Danganronpa MV 3: At Destiny's Edge

by Otterplay

Sixteen Ultimate Students wake up in the remnants of a long abandoned city only to find out they are going to be forced into a killing game. What choices will they end up making. And will it even matter, or is there something bigger at play here?

8. Chapter 4: Under Duress - Daily Life

It was late at night when I left my room. I had received a note from Jack to meet up at the library. Despite it being right after a trial, and no one in their right mind would ever murder right away, I was still sceptical. I wasn't going to be an idiot and bring my letter with me, so instead, I taped it to my bedroom door. If I died, and anyone saw it, they would think Jack did it. Then I set off towards the library.

The clocks told me that it was now two in the morning. What the hell kind of business would he have at two in the morning? And why with me?

Whatever, it was too early to fully think rationally, so I went with it anyway.

When I got to the library, the lights would still be on, and Jack would be standing with his arms crossed. But on top of that, Robin would be sitting at the table.

"What is this?" I had a small smirk on my face. "Some sort of secret nerd meeting?"

"Glad you finally see yourself as one." Robin said, looking over at me.

… "Wait… that's not-" I started to say.

"Well, it could be something like that. This is about the campaign." Jack took out the book he had gotten from Cameron. "This whole thing entails the plans he had for the campaign." He placed it on the table.

Robin stood up from his chair, placing his hands on the table. "Well, what are you waiting for?"

"Probably me…" I walked over to the book. The campaign was something nice to pass the time, and I was a little curious on how it would end.

The critic took a deep breath before he opened the book. "Ah, well this page entails the starting campaign stuff." He smirked to himself.

Wait what…? Three teams within our own party? "Wait, that's why there was so much fighting." According to this, Daniella and Jack were loyal to one army, and Jean and Robin were loyal to the other. "That would explain why Daniella killed Jean."

"And why the army was alerted." Jack chuckled. "We did that." He glanced away. "We were given a secret goal to do. It's also why we tried not to kill anyone from the army."

I frowned slightly. That would have been cool. "Why wasn't I given a side to pick from?"

Robin quickly read through the first page. "It seems you would have had a moment in the campaign to choose a side."

Jack crossed his arms, annoyed. "She probably would have chosen your side simply because of Jean."

"H-hey, he was the only one who helped me with my character sheet." I defended myself. "Hey wait a minute!" The scene where I talked to Jack alone flashed inside my head. "You were trying to get me to join your side that time."

The critic only grinned at himself. "I was indeed, although I for sure thought you were on their side. Which didn't make sense since that would put us at a disadvantage."

I kept reading through the first page. "So would Cameron join the opposite side that I chose?"

"Seems like it, so it would be fair." Robin explained.

"Tsk…" Jack picked up the book. "Like it would be fair to have Cameron on a person's side. He was the DM after all… Now to see what else he had planned." He started to flip through the pages, but as he flipped from page to page, a frown appeared on his face. Until he reached the end of the book. "There was nothing about the actual story…" He clenched his fist.

"W-what? What do you mean?" I looked over at the book.

This caused the critic to simply laugh. "I understand now. He really was an Ultimate, huh. Only the beginning was planned, everything else after that was all made up on the spot. You almost couldn't tell. There's barely any town info. And that was written near the end. Like he wrote that up on the spot when you guys decided to go there."

This got a frown from me. "Yeah, he really was an Ultimate." … I wonder if I would have been a legitimate Ultimate had I not said no the first time…

Jack placed the book onto the shelf. "We'll keep that here. I think it's time we all went to bed." He said as he left.

Robin and I looked at each other before nodding. We left to head back to the hotel. I was still feeling rather tired, and knowing the rest of the group, they would be up early to explore the potential new area.

.

It was rather early when I woke up, which I will blame Jack for.

When I headed downstairs, everyone was already there. Then… I paused. Everyone… Everyone only consisted of eight other people and me. We used to be sixteen, and now we are only nine. How did it end up like this?

Caren had her legs crossed, looking at everyone. She had a frown on her face. "You know, I thought it would only happen once and it would be over, we wouldn't do it again. But then it happened two more times…" She leaned her head on her hand. "How hard is it not to kill someone?"

"Hey… Caren…" Lily mumbled, taking a small bite of food.

I looked around the room and noticed that we were actually missing one person. Stephan was nowhere to be seen. But I would expect as much after what happened last night. He was revealed to be the Ultimate Ninja, so he has now taken to the shadows.

"Well, he's not here to nag us." Robin said, standing up. "But I think it's about time we went to explore the new areas, right?"

Serena stood up next. "Yes, let's." She started heading for the entrance. "There's no point wasting time talking when there's potentially new buildings." Blunt, aren't you.

The rest of us made our way until we found an area that wasn't open before.

"Seems we finally found the area." Caren said as she walked further into it. "Let's see what other places await us. Or what other places bodies will turn up."

"Hey… Lighten up." Lily mumbled to her.

The babysitter turned to look at everyone. "We should split up like we normally do."

Historia walked over to me. "Let's do it like we alwa-"

"You abandoned me last time." I told her bluntly.

An angry blush appeared on her face. "You pissed me off! What do you want from me?"

I sent her a smile before I headed out towards the new area.

"So, anything of interest right out of the gate?" The historian asked as she looked around.

I looked around the area, but there didn't seem to be too much. There seemed to be a lot of apartments like every other area, but eventually, we stumbled on a different building. "Might as well give this one a look." I mumbled as I entered the building.

Upon entering it, it had a similar vibe to the gym with the front desk and everything. There was an area for changing too. "What do you think this is all about?"

"Judging from the sign you missed outside, a pool." Historia replied with sarcasm.

Well, she got me there. "A pool, huh. You would think one of those would be at the gym."

The historian skipped the changing room and headed straight for the swimming pool.

"Alright… guess we aren't taking a dip…" I mumbled as I followed her.

The pool was actually surprisingly large, which would explain why it wasn't part of the gym. "Who needs a pool this big."

"It's a public pool in the middle of the city." Enima called out. She seemed to have gone for a dip. "Of course it's going to be damn packed."

I surveyed the room, and saw that Serena was also there, but she seemed to be in her usual attire. "You aren't going for a swim right now?"

She sent a glance my way. "No, I don't really feel like it." She frowned slightly. "Now's not really the time to be having fun. We should just see what we've got to work with, and then figure out what the hell is going on around here. I want to get down to the bottom of this."

Suddenly.

Bear.

"So! You want to get to the bottom of this?" Monokuma asked with a confident smirk on his face. "Well, I'll have you know you can't fully do that until after five tri-"

"Zip it." The huntress glared at him. "I don't care when you want us to figure things out. I'm going to figure things out as soon as I can." She seemed rather threatening when she said that.

The bear remained silent for a few seconds before simply laughing. "Puhuhuhuhu… We'll see about that!"

"Hey… Monokuma…" Enima deadpanned.

"What!?" He turned to look at her. "Can't you see I'm trying to have a serious conversation here-." His leg was grabbed.

"I have no qualms throwing you in the hot tub over there." She pointed towards a section that was cut off from the main pool.

"H-hey!" He squirmed around. "No violence against Mayor Monokuma!"

A smirk appeared on the mysterious girl's face. "I doubt you'll actually kill us. According to what you just said, you have some sort of plan, wouldn't killing us ruin those plans?"

Once again, Monokuma was silent. "You haven't heard the last of me!" He called out before

vanishing.
"Bingo." Enima smirked to herself

"What just happened…?" I mumbled to myself.

Historia shook her head. "I think she won that fight?" She was unsure.

The mysterious girl turned her head towards Serena. "You should join too."

"No, I already said I don't have time for-" She was dragged into the water. When she resurfaced, she started yelling, covering her shirt. "You idiot, I'm wearing a white top!"

"Relax, we're all girls here." She said confidently before looking over at Historia. "Although I think she's into girls."

She was too distracted by Serena's slightly see through top to respond. "Anyways, let's move on to actual business. Did any of you find anything of interest?"

"Huh…" Enima thought for a moment. "Not really, the changing rooms were normal dusty, if anything. Oh, but there were some things of interest. For the girls, Bella and Daniella's name were missing. And for the guys, Jean, Josef, Marcus, and Volvo's name were missing."

I tilted my head slightly. "What about Cameron?"

She hummed in thought. "Nah, his name was still there for some reason. I don't know why, maybe the person behind this removed Daniella's name when she died, as well as Jean's when he killed her. And didn't plan on having Cameron also kill. They were probably too lazy to come fix it."

Well… that's one theory… "Thanks for your time, then." I waved her off.

Serena pushed Enima's head under water. "We'll see how you love this."

