A/N: The chapter in which I'm the most productive at writing at 3am :') I'll admit it feels satisfying to throw in my own headcanons into this story to answer some questions I've always had about this game! But I'll say no more and let you read. Hope you enjoy it!

Chapter Five:

*Ding dong*

I look up from scrawls of notes I've jotted on the notepad. What on earth is someone ringing my doorbell for? Without even any hesitation, the first idea that jumps to mind is that someone's already come to try and kill me. Leaving the notepad behind on the desk, I tread across the room and move into a defensive stance in anticipation, ready to deflect any murderous intent. I open the door.

"Evelynn! We thought you might be here," The chirpy voice of Aoi accompanied by Sakura and Mondo allows me to loosen my stance slightly.

"What do you want?"

Now what kinda attitude was that for, chick? We haven't even said anything yet," Mondo sneers at me, although there's no visible anger showing from him yet. Sakura holds up a hand to halt him all the same, stepping in to actually give me the answer I'm looking for.

"You missed the conversation, since you left the gym early this morning," She starts, folding her arms calmly, "But we all came to the decision to reconvene at the cafeteria at 7pm after spending the day exploring the school, to go over what we've learnt. We stopped by to recommend you join us." As tempted as I originally was to reject the offer and shut the door on them, I reconsider in favour of the prospect of new information. I didn't exactly search every single nook and cranny in the school, so it's not unlikely that there's some discoveries others have made that I'm unaware of. Hooking my room key out of my pocket, I sidestep around Aoi who's eagerly half stood in my doorway and go to lock the door behind me, forcing her back out into the corridor.

"Sure."

Most people are gathered around the large table in the centre of the room, after Kiyotaka frantically realigned all the chairs that had been scattered in Monokuma's earlier blast. Sitting separately from the rest are Byakuya and Toko whilst I lean against the counter of the kitchen, having retrieved a glass of water. Even Makoto, acting as if he never got whacked in the face at all, is present at this meeting.

"Okay, it looks like everyone's here. Time to start the meeting! Let's all go around and share what we found out during our respective investigations. The sooner we find out what's going on, the sooner we get out of here!" Kiyotaka announces, unsurprisingly stepping up to take control, "And I'll start us off! I myself have been scouting out the school dormitory and I've made the discovery of the century! I found that there was exactly one room for each person!"

Everyone is suitably unimpressed.

"Well yeah, I figured that out before anything else," Aoi shrugs, prompting murmurs of a similar nature to hers around the table. Amidst the chatter, however, Junko pipes up with something more beneficial.

"Chihiro and I found out that all the dorm rooms are totally soundproof, though,"

"Mmhmm, your next-door neighbour could scream their lungs out, and you wouldn't hear a thing…" Chihiro says tentatively. That's interesting. In that case, if the dormitory rooms were a new build for the killing game then whoever manufactured them must have had good resources and the right methods. They can't have been in much of a rush.

"That can't be all you have to re-report, can it Mr. Honour S-Student?" Toko's pointed question strikes Kiyotaka with a flash of renewed enthusiasm and he lurches up from resting his hands on the table

"As a matter of fact, it's not!" He clears his throat resolutely, "As some of you may know, the trash room next to the dorms are blocked by shutters. Monokuma himself has entrusted me with the key to them!"

"You saw Monokuma?" Sakura inquires.

"That sounds suspicious as Hell," Leon, rocking back on his chair with arms propping his head up, responds languidly. But Kiyotaka isn't deterred in the slightest.

"I can assure you that I've checked this fact myself and the key does indeed open the shutters! And so, I'll be structuring a weekly rota in order to fairly assign the responsibility of holding this key! Are there any volunteers for the first week?"

"Oi oi, you make it sound like you're plannin' on us staying stuck in this school forever," A growl coming from a growingly apprehensive Mondo stirs more unrest around the table.

"O-of course not! But whilst we're here in this situation it's vital to have order and for everyone to take care of their surroundings, as it helps encourage a healthy lifestyle and attitude!" Although many remain seemingly unconvinced by Kiyotaka's confidence, Hifumi decides to answer his previously ignored question, adjusting his glasses dramatically as he does so.

"In that case, I'll take on the quest of managing the trash room! All who desire to enter past the shutters must first come to me!"

"Excellent! I'll have the weekly timetable for trash room monitor ready within the week!" Kiyotaka beams, handing the key over the Hifumi.

With that problem out of the way, everyone returns to discussing what they each found out about the school. Accompanying this discussion, unfortunately, is a new problem; most of their accounts end up boiling down to 'we tried to find a way to escape but failed'. And that's not to even mention Byakuya's incredibly clipped and unhelpful 'if I'd uncovered anything, naturally I'd have more to say, but I didn't'. On the other hand, Celestia, Hifumi and Toko neglected to so much as explore the school at all, instead deigning to stay put in the gym for whatever reason and leave everyone else to do all the work. It's Sayaka who eventually reports something new.

