"Well, then, let us prrrroceed!" Monochio purred, pressing a button on its red, black, and white megaphone by curling its tail around the button on the handle again. "We declare that we shall now commence with… the punishment time!"
GAME OVER
Shinobu Inuyose will be punished in place of Kyoko Yamate. Time for the punishment!
"Dance 4 Deadly Justice"
Just as always, Monochio's execution remix filled the trial room, interspersed with bits and pieces of Shinobu's DJing and Kyoko's song. The only difference, the music had an 8-bit quality to it, mimicking the video game sound effects and tracks that the Ultimate FPS Gamer so loved.
"Kheh!" Shinobu scoffed coldly, crossing her arms, and shaking her head. It was time to make Kyoko proud! Then the trial room vanished.
The next time the lights came back on, Shinobu was cast onto a literal battlefield. All around her, soldiers shouted and shot at one another. Shinobu was completely unarmed and unarmored. Of course, Monochio wouldn't fight fair!
Shinobu didn't expect any different. However, that did not mean she had to stay defenseless. On the contrary, using all of her Ultimate FPS Gamer skills, it didn't take her long to find the nearest lootbox and arm herself for battle!
She expertly dodged every bullet and returned fire using various powerups throughout the map, eliminating every enemy unlucky enough to cross her path. Then, as soon as she crossed the threshold into the next level, all of her arms and armor instantly vaporized in a shower of pixels. Then she was thrust into total darkness once more. The next time the lights came back on, Shinobu was in a small, pink car resting on a rainbow road. All around her were other Monochios in other colorful little cars, each one suited up for a grand prix!
"FOUR… THREE… TWO… ONE!" An airhorn blared and Shinobu floored the pedal to the metal. What ensued was a highspeed chase around loop-de-loops and through racetracks physically impossible in the real world. Along the way, there was more combat, lootboxes dotting the winding roads. This time, though, rather than using every box and weapon she came across, Shinobu managed to save two of them, both bombs…
With the finish line in sight, Shinobu threw a bomb in front of her own car, sending herself flying over the finishing flag so fast and hard that she almost literally flew into the next level. The car vaporized into a shower of pixels beneath her, but she got to keep her second lootbox…
The third level was a fighting game, but rather than choose a traditional style of combat, Shinobu decided to fight fire with fire. If Monochio would cheat, so would she! She took the bomb and hurled it… not at her pixelated opponent, but the brick wall acting as the background for both of them.
"NO!" Monochio sat up at once, red eye flashing. The students closest to it—M4—flinched.
"So that's why she volunteered…" Yuka breathed. Shinobu was hacking out of her own execution! At the same time, Monochio leapt gracefully over the heads of every student in the trial room once more, dashing out the doors. The only thing the students could see was bright, white light. A few seconds later, Monochio appeared on the three screens above the ring of trial podiums, clawing its way through every level in Shinobu's execution. The others could only gawk, cheering Shinobu on, awed and hopeful. But Yuka was wrong. Shinobu wasn't just trying to escape.
As the camera panned over to the fourth and final level, the Ultimate FPS Gamer fell in from the top of the screen. She landed on her feet, turned to the camera, and smiled. So, she'd come back intentionally… A second later, Monochio burst in, claws extended.
"INUYOSE!" Its red eye had never before glowed so bright, burning and red, but Shinobu was unfazed. She only smirked and waggled a finger.
"Ah, ah, ah!" she sing-songed mockingly. "If you want to get to me, you'll have to get through her first."
"Her?!" The lights flickered off again, just for a moment, and when they turned back on, Monochio found itself staring down the end of a rhythm game. At the other end was Shinobu, standing behind a digital DJ booth. Standing in front of her was a glowing avatar of Kyoko Yamate. Her head was slightly bent at an angle, as if the neck was broken, but her cap was back on her head, and she held a microphone in her hand.
