*March 30th, 2019
AUTHOR: So I understand it's been awhile. Personal things necessitated my attention. I still plan on continuing with this. It's been nearly four years since I started. (March 30th, 2015). I can't believe how much has changed since then. It has also just occurred to me that there are fanfictions on this site that are almost twenty years old. Christ, I remember when a 5-year old (dead) fic was considered ancient.
. Maizono had just about finished on the first floor. She moved onto the second. On her left, was the purple door leading to the pool. The asymmetrical single-handle design stood across from a neon purple sign enlightened with "2F". A pale, light blue illumination adorned Maizono's hair, shading it slightly from its normal color. She felt the photo in her pocket. Perhaps now was the time to look at it? Or she could enter the pool room and go through the women's changing room.
. There she was at the pool. The locker had been put back into place. The pool was the same as ever. Aoi Asahina's name stood on the girls' record list as both the sequence for both genders towered over the blue-and white-coated pool. How had she never seen her name before? She counted thirty-six iron panels on the windows.
. "How exactly did someone get those panels up?" Maizono wondered. It was hard for a person to reach them. It wasn't super pressing, but like everything else, it was a loose end that nagged at her. However, whenever people weren't dying in this school, their lives were remarkably slow-paced, which she supposed was entertainment in its own way. The rest of the students were probably well on their way to figuring out who the mastermind was.
. Kirigiri had gone back to the dorms on the second floor. Now that she had a chance to actually stand there and soak it in, it was obvious that this was where the dorm rooms of the other students were. They could have easily been filled by a hypothetical Class 78-B, or maybe even some older students who lived on campus due to their talents. She couldn't really maneuver around the rubble, but she could see through an opening as a red "Eye Of Horus" stared back at her blankly. It wouldn't be surprising if the mastermind had drawn it using the iron red blood behind her, but that wouldn't explain why the colors of the splat behind her was a different shade from the actual marker. Maybe the lighting was just changing the hue appearance.
. After everything had been hashed out in the gymnasium, Togami had immediately made a beeline back to the headmaster's office. He felt that if he could figure out Jin Kirigiri, he could figure this out. Monokuma's words from Naegi's failed execution resonated in his mind.
. "I don't know how the administration convinced themselves to blame that trio from Class 76. Especially the Blacksmith. Though I suppose they thought he could have made the actual bomb. Then again, it WAS before my time."
. That told Togami that the mastermind enrolled after Class 76 started enrollment here if it was accurate. It was potent. It meant he could limit his search to class 77 and class 78.
. "Jin Kirigiri cared a little too much about talent./What! You thought a single teenager could shake the world up as much as I did."
. "Damn it, Togami. Quit getting sentimental. I guess Naegi got to me after all, somehow." Togami would never admit it to anybody. But he had also come to the conclusion that it was better not to work together. After all, if only the sixteen students had ever set foot in this school during the killing game, then it would have to be one of the surviving students.
. Togami took another look at it.
. He sat on the leather couch to compose himself. After everything that had happened, this school life was finally starting to get him. On the other hand, though, one way or another, it was almost over. Togami was looking at the security cameras now.
. "Every move, I'm being judged. Everything I said, everything I did. All of it was judged. I'm being judged now."
. He found Ikusaba's profile among their own.
. "No doubt she was legitimately a student. And what's this? Kirigiri, you were sloppy. There's a second page."
. "Mukuro reappeared suddenly, and in the background, an entity floats, close but just out of reach. The entity known as... Ultimate Despair. Whatever it is, Mukuro definitely has some sort of connection to it. I have a bad feeling about this. I need to push forward with my research into the Ultimate Despair. And I need to pay attention to Ikusaba's behavior too. This is just my gut feeling, but I think she's dangerous. Despite the countless battles she must have gone through as a member of Fenrir, when she entered Hope's Peak, she didn't display any signs of battle wounds or scars. That fact alone proves her tremendous skill in battle. Naturally, I want to believe her. She is a student after all. But if she proves dangerous, this school will be forced to take all reasonable measures. " – Kazuo Tengan.
. Togami recognized the name. He looked up at the portraits of the previous headmasters that adorned the opposite side of the room atop the trophy case. There was Kazuo Tengan in one of the photo frames prior to Jin Kirigiri.
