I am not writing out the dialect. I'm not a native speaker, so I'd probably mess it up if I tried.

Chapter 6: Being Makoto Isn't as Easy as It Looks

As soon as Mikan declared that she was done with his arm, Byakuya made his way over to the cottages. The group that had run off in search for Gundham's earring had returned after they had found the stupid thing, so he told Mikan, Peko and Sonia to stay behind with Nagito. Nekomaru, Kazuichi and Gundham came with him.

That he would leave the nurse in charge of the injured was only natural, but he chose Sonia for the job specifically because he didn't trust any one of the others to take the task seriously enough. Peko was just there to ensure that Nagito wouldn't try anything, even though he doubted that would happen. The lucky student was in no condition to do much of anything at the moment. He didn't even seem to be conscious when they exited the room.

To leave the old building, they had to walk around the portable stove that had been pushed against the wall next to the entrance, blocking half of the corridor. It at least explained how Teruteru had been able to move around so quickly in the dark. One more mystery solved.

Upon their arrival at the cottages, they met up with Hajime, Mahiru, Ibuki, Chiaki and a sulking Akane. Byakuya almost didn't want to ask, but… "Where's Hiyoko?"

"She said she didn't want to wait in front of a murderer's door and returned to her cottage," Chiaki told him.

He sighed in annoyance. Without even bothering to point out that Teruteru hadn't actually killed anybody, he went over to the cook's cottage. This was it. The moment he had been anticipating all evening had finally come. After he had tasted Teruteru's party dishes, he had known that his title wasn't just for show. (Had that really been only a few hours ago? It felt like months had passed since then.) He hadn't expected someone who could cook these delicious meals to be the type to plot a murder. And yet… here they were. It was finally time to confront him about his actions. He took a deep breath, then knocked on the door resolutely. "Teruteru!"

The faint noises from inside stopped. But even after a few seconds went by, he didn't get an answer. He knocked again, more forcefully this time, and raised his voice. "Teruteru, open the door! It's Byakuya!"

There was a drawn-out sob that sounded vaguely like "Go away."

"I will not go away! Open it, now!" He pounded against the door and waited for a moment longer. The door stayed shut. He took another deep breath to calm down and try a more rational approach. "Locking yourself in isn't going to do you any good. You're lucky enough that Nagito survived your idiotic stunt. Don't make it worse by refusing to cooperate with us now."

He could hear a few sniffles, then: "He's… alive?" Oh god, what on earth was that accent?!

"Yes. He lives. Now open the door, I want to ask you some questions."

Another moment passed, then he finally heard Teruteru shuffle to the door. After the audible click of the lock, Byakuya immediately pushed down the handle and let the door swing open. Teruteru flinched back and hurried off into a corner, facing away from them and shaking.

Byakuya followed him inside… as well as the rest of the students. Soon, the little cottage was way too crowded for his liking, which may have had to do with the fact that there were crates full of vegetables taking up space in a corner of the room. Why were they even stored here and not in the kitchen? He knew that the rooms were specifically tailored to the student's talents—that had been the case at Hope's Peak and it looked like it was the same on this island as his own room was furnished with a pitifully small selection of books—yet he didn't think being the Ultimate Cook warranted keeping perishable goods in a warm lodge. He frowned but decided that it wasn't the biggest issue right now.

"Alright, now that we can speak like—" He paused, scowling. "Turn around when someone is trying to talk to you."

Teruteru ducked his head, making himself even smaller, but he did eventually turn around, albeit staring straight at the ground.

Byakuya nodded. "That's better. Now, tell me why you tried to kill Nagito." He didn't bother beating around the bush. He needed answers now. Why had the cook of all people tried to put obstacles in his way?

Teruteru's eyes widened. He opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, before he finally decided to speak after all. In an astonishingly short amount of time he blurted out a fast string of… words? Byakuya had no idea what it was supposed to mean, but it barely sounded like human language anymore.

He cut him off with an impatient "Stop!"

The cook's mouth snapped shut immediately.

Rubbing his forehead, Byakuya added, "Cease this barbaric butchering of our beautiful language and say it again. Slowly. In a way so that we can actually understand what you are saying. Everything else would be pointless."

Teruteru shuddered and swallowed hard, but he nodded his head anyway. After some deep breaths, he tried again. He still spoke a little too fast, but he at least tried to keep his weird rural dialect in check. (Didn't he always claim to have grown up in the city? Just how much of what he had told them was actually the truth?)

