CHAPTER SIX
Mysteries of Hope's Peak: Learning All Secrets of Despair
(n)everyday life
I struggled to walk back into my dorm room that night. You could say I went under shock – watching Hideaki die right in front of me was the worst thing I had ever experienced in my life. Monokuma's goal – to drive me into the depths of despair, succeeded by a landslide. Why did Hideaki's life have to end this way? He said he'd tell me everything after the class trial. He's gone now… I stuffed my face into my pillow, and stayed in my room.
The day passed. The next day passed. The day after passed. I was stuck in my room – I had no more will to do anything. Kouichi would come by occasionally and try to give me some food. I'd take it, but I wouldn't eat it until I had to. I think I was stuck like that for a week or so, until I remembered something that Monokuma told us. Monokuma kept claiming that Hideaki was alive. But how could he have survived that? The answer is that he couldn't. He definitely wouldn't be able to, yet…
Something was telling me to believe him. That evil bear who took Hideaki away from me – should I believe him? Is this another one of his traps to plunge me into sadness? No, I couldn't think like that. Hideaki wouldn't want me to think like that. I'm headstrong – he knew that and he'd want me to avenge him. He definitely could not have survived that execution. But I'm still alive and well. I'd catch the puppetmaster, I definitely would. Taisuke said at the end of the last class trial that we'd start finding out the secrets of this academy.
It's about time for me to buckle up. I took a quick shower, changed into a fresh set of clothes, and headed outside my dorm. It was quiet and mysterious in the dorm hallways. Glancing at my watch, it was already 12:00 PM. By now, the others would most likely be at the cafeteria eating lunch. I ran down the hallway, out of the dorm, and to the cafeteria as fast as I could.
I'm going to try to avenge him. No, not try, I have to avenge his death. I swear to myself – I will catch the puppetmaster and give him a fitting punishment. We'd do it together.
I headed into the cafeteria, where I saw Taisuke fiddling with the card that I gave him earlier. The others were sitting down on the table, while Monokuma was raising his arms over his head and screaming at Taisuke.
"Give me my damn card back!" Monokuma squealed.
"Why is it so important to you?" Taisuke said, raising his finger over his mouth. "Does it hold the secrets of the school? Perhaps it can be used to track you down?"
"Give me my fucking card back, you con artist piece of shit!" Monokuma snapped.
"Ooh, language," Taisuke retorted. Monokuma ran around the room in frustration, but stopped at a halt when he saw me.
"Oh, Ayako, you aren't being a lazy bum anymore," Monokuma said. "That's nice to hear." Monokuma regained composure, and lied down on the floor, raising his legs in the air and resting his head on one of his paws. "By the way, since you're out, I assume you aren't filled with despair anymore?"
"O-of course not," I said. "Besides, you said it yourself that Hideaki couldn't have died. I have faith that he's alive somehow."
Monokuma stood up and faced me. "Huh? You think he's alive?"
"Y-you said it yourself!" I stammered. I looked around the cafeteria, and everyone was wearing grim faces; faces that looked like they knew something I didn't. "S-so I have hope left that he's alive. Isn't that right, you guys?" I faced the others, and their faces looked even darker.
"Sorry to tell Ayako," Monokuma said, creating fake cries. "B-but after the class trial, I took all day searching for Hideaki! I can confirm that he has disappeared – he is no longer with us! Those flames are stronger to burn someone to ash, leaving even the skeleton to disintegrate and turn into pieces of despair!"
I stared Monokuma, and slowly backed up to the doors of the cafeteria. "W-what?"
"You said you had hope?" Monokuma asked. "But now, I can tell you with confidence, that Hideaki is dead! Zilch! Quack! You'll never see him again!" Monokuma laughed, and faced Taisuke, who refused to look at either of us.
"That made me feel slightly better," Monokuma said, sighing. Monokuma raised his paws over his shoulders, and stared at Taisuke. "Okay, so you have that card with you. Big deal. If you don't know what it does, you'll probably never use it!" Monokuma spun in a circle, and hopped on top of Taisuke's head. Taisuke didn't react, and just sat there. "Sorry that I had to break the news to you," Monokuma said to me. I sank to the floor, and my eyes widened as Monokuma hopped off of Taisuke's head, and headed out the cafeteria doors.
