AN: And another chapter completed! And being posted at a more reasonable hour. Thanks to everyone who is reading this. If I owned Danganronpa this wouldn't be a fanfiction.
Day 20, 0700 Hours, John's Room
John opened his eyes as the announcement that it was now morning played, staying still and staring at the ceiling until a few minutes after it ended, letting the memories of the dreams of the night fade, strange macabre dreams that made little sense, before standing up and changing out of the clothes he had been wearing. A new pair of shoes sat by the door, and John slipped them on after staring at them for a second. He had no doubt that the art room had been cleaned thoroughly and the only trace of red in there at this point would be paint.
Exiting his room, John walked slowly down the hall, pausing to gaze at the inferno that now appeared on the screen attached to Perdita's door, the words Game Over once again being displayed above the death scene. Walking into the cafeteria, John found Ferris and Rowland sitting quietly, Louise not too far off, looking worse than before.
John retrieved some breakfast before joining the three, who had huddled around a table, making the room feel larger than it really was. Ferris broke the silence's hold on the room, saying, "He probably won't give us another motive for a bit."
John looked over at the chemist, raising his eyebrows as a sign for elaboration.
Continuing, Ferris said, "He's already given one right after a murder, doing so again would be expected, plus, he probably wants to see if he's managed to get us to the point where we'll just kill ourselves without cause."
"A grime thought, but it favors us in the end," Rowland said, adding, "The bear has also informed us that the West Wing is now open."
Nodding John ate his breakfast, joining Ferris and Rowland in their idle chatter as Louise stood up and wandered away, presumably to explore the new wing. People began showing up slightly before she left, Jane walking in shakily with Mary joining them after a bit, Paris not far behind. Atsuko joined them, Barry following her into the room shortly after.
John waited for Paris to finish eating, Rowland and Mary leaving to explore the new area, and saw Alexander walk past through the doorway, Billy entering after he had passed by. Ferris and Atsuko left while Paris returned the groups dishes to the cafeteria, John taking a moment to talk idly to Barry. When she returned, the pair proceeded down the central hall Barry following them out of boredom, joining in their talk of what might be in the new area.
Reaching the central hall, they found Shi-ru laying on the ground by the newly opened area, panting for breath despite lacking actually lungs. Knowing that he would refuse to respond, John passed him by, Paris following while Barry paused to nudge the penguin with his foot.
Not far beyond the intersection, a pair of double doors lay open, the sounds of someone reciting lines inside. Entering the room, which was revealed to be a theater, John and Paris saw, Rowland standing on the stage, talking to a skull while Mary sat in the audience.
Waiting for Rowland to pause, John tried to place what he was saying, finally guessing it was Shakespeare because of the skull. After a minute Rowland noticed them and stopped his monologue, tossing the skull to one of the wings and stepping off the stage. Mary turned and also saw them, offering a greeting as she stood up.
"What have you guys found?" John asked.
"Not much," Mary said with a shrug, "lots of props and fake weapons, but besides dropping a sandbag on someone's head there's not anything to actually kill someone with."
Nodding, John looked to Rowland to see if he had anything to add, when the brainiac remained silent, John took that as a sign that there was nothing else to add. Mary turned to Rowland and began talking to the tall student, continuing a conversation from before John and Paris had showed up, signaling that the interaction was over.
Letting them be, they came to a t-shaped intersection, one way leading north the other south, and followed the one to the south. Classrooms dotted the hall on the side closer to the main body of the school, a door situated on the other side half-way down that when opened led into a large cavernous room with mazelike shelving and paused when they saw a booth manned by a Shi-ru.
"Welcome to storage," the penguin said flatly, "need a line?"
He proffered them a line that vanished behind the booth. It was a bright pink color, eye-catching against the shelving.
"W-what's it for?" Paris asked after a second.
"Not getting lost?" Shi-ru responded sarcastically, before shaking his head and saying, "look, I have to keep track of who takes these so you want one or not?"
Observing that no other cords were out, John guessed that no one had decided to try and brave the depths of the storage room yet. Deciding to explore the rest of the wing first, John checked with Paris before they left, Shi-ru sighing as they did and sliding down the wall to sit on the floor. Returning to the intersection the pair headed towards the north section, passing bathrooms and more classrooms until they came to the end of the hall marked by three doors, one to each direction except the one they came from.
