could you perhaps unlock the girls' bathroom so we might compare the two?" Yuuhei asks. I think he's a bit uncomfortable about asking it. Someone so traditional might think it is dishonourable of him to even be looking in the girls' bathroom. "…If you don't mind, of course."

I don't know what might be different about it, but I haven't seen either of them so it might as well be worth a look. I get my e-handbook out, finally knowing what it actually is, and follow Yuuhei to the next door in this carriage. There's another electronic device on the wall next to it.

"How do I…?" I ask.

"You just have to put your handbook close to it," Akari says.

I raise the e-handbook and place it against the device on the wall. There's a beep and a green light turns on. I then reach for the door handle and slide it open. I step inside the room and it is tiny. There's no space to move around. At all. Immediately in front of me is a sink with a mirror above it. There are soap and hand-towel dispensers on the wall either side of the mirror. To my right are two incredibly cramped toilet cubicles. To my left are two equally small shower cubicles.

"This… is our bathroom?" I ask. I am horrified. I know that toilets on trains are always very small and it's a miracle that there's a shower, but we're expected to live with this… as a communal bathroom… If this has anything to do with Hope's Peak, I would have expected they would be able to afford something a little better.

I step back out of the bathroom, making sure to keep the door open so the others can get a look inside. I don't need to use the bathroom at the minute. I could do with touching up my makeup after ruining it by crying. But I don't know if I have any here. I'm guessing there might be some in the other cupboard in my room that I didn't check. That is something for later, however. We continue on through the train and beyond the bathrooms is a relatively open space. There are a number of washing machines and tumble dryers on one side of the carriage. There are also some strings with pegs clipped to them running between the walls.

"This seems like a useful carriage to have," Keigo says. Bathrooms and a place to do laundry. It's more or less essential, actually.

There's nothing else of interest in the carriage, so we continue our exploration. I don't know how to describe Coach G. Can we call it a Luggage Car? There are piles of boxes, crates and cases of various kinds stacked up on either side of the carriage. Axel and Ayato are rummaging around amongst the things.

"What's all this?" Keigo asks. Ayato looks at Keigo with disgust and then goes back to rummaging in a crate.

"Just a bunch of random crap," Axel says, "Pretty much anything you need, but good luck finding what you want."

Seemingly to demonstrate his point, Axel zips up a suitcase he had been searching through and throws it aside before opening up the next one on the pile. I wander over to a pile of cardboard boxes to take a look and open one up. Inside is a selection of DVDs. I pick one out, but the writing on the case seems to be in English. I recognise that it is English, or at least a language using that alphabet, but I can't understand what any of it means. I never really tried learning any foreign languages, despite how good at it I would be. Why do we have English DVDs though? Do we even have a TV or DVD player on here?

"Could it be?" Lancelot asks with enthusiasm. He snatches the DVD from my hand and stares at it in glee. Quickly, he delves into the box and digs out several more. "Yes! They're all here!"

"You understand these?" I ask. It's not a stretch of the imagination to assume that someone calling himself Lancelot will know a bit of English.

"But of course!" he says joyfully, "This is the entire Monty Python collection! The greatest comedy in all England!"

"I'll take your word for it," I say. It's not something I've heard of, but he seems quite excited about it.

"Did you not recognise the Black Knight sketch? Losing an arm 'tis but a scratch!" Lancelot says, "Or perhaps you're more familiar with the Life of Brian. He's not the messiah, he's a very naughty boy!"

Lancelot is almost in stitches at his own words. As he calms down again, he looks disappointed that I haven't joined in with the laughter. I shake my head. He reluctantly puts the DVDs back in the box and I continue further on into the carriage. Most of it is more piles of luggage. I wonder about looking some of them and seeing what there is, but I have no idea what sort of thing I'd want to find. And, as Axel said, it could take forever to find something specific in here. At the end of the carriage is what looks like a giant bin. It smells like one too. I guess that's where our rubbish goes.

I hold my nose and head for the door to the next carriage. I press the button to open the door, but it does nothing.

"End of the line," Ayato says, "We tried, but looks like this is as far as we can go."

"Right, so that's seven carriages we have access to," Keigo says, "Not bad, but I can easily see people getting bored with what we have."

"Yeah…" I say, I can't say there's much I'd want to do with my free time here, "Unless we can find some good stuff buried in this lot, then there really isn't a lot we can do with our time."

"Well, we don't have to think about that just yet," Keigo says, "We should start heading back, maybe someone's found a way of escaping that we missed. Unless there's something else you'd like to do while we wait for everyone to finish their investigations?"

I guess now would be a good time to sort out my appearance. Keigo lets me go and do that, but Lancelot insists on continuing to stand guard over me. I was right about the other cupboard. It contains nightwear, towels, wash things and a makeup bag. I make myself look less of a mess than I did before. Everyone has already seen my disastrous appearance, but I want them to see what I can look like. That said, it didn't stop the boys falling for me. I still don't quite get what that has all been about…

Feeling freshened up, I go with Lancelot back to Coach C where we all agreed to meet. Most of the group seem to be there already. In fact, a headcount shows that only Hakuro and Sakuya are absent. The two who went off before we decided to split up.

