"Okay, now this is just pushing it. A mall?"
It didn't take very long for all fifteen students to end up in the new district. Presumably it wasn't big as initially thought, because the entire group eventually met up. Deciding to investigate together for the time being, the Hope's Peak class stood before one of the new buildings: a mall.
"Woooo! Mall!" Hikaru cheers, dashing inside without waiting for anyone else.
"Hey, wait up!" Hoshiko yells, following after.
Puzzled expression present on her face, Shiori chased them as well.
"This is making no sense. At all." Nicholas sighs, rubbing his eyes. This time he wasn't in pain, just confused out of his mind. "I swear to god this is all just a big joke. Watch. Monokuma's gonna jump out any second now and yell 'surprise' and we're all just gonna go home."
"What's makin' you say that?" Seymour asks, gripping the closed umbrella in his hand. The rain calmed down to some wind and a slight drizzle, so the umbrella found in their car wasn't needed.
"Just- just look at this. We've been kidnapped, forced to kill one another, and now we're going to a goddamned mall?" Nicholas replies, gesturing to the building. "Look at this! Parking lot and everything!"
"Yeah, this ain't addin' up right now. What the hell does Monokuma wan', for us to have fun while we're here?" Tennoyama says, bewildered as well.
"And just- how did he get his hands on all of this!? I don't get it!" Nicholas groans, exasperated. He puts his face in his hands.
"I'm not complaining..." Rina shrugs, walking ahead.
"Agreed." Seymour chuckles, right behind her.
"Hey, slow down, we're going together." Nicholas puts up a hand, getting them to stop.
By now, most students have went inside. Anyone aside from Nicholas, Seymour, Tennoyama and Rina that were outside were doing some outer investigations, wandering around. Nicholas decides to perform one such investigation of his own.
At one end of the main street were electric fences, blocking the students off from going into the next area. The buildings by now were nearly gone entirely, replaced by green trees and houses. But there was just one more building, and that was the mall. The street broke off in two directions, left into the mall's parking lot, and straight to the next district.
As for the parking lot, there were three rows of thirty angled parking spots, making for ninety spots in all. A few spots were taken by the students' cars, including Nicholas'. There were four entrances and exits, one at each corner-two on the main street side, and two for the opposite street. The mall itself was three floors, and according to the glass dome roof, seemed pretty high end. A sign above the entrance read 'LAS DESPAIR CITY MALL OF DESPAIR'. Well, that's not redundant at all. Something that striked Nicholas as odd was the lack of cameras. They were littered everywhere downtown, but in Nicholas' time in this district, he hasn't seen a single one.
"Well? Whatcha thinkin', Detective?" A voice startles Nicholas out of his investigative trance. He looks over, finding Durion at his side-or is that Nori?
"I'm confused. This whole situation is making less and less sense by the minute." Nicholas shrugs. "You?"
"This doesn't make sense to you? Please, I've been here for about an hour, tops." the male before him rolls his eyes, all but confirming it's Nori and not Durion.
"Right... so, what's up with that?" Nicholas asks, raising a brow, referring to his seemingly alternate personality.
"What's up with what?" Nori tilts his head.
"Er. You." Nicholas clarifies rather bluntly.
"Me? What's up with you?" Nori asks back, feigning hurt by leaning back. He recovers quickly though. "I'm Durion's brother." he then explains.
"Brother...?"
"Yeah."
"How's that work?"
"I'unno, I just work here. It does."
Nicholas blinks. "Right."
"Anyway. Just because me and my bro share a body, it doesn't mean I get all his memories. What the heck's going on here? Last I remember, we were uh... running from someone?" Nori says thoughtfully, before literally shrugging it off.
Running from someone? Who?
"Well. We've been kidnapped. Forced to kill one another if we really wanna get out of here." Nicholas gives the extremely abridged version of the past few days. "You uh, you showed up in the trial of our friend Hibiki Yukata... you know what happened there."
"So, what's-her-name killed Hibiki and got killed herself? What the hell's up with that?" Nori asks, puzzled. Takes something to puzzle the Puzzle Solver...
"Yeah... Final step before freedom is survive the trial. Convince everyone you didn't do it. But for you to escape, everyone else is supposed to die."
