AN: Hey there, new chapter. Do what you will.
Day 28, 0812 Hours, the Cafeteria
"But this motive is weak compared to the others, right?"
John tried to make Ferris uncomfortable with a look but the chemist was impervious from such things, protected by his lack of care for others opinions of him.
"He's right," Atsuko weighed in from her seat after she had swallowed the bit of food she had been chewing, "all the others were direct threats to us on some level while this is more of a temptation."
"Yeah," Paris said, "you think Monokuma's running out of ideas? Then he'd enter the endgame very soon right?"
"That's overly hopeful," John said with a grimace at having to be the pessimist, "Monokuma should have enough to inspire at least eight murders worth of motives and there have only been three."
"Technically he'd only need seven, the last two would probably be forced to fight arena style to the death," Ferris said, Atsuko punching him in the shoulder.
"Ugh," Paris grunted looking down at the table before looking over at the wall where she suddenly paused as something caught her attention.
John looked and saw what had caught her attention. It was the drawings Mary had done at the start of the event before she moved into the art room. There were a few other works up that weren't sketches but the large majority of them were simple pencil sketches. He recognized the sketch of him, Mary, Ferris, Alexander, Wilbur, and Amelia; his eye feeling drawn to the images of the deceased students. Other works included a sketched portrait of Atsuko drawn Mona Lisa style; a cubism sketch of what might have been Rowland messing with things in the nurse's office, and a small water color of a tree, which was slightly out of place among the other sketches.
"I forgot we had been putting those up," John said, diverting the conversation from the current topic.
Ferris and Atsuko looked over at the sketches, Atsuko shrugging while Ferris did a double take.
"Whoa, we actually out those up? I thought she just kept them in a pile in her room," Ferris stated.
"You guys seriously missed that?" Atsuko asked, Paris nodding in agreement at the stupidity of the boys.
"Yes, I've been more concerned with whether or not people are on the verge of listening to Monokuma," Ferris said, an offensive tone to his voice, "and figuring out a way out of this bloody hellhole."
"Oh and how is that going?" Atsuko snapped.
"Brilliant, we've only had an eighty-five point seven percent fatality rate," Ferris said with a maniac grin.
"What about the other, fourteen point three percent? Is that right?" Paris asked after a second.
"Yes it is and I am the other whatever percent," Ferris said before standing up.
He grabbed his dishes as well as John's, who had finished a while ago, and went into the kitchen. Paris went after him as she was done with her food, and Atsuko handed her plate to be taken into the kitchen as well. John debated whether or not to start a conversation, remembering Atsuko's tendency to poke and prod into other's personal life.
She beat him out on the decision when she asked him, "What do you think of Ferris?"
"Why?" John asked.
"I want to know what you think of him," the lucky student said, shifting to face him, "I mean he's certainly nice enough if he likes you but he rarely seems to put thought into what he does before he does it."
"You mean like sprinting around the murder school waving a radio over his head? Or are you referring to our first meeting when he-."
Atsuko punched John.
"Ow," John said, rubbing his shoulder, "You get the picture."
"Yeah, yeah," Atsuko said flapping her arm at him, "but that doesn't tell me your opinion of him."
"He's definitely not someone you mess with, the guy crawled through grime coated air ducts after being stabbed and losing a lot of strength from that whole medicine fiasco, I could probably run him over with a tank and he'd stand back up, he's either stealing your luck or something is putting the cards in his favor," John said, "he's also athletic enough to compete with Paris, although she is still better than him, and he's intelligent enough to try and work with Rowland, But," John stated when Atsuko began to speak, "he's also trusted us enough to tell us his condition the minute it became a handicap, I get not telling it right off the bat to total strangers, so he does see us as friends."
"So he's not someone I should take lightly," Atsuko said, obviously dissatisfied with his answer.
"And someone you can trust," John said.
Atsuko though on this for a moment before smiling and saying, "You could have just said that."
"I wanted you to have the full reasoning," John said turning as Paris and Ferris emerged from the kitchen.
Atsuko nodded before the other two arrived, before saying to the soccer player and chemist, "What's on today's agenda?"
"We're still trying to figure out what S-c meant by that cryptic message," Ferris said, rolling his eyes.
John faded out of the present for a minute as he remembered what Ferris was talking about.
Day 27, 2110 Hours, Shi-ru's Room
They weren't coming to help; they were coming to kill.
John and Ferris sat in silence for a moment, processing the words on the screen before Ferris began typing.
sO WHAT YOU'RE SAYING IS THAT IT'S A GOOD THING THOSE GUYS ARE DEAD?
Bingo. They were deranged followers of the cult who were trying to loot the place, but didn't realize their 'god' would be so angry with them. They blew up the wall a few minutes before you woke up. In fact, it's what woke Alexander up the guy's so tuned to war.
Joh began typing.
Okay, but that's not very reassuring, were they the ones on the radio?
wHAT HAPPENED TO THAT ANYWAY? dID MONOKUMA SNATCH IT UP?
No and yes. It was part of the murder and I doubt he felt you all would be comfortable using it so he got rid of it, he didn't replace it like the actual murder weapons though, and I have been trying to reach those people you heard on the radio, I think they're Ultimate Despair's enemy, the Future Hope or some other anime bullshit.
fUCK YOU ANIME IS AWESOME.
Whatever.
That aside anything else useful you can tell us.
No, not really, I need time to actually contact the people. So, personal questions, no?
Day 28, 0855 Hours, the Cafeteria
"Yo, Jawn," Ferris said as he snapped his fingers in front of John's face.
"Sorry, thinking about that thing you just mentioned, first thing, very first," John said quickly, cutting off Ferris's chance to make a joke of some kind.
