Chapter 2: Afraid of Seals (Daily Life 3)
"Hey, Red! Pick your head up! Come on, man! You're missing out!" Asana shouted at Junichi. Junichi slowly lifted his head up to look around. He saw they were in a hallway surrounded by plexiglass walls. Beyond the walls was what appeared to be an artificial shoreline made of rocks surrounding the curved plexiglass wall. Along with the fake shoreline, there was a huge pool of water, lit bright blue by the lights shining down on it. As Junichi looked, a high, excited gasp broke out.
"SEEEAAAALLLS!" Izumi shouted, running up to one of the plexiglass windows with a huge smile on her face. She squished her face against the plexiglass slightly as Junichi lazily glanced over to what she was looking at. The entire artificial beach had dozens of seals lounging on the rocks."There are seals! Water puppies! Squish… uhh… I can't think of a third name for them! Seals!"
"Huh… so we're in an aquarium?" Junichi asked listlessly.
"Yep. It's a two-floor aquarium, going from this floor to the one below. We have fully aquatic, and semi-aquatic animals from the colder regions to populate this place! That include-"
"Penguins!" Miyuki squeaked out, pressing her face and chest to the glass to look at the other side of the beach, to see nearly 100 penguins waddling on the rocks. "Asana! Look! There are so many penguins! Lookit them wearing those little suits." She said, gently hopping on her toes. Asana chuckled and turned around to watch the penguins, moving Junichi so he could see all the penguins.
"Oooh, penguins. Penguins are cool I guess." Junichi said with a weak smile.
"That's the spirit, Red! That's the most energetic I've seen you all day!" Asana said.
"That's kind of sad when you put it that way." Touki pointed out.
"Oh! One of them just slid on its belly. Hah! It knocked the other one other!" Junichi said, laughing a bit, as one penguin pretty much baseball slid into another penguin to knock it into the water.
"Alright! We're making progress!" Touki said. "Come on, Asana! Let's get him down to the lower floor!"
"Hey now! Don't rush him! Let him enjoy some penguins!" Asana said.
"Alright, all the penguin fuckers stay on this floor, I'm gonna look at the lower floor already," Daichi said, looking at the end of the hall to see that it split in two. First was covered with a velvet rope, and the other half wasn't roped off at all. "The fuck is this shit?"
"Velvet rope! We're roping off that section of the upper floor. There's maintenance stuff over there and would be...Hey, what are you doing!?" Monokuma shouted.
"Hopping your barrier out of spite!" Daichi exclaimed, hopping over the velvet rope with one hand and landing on the other side. "Oh lookie~ I'm twesspassing. Someone stop the bad man~"
Thump!
Daichi stopped dead as he heard the sound of a low, electronic growl behind him. He turned around to see one of the robotic wolves crouched behind him, chainsaw tail raised and beginning to rev up.
"J-Jesus! FUCK!" Daichi exclaimed, stumbling backward and tripping on the velvet rope, falling on his face. "Man, what the hell!? I thought these things were just for executing the hunting weirdo!"
"Those are my 'enforcers' in fact," Monokuma said. "Introducing, even though you've already seen them, the Fenrir MK. V!"
"Get it the hell away from me!" Daichi blurted as he scrambled to escape the ropes.
"You're the one who hopped the rope! If you don't want to be gunned down I suggest you rejoin the rest of the group."
"Y-you didn't have this shit on the first few floors!" Daichi said as he finally got out of the ropes and got back to the others.
"No one broke any rules, so using them was pointless up 'til now. That, and I wanted to debut them by murdering the heck outta Katsuya for dramatic effect!"
"...How exactly did you get these Fenrir robots?" Rinne asked, slowly walking along the velvet rope to get a good look at the robot.
"Haah? You're not intimidated by them?" Monokuma asked.
"Am I breaking any rules?" Rinne inquired.
"Well, no. But it's still a walking death machine!"
"As long as I'm not breaking rules, it won't attack. Besides, I'm more curious than I am frightened," Rinne said. "The thing that's bothering me is where did you get something like this? I've been on military bases before. I've seen some of the tech they've been working on. They've never had anything this advanced." she said, watching the Fenrir's movements.
