Stage VI: Monochio Mix; Ultimate Mix (Ulti-mix)
Chapter 78: Penultimate: The Ultimate Motive
"S-so… is it… is it… is it dead? Is it really, really, really dead?" Muni murmured, inching slowly towards the wreckage of Shinobu (and Monochio's) Execution. As befitting of the Ultimate FPS Gamer, she went out with a bang and really brought down the house.
Besidethe Ultimate Illustrator, the Ultimate Diviner looked equally subdued. So… what I saw in my fortune-telling was… correct…! Monochio was indeed destroyed in one of its own executions, and it went in of its own volition. Never would I ever have imagined such a thing…
"H-hey, guys!" Maho shouted shakily. "D-does that mean we're free to go?" At first, her eyes widened with Hope, then they narrowed in Despair. Just as at the end of Stage IV, Monochio was out of commission, and the students were still trapped inside Hope's Pinnacle Academy. Only this time, Monochio was dead. (By contrast, was the electric fence surrounding the school immortal?!)
The dark irony was that had Monochio lived, it would've honored its end of the bargain to let Maho go (though no one would've been allowed to take Rinku's place, and Maho simply would've been offered Rinku's corpse). Now, though, nobody could escape, because the only one with the keys to freedom was dead. All nine lives and six personalities were squashed flat, crushed like bugs.
"We can still go explorin'," Rika murmured, kneeling at what she estimated to be Shinobu's gravesite. It felt unfair to lay her to rest beside Monochio, but perhaps the Ultimate DJ, Kunoichi, would be proud, lying atop the bones of her enemy. The Ultimate Volleyballer rose to her feet slowly. "With Monochio gone—really gone, this time—we shouldn't have any trouble going to whatever floor we want now."
"Are you sure?" Miyu clasped her hands together fretfully. "Would you really wish to take that big of a gamble?"
"I may not be Ultimate Luck," Rika smirked dryly at Miyu, "but I have my streaks." They heard Hiiro stifle something between a snort and a giggle a few feet away. Rika's smirk broadened and she shook her head as she took the lead up to the sixth and final floor of Hope's Pinnacle Academy. It was time for the Ultimate, the last, Investigation. And investigation ALWAYS precedes trial…
ooo
It took a few—ok, a lot—more attempts than Rika might've liked to admit, but that was a downside of Monochio being dead. Even though they could go to whatever floor they wanted, Monochio was no longer there to open the doors for them. Rika, of course, was quick to suggest brute force, even breaking down the walls around the door if the door itself would not budge. But even the walls were no easy feat to destroy, even for the Ultimate Volleyballer who had such immense strength and endless energy.
In the end, it was the Ultimate Diviner who came to the rescue, returning to Monochio's "gravesite" and scavenging just enough tech to trick the lock of the sixth floor door. Magic may have been her forte, but she wasRONDO's VJ, after all. Hiiro's smile even seemed to say as much as she glided past Rika, who was mid-swing with a wooden beam she found on the third floor, trying to break a hole through the wall by the door.
"Ah, right." She tossed the wood beam aside to follow the others in. The sight that met their eyes was similar to the VR lab, save that it was smaller, less updated, and less visually stunning. While the VR lab was clearly made with aesthetic in mind, aiming for a cyberpunk and sleek, futuristic vibe, the sixth floor of the academy was just a security and administration office. No more, no less. The light of the VR lab was bright blue-white and holographic. The light of the sixth floor was yellow-green.
"S-so… is there a way to view old security footage?!" Tsubaki muttered as they dispersed across the floor.
"Mmm… It appears that much of the footage has been expunged…" Hiiro muttered fretfully, touching her chin, eyebrows furrowing.
"What?!" Muni cried, racing over. "Wouldn't that be a plot-convenient thing to happen right now?!" Alas, Hiiro was right. Even though they could scroll back through the footage reels, nothing but static and the occasional timestamp met their eyes. Everything else had conveniently been scrubbed… But how?! And by whom?! They were all busy in the fifth class trial, were they not? When was there time for anyone to sneak away…?
ooo
As the students continued through the floor, they stumbled upon a series of back offices that some of them recognized as administrative.
This must've been the principal's office! Miyu crept through the dark. Hard as it was to see, she could make out the outline of a large, central desk shaped like a half-circle. This was the lobby, chairs against the wall opposite the round desk. Past the round desk were six little offices. Miyu arrived not long after Maho, who was exploring the first office by the light of her PheFo. Inspired by the Ultimate Cook, the Ultimate Luck also turned on her PheFo flashlight and made her way to the sixth office back while Maho investigated the first.
