AN: And the next chapter is up! Review if you would, and I hope you enjoy this chapter.
Day 25, 0706 Hours, John's Room
John awoke to the message this time, having gone to bed early after spending the rest of the day playing games with Barry and Ferris. No one else had come out of their rooms or ventured beyond the cafeteria, Paris and Atsuko joining them for dinner but returning to their rooms shortly after. With little else keeping him up John had returned to his room to do nothing. He had sat quietly in bed until he grew tired. And now he was awake. Yay.
John prepared himself for the day, pausing a moment to stare blankly at his matching sets of clothing. Always the same outfit every day, hell no one would really be able to tell if you wore the same outfit day in and day out. Only thing that might tip it off would be wrinkling, and the clothes always showed up clean if you just out them in the drawer. In fact, this wouldn't be too bad a place to live if you simply removed the threat of being killed.
John shook himself and moved on, finishing his morning preparations and moving towards the cafeteria. When he arrived, Ferris and Alexander were the only ones present. And they were sitting at opposite ends of the room from each other, in silence. This looked promising.
John walked past them, entering the kitchen and preparing his breakfast. He paused and wondered what would happen if something caught fire in here by accident and the blaze spread to other parts of the school, unlikely as it was. Would it count as violating the rule against damaging school property and result in execution? If it killed someone would it count as that person's kill? Does it matter if a kill is accidental or does it have to be intentional?
The smell of his food burning snapped him out of his thoughts of rhetorical questions that would never be answered under normal conditions due to the lethality involved in them. Removing the now burned food and tossing it as it was now inedible and there was plenty of food in the school. Remaking his breakfast and this time making sure not to get caught in his thoughts, John reentered the cafeteria to pass Atsuko as she entered the kitchen.
The other two occupants of the cafeteria were still sitting in silence, Ferris with his signature grin while Alexander stared at the table he sat at in extreme focus. John decided to sit by Ferris7, but rethought it and decided to go see how Alexander was doing. He approached the tactician, who didn't realize he was approaching.
Alexander jumped as John set his food down, the small sound deafening in the silence. Alexander looked at John expectantly after the everyman had settled himself, prompting John to begin speaking.
"Didn't see you out and about yesterday," John stated, letting the question pass through the silence.
"I was in the lab all day," Alexander said, "Citizen Rowland was our main man in finding more information and now that he's gone we will have to redouble our efforts in solving the mysteries of this place."
John nodded seeing the truth in Alexander's statement. John lacked a follow up statement so the two sat in silence as John ate. Atsuko exited the kitchen and sat by Ferris. The two talked quietly while John and Alexander sat quietly.
"You are concerned for my wellbeing?" Alexander stated.
"Yes," John stated simply, "I'm worried for everyone."
"Everyone?" Alexander said, raising an eyebrow.
"Yeah," John said, becoming confused.
"Hmm, maybe that's where I went wrong," Alexander mused.
"What do you mean?" John asked.
"This entire time I have been using a set theorem I derived the minute we entered this place to calculate the most likely actions of our captor and fellow students, which has governed my actions. One of the things I had calculated was who should be watched. It has not worked," Alexander slammed his fist down, "this is the first time I have had losses this significant."
"But not the first time you've had losses," Ferris called out.
Alexander growled at Ferris, turning to the chemist.
"Yes, and many more would have died if I hadn't set out the plans I had, I can say that with confidence while all the people who've died on your hands could have been avoided with simple safety precautions," Alexander snapped.
"I told you people that I work with extremely unpredictable reactions. Not one of you listened. You all insisted I needed to be closely watched and that I couldn't be trusted," replied Ferris.
"And you couldn't be trusted, you destroyed valuable information!"
"I destroyed deadly information, deadly does not equal value."
"There are some who would argue with you Scientist Ferris."
"And I argue with them and you Dumbass Alexander."
"Name calling? Really?"
"No, I'm referring to you by your title, or would you prefer Fuckass?"
Alexander stood up roughly from the table, his chair falling backwards.
"Why do you hate me so much?" the tactician demanded.
"Because you claim such a spotless record yet you can't claim that you've had no losses, that despite your best efforts you can't keep everyone alive and that's okay, it's not. Your goal should be to keep as many people alive as possible."
"It is! I do try to keep everyone alive it's just not possible!"
"And that's why I hate you."
"For something I can't control?"
"For accepting it, you jerk."
Alexander ground his teeth together and exited the cafeteria. Ferris looked at the door, while Atsuko glanced nervously between John and Ferris. This is what Paris and Mary found when they entered the cafeteria.
"What happened here?" Mary asked blandly, "Monokuma show up?"
"Ferris snapped at Alexander," John stated after a pause.
"I didn't snap," Ferris said.
"Then what do you call that?" Atsuko asked.
"Controlled aggression," Ferris said, "That he reacted poorly to."
"You're coming off as a dick dude," John said after a moment, a chorus of agreement following.
"Eh," Ferris said, "The guy needs a reminder that he's not just working with numbers."
"And you're the one to do it?" Mary said, "You have all the finesse of a sledgehammer."
"What does finesse have to do with it?" Ferris asked.
