Chapter 3 Part 9

"Criss-cross well make ya, JUMP, JUMP, JUMP OUTTA BED!" Monokuma rapped into the school intercom. "It's morning time, yo! That mean the water's on, yo! You can get your food now, yo! So, get yo bitchass outta bed and get ready for a bitchin' day….yo."

"I swear these morning announcements get worse by the day," Kaede said as she took a bite of her toast. "Whatever happened to those pre-recorded ones that he'd play all the time?"

Kaede had joined Leon, Chihiro, Ibuki, Ryoma, and Tenko for breakfast in the cafeteria. It wasn't the extravagant morning meal they had become accustomed to from Teruteru's cooking. The chef was absent that morning, so the group had to make their own mediocre meals like slightly burnt toast, cold eggs, lukewarm coffee, and admittedly fresh fruit for the sides. It wasn't much, but they were all able to stomach it.

"You want to hear that old thing over and over again?" Leon asked. "I'm pretty sure I'd go insane if I had to wake up to that thing every day."

"I doubt that hearing Monokuma rap every morning is an improvement," Chihiro said.

"I never said it was," Leon responded. "It's just different enough to not drive me crazy."

"No matter what he does, it's going to drive us crazy," Ryoma said as he bit into an apple.

"Ibuki would love it more if she got to pick the music," Ibuki explained. "Monokuma has no rhythm, and his lyrics are garbad! Ibuki would totally rap better!"

"Oh, you rap too, Ibuki?" Kaede asked.

"Well…not really. The way Ibuki writes music focuses more on the instrumentals rather than lyrics that rhyme."

"Aren't rap and rock like two different genres anyway?" Tenko asked. "No one really tries to mix them together, right?"

"Nah, plenty of nu-metal bands loved doing rap rock," Leon said.

"Oh, that sounds cool," Chihiro smiled.

"It…really wasn't," Leon scratched the back of his head.

As the group had shifted their discussion onto the topic personal music tastes, Sayaka entered the room. The idol was in a depressive slump. Her head was hung down, her clothes were covered in wrinkles as if she had slept in them, and she let her hair out from its ponytail. As the group became aware of Sayaka's presence, they stopped talking and stared at the pop idol. They all gave weak waves to the pop idol which she responded to with an equally limp wave.

"Hey, Sayaka," Tenko said quietly. "Are you feeling better?"

Sayaka shrugged. "I just…I needed some time to think things over."

Ibuki pulled a seat out for her friend, which Sayaka accepted and sat herself down. The group were silent, just observing Sayaka's face for any sign of happiness they could latch onto or sadness to avoid. Sayaka glanced around the table to see everyone's mediocre meals.

"Did Teruteru skip out on cooking again?" Sayaka asked.

"He's really been slacking off lately," Kaede said.

"I can make you something though," Tenko said.

"Tenko, I can cook for myself, don't worry," Sayaka said as she was just about to stand back up.

However, Tenko placed her hand on Sayaka's shoulder, pushing her back down to her seat. "No way. You just sit down and catch up with everyone. You probably need it."

Before Sayaka even protest, Tenko rose from her seat and made her way into the kitchen. This left Sayaka in an awkward position. Everyone was staring at her, and not in the fun idol performing in front of fans. She was now the emotional wreck everyone leers at. Sayaka stroked some of her bangs to the side, hoping that would somehow make her seem more presentable to the rest of the group.

"So….how is everyone?" Sayaka asked.

"Ibuki is doing A O K!" Ibuki cheered. "Totally planning out a second group party day for all of us! We missed out on our pool party, so we gotta do that on top of our new band!"

Sayaka raised an eyebrow. "A new band?"

"Yeppers! Ibuki herself's got Kaede and Ryoma again, but's got Gonta and Keebo as new additions! You should totally join us again, Maizono!"

Sayaka frowned slightly at Ibuki's offer. "As great as that sounds…I think I should sit out this time."

Ibuki's eyes nearly bugged out of her skull at this news. "WHAAAAAA?! How could a pop idol turn down the chance to perform?!"

"You were so great last time, Sayaka," Kaede joined in on Ibuki's line of questioning. "Why don't you want to join?"

"I guess…maybe I just need a change of pace for things right now," Sayaka explained. "I think I'd like to be a part of the audience for a change."

"Well, if you need a break, then that's fine," Kaede said, quickly understanding Sayaka's point of view.