"Huh. High stakes."
"Mhm. Welcome to, uh," Nicholas takes a look at the mall's sign, "Las Despair City."
"Fun!" Nori cheers. "When's the next trial?"
"Woah. Hey. Plan is for us to not have a next trial." Nicholas replies, backing up a step and putting his hands out in front of him. "That's... all we've got for a plan, but we're gonna start working on getting out of here."
"You really think Hibiki will be the last victim?" Nori asks. "C'mon. Look around you, the odds are pretty stacked against us, there's no way we can fight back and expect to win, don't you think?"
"What's your plan then? Sit here and die?" Nicholas counters.
"Nah. Wait for an opportunity, those Future people to come save us, I dunno. But for something like that to happen, s'gonna take some time. Some losses are gonna happen."
"Future people?" Nicholas asks. He doesn't wait for a reply before shaking his head. "Look, I don't know, maybe you're right, but let's just hope it doesn't happen."
...
Huh?
Nicholas would notice a wave of pain rushing through his head without warning. His brain was suddenly strained, as he felt like he was starting to remember something.
Nothing happened, however.
"Ay. Nicky. You good?" Nori asks, waving a hand in front of the officer's face. "You're spacin' out."
"I'm fine, yeah..." Nicholas says, a bit wearily. The wave was gone, but Nicholas continued trying to remember whatever his brain had a grasp on, but that grasp wasn't quite tight enough. "Hey, I'm gonna go. Catch up with you later."
Nori nods, sending Nicholas off with a salute.
What was that? That whole conversation was weird. What was Nori going on about... Future people... that sounds so familiar. What was I about to remember?
Is it related to that email?
Nicholas stood alone in the parking lot. Seymour, Rina, and Tennoyama were wandering around, currently looking inside a window at some clothes. The latter two, anyway. Seymour wasn't quite one for women's clothes and wasn't paying the most attention. Nicholas took a moment to glance around some more, finally going and approaching them.
"Nick. You done?" Seymour asks, seeing Nicholas coming and walking up to meet him halfway.
Nicholas nods. "Nori's an interesting person."
"How so?" Seymour questions.
"Complicated." Nicholas shrugs. "How about we go inside now?"
"Let's do it." Seymour agrees. He calls out to the girls, peeling them away from the window. The squad promptly moves out.
The mall's interior was huge. Looking up, one could look through the balconies of the second and third floors all the way up to the glass dome ceiling, littered in little raindrops and covered by grey clouds. There were no lights on in the building, making for the only illumination being the few rays of sunlight from above. Ahead of the entrance, one could go straight ahead, southwest, or southeast, and the latter two directions were side areas to the mall. The main area, straight ahead, had several stores set up in a line much like a hallway There was a gap in the stores allowing someone to go to the west or east parts of the first floor from the middle. Those side areas were set up the same way like a hallway, except they curved toward the middle, making the overall shape of the floor circular. The side areas had elevators and directly ahead in the main was a staircase, but all ways upstairs were blocked off by chains and locks. Immediately noticeable were the booths set up around the mall, such as the one with several cell phones on display, and one offering t-shirts and custom made ones. In the exact center was a giant fountain, going past the third floor.
"Woah, this place is big." Rina says, mouth agape. She walks ahead of the group, looking about. Seymour takes her side, copying the movement, leaving Tennoyama and Nicholas behind.
"Mmm... so, what're we supposed to be lookin' for?" Tennoyama asks.
"Anything of interest, I guess..." Nicholas says, unsure himself. "We still need to answer that riddle."
"White, grey, and blood all ova' it. The hell could that be?" Tennoyama sighs. "Maybe we can just go without th' power."
"Well, if we solve all the riddles, maybe Monokuma'll actually let us go. I'm willing to do anything." Nicholas replies.
"You really think so? I doubt he would t'be honest with ya."
"I don't think we have anything to lose... I hope, anyway."
Nicholas pauses, feeling another slight pain flash. Again?
"This mall is way too big to search the whole damned thing," Tennoyama comments, either having not noticed Nicholas' pain or ignoring it. "How're we supposed to do this?"
"There are sevente- er, fifteen of us," Nicholas replies, "Maybe we can split up and search other areas..."