I could faintly make out the words. "Jokes on you, I'm into this." Coming from Enima while underwater. I rolled my eyes, grabbing Historia's arms. "Let's go."

"Wait no! Underwater catfight!" She called out before being dragged off.

So I got one… or two bits of information, if I count the conversation with Monokuma as something useful. But his reactions could have all been fake. "Alright, I want you to choose the next pla-"

"The nerd place." Historia pointed out. "You'd like that."

"I'm not a nerd!" I quickly said.

She started making her way towards the building. "Whatever, let's go."

When we stepped in, it had the vibe of a board game shop of sorts. But there was also a display case of various different cards. Like Magic: The Gathering, Pokemon, stuff like that. "Eh, fucking nerd." I mumbled under my breath. Looking around, there were various different chest games and other strategy games. "This must be Robin's place."

"I don't think so." Said man said. He was leaning against the doorframe. "While yes, there are strategy games and such, I didn't play very many. You'd think my place would have more of a war feel. But this seems more like a place to relax with some friends."

"Then who do you think it is?" Historia crossed her arms.

He started tossing a dice in the air. "Well, there's a DnD spot in the back, so I can place my bets that maybe someone who loved DnD?"

"Oh…" I mumbled, looking down.

The tactician nodded, stroking his chin. "Yes, this seems to be Cameron's lab. The aesthetic is very fitting." He turned around to head towards the DnD portion of the room. "There's some tables back here with some figurines if you want to see."

"I bet he would have loved to see this…" I mumbled.

Historia walked past me. "No point in getting sad over something like that."

I let out a small sigh as I moved to the backroom. "Kinda dark in here." I reached over for a light switch and flicked it on. I let out a small scream when it illuminated an upside down face in front of me.

After a second, I realized it was only Stephan. "Heya!" He waved at me with that grin of his.

I put a hand on my hip. "What are you doing here?" I mumbled in an annoyed tone.

He glanced around. "This is just the building I stumbled upon."

"I mean why are you upside down?" God, he still hadn't gotten rid of his old personality. Then again, I noticed he was wearing his old pink shirt. "What happened to your ninja outfit?

He frowned slightly before dropping down and quickly changing outfits. His voice and tone changed slightly. "Is this better?" He seemed less kind when he was like this. "This outfit is reserved for business, while my other outfit is my casual clothes."

"I don't see how that makes much sense…" Historia mumbled.

Robin simply shrugged. "Makes sense to me. Most people have several masks. Example, you would act differently with family than you would with friends. It's the same concept here."

"But the people he is talking to didn't change." The historian tried to argue.

Stephan lowered his face mask. "Does it really have to matter? It's all about being in character."

"What…?" I took a step towards him. "Are you saying that you're just playing a character?"

He slowly put his mask back on, and before I knew it, the lights were off. I quickly turned them back on, but he was gone. "Dammit!" I yelled out.

"Forget about him." Historia had a hand on her hip. "He's not worth our time."

"I'm sure he means no harm. If he did, he would have done something already." Robin explained to us.

"I find that hard to… Whatever." I turned around. "I don't think we'll find anything interesting over here." I started to walk out, but took a glance back. For now, Cameron was the only one not to see his lab. That was a shame.

The next place we stopped by was a weird exterior of sorts. The place was plastered by a bunch of numbers. I took a small gulp before walking in.

"Why are you nervous about this one?" Historia asked with narrowed eyes.

I shrugged. "No reason… I just… Dislike math."

"Doubtful." She said before walking in.

The room had a nice black and green colour scheme to it. It was similar to the library that Jean had, but instead, most of the books seemed to be about math. There were some contraptions which were concepts in math that I studied a lot. I mean… nevermind.

In the center of the room, was a fancy chandelier that seemed to be constantly swinging with momentum. "Impressive." I commented.

"For someone who hates math, you sure do like this room." Historia deadpanned.

Jack was leaning against the wall. "Seems to be some sort of mathematician's room." He noted. Then, his attention turned to us. "Could this also be an Ultimate Lab? We are only missing four. Cameron's."

"Which we found." The historian noted.

The critic nodded. "Enima, Riley, and Robin's." He turned his head towards me. "Now, as the Ultimate Lucky Student, this could be yours, because probability is a math thing."

"I'm not into math. In fact, I really hate it-" I started to say.

"Seven factorial." He quickly said, catching me off guard.

I froze up slightly. "Five thousand and forty." I replied quickly. There was a long pause. "Just a wild guess, given that I'm the Ultimate Luck-"

"Given six elements to choose from, but you can only choose four, order is important, and there's no repetition." Jack continued.

"Three hundred sixty!" I quickly blurted out. "Alright fuck you. Yes, I'm great at math." I was starting to get angry. "Monokuma!" I shouted out at the top of my lungs.

Suddenly.

Scared bear.

"Y-yes?" Monokuma held his hands in front of his face.

"How did you know? Only school officials knew about that. Are you working for the school?" I shouted out.

He remained silent for a few seconds before finally saying something. "Puhuhuhuhu… How do I know what?"

Well… I kinda walked into that. "Fine, I'll say it. I was first contacted by Hope's Peak who told me I would become the Ultimate Mathematician. But I turned it down because I didn't think I deserved such a spot." I rubbed my arm. "But when I ended up winning the lottery, it was probably destiny for me to become an Ultimate. So I accepted it that time…"

"The Ultimate Mathematician?" Jack repeated, rather intrigued. "Ah, so that's how that happened."

I turned my head towards him. "What happened?"

"You see, I was supposed to be in the grade above, but for some reason or another, they gave my place to someone else." He didn't seem too happy about that. "I don't know who, nor do I care. I had lost my place. However, the next year, they contacted me, telling me that a spot had opened up." He smirked to himself. "I think that spot opened up due to your refusal."

"O-oh. Well see? You were always destined to be an Ultimate too." I told him. I looked over at where Monokuma was, but he had already left. "Dammit."

Historia looked at me, then Jack, then back at me. "So what you're telling me, is that you actually are a n-"

"Don't finish that sentence." I warned her.

The critic looked over at some books, taking one out. "There's no shame in being good at maths, though. Why didn't you want to become an Ultimate?"

I shook my head. "I already told you, I didn't think I deserved it for being good at math. Someone else more deserving should get the spot.

After looking through the book for a few seconds, he placed it back on the shelf. "Sounds like quitter talk. And if you couldn't just accept your place as an Ultimate, you also didn't deserve to come back with the title of Ultimate Lucky Student."

Historia narrowed her eyes. "Because of her, you've been given a spot."

Jack crossed his arms. "While I'm thankful for that, I should have been given the spot regardless."

"Asshole…" I mumbled. I didn't want to be in this room anymore, so I just left the place.

Finally, the last place of interest this time appeared to be a large bank. "This place seems neat."

"I wonder if there's any money left? Probably not." Historia stayed outside. "But you go on ahead, I want to see if there are any more areas around."

"This place is so fancy looking!" Lily blurted out, spinning around. "We could rob this place and no one would know."

Caren shook her head. "Let's not do that. We don't have time for that."

The florist puffed her cheeks and turned towards her friend. "What's gotten into you? You've been colder as of late!"

"People have been dying left and right, it's hard not to be colder." The babysitter replied.

I decided to ignore the two for now. Looking around the bank area, it seemed to be rather nice. Most of the walls were made of a smooth white surface, which the lights around helped brighten. "So what else do you think this place holds?"

"Well!" Lily said, jumping into our conversation. "There's a vault in the back that seems locked. I was thinking of exploring that soon. Although we need a few people to open it up."

"That big of a vault…?" I started walking towards the back area. "Hopefully not too big."

When I got there, I would find out that it was in fact, a huge vault. "I don't think vaults are normally this big." It just stretched on, seemingly three times the size of a regular one.

"Well, it's hard to open, so maybe there's still money in there we can take when we leave this place."

Caren hummed to herself. "Something tells me it's going to be useless. For an entire city like this just to be abandoned like this, something bad must have happened to the world."

The florist shook her head. "Don't be so negative. We'll find out when we find out." She walked over to one side of the vault door. "Alright, I managed to find the keycards to the door." She tossed one to Caren. "Go on the other side."

She complied, and made her way to the other side. "Ready?"

Lily nodded, and inserted the card into the reader. "You'll need to open the door, Riley."

I nodded my head and started spinning the wheel, after several seconds, it finally opened up. And I peered inside before freezing.

"What was in there?" The florist skipped over to me before freezing up to. "W-why? Again!?"

Inside the vault, though they are all dead, were several decaying bodies. Although, I shouldn't say how it's decaying. They've been here for years, so all that's left are skeletons. Although there were still some parts of skin on the bones. Hard to decompose when you are in a bank vault.

Caren simply let out a sad sigh. "What did this poor town do to each other?"