Hideaki? Hideaki's really dead? There's no hope that he survived? Even if I knew that Hideaki was dead, hearing Monokuma's words back at the trial implanted some form of hope into me. But hearing that Hideaki's dead from the person who was most sure he wasn't; the only hope left for me hung on the strand of that card. That card that Monokuma tried so hard to get back – it was the answer to getting out of this coliseum. It was the answer into killing Monokuma; in avenging Hideaki's death.
"I'm going to avenge him," I said, letting my thoughts run wild. "Taisuke, that card, do you know what it does?" I glanced at Taisuke, who shook his head, twiddling with his fingers.
"I-I'm going to find out," I said. I got up from my slump, and walked confidently over to the cafeteria table. "Give me the card! I'll find out what it does!" Taisuke looked at me, his mouth open, and his eyebrows rising above his head.
"You want to have possession of this card again?" Taisuke asked. "Are you sure?"
"Hideaki told me Monokuma would target me if I had that card," I said. "But that means it's important – it means it holds the key in avenging Hideaki's death!" Slamming my fists on the table, I faced the others. "Don't you want to avenge his death?!" Everyone looked down at the floor, until Taisuke rose from his seat.
"I'll assist you," Taisuke said. "I want to take down the puppetmaster too."
"I'll help as well," Senji said, getting up. "Monokuma needs to go down."
"I-I want to avenge Hideaki too," Suguru said. "Even Roger does, right?"
Bark!
"I'm a contract killer," Kouichi said. "I'll find a way to help, even though I'm not really good at investigating and stuff…"
"I can't do much neither, but I'll try," Kyouko said with confidence.
"Though you already know you'll need my help," Saya said with a smirk.
"Miyu… she died at Monokuma's hands," Kichiro said. "I'm going to avenge her like you're going to avenge Hideaki… that's my resolve."
"Y-you guys," I said…
"Yahaha! I may not look it, but I loved my little stepbrother to death!" Rin got up and shook her head around. "Let's take down that damn puppetmaster, yeah?!"
"Even Rin," I gasped.
"What?! I have emotions, even if I'm crazy!"
I nodded, and looked at everyone. We all got in a circle, and put our hands together. Today will be the day that we will take down Monokuma. We will find all the mysteries of this school together. We will avenge our friends that fell under Monokuma's will. We would… We would take Monokuma down.
Unfortunately, that was only a prayer we made out loud. As soon as we left the cafeteria in an attempt to find out the purpose of that card, the intercom rang.
*Ding, dong! Ding, dong!*
"Attention, you guys!" Monokuma said over the intercom. "Please return to the graduation plaza right away! You all are acting rather defiant right now, so I need to put an end to that, don't I? Upupupu, please hurry ASAP!"
We all looked at each other as the announcement ended. Even though we decided to fight against Monokuma, we forgot how powerful of an enemy he was. Of course he could put a foil to our plans.
"You hold the card," I told Taisuke. "You can hide it better than I can." Taisuke nodded, and stuffed the card into his shirt pocket.
"Are you ready, friends?" Taisuke asked, as we progressed to the plaza to find out what Monokuma had in store for us.
Would it be even worse despair than what we already achieved? Or would this thing that Monokuma had to show us be an accidental progression into what we were all searching for? We all needed to hope; and we didn't want anyone to take that away from us. We needed it to stay alive. We needed it to stay united.
We needed it.
We arrived at the graduation plaza fairly quickly, and Monokuma hopped onto the podium. He gave us all a wave, and took out a slip of paper that was folded in fourths.
"Hello!" Monokuma said. "I appreciate you all joining together on such a short notice!"
"What is that piece of paper?" Senji asked.
"Oh? This old thing?" Monokuma unfolded the piece of paper, and refolded it into a paper airplane. He swooned, and threw the paper plane toward us. I caught the plane as it came closer to me, and unfolding it, I lifted my right eyebrow. It was a picture of a question mark.