"This is bleeding edge black market warfare stuff. This thing is made for war crimes, not combat… It's fully autonomous, highly durable, has a chainsaw tail and can shoot iron rods from its mouth. Has hidden, built in machine guns and appears to be made of some kind of bulletproof alloy… And it seems to be tracking my movements with some kind of infrared heat sensor." She said, slowly shuffling across the room, the robotic wolf's blood red glowing eye sensors slowly following her.
"It's even better than it sounds! It can draw the naturally occurring electromagnetic energy in the atmosphere to maintain its battery power! I can just turn it on and leave it on for months at a time. The fact it's surrounded by electronics means it's constantly recharging itself!"
"I'd say that's pseudoscience bullshit… but I'm looking at it." Rinne said
"They also like to be taken for walkies," Monokuma said with a chuckle.
"Well, I think I won't be breaking any rules any time soon…" Sora said, keeping his distance from the Fenrir.
"They'll just be patrolling sensitive areas. They won't attack you unless you attack them or break a rule. Seriously, you could pet one!" Monokuma said.
"No thanks, I'll pass," Sora said.
"Is what they fired out their mouths what impaled Junichi?" Koba asked.
"Yep! It was offscreen," Monokuma explained.
"Offscreen… Uh...huh." Sora said, clearly not believing the explanation.
"Spears of Gungnir usually fire several at a time, but since this thing's updates, its targeting is now around 120 times per second… it pretty much is sure to hit." Monokuma explained, before hopping onto its shoulder. "Cmon! Pet it."
"Knowing that doesn't make me feel any better," Sora said, shaking his head. "I'm just gonna see what's on the lower floor."
"Y-Yeah, I'm with Taiga… I don't feel comfortable being in a room with one of those things…" Izumi chimed in.
"On second thought maybe you can stay on this floor while I head down," Sora said, walking off for the elevator at the end of the hall.
"W-what?" Izumi asked, confused.
"Seeya!" Sora called, Izumi letting out a sigh.
"I just don't get him… Why doesn't he like me? I'm such a huge fan."
"I think the problem is you -don't- get him," Yuuto replied.
"And you do?" Izumi said skeptically. "What are you, a Taiga superfan?"
"I'm not a fan at all!" Yuuto shot back. "I think J-Pop is kind of vapid and annoying."
"Then how can you say you know Taiga better than I do?!" Izumi shouted, Yuuto shrugging. "What's his blood type! What's his favorite food!? Where was he born!? Do you know the first instrument he learned how to play!? Who was his first agent?! What show did he cameo on!?"
"I dunno, I just know that you're the one calling him Taiga…" Yuuto said, walking off.
"What's that supposed to mean…?" Izumi asked.
"Let's go to the elevator so we don't have to wait for it to come back, Junichi," Touki said.
"Sure… uh... You mind putting me down, Asana?" Junichi asked.
"Yeah, no problem! Do you want to be placed down like a baby or dumped off like a bag of potatoes?" she offered.
"...Why would I pick being dumped like potatoes?" Junichi asked as Asana chuckled and carefully set him onto the floor.
"Hah! Coward…" Asana said with a smirk.
Junichi slowly got up to follow Touki. The two made their way to the elevator. Touki hit the call button, the elevator quickly came up and the remaining students stepped inside for it to go down one floor. They stepped out to a long tunnel with similar plexiglass walls, this time dividing the students from actual tanks of water. Several different fish swam through the water, most of them reacting in awe as fish swam over their heads on the ceiling, various creatures from the colder parts of the ocean gazing down at them as they began to walk through the tunnel.
"This is pretty cool, I guess. It sorta feels like it's not really the place we'd hang out, though." Junichi said.
"I dunno. It's kinda cool… though it could use a shark," Rokuro said. As if on command, a large bull shark passed over their head. "Alright! Now we're talkin'!" He said, pumping his fist.
