Despite the many deaths they had so far, everyone in the diner had the same feeling of determination and stalwart desire to find as much information as possible. Although Azalea hadn't been able to get what she wanted, she was happy everyone else seemed to have the same drive as her. The Hostages who were waiting for her were all eager to start talking, everyone was sitting on different tables. Kamiya was the only one nowhere to be seen.

"Where's Kamiya?" Dalia inquired, looking around, with her feet on a table. She was reading a few crumpled sheets of paper that seemed to have been crammed before deep into a pocket. To her side sat Lucien, drumming his fingers on that same table.

Matthew already was with Elaine; they were both on their own table. The engineer shrugged, flippant. "He must be wandering out there. Don't worry about him too much, he'll be back"

"We can't wait for much longer" Kouma said, bringing a cake to the counter. "We have to start as soon as possible, before the admins come and crash the party"

"What if the admins have him somewhere because he snooped too deep?" Lucien said, stopping his drumming. Hardly possible. If neither them nor Monobear intervened when they rooted through his office and its back room, then there was no way Kamiya received the brunt of any punishment for digging into the simulation and the kidnappers' secrets.

Unless somehow he managed to find something vital and much more important than what Azalea and her friends found. It was possible – to this point Azalea really didn't know how relevant and important that concoction and those documents they found were.

"Whatever. Let's get started" Thioro said. Just like Kouma had said, there was no time to wait for Kamiya to come. They had to get started as soon as possible. Everyone who had gone to ask Monobear questions took out what they got. Azalea couldn't avoid wondering if maybe everyone had gone to ask Monobear something, but only a few were selfless enough to ask about something unrelated to themselves. It was better than thinking only she and Vittoria had fallen for Monobear's motive.

Only three people brought something. Dalia's crumpled notes, a piece of paper Kouma got out of her necklace, and Lucien held a small recorder. First Dalia showed hers. She smoothed the note, showing it to the rest. Nobody was able to read her handwriting, it was rather messy and the creases on the paper didn't help.

"You wrote it in some kind of code, how clever" Matthew commented. To his side, Elaine shook her head, dismissive. Guess she's still distrustful of us.

Dalia laughed sheepishly. "Yeah...a code...a-anyway! I thought we should know about our kidnappers and I got Monobear to tell me a bit about them. I dunno if I knew more and I just didn't write it, but here I have their names and titles"

Then she started reading those bits of information she got. Names that meant nothing to anyone – Akane Ogata, Mika Yamaguchi, Mitsuhiko Hikari, Masamune Toyotomi, Saburou Hikasa, Yukio Ohmoto – but the titles got their attention more. Azalea leaned her chin on her hands. "They're all SHSL?"

"Hope's Peak alumni. I guess that explains why we all got titles" Thioro said.

"It's a bit of a weird group, though. None of them sound like the kind of person that'd be involved in a kidnapping" Matthew said, and he was right. A chemist, a makeup effects artist, a weightlifter...none of them sounded like an evil kidnapper. Azalea wondered which one was the person controlling Monobear, and which ones controlled the administrators.

Kouma moved a few strands of hair out of her face. "That's...not very useful, is it? I mean—we know the names of who got us here, but we can't use that info to get out of this virtual world"

"We'll use those names to throw them in the slammer" Lucien said, setting up his recorder on the table. "I turned this on before I entered the office, I guess. There's a few minutes of nonsense at the start, just...don't pay much attention to that"

The "nonsense" was Monobear taunting Lucien. Laughing at him, telling him he knew what had happened to his real lighthouse, that even if Lucien tried he wouldn't be able to look through the simulation's secrets. Lucien's voice always sounded calm, just mildly annoyed as if what Monobear was saying was no more than a bother that didn't even deserve to be acknowledged. Out of the recording, though, Lucien had closed his eyes, he looked very tense. Even if he didn't want to let it show, Azalea saw he was rather upset.

When the time to ask a question arrived, the marine biologist put his hands on the table, tapping the edge of the recorder. "It's time"

"Did you come here just to get mocked?"

"No. Answer me this: did you have anything to do with the murders?"

There was a short pause. "Aaaaah? Sorry, for a moment I thought you were insinuating I had a hand in the murders! My entire arm! Maybe even half of my body!"

"Get real, you know very well what I mean"

"Fine. If you're asking then I have no other option than to answer. Open your ears because I'm going to say it once: no! I didn't help with the murders or anything like that!"

"You didn't force them to kill?"

"Anything your stupid friends did was their choice"

"What about the other admins?"

