Level 0
Joker and Kyoko stood beside each other for a few moments more in case the dangerous stranger decided to reappear but it was soon clear that she had done all she wanted to do. The fear of failure was in the both of them, and Joker knew that the clock was ticking again. He turned to Kyoko, whose face was unusually expressive as she was already flipping through her notebook. The confusion of who that player was had a clear presence on her face, but there was something for more dear at stake. The headmaster had altered the game, and decided that the only way to make them cooperate was to separate them, a tactic which may actually win out.
"That woman...she looked familiar." Kyoko nodded, and looked up at Joker with determination burning her eyes, erasing any fears Joker held.
"You thought so too right? She was here at the start one of two girls that Monokuma punished right away." Joker thought back to the first few hours of the game. It felt like ages ago when he had first stepped into the gym to find them all standing there. Monokuma's speech let forward an wave of fear that every student in the room felt, which was only then worsened the horror that followed. A girl with her face shielded by a gas mask, leaped in to attack Monokuma in a vain attempt to bring a premature end to the game. Spears flew through her body before anyone could react, and another girl dressed in an outfit better fit for a model then a high school student sprinted in to try to save her, and was swiftly blown up by the animatronic bear. There was something wrong the way that it had all went down, after the explosion there was no remnants of the fight. Not an ounce of blood had dripped on the floor or the walls, and the bodies had disappeared mysteriously.
"Those two girls from the start, you think they have something to do with this?" Kyoko began to walk towards the doorway, and Joker moved to follow her. With one last look at the mangled corpse that had been used to distract them, they both left the room and ventured out into the hall.
"I think that they might be our only lead right now. Finding out who's behind the game isn't the problem, what we're gonna have issues with is finding evidence that is strong enough to prove it." Joker's thoughts moved back to when the girl had told them what they had to do. The instructions were clear enough, discover the identity of both the girl threatening them and her sister.
"Wait a second, that's totally unfair! We're gonna need to go play their game to win, and the odds are totally stacked against us! She's the judge, how do we know she just won't kill us no matter what we say to her!" Kyoko's expression remained unchanged as Joker continued to follow her down the hallway. They stopped at the gymnasium before Kyoko opened the doors and moved quickly inside.
"That's a chance we have to take, we only have an hour to prove any of this. If we want to survive, we have to comply. For now at least." Once they entered the gym, Kyoko went to the spot where the Monokuma had been detonated days ago. Joker wandered behind her, as she stooped onto the floor and examined the area. There wasn't any remenet of the explosion, but there was also very little of interest regardless. The wooden floor looked no different here then it did in any other part of the room. Kyoko knocked against the floor, and her eyes widened a bit. She repeated the action, and quickly looked up toward Joker.
"Take five steps back, and stomp your foot!" Joker complied, and when he did there was a noticeable difference in sound. Kyoko struck the floor one more time as Joker stomped again. Kyoko pointed at the floor that she had been hitting while she rose to her feet. "Right here, the floor is hollow. We couldn't hear it or see it thanks to the explosion, and we didn't have the time to question it." Joker nodded, the suspicion that had filled him that day knowing being given purpose. But, this only brought more questions onto the table.
"So that means the spears weren't real? And that girl's reaction seemed pretty genuine if you ask me…" Joker thought back the model's screams as she leaped toward the spear filled body. Even the best actor couldn't take that kind of emotion, and her rage as she drove the spear into Monokuma was as genuine as could be.
"The spears could easily have been faked, as none of us were able to get close enough to examine whether any of them were real or some sort of trick. And we don't have time to analyze their character right now, if those two are the ones behind this then we're dealing with extreme sociopaths. Emotions likely mean little to them if they were willing to watch us get kill each other for pleasure. What we have now is evidence that neither of those two died that day, now we have to figure out who they are."
