"All right, let's see which one of you guys are going to be the stupid one."

It hadn't been more than an hour since Sayaka had gone and switched rooms with Makoto, and already I was tired of her. Oh, I'd felt some sort of sympathy for her, but I had grown tired of her crying after about ten minutes. There's only so much pity I could give for a soon-to-be attempted murderer.

That depressing thought aside, after she had finished berating herself for her failed attempt on Makoto's life, she had sat there on his bed, trying to think of a new victim for her to take advantage of in her little plan of escape.

Unfortunately for her, she had spent so much time hounding Makoto as his 'assistant' that she'd barely spent any time socializing with the others. That made her chances of fooling anyone drop drastically; which is something I was rather happy about since it would make my job easier.

But, the also meant that, she would have to try and convince one of the less intelligent individuals in her desire to escape. By that I mean, she'd have to convince Leon; something she seemed to realize as well since she grabbed the notepad on Makoto's desk and started writing a note addressed to him.

Originally, after she tricked Makoto into letting him swap rooms with her, she came up with this really stupid idea of going after the Ultimate Baseball Star for some reason. Which really made no sense when you think about it. Not only was he taller than her by a good few inches, he was more physically fit, he had to have an unbelievable reaction time considering his sport, and while he was a slacker, he was better than most athletes to be able to hit near perfect games without ever visiting a training match.

Needless to say, as much as I don't like his attitude towards life, I couldn't see Sayaka's reasoning in trying to take on someone like Leon in a one on one confrontation with his much stronger and able form. But, I guess was they say about desperation causing reckless actions is more true than you'd think.

"And right now, she's the most desperate one here." I hated my pessimism right now, but it was true. While the others were certainly upset, they seemed too afraid of their important persons being harmed to risk trying anything.

Not Sayaka it seems, however. As she walked out of the rooms, I watched as she immediately turned around and started to work on switching the nameplates on both her and Makoto's doors. Briefly, I considered swapping them back while she wasn't looking, but when I considered that she might just switch them again, I decided to scrap that idea to let events unfold. At least, for the moment.

As I expected, once she finished making the switch, she was quick to slip the letter under the door of Leon's dorm room before hastily knocking on the door, and hightailing it back to Makoto's room to wait for her pray. It was then that I decided to intervene a bit.

Walking back into the console room, I turned on the Monokuma in the all-star's room to hear him finish reading the note that would lead to his damnation.

"…check the nameplate so you don't visit the wrong room by mistake, okay? Sayaka Maizono. Huh, that's really weird. Why would she want to see me this late?"

Taking that as my cue, I had the bear slowly creep up behind him and whispered, "Maybe, she's after your D."

I'll admit, watching him scream like a girl as he turned around was just as funny as ever. For a brief moment, he looked absolutely frantic, like a punk mouse noticing the cat for the first time, but once he realized it was my Monokuma and not some person out to get him his fear quickly swapped over to indignant rage.

"What," he paused to clear his throat when his voice cracked, "What are you doing here!"

Ignoring his question, I continued with my little taunting session, "A little late night rendezvous with the wannabe musician, is it? Oh, what kind of shameful things could she be planning for our little all-star? Maybe she wants to give you a taste of the musical arts, or maybe she's planning a little game of 'hanky-panky'… or do you think she's hoping to introduce you to a good old rousing game of shank the moron. Now that sounds like a grand time!"

I watched with a silly grin as his face slowly morphed from slightly hopeful, to red with embarrassment and a little bit of lust, to outright pale and disturbed at the implication of such a game. Even though I was being completely serious about that last one being the most likely outcome if he actually went to meet with her, it didn't stop me from appreciating the colorful show he was putting on.

Finally, he settled on an indigent glare, almost sneering at the bear in front of him as he held his fists up in a display of bravado. "You're not funny man!"

To which I responded appropriately with, "I'm trying, damn it! If you don't like it so much, kill someone and we can both be happy!"

Now, I hadn't meant to snap at him like that, really I didn't. But, his attitude was only going to make things more difficult for me in the long run.

While he was trying to regain his bearings after my sudden shift in tone, I took a brief moment to glance around at his abode. As I expected, it was as bare as the others but with the few additions of a boom mic, a stereo, a few … questionable magazines poking out from underneath his bed, and a single baseball he'd left on the floor. Most likely a memento from his former class judging by the number of names scribbled on it.

Turning back to him, I decided to continue our original conversation. "So, you aren't planning to actually go to her, are you? I mean, there's really no telling what kind of things she might do to you. You know that, right?"

I knew asking him to not go was next to impossible considering that reasonable lack of trust he and the others had for Monokuma, but that didn't stop me from trying to dissuade him from going. See, my thought was that if I could keep him from actually going, then Sayaka wouldn't have a chance to make a murder attempt. Then, when morning rolls around, Leon could then show the letter off to the others and with some assistance from Kyoko and yours truly, she'd be under a tighter watch than ever before. With any luck, it would also cause the others to decide against murder themselves.

Unfortunately for all involved, Leon wasn't going to make it easy for me. Scoffing at the bear, he said, "Yeah right, like she'd ever try to hurt anyone. Have you even seen her? She wouldn't hurt a fly."

I had to resist the returning urge to groan, "I wouldn't be so sure of that. Haven't you heard of 'a face for the public'? A façade that famous people use to lead the crowd to make them seem perfectly innocent when in reality they are anything but."

At first, it seemed like I was getting nowhere, his glare remaining in place. Then, after a while of his staring contest with the monochrome bear, his glare slowly shifted to a more thoughtful expression. "Y-Yeah, I guess I've heard of that."

I could tell it was killing him inside to admit that I had a point, but I needed to hammer it in as best I could. "Then, you should know that there's a high chance that right now, she's in there plotting your demise right now. You saw how much more worst she reacted to that video then the others did, you can't deny that she's desperate to escape; possibly at any cost."

