AN: I live! And so does this story which. I hope everyone is enjoying it!

Day 31, 0709 Hours, John's Room

John was awake as the morning announcement played, and remained in bed after it finished. He took his time familiarizing himself with his ceiling, a task he could not clearly recall performing before but felt like he had. Anyway, John slowly levered himself off his bed after he decided to get up for the day, knowing that Paris, Ferris, and the others would worry if he didn't.

He glanced at the laptop, pausing to consider checking its contents. Monokuma hadn't personally uncensored more files and John had had no luck in that task himself. Going over the files that were accessible again had proved futile in finding new information. His entries were also erratic at best, probably a poor documentation of the events that were occurring and would be little use to anyone who might find it. He didn't intend to bring it along if they did escape, as it would prove useful as a warning of Monokuma's existence if someone else stumbled upon this place.

He stepped into his bathroom and began going through his morning ritual, taking time to consider the events of yesterday. Monokuma had broken through the defenses Shi-ru had set up. This had resulted with his swift execution and the destruction of his central unit in his room if the explosion had been any indication. This meant their main lead on information had been removed as well as their only ally. It also meant that Shi-ru had known enough to merit his death for revealing it to them.

The only question now was what was so important, if there was anything. For all John knew this could have been a show of power much like Monokuma adding on to the motive.

John blinked when he realized that he was standing in the middle of the room fully prepped and doing absolutely nothing. He had been so lost in thought that he hadn't realized he was no longer continuing his actions of prepping himself for the day. He pushed himself to move towards the door, his body complying with his mind after a second of effort.

The door of his dorm opened as he slowly eased it open, allowing him access to the hallway. He paused as he entered the hall. He needed to head to the cafeteria to attend the gathering of students before everyone split up for the day, as well as to get food as he needed to prevent himself from starving. But he felt something drawing him to walk along the hall.

Giving in after a minute john walked along the hall, viewing the nameplates. The ones with living students lit up as he walked past, while the plates of dead ones were always lit. That couldn't be energy savvy. He studied the dead ones, seeing their deaths again in the pixilated art. Amelia and her crushed skull, Adam left only a skeleton, Wilbur surrounded by red, Perdita burning alive, Rowland the only peaceful looking one marred only be a small bit of red, Louise shown as a scattered pile of organs, Billy superimposed on a pixel pillar, and finally the instrument set that Barry had been turned into.

Viewing the images of his classmates' deaths put them into a surreal feeling, taking away the reality of it somehow while reinforcing it at the same time. He heard someone leave their dorm further down the hall and walk away, probably not noticing him as they didn't react to his presence. Or maybe it was Jane and moving away from him was her reaction. Either way they left him to his thoughts, but they had had an impact on his train of thought.

He turned and moved after them towards the cafeteria, leaving the grisly sprites to decorate the hall without a captive audience. As he entered the cafeteria, he heard a lull in the quiet conversation that had been going on in the room, allowing a voice to speak up much to everyone's displeasure.

"Finally done appreciating my rendering of your classmates' deaths, eh? Well since it was for such a good reason I won't comment on how late you are in arriving," Monokuma said, standing on a table.

"You didn't send out an announcement stating that I needed to be here," John said testily.

"I did, you were just too engrossed in my wonderful art to hear it!" Monokuma said brightly, "no that I can blame you, pixel is such an underappreciated medium that I just happen to be a master of!"

"Get on with whatever it is that you were going to say," John said, gritting his teeth as he realized that Monokuma was trying to throw mistrust his way by highlighting the time he had spent viewing the nameplates.

"Well, the final section of the school, the second floor, is now open! Although there are still some rooms still under lock and key. And as a bit of good to help soften the blow of Shi-ru's untimely demise, I've given you all a present that is inside your dorm rooms!"

John gave a sigh of relief as the bear vanished. It was always such an ordeal dealing with that bear no matter how long he was present. He looked at the others, even Jane was present, and could see the question in their eyes.

"I was struck by the need to remind myself that they had existed," John said, not sure if what he said was fully the truth.

Most people seemed to accept his explanation but he noticed that Ferris and Alexander had not made any sign of showing they had taken his reasoning as truth. He quickly made his way into the cafeteria, as he saw that Paris and Atsuko, who were sitting with Ferris, still had some food on their plates and that meant he might have time to eat before they tried to move out.

This proved false, as by the time he remerged the kitchen was empty of people besides Paris, removing any chance that he might converse with the others before anything more happened. Paris finished eating before he did and proceeded to clean up the dishes that everyone else had left behind. Seemingly everyone else had lost the need to clean up after themselves possible in an attempt to inconvenience Monokuma.

John wondered why she still felt the need when a black and white robot appeared. It was designed to look like Shi-ru, yet was recolored to look like Monokuma, even to the point of the camera eye that was showing was recolored to red and turned into a jagged slash. It moved less fluidly, more jerkily as if it was forced to move as if it was trapped in a bad stop motion movie. It moved up and yanked the dishes from Paris's hands, before continuing her work, and vanishing into the condition.