"Strange she gets a choice in the matter," Ryoma said sarcastically.

Ibuki poked the sides of her head and shut her eyes as she pondered over the situation. "Hmmmm. That does mean we're out one of our best singers. Who should be with Ibuki and Kaede? Hmmmm."

Ibuki opened her eyes and immediately locked onto Leon. "OH! Ibuki's got it! Leon can do some punk singing!"

"W-wait, seriously? Me?" Leon pointed to himself.

"Duh! Ibuki remembers how much you wanted to rock out! Ibuki says you give it a shot!"

Leon smirked at Ibuki and shook her hand ferociously. "Th-thank you so much! You're not going to regret this at all! Oh, but uh…" the punk baseball player turned to Chihiro. "Maybe tell Mondo I'm going to be busy the next few days."

Chihiro frowned. "To be honest, I haven't seen Mondo since yesterday."

"Oh, is everything ok?" Kaede asked.

"Well…he's alive, but he looked really angry," Chihiro explained before adding on, "more than usual."

Ryoma leaned back in his seat. "Seems like there's some blues going around."

"Which is why Ibuki needs to get that show going!" Ibuki cheered. "Blues is catchy and all, but rock gets the soul moving!"

"That's not what I meant

"Well," Sayaka looked at Chihiro, "since Leon's going to be busy and Mondo's not around, mind if I sub in as your workout partner?"

"O-oh," Chihiro spoke up. "Sure. I wouldn't mind that."

Sayaka then shifted her attention to Ryoma. "And after I'm done with that and you're done with practice, do you mind if I stop by and watch you paint? I've heard you've gotten pretty good at it."

Ryoma shrugged. "Why not? Wouldn't be the worst thing."

Sayaka smiled brightly at the group. "Great! I'll see you two then. And I can't wait to see what songs you have in mind, Ibuki."

As the mood in the room began to lift, Tenko poked her head out of the kitchen to check on her friend. Seeing the pop idol smiling and talking with others again warmed Tenko's heart. 'Great,'Tenko thought to herself. 'She's back to normal again.'

Keebo was sat upon a workbench once again for adjustments. This time, his hands had been detached from his arms while Miu tinkered with them. She used small screwdrivers and tweezers to open and examine the robot's inner workings. Nagito was right beside the inventor, but he wasn't providing any real assistance. He was continuing to act at Miu's personal maid as he would hand feed funyuns to her and intermediately using a rag to wipe away her sweat. Miu was a rather messy eater as funyun crumbs drippled down into opened hand.

"P-please don't get any crumbs in my hand," Keebo said. "They could get tangled up in my wires and grind my gears."

Miu rolled her eyes. "I know what I'm doing, I've fiddled with your parts like a hundred times by now. Nagicuck, wipe my mouth."

"Of course," Nagito wiped the rag across Miu's mouth. "Is there anything else you need?"

"Water me," Miu ordered.

"Don't drink over my open parts!" Keebo pleaded.

Keebo's pleas fell on deaf earth as Nagito held a bottle of water up to Miu's mouth, who then wrapped her lips it to chug down some water. Luckily, she didn't drip any stray water into Keebo's circuits and wires, but that didn't calm the robot's nerves.

"Miu…if you got even the tiniest drop of water in there, it could've screwed up everything."

"Quit getting your panties in a twist, Keebo," Miu rolled her eyes again. "I've done this a million times."
"Seriously, Miu!" Keebo said. "If my hands don't get fixed properly, I'll never be good enough to play the drums for Ibuki."

Suddenly, Miu dropped her tools onto the table and before staring daggers into Keebo. "What…did you just say?"

"Uh…" Keebo had sweat pours, they'd be spewing out sweat like a water fountain. "I…need them to play the drums?"

"You mean to tell me…You woke me up early in the morning…." Miu's eye twitched as she held up both of Keebo's hands, "to give you these hand jobs-"

"Y-you don't need to call it that-"

"AND IT'S ALL SO YOU CAN PLAY THE FUCKING DRUMS?!" Miu shouted into Keebo's face. "YOU CAN SHOOT LASERS FOR FUCK'S SAKE!"

"Well, he was damaged badly before you rebuilt him," Nagito chimed in. "Perhaps he wasn't fully reprogrammed with more sensitive-"

"Shut up, Nagicuck," Miu hissed at her assistant before looking back at the robot. "You're lucky I love getting my hands all over you, Keebo, otherwise I'd dump you in the trash."

