I'm so glad to see that you guys like this so far! I've always been looking for an AU like this, and it involves some of my favorite characters (I bet y'all can guess who, lol), so my writing for this story is rather important to me. For those of you who asked, don't worry, I will be including Naezono in this story (albeit in an angsty way). It will be a relatively major plot point in this chapter onwards. It just wasn't entirely necessary in the first chapter, as I was just kinda setting the scene and general plot to see if I should continue to work on it.

Anyways, I hope you guys enjoy chapter two!

Naegi stood in front of Oowada's door, hesitant to wake the biker. He knew that the much taller boy would be angry with being woken up so early, but Naegi knew that he would need his help, having very limited medical knowledge himself. He finally drummed up the courage to ring the doorbell, waiting for an answer that didn't come. After what was probably a whole minute, he tried again. This time, an obviously annoyed Mondo Oowada (sans his trademark 'Crazy Diamonds' coat) threw open the door, glaring sharply down at the luckster. He spoke through gritted teeth, "Whadda you want? This better be important to have woken me up at the asscrack a' dawn, Naegi."

"I-It is, don't worry," he quickly assured, "it's just...Oowada, I really need your help. Mai-Uh, someone attacked Kuwata, and I need whatever medical skills you have. I don't know how to dress a wound like the one he has and I thought you would be best with this kind of thing, considering..."

"Yeah, yeah, I get it." Oowada seemed wary, but rolled his eyes and followed Naegi, who lead him back to his own room. "If you plan on trying to kill me, kid, you've got another thing coming. I just don't wanna leave somebody hurtin' if you're telling the truth, ya dig?"

Naegi hummed in agreement, bringing them into the room and watching nervously as Oowada quickly knelt beside the fallen baseball star, examining the wound. The bleeding had drastically slowed, leaving the cut to slowly ooze neon pink blood that mixed with the already large stain on his sleeve and the carpet. "Shit, man, who did this to him? Ugh, whatever-whoever it was, it looks like they got 'im pretty good, obviously bled quite a bit. Nothing that I can't fix though. My guys have gotten fucked up way worse than this. Just need one a' the girls' sewing kits to close it up. I can take care a' the rest of it on my own." Naegi blinked. Was Oowada really asking him to wake up one of the girls and do something as random as asking for their sewing kit this early in the morning?

"Uh, do you want me to go and get tha-"

"Yes, you idiot, now get going!"

This could prove to be a bit of a problem. Naegi had pretty much only talked to Maizono while he had been here, and he wasn't sure she was entirely trustworthy at the moment. Maizono, not trustworthy...he didn't want to think about it right now. It hurt too much to think that sweet, beautiful Maizono could do this. He could only barely believe it himself. Anyways, the closest girl other than her should be Kirigiri, who's room is directly on the other side of his own. She seemed nice enough, if a bit odd in her mannerisms. He quietly made his way to her room, ringing the bell, this time having to wait only a moment before the room's resident appeared. Seemingly having been awake the whole time, Kirigiri opened her door, giving Naegi a blank, almost questioning look. He put on a somewhat nonchalant smile and tried to sound casual. Key word, tried. "Uh, good morning, Kirigiri! How're you doing?"

If she was tipped off to his odd behavior, she didn't mention it. "I am well, thank you. What do you need?"

This was the weird part. "Ok, see, about that, I mean...look, I know it's really early, but I kinda need a favor. I hope you don't mind."

"What kind of favor, Naegi?" Her gaze never wavered, and there was not a sliver of hesitation or even confusion in her voice. It was...cold. Calculating. As though she were analyzing him. It almost made him uncomfortable.

"Um," Naegi stuttered, "I, uh, I just need to borrow your sewing kit. I-I'll give it back to you later, I promise! I just kinda really need it right now, and you were the closest girl, and the boys didn't get any sewing kits and, uh…" he trailed off, not actually knowing where to go with his statement at this point. So much for asking calmly. "...please?"

She waited a moment before answering, making him even more anxious than before. Hopefully, she wouldn't ask any more questions, because he really didn't have any more answers. The entire situation confused him. She raised an eyebrow, giving her a rather quizzical expression. "Tell me, Naegi, why exactly do you need it? That's a rather odd request, and you seem to be getting a tad defensive. It's out of character-for you, anyways. Is everything alright?"

