*Beep. Beep. Beep*

"Gmeer." I groaned at the infuriating sounds of my alarm clock as it blared it's now familiar, if still rage inducing tone, forcing me to slowly pull myself out of my cozy slumber if I ever wanted to shut it up. That wasn't to say that I didn't do my dandiest to fight against it, my hand blindly slapping around as I tried and failed to locate the damn thing and hit the oh so coveted snooze button. Unfortunately, I was far too smart for my own good as the blasted thing was on my dresser across the room where my groping hands would never reach it.

I sighed into my pillow, frustrated and annoyed that it took me that long to remember that, but I still forced myself to toss away my oh so warm and soft blankets aside and got up to shut off the first of my daily annoyances. After a quick stretch to help get some blood flowing and some time spent admiring myself in the mirror and both loving and hating what I saw, because seriously, evil shouldn't look this hot. Eventually, I got dressed for the day.

I yawned as I climbed up the ladder to the room, the blue sleeves of my plush hoodie jacket countering the cold of the metal. It was a little bit chilly today it would seem, so I made a point to make sure to turn up the school's heater just a bit for the morning once I got to the control panel. After that, I spent the next half hour just running through the basic standard maintenance of duties. Once that was done, I picked up the journal from where I'd left it on the chair arm and started leafing through it some more as I wandered over to the monitor room.

As I did though, I couldn't help but feel like something was…off. Like something was wrong with this, but exactly what it was, was only just at the edge of my grasp. It was frustrating, like reaching under a shelf for a dropped tool, only for it to be just far enough that you can touch it with your fingertips, but not actually grasp it. I could only blindly claw at it, but I just couldn't get it.

Sadly, I had no ideas. I was completely at a loss. Sighing in resignation, I turned away from the book for a moment to look at the screens to see just what the others were doing.

At first glance, there didn't appear to be much in the way of anything. Most of the students were still asleep in their dorms as per the norm since they didn't have to deal with the nonsense of having to wake up at six in the morning, but there were some obvious exceptions. Kyoko was up and about, already getting to work on brushing the insane amount of silver hair of hers and getting it ready to put together into her normal style. It seemed that she might have had a rough time sleeping last night as there were a bunch more tangled areas then normal.

Celeste was also just starting to get up herself, though to my eternal amusement, she swore like a sailor as she fought to curl the massive hair extensions of the wig that she wore most of the day. There was just something funny about her losing her prim and proper act in the heat of the moment of her overwhelming anger and stress from upholding said act. Maybe that's why Hifumi was constantly prodding that hornet nest.

Toko looked like a freaking wreck, not even going to lie. Dark circles lined her eyes and her every movement looked sluggish and even more depressed then normal. There was also a rather large pile of torn and balled up paper in her trash bin, and there was a large black smudge on the bottom of her right hand from all the pencil led. Poor thing must have been trying to write to calm her stress, but the situation kept distracting her into making mistakes that made her even more frustrated, resulting in her throwing out what she'd written before starting again. Rinse and repeat, ad Infinium.

She wasn't the only one, though hers were certainly the worst. Taka, Mondo, Sakura, and even the thought to be inexhaustible Hina, all had small pockets of black under their eyes even as the last one rested in her room. Seems that staying up for guard duty was a bit more of a challenge then they had anticipated.

…Wait a second.

Something about that last bit seemed…off.

Guard duty. As in, guarding the others from attack. Protecting them from something that sought to cause them harm. As in, spending their time to prevent something from…occurring.

My brow furrowed as I tried to figure out why that didn't seem right. There was nothing wrong with it from a textbook standpoint. But I couldn't shake the feeling that I should be noticing something here.

Something important.

I did my best to shrug off the feeling as I returned my attention to the book once more. This time the page was rather short. Comparatively anyway.

It said, "Things are starting to get a bit too hectic for my liking. This morning, those stuffy morons of the chair decided that I hadn't been showing my talent to it's fullest potential, so they've assigned me a group project to act as, and I wish I was joking, "Extra credit". Assholes. I'm already having to take time out of my day to check up on the problem child with two brains, and NOW they want me to spend more time on their stupid shit? If it wasn't for the fact that I know it would have been pointless, I'd sue them for overworking students.

What I should sue them for though is blatant theft. Apparently, one of these jackass teachers has been stealing my notes because they've been using it for brain mapping or some such nonsense. They said they're making a kind of virtual reality simulator, that can, get this, reprogram a person's memories. They got all up on their high horse saying that it was to help trauma victims with bad memories or something, but I can read between the lines. I know what kind of disgusting crap that people could and would pull with that kind of power.

Note to self, never let Junko know about it.

Regardless, they've asked me to set aside my Sundays to help them with the Alpha version along with the mute Therapist in the Syfy chair and this programmer chick from the annoyance's class. And let me just say, I've only met them today and I can honestly say that, they are both complete dorks without a collective spine between them both, and they're absolutely irritating to deal with.

At least the programmer will at least try to speak to you, when she isn't crying her eyes out like a toddler.

But the so called "Therapist" can't even work up the willpower to do that much. All she does is use this disgustingly pink rabbit avatar on her freaking wheelchair as her own stupid ventriloquist dummy, like she's trying to be Stephen Hawking. She even calls it Usami of all things and she even called it a magical girl. It's like she's trying to sound like a toddler or something. Disgusting.

