Disclaimer: The Danganronpa franchise does not belong to me. The content affiliated with this fanfiction belong to Spike Chunsoft and Kazutaka Kodaka. The cover art belongs to the artist, Sakuya. This fanfiction is being cross-uploaded on Archive Our Own, and the authors notes are located at the bottom.
Chapter Four: The New World Order Pt 2
Yukizome Theater
"Who knew that Mitarai-kun was great at forming bonds? Looks like Ando-san has finally emerged from her shell!"
"I never would have guessed those two would have really hit it off."
"It also seems like Mitarai-kun is finally learning about some of the big secrets of this killing game, like the identity of the Neo Ultimate Despair. I'm sure he'll be really surprised to find out who they are."
"I can't wait to see my precious student fall into despair when he learns the truth!"
The minute Ryota realized that he had woken up earlier than normally expected, he just figured that today was going to be another one of those odd days to say the least, then again every day in this building was quite an odd one. Usually, he tries his best to snooze straight through dawn until the morning announcement finally plays and urges him to meet up with everyone in the dining room, but things seemed different this time.
He was quickly reminded that Monokuma refrained from providing them with an announcement yesterday about the motive, which was never a good sign. What could that bear be planning this time? Monokuma seemed to already cover the basics of traitors and temptation, and trivial things like money and embarrassing secrets hardly mattered in an apocalypse, what other motives could have planned up his sleeve now?
"...I guess thinking about it won't really make the situation any better." Ryota sighed before deciding to get on with the day.
The most important thing was that he focuses on the killing game itself. After the most recent trial they still hadn't discovered anything new about the game and went a whole day without learning anything new.
He figured the best plan of action was to head to the dining room and meet up with some of the other participants and see if they have an idea on what to do next.
The first person to greet him was Kizakura, who smirk and tossed up a two-fingered salute, once again continuing to drink more liquor from his flask. Seriously, how can this guy drink so much? "Yo Mitarai, looks like you've arrived just in time. We were just in the midst of talking about something really important."
"What is it?" the animator questioned.
"Trying to figure out when Monokuma is going to arrive with the next motive, the sooner we find out what the motive is, the sooner it'll be easier to ignore." Sakakura assessed.
The most shocking thing about this was that, the most confident person standing in the room was Ando. "At this point, there's nothing that Monokuma could even say or do to tempt me into killing someone anymore. I'm done with this stupid game."
"I agree with that, I can't imagine what kind of motive Monokuma could even have at this point." Ryota sighed. "By this point it almost seems like he's already done everything. What else could be left?"
Gekkogahara nodded and started typing at her keyboard. "You're right, but we better stay on guard just in case. Monokuma said the game won't end until there are only three survivors left and there's still a lot of us left for him to create more motives with."
"How about we change the subject for a bit?" Kizakura asked. "You guys wouldn't happen to know where Munakata had ran off to would you? It seems like he's been running around this building doing God-knows-what for weeks now."
"Let's just let him be!" Ando moaned in exasperation. "If Munakata want to run around this place conspiring with Monokuma then more power to him, that's his problem. All of us are already gathered, so there's no way a murder will be happening at this point."
"Hello bastards, it's been a while, huh?" Monokuma exclaimed, popping out of nowhere like usual. "Man, it feels like it's been two months since we last spoke. I haven't seen you guys since Kimura-san was syringe kebabbed with smallpox yesterday."
He obviously said that with the intention of getting Ando angered, which successfully worked, her face already turning red. "Shut up you stupid bear! How dare you treat my friends deaths like some kind of accomplishment!?"
She was about the lunge straight for the two-toned bear until Asahina came from behind and held her back. "Wait a minute, Ando-chan, stop! Hitting him is against the rules, remember!? He's not worth it!
"Enough with the fucking games. Why did you come here in the first place?" Sakakura hissed. "If you're here to talk about then motive than hurry up and get things over with already."
"Upupupu...well wouldn't you like to know?" the bear giggled. "You know how I constantly tell you bastards what the motive of the killing game is? Well, I decided to withhold that information this time. The fifth motive of the killing game is highly top secret!"
"What do you mean the motive is top secret?" Naegi raised an eyebrow. "How can someone even commit a murder if they don't even know what the motive is supposed to be?"
The two-toned bear modestly turned around, leaving his backside to face all the participants. "Well, how should I put this?" he quickly spun back around with a big smile on half of his face. "This new motive won't be revealed until AFTER a murder starts!"