. "This means that Ikusaba had to be taken by surprise." Togami thought as he looked at the picture of the freckled black-haired girl. Her measurements were listed. Her height was 169 centimeters and 44 kilograms.
. "What is the dream?/We have the dream now."
. "What is the dream? We make the dream come true."
. "169/44." Togami said aloud to the security camera. "Who do you think you're trying to fool? This data has been screwed with. There's no way this is accurate" as he took out a calculator from atop the headmaster's desk. "I calculated her BMI as about 15.5 compared to a healthy BMI of 18 or 19 at minimum. There's no way a soldier should be that underweight. Maybe a model who diets to point of unhealthiness like Enoshima could conceivably pull this off. Does she have a ridiculously high metabolism? Are her insides literally hollow? I know BMI isn't always accurate, but it should at least pass the smell test."
. Togami continued to look over the file as Genocider came in.
. "Genocider. What is it?"
. "I wanted to see what you were doing."
. "And?"
. "Well, have you found anything?"
. "Yes."
. "That's great news. I'm sure you've cracked this case wide open."
. "Maybe."
. Genocider looked at the piles of papers scattered all over the floor. She began going through and it became apparent that Monokuma had sliced and diced the registries of Classes 73, 74, and 75 for some reason. Some of the names listed included "Mayo Hiyajo: Ultimate Neuroscientist, Chisa Yukizome: Ultimate Housekeeper, Kyosuke Munakata: Ultimate Student Council President, and Juzo Sakakura: Ultimate Boxer."
. Togami handed her a piece of paper as Genocider started reading the names from the beginning of the shelf.
. "Are these Ikusaba's measurements?" Genocider asked.
. "Of course, I want you to go to the Biology Lab and check them. The actual corpse we found. Not those reserve course students Kirigiri used. Compare them." Togami replied. He had other places that required his immediate attention in a few moments.
. "You think it may be another fake corpse?"
. "Trial six has certainly opened that door."
. "More like busted it down like a S.W.A.T. Team!"
. "Go, Genocider!"
. "What is the dream? / We have the dream now."
. "What is the dream? ?We make the dream..."
. "What is the dream? / We have the dream now."
. "What is the dream? ?We make the dream come true."
. "Happiness is the Smell of a Sin. Guess Monokuma also had Evangelion up his sleeve." Fujisaki commented as he stood in the teacher's office on the fourth floor.
. He looked around, and was disappointed in what he saw. There were no additional computers in the teacher's lounge. "Guess I'll need to head back to the A/V room." Although all of the flowers bothered him for some reason. Were they potentially related to the Monokuma floor upstairs? No, that wasn't it. Something struck him as odd. There were only two faculty members that had been brought up, the headmaster, Jin Kirigiri and the scout, Koichi Kizakura. So what about the rest of the staff? Where were they? He stuck his hand on one of the iron coverings.
. "Ah. Shit." Fujisaki felt he knew exactly what the outcome of that question, so why even bother asking it? He stood there.
. Togami left the headmaster's office, still searching for clues. The obvious choice was to head to the staff room. It might consolidate his current knowledge. He couldn't afford to screw up. It was up to him, and yet this game was not progressing the way he had believed from the get-go. As he said to Kirigiri over a week ago, the amount of students was supposed to be arithmetically decreasing. He would have to re-think the previous trials, not just trial five.
. "'Well, we have thirteen people now. You and your victim would reduce that number to eleven.
'So?'
'So, if we have fifteen people for floor one, but thirteen people for floors one and two, and eleven people for floors one, two, and three...'
. And yet, nothing had gone as planned. Trial one had concluded simply enough, a double mutual kill. Dramatic, yes. But not implausible. Thirteen. Trial two had seen a victim, and yet the murderer wasn't out of play, instead of eleven, there were twelve. Trial three had been another easy resolution with Yamada killing Hagakure. That left them with ten. How much numeric dissonance could this situation get? The ledger was getting unbalanced, and to be honest, he hated it. The fewer classmates he had, the fewer suspects he could narrow the mastermind down to.