"What is this?" I asked.
"Aren't you curious about the meaning of that question mark?" Monokuma asked. "If you are so confused, allow me to explain. You see, you all possess a dark secret that even you don't know about. So I'll tell you everything you don't know about yourself, if you manage to graduate!"
"You mean you expect us to kill each other again?" I asked. "Don't be ridiculous. None of us needs to know anything."
"That's right," Taisuke said, raising a finger. "We all know how we are going to overthrow you. This card that I hold in my hand right now is the key into unlocking all your secrets."
"What card?" Monokuma asked. Taisuke realized he didn't have the card in his hands, and reached for it at his pocket.
"This card, I mean," Taisuke said. "We will definitely overthrow you. You will no longer be able to continue your life, Monokuma."
"Eh, whatever," Monokuma said. "I just tried, ya know? But whatever. Explore all you want. See if I care." Monokuma then hopped off of the podium, disappearing in thin air.
"That's ridiculous," Kyouko sighed. "He still wants us to kill each other!"
"Of course he does," Suguru sighed. "Oh well, you okay Roger?" Roger barked in approval, and he rubbed against Suguru's leg.
"Anyways," Taisuke said, "it's about time we discover what this card does. Anyone have any leads?"
"If it is so important to Monokuma, it has to control something," Senji observed.
"What could the card control though?" Suguru asked. "It's not like there's anything else worth exploring. We opened up all the areas, so we can't explore anymore."
"I… have an idea," I said. "It's a longshot, but…"
"What is it?" Taisuke asked.
I beckoned everyone to follow me, and I took everyone down the trail to the shack where I found out Hideaki was Monokuma's mole. I entered the shack, and everyone attempted to crowd in, all of us barely fitting. I was being crushed slightly against the wall by Senji, and I struggled for air.
"I apologize," Senji said. "Though it probably wasn't a good idea anyways to all crowd in here."
"I can't open the door!" Kyouko said. "My arm is stuck!"
"Do you have the card?" I said within breaths. Taisuke managed to take out the card from his pocket, and I took the card with my mouth. In the wall of the shack, there was a small hole that seemed like the card would fit in. I placed the card into the shack.
I knew what would happen next. I knew because of the stack of cards I saw in the shelf as I entered the room. I knew because Hideaki must have been exploring the chambers underground after our talk at the log cabin. As I put the card into the slot in the wall, the floor below us opened, and we fell into darkness. Where were we falling? We could only found out when we hit the ground.
I landed on a soft mattress, and as I glanced at everyone, they all landed on mattresses as well. Looking around, we were in a large hallway that you'd find in a space station. There were automatic doors along the walls, and there were pictures of Monokuma painted along the walls.
"What is this?" Suguru gasped, rubbing her head. Roger began barking wildly, as we all stared around the hallways.
"May I ask how you knew of this?" Senji asked, getting up from the mattress. "How did you know that this dark hallway would be here?"
"I had a feeling," I said. "Something about Hideaki told me. I actually didn't know about the key in the wall though, I just had a feeling something was important inside that shack."
We all split up after that, and explored the new hallway. The hallways split into a crossroads a few meters ahead, so I went with Kouichi and Senji. Suguru, Kyouko, and Taisuke went as a group, and Saya, Kichiro, and Rin went as a group. Splitting up, in my section, we found doors leading to a sub-zero fridge, a morgue, and a control room. The morgue was unlocked, but it didn't show any evidence of being used in a while. Otherwise, we couldn't get the doors from to the fridge and the control room open. It was frustrating that we couldn't do much progress about it, but there wasn't anything else of importance underground. There was storage, but that was closed anyways.
Heading back to the center of the crossroads, we all united and shared our discoveries. Taisuke's group found a room filled with security cameras. Taisuke said that they couldn't open the door, but from the window, they could tell that the room was probably used to spy on us. Taisuke could also see a door inside the room, connecting to another one. Everything else was locked and deemed unimportant. Saya's report was disappointing, only finding an AV Room as the unlocked door. There was nothing important in Saya's discoveries, disappointing her greatly.
