How long have I spent here? I don't remember the exact answer. I should be keeping a journal of some sort… Heh, a journal huh…?

I stumbled out of my bed and into the hallway. The lights were still on, probably because it was dark outside. Why was I up now? Maybe it's because I needed to walk.

Once again, before I knew it, I found myself at my Ultimate Lab. Why did I keep coming here?

Especially after a murder just took place here? I shook my head and walked into the building. There was no point questioning anything… Like usual, the body was moved and everything was cleaned up.

Well, actually… I walked over to the back door. "There's still blood…" I mumbled to myself. There was some on the ground leading near the door. It was in a streak. "I guess he forgot to clean this. It's dry by now…" I walked over to one of the books, opening it. "Might as well take this back…" I took out the entry that was inside it. Serena was trying to find this? What use did she have for it? And how did she even come to know about its existence? Historia didn't tell her, right? Ah, whatever… I sat down at a desk, pulling out a book. I let out a small sigh. "Why am I going to do this at like three in the morning."

But hey, it always helped calm my nerves. I really should have just accepted the first talent they gave me.

For the next hour or so, I did nothing but equations to calm my mind. After a while, I closed the book, and headed off. I should be able to catch some sleep before I would wake up normally. On the way back, I saw someone else walking in the dark. Who the hell would be out this early in the morning. No… It couldn't be the mastermind… could it? I followed behind them. Luckily, they hadn't seen me.

They finally reached what happened to be the daycare and turned in. "Why are they…?" I mumbled as I followed them in.

The entire building was dark inside, and it honestly gave me a horror game vibe to it. I saw the person turn the corner and continued to follow them.

I was about to try and catch up to them, but they had stopped in the hallway. They seemed to be adjusting something on the wall. Then, they pulled out a marker, and started seemingly drawing something.

As I got closer, I realized who it was. "Caren…?"

She dropped the marker in surprise as she quickly looked over at me. "R-Riley? What are you doing here?" She frowned slightly, leaning down to pick up the marker.

"I could ask you the same thing." I approached her to see what she was doing. On the image, was what appeared to be a family.

"I miss them sometimes…" She mumbled sadly.

Oh… it was her family. "It's alright… you'll get to see them when we get out-"

Caren shook her head. "I already know we aren't going to escape. Every trial is a reminder of that. I'd be content just living here if no one else died. But it looks like Monokuma won't let that happen at all."

I looked at the ground. She was right, there didn't seem to be any chance… "But still, we can't just give up. We owe it to the people who died before us to stop the mastermind. To put an end to this. We should challenge Monokuma."

The babysitter shook her head. "He's just gonna decline it. He wouldn't risk himself like that."

I thought some more before I remembered something. "Then we just have to survive five days."

"Five… days?" She repeated.

I counted my fingers. "Four. Four days. Actually, it could still be five. Monokuma wasn't very specific." He had mentioned something about that. "He said he would stop hiding behind the stuffed bear in five days during the trial. So we just gotta survive that long to finally face the monster that's been doing this."

This got a small smile from her. "Four days, huh? Think you can survive that long?"

A determined smile appeared on my face. "Of course I can. I've gotten this far, after all."

"So have I. If you die, I won't forgive you." Caren said sincere at first, but then she added. "And I definitely won't forgive you if you murder someone."

"I'm not going to kill anyone." I reassured her. I don't know why she thought I would.

She glanced out the window. "Well, the birds are going to start chirping soon. I think I'm going to get some sleep before they keep me awake." And then she left me.

I was then reminded how much of a horror vibe this place had, so I quickly left.

It was a nice talk, and maybe one we both needed. Four days… Four days to end this. Was Monokuma really going to show his true self? Or was that just a lie to give us hope, just to have something bad happen to us. I glanced at my clock, before wrapping myself up in blankets. There was still so much we didn't know about this city. When we faced Monokuma, we would need to come fully prepared.

.

.

.

I awoke at around eight thirty, proving that waking up in the middle of the night fixes my sleeping schedule to see everyone else. And everyone was actually there, even Stephan, who normally disappeared to God knows where. "Morning." I greeted everyone.

"Oh, everyone is here." Lily pointed out.

"Finally time to ex-" Robin started to say, standing up.

The florist grabbed his arm and pulled him down ."No, we are going to have a nice breakfast all together for once!"

The tactician simply sat back down and did what he was told. "But I'm not hungry." He protested.

"You're never hungry." Stephan was leaning against the wall.

Lily stood up going after him. "Hey, you too! We need everyone for this." she grabbed onto his sleeve.

"No… I think I'm-"

.

We were all seated for breakfast, it only took like ten minutes to finally coax Stephan into joining us.

"Well, this isn't that bad…" Enima commented. "The only time we are normally all gathered together is when a motive is given, a murder happens, and during the trial."

"Yeah… I can't remember the last time we all just sat down and talked…" I mumbled. A few days ago, I just hung around in groups of two and one, after all.

Jack took a bite of his food. "I really don't mind this, but we should be exploring the new area, if there is any."

"I still have yet to find my Ultimate Lab." Robin pointed out.

"Or Enima, hers." Caren pointed out.

I glanced over at her, and she simply frowned at the mention of hers. I slid over to her. "Hey, I'm sure Monokuma would make a room for you anyways, even with the whole…" I stopped myself.

She took a bite of her food, a little angry. "Even if he did, it wouldn't be anything great."

"Hey, you don't know that for sure." She's right though, it would probably suck. Monokuma would probably make something to make fun of her.

Robin took a deep breath. "So the last part of the city we haven't explored yet, is the center of it. We've been to all four corners of the city, but the center of it remained unattainable. There's a huge tower in the center, so I'm willing to bet that should hold something good."

Historia nodded her head. "Yeah, I've seen that building several times while walking around. I wonder what its purpose is. Or if it's just a tourist attraction."

Jack shook his head. "Well, it's definitely not a tourist attraction, else I would have heard of it."

"Or maybe you simply don't know everything." Enima said with a smirk.

He glared at her. "Trust me when I say that. And quit pestering me."

"You looove it." She poked his cheeks.

"Not sure if his face was turning red from anger, or if he was blushing." I mumbled to Historia.

She glanced at me. "Both?"

I looked at the two before looking at the historian. "Both…" I agreed. "Yeah, both."

The rest of the breakfast continued on with these fun conversations before we were finally ready to leave. "Alright…" Robin said, stepping up. "Let's head out." And we were off.

Lily was humming to herself, looking at the scenery. "I wonder what kind of buildings we'll find."

"Probably a lot of apartments." Caren mumbled, looking at the gate as we approached.

"It's downtown, so it's likely we'll find more business, if anything." Stephan said as he walked through the gate.

I stopped to look at the huge building. Glancing at my own shadow, and then the shadow of the bu- Yeah, too big to actually do any calculations.

"Hey, maybe this is Monokuma's headquarters?" Robin suggested as he walked to the entrance.

Enima rolled her eyes. "That would be too convenient." She waved us off. "I'm going to go see what else is around."

Robin, Historia, and Stephan all headed into the building, while the others wandered off to explore the ground. I didn't want to go up there yet, so I decided to walk off to explore what was around this block.

I spent a good time walking around before spotting something. It looked like a police station. Good, I needed to find a place like this. I quickly made my way inside and stepped in. Only to be greeted by the sight of Lily wearing a cop uniform.

"You like what you are seeing?" She winked at me.

"No." I answered coldly.

She started pouting. "B-but Enima said it looked nice on me."

"I think she just said so you would stop bugging her." I deadpanned.

She frowned a little. "Aww…"

"I'm just saying your regular clothes fit you way better than some cop uniform." I informed her.

She saluted me. "Then I'll go change." And then she vanished behind the wall.

"Aww, but seeing her in a cop uniform was nice." Enima said, twirling around a gun in her hands. She pointed it at me and went. "Pew, pew!"

"H-hey! What if it's loaded?" I took a step back.

"Relax, it's not loaded." She looked at the gun for a few seconds. "Although, I never checked, so maybe it is." She tossed it to the side. "Either way, not sure if any of these guns work. They'd be too loud anyways."

Lily returned, wearing her regular clothes. "Anyways, this is a nice little place to explore." She winked. "It seems a little damaged."

I glanced over at the shattered windows. "Yeah… a little damaged…" I looked around and there were a lot of overturned desks. "You sure about that."

"Pfft, my room is messier." The florist dismissed it as she walked off.

That doesn't sound reassuring.

"Lily, I think people just break into your room in the middle of the night." Enima commented as she walked around. She picked up a document and opened it. It didn't seem to interest her since she just tossed it behind her.

"This place looks pretty ransacked…" I commented. "But based on the things I've read. It's only normal that the police station would be attacked."

"Well, at least it fits in with the aesthetic of the place" Enima said as she traced her hand on a scratched up desk.

"Huh… it being destroyed… doesn't really make it an aesthetic." I informed her.

Lily walked over to a wall of pictures. "Oh, look! People who worked here!"

I walked over to it and frowned. "I don't like the implications…" Some of the pictures had an X on them, while others were fine. It's almost like this was a hit list of sorts. They also seemed to be divided in two, with most of the people with an X falling under bad cops, and the ones who were fine failing under good cops. "What… Why were they all attacked like this?"

"I mean, they were bad cops, can't you read." The mysterious girl smirked.

I rolled my eyes. "Let's move on." It still gave me rather creepy vibes. "You know, I've always been curious…" I mumbled, looking around the area.

The florist glanced over at me. "What is it?"

"Well… why are there so little bodies around? If no one was allowed out of the city, wouldn't there be more bodies?" I asked.

Enima shrugged, opening a door to an office.

This place seemed to be fine, and when I walked into the room, I noticed that there was a picture of someone. It might be whose office this was. And they were on the good cop list. "Seems they were for sure only targeting the bad cops."

The mysterious girl took a look at the photo. "You know, he's kinda cute, I wouldn't mind being in bed with him." She commented.

"Hey, now's not the time to be horny." The florist put her hand on her hips.