There might have been more, but I couldn't care less after all this.

She's not even a student anymore. She graduated last year. How she did that when she never freaking talks, I don't have a clue, but she did. Even has the diploma to prove it; though considering the amount of weird and or worthless talents they bring in all the time, I highly doubt its validity.

I guess I'm going to have to call in a favor to the soldier bitch. She may hate my guts, and the feeling is more then mutual, but that pain in the neck will do anything to help her "precious little sister". I know that much. That school of dead people she left behind is more than enough proof of that as far as I'm concerned.

I'm almost tempted to tell her that there's a guy's brain in her sister's bod, just to see what her reaction would be.

Nah, I'm not that sick. I'll tell her that Junko might develop some strange habits from the surgery, or some other bull nonsense, and needs constant supervision. Shouldn't be to hard to convince her after that. I just hope that perverted masochist is better at spying then she is with following directions.

Should be enough to get her to stop pining for some action with that luckster she's been stalking for a bit at least."

And that was it.

It was strange though, usually there wasn't nearly as many insults in those as there was in this one. I guess he really didn't like having to stretch his time thin like this, or maybe he just didn't like being forced into something he thought shouldn't be made a reality. I mean, I get it, who would want to be known as the guy who helped bring brainwashing into reality?

Still, it was interesting. I had thought that it was stated that they had only made the Neo World Program with his notes alone, not with his physical help originally. Maybe they felt the need to bring him in because they saw his talent at work reviving me and Junko? I don't know.

What I couldn't help but notice was how he referred to Mukuro. I had thought that since they were on the same side, supposedly, that they got along in some way, but I guess I was wrong. Maybe he didn't like the fact that he had to share his girlfriend's attention with her, or maybe Mukuro just rubbed him the wrong way with her brainwashed-induced-obsession with Junko? It certainly seemed that way from how he wrote this, but that could just be him projecting his frustrations onto her. It wouldn't have been that unlikely.

Still, it was good to note that he never told her about me. Why he didn't tell anyone else though, I don't know yet. Pride, maybe? Trying to protect Junko, possibly? Or maybe he just didn't want to deal with the stress of being acknowledged as the youngest surgeon to successfully preform a partial brain transfusion despite technically being far too young to reasonably be certified as a licensed doctor.

I'm willing to bet it was the last one.

It was nice to hear a bit more about this, "Ultimate Therapist" person though. I had only seen a picture of her when they were advertising the new anime, so I would never have suspected that they were mute. Or rather, were too shy to talk. I mean, with a title like that, you would expect that she was a calm, rational woman who listened very well and used words to help her patients with their emotional problem. Well, there was the running joke that all a therapist needed to say was, "And how does that make you feel?" repeatedly while emphasizing a different word with each repetition. So, maybe that was the joke here?

And Usami! Almost missed that part! So, that means that this was the person who deigned that little not-so magical girl who claims to like sweet milk! Oh man, I hope that was the case, because otherwise that would have meant that Chihiro or Yasuke had, and while I could maybe see that from the former, it would have been one hell of a surprise had it been the latter when you consider his attitude.

Eh, whatever. It's fine. At least Chihiro got to make a friend before all of this…

"Wait a tick." I paused as I pulled my eyes away from the book to glance at the screens again. "Where's Chihiro?"

I double checked and saw that, no, I hadn't just missed him. The little programmer was not in his room resting like he should have been at this hour. With wide eyes, I started looking to the other dorm rooms in hope that I would see him somewhere. No dice. Next, I checked the classrooms and the halls. Nothing. Then I ran through all the rooms on the first floor, starting with the infirmary and ending in the gym.

Nah. Nope. Nilch. Nada. Despite the fact it shouldn't be possible, there was no sign of him anywhere on the first floor. So, that only left the second floor, but that couldn't be right. I thought for sure that he was supposed…to…

That feeling was back, and with a vengeance. I was forgetting something important, something big. Some little part of my brain was holding information hostage from the rest and was taunting me with it out of spite. It was saying that, "You should know what's wrong here." But it wouldn't say what.

And then, I don't know if it was out of curiosity, out of fear, or out of some other less identifiable reason, I checked the second-floor cameras.

I checked the Library. There was no one there. The classrooms. Same thing. I looked in the pool. No one. Boys locker room. Nope.

And then, I hesitated. For some reason, I couldn't understand, I felt my hands shaking. I glanced at them in confusion, even as my heart grew a feeling of falling, I couldn't understand. Why was I…nervous? What was this terror that gripped my soul?

I did my best to ignore it. I crammed that feeling aside as best as I could as I forced myself to face the screens once more. Because, nothing should be wrong, right? It should be perfectly okay, right? Nothing bad could have happened after everything, right!?

That…was what I thought. But then, I looked, and I realized what I had forgotten.

In this world, nothing was ever going to be okay. Nothing is ever truly fine. If you ever believe otherwise, then you have only yourself to blame when the despair comes to collect it's due.

"…ey…H…Hey…oto…Mak..o….ake up. Hey, kid. Up and at 'um."