It was hard to hear it, but there was a noise as if Monobear had growled. "Really? Are you that convinced they didn't kill because they wanted?"

"I just think there's something off about all this"

"There's nothing off about it! You're overthinking it, so now scram!"

The recording ended there. Thioro clicked his tongue, shaking his head with disdain. "That stupid bear...it's pretty obvious he was involved"

"He must have coerced the killers to do what he wanted!" Matthew agreed. Most of the Hostages were willing to agree and think the same, but Lucien disagreed.

"I think he was telling the truth. He didn't force them or anything – everything the killers did was because they did want to kill"

"Why do you think that?" Azalea inquired.

"Because Monobear couldn't lie. He had to answer our questions with the truth, and he even told Dalia their names. Monobear wasn't trying to hide anything"

"Just because he told the truth about one thing doesn't mean he'd tell the truth about anything" Elaine said, looking down at her hands crossed on her lap. She's not wrong. It was a bit naïve of Lucien to think Monobear was being honest. It was good information to have, anyway.

Kouma was the next person. She put her locket on the table and took out a small note. There were only a few words. "Sorry, guys, looks like I wrote only a bit. I hope it's enough"

"Who knows, maybe it can be useful" without waiting for Kouma to give permission, Dalia took the note and read it. She narrowed her eyes, confused. "Wait, what?"

"What does it say?" Lucien tried to get her to say already, but Dalia didn't read, she was stunned. All she did was murmur 'what are we here for...?' Impatient, Kouma took the note off Dalia's hands, smoothed it, and read aloud:

"We knew you lot wouldn't be able to find them. That was just our excuse to keep you all in this simulation"

The implications of those few words were self-explanatory, but Thioro tried to delve deeper. "Any idea what's the context?"

"Come on, Thioro, it's pretty obvious. 'Them' is the criminals, and we were never supposed to find them" Elaine said bitterly.

"More like they think we wouldn't ever find them" Kouma said.

"Read that again, it says very clearly the order to find the criminals was just an excuse! They have been taking us for fools the entire time!" Dalia shouted, standing up.

"Then what are we here for? Any ideas?" Azalea wondered. Matthew leaned his head on a hand, the lens over his eye closing.

"I'm pretty sure those three they're looking for are among us. They must be keeping all us so they can catch the criminals"

"What about the rest of us? Are they just going to keep us trapped?!" Dalia was indignant. She had done nothing wrong, she didn't deserve to be here!

"They kidnapped us. I doubt they have any scruples" Elaine said "You know what I think? I think they dragged us all here so they'd have an excuse to kill those criminals. Some of us die because the criminals kill us, and then the killers get executed"

Thioro didn't like the idea at all. "Why wouldn't they kill them right away if they knew who the criminals are?"

"Because at the start they didn't know who were the killers. They locked us all and set things up so the criminals would murder and reveal themselves"

"You think Patricio, Khotso and Vittoria were the criminals?" Lucien asked, crossing his arms.

"That'd be great! There wouldn't be any more murders!" Kouma said.

"It's too bad it doesn't make any sense for Vittoria to be one of them. You know what that means?" he leaned forward, looking at them all with suspicion. He was going to say this very clearly; this was something to keep in mind:

"I'm sure there's one left. We have one murder ahead of us"

Needless to say, such statement was met with rejection. Dalia glared at Lucien, narrowing her eyes and raising a hand as if she was seriously considering grabbing him from the neck. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I mean what I said: there may be one murder more"

"So what do you propose we do? You want to wait until someone else dies?"

"I didn't say that and you know it"

Azalea whispered to Dalia, hoping to defuse the argument: "Dalia, calm down. We will—"

"I can't calm down! You realize what he means, right? Someone else will die, there will be another trial, and we'll once again put our lives on the line! I'm tired of trials and death; I just want all this to be over already!"

"Believe me, we all want that" Matthew said.

"We can't let anyone else die!"

She had good intentions, she really did. The frustration of having seen four deaths and four trials were taking a toll on her, she just wanted to stop anyone else from dying. Lucien pretty much stating it will happen had ticked her off because she wanted to think it wasn't certain, that they would be able to stop anything bad that could happen. Azalea understood all that, but shouting would lead nowhere. "You're right, we can't let any death happen. We have to arrange something"

Thioro put on the table the injection contraption he got from Monobear's office. "Let's finish our meeting first. Azalea, Matthew and I went together a moment ago and managed to find some very important clues..." The detective explained their findings, and showed the videocamera, saying they recorded everything they found. "The purpose of that liquid hasn't been determined yet, but there's no doubt Monobear has some sort of use for it"

"It must have. It's all too elaborate to be a lie" Kouma said "Right? You—don't you think?"