The quartet moves up, now at the fountain spewing out water. They take a moment to pause, looking around the somewhat complicated building. From here they decide to split up, with Nicholas and Tennoyama going straight and Rina and Seymour turning to check out the east sector.
Directly at the end were two escalators. One for going up, one for going down. Accompanying them was a normal staircase, but for whatever reason, all three ways up were blocked off by probably unnecessarily large locks and chains. They weren't going upstairs any time soon. In that hall there were several stores, with brand name clothing shops, sporting shops, and jewelry. Nothing appeared of interest, however.
"Soo... I play it like this?"
A familiar feminine voice is suddenly heard, following by a really annoying screeching noise. Nicholas winces, looking around, before seeing a few of the girls in one of the stores.
"No!" Hoshiko says, grabbing a violin and bow out of Hikaru's hands. "Watch."
Hoshiko begins playing the instrument, reciting a piece. Nicholas and Tennoyama stay at the entrance, watching on in silence, not to interrupt her. Hoshiko and Hikaru were accompanied by Shiori, in a store selling instruments. From violas to cellos, acoustics to electrics, recorders to flutes and then some, it was a musician's paradise. Stairs in the back went up to the second floor of the store, and presumably the mall as well.
"That's a beautiful song she's playing." Nicholas whispers to Tennoyama. It was a light, peaceful tune.
"Agreed. Can you play like that?" Tennoyama asks.
"Hell no... I used to play guitar, though." Nicholas says.
With that, Nicholas looks around for one. Tennoyama follows close by, looking around at the instruments. "I'd learn one but I think this is gonna be a problem, y'know?"
"What is?" Nicholas asks. He approaches a wall of acoustic guitars, not taking his eyes off of them.
"My damned finger." Tennoyama clarifies, holding up her left hand. Nicholas looks over, remembering-the Mountain Climber lost her ring finger.
"What even happened to it?"
"Shit happens."
Soon enough, Hoshiko's done showing off. Tennoyama promptly breaks out into applause. "Good job girl! That's some talent right here you know?"
"Good playing." Nicholas compliments as well.
"Thanks guys," Hoshiko says. A hint of blood rushed to her face as Shiori and Hikaru copied the applause.
"You guys find anything in here?" Nicholas asks, still looking at the guitars. He was looking for a specific model.
"Instruments." Hoshiko shrugs.
"Nothing related to that riddle though, huh?" Nicholas frowns.
"Afraid not." Shiori breaks the news. "There's equipment and sheet music upstairs, but nothing of utter importance. Plus, there's no way into the mall's second floor up there."
"Damn." Nicholas curses.
After a few moments, he eventually takes down a guitar. It's a beige acoustic with a dark brown pick guard. Down near the fifteenth fret, there's a cutaway for one's hand to get closer to the latter frets of the instrument. According to the name on the head, it was a Fender.
"We got two musicians in the house, hmm? Think you're better than Hoshiko?" Tennoyama challenges.
"Well, I mean, I wouldn't say that-" Nicholas starts.
"Too late this is a competition now. Winner gets a coffee on me. And I'll betcha Hoshiko's gonna win this one." Tennoyama says confidently, with a giant grin on her face.
"Oh, this doesn't need to be a contest-"
"I'm not even that good to be honest-"
"Shut up and play!"
"Ooooh this is gonna be good." Hikaru says, walking over to Nicholas to watch him play.
How'd I get into this.
Nicholas pulls up a nearby, convenient grey stool and takes a seat. For a moment, he looks at the guitar, trying to remember a certain song. It'd been years since he last played, and when he did, it was on a classical guitar; a different story than an acoustic.
Seventh fret E string... open B string, open G string, repeat.
Placing his right ring, middle, and index fingers on the treble strings of the guitar, Nicholas also puts his left index on the seventh fret of the E string-the bottom one. B was the next one up, and G followed. He starts plucking, playing a descending classical song by the name Spanish Romance. The song was meant to be played quickly, and Nicholas made sure to keep that high tempo.
Nicholas was doing okay, until a part came where he had to play the fifth fret on the B and G strings. He paused, practically freezing up as he tried to place his fingers where they were supposed to go, only to get confused and fumble his fingers about.
