ACT 3: Holidays For The Hopeless

CHAPTER 11: I've Got Nothing to Lose

TIME UNKNOWN

Location: Anghern Trial Grounds

"We had a theory that the missing talent swap had some influence in the case..." I started, as I felt my head getting lighter, the weight of the virtual reality helmet fading away in an instant as the headgear hung above us for a moment before being brought up to the ceiling of the constantly changing courtroom. "If you had Yuzuru's SHSL Talent, you'd become a skilled Assassin. One that kills for a living."

Kiyoshi bit his lip and deflated, but quickly tensed up with an accusatory finger pointed directly at me. "Shut the fuck up! If I was an Assassin, I'd be offing each and every one of you! And if I was one those fucking talent swaps, then my personality would change, wouldn't it!?"

Sakurako took it away from there, mirroring my train of thought. "It's actually the other way around, Mister Ikeda. An Assassin knows how to conceal their true colors exceedingly well, under the guise of a normal person. As one, you knew full well that you were forced into hiding under your normal personality, or you would be found out as the final talent swap."

"These other goddamn pieces of shit had no control over them, why'd I be any fucking different!?" he retorted, leaning against his stand with a furrowed brow, angry tears pooling in front of his eyes. "You have no rebuttal, bitch, you all just fucking hate me, admit it!"

"Knock it off, Kiyoshi!" Kikyo interrupted, raising her voice with a stern and serious - almost angry - expression on her face, something rare to see on the usually bubbly and energetic Hairstylist. "We don't ffffreaking hate you! You're just acting spoiled at this point! No one here hates yo-"

The Custodian cut her off by slamming his fists on the top of the semicircular stand and slumped over, pressing his face to his knuckles. "Shut the fuck up!" he cried out. "J-Just shut up... please, just shut the hell up..."

Astonished by the quick change in behaviour, my throat started to get drier and drier and my thoughts became to shuffle. At this point in time, both Asuyo and Frances had cracked, and Kiyoshi followed that pattern. There was no such thing as fury or disgust in his voice, even though they were emotions we were getting more than accostumed to when coming from him. His voice was soft, a low plead of help.

"Why did you do it?" Chigusa turned everyone's heads towards her, her emerald green eyes becoming redder and redder behind the thin glasses she wore. She took her glasses off and slid the back of her wrist across her eyes, trying to wipe a few tears away, but more kept coming out. Kiyoshi was silent, awakening a new forcefulness in the Gardener, who stomped her foot down aggressively, and spat with venom in her tone. "I asked you a question, Kiyoshi Ikeda! Why!? Why would you do such a horrible thing to Maruko and Yori!?"

"Heh, don't you fucking remember what Tsukushi said?" he laughed ironically, rolling his eyes. "Everything was laid out or some shit. I'd be a fool not to take the chance. Well, I would, so I fucking took it. That's your theory anyway."

Akahana crossed her arms, and took one hand near her chin, her thumbnail scraping against the tip of it. "You still plead your innocence? Even after all the evidence presented against you?"

"What evidence!?" Kiyoshi retorted, struggling to keep the tears away from his face as his impending death awaited him. "My room placement!? My laziness!? Good fucking job, you bastards, you really are brilliant fucking lawyers!" he insulted, rolling his eyes as he went back to looking away, focusing on the floor below us. "If I was an Assassin... I'd have killed all of you. I wish I did... maybe then I'd feel like I wasn't such a piece of shit!"

Yatarou's head tilted slightly, and he couldn't help but question the Custodian. "How does being a mass murderer make you a better person?"

"It's not that!" he spat, almost as if his reasoning was obvious. "If I killed you all... then not one of you retards would be around to talk shit about me... and I'd be alone, sure, but that's the only goddamn way to be around people that don't hate the shit out of me!"

"Kiyoshi, we don't hate you, though... you have a strong personality, sure, but none of us actually hate you." I tried to reason with him, but came up short. My words were void of conviction. It's not like I was lying - I know for a fact no one here hates Kiyoshi, we just don't like how he acts around us - but I couldn't bring myself to feel sorry for a killer. Not again. Asuyo wanted to help her friends, and Frances needed to do it to save Blackjack. Kiyoshi did this because the opportunity presented itself, and nothing more... right? "Kiyo."

"The fuck do you want now, trash ass lawyer?" he groaned, his gaze still focused on the floor.

His choice of words stung a bit, but I shrugged them off with a deep breath and looked at the jumpsuit-clad Custodian as he was forced to hear my question. "Why did you do it? Was there really no other reason aside from a plan being built in front of you? Did you end two lives, and try to end nine more, out of pure laziness?"