"Did they lock themselves in…?" I mumbled, quickly closing the vault door. "I don't want to go in there… like at all."

Lily quickly turned away, ready to puke. "Me neither… Let's leave." I had no problems with that, and left with the rest of them.

.

Everyone met back up at the cafeteria, and Stephan was there to join us.

"Anyone find anything of interest?" He asked, looking around.

"A place to swim." Enima leaned back. "But besides that? No. Nothing out of the ordinary."

"Well, we found something rather interesting." Caren stood up, looking around at everyone. "We found a vault at a bank, and it was full of dead people."

"Dead people?" Historia repeated. She quickly shook her head. "No, I don't want to go check that out."

"And you won't have to.' The babysitter cut in. "From what I could see, it was just dead bodies."

Stephan crossed his arms. "Yeah, but you didn't actually get close, right? There might have been something in between all the bodies."

She turned to look at him, a little annoyed. "You're free to walk right in there and deal with the smell of death."

He simply shrugged. "I've done worse."

"I think it'd be a good idea if we took a look." Serena said, the only other person who would probably be fine with dead bodies.

"I'll go too." Enima pipped up, reminding me that there are in fact three people.

"Well, you guys can go without me." I told them, shivering slightly. "I don't want to go back there…"

"I don't blame you." Historia glanced over at me. "I wouldn't be able to handle something like that."

I looked around at everyone before turning to her and whispering. "There's probably a journal entry about this…"

"If it's in the vault, I give up." The historian mumbled.

I shook my head. "No, it's not likely that it is. Remember, it got picked up by the wind. And it doesn't exactly need to be in this area either."

"Right, the wind doesn't exactly follow any rules." She agreed.

"The second page I found was near the hotel too. The third one just so happened to be in the museum." I told her. I stood up. "I'm going to check out some old areas again, I'll see if I find anything." After that, I left. I wouldn't even know where to begin, but there's one place that still interests me.

I eventually made it to the mayor's office. This place had to hold something, right? I went searching through all the various books, but couldn't find anything worthwhile. Eventually though, I remembered something.

I walked over to the desk, which still had the lock on it. Daniella said that if she were to die, she'd leave behind the keys. But that sounded more like if she murdered someone. I bet she wasn't expecting to die before that.

I thought a bit more before a thought crossed my mind. I pulled out the set of keys that Cameron had given me. There were two of them, one for the weapon shop… But the other one… I took my bets and placed the second key into the keyhole. And surprisingly, it fit. I unlocked the drawer and pulled out a book.

I looked at it for a few seconds before opening it. That's when I saw some familiar faces. "This is us…"

The first person was Marcus, because his last name started with an A. The book went on and described his personality and such, and it was surprisingly accurate. The next person on the list was Jack. And like he mentioned earlier, he was going to be a grade above us but got replaced by someone. Next was Serena. "Huh…" I mumbled to myself. "She has a sister? I never knew that. She never once mentioned her. Ultimate Soldier, huh?" There probably wasn't going to be any info on her sister in this book. Next was Stephan. He was marked down at the Ultimate Ninja here too, but there was also a page for the Ultimate Parkourist. Then next, was my page. "This is how he knows…" I mumbled to myself. The page I was on showed me, but it marked me down as the Ultimate Mathematician. It was crossed out to say Ultimate Lucky Student. "I should keep rea-"

"Whatcha got there?" Enima called out, leaning her arm on my shoulder.

I let out a small scream and dropped the book.

"I told you not to scare her!" Lily said from the entrance of the door.

The mysterious girl turned towards the florist. "And I told you not to follow me." Then her attention turned back towards me. She leaned down and picked up the book. "Let me see right here."

"H-hey, give that back!" I tried to reach for it, but she simply kept it out of my reach.

"Let me read it too, you had your fun." She called out before looking through the pages. "Ultimate Mathematician, huh?" She flipped through the pages. "Ultimate Florist…" She kept going through the pages. "Ultimate D-" Then she stopped herself from reading out loud. At first she seemed confused, but as she read more and more, she only seemed to grow angry. "W-what?" She ripped out the page out of rage and tore it to shreds. "I don't like this dumb book anymore."

"W-what did you see?" I grabbed the book from her, but she had already ripped up the page she was reading.

Enima crossed her arms. "It said I wasn't an Ultimate at all, it says I'm part of the reserved course. Which means I paid a lot of money just to go to a damn school just in case they needed a replacement Ultimate…"

Lily walked over to us. "Wait… you're not an Ultimate?"

"Then why are you here? I thought you said it was someone who would have a grudge against Ultimates." I pointed out.

She just laughed a little. "Then I must have done something to piss them off…" But that laugh quickly turned to a frown.

Lily gave her a hug. "Hey, it doesn't matter if you aren't an Ultimate. From what I've seen from you, you are amazing at anything you do. The school was wrong for not making you an Ultimate."

She just remained silent. She placed the book down and went off. "I think I'll be heading off." She waved us off.

The florist frowned slightly. "I knew coming here was a big idea."

I glanced over at the ripped pieces of paper, but couldn't make out anything. She really did a number on it. "I think I'll just go explore somewhere else…" I took the book with me and headed off.

Another place I wanted to explore was Stephan's Ultimate Lab. There was a place all the way at the top that I couldn't exactly explore.

When I made it to the building and entered, I realized that it would be such a pain to get all the way up there. I took a deep breath. "Alright… Ultimate Lucky Student." I made it decently far when I first tried, probably because Stephan and I were jumping from building to building. Not to mention the small amount of time I spent at the gym. Maybe this made me better at this stuff?

Well, the answer was probably no, but I decided to try anyway. I took a running start and started making my way up the building. I got to about halfway, and that's when it really started to get hard. "What am I even supposed to do here?"

While deciding that, a hook slowly lowered itself in front of me. I recognized that to be Stephan's and let out a small sigh. "Alright, if you insist." I grabbed onto it and was slowly lifted up.

I was finally at the top, and I entered into the open hatch.

The room itself was rather dark, only lit by a few candles. It had an old Japanese feel to it, too. There were some old paintings on the wall. In all honesty, it looked like a shrine. In the center of the room, Stephan was sitting in a mediation position, wearing his ninja outfit.

"Is this where you go all the time?"

"Shh…" He told me before going back to full meditation.

I looked around the room. What was the point in letting me up here if you weren't going to talk to me. I decided it wasn't worth arguing and sat down next to him in the same position. I might as well meditate and clear my mind a bit.

We must have sat there for thirty minutes before Stephan finally stood up. He stretched a little before turning towards me. "Thanks for meditating with me. Even if you were very fidgety."

"B-but I didn't touch you. And you had your eyes closed." I defended myself.

He shook his head. "I could feel the creaking of the floor. This part of the building is old." He walked over to some of the paintings. "So why did you come here?"

"I don't know… why did you let me come here?" I countered.

He didn't exactly have a reason so he shrugged. "Just assumed you were curious about what the top looked like. It's not like I have anything to hide anymore."

I frowned slightly. "Sorry about what happened last night."

"It's not your fault. I think Serena has been suspicious of me for a while, besides, I carelessly forgot something." He turned around and threw a shuriken at a wall. "So no one is to blame but me. But it does feel somewhat liberating."

"Why did you become a ninja in the first place?" I asked him, still sitting down.

Stephan crossed his arms. "You think I just choose to be a ninja? I was part of a clan, and that's what we did. We had tasks to do, and we did them."

I frowned slightly. "You didn't have to kill anyone, right?"

He remained silent, staring out the tinted window. "A task is a task, if I had to, I had to."

"Oh…" I mumbled.

He looked over at me. "But that doesn't mean I'm going to do that here. I don't plan on doing that." He walked over to the hatch. "I want to go explore somewhere with you."

"W-where?" I followed him.

He let out a small laugh. "It dawned on me that no one explored the left side of the temple. He dropped down.

With his help, I was able to make it down to the ground.

"So weren't you supposed to go to the bank?" I asked him as we walked over there.

He removed his face mask so I could hear him better. "We were supposed to, but Enima deiced it was a better idea to follow you. And according to Caren, we needed three people to open the vault. We couldn't get anyone else to agree to it."

I shook my head. Should have just gone and opened the vault, Enima.

Soon, we arrived at the temple. "Most of the traps should be removed already by Josef." Stephan called out as he entered it.

The ones that weren't removed were marked down, so they were easy to avoid. "I didn't think I'd have to visit this place again…" I mumbled as I made it further into the temple.

Soon, we reached the part that belonged to the cult.

"So you already explored the blue side." The ninja reaffirmed before setting out to the red side. "Watch out, I see more traps on this side. Seems they didn't want people coming here."