"It's taunting us with those new drones," Paris said, scowling at the kitchen, "mocking us about Shi-ru's death."

"I'm assuming it means Monokuma," John said around a mouthful of food.

"Yes, I refuse to humanize that thing or whatever controls it," Paris said, anger making her voice tremble slightly.

John snorted and said, "That might be a good idea, it kind of takes some of his power away."

Paris rolled her eyes and muttered something under her breath that John didn't understand but he didn't press her to restate whatever it was she said.

After a second she asked, "Do you want to go check out Monokuma's 'gift' or the new area first?"

"Our dorms are closer," John said as he stood up, debating going into the kitchen to put his dish back before deciding against it since he might run into the faux Shi-ru.

They exited the cafeteria, John asking if Paris had done anything else today. They continued talking until they split up to enter their dorms. The present was wrapped in a giant white and black box with a red ribbon on his bed making it obvious to the point that the only way Monokuma could have drawn more attention to it would be to have had an arrow pointing to it fall from the ceiling as a fanfare played when he entered the room.

John walked up to the present and hesitated on opening it, debating on if it might be a trap. Monokuma was unlikely to do so but it wouldn't be outside the realm of possibility, or at least it wasn't according to John's view of the bear. He carefully undid the ribbon before ripping off the paper to reveal a brown box.

Not yet reassured by the lack of explosions or spinning knives that Monokuma wasn't planning on just killing them, John finally opened the actual box. Inside was an ordinary knife, almost ridiculously plain in appearance. It was made to look smaller than it actually was by the illogically big box, as it was of fair size and weight when he reached all the way into the box to retrieve it.

So everyone was now armed, if all of the gifts were in the same vein as his was. Staring at the knife John suddenly realized something. It was a blatant reference to his talent. An unassuming weapon for an unassuming person, nothing but a simple tool with one purpose, to cut in the case of the knife's purpose. He thought about putting it back in the box but decided that Monokuma would probably stash it somewhere to scare him, like in his bed or in the shower.

Setting it on his desk, John left his dorm to find that Paris wasn't out yet. He waited by her door which opened eventually. She stepped out into the hall holding her gift from Monokuma, a mace. A literal spike ball on a stick, which, when John inspected it closely, was patterned like a soccer ball with the spikes pointing out as the pentagons of the soccer ball, also a different color than the rest of the ball. She saw him looking at it and proffered it to him, beginning to speak when he interrupted.

"Don't hand that over to anyone, each weapon is unique to the person patterned after their talent," John said, "Mine was a plain knife and the fact that yours is basically a soccer mace puts that theory as fact."

Paris looked surprised, before nodding and tossing the weapon behind her into her room. She paused as something occurred to her, before turning to him and saying, "Wouldn't that mean that Alexander might have received a gun?"

John paused, considering this before saying, "Or maybe a commander's sword, we won't know until they tell us."

"Yeah, well, we need to go check out the second floor now," Paris said, looking back into her room presumably at the mace before she closed her door.

"What do you think the others got for their gift?" queried Paris.

"You really want to talk about this?" John asked her.

Paris shifted uncomfortably before saying, "Since we're assuming they all have something dangerous in their room that Monokuma placed there wouldn't it be good to at least theorize what it is?"

John nodded before thinking for a minute before saying, "Ferris probably received an acid of some kind, Jane probably has some form of dangerous special effect, probably an explosive, we talked about Alexander already, Chloe probably received a survival knife, and Mary probably received a chisel and hammer because I received a knife and there was already a murder with an art knife, so Monokuma would probably throw something else in to keep it fresh."

"I really wish that wasn't an accurate description of the person who controls our fates right now," Paris muttered as they reached the central hall, "Weren't there a set of stairs that led up from the library?"

"Yes," John said, "But I also want to take a look at Shi-ru's room before we continue on."

Paris nodded and fell silent as they walked the rest of the way to the room of their former friend. As they reached it, they found it completely blocked off, rubble having filled the area behind the staircase making it impassable.

"Maybe we can use it to reach the outside…?" Pairs proposed.

"No, Monokuma would intervene before we got anywhere close to the outside," John said, "But it was a feasible idea."

Paris sighed before they turned to the stairs, the bars now lifted. As they entered the upper floor, they found it barren of doors. Walking the full length if the L-shaped hall revealed three doors, marking it as possibly the smallest area that had been unlocked so far during the whole ordeal. Deciding on the most imposing door first, John and Paris approached a door emblazoned with Monokuma's face. Upon trying to open it though, they discovered that it was locked.

"Hey what do you jerks think you're doing?"

John and Paris turned to face Monokuma as it walked up behind them, glowering with its paws on its hips.

"Trying to access the new area?" John said.

"No, you're trying to break into my room is what you're trying to do! That's violating the rules!"

"Easy n-now, w-e hardly did a-anything wrong, we were j-just trying t-he doorknob," Paris said, glaring right back at the bear.

Monokuma snorted but left anyways, prompting the pair to turn and inspect the door once more.