Enima slowly tilted her head. "Look who's talking…"

I shook my head. "Anyways, like I said, the bad cops seemed to have been targeted."

"They shouldn't have been targeting anyone…" Lily mumbled, a little sadly.

That was true, but there could be a reason behind all of this. "This city has been giving nothing but bad vibes, including from the people seemingly incharge of everything." I walked over to the other side of the desk. "It wouldn't be out of the question that the citizens grew fed up with the way it was being run." But that doesn't exactly explain why all of this happened. From the journal, most people seemed to be content just ignoring the problems. How did it get so much traction? I walked back towards the door. "Well, I'm going to go look around some more."

Enima waved goodbye at me. "Well, I'll probably check out the huge center building in a few. So if you end up going there, I'll see you later."

I waved at her before leaving the building. The more I learn about this city, the worse it makes me feel. I need to hurry up and get the full picture in my head.

On the way to the next place, I stopped in front of a building. I don't know why, but it seemed to be calling to me.

I took a step towards it before stopping myself, shaking my head. "No, I wouldn't even be able to." The entire building was boarded up, and I definitely didn't have the strength to rip off the wooden planks. "Maybe another time…" I walked away, heading towards the next location of interest.

.

The next place I eventually walked over to was a prison. And standing in front of it, was Caren, who was looking at it. "What's wrong?" I approached her.

"I've got bad vibes about this place…" She mumbled as he started walking towards it. "Like

really bad vibes." She started making her way into the entrance.

The entrance of the prison was just as gloomy as the outside was. "God… I hate this atmosphere…" I looked around the entrance where you could normally talk to inmates if you were family or something like that.

Caren walked over to a door that seemed like it would be locked, but it wasn't. "Let's go ahead and look at the rest of the prison." She told me before proceeding.

The rest of the area had the same gloomy atmosphere. All the prison cells were empty, but they all seemed to be damaged the same amount.

"God… this place is horrible. Who can live in these tiny cells?" I wasn't even thinking about that.

But now that she brought it up, the cells seemed to all contain a bunk bed, but there wasn't really much room for two people. "The prison here is horrible."

We made it to the cafeteria portion of the prison, but the smell was awful. It didn't smell like dead people, but the food appeared to be rotten.

"Huh… It's strange that while exploring, we never happened upon any other food." Caren pointed out, blocking her nose. She walked over to the back of the area. "But I guess this food was just so horrible people would rather starve."

I poked my head into the kitchen and quickly retreated back. "I feel like that's how the food is normally."

The babysitter walked over to a different room. "Let's continue on, shall we?"

We walked for a while longer before we reached a rather secure looking door. "What do you think is behind this door?"

"Can't be anything good…" She mumbled as she opened the door. Once again, it wasn't locked.

The inside was rather dark, but we could still see that this is where prisoners would go if they misbehaved. Just dark cells where there was only room to sit down.

"God, why does a city like this need a shitty prison?" I mumbled.

Caren glanced around the place. "Normally, a place like this would be reserved for outside the city. Building one like this in the middle of the city isn't really a great idea…"

Then… we started seeing a light in the distance.

"Oh, looks like we reached another are-" Then she stopped when she turned the corner.

It wasn't a new area, instead, there was a giant hole in the wall.

"Why…" I started to say.

She stepped outside. "This doesn't lead to the courtyard… this leads straight outside."

I walked outside right after her. "What the hell…" Someone broke a hole into the side of the prison.

"Someone broke all these people out." Caren concluded. "While it's horrible living conditions… having so many people out there would be awful."

I was just reminded of the wall of pictures from the police station. And not just that, but the military had to have been called, right? "There were some other areas in the prison, should we check them out too?"

The babysitter stood looking outside, her hair being blown by the wind. Then, she turned around to look at us. "Yeah, let's go." She walked back into the prison with me.

It took us a bit, but we eventually got back to the main area. We went off to the area we hadn't gone. There wasn't too much, it was just a shower area, and the actual courtyard, but further beyond that, there was another dimly lit room. The only actual light seemed to be from an incinerator. There was an odd smell, but I quickly ignored it. "And… this…"

Caren approached it, staring at it for a second. "You know… someone could get rid of a body here…"

I blinked a few times. "What… do you mean?"

She closed the incinerator door. "You said it was odd that there weren't that many bodies around. Except the bank, really. What's stopping someone from just burning bodies." She looked back at the incinerator. "The door was left open, and it's been left on."

"I-I'm sure…" I started to mumble before realizing it would make the most sense. "Then… let's go… I don't want to be here anymore…" I turned around to leave.

The two of us left the prison, having not liked a single thing.

"Well, I will be heading off." Caren said, running her hand through her hair. "See you later." And then, she left to go explore elsewhere.

Well, I still wanted to check different areas, so I went walking around some more.

.

Eventually, I stumbled upon a building that looked rather familiar. But it shouldn't since I have never been to this area before. It looked like some sort of courtroom.

Upon entering the building though, I realized why this looked familiar.

"It's… It's…"

"The trial grounds?" Jack was leaning against a wall somewhere. "Yes, yes it is." He stood up straight and started walking towards the podiums. "Seems this is where we are taken everytime we do a trial." He smirked to himself. "Good to see that it's somewhere in the city."

I stood over at the podiums. The pictures were still there. "So does that mean we can just come here when there's a trial now…"

He walked over to where the elevator would normally be. "Perhaps we can."

Suddenly.

Bear.

"Yes, you could come here directly if the murder is nearby." Monokuma said.

I blinked a few times. "You say that like there will be one nearby, in this huge city."

He paused for a second. "Oh, forget about it!"

Jack walked around the place some more. "But a courtroom, huh. I wandered around a bit and noticed a police station and prison. Didn't enter them, but I noticed this one seems to be way more focused on law."

Right… I didn't even think of that.

"So…" He turned to look at Monokuma. "Tell me, why choose this as the final area? Are you trying to prove something here? This is the final area of this city, isn't it? I can't imagine another area opening up after the next trial."

"We should be avoiding another trial…" I mumbled.

Monokuma covered his mouth again. "Aww, why would you want to avoid that? I think it's destiny to have one more…"

…! "What do you mean it's destiny…" I bit my thumb.

He lifted up his hand. "Oh, just ignore me! I don't know what I'm talking about." He let out a laugh, and then he vanished.

Jack tapped his arm. "I don't know what he's scheming. But he seems to imply that there is no escape from what's happening."

"But he wouldn't be able to know what will happen." I told him.

He hummed in thought. "Maybe not, but maybe we are just that predictable."

I shook my head. "Maybe one person could be predictable, but there's no way all of us could be so."

The critic started to walk away. "If you say so, but we don't know who we are dealing with. He seems dead set on a date too."

"Well… not a date of the murder, just a date when he will stop hiding himself." I told him. "Or… is he only planning on doing that after we…" I shook my head. "Let's forget about it for now."

Jack looked at me for a few seconds before shrugging. "Very well, there's still other places to explore. I'm pretty curious about that huge building we saw. I was saving it for last. Care to accompany me?" He offered his hand.

I rejected the hand offer, but. "Yeah, I can go. That's where I was heading to next."

What could a building like that hold? I noticed we hadn't seen an Ultimate Lab yet, so maybe it's in that building? Or somewhere else. Either way, Robin still needed his.

It was a small walk towards it. It was in the dead center of the city, so it wasn't hard to reach at all. "This place makes me feel so small."

"Well, you are but a spec that doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things." Jack informed me.

"Thanks." I deadpanned.

He grinned to himself. "Anytime. Now, shall we head in?" He walked over to the doors.

Once we entered inside, we realized that it was really nice on the inside. "As I would expect, this place is rather well kept."

"Hmm…" I thought for a moment. A lot of buildings in the center have been in terrible condition, but this one is still in perfect condition… Odd… I walked over to Jack, who was looking at a map.

"Welcome to Paradise." He read the top part of the map. "This building has many floors it would seem…" He smirked to himself. "It says it has fifty floors."

While it's a lot, it's definitely not the most. Like the Burj Khalifa has 163 floors, and beyond further than that. It was the tallest building for two and a half decades until the Jeddah Tower was completed. Which has four more floors over that. "It's… big, I guess?"

A smirk appeared on his face. "You don't seem that impressed. But yeah, it's nothing compared to what we have now. I'm not surprised I haven't heard of this building." He walked over to an elevator.

The elevator took a while to actually get to the ground floor, but when it did, we were greeted with a rather large elevator. "Oh, nice." I mumbled as I stepped inside. The first thing I noticed was the huge panels of buttons on the wall, however. A lot of them were turned off

"That's… unfortunate." Jack commented with a frown.

The only floor that seemed to be available right now was the ground floor, the first floor, the second floor, the fourth floor, the twelfth floor, the fourteenth floor, the twenty-second floor, the thirty fifth floor, the thirty sixth floor, and finally, the forty seventh floor.

"Why are so many floors missing?" I asked, hovering over the buttons.

Jack stared at the buttons console for a few seconds. "I don't quite understand myself, but they seemed to have died out." He pressed the button for the second floor, and the elevator started. "This building may not be the tallest, but it's very wide, so each floor would be considerably large."

"Right…" I ran my hand through my hair. "It seems like this place could hold a lot of people."

The elevator soon stopped and the doors opened up. Inside, was what appeared to be an office area. We had entered what appeared to be a waiting room of sorts. "What is this place…?" I asked as I walked further into the room.

Jack stopped at a flyer on the wall. "This seems like a place to register something." He walked over to the map. "Ah, I'm right. Here's a small description for it." He looked at it a bit longer. "From the looks of it, to get into the place called Paradise, you must first get approval from a lot of good people… and…" He rubbed his head. "This sure is a process. It takes about three years to even be granted access. And only the elite can really go there. Or people who've earned the rights…"

I walked over to the map. "That's…"

"So for example, someone like myself would be given the right to come here, although someone like let's say Enima, or Caren, would not."

"What? Why not? What about me?" I asked quickly.