"Aaaand we have a winner!" Tennoyama quickly cheers, grabbing Hoshiko's hand and raising it in the air. "How's about me and you go find a coffee shop, hmm?"
"Are you flirting with her?" Nicholas jokes, deciding that was enough of the guitar and put it back where he found it. It's not the one I played, but I should come back and get this soon...
"Depends." Tennoyama replies, completely seriously.
"Ehh!?" Hoshiko flinches. "I-I don't swing that way!"
"Dammit." Tennoyama curses, before immediately turning to Hikaru. "What about you?"
"Eh? What about me?" she asks.
"Coffee! Now!" Tennoyama demands.
"Sure." Hikaru shrugs.
"Excellent!" Tennoyama cheers, baring a huge grin. She grabs Hikaru's hand and basically dragged her out of the store, who was also smiling all silly-like.
"Coffee! Woo!" Hikaru pumped her free hand in the air. "They have chocolate too, right?"
"Pah, probably." Tennoyama is heard saying from outside the store, and after that the duo disappear without a trace.
Leaving Nicholas, Hoshiko, and Shiori alone in the music store.
"Umm, what just happened?" Shiori asks the million dollar question, face beet red.
Seymour and Rina travelled the east district of the first floor together. Since this area was hidden from the glass ceiling, no sunlight was shining, and thanks to the lack of power the sector was nearly pitch black.
"So, Rina." Seymour says, starting small talk. "Tell me about yourself. Ultimate Skier, yeah?"
"Oh! Yeah! Well, Ultimate Alpine Skier." Rina corrects. A smile looked as if it were permanently planted onto her face. "My whole family's a buncha skiers. Except my brother I guess. He ended up being a... right, he's the Ultimate Battle Strategist."
"How the hell does that work?" Seymour asks, bewildered. "Family full of skiers and this guy runs off to be a Battle Strategist?"
"Heh heh, yeah, he wasn't interested in skiing." Rina chuckles, scratching her neck under her dark brown hair.
"Hm. So you followed in your family's footsteps and he was the rebel, huh?" Seymour says, pocketing his hands.
"Exactly. I'm uh, I'm part of the Swiss Olympic ski team now," Rina says sheepishly, "Youngest member."
"And how old are you?"
"...fifteen."
"Wow." Seymour says in amazement. "I've seen some pretty crazy Ultimates, but rarely someone in the Olympics... good work."
"Thanks!" Rina smiles happily. She looks over to Seymour, deciding to ask the question she herself was asked. "How about you? What's it like being an Ultimate Journalist?"
"Not easy. You get involved in some interesting things." Seymour says thoughtfully. The way he put emphasis on 'interesting' gave off the impression that he didn't mean it in a necessarily good way.
"Like what?" Rina asks, tilting her head.
"..." Seymour doesn't reply, for a moment. "Do you know anything about me?" he suddenly asks.
"Huh? Um... Well, your name is pretty familiar, but that's about it." Rina replies, confused. She furrows her eyebrows. "Why?"
"Then you haven't heard my big story yet, hm?" Seymour asks.
"No? Ooh, what is it?" Rina asks, curious as a monkey named George.
"Another day." Seymour says, simply. "I'm afraid it's a rather long story, and... to put it short, I still get nightmares."
Rina goes silent. Oh dear... she thinks, What happened to him?
"Sorry." Seymour apologizes. "Thankfully, that was the only time I had a really bad story."
"I'm sorry." Rina then apologizes, solemnly. With her eyes glued to the tiled floor, the girl looked genuinely apologetic. "I shouldn't have asked-"
"Wait, shut up for a sec." Seymour suddenly cuts her off in a harsh whisper.
Rina's even more confused than she was before. Despite it, she listens, and not another word comes out of her mouth.
"Do you hear that?" Seymour whispers.
The skier focuses her ears on anything in the area. For a while, she doesn't hear anything... there's wind, but that can't be anything, right?
Hold on... how is there wind? This place is entirely closed in. And that doesn't sound exactly like...
"Yeah. Yeah, I do." Rina whispers, looking around for the source. "Is that wind?"
"No, no, I don't think so..." Seymour whispers back. He reaches into his satchel, pulling out his camera and using its strap to hang it from his neck, setting it up to record. "Listen carefully."