"Nggh…"

Makoto groaned as he fought to stay asleep in his warm bed and he tried to ignore the voice trying to get his attention. Last night had been another bad night of worry and stress for him full of doubt and fear and it had made him toss and turn for a large portion of the night. It left him feeling sickly and exhausted when he tried to open his eyes, so he felt no reason to change that. All he wanted was to just sleep.

Sadly, the repeated light slaps of something fluffy and soft was growing infuriatingly annoying. He tried to dislodge whatever it was by rolling over, but that only made it start slapping the back of his head. It seemed that, whatever it was, was determined to ruin what was left of his already rough night sleep. So, with a groan, he turned back over, and forced his eyes open so that he could give the person trying to wake him a piece of his mind.

"Hello, sunshine. Top of the mornin' to ya."

"Aah!" He screamed at the sight of one two toned bear propped up on his chest as he all but threw himself out of the bed, out of shock. Now very much awake, and a little bit sore from falling on his rear, he kept his eyes locked firmly on the headmaster as he demanded, "Monokuma!? What are you doing here!?"

"Aw, what's that response?" The bear playfully asked in return, and if it was insulted by his tone, it made no indication. "Can't your loveable headmaster give his favorite student a more personal wake-up call from time to time?"

A violent shiver rushed down the luckster's spine at the very thought of being this crazy man- bear's favorite anything as he scowled. The bear ignored him though as it continued to joke, "I'm sorry that I'm not your little sister or childhood friend~"

"W-What are you going on about!?" Makoto snapped, already fed up with the plush bot's jokes. It was far too early to deal with the bear's nonsense. "Get out of my room!"

But the bear ignored him as it sat up straight, in his bed and looked him in the eyes, and though its tone didn't change, its joking implication was completely gone from its next statement. "But is this really the time to be sleeping, Mister Protagonist? It seems that something has happened to one of your classmates."

A cold feeling of fear washed over Makoto. His eyes, once narrowed in anger, now widened in stunned shock at the bear's statement. But before he could ask anything, the bear went slack and fell backwards before it rolled off the other side of his bed. The luckster quickly scrambled to chase after it with a shout of, "Wait!" However, it was in vain. By the time he managed to glance over, the bear had completely vanished without a trace.

He wanted to curse out the blasted bear for running away before he could ask his numerous questions. One minor one being about the very strange address he'd been given as an aside, but he quickly shook away the thought. There would be time for that later. Right now, he had to check with the others.

Quickly as he could, he speedily changed into a fresh change of clothes, fumbling a few times to get his shoes to stay on more then once, and bolted for the cafeteria as fast as he could.

Part of him hoped that he would run into one of his classmates along the way, if for no other reason then to relieve him of the concern for their wellbeing. Sadly, it seemed that wasn't to be the case this day as the whole place seemed barren from the norm. If he were being honest, it made him feel even more anxious. The only thing somewhat worth noting was that, for some odd reason, there was a table in the juncture of the hall, rooms, and cafeteria, but he put it out of his mind as unimportant.

Finally, he ran into the cafeteria, the doors slamming against the walls with a loud bang as he quickly took stock of whom all was there waiting for him. Not that many were there. Hiro, Hina and Sakura were standing around looking just as nervous as he was. Hiro especially looked like he was bad off with ever more thick purple bags under his red eyes, and he looked far rougher and unkept then ever before, almost like he was going to pass out at a moment notice. He even had the beginnings of signs of a need of a razor as he was sporting small pinpricks of brown hair on his clammy chin and lip, more so then usual at any rate.

Hina looked a bit less peppy then normal as well with a slight slump in her posture and a very small amount of skin beneath her eyes had also gained a slight purple hue. Sakura was much the same, but it was less noticeable given her toned completion.

A brief glance showed Byakuya sitting at one of the side tables looking rather unconcerned with the goings on. There wasn't really anything of note different about him, but he did seem to be glaring much more harshly than normal.

"Makoto!" the resident swimming pro exclaimed the second she caught sight of him as he hurried over to them all. "Did you hear…!?"

He nodded grimly in response as he quickly glanced around. "Yeah, I did. Where's everyone else though?"

"We're still waiting for them." Hina stated as she put one of her hands into her other in concern for their safety. Sakura continued with her own observation, "Twould appear Monokuma has spoken to you as well."

Before anyone else could say anything further, the doors slammed open once more as two more students rushed in, accompanied with the sounds of a set of pounding feet and squeaky wheels. Panting as he skids to a stop, Leon asked with panic layering his tone, "Hey, is it true!? Did something happen!?"

"Sorry we're late." Sayaka stated much more calmly then the all-star, a feat since he must have been rushing her down the halls very quickly, but still just as worried. "Monokuma only just woke us up a little while ago."

"It's fine." Hiro started, but he wasn't looking all that well as he stumbled over his words. "Well, no, it's not fine, but you only just getting here is fine, not the situation and..."

"Enough." Byakuya demanded in a way that gave no room for argument as he finally stood and pushed his chair in. "We don't care for your butchering of the spoken word. What matters is that we investigate immediately."

There was a brief pause as the group of six students stared at the blond with varying levels of either confusion or frustration as he almost casually walked to the door, brushing into Makoto's shoulder as he passed by with out a glance otherwise. Sakura scowled especially hard at him, though if the luckster had to guess it would either have been because of either the scion's disrespectful attitude, or his blatant lack of concern.