"Right..well then maybe we should head to their rooms? If they really were students here, they're might be something in the dorms to tell us something about them." Kyoko nodded her head, and they left the gym as rapidly as they had come in. The dorms were only a short walk away, and as soon as they reached the hallway Joker began to search for any room that looked like what they needed. There was another room that had its name plate changed. Joker's room had a large X marked on the wooden door, and the nameplate beside it said "Property of J.E. Please keep out." Joker tried the doorknob, but with no luck. Kyoko had come over quickly, and began to study the door.
"They must have done this recently. Their toying with us, giving hints because they want us to struggle and try." Joker pointed to the doorknob, and shook his head. Kyoko kneeled in front of the lock, and looked inside at it. "Hm… this is different from the others." She reached into her pocket as she spoke, pulling out a small bobby pin. "All the others had locks more complicated than even I had seen before, but this one is much simpler." After a few moments of struggle, the lock clicked and the door moved open slightly. Joker rubbed the back of his head as Kyoko put the pin back into her pocket.
"Why do you know how to pick a lock so well?" Kyoko ignored the question, instead opening the door and flipping on the lights. The entire room had been changed, with half of it being painted black and the other half white. Even the furniture had been switched out to serve this purpose. Joker shuddered slightly as he thought of how much extra effort it must have taken for them to do this. If they had the time and energy to do something as useless as this, they must have full confidence that they could not possibly succeed. Besides the room color being shifted, all of the new furniture had a Monokuma head on it somewhere. The chair and desk had heads on the ends of their legs, the closet had a big Monokuma stamp on it, and the bed had a print of his face on the blanket. It was sickening, and they both stepped inside to investigate further. Joker walked toward the bathroom as Kyoko began to check around the main room. As soon as the bathroom door opened, the lights flickered on inside to reveal words written with pink lipstick in perfect penmanship. They read, 'You are the mistake.' and at the end was another monokuma face, with one of its eyes winking. Kyoko peeked her head in, and followed Joker's gaze onto the mirror.
"She's just trying to mess with your head, try not to think too much into it." She left Joker alone as he continued to stare at the words, trying to make sense of them. Everything up to here has been a legitimate clue. This has to mean something as well… Joker shook his head, and left the room to find Kyoko holding a small lockbox. It was totally different from anything else in the room, looking more medieval in design than something that would belong in a high school student's room.
"Where did you find that?" Kyoko continued to study the box as Joker moved around the bed to stand beside her.
"I found it under your bed. It looks too small to be a trap, but I can't seem to find a way to open it." Joker held out his hands, and she handed the box gently to him. Up close he could see that it was covered in some strange design, a mix a bright a colorful items and dark, gloomy ones. On the sides of the box, the letters J and E stood out from the design highlighted by a similar pink color to the one used to draw on the mirror.
"It's like she wants us to figure stuff out. Could she really be doing all this just so she could let us fail right at the end?" He clicked the two letters in, and the box opened suddenly. Inside was a small ticket a bunch of small DVDs, each of them labeled with the name's of one of the students inside. Kyoko took the box from him and fished around inside, spreading each disk out onto the bed in front of them. There were seventeen in total, with only one of them being blank.
"These are all too small to be used for a regular disk player. We have to find something to play these with…" Joker did a quick study around the room, but there was nothing that was of interest. Despite the change that had occured, what little furniture was actually in the room remained the same. Joker looked over at the disks, with the empty box beside them. The letters had once again popped back out, and Joker picked the box up.
"Why the letters J.E? They were carved over mine outside too, they have to mean something." Kyoko nodded, and picked up one of the disks.
"She gave us the answer to that one too." She flipped it around and showed it to Joker. The name Junko Enoshima was written on it with black marker. "She's guiding us. Every single clue we found save the hollow floor in the gym was something she made so blatant it would take a fool to miss it. We need to find more evidence than whatever she is feeding us." She began to walk toward the door, turning around briefly to adress Joker. "Look for a way to get on those disks, I'm gonna see what else I can scrounge up. Keep your eye on the clock, we have twenty minutes till we have to go to the courtroom." She left briskly, and Joker returned his attention to the box.