Letting Paris lead, the soccer player went through the one to the east first, opening up into a large lab area. Alexander was present in the room but Chloe wasn't, the Tactician was alone which was an extreme difference from usual. Approaching him John decided to try and strike up a conversation.
"Where's Chloe?" John asked.
Alexander shrugged before saying, "Chloe was still asleep, and this area needed to be mapped out and have all the new threats identified as soon as possible."
"Not trying to maintain the buddy system?"
"We both know that strategy has all but failed," Alexander said, dragging a hand down against his face, "part of being a tactician is to know when to change your course of action, and we were getting nowhere with that system, it relied too heavily on individual cooperation in a setting that highlighted discord. I decided to enforce it without fully gauging the situation, noting all the variables."
He trailed off into silence, the last few sentences to quiet for John to hear, before shaking himself and saying, "I hardly seem to be living up to my talent or any other thing I am toted for, Alexander Hayes, the prodigy that managed to minimize causalities on so many dangerous missions can't even seem to keep a handful of students alive."
He laughed bitterly, causing Paris to shift uncomfortably. John glanced at her, the soccer player mumbling to him that she was going to try and figure out what kind of lab this was before ducking away, leaving John to turn back to the tactician and say, "Look, you can't blame yourself for what Perdita and Adam did, heck we can hardly blame Adam for what Adam did considering he was sick and had been actively taking medicine to help himself before Monokuma came into the picture, you can't let yourself fall because of a few failures that you couldn't have expected, you have to keep moving forward, eyes to the future and all that."
Alexander looked at the Everyman sideways, before letting out a more genuine laugh and saying, "Yes, I won't be doing our situation any good if I wallow in self-doubt, the bear has outmaneuvered me twice but this is a war of attrition, and I will not lose it."
Alexander began to stride purposefully out of the room, calling over his shoulder, "I am going to try and decode more of the data available to us in the computer lab, if anyone else wishes to find me."
John nodded as Alexander left the room. Turning around he searched the lab for Paris, skirting the machines he had ignored while talking to Alexander, looking for some kind of label that identified them. He found Paris towards the back, staring blankly at a machine that looked like a circular ring before turning to John as he walked up.
"I've got nothing, physics maybe," she said, looking at John for a second opinion.
John shrugged, his knowledge about as limited as hers on the subject of any science. They agreed that simply turning on random pieces of machinery would be a bad idea and might end up killing them so they moved to exit the lab, running into Jane who was entering the room.
"Oh, hi Jane," John said as the girl closed the door behind her quietly.
Jane whirled around with a screech, causing John to jump backwards and Paris to yelp in sympathy. Jane slouched against the door after realizing it was only them panting heavily.
"Don't, sneak up on me like that," Jane said.
"Sorry, I thought you saw us."
"Well I didn't," Jane snapped at John, straightening up to attempt to look John in the eye but quickly deciding against it and instead tried to sidestep around him.
"A-are y-yo-u al-l r-right?" Paris asked, still shaken from the sudden screaming.
"Oh, yes fine! Just, locked in a building full of people who want to kill me!"
"Err-," Paris began but Jane was still going.
"Look at what's happening around us! Four of us are dead and it hasn't even been a month! That bear is trying to kill us off one by one until there's only one left and he gets to kill them!"
"Umm."
"I can't really trust anyone! I thought I might trust Mary but you saw how suspicious she was at the last trial, Rowland is to damn smart for his own good, Ferris is probably a psychopath!"
"M-ary was-."
"Wait a minute! You guys are planning to kill me too! You've probably rigged the room to blow!"
With that the special effects wizard fled the room, leaving an awkward silence in her wake.
"Don't take it personally, she's probably just stressed," John said, putting a hand on Paris's shoulder.
"I-is she really con-vinced we're out to k-kill her?" she asked walking out of the door and began moving towards the door to the north.
John shrugged as a response, before offering, "Not everyone handles pressure well, maybe if there's more time between the trial and the motive she'll calm down."