"We're in a virtual world, maybe it wouldn't have been much effort to make all that stuff" Lucien said.

"We can't dismiss all that stuff just because they could have made it to mess with us" Elaine said categorically. It'd be idiotic to throw away potentially useful clues just because of a possibility.

"Then what does it mean? Have they been injecting stuff into us?"

...now that I think about it... Thioro and Azalea exchanged a look, they were thinking the same thing. She remembered it clearly, the injection marks on every victim so far except Runihura. Did that mean the admins and Monobear had injected Lazarus Formula into them? Why? Why would they want to reduce the amount of pain and discomfort they'd suffer? If they kidnapped them, it was hard to believe they would have the decency to not make them suffer.

None of the other Hostages had any ideas why their kidnappers would have such a thing. Matthew said he'd understand if it was some sort of truth serum to force them to confess their secrets, but it was obvious the Lazarus Formula didn't do such thing. The discussion stagnated, they had no option other than to put an end to their meeting. Dalia leaned on the back of her chair, blowing a bit of hair off her face.

"So what now? We found out a few things, but I'm not sure where we can go with it"

"Let's take a breather, we have worked hard" Kouma proposed, putting something on the counter, some distance away. It was a large cake, covered with cream and strawberry. "Here's some food and—okay, I didn't get the drinks, but we're in a diner"

"Cake?" Elaine's mood brightened up for once, she approached out of her own volition. Kouma proudly smiled.

"Cake is always good—you'll love it, I chose it myself" she grabbed a large knife and started slicing the cake. Holding back her excitement, she beckoned Matthew. "Can you go get soda from the kitchen?"

"I'd have gone even if you hadn't asked!" Matthew said almost gallantly while he disappeared into the open door to the kitchen. Once the cake was sliced, Kouma stepped away, approaching Azalea.

"Can you give everyone a slice? I have to do something for a sec" Not having a reason to say no, Azalea agreed, approaching the counter and putting slices on plates. Meanwhile, Kouma approached everyone else, taking in her hands the stuff everybody had brought. One by one, everyone gave her what they had. The notes, the crinkled paper, the injection device, even the videocamera, it all was gathered and taken outside. Azalea watched it happen, unsure what was going on with that.

Noticing how she was staring at Kouma, Thioro shrugged, not worried about this. If he thinks it's okay I guess there's nothing to worry about. It bothered her all the evidence and stuff they had gotten was now in the hands of a single person, and that could make it easier to get rid of all of it – even if Kouma didn't do that – but she had to acknowledge Kouma's efforts. She was taking very seriously her try to help them during times like these. The least they could do was trust her.

Matthew came out of the kitchen, putting beside Azalea a tray with several cups filled with orange soda, and the bottle it all came from. "Where's Kouma?"

"She'll be back in a moment" Azalea said, carefully taking the plate with the slice she wanted, separating it from the rest.

"...fine?" Matthew didn't seem sure what to think about Kouma leaving while everyone else stayed in the diner, but it wasn't like he could do anything about it. While Azalea took an empty tray to take the slices to everyone, he pointed with his thumb in direction of the kitchen "By the way, I found Kamiya in there"

Azalea looked at the open door. She couldn't see Kamiya from her current position. "Really? Why hasn't he come out here?"

"I asked him that! He said he just didn't want to bother us. I guess he regrets having helped Khotso with his murder plan long ago"

Good. Less likely he'd try to kill anyone, then. Still, she'd have preferred him to be with the rest. Taking the tray with the cake, Azalea started distributing them to everyone. All the Hostages except Kamiya took their slice, while Matthew followed behind her, with the soda. They were almost done when Kouma returned.

"Thank you so much, guys, I knew we could rely on you" she said, genuinely grateful, and sat by an empty table. Azalea took her slice and sat with Kouma. She was feeling better than since Vittoria died – it still was a touchy topic, but she didn't feel like crying her eyes out anymore. It had been just as bad as when Chrysanthe had died, maybe even more because Vittoria had killed someone and tried to pin it on her.

Cake, soda and trying to relax for a moment was a godsend. She had to enjoy it while it lasted, because afterwards they'd have to arrange for a way to stop any future murder, if Lucien was right and there was at least one criminal among them. In front of her, Kouma dug into her slice and ate her strawberry immediately, commenting how delicious it was. Intending to enjoy her cake too, Azalea took a bite of cake.

