What's this, a (relatively) fast update? Madness! I felt bad since I took so long to get the previous chapter out, so here it is (along with responses to reviews from chapter 19).

MizunashiFuyuko - It was back in chapter 13, I think? Monokuma showed everyone the motive at once (the reason Shunari didn't react initially was because he didn't figure out the meaning right away).

CaptainPancakes - You flatter me XD I do find them fun to come up with (even though Shunari's probably took a longer than it should have), so I'm glad you like it!

hirowriter - I really love that idea! I honestly do wish I could use it, (and hopefully it's not a spoiler of me to say) but what I have planned pretty much guarantees they won't be able to appear at the finale. As for your fic... I'll be honest, I don't find crossover fics interesting, but I'll give it a read!

And now, it's RTE again. We're checking out the Art Room this time. I couldn't be bothered to recheck what it actually looked like, so hopefully I can be excused for making something up :P

Even though he was too wrapped up in his own thoughts to talk as they ascended, Kuroda couldn't help but notice that Izanagi was acting strangely, even considering the information they had just learned; constantly fidgeting, he looked even more stressed out than usual.

Reaching the end of the ride they filtered out of the elevator, and were about to start leaving the room when Aurora blocked the doorway, a determined expression on her face.

"I know another murder occurred... But we'll get through this, everyone! We have to-" She started, but was suddenly cut off by Izanagi.

"H...How can you say that, Rouleau?!" The warden accused, voice shaking. "This is all our fault!"

"Eh...? What are you talking about, Izanagi?"

"It's because we organised that pool event... Izuki was able to..." Unwilling to finish the sentence, he started to back away from the group.

"It wasn't your fault, Izanagi." Takao reasoned. "Nobody could have known-"

"Shut up! We got Kosaka killed...! I... I can't take this anymore...!" He cried out, pushing past Aurora and dashing out of the room.

"Izanagi!? Wait-!" Aurora called, but the warden was already gone.

"He's not taking this well..." Miharu observed. "Perhaps someone should go make sure he doesn't do anything stupid."

"Well, as the one who came up with the swimming idea... He's not going to listen to it if it comes from me!" The quarterback said matter of factly. "It's gotta be someone else."

Frowning in thought, she looked around the room. "Uh... Daisuki! Can you go talk to him?"

"What the hell? Why me?"

"Well, he's not going to listen to me." Aurora explained. "You guys don't get along, right? If anyone can cheer him up, it's going to be you - the rival!"

"Rivals? Gimme a fuckin' break." He snorted. "We just... disagree."

"That's practically the same thing!" Upon receiving a disbelieving look from the graffiti artist she changed tactics, giving him her best pleading look. "C'mon... I don't think Izanagi's okay. Please?"

For a long moment, the two of them had a staring match.

"... Alright, whatever. Not like I can say no." Daisuki muttered, defeated. Sighing reluctantly, he began to follow after Izanagi.

"But I'm not good with this stuff. Don't blame me if I screw it up."

"Sweet! I owe you one, Daisuki! And don't tell him I put you up to this!" He raised his hand in acknowledgement, not bothering to turn around.

"Is... Is it really okay to leave Izanagi to Daisuki?" Saito wondered aloud, once he was gone.

"While I agree he can be decidedly uncivilised and abrasive..." Erika piped up. "I have faith in his ability. It would serve you well to do the same."

The violinist didn't look entirely convinced, but shrugged anyway.

The logician smiled pleasantly. "So it is settled. For now, we should explore the new areas that have been made available to us."

=== EXPLORE! ===

:==:| Art Room

As he walked down the corridor of the third floor, Kuroda spared a glance at the sign hanging above the nearby doorway.

The Art Room, huh... The classrooms on this floor were basically identical to the ones on the lower floors, and he couldn't say art particularly interested him. With a sigh he began to move on, hoping that there was something else on this floor worth exploring.

However, he stopped when he smelt something in the air. Whatever it was, it definitely was coming from inside the Art Room.

Is that... burning?

Concerned, he decided it would probably be a good idea to go investigate after all. I wonder what's she's up to this time...

Upon entering the room, he took a moment to look around. The large room was well stocked, albeit in disarray; the long wooden tables that occupied most of the floor were densely littered with various art supplies, while easels and bases for sculptures were standing scattered around the room.

The walls were in a similar state of chaos - many paintings were either hung up or simply leaned against the wall, but they were outnumbered by the masses of empty frames and canvases that also lay around. Additionally, he noticed a coat rack had been set up and hidden away in the corner of the room, with countless amounts of aprons hanging off of its arms.

Over in the far corner of the room stood a small kiln, and opposite it was some kind of booth. Kuroda wasn't entirely sure what its purpose was, but he guessed it was a dark room for developing photographs.

He finally turned to look at the room's two occupants. As he had suspected, Tomoe was here; currently wielding a lighter, the pyrotechnist seemed to be strategically burning a piece of paper while a short distance away Akemi sat at one of the tables, writing something down with a quill.