. "This is getting ridiculous. It's like whatever produces the highest drama is what happens. Which given Monokuma's modus operandi is quite likely." Togami said frustrated because trial four had Asahina as the victim with the culprit as Hagakure. "There were supposed to be no more than seven after a fourth trial , so why are there nine people left?"
. Not only that, but they had managed to go through not one, but two more class trials without any reduction of their numbers. He hadn't been able to predict either the actions of the mastermind or Kirigiri or even Maizono. And there was one conclusion he couldn't shake. Naegi was the driving factor behind the last two trials. Even logically, it made no sense. The guy was an ordinary teenager who won a yearly lottery. Hell, he wasn't even really a lucky student if you really thought about it. Someone had to win that lottery.
. It was like there was more to the equation, and true, Maizono had gone to the same middle school as him. But it didn't explain some of the actions from either Kirigiri or Monokuma? Screw it, no matter what happened, he could still play the spoiler to all of them. Nobody made a fool out of Byakuya Togami twice.
. ""Of course. But you're making the assumption that the murderer will always be one of us.
"I can't imagine a situation where it wouldn't be."
. Togami stood outside the door of the staff room, thinking. His premise had been proven false. The fundamental premise of this game had been proven wrong. That's why they were in this position. That was the only possible reason Monokuma had agreed to Kirigiri's terms.
. Fujisaki had checked Jin Kirigiri's computer during the investigation of Case 6. It was not the documents or photos that had been the most helpful. Instead, it had been file residue. The browser temp file directories were what had delivered in the clutch. Cached images from web pages provided more than enough clues to glean what was going on outside the harrowed walls of the academy. All it took was typing '%' into the search bar to find the images. Cache images were a way to speed up computer connectivity. By locally storing a picture on a web page, the computer could more easily load it up in the future, and even with constant internet usage, temp image files stayed in the system for at least a week. So why was the year so different? Had Monokuma screwed with the clock in such a way that it messed with the files' metadata?
. That being said, since the staff room lacked electronic resources, he would just have to rely on the rest of the computers in the A/V room. They might provide even more information than just fragments of the Kamakura project and Amadeus. Especially even after he reconnected Hope's Peak personal LAN, he would be in business. He could leave the detective work to Kirigiri and everybody else. The mastermind had been stupid to leave all those computers just lying around for Fujisaki to get his hands on. Or maybe it had been planned.
. "Armageddon It? Kinda on the nose, don't you think?" Fujisaki snarked about Def Leppard's five minute music track as Togami finally walked in. He had seen his silhouette through the window on the door, and was wondering what had taken him so long to come in.
. "Fujisaki."
. "Togami."
. "What are you doing here?"
. "The Staff room seemed liked a logical place to check."
. "It was also the most obvious place. But if he was smart, Monokuma would have probably cleaned everything out."
, "You got it/But are you getting' it?"
. "You say that love is won when you get some./But then your finger won't trigger the gun."
. There was an uncomfortable silence as the two sized each other up before Togami continued.
. "Well, have you found anything?"
. "In this staff room or in general?"
. "Either?"
. "Well, I've only been searching this staff room for a little while."
. "I see."
. "Yeah, but are you getting it? (Armageddon it). Oooh, really getting it? (Yes, Armageddon it)"
. "So how was your search in the headmaster's office?"
. "Enlightening." Togami replied.
. "I assume it was quite productive?"
. "Oh, are you getting it? /Oh, really getting it?"
. "Yes. It was."
. "And it's neatly organized for the trial?"
. "Of course."
. "Good."
. "Yes, are you getting it?/ Whoa, really getting it?"
. "Well, if you'll excuse me, I have other things to do." Fujisaki took his leave of absence as the song faded out. He shut the door behind him, as Togami looked around, hands in his pockets. He readjusted his glasses. It was only natural Fujisaki didn't see eye to eye with him. He would of course be wary of those with the most intelligence as potential mastermind candidates and the same could be same of Togami himself.
. He rubbed the bridge of his nose, slightly raising his glasses. "Although, all things considered, if someone were to bet on one of the seven of us being the mastermind, it would either be the semi-mysterious Kirigiri or the programmer in Fujisaki. It'd be a cliché either way to make the smallest, most innocent-looking character the mastermind or to go with the girl literally nobody but the most kind hearted trusts.."