"Yeah, it's big alright," Ferris said a slight tone of disappointment in his voice, "it might be our ticket out, no need for a dangerous endgame required."
"That would be good," Paris said, smiling slightly, "No more death, except maybe Monokuma's."
There was a moment of silence.
"Definitely kill him."
"Oh, HELL yes."
"Put him in an execution machine."
"That would be entertaining."
Silence fell again.
"I'm going to go search the library," Ferris said.
"I'll go with you," Atsuko said.
They stood up and left.
Silence, barely standing up tripped and fell once again.
"Do you people ever sit still?" sidled Barry's voice from across the cafeteria.
John had forgotten that Barry was even sitting there. He had been there the entire time but had been sitting almost motionless, slowly eating. They had gotten into their own conversations and Barry had been forgotten. Now that he thought about it, Billy and Chloe had passed through while they had been talking.
"W-what d-o, you mean?" Paris asked.
"All of you are always moving around, always doing something. You must be stressed as hell," Barry responded, shifting slightly to look at them better.
"Well, y-es this s-situation is so f-fucking ridiculous. I me-an, we're b-being held h-hostage, BY A STUFFED BEAR. And said bear is m-making u-s kill each o-other, what a-about that i-isn't stressful?" Paris asked.
"But it doesn't have to," Barry countered.
Paris thought for a moment before saying, "Nooo, it kind of does."
"I haven't been bothered this entire time," Barry said, a hint of emotion entering his stance.
"I'm s-sorry but I have t-o ask, h-ave you ever been bothered?" Paris asked with a bit of a wince.
"Yes, back before I started my music career," Barry said, subsiding a bit as he became reflective, "I felt a whole lot then."
"Oh, s-sorry," Paris said, shifting back.
"S'not your fault my dad was a dick and my mom was useless," Barry said shrugging.
"R-reaally s-sorry."
"Whatever, maybe I should start being more in touch with my emotional side," Barry said, looking slightly contemplative.
"S-sure, that's a-a good i-idea," Paris said, smiling.
Barry nodded and walked away, leaving the cafeteria just to John and Paris. And silence slunk back in.
"Jesus Christ, we've hung out so much we're running out of things to talk about aren't we?" John said.
"Good lord you're right, we've been here what, a month?" Paris responded.
"Just about," John said looking around.
"Fucking hell," Paris said.
Silence snuck back in, and slunk right back out.
"Want to go, I don't know, check the art room? View some of Mary's art," John said.
"Sure," Paris said, and they began walking to the East Wing.
The walk wasn't in silence as they had expected, because after a minute Paris had thought of a story she hadn't yet told John. It was old and only partly remembered, a few gaps that John was sure she was embellishing, but he enjoyed the diversion from the quiet halls of the school anyways.
Thank God it was only a school it would be horrible if this was an island or something bigger. Christ ten people on one island, even a small island would probably a couple miles big at least to John's knowledge, could probably be able to go days without seeing each other. Are there islands smaller than that…? Whatever, it's not like they'd ever have to do anything like that.
They reached the art room and entered to find Mary staring at the outline of Rowland she had made the day they had found the art room. It had an interesting look now that it had dried. It had a certain, whatever that French term was, John didn't know it off the top of his head.
"Hi Mary," Paris said, alerting the artist to their presence.
"Oh, hey guys," Mary said, giving them a lax look.
"You okay?" John asked, looking at the artist.
"Heh, don't worry, I'm just reminiscing," Mary said.
"About what?" John asked.
"About what could have been," Mary said, before looking off to one side and saying, "Am I using that word right?"
"I don't know," Paris said, while John shrugged.
Mary snorted and said, "Whatever, anyways I've been learning about what happened from Shi-cu and, I'm so fucking pissed at Monokuma I've passed beyond being pissed into some plateau of calm on the other side."
"Wow," Paris said.
"Yes," Mary said, letting out a frustrated huff of air, "It would be so much better if I could just strangle whoever the hell is piloting Monokuma but, I guess expressing my frustration through art is good."
"We're with you on the whole 'Fuck Monokuma' fro-," John began when Monokuma popped out of nowhere.
"I take offense to that!" Monokuma said, as John jumped back swearing, Mary grabbed a whittling knife, and Paris flicked Monokuma off with both hands, "As I have said multiple times-."
"No one cares fuck ass, go away," John said.
"Alright you little bastards! Fuck you guys then! Burn in hell where you belong! In fact, I'm going to add to the motive!" said Monokuma before leaving.
"Oh fuck," John said.
"Let's not tell anyone about this shall we?" Paris said after taking a deep breath.
"Sure, what did you guys come in here for anyway?" Mary said as Monokuma's voice crackled across the intercom.
"Have fun roasting bastards!"
When there was nothing else, John said, "We wanted to look at some of your artwork."
"Oh, okay," Mary said, gesturing to the room in general, "walk around, and if you want I can make up some bullshit about whatever. Or I might have a genuine interesting story, we'll see."
They spent the rest of the time doing that, taking a moment to notice the heat rising. It was obvious Monokuma was going to try and sweat them into murder, plus with the other motive still in effect they had probably really fucked this up and needed to tell the others. Who would be really mad about the increasing the motive thing.
But for now they walked with Mary and view the art she had made. It was really good. Paintings, sketches, pastels, colored pencils, even a few crayon ones. She had really been at work since they had got here, and probably had had Rowland running assistant while he was alive.
Wow that became morbid really quick; John felt he should really go back to the fun of hanging with friends and not worrying about the murder bear who was probably slowly turning the heat to a sub lethal level. It was fun listening to the other two chat while he slowly reeled his mind back in from darker places, until Alexander burst in with Billy demanding to know why Monokuma was trying to roast everyone, and why the water was only coming out of the tap heated to near undrinkable.
That's when the fun ended.