"This dolphin keeps watching me..." Miyuki said, as a dolphin was slowly shuffling sideways to look at her. Asana then gave the glass a hard smack, startling the dolphin and causing it to swim away.
"Yeah! Eat shit, dolphins! Get out of here and find a real porpoise in yer life!" Asana said with a grin.
"Asana! Why did you do that?!" Miyuki objected.
"I think dolphins are perverts! He was checkin' you out." Asana accused.
"...Pervert… dolphins?" Miyuki asked, tilting her head.
"Hell yeah! They're the sex perverts of the sea!" Asana exclaimed. "Man, I bet they read nudie mags while they're not busy chasing off sharks and seals."
"I feel like you're making a canon out of this based on complete moon logic that you made up, Asana…" Miyuki said. The students continued their way along the tunnel, finally stepping out after viewing the fish swimming to see the fifteenth floor. Across from the lower floor of the aquarium was another door.
Through that door, the students found a lush garden; fields of various flowers, lush plant life and a single apple tree. "Huh… it's a garden." Junichi said.
"After all that stale hotel air, I'm kind of happy we got a place where like… real oxygen is being made." Izumi said with a sigh.
"P-pollen! Noooo!" Miyuki said, sniffling as her eyes began to water. "I can't stand pollen! It makes my eyes water and… ah… Ah! ACHOO!"
Miyuki began a fit of sneezes, knocking off her glasses. "Ah! My glasses! I can't see a thing!" she exclaimed.
"MiMi, you're a walking accident. I'm kinda shocked you haven't fallen off something and died yet." Asana joked, reaching down to grab her glasses off the ground, cleaning off the dirt with her shirt.
"Th-thanks, Asana… let's just get out of here…" she muttered, wiping her eyes.
"Looks like we gotta cut this short. Seeya guys, We'll go on ahead! Hopefully there are less flowers." Asana said.
"I'm grabbin' one or two of these apples from this apple tree before we go to the next floor, I could use some fiber." Yuuto said, grabbing an apple from a nearby tree and taking a bite out of it, before grabbing a second apple in his hand.
"You mind if I have one?" Sora asked, Yutto shrugging and tossing the unbitten apple to Sora before grabbing another apple. Everyone left the garden after only a few minutes, going to the elevator to go to the fourteenth floor.
The door lead right into the main feature; a massive casino and arcade. Slot machines, poker tables, roulette tables, and all sorts of arcade cabinets, including light-gun games, racing games, dance machines, sports games, and even skeeball for people who like that game for some reason.
"Oh man! This place is so cool!" Touki exclaimed. "We are so going back here after we're done exploring all these floors!"
"Yeaaah.. We really do get distracted easily, don't we?" Junichi pointed out.
"Go to casino! Spend all your money! Watch all your money disappear~" Monokuma sang, appearing in front of them, tipping a top hat and spinning a cane.
"That's kind of a lot of set up for a room we're only going to explore later, Monokuma." Touki said.
"Look, I had this bit set up for weeks-`
"We've stated we'll kind of do a runthrough of the remaining rooms. You KNOW we agreed on that, you're monitoring us 24/7!" Rinne interjected.
"I… I wanted to do the bit. I… I brought this tophat… and the cane… and…" Monokuma sighed, becoming more and more discouraged. "I… I try really hard for these jokes. I write these for hours… days, even. I just want some appreciation from you guys and… you don't laugh at anything I say…" Monokuma said, sinking down and holding his top hat to his chest. "No one appreciates how hard I try."
"You're trying to get us to kill each other!" Junichi objected.
"Sometimes! I try to be funny the rest of the time!" Monokuma shot back. "Have you guys ever thought that all I wanted was someone to think I was funny!?"
"...Would you stop the killing game if we admitted you were funny?" Rinne asked.
"Hmmm…." Monokuma said, tapping his chin. "Well… no. Bu-"
"Alright, we're done here." Rinne interrupted, putting her hands in her pockets. "We're done here! Let's get a move on." she called, walking off.