"I didn't start it, you have to believe me! I found out what he was planning and I-I just tried to stop him, really! I'm not a bad person, so please! Please, let's just forget about—"

At this point, Byakuya had to cut him off again. "Hold on a second. What do you mean with 'what he was planning'? Are you talking about Nagito? What did he plan?"

"He planned a murder! I swear! I had to enter the old building a couple of times to prepare the food and that's when I saw him!" The words still rushed out of his mouth. His dialect started thickening again. "I saw him planting a knife under the table. And he prepared the irons and messed with the air conditioner timers to cause a blackout, so I knew! And I… I wanted to save you, you know! Please, you—"

"And you thought committing a murder yourself would be the best countermeasure?" Byakuya asked incredulously.

"I-I-I tried talking to him first! But he said he wouldn't stop! He openly admitted that he was going to kill someone and even if he failed now, he would try again! I couldn't let him run around freely! I had to do something! Don't you see? I didn't have any other choice!"

"Are we really talking about the same Nagito?" Ibuki voiced her doubts. "Y'know, unremarkable… boring… no self-esteem? That one?"

"I'm telling you, he's evil!" the cook was eager to assure her. "I couldn't believe it either at first, but it's all true! He's just pretending to be nice, so he can kill us all when we're not looking! When he made his preparations, he was grinning the whole time! It was so creepy! He didn't even want to leave the island. He told me he just wanted the killings to start! Said it was in the name of hope or something, but it didn't make any sense at all."

"You're… you're kidding," Kazuichi mumbled in disbelief.

"I'm not! It's all true! There's seriously something wrong with him, you have to believe me!"

Byakuya would have questioned the story just like they did, if he hadn't seen it for himself. He still couldn't be sure that Teruteru was entirely truthful about everything. After all, there were other aspects he lied about, even now. But he couldn't dismiss the possibility that Nagito was the one who started it all. Byakuya still wanted to hear his side of the story, but recent events spoke for themselves and Nagito's weird babbling afterwards didn't help his case at all. For now, he had to give Teruteru the benefit of the doubt and assume that he was really just reacting to a plot Nagito had set into motion. Still…

"Even if you are telling the truth, that is not an excuse for trying to kill him," he said.

"Well, what was I supposed to do, then?!" Teruteru was frantic.

"You could have told me, or anyone else for that matter!"

The cook opened his mouth, but aside from a small whimper, no sound escaped him.

"If you had just told me about the situation," Byakuya continued sternly, "I could have prepared for it. I would have known that Nagito poses a threat and I could have taken measures to secure him."

"I… But I—"

Byakuya interrupted his stunned stammering. "Not to mention that your excuse doesn't hold up. Trying to save us by murdering someone in a game like this is nonsensical. Even if you could have stopped one killer, we would have to hold a trial to figure out the crime you committed in the process. The result would have been the same. Either you live and we all die, or—the more likely outcome—we find it all out and you get executed. You could have just let Nagito continue without interfering and the only thing that would have changed would be the identity of the victim and culprit. So, stop pretending like you were just trying to help. You must have realized the flaw in that logic yourself, or are you really that stupid?"

"I…" Teruteru trailed off, staring at the ground.

"Well? Why did you try to sacrifice us all?"

"I didn't—! You can't just call it a sacrifice like I'm some sort of monster!"

"Teruteru." Byakuya's voice was humorless. He was getting fed up with his evasiveness. "Why?"

The cook flinched as if he had received a physical blow. "I… I just wanted to go home," he finally admitted. His voice was quiet.

Byakuya couldn't believe what he just heard. "That's all?" he asked, trying to reconfirm it. "You just wanted to go home?"

"Yeah, what the hell, man! You risked all of our lives for that?!" Kazuichi asked, balling his fists.

"Nononono, you don't understand! I have to go home! I need to know!" Teruteru was gripping his head, burying his fingers in his hair.

"What do you need to know?" Chiaki asked calmly. She seemed to be one of the more composed students… along with Akane who just frowned in mild confusion.

"My… my momma. She's waiting for me to come back after I graduate from Hope's Peak Academy. Now she's working in our diner all alone and she won't even know what happened to me. I need to go back! What if she," he sobbed, "if she collapses again while I'm gone? Who's gonna take care of her? She needs me! I can't let her do it all by herself. She needs to rest. She has to recover. If I was there, I could run the diner and earn enough money to get her the treatment she needs!"

