It was as if she was caught up in a great and terrible hurricane, the likes of which had never been seen in all the history of the world. Colors shifted around her and mixed together, sounds blurred and became one, and smells smeared into each other and transformed into a single gestalt. All of her senses shared space with those long-forgotten feelings of that which had come before, before even Hope's Peak. Verdant fields, desiccated buildings whose whereabouts she couldn't quite make out, dead and ugly forests, homes, planes, weapons, ships, faces, trains, pets, clothing, conversations, all bleared together, too much for a human mind to parse. If she turned her head, she turned it two-thousand times, and saw two-thousand scenes, of which only one was in the present, but indiscernible from the rest.
A dam inside burst to release a vast and endless torrent, not of memory, but of personhood, one that would gobble up the speck of a girl that taken up residence in its path and return everything to its rightful nature. A thousand emotions swallowed her up; roiling ones, passive ones, strong ones and weak ones, and each brought with it a dozen more, until the whole of the world was just an all-consuming tempest of every sensation and emotion she had ever conceived of all at once. And though the chaos of it all was too thunderous and deafening to make out anything in particular, one thing remained clear, shining, if pure blackness could shine, like a guiding star through the destruction: the empty void in the distance that was despair itself.
Her eyes were blank and full of life, twitching, screaming, yet unresponsive to that which surrounded her, and she stared into some remote, invisible point that no longer existed. Her body, wrecked and exhausted though it was, shivered horribly, as if a cold had settled in upon her. One hand hung limply in its cast, disgusting and permanently broken, while the other hung at her side, uselessly upon the surface of the bench.
Woah, thought Hiro. She looks pretty messed up.
He watched her from the corner of the bathhouse, wondering how her face could stay so pale in this heat, how she could tremble and sweat all at once. Every so often, one of Mukuro's eyes spasmed, as if she couldn't quite believe or understand what she was seeing or hearing.
Man, do I know that feeling.
He crossed his arms, cocked his head to the side, and nodded, watching Hina kneel down on the floor next to her, lock their fingers together, and say something comforting too far away for him to hear.
"Mukuro," she said, louder, her own voice quivering. She was trying to be soft and comforting, Hiro could tell, but she was almost panicking. "It's alright… Whatever you're seeing, you're still here. Don't… don't—"
"Don't flip out and go into kill mode," Leon said, cruelly.
"Leon!" Hina turned to him in anger, then back to the girl on the bench.
Hiro wasn't sure if Leon really needed to ask her not to kill them. However skilled Mukuro might've been at killing, it didn't really matter if her entire body was messed up, did it? She could barely move as it was.
Despite it all, he was happy that Mukuro was still alive. Thrilled, even. Sure, she'd once almost killed him by accident, but he didn't want to be responsible for her death. To think that his fortune-telling had been used like that, in some kind of super-cunning reverse death game… Besides, she'd saved them all at least once.
Still, Mukuro looked even worse than she had the first time she'd thought she was Junko, worse, even, than when Sayaka had gone catatonic. It was like… like… Like Junko kept inventing new levels of messed-upness to throw in their faces? As if that itself was a game to her.
I bet, when Mukuro's better, she'll need at least one good fortune-telling… Wonder what they pay Ultimate Soldiers. Doesn't sound like the fanciest job, but Byakuya probably won't bite…
His eyes slid over to the man in question, who had hurried them here after the 'execution.' Hiro beamed with some satisfaction at his easy comprehension as to why:
No cameras!
The others were all here: Jack, Kyoko, Leon, Taka, and even Celeste, who was sequestered in a corner by herself.
Nine of us, huh…
He poked his tongue into his cheek. That was the fourth trial. By the way the rules were written, each murder meant one trial, and each trial meant one dead student, so each trial really represented two deaths. That meant… eight deaths should've happened so far, right?
So, there should've been seven of them left now, but there were nine. Scrunching his face, Hiro grappled with an idea that had only just come to him:
How much has Junko's plan gone off-script by now?
He wanted to ask Kyoko (mainly because she was nicer than Byakuya), but she was busy examining Mukuro. The detective leaned over and poked at the traumatized girl, waved a hand in front of her unresponsive face…
Hiro grimaced, and looked away toward the other useless people. Leon, Jack, Taka, and Celeste stood or sat in corners or on benches, watching the scene unfold, contributing nothing.
Damn, he thought. There sure are a lot of people who made it this far by doing nothing important!
Byakuya stood in the center of the room, watching closely as the detective did her work. At last, Kyoko stood up, turned, and came to—
"Hiro," she said. "I need your help."
He balked.
"My help?"
"More specifically," she clarified. "I need something you have. Do you still have that crystal ball?"
"Oh… Sure." He was relieved that she didn't need something complicated. He fumbled in his jackets for a few seconds, then retrieved the world's most powerful (glass) crystal ball.
"Careful," he said, holding it in both hands. "It cost me a hundred-thousand yen!"
Jack bit the inside of her lip, then leaned over to Taka.
"Is that a lot of money?" she asked. "My only frame of reference is the cost of scissors."
Taka did not reply. Hiro grunted, then handed off the crystal ball to Kyoko. She took it and glided over to the center of the room, right beneath a ceiling light. Everyone save Mukuro watched her in silence.
The detective held the ball before her, and the light caught on it. A deeply unpleasant glare burst off from its surface and danced across a wall, and Leon threw up his hands and covered his eyes.
"Hey, dammit! That coulda fucking blinded me!"
Kyoko responded only by shifting her stance, so that the glare slowly rolled across the room. Taka and Celeste, having seen the light in action with Leon, knew to look away, but Hina stupidly didn't.
"Hey!"
She reflexively looked down as the light flashed in her eyes, gritting her teeth. At the same time, it passed over Mukuro's eyes.
The Ultimate Soldier's left eye, the closer one, reflexively squinted.
"Ah!" Taka gasped. "I understand."
Hiro scowled.
"Well… I don't. What's happening?"
"Isn't it obvious, Hiro?" Taka shook his head. "Kyoko was testing to see if Mukuro was also blinded after regaining her memories."
Celeste nodded.
"As I recall," she said. "Kyoko's vision was taken almost immediately after eating that strawberry."
"It's been a good fifteen minutes since Mukuro ate hers," Byakuya said. "I think it's safe to say that it's working differently for her."
Oh no! They're doing that thing where they talk about smart people stuff. I always look stupid when this happens.
"So… what's that mean?" Hiro asked, hoping the answer wasn't obvious.
"The answer is obvious," Byakuya replied, and Hiro winced. "The chemical that restores your memory doesn't also take away your eyesight – that was a separate part Junko added for the first piece of fruit."
"But, why?" Leon asked.
"Why, indeed," he replied. "Let's ask Junko herself, the next time we see her."
Truth Bullet added: KYOKO'S BLINDNESS
Kyoko set the ball down on the counter, and sank into deep thought.
"Mukuro," Hina whispered, very softly. "Do you… do you hear us? Are you okay?"
Seconds passed. Slowly, from far away, Mukuro managed a very weak nod. It would have been impossible to notice, had they not all been focused on her.
"Do you have your memories back?" Byakuya pressed, a little too harshly. "Do you remember… everything?"