He briefly wondered whether he even wanted to know what they were doing, but he approached anyway.

Noticing him walk over, Tomoe turned and greeted him with a smile.

"Hello, Kuroda!" She said cheerfully. "Have you come to help us out?"

"That depends," He answered vaguely. "What are you two up to?"

"Art!" The pyrotechnist supplied helpfully. Flicking her lighter back on with an artistic flourish, she lit up an unburnt section of the paper.

After watching it carefully for a moment she blew out the flame, and set it down on top of a pile of similarly charred pages.

"Alright Akemi, I'm ready for the next one!" Setting down her quill, the astronomer grabbed one of the papers she had scattered over the table and handed it to Tomoe.

Kuroda noticed that the page was filled with neat cursive writing, same as the one before it. "What's this...? Some kind of ritual burning thing?" Admittedly he could see Akemi being into the occult, but it seemed a bit out of character for Tomoe.

"Oh, no. This is our original work!" Tomoe corrected him swiftly.

"... Original work?"

"Yeah! It's a side project while our unoriginal work is drying off."

He glanced at the paintings Tomoe pointed towards. From what he could tell, they seemed to be a crude attempt at forgery. He didn't have the opportunity to look closer, however, as the pyrotechnist continued to speak, bringing his attention back to her.

"It's like a plan B, you see. If for some strange reason our work doesn't sell on the black market, we've got this to get filthy rich from!" She explained brightly.

... I honestly can't tell whether she's being serious or not. Unsure whether it was worth telling her that any idiot would be able to tell it was a forgery, he decided to change the subject.

"Alright... but why are you burning the edges of the papers?" He asked.

"It's written like a diary, so it looks more genuine that way." Akemi said simply, as if that was somehow the logical conclusion to make. "It builds atmosphere, too. Take a look, if you'd like."

Getting out of her chair and crossing over to where the aprons were hung up, the astronomer took one and started to put it on. "I'm going to start on the cover art, Tomoe." She announced, receiving an enthusiastic nod in response.

He couldn't say he was terribly interested in Akemi's writing, but took a quick look at the first page anyway - the title of the work was written on it in large font: 'The Chronicles of Mayonda Akemoe'.

... Subtle.

"If you wanted to help out, we'll need to bind it together somehow." Tomoe offered, noticing that he was reading the page.

"I'll pass, thanks..." He replied politely. He had the feeling that nothing good could come of getting involved with the two girls' weird scheme.

Besides, there were other places he still needed to explore. Quickly bidding goodbye to Akemi and Tomoe, he returned to the corridor.

"I don't suppose anyone found a way to escape?" Takao ventured. With the afternoon gone, the students had once again all gathered in the cafeteria to eat dinner together.

"Finding an escape route on the third floor is unlikely." Miharu replied, absently pushing the food on her plate around with a fork. "Even if there was a way out, jumping out of the third storey of a building is not a good idea."

"So what should we do now? Just sit around until help arrives?" Saito's line of thought was cut short by the return of Daisuki, who had been missing all afternoon.

"Daisuki! You're back!" Aurora exclaimed. "Where's Izanagi?"

"He went back to his room... I told him to go sleep it off." The graffiti artist replied.

"That's the only thing you told him?" Tomoe asked. "Maybe someone else should have gone after all..."

"Of course we talked about other stuff, idiot. He should be okay now." He said evasively, disappearing into the kitchen to get food. From the tone of his voice, it was clear he didn't want to say anything else on the matter.

Silently agreeing to drop the subject, the rest of the evening passed by pleasantly, albeit extremely uneventfully.

...

"This is a school announcement. It is now 10 pm."

"Night time begins now."

"The cafeteria's doors will be locked shortly. You are forbidden to enter it."

"Well then, good night. I wish you all have pleasant dreams..."

Day Seven: END

Students Alive: 12

"Good morning, you bastards! It's 7 am in the morning! Time to wake up!"

"Let's all strive to do our best today!"

Kuroda sat up, rubbing his eyes. Today is our eighth day...

That's right... They'd been there for a week now. Just one week, and a quarter of them were already dead.

For the first time, he found himself wondering whether there was any outside help coming.

There had to be... right? After absolutely no contact with the outside world, surely at least one of their families must have noticed something was up.

It's not like they were out in the middle of nowhere, either - Hope's Peak Academy was smack bang in the middle of Toyko. He didn't recall it being a boarding school, either. Surely someone would have noticed the fact no one was coming in or out of the building?

Wait a sec, that's not right... He frowned in thought. He was absolutely sure he remembered reading that attendance was just like any other high school, but that seemed to be contradicted by the situation they were in.

After all, the school was equipped with a kitchen, a laundry, and even personalised dormitory rooms. Not exactly facilities needed by a normal high school.

He was unable to get the thought out of his head as he got ready for the day, and left his room to head towards the cafeteria. Deep down he knew there was an explanation for this discrepancy, but he didn't like it.

