Murata! Where're you going!?"
"One of us need to venture out."
"Cap' already sent people. You were just sick because you didn't want to go with Despair kid."
"Shut up."
"Nope!"
Murata started walking away. I chased after him.
"Quit following me."
"If you're going, I'm going, too. Got your gun?"
"Yeah."
"Let's do this."
I set out because I wanted to find communications with someone else.
I set out because Murata was going to die like the moron he is.
Fuck you, Kin.
Thanks.
We came across one of those warehouses. There were a bunch of masked people, and they just kinda let us in without any disagreement. They gave us some grenades. We threw them back at them.
Well, after hearing what you did, Cap', we got inspired. We weren't about to let Despair win!
Actually, it was Chikao who blew up the warehouse. I told you that.
…
A-Anyways. We blew up the warehouse and it went KABOOM!
It did.
Then we wandered around for a while.
More like a couple months.
No, it was a couple weeks.
Where did you two even find any food?
Uh…Well…It was kinda hard to find at first, but we found patterns and kept with those tricks. Look in people's fridges.
No way.
Your sarcasm means nothing to me.
We also looked in the trash. There was some occasionally. There just wasn't much food at all. It ended up becoming our top priority.
There weren't many people around, either, not even the masked people. It was quite lonely.
Hey, I was there for you, Murata.
I thought I told you to stop following me.
Okay, okay. Just tell me how you met Hanamoto.
Well, we met a guy before that. We thought that it was just another body, but then he noticed that we weren't wearing masks.
"Hey! You guys aren't wearing masks. And you don't seem like you want to kill me, either. Well, that's a first.", he said that.
He had soft, pale grey-blue hair and a soft, pale face. He was carrying a backpack, too.
Yeah. Soft is the right word to describe him.
"Ah. I'm Kaoru Kaneko. What's your names?"
"I'm Kin Kawasaki."
"Isamu Murata."
Kin is your first name?
Yeah.
But didn't you introduce yourself at the hospital with your first name first?
It is called a first name, after all.
Then why'd you…
Captain. Just don't question it.
"So, what are you two doing around here?"
He was carrying a rifle and slightly lowered it.
Shouldn't you have mentioned that earlier?
Yeah.
"We were looking for some kind of sanctuary."
"And food."
"Do you know of any places?"
"Ah! The Future Foundation has a place. It's quite a while away, though. I'm not sure how long it'll take to get there."
"Why aren't you there?"
"You see, the truth is that I'm looking for the home I grew up in. I was at the Future Foundation base for quite a while. They have pretty good food, if that's what you're looking for."
"Do you have any directions?"
"It's at the top of the hill. Take a right, then go straight. Although, you'll have to go through a lot of Monobears. There's quite a few on the route over there. Actually, I'm looking for a place, too. It's a nice neighborhood, close to a hospital. There's a large monument nearby."
"Oh. We came from there. Just keep down this street."
"We wanted to be able to find our way back, so we just went down this street. There should be six other people there. Maybe you'll find them."
"Hey, what's the Future Foundation?"
"Eh? You don't know? They're a group of people who are trying to break us out of these Despair-filled times and into a hopeful one. Most of their leaders come from Hope's Peak Academy. Like the Ultimate Farmer, Ultimate Boxer, and a bunch of others. There's some weird politics always going on, but it's better than nothing, I guess."
"What about Tsumiki Mikan?", she was an Ultimate, too. I remember Nurse bringing it up.
"Tsumiki Mikan?!", he was suddenly shocked.
"What about her?"
"You've seen her?!"
"She was at the hospital a couple weeks ago."
"A month?", I shrugged.
"The Future Foundation has put her on high alert. If you can capture her alive, they're giving out huge rewards. She's a Remnant of Despair. Ah, you probably don't know that, either. Just avoid them. Avoid her."
"We were stuck in a hospital until after all this crap happened, so it's not our faults that we don't know anything."
"Ah, I see. Well, best of luck finding the base."
"See ya again, Kaoru.", we began to walk off.
"Huh? My first name?"
Did Kaoru ever come here?
Eh, not yet.
Maybe he'll stop by soon.
So what happened after that?
Oh, yeah. Well, we followed what he said and went to the top of the hill. Holy crap getting to the top of that hill was hell.
Yeah. I swear it was frickin' impossible.
Frickn'? Fucking impossible.
But you did it, didn't you?
Well, yeah.
You see, unlike around here, those masked people don't give you grenades.
Yeah they do. They throw them right at your face!
And shoot at you at first sight! They were literally everywhere.
