Baka's notes: Hello Hello, back with the continuation of Despair... What is going to happen?
Prologue 2: ...in…
"Did you find them yet?"
"No."
"Did you find them yet?"
"No."
"Did you find them yet?"
"No."
"Did you find them yet?"
"Listen Enoshima, I would have found them earlier if you had asked for my service a month ago when your plan failed and they all have left the school ground." the man growled over the phone.
"I didn't know they'd be this good at 'Hide and Seek'! Not even my analytical skill saw that coming!"
"What an Analyst you are." the man scoffed.
"Hey shut up! I'm sure Naegi's Luck is what's countering my skills." Junko groaned.
"Right, the kid that ruined your game before it even started."
"Anyway, you found something yet?"
"Actually, I think I just did." The man smirked as he stood up from where he was examining.
He was looking around a large room on the second floor of an abandoned and damaged building.
"Really?! Explain!"
"Yeah, this place shows that at least a dozen people have been hiding here for at least a couple of days. The neighboring room also has some nice exposure to the entrance, perfect for staying on guard in case anything happens. A group lived here."
"And how do you know it's our wanted targets?" Enoshima asked, it could be any group of unfortunate souls.
"There were wheel marks of three large cars outside, from the look of it, they all left at the same time this morning. Impossible to even find a working vehicle in this dump of a city." the man explained.
"So only luck would have found three functional cars for a large group. It's them! Where are they heading?" Junko demanded.
"Hey wait. I did half of my part. I first need confirmation of the rest of the deal."
"Sure, sure, Senpai~! I just sent you the whooole list of Future Foundation members. And as you guessed, your best friend Ethos-Senpai is now part of them." the Ultimate Despair cooed.
"I see… Which branch?"
"Na-ha-ha~! When you have a location on the whereabouts of our little hopes, then I'll give you all the information you want. Alright, so where did they go?"
"...It will take a while, finding 'nests' is easy, but the trajectory of three cars is another story."
"So you can't find them? Booo!"
"Heh, are you kidding? I'm the Ultimate Hunter, it'll be a piece of cake. Just a big one." Michael Hyde laughed despite half his face being torn open.
"Okay! Hope to hear more soon, Hyde-Senpai! Byyye~!" Junko sang before hanging up the phone.
Looks like she finally found a trace of where her stupid sister and the rest of her lovely classmates disappeared, only a matter of time before she finds them.
While the rest of the class searched for a way in, the fighting team was doing their best to slow down the attackers who were approaching them. Asahina and Sakura used their slings to throw rocks at the assailants.
Meanwhile, Leon would throw rocks with his Baseballer skills.
The Despairs were rather quick to hide behind the Monokumas Units who could take a hit without too much damage but Leon finally managed to hit one of the Despair in the kneecap and made them fall, they couldn't get up and a Monokuma literally stomped on them to continue its advance. There was no way to tell if that Despair was dead or just knocked out but there was no time to care.
That at least made one enemy less for the battle.
The Monokumas and Despairs were only a few seconds away before collison, they all got ready for the fight but Chihiro suddenly appeared.
"G-Guys! We need help to get in!" the Programmer asked.
"Wh-What? But they are coming!"
"I'll go! Guys be careful-Aah!" Asahina announced before yelping as one of the Despairs suddenly did a mad dash and jumped towards the swimmer with a hammer ready to be swung down on her head.
Thankfully, Sakura was faster and punched the Monokuma mask wearing person straight in the gut, sending him flying away and knocked out in one hit.
"Go! We can't protect you if you're here. We'll buy as much time as possible!" Sakura said.
"Okay! Be careful!" Asahina nodded and ran off with Chihiro.
Now that it was only them and the Despair, the fighting group got ready for the battle.
"Alright, no time to argue, Ikusaba, Oogami and Jill you go against the Monokumas, Kuwata, Oowada and I we go against the Despair fools. Ready.!" Togami ordered loudly.
Like he said there was no time to argue, the enemy was there!
Mukuro was the first to act as she pushed two Monokumas away with a kick and then leaped at the last one, knife in hand to clash against the claws. Sakura was next to grab one of the two other mechanical bears by the arm and throw it to the ground while Jill threw her scissors on the last one to make it step away from her prince.
"Wow, the chicks in our group sure are something." Mondo said, still surprised by how strong these girls his age were.