Rina wasn't entirely sure, but the sound of the wind rubbed her the wrong way. It wasn't your usual howl of wind, there was something else accompanying it.
Words?
"Is... someone saying something?" Rina asks.
"Stay close." Seymour says, beckoning her to follow with his hand as he slowly walks forward.
The duo could swear they heard someone speaking. No, not just someone, several people. Dozens. It was as if this group was whispering, and their words were all slurred together in one giant jumble of a mess. They couldn't make out any words, but if they could describe the tone, they'd say it was distressed. Calls for help. Pain. But from who?
"Hello?" Rina shakily calls out, raising her voice. No reply.
"Show yourself!" Seymour calls as well, only to get the same result.
The source took them to the northeastern corner of the mall, the darkest part of the hall. There was one final shop, which seemed to be nothing more than a simple magazine store... except, the whispers came from here. Chills ran down Seymour's spine, as he quietly approached it.
"You wouldn't have a light, would ya?" Seymour whispers to Rina, noting the darkness of the store. It was near pitch black.
"No." Rina replies, "I do have my ElectroID..."
"Pass it." Seymour requests.
Rina reaches into the pockets of her snow pants, grabbing the matte black device and giving it to Seymour. He gives his thanks as he takes it, opening up the menu and tapping at some options. Before long, a bright light suddenly shoots out of the other end, like a flashlight.
"Oh wow. How'd you do that?" Rina asks.
"Utilities. It's on the main page." Seymour quickly explains. "You ready?"
"Yeah, sure... little spooked out right now though, I won't lie..." Rina says.
"It's probably just another trick from Monokuma. Come on." Seymour tries reassuring, before finally entering.
In front of the entrance and to the left was the cashier desk. On the side facing the doors were assorted chocolate bars and candies, including gum and mints. The far wall was filled with dozens of magazines, although from where Seymour and Rina stood, they could only see half of the wall: shelves full of home necessities such as toilet paper and plastic utensils were in the way. The right-hand wall seemed to have beverages in it, but again, the shelves were blocking.
The whispers appeared to come from the corner past the shelves on the right. Gulping, Seymour takes the lead and silently walks. He notices his legs start trembling. He had a bad feeling about this.
Let's do it, he thinks.
As he turns around the shelf, the light shines upon the corner, revealing what's there. And Seymour's bad feeling seemed to be true.
"Oh, god!" Seymour shouts, rearing back. He nearly drops the ElectroID. Rina lets out a terrified scream, seeing what was there.
In the corner between the wall of magazines and the closest shelf was a dried up, pink puddle. They know what it is. They've seen it before. It's blood.
"Oh no. Another...?" Rina starts, trailing off.
With no apparent explanation, Seymour and Rina find a strike of pain staggering through their heads, like a sudden migraine. Seymour grunts, dropping the device in his hand, putting up a hand to hold his head. "Agh!" Rina does the same.
What is going on!? Oh god, we shouldn't have came in here!
After a few moments, the pain slowly disappeared. This left the two standing in the convenience store alone, with the whispers gone. As if nothing happened. Unfortunately, the blood was still there.
"Oh my gosh. What just happened?" Rina asks Seymour, eyes wide with fear.
"I don't know. Go. Alright? Go. Find Nicholas and Tennoyama, get the hell out of here." Seymour orders, tensely. He points a finger at Rina.
"What? You want me to leave you here?" Rina raises a brow.
"I'm gonna look around. Go." Seymour tries again. "I don't know what's going on here, but- something's up. Get out of this mall."
"No! I'm staying with you!" Rina protests. She plants her feet into the ground and crosses her arms, giving Seymour an angry pout.
"You realize it's not safe here, right?" Seymour asks, gritting his teeth. "Look at what just happened. Monokuma's playin' mind games and it's enough to... do whatever just happened to us."
"I don't care. Strength in numbers, right? What if we're alone and something happens to us?" Rina asks.
Seymour doesn't reply for a moment. He looks around, in thought, before sighing. "Okay, fine, there's no time. Just stay close."
"Got it." Rina nods.