"I regret this greatly," Saya said sighing. "But there's nothing of importance that I saw down here."
"It looks like this area is being used as Monokuma's areas of operations," I said. "Though it's strange…"
"You're right. Monokuma hasn't come to confront us once, has he?" Taisuke said.
"Whaddya mean?" asked an unpleasant voice.
We turned around, and saw Monokuma tilting his head in confusion.
"I knew you were here all along," Monokuma said. "But it's not fair for me to conceal the secrets of the academy completely! It's going against my duties as a fair bear!"
"S-so, those locked doors are important?" Kouichi asked.
"Not all of them," Monokuma said. "I was just too lazy to unlock them all." Monokuma brought out a fan and began to cool us off, though unwanted.
"Anyways, you saw what you wanted to see. Mind leaving now?"
"You want us to leave?" Kyouko asked. "Are you afraid of us?"
"No, no," Monokuma said. "You can come back whenever you want after this. I just have something to do today. Besides, you guys probably don't want to be punished for something so stupid."
"P-punished?" Kouichi stammered.
"Please leave now," Monokuma said. "You can find the exit on your north end right there. There's a staircase that takes you up into a secret little area, where you can easily get back into the academy!"
With haste, the nine of us ran towards where Monokuma was pointing to, and we climbed up the stairs for what seemed like an eternity until we reached the backdoor to the cafeteria.
"The cafeteria," I said. "This staircase leads to the cafeteria?"
"It looks like it," Senji said. "Heading back down this staircase means we won't have to rely on that card."
"Still, I am disappointed a bit," Taisuke said. "I was expecting the card to do something, a little more extravagant."
"It looks like they're just keys," I said. "I saw a stack of them back at the shack."
"Either way, we made a major development in the secret of the puppetmaster," Senji said. "We have at least that to look forward to." I nodded, and glanced at my watch. It was still 4:00 PM in the afternoon. Rather early, we ate dinner and talked about our discoveries until 5:00, which was when Taisuke decided to go back underground to investigate more.
Heading back to the dorms, next to my room, I saw Hideaki's nameplate. His room was right next to mine; I forgot about that. I twisted the doorknob, and was pleasantly surprised to find that it was unlocked. Looking around the room, I recognized so many things. Hideaki's spare eyepatch was on his desk, and his bed… it still smelled a little like him. How creepy was that? I was snooping around his room, and I recognized the scent of him immediately. Was that how much I missed Hideaki's company? Exploring the room a little more, I opened up the drawer to the desk, and I gasped when I discovered a note within the cabinet. It was addressed to me.
Dear, Ayako:
If you are reading this, you are most likely saddened about my death, and right now, snooping around my room.
You are too amazing, Hideaki… I continued to read.
I hope you get to read this soon, because I guess it's easier to tell you about my feelings through death. I mean, in the beginning, it was hard to talk to you. I was so happy to find someone that I could freely talk to though, because as our relationship furthered, I began to open up a little more. Do I like you as a friend? Or do I like you more than that? I'm not really sure; I never knew how to distinguish these feelings I had because I was never taught to manage them.
I began to tear up a little as I continued to read the note.
Anyways, I don't know when I'm going to die by the time you read this. I know I'm going to die soon though, because I wouldn't live long as Monokuma's mole. Did I think I could live by following his will? I'm not exactly sure. But if you don't know why I became a mole, it was simply a matter of Monokuma taking hostages that were important to me.
So this was written before my discovery of Hideaki being Monokuma's mole? That means… Hideaki knew he'd die soon anyways after defying Monokuma. I guess Hideaki didn't think he'd be executed though.
If you discovered the secret of the shack, that's great, because I can't tell you much about the secrets of the academy. The truth is, I don't really know. Monokuma only informed me of the bare minimum. If you don't know, there is something under the shack. I don't know how, but I believe it holds an important key to Monokuma's identity. Of course, I have plenty of faith in you; you'll probably be able to deduce all this. I'm ashamed I couldn't be of more help to you.