Mukuro's lips parted for a second, then closed. Strands of gross saliva twinkled in her mouth. Her eyes twitched again, as if in disbelief, or as if something that only she could see was too disturbing for words. She raised her one good hand to her head, or at least tried. Halfway up, Hina grabbed it by the wrist and helped guide her up, and Mukuro pressed the hand to her temple and groaned in pain. Maybe she tried to say something, but nothing came out, except a weird, inarticulate gurgle.
"Stop bugging her!" Hina said, suddenly, angry at them all. "She obviously needs some time!"
Hiro sympathized with Hina. Mukuro looked so fragile right now, like a white-faced girl made entirely out of glass. Shift her only a little, and she might fall to the floor and shatter into a million pieces.
Woah! That's pretty good!
He decided he'd remember that for later, if he needed to impress a client during a reading.
"We don't know how much time we have left," Byakuya said, with the same lack of personal concern he always displayed. "It might not be much longer."
"What do you mean?" Taka asked, scratching at his throat. "We just completed a trial. I know we've all said this before… three times now… But this time, for real – there can't possibly be another murder after this. So, I don't understand why you're acting as if we're under a time limit."
"Junko has repeatedly broken the spirit of the rules to keep this game going," Celeste explained, her own voice, itself, rather quiet. "She must agree with you that no one is likely to commit another murder of their own volition, which means she must have some other way to manipulate something to happen."
"Yeah, and that 'other way' is fucking obvious!" Leon spat. "The only thing that makes sense is that she'll have her spy do something, and that spy is obviously you!"
"What…?" Hina cocked her head. "Did I miss something?"
"You missed quite a lot," Byakuya snapped. "We'll explain the details later. As you've probably already guessed, though… Celeste is likely the spy."
"I deny it!" said the gothic girl. "It's a ruse, nothing more."
"Should we lock her up?" Leon asked. "Put her somewhere?"
"No," Byakuya said, instantly. "We need to keep an eye on her at all times from this moment on. Celeste should never be alone, not even for a second. Right now, she's where we can all see her."
Celeste was obviously growing irritated at the suspicion and at his words, but she reined herself in and shook her head.
"If you wish to waste resources and time this way, then so be it," she said. "I cannot control you. When we learn the truth of this spy business, whatever it is, you'll all look like the fools you are."
"Sorry, man…" Hiro muttered, and he looked away.
"Enough," Byakuya said. "Mukuro. What do you remember?"
"…"
The bags under her eyes were deep pools of black, made all the more disturbing by the natural paleness of her face. She might have glanced up at their leader, or she might have just followed the movements of the illusory memories only she could see.
Damn, that's another good one!
"I…" she croaked. "Sister… of killing… places I don't know, but I do know… Focus and it's… swept away… If I'm… am…"
She wobbled for a moment, then half-fell, half-leaned down upon the bench, until she was on her side. Hina reached over to offer support, but Mukuro didn't seem to notice.
"It's just out of reach," she said, and closed her eyes. A bit of drool eked out of her mouth, and she was out cold.
"So…" Leon looked away, very awkwardly. "Again – Should we be worried that she's going to flip out and kill everyone?"
The answer, obviously, was that she was harmless right now, but in the future, might be strong enough again to threaten them. However, no one said it – not even Byakuya.
"Heheh!" Jack threw her head back. "She's gonna go back to the old Pukuro, right? The one who, she claimed, killed who-knows-how-many? And she killed a school worth of kids? And, dunno if you noticed this or not, but we're a school's worth of kids!" She clasped her hands together and looked to the ceiling. "Oh, to be protected from the evils of the Ultimate Soldier by my shining knight! If only he would hold out his hand and pledge to protect this dainty, innocent flower!"
A few moments passed, and her eyes slid over to the very-much-immobile Byakuya, who pledged, evidently, nothing. She nudged him in the side, and he moved over to another corner.
"I don't want to raise alarm unnecessarily," Taka said, obviously with some reluctance. "But Jack may not be incorrect. Monokuma did call this an execution, which implies that at the very least, the Mukuro we know will die."
"No!" Hina yelped out, almost panicking. "Not right after I got back! That's not… that's not fair! There's so much I want to talk to her about!"
"Don't get ahead of yourself," Kyoko said, evenly. "That strawberry restores all of your memories. That means that she should still have the memories of our time together, here."
"I am also sympathetic to her," Taka said, stiffly. "But in the grand scheme of things, we've spent about two weeks with her here, and she spent years as a soldier, and then years obeying her evil sister and working against us."
"… She's very injured," Kyoko said. "I doubt she could do much with her talent, even if she wanted to."
Hey, that's what I thought! Hiro almost smiled. Now, even the smart people are coming up Hiro.
"Hina," Byakuya said, changing the subject, and looked to the girl next to Mukuro. "Tell us what happened to you."
"Nothing, really… I actually wanted to ask you guys. All that happened was that I woke up on, I guess, the fifth floor. I was on a hospital bed in what looked like an archery range. I got up maybe twenty minutes ago, and Monokuma was there. He said something like 'if you want to meet up with your friends, I think they're just getting out of the last trial.' I eeped, and then I ran down to find you guys – the gate was open."
"How did you feel? Kyoko asked. "Normal? Woozy? Put it into words."
"I feel a little sleepy, like I just woke up after a super long nap. If it wasn't for all of this, I'd want to go for a swim."
Kyoko nodded.
"That fits…"
"Fits what?"
Byakuya snorted.
"Isn't it obvious? It was always strange that Celeste woke up before you did, when you were physically tougher than her, and you'd both been poisoned at the same time. But if Junko kept you unconscious for longer because she wanted to surprise her sister with your reappearance, that particular mystery is instantly solved."
"What?!" Hina flushed blue. "That… that's… Argh!" She smashed a fist onto the bench next to Mukuro. "She's the worst!"
"I think we can also assume the dust line underneath the fifth-floor gate has been disturbed. Taka, go check it out."
"I… Very well, Byakuya." Taka nodded, then was gone.
"Dust line…?" Hina cocked her head, then raised her hand. "Um! Sorry, but I still don't quite understand everything that's happening. I get that Sayaka is… gone…" Her voice dropped as she said the words. "But what happened to Mukuro's arm? And why's she in weird, new clothing?"
"Hmph… I suppose you need to be brought up to speed." Byakuya sighed. "Normally, I'd assign this task to Mukuro… Hiro, you do it."
"Me? Why?"
"Because it'll let me judge how much you understood what happened, yourself."
Crap!
Over the next five minutes, Hiro recounted everything he could remember since Hina's and Celeste's poisoning – the entire debacle with Sayaka, the way she'd been manipulated toward despair, the complicated murder-suicide question with the way she tricked Mukuro into killing her, and all of the many, many reasons they suspected Celeste of being the spy.
At the end, Byakuya almost looked impressed.
"You could have done worse," he admitted. "But you forgot an important detail."
"Dammit! What was it?"
"After Hina and Celeste were poisoned, Monokuma did take them to be healed… but not before we stabilized them. And the one who knew how to treat the poison… was Kyoko, who still never gave a satisfactory explanation as to how she knew the antidote to an obscure type of poison."
Kyoko closed her eyes.
"I told you. Celeste knocked over a book, and I picked it up. The page just happened to about that same poison. Or are you accusing me of being the spy?"
Byakuya said nothing for a long time.
"I don't think it's plausible for Junko to have more than one spy among us," he admitted at last. "And I do think Celeste is far more suspicious than you. But I still don't accept your explanation."