The last three Despairs were each armed with a machete, a metal bar and a baseball bat with nails sticking out.
Thank God none of them had any firearm. At least the fight was even.
Now it was only a matter of time: the other group must find a way in so they can escape since there was no way they could beat the Monokumas, not with their equipment, or else they'll fall from exhaustion or injuries.
"Guys! There's a back door!" Sayaka exclaimed as she saw the door in question.
The rest of the group quickly surrounded her as she tried to open it.
"Huh? It's not locked… But I can't open it." the idol said as she tried to push the door open, she tried to pull but still nothing.
"Wait let me try!" Ishimaru said.
"Let me help." Naegi joined him.
The two teenagers slammed their bodies against the door and indeed, it didn't feel locked but rather…
"Something is blocking the door on the other side!" Ishimaru exclaimed.
"H-How do we get in then?! What do we do?!" Hagakure panicked, his trepidation starting to spread among the other survivors.
"Up there, through that window." Kirigiri calmly said, pointing at a broken window near the top of the wall.
Having no time to argue, Naegi volunteered himself to get to the other side and find a way to open the door. But unfortunately, Ishimaru and Yamada were injured so they couldn't lift him up. Kirigiri couldn't lift him up high enough either. Celeste, Sayaka and Chihiro weren't much help and Hagakure was just too weak.
The Programmer suddenly ran off, shouting that they'll get someone to help.
While waiting shortly for the small teenager to come back with someone, Kirigiri reminded Naegi of his task once he's on the other side.
"Find a way to get us in, any way possible and quickly. Not everyone can get through that window."
"Got it…" the Luckster nodded.
"Guys! I'm back with Asahina-san!" Chihiro exclaimed with the Swimmer right behind them.
"I'm here! What's the matter? Is it the door?"
"Hina, we nee-"
"Move aside! Yah!" Hina quickly slammed herself once then twice against the door, "I think something is blocking the door on the other side!"
"W-We know! We wanted help to get Naegi-kun through the window." Chihiro stammered.
"Oh, I see! My bad! Alright let's go!"
Asahina and Kirigiri both helped Naegi up the wall where he could reach the window, he used his small metal bar that most of the team were armed with to break the rest of the broken windows to not cut himself.
Once everything was clear he pulled himself up and with a push from both girls lifting him, he jumped to the other side, but-
"AARGH!" he suddenly yelled.
"Naegi-kun! Are you alright?!" Sayaka shouted.
"I'm afraid not. Something cut my leg very bad! I'm sorry."
"Don't move, I'm coming. Asahina-san, help me out." Kirigiri said and turned towards the swimmer.
"Be careful! There's some sharp objects near the wall below the window." Naegi warned.
This time, Asahina alone was able to lift Kirigiri up towards the window as the detective was more agile than the luckster. With the window border already cleaned up she managed to jump through and avoid what injured Naegi in his fall.
She jumped and landed next to Naegi who was sitting on the floor. She looked back and saw that there were some sort of blades stuck on the walls, one of them was freshly dripping with blood. A lot of blood.
She quickly turned towards her classmate and asked him to show his injury. It was a very deep slash on the shin.
"We need to stop the bleeding. This is going to hurt…" she said to him as she undid her tie to wrap it around the injured leg.
When she squeezed his leg, he threw his head back in pain with a yell and under a nearby table.
"Oh?"
"What is it?"
"There's an axe taped under the table."
"What?"
Kirigiri helped Naegi up and reached for the said axe. She pulled it out and felt something strange from the weapon the moment she grabbed it. But she decided to ignore it and examine the axe, it was a small hand axe, though the head was rather large and very red.
"I don't think we can use the backdoor…" Naegi sighed as he saw large furnitures stacked against the door, "But there's a lock on the main door. We can probably break it."
"Alright, let's see if we can destroy the lock with that axe, let's hurry."
"Guys! Get ready to go through the main door!" Naegi yelled out to his friends outside.
"A-Alright! Let's go!" they heard Asahina say.
The duo quickly ran towards the main door of the warehouse but not without taking a good look at the place. It was pretty empty and had no much light entering the place, there were broken stairs leading to the now inaccessible upper floor, some empty large metal containers, no way to know what was once inside. But most importantly, there was dry blood on all walls and floor, there were traces of a fierce battle but no corpse to be found. Like before, there were some sort of blades stuck on the walls, some with blood, some were broken. They had no idea what those were.