Despite how intense and selfish Miu's words were, Keebo smiled anyway. "Thank you, Miu. I won't doubt you again."

"You fucking shouldn't have in the first place," Miu said before placing Keebo's hands back down, grabbing her tools, and returning to Keebo's repairs.

A small group had gathered together in Chiaki's Ultimate Lab. It wasn't an ideal spot for a meeting, considering all the wires, controllers, and consoles covering the floor. They were lucky enough that Chiaki had several gamer chairs for herself, Shinji, Mahiru, Gonta, Mondo, and Sakura to create a small circle facing each other. The mood was less than positive. Mahiru and Gonta had nervous expressions and were tapping their hands and feet. Shinji and Sakura had solemn expressions and kept their arms crossed. Then there was Mondo, who let his head hang down.

Chiaki sighed and looked over to Sakura. "So, Kokichi found a way to escape his cell." She then turned her gaze to Mondo. "And Taka has fully succumbed to Angie's manipulations…"

"We've been far too lenient with how we've overseen our group," Shinji said. "We never should've allowed anyone to skip the morning meetings, and we should've had everyone report all their activities."

"Aren't we trying to stop Angie and Celeste from doing that kind of thing?" Mahiru asked. "Also, weird to complain about leniency when you're dressed up as the laziest guy here."

Shinji clutched onto Kaito's jacket as he grit his teeth.

"N-no fight, please!" Gonta spoke up. "We all friends. If we fight, we lose."

Mahiru sighed. "But we've done nothing right. We've made zero progress investigating those books about Hope's Peak or Danganronpa, we let Nekomaru take the fall for Kaito's death, and we still don't know who did that! Losing Kokichi is probably the last thing straw everyone needs to follow Angie or Celeste."

"So, you believe there's no hope then?" Sakura asked.

Before Mahiru could answer the question, Mondo finaly spoke up. Still keeping his head down, the biker shouted. "Of course there's no hope! We suck at everything! We're all here because we never learned from our mistakes! We knew Angie was psycho and…I didn't do anything when Taka was talking with her. Hell, I told him to keep talking to her. Thought he was flirting with her or getting some intel…" Mondo grabbed the sides of his head. "It's my fault…"

The group went silent as they were almost expecting the biker to break down into tears, and if he did no one would want to be the person to make a comment about it. Mondo kept his composure enough to not cry, but the feeling of frustration was still emanating from him. Just as everyone else was beginning to share in the feeling, Chiaki spoke up.

"No, it's my fault," the gamer said. "I'm not really a leader. I wasn't program to lead you guys. I was always just meant to help…And I can still do that. Things are never as hopeless as they seem."

Mondo raised his head. "How would you know? How could we possibly fix this?"

"Well, we know that our friends did beat the other three killing games. I think that's enough to keep us going."

"But how do we confront Angie, Celeste, and Kokichi?" Sakura asked.

"Sometimes, the simplest ideas can be the most affective," Chiaki smiled. "If we include people like Tenko, Leon, Chihiro, and Kaede, the amount of reasonable people outnumbers both Celestia and Angie's groups. I doubt they'd be able to convince more of us to join them. Kokichi may be good at scheming, but we were able to overtake him and keep him prisoner for a while. He'd actually be the easiest person to deal with…I think."

"Then I should be able to handle Kokichi," Sakura said. "He may be fast, but when I have him in my grasp, he won't escape."

"What about Celeste and Angie?" Shinji asked. "Only Kokichi, they actually do have followers."

"It's simple, we have to convince them," Chiaki said.

"If it was really that simple, I would've kept Hiyoko from her!" Mahiru whined.

"And Celeste smart," Gonta added on. "Too smart."

"Angie will be tricky, but Celeste will easier than you think," Chiaki explained. "Celeste may be a genius at reading and manipulating people, but her selfish and cruel nature is a known fact to everyone now. Not even Kirumi, Peko, and Gundham were as selfish with their murders."

Shinji spoke up. "And since Kirumi is a maid and Peko was a bodyguard, they're only working for her due their instinct to be of service to others."

"Why about Gundham?" Mondo asked.

"Gundham is…well, he's Gundham," Mahiru answered.