He looked at me for a few seconds. "There's a chance they would turn down even you. They would turn down Stephan, more than likely. The only person I could see them maybe accepting is Historia. They are looking for people with ample wealth."

Ample wealth? What a dick move… But… "So like you said, only the elite can come here."

He nodded. "Yes, precisely. And even then, being elite could still net you a lower residential area because you barely make the cut off."

I walked further down the room. "Should we explore the rest of the place?"

He shook his head. "No, I'm more interested in what lies further beyond this place. Let's head to the next floor." He headed back to the elevator and went up to the third floor.

The third floor, we were greeted by what looked like a lawyers office.

"Ah, this makes sense." Jack smirked to himself.

I glanced over at him. "How does it make sense?"

"This would make the most sense because they would have to deal with most of the paperwork that comes in from the lower floors. And it's possible lawyers who work here might also do work in the actual city. From my understanding, this entire place is supposed to be an attempt at having a population live in one building."

I shook my head. "That… That doesn't sound great. To be cramped up in here. It's only fifty floors."

He had his arms crossed. "Whether it's actually fifty floors remains to be seen. Because if my theory is right, there might have been more floors planned."

I couldn't imagine more floors, but then again, fifty isn't that many compared to taller buildings. "Anything you want to explore here?" I asked, but he walked past me.

Jack moved through the doors and started walking down a hallway. "I want an example of what people might consider elite here…" He walked into a lawyers room and started going through some papers. "It's great that they keep records of everything…" He was slightly disappointed. "No address to prove where we are… Or more so, the address is now simply marked as Paradise." He looked through some more. "I'm curious where I would be placed." He stopped upon reading a section. "E-even with that much… they are considered lower residences…" He put down the piece of paper. "Frankly, that's more than my family owns. So we would simply be lower citizens here."

"Fitting, right?" I snarked at him but he threw the papers at me.

"Very well, at least I would be granted access to this place. And who knows, in due time, I might even be able to work my way up higher." He said with a confident smirk.

"Keep dreaming, buddy." I said with a smirk on my face. We soon left the area and made it back to the elevator. "Where to next?"

Jack pressed a button. "To the twelfth floor." It took a bit to get there, so we spent most of the time in silence. "Oh?"

I glanced over at him. "What is it?"

He pointed at the area below the console. "Seems there are places for key cards. Two to be precise. "They are for Low, and Upper Low. See, there is definitely supposed to be way more floors than that, unless those only give access to the lower floors, and we need something else for the higher up floors."

I shook my head. "You are putting too much thought into this."

Soon, we arrived onto the next floor, and we were greeted with a farm of sorts. Or. more so just a large garden that stretched on and on. The plants seemed to be decently well kept, but that was more so because it probably became self-sustaining. "This looks… really lovely." I walked around the place. A few flies annoyed me, but still, it was a really nice place.

Jack glanced around. "I will give it this, it's an impressive garden, but there aren't any flowers here. Just food it seems. And that's not interesting to me."

"Well, this is probably where they get most of their food." I informed him. "It would make sense for a floor like this to exist."

The critic shook his head. "Well, I grow bored of this place." Heh, grow. While we're in a garden… I mean-

"Yeah, we should probably go to another floor." We headed back to the elevator and pressed the button for the fourteenth floor. We were greeted by what to be like a farm area for animals, but… without the animals.

"Next." Jack said without a second thought as we headed to the twenty second floor.

It dropped us off at what appeared to be an apartment style floor.

"Living in luxury, huh?" He snarked as he walked down the hallway. "And yet they are confined to living in such apartments. I bet they look awful too." He opened the door and froze when he saw the inside of it. "W-well…"

The inside of the house was amazing. "I… I would love to live here." I said in awe. Each apartment seemed to have an ample amount of space, and almost looked like a mini mansion. The only difference was that it was all one floor.

Jack quickly closed the door, growing ever so obvious of how small he himself was in this world. He coughed into his hand. "Let's move on shall we, we won't find anything useful in a place like this."

We entered the elevator and he hurriedly pressed the button for the twenty seventh floor.

When we got there, we seemed to be in a mall. "Ah, finally, somewhere different."

"And someone different." I said with a smile on my face.

Historia was just aimlessly walking around the area. I waved at her. When she spotted us, she started to walk over. "So that's where you guys are. This building is way bigger than I expected. What are they trying to do exactly?"

I looked at the area. "So this is a shopping district?"

"Seems so…" Jack said as he walked further into the place. "I think I'm going to explore here for a bit. Does everything still work?"

Historia simply shrugged. "I don't know, I didn't bother checking, really. Either way, I'm pretty much done here for the day. I'm going to explore another floor."

While going to the abandoned mall sounded like fun, somewhat, I decided I should probably go see where else we could go.

Heading into the elevator with Historia, I pressed the button for the thirty sixth floor. "So what were you doing at the mall?" I smirked at her.

She had her hand on her hip, not answering for a while. Finally, she let out a small sigh. "I like shopping, so to be able to roam around a mall just felt nice."

"Oh right, you're rich, you can probably buy a lot." Ah, to be rich.

Then, the elevator stopped and the door opened up.

"Again?" The historian asked, stepping out. We seemed to be in another bank.

I scratched my head. "Well, it's a rather large city, so there's bound to be more than one bank. Besides… This bank is probably specifically for residents of this building."

"Residents? You mean people actually live here?" She walked further into the place.

I nodded my head. "We found a residential area, and there were so many mini mansions disguised as apartments."

"They were probably like that to conserve space." Stephan called out, approaching us. "I checked the vault here, but it was a currency I couldn't recognize."

"What…?" Historia mumbled.

That… "Doesn't make sense. How can it not be a currency you recognize? You've used money right?!"

The ninja glared at me. "I still live in this country, of course I've used the money here. However… This isn't our currency. This is something else." He walked over to the vault.

Historia and I looked at each other before heading off towards the vault.

Once inside, we understood. Most of it was coins, but not coins we'd use. I walked over and picked up a few. "Paradise…" I mumbled looking at it. "There's no way this whole building had its own currency." But there's the chance it might. I walked over to a section which seemed to be dollar bills, and the same thing. Even more new bills.

"This is so weird…" The historian shook her head. "What were they trying to accomplish here?" She turned to look at me. "You, go explore the last part of the building that's available. Stephan and I will figure out all of this stuff."

"Honestly, I would prefer if Riley sta-" He started to say.

I was already in the elevator. If I was there, the only thing I would do is count up the money. Or trying to see if I can figure out the conversion rate… I pressed the button for the forty seventh floor and arrived at a floor that seemed rather smaller than the others. Then again, there was a small area that dented inwards from the outside. Maybe this is where I am. In the room, Robin was looking at a control panel. He heard me walking, so he turned to face me. "Oh, hello Riley." He smiled.

The room had a dark atmosphere to it, and it felt like I was just walking in to fight the final boss. "Find anything of interest here?"

He turned back towards the control panel. "This place is really cool. Seems it's a general thing to aid the whole building. Maintaining lights and such, but also…" He traced his hands in the air, which made a screen pop up. "I can also load up some battle simulations."

"Does that make it…" I started to ask.

He looked at me again, a smile on his face. "My lab? I think it might. Funny that I would have one on the top floor of the building."

"But there's still three more floors." I informed him.

Robin shook his head. "No, those are under construction. There's a notice somewhere in this building." He started playing around with the controls on the console. "Most of these don't really do anyt-" Then he started to slow down, but same as his words.

Wait… what? I reached over to stop him. "Wait… don-"

He flicked a switch and I felt my ear drums almost burst. I fell to the ground clutching my head as a loud piercing sound could be heard. I quickly glanced at Robin, who also fell down to the ground.

He was screaming in pain. "GgAh!" He cried out, clutching his head. "G-Gra- Grac-" Seems like he was trying to say something.

I started trying to crawl over to the console, but it's rather hard when your ears are in pain.

"I'm- I'm sorry!" He cried out, rolling on the ground.

Was he… remembering something…?

"I didn't mean to…" He stopped himself before letting out another scream. "P-please don-"

"R-Robin…" I called out, crawling towards him.

Someone then stepped over me, and when I looked up, I saw it was Enima. She was covering her ears, and seemed to be in pain, but once she reached the console, she raised her foot and axe kicked the center of it, destroying the top of it, but that was enough to make the ringing stop.

When it stopped, I was gasping for air, unaware that I was struggling to breath.

"God that was fucking annoying…" She said, starting to lift up Robin slowly.

When I looked over at him, I noticed he had passed out. "Do you need my help…?" I took a step over to him and almost stumbled down.

She shook her head. "Like I would need help from someone who can barely stand." She started making her way back to the elevator. "I'll be… fine…" She seemed to be struggling a bit.

I wanted to protest, but I just couldn't. There was no way I would be any help. If anything, she'd just have to carry both of us… I walked over to the edge of the room, and looked outside the window. This city really seemed so small from up here. I could see outside the city, and just knew… We had to be there soon.

I decided I should probably head back, my day was going fine until my ears almost exploded.

When I got in the elevator, it would stop on the floor with the bank. When the doors opened, Historia and Stephan entered the elevator.

"What was that noise?" Stephan asked me.

"Noise?" Historia tilted her head.

I shook my head. "Robin just activated something he shouldn't have. We're fine… Well, at least I'm fine. I'm not sure about Robin… But…"

Soon, I made it back to the hotel and plopped down on a chair.

"Huh? What's wrong with you?" Lily walked over to me, probably feeling a bad energy from me.

"Well, we explored a building, and my ear drums almost burst, so… you tell me." I looked up at her.

She looked at me for a second before giving me a hug. "Aww, it will all get better."

I slowly turned my head to look at her. "Hey, how do you keep your optimism all the time?"

She looked slightly taken aback by the question but smiled after a second. "Oh, but smiling is just so much better, isn't it? I can't act sad forever. I won't let the world beat me down, no matter how hard it tries, in the end, my smile will beat the world."

Well, she did have a warm smile that just gave you the feeling that you would be safe. "Well, I feel better already."