Truth Bullet added: POISONED DARTS
"What if—"
"Byakuya!" Taka barreled into the room. He huffed for breath for a moment, then stood erect at attention. "I have made an important discovery!"
"What is it?"
"The gate to the fifth floor… is open!"
Byakuya's eyes narrowed.
"What…?"
"What's so strange about that?" Hina asked. "The gates to the next floor always open after a trial."
"They always open the next morning," Byakuya corrected. "This is less than half an hour after the trial. Most likely, the gate's been open since you woke up. It was definitely closed when we left for the trial, though… Taka, have you explored the fifth floor at all, yet?"
"No, I came right back. As you thought, the line was completely ruined."
"Very well. We may as well begin now. Except for Mukuro, Celeste, and a guard, we should all split into pairs and see what's up there."
"I'll be the guard!" Hina volunteered, instantly. "I wanna stay with Mukuro."
"No. Besides Celeste, you're the only one who's seen anything on the fifth floor. Your perspective could be useful." He turned to Jack, whose hands were still clasped together, whose eyes were still turned toward the ceiling in cartoonish expectation of her knight's arrival. "Jack, you watch them."
"Hmmmm…" She poked one of her scissors against her cheek, rocking back and forth in idle consideration. "Go with Master or stay here with two extremely not-cute girls… Do I have a choice?"
"No."
"Kyaha! I didn't think so!"
"That leaves six people. I'll go with Leon. Hina can go with Taka. Kyoko, you can take Hiro."
There wasn't much argument after that. As the group made for the top floor, Byakuya delayed for a moment, and then pulled Hiro aside.
"Hiro," he said, rather quietly. "I have a special job for you."
"But during the trial, you said I was too dumb to have a special job!"
Byakuya hesitated for a moment, then nodded bruskly.
"I did say that," he admitted. "But nevertheless, your job is to watch Kyoko."
"Just… watch her?"
"Make sure she doesn't leave the fifth floor once we're up there, and make sure she doesn't talk to Junko and give her information about this meeting through a Monokuma or something. Just stand near her and watch to see if she does anything suspicious."
"Ha!" Hiro laughed, and made a fist. "I can do that, easy!"
Byakuya sucked in his lips. Hiro wondered if he was reconsidering the teams he'd formed.
"You'd better."
(Scene)
"Wh—what the hell?!"
Hiro almost leapt out of his skin as soon as he entered the room. A second later, something bubbled up from inside his stomach. It nearly burst from his mouth, but somehow, he swallowed it down.
"Then it's as I thought."
Kyoko sighed.
A classroom stretched out before the two, though it was like no classroom Hiro had ever imagined. Chairs and desks were overturned and scattered across the floor at random, scratch marks the size of a person dug deeply into the walls… Most of all, though, bloodstains were everywhere. They were dark and dry and ancient, but Hiro had seen enough of blood in the past few weeks to know them in an instant, however old and covered with dust they might have been.
White chalk marks in the shape of people, or rather, in the shape of dead bodies covered the floor. Too many for Hiro to count quickly, though it was surely more than ten. Blood smeared across a whiteboard on the side of the room and spelled "Eye For An Eye." Even a few of the ceiling lights were damaged and caked with dried, brownish blood.
He wanted to throw up again.
"What the hell is this?" he asked, terrified.
"… the Tragedy of Hope's Peak," Kyoko said. She kneeled down, and though she was blind, she instantly began tracing her fingers lightly over the walls, apparently able to feel that which was to Hiro invisible. "This was the first, first killing game."
"The first?"
"Junko, and I suppose probably Mukuro, forced another class in Hope's Peak to murder each other. It was less elaborate than ours, though. No trials – just a big bloodbath, right here. One survivor, though he later died, anyway."
"Jeez… What did the school do about it?"
"What else?" she asked, bitterly. "They covered it up. They claimed the entire class went off on a study abroad program." She sighed, and traced a finger across the edge of one of the floor tiles. "Junko revealed everything, sans her involvement, which triggered a protest… Everything cascaded from there. In a way, you can trace all the damage and destruction and deaths the world has suffered… to this room, right here."
There was an emotion in her voice that Hiro didn't quite understand, or perhaps a mix. It wasn't purely bitterness or hatred, like she'd displayed when her father had come up previously. It was more like frustration, though he couldn't quite tell at whom it was directed.
Still kneeling, Kyoko stalked over to the frame of the door. Her finger glided over the wood, until she picked off a tiny strip of what, to Hiro, looked like scotch tape.
"I tried to figure out the truth," she continued, airily, examining the tape. "But I failed."
"Why? You're the Ultimate Detective."
She pulled the tape almost up to her eye, and Hiro wondered how blind she really was. A moment later, she pulled another piece off the door itself. Something metallic was attached to it.
"A key witness I needed was killed in front of my eyes," she said. "I was almost injured, too. Knowing what I know now, it must have been Junko or Mukuro who did it."
"You were almost injured? Is that where your hands got messed up?"
"No… That was when I was a very inexperienced, younger detective. Stupid mistakes."
Truth Bullet added: KYOKO'S HANDS
"Hold on a second," Hiro muttered. "If the school wanted to cover everything up, why'd it leave the classroom the same?"
"I never knew enough to ask until now," she sighed. "But I would guess they kept it the same so that they could keep investigating to find what caused the incident. To think they had a Kirigiri detective on the campus, but never called upon her… The arrogance. The stupidity."
She stood, and looked Hiro dead in the eyes.
"I hate them."
"… What's with the tape?" he asked, changing the subject.
"I don't know," she said. "But there's a wire inside of it."
"A wire?"
"Broken, now. Presumably when we opened the door. The tape itself is still flexible. It was placed there recently. This is a common trick to tell if a door was opened when you weren't around – place a bit of tape or string on it, and if it's broken, someone opened it. More than that, though, look here. What do you see?"
Hiro strained his eyes. Inside of the tape, he saw that the metallic object was actually a little microchip. A tiny light on its side was flashing.
"Little computer-y microchip," he said. "It looks like it's on, or something. Oh! Did it turn on when the wire broke?"
Kyoko licked her lips. She was clearly thinking very hard, and Hiro didn't want to interrupt that, but…
"… Hold on a second!" he said. "There's no other way out of this room, and no one is in here to have placed it." He crossed his arms, then brightened. "Do you think—"
"It's not a ghost, Hiro."
Hiro grunted.
"It could've been a ghost…" he said in a low, defeated tone.
Truth Bullet added: MYSTERIOUS TAPE ON THE DOOR
"Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!"
From a shadow in the ceiling, a black-and-white bear popped into existence. He settled in the middle of the class, not quite disturbing a dusty bloodstain. Slowly, he pivoted in a near-circle to scan the entire room, until at last his eyes settled on the teacher's desk in the front. He seemed almost not to notice Hiro and Kyoko.
"Are you enjoying yourself, Miss Kirigiri?" he asked, wistfully. "Remembering the good old days?"
"Thank you, Junko," Kyoko said, instantly. "For not killing Mukuro." Her hand pulled into a fist, and extended one finger, which she pointed at the headmaster. "I know you think Mukuro will turn on us… That you spared her to further our despair, by turning her back into the awful murderer she once was, but you've underestimated her. In the end, she'll prove that the only Mukuro you killed is the one who was loyal to you."