"As for Angie, she's clearly gone after those that have been hurt the most by these killing games," Chiaki spoke up again. "She's told them all the things that they want to hear while implanting her own philosophies into them. It may hurt them, but we'll have to break their faith in Atua."

"And with that, their faith in her," Mahiru said.

"Does that sound good with everyone?" Chiaki asked.

"We should also be prepared for how Angie and Celeste will react to us ousting them out of power," Shinji said.

"I may have a solution to that problem," Sakura said with a smile.

In the game room, Celestia Ludenberg was living her best life. Sat at a poker table, playing solitaire while followers did other tasks for her. Peko had the simplest task of standing guard behind Celeste's chair. Kirumi was knelt down by the gothic gambler to massage her feet, using her thumbs to add pressure but no pain when pressing against her mistress's soles. Gundham was seated next to Celeste, not engaging in with her current game but instead of a topic the dark overlord was much more versed in.

"For your familiar, you may become overwhelmed with the need to pamper them, fulfilling their every desire," Gundham spoke as he softly stroked his cat, Khan's back. "Especially for more…domesticated creatures. However, one must understand their familiar is theirs to command! Not the other way around!"

Celeste chuckled at Gundham's advice. She took a moment away from drawing her cards to lightly scratched her finger under Khan's chin. "Must you look at things so dramatically, Dear Gundham? My beloved Grand Bois Chéri is a well-behaved cat, I see no problem with rewarding her with a lavish amount of treats."

"You may believe you are treating your creature with love, but one day you may find yourself a victim of a vicious attack and your spoiled creature will be unable to protect you!"

Celeste had to hold herself back from snapping at Gundham's criticisms over her pet raising. 'Remain calm, Celeste,'she thought to herself. 'You wanted advice on pet care, and he's the best option.'

Celeste drew another card from her deck. "Well then, Gundham. What would you suggest I do instead?"

Gundham chuckled as his snake, Mephisto, slithered out from his jacket sleeve. "It's a simple act of balancing one's needs. Your cat must feast, yes, but it must also learn the ways of combat! The robotic rodents and orbs of chaotic strings are excellent training dumbies for a beginning familiar."

Celeste leaned her head against her hand, smiling at Gundham's descriptions. "Oh, really now?"

"Indeed, and it is important for your familiar to understand how well she has performed in training. Once she is finished for the day, place your hand upon her belly and say…good girl. Good girl."

"Fascinating," Celeste said, her sarcasm clear in her tone. However, that was mostly a side effect of her years of speaking in a condescending tone, it's impossible to Celestia to be genuine with her responses. The information Gundham was providing was useful. Afterall, 'What good is pampering a pet if it does nothing for you in return?'Celeste thought to herself.

Before the group could continue their topic, the doors to the game room swung open and they all turned their attention to see who the entered their domain was. Even Kirumi slipped Celestia's shoes back on and stood up straight. Much to everyone's surprise, the person approaching them was Kokichi. With massive smirk across his face, the purple-haired boy walked towards the poker table and sat himself across from Celestia.

"Long time no see, Ludenberg," Kokichi said. "I gotta say, I'm a little bummed you didn't come to pay your good ol rival a visit?"

Celeste chuckled. "Don't be so silly, Kokichi. I'm quite the busy woman. I don't have the time to spend on…unimportant matters."

Kokichi's smirk twitched slightly at Celeste's choice of words. Eager to get payback, Kokichi glanced at the game of solitaire on the table and the cards in her hands, then immediately snatched them all away from the gambler's grasp. "Solitaire's boring! Why not try something else?"

"You have some nerve to interrupt the Dark Queen's game of calculations!" Gundham spat out.

"It's not a problem, Gundham," Celeste held her hand up. "I'm actually quite curious about what Kokichi has in mind. So, what did you want to play? War? Oh, don't tell me you want to play Go Fish."

Kokichi gathered all the cards together and stacked them on top of one another. "How about…a magic trick?"

Gundham smirked. "Childish parlor tricks are nothing to brag about."

"This doesn't concern you, Gundham," Kokichi said as he shuffled the deck. "This is for Celeste."

Kokichi then spread the cards out in his hands and presented them, face-down in front of Celeste. "Go ahead. Pick one."

Celeste curiously drew a card. She looked at it long enough to know every detail of the card, then went to hand the card back to Kokichi. However, Kokichi closed the deck of cards before Celeste could return hers. Kokichi shuffled the deck six times.

