Aside from Hanamura making a few terrible puns and pick-up lines (which she refuses to entertain), their current group is surprisingly calm, for the most part. Though sometimes, whenever Chiaki takes a look at Souda, she'd notice something shift around inside the pockets on his shirt, but she didn't comment on any of it. It's probably not a big deal, maybe.

They weren't able to find anything in Rocketpunch Market, so they've left just now. No one's exactly sure on where they'd go next, so for the moment, everyone's sitting by outside the store to cool down for now.

Everyone's got their own snacks from the market (yeah, they were able to pay for them somehow even though no one's watching over it) and they started casually talking with each other to pass some time.

Well, except for her, that is. They're all getting along with each other pretty well, and she's not sure if they'd even be interested with talking to her, so she'll keep quiet for now.

Now that she's got nothing but her thoughts to keep her company, Chiaki reassesses the current situation. The whole thing, not just about her lost hoodie. Aside from knowing this place is obviously an island, none of them has a single clue on where they are. No one's familiar with this place at all, and aside from Rocketpunch Market, they also have no idea what this place is actually called.

They don't even have a map, for crying out loud. It's all starting to get rather frustrating for her now.

"Nanami, look out!" Hinata suddenly yells out to her.

By the time she turned her head to look at why Hinata's shouting like that, it's already too late.

The piercing noise of someone's high-pitched screaming rings in her ears, and before she knew it, something, or rather, someone lands on top of her with a loud crash.

Her world spirals all over. It did kinda hurt at first, but it didn't take long before it numbed down. She faintly hears someone running over to her. "Nanami! Are you okay?"

She faintly recognizes that particular voice as Koizumi's.

Everyone else' voices are starting to sound more and more muffled as each second goes on. She did faintly hear something smack hard against another thing. It sounds kinda like someone's head getting smacked in, but she's not a hundred percent sure. She's probably just hearing things, since now she's feeling really woozy.

She never thought she'd be seeing so many stars from here, and if she looked closer, she'd even see a tiny pink blob ride on each of those stars. Actually, they're starting to heavily resemble one of her favorite video game characters.

"Wow, they're starting to multiply too." She absentmindedly blurted out, letting out a slight giggle as she tries to poke at those tiny Kirbys with her finger. "They're so cute, hehe."

"Nanami?" Koizumi repeats, and she sounds really confused for some reason. Then again, anyone would if they ever saw tiny Kirbys floating up on stars from out of nowhere.

It didn't take long before Chiaki finally gets her senses back, and once she did, she processes what just happened to her. After that, she also realizes what she just said while she was out of it, and soon, she goes completely red in the face. 'I can't believe I just did that in front of everyone! I really wish I could just disappear into the ground right now and never come back up again.'

She tries to get herself up, only to find out at first hand that there's a fair amount of weight on top of her. She then quickly realizes that there's another person right on top of her. A girl, to be exact.

Her hand gently moves the girl's bangs to the side, so that she can have a better look on her face. She squints. She doesn't recognize this girl at all.

In any case, the girl looks like she got knocked out cold, probably because of the impact from just now. Though, thankfully, there aren't any bumps or injuries on her. At least, not from where she's seeing so far.

From there, Koizumi pulls the unconscious girl up, carrying her up from under her arms, while Komaeda helps in pulling Chiaki up on her feet. She then whispers a quiet "Thanks" to both of them.

Both Saionji and Hinata go over to check on the other girl. Though, the nurse is muttering something under her breath, though it's hard to make out exactly what she's saying.

As Chiaki watches them, she thinks back on what happened earlier, and suddenly gets confused. 'Wait, come to think of it. How did she end up like this anyway? Did something manage to throw her all the way here?' She briefly imagines it, only to inwardly shake her head at that idea. 'No, that can't be possible at all, can it? Real life doesn't work like that, I think.'

The girl wakes up with a soft groan, blearily opening her eyes for a second before shutting them close again.

"Hey, uh, you okay?" Hinata asks her in a worried tone.

