Hospital, Towa City

The three unlikely allies in this repulsive world left the rooftops by going to a door, which is already opened, revealing stairs leading downwards. As they descended they met with a dark hallway, only very dim lighting accompanying it from the lights on the ceiling.

"Is this… a hospital?" Komaru asked while looking around. The familiar structure of intersections, doors, and the interior in general indicated that it was a hospital. The condition of the hospital apparently showed that it has been abandoned for quite a while, with dust covering every corner of the hallways.

"It seems like it." Barry replied.

"Dark and depressing… Just like me." Toko said gloomily.

"Yeah, right…" Komaru drawled, it was not really clear of what she was referring to, the hospital or Toko.

Toko looked offended by this. "'Right'!? Why didn't you deny it!? You really do think that I'm dark and depressing! Great. Just as I thought, humans cannot be trusted, especially the s-super powered ones."

Now it's Barry time to be offended. "She not saying that to you! You're just having delusions." He didn't answer the last part; he hate to admit that she had a point there. Metahumans couldn't really be trusted, considering after what he and the rest of the Regime did years ago. But that part is dead. He's redeeming himself by doing the right thing, saving citizens and the world. And that's what he'll do to this one.

"I prefer to call it imaginations!" Toko retorted back. Then she walked to a flight of stairs on the left side of a nearby wall, but steel shutters blocked them. "Wh-What's this shutter doing here? We can't even go down. This wasn't here when I was on the roof before! What's going on?"

Barry and Komaru walked up to her. The not-so speedster slightly narrowed his eyes on the shutter and a panel on the right side. "Hmm… The shutter must be powered by electricity… and this light over here… we gotta look for some kind of switch or power panel to open it up."

When they turned around, they were caught off guard as they saw two people, a man laying face-down on his own blood and a woman sitting against the wall near a barred bathroom, also covered in blood. Those two didn't seem to be alive anymore. Komaru widen her eyes, sweating bullets and shuddered at the sight. "A-Are those people… dead?"

Toko just stood in silence. She turned her head to the side and whispered to herself, probably a way for her to try to calm down. "Wh-Wh-Why? There's so much blood! Ok… Calm down… Don'tlookatitdon'tlookatitdon'tlookatit…"

Barry, however, walked calmly to the man and kneeled down to examine him. Being a part of the CSI and a forensic scientist made him not to fear dead bodies, not matter how terrible the condition of them might be. He took a closer look at the man, and when he did he saw the body had deep scratch marks on his back, three marks shaped like claws. The wounds and blood were fresh, so Barry deducted that the man was killed recently. Barry made a mental note, "So… those Monokumas were the ones that did this." Then he walked to the woman's corpse. She had the same wounds that the man had; only the marks were on her stomach, bloodshot eyes displayed on her bloodied face. "She also didn't make it."

"Um… Ba-Flash-san? What are you d-doing?" Said man turned around to see Komaru nervously asked him.

The writing prodigy pointed to him with disgust planted on her face. "Y-Yeah! Do you have some kind of… f-f-fetish for dead bodies? Sicko!"

Barry turned to Toko with one eye twitched at her accuse. "I'm just examining the bodies. I'm a crime scene investigator when I'm not in my superhero duties, so I have my fair share of people from the dead to look at and trust me, I've seen worse. And no, I don't have any fetishes on anything, including dead bodies."

"Oh, I see. I don't like watching crime shows on TV… so I don't really understand this kind of thing…" Komaru said, the nervous tone in her voice didn't go away immediately.

"I-I'm trying not to look at them… I have a fear of blood!" Toko cried. She still has her head facing away from them.

Now she intrigued the two. A girl who had a serial killer for her other personality has a fear of blood? She caught them staring at her, she sighed exasperatedly. "What? Just because my other self is a serial killer doesn't mean that I'm not allowed to have a girly side, is that what you guys are sooo interested in that?"

"Well sooorry if you feel insulted. Why don't you just look away while I'm doing it?" Barry asked, mimicking her sarcastic tone.

Toko slowly turned her head to him, swallowing her fear temporarily. "I can't just stay afraid forever. I need to conquer my fear of blood. I mean, you can get a meaning of life through personal growth and experience."

"Wow, that's… actually a positive outlook coming from you." Komaru said, surprised at her. She didn't even expect those words; this gloomy-looking girl was trying to change herself to become a better person. Barry was quite surprised as well, with eyebrows slightly raised.

"Surprised? I thought you guys didn't want to be insulting. I'm just repeating what Master told me." Toko began to scratch her head, the phobia slowly returned to invade her mind. "Agh! But I can't stand it! Just the smell of blood makes me want to faint! I take it back, if Master wants it, I'll give up on the whole personal growth thing!"

After closing the deceased woman's eyes, the restricted speedster wiped his fingers that slightly dirtied by the blood. "Alright. I'm done here. Let's continue finding a way to open the shutter."