I could practically see the doubt in the pop idol growing behind his eyes, but he wasn't going to just blindly follow my words at face value. "What about Makoto?"

"What about him?" I asked back, kind of glad that he was actually thinking beyond what he was told a face value.

"If she's planning to get out by… by m-murdering someone," He paused to swallow the lump forming in his throat. "Then wouldn't he be the better option?"

Taking a moment to make the Monokuma pose as if it was in deep thought, I then had it signal for him to continue. After taking a deep breath to calm his nerves, and to wipe off some of the perspiration forming on his brow, he explained. "I-I mean, it's not that I want him to die or anything like that, but I mean, he's been much closer to her then I have. And if I was her and I wanted out as bad as you say, then I'd probably go after him first, ya know, since he's so close. N-Not that I would, but as an idea."

I had to admit, I was impressed with his ability to rationalize that out. I'd thought he would have just brushed my words aside, possibly throw in a good "F you" or something, then stormed off to his fate without a care. Maybe there was more to this punk then I'd first thought.

I was about to congratulate him for thinking ahead, when an idea popped up in my head. "… Who's to say she hasn't?"

"Huh?" he blinked, trying to see where I was going with this. I continued.

"Who's to say she didn't think about killing him first. I mean, as you said, he's so close to her right now. So it could be that she's already done away with him. Then there's a possibility that she wants you to come help 'clean house' as it were."

His eyes widened as he started sputtering, his brain trying to reboot from the overwhelming shock my statement caused him, but I wasn't done. "I mean; you were there when she tried to cart him off the first time. You know she isn't strong enough to drag him by herself without a bit of muscular assistance. And she already knows that you're the kind of guy who'd blindly help her if she bats her eyes and acts cute. Not to mention, she's already seen you lift Makoto before. Why, if anything you're the perfect stooge she could use to help hide someone's corpse till it's too late."

I could practically see all of the blood leaving his face as the suggestion, but still I kept hammering away at everything he thought true. "Of course, the other option is just as valid. Maybe she's invited you over to kill you and pin it on Makoto. Again, as you said, they're close. There's a chance that she'll use that to her advantage. Then, once you're dead, all she'd have to do if anyone asks is say that she saw the two of you fighting over her before he whipped out a knife. Wouldn't take much for the others to fill in the blanks and poor Makoto would be so broken by her betrayal that he wouldn't be able to properly defend himself. Sound about right yet?"

My words seemed to deeply shake him, sweat practically pouring down his face. It had never occurred to him that such terrible things could be possible, these sick, twisted ideas being presented to him that he'd never would have even considered in his simple life as a baseball star. But, this wasn't his simple life, now was it?

However, just when I thought I'd managed to scare him off from going to his doom, he violently shook his head, as if to physically remove the thoughts from his mind, before glaring at me inconvincibly.

"A-As if! You think you can fool me like that!? I-I might not know why she wants me to come over, but there's no way it's for anything like that. She's diffidently too kind to do something like… like killing someone. And, maybe she wants to… I don't know, do some musician training with me or something. I mean, I've said up and down how much I want to be a punk rocker. She probably just wants to help me out with it a bit, help get her mind off all this."

Seemingly having finally gotten his big boy britches back, he stepped right up to the robotic-bear and glared deep into its optics. "So you know what? I'm going to go talk with her right now, find out what she wants, and we're going to have a good time without any of this murder nonsense!"

So, without letting me get a word in edgewise, he stormed out of the room and slammed the door behind him, leaving my Monokuma and the note behind in his room. After spending a moment to stand there speechless, I slapped my palm to my forehead in exasperation.

"Dang it, I pushed him to hard." I conferred with myself, feeling utterly stupid in that moment. I had been so in my role and trying to scare him away that I'd pushed him from terror into frustration. In the heat of the moment, I'd forgotten that the best way I could have done to scare him away would have been if I'd been subtle with my hints. Yet, instead of letting his mind do the work for me with a few loaded words, I'd hammered away on my own and made him impatient with me.

Well, fortunately I could still work with this. Returning the Monokuma to standby mode and quickly sprinting back out to the monitor room, I quickly tuned in on Makoto's room to prepare for the show, waiting for my moment to intervene.

As I'd figured, my time holding up Leon had caused Sayaka to go into a worried tizzy, clutching the knife handle like it was her last life line as she tried to pump herself up unsuccessfully. Likely, she was right now scared out of her mind with a fear that he was just going to not show. It was a rather suspicious note she'd given him, and if he'd had even the slightest amount of sense in this situation, he wouldn't have gone. Instead, he would have waited for the morning and confronted her about it with witnesses. Yet, as the buzzer went off and alerted her to his arrival, I didn't need to be a genius to tell you that he didn't necessarily have much in the way of sense.

Watching him throw open the unlocked door, Sayaka then flinched back at the form of Leon standing in the doorway, his face still showing signs of frustration. Obviously to me, he hadn't managed to completely calm himself down from our little chat. Thankfully for the idol, before he managed to real in the rest of his irritation she was able to hide the blade behind her back and out of his sight.

"Sorry I'm late," He apologized, wandering into the room at an almost agonizing pace. "I had an unwanted pest to take care of first. You know how that damn bear is."

There was not verbal response to his statement, thought I did fume a bit to no one's view, but I did note the tightening of her grip on the knife. As I couldn't see her expression from her long hair shadowing her face, I could only assume that she was either upset for my interference, or more likely she was afraid that I'd revealed her plan to him already.

Clearly not seeing her expression for what it really was, though noticing her silence Leon took a few more steps into the room; but with a noticeably slower stride. "Y-Yeah, he kept making these stupid jokes of his. Would you believe he actually said you'd might have killed Neagi?"

Her breath hitched at that, and if her grip tightened any further I almost would be afraid of her snapping the handle in two. I could practically see the sweat pouring down her face and along her clenched hands.