I followed his footsteps carefully to avoid setting off any traps.

Finally, we reached the end, and it was another similar room to the blue side. Except this one radiated a red light.

"I don't like the vibe from this room…" I mumbled as I looked around.

"Me neither…" Stephan said as he made his way towards the book all the way at the back. He slowly opened it, and the pages seemed to have splotches of blood on them. "This is just disgusting…" He mumbled to himself.

I walked over to him to take a peek at the book. "What does it say?"

He remained silent for a bit before shaking his head. "It's talking about various sacrifices… Seems they were sacrificing people to a girl, who really didn't want any part of it."

"What were they trying to do…?" I mumbled, a little horrified.

Stephan kept reading. "I don't know how they thought they would be able to do this, but they were trying to infuse the girl with the spirit of the Anti Christ."

I blinked a few times. "W-what? Why would they do that?"

"Because apparently God had abandoned them, so they turned to this option instead."

I bit my thumb. "That's way different from the other side. They were trying to get God's blessing…" I mumbled. "Did… Did it ever say which one worked out?"

The ninja shook his head. "It just said how to do it, there's no proof if that even worked out." He kept reading. "Seems these people formed a church called the Church of the Shattered God."

"Shattered God?" I looked over his shoulder to read that section. "That's an odd name."

He hummed in thought. "Not exactly… It's possible that what they did worked, but what the blue side did also worked. What if this person was infused with two different spirits. Obviously, if we go further into this, I see that they worshiped this girl like she was a God."

I held my arm. "This is messed up…"

He nodded. "I agree. But we should keep this info in our heads, in case we need to use it. It could probably be used to unlock some information."

I turned around to head towards the exit. "Are we done here…?"

Stephan stood there for a few seconds before grabbing the book. "I'll take this, and the other book, with me. I want to read them some more.

"Then I'll wait in the center room.

Once we made it there, he headed off towards the blue section and soon came back with the other book. "Alright, let's head back…" He told me as we left.

The walk back to the hotel wasn't too long, but I was starting to feel a little tired when I got back. I had some food and then I went to bed.

.

The next morning, I woke up at around nine and headed downstairs.

Everyone was already up, but two people seemed to be missing. "Where's Robin and Stephan?" I asked as I sat down next to Historia.

"Apparently they are about to have a sparring match. Now that Robin knows about his talent, he wants to see how well he fights."

I blinked a few times before a smile appeared on my face. "Sounds like Robin is going to lose."

"Probably." Jack had his arms crossed.

Serena stood up. "Yeah, it might be an easy fight, but I'd still like to see what Robin can do if he challenged him."

I quickly ate my food and stood up. "Yeah, I want to see too." Robin doesn't remember anything from his past, but if he can fight? Maybe that can tell us something. I also have to check the book to see what his real name is.

Serena and I made our way out of the hotel. "So, where did they go?"

"They went over to the gym because of all the room there is." She told me. Her eyes drifted upwards and in a few seconds, her bird landed on her shoulder. "Back at last?"

"Oh, yeah, I noticed you didn't have your bird yesterday." I mentioned.

Serena nodded her head, petting the bird's cheek. "Yeah, he tends to fly off a lot. He lands on me when he wants a break from flying."

I looked at the bird a little more and smiled. "Aww, it has a little pouch. How cute."

"Huh?" She glanced at its leg. "Oh right, it came with that."

I tried to open it but the bird moved over to the huntress' other shoulder. "Was there anything in it?"

She shook her head. "There's never been anything in it. I check every so often."

I slowly nodded. "Say… Do you have a sister?"

"A sister?" Serena looked at me before shaking her head. "I was an only child. That's how it's always been."

Weird… then why would it specify that she had a sister? She was an Ultimate Soldier too, so she had to at least be fifteen. "Does Ultimate Soldier ring a bell?"

She stopped walking, before quickly turning towards me. "My father was a soldier, why do you ask? He wasn't an Ultimate, but."

This just keeps getting weirder and weirder. "Forget I asked."

Then, we reached the gym. "Here we go." Serena opened the doors and we made our way towards the gym.

The two seemed to still be warming up. "Oh?" Robin looked over at us. "Didn't think we'd have an audience, or did you just come to train?"

"We came to watch." Serena removed her quiver and placed her bow down. "I want to see why someone like you would want to fight a ninja."

The tactician had a small smile on his face. He cracked his knuckles, waiting for Stephan to get ready.

"Been a while since I actually fought anyone." He said, preparing himself. "I rather solve problems in a different way."

"What, with words?" He asked with a smirk. "Beware the ninja who will talk you down."

This got a small laugh from him. 'No, in the line of business, I will always choose the fight option."

I walked over to the bench where Serena was sitting and sat down next to her.

"Serena…" Robin turned to look at her. "Want to give us the go ahead."

She stood up. "I don't think I really need to, but if you two insist." She walked over to the center. She looked at the two who were ready to fight. She didn't seem like she knew what to do so she just said. "One, two, fight!" Before backing away.

Stephan ran first to close the gap between him and Robin, while the tactician didn't move until the last second.

When the ninja did an overhead kick, he managed to block it with his arm. "You may be fast, but my eyes have to be fast too to analyze the battlefield."

The ninja placed his foot on the ground and jumped back. "On regular people, that's enough to catch them off guard and knock them out. And most of the time their arms aren't enough."

Robin was rubbing his arm. "Please, I may be just a tactician, but I have some vague memories of leading the field too. What kind of leader would I be if I stood back and ordered people around?"

This got another small laugh from Stephan. "Oh, is that so-" He dashed forward before finishing his own sentence to try and catch him off guard.

Robin managed to move out of the way and went to punch the ninja in the face, but missed.

"You might be able to dodge, but you probably won't be able to hit either." Stephan snarked at him.

The tactician stood still for a while before dashing towards Stephan. He went to punch him, but the ninja avoided him. Then, he went to return the punch but Robin managed to grab his hand. "Huh. Didn't think this through." The tactician pulled on Stephan's arm and went to punch with the other hand.

Luckily, the ninja managed to avoid that too.

This was pretty much what the fight was the entire time. They didn't really manage to land any hits.

"Alright, I don't think this is going anywhere." Serena stood up with her bow and arrow and shot one towards them to get their attention. "I think we're done here."

But the two wouldn't stop.

The huntress let out an annoyed sigh before taking out another arrow. She shot one at Stephan, which stabbed through his clothing and made him fall down. She did the same for Robin, which stuck his cloak to the ground. "I said enough."

This finally got the two to stop their sparring match.

"I didn't come here to watch two people fail to hit each other the entire time." Yeah, she was definitely annoyed.

Robin removed the arrow and tossed it on the ground. "I guess we're evenly matched." He commented, turning to look at Stephan. "Although, if I had access to a gun, it would be different."

The ninja removed the arrow from his own clothes. "Hey I didn't use my hook at all this time to play fair. I could say the same thing if I did use it." He tossed his arrow on the ground.

Not even returning the arrows? Fine, I'll do it. I went around and picked up the arrows. On the way back to bringing them to Serena, I noticed that they were actually numbered. They were numbered 2-4. When I got to her, I returned them. "Hey, why are they numbered?"

"Hmmm?" She hummed as she put them back in her quiver. "Oh, to make it easier. I can count my arrows better that way when I fire them. Instead of glancing back to see how many arrows I have left." She adjusted her quiver. "Also because in the case of me killing multiple animals, I'll know the order I killed them in."

I didn't fully understand, but it made sense to her, so. "What happened to the first arrow?"

"Stephan broke it the other day after I shot him. I'll have to renumber these…" She let out a small sigh. "Or at least get a replacement arrow. There's some in my Ultimate Lab, but they aren't the same quality, so it could throw me off."

Yeah, I guess even the slightless weight difference could throw off your aim in the long run. Especially if you are aiming far off in the distance.

All four of us headed back towards the hotel.

Once we got there, we were met with an eager Lily. "So, who won!?"

"Nobody." Serena replied coldly, walking past her.

"What?" The florist looked over at the two boys. "How did none of you win?"

"We were evenly matched, it seems." Stephan rubbed the back of his head.

"I'm 50% more scared of Robin now…" She mumbled.

He paused to look at her. "Were you already afraid of me to begin with?"

She took a step back. "Well, you have amnesia! You could be anything."

The tactician stroked his chin, a small smile appearing on his face. "I think I'm just a tactician." He walked over to the table to sit down.

I looked around and once again, almost everyone was here. This time, Caren was missing. "Hey, where did Caren go?"

Lily looked over at me. "Oh, she said she had some business to attend to at the new place."

I slowly nodded my head. What business would she hav- Oh, don't tell me… "Well, I better get going too." I turned around and walked away. If I knew her even just a little bit, I had a feeling what she would be doing.