They reached the locked door and Kirigiri raised her axe and swung it down with full force.
"Rrah!" Togami groaned as he swung his metal bar towards the head of a Despair.
But the man dodged to the side, exactly as the Heir hoped since Leon was that way and prepared a powerful swing with his baseball bat. The Baseball star hit the Despair square in the chest, a loud crack confirming the breaking of a few ribs as the Despair collapsed on his knees, wheezing for breath and coughing blood inside his Monokuma mask.
Togami used this opportunity to kick him in the head, knocking him out for good.
"Oowada! Do you need any help?" Leon asked.
Leon and Mondo managed to defeat their opponent but one of the Despair that was previously unconscious woke up and attacked the biker.
"Nah, I'll be fine! See?" he said as he dodged and punched the man in the Monokuma face, "Help the others instead!"
The girls for their part had trouble with the real dangers of this fight, the Monokuma were very agile and tricky despite being very large. Mukuro, only armed with a knife, was mostly dodging and keeping the attention of the robot on her.
Jill on the other side was taking hit after hit and laughed through the pain and blood as she kept cutting through the bear's metallic surface. And Sakura managed to leave a few dents on her robotic opponent despite a few cuts on her arms and clothes.
Togami and Leon were about to help them but they saw the rest of the group approaching.
"What are you doing here!?" Togami shouted.
"The doors are about to op-" Asahina started but the loud sound of metal breaking cut her.
Suddenly the large door opened up with Naegi and Kirigiri behind it.
"Hurry up! Over here!" Naegi yelled.
Sakura grabbed her Monokuma by the arm and threw it against another, grimacing at the claws stabbing her shoulder. Mukuro kicked hers and everyone ran inside the warehouse.
The Ultimate Fighter quickly grabbed Naegi's metal bar to block the door behind them.
"Oh my God, Naegi, are you alright?" everyone heard Sayaka worry about his leg injury.
"I'll be fine."
"The door won't hold for long." Celeste noted.
"Naegi, you lead us here, now what do we do?" Togami glared at the Luckster who was looking around for a solution.
Mukuro looked at the broken lock on the floor, it was brand new. That raised her a few question about how Kirigiri broke it. She also could guess it was Kirigiri since she was the one with an axe in her hand.
The Luckster looked around, looking in pain as he held his head. With his face expressing his pain, he pointed at a large double door near the stairs.
"T-That way! Come on!"
They all ran inside the room which looked like a big empty storage room, there were automatic lights but only one was working in a corner.
"Naegi! There's nothing here!" Hagakure yelled in panic.
"What do we do?!"
"Naegi-kun!"
"Why did you bring us here?!"
"Naegi!"
"Aaaah!" Naegi screamed in pain, supporting himself against a wall.
"Naegi-kun!" Kirigiri and Mukuro exclaimed at the same time to help him as he seemed in pain.
Suddenly the whole room shook and a broken voice came out from a loudspeaker they couldn't see.
"W$^co§€ ~ac$ *aeg£ Ma $€to"
And then the room started to tremble.
Everyone started to look around in panic, not understanding what was going on around them. Only Kirigiri calmed herself down faster and knew what was going on.
"This is an elevator. And we're going down." she said.
"Down?! Down where?!" Ishimaru exclaimed.
"Naegi! Explain yourself!" Togami pretty much started to roar at that point.
"I… I think I know where we are now."
"Then where are we? Is there help?" Sakura asked, making sure that no one else was injured.
"Th-There should be. After all we-"
Suddenly the whole room shook violently, a new wave of confusion washed over the survivors and this time it was Mukuro who immediately knew what was going on as she lived something similar in the past.
"The Despairs! They're cutting the cables of the elevator!"
The room shook once more.
"Hold on to something! Anything!"
Before anyone could interject that there was nothing to hold on to, the room submitted to gravity and fell down at full speed.
There seemed to be a few bumps during the ride down as if they hit something in the fall, and the only light working broke.
And in the darkness of the falling cage, no one noticed the changes in everyone's physical appearance.
Baka's notes: Just where are they?! What is waiting for them. Also note: yes, my OCs are mentionned and will appear in the future but won't have a large role, or any role at all tbh.
Anyway, I hope you're enjoying this mystery.
See you next time with either Slayers or 5in1 Bride