Hopefully my punctuating is better here =P
Arielle was waiting at the end of the road when he came out of his exam. He made a beeline towards her, ignoring his classmates.
"What've you found?" he asked her as soon as he got there.
"Hi to you too. Let's keep walking; I'll talk while we do so. "
They started walking, and true to her word, Arielle told him about what she'd wanted to talk about last night.
"So, you know how Togami asked for updated maps, and you shoved that task on to me?"
"Yes, because I'm hopeless at that sort of thing? What of it?"
"Well, last night, I finally managed to finish the maps of the floors we have so far, and I've sent them off to Togami, but then I thought about you and decided to compare them for anything interesting. And, I found something odd. Some unaccounted-for space, to be exact. "
Reuben blinked at her, confused. She rolled her eyes and reached into her oversized purse and pulled out a large sheet of paper. She handed it to him, and he unfolded it to look at it.
"Don't just stop in the middle of the street, dolt!" Arielle said teasingly. Reuben stepped to a side and continued to study the paper. It showed a map of what appeared to be the ground floor, with the first floor plan next to it. Arielle had made notes all over it, and a large portion of the first-floor plan was circled. He looked closer. Rather, an empty space on the first floor was circled.
"So…an unaccounted-for room on the first floor? " Reuben asked.
"Yes! But look where it is!" Reuben obliged, and then he realised.
"Oh!"
"Took you a while, didn't it?" Arielle seemed pleased with herself.
"This would mean Shika Sayuri was correct that time, about hearing moany voices from above her room." Reuben said. He paused, remembering her horrid death, and then said "It's a shame she won't know."
"Why not?"
"Haven't you been watching the videos lately…"
"As much as I'm interested, it hasn't become my life purpose yet, so no."
Reuben sighed, and briefly explained what he had watched the night before. Arielle didn't say anything, except to briefly curse Monobear in Arabic.
"Now they're going to finally investigate the school. I'm hoping Togami will be able to get them out of there soon."
"Aren't we both? Anyway, I have to go this way. See ya!"
Reuben trudged home entrenched in thoughts. When he got home, he made the conscious decision to get through the just-uploaded videos tonight, spend whatever time was left before studying, and then devote the next day to studying in preparation for his final exam.
As soon as he got into his room, he turned on the computer, and after changing he quickly found the video and started to watch.
It started just outside the doors of the gymnasium. Akihito pulled Kyouko aside and gave her the small wire thing he had been making earlier. It appeared to resemble a key.
"Look yeah, since the teddy opened 'all' the doors for us, I dunno how much use this'll be, but if you need to pick any locks….this should be useful."
Kyouko took it and regarded it.
"Thanks, but I'm wondering two things. Firstly, why you're giving it to me, and secondly, won't you need it?"
"As an answer to both questions: I am a thief, you are a detective. See ya later!" Akihito ran off. Kyouko looked at the key again, shrugged, and put it in her pocket.
"Could be useful. We should all split up, try to be as alone as possible to get more covered, then converge every so often." She told those who hadn't run away. Too shocked to say much, they all agreed and went their separate ways very rapidly.
The scene changed instantly afterwards, and it showed Kyouko in the principal's office. She sat at a desk that was neat apart from a towering pile of papers. She was busily going through these papers. Most of them she was able to put to a side, but there were a few she looked at carefully, as if committing the information to memory. Then, she looked up, and noticed something on the desk. The camera seemed to zoom in to accommodate this, and soon Reuben was looking at a line of photographs in frames. He was surprised to see Kyouko and the rest of the class-all 18 of them, in one of these pictures. They were all wearing a school uniform that consisted of black blazers, dark grey skirts or trousers, white shirts and a red neck ribbon or tie. A few wore black jumpers with or instead of their blazers. He assumed that this was the proper uniform of Hope's Peak, the one they had never got the chance to wear. Except that this photo offered evidence to the contrary. Reuben shifted his attention to the other photos , and recognised Kimiko , Togami and Junko Enoshima , along with a few other faces he'd come across in previous research. From this, he came to two conclusions: the first being that these were official class photos of each new set of first years, soon after they got their school uniforms, and the second being that the current first-years had had their memories wiped and 'reset', so to speak.