"D-Don't you dare say that shit again... Not like that, it, it makes me sound like a f-fucking asshole..." he sobbed, looking away, his arm muscles tensing, and sweat starting to form under his cap.

"Tsukushi is telling it like it is, pipsqueak!" Riou intervened, his bulging muscles strengthening his menacing tone with an added threat. "You tried to kill us all. Because you're a lazy ass!"

"God, would it kill you to stop protecting your goddamn boyfriend already!?" Kiyoshi complained, his voice getting progressively louder with each word, before his last words came out as a hateful scream. "You're just on his side because you fucking love him soooo much, and you hate me, that's all there is to it! So get your biased ass out of my face, shithead!"

"W-We don-"

"Yes, you fucking do!" Kiyoshi let out his final scream before his legs gave out, and he knelt down on the stand, hitting the top of his stand with his chin on the way down. Rubbing a small wound he'd just opened, he smeared a thin layer of blood on the back of his hand, and looked at it in awe before he started crying, face hidden away behind his palms.

A few moments of silence ensued. No matter what our opinion of the Custodian was, I don't think there was a soul in the room that didn't pity Kiyoshi Ikeda's position.

"Upupu! Maaaaaaaaaaan, this is getting bo-ring!" a non-human voice cut through the silence like a hot knife through butter, and everyone cocked their head to look at the ursine, sat upon his throne with a malicious smile on his face. "Yeah, helloooooo? I'm still here, you know?"

Shizuka's shoulder slumped as his head hung in front of him. "And here we were, thinking this couldn't get any worse."

"I take offense to that!" Monokuma responded, feigning hurt in his voice. "Aaanyway, are you almost done there? Is it voting time already? I'm getting tired of this back and forth, table-tennis-ish, truth or lie rally!"

"Yes, I... believe we're done." Sakurako concluded, taking a moment to look at Kiyoshi's sorry state before announcing her final decision. "May we proceed, everyone?"

"I still..." Chigusa mumbled, furious. "I still want to know what brought Kiyoshi to kill them!" she snapped. "I'm not letting him die without an explanation! He killed Maruko in cold blood!? No! No, no, no! Maruko deserved better!"

Kiyoshi let out an incomprehensible scream and ordered the Gardener to be quiet, making her flinch at the volume and tone. "I'm not saying shit! Not until you have something to prove whatever the fuck you're saying!"

"Well, how about you prove your innocence?" Eita suggested, but the Custodian shot him down with an aggressive glare. "As I estimated, you have no way to prove it, right?"

"Huh, sucks to be you." Chigusa spat hatefully, but was internally joyful to bring her friend's killer to justice. "The best way to prove his guilt is to listen to the announcer himself! Monokuma, let's vote!"

Monokuma sat up and stood on his two legs before jumping, somersaulting in midair. "Dear lord, thank you! I was waiting for this beautiful, beautiful moment! Everyone, take a look at your Electro-IDs and choose who'll be executed! Choose the blackened, and you'll survive the trial - but fail, and it's curtains for everyone except the killer! Ah, tensions rise and distrust settles in as the third Class Trial comes to a close... who'll win!?"

A wild couple of looks were quickly exchanged between people, distrusting gazes being directed in the Custodian's direction, who was sobbing violently, his face covered. Looking at the jet-black device in front of me, I was met by a familiar grid - a 4x4 square grid of sixteen portraits, almost half of them already greyed out. Yuki, Asuyo, Frances, Yuzuru, Maruko and Yori... they were all dead now, weren't they? And here we are, fighting for someone else to join them.

I eyed the board of mugshots before settling to press a distinct one: second row, third column. My finger touched the cold surface of the handbook, and a message appeared on-screen.

"Your vote has been cast. Waiting..."

Soon enough, almost every vote had been cast. With a painfully suspenseful and slow movement, Kiyoshi threw his index finger at the ID, not looking at whose portrait he clicked. What could he do to prevent his fate, after all? His vote wouldn't be able to save him.

The votes already in, the screen that we'd all associate with a culprit's final moments rose from near Monokuma, static quickly giving rise to a message.

"Kiyoshi Ikeda - Votes: 10"
Verifying...

Kiyoshi couldn't help but laugh at the irony of it all. His random vote ended up cementing his own guilt. "What a fucking slap in the face..." he groaned as the image on screen turned into static, before tuning back to the same metal desk, with the same deck of cards, and the same female figure coming to sit on it, a bit of orange reflecting off her hair.