Suddenly, without any warning whatsoever, the girl's eyes suddenly open. She lets out a high-pitched squeak as she gets herself up on both feet like nothing happened to her at all.

Now that Chiaki has a better look at her, she can see that this girl is dressed in a baggy hoodie and skirt, and she has long hair that's been messily cut all over the place.

The girl frantically looks around her surroundings, until she looks over towards Chiaki's direction. Tears start welling up in her eyes. "I-I'm sorry! I-I'm so sorry for b-bumping into you." She bows her head so low, she might end up kneeling over. More and more apologies keep spilling out from her, each one becoming more incomprehensible than the last time.

'It was way more than a bump.' Chiaki can't help but point it out in her mind, though she doesn't say that out loud. She had a feeling that if she did, it'd only upset the girl even more, and just imagining it is already making her stomach sink from guilt. "It's okay. I didn't get hurt at all, I think. What's your name?"

Hearing that did well in enough in calming the girl down, at least calm enough to stop her from apologizing even more. "I-I'm M-Mikan T-Tsumiki, the U-Ultimate Lucky Student." She puts her hands in front of her, both as a sign of apology and of submission, like she's afraid that she would get hurt if she didn't do that.

"I'm Chiaki Nanami. I… don't know what my talent is, so yeah." She smiles, to let Tsumiki know that no one's going to hurt her. "Still, it's great to meet you, Tsumiki."

Everyone else introduces themselves to the new girl as well. Though once Hanamura's turn is up, he quickly got held back, both by Hinata and Koizumi. Metaphorically, that is, though it wouldn't be surprising if they did end up holding him back literally some time.

After those introductions are over, Komaeda call out to her. "Tsumiki, you said that you're the Ultimate Lucky Student, right?"

After hearing her name, Tsumiki squeaks again, raising her hands to cover her face a bit. "Y-Yes…" She timidly replies.

"Wait, if Tsumiki's the Ultimate Lucky Student, then it looks like we'll have to rule that out for Nanami's possible talent." Koizumi concludes.

"H-Huh? W-What do you mean b-by that?"

"Ah, about that. Nanami doesn't know what her talent is. She said that her invitation never specified what it was, so I assumed she might've been the Ultimate Lucky Student. Though, once you bumped into us, I think it's safe to say it isn't that at all." Komaeda helpfully explains.

"Ohh," She nods her head in understanding. "I see."

"So, Tsumiki, have you seen this kind of hoodie?" As per usual, Chiaki then briefly describes her hoodie, as well as summarizing the current situation with it.

Tsumiki bites her cheek. "I…haven't s-seen it at all."

"Oh…that's fine." Chiaki replies, having expected that but still feeling a bit disheartened by it. 'I guess I should've been used to it by now.'

Tsumiki notices her reaction, and starts profusely apologizing once more. "I-I'm so soooorry!" She starts sobbing once again, and proceeds to try and yank her own hoodie off of herself. "I-It's not the same, but please t-take mine as compensation!" She cries, somehow managing to pull the hoodie off at least halfway through her torso.

"No, no, it's okay, really." Chiaki places her hands over the other girl's shoulders. Mostly to help calm her down, and partly to try and keep her from fully taking her own hoodie off right then and there. "You don't have to give your hoodie up like that."

Tsumiki lets out a soft whine, but wavers and slides her hoodie back into place, hopefully keeping it on for the rest of the day. "Then, l-let me help you l-look for it."

"Ah, it's fine." Chiaki waves her off with an awkward chuckle. "You don't need to go through so much trouble for me."

"P-Please!" She continues to insist. "I may n-not be much h-help at all, but please, at least let me m-make it up to you."

Chiaki didn't even get the chance to say anything back, now finding herself staring back at Tsumiki's watery, pleading eyes.

'There's no way I can actually turn her down, can I?' She quietly swallows at this new dilemma she's in. She'd rather not trouble yet another person with this, but at the same time, she doesn't want to imagine the kind of face Tsumiki will make if she were to say no. After so much deliberation, she exhales and gives in. "Alright, you can come with us if you want to."