Damnit, she really WAS analyzing him! Should he tell her what happened? He wasn't even sure if he knew that, to be honest. Kuwata's testimony couldn't be held as 100% truth yet, not without Maizono's side of the story. Maybe he had attacked her first and she just fought back, or maybe he did it to himself to try to frame her! She might not even be involved, and he, for whatever reason, wanted to hide the identity of the true culprit! There were many different possibilities! Well, ok, maybe not that many, but enough that he couldn't go and pin the blame on Maizono yet (not that he had wanted to in the first place). "Trust me, I'll explain later, I just need it. It's really important." His words dragged out, and he was sure he looked and sounded like a child. He didn't mean to sound as dramatic as he did, but it seemed to work, as Kirigiri went back into her room and came back with the kit in hand. He took it gratefully, thanking her and rushing back to his own room. Oowada would probably just be irater the longer he took, best to get back now to make up for the time lost chatting with Kirigiri. As he entered the room, he could hear the quiet sound of the door to his own room opening.

When he entered the room, he realized just how experienced Oowada had to have been with this kind of medical treatment. He had managed to get Kuwata's limp body onto the bed, positioning him so that the all-star would wake up being at least relatively comfortable. The biker had replaced Naegi's makeshift tourniquet with Kuwata's own torn-off shirt sleeve, allowing him to get a better look at the wound with a much neater setup than what the luckster had been working with. He was trying to rub away the slowly drying blood with his own shirt, as the water in the rooms was off and he couldn't clean it properly, causing all of the skin around the cut to have a pinkish tint to it. The wound itself, however, was more visible now, revealing its jagged edges and the bruising slowly forming around it. It looked to be about 5½ to 6 inches (13.97 to 15.24 cm), taking up almost his full upper arm. Naegi looked back at the clock, finding it to now be 1:48. It would still be hours before anyone else woke up, before they had water, before it was acceptable and unsuspicious to leave the room. They would still be pretty much on their own unless they woke everyone, which Naegi was hesitant to do until he got Maizono's account. He didn't want everyone to start accusing her of attempted murder, not when there was a chance she didn't do it. Not when he so desperately wanted her to be innocent. She would never try to do something like this to anyone, much less someone so much stronger than her! That was a ludicrous assumption, at best. She was smarter than that.

Naegi cleared his throat, alerting Oowada to his presence in the room. "Geez, kid," he says, not even sparing a glance away from his work, "took ya long enough. Bring it over here, will ya? I wanna do this while he's still out so he doesn't move and mess it up." The luckster obliged, handing Oowada the kit and watching as he began prepping a needle, trying to thread it with a thin black string. "We just gotta hope this fuckin' thing doesn't get infected. If it does, we're kinda screwed." ...hope, huh? Yeah, that's it, hope. They've just got to keep hoping. Hoping for Kuwata. Hoping for Maizono. Hoping that everyone would survive this gruesome game. They would just have to hope because, as always, hope would always win over that despair that Monokuma wants so badly. They would win and escape together, all 15 of them. Yes, their combined hope would win over the Mastermind and their despair..."Yo, Naegi, you listening? Oi, Earth to dumbass!"

Said lucky student realized that Oowada had been looking at him, probably for almost a whole minute now. "Oh, um, sorry. I was just kinda stuck in my head for a minute. Yes?"

"C'mon, man, keep yourself on the ground for a bit. I need your help for a sec, get over here." Naegi quickly complied as the biker turned back to Kuwata. "I've got it all set, you just gotta hold 'im still for me, got it? I don't want him to move at all, even if he doesn't wake up while I'm workin'. Could either screw up the stitching or make it hurt way more if he wakes up." Well, Naegi didn't particularly want to touch the bloody limb, but if it meant helping them, he would deal with it. He placed a hand a few inches from either side of the wound, holding Kuwata's arm in place. "Ok, I need you to like...keep the sides close together. So I can stitch it up, y'know? If I just pull the thing closed with the string, he's definitely gonna wake up and that would basically make this a hundred times harder." Naegi hesitated for a moment before shifting his hands to hold the wound closed (as close as he could get, at least). It seemed to work for Oowada, as he began stitching the two sides together. They worked in relative silence, the only sound being occasional whimpers of pain from the unconscious boy below them. When the surprisingly neat stitching was finally finished, Naegi sat on the edge of the bed, Oowada choosing to stand. The biker finally broke the silence. "So, you never answered my question. Who the fuck did that to the kid?"