Though, Leon was unaware of this. He was too busy not-so-subtly glancing about the room, as if looking for a corpse of said lucky student, before shaking his head. "Yeah right, like you'd ever do something like that. You are way too nice and stuff to do something that bad."

For a brief moment, I could have sworn that I'd seen a flash of light pass in front of Sayaka's feet. A single drop of something that I would later swear could have been a drop of shame and sorrow personified as an innocent little teardrop. A tear shed, for the innocence that would be dying on this very night.

"… Sayaka?" I wasn't the only one who'd seen the falling droplet, as Leon stopped his nervous glances to look at her with the most concerned look I'd ever seen on his face. His body straightening up as he slowly continued towards her with the obvious intent to comport her.

Which was immediately replaced with wild-eyed, fearful backpedaling when she sloppily swung the large chef's knife at his throat, trimming a few hairs off of his goatee as it missed its intended target.

"S-Sayaka!?" he repeated with a much louder and startled tone as he bumped up against the dresser with his hand flying up to his neck where she'd just missed him, the other supporting his weight on the furniture. He stared with wide, fearful eyes at her now revealed face. Her stare was filled with a combination of regret, murderous intentions, and complete despair as she clutched her weapon in her shaking grip. However, the most noticeable feature she sported was the wet trail running down her reddened cheeks.

"I'm sorry," she apologized with shaken breaths raking her form. "But, I've got to get out of here. I need to get out of here. I can't… I can't just sit here and wait it out. I have to get out… even if it means…"

She shuttered as a sob broke her poise again, the torturous anguish of her emotional roller coaster of despair spiraling further out of her control with every straining breath. Her mind, awash with turmoil as she stared down her target with contempt waiting for her chance to strike out and bath her blade in his life blood.

Leon, for his part was trying to back away from his attacker through the wooden dresser, eyes still locked on the crazed girl as she shivered and shook. As his hands fumbled around behind him for something to defend himself with, there was a sense of internal conflict as he internally swore at himself for not listening to Monokuma's warnings. Oh, he was far from actually thankful that the bear had even tried to help him, considering it was the its fault for stirring the hornets' nest in the first place, but the warning was appreciated.

Suddenly, his fingers brushed up against something solid and his eyes instinctually snapped to see what he'd found. This was the moment Sayaka decided that she couldn't wait any longer and started to rush toward him with the blade tip aimed right for his abdomen. As she moved with a loud shout for him to die, he panicked, turning back to her with the long object in hand and intercepting the utensil with a load crack.

Immediately noticing her failure to stab his fleshy stomach, the crazed Idol pulled back to see what she'd hit, only to double take at the sight of the gold covered wooden katana that she'd helped Makoto retrieve a few days prior, only now with a rather sizable gap carved deep into the sheath. Briefly, she considered the irony that the very thing she'd had Makoto take in order to protect her was now being used to protect someone from her, but instead she felt irritation at it delaying what she felt was inevitable.

Leon let out a side of relief at his luck, though he did wonder why she'd have such a thing in the first place, he was too happy to be alive to care about the convenience of the prop weapon to care to question it too much. Now armed as well, he turned back to her with a little more confident in his survival.

"O-Okay Maizono," he stuttered, holding the wooden blade defensively in front of him as he tried to dissuade her. "L-Let's talk about this."

Unfortunately for him, she was too far gone to consider his words as she attempted to rush him once more with an overhead strike. Swearing loudly, he dove over to one side allowing her to nick the table and drive a large tear in the carpet. Not willing to let up, the crazed girl pushed off the ground and tried to drive the blade into his skull while he was down.

It was only his quick reflexes built from dodging tags from opposing ball players that allowed him to push away from his prone position and let him knock the blade to the side when she tried a follow up slice at him in the air.

I could feel the nerves in my body tighten in fear for the two classmates as they continued their stumbling dance of death, Leon purely on the defensive as the idol wildly swung the large chef's knife with the intent to end his life. Every time I watched a swing just barely avoid slicing through flesh, only to carve into the flooring, walls or occasionally the bedding when he used it as a springboard to move out of her range. I felt chills whenever I'd catch a glimpse of her teary face marred with the single most murderous glare I'd ever seen on a persons face.

I really wanted to intervene with this, I really did. Every swipe she made caused an unbelievable amount of tension that I just wanted to end, to call off this ridiculous fight and just let them go, but I couldn't. As much as I loathed myself for thinking like this, I needed their fight to escalate to the point that Sayaka would retreat, hide away in Makoto's bathroom with the wonky door frame, and for Leon to leave the room. Once that was accomplished, I planned to keep her there and away from the all-star for the rest of the night.

Once morning came, I could then use the recorded video to warn the others of what happened. While I had no dilutions of them all being understanding of her desperate act, I knew at least pure hearted Makoto would try to help her in her time of distress, and with a little time and care, I honestly believe that Sayaka could be saved from her own despair.

However, that required that Leon stop dodging, and start countering.

"Okay, that's it." As if answering my thoughts, the now frustrated redhead pulled a surprisingly brilliant move. After dodging yet another swipe, he ripped the golden painted blade out of its sheath, gold specks sent flying as they broke away from the cheap wood, and then with a pitch worthy of his title, he hurled the empty sheath at the crazy idol.

Caught off guard, Sayaka was only able to bring up her arm in defense against the chunk of wood flying at her head, but in doing so she was unable to retain her balance against the force of it smacking against her forearm. With her off balance, Leon rushed forward with the wooden katana cocked back in a batting stance, ready to homerun the blade out of the room and more importantly, out of the idol's grasp.

If I were to guess what his thought were at that moment, it would most likely be something along the lines of being able to properly talk to her if the knife was gone, preferably away from him and his vitals.