"After? That's crazy!" Ryota gasped. "If you don't tell us what the motive could be, then someone could accidentally murder without even knowing what the motive is. That would make everything even more confusing for us."
"Well yeah, that's the idea, Mitarai-kun!" Monokuma smiled. "In case you've already forgotten, this whole killing game shtick has been going on thrice by now and it's really easy to run out of ideas during a third installment. Soooooo….I decided to shake things up and hook, line, and sinker you bastards into a murder than you never even saw coming!"
Kirigiri wasn't phased by this in the slightest, she calmly crossed her arms and stared him dead in the eyes. "And this would also mean that another floor has been opened up in this building, correct?"
The two-toned bear nodded. "Yep, and a boring chapter awaits! Once you guys are ready, board the nearest elevator in the halls and ascend to the next available floor in the building. I think I saw Munakata-kun already leave to explore the new floor a little while ago."
"Munakata already left for that new floor?" Sakakura gasped. "Why didn't you say anything about that in the first place?"
"He'd better not be helping you create another murder!" Ando added. "The last thing we need is another instance of Munakata being the mastermind of a case."
"I couldn't agree more, which is why I'll happily confirm that Munakata-kun has absolutely nothing to do with the current motive I'm cooking up!" Monokuma announced. The fact that there was a motive on the horizon was still hard to swallow, but it was good to know that none of them were helping with this motive. "Since Munakata-kun is a participant, I want him to feel an equal amount of despair like the rest of you guys."
If that wasn't already bad enough, Monokuma had once again decided know would be a better time to retreat back to his regular unspecified location and allowed them all have time to think about things. Well, mostly. Ryota had pondered back and forth about this new motive and how it's potential danger could spiral down the path to despair.
And with that would soon follow the untimely death of one of their participants and the subsequent execution of another. After having already participated in three of those investigations and trials, Ryota loathed the fact that he was already quite used to it by now.
Unfortunately, it was something that he had grown quite used to. Even before being sentenced inside this killing game, Ryota already faced such traumatizing despair after the guilt of being unable to save his classmates or seeing the world come to an end. A dreadful feeling that always crept up on him in familiarity.
The path of despair always worked in the way.
His thoughts had been far too immersed in thinking about despair that he almost didn't notice that Naegi was talking to the rest of the group, concerningly. "What could be on the next floor? It doesn't seem like Monokuma is being cautious about us knowing we're in a decoy building anymore, so there must be some new places."
Ryota was thinking the same thing as well, if there's even a chance at finding a way to discover the big mysteries of the game, then he wanted to take that chance. Not to mention, it would be much safer than consuming more mysterious substances that Kimura had created.
"And it's possible we'll find some new information about some of missing memories." Gekkogahara pointed out.
"Before Seiko-chan had...passed, she mentioned something about the killing game ending in a way that none of ever imagined." Ando recalled, it was very clear that those first words hurt her to say. "She said something about how the survivors of this game are in for something worse than what's happening in the game itself, what could that mean?"
Having already been aware of the drill by now, Ryota begrudgingly finished up his breakfast and made way to the halls where everyone had already been waiting for him. It seemed like this would be the last time he ever visited the floor that associated itself with the deaths of Izayoi and Kimura.
Deep down, a small feeling of guilt found its way inside of him, Ryota didn't want to leave this place behind, though realized the only way to avenge their deaths was by moving forward and beating this killing game.
As priorly mentioned, only one new button was available on the elevator that would take them to the next floor, lower in the building. By default, Sakakura was the one who pushed the button and allowed for the elevator shaft to descend once again into the unknown.
None of them talked very much throughout the ride down, mostly because it appeared that everyone else was far too focused on what would be awaiting them on the next floor. After already going through this process for a third time, Ryota already had a good grasp on how things may potentially play out.
On the forefront of his mind was the idea of another murder happening—it's possible that already being aware of the likelihood of a murder can actually help prevent one from truly happening. Well, at least that's what he was hoping for.
The elevator doors had finally opened up and with it came a whole new ambience that was slightly different than some of the other places visited before. The setting felt alarmingly more lively than before, in truth, it made Ryota worry since nothing like this has ever happened before.
Being in a place with a much more lighthearted ambience ironically didn't make the situation any better, it only made things worse, that just meant despair was waiting in an area they wouldn't expect, or maybe that was just more of his pessimism creeping up.
"Hey guys, not to sound like a drag, but I think you should take a look at that door over there." Kizakura said, flicking his only good finger over to the nearest door. The rest of the group listened to him and gathered together near the big door close to the elevator.