Hiro didn't understand where Kyoko summoned the courage from to talk that way to him. Still, Monokuma only said nothing for a few awkward seconds. Finally, just when Hiro wondered if he would reply at all, he cocked his head, though he still didn't face the duo.
"Is that so?" he asked, voice raising in pitch as he did. "Well, if you think so, who am I to disagree? Heehee! It doesn't really matter. Make of this room whatever you will – if you think you can find the truth in it, that is."
Kyoko's eyes narrowed. A few seconds passed, and then Monokuma laughed again.
"With that, I'm off! I can't spend all my time with you; your classmates might need my ministrations! Bear-well!"
He was gone a second later. Kyoko said nothing, though Hiro noted that she kept absently playing with the tape in her fingers.
"He changed the subject from Mukuro to this room," she murmured. "But there's nothing important here, when I already know what happened…"
"Wasn't there?" Hiro asked. "There was that tape and the wire, right?"
Kyoko's bottom lip fell just slightly ajar. She glanced down into her hands and at the tape, the wire, and the microchip.
And it struck Hiro, suddenly, that there was an explanation for how it could have gotten into the room. The simplest explanation in the world that didn't involve ghosts, and perhaps even simpler than one that did.
Suppose Kyoko was the spy, after all, and that she wanted to mislead everyone. Well, she was the one who found the tape. Who was to say that it was really there to begin with? Who was to say that she didn't place it there to 'find?'
And that whole conversation with Monokuma… it had almost sounded like they were having two different conversations.
What if that was a code, for her to pass Junko information without me realizing it?
Hiro shuddered. Now he thought about it, there was no possible spy more dangerous than the one standing next to him.
(Scene)
"Yeah," Hina said. "Yeah, this is basically what I remember. I wasn't paying super close attention, though."
The fifth-floor dojo-archery range expanded out before the two, almost exactly as had been described by both Celeste and Hina.
Taka crossed his arms, uncrossed them, and retrieved his fourth emergency logbook and pen from his uniform. For the next few seconds, he busily took note of all that he saw:
- Traditional Japanese-style wooden lockers on the right
- Samurai armor decoration on the left
- 20~ foot-long concrete floor extending out from the wooden dojo section
- Four archery targets on the far wall, none of them yet used
- Cherry blossom trees in full bloom, pink petals falling everywhere
Taka puffed out his cheek. Any good Japanese student would know that such trees bloomed for precisely two weeks per year. Did this happen to be the two weeks they were in full bloom? Or did Junko or the school have some artifice to force them when it was convenient?
Most likely the latter, though I should bring this up to Kyoko…
He jotted down a reminder to himself.
When he was satisfied that he'd written down all the essentials of the room, he continued on to what was obviously a newer addition:
- Two hospital beds taken from the nurse's office, both used, placed on the archery range – left one looks more recently used
- Both have un-made sheets + need washing
They stood out so much from the rest of the scenery, it was impossible not to instantly notice them. Hina stood over the leftmost one, poking its bedsheets.
"This one was mine. My clothes were in a pile on the floor."
"And you threw them on, and made for the gate?"
"Yeah. Well, actually I ran around a little on the fifth floor, looking for the gate, 'cause I've never seen it before. Well, I guess I have seen it before, but lost my memory of it… You know what I mean."
"Indeed, I do."
Taka finished his latest note:
- Location on ground next to foot of left bed where Hina claims she found her clothing in a pile (no clothing there anymore)
Finally, he slipped the logbook and pen back into a fold of his clothing. They would be easy to retrieve, should he need them again later.
"I like this place," he said. "It's very relaxing, yet its purpose is clear and useful. I presume Sakura must have spent most of her time here."
"Yeah…" Hina agreed, and her voice was a little downtrodden. "I… I hate how she died."
"It was Hifumi's doing, Hina."
"Was it?" Hina huffed. "It feels to me more like it was Junko's! Argh, I hate her so much!"
Again, Taka agreed.
His philosophy had always been to stay focused on the future. What value was the past, except as a lesson for how to behave and what not to do? His own embarrassment of a grandfather was evidence enough for that.
Focus on the future, prepare yourself for it, be better for it. And give some thought to the present – be strong, be fast, be smart, be organized, be as good as you can be.
And yet…
He wondered, sometimes, about that Mondo character. Kyoko had been adamant that he and Mondo had been the closest of friends, completely inseparable at all times, that their 'bro-dom' was an unbreakable bond—
That Junko had broken. Was it a mercy that he didn't know Mondo, except for the first five minutes after waking up? A mercy that this was all lost in the past, as well?
What a bitch, he thought, allowing himself his one self-allotted swear word of the month on this.
"Hey, Taka, look at this, I found something weird in the sheets."
He scurried over to Hina, who leaned over the bed. She motioned to what looked like a tiny wire on the bed, except that it had crumbled at her touch. It was split into a few pieces, now.
"It was just a normal piece of wire," she said. "But it fell apart when I touched it."
He pressed a hand onto the bed, and shifted through the sheets underneath the wire. As he expected, his fingers pressed on something a little too hard and angular for a mattress.
I hate to destroy school property, he thought. But…
He pulled out his pen, stabbed the tip into the sheet, and tore the fabric around the object underneath. A moment later, he revealed a small microchip that the wire had connected into. A tiny light on the surface was flashing.
"Hm…" he mused. "Some bit of computer equipment. Activated when you disturbed the wire, perhaps?"
"What's it do?" Hina asked.
"I have no idea. But! My instinct tells me this is important."
"Your instinct, huh," Hina said, and Taka pretended not to notice her obvious sarcasm.
"Yes! We will inform the others posthaste!"
Truth Bullet added: MYSTERIOUS WIRE IN THE BED
"Hm, hm, hmmmmmmmmmm!"
They turned around at the all-too-familiar voice. Monokuma stood there, standing between them and the door, having apparently arrived after they'd found the wire. His eyes were dead set on the bed.
"Heehee!" He covered his mouth with his paw, and seemed almost overflowing with energy and evil mockery. "What'd you find, my little studentarino?"
"You know very well, Monokuma," Taka replied. "Whatever this wire is that you hid in Hina's bed, we will find its purpose and expose you."
Before Monokuma could reply, Hina jumped forward, made two fists, and screamed at the headmaster.
"Junko!" she yelled. "How could you do all of these horrible things to your own sister?! How can 'despair' be worth a—"
Monokuma just shook his head and spoke over her – not even loudly, just at his ordinary pitch.
"Heh… You're still investigating, even now. Wouldn't it be easier to just give up? Or are you that interested in finding the truth? Are you that devoted to it?"
"You're not… you're not answering my question!" Hina stammered. Her face was growing red, and Taka worried that she might forget the rules and launch herself at the bear. Carefully, he maneuvered to place himself between them, and she continued cursing out the robot. "Dammit, Junko! Why do you have to torture her so much? Isn't it enough that you've killed Sakura, that you've killed Makoto, that you've killed Sa—"
"Well," said Monokuma, rather casually. So casually, in fact, that it was difficult to hear him over Hina's impotent anger. "I'm not going to stop you. Just make sure not to mess up the place too badly."
He bounced away into the ceiling, as he always did, and Hina raged for seconds. At last, she screamed at the top of her lungs, this time in just pure frustration.
"I hate her!" she cried, and punched at the air. "I just… I just want to help Mukuro, so much!"
"We are helping her," Taka said, as comfortingly as he could manage.