"Yay!" Lily cheered. She took a seat next to me. "Well, I'm hoping we can do something about Monokuma soon… How was the large building, besides the problem you ran into?"

I hummed in thought. "It was some kind of paradise."

She let out a cute sound. "I want to go to paradise."

I rolled my eyes. "Monokuma probably watches over that too, and anything he gets his hands on can't possibly be paradise."

"O-oh…" Lily mumbled with a sad tone. "But… what did it look like?"

I thought for a few seconds. "Well, there were a variety of different floors that had different things. One was just full of lawyer offices, there was one that was a bank, another one was a farm, a garden."

"Garden you say?" She leaned in closer.

I shook my head. "Not of flowers, but of vegetables."

"Oh phooey!" Lily frowned slightly. "I don't really grow many vegetables." Well, she was a florist after all.

"But you still can, right?" I asked.

She nodded. "Of course I still can, just not my preference."

"Do you go to your garden here much?" I leaned my head on my arm.

"I…" She stopped herself, a small frown forming on her face. "No… not since the incident… I don't like going there." Seeing her sad just made me sad.

"Hey…" I turned my body to face her completely. "What happened to that smile?"

She frowned for a little more before finally smiling. "Here it is! Sometimes, you still gotta be sad, because you'll never truly be happy if that's all you are."

There was some truth to what she said, but her phrasing seemed a little off. "Yeah, how can you know happiness without any sadness?" There, I phrased it better.

"Oh, did I mess up how to say it? You said it way better." Lily covered her mouth slightly.

I shook my head. "Both are acceptable ways to say it." I finished my food and stood up. "Anyways, I'm going to head to my room, if that's fine with you."

She looked up at me. "Yeah, that's fine. Are you going for another nap?"

"I… Don't need a reminder that I sleep a lot." I said as I walked away towards the stairs.

A lot of things were on my mind. Just what did this new area of the city mean? What happened with the prison and police station. And most importantly, what the hell was this paradise place? And why haven't I heard anything about it before in my life?

When I dropped down on my bed, I realized I must have been way more tired than I normally was, because I passed out and didn't wake up till the next day…

.

When I woke up, it was with a small jump, like I had just witnessed a nightmare. But I don't remember seeing anything. Either way, I felt fully awake right now. It wasn't night time, as I could see the sun starting to rise now. I slowly got myself out of bed and headed for my door.

Once in the hallway, I was going to head down to eat, but realised I wanted to do one more thing before that. I found the stairs and went to the next floor, heading towards someone's room.

The door seemed to be slightly ajar. When I opened it, I saw Robin lying on his bed, still passed out. Next to it, was Stephan, who had his arms crossed.

Upon hearing me enter the room, he turned to look at me. "So you were with him? Did he do anything?"

I walked further into the room, before taking a chair to sit. "Well, he started screaming something, then he apologized, and said please don't…"

The ninja hummed in thought. "It's possible that he got a memory back or something… But to knock him out while you are perfectly fine…"

Well, I don't feel perfectly fine, but I didn't need to tell him that. "Does he have a fever?"

"He seems fine…" Stephan replied. "He might just need time to recover. He should be fine by the end of the day."

"If you say so…" I looked over at him. "Did you ever figure out the currency?"

He shook his head. "I've never heard about it, so I'm not sure how old it is. Although, that's a lie. They seemed to be dated nine years back…"

"That's almost a decade ago. No way we've lost nine years of memory." I looked down at myself. "My body still has time to develop a little more, right?"

"I'm going to choose to ignore that question." The ninja said wisely. "But to be honest, at most, I feel four years older than the last time I remember.

"Well… if the last thing we remember is being fifteen, are you saying we are all nineteen?" I remember Monokuma mentioning something like that. "Nineteen…" I said sadly. "Four years of my life… just gone. Without a single trace of them." I felt like I was going to cry, but shook my head. "Well, that's fine. That just means I have to survive and make the most of my life."

Stephan stood up from the bed, walking towards the door. "Well, even with four years gone, that's only a fraction of your life, so make the most of it, alright?" And then he was gone, but without any ninja maneuvers. He just walked out the door.

I let out a small sigh before walking out of the room.

When I headed downstairs, everyone else but Robin and Stephan were there. Which means Jack was outnumbered by girls.

"Well, most of everyone is here." The critic said with a smirk. "I'm thinking of going back to the huge building, who's with me?"

Historia simply shrugged. "We already explored all the floors."

Lily put her hands on her hip, pouting. "Hey, I haven't seen any of it."

"The one floor I did see was nothing to write home about." Enima rolled her eyes.

Jack looked a little defeated. "But there's some keycard scanners on the elevator, so I was thinking if we could find them…"

This seems like a losing fight.

"Like I said, I want to see all the floors!" Lily said with a smile on her face. "What about you?" She turned to look at Caren.

She moved some hair out of her face. "I think I'm good for now…"

"Then it's settled!" Jack leaned his head back. "Us three will go and explore Paradise."

"Wait… I never agreed." I knew he was talking about me.

"Please, you are required to come with me." He crossed his arms, looking away. What? Am I the person he trusts the most?

"Fine." I stood up. Jack is really good at preventing me from eating. He does it almost every day.

"Adventure awaits us." The critic said as he walked towards the entrance.

"Alright, nerd." I said to him as I followed him.

.

We finally made it back to Paradise. "So where are you planning on looking first?" I looked at him.

He shrugged. "I don't know, but the registration floor is probably a good start. There's no doubt that they were the ones giving out keycards. With a lower member keycard, you should be able to access the first twenty five floors. And with the upper lower member keycard, the rest of them."

"Oh, I'm really good at finding stuff!" Lily announced as we all entered the elevator. "Just leave it to me." She smirked to herself.

"If you say so." The critic nodded his head.

We took the elevator to the second floor and when it opened, we all dispersed to go in our own direction.

I was reminded just how large this building actually was. Within minutes, I was lost already. This place was almost like a maze of office buildings. How many registration places did you need? I looked over at the signs and somewhat understood why. "Why are there so many different registration places…?" They seemed to be all the different levels, but only two of them actually existed... I slipped into the lower registration area and went looking around.

"There we go." I smiled as I pulled out what appeared to be a keycard. There were a variety of other ones too, so I grabbed a bunch of them.

After a few more minutes, I made my way back to the elevator, and awaited the others.

After a while longer, Jack came back, holding his own keycards. "I could only find some for the Upper Lower area."

"That's fine, I've got the Lower area covered." I informed him.

He adjusted his glasses. "Now, where is Lily?"

She came back holding some sunglasses. "I couldn't find any keycard, but I found these sweet shades."

The critic placed his fingers on the bridge of his nose. "I thought you said you were good at finding stuff."

"I never specifically said what I was good at finding." She took off the sunglasses.

At this point, I was confident that she was only able to find articles of clothing.

"Whatever…" Jack said as he went to the elevator. "We are going to try out the two cards. Let's start with the Lower keycard.

When I tried it out, it gave me access to floor 4-25. The only exception was that floor seventeen was still off limits. Also, all the ones that were previously already accessible remained so. "Odd that seventeen can't be accessed…"

Jack rolled his eyes. "Well, my card probably leads to it." He placed his card in there. But no… Seventeen was still off limits. However, floor 26-46 were now available, as well as some floors from the lower level.

"Interesting, while the Upper Lower level can still access some of the Lower levels, some of the others are blocked off." He said.

That was rather interesting… "I thought having the Upper Lower one would give access to all the floors."

"Seems there's no definitive card here…" Jack mumbled, before removing his card. "Then let's go to the third floor." He placed the Lower keycard into the reader and pressed the button for the third floor.

As we waited for the elevator, I turned to look at him. "How many cards did you nab?"

"Only four… I was hoping that we could get one for everyone, but four will have to do." He shook his head.

"Oh… Well…" I pulled out four more. "I only got five, so we could technically give one to each, they'd just be given different ones. And then one person would have both."

Lily looked back and forth. "Dibs on the Upper Lower floor." She smirked to herself as she stole one of Jack's cards.

He didn't seem to care about her stealing. "Then I will have one of each, I trust myself more with both of them than any other person."

"Ass." I commented as I placed the cards back in my pocket.

"And since you found the Lower ones, you can have one of those…" He said with a smirk.

Lily looked back and forth at us before stepping out of the elevator. I noticed we were on the floor but I didn't want to get stuck with a lower card.

"What do you mean, I'm very trustworthy with an Upper Lower card." I yelled at him.

Jack shook his head. "It's not about being trustworthy, it's about your standing in society. Either way, you hang out with Historia a lot, and she's getting the better card."

I ran my hand through my hair. "But…"

The critic turned to leave the room. "No buts…" He walked out of the elevator. "Hmm… A courtroom?"

I poked my head out. "Isn't there already one in this district of the city?"

He shrugged. "I guess if they want to cut themselves off from the world, then they would need their own court system."

Lily wandered around the place. "You found another courtroom?"

Jack nodded his head. "Actually, it's where the trial grounds are."

She turned to look at him. "Wait, you found out where the elevator actually brought us. How much did you explore?"

I shook my head. "There didn't seem to be much, so it wasn't worth the effort."

She pouted slightly. "Boring, you should have looked for a hidden door. There's always a hidden door."

"Pretty sure there isn't…" I ruffled her hair as I walked away.

The floor itself seemed to have over twenty different courtrooms, as well as other rooms for waiting and such. There were probably more, but I didn't feel like walking too far in. "To think they need this many courtrooms…"

Jack crossed his arms, walking back towards the elevator. "How many people did they think of having there be in the building?" That's a good question…

When we entered the elevator, the critic instead pressed the button for the first floor.

"W-what are you doing?" I asked him.

"Please, even I know this is a lot of floors, if we want to find anything worthwhile, then we need to get everyone else with us." He told me.

"Sounds fine to me." Lily smiled. "Fifty floors is a lot to explore."

We finally reached the bottom floor. "Well, Robin might still be out of commission…"

"How long can one man be passed out for…" He rolled his eyes. "Seven people will still do, however. So we'll be fine anyways."