Unfortunately for all involved, in his haste to remove the blade from her possession he ended up forgetting that he was not swinging at a fairly easy to track ball with a thick bat, but an unpredictably moving human beings arm with a much thinner stick of wood. That had to be the case because there was no other reason he should have had for not only missing his mark, but slamming the dull edged weapon into her wrist with the audible sound of a newly snapped wrist accompanied by a shriek of unbelievable pain.

"Shit! I'm sorry!" Cried out the all-star as Sayaka dropped to her knees, unable to register his apology through both the squealing nerves in her arm and her own shouts of anguish. I cringed as I looked at the damage, the whole thing was already swelling and underneath the glitter of gold that had chipped off on impact, the joint had gained a deep purple hue. Broken was an understatement.

On the plus side though, with her dominate hand unusable she had dropped the knife, thus leaving her with little to no chance of killing anyone, much less the wannabe punk. Downside, in her agony induced realization of this fact, she pushed past the pain before her fight response turned to a flight one and she grabbed the blades handle in her remaining good hand. Ignoring Leon's shout for her to stop, she hurriedly rushed for the door to the bathroom.

"Kya!" Only to the surprise of all when her attempt to push past the door, the framework refused to give her even an inch, resulting in her colliding with the wood and falling on her behind. My eyebrows shot straight into my hairline, as did Leon's, neither of us expecting that to happen in the slightest, but before I could truly understand what exactly had happened, the red head noticed something.

"Sayaka! Your bleeding!" Taking a glance at her myself, I felt my heart try to jump into my throat at the sight of a growing red spot in her side where she'd been cut into. I guess she accidentally stabbed herself when she hit the door full on. Luckily, it only seemed to be a nick considering the small amount of blood on the knife, but that didn't stop the lump from forming.

But that raised the question. "Why didn't she just open the door?" Even when saying it out loud it made no sense. With the exception of a few hiccups here and there, things had been exactly how things were implied to have gone in the original. She invites him over, he shows like an idiot, defends himself and brakes her wrist, then she hides in the bathroom where the wonky frame holds him off till he ruins the knob with his tool kit.

So then, what happened this time? Why did she just run into the door when she always opened it in, not just the original storyline, but in every single story they've been in. Hell, she should be the only one besides myself and Makoto to know it's trick…

"Unless…Makoto forgot to tell her about it… because I told him a week ago, and interrupted him before he could tell her himself!" I felt the blood in my veins turn to ice at the realization. Once again, my scattered attention span act I was trying to pull with Monokuma ruined things. By interrupting the conversation in the way I did, I must have unintentionally caused him to forget about it, if only momentarily.

Now that I think about it, that door had been the entire reason for Monokuma's visit in the first place. Junko hadn't remembered to tell him about the door in the beginning. Rather, she only did it when Sayaka had been in the room, likely because she had only just realized the problem he'd been having just then. That, or she was thinking one of them would use it to hide a body where no one could easily find it.

But now, as she clearly demonstrated by planting her face in the door, Sayaka had no clue as to what to fall back on, and no place that she could hide when things went south. So when Leon tried to get close to her, only to jump back at her panicked swipe that almost put her to the floor from lack of balance, I could actually feel sorry for her; to an extent. But even more, I felt like dropping an anvil on my head from my own forgetfulness ruining my plans before I could even think of them.

"Oh, I really screwed up this time." I berated myself, clawing at my scalp as I pushed my palms into my face. Now there was no telling what was going to happen, every plan I had was ruined before I could implement….

What the hell am I thinking?

"S-Stay away!" Snapping back to the screen, I was just in time to witness Sayaka, after managing to get back to her feet, once more swipe her weapon at the boy. She was off by a mile, but it didn't stop the small droplets of blood from sliding off to spatter on his shirt. Of course, this sudden movement caused the new cut in her side to flare up, resulting her instinctually trying to clutch it with her free hand; the broken one.

As another screech of pain burst from her lips, but this time she knew that she wasn't in any condition to continue the fight. So, despite the shout for her to stop by the all-star, she quickly rushed out of the room, kicking the door shut as she ran to momentarily stall Leon.

Now she was not only armed, she was loose in the halls with a bad injury to boot. There was no telling what she'd do to someone it that state. To paraphrase an old saying, "the only thing more dangerous than a cornered animal, is one that's been injured."

The only good thing in this was that, at least she won't be able to find someone to…

My thoughts were cut off when I heard the sound of something large hitting the floor emit from one of the cameras. I really didn't want to see what was happening, I really didn't. I knew it would be something that I wouldn't be able to ignore, nor would I be able to forget. But, my knee jerk reaction betrayed me, and after a moment to burn the image into my mind, I rushed for the door while grabbing my master E-handbook as I went. Uncaring that what I was doing could compromise everything, i was to busy praying that I'd be able to make it on time.

'Got to get away. Can't let him kill me.'

This desperate thought fueled Sayaka's movement as she ran from the room of the boy she once saw as a friend, fear mixed with a large amount of adrenaline fueling her steps and dulling her pain briefly. She had no destination in mind as she ran, nor did she really care. She just wanted to get away. Away from the pain. Away from the guilt of what she'd nearly did. Away from all of this.

But, most of all, she wanted to get away from the boy she'd attempted to murder. Tears rushed down her face even more at the thought, stinging her eyes and blurring her sight, but she didn't dare wipe them off for fear of ether agitating her broken wrist or cutting herself again with the knife she'd takin to stab someone. The irony that she had only ended up cutting herself with it was not lost on her.

Blinking out the salty liquid as best she could, she tried to stop the flow with thought alone. Unfortunately, thinking of why they were there in the first place, only caused more to come forth. What made it worst, was the knowledge of what would happen because of her screw up.

Even if she managed to find a place to hide from Leon till the morning came, there was no way he wouldn't tell the others about her betrayal. And with her broken wrist, there would be no way for her to stop them from whatever punishment they decided for her. But, the worst part would be when Makoto found out what she'd tried to do to him.