"W-wait! I have backup dancers! C'mon guys, this was my best joke! Just… Can you come back?!" Monokuma shouted as the rest of the group slowly walked from him. "C'mooooon.. Everybody will get bored unless there's a joke in EVERY room! Do you guys think your personalities are entertaining at all…?"
"Buzz off, Bear." Asana said.
"Well.. uhm… come back if you guys want to see the backup dancers, okay!? They're dressed like showgirls n' stuff because Las Vegas!" Monokuma shouted.
"...Junichi, don't try to stop me." Touki said, tempted to turn back.
"They're probably also Monokumas." Koba pointed out.
"I mean, they are bu-" Monokuma said.
"Peace!" Touki called back in a deep, mocking shout..
"You guys can't do this to me, man… You're tanking my career!" Monokuma shouted, throwing his tophat onto the ground and stomping on it as the students entered the elevator to the next floor.
"Do you know how many floors opened up?" Sora asked Koba. "There's supposed to be 21 floors but this feels like one hundred."
"We're on the last one, and according to the handbook… this floor contains four student labs and a clinic." Koba said, looking over his handbook.
"So, who's lab do you think we're gonna see?" Yuuto asked.
"I'm still kinda wondering what Monokuma will even put in my lab." Junichi said.
"Hmm… Various games of chance?" Miyuki theorized.
"Like… a slot machine or those terrible fortune teller paper origami things I made in primary school?" Touki asked.
"...Both? How should I know? I could open my lab door and the entire room is just made of fire for how little I know about 'luck' as a talent." Junichi said as the elevator door opened. The students saw Saya and Chiwa standing by the four doors of the labs.
"Ah, good to see you've joined us. We have Koba's, Suba's, Ashikawa's and Takayanagi's labs available." Saya began as the group walked up.
"Well, that answers that, I guess," Touki mentioned, hands on his hips.
"...Seriously, we don't get to see my lab?" Junichi asked, somewhat disappointed.
"I'd hardly consider the lab of the Ultimate Lucky Student worth any value. Now, before we begin opening, I think we can all agree that Suba's lab is off-limits," Saya said.
"Oh, don't tell me you're gonna play some 'respecting the dead' card even though you hated Katsuya's guts…" Daichi said.
"No, but the lab of the Ultimate Hunter means the possibility of weapons and traps. While I would prefer to trust the majority of you to not attempt another murder after Suba's execution, I would rather not leave things to chance," Saya elaborate.
"Does that mean that Rinne's is going to be full of machine guns 'n shit?" Yuuto asked.
"Only one way to find out," Rinne said, pulling out her student handbook. She pressed it to the scanner, getting a beep of confirmation. She opened the door to find walls lined with silver sheet metal, and weapon racks on each wall; each one with dozens of rifles, pistols, machine guns, knives, grenade launchers, knives, grenades, and the most dangerous of them all, knives. "Goddamn!" Rinne exclaimed, eyes wide at seeing nearly 300 weapons packed into a single room. Along with that were tables for maintenance and repair, shelves full of ammunition and targets hanging from the ceiling.
"Yeaaaah… those are definitely guns." Sora said matter-of-factly. "We're just going to be a bunch of teenagers with guns now." Sora said, adjusting the brim of his hat. "Probably a terrible idea, really."
"This reminds me of one of your music videos you wer-" Izumi began, Sora holding up a hand.
"First of all it was a short movie, and second of all I hated it. Third of all, stop it." Sora stopped her, dismissively.
"M-maybe we should keep this lab l-lab shut too… I mean, since it's full of guns." Miyuki suggested, horrorstruck at the view in front of her.
"No! Don't shut it! We could fuckin' armed insurrection this bear guy if we all took these guns." Rinne argued.
"Yeaaaah. About that." Monokuma said, standing behind them. "The guns won't fire if you point at me. They're advanced, high tech military guns… They don't shoot at people who have the proper RFID Signature. If you pointed at me, I'd just laugh at you." Monokuma explained. "Then you'd die."
"...Goddamnit, he knows about RFID implants?" Rinne growled. "Who the hell gave you those!? That's top secret level technology!"