There was an awful lot of blood. Whoever's blood it was couldn't be alive after this, giving Seymour the thought that there may be another victim. He bends down to touch the blood, finding that it's dry and had little to no smell. It looked old, much older than the blood found that morning. Just how old is it? Seymour notes a white CCTV camera in the corner above. Maybe that thing caught what happened here, he thought. Just need to get the damned power on.
"Oh my gosh, look at these magazines..." Rina says, holding an issue of Time in her hands, looking at the cover with concerned eyes.
Seymour gets up, standing next to the skier to read the cover.
'Future Foundation: Once Our Saviors, Now Our Enemies?' read the title. The background was a neon pink, much like the ground's blood. Behind the caption were three soldiers, all armed with rifles, decked from head to toe in high-tech winter camoflage armor.
"Future Foundation..." Seymour mutters. Remembering his camera is still recording, he shows the magazine in his video-to-be. "Who is that?"
"I don't know. Someone ripped the pages out," Rina replies, opening the cover. Sure enough, there were no pages inside the book. The back cover was of no help either, being completely black.
"Keep lookin'." Seymour says, doing the same himself.
Seemingly, all the magazines were talking about the same thing. The Future Foundation. They were put in a bad light, however. Talking about how bad of a group they are. Seymour picked one in particular up, which appeared to mention a specific event.
"Look at this one. 'Future Foundation to commit mass genocide...' The rest is ripped out." Seymour says, showing Rina. Like he said, the cover was ripped up past the word 'genocide'. There was a photo of many seemingly homeless people sitting on the sidewalk, with several soldiers standing above them with the same winter camoflage as before. Accompanying them were men in suits and ties, as well.
"Holy Roman Empire..." Rina whispers. "Who are these Future Foundation people?"
"Military?" Seymour suggests. "All these covers have soldiers on them."
"No... no, the military's not bad, are they?" Rina asks. "Albern never told me about anything like this..."
"This one is. I don't know how I haven't heard of these people, though..." Seymour mutters.
"Same. Maybe these are fake." Rina says.
Seymour scrunches his face in thought. I... don't know about that.
"Remember we were knocked out at school and woke up here." Seymour says. "We don't know how long we were out."
"You mean we might've been out long enough for this so-called genocide to happen?" Rina asks.
"I don't know." Seymour frowns, studying the cover further. "It's probably fake. Forget about it."
Despite his words, Seymour clearly thought there was more to it than that. He rolled up the cover and put it in his satchel. Rina had her doubts, but she thought so as well.
That seemed to be it. There was nothing else in that corner, so they extended their investigation to the rest of the shop. Fortunately or unfortunately, there was nothing else to be seen.
"Okay, that's it. Should we uh, hurry up and get the heck out of here?" Rina suggests, eyes looking toward the entrance.
"Best thing I heard all day." Seymour agrees. With that, they leave.
"I have to say, I don't understand why Monokuma would give us a mall..."
The entrance to the mall opens and in walks Daiki and Ryoko. They'd been cruising around the area, and found the mall's parking lot had a few cars, figuring some of their fellow students were here.
"Everything he does doesn't make any sense. I'm not even surprised at this point." Daiki shrugs.
"Good point." Ryoko nods in agreement.
They wander around, not sure where to go. The floor's expanse was pretty intimidating, especially in the dark. The clouds above were multiplying, blocking the sun even more. Seems like another round of rain was coming.
"I can't believe this. Big ass mall and there's no damn coffee shop!?"
Daiki and Ryoko's attention were directed toward the sudden swearing of a certain mountain climber. Tennoyama walked into the middle from the western side of the floor, hands in fists at her side with a tense face. She was clearly frusturated. At her side was a dismayed Hikaru.
"I know right? I was looking forward to that coffee." Hikaru says, frowning.
"Coffee? You do realize there's like, a dozen cafes around, right?" Daiki asks.
"Eh?" Tennoyama turns her head. "Okay, sure, but we'd have to get back in the car! That's too much work, y'know?"
"We need it now!" Hikaru puffs out her cheeks. "They always have sweets! And I need them!"
"Christ, quiet down girl." Daiki rolls his eyes. "You look upstairs yet?"
"It would appear there is no way upstairs." Ryoko comments, noticing how the stairs were blocked off.