"Junko Enoshima, could that really be who is behind all this?" It was baffling to hear the name said aloud. It was the first time he had heard it, what reason could she have to lock any of them inside a school and force them to kill each other? If it really was one of the girls from the first day, she couldn't be much older then him. She likely had a talent, as would her sister. But aside from that, there was nothing else he could possibly now about her. The catch was, she must now know just about everything about him. She knew his name, his abilities, his talent. He threw the box back onto the bed, and it bounced off the mattress, smacking against the floor with a loud bang. Joker winced, and looked into the doorway to make sure Kyoko didn't see it. When he reached to pick it up, he saw something had fallen out. It was a small piece of cardboard, colored fully black. A false bottom! Joker quickly reached to pick up the box, and sure enough where the disks had been stacked had disappeared, being replaced by a large red button. Without thinking, he pressed it and the box heard a loud crash from the bathroom. He ran inside to find the mirror had popped of the wall, and where it hung there was a large TV screen, with a small slot beside it. Joker laughed to himself, and ran to grab a disk from the bed. The first he grabbed was one with his own name on it, and as soon as he had it he rushed back into the bathroom to slide it into the slot. There was a few moments of silence before the screen flashed on, and Joker saw a video of himself sitting in a chair staring blankly at the screen. He watched mystified as a voice on the screen began to question him, a high pitched girl's voice.
"All comfortable Joker? Good, I want to get this over with so you can go back to your nap. Go on, say it." In the video Joker could see that he was clearly nervous, and was gaze kept shifting to the floor only to snap back up to the camera.
"To whoever is watching… I came here to Hope's Peak Academy on my own terms. I also agreed to remain here while the Biggest, Most Tragic Event in Human History continues outside. I have Junko Enoshima to thank for this, and I am very grateful to her for this chance of safety." There was a sharp giggle from behind the camera, and the female voice came back.
"Very good! I'm so proud of you, I give you permission to say one thing extra. Choose carefully…" Joker's eyes suddenly became much more grave as he looked directly into the camera, and he spoke with absolute clarity.
"Trust your friends. They mean more than you could ever hope to know." There was an exaggerated yawn from behind the camera as the same military girl from before appeared on the screen.
"How corny, go on sis put to poor baby back to sleep. We have a lot more work to do." Joker looked up at the soldier, who grabbed him and pushed a needle deep into the side of his neck. His eyes fluttered, before he faded away into sleep." The screen then suddenly went dark as it had before Joker put the disk in. None of what was shown to him looked familiar, it was like they had someone who looked exactly like him say those things. The more he thought, there was no memory of filming anything on the video. Without warning, the screen flashed on again and there was one sentence displayed, 'How much do we change?' The screen then changed to film that looked like it had come from a security camera. It showed Joker, walking up to the school and talking to Asahina just like he did on the first day. Except, he didn't black out like he did in his memory, on the screen it showed him walk inside with her. The video suddenly began to fast forward extremely rapidly. Joker watched days go by in seconds with dozens of students flooding in and out of the building, the seasons slowly changing in the background. Then they suddenly just stopped coming, but the tape continued as Joker watched with fascination. It stopped to show the same entrance he had come in all that time ago, only now more destroyed and beaten. It looked like a war had taken place just outside the building. The video then cut to black, and the disk popped back out. Joker could feel his mind race with possibilities of what he just saw, but nothing made sense. The memories in his head were not completely true, it was as if someone had gone inside in mind and cut little parts of everything out. If so much time had gone by after he had gone in that first time, then how come he only remembered standing in front of the school, and not going inside? How much time had passed? He grabbed the disk from the machine and ran to the pile, throwing his away. He picked up Junko's and ran it back to the player. Once inside, the video opened to Monokuma's laughing face with the words 'Better luck next time!' flashing around him in neon lights. Joker scoffed, and the disk popped right back out.