Teruteru buried his face in his hands and continued shakily, "I promised… that I would become a full-fledged cook and save the Hanamura Diner. She's still waiting for me… but if we lost our memories and several years have passed since we enrolled in Hope's Peak… What happened to the diner? And my mom?"

"But… you always said something like 'I'll never believe something like this'," Kazuichi said.

Nekomaru seemed close to tears himself. "So, you did believe it after all."

"No!" Teruteru protested immediately. "I don't believe it. I'll never believe it! It has to be a lie! That's why I need to go back. To confirm it. To see for myself that everything is still okay…" The end of the sentence was nearly drowned out by another sob.

Byakuya looked down at the crying chef, who looked quite pitiful with his tearstained cheeks and red face, his arms covering his head as he kept his eyes tightly shut. He was trying to hide from the truth like the coward he was.

The sight made him more disgusted than sympathetic, and yet… He understood Teruteru to some extent. He had acted out of desperation, to find out if his family's diner—a trivial business, but it was all his family had been able to accomplish—had been forced to close or not.

He knew the sentiment. When Junko had revealed the state of the outside world to them and the consequent fall of the Togami empire, he had experienced something quite similar. The initial denial and the following feeling of hopelessness as reality settled in. It wasn't just the loss of everything he had worked so hard to reach for his entire life, but also knowing that his family, which he had always held respect for, even his siblings, had been too weak to fend off the disaster by themselves.

There was a spark of relatability he felt towards Teruteru, since he had an idea of how all of this must have affected him. And on top of that, Teruteru didn't have a Makoto Naegi to help him through it. He was alone. That had to be the reason why he had been driven to take such drastic and stupid actions. It looked like Byakuya had to take Makoto's place this time and offer some encouragement and insight himself.

Granted, he had never really understood the need for these… emotional pep talks, but during the previous killing game, he had eventually come to understand that they were necessary at times. And this was apparently one of these times. It was important to recognize past mistakes and learn from them. He had learned that other people placed a lot of importance on such matters and if they were in an emotional turmoil, they tended to do some rash things. Therefore, he would do his best to calm the cook down. That was his responsibility right now.

He caught the others' attention by clearing his throat. Teruteru looked up at him hesitantly.

"You're an idiot," Byakuya told him. "Even if the diner was destroyed and your family is dead—" which was very likely, considering the state the world was in "—killing someone won't repair what is already broken. Even if you were to get out of here alone, if it's already too late, all of your actions would be for nothing. There is no need to rush into something stupid, especially if you're likely to only find ruins."

He expected a look of realization as his errors became clear to him. An apology and a "You're right!" maybe. What he didn't expect was that the cook started bawling loudly, fresh tears streaming in rivers down his cheeks.

Byakuya was baffled. Even more so when Mahiru elbowed him hard into the side.

"What do you think you're doing?!" she scolded him. "How can you be so insensitive?"

"Insensitive?!" His glasses threatened to slip down his nose and he quickly righted them. What about his words was insensitive? He just spoke the truth to get him back on the right path!

Chiaki stepped forward. "I think, what he is trying to say is, that this is not the solution. I understand that you're worried, but think about it. You did what you did in the hope that your mother is still alive, didn't you?"

Teruteru sniffled, visibly trying to not break down completely. "Yes…"

"Well, do you really think your mother would want you to become a murderer for her?"

"…No," he whispered, avoiding her gaze, "probably not…"

"There you have it. You could have thought of this a little sooner," said Mahiru, but she didn't sound quite as harsh with him. Byakuya hmphed indignantly.

"I wasn't thinking… I… I'm so sorry, guys. I did something really stupid. I'm so ashamed of myself."

"At least you realized that. What you did is terrible, but nobody died in the end. That's what's most important right now," Hajime said.

"Yeah!" Ibuki gave a thumbs up. "All we gotta do is watch out so it doesn't happen again!"

"What, you're going to forgive him just like that?" Mahiru asked, crossing her arms and looking at them sternly. "I pity him too, but let's not forget that he still tried to commit murder."