"It's not just me... It's all of us." The runner replied, shaking his head. "All of us have-"

"SpoilersspoilersSPOILERS!" In a sudden burst of anger Monokuma cut him off, pulling a gavel from... somewhere, and brandishing it at him while the podium bearing the red button on it rose up out of the ground. "Enough, enough! You've missed your time to talk, now shut up and accept your punishment!"

...

"Our... OUR MEMORIES HAVE BEEN TAMPERED WITH!?" Izanagi yelped.

Ever since Shunari had said those words, they had been stuck at the back of his mind despite his disbelief. He had always thought that memory erasure was the stuff of sci-fi... It wasn't possible, right?

And yet, it was undeniably a viable explanation. If his memories were gone, it would make sense that he didn't remember the changes that had occurred to the academy.

It also explained the reason nobody had come to help yet... perhaps, there was no one to come and help in the first place?

Reaching the cafeteria, he shook his head as if the movement would get rid of the depressing thoughts in it. There was nothing he could do about it now, so he resolved to try not to dwell on the matter any further.

Entering the room, he quickly grabbed something to eat and found a spot at a table with Aurora and Daisuki.

Despite having taken a normal amount of food for breakfast, he couldn't help but feel like he wasn't eating very much as he eyed both of their plates. Together, the two of them went through an inhuman amount of food.

"Oh yeah, I almost forgot!" Aurora exclaimed, in between vacuuming up the massive amount of food stacked onto her plate. "What'd you do to Izanagi? He seems a lot happier today."

Kuroda glanced over at Izanagi, who was sitting with Akemi, Rei and Takao. Watching him, he had to agree - the warden seemed to be more or less back to normal.

Apparently not expecting her question, Daisuki choked on his food and went into a coughing fit. "F... Fuck, don't surprise me like that! Why do you even want to know...?" He sputtered, after recovering a bit.

"It's Izanagi! Of course I want to know what happened!" She pressed. "So spill it!"

"I... dunno. Made up some sappy shit as I went." He said uncomfortably. "You know... He really needs a social life, but he's not that bad of a guy."

"Sounds like the power of friendship is shining through!" The quarterback said excitedly. "Maybe you guys should team up and fight crime some day! I bet you'd make a killer good cop, bad cop routine."

"I don't think either of them particularly qualify as good cops..." Kuroda interjected.

"Well, Daisuki managed to talk some sense into Izanagi yesterday, right? That's basically counselling!" She asserted. "He's clearly the good cop in this situation!"

Daisuki looked vaguely disgusted at the prospect. "Fuck off, Aurora. I'm never doing that again."

Aurora opened her mouth to retort, but was interrupted by Monokuma's voice coming through the PA system.

"Attention, you bastards! Please come to the gym at once!"

"Oh, an announcement? I wonder what Monokuma wants..." Aurora pondered.

Daisuki heaved a sigh, getting out of his seat. "Another motive, I guess... No point in keeping him waiting."

As everyone else prepared to leave Aurora paused to look down at her plate speculatively for a moment, before shoveling the remaining contents of the plate into her mouth at once.

Standing up, she said something rendered unintelligible by all the food in her mouth - Kuroda guessed it was a crude approximation of "Let's go!" - before heading out of the cafeteria as well.

Thanks to the fact that he had managed to catch them while they were still all in the cafeteria, it didn't take them long to move into the gymnasium. Monokuma was already waiting for them, simply standing on the ground as they formed a half circle around him.

It did not escape Kuroda's notice that the bear seemed to be hiding something behind his back, and he wondered what it could be.

"You're all here? Good!" Monokuma greeted. "Let's get started!"

Proudly, he presented what he had been holding to the group. Much like the first motive, they were a stack of plain white envelopes that each bore the name of a student.

Walking forward, he began to hand them out. "Go on, you bastards! Read what's in them!"

Accepting his envelope from Monokuma, Kuroda felt his heart drop into his stomach as he read the contents of the note inside.

What the-!? How did he know about that? The only people who knew were him and his mother, and he had made her swear on her life that no one else would find out about it...

Around him, he heard the others express their panic and disbelief. He turned his head when he heard a thump from beside him - Aurora had collapsed to her knees, wordlessly staring at the note in her hands.

"Shit... Shit! H-how did you know about that...!?" Saito stammered, pulling on her hair anxiously.

"W... What is the meaning of this!?" Izanagi demanded loudly. Curiously, the warden was blushing such an intense red Kuroda could almost feel the heat radiating off his face.

"Upupupu... Looks like I hit the jackpot with this!" Monokuma replied triumphantly. "This is your next motive! If a murder doesn't occur within the next 48 hours..."

"... I'll expose your dirty little secrets to the world!"

Yeah, this is a totally original motive, that's totally not common in other SYOCs :P Seriously though, it's one of the good motives from the game in my opinion. I couldn't resist!

Anyway, we're up to the third round of FTEs! As you can probably guess, Aurora will be unavailable. Same as usual, you can vote for 3 people.

P.S. Hopefully I haven't gone too overboard with the whole 'students getting up to wacky hijinks' thing. Tell me if it's too weird, and I'll dial it down a bit :P