"I went and had a look around the dining hall, and it looks like we don't have to worry about food at least. There's a fridge in the back of the room, and it was overflowing with all kinds of stuff,"

"Sure, for now. But even with all that, there are sixteen of us. How long can the food last?" Hifumi sags as he points this out with a dejected sigh. Sayaka continues on.

"I don't think we have to worry about it. The fridge gets automatically restocked every day. At least, that's what Monokuma said…"

"You saw him too!?" Junko exclaims, interrupting her.

"Yeah, he came out of nowhere while I was checking the fridge, told me that, then disappeared again." She explains, looking to the ceiling as she recalls the events.

"A weaponized toy that can just appear from nowhere… I can't tell if we're supposed to be afraid or not," Despite saying this, Chihiro looks afraid anyway, holding her hands close to her chest. Junko bursts out suddenly with a torrent of panicked words.

"Ughhh! This sucks! Sucks sucks sucks! We're stuck here like prisoners! We could die any second! We need to do something!"

And just like that, she triggers panic and fear in everyone else. Some people start arguing and talking over each other, while others try fruitlessly to calm them down. Mondo's easily one of the loudest.

"She's right! We can't be sittin' around here like dumbasses right now! We gotta do something, or-"

"You're all spending an awful lot of time yelling and carrying on," Kyoko's first words of the evening carry the same sharp edge she had when she ordered Mondo to throw away Monokuma. It shuts everyone up instantly. "Do you really think you can afford to do so? Have none of you accepted the reality of the situation?"

Apparently, that's all she has to say on the matter. She moves on to slide something onto the table, which I'm too far away to be able to see. Makoto helps me out with that, reaching out to pick it up and look at it.

"Huh? What's this?"

"It appears to be a map of Hope's Peak Academy," She replies.

"Soooo what's it mean?" Junko asks back impatiently, glancing over Makoto's direction to try and figure out the map.

"Just look at it," Kyoko furrows her brow in thought before elaborating. "The building we're in right now is laid out in precisely the same way as the old school building of Hope Peak's Academy. Although it looks like it's had a number of strange… renovations done to it. I don't know all the details. All I found was details about the first floor," That grabs my attention. I place the long-finished glass I'd been drinking from down on the counter before moving over to Makoto, peering above his shoulder at the piece of paper.

"Are the dormitory rooms part of these strange renovations?" Figuring that Kyoko has been thorough in checking the map, I decide to ask her.

"According to that, they were classrooms," She briefly removes the map from Makoto's possession, flipping it over to reveal the area we're currently in, the way it used to be before Monokuma christened it 'Despair Hotel'. She's right. All sixteen rooms that we now are meant to sleep in are labelled as classrooms on the map. How… convenient for whoever remodelled them.

Of all people to speak up, Makoto is the one to raise his voice next.

"Uh, can I ask something?" Everyone turns to look at him, which he takes as permission to go ahead. "Does anyone know what exactly happened here? When Sayaka and I first arrived at the cafeteria, the tables and chairs were a mess and the glass over there looks like it has… scorch marks… on it?" Ah. I was wondering if someone was going to bring that up.

"I believe Evelynn has the answer to that question, don't you?" Kyoko says, singling me out. I haven't yet given a report, but I suppose I don't have much choice but to get it out of the way with now.

"Monokuma shot a cannon at it to prove that it was indestructible," In my attempt to shorten the story as much as possible, I end up raising more stunned questions around the table.

"Woah, a cannon? Where'd he get that from?" Yasuhiro blurts out, nearly falling backwards in his chair.

"It's part of his arm or something," Glossing over my lack of knowledge of technology, I reply somewhat vaguely. "Either way, you're not going to be escaping through there anytime soon,"

"His arm is a cannon!? Who the Hell even made that freak!?" An obviously distressed Leon leads everyone else into panic mode once more, provoking an onslaught of questions thrown at me about Monokuma. I grit my teeth in irritation.

"How am I supposed to know? Go ask the bear yourself if you want to know that badly!" I raise my voice in order to cut everyone off, their voices petering out slowly after I do so. Taking a deep breath, I throw on a last comment on my report, something I almost considered not bothering to mention. "He also added a new rule. You might want to check that."

An out-of-place giggle directs my gaze towards Celestia.

"It seems splitting up to investigate was a good idea, after all," She smiles with a sickening pleasant demeanour, resting her chin on her interlocking fingers.

"Yes, because you were so helpful with the investigations, weren't you," I respond harshly. She brushes off my comment like I never said it at all.

"Haven't you b-been listening? Looking around was a t-total waste of t-time!" Joining in now is Toko, who has more or less spent the entire time standing away from the group next to Byakuya and glowering at them all until now. "We d-didn't find a way out, d-didn't find who's behind this. We still have no idea what's g-going on!"

"Hm? Is it not crystal clear to you what is going on?" Pinning down Toko with a fierce stare that could pierce souls, Celestia leans forward across the table. Her sudden mood swing reminds me almost of Monokuma's. "It is perfectly obvious that we have been imprisoned in some secret location, with no way out." These words hit Toko like a ton of bricks and she lets out a strangled cry. She buries her hands in her hair in a desperate motion, glasses askew, eyes tightly shut.