"Thanks...real cute." He threw the disk away, and returned to the pile. He picked up the blank disk, and placed it into the machine as the screen flickered back on. It showed the words 'School Trip!' written on a chalkboard as if written by a child. Then, it showed a shaky camera walking down a sidewalk recording people in the streets. The person holding the camera was silent as they continued to walk, before they stopped in front of a large building. It was a school, but it wasn't Hope's Peak Academy. It big bold letters, the words 'Shujin Academy' were printed at the top of the building. The camera then began to move inside the school to show that some sort of fare was going on, as there were hundreds of students walking around and examining different colorful booths. The persona holding the camera walked inside as students waved to the camera and smiled. It finally settled on two people talking, a boy and a girl. The boy was short, with spiky brown hair and was dressed in a school uniform. The girl was a little bit taller with short brown hair and large, almost red eyes. When the say the camera holder, they both turned smiling with the girl blushing a bit. There person behind the camera began to speak, sounding exactly the same as the voice from Joker's film.
"Well if it isn't my favorite Makoto's! We at Hope's Peak Academy would like to wish our warmest welcomes to all of you, and the rest of your school." The boy began to speak first, and Joker could swear he had seen him before.
"Thanks, I heard you guys have a great school. Wish them our best." The camera shook up and down as if to nod, and shifted focus onto the girl.
"And would the class president like to say a word?" The girl cleared her throat, her previous bashfulness replaced by a dutiful look.
"As my friend here said, we wish all those at Hope's Peak the best of luck from all the students here at Shujin Academy. Feel free to stop by after school if you like, me or others on the council would be happy to show you around our wonderful school." The girl behind the camera squealed, causing the blush to return to the council president's face.
"Just as kind as I heard you would be! Well, I'll get out of your hair now, I have a lot to look at." The two of them nodded, and the camera shut off as soon as it turned away from them. The screen shifted to show a still image of the boy who the person behind the camera called Makoto. There was a small flash, and then the picture was on fire, burning until it was nothing more than ashes. Text then flashed in the same font as that from the other videos, saying 'Perhaps in another lifetime.' The disk ejected itself, and as Joker turned to go back to the bed he found Kyoko standing there with her arms crossed.
"Looks like you had better luck than me." Joker nodded, and pointed to the disks.
"Grab one of those, see if you can make sense of these." She moved towards the bed to grab one of the disks, and spoke aloud.
"I checked all around the school but no luck. I couldn't even find Byakuya and the rest, but it could be safe to assume that they have taken them as well. If that girl was able to capture Sakura…" She handed Joker the disk that held her name, and he put it into the player. The screen flashed to show one similar to the one Joker had seen, with Kyoko sitting in a chair looking stoically at a camera. She said the same exact thing that Joker had, her voice dull and emotionless. The same opportunity to say anything she wished had been presented to her, but she shook her head.
"I have nothing to say to you, Junko." The voice let out a huff of disapproval, and the soldier came forward to inject the needle into her neck. Joker turned to see Kyoko with a small smile on her face as the screen began to play the similar security footage. This time, it showed Kyoko walking toward the building beside a man with his face blurred out. She was listening closely to him, as they walked inside the building and the footage began to speed up.
"Thanks to that, we now have the evidence we need to show that Junko was the one behind the camera. That means that her sister is the one in the military uniform, and by extension, Mukuro." Joker thought about it for a moment, before laughing to himself. Even when she knew how little chance she had in that situation, Kyoko still was able to leave a clue for herself. She turned to Joker, ignoring the speedy security footage. "C'mon, we don't have any more time. Grab this disk, and any other one you watched." Joker obeyed, gathering his disk, hers, and the blank. With them in his pockets, they made their way towards the elevator that would lead them into the courtroom. Once they arrived, they saw the military girl standing guard at the door. Joker walked past her,
"Let's go Mukuro." She smiled at the sound of her name, and pushed Joker into the elevator.
"Save that for my sis, let's go." With the three of them inside, they began to descend to the final session. Joker noded to Kyoko, and reached into his pockets to feel the disks. They had a chance now, one they would not let slip by. The elevator stopped, and the doors opened slowly as a blinding light filled the elevator.