One time, one of them popped out of nowhere and aimed a gun at us. Right as it was about to shoot, I threw a grenade at it and it hit it smack in the face. Threw it so hard the guy fell over. We ran away before he could get up and the grenade exploded.
Nice going, Kin.
Do you really have to clap for something like that?
Yes.
Shut up, Cap'.
So what else?
Well, we came across one of the leaders. I think you mentioned her. Yumika Tamaki.
She's alive? But she was in the warehouse when we blew it up.
Yeah. She's alive. We had some of those masks from before. So we put them on.
Actually, I didn't trust them, so I put a thing of paper between them and our face. I cut holes for the eyes, obviously. It worked, though. We weren't overcome by Despair.
That way, the masks wouldn't attack us.
Did it work?
Yeah. It did. The only drawback was that normal people would shoot at us. The one time they did, it was a girl with a megaphone. She shot some blue thing at us and nothing happened.
"Huh? Nothing…happened?"
Her subordinates were going to shoot us with real guns but we took our masks off and they didn't.
"Woah!"
"Stop! We're not the bad guys! I think."
"Don't shoot. They don't seem malicious." She paused. "But why didn't the hacking gun work."
"We're just using the masks as a disguise, they aren't active."
"That's genius!"
It was kinda strange when she said that. She seemed very excited that we came up with something like that.
"I'm Atsuko Hanamoto. I'm from the Future Foundation."
"Hey, we were going to your base. We heard it was this way."
"It's very close by. If you two need somewhere to stay, our doors are open to any Hope-filled persons."
"Uh, Ms. Hanamoto, are you sure they're not in Despair? They could be trying to sabotage us."
"Why would they go out of their way to stop from getting Despair if they were already in it? They would have already killed us by now."
Her subordinate flinched. Hanamoto was so kind to us.
So pretty, too.
No one wants to hear your ramblings, Kin.
"Uh, actually, we gotta' bunch of guys waiting for us to bring some info. The area's mostly empty."
"We need support."
"Can you point it out?"
She rolled a huge map out onto the floor. Murata pointed it out.
"I'll see what I can do. The Future Foundation is having some…issues…right now. It's all under wraps. Classified info."
"I see…"
"So can you help us?"
"Probably not."
"Huh?"
"Well, probably not right now. It'll take a while until we get things sorted out. You see, there's hundreds of people like you. We're doing the best we can…Like I said, I'll see what I can do. It may not be much, but take my gun." She handed Kin a pistol. "You people seem smart. I'll do my best to help you all, even if it takes a while." She remembered something. "If you still want to go to the base, just mention my name and this weird gun. They'll know it was me instantly." She turned to her crew. "Shall we go?"
And they left.
That was it?
Yeah.
Well, we did go to the base. The guards let us in once we did what she said.
So many normal people!
It was gigantic!
I almost died I was so happy.
Although, everyone was scared. It was depressing there.
We got some more seeds, though.
Woah! That's great! Fruits, veggies! Perfect!
Oh, and we met this guy while we were eating. He was a scientist or something.
"Are you two new here? I hope this place can accommodate you properly."
"We're not staying. We went here to get support. We have a couple friends a while back."
"Well, we do our best, although right now we aren't doing much. I take it you've been around in the outside. Have you seen any irregularities in Despair?"
"Irregularities?"
"Anything strange. Non-hostile Monokumas, special warehouses, things like that."
"There was this kid who was in Despair, but he wasn't evil or anything."
"Interesting."
"Oh, and there's our Cap'…tain."
I'm so used to just calling you Cap' now.
"What about him? He's pretty normal."
"Well, he was in Despair, now he's not. That seems pretty weird."
The scientist's eyes widened and he slammed his hand onto the table.
"A way to cure Despair?"
"Well, yeah, I guess."
"How?"
"He was hit by a grenade. I think it destroyed part of his brain and someone stitched it back together. He has no memories, though."
"Do you know the doctor who did that?"
"Nope."
I lied. We knew. It was Mikan Tsumiki. But Kaoru said to ignore her, so I did. I don't even know the scientist's name. Why'd I tell him something as important as that?
After that, we left.
We got here without any complications.
Well, I'm glad you're okay, Kin, Murata. Just don't ditch us ever again, you hear me?
Yes.
Yes.
So, uh, Cap'…What happened on your end?
Um…
Captain?
…
I had to tell Murata and Kin about the murder. They were shocked to say the least. Well, all of us are here now even if it's just the seven of us. It's sad, but we have to move on with our lives. Even if no one's going to come and save us, even if the Future Foundation never helps us, we're going to make this home a sanctuary of our own. We have seeds, a bunch of pots, and a whole neighborhood at our disposal. We'll be fine, I'm sure of it.