So , I managed to finish some of the things I needed to do somewhat quicker than I'd anticipated , so I was able to finish this chapter , and I'm hoping I'll be able to get another chapter up soon-ish….but that isn't guaranteed.
In any case, I've tried to use a few more different viewpoints here, so I hope you enjoy the chapter.
At some point during the execution, Janus's hand found Suzu's, and gripped it tightly. And even though that execution was now long over, they weren't letting go.
As they were released into the main building again , Monobear was busy making an announcement , something along the lines of opening up a new world , but nobody was paying attention until Dai , who had been walking ahead , doubled back to approach the group.
"We've been allowed access to the next floor." He told them.
"Eh?" Shika, who still looked unhealthily grey, stared blankly at him. Dai repeated his sentence again, and a buzz started to go around the rest of them.
"Then, we should investigate." Kyouko declared. Then she paused, and looked at everyone.
"After half an hour. Use the time to rest. Then we'll meet on the second floor to begin investigating. How about it?"
"Y-yeah. That sounds reasonable." Makoto said.
"Very well then. "
It was at that point everyone separated ways. Janus and Suzu walked in the direction of the dorm rooms, saying nothing. When they got to his room, Suzu began to untangle her hand from his when he looked at her, and shook his head.
She stared at him, a question in her eyes.
"You don't look as if you should be alone. "
Considering this a moment, she nodded, and allowed him to let her in. Sure enough, the first thing she did was go to the bathroom and throw up. Janus hesitated, wondering what to do, and in the end decided to just pretend that things were as normal. At least, as normal as they could be.
When she came out of the bathroom, he was sitting on his bed with his collection of glass eyes next to him. She came over and watched him consider the eyes. Then, she reached over and picked up one.
Janus looked at the eye she was holding. It was a colour he didn't wear often, a strange, sort of misty indigo.
"You like this one?"
She nodded.
"Okay." He paused. Suzu tilted her head questioningly.
"You don't mind if I just change it?" he asked. She shrugged.
The silence was awkward as he changed his glass eye. The whole time, Suzu watched him with a look of curiosity and …something else he couldn't identify. It wasn't disgust, or repulsion, or even pity. Because it was something he hadn't seen from anyone (apart from his Nonno), it almost knocked him over when he did place a name to the expression: acceptance.
When he had finished, he looked at the time. They had about 13 minutes left.
"You feeling better?" he asked.
Suzu nodded. The ghost of a smile tugged at her lips.
"Well, what do you say to us going to the second floor early and impressing the others?"
…
When Chihiro spotted the broken laptop in the library, she finally felt as if she would actually be able to do something that would be helpful, instead of always being the scared, weak one.
The library was one of the rooms on the newly opened second floor, and she was with Kyouko, Makoto, Eirik and her sort-of friend Mirai. Despite being a hacker, the two of them shared similar computer-related interests, and although Mirai was awkward, grumpy and eccentric, they got along fine. The library was vast, with more books than any one person could read in one-no, two lifetimes. There were also many desks, presumably for students to use to do work on. Eirik was sitting at one of the desk, reading one of the books as if it could be useful. The laptop was found in the drawer of another desk. It was green and dusty, with dented keys and the Hope's Peak Academy logo on it.
"It's an old model. We can assume it's been here a while. "Kyouko was saying.
"But that doesn't really help us if it's broken. That's a shame too, as I think Kasuragi-san would have been happier knowing we had internet." Makoto lamented.
Go on. Be brave! Chihiro berated herself.
"Erm…"
"What is it, Fujisaki-san?" Makoto asked politely.
"I...Uh, I could probably do something with the laptop. As in…fix it…if-if you want me to, that is…" Chihiro felt herself go red with embarrassment.
"Hey, of course!" Makoto grinned. "You're a computer programmer after all! Yeah! That would be great if you could fix it! What do you think, Kirigiri-san?"
Kyouko nodded calmly.
"Yes. That would be good. Thank you, Fujisaki-san." Chihiro smiled in response.
"I'll do my best! "She said, taking the laptop in her hands. It was heavier than she thought and she almost stumbled when Mirai appeared out of nowhere to help.