Naegi was a tad hesitant, but quietly answered anyways. "He...he said it was Maizono. Apparently, she invited him to her room and attacked him."

Oowada raised an eyebrow. "Maizono? You mean that idol chick? Get real. I mean, I know she was freaked out before, but come on, you think she would be so stupid as to attack somebody?"

"I know she wouldn't attack Kuwata! Or anyone else, for that matter!" Naegi blurted, "She would never. She was terrified after watching that video, but she still had her common sense. She even swapped rooms with me because she thought someone would attack her!"

"Hold up," the other interjects,"you mean to tell me this is her room? Couldn't we have just taken her sewing kit then?!"

"Oh, yeah…" in the heat of the moment, he had completely forgotten that she would have a sewing kit of her own in the room. It was probably in one of her drawers. They didn't need it anymore though, so it didn't really matter. "Anyways, she's in my room right now," at least, he hoped she still was, "but that's not the point! She just isn't the kind of person who would attack someone. I've known her longer than anyone here, and I know that she wouldn't-can't-attack anyone. She would never."

"...so you really think he lied about what happened?" Oowada looked down at the still sleeping Kuwata, who seemed much more peaceful now than he had only about 20 minutes ago. "Who do you think did it then?"

"I don't know," the luckster admitted, "and I'm not exactly eager to find out. But I know we will later. Someone's gonna have to fess up, be it Maizono or not. I'll make sure of it." The confidence in his own voice assured him that yes, everything would be okay in the end.

"Yeah! And when he does, I'm gonna kick his ass! Well...unless it's a girl. Then I'll...I'll...I'll figure it out later." Naegi smiled at Oowada's extreme reaction. They sat in comfortable silence until, eventually, Oowada went back to his own room, leaving Naegi alone in Maizono's room with Kuwata. Naegi decided to try and sleep, not wanting to stay up for the rest of the night, shutting off the lights and laying on the floor for a few minutes, almost having drifted off when he heard the shifting of fabric and a soft groan. He sat up to find that Kuwata had awoken and was trying to examine the room in the dark.

"Oh, Kuwata!" Naegi exclaimed, "I didn't expect you to wake up yet! Hang on, let me get the lights." Once the room was lit and the sudden shock of brightness had worn off, Kuwata gave Naegi a confused look.

"Naegi? Dude, what time is it," he tries to push himself upright with the injured arm, prompting a wince. "And who did this? The stitches, I mean."

"Well, it is…," Naegi looked at the clock, "about 2 AM. As for your arm, that was Oowada. We borrowed Kirigiri's sewing kit and stitched it up to try to stop the bleeding, but we thought it best to leave the tourniquet on too."

That just seemed to make the all-star even more confused. "Tourney-what?"

"Oh, the thing around your arm." Naegi chuckled; Kuwata wasn't exactly the sharpest tool in the shed. "It's helping to stop you from bleeding or being in too much pain. The lack of circulation should be numbing it a bit."

Kuwata blinked slowly, as though he were thinking hard about something, but eventually sighed. "Whatever, just remind me to thank Oowada later. I'm going back to sleep. Too much to think about right now." Naegi hummed in agreement, completely understanding. It had been a long night for all involved. Kuwata laid back down, rolling onto his uninjured side, and seemingly fell asleep once again. Naegi decided that he should probably sleep himself, considering that it was so late already, and shut the lights back off. As he laid himself back on the floor, he could only think one thing, 'God, tomorrow is gonna suck.'

But hey, here's hoping, right?

Ok, I really like the thought of Mondo referring to some of the more energetic and childish students as "kid". It just seems really cute to me. I like to think of him as a sort of 'big brother' figure to the others, no pun intended. I'm sorry if he is out of character otherwise (which he surely is), I just didn't want to wait any longer to post this chapter and have never written the guy before.

Before anyone asks; no, I do not ship Leonaegi and no, it will not be present in this story. I just kinda want them to be bros cuz they didn't get a chance to be in the game/anime/manga. Tbh, I ship Naezono a bit, even though I have a bit of a personal grudge against Sayaka for the whole "try to murder Plum's fav character and pin the blame on pure manlet Makoto but fail and get Plum's fav character killed anyway" incident. There will be a major presence of Naezono and some undertones of Naegiri later on because Sayaka is going to be a sort of pitiful antagonist/antihero in this fic.

Be on the lookout for part 3, when we finally have our somewhat long-awaited confrontation with Maizono! I wonder what will happen, upupupupu...