Just like that, Tsumiki's mood has considerably brightened, compared to how she was a while back. "T-Thank you so much! I-I'll try not let you d-down."She promises, all while a faint blush and a tiny smile goes over her face.

And so, Mikan Tsumiki has joined the party.


From there, they all go on to the next area. While the others are more focused in exploring, Chiaki, Komaeda, Hinata, Koizumi, are back on the search, with their latest member Tsumiki tagging along.

Up ahead of them are cottages. Chiaki mentally counts them as their group takes a quick look at each one, finding out there's at least sixteen of them. Thinking about it, it might mean their whole class would be sixteen people in total. It's a lot fewer than she expected, though she's also a bit relieved it's not so big either.

On a closer look, each cottage also has its own mailbox, with cute pixel avatars of each cottage's owner decorated on top of it.

'I'm guessing these might be our dorms.' She thinks to herself as she takes a quick look at the one that has her avatar on it. 'I think it's still weird, but it looks like Hope's Peak really went all out for our school trip.'

Looking back on it, Chiaki still couldn't take it all in. She never thought she'd ever see a place like this. Everything about this place looks so much like a fancy resort, though she's never actually been to one before. At least, not in person.

Speaking of resort, she can see that it even has a big fancy pool right in the middle. Yeah, the school really did go all out, and she wonders if they even explored at least half of this place. The first day isn't even over yet, and they're already getting spoiled so much.

"Hey, there's someone over there!" Souda points out as he moves to dash to where he pointed at.

"Not so fast!" Hinata puts an arm over Souda, keeping him from moving towards them. He then moves up his other arm to cover the shark-toothed boy's mouth, muffling down all his protests.

Chiaki got curious about it, so she tilts her head to where Souda pointed, and it's just like what he said.

From nearby, they all can see a blonde girl standing by the pool. She's wearing a black blazer with stripes and a black skirt. There's also red ribbon tied around her shirt's collar, and there's some sort of emblem pinned on her blazer.

Upon closer look, there's another girl accompanying her. She's also taller than the blonde girl, having silver hair tied in two braids, and has a pair of glasses on top of her red eyes. Compared to her companion, her outfit's a bit more plain, mostly being composed of a dark turquoise blazer and pants of the same color.

She turns to Komaeda. "Do you know who they are?"

Komaeda glances at those two. Recognition makes its way over his face as he then tells her, "Ah, that's Natsumi Kuzuryu and Peko Pekoyama, the Ultimate Yakuza and the Ultimate Bodyguard, respectively. The Kuzuryus are the biggest yakuza clan in the whole country, and Natsumi Kuzuryu herself is rather infamous for most of its operations."

'Wait, hold on, did the school seriously let literal yakuza members in their classes too?' Though Chiaki has never personally heard of them until now, just the fact that two members of such organization are right there is enough to alarm her.

Souda has about the same reaction, only even more intense. "They're yakuza?!" He manages to yelp out, until Hinata shuts him up again.

"And it looks they'll be our classmates as well." Komaeda cheerfully points out, though he pauses, as if he's thinking about what he implied just now. He then turns and asks them, "Do you think we should go and talk to them, though?"

For once, Hanamura looks kind of unsure, looking away and twiddling his thumbs around. "I don't know."

'If even a guy like Hanamura has his own reservations about those two…I think that really says a lot about them. But then again…' Chiaki thinks about it. "If Hope's Peak did invite them here, they can't be all that bad, right? They wouldn't let anyone in without any good reason, I think."

Even Hinata looks kind of hesitant as he replies, "I…really hope so." while scratching the back of his head.

In the end, they all decide to go ahead and try to talk to those two. It can be argued that it's better to see how they're first. Though, for some reason, Koizumi has been really quiet the whole time. Chiaki thought that it's a bit weird, but she decides not to ask her about it. It's none of her business, and it'd be rude if she tries to pry about it.

Their group slowly approaches those two with caution. They're within the two girls' line of sight now, but none of them has gotten any closer than that for now.

Hinata goes up first, and tries to greet them with a friendly, "Uh, hey there."