. He continued to look around the staff room for clues.
. Kuwata stood on the fifth floor outside He had seen Genocider entered the Biology Lab/morgue earlier. Ikusaba's body had dis-appeared from the garden, and that bothered him. The four chickens left in the coop strutted around their hen. Leon was glad there weren't more than the four left. The sprinkler panel still said 7:30 AM, and Kuwata was positive the timer couldn't be changed.
. Leon had even checked inside the shed. The flower pots had seemed ordinary. The tarp on the other hand? It had the words "Bio Lab" on the opposite, non-dirty side, which given the lack of blood meant it had never laid on top of Mukuro's corpse. The pick-axe with 'Crazy Diamond' engraved on its side still caught his attention. It was what Mondo Oowada had on the back of his jacket. He held up the pick-axe and flipped it. It had a name engraved in it "Daiya Oowada." A wave of melancholy washed over Leon. True, he hadn't known Oowada long, but to see his corpse laying down in the sauna had still been one of the most chilling experiences of his life. Enoshima and Oogami had mutually killed each other and Ishimaru had just expired. Oowada's death had been the first murder in this school.
. "Hey, Leon." Fujisaki had arrived. "What are you looking at?"
. Leon silently pointed at the pickax. Fujisaki saw the name and understood.
. "You think they had a good relationship?"
. "I heard Oowada inherited his biker gang from his elder brother after a motorcycle accident killed him. That must have been so devastating."
. "Yeah. And what's even worse is that most of his gang probably watched their leader get killed."
. "Oh shit, I didn't even think about that."
. "Sympathy for the Dead?" Monokuma popped out. "Even after what Oowada did with his brother?" He waved the envelope with Oowada's name. "Ah, ah. I'm saving this baby for later." Monokuma said, as Fujisaki tried to grab it. Monokuma waddled off.
. "It's like we all told him our secrets." Leon said.
. "Yeah." Fujisaki replied. "The Mastermind must be someone that knows all of us."
. "They have prewrapped sausages, but they don't have prewrapped bacon." Kuwata suddenly mused.
. "Quit being stuck in the nineties." Fujisaki replied.
. "Hey, Fujisaki, who taught you computers?" Leon was suddenly struck by inspiration.
. "Why do you ask?"
. "Because it seems like this mastermind knows enough about computers and technology to thwart even you."
. "My father taught most of my basics. The other two people who taught me were good friends and work colleagues of my father. The first was a guy by the name of Akemi Nakajima, and the other was someone by the name of Yasuo Iwakura.
. Leon's eyes widened. "Nakajima had black-hair?"
. "Yes?"
. "Did he have a daughter named Kanon Nakajima?"
. "I think so. Wait, you know him?"
. "Of course, I know him. He's my uncle and she's my cousin."
. "Seriously?" Ordinarily, Fujisaki would have been shocked by this one degree of separation, but lately that had been one of the least implausible things to happen in this school. "You gotta be kidding me. And yet I feel like I've told you this before."
. "Dude, that's stretching your suspension of disbelief?"
. "Oh come on."
. "You think this means anything?"
. "No idea, we'll have to unmask Monokuma for sure."
. Fujisaki stared around the garden. Were there any more clues here? Maybe. But time was short and Monokuma continuing to run through all twenty versions of Evangelion's "Fly Me To The Moon." Granted, nearly three-fourths of them were barely seventy seconds long, but it was still jarring, almost like a conscious deja vu.
. Maizono moved on through the second floor. To her left was the stairs leading up to the third floor. The momentary white lighting contrasted with the mostly red hue of the floor. Although off in the distance, the green lighting heralded Classroom 2-B. Oh to hell with that, it was time to check out of the library. As Iron Man's "Merchant of Death" begin playing school-wide, Maizono stood, once again, in the library as the books numbered in the hundreds, maybe thousands.
. "Okay, Monokuma has got to be doing this on purpose. First, it was the background music from that club in Sumaru City? It's like Monokuma has made a list of places I've performed before." Maizono said, as the song transitioned into "Negaigoto Ansamburu", the very song from the motive video Monokuma had put together.