"You didn't h-have to go and s-say that! I w-was trying not to th-think about it! N-no way out… We're t-trapped here… What are we s-supposed to do!?" Byakuya sniggers from next to her.

"It's very simple. If you want to leave, you just have to kill-"

"Don't even joke about that!" Absolutely livid, Junko launches out from her chair and slams her hand down on the table Byakuya's sitting at. Another carefully controlled laugh emanates from Celestia, who just looks amused at everyone's actions.

"All we can do is adapt," She states simply. "Adapt to living our lives here from now on."

"Live here…? Are you saying we should just accept it?" On the verge of tears, Chihiro cowers away from the progressively more serious goth lolita.

"A lack of adaptability… is a lack of survivability. Survival is not based on who is the strongest or the smartest. It comes down to who can adapt."

I resist pulling a face and grumbling about her words. I should know more than anyone that she's right, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. Although, adaptability isn't just restricted to living in this school forever in this scenario; I can't trust anyone not to take it one step further and choose to adapt to the killing game itself. The second they do, they'll undoubtedly be a murder on our hands.

"As someone who has come out on top more than once, I suggest that we ourselves add a new rule," Celestia continues, "One that prohibits leaving our dorms during the period of 'nighttime'."

"How come?" Makoto asks, tilting his head with a surprised expression.

"The way things are now, every time night comes we will all start to get worried and anxious. We will be afraid that someone might try and come kill us. If we carry on like that night after night for who knows how long, it will wear us down in no time."

"So you're suggesting we limit our activity at night as a kind of preventative measure." Inclining her head in thought, Sakura clarifies Celestia's explanation, earning a nod of approval from her. There's a significant problem with her proposal though.

"This won't be an official school regulation, will it? How exactly am I supposed to trust that no one will agree to the rule before prowling around at nighttime while my guard is down?" I challenge her, seemingly voicing what a few others are thinking as I hear a vague clamour of agreement supporting my view.

"If you stay in your room with the door locked, it shouldn't be a problem should it?" She counters back, smiling all the while.

"Then what's the point of having this rule if simply following those actions prevents anyone getting to you anyway?" This rule she wants to impose seems more like a waste of time than anything to me. However, people agree with me less on this point.

"Even so, it's like the goth lolita said. Without something like that, we're just gonna self-destruct." Junko interjects into our argument, followed by a few others verbally backing her up. Then they're followed by Celestia making the assumption that those few others represent every single person in the room.

"So is everyone in agreement? Good."

I still fail to see the logic behind devising that rule, but with that, the meeting more or less comes to an end. Once Kiyotaka orders everyone to meet back up at the cafeteria first thing tomorrow morning, most people begin to filter out of the room to return to their dorms. I'm about to do the same myself before I catch on to a conversation between Sayaka and Makoto.

"Makoto… are you ready to call it a day?"

"Uhm, actually… what with being knocked out, I haven't had any food since I arrived at Hope's Peak," He gives a half-hearted, somewhat sheepish laugh. "Do you mind if I get something to eat before we head back?"

"Ah, not at all! I'll come get something to eat with you as well,"

The pair of them head off into the kitchen. I check the clock. 8:10pm. Again, I've forgotten about food. My attempts to make a lunch earlier produced just as underwhelming results as breakfast did, putting me off the idea of trying to cook myself a dinner now. Still, I remind myself that food is important and propel my body towards the kitchen, despite Makoto and Sayaka's presence there. I know all too well that if I were to convince myself to come back later once they're gone, I wouldn't end up coming back at all.

The couple greet me the second I enter the kitchen.

"Oh, hey Evelynn! Looking for some food too?" Sayaka offers me a weary smile, while Makoto is busy rummaging through the cupboards.

"Yeah," My eyes land on an open crate of apples on display. Deciding that they'll be good enough, I pick one out and absentmindedly give it a few upward tosses before taking a bite. I turn to leave.

"Ah, wait Evelynn!" I was so close to getting away. Taking a step back through the doorway, I see that Makoto's attention is now focused on me, having finished his search and chosen a packet of some sort of snack. He's evidently just as unmotivated to make a proper meal as I am. "Did you want to eat with us?"

What a stupid question to ask.

"No thanks." I shut him down abruptly.

"B-but since we'll be here together for a while, doesn't it make sense to get to know each other? After all, if everyone becomes friends, we'll be able to figure a way out of here that much quicker," Ugh. This guy is almost as bad as Kiyotaka.

"I said no. I'm not looking for friends." Both Sayaka and Makoto look taken back, but I ignore them, forcefully ending the conversation there by leaving them to walk back to my dorm for the night.

Upon entering my room I chuck the remaining apple core into the bin and collapse on my bed, not bothering to prepare accordingly for sleep. It's strange; I typically don't need much sleep compared to most, but right now my body feels heavier and more tired than it's been in a long time. I suppose that's due to the ridiculous situation I've gotten myself into. Thinking back on what a day it's been, I easily succumb to the pull of sleep.