She had not only planned to kill him, she attempted to kill someone and pin it on him when she had failed. She'd used him and tried to hurt him just so that she could escape instead of waiting for release to be given to her like the others were doing. She could only imagine the look of betrayal on his face when he realized what she'd done to him. The same look she'd seen several times before and would likely see many more times if she survived the night.

Again the tears reinforced themselves to blind her more, but she didn't care. She could only continue to force herself to move forward in a vain attempt to hide and hope this all blows over till the morning.

Unfortunately, it would not come to pass, as just as she was rounding the corner to try and hide in the laundry room she ended up colliding with something and getting knocked back to the floor. With her eyes blurry she was unable to see what she'd crashed into, but she was more concerned with the sudden spike of pain in her arm and side from the rough landing.

Gritting her teeth behind pursed lips, Sayaka gingerly held the bruised appendage as she looked it over once more. Instantly a grimace covered her face at the state of her injury, gold specks still coating the purple skin doing nothing to make it seem appealing. It was differently broken, even without medical training she could see that.

A glance at her side didn't make her feel any better, blood having leaked out in a worrying quantity and staining her white blouse with a disturbingly long line of red. It didn't help that there was a feeling of light headedness going on now that she had time to notice it. No doubt, if she didn't get it treated soon, she'd blead to death before Leon even had a chance to try to kill her himself.

However, that raised a question of, where did she drop the knife? It only took a second to look forward to give her an answer; just not one she wanted.

Sitting in front of her, groaning in pain, was the sight of someone she hadn't expected to see that night, laying down and clutching their side. But, when she looked close at their side, her own blood ran cold at the sight of the very blade she'd been looking for lodged about a quarter of its length in his side. She realized that it must have gotten stabbed in there when she'd had her crash.

She didn't know how long she sat there, simply staring at the growing red spot on her fellow student's clothes, but she didn't have time to ponder to much before there was a sudden shot of pain lance in the side of her neck. As consciousness slowly faded from her, one thought crossed her mind.

'I'm sorry…'

I gazed down at the blue haired girl before me with panting breaths and an irritated gaze, feeling fatigued from the run down the several flights of stairs after forcing all of the shutters to open on my way. Not an easy feat as you can imagine, but made more difficult by the slow pace of each shutter. In my need to reach the two classmates, I had impatiently dived underneath each one as soon as a could manage to fit. Sure, it caused me to end up rolling down one of the stairs, and I'm fairly certain that I had bruised a rib when I'd collided with a wall, but it was worth it to stop her from getting any farther.

Looking over at the bleeding boy on the ground though, I couldn't help the feeling of regret for not coming sooner. If I hadn't hesitated, or if I had planned better this might not have happened.

As I moved towards the man with a brown bush worth of hair, I was interrupted in my checking of his pulse by the sound of shoes franticly smacking against the floor. Turning to look at the source of the sound revealed the haggard form of Leon skidding to a halt not too far from me. He stared at me for a second, but was quick to dismiss me when he saw the two next to me.

"Maizono, Hiro! What happened to you?" He rushed over to the fortune teller, worry in his voice as he caught sight of the knife lodged in the elder student's side. When it looked like he was going to pull it out, I quickly interrupted by grabbing his wrist.

"Don't touch," He turned to me with an angry expression, but I powered though before he could interrupt. "it's the only thing keeping him from bleeding out right now. You pull it before we're ready, then you can wish him bye-bye."

Swallowing his rebuttal, the red head slowly relented. Nodding in satisfaction, I moved close and quickly checked the heart monitor on Hiro's wrist. Just as I thought, there was still a steady pulsing coming from the band signifying his living status, but it was noticeably slower than it should be.

"Not much time." I muttered turning back to the confused and worried all-star with a look that demanded no questions. "I need your jacket, now."

He was momentarily stunned by my abruptness, but he complied anyway and shrugged off the coat before handing it to me. Nodding in thanks, I then procced to grab hold of one of the rip in sleeves from his time fighting Sayaka and tore it into a long strip; much to the chagrin of the boy.

"What was that for?" he asked, miffed that I had torn up one of his jackets right in front of him. Rolling my eyes, I continued to shred the thing while explaining my actions.

"Well, I needed something to stop the blood. It was either this, or your pants. So, which is worst; walking around in a shirt, or walking around in your underwear?" There wasn't a vocal reply, but the ruby blush on his face answered me clear as day. Ignoring it, I returned my attention to the protruding knife.

Looking closer, I could see that Hagakure had been really fortunate all things considered. While, yes, there was a knife stabbed in him, it hadn't been dug too deeply in. Mostly thanks to that hobo jacket that he always wore acting as an unintended shield. Furthermore, because of a combination of size difference and lack of intent from his attacker, the wound was located right along the top of his hip. Not necessarily lethal, but defiantly worrying. Finally, he had a smaller amount of blood on his temple from where Sayaka's crash caused him to hit his head on the door frame of the laundry room.

Taking hold of the knife in one hand and turning to Leon, I swallowed my trepidation as best I could. "Leon, come here. I need some help."

He didn't immediately move, uncertainty all over his face, but thankfully his desire to help overrode his fears and doubts in this stranger before him. Walking closer, he looked to me, completely lost on what he could do to help save the hobo fortune teller. Fortunately, I knew just what needed to be done.

"Okay, now, when I pull this out, I need you to apply pressure to his wound till I can wrap it up. It's going to be messy, but it should hold till we can get him to the nurse's office. I'll also need you to carry him there…"

"Wait." He interrupted, looking a bit miffed that he would be doing the heavy lifting. "Why am I the one who's got to carry him?"