Gracefully, she picked up the cards and fidgeted with them in her hands, shuffling the deck back and forth, before they were set on her right hand and shuffled once again. Cards were inserted and removed from the deck at unbelievable speeds, making it hard for us to keep up with the shuffler's pace. Suddenly, the deck was prepared, and three cards were laid out on the table, facing down.

The broadcast showed a top-down view of the table as the three cards were turned around, the knot on our throats and stomachs becoming ever tighter. One... Two... Three Jacks of Diamonds. And as we'd expect...

"That's you." Akahana noted what everyone thought. Kiyoshi's guilt was finally set in stone.

Kiyoshi couldn't bring himself to look at the screen during the entire duration of the card half of the verdict. But even if he didn't see anything, Monokuma's scarily cheerful way of announcing the killer made it easy for him to put the pieces together. "No matter how much you deny it, murder is murder, kids! And the murderer this time around has finally been revealed! Say hi to Kiyoshi Ikeda, Super High School Level Custodian, the one who killed Yori Hanamichi, Super High School Level Magician and asked Maruko Inubarashi, Super High School Level Translator to commit suicide! You won your third Class Trial, bastards!"

"Would you stop making a party out of this every single time!?" Kikyo complained angrily, before her face softened as she looked at the breakdown we were witnessing.

"You have no way to escape the truth now, Kiyoshi." Chigusa was staring daggers into Kiyoshi from however far away they were, and Kiyoshi seemed to feel the sting of every single stab wound he'd sustained from it. With shaky legs, he stood up and held himself up using his stand. "Why? Why did you do it?"

"B-Because y-you all-"

Chigusa slammed her small fists onto her stand and shouted back, interrupting the Custodian. "That's not gonna cut it anymore, you hear!? I don't care how much you think we hate you, you had no right to kill innocent people just because the opportunity was there! What kind of horrible psychopath are you!? You're an animal, you're a goddamn monster!"

"See!?" Kiyoshi shouted back, and the frail Gardener lost her composure for an instant, flinching. "I told you y'all fucking hated me!"

"Mister Ikeda, please." Sakurako pleaded, a stern, lady-like look on her face. "I beg you to explain what moved you to murder of all things. I thought we were supposed to get out of here together. All of us, alive and well."

"Bull. Shit." Kiyoshi rolled his eyes, and wiped a few more tears away. "And I've already f-fucking told you!" he continued in between sobs.

An awkward silence took over the room, and Kiyoshi's puzzling confession answered none of our questions regarding his motives. What could we do to make him talk?

"Nooooow, now, tell them why you did it!" Monokuma insisted, his suggestion being preceded by a yawn of boredom. "Hurry along, I'm not in the mood to wait."

Kiyoshi glared at the bear with anger, but eventually slumped forward and took a deep breath. "I... I already told you... I killed them because you hated me."

Angry, the Gardener was a few moments away from raising her tone once again, ultimately unsatisfied with Kiyoshi's reasoning, or at the very least, the lack of basis for said reasoning. "Elaborate." Akahana interrupted, saving the courtroom from any further animosity.

The Custodian looked at Akahana, then at me, then at Chigusa, and shot everyone else a quick glance. "I... I'll talk." he started, and the room was filled by deafening silence as everyone readied themselves to listen to his motives. "Everything started with the movie... I didn't think much of it at the time, but it came in handy. Then... was the talent swap... At first, I shrugged off the weird murderous intent I had as stress that'd been building up over time, but after I heard about Monokuma's new motive, I just knew I'd gotten a Mock Talent, and lo and behold, one that would help me kill someone. Maruko being prone to commit suicide and willing to listen to my every order came as an added bonus, you see? Everything was working in my favor, but even then, I didn't want to kill."

"What pushed you to do it then?" I insisted.

Taking a deep breath, he resumed his explanations. "Everything changed when I came to a sudden realization..." he trailed off, unable to bring the words to his lips. After swallowing a clear lump on his throat, Kiyoshi continued. "You all... You all hated me." he repeated his previous statement, and more tears began to fall down his cheeks, growing more and more frequent over the next few seconds. "You all hated the shit out of me because I've been such an asshole to all of you... I didn't feel loved, I didn't feel liked, even... Hell, I felt like I wasn't wanted. So I asked myself... what did I have to lose?"

"Kiyoshi..." someone - a girl - called lowly, but was unable to find the words to comfort him.