He froze upon seeing the familiar dark liquid on the wooden door.
The minute Ryota first laid eyes on the door he could already feel the butterflies building up in his stomach. It was like he already had a very clear idea of what kind of despair was waiting for him on the other side of that door.
"Monokuma Hunter: Escape Game"
There was no doubt about it, this was definitely just like the Monokuma Hunter: Death Chamber that they found on the previous floor, the only key difference were that "escape game" was written on the door instead of "death chamber".
It did very little to make Ryota feel less on edge about this reveal.
"Oh great! Don't tell me Monokuma is gonna try and do another one of those?" Ando moaned. "Why can't that supid bear just give us a break!"
"A Monokuma Hunter Escape Game?" Naegi gasped.
"What is that supposed to mean?" Asahina asked, feeling puzzled.
"Well it's pretty self explanatory, right?" Kizakura stepped forward and looked more at the door. "It's an escape game created by Monokuma. I must say, the bear can be crazy, but he's definitely a captivating one. This kind of things seems right up my alley."
Ryota was pretty surprised to hear this was some kind of escape game, upon the initial glance of this door he was assuming that it was another death chamber, though since the two-toned bear was adamant about keeping the game interesting and it only made sense that he would try to change things.
Not that any of that seemed to bother Kizakura very much, a smirk appeared on his face and he turned back to the other participants in intriguement. "Time for a little history lesson—what's an escape game, you ask? Well, they're a game where a player is isolated in a single room with a few key items and forced to solve the mysteries of the game and escape the room."
"Is there any reason to explain, I'm sure everyone already knew what an escape game was." Kirigiri replied in annoyance. Her irritation caused the human resources to chuckle in amusement.
"An escape game? So in other words, it's pretty much what we're already doing in this killing game." Ando sighed. "I could really use some good news right now."
"Does this mean that this is related to the motive that Monokuma is planning?" Ryota asked.
"I guess it's too early to say right now, though knowing Monokuma he probably has it planned for something." Naegi responded.
His first area explored in this new floor was a place titled the "Future Foundation Café", the name itself seemed pretty self explanatory to generally everyone, this was the new means of catering for the remaining participants and would replace the other cafeterias on the top floors.
Ryota thought the name itself seemed kinda weird. Why a Future Foundation Café of all places? He decided to satisfy his curiosity by taking a look in the place himself and seeing what this place was all about. A glaring far cry from what he would normally expected in their situation.
The interior looked quite cozy and charming—maybe a little too much for a killing game? If he were to compare this setting to anything, it reminded him of some of the Japanese cafes that he used to see before the Tragedy started, just without any of the maids.
In the corner of his eye, Ryota saw that Ando had already been investigating this place as well. Considering that she was the Ultimate Confectioner, it made sense that this would be the first place that she would visit on this new floor.
The confectioner had additionally taken notice of the fact that Ryota was doing some investigating of his own. "Oh hey Mitarai, looks like you came across this place too. This place looks like some kind of Monokuma Café, pretty weird, right?"
That didn't cross his mind at first, however, after further inspection he started to realize what the confectioner was talking about. A lot of this café seemed very inspired by inspired by Monokuma and that Monomi avatar that Gekkogahara is always using, it seemed like those two were involved in almost everything in this building, almost like they were the mascots of the Tragedy or something.
He could also see that the tables were already occupied with different foods that started making him feel a little peckish, there were a delicious assortment of parfaits, pancakes, soups, and Japanese styled foods. Certainly more that what they would need for a killing game. Exactly what were Monokuma's intentions with creating this place, all they really needed was a simple cafeteria to provide them with the proper provisions for survival.
The confectioner surprisingly responded with a scoff. "Sheesh, it really looks like Monokuma is running out of ideas. Why the heck would he put a place like this in here?"
"Do you have some against cafés?" Ryota questioned.
"Of course I do. What's to like about a place where perverts go around flirting with young maids that masquerades as a restaurant? What a waste of an eatery." Ando sighed. "And besides, this place was created by Monokuma, so that already makes me hate it."
To some extent he could understand that, Ryota wasn't the type of person to agree with that kind of behavior and was a stickler for treating women right, though it still seemed weird that Monokuma would put something like this in the building. On a nearby table, he could notice a menu was sitting in the center of the room. The blonde animator skimmed through what was probably the most unorthodox menu he had ever seen in his life. Just about everything written here seemed to be based on one of the participants of the game or someone affiliated with them.