"Hey, hold on!" Leon countered, "What about the others?"

"What about them?" Byakuya countered back with a snide glance over his shoulder. "They can catch up later. Right now, we have more important things to deal with then waiting for any tartier fools."

"Well, shouldn't we have someone wait here to tell them where the rest of us went?" the baseball pro tried again to get the man to see reason, but it continued to be in vain. The scion completely ignored him as he walked out the door without so much as a glance. If he noticed the glares from the others, he clearly didn't care enough to comment on it.

"Asshole." Leon grumbled irritably, wanting to believe that he couldn't be this callous, but regrettably knowing otherwise. Similar scowls formed on the faces of the other students, with comments of a similar vane being uttered, but it was all background noise to Makoto as he reluctantly took a few steps to follow the blond scion with a soft, yet firmly uttered, "Let's go."

There was no other need for prompting for the rest to follow and soon enough the whole group was hurrying down the halls, the affluent rich boy always a few steps ahead of them as they rushed along. The strange thing was that, while the he and the others would stop and check everything, Byakuya didn't even give more than a brief pause to offer no more than the briefest of glances into any room they passed by. It was like he didn't even consider them worth searching at all and was just doing it for the sake doing it.

But, Makoto didn't comment. He knew well enough that it would go ignored by the scion at the very least. At most, he could expect to have an insult thrown his way that was both sophisticated and demoralizing for trying, so it was just overall better for everyone involved that he just ignored it and moved on. Besides, there were more important things to deal with right now then Byakuya's attitude.

It wasn't long though before their search was interrupted when they came across a pacing teen by the stairs with his bottom lip clutched tightly between his teeth.

"Taka!" Makoto called out to the moral compass to get his attention, but he had to give a doubletake when he saw the state the boy was it. The teen's eyes were slightly bloodshot, and they took a moment to focus on the luckster's. There were also small pockets underneath those red orbs of blackened tired bags that belayed his exhaustion, and Kiyotaka's clothes, normally pressed and very clean, were wrinkled and disheveled; though they still looked clean, they looked faded somewhat. In all honesty, he looked haggard and like he had been up all night, which was really shocking considering how time conscientious the moral compass usually was.

It didn't help that, instead of his normally loud and boisterous tone that the lucky student was used too, Taka spoke in a quiet and subdued voice that rang several alarms in the smaller teen's head. "Makoto, everyone. There you are…you really shouldn't be running in the halls."

"Not the time, man!" Leon interjected, likely missing the strangeness in Taka's actions or appearance in his haste. "Something's happened!"

"Ah, so you heard." Kiyotaka confirmed more then asked. Then, he slowly lowered his head, just enough to hide his eyes in the shadows of his hair, and mutely pointed to the stairs with a quivering finger. If there hadn't been alarms going off in their heads before, they certainly were going off now. Even the most unobservant of them was now looking at the moral in concern now that they were truly starting to notice just how haggard the moral looked.

"Dude, you okay?" Leon tentatively asked, hands out to catch Taka if he fell over, but just as the moral started to nod, Byakuya interrupted.

"Don't bother, he's already served his purpose here. More importantly, it seems that our investigations are to take place upstairs. Shall we." He didn't even try to wait for a reply, the scion just walked right by the boy without an iota of concern and marched straight up the stairs without a word more.

"He could at least try to pretend to care." Hina grumbled with a growl. Makoto couldn't help but nod along with several of the others as he added. "We better follow him."

"Yeah, sure. But uh, what do we do about…?" the others followed Hiro's gaze to look at the still mostly unresponsive moral compass as he slowly stumbled over to the wall and pushed his head against it, his hands clenched about as hard as could be. There was a dark look in his expression, like he was physically in pain over something, and it honestly worried the luckster quite a bit.

He made to take a step towards the moral compass when he was stopped by the feeling of a hand gripping his wrist. He eyes only briefly went to the limb before following the arm it was attached to, back to the soft, yet sad smile of Sayaka looking at him. Makoto spoke her name in question, wondering what she was doing, but all she did was give him a small shake of her head in response.

"You guys go on ahead." She said understandingly with care in her voice. "I'll stay here and try to find out what's going on with Kiyotaka. Besides, I'd just slow you down."

Momentarily, his eyes glanced downward at the wheelchair with a feeling of concern, but when she gave him a small push, he reluctantly relented. With a brief nod of his head, he did his best to steel his resolve and followed the impatient blond with the others at his heels. He did pause for a second to look at the tortured expression on Taka's face once more, just trying to see beyond the boy's spiny hair to try and get a hint as to what the studious teen was thinking. He hoped he could figure out what was causing him to act like this.

But when he didn't find that answer, he shook his head and quickly hustled up the stairs with the others. He wanted to stay and help, that was never even a question, but right now there was more important things to take care of. He would just have to trust Sayaka to watch the red-eyed boy for now, and when this was over, then he would try and coax out an explanation.

Right now, though, he had to find out what happened to his other friend.

It didn't take long to catch up to the others. Byakuya finally stopped at the top to stare condescendingly down at him and the others, but at least he did stop. There were signs that he was going to say something about the group's pace, likely an insult as usual, but before he could, the sound of an all too familiar chiming of the school bell caught their attention.