"Same people who built the Monokumas. I'm smarter than the average bear, Rinne! You think I'm just gonna give you guys hundreds of firearms without making sure you couldn't use them on little ol' me? Ruahahaha~ Keep dreamin' and maybe you'll find a way out too. But I wouldn't-" Monokuma rambled before suddenly jumping to the left as a knife stabbed into the wall behind him, neatly cutting his plush fur. Monokuma looked at who threw the knife, seeing Rinne balancing another bowie knife on the tip of her finger by the blade.
"What the fuck?! Do all of you bitches got knives on you?! Where the hell did you get those?!" Daichi asked.
"I bought them at the mini-mall, it was buy two get one free." Rinne explained. "For the record, Chiwa doesn't have a knife, she has a toy bunny rabbit."
"His name's Socrates!" Chiwa protested.
"I don't need a knife!" Asana exclaimed.
"If I had a knife, I'd probably fall on it with how clumsy I am." Miyuki said sheepishly.
"It… it's a chef's knife. Thank you very much." Izumi corrected, with an awkward laugh. "It's not supposed to be used for anything but cooking!"
"It's my babysitting knife." Airi curtly explained. "It's for in case someone breaks into the house I'm sitting at. I can also use it to break a lock if the need arises."
"That's still WAY too close to 50% for my liking. The fuck's wrong with you women!?" Daichi exclaimed.
"Don't fuck with me, bear. I don't need guns to kill whoever's running the show. I can garrote the son of a bitch with a shoelace if I need to." she warned. "I can dodge the spears that you nailed Junichi with. If the traitor was any of us, do you think they can fucking take a killing machine they trained me to be? If you want a war, I can make one." She threatened.
"Oh, you can dodge Gugnir, can you? You think you're all that, Mukuro Ikusaba? Think you can take a whole pack of Fenrirs?" Monokuma taunted. "You really wanna threaten the lives of 13 innocent people to try and kill me? What will your C.O. think when they catch wind of you murdering people on live TV on a whim?" Monokuma mentioned. "Remember your secret… Your C.O is being court martialed. If you turn out to be murdering teenagers they'll put him in front of a firing squad!"
"...Live TV?" Rinne asked, blinking and turning to one of the security cameras.
"Yep! Smile, you're on MonoKamera!" Monokuma teased, waving to the camera. "Do you reaaaallly think I would spend all this time and money watching you kill each other because I'm trying to get over some teenage ennui? I have a message I have to preach, gurl." Monokuma announced.
"We're being watched?! Who would watch this!?" Junichi exclaimed.
"Remember when I said I'm trying to save the world? I meant it! This is to teach society a lesson about itself." Monokuma argued. "History repeats itself if we don't learn from it! So this killing game is live streamed for posterity!" Monokuma stated. "By the way, you're really popular, like… 5 million concurrent viewers! That's better than most video game releases."
"Did you just say you were going to kill us!?" Izumi asked, eyes wide with panic.
"If you got in my way. You guys are fine, just don't think I'm not deathly serious with my threats. So Rinne, feeling froggy? Wanna jump me right here? I don't gotta spear you. Izumi's an easy target." Monokuma warned.
"...Did you just say what I thought you said?" Rinne asked
"I guess I did say that, Rinne. It's your special regulation. If you attack me… I'll kill every other student as punishment. Ooh! Even better! Every time you attack me, a student's gonna die! I won't count that first knife as an attack, unless you wanna, ah… what's the saying? Oh yeah, press your luck… " Monokuma said, drawing out the last word. "I'll start with Junichi. You can dodge the spears, but Junichi? He's practically a magnet for them! Ruahahahaha!" Monokuma said with a cackle. Rinne shuffled in front of Junichi, putting a body between him and Monokuma.
"Katsuya was a dickface, but he was right about the fact that Junichi is currently a liability, and the easiest person to kill."
"Can you guys not call me a liability while I'm right here? It's like all my bad dreams are happening at once when you guys talk like that… It feels like we're going to start talking about how shitty my grades were in middle school next." Junichi stated, trying to ease some of the tension with a joke.