"I guess everyone's here then," Keigo says.

"What about Hakuro and Sakuya?" I ask.

"I did go to tell them about us meeting up again," Ayaka says, "Hakuro doesn't care that we exist until we find a way out. While Sakuya is preoccupied drawing on her bedroom wall."

Drawing on her wall…? I'm not even going to ask. When someone gives you the impression that they might know dark magic, it's probably best to stay out of their business.

"So, did anyone find anything?" Lancelot asks.

There is silence. That can't be a good sign.

"Well… Me and Hanbei went to check out the buffet car," Miki says, "We've got a kitchen. Kinda."

"I hope you guys like microwaved food," Hanbei says, he sounds pissed off to say the least, "That's all we've got to cook with."

"Really?" Shiki asks, "That can't be good for us."

"Yeah, I was there too. I can't do any of my baking," Chouko says. As usual, everyone seems to ignore her. I look at her and wonder if she has actually managed to speak to anyone else yet.

"Oh yeah, Monokuma came in and told us that the fridge gets restocked daily," Miki adds, "So, we won't run out of food."

"That's good, at least," Shiki says, sounding a little relieved. Though I don't think she's quite over the realisation of microwaved food as the only source of cooked meals. It does rule out quite a lot of food.

"It's also really small so we can't really have multiple people in the kitchen at the same time," Chouko says. She's still talking. Even if people are ignoring her. I guess I'm not surprised that the kitchen is incredibly small. Everything else is. We're in such a small space that everything is really compact to fit in it.

"Monokuma spoke to us too," Keigo says, "He told us that there are air filters in every carriage that keep up oxygen supplies, but they're too small for us to escape through."

"Yeah, there wasn't any sign of an escape route in the buffet car either," Hanbei adds. This isn't going very well so far.

"Did anyone else find anything of note?" Keigo asks.

"Miss Yukihira and I stayed here for most of the time, so have little to offer," Ayaka says.

"I made this, maybe Monokuma will let us go if I give it to him?" Yui says and holds up her latest creation. She has made a mini-Monokuma out of paper. It appears that she folded half out of white paper and the other out of black paper and stuck them together somehow. It's impressive, again, I'll give her that. It creeps me out no less than the real thing does.

"Sadly, I don't think our captor will be so easily appeased," Yuuhei says. Yui seems down at this comment. She must have put a lot of work into it. I have no idea how she even knew the folds necessary to produce a likeness of Monokuma.

"We investigated the bedrooms, but didn't find too much," Shiki says, pointing to Nami. I guess their investigation was cut short by Shiki's panic attack.

"On the contrary, I believe we found some very important information," Nami says, "There are sixteen rooms, eight for boys and eight for girls. The girls are all in Coach D while the boys are in Coach E. What strikes me as odd is that we have only fifteen in our group."

"Hey, you didn't count me!" Chouko cries out. That's one mystery solved. Though no one else seems to know it. I might have to start pointing her out soon if this continues.

"Each room is locked by our e-handbooks and can only be opened using them. Unless you leave your door unlocked. The walls of our rooms are also soundproof. The doors are exceptions though. We were able to test this easily as Shiki and I are neighbours," Nami says.

"Soundproof?" Akari asks.

"Correct, evacuate your lungs as the essence of life departs your being and yet none shall be the wiser," Hakuro says.

I turn to see the giant of a man lumbering into the carriage. He stands, hunched over his cane, looking down on all of us with disgust.

"I come not for your gathering. Rather, I desire nourishment. However, I wholeheartedly expect you to impart any freshly acquired knowledge to me since I am here," he says. His way of speaking, his attitude towards us… I would not be surprised or disappointed if he died first.

"Well, we have gender-locked bathrooms in Coach F and we need our e-handbooks to get in," Akari says.

"Your so-called knowledge is outdated and of insufficient interest to maintain my consciousness," Hakuro says.

"There's a way out in Coach G," Axel says.

"Could a reliable source please clarify?" Hakuro says.

"No," Ayato says, glaring at Axel, "We didn't find a way out. We found a toolkit and tried to get the sheets off the windows, but those bolts are impossible to budge. Must have taken some significant power to get them in place."

Hakuro scowls and begins to force his way through the carriage, knocking people out of the aisle with his cane. He heads for the buffet car when Hanbei calls after him.

"Good luck fitting in the kitchen, freak," he spits, "It's tiny."

"As expected, the facilities are of sub-par quality and insufficient to our requirements. It is merely a means to further incentivise Graduation," Hakuro says.

Could it really be true? Could the facilities on the train really be limited like this to make us more likely to kill? Does that mean Hope's Peak intended for this to happen? Did we come to Hope's Peak just to kill each other? Where is the hope in that?