There was Naegi, who had a dish based on himself that was served with soup and samosa—and Kirigiri was well who shared a strawberry parfait garnished with Kizakura. Just thinking about those foods made his mouth water just a little. Easily the strangest one for him was a meat dish based on himself alongside the Ultimate Imposter. Admittedly, the fact that Monokuma went to the trouble of creating food dishes based on them all was astoundingly rather creepy.
Despite the objections that Ando had about this café, Ryota would be lying if he said he didn't try a Strawberry Usami Parfait and fondly enjoy it before leaving to explore some more.
It started to dawn on Ryota that many of the offices in this building were in the order of the participants division number in the Future Foundation. Prior to the start of this killing game, his own office was the only one he ever visited, and barely even knew his co-workers before this game started. The only plus side to this game was the opportunity to befriend all his fellow division leaders, but he would have easily remained an introvert if that meant they could still continue to live.
With that in mind, it only made sense that the next offices to be explored in this building belonged to the late Bandai Daisaku and Great Gozu respectively. His heart broke at the idea of visiting their offices now that they were dead, perhaps even more than when he visited Yukizome's office. Since visiting every available room seemed important to the investigation, he decided to make things quick and get it over with.
The first destination was the Ultimate Farmer's office, the place that obviously belonged to Bandai. Ryota was astonished to find out that his office was built around alternating as a greenhouse, the whole place was designed like a farm. It hurt a little since he remembered that Bandai's execution centered around him being inside of a greenhouse.
On a more positive note, the fragrance smelled quite beautiful, giving off the illusion that he was actually inside of a real farm. Throughout the room he could smell the delicious peas, pumpkins, and corn stalks that were growing on the ground, imagining that Bandai would have loved to see this place.
The second destination was the Ultimate Wrestler's office, which made him wonder how Gozu would have reacted to this place. Ironically, it hardly bears any resemblance to what he perceived it to look like, there was hardly any indication this place belonged to a wrestler aside from some of the championship belts mounted on the wall. On his front desk there was a picture that Ryota was praying that he wouldn't find, because he knew it would be too painful to see, and surely enough it was there just like predicted.
A photograph of his deceased wife and daughter.
The same ones that Gozu never had the chance to save.
He closed the door in silence after that and could only think about how many of their friends they had lost since the beginning of the killing game when it seemed like there were so many of them left—they needed to survive this game, correction: this madness, for all of their sakes.
It went without saying that he didn't find anything worthwhile while searching through their offices, not that he really expected to, aside from the drive to continue moving forward.
What was even more peculiar was the fact that another door was wedged right in between those rooms, almost like it was another office room. Ryota was positive that all the offices on this floor were to be visited. Maybe this place was Kirigiri's office? It seemed impolite to visit her office when she was still alive and part of him feared that the detective woman may give him a lecture or simply threaten him with her cold eyes for snooping through his room. He double checked and looked in both directions of the room and saw that no one was present before opening the door to look inside.
The interior of the building resembled gymnasium decorated with lots of sports equipment, there was just about an item for every sport that Ryota could name offhand. The person who owned this office must have been a pretty big fan of sports. Was their talent closely related to sports or something? He figured that maybe this place belong to Asahina, except for the fact that she was never a division leader in the first place, and alongside Naegi, should'n't even have offices in this building, even if it's just a decoy.
"Have you found anything important?" asked a familiar voice from behind. Ryota turned around to see a door open and with it was Kirigiri walking inside.
"Kirigiri-san!" Ryota gasped. He couldn't even hear the sound of her footsteps before she approached him, was this because she was a detective and knew how to be stealthy? "What are you doing here?"
The detective had one of those calm, eyes closed smiles on her face. "I came to investigate this area, though it appears that you've already done that. Were you able to find out anything of value?"
"The only thing I can gather about this place is that whoever this must have been really into sports, like maybe an athlete." Ryota asked. "Maybe their talent was they were the Ultimate Athlete or something?"
His knowledge was pretty scarce, especially since the only Hope's Peak Academy students that he actually knew were his classmates and co-workers of the Future Foundation, so even if there was an Ultimate Athlete it's not like he would know who they were. Kirigiri rested a finger to her chin in her usual thought provoking manner. "I have some theories, nothing concrete. Do you have any ideas on who this person could be?"
Why did Ryota have the feeling that she already had the answer and was just testing him? If he were to guess, it's possible this room actually belongs to the 16th participant of the game. There was still an unoccupied podium in the courtroom with no indication that this person had even existed, and he knew that Monokuma wasn't going to reveal who this person was and would be more inclined to tease them with riddles.