I gave him the most deadpanned expression I could, then replied, "Because, not only are you're the only one between us that has the physical mass and strength to do that, I'm going to be doing the same for Sayaka over there once we've got him patched up. And before you ask, yes, I know what I'm doing. Now if you wouldn't mind shutting up for five minutes, we'll be able to save them before Mono-prick shows up to stop us."

Oh, I knew it was low of me to imply that the bear even could do anything to stop us, when I was in fact the "Mastermind", but if it got him to stop wasting precious time then so be it.

And it worked, as with a worried glance over his shoulder he moved into position next to me to do his part. Nodding at his move, I carefully gripped the knife and after taking a quick breath to steady my rampaging heartbeat, I quickly and cleanly pulled the blade free and moved over to grab one of the longer strips of ruined cloth while he held the pressure.

Moving quickly, I quickly started wrapping the strips tightly around his injury, ignoring the pained grunt from my patent as I did so. After rapping on a few more for good measure and checking for consistent pressure, I gave a nod of approval and started making my way over to Sayaka. Just as I was about to kneel down to check on her, however, I was halted by a grip on my wrist.

Glancing back, I was only partially surprised to see Leon was the one holding me back, and even though he was looking away at the time, I could see the troubled expressions on his face. No doubt he was concerned with the idea of helping someone who'd tried to kill him moments ago. Regardless, I wasn't in the mood to deal with his insecurities and fears.

It was like a switch had been flicked in my mind. No longer did I have time to second guess myself, nor did I have the luxury of sitting back and listening to his complaints or concerns. I had lives on the line.

So, before he could try a talk me out of this, I took a step closer to him to bring my elbow next to my hip, then after tightening the muscles in my arm and turning my hand into a knife shape, I quickly removed his hand with a quick rotation of the hips, and broke his grip through his fingers.

"I don't know what happened between you two." I lied though my teeth at his shocked expression. "And I don't know what you're thinking right now. But, no matter what you think of things here, I will not allow anyone to die without a fair trial. Death, should never be the first answer. After all, you can't properly answer for things you did when you die."

I didn't bother looking his way again. There was no need. I had a student to save first.

Once again, I couldn't help but examine the wound that the student had sustained. With her blouse in the way, I couldn't get a proper guess as to its location, but judging by the bloody trail, it was carved along the base of her rib cage. Not as dangerous as Hiro's, but still very bad; especially since hers had been open for a good while as she ran around.

Checking her pulse with her band revealed what I'd feared. She wasn't too well off, her pulse just above what could be considered dangerous. If I didn't do something she'd die. Not on my watch.

Working quickly, I managed to take the last few parts of Leon's jacket and tightly wrapped her up. It was a bit more difficult, unlike Hiro who was still leaning against the wall she was laying down, I had to prop her back up against my knee to hold her up enough to work, but it worked. Soon, I had her wrapped up and ready to go.

"All right, up ya go." Carefully picking her up in a bridal carry, I turned to Leon who'd picked the heavy adult up by gripping the shoulders of the green coat for a body drag, and nodded to him in acknowledgement. "Let's go, but slowly; we don't want to jostle them too much."

"Yeah." He replied forlornly, shifting to accommodate for the weight before we started making our way down the hallways with blooded victims in tow.

It was silent for a few minutes, just the four of us walking through the corridor of the school. Two supported or held by the others while we walked what might as well have been a death march from the gloom hanging overhead. No words were said, not that they needed to be. We were focused on the task of saving, not one, but two lives.

Yet, I felt strangely numb as we walked towards the med bay. As if, what I was doing was pointless in my heart; As if, there was no part of me that wanted to continue to help save these two characters from their demise, despite my mind telling me that it was the right thing to do.

Part of me said, "They aren't important. Why would they be? They're just fictional people, no more important than the thousands of other make believe characters made any day of the week. Hell, one of them was designed to die already, and the other ones a hopeless hobo in crippling debt with the mob who's pointless in the grand scheme of things. Why bother helping them?"

Yet, even though I heard this, I looked at the girl weighing my arms down as she struggled to keep fighting to remain alive. I could hear her shuttering breaths as her lungs drew in air to keep her life going. I could feel the warmth of her body pressed against mine and the weight she possessed as I held her. I could faintly smell her sweat mixed in with that of her light perfume and her blood as it seeped into my hoodie ever so slowly.

This wasn't just some character anymore. This was a real person now, and one that my stupidity had caused to be hurt like this. It may have been her rashness that contributed, but it was my motive that kick started this affair. Now her life, and the life of her classmate rested in my hands.

It was time to set some things right.

"So, uh, where we going again." Leon asked me, seemingly to have grown tired of the silence in my musings. Glancing back to him, I answered truthfully.

"The nurse's office. The wraps won't hold for long, we need actual bandages. Not to mention the disinfectant, a blood transfusion for both of them, and we might need to give them stitches if they're as bad off as I think they might be."

He looked at me over his shoulder confused, before asking, "Wait, isn't that one of the rooms that were locked up? I'm pretty sure we all tried to get in at some point."

Nodding in confirmation, I explained. "They were, but I was able to get that damn bear to open it for the night, just in case."

His brow raised skeptically, "How'd you manage that?"

"Believe me, it wasn't as easy as it sounds." I fibbed again with a roll of my eyes. "I had to make Monokuma think that I was going to use it in a plot to kill someone. It took me three hours to convince him, but I did it. He only demanded that if he did this, I would have to say that he was only doing it on a whim not because a pretty girl asked him, the bastard."

His eyes widened at my ruse, but he seemed to fall for it. "Holy cow man. Any chance of that working again?"

I shook my head, "Not likely. Med bays are a basic community, but they also have one of the larger amount of things that can kill someone. What can heal can also be used to hurt. I think that's the only reason it worked in the first place; the irony of being killed in a room used to save lives? That kind of despair is just the kind of thing the sicko revels in."