"She just ignored me," she moaned. "She didn't even let me finish my sentence. She just interrupted me like I was nothing, like I was a gnat!"
"Yes. If anything, she's gotten ruder over time," he nodded. "It's as if we're not even important enough to talk to." He nodded once more, then gathered up the wire and chip. "Come, Hina. We'll find the others, and get to the bottom of this mystery. I'm confident that Byakuya and Leon will have discovered something crucial by now."
(Scene)
"Well, that was pointless," Leon yawned, settled into a chair, and stretched his legs out over the cafeteria table. "Didn't find anything important at all."
"I wouldn't quite say that," Byakuya replied, but Leon could tell that the rich kid was still disappointed by how little they'd found.
Heh… I bet he doesn't know half as much as he pretends. I bet it's mostly bluffing. Yeah, that's why he always tells Mukuro to explain everything!
Leon grinned wildly, certain in the knowledge that the only really smart person around was Junko.
Their enemy.
Whom it would be really bad for them to be the only intelligent person around.
I'm gonna forget all that whole line of thought.
"The greenhouse was useless, yes," Byakuya, brilliant and clever and their best chance for survival, continued. "But the biolab at least revealed the existence of a morgue on the school grounds."
"Yeah, about that…" Leon tapped his shoe on the table. "What the hell does a school have a morgue for? Am I crazy for thinking that shit's pretty weird? You're not gonna tell me there was an Ultimate Mortician or something, are you?"
"There are many possible scientific uses for a dead body here, if you were training an Ultimate Nurse or Doctor or something, yes," Byakuya chided, not even bothering to look at Leon. The future Ultimate Musician bit his lip, and decided now wasn't the time to argue. "The most important part is that we confirmed six cadavers are being stored."
"Why's that important?"
"Because that's the correct number there should be – Makoto, Chihiro, Hifumi, Mondo, Sakura, and Sayaka. Imagine if someone was stupid enough to miscount the number of green lights versus red lights in that room."
Leon actually laughed.
"Haha, okay, okay," he said, and his good humor returned. "Actually, I guess I see where you're going with that. You wanna make sure no one's playing any stupid corpse switcharoo games with us, right? But I still sure as hell don't wanna go back into that freezing room again."
Truth Bullet added: BIOLAB LIGHTS
"So, uh," Leon grunted. "Why're we waiting for the others here, instead of the bathhouse?"
Byakuya didn't answer instantly. Instead, he looked away with a slightly out-of-character awkwardness, and then Leon remembered that that was the room he'd told Jack to guard.
Oh.
Just as Leon was considering running to his room to grab a guitar and start practicing, two figures appeared in the doorway: Hiro and Kyoko.
"Hey, guys," said the former. "You find anything interesting?"
"Not really," Leon said. "Just a room where Junko's keeping everyone's corpses."
"The morgue, I assume." Kyoko said, not looking in his direction.
"S'right. What about you guys?"
"We found the room where the first killing game happened!" Hiro announced. "Then, we found this weird wire-and-microchip device."
"So did we!"
Aoi and Taka ran in behind the other two. The latter pulled a crumbled wire and microchip out of his pocket, and presented it to the group.
"Yeah, that's basically what we have, too," Hiro agreed. "Except ours was taped to a door, and it broke when we opened it. Kyoko's got it."
On cue, the detective reached into her own pocket, and produced a wire-and-microchip device contained in two thin strips of tape. Both microchips had the same flashing light attached to their surfaces.
"Unfortunately, we weren't able to determine the purpose of the chip," Taka said. "However, ours was not attached to the door, it was inside of the hospital bed Hina woke up in."
Aoi nodded.
"I'm pretty sure it wasn't in the bed when I woke up," she said. "I mean… The wire was so crumbly that it fell apart as soon as I touched it. If it'd been in the sheet with me, I'd have broken it earlier. Did you guys find anything like this?"
Leon shook his head.
"No… There was nothing like that in the biolab, or in the greenhouse. There wasn't much of anything, really."
"Enough," Byakuya said. "This is useful information, but we should discuss it where there are no cameras."
"You mean, back with Jack and the others?"
"… Yes," he replied, slightly tired. "Back with Jack."
(Scene)
"… and that's where things stand." Kyoko finished, summing up the discoveries of the day.
Hiro yawned, and stretched one of his arms. He wasn't even sure what time it was right now, but he did know that he wanted to sleep until morning. Before he could say it, though, Leon spoke up.
"Man, I'll be honest," the other boy groaned. "I was already burned out by the trial, I'm not sure I paid enough attention to everything you just said."
"There's no need to say you're an idiot in so many words!" Jack laughed. "You coulda just said 'I'm dumb' and gotten the message across!"
"Hey!"
Kyoko sighed. Hiro watched as she turned to the bench with Mukuro, who was still asleep. Hina had sat down beside her and maneuvered her head to lay on her lap – concern was written all over her face.
Mukuro, man… Now THAT'S someone who could sleep for a week straight.
It was incredible how she could look so tired even while resting. Her chest barely even raised and lowered as she breathed.
"Leon is actually correct," Kyoko said. "We're all exhausted, mentally and physically. It would be wise to rest for a while before trying to make more progress on fighting back against Junko."
"Do you think there's any 'progress' we can actually make?" Taka asked.
"Yes," Kyoko said, and Hiro could tell the sincerity in her voice. "She wouldn't have to cheat as often as she does, were the game going anywhere close to how she intended. She's the one on the backfoot – not us."
"And what about Mukuro?" Leon asked, dumbly. "We don't need her freaking out on us again."
"Hey!" Hina scowled. "She's done everything in her power to save everyone!"
"Man, I'm just saying!" Leon held up his hands in mock defense. "We just don't need her turning on us, or thinking she's really Junko again."
Byakuya hesitated. For a few seconds, he looked over the sleeping form of the girl who'd saved them all, and he shook his head.
"We'll just have Hina watch her for now. Jack will watch Celeste, the same way she watched Sayaka. Make sure neither of them leave your sights."
"Aye, aye, Master!" screeched the serial killer, and she jumped over to stand beside the gothic girl, who had uttered not a single word during this whole affair.
"Okay," Hina said, though it was obvious she would have insisted on staying with Mukuro regardless of the orders.
(Scene)
Her eyelids weighed a thousand tons, and yet she managed to open one.
She lay on her bed.
Strange, came a hazy thought. It doesn't even feel like a sheet…
She felt nothing except exhaustion, at least not physically. Surely her skin and body were aware of the sensation of sheets and the buzzing of the lights, but it was lost to her. Only vaguely did she realize that someone must have moved her from the bathhouse to, she assumed, her dorm.
She saw the wall, but a battlefield raged across it. Men who'd died years ago died again, mud burst across a wall as a shell exploded. Her good arm, which she thought she might been laying on, twitched as she recalled a knife entering someone's throat, and that effort took all the energy she had.
Memories of a sister came to her, but they were shadowy and indistinct. Silhouettes flickering as a dark sun passed overhead. A flash of hair, a winking eye, a rush of blood – how it was that she could be flooded by images of the dead at her hand, yet be only teased by the not-quite-presence of her sister, she didn't understand. Yet each dim wisp of memory of her sister felt infinitely more real to her than the hatred she'd felt for the last few weeks. That new Mukuro felt almost like a dream, one that would be lost as she finally opened her eyes.