"So, how about it, Rinne? Think you can block a shot from Gungnir before it hits Junichi? Think you can pry off five Fenrirs before they chainsaw his stupid face off?" Monokuma taunted. "I wonder…"
Rinne glared, knife hand shaking before Koba grabbed her wrist. "We'll have to think of something else, Rinne. Let's try and gather as much information as we can." Koba explained, before turning to the bear. "Does the rule count for anything Rinne attacks?"
"Just me and the MonoStaff. But I don't want you guys to go killing the MonoStaff either. She can try the Fenrirs, but that's just suicide. One can take on a fully manned APC!" Monokuma exclaimed.
"...The hell's an APC?" Yuuto asked.
"Armored personnel carrier. It's pretty much a lightweight tank manned by 3 to 6 fully trained soldiers." Rinne explained before taking a deep breath and turning Koba. ".."New Objective: Gather intel on new floors. Find possible escape routes. New Objective: Accepted." Rinne said in a calm monotone, smiling at Koba. Koba smiled back, letting go of her wrist.
"I think what Monokuma said could be helpful later on, if we can figure out a way to fight the Fenrirs without… y'know, horribly dying and being sawn in half." Touki said.
"Callback! Woo!" Monokuma shouted.
"What?" Koba asked.
"Sorry, I love references to previous works." Monokuma said.
"He's just gonna be stupid, ignore him." Yuuto warned.
"Right… we got two more labs, right? The ones that are clearly less… dramatic than the other two, that's for sure." Sora said.
"Yeah! You got yours, right MiMi?" Asana asked.
"Oh! R-right!" Miyuki exclaimed, scrambling to pull out her handbook. "M-mine won't be full of guns! I'm pretty sure it might even be like my writing s-studio."
Miyuki opened up her lab, seeing the room was wall-to-wall not with guns, but books. There was a massive, leather padded spinning chair sitting in front of an angled table with parchment on it. There were several fountain pens, and a large vial of ink sitting on the lip of the table that was level to the ground. Miyuki ran into a... rather sluggish dash, hopping into the large leather writer's chair and letting it spin to a stop. "Y-yes! I can feel my muse coming back. Ahhh~ This is perfect!" Miyuki said ecstatically.
"Hell yeah! Double-leg those words, MiMi!" Asana shouted, pumping her fist. "Break creativity's wrist!"
"Okay. That's one good thing… Let me check mark that versus the wall of bad shit that's happened to us the last few days." Yuuto joked.
"Something about being comfortable makes my creativity happen a lot easier. We're still in a killing game, but it helps a ton being in a place like this… It even has a fireplace!" Miyuki exclaimed.
"Yeah, we can burn books for warmth!" Touki said, Miyuki scrambling from her chair and trying to guard as many books as she could with her body.
"N-nnooo!" Miyuki said, backing herself against the bookshelf. "Y-you stay away from my books!"
"Kidding, jeez…" Touki said. "I'm not that fucked up.. If you found a place you can be yourself in, you do you."
"You're just saying that so Asana doesn't crunch you like a plastic bottle." Yuuto said.
"Yeah, that too." Touki said. "Man why do all the girls have to be either hot, scary, or both? It's horrible."
"Oh yeah. We should all be Ultimate bakers n' babysitters n' home makers for ya… Jeez. Have you ever even met a girl with interests before?" Asana mocked. "Go read naughty magazines!"
"You act like going to school with an assassin, an MMA champion, Saya Goddamn Kiruma, and whatever the heck Airi is as 'normal' and regular people like Izumi or Miyuki are the weird outliers."
"I take umbrage to that, are you going to let your honor be disparaged?" Saya argued with the other girls.
"I'd defend you, but you fired me…" Izumi said with an awkward laugh. Chiwa walked over and gave Touki a hard kick to the shin.
"O-ow! That's assaulting the press! Not cool!" Touki cried, grabbing his shin.
"The press is being a real dingdong right now." Chiwa said.
"...Did you call me a dingdong?" Touki asked.