A shutter ran down his spine, but he agreed as we continued our trek. In actuality, I'd unlocked it that morning after the motive had been given out. I had planned to knock out Sayaka while she was hiding in Makoto's bathroom and lock her up in the med bay. Just strap her into one of the beds and we would have had no reason to worry.

But using it for its intended purpose works too.

Coming upon the door, I stopped and looked back at the all-star expectantly. When he just stood there, I gestured to the door with my head. "Well?"

Getting the message, he quickly grabbed the doorknob and pulled open the door, being careful not to drop his passenger as he did. Thanking him, I walked in and immediately placed Sayaka on the closest of the hospital beds in the room. Letting Leon drag our other friend to the next one over, I decide to get to work.

First thing first, I needed to dress the wound properly. Like I said, the shredded coat was a place holder, it'd steam the follow of blood for a while, but not for long. So, after quickly washing my hands, I started pulling open drawer after cabinet looking for the necessary items for dressing a wound.

On the plus side, I found them all in only a few tries. A few of the bandages and gauze pads were in the top drawers, there was a specially made spool of unopened thread for stitching them up if needed wrapped in plastic, and jars of cotton balls, tongue depressors, etc. where all next to the sink, ready to use.

Down side, they were almost all Monokuma brand made. Every damn thing that had any sort of label on it had a picture of that freaky bear's face slapped on somewhere. Not really something I felt safe using to save a life.

Eh, beggars can't be choosers.

Grabbing two of every tool I felt I needed, I turned towards Leon and placed his half on one of two sanitary trays before moving each to a rolling table next to the beds. Looking to him, I said with the utmost seriousness. "I'm going to need your help."

Of all the things Leon had expected to hear today, that certainly wasn't one of them. "Huh? My help?"

That was apparently the wrong thing to say as the strange red eyed woman suddenly glared at him. "Yeah, dingus. Your help. I can only patch up one of them at a time. I need you to help take care of Hiro while I fix up Sayaka. Think you can do that?"

He wasn't sure where this confidence in him was coming from, especially since he couldn't remember ever meeting this person before in his life, but he felt he should stop this before it got too far. "Look man, I'd like to help, but I don't know anything about that doctoring stuff. What if I mess up? I- "

"It's not a problem," the hooded person interrupted, irritated and impatient. But when he flinched back, their eyes seemed to soften. "Look, I'll talk you through it. I know it's a bit terrifying at first, but I need you to help me here, or they will die. I don't know about you, but I'd rather try to save their lives and risk failure, then not try and just let it happen."

For a while, Leon didn't say anything. Left speechless by this woman's devotion to both saving the lives of his classmate and their willingness to trust him of all people to help in doing so. If he were to be honest with himself, it was rather inspiring. It also had an invigorating effect on him that allowed him to swallow his trepidations and nodding in agreement.

"Okay, now I'm going to have to pull the privacy curtain closed between us, but we'll be in constant contact. Do not be afraid to ask me anything." The red head nodded, with a spoken word of agreement. Though he did admit to himself that he felt a little bit worried that he wouldn't be able see this person as he worked, the knowledge that they wouldn't just up and leave him with a bloody body helped calm his nerves a bit.

Watching the curtain close the boy turned to the adult high school classmate with feelings of stress. In a few minutes, Leon's hands would be working to save this man's live. In all honesty the thought terrified him deeply. Never in his life had he had to worry about anyone else's future then his own, and now he was expected to patch up this guy he barely knew.

However, if he messed this up, then it would be his life on the line. Yeah, there was a chance he could 'graduate' from this if it happened, but he really didn't want to risk it. Especially considering the crazy bear running this show.

"You ready over there?" came the call of the person behind the curtain, snapping him back to reality. Shaking his head once to clear the cobwebs of doubts, he replied with a shaky, "Yeah." and moved to stand next to the one everyone thought was some kind of hobo.

"First, you're going to need to put on the gloves and the little white mask. They already have enough on their plate, the don't need infections on top of that." Looking on the table Leon quickly fount the items in question and went to put them on. There was a bit of a hassle getting the mask on with his goatee, but he managed.

"Got 'um" He called over, his voice slightly muffled by the mask.

"Good. Now I take the scissors and cut open his shirt. Once you finish, do the same with his wrappings. They just be in the way of your work. When you're done tell me how bad it looks." Grumbling a bit since those so called "wrappings" were once parts of his coat, the baseball hater did as he was told. He didn't cut up the hobo coat though. With how much Hiro kept asking for money, there was no way he had more than one of the darn things.

Now that the shirts were out of the way, Leon could see the full damage dealt by the blue haired idol, and he couldn't help but cringe at the sight. It was pretty deep, the wound dug right into the man's hip at an angle that made the baseball star queasy just looking at it. Plus, now that it wasn't obstructed by the cloth, the blood had started leaking out once more.

"Now what?" He asked over the curtain, unsure how he should do besides slap a Band-Aid on it like back when he was in baseball. He knew that wouldn't be any help here though; the cut was far too large for that. "It's pretty deep."

"How long is it?" came the response, forcing him to look at the disgusting sight again.

"It's about an inch or two, I think?" he guessed, not really up to trying to measure it properly; even with gloves on.

"Shit," swore the person on the other side of the curtain. "Sayaka isn't well off either, she's got a long angled cut on her ribs. It's not straight either, so I'm going to have to stitch it close. Wish I had something to numb this."

Leon winced hearing that, that wasn't something that he'd wish on anyone. One of his team mates back in his old team had taken a rather hard fall once and had to have the cut stitched up. When they had gotten back, they had talked none stop about how much it had hurt despite the doctors swearing up and down that they had numbed it beforehand. That wouldn't be pleasant.

Yet, a small part of him still felt a bit of satisfaction at the knowledge. After she had tried to kill him, he had shamefully felt a bit of satisfaction in seeing her get her comeuppance. No doubt she would likely get a scar from this, one that would always remind her of her failed attempt to do him in.