"Thanks, Sakamoto-san!"
"Hehe…"
"Is it OK if we just work on this, instead of investigating?" Mirai asked, clearly bored. Chihiro stifled a grin.
Kyouko and Makoto looked at each other and then nodded.
"You're doing this to help us, after all. I don't see why not. "Kyouko said.
Chihiro's smile got even bigger.
"Thanks! We'll do our best!"
She left the room feeling happier than she had been for the few days she had been in the school.
…
Once again, they ended up meeting in the canteen to share their findings. The only ones who had been excused were Chihiro and Mirai, as they were working on the laptop.
"There are no more conventional classrooms. However, there is an art room, a swimming pool and a physics lab." Dai reported. Then, as an afterthought, he added "There was a public baths type room too."
"A bathhouse? In a school? What the hell? Why would anyone do that? That makes no sense. " Arisa said incredulously.
Janus gave her a look. "Our captor is a stuffed bear with a thing for bad puns and you're worried about that?"
Arisa's only reaction to that was to give him a look in response.
"Swiftly moving on…" Dai said quickly "Anything else of interest?"
"And yet another recreation room!" Akihito added. "Oh, and I found a camera!" he held it up. It was bright pink and had an anime character emblazoned on the front.
"Who is that character?" Shika asked.
"Does that really matter? Then again, I feel like I should know, as I'm sure I blogged about her once…" Emi replied.
"You did?" Akihito asked, making an exaggerated shocked face.
"Yeah…"
"Maeda-kun, you spent a while in the library too. Did you find anything else of use?" Kyouko asked, smoothly changing the subject.
Eirik looked up from the book he was reading.
"The translation notes in some of these books are appalling. "
"And that has anything to do with…what, exactly?" Arisa asked pointedly.
"From that, I'm guessing there's nothing else?" Kyouko asked.
"Nope." Eirik had gone back to his book.
"Well, that's useful." Arisa muttered in annoyance.
"So we're still stuck in here, clueless?" Emi asked in frustration.
"Apparently yes." Makoto said "But, I am sure we'll soon find a way out! I'm sure of it.I mean; we have Fujisaki-san and Sakamoto-san."
"Great. We have to rely on the nerds?" Nanako complained
"It's good to see someone has good spirits still." Kosuke commented. There was an awkward silence, as nobody seemed to know whether he was being sarcastic in reference to Nanako or genuinely supportive of Makoto.
"Yes, it is. " Kyouko said eventually, referring to Makoto. Her intense expression seemed to become slightly softer when she glanced at him.
"What are we going to do with the key?" Afar asked suddenly.
Everyone stared at him.
He held up the key to the garbage room, the one that had randomly surfaced while they were investigating Kevin's murder.
" ...Clearly we can't just leave it where it was." Kyouko said.
"Then why not entrust it to someone for safekeeping?" Akaya piped up.
Now, everyone stared at her.
Suzu wrote in her notebook and rang her bell.
"She thinks that someone like Naegi-kun or Kirigiri-san should keep a hold of it. " Akaya told them.
"Why not me?" Afar looked heart broken.
"Because you're a walking junkyard!" Arisa said bluntly.
"That might have been a touch harsh." Janus said. "Although I concede the point."
"You have too many things to look after already, and I'm sure you'll find more things to look after soon anyway. So why not let someone else take responsibility for the key?" Dai pointed out diplomatically.
Afar pouted childishly, and then nodded.
"So, so, who's gonna have the key?" Shika asked.
"I say hold a vote!" Emi declared.
"No need." Kyouko said "I think it would be better off with Naegi-kun. I intend to investigate, as fully as I can, so who knows what sort of situation I may get into. That's fine with you , right?"
Makoto blinked.
"Eh...Yeah, that's fine. "He took the key from Dai and slipped it into his pocket.
"So, anything else to report?" Kyouko asked.
"We have an infirmary. At last." Kosuke said. "It's in a bit of a state though."
"So you want people to help you." Kyouko said. It wasn't a question.
"Yes, that'd be good. "
"Okay….anything else? "When nobody responded, Kyouko nodded.