The blonde, Kuzuryu, turns around with a scowl. "What the hell do you want—" She immediately stops her sentence, raising a brow, as she steps forward. "Hey, wait a minute. I think I've seen you before."

'Huh?' Chiaki glances at Hinata, then back at Kuzuryu. 'Does she know him?'

The other girl, Pekoyama tries to follow along with Kuzuryu, only to immediately stop and stay still in place when the blonde signals her to. As she steadily approaches closer, it then gets clearer that no, she wasn't talking to Hinata at all. If anything, it looks like she's heading to approach—

Koizumi visibly tenses up even more and starts looking away from Kuzuryu.

Kuzuryu didn't seem to notice or care, however, as she still goes up towards her, like she's trying to take a closer look at her. Her eyes widen a bit, making it clear that she recognizes her, before narrowing them back to their usual glare. "Oh, it's just you again, Koizumi. Been a while since we last saw each other, huh."

"Yeah, I guess so…" Koizumi half-heartedly replies, all while she keeps avoiding eye contact with her as much as possible.

Without even thinking about, Chiaki instinctively steps in between those two girls, she ends up saying, "Uh, Kuzuryu…?"

Kuzuryu turns her attention away from Koizumi, now focusing onto Chiaki with an irritated glare. She approaches her, and Chiaki finds herself unable to do anything but stay there. Kuzuryu then leans in closer, dangerously close to her, and then without any warning, swiftly grabs her by the collar.

Chiaki's breath hitches. She's already starting to regret her decision to not just confront Kuzuryu by herself, but to also call her out by name without any proper introductions at all.

For a moment, she can see some of the others, like Komaeda, Hinata and Tsumiki, try to go forward, but she discretely shakes her head, mouthing at them to not get themselves involved. They step back and stay there with worried faces.

Kuzuryu pulls her in even closer, more or less forcing her to make eye contact with her. "Just who do you think you are?" She growls.

The two of them are about the same height, but with the way Kuzuryu is putting her power over in this situation, the yakuza's presence alone makes her feel so much bigger than she actually is.

Chiaki tries hard not to show any signs of discomfort, as well as fighting back the urge to look away. Unsure of what exactly to reply, she ends up going with the first thing that came to her mind. "Erm…I…I was…just wondering, did you or your friend see my hoodie?" She hurriedly says, trying to get things over with as quick as she can. She doesn't want to anger this girl any more than she already did.

"…Are you trying to make fun of me?" Kuzuryu huffs, tightening her grip as her eyes narrow. "The hell made you think I know wherever the fuck your hoodie is?"

She inwardly flinches from the harsh response. "...Sorry." Too intimidated to say anything else out loud, she inwardly resigns to herself, 'I really should've seen this coming.'

Each second passes by, and it looks like Kuzuryu's mood isn't improving in the slightest. Chiaki doesn't have much of a choice, but to stay still and keep quiet, anxiously waiting on what the yakuza might do to her next.

It felt like a long time, but eventually, Kuzuryu lets her go.

As soon as she was freed, she quietly breathes out. She has never felt so relieved in her life until now. Still, she didn't leave from her spot, not wanting Kuzuryu to notice just how tense she was from that.

"I'm going to let this go just this once, so you better be grateful. But if you try to piss me off again, I promise you won't be so lucky next time." Kuzuryu turns away from their group, beckoning her companion to come closer to her. "Come on. Let's go, Peko. I don't want to waste any more time with these losers than I already did."

"As you wish." Pekoyama coolly replies with a short nod. She joins her side without wasting even a second.

Everyone watches as the two walk away from there. Once it's clear that those two are truly gone from this area, they all begin to whisper and mutter among themselves about what happened just now.

"What the hell was that about?" Souda murmurs to himself.

Chiaki turns to check on Koizumi, and the sight makes her heart sink. Koizumi's face has turned completely pale, her whole body shaking ever so slightly in place.

"Koizumi, are you okay?" She asks her.

Koizumi blinks, immediately snapping out of her daze. Heavy worry and concern makes its way on her face as she yells out, "Excuse me? I should be the one asking if you're okay!" Her face softens as she checks on her. "She didn't hurt you at all, did she?"