We made our way back to the hotel in no time at all.

"We're going on a field trip to paradise!" Lily announced as soon as she entered the room only to see that no one was in the cafeteria. "Well, that's embarrassing…" She mumbled.

"It's only one in the afternoon. Not many people eat around this time." Jack said, walking over to the table.

This is when I eat, asshole. "Y-yeah, who would ever eat at this time."

"So…" The critic looked at the two of us. "We should probably do this exploration thing in a few hours."

I nodded my head. "Then I will go tell everyone about it."

Lily raised up her hand. "Oh, so will I!" She said with a smile before heading off.

Jack stood up. "I guess I can do the same thing. I've got some keycards to deliver too." He looked at me. "And you deliver yours to those less fortunate."

Alright, punk. I walked off. "Where am I even going to find them…?" I turned to look at Lily. "Hey, where does Caren normally hang around?" I knew she might have a clue.

She shook her head with a small frown. "We haven't been talking that much since the trial, so I don't know too much. She seems way more distant than before."

"Oh…" Well… maybe there was one place I knew where she might be…

I headed off towards the daycare. I saw her there the other night, so it's possible that she's stopped by it again.

When I entered the building, I saw her organizing some toys. "Hey, Caren."

She looked up at me with a frown. "Any reason you are here?"

Wow, really not in a friendly mood right now, huh. "The rest of the group is going to explore the large building in the center of the city." I took out a keycard and gave it to her. "This is to access the Lower area of the building. Everyone is getting a keycard, so this is yours."

She took it and looked at it for a few seconds. "I'm… I'm not sure if I'm going to go…"

I frowned slightly. "That's… fine. I just wanted to invite you, that's all." I turned around to walk away before letting out a sigh. "Please, just talk to us if something is wrong."

"You can go now…" She told me.

Then I just left, she definitely wasn't in the mood to be talking right now.

He said he would give Historia one of his cards, so…

Well, might as well find Stephan. And of course, there was only one place I could think of that he was.

When I got to the dojo, the door was open, so he was definitely here. I took a deep breath. I needed to complete this parkour course at least once.

I took another deep breath and started running up it. As normal, the start of it was pretty easy, and the middle section had gotten easier from all the times I had to run it.

The ending was still as difficult as ever. I went to jump, but time slowed down so I stopped myself. Alright… That probably would have killed me. I took another deep breath, and a few steps back before running. Time slowed down again, but I managed to still land on the next platform. I repeated the process until I finally made it to the top. I pushed open the panel, to prove myself right.

Stephan was looking at me, a surprised look on his face. "How did you…?"

"Well, it was simple." Then I feel down from exhaustion. I rolled onto my back. "Alright, maybe not that simple…" I sighed. "How do you do this on a daily basis?" I tilted my head over so I could look at him.

The ninja stood up. "You didn't have to come barging in here to ruin my meditation." He let out a small sigh. "What business do you have with me?"

I pulled out a keycard from my pocket before chucking it at him, but it only went two feet before falling. Maybe I shouldn't be lying down for that. I quickly stood up, dusting myself off. "Oh, you know, we just found stuff to access the rest of the floors of the building. So Jack and I are distributing them to everyone."

He picked it up to read it. "Interesting. Did you explore the floors?"

I shook my head, taking another deep breath. "No, we're all going to go together to do that."

He put the card away in his clothes. "Very well, I guess I should go and get ready." He walked over to the trapdoor, and just dropped down to the ground, only stopping because of the hook.

"W-what about me?" I cried out.

He looked up at me. "You got yourself up! You can get yourself down!"

Why is everyone being mean nowadays…

Although surprisingly, the way down was much easier, since I could just drop down more levels without worrying about falling down and breaking my legs.

"One more…" I mumbled as I made my way further into the city.

I didn't find another person until I saw Enima just walking around. "Oh, hey!" I greeted.

She glanced over at me, making her way over here. "What's up?"

I took out the last keycard I had to give out. "Here, we are going to be exploring the large building."

She looked at the keycard before grabbing it. "Oh, that large thing?" She frowned slightly. "Doesn't seem very interesting to me. And Paradise? What a terrible name."

Oh, that's right, she stopped by to help Robin out. "Oh, well everyone will be there, so you should come with us anyways."

She put the keycard away in her shirt. "Fine, I wouldn't want to be left out of the group after all."

Alright, I gave away all the keycards. Now, to go back to the hotel and grab some food.

When I finally got back, I was greeted by Jack.

"Alright, we're of-"

"Fuck you, let me eat." I walked past him.

He seemed to be caught off guard, but tried to get his composure back. "O-of course, what I was going to say was we are off to go after we eat."

Yeah, sure.

.

.

.

Finally, everyone who hadn't eaten, had now eaten. And we were off to the building. "So how do we want to divide this?" Enima asked, tiling her head.

Jack hummed in thought. "I'm not quite sure, but you can figure that all out yourselves."

Stephan looked around the group. "I'm guessing Robin is still out of it."

The critic nodded his head. "I went to check on him a while ago, and he was still out."

Lily frowned slightly. "Hopefully he will be better soon…"

"No point in worrying about anything." Caren said, walking ahead of the group. She had decided to come along anyway. "We're just going to quickly explore all the floors and tell everyone the intel we found."

Once we made it to the building, we used the Lower floor card and I made my way to the fourth floor. I'm not sure where everyone else was going, but hey, I might as well get off now.

The fourth floor seemed to have a huge arcade. I mean, massive.

I saw different arcade machines stretch out for a long time. There were even some actual consoles you could play on. When I tried turning one on, there didn't seem to be any power. "Oh…" I said sadly as I continued on. But wow… to afford all of these, and even to have enough power. This would have to cost thousands of dollars, right? Even more.

I went around trying all the various arcades, but still. None of them would even turn on. "This is a waste…" I mumbled to myself as I went back to the elevator. I didn't quite know where everyone else was, so I took a random guess and pressed floor thirteen.

When I finally got there, and the elevator doors opened, I was greeted by a rather creepy atmosphere. There was even fog inside the building. Why was there fog inside the building?

Stepping further inside, I finally understood why. This place seemed to be a cemetery of sorts. Guess they even had their own version of this here. It was very odd, but I couldn't exactly comment on it at all.

"Oh, I was already looking around this place." Caren said, walking up behind me.

I almost let out a scream before turning to look at her. "O-Oh, well, it's hard to tell where people have been, so I came here because of the number." Thirteen, yeah.

The babysitter kept walking. "I'm just looking around if I can spot any graves that… you know…" She kept walking around.

"I… doubt anyone would be buried here, that we know of." I told her.

"You never know." She replied walking a little more.

We walked around in silence for a bit before she spoke up again.

"Aren't you going to go to a different floor? I already got this one." Caren sounded slightly rude.

"W-well… I want to see if we do too…" I mumbled.

She stopped walking. "O-oh, well, we probably won't find any-" She stopped walking upon reaching a set of eight graves.

"What's… Oh…" I stopped walking too. Yeah, we found them. "Is this some kind of twisted joke?" The graves for Volvo, Marcus, Bella, Josef, Daniella, Jean, Serena, and Cameron were all here.

"Well, I found what I was looking for, so I'm off." Caren turned to walk away. "You should probably too, there isn't anything else of worth here."

I watched her walk off for a bit before deciding to join her back to the elevator. "The more time we spend here, the more I remember how many people we've lost."

"You learn to just ignore it…" She said as the elevator door closed. "What floor are you heading to?"

"I'll just go to the fifteenth floor…" I pressed the button. "What about you?"

Caren pondered the question for a bit before answering. "Probably the sixteenth…" She pressed that button.

When the elevator got to my floor, I waved her off and went to explore a little.

The next floor seemed to be a park of sorts, but not a playground. Like a full grown nature park. The trees were lovely and all, but it made me question how a building could support all of this. But then again, it was also believable because we had made great strides over the years with technology. As I walked around, I heard birds chirping, but didn't actually see any. I didn't see any animals either, for that matter. But I still heard the ambient noise. So while it almost looked like a real park, it was still pretty much artificial. "This is no place to live…" I mumbled. This building might be called Paradise, but it just felt like empty promises. "Alright, next floor." I mumbled as I headed back to the elevator. I didn't want to follow Caren, so the next floor I could go to was the eighteenth floor.

When the doors opened, I was greeted by a very different atmosphere. There were bright colours everywhere I looked.

"What the hell is all of this?" I asked, stepping out of the elevator.

"Welcome… to the fun zone!" Stephan said, in a dramatic voice. He wasn't wearing his ninja attire, but instead, his pink shirt.

I looked at him for a few seconds. "What… what are you doing?"

He blinked a few times before rubbing the back of his head. "I don't really know…"

"This whole place is too colourful…" I mumbled, covering my eyes.

"Yeah, that's why I wore this one." He had a grin on his face.

I gave him a deadpan look. "Does your personality just switch based on what you're wearing?"

"Well you know…" He grew a little more serious. "Because I wore this outfit whenever I had to have a super friendly personality, it got to the point where just wearing it made me act like this…" He glanced over at me. "So yeah, probably!" He smiled.

So annoying at times… I sighed. "Well, might as well look at this stupid fun zone…"

We walked for a bit before I spoke up again. "I would hate to be trapped in an area like this…" I mumbled as I kept walking.

Stephan took a few steps forward. "Oh, why not, all the fun you could ever want."

I shook my head in slight amusement. "I don't think it's all that gre-" Time started to slow down and I had a concerned look on my face. "Ste-" I started to say before I fell down through the floor. I knew something was going to happen, but this?

I landed in a dark room, lit only by something light blue. I heard some running, which I assumed was Stephan.

"Are you OK?" He called from above.

"Y-yeah…" I mumbled, slowly getting up, almost stumbling down. "What the hell…" I looked around the room. There seemed to be monitors everywhere. "Where the hell am I?" I got up and walked over to them, limping a little bit. "Wait… what…?"

On the screen was camera footage of the entire city. "This isn't what I think it is… right?"