"Yeah! What she said!" Hikaru exclaims. "We can't go upstairs!"
"I'm sure you could prop something up and get there through that balcony..." Daiki says, looking up at the second floor's balcony.
"One: too high. Two: Monokuma'd probably kill us." Tennoyama says, counting off her reasons on her fingers. "I'm not in the mood for dying today!"
"Yeah! Another day!"
"I'm getting a headache already." Daiki murmurs.
"Looks like you're out of luck, then." Ryoko frowns. "My condolences."
"Thank you," Hikaru says, in between sniffs. ...Was she crying?
"Well... if we can't get coffee, we shall find another location for our date." Tennoyama says, crossing her arms. "How about my room, love?"
"Okay!"
"Wonderful!"
The two literally skip away.
"Sometimes I question the sanity of these people." Daiki says, to which Ryoko giggles.
After that little debacle, they keep wandering. They pass by a book store, and being the Ultimate Poetess, Ryoko was drawn to it. It was their next destination, of course.
Time passes by. Nothing of interest happened for a while, with Ryoko looking through random novels, and Daiki standing in front of the magazine stand.
"Ah, look at this one!" Ryoko says, holding up a book in her hand. "It's mine, I wrote this!"
"Mm?" Daiki looks over, seeing a thick novel with a blue leather cover. "Damn. Your books are in book stores, too?"
"Of course. Would you like to read?"
"Sure. Bring it over."
"Um... would you mind coming here?" Ryoko requests.
"Why? I'm busy lookin' at these magazines." Daiki says. There was a rather interesting pattern to them.
"Well, you see... there's no light in this building. And you're in the back of the store, and it's simply... too dark." Ryoko says, hesitantly.
"Too dark? What do you mean?"
"Ah, you shouldn't read in the dark, right?" Ryoko says, laughing. In a terribly awkward and nervous tone.
"I'll be fine, come on." Daiki rolls his eyes.
"I do also have one working eye, remember?" Ryoko says, referring to the fact that her left eye was covered by a white eyepatch. "I can't quite see where I'm going in the darkness because of it."
"Are you serious?" Daiki sighs. "Alright. Lemme bring a few of these."
Daiki grabs three different magazines and walks over to Ryoko. "Wonderful," she says, sighing in relief. "Read." The Poetess then holds the book out in front of her, for Daiki to take.
"Okay. You take these, then." Daiki replies. They trade books, with Daiki holding Ryoko's book and Ryoko holding the magazines.
Daiki takes a moment to look at the book. It was huge. He was a fan of reading and even writing as well, and was actually pretty excited to read it. Ryoko had a point though, no reason to be reading in the dark. Can't see. Daiki unzips his sweater, revealing the black t-shirt underneath, before putting the book in an inside pocket to read later. Ryoko couldn't help but notice Daiki's muscle definition poking through the shirt.
"Like what you see?" Daiki grins, zipping his hoodie back up.
"N-No." Ryoko stutters, immediately blushing. "A-Anyways! These magazines. Wh-what are these?" she asks, quickly changing the topic.
"I dunno, they sounded pretty messed up." Daiki says, "Read the covers."
"...Hundreds of Superiors found dead, Future Foundation to blame." Ryoko quotes off the page. She raises a brow. "What?"
"Not sure. This Future Foundation doesn't sound very great though." Daiki shrugs.
"Daiki? Ryoko?"
Another male voice is heard, suddenly. The duo look to the entrance, finding another duo.
"You find magazines about the Future Foundation?" Seymour asks as the Journalist enters, Rina at his side.
"Check it out." Daiki says, gesturing to the books in Ryoko's hands. Seymour quickly goes to her side and reads them.
"Lord..." Seymour sighs. "Look, we gotta get out of this fucking mall. Something just happened to me and Rina, and..." Seymour trails off.
"What happened?" Ryoko asks.
"...You wouldn't believe me if I told you. Just trust me, something's not right with this place, and we need to go ASAP."
"You guys okay?" Daiki asks.
"I've got a bit of a headache," Rina replies, "but I'm not hurt."
"Same with me." Seymour agrees.
"Alright, let's get the hell out of here then..." Daiki says, unzipping his sweater again to put the magazines Ryoko had inside. Closing it back up, the four leave.