"Oh, Kyoko…" Shinobu smiled bitterly at the avatar's back, but now was not the time for reminiscing! It was time for remixing! It was time for the fourth and final D4DJ Battle Time. First was the one that brought them all to the Killing Game in the beginning. Then there was the one Monochio proposed for Stage V. Then there was the one that ended in two deaths and three attacks. And then there was…
A good, old-fashioned, multi-live competition/performance! Shinobu raised her hands above her newest set of DJ turntables and the Kyoko avatar in front of her did the same, raising her microphone to her mouth (or rather, the place where her mouth should've been had the graphics given her one. Her face glowed so brightly, though, that she and her face looked like nothing but a ball of pure, white light).
"What the—?!" Monochio hissed again, but it was frozen in place. The execution registered it as its latest challenger… And this time, Shinobu was the one with the game controller. There were no resets, restarts, saves, checkpoints, or extra lives, either. A new song began playing beneath Monochio's usual mix, steadily growing louder and louder. Yuka recognized it first. She gasped and her eyes went wide.
"Electric Chaos Countdown!"
"Like I said, Monochio…"
Ten.
"If you want to get to me…"
Nine.
"You have to get through her!"
Eight.
"Y-you… You tricked us!"
Seven, six, five.
"'Twas never in the rulebook, so nothing we did was unfair!"
Four.
"Why you treacherous little wretch!"
Three.
"Defeat us in a Dance 4 Deadly Justice, then we'll talk." Shinobu leaned forward and the Kyoko avatar did the same.
Two.
"Grrahhh!" Monochio had no choice but to play along their twisted little Killing Game.
One.
"Peaky P-key!" The Dance 4 Deadly Justice was truly about to begin!
The notes flew down the screen from Shinobu to Monochio. Even though rhythm games were vastly different from actual DJing, Shinobu wasn't the Ultimate FPS Gamer for nothing. She had fast fingers and even faster wit! But for once, it wasn't just her… As the song continued, she flashed back. She and Kyoko were at an arcade, Kyoko interested in playing the Dance 4 Dangerous Jack rhythm game. Shinobu thought it was stupid, but when Kyoko beat her in it, she became hellbent on mastering the game so she could have a rematch. After she unlocked that achievement and beat Kyoko for her title back, Shinobu never played another rhythm game again, except on the rare occasion Kyoko could bully her into it.
Some things never change, eh, Kyoko? Shinobu thought with a dry, bittersweet smile. While she was lost in the flow of her and Kyoko's music, Monochio was struggling to keep up, even with four paws and a tail. The Headcatster could only hiss, spit, and growl at all the notes that flew right past it, even though it was already trying to cheat just by using its tail. Shinobu had no such bonus aids. Her DJing, however, was so fire and on-point, and so was Kyoko's avatar's singing, that another memory flashed through Shinobu's mind.
"It's just like that time I kept trying to brush up on my composing skills to impress you," Kyoko teased as she watched Shinobu practice her rhythm games in "secret". Shinobu shrieked and jerked away from her in such a fright that she instantly lost her full combo.
"Grrrr! Damn you, Kyoko!" Shinobu had growled over Kyoko's laughter, then her face suddenly rushed red as she realized that she would've quite liked to hear Kyoko laugh like that again someday… She didn't even mind that the score on her screen wasn't as high as it could've been!
This time, though, Shinobu didn't miss a single note or beat. She was working with Kyoko rather than against, rivals no longer, on the same side of the war as they battled Monochio together as one, just as it always should've been. The music increased in tempo, volume, and intensity, mirroring Monochio's execution music despite completely drowning it out, and the clock ticked closer and closer to the end of the level.
Shinobu wasn't there to win to escape. She was there to win and force Monochio to stay behind with her as the execution shut down. That was her true motive, even before its D4DJ Battle Time motive. All the way back in Stage IV, Nozomi had helped Shinobu switch her execution into survival mode, but she hadn't wanted to survive, just take control of the execution herself! To turn the "victory escape clause" against its creator…
That was how she'd known how to smash through the wall of the third level, and jump ahead into the fourth, and hijack it so completely that she and Kyoko became the NPCs while Monochio was the player.