Stephan dropped down into the hole. "Is this the seventeenth floor…? I thought it was unavailable with our cards…"

"It's unavailable with both cards…" I informed him. I walked over to the monitor screen. It showcased what the others were doing. Caren was at what appeared to be a gym, she was inspecting a broken window, it seems. Enima was on a floor that looked like a church. Historia was on a floor that showed a museum, Jack was in some military-like room, and Lily looked like she was in a spa. Robin was also shown still in his room.

"It's monitoring all of us…" I mumbled.

Stephan had switched his shirt around and was now in his ninja attire. "Not just that… It's auto following them."

It showed Lily walking off screen and the camera changing automatically.

"What about us…?" I looked over at two screens that showed the hole we fell down.

"Doesn't seem to have noticed we fell down." Stephan said, stepping away from the monitor. "I don't like this place. We should leave."

"But think of-" I started to say.

He grabbed my arm. "We are leaving, I don't want to be here."

I didn't really have much of a choice.

We walked over to the hole I made. The ninja picked me up bridal style and managed to use some of the broken flooring to get back up onto the floor above.

"A jump like that is easy…" Stephan said, looking back into the hole. "I'm not going down there again, and I don't advise you to do it either. We don't want to piss off Monokuma."

Speaking of which, he hadn't said anything while we went down there. Odd…

The ninja started heading towards the elevator. "Let's just go to another floor." When we got into the elevator, we were going to go explore some more when we heard the familiar sound.

.

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

.

The screen on the elevator lit up to reveal Monokuma's face. "Ahem, ahem!" He coughed. "I would like you all to meet at the lobby for an emergency meeting! And make it quick!" He yelled out. And then the screen turned off.

"Somehow… I think we still pissed him off…" I mumbled, glancing the other way.

Stephan crossed his arms. "We didn't do much snooping and we left immediately. He can't do anything to us."

The elevator door opened to let Caren inside. "Oh, you two are already here?" She looked at the two of us.

"How was the gym?" I asked with a smile.

She glanced back before the doors closed, from there, it didn't really seem like much of a gym. "Did you already explore this one?"

I shook my head. "Just seemed like a gym,"

Stephan rolled his eyes. We soon made it to the ground floor and got out.

Like predicted, we were the only ones there for now.

Caren started to walk off. "Well, I'm going to be at the hotel."

I looked over at her. "You aren't going to wait for everyone else? You are just going to have to wait there anyways if you get there early."

She just kept walking. "I'm fine with that."

I frowned slightly, looking over at Stephan, who simply shrugged.

After like two minutes, the elevator door opened again, with everyone else on it.

"What does he want now?" Jack had his arms crossed annoyed. "I don't have time to go entertain him." Seems like he might have found something important, I would have to go ask him about it later.

We all started making our way towards the hotel. And I started to wish we had a bus or something.

Soon, we eventually made it back. Caren was sitting down on one of the chairs in the lobby, and Monokuma was looking pissed.

"What took you so long!" He blurted out.

"It's a huge ass building, with one elevator. What do you want from us?" Enima replied, annoyed.

"Well some of you just stood around waiting." The bear looked at Stephan and I.

"Well I thought it would be nice if we waited for the others." I stuck my tongue out at him.

"Oh well." Monokuma didn't seem to care anymore. "Now, it's the time you've all been waiting for!"

"You're letting us go?" Enima asked with a smile.

We all glanced at her.

"What? Someone has to cover for Robin." She deadpanned.

"Anyways!" Monokuma yelled out. "It's motive time!"

What? "But it's only been two days since the last murder!" I yelled out.

He covered his mouth to laugh. "But now is the perfect time! But first, a friendly warning from me!"

"Here it is…" Stephan mumbled, rolling his eyes.

"Please don't go anywhere where you aren't supposed to go." His right eye gleamed red. "But enough about that, now, let's get onto the fun part of this. The motive!"

"You already said that…" Enima mumbled.

Monokuma glared at her. "I'd prefer Robin at this rate! Alrighty, well, I just thought you should know not to trust someone in your group."

"Yeah, you." Caren mumbled, annoyed.

Wow, we were doing a great job at ticking him off. "I meant… one of you works for me… Or works with me…" He covered his mouth to laugh again.

I blinked a few times. "W-what…?" I then laughed nervously. No way that he was telling the truth there. "Yeah right."

"No, it's true!" Monokuma reaffirmed. "It's not going to be who you think it is."

Jack approached the bear. "Oh? And that's all you are going to tell us? I don't think that's much of a motive."

"Oh? You think so…? Or maybe… it's to finally get them to act." Monokuma covered his mouth again. "Either way, what are you going to do if this person working with me… is actually the one controlling me?"

"What do you mean?" Caren stood up.

"Now I've got your interest." The bear said. "I'm saying, there's a slight chance that one of the remaining eight people is actually the person who put you all here in the first place."

Enima shook her head. "I highly doubt that."

Monokuma paused again. Seems like we weren't going to let him give us another motive. "Very well…" He then vanished.

"He seemed… very mad…" Lily mumbled.

Enima rolled her eyes. "It's going to be fine. We've survived till now, and we will continue to." She turned around to leave. "Well, I'm heading to bed." She walked off towards the stairs. On the way up, she passed by someone.

Robin was up again! "Why is everyone here? Did I miss something?"

"Just the motive." Historia informed him.

He let out a small yawn. "Oh man, I missed the best part? What was it this time?"

"That one of us was working for Monokuma." Caren said, frowning slightly. "Which doesn't seem believable at all."

The tactician covered his mouth for a second, thinking. "Nope, doesn't sound believable to me either. So I guess we just don't have to worry about it at all." He smiled looking at everyone else. "How much time has passed since I passed out."

"A full day." Jack said, walking over to him. "The only thing you've missed was us exploring the large building some more."

"Large building…" He mumbled to himself, clutching his head. "Right… the room I went to did this…" He sat down on the chair. "It still hurts my head, but that might be because I've been lying in bed for an entire day."

Stephan walked over to him. "Everything will be fine…"

"Do you think he's going to give up because of the rejected motive?" Robin looked into his eyes.

The ninja didn't really know what to say.

"Of course not." Caren said, standing up. "He's going to come back harder than ever, until we kill someone. And I'm going to make sure that doesn't happen."

"How do you intend on doing that?" Historia had a hand on her hip.

"I…" She looked at the ground. "Don't know… But I will think of something. Besides, we still didn't explore every floor, right?"

"Honestly, I don't feel like doing much more exploring there for now…" I admitted. "Besides, let's let Robin recover a little more."

"Oh… speaking of which." He pulled out a keycard he had. "Was this given to me?"

"I left it in your room earlier, it's to access the higher floors." Jack told him.

He looked at the card for a few seconds. "But it says Upper Lower…" He noted.

I quickly shook my head. "Look, I know it doesn't make sense, but there were probably supposed to be more floors than the fifty that are there."

Lily stretched her arms a little. "Actually, girls, I have a request for you."

"And what about us guy-" Jack started to ask.

"Leave." She said bluntly.

The critic pondered this before turning around and leaving. "Very well, but I won't forget being excluded once again." He and the other two guys left.

"What's up?" I looked at the florist.

"So, I found a spa!" She said, her eyes gleaming. "And a sauna. And a pool! The upper floors are really neat. And the spas still worked."

Now I was even more disappointed that the arcade didn't work.

"So I was thinking of a girl spa day." She winked at us.

"I would be down for it." Historia said, trying to hide how excited she really was at the idea.

"I wouldn't mind it either." I smiled at her.

Caren, on the other hand, leaned her head back. "I don't think we should be doing any of that, it's kinda a waste of time."

"No." Lily walked up to her, a little angry. "You have got to stop saying stuff like that is wasting time. We need a day to just cool down, and we won't let anyone get in the way. So you are coming with us, whether you like it, or not!" Then she turned around and walked away.

Historia glanced between the two. "Have they always been like this?"

"I don't think so…" I mumbled.

The historian looked up at me. "Well, I better go tell Enima, since it's going to be a girl spa day, I'm sure she would love to join."

Well… she didn't exactly strike me as the most… girlish. She had a more tomboy vibe to her. But who knows, maybe she would like to do a spa day.

As for me, I was starting to feel rather tired, so I went off to go to bed. It had been a long day, and honestly, I really needed to rest on this information.

.

The next day, I woke up at around ten in the morning. I let out a small yawn, and got ready for the day. Downstairs, the only people there were the girls, so they probably had kicked out the guys. I took a seat at the table. "So, Enima, are you gonna join us?"

She looked at me with a deadpan look. "What, you think I'd go and do a spa day?" There was a long moment of silence before she smiled. "Of course I will, why would I turn it down?"

I guess I was worried for nothing. "Then what time should we go?" I tilted my head slightly.

Lily hummed in thought, tapping her cheek. "Let's say… Around one? Gives us enough time to eat and wake up."

"Sounds good to me." I smiled as I left to get some food. Today seemed like it was going to be a decent day… But then I frowned slightly… How was Monokuma going to ruin this day…?

.

Before I knew it, the time to go to the spa had rolled around. All five of us set off to head over there.

I was surprised Caren was coming with us, but she mostly stood near the back of the group, and didn't really join in any of the conversations.

After a long walk, we finally reached Paradise.

Once in the elevator, Lily wiped out her keycard and scanned it. Then she pressed the button for floor thirty.

It was a long elevator ride. "I know this will be so much fun. There isn't anyone to treat us, so I can do it instead."

"What about yourself?" Historia asked her.

She tapped her cheek for a few seconds. "You know, I never really thought who'd do it for me."

"I can…" Caren mumbled from the corner of the elevator.

"Yay!" The florist cheered. "Then see, everything is taken care of!"

The elevator finally stopped, and the doors opened up to reveal a very large spa resort. There even appeared to be several hot tubs. But, from what I saw from the camera footage, it matched up. So she was here when I saw her.

"What to start with first?" Lily hummed to herself walking out.

"Honestly, I wouldn't mind just soaking in the hot tub." Historia mumbled.