The potential 16th participant hadn't been mentioned for weeks and sometimes Ryota even questioned if this person had actually existed. He tried theorizing who this person could have been in the past, though none of his suspicions were very solid.
There was no possible way that it was just an accident that Monokuma created sixteen podiums instead of fifteen for the games, it almost seemed like he was expecting someone else to participate in this game as well. And from the rumors he heard about the Hope's Peak Academy broadcast, Ikusaba was treated like a secret student to Naegi and his friends until it was revealed that she was disguised as Enoshima the entire time, in which case, the same could be happening here? Sort of.
He reached a point where a large vicinity of the new floor had already been explored by either Ryota or one of his fellow participants. It was a relief to finally have a new place to explore after being isolated on those last three floors for so long and to be on a floor where none of their friends had died, though a little disappointed to learn there was hardly anything new in terms of information on solving the big mysteries of this game.
Not only that, but Munakata was nowhere to be found on this new floor at all—which was never a good sign. Ryota sighed at this, wondering why he always had to go missing, whether he was present with the rest of the group or separated and off partaking in his own investigations it seemed like the Ultimate Student Council President was the most detrimental person in their group. The scariest thing about Munakata was that he always comes and goes as he pleases throughout this game and it scared Ryota to death knowing that the vice chairman could be hiding behind any of these corners waiting to attack someone...or worse.
There was only one remaining room left in this building that Ryota didn't explore yet. He felt a lot of pressure right before opening this door since it could either make or break this investigation as a whole—he would either find something important that would help solve the big mysteries or find a run of the mill room that would further inconvenience his investigation.
He stepped inside and was immediately welcomed to a darkly lit room that had windows sealed off with iron plates to block out the presumably red sky, which at this point was nothing new. The animator was rather overwhelmed by the file cabinets as far as the eye could see. The most obvious explanation was this is where all the files of the Future Foundation, or possibly even The New Revolution, would be kept.
If this building really is a replica then does that mean the mastermind has this much information about us? Ryota thought in his mind. It feels rather disturbing to think about how his enemies somehow went through this much trouble to create a decoy building to set them off track. That meant that what Monokuma said in the beginning of the game must be true and that a mole is secretly conspiring with both organizations to help keep tabs on everyone.
In the first trial everything had been pointing to Yukizome being the mole, but Monokuma shot that proposition down as early as it was suggested, and they were running out of fingers to point.
"Mitarai-kun, you're just in time." Gekkogahara called out. "I was just about to start investigating this place too. This is the file room, I definitely remember this place in the original building."
Ryota almost didn't see that Gekkogahara was standing right there. "This is the Future Foundation's file room, right? Did it always have such an eerie feeling like this."
Monomi sadly shook her head. "No, this place is a lot more drab than what I'm usually used to," Gekkogahara explained. "The file room was meant to store all the records of Future Foundation members and events, Kizakura-san was always in charge of this room because of his role in the foundation."
"I wonder if any of these files could contain something that would help us end this killing game?" Ryota questioned.
Gekkogahara listened to what he said and examined some of the file cabinets, she tried to open the first one in front of her and failed before looking to him in disappointment. "Sorry, but it looks like these doors require a lock to open and I'm not sure where we'll be able to find a key at this point."
The Ultimate Animator was disappointed about that since he figured that Monokuma probably did something like that ahead of time for the for the mere sake of spitting them—or maybe even Munakata who tampered with evidence again like two cases ago. It seemed futile trying to try and point fingers at the person responsible for this, the bottomline was that that key was long gone.
"Hey Mitarai-kun, take a look at this." Gekkogahara said, interrupting his inner thoughts again. Ryota walked over to her and saw she was in front of a desk with a dossier ominously in the center. "I wonder if this is something that will help us in completing the killing game."
"A file, what's it doing here?" Ryota asked.
"I'm not sure, but it's the only thing in this room that isn't locked inside one of those cabinets, we should probably look and see what's inside." Gekkogahara replied. He grabbed the file and spread all of the papers out in the center of a table for the two of them to read through. It seemed that Gekkogahara was always able to skim through a large amount of those papers in under a few minutes, justified considering her typing speed.
"This article contains information on the top-secret government protected project. An artificial human that was originally created for the sole purpose of benefiting mankind, it was started by the Biotechnology Research and Development Laboratory."
"The project was initially funded by the Japanese high school known as Hope's Peak Academy before later handed over to multiple different companies. The goal was to cultivate an unprecedented event in human history by creating the first man made human."