Chiaki shakes her head. "No. All she did was grab me by the collar, really." She thinks back on that, and quietly gulps. 'I'd be lying if I said it didn't make me nervous at all. I'm totally outclassed by them.'

"I'm so sorry, Nanami, I should've done something."

"No, no, it's okay," She shakes her head and sighs. "It's not your fault."

Komaeda suddenly blurts out, "Koizumi, did you and Kuzuryu know each other before?"

"Hey, Komaeda…" Hinata chides as he lightly elbows the other boy in the ribs.

Her lip twitches a bit after hearing Komaeda's comment. "Guess there's no point in hiding it, then." Taking a deep breath, she turns to face them all. "The truth is, I knew both Kuzuryu and Pekoyama for some time. We were classmates back then, long before we were invited to Hope's Peak Academy."

'So they were classmates.' Chiaki recalls the brief interaction the two of them had, and comments, "You looked like you didn't want to talk to her at all, though."

"Yeah, that's right," Koizumi admits. "To be honest, I didn't even want to see her again, not after…" She completely goes quiet, as if she didn't want to say anything more than that, and shakes her head. "No, never mind. Please forget I've said anything."

A look of complete horror goes over Saionji's face, as does everyone else. Even though Koizumi never said it out loud, the implication is clear. Whatever Kuzuryu has done to her back when they were classmates, it wasn't anything good.

The nurse grits her teeth and then clenches her fists. She then runs towards the redhead and hugs her tightly by the waist. "I won't let her do anything to you, big sis Mahiru!"

Without even realizing it, Chiaki puts a hand on the redhead's shoulder. "Saionji's right. You don't have to be alone in this anymore." She intently stares into her. "We're classmates now, right?"

Koizumi lifts her head. Her lip twitches. "Yeah…you're right. We are classmates now." She repeats, before facing the others with a rather determined look. "I won't let her do anything to any of you either, not if I can help it."


For the moment, they're all taking some time off to calm down from what happened earlier. The group's attempts at having a friendly talk with Kuzuryu, as well as Pekoyama, by association, turned into a total blunder.

Speaking of that, Saionji has been staying a lot closer to Koizumi ever since that happened, having also resolved herself to protect her from Kuzuryu and Pekoyama from now on.

Chiaki has promised to do the same thing to her too, and now, she's thinking of extending the same thing to anyone else as well if needed. It might sound a little reckless of her to do something like that, especially not after what she experienced just a while back. But there's no way she's going to let anyone push anyone around like that, Ultimate Yakuza or not.

Once things have settled down, they continue on. Their next stop is…

Well, compared to the airport and Rocketpunch Market, this one is a bit more…how should she put it, 'fancier' is one word that comes to her mind. She glances up, reading the large letters above that building as she says them in a bewildered tone, "Hotel Mirai?"

"We shouldn't have any trouble living in here if our hotel's this fancy." Komaeda comments with a chuckle.

She briefly considers the option. "Yeah, I guess you're right."

From her view, she also notices that there's another building next to the fancier one, a wooden cabin of some sort, to be exact. It looks a bit worn down compared to the other one, but other than that, it looks like it's still in good condition.

'That's… interesting. I think I might check it out again later when I get the time.'

She didn't hear anyone point that cabin out or even make an offhand comment about it, so she decides not to bring it up for now.

They all go on to check what's inside the hotel's lobby. If this is where they'll be staying in for the whole school trip, then they might as well see what it's like. Their group has already split up a couple of moments ago, to truly explore everything in here a bit more.

"Hello? Is there anyone out here?" Souda calls out, putting his arms over the counter while looking over the reception.

For some reason, there's no one attending to it either. The whole place is completely desolate, just like in Rocketpunch Market.

'The constant emptiness around here is getting a lot more eerie, I think.' Chiaki inwardly shakes her head, pushing any similar thoughts back into the corner of her mind. 'No, I gotta focus for now. I'll think about that later when I get to it.'

She looks around their vicinity to try and distract herself from those implications, even for a bit. Things shouldn't too crazy in here. Or, at least, she's hoping it isn't.