The florist shook her head. "No, that's too boring!"

"Acupuncture?" Enima suggested.

This caught Lily off guard. "B-but I can't do that."

This caused her to frown. "You said you would treat us."

I laughed a little. "I don't think she can do that, though."

"I can do facials for everyone." Lily suggested.

Historia took a seat. "That works too."

Caren played around with her face. "Yeah, I would like that too."

"Then it's settled! That, I can do." The florist smiled.

"But can't do acupuncture…" Enima mumbled sadly.

.

We had all placed ourselves on our back while Lily worked on us. I'm not sure what kind of cream she had used, but I didn't really care, as long as it would make my skin better.

"You know, lying down here for a while is going to get boring eventually." Enima mumbled.

None of us wanted to move yet because we didn't want to mess anything up.

Historia sighed. "Yeah, but sometimes it's best to just relax. I've been doing nothing but stressing since I got here."

"How is that a bad thing?" Caren asked her. "I've been doing the same thing, and I don't see a problem with it. Being in the city is stressful."

"Yeah, but I don't want to be stressed all the time, that's what you don't get." She said with a rude tone. "I want to be able to just smile, so something like this, while isn't a full solution to our problems, at least should increase our mood."

This got the babysitter to stop talking.

"Hey…" Historia hummed. "So how are any of us going to do this for Lily if we have all of this over our faces?"

The florist froze for a second. "Oh, then I guess I'll miss out on this part." She hummed in thought. "We should do massages next, and maybe finally finish with the hot tub.

.

After what felt like forever, we could finally wash off.

"Alright I'm going to do-" Lily started to say.

Enima shook her head. "No, let me take care of the massages.

"Oh?" The florist tilted her head. "You know how to do those?"

She simply shrugged. "I have some ideas on how to do it. Besides, it shouldn't be too hard."

I laid down on a massage table and awaited my turn. I looked over at the other girls. Historia was up first, and she seemed to be more relaxed now, so maybe Enima did know what she was doing.

We did idle chit chat while we waited for our turns. When it finally got to me, she actually did surprisingly well. In fact, I almost passed out when she did it. "Where did you learn to do that?"

She hummed in thought. "I think I learned to do it for someone I cared about. I don't quite remember, the memories are fuzzy." Must have been some of the last memories she's had.

.

After that was done, we had all moved over to the hot tub.

"Ah… it's been awhile since I've gotten to experience this. I miss the one at home." Historia sighed happily.

Enima glanced at her. "Oh, you rich or something?" She grinned.

"Of course I am." She said in a sarcastic tone. "What, you thought I was poor. Please, as if."

Caren looked at the ground. "Well, not that being poor is a bad thing."

"I think I'm only in the middle class." I rubbed the back of my head.

Enima shrugged. "Rich, poor, doesn't really matter." She leaned her head back. "We can still just enjoy our time here like nothing like that mattered."

I let out a small laugh. "That's true." I glanced at the water. "You know, I wonder if we ever did this stuff together when we attended school together… I assume we were all in the same class, since it would make the most sense…" I went to hug my knees, but I wasn't really in a position to do so.

"I think so." Lily smiled earnestly. "I'm sure the other three were also really good friends…" She frowned slightly.

It's hard to believe we've lost half the people already. How many more is Monokuma going to take from us?

Enima rolled her eyes before splashing water towards Historia.

"H-hey- What's that for? It's hot." She covered her face.

Lily giggled and started splashing Enima.

I laughed a little bit. "Alright, let's try and keep some of the water inside. And avoid the face." I glanced over at Caren, who slowly sunk herself into the water, not wanting to be a part of this. I frowned slightly before moving over to her. "Hey, are you alright?"

She shook her head. "You know the answer to that already… I just can't stop thinking about the motive Monokuma gave us."

I shook my head. "We shouldn't worry about that. We've been here long enough. Anyone that would have killed, would have done so by now. Why wait till there's so few people left? It's going to be even harder to get away with it now."

Caren tilted her head slightly. "I guess you do bring up a decently valid point…"

"Of course I do. Now, let's enjoy our time here." I smiled at her.

While she didn't participate fully in every conversation, she did talk a little more with everyone else.

.

Without even knowing it, we had already spent hours at the spa and it had gotten really late.

"Well, we should probably head off now." Enima stretched herself. "I've never felt so good about myself. Let's go flirt with the guys."

"Hard pass." Historia rolled her eyes.

"Oh, right, you're into girls, aren't you." She smirked to herself.

The historian ignored her and walked over to the elevator.

"But flirting doesn't sound like a bad idea." Lily pondered it. "I'm going to flirt with the first guy I see."

When we got to the elevator door, it opened a few seconds later with Jack standing in it. He was holding something in his hands. But he closed it and quickly put it away.

It was obvious neither of us were expecting to see each other.

The florist seemed even more shocked, seems she wasn't ready just yet to flirt. "Have me in bed?" She blurted out.

"No." He said bluntly. "So how was spa day?"

Enima stepped into the elevator next to him. "Hope you weren't coming to spy on us."

He shook his head. "Oh please, I have more important things to do than that."

"I understand that feeling…" Caren sighed.

The button for the ground floor had already been pressed, so it seems he was going down there. What business did he have on a floor above us?

When the elevator reached the ground floor, everyone started stepping out, but Jack stopped me from doing so. "Meet me in my room in half an hour."

"What, did the spa treatment work?" I said in a kidding voice. I knew he had a serious topic in mind.

He let out a small chuckle. "Do you really have the time for jokes? You should already know I would only call you if it was serious." And then, he walked away.

I frowned slightly. What was it this time? Last time it was military stuff…

.

I don't know why, but I went up to meet Jack, who seemed to be waiting in his room. His door seemed ajar. I slowly pushed it open. "Yes…?" I mumbled, looking inside.

He was looking at a phone, and when I came in. It was a flip screen phone, and he closed it.

"Huh…" I took a step forward to close the door. "Have you always had that phone…?"

"No." He admitted, turning his chair towards me. "I found this on the military floor of Paradise."

"Does it… Work?" I walked over, sitting down on his bed.

He tapped his desk with his finger. "That… remains to be seen." He opened the phone again. "I already tried some numbers I recognized, but apparently I'm not allowed to call those numbers…"

"So… Why call me here?" I asked him, tiling my head slightly.

Jack hummed in thought. "Because there is a number on this phone… And I'm willing to bet that that is the only number I'm allowed to call" He opened the phone again, hovering over the number.

I walked over to the phone, trying to see what number it was. "What… number is that…?

"I'm not familiar…" The critic hummed as he pressed the call button.

The phone rang for several seconds.

"I don't think it's going to work-" I started to say.

Suddenly, the sound of someone answering the call could be heard.

… "Hello?" A voice said.

We both had a shocked face, hearing another voice that wasn't from this place.

"Yes! Hello!" Jack yelled out. "You can hear us?"

The voice was silent for a few seconds. "How did you get this number? Who are you?"

"We are being held captive!" The critic called out. "Are you able to help us?"

More silence. "You didn't answer my questions… who are you?"

"We are students from Hope's Peak. We are being held captive in some city." He yelled out again. "Any help would be appreciated!"

There was a low annoyed grunt. "And I fail to see how this is my problem. How did you even get this phone?"

Jack remained silent. "I… I found it in some building."

"Who's keeping you hostage?" The voice asked.

"A black and white bear! We don't know who's controlling him!" I quickly told him.

He simply started laughing. "Well then, I'd say it's only a matter of time you are dead. I'm not going to help some Hope's Peak students. They've caused me enough problems."

"But we haven't done anything to you! What Hope's Peak students?" Jack was growing more aggravated. "We just don't want to die, god dammit! Who the hell do you think you are?"

I've never seen him so angry before, so I simply took a step back.

There was a long pause of silence. "We are the Insurgence, and I wouldn't try messing around with us. You aren't someone who can even dream of standing up to us."

And then the line went dead.

"What kind of scum!" Jack yelled out, closing the phone. "Can't even take a moment to help us."

"But… Why was that phone here in the first place…?" I asked him.

He placed the phone in his pocket. "That… I don't know. Seems that whoever had that building built had this phone…"

"But why would it only be able to access only that number…?" I tilted my head slightly.

He covered his mouth slightly. "The only reason they would need to do that would be to keep it off the records. In other words… They were doing an illegal deal." He crossed his arms.

"I-Illegal deal?" I repeated. "How could you be so sure?"

He snickered to himself. "You know, I always found it odd. Why did the military stop by? It's possible whoever had this phone had connections to them. There was a military floor, and that's where I found this phone, after all.

You know what… It makes sense, since according to the journal, the state police were called rather quickly. But that could have been the military. "But then, why wouldn't they want to help us? Shouldn't this be something the government does? Or at least the authorities?"

He sent me a glare. "You don't get it, do you? These people are no longer military. They called themselves the Insurgence. To be named that, they would have had to rebel against authority in the first place."
"But.. we just figured out that this person had to be part of the military." I frowned slightly.

"And that's when you realize he joined the Insurgence…" Jack said, walking towards his door. He opened it. "Sorry to have wasted your time." Seems he was kicking me out. Not that I had much of a choice…

I left the room and headed back towards my own.

I needed to think about this new information. For there to be an Insurgence, how much had the world outside changed?

My eyes slowly closed, allowing me to drift off to sleep.

.

.

.

I woke up in the middle of the night with a slight jump. I was breathing pretty heavily, but I don't think I had a nightmare.

Then I realized why I woke up. An announcement went off. A body? This late at night?

Monokuma was on the screen, and he was drinking what looked like wine. "I know you guys are all sleeping right now, but shouldn't you be worrying about who amongst you wants you dead? Please meet downstairs in the lobby."

The lights of the building had changed, and instead, were a red hue, which gave off a creepy vibe. "What the hell…?" I mumbled, getting out of bed and leaving my room.

Historia was rubbing her eyes. "Why this early… I was having a nice dream."

"A nice dream here is the worst torture…" Caren mumbled. "Because when you wake up, you lose the small bit of hope you had while sleeping." She started heading towards the stairs.