The memories lasted only seconds, before, inevitably, they were swept away by a deluge of yet more illusions from the past, but every single one brought with it the same emotion. Sometimes, the despair was mixed with something else, like anger, hate, or even love, but it was always present, always overwhelming. It was like rediscovering that she was a great hole in the ground filled with miserable despair, and if there were other feelings inside of it, that was only to make the despair be felt more acutely by the bright contrast of what-might-have-been.
Another flicker of a memory, this time when she was a tiny child. She stood next to her sister, her twin, and looked into a mirror. They looked so similar, and yet were so unalike, even then.
And then another memory, this time of the school. Everyone was together, posing for a class photo. She looked over, saw the happy faces of the people she'd known for years, and felt—
Not even despair. Just contempt.
The slavish deference Toko showed to Byakuya, his own smug sense of superiority, Hifumi's dedication to a useless craft, Celeste's insistence on maintaining her invented persona, Kyoko's obsession with her idiotic father, Hiro's boundless stupidity, Leon's stubborn refusal to accept what he really was, Sakura's attempts at composure despite her clear insecurities, Taka's and Mondo's endless bro-offs, Sayaka's weak and brittle mentality, Chihiro's abject failure cowardice , Hina's endless optimism and good nature…
What were they worth to her?
Nothing.
Everything.
This was merely the longest tactical ruse she'd ever carried out, nothing more. They meant nothing to her, sincerely, and if asked, she'd have ended their lives in seconds without a thought (Sakura might take longer than a few seconds, though). She'd already plotted out everywhere in the school they could hide from her, every weapon they might find or trap they might concoct. She was invincible, utterly.
And yet, she felt very strongly that she had to protect them. It was more important to her than her own life, than even, perhaps, her sister's life. They were mostly fools, but they were good people, and more than that, they were her friends. They were, and she hated to use the term, hope incarnate. They were only beacons of light in a pit into which her sister had cast her, and people who, when they acted sorely, had good reason to fear her. Every single one of them, even the actual serial killer, was simply, factually a better person than her, and was extending a hand downward if they ever deigned to be her friend.
She wanted to kill them and get it all over with. She wanted to leave this place and see what the world was really like, and see what battlefields await. Battlefields against soldiers, and not metaphors like 'patience.'
She could feel the killing intent radiating off of her sister whenever they spoke to the others. How could they not sense it? How could this academy of the world's best and brightest not see through her plastic smile and understand her true motives?
She wanted to manipulate them to pass the time by pretending to be their friend. Avoiding Kyoko's suspicions was practically a game, albeit one the detective didn't know she was playing.
She wanted to show the same pathetic reverence to her sister that Toko showed to Byakuya, and for the same reason. The Ultimate Writing Prodigy would never learn how similar they were – and if she did, she'd be silenced, if only to preserve a sliver of dignity. She could feel her fingers constricting around a blade, around her throat…
She fell over onto her back on the bed, and stared up into the ceiling. Each new memory buffeted her body, and though they disappeared quickly and were lost, they never stopped pushing in on her, trying to break her with the pressure of an ocean's depth. Her bones would snap, her skin would peel off, and she'd be left only with the roiling waters of despair driving into what remained of her body as it plummeted into darkness.
She would have screamed, if her body was capable of it.
There was a shift in light to her left. She couldn't bring herself to face it, but in the corner of her eye, she knew there was another person in the room. It was a girl, tan-skinned with brown hair, exiting the bathroom. A white towel was wrapped around her chest and waist, and her hair was long and slick and wet. The very air around her radiated warmth – some from the shower she'd just taken, and some from her nature.
"Oh, Mukuro!" she said, and rushed over. "You're awake!"
Hina hovered over the bed, awash with concern.
"Mukuro! There was so much I wanted to tell you!"
Aoi Asahina – the gentlest, second-dumbest of their number.
She was so endlessly kind, the last vestige of good spirits in the whole of the school, maybe the whole of the world.
Her softness was disgusting. Her never-ending willingness to help and work together was a joke, and yet her earnestness and love for her friends might have been their greatest advantage.
She babbled on about how much she'd worried, about how sorry she was to have not been here to support Mukuro. Tears fell from her eyes and splashed onto the girl on the bed, who just listened, torn in opposite directions. One girl wanted to reach up, wrap her arm around Hina, and let themselves both take comfort in the other's presence, in the fact that they had yet to lose everything. She wanted to thank Hina, and to say that they still had a chance to escape, and to apologize for failing to protect her from the poisoned dart that put her out.
The other girl on the bed looked up, studied Hina's windpipe, and coolly decided that in this state, she probably could not kill the Ultimate Swimmer without an unacceptable chance of failure. It would be better to wait until she was rested.
And yet, neither girl on the bed was complete. She couldn't remember why she might want to kill Hina, nor why she might not want to.
She thought of when she'd been in the wheelchair days ago, and only Hina had defended her. She thought of some lost moment during the two years, passing Hina in the halls, and feeling nothing. She thought of all the times she could have effortlessly ended Hina's life and left no evidence. The two girls on the bed thought different things at the same time, and each one cast her deeper into darker depths. The pressure grew and bore down upon her, and insofar as she could feel anything physically, her skin felt like nothing but a series of pinpricks. She would be crushed, she was certain. Could someone be crushed by an absence of memory?
The shifting of her emotions must have finally shown on her face, for Hina paused in the middle of her speech and cocked her head.
"Mukuro," she said, clearly worried. "Are you okay?"
The girl on the bed's one good hand flexed. She had just enough strength, she thought.
"Hina," she croaked. Her fingers twitched, and her friend looked down, startled. "Give me a knife."
"Wh—what?!"
"I'm slipping away," she said, and her voice trembled. If she'd had any tears left to give, she would have cried. "I feel it."
Hina grabbed her by the shoulders, though she barely felt it. She closed her eyes, and tried to conjure up more strength.
"Each time I remember something, I only feel less for you all. I'm going to hurt someone, I know it. I can end it here."
She tried to sit up, but she lacked the energy. Even if she'd had any left, Hina could have easily restrained her.
"Mukuro, stop it!" cried the girl above her, and she actually was shedding tears. "We need you!"
The last echoes of strength left her, and the girl on the bed fell into a dark, dreamless sleep. She hoped not to wake up.
(Scene)
It was almost precisely 10 AM, perhaps even that exact time itself. Taka knew, because he'd just reached the stairs to the second floor. He'd checked the clock in the cafeteria before leaving, and it had been thirty seconds through 9:56, and it took him about seven minutes and thirty seconds to make it from the entrance to the main school to the fifth floor by walking normally.
He knew because he'd timed it yesterday.
Discipline's broken down, he thought, sullenly. No one shows up to breakfast at the agreed-upon time anymore.
Half of the class wasn't even up yet. He wanted to chastise the others, but the truth was that even he found it difficult to maintain the routine. Junko was the cameras, and the cameras were everywhere. Though they were all united in the fight against her, she was also, in an almost literal sense, the school itself. It was like some kind of grotesque caricature of fighting the concept of authority. He almost wanted to compliment the twisted cleverness of it. In almost every way, Junko was the perfect antithesis of all that he believed.
It's a perversion of the natural order, he thought, burning with intense anger.
He was making his rounds up to the fourth floor again, to maintain the lookout on the data processing room's dust line. Unless something had changed in the last half hour, Junko had remained sequestered in what they presumed was the Monokuma control room.