Kyouko lingered on the photo she was in for a while, and Reuben guessed that she had figured out something similar. After not doing anything else for a while, she picked up the frame, took the picture out of it, and carefully slid it into her jacket pocket. Then, she put the frame down.
"Sorry." She said to nobody in particular. She made quick work of the remaining desk papers, and then moved on to the rest of the room. She continued to pull out various files, papers and a few other random items, committing them to memory and putting them back, although she did occasionally pocket a few items.
The scene changed to show Eirik in the library. Or rather, coming out of what looked like a giant storage cupboard and into the library, carrying a pile of what appeared to be folders.
More reading. Great. For the first time in a while, Reuben was getting bored. Until he saw the name 'Jin Kirigiri' emblazoned on one of the folders. Eirik noticed too, and promptly said something that sounded vaguely French and definitely rude.
Eirik flipped through the file, wondering aloud as to whether he should tell Kyouko or not. A photo he went by rang a bell somewhere in Reuben's head, but it was at that point the scene changed again to show Mirai in the recesses of the store room, so he couldn't grab a hold of the idea and try to work it out. The scene flitted from person to person, showing the different things they were doing-Reuben was particularly impressed by Janus using a camera to take photographs of anything interesting or suspicious. When the scene changed back to Kyouko, Reuben's eyes grew tired, and he reluctantly took a break from the screen. Except it was not really a break , for he went straight to the pin board , and regarded it , trying to add what he knew to the information he had mentally. After a moment of mental acrobatics, he took down the timeline he had made, added a few notes to it, and then put them back up on the pin board along with them copies of the maps Arielle had given.
For some reason, the photo in the file Eirik had been reading flitted back and forth in his mind. Three little children, a boy and two girls. Black hair, blue eyes, pale skin dotted with freckles. They looked alike enough to be related.
"Hey, Reu, when are you going to eat?"
Startled, Reuben turned to see Megan in his doorway.
"Oh, hi."
Megan sighed.
"I've been standing here for like , 10 minutes , trying to get you to snap out of whatever funk you are in. "
"It can't have been 10 minutes." He told her. Megan glared.
"I came up here at 6:20. It is now 6:35. That is actually 15 minutes!"
Reuben sighed.
"Sorry."
Megan took his apology as an invitation to come into his room. She stood next to him and looked at his pin board.
"You spend too much time in here, you know."
"That's what the exam life's all about, kid."
"Yeah, but this isn't studying related, is it?"
Reuben smiled at his sister. "You got me there."
"So. Tell me what this is about." Megan ordered.
Reuben thought, tried to get his thoughts into order to explain just why he was doing…well, everything he was doing.
"I am hoping that I can help to save some lives. If I had realised what was happening earlier, I might have saved more."
Megan just looked at him as if he was nuts. Now that he thought about it , she had been looking at him like that for a while now. He tried again.
"You see that girl?" he pointed to the picture of Suzu's sister. "She has a sister. "
"She has two sisters." Megan challenged.
"One of whom is now dead. "He paused, swallowed. "I saw it happen."
Oh god. I saw it happen. I saw it happen.
"Right…Now, I just thought you were being weird as normal, but I'm starting to think I should tell Mum and Dad. You're forgetting to eat. "
"No! Don't do that!" Reuben's response was reflexive. "It's fine, trust me. Anyway, what's for dinner?"
"Mum made cottage pie. She left just before I came up, and she'll come back to put Matilda to bed. But then she'll go again, and both of them will return late as per usual. Speaking of Matilda, she won't eat until you come down so can you please let go of this whatever and come down? I'm too young to handle toddler tantrums!"
Reuben laughed at that.
"Okay." He could always watch the rest afterwards. He went down, trying to appear light and relaxed.
…
After another quick scene of Kyouko, the next scene decided to focus on Akihito in the art room. He seemed to spend a lot of time in that art room. Reuben wondered if somehow, in the midst of all this, the thief was discovering his flair for creativity or something. Both Megan and Arielle would probably say he was, but either way it was kind of random.