The rest of us made our way downstairs to the lobby, where Monokuma was waiting.

"Didn't we say we weren't going to listen to your motive?" Enima rolled her eyes before yawning. "I'd like to go back to my regular nightmares please."

"I too, would like to be unconscious again." Said Robin, the guy who was unconscious for an entire day.

Monokuma had his back towards us before turning around. "Oh no, I won't let this happen. I will never let you guys shoot down a motive. If at first a motive fails, then I will continue and continue until a dead body is found."

"So, what information do you have for us this time?" Caren put a hand on her hip.

He covered his mouth, a small smile appearing on his face. "Well, whether you believe me or not… The person you are stuck with as actually killed before. Several times, in fact. And they might act like they care, but honestly… they want half of you dead. You don't fit into the world they dream of."

"What… Do you mean by that?" Lily frowned slightly.

"What if I were… to lift the kill limit, and let them do whatever they want with you?" The bear's eyes gleamed red.

"You… You wouldn't do that…" Caren crossed her arms. "You may be psychotic, but you still have rules to follow and such."

"What if this is the person who attacked Serena?" He then brought up.

This caused the entire room to fall silent.

"W-what did you just say…?" I mumbled, in slight horror. That couldn't be it.

"So you're implying that this person in our ranks wanted to kill Serena?" Enima asked, tilting her head to the side. "But then, we are only taking your word for it. What's the chance you aren't even being honest?"

More silence. "Well, I could be lying. But do you want to find out?" And then, he was gone.

Lily kept shaking her head. "Nope, nope, nope. Not gonna believe any of that." She quickly said.

Everyone else was talking about this turn of events, but I decided to check something. I loaded up the E-Handbook and opened up the rules. I scrolled down to where the twelfth rule used to be, but it was gone. "He's serious…" I mumbled. If the rule remained, I wouldn't believe him… But it's gone.

Stephan was looking over my shoulder to read my E-Handbook. "So he intends to keep his word…" He had his arms crossed. "What's stopping this person from killing everyone else?"

I closed the tablet and put it away. "I… Don't want to think about it." I just wanted to sleep.

When I got back to my room, I made sure the door was for sure closed tightly before drifting back to sleep. There might have to be a meeting about this tomorrow.

.

When I finally awoke again, it was nine in the morning. I let out a small sigh. We were getting ever closer to the day Monokuma spoke about. Wasn't it… Tomorrow?

I forced myself out of bed to get ready for the morning.

Once that was done, I went downstairs to meet up with the others.

And as I expected, everyone was down there already.

"Whoever this person is should just come out and say it." Jack said, looking at everyone else.

Caren rolled her eyes. "Like they'd ever do that."

"Yeah, that's about the dumbest plan I've ever heard." Enima deadpanned. She leaned back in her chair to look at the ceiling. "If anything, everyone should just grab some food and stay in their room. But then again, that would get boring quickly."

Robin nodded his head. "Yeah, I can see many people growing bored of that life and coming out anyways."

"But it's going to be hard to try and keep everyone safe…" Stephan looked around before covering his face more with his face mask.

"W-well, I'm sure everything will be fine." Lily tried to reassure everyone. "I don't see any of us being an actual murderer like that, so Monokuma is just trying to pull our legs."

"That optimism will get you killed…" Caren said bluntly.

"O-oh…" The florist said sadly, taking a step back from the table. "Right…"

"That was harsh…" Enima commented, shaking her head.

The babysitter crossed her arms. "I'm being real here, there's no such thing as harsh when our lives are on the line."

There seemed to be a lot of tension in the room. "We shouldn't be letting this come between us."

Enima nodded her head. "Exactly, we shouldn't start losing trust." She then frowned. "But still, we shouldn't just ignore the issue."

"Honestly… it's bullshit…" Caren shook her head. "Why does this person get to kill multiple people?"

I nodded my head. "What's stopping them from just killing us all right now?" I looked around the room.

Robin shook his head. "I think they are at a complete disadvantage here." He walked over to the table, placing his hands on the table, and leaning forward slightly. "It's possible that the regular trial will still happen if we discover a body. So that might cause the killer to stop."

"That's… A good point." I mumbled.

Enima rolled her eyes. "I don't think that would stop them. Maybe it will, but it's not guaranteed."

"That's the concerning part." Caren stood up ."Nothing is stopping them. Which is why we need to find the per-"

Jack had his arms crossed. "But we also don't want to make any rash decisions, do we? It would be easier if they told us themselves, but we shouldn't just start throwing the blame around."

Historia put a hand on her hip. "Then all we have to do is see if we can find any clues, right?"

"Clues? What kind of clues would be lying around?" I tilted my head slightly.

She quickly glanced away. "I… I don't know, honestly."

Enima leaned her head back. "Well, we unlocked an interesting place in the city, didn't we? A jail, a police station…" She leaned forward again. "And a place they refer to, as Paradise. It's possible that we could find what we want there. If we are thinking that the mastermind is connected to this city. It's possible that whoever is working for them is also from this place."

Jack nodded his head. "Exactly, and someone like that might have been caught at one point."

"Not to mention… there's a hole in the wall, so people escaped." Caren added.

"We're dealing with a convict!?" Lily asked loudly, taking a step back. "Are you sure we can even do anything about that?"

Stephan approached the table. "It's fine, I could probably take them on. They don't have the sort of training I do."

"And if it's me, what then?" Robin asked with a little bit of smugness in his voice.

This got a small chuckle from the ninja. "We'll finally get to see who's better at combat."

Historia rolled her eyes. "Then we should all go there later, and see what we can find, right?" She looked around at everyone. "Safety in numbers."

Jack shook his head. "Yes, safety in numbers, but Paradise is a rather large building, and individually exploring that would take an eternity." He placed his hand on the table. "I think we are going to need to split up for this one."

He wants us to split up.

Enima shook her head. "I don't really see the advantage of splitting up at a time like this." She paused briefly. "But you're right, there's just too much. We might as well do our individual thing."

Historia nodded her head. "I'm fine with that, the faster, the better."

Caren groaned slightly. "This will only end poorly…"

From the looks of it, we were going to get outvoted, so I didn't even bother trying to argue. "Let's just get to it soon."

"I'm not sure when I'll join, but everyone can go ahead without me." Jack started to walk away.

Is he trying to avoid participating in his own plan!? Asshole.

But most people left to go there, while most people stayed here.

Historia walked over to me when it was just us two. "I know this is risky, but we need to start making some moves now. We need to figure out the rest of the story of this city. And part of that is figuring out who this person is." Her stern expression softened up slightly, until she smiled. "We're close, I can feel it."

That didn't put me at ease, I simply shook my head. "You can go on without me, I need to think for a bit."

She tilted her head slightly. "Oh, what's the matter?"

"Nothing." I assured her. But just a gut feeling all of this was going to go wrong. But how could I stop something bad from happening?

The historian looked at me for a few more seconds before turning around. "Well, join me when you can, I'll probably be exploring Paradise. I haven't checked it out that much."

I stood there for a bit before sighing. That little bit was actually about fifteen minutes, but I eventually headed out for the new area.

"I need to find the truth." I told myself as I eventually arrived at Paradise. "Will the truth be here?" A building built for the elite, huh? What a place. I entered the elevator and placed my keycard. I then cursed at the Lower floor card I had been given. "I can't explore anything like this!"

I spent some time looking at the button display before sighing and hitting the button for the 27th floor. If I could recall, that was the one with the shopping district.

Eventually, the elevator stopped on the correct floor.

I don't know why I came to this floor. Maybe because I couldn't actually go anywhere cool like the sauna, or spa. So I was stuck on something meant for the lower area.. Either way, what am I supposed to do in a place like this with nothing to buy? I shook my head in amusement as I walked over to one of the various windows around the mall. I took a look outside. I saw some birds fly past me.

But then, their wings started to slow down a bit.

Here!? Right now!? Who followed me in this mall?!

I quickly looked behind me, in fear that someone had just snuck up on me with the intent of killing. But there was no one. Am I just being paranoi-

And then from the corner of my eye, outside the window, I saw something fall. I didn't have enough time to register what I had just seen, so instead, I quickly made my way to the elevator. I placed my card in the card reader and waited for the elevator. After about twenty seconds, the door opened and Jack was in the back of the elevator, leaning against the wall.

When he saw me, he had a slightly surprised face. "Oh? I thought I was alone here." He glanced away. "I was just off in the military room. Trying to see if I can find out anything about the Insurgence…"

I went to quickly press the ground button, but it seemed to have already been pressed. "What did you find?"

He shook his head. "Just about as much as you would expect. I didn't find a single thing. But it seems the world is definitely not how it used to be. For such a group to form out of the military…"

The elevator went down for a bit before stopping on the sixteenth floor. When the doors opened, Enima walked in. She looked at the two of us. "Did you see that too?"

"See… what…?" Jack adjusted his glasses. "I didn't see anything out of the ordinary, if that's what you are asking."

I quickly pressed the close elevator door button. I couldn't waste any time in this elevator at all.

When it finally got to the ground floor, I rushed out the elevator.

"Riley! Where are you going in such a hurry?" The critic called out after me.

On the way towards the exit, I crossed by Lily, who was in the entry. "Lily, did you hear anything?"

She seemed slightly spooked. "Y-yes, I did. It was like Splat! Splat!" Then her face grew pale. "Did something bad happen!?"

I didn't want to think it was true, but there was only one way to know for sure. I rushed out of the building, towards the area I was at.

And sure enough… on the ground, was what I was dreading.

.

The body was enveloped in some sort of white tarp, it seemed. Like one that you would place under paintings while you painted. The tarp itself had various different blotches of paint, green, yellow, orange, and red. Although I'm starting to think the red isn't paint. Under the body, there was another tarp, with paint also splattered everywhere, including the ground around the body. There was a rope attached around the leg, and entangled around the entire body of the person. The victim… The victim this time was Historia Lenz, the Ultimate Historian.