"Ahem." From the various hidden speakers, the sound of their captor clearing their throat could be heard. "For the sake of this investigation, I have unlocked the doors. Feel free to explore to your heart's content."

There was a brief pause as they waited to see if they would be getting any more information, but when they heard nothing more, the classmates relaxed slightly. Unfortunately, that didn't last long as a certain scion gave a dark chuckle. "Well, that settles it then."

"Settles, what?" Leon questioned, even as he took a slight step back away from the creepily grinning blond. It didn't help that the lenses of his glasses had caught the light just right to hide his eyes from view.

"Isn't it obvious?" Byakuya asked rhetorically, not even pausing to let them answer. "Monokuma stated that he's going to unlock the doors, "for the sake of this investigation". Then, it is as I suspected."

"An incident has occurred."

A chill ran down the spines of the class when they caught sight of the rich teen's eyes. It was a dark look, full of excitement, like a kid about to rip the wings off an insect, for no other reason than because he could. It was like nothing they had seen on the boy's face in the entirety of their time spent together. Far and away from his usual cold, indifferent look or even his smug, greater-then-thou smirk they were so used to seeing. Not even the look he'd given them all way back in the library contained this level of pure sadistic glee.

And just like that, it was gone with the slight turn of his head. The suddenness of it almost gave the group a feeling of whiplash as they mutely watched him walk away towards the doors leading to the pool. The moment the doors closed behind him though, the other students let go of the breaths that they hadn't even realized they'd been holding.

"Okay, dudes, was that freaky to you guys? That was totally freaky, right? I'm not the only one who thinks that, right?"

"No, you got that right." Hiro confirmed the all-star's question with a nervous laugh. "What the heck's going on here?"

No one had a proper response to his question, but they didn't really have time to waste on theories on the reasonings behind the strange goings on now. Makoto decided to follow after Byakuya with the others eventually following, if for no other reason then the fact that it seemed that the scion at least had an idea of where to go over the others. Without more than a little hesitation, they all gathered in the locker room where the spectacled blond stood as he stared at the doors inquisitively with his chin in hand.

"…Suspicious." They heard Byakuya murmur seemingly to himself as he readjusted his glasses. "Very suspicious indeed. Wouldn't you agree?"

"Hu-, I mean, what's suspicious?" Makoto questioned, cutting himself off in the process. However, his question went unheard as the rich boy took his steps forward.

"It would seem that no one checked the locker rooms yet." Byakuya stated as he pressed his hand up against the door to the girl's locker room. "Let's start with this one first then…"

"H-Hey…!" Hina cried out at the scion's strange and sudden choice of investigation location, but any further argument died in her throat when the boy pushed past the door and without a single bit of hesitation. She fumed for what could only have been a second before chasing after him. In her haste, she unintentionally shoved Makoto through the door, as she went to reprimand the blond teen with a shout of, "You can't just…!"

A reprimand that would go unspoken as she caught sight of Makoto falling back in shock and almost knocking her leg out from under her. She glanced at the suddenly shell-shocked boy with his name on her lips in bewilderment about his strange behavior. But once she followed his gaze to what had caused this, she found herself shockingly close to following his example as her hands shot up to cover her mouth and block the scream in her throat from escaping.

For what she saw was a familiar figure of a petite girl, hung up and dangling from the ground with a long cord wrapped tightly around her wrists to suspend her body to the weight lifting equipment in a crucifix fashion. Her eyes were closed, but there were no signs of life behind the lids. Her hair was caked in old blood and it dribbled down her face and accentuated the pained expression that lay behind the browning trail. And to finish this horrifying visage was on the wall, just off from being directly behind her, was the bold, stained graffiti word of "BLOODLUST" written entirely in drying blood that dripped at the ends.

It was uncertain who screamed first. It was uncertain for how long they screamed. All they knew was that it was raw and primal, and filled to the brim with horror and despair.

*Tap, tap, tap tap*

My fingers rapped against the table rapidly, my nails tapping out the notes for a simple one-handed song as I struggled to rein in my temper as I glared at the screen and the screaming teens that it showed. My jaw was locked tightly as my teeth gnashed into the soft inside of my cheeks. I think I might have bitten through at some spot since I could taste copper on my tongue, but I wasn't sure yet. However, I had far too many other things to care about to be concerned over a little pain.

"How?" I snarled to myself as a stared at the hanging form of the boy I had been spending so much of my time trying to save from this very fate. "How the frack…how the fuck! Did this happen?"

My free hand went back to my mouth as I started to chew on the knuckle of my finger, as the pace of my fingers on the other hand increased in tempo, my blood practically boiling at this point. Oh, I knew exactly what happened, that wasn't in question. I knew full well who was responsible for this whole mess.

But the how of this situation made absolutely no sense! While I still couldn't quite remember exactly what happened, I know for a fact that the others and I had been taking Chihiro to the infirmary. I remember vividly that he should have been taken care of, safe, and there should not have been any freaking way that it would end up like…THIS!

Yet, for the life of me, I couldn't remember anything past that. I kept trying to think about what had happened after that moment, but I wasn't getting anything no matter how hard I strained my gray matter. It wasn't even like one of those things where you know something happened, but only have a vague clue as to the details. No, I mean I honestly don't have the slightest clue. From the very moment that I walked through the door, to waking up this morning, I was drawing up one big blank. Like the information wasn't just hard to find, no, it was like it was never there in the first place.