When I finally got to my destination, suspicions were confirmed. The vault door was open. I looked over at the keycards, and saw that she managed to get stuck inside, so she didn't need three people. I walked into the vault. "Caren, what are you doing?"

She was moving bodies away. "What does it look like I'm doing? Looking for anything useful…" She mumbled.

I shook my head. "In a pile of bodies…?"

Caren stopped for a brief moment to look at me. "Look, someone must have something that could hint at what happened. A bunch of bodies don't just end up in here."

I walked around some corpses, starting to feel a little weak from the smell. "Well, maybe they just stored dead people in here." I suggested.

"Well then, I want to find out how so many damn people died, then." She said, going back to moving the bodies. "Only the body should be decomposed, so anything else should be left behind."

I stopped walking once I reached the pile. "Why are you doing this? Just let someone else do it…"

"That was the plan, but then Enima fucked off to find you last night. And then Stephan and Robin decided to go fight each other. And then Serena followed them." Caren said in a rude tone. For some reason, the more the game progresses, the more cold she gets.

"This isn't like you…" I mumbled.

She stopped what she was doing. "I know… but someone has to be trying here…"

I let out a small sigh and looked down when I saw something. It was a piece of paper sticking out between some bodies. It didn't seem like part of the journal, but more information was always welcomed. I reached over to grab it, but then a bunch of bodies fell down and covered the area. I let out a small scream and jumped back to avoid the falling bodies. When I stood back up, the thing was buried under so many bodies. "Dammit…" I mumbled.

Caren looked down at me. "What, did you find something?"

I slowly nodded. "Yeah, what looked like a piece of paper…"

The babysitter came down the pile. "Where."

"I don't know, you kept moving stuff around until a pile of bodies fell down. Now it's buried again." I yelled at her.

"Don't blame this on me." She said to me. She pointed to the exit. "Just leave, I've got this myself."

I let out a small sigh and decided it was probably best to leave. I didn't want to have to move dead bodies.

.

I made it back to the hotel and just plopped down in a chair. "I've made no progress today…" I mumbled, looking at Historia, who was also sitting down.

"Didn't find a page yet?" She asked.

I shook my head. "I found some papers, but it wasn't from the journal. But it's now buried under some bodies."

"I'll be honest with you, that sounds like a you problem." The historian said.

I simply gave her a thumbs up out of annoyance.

This got a snicker from her. "I'm only kidding. Whatever that is, we're going to need it eventually."

"Yeah, of cour-" Someone sat down in front of me, which caught my attention.

"I hope I'm not interrupting anything, ladies." Jack said, looking at the two of us. "Mind if I borrow her for a second."

"Can I eat?" I asked, showing my food.

He pondered this. And by pondered, I mean he glanced down at my food and said. "No."

This got a sigh from me. "What do you want?"

"It won't take too much of your time, I promise." He stood up and headed off further into the cafeteria. I guess I didn't really have a choice. I placed my food down and went after him.

"You remember what I had said several days ago?"

"About what, you say a lot of things." I told him.

He shook his head. "About what the walls around the city are probably from. I said they might be the military's doing, right?"

Oh yeah, I remember that. "What about it?"

"I did some walking in the new area the other day, and apparently we can reach the wall. We obviously can't cross it, because Monokuma would have to be stupid to just give us a way out." Jack continued. "Not to mention he probably controls the guns on it."

"So what, you want to go explore it?" I asked him.

He nodded. "Of course, why else would I ask you about this? I'm the one who told you about it in the first place, so it's on me to make a follow up." He started to walk away. "Sometime in the morning should be good right? We should get to the bottom of the mystery of this city. As quickly as possible." He then walked away, a hand in his pocket

Well, time to go enjoy my meal. I walked back and retook my seat.

"What was that all about?" Historia turned her head towards me.

"DnD stuff." I replied. I really trusted Historia, but Jack probably didn't want me talking about it to anyone else.

The rest of the day was rather uneventful, so I went to bed at around ten.

.

Soon enough, the next morning came up, and I went downstairs. As I predicted, Jack was waiting for me. He was leaning against the wall next to the stairwell. "You sure do sleep in a lot." He commented, with a hint of annoyance.

"It's me, you should know that by now." I replied with a little snark in my voice.

This got a small smirk from him. "Well, if you have time to be making jokes, then you have time to be walking to the wall." He left the cafeteria.

Alright, guess breakfast is a no go today, huh. I followed behind him.

"If you're wondering about breakfast." I am. "You should have woken up earlier." He told me.

"Thanks, I'll remember that." I said with a bit of sarcasm.

Jack sent me a glare. "You should be punctual, instead of always showing up late."

The entire walk there was just back and forth banter. Eventually, we reached an alleyway. "You know, not that I don't trust you, but why are we going into a dark alleyway?"

The critic crossed his arms. "Why did you think no one else found it? You can only access it by these back routes. But that's fine, right?"

"Not…" I started to say. "Whatever, we already came all the way here." We walked further into the alleyway, taking a few more turns, and then eventually, we were there. "The wall… huh…" I mumbled to myself. "Can we even go inside?" I had seen the doorway.

"Yup." He walked over and opened the door for me. "Unlike the temple, there won't be any traps to deal with, so we'll be fine with just us."

The inside of the wall was cold and dark, but there were a bunch of uniforms there. Or at least old uniforms, they didn't have anything on them, so it's likely this was where they stored uniforms no longer used. "This is already giving me creepy vibes…"

"Now… Obviously there's no one here. If there were, I would accuse them of holding us hostage." Jack told me.

I laughed a little. "What? If there were military people here, you would just walk up to them and accuse them. They probably have guns and stuff."

"While, I admit, it's not a good plan. If they wanted us dead, they would have killed us already." He reached a window and looked outside. "The outside of the place looks decently normal."

I glanced out the window and surveyed the area. I froze when I saw someone standing in the trees. When I blinked, they were gone. "Is someone… watching us from the outside…?"

"Hm, no, why?" Jack looked outside, not spotting anything. "I think it's just your imagination…"

We did some more walking, and eventually arrived on top of the wall. "And here we are…" He walked over to a mounted turret and kicked it, it aimed at him immediately, but he didn't seem alarmed. "Unless we seriously try and damage it, it won't kill us, nor will it shoot us for being up here. However…" He took something out of his pocket and threw it off the wall. It activated some force field, which destroyed the rock a bit, but then the turret started shooting it, which shattered. "Not only do we have some energy fields to deal with, we have the turret."

I heard footsteps coming towards us and quickly turned around.

"Hello." Enima said, walking over to our group. "To think you didn't invite me." She frowned at Jack.

"Did you follow us?" He asked her, a little angrily.

"I like following people." She said with a smirk.

I glanced over at the alleyway we came from. "You like following people down dark alleys?"

Her smirk went away. "Well, if you put it that way, it sounds bad."

"Trust me, it already sounded bad." I informed her.

Enima walked over to the edge, but not walking off. "So, on that side is freedom, huh. I don't see us getting to it anytime soon, however."

"Nonsense…" Jack shook his head, walking over beside her. "We will find a way out of here. I guarantee it." He looked up. "The energy shield doesn't reach all the way up, so we can technically get over it, and the turret might not be able to reach that high."

"Yeah, but how are we going to get there?" I asked, shaking my head. "This is easier said than done."

"You think I wouldn't have said something like that had I not been confident." He pointed towards the building in the center of the city. The tallest building in the entire city. "We're going to use that. A building like that would probably have a helicopter, and if it doesn't, it still gives us a good vantage point."

"Ah yes." Enima walked away from the edge. "A good vantage point will get us out of here."

The critic remained silent for a few seconds. "Anyways, that's all there was to show here. The military definitely had something to do with all of this."

"I came all the way here just for that?" Enima rolled her eyes. "See you all later." She waved us off before leaving.

Jack started to leave. "The question is what would cause the military to show up? Or were they always here? You'd think something like this would appear on the news so what if it's just a desolated city?"

I shook my head. "No, there were definitely people here. I'm getting really close to the truth, I just need to keep pushing."

He looked at me, giving me a solemn nod. "Yes, it shouldn't take too much longer."

The two of us went back to the hotel.

.

I was just relaxing on my bed when I heard something go off.

.

Ding Dong! Dong Ding! Ding Dong! Dong Ding!

.

The television lit up to show Monokuma's face. "Puhuhuhuhu, I know I didn't have a motive ready last time, but you all just seemed eager enough to kill, I thought I'd let you do your own things. But this time! This time I will be giving out a motive. So if you could please head over to the lobby." And then the TV shut off.

I let out a small sigh. "Well… it's better than a body discovery announcement…" I mumbled to myself.