"Not causing him to run off in a rage?" Mary said.
"Whatever, the guy still needs to improve his methods. It was the same stupid number thing that has gotten people killed, and Icarus is still missing, vanished from right under his nose," Ferris said.
"Wait, the Ultimate Inventor?" John said looking over at Ferris.
"Yeah," Ferris said, "brilliant guy but a bit troubled. His brain worked at such a rate that he had trouble keeping all lined up, heck he sometimes had trouble keeping track of what language he was speaking."
"Yeah, Louise mentioned him," John said, seeing Mary wince out of the corner of her eye, "she mentioned he had trouble with interacting with people on his own."
"But, she didn't mention his name," Paris stated.
There was silence as John failed to refute her statement.
"Soooo," Ferris said, "where'd you hear his name?"
"The walls have ears," John said after a second, thinking of Monokuma, "but not in the music room."
John stood up and began walking towards the West Wing, knowing the others would follow. He heard them walking behind him, Paris hurrying to walk level with him. She walked by him silently, Ferris and Atsuko following behind with Mary. John saw Chloe walking down from the dorms, but she entered the cafeteria instead of joining them.
They walked along the hall in silence, none of them speaking and their footfalls sounding muted, increasing John's feeling of tension. John knew it would not look well if he began looking over his shoulder, it would make him seem uncertain. It would look bad if he looked like he doubted what he had to say. He could guess what they looked like without looking.
Ferris would be grinning with a dead look in his eyes. He would be reserving judgement or pretending to, John was uncertain of his ability to predict Ferris's thought process. Atsuko would be trying to act normal but her inner turmoil would be visible. Mary would be indulging her nervous tick of scratching her hands.
The music room would probably lack microphones as the level of sound that could be produced would probably break them and at the very less they could pound on an instrument to drown out their conversation. They entered the central hall and John caught a flash of blue and white out of the corner of his eye in the hall leading to the North Wing. He resisted the urge to approach the wing and try and get more answers from Shi-ru and kept his goal of the music room.
They arrived with no encounter of Monokuma or other students until they opened the door and found Barry sitting to one side tuning a bassoon of all things. He looked at them with a cocked eyebrow as they all entered the room, a surprising display of emotion and intelligence from the usually lax musician.
"Shi-ru!" John called out suddenly, startling the other students present.
The others stared at him, Paris having taken a step back from him in surprise. They all waited in silence as John waited for the penguin to arrive. John called out to the penguin again as he failed to appear.
"Monokuma!" John tried.
There was a chorus of discord as the name of their captor was called. Again there was silence as the animatronic failed to appear. John tried again and was punched in the gut by Mary.
"What are you trying to do?" she demanded.
"Testing a theory," John said, hunched over.
"And that theory is?"
"That there are no microphones in this room," John said straightening up, "They might be damaged by the sound this room can produce, or the instruments in the room."
"Yeah, they have a big ass sound system rig in the storage area," Barry said, setting the bassoon to the side, saying under his breath that he wouldn't be able to tune the instrument.
"Alright, now that I've established Monokuma can't hear us," John said, looking at the camera quickly before turning his back to it, "I learned it from Shi-ru."
"Shi-ru told you?" Atsuko said incredulous, "When?"
"Yesterday, he brought me to his room and told me, and turn away from the camera," John said.
The others turned while Paris asked, "Wait, you met whoever is controlling Shi-ru?"
"No one's controlling Shi-ru, he's an artificial intelligence," John said, "He has a central processing unit under the stairs, which is his room. It's sealed off from the rest of the school so Monokuma can't reach him."
"Don't they operate the drones by wireless?" Ferris asked.
"I don't know, maybe they use different systems, Shi-ru did say Monokuma was trying to hack him."
"Well," Atsuko said, "That's all fine and dandy but did he tell you anything useful?"
"He stated that we were connected to this school called Hope's Peak," John said, "And that we worked with them to create Shi-ru, he mentioned a programmer named Chihiro and their Lucky Student whose name he didn't remember properly, called him Kneegi."
"Naegi I guess, those names sound Japanese," Atsuko said.
"So have we found our mystery mother school? It's also probably the school mentioned in the article that triggered this whole thing," Ferris said, rubbing his chin.
"Perhaps," John said.
"What the hell were they doing then? Didn't the entire Japanese government collapse because of that?" Mary asked.
"I don't know," John said, "we helped them make a freaking super computer of an artificial intelligence maybe they were making nukes."
"Wouldn't be that surprising," Ferris said, "There's no way these schools would be able to function without government support to help keep them afloat."
"But none of that helps us get a way out," Barry said, speaking up.
"John," Paris said, turning her head to him, "did Shi-ru give you any ideas to escape."
"Yes, although I don't think you'll all agree with it," John said pausing a moment to gather his thoughts before continuing, "He said to force Monokuma into an endgame."
There was a beat of silence as everyone processed this.
"So, don't do what he wants?" Paris asked.
"Basically," John said, leaning to one side.
"And we've been doing a wonderful time of that so far," Ferris said, the note of sarcasm in his voice compounded by his smile.
"Yep," Mary said grimly.