It didn't help that something else seemed to be quite keen on keeping that information from me, and I glared at my monitor as I thought that.

Since the others would be occupied in gathering the missing members of their class, I took a second to look once more at the footage of last night on the separate monitor, the one great thing about this system. Even though everything was being broadcasted in real time, the computer system in the monitor room did still have a recording of everything that happened stored within. It did have one problem in that the broadcasting part seemed to have an automatic disable function set up to stop transmissions from ten p.m. till seven a.m. but that didn't stop it from recording regardless.

I guess it was for the viewers sakes that it was there? Can't really appreciate the despair of the game's contestants when you're too tired from watching all day and night waiting for something to happen. Plus, the most important parts only happen during the day after all. And, since most of the crimes would tend to happen at night, it would make the mystery more engaging for them if they weren't able to see it first-hand like I was and had to figure things out alongside the cast. It just made sense.

It would also explain why there was so many screens in the courtroom. If there was something that the class needed to flashback too in the school, it would make more sense that the mastermind was showing them those as recordings then actual flashbacks would. Just something to really spice up the trials that much more.

Which only made it even more frustrating for me when I found that the very moment that I was looking for was locked up by a passcode!

I'm not even joking, from the second I walked into the girl's locker room, to the point that a certain someone leaving after setting up Chihiro's body, it had all been cut out somehow, and every attempt I made to open it up to see it was met with the same freaking passcode screen. It only allowed four characters which narrowed it down a bit, but that was no help since it accepted both letters and numbers, and to top it off, it locked me out for ten minutes every three failed passcodes that I attempted.

Leaving out the fact that that someone had blocked me from accessing that one integral part of last night, the bigger question was how did it get cut out and passcode protected? I'm literally the only one with access to this part of the school, and the only people I can think of that could have even cut out that part were either comatose in Chihiro's case, not Wi-Fi capable in Alter-Ego's case, or just flat out incapable of getting through the gates to get up here in everyone else's case; including the comatose Chihiro!

So, what happened? How did that part get blocked? Did I get hacked somehow? Was this connected to the gap in my memories? I had nothing but questions and no answers to any of them beyond guess work.

How was I supposed to make a fair judgement on the trial if I couldn't even find out for absolute certain who the freaking culprit was!? At this rate, it was looking like I would have to just let them figure it out for me, and that's not fair either!

But, what choice did I have? I slumped back into my chair as I pinched the bridge of my nose in frustration at that depressing realization. I had no idea what the passcode was, Chihiro was down, and if I wanted any chance of figuring this out, I would have to trust that they could solve this, or at the very least, trust Kyoko and Makoto to find the truth for me. Not Byakuya though, I can't trust him as far as I could throw him.

I wish I didn't have to do this though, I really didn't. I wanted to just get my little bud down to the infirmary and get his head wound checked, maybe fashion a proper brace for his cracked ribs and sternum. I didn't want there to be a trial, there shouldn't have even been a need for one! All we would have needed was to have Mondo, Taka, Hina, and Sakura tell the others what had happened, and everything would have been fine.

But no, I had to wake up to this absolute nonsense without a single clue as to why I couldn't remember the night before, and now I needed them to do this trial for my sake just as much as their own. I needed to know what the cause of all this was, and I couldn't do that on my own. I had to trust them because I…I don't know if I could do it on my own. It was either with their help, or I risk making a grave mistake alone. I already caused Chihiro so much pain by trying this alone, I don't think could live with myself if I did something wrong again and it ended up worst somehow.

I had to do this.

"Why can't I remember anything from then?" I growled, finally giving in to my frustration and just balling up my fist and slamming it on the chair's armrest with enough force to make my body shoot straight up as I slapped my palms against the sides of the screen. "DAMNIT! WHAT HAPPENED!?"

I knew I needed to calm down, but gosh damnit it was hard. I tried to stop the way my arms shook and the way my teeth ground through sheer force of will, but my rage was far too great this time to be quelled through will alone. Even as I panted in frustration, I couldn't cool myself down. Even playing Monokuma would be impossible with how riled up I was. Hell, I had barely managed to stop myself long enough to make the expected bad jokes earlier, and it's only gotten worse since.

I wanted to break something. I wanted to hurt someone. I wanted to just rip, tear, and destroy until this burning flame died down. I wanted to kill someone!

With all the strength of what was left of my conscious, I retracted that last thought. That's just a bit too far.

"Still, this doesn't make sense." I snarled like a beast as I did my best to ignore the thumping pounding of my heart in my ears. I glared at the screen even as the students all started to finish rounding up those that were still missing, apart from Taka and Sayaka who were still where they left them, and Mukuro, who was just finishing up putting on her disguise since I had woken her up last as she wouldn't have been able to get to the second floor yet anyway. The reactions were about what I had expected.

Hifumi screamed like expected the second he walked through the door, his loud cry echoing down the halls like an opera singer with all the grace as the cry of a murder of crows. Celeste looked on in shock with her hand over her mouth in a display of shock, and it quickly faded for a more calculating gleam as she started taking in the gruesome details. Nothing all that new or unexpected from what I could gleam.