I made my way downstairs, where everyone else was already gathered.

"There! Now everyone is here." He called out, seeing me walk into the lobby.

"What is it this time, Monokuma?" Serena sounded a little annoyed.

Caren shook her head. "I can't do the things I want to do if you call us like this. Why can't you just not give us a motive like last time?"

"You will be quiet while I speak." He said harshly. "I already gave you my reason for why there wasn't a motive last time. And it led to two deaths. Although one of them was unplanned, but whatever." Wait, one was- "Anyways! Onto the motive. Although, I feel like this one might get a little overused in the future."

"Overused?" Caren asked. "You… aren't planning on having more of these… are you?"

The bear simply laughed at that. "Why would I tell you that? Maybe I am, maybe I'm not. You'll just have to survive to find out!"

"Or you can just tell us now." Serena crossed her arms.

"I don't operate that way!" He yelled at her. "Anyways, time to actually get on with the motive. Puhuhuhuhuhu. It's kinda a mediocre one. Just something about family." He told everyone.

I blinked a few times ."Family…? Look, I miss my family, but I wouldn't murder just to get to see them."

Caren frowned. "Same over here. It's not like they need me to keep living. Most of them are old enough to take care of themselves."

Monokuma's eyes glinted red. "Oh? Maybe that's so, but what's stopping me from doing something to them?"

The babysitter remained silent for a few seconds. "What do you mean…?"

"Let's just say a terrible accident was to befall them if no one kills anyone. Would you be able to live with yourself?" The bear said.

Caren's face paled up a bit. "Y-you don't have that type of power."

His face grew serious. "Do I? I'll have you know I have knowledge of many things…"

I… I don't doubt him there. He knew about the talent that I rejected.

"I knew about Cameron's sister long before he mentioned her. And he probably would have taken poorly to this motive." He let out a laugh. "Serena has a sister too-"

She tilted her head. "No, I'm pretty sure I'm an only child."

Monokuma paused for a minute. "What…? No. You have a sister."

The huntress shook her head. "Pretty sure I would remember if I had a sister. But neither of my parents ever mentioned it. How old is she?"

"She's three years younger than yo-" Monokuma started to say.

Serena shook her head. "Then I call bullshit. I've never had a sister."

I frowned slightly." No… I think you did."

The bear froze in place. "Oh…" It seemed to have just remembered something. "You don't remember! Your memories have been taken away." He started sweating. "This just won't do! Won't do, I say!" And then he was gone.

Robin stroked his chin. "That couldn't have been it, right? That was such a boring motive. I have no memories of my family, so it shouldn't concern me." He looked at everyone else. "And what about all of you?"

Jack shook his head. "My parents would never want me to kill someone to save them. Not that they've told me themselves."

Caren held her arm, looking away. "Well… I have a lot of siblings. But still, I won't kill either."

Serena shook her head. "Clearly Monokuma is nothing but a liar anyways."

"Is that really the case?" I mumbled, looking away. "He seems to have much more power and authority than we think."

Jack tapped his shoulder before leaning his head back to look at the ceiling. "Yes, we shouldn't underestimate him. There's the possibility that he truly can do something to them. But even so, we mustn't let that affect our actions. We've already lost enough people as it is." He turned around to walk away. "But if you are going to go around killing again, leave me out of it." He then left.

I looked at everyone else. Caren and Lily were the only ones with frowns on their faces. The others didn't really seem concerned about this motive.

Enima stretched her arms. "I agree with Jack on this one. Yeah, it's sad. But we shouldn't let it affect us." She too walked off.

"Easy for you to say…" Caren mumbled, holding her arm. With that many siblings, I don't blame her.

I let out a small sigh and decided to head off. I had parents to worry about, but I don't think anything could drive me to actually murder someone. Even majorly harming someone is something I wouldn't do.

"A motive like this should give us more time than other motives." Historia was following me. "It's also not restrictive like the jungle one, or the one where people turned up missing."

I nodded my head. "That's a fair point. It's a weak motive, so hopefully nobody does anything."

"We still need to find another page, after all. Now should be the perfect time to do so." The historian continued. "So do you want to do that now?"

We could do that now, but I wasn't in the mood for that right now. "No, how about tomorrow for that?"

She frowned slightly. "If you say so. But I don't want to wait too long."

"Don't worry, tomorrow will be here sooner than you think." I ruffled her hair.

"H-hey!" Historia blushed, trying to fix her hair. "Don't mess up my hair."

I simply laughed at her and grabbed myself some food.

There wasn't much going on for the rest of the day.

.

And as quickly as I said, the next day had rolled along already. I got ready and headed downstairs for some breakfast.

Some people weren't there, since they were probably off doing whatever they did. Caren and Lily were, however, still here. I sat down next to them. "Good morning." I smiled.

"Morning." Caren said coldly, taking a bite of her food.

I had a small frown on my face now. "Well, you still caught up about that motive?"

"Monokuma knows where to strike where it hurts."

I shook my head. "You have a large family, I'm sure they can handle themselves…"

Lily nodded her head. "Come on, have faith in them."

The babysitter remained silent for a few seconds. She eventually let out a long sigh. "I know, I know. Don't worry. I won't stoop down to murder." She glanced around. "It's more so the others I'm worried about."

"I'm sure they aren't having any thoughts about murder either." I reassured her. "But it wouldn't hurt to go talk to them." I stood up. "I'll go see who I can find." I didn't have to go note hunting till later, anyways.

.

Well, as always, finding Stephan was a breeze. "You like hanging around this dojo, don't you?"

He dropped down from the parkour course he was doing. "It's good training, and even with my skills, it's still a decent challenge." He sat down on the ground to get a break. "I can't let myself lose focus here. Anyways, what brings you here."

"It's about the motive…" I told him.

He simply shook his head. "Is that all? I thought it was something more serious."

"You don't think a murder motive is serious!?" I yelled at it.

He glared at me. "That's not what I meant, and you know it. I don't think we have to worry about anyone acting out of line. No less me, since I don't have any family in the first place."

"You don't… have any family…?" I sat down in front of him.

"No, never did. Or well, I have a mom and dad, but I don't think I ever knew them." Stephan explained to me.

I looked at the ground. "They both passed away?"

He shook his head. "They are probably still alive. And I probably met them at one point. But back at the clan I'm part of, family bonds weren't really a thing that we let happen. Most children were taken care of by multiple people. It would constantly switch, so we would never grow attached to anyone."

"What…?" I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "That sounds horrible."

"You might see it as so, but it's how I lived, so I see it as rather normal." Stephan explained to me. "I have an old name, but it's rather complicated, so I don't like using it. Besides, using it makes me stick out like a sore thumb."

"I like the name Stephan anyways." I told him with a smile.

He lowered his face mask and smiled back. "I liked it too, that's why I chose it." He put the mask back on, and he went back to a serious tone. "Sure, I had people I was close to in the clan, but even then. I don't think I would murder anyone for their sake. We didn't have family, or friendship bonds. We were mostly just coworkers who I saw whenever I wasn't out on a mission." He stood back up. "I do kinda miss it, but still…"

"Did you get hired on as the Ultimate Ninja, or as the Ultimate Parkourist?" I asked him.

He hummed in thought. "I'm not sure they knew about me being a ninja. If they did, why me? I wasn't the only person my age in the clan. But I did start doing some parkouring, which is probably what caught their attention."

I tilted my head slightly. "Why would you start doing that if you were a ninja? What if your cover was blown?"

He looked over at me. "Because someone who can just hide in the dark is no one special at all. Someone who can hide, even with the spotlight on them, is a true master. It allowed me to travel to different locations to pull off missions, all while I lived a life as a parkourist. I did amass an online fandom, which was nice."

That's right. I didn't think of it till now, but I remember hearing something about a famed parkourist. "So what did the clan think about that?"

He put his hands in his pockets, looking up at the course. "Well, most complained, saying I was going to get exposed. But the elders of the clan said that this was a wonderful idea, and times had changed. They told me I had taken to both my own culture, and the culture of the modern world. I think some of the other kids were jealous of the treatment I got. I like to think I was the best." He sat back down on the ground. "But I want Monokuma to know this, if he is planning on messing with them, he's way over his head. None of them are going to go down without a fight. And that's what I'm hoping for."

I smiled at him. "Well, that's good that you think they are strong."

"Anyways, you can probably go now. I want to go back to meditating…" He started to go back up the parkour course. Guess he would rather do it at the shrine. I turned around and walked away.

.

Eventually I found Serena walking around the streets. She seemed troubled, and I needed to talk to her anyway. "Everything alright?"

She glanced up at me, moving a strand of hair out of her eyes. "Oh, yeah. Everything is fine right now."