"Mhm. Now then, we have one more lab to inspect, right?" Chiwa said, getting a nod from Koba.
"Right. My lab," Koba said, opening up the lab. The lab looked like a private study with a dusty bookcase stuffed with books, antique grandfather clock and a small fireplace. There was a desk carved from dark oak, a filing cabinet sat next to it. On the other end of the room was a table with equipment lined in a row across it; a small laptop, spectrometer, a set of brass scales, collection of test tubes.
"Well… it's not the lab I lost in that fire, but I guess it's a good start." Koba said.
"We'll definitely get more use of this lab than others. The spectrometer can be used to study the chemical composition of anything put in its analysis tray. It also probably has a database of materials it knows the chemical composition of for comparison." Koba explained.
"How do you know it has chemical references?" Junichi asked.
"It looks similar to the one in my detective's office." Koba replied. "It's not a perfect replica, like I said. But it will help in a worst case scenario. Hrm… I wonder if my old files were copied over…" he said as he walked over to the filing cabinet. He opened to find that all the pages have been replaced with spoof ones. "...Notes about the sasquatch?"
"Wait, seriously?" Junichi said, walking over to look at some of the files. "...What are these? How to become a speed based superhero? Plans for virus bombs? UFO sightings? Why tuna is the superior mental food?"
"Jokes. They're all jokes. He's replaced every single one of my folders with jokes and nonsense." Koba said. "There's no copies of my old cases…"
"So besides the investigation tools, this room is kind of useless and won't give us any information on where we are." Touki said.
"Then we'll have to focus on intel and locating an exit," Rinne said. "Who's with me?"
Koba shut the filing cabinet. "I'm going with, of course. How about you, Junichi?"
"I'll pass. I gotta get some food in me." Junichi said.
"Then I guess I'm out. I'll be needed at my diner," Izumi added.
"I think MiMi's gonna be busy with writing and I'm gonna be setting up the spa date, see who's comin' and all that!" Asana explained.
"Guess I'll get lunch too." Touki said.
"I'll join in on the investigation. I had to miss a few of the rooms due to bad air," Saya said, giving a glare to Daichi.
"Yeah, fuck you too," Daichi muttered
"Well, you guys have fun looking at stuff. I need a break, man…" Yuuto said, stretching his arms.
"We'll meet up after the women get back from Asana's spa day with the results of what we've found." Koba said. "We'll meet at the lounge."
"Why not earlier than that?" Izumi asked.
"I'm pretty sure everybody being able to have a break is almost entirely a good thing. It would relieve some tension from yesterday's trial." Saya said.
"Right," Chiwa said. "So, we'll be going with Koba and Takayanagi?"
"Exactly." Saya said with a nod.
"I'm gonna do some dives off the board!" Rokuro chimed in.
"When you're done lookin' at stuff feel free to join us in the hot springs! I intend to be there at least a few hours after lunch." Asana said to Saya, Rinne and Chiwa.
"I'm still not interested in being a lobster, but I wouldn't mind swimming a little bit at the pool." Chiwa replied, hugging her rabbit to her chest.
"I'll join up after investigation." Rinne said.
"I'll keep an eye on Chiwa if you want to spend the day, Kudo." Saya offered.
"Sure. Guess we'll take a break then," Airi said. "The days have felt weirdly long so far."
"Yeah, but hey, maybe things will start to speed up a bit soon." Touki said. "C'mon, bro. Race ya to Izumi's!"
Touki ran off, Junichi chasing after him. "H-hey! Wait up, you two! What are you going to eat if I'm not there?!" Izumi called, following them. "I don't want to run while I have my chef knife on me!"
The rest of the groups went their separate ways. Koba, Rinne, Chiwa and Airi went to investigate the rooms. Asana and Rokuro headed to the floor with the pool and spa to get things ready while Daichi drifted off to find a place away from others. Yuuto and Sora were the last to leave. "So… jam session in my room?" Yuuto asked.
"Sure," Sora said as the two left the hall, walking over to the line of students waiting at the elevator.