"Look, none of us plan to kill-," John started.
"And then a motive is released," Barry stated plainly.
Silence followed this statement as people were unable to refute right away allowing Barry to continue.
"It's happened each time, someone breaks the minute that deadline of a motive comes close, Perdita broke, Louise broke, Adam snapped like a toothpick compared to them," his voice wasn't modulating, keeping its lazy tone, "Monokuma keeps upping the ante and we keep failing to meet him.
Barry had stood up at this point, and after finishing his statement he left the room, the bassoon forgotten. No one spoke for a minute after he left, then John noticed something.
The door was open, and a head had poked in.
"Trying to keep secrets from your headmaster?" Monokuma said, "That's downright disrespectful of all you! After clothing you, feeding, you and giving you all a safe place to live this is the thanks I get?"
"Safe my ass," Mary muttered, before saying louder, "students don't normally tell their headmaster everything anyways you bag of bolts."
"I am Monokuma! Not a bag of bolts! I am state of the art and I am your headmaster!"
"Let's be serious," Ferris said, before pausing, smiling as always, before saying, "no let's get real instead, we aren't going to respect you on any level."
"Fear is as good as respect," Monokuma said, his red eye flashing dangerously.
"And what is better than love?" Ferris said, clapping his hands together and batting his eyes, before laughing and saying, "but seriously now instead of real-y, what are you trying to get out of this?"
"Out of what?" Monokuma said innocently, his hostility gone.
"The whole t-thing y-you, f-fucker! L-locking u-s in h-ere, m-making us k-ill each-h other t-o leave, a-all of it!" Paris yelled suddenly.
"For all of you to experience despair of course!" Monokuma said before giggling, "Yes! Just the thought of all of you sinking into the depths of despair is just so exhilarating!"
Monokuma continued to giggle while Atsuko walked over to a gong grabbed the mallet and struck it with all her strength. The bear flinched and she struck it again, harder. This time it hurt the other students' ears too, but Monokuma remained. Paris turned to the gong, got a running start and drop kicked it. Monokuma fled after that, cursing them and stating he should punish them for attacking the headmaster.
"They didn't even lay a finger on yay!" Mary yelled after him, before growling and exiting the room, and soon after the door of the art room opened and closed.
Atsuko was helping Paris up as John and Ferris looked after the artist and bear.
"He's going to try and get back at you two," Ferris said, looking over at them with a small smile.
"T-the fucker c-can come," Paris took a breath, "at us for all I care."
"I'm with her on this one," Atsuko said, placing the mallet back.
Ferris laughed at their statements, and then said, "Good on you! This might help push that blasted bear into his endgame, hey Atsuko, want to go and check out the office?"
"Sure," the lucky student said, exiting the room with Ferris.
"No one else is doing the buddy thing anymore besides us and them," John said.
"I wonder why," Paris said with sarcasm, rolling her eyes.
"You certainly have more bite than when we first met," John said with a smile as they exited the music room, closing the door, "and your stutter has gotten better."
"Thank you!" Paris said, beaming.
John smiled as they continued walking along.
Day 25, 2115 Hours, Shi-ru's Room
Paris stumbled in behind John as the door snapped to behind them. Once again it was total darkness as the computer that made up Shi-ru's brain. As the light from the screen lit up the room, Paris approached the keyboard. John opened his mouth to warn her that Shi-ru wouldn't be able to hear her when she began typing.
John considered reading over her shoulder but felt it would be rude. Like eavesdropping on a private conversation, it just wasn't right. He waited until she looked over at him and motioned him over. John read the last thing Shi-ru had typed.
You all were very happy, I'm sorry I couldn't help you better.
Paris typed, its okay; you did your best.
Alright you two, Shi-ru responded, what other questions do you have for me to answer.
What can you tell us about the events before we were locked up? John typed.
There was a disaster in Japan, a cult dedicated to spreading despair cropped up in reaction to the popularity of Hope's Peak. They really like those abstract concepts in Japan.
Did this organization have a name? Leaders?
It was called Ultimate Despair and it was led, or at least fronted by a pair of people known as the despair sisters, although they mostly operated in Japan.
So they were the ones responsible for this whole fiasco.
Yes, although I doubt they're directly responsible for this, they were almost exclusively Japanese based.
Then who would be responsible for what happened here?
Groups formed as governments collapsed, anarchists mostly, but a lot of people joined up with Despair across the world as things really went to hell.
So the terrorist group spread to global standards?
At least visibly, no one really knows how large it was, I think there was also some small European country that also worked with them before the world went to hell. It's getting late; you guys should head to bed.
Okay good night Shi-cu.
…Good night Paris, and you too John.
Paris stepped away from the keyboard, and she and John walked to the door and waited by it, John placing a hand on the knob and holding Paris's hand in the other. When the click of the lock sounded they leapt through the door which swung shut with a crunch.
Looking down they saw a Monokuma drone wedged in the door, which John grabbed and pulled clear of the door so it could close properly. John set the drone down carefully, hoping he hadn't damaged it further. After a few minutes of no vengeful Monokuma, they left, talking quietly of mundane things as night time approached.