. "Fuck you, Monokuma. Really? It's not enough that you use footage from my last performance with my group in Fuyuki City for your goddamn motive video, now you're blasting it to the entire school and the whole world? Way to completely ruin the song." Maizono was understandably frustrated, but deep down, she knew it was just another attempt by Monokuma to make her lose focus. They were so close to tying up all of the loose ends.
. She came to the conclusion that the library would provide no further information of substance, and moved onto the other classroom on the second floor. It was still alight with green aura. Classroom 2-B had remained pretty much unchanged. A chalk sketch of Monokuma adorned the board. Maizono noticed that although Monokuma's mismatched eyes were in the correct orientation, the colors had been flipped The circular eye had always been on the white side, Monokuma's personal right.
. The board next to it said "Reality isn't everything." It struck her as an attempt to be vague and deep, but it really wasn't all that special. Sounded like something a seventeen year old would say.
. "Wait, I AM seventeen. Why the hell did I think I wasn't for a moment?" Maizono thought to herself. Anyway, the second floor was just about to be all wrapped up.
. Beneath the blue lights, Maizono climbed the stairs up to the third floor. She turned to her right to investigate the pair of classrooms. 3-A contained no immediate clues, but it couldn't hurt to check around anyway.
. A chalk drawing on the blackboard greeted her. It promised "The Despair Squadron". The clock reminded her of the time that was burning away. In her industry, "Time Was Money", which meant she was burning through life savings just by existing.
. "Fuck this. When this is done, I'm taking my idol group and Naegi all somewhere quiet.". The idea of stowing away in an apartment adjacent to some narrow European street appealed to her. The brown coloration of room was supposed to be pleasant, but all it reminded her was the deep shit she and the rest of Class 78 was in. It was actually kind of childish. Fuck you world, I'm taking my boyfriend and my friends and leaving. She paced alongside the back row of the desks, going through the motions.
. Genocider stood at the precipice of the fifth floor staring at the staircase above. The red light bathed her in a glow. She was trying to remember everything, but whatever Monokuma had done to Fukawa in preparation for this School Life of Mutual Killing had messed with her head as well. Just because Fukawa and Genocider didn't share direct memories didn't mean that the two were completely separate entities. They still shared memory associations like sounds or smell. It was how skills got shared. She regretting asking Alter Ego if Hope's Peak had known about her before accepting Fukawa. Probably not beforehand, or else she would have awoken in a prison cell instead of a school classroom.
. Monokuma stood before her.
. "Hello, Genocider."
. "What do you want, half-n-half?"
. "Excuse me?"
. "You're half-white and half-black. Half-and-half."
. "Whatever, here you go." Monokuma slid a photograph towards her and quickly left it.
. Genocider took a look at it.
. "Hey, Monokuma, what is this?"
. "Wouldn't want you guys to get stuck."
. "Uh huh."
. "Don't you know, that from the onset, the only living people were the sixteen students."
.Genocider's eyes widened. She looked back at the photograph. That meant that one of the fifteen students pictured was the mastermind. She scanned each student. There was her Master, directing traffic as a judge while Oogami and Asahina had piled two massive snowballs on top of two others. At Maizono's behest, Naegi was rolling his own second snowball to pair with the one already there. Fujisaki was holding his own small snowball, still in a skirt, even though pants would have been the better option. Logically, every single girl should have been in pants instead of their usual lower attire, not just Fujisaki. There was a snowball fight going on in the background with Leon using his pitching skills to hurl snowballs at Oowada, Ishimaru, Hagakure, and Yamada while Kirigiri watched in the foreground and Ludenberg stood in the background. There were a pair of girls hanging around in the background. By the process of elimination, the black-haired girl was Mukuro Ikusaba and the blonde girl was Junko Enoshima, but falling snow from a tree fell in front of her face. The hair was a dead give-away.
. She finally climbed the staircase to the fifth floor.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This chapter took a while. I have some of Chapter 43 written, but it is important to me that I had some of it written so as to make sure I knew where it was going somewhat. As always, reviews are appreciated, they're how I edit and write the story in real time.