AN: Wow I posted the next chapter what a surprise.
Day 40, a Classroom, 1719 Hours
John looked at his hasty bandaging of his leg, and decided that it could have been worst. It was possibly as far away from actual care while still not being too bad but it would have to work. He needed a crutch though, as trying to put weigh on it would definitely make it worst. Whatever that robot that Monokuma had unleashed been, it was very effective at ripping his foot to shreds. He was lucky that he had managed to get into the grate when he had or else he would have been torn to shreds for sure.
That might have been better.
Paris hadn't come in while he was cursing so he guessed she was somewhere else within the wing, which meant he would have to limp through the gauntlet of traps now. Or he could search this room for clues and a crutch first. Yeah, that was a better plan.
No traps had been sprung while he was sitting so he guessed that there might be ones higher up aimed at head level, or that he had yet to actually trigger the trap. Cautiously, John began to drag himself along the floor, keeping an eye and ear out for anything dangerous.
What he saw was a normal classroom, beyond the sealed windows, a chalkboard on the wall with a large desk nearby with all the smaller desks pointed towards it signifying the front of the room. There was nothing visibly available that John could use to function as a crutch or walking stick, a meter stick being John's best guess as to what would be readily available. Actually, he wasn't sure as to what else he would be able to find that could be used to act as a crutch.
He crawled towards the larger desk breathing heavily as the probably permeant damage to his lungs and leg spiked for a second as he bumped his foot against one of the student desks.
He could just lay down and do his best to not die until the start of the trial at which point Monokuma would probably fetch him and actually administer proper care to him. Or he might just let John bleed to death slowly. That seemed more in line with what Monokuma would do.
Reaching the desk, he found nothing of use and decided he would just have to do the best he could.
Crawl.
This school really sucked.
John turned towards the door and began moving towards it slowly. It might be better if he waited here, it at least seemed mostly safe and he would only slow Paris down as they would probably move fastest with her carrying him which would slow her down, or at least tire her out faster. Yeah, he could focus on minimizing movement so his heart would beat slower and pump blood out of his leg slower. He would just have to wait until Paris came back this way and catch her attention then.
Yeah, he could just sit here and wait for Paris.
Yeah, that would work. Yeah.
Day 40, the Archive Room, 1719 Hours
Mary stood looking up at the ceiling in center of the room, watching to see if it was starting to lower. Atsuko was typing as fast as she could at the computer, running back and forth between various cabinets. Mary looked at her for a second before returning her attention back to the ceiling.
Her family was probably dead, along with a majority of the rest of the world. Almost everyone they had started this whole tragedy with was dead too. Poor Rowland, he had meant so well. Alexander too. In fact, everyone besides Perdita she could empathize with. Adam had been sick, while Louise had been scared. Alexander had acted in self-defense and Ferris seemed to have been innocent. Barry…he had had a change of heart and repented in the end.
That had to count for something at least.
And all the others had been murdered, hardly something you volunteer for.
Mary felt drained. A bit dead on the inside. Her normal anger had gotten her nowhere and seemed to be more of a hindrance to the others than a help so she did her best to let it go. And now she didn't really have anything else to feel besides sadness, and that would be even more of a drain. So she forced her emotions down as best she could. Channeling it into art would have been preferable but locking herself in a room also didn't help the others.
She would have time to be mad when all this was over, and it was so close to being over.
Mary continued to look at the ceiling, watching for any sign of movement.
She could keep Atsuko safe at least.
Day 40, the Archive Room, 1719 Hours
Atsuko did her best to think of anything that could be of use to them in the trial Monokuma had proposed. They had an idea of where they were. Hope's Bloom, which was in the United States. It had been a branch of Hope's Peak in Japan, which had been attacked by a terrorist organization known as Despair for some dumb reason. They had been invited for being talented in specific ways, from the mundane like her and John to the more practical ones like Rowland and Alexander.
She paused to think of the irony in the fact that she had assigned them as having better talent with the fact that they had been survived by an artist, a supposedly lucky student, and a guy who managed to find the average of any group of people he was in.
But that wasn't important right now. What was important was finding more information that could be used to figure out what was going on. They had had their memories edited of a few years, during which the world had ended.
That still didn't point out anything about who was controlling Monokuma. That was a big hole they would have to figure out and Atsuko wasn't finding anything. She would just have to give it a few more minutes before she suggested they go somewhere else.