I noticed that her bird was missing, but I didn't expect her to always have it with her. "Are you sure?"

She nodded, before frowning slightly. "So, the other day you asked me if I had a sister, why was that?"

Oh, I couldn't just bring up the book, could I. "Well, you just have this older sister vibe to you. So I kinda just figured."

She had a skeptical look in her eyes. "But you also brought up the Ultimate Soldier to me. Why was that? Do you know something?" Her eyes turned to glare at me.

Lying was hard, especially when it's to someone who's smart. "I saw something in a book. About all of us."

Serena narrowed her eyes. "A book? And you've kept it a secret?"

I quickly shook my head. "Daniella knew about it. I only got access to it the other day. But the other people who saw it were Enima and Lily."

The huntress kept narrowing her eyes before relaxing. "If you say so. So what else did it say about her?"

"It just said her Ultimate talent. It didn't even give a name or anything." I informed her. "Why do you ask?"

Serena looked down at the ground, thinking deeply. "I asked Monokuma for him to tell me about her, but all he said was that she was three years younger than me." She clenched her teeth. "And from the information gathered from just that. I can tell that my bastard father is a cheater."

"W-what?" I tilted my head slightly.

She had a much more serious expression on her face. "When I was three, my dad was still on the battlefield. He didn't come home till I was four. So for that to happen, he must have slept with someone overseas." She clenched an arrow, almost snapping it. "To think I loved someone like that as a father. He's nothing more than scum."

She seemed very furious. "C-calm down. You don't know for sure what happened."

She paused briefly. "You may be right, but if she was the Ultimate Soldier, she must have been raised on the battlefield."

I placed my hand on her shoulder. "Please, just calm down. Like I said, unless you have your memories, you wouldn't know for sure what happened."

She looked at me with discontent. "I'm pretty sure I have all the context clues I need." And with that, she walked off.

I rubbed the back of my head. I didn't mean to piss her off, oh boy… I shook my head. There's still people I want to talk to.

.

The next person I found was Robin, but I don't think I'd need to do much talking to him. He wouldn't remember any family. He was in Cameron's Ultimate Lab, just looking at all the various things. "Come here to hang out?"

He glanced over at me. "Well, yeah. There's not really anywhere else to go. Sure, there's the library, but the books there have gotten boring."

"Don't tell me you've read them all already." I shook my head in amusement.

"That's not what I meant." He grinned slightly. "But reading does bore me after doing it for so long. I'm no Jean." Right… He turned to look at me fully. "So, what business brings you here?"

Well, I wasn't exactly sure myself. "Just talking with everyone, that's it."

"I don't think you need to talk to me." He pulled out a deck of cards and started shuffling them. "My memories are all over the place, and I don't remember much…" He paused for a few seconds. "All I remember is working battles and…" He paused himself.

"And…?" I tried to get him to continue.

He covered his mouth, thinking. "I do remember something about a lover… But I think that's all in the past. I'm pretty sure we broke up."

"That doesn't sound very reassuring." I told him.

The more he thought about it, the more pained his expression was. "I think we did… or… I don't know… One moment she was there, and the next she wasn't. Did she really exist?"

"Alright… you can try and stop remembering. I don't think you can fight through amnesia."

He looked at me for a few seconds before nodding. "You're probably right." Of course I am. "I think at this moment, I've been blessed with not remembering my family. They can't be used against me. There's the chance that Monokuma could still do something to them, but he'd gain nothing for it at the moment." He put the deck of cards away. He stared at the shelf a little longer before looking at me again. "Do you ever think everything happens for a reason?"

"Yeah… I think everything that happens was always destined to happen." I informed him. Ever since I won the lottery, that's been my viewpoint on life. If I declined that too, it would have been likely that I would have ended up as one anyways.

"Interesting…" Robin commented before walking away. "I'm not one to say someone's belief is wrong, but don't think everything happens for a reason. With a mindset like that, if bad things happen to you, you'll start to think it's because you deserve it." And with that, he left.

… "What's with everyone saying stuff like that to me?" I shook my head and walked away. There were bound to be other people I could talk to.

.

I couldn't find anyone else, so I decided to head back to the cafeteria. Which made me realize I should have been looking there to begin with.

Jack and Enima were there, and talking to each other. Or more so, it looked more like she was annoying him.

"You know, you don't have to sit there…" He said to her, trying to eat his food.

I might as well go bail him out of that mess. I took a seat next to them.

"Riley, tag team." Enima smirked at me.

"Yeah… I don't think so. I'm not going to annoy him like you are." I stuck out my tongue at her.

She seemed rather annoyed, but she wasn't going to say anything else.

"I would like to enjoy my meal in peace." He took a bite of his food.

"Wait… you can't just shoo off any company." I told him.

The mysterious girl nodded. "Right, you don't want to be lonely."

"Being alone isn't all that bad. You should try it one day." He seemed very uninterested.

We were getting nowhere fast. "I know you said you wouldn't let your family affect your choices, but are you sure about that?"

"Of course, in a place like this, ties from the outside shouldn't matter." He glanced down at me.

Enima hummed in thought. "Honestly, I think he's just worried we'd catch him, and he'd be executed."

"I highly doubt that if I murdered someone, you'd be able to figure it out. Luckily, I have high morals preventing me from doing such a thing."

High morals, huh? I turned my head to Enima. "And you?"

"I don't think I'd ever kill someone for my family. Sure, I love them, but still, not that much to risk my life." She said with a smirk. "If I die, who's gonna kick Monokuma's ass once we win?"

Well… that's one way to look at it. "So how are your parents?"

"They're great, but very uninvolved. They mostly left me alone to my own devices." She looked down at the table. "I wouldn't say I was neglected, but if I stayed out all night, they wouldn't have noticed me missing. I mostly fed myself."

Jack glanced at her. "My parents are the complete opposite of that." He didn't seem happy about that. "They had to know where I was at all times, if not, I might be grounded from going out. Of course, it never came to that. I had to have perfect grades, which of course I did."

Enima frowned slightly before an idea popped in her head. "Hey, want to switch lives?"

"Have all the freedom in the world, but at the cost of parents who neglect me? A hard pass, but thanks for the offer." He took another bite of his food.

The more I listened to everyone talk, the more I thought Monokuma's motive was stupid. Why did he think this would work? He obviously knew about our backgrounds and everything, but he couldn't see that not everyone was super close with their family. Was this motive ready for a long time, but he was expecting a different crowd of people to be alive? I shook my head before getting up. "Well, I best be off now." I wanted a small nap before the rest of the day.

It must have been a hot day or something, because my room was rather hot. I normally didn't spend too much time midday here, since I slept till very late in the morning. I tried turning on the AC, but that didn't seem to work, so I simply opened a window to get a breeze in. Oddly enough, the window took a while to slide open. It wasn't stuck or anything. It just felt like it took forever. Although I did get the feeling of unease.. I shook my head and lay down on my bed.

.

I awoke an hour or two later and went downstairs. Like I predicted, Historia was waiting for me. "I swear, you've spent more time sleeping, than you have awake." She greeted me. "Imagine having one life, and spending half of it unconscious."

"That's the perfect life, though." I replied as we left the cafeteria. I looked at the sky. The sun was still out, but it was slowly starting to set. "So, any ideas on where to go?"

She shook her head. "No, I went looking, but I didn't find anything worthwhile."

"Then maybe we can talk while we walk." I told her.

The historian looked up at me. "Weren't we going to do that anyways?"

Alright, listen here smartass. "Yeah, I guess you've got a point." I let out a small sigh, I had already asked everyone else, so might as well. "So, what about your family…?"

"No one left alive that I really care about." She said coldly. "I already resent my mother, and my father passed away."

I frowned slightly. "Yeah… I remember. Was there anything else you wanted to mention about him?"

She stopped walking for a few seconds. "Yeah… I guess there's some more stuff." She started walking again. "When I was a young kid, about five or six, my dad and I had a thing we did. When I was mad at him, or vice-versa, we would stop talking to each other to cool down. However, if we had something we wanted to say, we would write a letter on some old styled stationery letters, and push it under the door. And that's how we'd communicate for the next hour or so until we were ready to talk in person."

"That's… really sweet…" I mumbled with a sincere smile.

Historia nodded her head. "It was one of my favourite things to do. I'd do it even if we weren't mad at each other. In fact, I don't think he was ever really mad at me… I think he also liked sending letters."

"So why are you telling me about that part specifically…?" I asked with a small frown.