"Hm? Kamiya? Over—over there" Kouma pointed behind Azalea, towards the entrance of the diner. Of course, Azalea looked at the direction Kouma pointed, seeing no one at the entrance door.

"I don't see him—" Azalea looked back, at her cake, and found the strawberry on top of her slice was gone. Kouma had an especially wide smile, chewing something. "...Kouma"

"Hm?"

"My strawberry"

Caught, the marathoner giggled sheepishly. "Sorry, it's just that I like strawberries a lot – a whole lot"

"...fine" Annoyed, Azalea just kept eating.

The peace lasted barely a minute more before a hissing sound emanated from overhead them. Everyone looked up, trying to find the source of the sound, and saw exactly what it was: gray, opaque vapor emerged from the ventilation shaft. What the hell?! Azalea, Lucien and Dalia stood up, jumping away from the vapor. "Get away, everyone!"

"Go, get out!" Thioro said, looking around to try to pinpoint any options in case going outside didn't work – and indeed, Elaine immediately tried to open the door. The door rattled, hit the frame, but refused to open. Something was blocking the door from outside.

"It's stuck!"

"You gotta be kidding me!" Kouma stood up too and grabbed the handle, pushing too. The door didn't budge not even an inch. Above them, the vapor kept spreading, reaching Lucien first.

"Everyone get down!" Lucien yelled, grabbing Thioro and pretty much throwing him to the ground. That was just delaying the effects on Thioro, and since Lucien was the first one to breath the vapor, he was the first one to fall. Coughing and feebly trying to catch himself before he fell to the floor, Lucien lost consciousness.

"It's some sort of anesthetic!" the detective yelled, and by the rate it was spreading, it'd barely take a minute for the entire diner to be filled with it.

Kouma jumped on one of the tables, starting to sweat heavily, and started kicking it, trying to dislodge the pane of glass. Even though the glass shook, no cracks formed on the glass, it didn't budge. "Oh god oh god oh god—"

"Out of my way!" Elaine had grabbed a trashcan, intending to break the glass with it. She already looked woozy from the anesthetic gas, she managed to give only one blow to the glass before collapsing. Almost as if in cue, behind everyone the sound of someone else fainting got their attention. Matthew had fallen near the kitchen door.

Dalia held her hand against her nose. "There could be a way out through the kitchen!"

"There isn't...any..." that was all Azalea managed to say before she was forced to take a lungful of anesthetic gas. Dizzy and trying hard to stay awake, Azalea slowly sat down, leaning against the base of the counter. Why...how... From her vantage point, she saw someone appear at the kitchen doorway. Her numbed mind barely processed what she was seeing. A white lab coat, almost reaching that person's ankles, and on their face a gas mask. Kamiya.

The last thought when she fainted was of dread at what she'd find when she woke up.

-ooooo-

When Azalea woke up the first thing she noticed was that it was sunset. How long had they been knocked out? Two hours, at least? "That was some strong anesthetic..." She had a strong headache, her limbs felt like they were made of lead. Groggy and wishing she didn't have to move, she tried to recall what had happened.

Right...for some reason anesthetic gas had come out of the vents. Everyone had tried to get out of the diner, the windows refused to break. The door was locked. There was no way out...

Cold breeze made Azalea shiver. Weakly, she adjusted her position, wondering where the breeze was coming from. Struggling to stand up, she put her hand on the counter. At least she still was on the same place, instead of stashed in a cupboard. There also was no blood on her—

With a shriek, she realized her hand was once again coated with blood. Snapping awake, Azalea moved her hands in front of her face to examine them, hoping this time was because she had a wound on a hand. What she found was worse than she expected. Her other hand had been gripping something. She had been so woozy, shaking off the effects of the anesthetic she hadn't noticed the object her hand had been gripping, and now that she saw what it was, she wished she hadn't ever noticed.

It was someone's hand, attached to a forearm, and beyond that, nothing. Terrified, feeling the bile rising to her throat, she threw the forearm away, as far away of her as she could. The arm crashed against the glass, flopping onto the floor lifelessly, while Azalea breathed heavily, shaking and staring at her fingers, as if she expected another arm and forearm to appear in her grasp. What the hell?! What the hell is going on?!

Gasps and similar screams of terror surrounded her. To her side, Dalia squealed, jumped backwards and dropped what was in her hands. "Oh my god!"

"Kouma!" someone else shouted.

All Azalea could do was stare at the head that rolled towards her, the head of someone she knew. Although her eyes were closed, the rest of her face had an expression of terror that was heart-wrenching to Azalea. This can't be happening! This must be a dream; this can't be happening!

Kouma Nana was dead.