"Hey, you still over there? I don't need you freaking out on me." Snapping back to reality at the worried tone of his neighbor, he turned his attention back to helping out his fellow classmate.

"Yeah, I'm cool." Leon called over, shoving aside his feelings for now. "What do I do next? Do I need to stitch Hiro up or what?"

"Oh no," Came the reply of the other person. "But you do need to wipe it off with some disinfectant. There's a bottle of it right next to some clean wipes I put on your tray. After that, just dry it off then grab a couple of the sticky tabs I put next to them and use them to pull the wound shut. Simple."

"Yeah…simple."

It didn't take long for the all-star to clean and disinfect the clairvoyant's wound, though he didn't enjoy it in the slightest, so he tried to finish as quickly as possible. Taking the cloth and applying some of the liquid cleanser, he carefully wiped off the blood as best he could and then dried it with a separate cloth. Getting the tabs out wasn't much of a problem, but getting them to stop grabbing his fingers was irritating.

Thankfully, after that it was easy to figure out how to get the rest of the wound patched up. A quick slap of a cotton pad, some medical tape to hold it in place, and it was all done. Glad that it was over with, Leon wiped off some of the sweat from his brow, and turned once more to the girl behind the curtain.

"Okay, Hiro's all good now. I think. What now?" he inquired, hoping that this was all he needed to do to help. It wasn't as if he minded saving someone's life, but the stress of not knowing if what he was doing was helping was just unbearable.

"One last thing." Came the replay, to the all-star's chagrin, "I need you to fish out his E-book and tell me what his blood type is. It should be in his personal info tab. And make sure he's still got a pulse!"

Grumbling slightly at the commands, he still complied fishing through the clairvoyant's pocket for the tablet. Thankfully, it had been in the pocket opposite of the knife wound, so it hadn't been coated in blood. That didn't stop him from feeling disgust at having to stick his hand into a coat that probably hadn't been washed in at least a year.

After a quick glance at the injured man's Monokuma-lifeline he quickly realized that he didn't know how the thing worked or how to tell what the amount of blinks meant. However, it was still blinking, so he guessed it was fine.

It only took a minute after turning on Yasuhiro's E-handbook to find the man's blood type, and he walked over to tell the person helping save his classmates lives, throwing open the curtain as he did so.

"Okay, it says here his blood type is-" He was stopped at the sight of his fellow classmate laying on the med-bed, her body completely still while their hooded associate stood at her side. The red eyed woman was currently finishing with the stitches on the idol, and as they had said, it wasn't pretty. A long line of black marks of some kind of thread snuck around the bottom of her ribs at a messy angle, the flesh red from the thread pulling the skin shut.

However, while that was something that caught his eye, his attention was more focused on the uncovered flesh mounds just above the cut. If he had to guess, the hooded person had to remove Sayaka's bra because of the blood, and a quick glance at the table next to the bed where the ruined blouse and a stained bra lay confirmed it.

Fortunately for the idol's dignity, whoever it was that was patching her up had the smart idea to cover her bits with a couple of the pads and some tape, but that didn't do much to hide the two orbs from view. Unfortunately for Leon, his call and the sound of the curtain attracted the attention of the one overseeing Sayaka's healing.

"The fuckin hell are you doing!?" Shouted the hooded figure, red eyes trying to burn a hole into his head. Caught off guard, the poor athlete was only able to sputter and stammer; something they didn't appreciate all too well, judging by the glare he was getting. "I put that up for a reason moron! What do you want!?"

Not in the slightest prepared for such a tongue lashing, he was only able to hold up Hiro's E-book in response. Glaring judgingly at him, the hooded figure snatched the handbook from his hand and looked at the screen. After finding the info they wanted, they roughly pushed the pad back into his hands and pulled the curtain close.

"Just go stand with Hiro." They demanded, before walking around the curtain and heading for the miniature fridge that sat next to the sink and counter. At first, the all-star thought they were getting some kind of drink or something, but that was proven to be a wrong assumption when they turned around holding two medical bags of blood.

Silently, Leon waited as they disappeared behind the curtain once more, likely taking the blood bags to hook up Sayaka with one of them. As he sat there, he couldn't help but focus his thoughts on the girl in the blue hoodie. In the heat of the moment, he had forgotten the situation that he was in, and that there shouldn't be another person in the school that he hadn't met before. Monokuma himself said that there wasn't any way in or out for anyone, baring the massive gate. There was no way someone would have been able to get in without someone knowing about it.

Yet, here they were, a completely new person out of nowhere. No mention from Monokuma, no introduction with the others, and not a single mention of them from anyone else. And while he did admit that it was a good thing they showed when they did, it raised a lot of questions.

Where did they come from? When did they get here, or were they here the whole time? If they were here, why didn't they show themselves earlier, or were they hiding this whole time? Did Monokuma know about them, or had the somehow managed to sneak into the school somehow?

Far too many questions for the simple baseball star to even begin trying to answer by himself. He wasn't some kind of detective who only needed to look at the problem and figure it out in seconds. He needed someone to help him.

And just his luck, the one who could help was the red eyed figure stepping through the curtain with a blood bag attached to a long tube and needle in one hand, and a strip of medical tape in the other.

"Alright," they said, as they used a small cotton ball dabbed in rubbing alcohol to clean of Hiro's wrist before sticking the needle into a vain and holding it in place with the tape. "now we just have to wait and hope for the best."

As they worked to hang the bag up on some kind of small hook, they seemed to take notice of his staring.

"What?" they asked, eyebrow raised with their head tilted slightly in confusion. "I get some blood on me or something?"

Stealing his nerves, Leon closed his eyes as he took a deep breath. He needed to know. Exhaling, he opened his eyes, his gaze locked with theirs. It was now or never.

"Who are you?"