"Well…" She trailed off, taking a deep breath. "When he first got admitted to the hospital, he tried calling me to get in touch with him. But because of the lies my mom fed me, I didn't answer his calls. He tried several times, but eventually, they just stopped. Until one day, I received mail. Although I didn't find it in the mailbox, I found it in the trash. My mom had tried to throw it out. Just seeing who it was from made me realize he really wanted to talk. I ripped the envelope open and read the note." She wiped a tear from her face. "Before I knew it, I was already on my bike on the way to the hospital to talk to him. My mom got mad at me that day, but I didn't care. I wasn't going to listen to her anymore." She shook her head. "Anyways, that's all in the past now. It doesn't matter now."

I stopped her and gave her a hug. "Don't say that doesn't matter anymore. It clearly mattered a lot."

For a bit, she just stood there, but after a while, she returned the hug. "Alright, let's go back to finding that page." She glanced around. "Where did we walk to, anyways?"

I looked around. I remember walking, but without any goals in mind. "Oh…" I looked up and realized I had walked over to my Ultimate Lab. "I swear, this wasn't intentional."

"If you just wanted to do math, why didn't you say so?" Historia said with a bit of sarcasm.

This got a small smile from me. "I don't want to do math." But why end up here… I opened the door, and as soon as I did, a piece of paper flew into the building. "Is that…" I looked at her.

"Can't be…" The historian looked back at me. We kept that stare for a solid ten seconds before running into the building. "Honestly, with a name like Destiny, I might just believe." She mumbled looking around.

"Not only that, but my Ultimate Lab…?" I looked at all the bookshelves. Suddenly, the shadow of the chandelier caught my eye as it swayed back and forth. When I looked up, I saw the piece of paper had been lightly pierced by the tip of the chandelier.

"What are the odds…?" Historia mumbled.

I ran my hand through my own hair. "Do you want actual calculations… or…?"

"No, I want that entry." She rolled her eyes. "Don't you have a ladder here?"

I never thought to check for that. A quick search told me no. "Well, there's always a human ladder. I can be the bottom."

"You always seemed more like a to-" Historia blinked a few times. "Right, ladder." She blushed deeply. I helped her up till she could sit on my shoulders.

"Did anyone ever tell you that you had nice legs?" I said in an attempt to tease her.

She glared at me. "I will twist your neck off." She reached up and eventually grabbed the paper, but she poked the tip of the chandelier and let out a small painful sound. I let her down on the ground. "Ow…" She mumbled, shaking her hand. "That tip is sharp as hell…" She had a small bit of blood coming out, but she seemed more interested in that letter. "Yes, this is another one we are looking for." She started to read it.

.

was. But, it caused them to fight amongst themselves. The one who weren't allowed to go free tried killing the ones that were allowed to be free. In the end, the whole town started to descend in madness. By the end of the day, a judge was found dead. One which the kids deemed to be wrongfully judging trials. I don't think they killed him. But I think they took the opportunity to speak about it more. Then, the curve ball came. They put a bounty on the mayor. Anyone who could bring them his head would get a prize reward. It's probably where the rest of the money from the bank robbery is going to go towards. Once again, I wasn't going to get involved in this stuff. I stayed in my house. Although, I wasn't an idiot. I knew I was going to have to leave this city eventually. There's no telling when they would stop. So if it only got worse, I would leave town.

.

Day 6

.

How could I be so stupid? How could I be this much of a dumbass? Of course leaving wouldn't be easy. The state police were called in to deal with the problem. However, they were met with much more force than they had predicted. So they couldn't eliminate them all. Their solution? Close off the city and let things sort themselves out. No one was allowed to leave the city. No one. I tried to, trust me. I tried to go to the store to stock up on some more food, but it seems people had already beaten me to that. So I didn't have much food left. The politicians decided it would be best to bunker themselves up inside the vault of the bank with all the food they had. It seemed like they would come out when this all blew over. Unfortunately, someone seemed to have welded the door to the wall, so there

.

This… was some good information. "That's what happened with the bank…"

"I heard there were a lot of dead bodies in there." Historia looked up at me.

I nodded. "Yeah, Caren, Lily, and I stumbled upon several huge piles of bodies. Must have been politicians and officials, like the journal said. The only thing that struck me as odd however, was that the doors weren't sealed." I stood up. "Although, I think this calls for another visit to the bank."

"Of course." She agreed. "But that's not the only part that worries me…"

Right… there were two more parts of interest. "The ones who were free, huh… I wonder what that means."

"This seems to be the fourth page. Which means we are probably missing the third page." She put the piece of paper between a book. "Let's leave it here for now." She looked back at me. "Now, the other part that interested me was the thing about the state police. All the things set up around the city… that was the state police huh?" Or the military.

I scratched my head. "Yeah, it's weird…" I mumbled. I still wasn't going to tell her about what Jack found.

"Something this big that had the state police called… And I'm not even sure they caught who was doing this…" She continued on.

"Well… from what it looks like, the person who did all of this might be who's forcing us to do this killing game." I shook my head. "Or… someone who was living through this hell while it was happening. Maybe someone grew to resent whoever did all of this…"

Historia let out a small sigh. "There's no way of knowing for sure…"

Soon, we reached the bank. We immediately went towards the vault to see the damages done to it.

"Hmm… yeah, it used to be sealed up for sure. But it seemed to have grown weaker over the years…" She noted, tracing her finger along the metal.

"So did it occur naturally…?" I asked her.

The historian took a deep breath before shaking her head. "I highly doubt it. It seemed like it was recently busted open. So someone wanted us to find this…" That… doesn't make sense. "Why would they want us to find this? What do they have to gain except scare tactics?"

That's true, they wouldn't have anything to gain. "What if it's not them…? What if someone else opened up the vault."

"Who comes to an abandoned town to open vaults?" She rolled her eyes. I mean, we just did technically. "Anyways, you said there were notes in here?" She took a glance inside. "Well then, that sounds like a problem for someone else." She walked away. "Fuck that."

I had the same sentiment, and followed her out. "Is that it for today?"

She glanced up at the sky, seeing that it was already evening now. "Yeah, I'd think so. We can talk tomorrow."

That was fine with me. I was starting to feel hungry already.

We made it back, and after eating, I hung out in my room until I fell asleep.

.

When I would wake up in the morning, I would have some overwhelming sense of dread, which I would normally feel if my power kicked in. In fact, maybe I felt that when I opened the window. Which is weird, since I don't think opening a window would change anything… I slowly glanced at the clock on my wall. I could see the seconds hand moving way slower than normal. Yup, my power was definitely active right now… The only problem was why. Was I… Was I about to die…? What could I do in a slowed down state? Might as well look around quickly to see I could spot anything.

I surveyed the room and eventually, my eyes stopped on a black bird. "What the…?" I mumbled to myself, seeing it. What the hell was it doing in my room? I glanced at the window I had left open. "Oh… right…" I slowly stood up, still in slow motion. However, once I did so, the bird was alerted of my presence. It grabbed some pieces of paper in it's mouth, which I quickly realized were the journal entries. "Hey!" I got off my bed. "Wait! Come back!" I tried to stop it, but it had already flown out of the window. I scratched my head. "That… can't be good." Historia was probably going to kill me.

.

"What!?" She yelled out, slamming her hands on the table.

Yup, just like I thought. "What am I supposed to do if a bird flies into my room and steals the papers?"

"Be quicker than that. You gave it all the time in the world to fly off." She scolded me.

"Alright there, mom." I said with anger in my voice.

Historia quickly stood up. "Well, staying here won't do us any good. We've gotta find out where it went."

I rolled my eyes. "That's going to be impossible. It's a bird, it can go anywhere."

"Then get Stephan, who can equally go anywhere." She suggested.

I shook my head. "I don't know where he is…" I trailed off. I did, but I didn't want him to go hunting for pieces of paper.
"Then let's go check out if the fourth paper is safe. Thank God I didn't give it to someone irresponsible like you." She said bitterly before leaving.

.

We rushed over to my Ultimate Lab, and we stopped outside. "Hey… Were you the last one out yesterday?"

"No… why?" Historia answered.

Then… "Why is the door slightly open…" I didn't do this… I would have closed the door. I'm getting nothing but bad vibes from all of this. What the hell… what the hell… I feared the worst and quickly opened the door.

But my fears were only confirmed.

.

Around the room, the first thing I spotted were the black feathers fluttering around the room. Some of the shelves were pushed onto the ground, with the books spread around everywhere. There were blood marks around the room, like on a book, and on the bookshelves. There seemed to be broken sticks around the area. Finally, the last thing that caught my attention was where the rope for the chandelier would normally be. It seemed to have snapped, and following the rings up the wall. The chandelier was no longer than. Following down the most logical path, the tip of it had been stabbed through someone's stomach. Blood spilling out into their clothes, and their arms resting on the side. Slowly scrolling up, the person was none other than Serena Darabond, the Ultimate Huntress.