It wasn't to reunite with Kyoko like some romantic sap the way Hiiro thought. It wasn't even to live on for her sake just to spite Monochio the way Rika thought! It was all for the chance to have a rematch and get revenge, revenge on the monster that took HER away from me!
Growing increasingly resolved, in the final notes of the song, Shinobu leaned even further over her turntables. Her fingers flew across slides, holds, and scratches. She didn't miss a single beat or button. The Ultimate Hope might've been dead, but not all hope was dead. Back in the trial room, Yuka leading the charge, every student was beside themself, singing, dancing, hooting, hollering, whooping, and cheering along.
Ten.
We're almost done, Monochio.
Nine.
How do you like me now?
Eight.
You can't outpace Peaky for the peak as easily as you thought!
Seven, six, five.
"Grraahh!" Monochio bellowed in anguish and frustration. It wasn't going to win. It had nowhere near as many combos as Shinobu…
Four.
This is for you, Kyoko!
Three.
It's time to REALLY bring the house down!
Two.
And it's time for YOU, Monochio, to be executed!
"One!" Shinobu cried out and took her hands off the turntables.
"Peaky P-key!" She and Kyoko struck the pose together. An airhorn signaled the end of the set. Shinobu had a perfect score, full combo. Her triumphant smirk changed into a softer smile as Kyoko's avatar straightened back up and evaporated in a shower of shining pixels. Game over.
"That's my girl," Shinobu whispered over Monochio's temper tantrum. It was cut off mid curse by the level going dark for the last time.
ooo
"Shinobu!" The entire trial room cried out, but there was no reply from the three dark screens above. The only sounds that emerged from the turned-off execution were awful, metal scraping on metal, stone cracking and crumbling, screeching and groaning as large objects fell slowly.
"We have to find where she is!" Yuka led the charge, heart pounding in agony, grief, pride, anger, self-blame, love, devotion, and so much more.
The students shoved open the trial doors, bathed in and blinded by a flood of pure, bright, white light. By the time their eyes adjusted, and they managed to race their way through the hall, running in the opposite direction of the elevator that would've taken them back upstairs, the class was left only with a large, gray room covered in soot and broken, shattered technology. It was unrecognizable as the video game levels from before. There was not a sound except the occasional spark of a stray, frayed, live wire or the further crumbling of another part of the execution.
The students sought frantically through the ash and debris for their fallen companion, or even the dead Headcatster. By the time they found it, it was nothing but a broken, smoking pile of fur and wire. It seemed that not even a beast with nine lives could survive an execution. Shinobu's body, meanwhile, was nowhere to be found. She'd been buried much deeper, and much farther back in the level. She was miniscule compared to Monochio, and even some of her own peers! Kyoko's avatar was gone too. It was well and truly "game over" for everyone.
But Shinobu kept her promise to end the Killing Game, destroy Monochio, and avenge Kyoko. As far as her original plan was concerned now, the only thing left to do was escape the school itself! But she was leaving that mission up to the survivors, because she'd been forced to take another way out. But beating her execution and turning it against Monochio was, in the Ultimate FPS Gamer's opinion, her ultimate achievement unlocked, the ultimate boss battle victory! And by the end of it, everyone else would've gladly recognized Kunoichi as the true Ultimate DJ.
Stage V: De5p4ir Jockeys: Complete.
Stage VI: Monochio Mix; Ultimate Mix (Ulti-mix)
AN: I imagine this execution music to be Chiaki's combined and eventually overridden by Peaky's "Electric Chaos Countdown".
This was also my fav execution to write because Shino finally takes down Monochio! Woo! LOL! I'll be back on 1/4/24 with the final Stage.