Mondo's reaction though…was surprisingly lacking. Oh, he did the usual, one look and he had turned away and shut his eyes tight, his fists clenched hard enough to turn coal to diamond, and his teeth were grinding hard enough that a dentist would wonder if they were starting to chip. Yet, aside from that, nothing.

No gasp of shock, no swearing up a storm, not even a questioning of, "W-What the hell?". Just…nothing. Just a glare that he shared with Sakura that was aimed elsewhere.

"I thought for sure that he would have been safe last night." My thoughts returned to the important questions as I let the students theorize amongst themselves and I folded my hands before me as I pondered, wondering just what I had missed. I had already reviewed the footage caught on the surveillance cameras of the night before, baring the locked away part, so I had an idea of what happened during and after, but it didn't answer any of my more pressing questions. Why did this happen? How did this happen? Why couldn't I remember anything that happened? Who messed with my systems and how?

What did I do…?

I turned my full attention back to the screen just in time for Toko to show up, and I grimaced as she took in the whole scene for herself with wide, horrified eyes. The crucifix body, the graffiti, and all the blood, a lesser person would have reacted the same too; even without the context. It was no surprise that she lost it, screaming in a loud and shrill tone at the sight of what to her would be the eerily familiar work of her other self, before her eyes rolled into the back of her head as fell unconscious. Poor girl hit her head hard on the way down too, the loud thwack noise startling the others into action to try and help her.

However, before they could get more than a few steps in, to their surprise and my mild amusement, Toko, who was now no doubt converted once more into her Genocider Sho persona thanks to that little fall, suddenly leapt straight up about five feet into the air and landed right back onto her feet in a slight slump, her expression dazed and confused. There was just something about seeing the least athletic person in the school pull off a kind of stunt that I doubt even Leon or Aoi could do that just tickled me pink.

And then came the hysterical laughter and the cross-eyed look complimented with her long tongue drooping out combined with her almost drunk walking. I almost lost it.

"T-Toko?" Makoto asked as he tried to get her attention with concern in his eyes. "Are you okay!?"

"It's fine, it's fine!" she, almost excitedly rebutted his concern, though I noticed that she did nothing to pull away. "Sorry about that! it was just totally shocking, ya know? It'd happen to anyone, right? Or was I the only one?"

The sudden shift in tone did absolutely nothing to alleviate the concern of the others. If anything, they looked more concerned then ever. It also didn't help that she full on bodily slumped on the luckster with all her weight and nearly dragged them both back down. Would have too had Hina not reacted fast enough to stop their fall. "Whoops! Hello there! Nice catch there, Choco-melons. Almost took Big mac down with me for a second there. Although I don't think he would have minded too much. Whoo! Kyahaha!"

"C-could you not talk like that when your eyes are doing…that?" Leon quipped as he looked at her crossed eyes with a whole heaping helping of worry as the two catchers looked at each other with a mutual look of confusion over the new nicknames they'd just been given.

"Toko…" Hina started but ended up hesitating when her fellow female looked her way with her head lolling to one side. "Maybe…you should sit down for a minute."

"What? Naw." The yet unrevealed serial killer denied as she straightened up with still unfocused eyes. "I'm perfectly fine! See? Even the stupid stutter is gone! I'm better then ever! Kyahahaha!"

"E-Even so-" whatever else Makoto could have said would go unsaid as Sho suddenly straightened in his arms and suddenly pointed at Chihiro with a loud, "Holy crap! Is that a dead body!"

Ol' Genocider was quick to pull free of her friends grasp to stumble over to the unconscious form of the hanging programmer, the others, stepping back to give her room to work, Byakuya especially giving her a wide berth. She got real up close and personal with the unconscious body of Chihiro the second she got near, her body leaning back and forth like an art critic judging every possible angle as she took a good look at the mimicry of her work; or maybe that was a result of the mild concussion? And she was even asking him if he was dead or not, laughing at her own nonexistent joke immediately after.

Only for her to suddenly stop, scowl, and pinch Chihiro's cheeks with an affronted look on her face. "Hey! What gives!? She's just sleeping over here! What a jip!"

There was a gasp of shock from some of the others before Hina and Makoto quickly moved to their friend's side to see if the half-conscious Jack/Sho/Toko was telling the truth while I sighed in relief. Yeah, I knew that he was still alive, his still blinking band would have been enough to prove that much, but it made me feel better having that second opinion.

Of course, when they went to try and untie him, Byakuya stopped them in their tracks. His only statement was basically him spouting something along the lines about preserving the crime scene for the investigation, only it was far ruder then it needed to be since he called them, "a gaggle of idiots".

But to my eternal amusement, Kyoko shot him down with the rebuttal, "If we did that, then we risk her death being certain rather than a mere possibility. Or is there something you would like to tell us?"

Boom! Take that, you pretentious prick! Yeah, you roll your eyes and huff. At the least Kyoko has the common decency to check Chihiro's health first and make sure that "she" was okay. I mean, come on Byakuya! And no, staying silent as you glare at them all judgingly is not a proper way to tell them that you agree, darn it!