"Well," Hajime conceded, "I wouldn't say I forgive him, but I get that it was an exceptional situation. We're all under a lot of pressure, what with being trapped on this island, Monokuma lurking somewhere in the background and telling us to kill each other…"

"What foolishness," Gundham finally entered the conversation. He pushed himself off the wall he had been leaning against and stood with both hands planted on his hips. He paused dramatically as his eyes swept over them all, before his gaze settled on Hajime. "With that kind of attitude, you are going to get eaten sooner or later. A wild and dangerous beast isn't going to be less dangerous after a single wag of the finger and some harsh words. You need to stay careful around it and put even more work into its training, until you can be absolutely sure that it will be a faithful familiar to you, even in exceptional situations, as you called it."

"He is right," Byakuya agreed. He had been watching for a while, since their way of talking to the cook seemed to have more of an effect than his. (He still didn't get what he had done wrong. What did they or Makoto do that he didn't? He would have to ponder this some more later to compare their approaches and determine the exact reason why his hadn't worked.) But now that they were talking about future measures, he, as their leader, had to take back the reins. "Teruteru will not be allowed to run around unsupervised from now on. The same goes for Nagito."

"B-but—!" Teruteru began to say, but Byakuya didn't let him voice his complaints. He had forfeited that right the second he stepped out of line and harmed a fellow student.

"No. It doesn't matter if you don't like it. I promised to protect each and every one of you. I cannot let someone walk freely if they have already tried to kill before. The risk that you might try again is too high. Or would you say that your desire to escape has suddenly vanished?"

He gave Teruteru a knowing look and the cook seemed to shrink under it. "But not if it means…"

Byakuya shook his head. "Saying that now won't make a difference. You pose a threat to the group that needs to be dealt with. If you wanted to keep your freedom, you should have thought of that before." He paused for a second as something occurred to him. "One more question. Did you write the letter with the warning?"

"Letter?" Teruteru blinked. "I don't know what you're talking about…" He sounded genuinely confused, speaking slowly.

Byakuya nodded. "I see." It wasn't surprising. He'd already had a feeling that it hadn't been him. "Very well. I will decide what will happen to you and Nagito tomorrow, after I've heard his side of the story. For now, you are to remain in your lodge until I say otherwise. In fact, I will take your key to ensure you follow the rules."

Teruteru nodded, not looking at him, took his cottage key out of his pocket to hand it over.

Turning to leave, he frowned at the crowd blocking the way. "What are you all waiting for? Move. We are done here."

Slowly, the students shuffled out to stand around on the docks.

As he waited to be able to get out, he suddenly remembered Mikan saying that she would have to monitor Nagito's state throughout the night to make sure there were no complications. So much for the easy solution of just locking them both in. He didn't want to get woken up every few hours for her check-up, so Nagito's door would have to stay open. He didn't worry about Nagito getting out. He had a feeling the guy wouldn't go anywhere anytime soon. Still, what if someone was so full of justified anger that they tried to sneak into his cottage to kill him?

"We will have guards stationed at the cottages at all times to ensure nothing else happens tonight," he announced once he had locked Teruteru's door behind himself. One person would probably be sufficient, but it wouldn't hurt to be a bit extra cautious. "We need to appoint four people for this night. Two for each shift. Any volunteers?"

"I can take the first shift," Nekomaru spoke up.

Byakuya wasn't too happy about that. Of all people, Nekomaru wasn't reliable enough for his taste. But before he could voice his misgivings, Hajime also raised his hand. "I'll join him."

Good. Even if he was suspicious, having Hajime on the job was much more reassuring.

"Then me and my four Dark Devas of Destruction shall keep watch until the sun rises over the horizon to repeat the cycle."

Another less than reliable candidate. Why did it have to be them? "...Very well. We only need one more person for the second shift, then." Byakuya looked around. "How about you, Mahiru?" he asked when no one else spoke up. She seemed dependable enough.

The girl shrugged. "Fine by me."

So, that was settled. He then turned to face Nekomaru and Akane in turn. "I want you two to come with me. We're going back to the old building to see if Nagito can be moved to his cottage. Hajime, you take up your post here. We won't take long. The rest is dismissed. Get some rest," he ordered.

It had been a long day, for all of them. Byakuya himself was eager to wrap things up already. His arm was hurting and the fatigue slowly started to have an effect on him. Tomorrow, he would have to deal with the new arrangements and what to do with the two troublemakers. But that could wait a few more hours. For now, all that was left to do was to relocate Nagito, then he could finally relax and get a bit of sleep.