What does she eat? How does she stand being in such a confined space?
How much must she have loved despair, to put herself through such circumstances? Taka couldn't imagine being so dedicated to something as abstract as an emotion.
He reached the second floor, and saw that the door to the library was wide open. Celeste sat in front of it on a folding chair, legs crossed, and dressed in her full regalia, to the point where telling that she was injured was impossible. She held a small book in her hand, and idly flipped through the pages, obviously skimming its contents rather than fully appreciating them.
Despicable, Taka thought. Unless she's already read it, and is searching for a particular passage…
"Ah, Taka," she said, barely glancing up. "Have you come to rescue me from my unwanted warden?"
"Your warden?"
"Hiya!"
Taka leapt back as the flash of brown-and-brown jumped down from an upper staircase. The screeching voice of Genocide Jack carried only slightly more slowly than the serial killer herself. She landed just above him, and laughed hysterically at his surprise, as if this was the most amusing thing in the world.
"Ah, Jack," he said, failing to maintain his cool. "My third-to-least favorite classmate."
"You ranked us?"
"I rank everything! You don't?"
"Booooooooring. Don't tell the ice queen over there, but I'm spying on her."
"I can hear you!" Celeste balked. "I'm ten feet away from you, and you're speaking at normal volume! And Byakuya made no secret of it in the first place. It was obvious he'd assign you to this after you were freed by Sayaka's death, anyway."
Jack held a finger over her own lips, and leaned in close to Taka.
"Shhhhhhhh!"
"Celeste," Taka said, trying to bring his world back to order. "Why are you reading outside of the library?"
"Oh, that room is so dusty. The hallway isn't perfect, but it's better ventilated, I think." She brightened. "Jack, if Taka here agrees to watch me, could you please let me alone? You could go harass Byakuya, perhaps."
"No way, girl!" Jack chortled again. "Master gave this job to me, and 'til he says otherwise, you're stuck to me like dried blood on scissors."
Celeste sighed, defeated.
"But you've been hovering around me since the trial… She even stayed in my room while I slept! Imagine having to tolerate that even from someone who's not a maddened serial killer. I haven't had a moment by myself the entire time!"
"That's the idea, Spy-estia!"
Truth Bullet added: JACK AND CELESTE
"How I wish Hifumi was still alive, to take on this task instead of you…" Celeste looked to Taka, wearily. "What are you doing here, anyway?"
He straightened up, a little surprised at her interest. Then again, with Genocide Jack as her constant companion…
"I am only making my rounds about the school!" he announced. "I check the line of dust along the data processing room every half hour."
Truth Bullet added: TAKA'S SCHEDULE
"Great!" she said, and smiled insincerely. "Let me join you."
Not accepting no for an answer, or indeed, any answer at all, Celeste stood up, slipped her book into an invisible fold of her skirt, and weaved her arm through Taka's.
"Speak to me of anything, Taka," she commanded. "Except serial murders, cute boys, and Byakuya."
"Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?!" Jack screeched. "But those are the three most interesting things in the world!"
Aha! She does rank things, after all! Not even a complete monster can resist the allure of an ordered list.
Smiling at this important discovery, Taka guided Celeste up the stairs, and Jack trailed none-too-subtly behind, grumbling at the cruelty of a world that denied her the right to talk about her master.
When they arrived at the data processing room (two minutes later than planned – he added that to the log in red ink), Taka removed his arm from Celeste's and checked the dust line. As he expected, there was no change.
"She's still in there," he said, and tapped a knuckle on the Monokuma-colored door before them. "It is impossible to imagine what evil kinds of things she's planning."
"Sure it is," Jack said, and raised a hand to stifle a yawn. "She's trying to think of how to mess with our minds some more."
"I hate to agree with her, but she's right," Celeste said. "Either that, or she's asleep."
"Asleep?" Taka repeated, dumbly.
"Well, she is still human, so she must rest sometime." Celeste shrugged. "If Monokuma is talking to us, we can assume she's talking through him. If he's not around, then it's anything goes."
"Hm… If we could determine when she sleeps, that could offer us a tactical advantage! I will bring this up to Byakuya."
"Heheh…" Celeste smiled, not completely coldly. "I'm glad to have been of help."
"Celeste, I must warn you – you are still by far the most suspicious of us."
She sighed again, and once more pulled her arm through Taka's.
"Please don't leave me alone with her," she begged. "It's dreadful."
Taka scratched at his chin. He did have half an hour before it was time to check the line again.
"Is there anywhere you'd like to go?" he asked.
"Master's dorm?" Jack suggested, eagerly.
"No! Taka, take me some place well-ventilated, scenic, and… not too large. As I said, I want to read in a nicer place than the library."
"Well-ventilated, scenic, and not too large… Ah!" Taka nodded, certain of his idea. "I know just the place – the dojo on the fifth floor. It has some very impressive cherry blossom trees."
"The fifth floor!" Celeste lit up. "I haven't been there yet. Lead on!"
Taka guided both girls up the last set of stairs in the academy, and as he did so, reflected.
He did not, of course, wish to suspect anyone of treachery, but the evidence that there was a spy was far too strong to deny. It had to be someone, and Celeste was undeniably the most suspicious.
Besides that, though… Taka just had a feeling. Celeste might not be working against them, but she definitely had a lack of internal discipline. She was a woman controlled by her own desires, rather than what was best for the group, or even, likely, herself. He didn't say it aloud, and he would remain unfailingly polite, as was he duty, but… Celeste was his second-to-least favorite classmate. And for all her seeming kindness toward him today, he suspected that she would have given him one of those D-ranks she always talked about.
I am not a complete fool, he thought.
They rounded the corner of the fifth-floor hallway that led to the dojo. Actually, Taka had yet to explore all of the rooms here; he'd merely heard about the biolab, greenhouse, and the destroyed classroom. This would be a good opportunity to investigate them and see if he could find anything the others had missed.
He opened the door to the dojo, and Celeste's arm slipped out of his.
"A body has been discovered!"
The voice boomed in from all directions.
This is… it can't be…
It was too soon! Only a day after Sayaka! And yet, right in the center of the dojo, there it lay.
His body was shaking. His fists flexed and unflexed.
"Ah… ah…"
His mouth was dry. Distantly, he heard the headmaster's voice keep droning on.
"… assemble in the fifth-floor dojo! And I do mean everyone!"
He turned to Celeste. She had actually fallen backward, and was on the floor. Taka was too distracted to think of helping her. Like him, her eyes were wide with fear and surprise. Like him, she just stared at the body, stupidly, and rasped.
Jack, however, was completely unperturbed.
"Kyahahahaha!" she laughed. "Holy cow, that was way faster than I expected!"
Taka held out a hand in front of the door to block it.
"We… We will wait for the others," he declared, voice shaking. His heart thumped almost out of his chest. "No one will investigate until everyone is present."
Yet, he couldn't help himself from looking. The body lay there, face-up. The girl had been very thin, and her white blouse and black skirt were in perfect condition. Her skin was perfect and unblemished. He had no idea what the cause of death could be.
Hiro was the first to join them. He looked inside, gasped, and fell back.
"B—but! That's not possible!"
Taka shook his head.
"I don't want it to be true, either, but…"
He heard more footsteps, very hurried ones. Voices, too. A boy and a girl.