But this time, he wasn't messing around on giant canvases or making keys. Instead, he was searching every last nook and cranny for anything that could be useful. To Reuben, it seemed if Akihito's searching was faintly desperate, as if not knowing what he was looking for. Now he thought about it, none of them actually knew what they were looking for. Well, with the exception of Kyouko, perhaps.
After finding nothing of interest in the main part of the room, Akihito went to the walk-in supply cupboard. After a few seconds of making mess, he zoned in on some sheets of metal, and dragged them out. Reuben didn't understand why until Akihito pulled it up to one of the steel-plated windows and compared.
"So, they're the same, huh?" Akihito muttered.
Akihito left the sheets where they were, and went back to the supply cupboard. He came back out with a folder. The label on the front said 'projects'.
I wonder what he is looking for.
Reuben soon found out when he pulled out what appeared to be a blueprint for the steel windows. It looked hurried, as if made on the spur of the moment.
Or as an emergency measure!
But what were even more damning were the names on the blueprint. Some of them Reuben didn't know, but one of them was Akihito's.
The scene changed instantly after that, to show Emi and Arisa on the first floor, trying to use their ElectroID maps to find somewhere else to explore.
"Hey, where should we go next?" Emi looked over at Arisa, and then noticed something about her ElectroID
"Hey, silly! Your map is showing the first floor!" Reuben took a moment to process that, and realised their 'first floor' was what he thought of as the 'ground floor'.
Arisa looked at the map.
"Oh, right!" she started to move to change it, but then Emi noticed something else.
"No, wait!" she grabbed Arisa's ElectroID and held it next to hers, looking from one to the other.
"What, what?"
Emi ignored her, and scrutinised the maps very carefully.
"This floor is shorter!" she eventually proclaimed. She handed back the ElectroID, turned around and began walking in the other direction.
"Excuse me, what?" Arisa rushed to catch up with her. "What the hell are you talking about?"
Emi didn't bother stopping for breath as she explained, and when she did, it was clear she had reached the same conclusion that Arielle, and later Reuben, had. They eventually got to the area where there should have been something and there was nothing.
Emi and Arisa looked at the wall.
"Perhaps we should poke it or something." Arisa said. "Maybe there's like a secret door…"
"I think we'll have to be a bit more forceful than mere 'poking', dude." Emi retorted drily .
They prodded, poked and pressed at the wall. Nothing happened, and they got annoyed and gave up.
But the minute Arisa leaned against the wall, Reuben knew something was going to happen. And sure enough it did.
Arisa shrieked and wobbled, trying to regain balance. Emi laughed at her until she realised what was happening.
"Woah!" As an afterthought, she added "You okay, Ari-Chan?"
"Yeah, yeah. "She adjusted her skirt and smiled shakily.
Emi peered around the part of the wall that had slid away.
"Hey, it looks like another collection of dorm rooms!"
"You're not supposed to be there!" Monobear shrieked all of a sudden, appearing out of nowhere and scaring Reuben as well as the girls.
"Why not?" Arisa challenged.
"Because I said so! And you broke in!"
"Err, what? You said that all the doors would be open, didn't you?"
"DOES THAT LOOK LIKE A DOOR TO YOU? IT IS A WALL, DUMB BASTARDS!"
"Erm. Actually, it's a secret door. Shouldn't you know that?" Emi pointed out.
"Whatever! Just don't go in there! Or I shall have to kill you! Just like I did to Sayuri-san! Don't go in there-HUH?"
A flash of black and white whizzed past the bear and two girls and into the concealed area.
"That was Sakamoto-san, wasn't it?" Arisa asked Emi.
"Yes, it was." Emi agreed. They went to follow her, but Monobear seemed to expand, blocking their way.
"Get you're sneaky self out of there or I will blow you up I swear on everything I own and all of my make-up too!"
Reuben blinked. That sentence made even less sense than Monobear's existence. But it seemed to work, and Mirai slunk out. She smirked at Monobear, winked at the girls, and ran away again.
The video ended there, but not before Reuben noticed that Mirai's fists were clenched as if gripping something, rather than opened out and making typing movements.
Well, time to move on to the next video.