The other students were quick to assist in helping get the girl dressed boy down, Sakura and Kyoko both taking the utmost care to keep the petite programmer from falling over as Makoto and Leon both worked to untie the bindings holding him aloft. Leon grumbled as he worked, "Geeze! This knot is freaking tight!"

"Be careful." Kyoko chastised him with a glare when the arm jerked slightly from his rough handling. "We don't know just how bad her condition is yet, and until we know for sure, it wouldn't be wise to jostle her any more then absolutely necessary."

"Sorry, sorry. I know." He apologized, having the decency to look sheepish under her deadpanned glower.

The rest of the untying went without much further incident. Within a few minutes they had him down and laying on his back, the cord that had held him up left hanging on the equipment. It was only with minimal prompting that Kyoko kept them all from crowding him as she started going through the standard checks of the victim's body. Same thing I expected really, she went over the obvious wounds first, the head, the wrists, "her" pulse, things like that. Then she moved on to the chest and her eyes minutely raised, then narrowed.

I found myself caught between a mirthful grin and a groan of frustration when she slowly turned around because, as she was giving them an almost word for word summery of the injuries that Chihiro had that was eerily like my own assessment, I saw her lightly pressing her hand right smack dead on the boy's crotch. If I hadn't been looking, I would have completely missed it since she almost immediately moved it right back up to point out those mentioned injury locations for the others. And it seemed like either I was the only one who saw that, or she was much better at keeping their attention focused on her words then I gave her credit, because there wasn't a single comment or narrowed eye gaze on the less then appropriate hand placement.

Oy vey.

Then, as Hina and Hiro started to escort Toko out, planning to get her to the infirmary, the psychopath side spouted loudly, "The world is composed of two sides of the same coin! Every time you flip heads, you also flip tails! The same goes for truth and lies! Kya ha ha ha!"

…You know, I never really gave this side of her enough credit now that I think about it. Even though this side of her seemed to have zero filter between her brain and her mouth, and somehow even less of one for her inhibitions, she was surprisingly insightful when you got right down to it. I mean, she wasn't exactly wrong per say, and even with the killer part of her running about, she was still the same Toko when you got right down to it. Neither side of her was the absolute truth, and neither were a lie. They were just two sides of the same coin.

"In a way," I muttered, my fingers tapping out a song once more as I pondered. "That could apply to me and Junko…couldn't it?"

Hmm…thoughts for later. Right now, I had to figure out a different mystery then the philosophy that is my life.

Getting up, I made it back to the control room just as Leon, of all people, asked the pivotal question, "But, are we even going to have a trial?"

I paused as Makoto asked him what he was talking about. This should be interesting. "Well, I mean, do we really want to go through all that shit again? It was already bad enough with what happened…y'know, last time…"

"It is precisely because of what happened last time that we're going to be investigating." Byakuya cut in with a look on his face. "You yourself heard it, didn't you, or has your brain shriveled up in your head from lack of use? If we don't perform a class trial, then that allows our resident attempted murderer to wander completely free of consequences while the rest of us are shut in under undesirable conditions. So, you would have us all put under much greater restrictions then risk having a criminal punished for their crimes?"

"N-No, that's not what I…" but that was all he could get out before the blond scion scoffed and turned away. "Of course, I shouldn't be surprised after what you did."

I could practically feel the tension in the air rising at Byakuya's cold accusation. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"To think you would be so foolish as to try and cover up a murderer's attempt like that. Even after she tried to kill you, you willingly attempted to lead us all astray with your actions last time, willingly letting yourself be used and putting us all in danger just because you couldn't keep your self from seeing her for the fraud she is. And now, here you are again, trying to stop us from stopping another threat to our lives because you can't see the writing on the wall for what it is. In this game, it's every man for himself. The more you waste our time with foolish sentiment, the more you let others, others like her, put us all in danger."

"And that means I have to be a self-righteous bastard like you?" Leon glared at the blond as he took a step forward with both fists bared and ready to tussle.

"No, but you could stand to use at least a modicum of self-preservation." And then as if he hadn't just been insulting the All-star, Byakuya turned away and walked over to Makoto; all while ignoring Leon's shouts about how he shouldn't just go and pick a fight if he was just going to walk away.

I tuned out his rather disrespectful recruitment of the luckster to turn my thoughts inward again. That last bit of interaction with Leon. Did he just…indirectly insult himself? I wasn't just imaging that, right? I'd say that it was simply a mistake on his part or a slip of the tongue, but not when it's someone like him who's very livelihood relied on saying exactly what he meant the first time. Hell, it was one of the most notable traits that he shared with Toko that I cared to notice, solely because he shared it with her in the first place.

Strange.

Unfortunately, that too would have to wait. It was time to get things started again.

It was time, for another investigation, and another class trial.

Hey all, it's been a while.

Had to do some things, but I must say, thank you all for all your support. I got a whole lot of good feedback and with any luck, things can start progressing at a more consistent rate.

But still, what a conundrum we've got going on here. Missing memories, psychopaths, suspicion all around, and nothing but vexation for our poor Junko and the rest of the class. Who could have done this? Why did this happen after all the despair last night had already boiled over? Will they even be able to find the truth when even the headmaster doesn't know it? And just what caused those memories to simply never happen?

Thank you for reading loyal viewers and I hope to see you all later. I'm aiming for late June to early July with the next chapter, so please stay tuned then.