The office contained nothing but a chair and computer, and neither the lights nor the computer would turn on. Every drawer and cabinet of the office was also devoid of material, Miyu searching fruitlessly through every nook and cranny of the office. It seemed that the only secrets it had to give up were on the corkboard behind the computer. With nothing else to search, Miyu pushed the monitor gently out of the way.
"Wah!" She yelped and jumped back. Staring at her much more clearly in the light of her PheFo was a wall covered in polaroids of shady and mysterious figures in creepy, white clown masks, colorful paint dotting parts of them. They were connected by red and black string to snippets and newspaper clippings also pinned to the corkboard. The only photo of the entire collage where the people weren't masked contained a boy with spiky black hair that Miyu didn't recognize. Posing beside him in the broken, abandoned chapel was…
Kurumi Shiratori?! Miyu was suddenly thrust back to the V4-VR. What had the Ultimate Prankster so offhandedly said?
"Mmm, I think I feel like I remember running around and dressing up like a clown…" But why?! Just what in the Lord's name was this?!
ooo
While Miyu investigated the sixth office, Maho finally managed to activate the computer of the first. This is… where I woke up…!
The memory came back the moment she saw the large, red headphones hanging on the top and back of the big, black swivel chair sitting in front of the large computer monitor. On the desk in front of it was a little old set of mini DJ turntables.
What Maho saw on the computer made her clench her teeth and fists in anger and despair. It was more footage of Rinku. The same exact color and style as what Monochio showed them in the fifth class trial, even down to the faint timestamp and watermark logo at the bottom. Only this time, there was audio. Rinku's voice was static-y, and the person she was speaking to had a distorted voice. It sounded vaguely masculine, though, and from what little Maho could make of it, they were discussing a giant DJ festival/competition that everyone would be invited to…
Maho had just finished downloading the video, plus the clip from the fifth class trial, which she found in another file, when—
"Hew-llow! Evewy-one!" Maho's computer screen changed and scared the living daylights out of her.
"WAHHH!" She clutched the sides of her head and reeled back in her seat so hard and fast that she nearly tipped it backward, even though it was a swivel chair. And every other student in the vicinity also cried out, for the squeaky voice that so suddenly greeted Maho also greeted everyone else, using the intercom system connected to the main principal/headmaster's office. It was the one area of the sixth floor they could not break into…
And to put a face to a cheerful, high-pitched, slightly-nasally voice, on Maho's computer screen was… a little green frog. What was it with the Killing School Transfer and cutesy animal mascots that had babyish voices? Seriously!
"I am… Assistant Principal…! E—"BZZT!"—ran! And iiiit's… time for your next lecture and lesson! The Ultimate Class Trial! Yay!" The… what?
ooo
"Assistant Principal E—ran" (or as Muni liked to call it, "Ass—pal") was something of a Plan B to Monochio. In the unlikely—yet technically possible—event where the Headcatster was… no longer able to perform duties as usual, an understudy would be waiting in the wings. Monochio considered its nine lives and six personalities more than enough, though, and intentionally kept E—ran sleeping peacefully until it died. Now, with Monochio no longer around to actively keep E—ran asleep…
"You may think you have won! But the Game is not over yet!" E—ran chirped and croaked cheerfully. Its stubby, little, green arms waved up and down to help it express itself. "As is custom in an average Killing Game, just as a schoolyear has three semesters, we have six class trials!"
"An average Killing Game?" Miyu echoed, alarmed, drawing her hands beneath her chin. There were more of these horrid, atrocious things?!
"You are in the midst of the last investigation," E—ran continued. "Next, the Ultimate Class Trial, the final exam, the final vote. You must determine the Mastermind(s) of this Game." It was not a motive, a demand, that surprised any of them, but at the reminder that there could be more than one…
"Oh, this is gonna be impossible!" Towa slumped in defeat, standing in a darkened hallway between the security rooms and admin offices.
"Couldn't you at least tell us how many there are?!" Muni demanded, stomping her foot, hands on her hips as she scowled at the ceiling intercom.
"A clue, at least?" Maho chuckled nervously as she looked directly at the frog from her computer in the first administrative office.
"Six!" E—ran croaked back cheerfully, surprising all of them.
"Wait. Six?!" Towa, Tsubaki, and Miyu all murmured, scattered across the sixth floor. Towa was frightened, Tsubaki disgusted, and Miyu pained.
"Impossible!" Muni agreed, also doubtful. "Even if we consider Yuka, Miyu, and Towa obvious suspects, how're we supposed to—?"
"Wait! Why us?!" Yuka, physically closest to Muni at the time, cried out. Miyu was still in the sixth admin office, and Towa in a different hallway.
"Because you're the only survivors of your units! Duh!" Muni looked at the other girl standing by the computer monitors.
"But that doesn't make us—!"
"Sure it does!"