"All right then. I guess we're finished here. "
Everyone got up to leave. Akaya approached Suzu and Janus.
"Say, I can't think of anything better to do. How about we go and help Kobayashi-kun?"
Suzu and Janus looked at each other a moment, and then they looked back and Akaya and nodded. She smiled.
"Okay." Janus said. He turned.
"Hey, Kobayashi-san!" he yelled.
Kosuke turned and raised an eyebrow.
"We're coming to help you! You still need the help, right?"
"Thanks. "With that, Kosuke walked off, as if he was confident that they would follow.
…
The infirmary made Akaya think of a hospital, and hospitals always brought her parents to mind. But now, these were thoughts that she could dismiss. Not easily, but all the same, dismiss. So she enjoyed her time in the infirmary with Kosuke, Janus and Suzu. There was something calming about making things clean again, about arranging medicines in the right order and being able to see that you'd accomplished something with both hands. But was most interesting was the opportunity to watch these classmates of hers.
Kosuke was clearly proud of the infirmary, even before it was even approaching a state that could be described as clean. He could finally be in his element. Not that he would have gone crazy without the infirmary. She got the sense that he was, on the whole, very stable. But in a high school, there wasn't really a place in the 'hierarchy' for a doctor (or a parapsychologist, for that matter) , so this new responsibility was good for him.
But it was more interesting to see Suzu and Janus as they worked. Her quiet elementary school friend and the brash stage actor seemed to complement each other in a way that she had rarely seen. Even her mother and father hadn't been like this, and they'd been so happy together. For someone who must crave attention and dramatics , Janus seemed perfectly content in working silently with Suzu , even going so far as to try and puzzle out what she wrote in her notebook despite his limited kanji knowledge. She was also fully able to calm him if he became too much, and brought out a tender side in him, one that seemed to be concealed most of the time. But the thing which intrigued her the most was the fact that they seemed oblivious to the fact that they were so good together, despite clearly knowing that they had feelings for each other. But perhaps they had both been wounded in one way or another, so these were things that would take time to realise.
She thought these things over, adding to and modifying her deductions as they worked, mostly in silence, although occasionally one of them (apart from Suzu) would start humming a song as they worked. By the time they had finished, it was nearly dinner time.
"Well. This looks good. I think we should get something to replenish our energy, don't you think?" Kosuke commented.
"We still have a few things to do, so yeah, that makes sense. " Janus said.
The four of them filed out, the mood around them merrier than it had been.
This unexpected good mood lasted all the way though dinner -especially as everyone was (mostly) good-naturedly interrogating Chihiro and Mirai about the laptop, their believed ticket out of this place-and this continued even as they went back to the infirmary to tidy it up until it became night time.
But yet, for some reason, when Akaya went to bed, she still felt a dark cloud come over her.
Although the paranormal was her forte, she had studied other fields of psychology, and even had experience of witnessing the effects of these clouds, to know that this was something nearing depression. And she knew that depression was something that tended to run in families. So it was tempting, to simply give in. It would certainly be easier, and understandable, considering these past few days.
But she didn't want to.
Look back, Akaya, look back and see what you have accomplished.
The words her uncle always said when she was upset came back to her. And so she did. She looked far back into the past, and she looked back to those moments with Kosuke, Janus and Suzu.
When she fell asleep, the cloud had diminished.
…
As Monobear's morning announcement blared out, Dai woke up slowly from a peaceful sleep, and proceeded to get out of bed equally slowly. After all, there wasn't a rush, really, was there? There was no timetable, no scheduled activities (save for showing up at breakfast and dinner), and a most amusing game was afoot.
Anything could happen, and it was interesting to see how it would all unfold.
Just as he was about to open the door, Monobear decided to make an announcement.
"Erm, I need all of you guys to get your sorry butts to the gymnasium NOW! I have something to tell you, something very important! So get here quicksharp! No excuses, I know that none of you have died!"
The announcement ended as abruptly as it had started, and Dai blinked for a moment, then a slow grin overtook his face.
Before he left the room, he glanced at the African death mask he had hung on the wall.
I wonder what's in store for us now…
So, can you guess? What's in store for our survivors?