Paris pulled a face but still opened the door to the next room, another lab giving John the idea that this may be a science wing. No one was in the room which was smaller than the previous one but a door led off from it, which when opened led into a large glass greenhouse. The windows on the wall had been painted over to prevent anyone from seeing outside. The ceiling had been left untouched though and for the first time since he had awakened in this hell-hole, John saw the sun. It had drifted high in the sky, signaling that it had reached noon while they had been wandering new wing, and shined down upon the floor which was coated in grass.
Present in the room were Billy and Barry, the two boys doing their best to rope an area off. At least, Billy was, Barry was mostly standing there holding the rope up while Billy did his best to secure it. Approaching the two, John and Paris both offered greetings, to which Billy offered a backward wave over his shoulder and Barry responded to with a slow nod.
"W-what," Paris paused to clear her throat, "what are you doing?"
"There's this really dangerous plant, the Monokuma Carnivorous plant or something, basically a big ass Venus flytrap that tried to eat Barry," Billy said, "Marking where it is so no one gets mulched by accident."
Paris grimaced at Billy's words, John mirroring her expression. Barry shrugged and said, "I would have escaped."
Giving Barry a strange look, John instead opted to talk to Billy then comment on Barry's plant wrestling abilities.
"So, how did you get into behavioral analyst?"
Billy looked up from his task at John, before returning to stringing up the rope.
"I was good at getting inside peoples' heads," Billy began, "I could almost always guess what someone was thinking based on how they've acted as long as I've known them. At first it was cute, them it started to freak people out. Eventually my dad bought me actual books on behavioral analyst."
"And they introduced new things?"
"A few did, most of my stuff is things I've come up with myself," Billy said finishing his task, standing up and signaling Barry to let go of the rope he was holding.
As the musician exited the greenhouse, not even bothering to say goodbye, Billy said, "I quickly became one of the best and the rest is history." He sighed. "I'm going for lunch."
Billy then left without a further word.
Deciding to trust their word, John felt no need to further explore the suddenly more dangerous greenhouse, and asked Paris if she was ready to move on. After she nodded, they left the sunlit room, pausing to bask in the rays at the door before moving quickly through the lab that John had now labeled as the biology lab, entering into the hall and moving to the last room.
Just in time for the door to fly open and allow smoke to flood the hall.
Stepping back and watching as the hall began filling, John watched for a second as Atsuko dashed out of the room coughing. John heard what sounded like Ferris yelling but the shorter girl quickly slammed the door shut.
"UuuGGggh," the girl groaned as she slid down the door.
"Chemistry lab?" John asked Atsuko who he now realized was wearing a pair of googles.
"You think?" she said, giving John a look that told him she was comparing his intelligence to that of a chair's.
The door was pushed open slightly, letting more smoke out along with Ferris's voice.
"Ah, you missed it! It was really good this time too," the chemist said, appearing through the crack.
"Yeah, and you flooded the room with poisonous gas," Atsuko said, trying to force the door shut to cut off the smoke.
"It's harmless! You're only coughing as a reflex."
"You're nuts."
"Yes."
Atsuko stopped as she rubbed her temples for a moment, giving Ferris a chance to slip through the door. The chemist removed his googles, allowing his injured look to become more prominent. His smile had slipped from his face as well. Combined with his generally sickly appearance made the chemist look especially pathetic, quickly breaking down Atsuko's anger.
"Ah, I didn't mean that."
"No, that was a fact, I am not medically crazy but nonetheless quite insane," Ferris interrupted her, tossing the googles to one side, "it's just, I don't really get to show off my talent to people usually, do all the awesome things with chemistry that I've discovered, I just wanted you to see some of it as well, you guys too, I really think we're becoming great friends, but, I guess some of the cooler things do take a little getting used to."
There was a moment of silence as Ferris went to pick up his googles, opening the door to chuck them back into the lab after Atsuko had stood up. The Asian girl also chucked her googles in before the door was closed again to prevent more smoke from flooding the hall.
Ferris shook his head, before smiling again.
"Heh, there'll be plenty of time to show you guys when we get out of here," he said, grabbing Atsuko's and John's arms and dragging them along, Paris following, "and we won't do that by standing here and gawking, let's explore storage!"