They went to the left corridor and found a door with a writing on top of it that read: '2F POWER SUPPLY ROOM'. So that room should be the place for the hospital's main power source and they were currently on the second floor of the buliding. Entering the room, they found themselves in a small space with a large engine along with a stack full of random boxes on metal shelves. What caught their attention more was a power panel that glowed red on the wall near the engine.

"Look over there. That must be a power panel. Maybe we can open the shutter if we turn it on." Toko said.

"Leave it to me." Komaru reached for the Hacking Gun strapped to her hip, setting it to the "Move" bullet section, then aimed and shot it at the panel. The light on the panel glowed green now and the engine roared back to life. At the shutter, the light beside it also glowed green.

"Okay, that should do it. Let's go." From the hasty tone it was obvious that Toko want to leave this hospital as soon as possible.

When they were about to leave the room, Komaru asked her, "U-Um… Toko? If you don't mind I'm asking… why didn't you use this gun instead?"

The writer paused for a moment before replying, "I'm… allergic. To machines."

Flash sweat dropped at that. "Allergic to machines? Really?" When the two girls were conversing he noticed something from the shelves. There was a small note on top of one of the boxes. He picked it up and read it.

Something terrible is happening…

It didn't take long before I realize it. I understood when I saw my coworker on the floor with his eyes ripped out. I understood it when I saw my boss with his intestines in his hands.

I realized that this is pure insanity.

But even though I know this, I still can't convince myself that this is real.

It's only been 1 day. There's no way the world could come to this in just 1 day. There's no way your friends, who were laughing with you just a while ago, could be dead just like that.

What I thought I knew about the world, what I thought was just common knowledge, it's all insanity to me now. Children running around and killing adults. It can't be happening.

From this Barry could already figured that this note was written by someone who had worked in this hospital and witnessed everything that went down in this town, although it was unclear whether he or she survived or not. There was no evidence supporting that.

"Hey. You're going or not?" Toko called out to him, interrupting his train of thought.

"Yeah, I'm going. Oh, by the way, Komaru? Can you hold this for me?" Flash handed the note to her. "Um, what's this?" she asked. "Don't worry about it. Just hold it just in case I need it." She slowly nodded and took it.

They proceeded to exit the room, but around the corner of the hallway a Monokuma appeared out of the blue, laughing with its hands up in the air.

"I-It's here!" Komaru cried.

"H-Hurry up and shoot it!" Toko cried back.

Komaru hastily pulled up her gun and set it to the "Break" bullet slot and fired right in the red eye, destroying it instantly. Barry whistled at this, impressed yet again at what that gun was capable of. Toko gave him a look before sighing quietly.

Two Monokumas appeared again, apparently for some reason didn't recognize them immediately as they were searching poses with one paw on their foreheads looking around. Barry saw this as a chance, so he went ahead and punched rapidly at both of them, decimating them in seconds. He still felt a bit weird without his super speed, but he'll maintain.

They approached the shutter and when they do, the shutter opened automatically. Traversing downstairs to the first floor, and into a narrow hallway. The lighting was slightly brighter than the second floor and they were able to walk more clearly because of the light brown floor accompanied by light blue and light brown walls. There was a door on the side of the wall that read: '1F DIAGNOSIS ROOM'. Near it was a large hole that separated the door to the end of the hallway where there was another door.

"Okay, now where should we-" Flash's saying was interrupted when out of the blue a Monokuma drenched in blood appeared around the corner, laughing and running at him, causing him to jump a little and backhanded the robot bear on the face, sliding across the floor for a good 5 feet before exploding. Both Komaru and Toko also jumped at the sudden screeching behind them. Komaru immediately shot at the robotic threat; the panicking made her unfocused on her aim. She shot it a few times, but the Monokuma kept running at her and attempted to slash at her. She dodged with instinct and at the third shot the bear finally expired.

"Oh… Oh god…" Toko almost got a heart attack from the sudden ambush.

But nonetheless, they continued forward and entered the Diagnosis Room. To say that they were prepared for anything, they were wrong. Turning to the left side there was a doctor's desk with a computer displaying some kind of x-ray photo and a bed for the patient, yet they saw the most intriguing sight in front of them.

A child was standing in the middle of the room. From the white long sleeve shirt with a dark green dress hanging just before the knees, one could assume that this child's a girl, if not for the disturbing metal Monokuma helmet covering her whole head. Next to her was a gift box wrapped with green ribbon.

"A-A kid?" The megaphone wielding girl already got the chills from this.

Author's Note: I'm so... so sorry that it took so long to upload another chapter. College work has been kicking my ass and this is all I can write around this month. Also at the end of February I'm going to have my exams, so I'm probably going to write again on March.

Oh yeah, I have a poll on my profile so check it out.

As always, reviews and constructive criticism are welcome!

And I will see you next time!