"The answer was simple. Nothing. I had nothing to lose. And I still have nothing to lose from this. You all hated me before, and hate me now... I don't care if I die. It's not like I'd be doing you any good by staying alive. I had an unwilling accomplice, a means, a time... everything was perfect, and I didn't need to move much. It was the perfect plan - no drawbacks, and a chance to get out of this hellhole. That's the whole truth. I killed them because I had nothing to lose."

...

...

No one could say a word. Chigusa's mouth was taped shut, Riou's anger had subsided, and even the expressionless Eita was looking a bit down at the reasoning behind this past trial. "But Kiyoshi..." I tried to comfort him. "We've told you time and time agai-"

"SHUT THE FUCK UP, ASSHOLE!" his scream echoed in the courtroom walls, making everyone take a step back, frightened at what he'd do next. All of a sudden, he was overpowered by his own tears, and his legs gave out yet again. He crawled out of the wooden floor of his stand and dragged himself out of it, curling into a sort of fetal position, only twitching as he sobbed. "D-Don't s-say that..."

"But Kiyo!"

"NO!" he insisted, not letting anyone speak. "Please don't say that... if you say that, I... I..."

"WE'RE YOUR FRIENDS, KIYOSHI!"

That phrase alone was what triggered him the most. His face became completely drenched over time, tear after tear rolling down his cheeks and dripping down his bloody chin as they fell to the ground. His twitches and sobs became grander, his screams higher in pitch and louder in volume. For the entire time I heard him, I felt like I had discovered the true despair Monokuma wanted us all to feel.

Unsure of what to say, I stammered, trying to reach out to Kiyoshi's shivering body, the rest of the group too shocked to utter a word or move. "D-Did I say something wrong?"

"Aaaaah, yes!" Monokuma cheered, his own claps coupled with a prerecorded audio cue of even more applause. "Look at how you all have made this poor sap despair! Hear his cries, see his tears, feel the overwhelming sadness! I'm getting all hot and bothered, I tell you. How arousing can despair get!?"

"Wh-What!?" I questioned myself aloud.

Kikyo, as if following my thoughts, asked what I wanted to ask. "H-How the hell? Why would he despair over us telling him we like him?"

"That doesn't make any sense!" Sakurako added. "Mister Ikeda!" she concluded, pitying the sobbing Custodian as he was struggling to speak, his voice coming off as a low mess of jumbled nonsensical words. Kikyo and Yatarou traded glances before moving in to help, kneeling down next to him.

"Now, now, let me speak!" Monokuma interrupted, making a tense silence permeate the entire room, only broken by the incessant sniffing and sobbing coming from the convicted felon on the floor. "Is everyone paying attention to me? I'm quite the looker, after all, you'd be hard pressed not to do it!" Met by either awkward silence or menacing stares, Monokuma exhaled a big puff of air before shaking his head. "You guys all suck. What a boring crowd! Almost makes me want to change the votes and kill you all... it's a shame I'm a rule abiding bear!"

A heavy slam on wood made it painfully clear that the monochrome mastermind was taking too long, and Riou hurried him along. "Out with it, stupid ass bear!"

"S-Stupid? I'm offended!" he complained, but sat down on his throne, ready to begin his explanation. "You all had many things right! Laziness and chance were two very key factors in this here trial... and you all had to do some very advanced psychology to understand that! But there was one more reason, wasn't there? I think that crybaby even told you guys before his breakdown!"

Trying to recall what he'd said before, I ran the end of the trial by my head in a hurry, before being outmatched by Akahana. "He told us he had nothing to lose."

"Cooooooorrect, Mrs. Prosecuting Attorney!" Monokuma praised, before turning to me. "Get your shit together, inferior lawyer, or she'll become very dangerous!" he mocked before resuming. "Indeed, that jumpsuit wearing jackass had nothing to lose! After all, he had no friends, everyone hated him and he spent most of his time alone because everyone would be so offensive towards him! What is there to lose in a life like that?"

"B-But... he has friends!" Kikyo retorted.

"And that's the problem!" Monokuma fought back, a malicious smile on his face. "With your friendship, Kiyoshi Ikeda has lost every single reason to murder he could ever ask for! He killed two people that loved him, and tried to send all of his friends to die alongside them! Wouldn't that put a damper in your mood?"

The realization of how Kiyoshi was feeling finally dawned on all of us. "K-Kiyo..." Yatarou called out to the crying boy, unable to say anything else. I felt everyone's hearts tighten - even Chigusa and Eita's, who had suffered the most with his deeds, and Shizuka, who was out for justice from the very begginning.