"It does? Do tell!" E—ran's high-pitched lilt sent a chill down every spine. "I will be nice, play fair, and give you another bit of the study guide, the answer key. Not every Mastermind is still alive. The ones that are, know who they are. But the ones who have died? Not necessarily…"
"What does that even mean?!" Saori cried, rearing back, alarmed.
"As a cat with nine lives and six personalities, Monochio woke up its Masterminds Stage by Stage. Not all of them woke up in time. But even for those that did, it was no guarantee of survival…" E—ran waved its arms up and down again. "However, I suppose I can be even kinder… Half credit! I will round up! If you can vote out at least half of the Masterminds, you will all be free to go! If not…" The students got the picture.
Eyes darted nervously, suspiciously, around the sixth floor. How many Masterminds were even left? E—ran wasn't kind enough to say that much.
"But isn't it still in everyone's best interest to work together because we'll all get to go home if we do?" Maho murmured, hardly daring to hope.
"N'awww, Maho, you know that isn't true!" Esoran giggled, and Maho's shoulders slumped. "Trust me, the things Monochio promised its Masterminds if they can successfully dupe the others are… very nice, to say the least." And there it was, fittingly vague and unrevealed, still a mystery, the Ultimate Motive. For the innocent, it was their lives and freedom and end of the Killing Game. For the Masterminds, it was whatever this rich reward of Monochio's was… And what was more perfect for an Ultimate Motive than an Ultimate Class Trial?
ooo
Once the Ultimate Investigation was complete, E—ran instructed the students to the trial room one last time. In stark contrast to the sixth floor they left behind, the latest edition of the trial room looked like a gray, barren, solid, smooth cinderblock they were trapped inside of. Small piles of junk littered all four corners of the room. The ring of podiums resembled that of the first class trial, basic wood on red carpet with black-and-white tile floor. E—ran did not appear "in-person", rather, on a long-necked TV that sat where Monochio would've had it still been alive.
In fact, hanging directly above E—ran was Monochio's death portrait, its feline face crossed out by its own claw slash, and jagged red eye (though the portrait made it as pink as blood). And there were exactly enough podiums to accommodate the surviving students, but not a single one more. The moment the students bravely stepped up into the podiums, however, the entire room went black.
When color returned, they were in the first class trial room from Stage I, even down to having all 24 podiums again, the ones without live students carrying the death portraits of the ones who'd already died. Shinobu's was crossed out by the logo of one of her video game brands.
A large, silver mirrorball spun slowly above the trial room. Periodically, the lights darkened, and the mirrorball would glitter and sparkle rainbow. Other times, though, the strobe effect was more reminiscent of a glitching screen than a disco.
"To be fair, of course the 4D network is going to be a bit laggy for a while!" E—ran squeaked. "You did just cause the Headcatster to crash out, after all! But hopefully, eventually, it'll all be fast as a froggy again! Just gotta give it a lil bit more time!"
The trial room they were in seconds ago was actually a demo room, incomplete, set to autofit the number of participants of the trial rather than the number of students in the Killing Game overall. But after the glitch was over, the loading caught up and the models for the death portraits filled in.
"Nostalgic, is it not?" E—ran gave a wheezy, dreamy sigh. "Every good game must end this way! End with the beginning! Unmask the Masterminds and their secret, hidden truths! Ah, but first! One final bit of trivia, one last peek at the cheat sheet…" E—ran's screen flickered and was replaced by even more strange footage of Rinku. Once again, there was audio, only this time, it was singing. The camera panned down from a starry sky to rainbow beams of light slicing through the night, resting on a large, wooden stage. Then music started to play.
"Wow- WowWar- WowWar tonight. Wow- WowWar- WowWar forever!" Voices of… Hope's Peak staff…
I know that song! Every eye in the trial room widened. It was like something out of a movie or a dream, a D4Fes! Except it wasn't one any of them remembered well… At least not without a lot of hard thought… Although, as the song continued, a few memories began to surface…
Then it was violently interrupted, and not because of the poor camera quality. An explosion threw the camera sideways, and screaming harmonized with the DJ remixes, discordant and deathly. It was an attack! An ambush! By the end of it all, Rinku Aimoto was the only one still standing onstage, alone and surrounded by smoldering darkness. Everyone else… was gone.
"Now then! Everyone, pencils and PheFos at the ready? Begin! It is time to unmask the Masterminds, time for the Ultimate Class Trial!"
AN: How fitting and lucky that we start the final Stage on Chap 78, unintentionally emblematic of Class 78, where it all began…
Thanks to anyone/everyone who's stuck it out with me this far and seen some of my content on other platforms! You guys are the best!
Also, pretend that this investigation is longer and more thorough than it is, you know my writing style is to summarize rather than detail, especially given how long this fic is and how relatively low the readership is (no offense to those who DO enjoy this story, again, y'all rock!)