"Shortly around the date of its inception, the Ultimate Experiment was deemed emotionally unstable by its handlers, it received numerous diagnostics and experienced various mood swings, compulsive tendencies, and lack of empathy."
"It was decided to have the Experiment's emotions suppressed with lobotomy procedures until efficient methods were found to keep the subject at bay. The Experiment was handed over to the The Biotechnology Research and Development Laboratory, also known as the Biotech Lab."
From the look of things, the remainder of the dossier discussed other things like medical records, funding negotiations, and observations about this Experiment they kept mentioning. The minute the two of them finished reading through that part, Gekkogahra instantly went straight to her keyboard.
"The Biotech Lab!?" the Ultimate Therapist gasped. "They're the ones that have been behind this?"
"You know about this group?" Ryota blinked.
Gekkogahara restlessly nodded. "The Biotech Lab was a subsidiary of Hope's Peak Academy, they were the ones who helped fund the Neo World Program when Hope's Peak Academy refused to use their Reserve Course money to fund the program."
On her computer screen, Monomi displayed a logo to the Biotechnology Research and Development Laboratory for Ryota to look at. "During my freshman year, the Headmaster contacted me about an island resort they were funding and wanted my talent to contribute to the Neo World Program and met with the Biotech Lab. The only people told about this were old friends of mine...Fujisaki-kun and Matsuda-kun."
"According to what the Headmaster told us, the Neo World Program was specifically designed to help spread hope by putting humans that suffered from trauma in a false reality and rearranging their memories," Gekkogahara explained. "I never really was on bored with the idea, but they requested my help."
Ryota felt he had a good understanding of this and realized that Hope's Peak Academy must have been pretty frugal with where the funds went. "Okay, I understand that, but what does this have to do with the killing game?"
"It's hard to say, though I think it's possible the building we're in right now may be closely related to the mystery of this game. Is it possible we're actually in the Biotech Lab building, disguised to look like the Future Foundation headquarters?" Gekkogahara proposed.
"What about the New Revolution?" Ryota questioned.
The therapist thought to herself for a minute before typing. "Well...it's kinda hard to say. All the scientists working for the Biotech Lab were reportedly all killed during the Tragedy, so we can rule them out as being responsible for this."
"Then maybe the New Revolution must have homed in on the idea of using their building as the location for the killing game?" Ryota assumed. "Maybe they needed an area further away from where any of our offshore branches could find us."
Gekkogahara smiled. "Once we're done investigating, we should contact Togami-kun and tell him about the information that we just found out. If he finally has an idea on where our location could be that means he can find us without any problems."
Ryota was pretty happy too, feeling satisfied at the progress they made after the drought of nothing new yesterday—there was still something else on his mind at the moment that he needed to ask about. "What about the thing they kept mentioning in the file...the Ultimate Experiment? Were you ever told about that before?"
Gekkogahra tried remembering, though it appeared she didn't have any ideas on that as well. "No, I've never heard about an Ultimate Experiment before. The fact that it's referred to as an Ultimate seems to indicate that it was linked to Hope's Peak Academy in some way."
"Yeah, but an artificial human? That sounds pretty ridiculous," Ryota noted. "Is something like that even possible?"
"No, it's not possible. I don't think something like that would be very successful." Gekkogahara responded, then her eyes suddenly shot open in surprise. "Then again...didn't Hope's Peak Academy try to create an artificial human as well titled the Ultimate Hope? Is this possibly related in some way?"
"Hope's Peak...what did you do?" Ryota concerningly muttered to himself. It felt like there was always something about that school—the school that ended the world was the best way to describe the academy.
It also made him wonder why a file like this would even be left out in the open like this or why it even exists in a killing game that has to do with the Future Foundation? What does the Ultimate Hope even have to do with their current circumstance as well?
He couldn't imagine that Monokuma would intentionally leave this dossier alone without a good reason, did someone else leave it here instead?
A/N: This chapter in particular was one I was waiting to make for a while since it confirms that Hope's Peak Academy has some connection to the Final Killing Game. What that connection may be? Well, it'll be explained soon enough. What I enjoyed the most about this chapter was the fact that it gave some insight on lore that was never really explored in the main series.
Here, Miaya reveals that the Neo World Program was actually funded by a company called the The Biotech Lab so the academy wouldn't have to rely on Reserve Course money. I always found it kinda strange that Kodaka never really touched upon the origins of the Neo World Program, why it was created, and what it was created for, so I figured this series would be a good place to explain that topic.