Meanwhile, Nicholas, Hoshiko, and Shiori were outside, having heard the whole thing. Nicholas immediately goes up to Seymour and Rina.
"Seymour, Rina! What the hell happened to you two?" Nicholas asks, worried.
Seymour pauses. "I got it on video, I'll show you later." Nicholas noticed hesitation in his voice.
"Right," Nicholas nods. The group starts walking and he follows. "Question. Your head hurts?"
"Mhm. Had a hell of a headache a little while ago." Seymour says.
"Was it like... I don't know how to explain it, like pain just kind of shot through it?" Nicholas asks.
Seymour stops dead in his tracks, with the cop doing the same. "Yeah. How did you know?"
"That's what's been happening to me..." Nicholas replies.
"...Nicholas, c'mere." Seymour says. The group leaves the mall without Seymour and Nicholas, leaving them to be the only two there. It was eerily silent.
"What's up?" Nicholas asks. The way Seymour pulled him aside was concerning, making Nicholas tense up.
"Look. I've been thinking, and I'm not so sure, but-Nicholas, out of all of us, you're the odd one out." Seymour says.
What?
"What is that supposed to mean?" Nicholas asks, crossing his arms as he leans against the wall to a nearby store.
"Things ain't addin' up with you. You've been acting weird, acting like you know something we don't... you mention despair, Monokuma starts talking about despair. Now you tell me you've been getting the same weird ass headaches Rina and I just got. What's going on?" Seymour copies the movement of crossing his arms.
"Woah, woah, woah. This some kind of interrogation?" Nicholas asks, now standing up straight. "I'm no criminal. I'm on the good side, I'm a cop."
"It's always who you least expect." Seymour retorts.
"I know as much as you do, Seymour." Nicholas says. Hesitation follows. That's not true. Ultimate Despair. I know about Ultimate Despair. Does he?
"Hmm?" Seymour caught the hesitation. "Nick, don't lie to me."
It's then that Nicholas remembers he talked about it in the journal entry he made earlier that day. "Seymour, come look at this. I swear to god this is all I know." he says, as he pulls out his ElectroID and pulls up the video.
"God knows how I forgot about it, but I got an email about a month or two ago. It was an anonymous tip, talking about this Ultimate Despair. It mentioned a few names. A Junko Enoshima... Mukuro Ikusaba... Hinata Hajime. Izuru Kamakura. I don't know who these people are. Or maybe I do, but I forgot."
"Ultimate Despair... what the hell is that?" Seymour asks bluntly.
"I don't know. The email was very secretive. All it said is, a storm is coming."
"Lemme guess, this is that storm."
"I'd put my money on it."
"I was right, then." Seymour says, looking Nicholas in the eye. "You are the odd one out."
"Even so, are you suspicious of me being the mastermind behind this whole thing?" Nicholas asks.
"Nick, look me in the eye and tell me you're an innocent man." Seymour says.
"Seymour, I swear on mine, and my brothers' lives that I have nothing to do with this." Nicholas says, as geniunely as he can. It was the truth, right? "Maybe I am the odd one out, but I'm not the bad guy."
"...alright." Seymour nods. "I'm sorry about that. Still leaves one gaping question, though. Why are you the odd one out?"
That's a damn good question.
[A/N: Sorry for the wait! I was on vacation. Went to Miami man. It was friggin hot. Anyway, finally finished this today woo. No comments, let's just get to reviews.
IfTimeWasStill: Dw, I don't plan on having a slow pace, bodies won't take too long to find. As for the minigames, well... sure, they probably make more sense in a game than a story, but that's just how I'm going to go about it, my apologies. For the record, no they weren't button mashing like a bunch of imbeciles.
PSISomething: Thanks! As I keep saying, I will work on the next trial much more.
Saiynt: Ritsu's pocketwatch confirmed.
JokersMaze: Nope. It's Ritsu's pocketwatch.
ApexUtopia: Conspiracies? Indeed indeed. Something's up here man. Spooky. Thanks!
dashunterman: Now I wanna write a road trip chapter... you people are giving me ideas.
Integras: They're definitely on the right track, and that room will be returning. Thanks btw, exams were way easier than I thought.
Thanks for reading!]