"So this is where they've stationed themselves," John said ponderingly.

"F-fucking animal," Paris said, turning away to continue walking to the next area of the new floor.

John followed her after looking at the door a second more, making a note to discuss it with Ferris and Alexander later, separately as they still were not on the best conditions. They needed to work things out between themselves because it was starting to get ridiculous.

Following Paris into the next room, John saw a room that could simply summed up as maintenance. Various pipes and fixtures were scattered about with many tools for fixing things. Amongst the bits and bobs stood Mary, who was shifting uncomfortably as she inspected a large machine in the corner of the room.

"Hey Mary what's up?" Paris asked causing the artist to jump.

"Oh, hey Paris," she said after spinning around, slipping something into her pocket.

"Was that your gift from Monokuma?" John asked.

Mary scowled at John and said, "As if I would ever use anything that dumbass bear ever gave me, it was just my ID."

John nodded not entirely sure that the truth had been spoken but was willing to accept it for now. Paris had walked over to the machine and was inspecting it, so John joined her.

It was gray and unassuming, hardly anything that looked important, but when Paris made to kick it, Mary said suddenly, "Don't do that! The stupid bear would probably show up!"

Paris lowered her foot at Mary's outburst, before asking, "Do you even know what it does?"

"Uh, no, but it is hooked up to the vents," Mary said in explanation, "that at least has to be important."

Paris shrugged and began moving back towards the door, bidding Mary farewell. John looked at the artist for a minute before speaking.

"There isn't anything you want to tell me is there?"

Mary drew back before retorting in anger, "What, accusing me of shady things again? I thought we cleared this up with the second trial."

John put his hands up in a sign of peace and began to walk away but couldn't help but add over his shoulder, "That was a while ago."

"It hasn't even been two weeks!" Mary retorted, scratching her hand.

John paused in his movement towards the door, before saying, "And it seems that was a lifetime for some of our classmates."

John left the room after that, passing a stunned Paris and leaving a silenced Mary. He entered into the next room, drawing up short at what he saw. Paris came in a minute later starting to say something but letting the words die on her lips.

They stood inside a room with its walls completely covered in monitors, each one showcasing an area of the school. John could see Mary huddled over the contents of her pocket once again, Ferris and Atsuko moving around the library, Alexander huddled in front of a computer, Chloe striding purposefully around the school, and Jane, who he couldn't see at first but he believed was moving out of sight of the cameras as best she could.

"There has to be a similar set up in Monokuma's room," John said slightly floored by the magnitude of the surveillance system.

"W-what d-o y-you mean?" Paris asked, also flabbergasted.

"He wouldn't have revealed this room if he needed to use it," John said following Chloe's travel around the school, watching as she entered into the West Wing.

"But, this has to be useful to us right? We can now monitor or crime easier?"

"We'd have to have two people watching to make sure that people weren't making things up, and even then there's no certainty that they'd catch everything, or that we can effectively use it for proof."

Paris sighed at John's matter of fact statements, before saying, "You should apologize to Mary."

"I would if she wasn't huddling over whatever was in her pocket, I'm willing to admit it was Perdita earlier but this is her own fault," John countered deciding that he was done with eyeing the room and exiting.

He didn't hear Paris follow him. She didn't emerge from the room while he waited for her at the end of the hall. She was not present when Chloe showed up and yanked him away down the stairs. After stumbling for a bit, John regained his feet and followed her of his own accord mostly, she had his arm in a death grip.

Eventually she dragged him through the central hall, refusing to respond to his attempts to speak and instead dumped him outside the cafeteria before shoving him in. Looking around, John saw only Ferris and Atsuko, the latter leaving into the kitchen once John was present.

Motioning him over cheerfully, Ferris stood as John reached the table before sitting down promptly. John felt the heavy atmosphere and knew that something was wrong.

"So, you sent Chloe to strong arm me into coming here?" John asked.

"Yes! I wanted a chance to talk to you alone," Ferris said, smiling at John over his hands.

"What for, if I can ask?"

"If we are to believe what Monokuma said, there are no fully new areas left," Ferris said, the smile slowly morphing, yet retaining its overall appearance.

"I figured as much," John said.

"There are two locked rooms in the new area, Monokuma's room and the room in the library, this is combined with all the sealed files on the computers," Ferris said, his pale eyes not moving an inch from John's face.

"So you're saying that if we want more information, more people still have to die," John said, refusing to balk at the chemist's attempt at intimidation.

"Precisely, so I need to know for certain that you are on our side," Ferris said, turning his head to the side.

"Of course I'm against the bear, if that's all this was about then you could have just asked me," John said, standing up and beginning to move towards the door.

"Could I? You are our strongest player during the trials, it's through your epiphanies that we survived the first two," Ferris said, standing up.

"I am not going to turn against you, now if you'll excuse me," John snapped, becoming fed up with the grinning chemist, turning on his heel and abandoning the room.

"Don't lose yourself," Ferris said, his voice drifting after John.