Hideaki… he knew all this. It was mind baffling. He was mind baffling. There was still a little bit left in the note.
One last thing; I have found out something that may be of use to you. If you know about the shack, you'll know about the card in the slot. That's why it was so important – that entire underground complex holds the secret of Monokuma. But that's not what I'm talking about right now. If you visit the AV Room, you'll find –
"Yoink!"
Monokuma stood on top of Hideaki's desk, holding the note in his paw.
"Yo!" Monokuma said. "This would have been a big spoiler alert for you!" He waved the note into my face. "I don't want all the surprises ruined right now! That'll totally suck!"
"U-Um, what's in the AV Room?" I asked.
"Shoot! You read that part?" Monokuma asked. "That's terrible!"
"So something important is in there?" I asked.
"N-n-no! Something totally unimportant is in there! Something nonexistent is in there! You shouldn't go in there for your life!" Monokuma squealed and scrambled around the room.
"You're not a great liar," I said to Monokuma.
"That's not true!" Monokuma said. "Anyways, get out of Hideaki's room! It's totally disrespectful to his soul!"
"What? You're the one who executed him."
"Stop shifting the blame and get out!" Monokuma swatted at me, and I staggered outside Hideaki's room. Monokuma shut the door behind me, and I glanced at my watch. It was still only 5:16. But something important was in that AV Room. Monokuma said I couldn't go in there for the rest of the day, but at 12:00 AM, the day is different. I'd go investigate then, and I'd find whatever was in that room!
I struggled to stay awake till 12:00 AM, but when it arrived, I headed outside my room. I tried not to make a racket, but I accidentally woke up Kouichi and Saya.
"What the hell are you doing?" mumbled Kouichi. "It's midnight."
"I-I do not deserve to be woken up like this," Saya said. "W-why are you awake?" I pointed outside the window towards the cafeteria, and indicated that I was going to explore the chambers.
"I'm going down there," I whispered. "It's a brand new day, technically."
"But, it's dangerous," Kouichi said, with a hint of fear in his voice. "J-just go in there tomorrow with the rest of us!"
"No, I need to find out now," I said. "Hideaki left me a note, and he said I could find something in the AV Room. Something is important down there."
"S-so I didn't make a useless discovery," Saya mumbled. "That's a relief, so I should go see it myself, huh?" Saya tripped over, and stumbled out of the dormitories.
"Are you coming?" I asked to Kouichi. "Looks like Saya is."
"W-well, you really shouldn't go alone, so I guess I should," Kouichi said nervously. He twiddled with his fingers, and the three of us headed behind the cafeteria, and down into the secret staircase. Walking down… further and further… we finally arrived in front of the AV Room.
"I wonder what's in there," Saya said, now completely awake. "If it is so important like you said it was."
"Only one way to find out," I said, and I opened the door, and turned on the light.
There was nothing but despair in this room.
Taisuke was sitting in a chair. There was blood spilling out of his chest, and his mouth was bound by a handkerchief. His hands were tied behind him, and he was bound to the chair as well. Along with all of this, his finger was raised, and frozen in a stuck position, and in his other hand, held the card, tightly gripped within a fist.
There was no doubt about it.
Taisuke was sitting in that chair, dead.
Continued in Chapter 6: Investigation
===MONOKUMA THEATRE===
#19
Monokuma: You know what bugs me the most when I get excited?
Monokuma: It's what follows after excitement; pure as hell disappointment.
Monokuma: I stand in one corner, expecting something so totally kick-ass, but instead, I get something lame.
Monokuma: But you see, disappointment and despair are two very different things.
Monokuma: Despair is despairingly pleasurable.
Monokuma: Disappointment is just despairingly irritating.
AN: I'm sorry this chapter is so awful. I know this one was so low quality, but going into it, it was rather hard to write an (n)everyday life for this one. (It was still ten pages on Word though, so shush, :P). Anyways, my quality of writing has been going down, sadly.
On another note, daily updates are no longer guaranteed. School is starting back up meaning I own't have time to write for daily updates. I'll try my best though to update as fast and as best as I can.