"I..." I tried to begin, but ended up covering my mouth with my hand, not wanting to say anything else that would bring him deeper into despair. The sinking feeling that I was the one who made him cry nagged at the back of my mind, making it hard for me to focus on what was going on. My thoughts started running wild, and I could only hear a few screams, shouts and sobs in the distance. By the time I came to my senses, Monokuma was already shouting that accursed war cry, and everything was about to end.

"Let's give it everything we've got! It's PUNISHMENT TIIIIIIIIIIIIIME!"

GAME OVER

KIYOSHI HAS BEEN FOUND GUILTY
TIME FOR THE PUNISHMENT!

The third set of chains and binds shot out of the wall behind Monokuma and up into the ceiling, supporting themselves on a girder before wrapping around Kiyoshi's torso, clamping down around his stomach, a bit of fabric from his working brown jumpsuit getting caught in between the claws. Removing him from his almost fetal position, the chains started receding, hanging Kiyoshi's limp, still twitching body from the floor. As he moved, trying to escape everyone's gazes, his cap fell off and the chains pulled him farther up.

As the wires receded further and faster, Kiyoshi bumped against the girder on the ceiling and went above it, slamming to the ground with full force as the girder no longer suported him. With a groan of pain, muffled by screams of apology and sorrowful sobs, Kiyoshi was dragged behind the throne and pulled towards his death, the door behind Monokuma's chair closing suddenly. The TV monitor rose crackled to life and showed the hallway that had led two of our friends to their deaths...

Kiyoshi's skin and flesh were being dragged through the floor, leaving him with visible burns as he tried to flail out of the metal chains' grip, but to no avail. Unbeknownst to him, a light at the end of the tunnel - a symbol of hope, usually, but of despair to us - started becoming visible at the end of the long corridor, the young Custodian getting pulled towards it at a fast pace.

The camera followed him outside the corridor, and after adjusting to the light, the broadcast was of a grand skyscraper-like building. The dozens of floors were each surrounded by a metal railing or balcony that ran across them, the entire length and height of the building, with stairs leading the way up or down each railing, allowing for easier traversing of the outside area of the building.

Kiyoshi was dumped right by the front entrance of the skyscraper, and looked at the inside of the building in disgust, recoiling at the exterior. The camera, being brought closer to the outer walls of the edifice, made clear what Kiyoshi's reaction was directed to - the outside of the structure was filthy, sullied with different varieties of dirt, mud, ink, and what I hoped was red paint. A hologram appeared in front of the main gate, the glass sliding door acting as a pane of sorts for the title of the following execution. I felt Kiyoshi's throat knot, and he tried to swallow it away as his shaky legs tried to support his own body weight, standing slowly but surely.

DID KIYO-KUN DO GOOD, DADDY?
SHSL CUSTODIAN KIYOSHI IKEDA'S EXECUTION: EXECUTED

The hologram disappeared and a percentage bar and a message appeared on screen, an arrow pointing to the right below it. Kiyoshi looked to his right, seeing the ladder that led upstairs before turning back to the makeshift screen in front of him. In a rush, Kiyoshi skimmed through the message, only truly interiorizing it as he vaulted up the stairs, tears running down his cheeks.

"Kiyo-kun, don't forget to clean up! If the front of the offices aren't in tiptop condition by the time I'm there, you're grounded!"

Knowing that 'grounded' would likely mean a much, much worse fate, Kiyo ran up the stairwell and started working on the first floor, the cleaning supplies being provided to him on the way up. As he started, a light-blue performance bar, decorated with cutesy suds, sponges and soap, showed up on the TV monitor, and grew fuller with every scrub from Kiyoshi. For the next few minutes, floor after floor was being near-perfectly cleaned, the windows shining.

Looking around, I wasn't the only person surprised to see the Custodian moving so quickly, especially after the taxing Class Trial he'd just endured, his vision blurry, throat hoarse and legs tired. It was almost moving to see him doing so much to stay alive, but I wasn't getting my hopes up. Rules are rules, and Monokuma wouldn't let him live.

As the final floor approached Kiyoshi - or vice-versa - the sound of an engine could be heard from behind the camera, but said device wouldn't turn around to give us a look at what could be the source of it. The Custodian turned around and flinched, his eyes wide and jaw fallen. With increased speed and intensity, he went back to work, filling the bar further. The bar was filled instants before the roaring of an engine stopped, and Kiyoshi looked down from the railing, at the sound of a door opening. Going down the stairs, he checked the front door for his progress, and quickly found solace in the fact that he'd made a good job.