She hoped John and Paris were faring better.
Day 40, the Principal's Office, 1719 Hours
Paris swung the mace down hard on the robot beast that was attacking her. It's metal head caved in and broke apart from the rest of the body, which continued to move and try to attack her. She had discovered that the heads didn't actual contain the CPU or whatever controlled the robots, but it did break a lot of their sensors or whatever. Point was it prevented them from being able to target her properly.
She hit it across the body, denting the metal inward. She had lucked out that there had only been the one this time and was taking advantage of the area she had to move around in. Six of them had tried to attack her when the wall separated her from John early forcing her to retreat deeper into the wing. She was faster than them by a small bit and she was glad that she was so athletically inclined. Poor John probably would have been mauled by them. He had definitely lucked out.
She really hoped he had stayed safe.
She returned her focus to the mechanical monstrosity at hand, and continued to strike at its body slowly forcing the body to cave in until it finally stopped moving. She, stopped for a moment to let her breathing regulate until she could calmly walk around the room and search as the smoking wreck behind her slowly leaked fuel.
Paris paused a moment when she could swear she heard someone yelling but there was no one else in this section of the school so she ruled it as a trick by Monokuma and decided to let it be.
She needed to search this room anyways.
Day 40, the North Wing Hallway, 1740 Hours
John continued his slow forward crawl down the hall. He was in a lot of pain. Fuck his leg hurt. He knew there should be traps: spears erupting from the floor, more of the mechanical monstrosities, or some other death trap, machine, whatever. He was still losing blood even though he had wrapped his foot, right? It was just slowed. Was he starting to suffer from blood loss? He felt sluggish, and had decided waiting wasn't an option anymore.
He wondered if he was still calling up for Paris. He had been doing that right? Maybe that was his voice that was sounding kind of far off. Wait. Something else was here.
John propped himself against the wall and turned to Monokuma. The bear looked pleased that it had finally caught his attention, and began speaking to him. He tried to pay attention to the words the bear was saying before realizing he was wasting time. He was bleeding out god damn it, and there was no point in listening to this bear when he should be searching for Paris.
John began crawling again, ignoring Monokuma and whatever he was trying to do.
Day 40, the North Wing Hallway, 1740 Hours
Paris was certain she was hearing something now. It sounded like Monokuma yelling at someone. Not her, and there was only one other person in the area she could think of. She moved towards the voice from the classroom she had moved onto after finishing with the Principal's Office and began moving back towards the section that led to the Central Hall. It took her a minute or two but she eventually reached the source of the yelling.
Monokuma vanished once she appeared but she paid him little attention. John was slowly pulling himself forward leaving a bloody smear along the ground from a poorly bandaged foot. She began moving towards him but the floor ahead of her collapsed into nothing, leaving a massive gap between her and him. Well, that wasn't good.
Paris paced back and forth on the other end of the gap, calling out to him. He gave a weak response and propped himself against a wall to wait for her. That was good since the gap was in the way and he would have just fallen in but now she needed to get across to help him. And quickly, since it looked like he sucked at caring for life threatening wounds. There was one sure option though. Paris moved back to give herself room to run, before sprinting and leaping across the gap, which widened.
Day 40, 1740 Hours, Archive Room
Atsuko stepped outside of the room with Mary following behind her. They had spent a lot of time in there and needed to start moving around to find more information to help them in this final confrontation. All the chips were down and they needed all they info they could get. John and Paris were checking out the North Wing so it might help if they check out the East or West Wing. They probably should have discussed what they would do after they finished checking out their initial goals but that was something of the past.
They began moving down into the eerily quiet Library when Mary let out a cry of surprise drawing Atsuko's attention to the bodies on the floor. Jane was once again splayed out as she had been before, with Alexander's body laid beside it. Seeing this Jane moved slowly back up to the Archive Room's level to find Chloe strewn out, with her melted skull in full display.
Atsuko sat down to breathe and clear her head. What was the benefit of doing this? What did Monokuma gain? What-.
"Bing, Bing, Bing, Bong! Time's up you little fuckers! Report to the Central Hal pronto!"
What? No, they weren't ready. They needed more time! What was the point of this display…what…what…?
Atsuko paused and realized she had a single thought at the forefront of her mind.
I don't want to die.