Her eyes wander around for a while, but then they immediately light up when she notices the games right over there. 'Komaeda is right! We shouldn't have any trouble living in here.' She steps forward to get an even closer look at them, and from there, she immediately recognizes the specific models, having seen their kind from so many arcades she's been to before.

She can't help but smile so fondly as she delicately touches one of the game machines. 'Ahh, this takes me back…' The machine isn't operating yet, but once it does, she'll be sure to check it out, and she won't make any promises on not spending too much time on it.

As she looks around a bit more, she then spots someone else, another person she hasn't met. He's sitting right by the corner, instead on one of the chairs for some reason.

That boy looks round and pudgy, even pudgier than Hanamura, and he's got short blond hair. She could also see that he's carrying a brown handbag on his shoulder. His eyebrows are furrowed, and it looks like he's in deep concentration as he's doodling something on a sketchbook.

Out of curiosity, she decides to approaches him and from there, sees a quick glance at one of the doodles he's working on. She didn't see the whole page, but the level of detail makes her blurt out, "Woah, they look really amazing."

The boy jumps up with a surprised yelp, shutting his sketchbook and holding it close against his chest. His full height towers over her, and he's a lot taller than Hinata and Komaeda, and yet somehow, she didn't feel threatened by him at all.

Though, now that she thinks about why he reacted like that, she then realizes her mistake. "Ah, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to peek at your drawings." She apologizes, putting her hands up in front of her. "But I really meant it when I said they were really amazing."

The boy blushes, still holding the sketchbook close as he looks away. "D…Don't mention it."

The two of them continue to stare at each other in awkward silence until she realizes, 'Oh, yeah, I should introduce myself to him.' Preparing herself, she starts with, "I'm Chiaki Nanami, I…this might sound weird, but," She shrugs and slightly chuckles. "I actually have no idea what my talent is."

"Oh, I see." He blinks, shrugging as well. A thoughtful hum comes out of him, then he fully turns his attention to her and introduces himself as well. "I'm Ryota Mitarai. I'm the Ultimate Mangaka."

"It's nice to meet you." She answers and then goes, "Oh yeah. Mitarai, sorry if it sounds really sudden, but have you seen my hoodie around here?" She then describes it to him as brief as she can.

Mitarai goes quiet for a moment as he thinks about it, then he replies to her, "I don't think I've seen anything like that, even around here."

"I see. Thank you anyway."

"Wait," He raises a finger up. "If you don't mind me asking, do you remember when you last saw your hoodie?"

"I swear I had it with me when I came to Hope's Peak. Then, when I woke up in this place, it was suddenly gone."

He rubs his chin. "Hmm, it does sound odd when you put it that way. You sure you aren't misremembering anything?"

"No, I don't think so," She shakes her head with a sigh. "That's all what I remember, really."

"Well then, I'll let you know if I ever see your hoodie."

"Really? Thank you so much!"

"It's nothing much." He says as he puts his sketchbook inside his handbag, and then he turns away from her.

Chiaki watches him take a few steps away, and she ends ups calling up to him, "Wait, do you want to come with our group?"

Again, Mitarai goes quiet, thinking hard about it. After a few seconds, he finally answers without turning around to face her. "I think I'll be good for now."

She's a bit confused by his response at first. But after thinking it through, she then gets the reason why, and nods in understanding. "Ah, that's fine. I guess we might be seeing each other next time, then."

"Maybe." is all what he says.

After waving him goodbye, Chiaki goes back to check on her group, and while doing that, she mentally counts everyone she's met so far, including Mitarai as well.

'I've already met at least ten of my possible classmates, so I think that means there's still…maybe five more people to account for. I wonder what the rest would be like.'

She recalls the meetings she's had with them. So far, only one (technically two) went awry.

'Well, in any case, I just hope that they're friendly enough.'


A/N: I think that regular updates is getting more and more possible with each passing update haha. Also, hopefully that I'm not going too slow with the pacing. But if I am, don't worry, I think things will start stirring up pretty soon.