Looking behind him, the camera now focused on a Monokuma with a business attire: tuxedo, red tie - the epitome of class. Monokuma looked up and down the building before shaking his head and patting Kiyoshi's side.

Kiyo-kun... you lazy dummy, you missed a spot!

The businessman-looking ursine pat Kiyoshi's head, and his exterior joy quickly left his face. His skin grew paler and his knees gave out again, his eyes twitched slightly and his lips quivered. Changing looks between the building, now shining in the afternoon sun, and the front door, showing his 100% success run of the building, the Custodian looked at the bear in confusion, shock and fear - had he not done good enough?

There, don't you see it? Let me show you.

The Monokuma grabbed Kiyoshi's entire body with one arm, and pulled it back, as if he were to throw a small pebble. His eyes widened as he tried to fight his way out of the bear's hand, but couldn't succeed. Strength gathered on his right arm, Monokuma spun before throwing Kiyoshi in the building's direction at bullet speed, a few final tears falling down his face before he collided with the hard surface of the building, right next to a window, splattering his blood all over the outside of the skyscraper, a few of it sullying the railing below. A crushed mess of a body fell down to the railing, a big blotch of red being the only visible dirt on the edifice.

Both the Monokuma on-screen and the one standing in the room as us had similar reactions. They shook their heads and slapped their hands together, as if to get rid of any dust they'd gathered over the day, before the one on-screen went into the building, unfettered. Nothing could have prepared us for such a sudden ending.

Nothing could have prepared us for a death as sudden and brutal as Kiyoshi Ikeda's, Super High School Level Custodian.

Looking around to see everyone's reactions, my eyes first stopped at Blackjack, who bit her lip as she grabbed the sunglasses she hung from her collar, her grip being almost tight enough to break the plastic sidepieces. Next to her, was Eita and Chigusa, who coincidentally were together, sharing expressions of uneasiness. It was only natural - the man responsible for their best friends' deaths had finally been brought to justice, and suffered near his end.

Turning around, Akahana was kneeling down near Kiyoshi's cap, and picked it up, holding it tightly. Kikyo was on the floor, where Kiyoshi once lay, crying for the loss of another one of our own, Yatarou trying to comfort her but to no avail. Tears kept streaming down her face, falling on where Kiyo's own drops had fallen a few minutes ago. Shizuka, to the side, showed little to no signs of discomfort, almost as if he was used to the executions by now.

And as much as it pained me to say... maybe I was feeling that way too.

As shocked, awkward silence seeped its way back into the courtroom, Monokuma couldn't help but intervene. "Now, now, don't be all glum! You all sent him to die! You didn't seriously think he'd survive because he cleaned that building, right? What of the justice you're so fond of, huh, lawyers?"

"Quiet..." Akahana shot a glare and spat a response back at Monokuma, who shrugged it off.

"Run along now, I have much more to do!" Monokuma jumped off his chair and started running clockwise around the circle of wooden stands, pushing us one by one towards the elevator, although most of us complied without his insistence. As the elevator doors opened, we started going in, silence and tension being the clear words of choice to describe the atmosphere around us - what other feelings could we have at that time, really? "Oh, and by the way!"

We turned around to see the bear rubbing his hands together, almost as if plotting something. "What?" Eita insisted, his voice strained, almost as if he was almost crying. Most looks were directed at the Estimator, who had yet to see him show this emotive side of him.

"I think now is a good time to throw a monkey wrench into your collective hopes and trust and all that, isn't it?" he cackled. "You thought Kiyoshi was a SHSL Assassin because of his talent swap, didn't you?" he started building up suspense as the doors of the lift started closing, everyone penned inside like cattle. "Well, you're wrong! He was a SHSL Hitman!" And the doors shut.

Only a few gasps were audible at that time. A few looks of distrust were once again being wildly shot at whoever was nearest, and a few people shifted away towards the wall nervously. "Does that mean...?"

"I'll save you the trouble of distrusting one another, Ohwatani-san." Shizuka responded after exhaling a long puff of air and shaking his head, eyes closed, as if focusing intently on something. "I am a fan of the magic arts... not enough to warrant Hope's Peak's attention, however. As such, allow me to reintroduce myself... my name is Shizuka Matsuoka...

Super High School Level Hitman."

ACT 3: HOLIDAYS FOR THE HOPELESS - COMPLETE!

Students Remaining: 9/16