At last, he composed himself enough to recognize, consciously, that Celeste was still on the floor. He held out a hand, lifted her up, and looked back to the body. Her skin was still so pale, just as it had been in life.
Byakuya and Kyoko arrived together. Kyoko, of course, could see nothing, but Taka was certain she could sense the panic in the air, their quick breathing. Even Byakuya stared at the body in disbelief, his eyes sometimes wide, sometimes narrow, as if trying to work out if this was some kind of mirage.
Taka looked back to the body. From the doorway, he could see her right hand. The room was bright enough that, even from this distance, he could easily make out the tattoo of a black wolf.
The hallway was very quiet now. He wondered if Kyoko had worked out who was on the floor, but he couldn't think to actually ask her. What he saw was just… impossible.
Finally, he heard the last set of footsteps. Hina came into view first, and then Leon. Each of them had an arm wrapped around the shoulder of a broken, exhausted girl, who barely limped forward only with their aid. She was pale, and thin, and dressed in a white blouse and black skirt, and she had the tattoo of a black wolf on her right hand.
"What?" Leon looked puzzled. "Wait, everyone's here in the hallway, alive. So, what's the body announcement about?"
No one answered him. There was no need. He stepped forward, still propping up the broken girl with Hina, and yelped. Behind him, Hina gasped.
The girl between them slipped out of their grasp and crumbled into a pile on the floor. Her eyes went wide, wider than even Taka's.
On the floor of the dojo lay a corpse. Its skin was pale, like Mukuro's, and it was thin, like Mukuro. It was the same height, or nearly so, and it wore her clothes, and the back of its hand was marked by the same tattoo of the broken arm in the cast.
In every way, the body seemed like Mukuro's, except that its face was concealed by a black mask with gray eyes. On its forehead was a red mark, identical in every way to Monokuma's eye.
"Wh—what's going on here?" Hina stammered. "Who is that?"
Byakuya's eyes at last settled on being narrowed. He shook his head, and pointed to the body.
"There's only one person it can be."
"What do you mean?" she asked, frightened.
"You weren't there, Hina, so I'll repeat what Monokuma told us during the trial."
"I think I already told you this," the headmaster said, sitting upon his throne. "But I'll say it again. When the first killing game began, that being the one where Mister Naegi unexpectedly regained his memories and you all had to be memory-wiped after he ruined everything, there were sixteen students in the school – the whole of Class 78 of Hope's Peak Academy. There were fifteen who woke up on that first day, plus one more. No one else has entered or left the school since then, except by dying."
"Ah!" Hiro gasped audibly, and turned pale. "I got it! If Junko trapped us all here, and no one's left 'except by dying,' then what if… she's a ghost, floating around and making us only think there's a spy?! Think about it, that'd explain—"
"Heh." Monokuma looked away, toward the back wall of the trial room. "I just told you not to worry about 'phantom students,' Mister Hagakure, and you instantly invented one. I should send a complaint over to your mother! But I'm in such a good mood, I'll just put your worries to rest."
"What do you mean?"
"Here's a fun fact for you. Do you remember the physics lab on the third floor? The one with the air purifier? Well, that machine is the only thing keeping all of you living, breathing humans alive. I'd be fine, of course – I'm just a bear. But if it shut off, you'd all die of stale, un-recycled air before long."
"How's that prove you're not a ghost?!"
"It doesn't, since I'm just Monokuma. But that very same air purifier is designed to shut off under a certain condition. If Miss Enoshima, wherever she is, happens to die – then poof! It goes caput. So, the very fact that you can still breathe means that Miss Enoshima also can. So, there's no need to worry about ghosts."
"Well, okay…" Hina nodded. "But what does that have to do with this?"
Celeste shook her head.
"If we know that there are only sixteen students in the school, and no one else, and if we know the names of all sixteen… Then if Aoi, Byakuya, Celeste, Taka, Kyoko, Leon, Toko, and Hiro are all here, for certain, with no doubt, and if Makoto, Chihiro, Hifumi, Mondo, Sakura, and Sayaka are all dead, for certain, with no doubt, and if we know that that body belongs to none of them… Then that means there are only two possible people who could be laying there. It's either Junko Enoshima, or it's Mukuro Ikusaba."
Hina stepped back. She kneeled over the girl on the floor, whose breathing had stopped, whose eyes were crazed and bloodshot, and who was as motionless as the body of her sister on the floor. Hina wrapped her arm around the girl's chest, either to protect her or to keep her own self steady.
Byakuya finished the thought, though everyone already understood:
"If we can still breathe fresh air, that means the air purifier is still working. That means that Junko must still be alive. And if that body is either Junko or Mukuro, and Junko is alive, that would mean…
Mukuro Ikusaba is dead."
(List of Truth Bullets)
* DANCING MONOKUMAS: The music room was filled with dancing Monokumas that watched, clapped for, and recorded Mukuro and Sayaka during their fight.
* TAKA'S ACOCUNT: Everyone except Mukuro and Celeste was poisoned by food from the kitchen, to which only Taka, Kyoko, Celeste, and Toko had access.
* DUST DISTURBANCE #1: The door to the data processing room was opened at some point within an hour before Mukuro destroyed it, and Celeste and Aoi got poisoned.
* DUST DISTURBANCE #2: The gate to the fifth floor opened and closed shortly after Celeste and Aoi were poisoned, so that they could be taken upstairs to heal.
* DUST DISTURBANCE #3: The gate to the fifth floor opened and closed when Celeste returned to the group. Within the same hour, the Monokuma door also opened.
* DUST DISTURBANCE #4: The dust underneath the Monokuma door was disturbed at some point immediately before, during, or after Sayaka's murder. However, there's a chance Sayaka did this. The fifth floor gate remained closed.
* DUST DISTURBANCE #5: The Monokuma door was definitely opened at some point during the investigation of Sayaka's death. The fifth-floor gate definitely remained closed.
* KYOKO'S BLINDNESS: Kyoko went blind after regaining her memories when she ate a grape. Mukuro also regained her memories, but didn't go blind.
* POISONED DARTS: Hina and Celeste were poisoned by darts. Kyoko knew in advance how to create an antidote, because she claims she read it in a book knocked over in the library. Celeste recovered before Hina.
* KYOKO'S HANDS: Kyoko's hands have very distinctive burns all over them. It's impossible not to notice, except if she covers them with gloves.
* MYSTERIOUS TAPE ON THE DOOR: A piece of tape placed on the inside of the door for the destroyed classroom where the first killing game occurred. A wire is inside of it that broke when the door opened, which activated a microchip that was also inside of the tape. The room was empty when the door opened, so it's a mystery how it was placed.
* MYSTERIOUS WIRE IN THE BED: A wire and microchip that were in the bed Hina woke up in. The wire crumbled at the touch, and the microchip has a flashing light that seems to mean it was on… whatever it being 'on' actually does. Hina thinks it wasn't there when she woke up.
* BIOLAB LIGHTS: The biolab has drawers to store corpses in. Each one has a green light if it's empty, and a red light if it's full. Currently, there are six red lights.
* JACK AND CELESTE: Jack has watched over Celeste every second of the day since the previous trial, even at night.
* TAKA'S SCHEDULE: Taka checks the line of dust in front of the Monokuma door in the data processing room every thirty minutes, except at night. It hasn't been disturbed since the last trial.