"You know, despite what you might think, I'm not as big of a card game player as you might think," Kokichi explained. "I'm more into…the art aspect of them. I mean, people actually use these to predict the future. Not just tarot cards. Actual playing cards. And why is that? They're just cards, right? But that wouldn't explain all those fine details. Like, there are four of each kind of card, but they're never exact duplicates. And the cards go from numbers, but suddenly they're jacks, queens, and kings."

"What point are you trying to make, Kokichi?" Celeste asked.

"That there's meanings to these cards," Kokichi said as he began to draw cards. The first being a 5 of hearts and placed it straight up on the table. "Hearts are for emotions."

Next was a 6 of spades. "Spades are for intellect."

After that was a 9 of diamonds. "Diamonds are for wealth."

Finally, Kokichi placed down a 7 of clubs. "And clubs…clubs represent power…Or for hitting people."

Kokichi swiped all the cards off the table while Celeste's trio of followers leaned forward to listen to whatever yearn the short boy was spinning.

"But all of those are just the masses, the average joe," Kokichi continued. "But we're all Ultimates, right? We're above all that. So…"

Kokichi pulled his next card, the Jack of Spades. "What do you think? Is this more fitting for Shinji or Taka?"

"Shinji," Celeste immediately answered.

"Figures," Kokichi said before tossing away the card to draw a new one, a King of Clubs. "I'm sure you're the King of Clubs in your mind, Gundham."

Gundham cackled maniacally. "You underestimate the powers I control! The dark shroud that can envelope the world and bend any creature to my will-"

"Yeah, yeah, sure thing," Kokichi said, tossing away the card to draw one more, the Queen of Hearts. "And I'm sure we can all agree this is Miss Sayaka Maizono."

Kokichi began to draw cards at a rapid pace.

A Queen of Clubs. "A three-way tie between Peko, Sakura, and Tenko."

A King of Clubs. "Nekomaru until his…accident," Kokich crumbled the card into a ball and tossed it away.

"Are you going to make your point soon or are you just content with ruining my cards?" Celeste asked.

Kokichi held his hand up. "Fine, fine. I'll finish up." Kokichi pulled one more card, the Queen of Spades. "Is this your card?"

"Of course not," Celeste rolled her eyes. "You did the trick wrong. You didn't take my card back."

"Oh really?" Kokichi raised an eyebrow before drawing the Queen of Diamonds. "What about this one?"

"No."

Kokichi drew one final card, the Queen of Clubs. "This one?"

Celeste held up her card, a 2 of Diamonds. "I can't believe I allowed you to waste my time with this nonsense."

Kokichi smacked the side of his head. "Duh! Of course that's your card. I can't believe I fumbled the guessing that bad. I mean, it's the perfect card for you."

Celeste tilted her head, her attention once more captured by Kokichi. "What do you mean? All the previous cards you showed fit me much more."

"Oh, you are smart and have a lot of influence, but those are face cards," Kokichi explained before leaning forward, over the table and staring Celeste in the eyes. "And a girl named Taeko Yasuhiro that grew up in a second story apartment and is obsessed with vampires…that's not a person fit to be a face card."

For the first time since the two of them had met, Kokichi had finally found the button to push with Celeste; her true name. Taeko Yasuhiro, the name that represented… mediocrity. The mere mention of it caused Celeste's pale face to turn a fiery shade of red. She shot up from her seat and grabbed him by the throat, digging her figure nails as well as the metal ring she wore into his skin. Whether she wanted to choke him to death or tear his throat open was difficult to tell.

"W-wait, wait," Kokichi gagged as he begged for mercy. "I…may have been a bit RASH!"

Celeste squeezed on Kokichi's throat, causing him to wheeze.

"B-but…y-you can change things," Kokichi said. "Y-you want to be the…queen of everyone?"

Celeste didn't respond verbally, but her grip loosened. Kokichi would gasp for air and cough three times before speaking. "I mean, you definitely got a good start with some followers and redecorating the school for yourself…but come on. We both know most of them aren't willing to work for you…but you can start with one group…"

"Angie's group?" Kirumi asked on Celeste's behalf.

Kokichi smirked. "I mean, we all know she's doing the same thing you are. Gain a group of followers, controlling everyone…but she might be doing it better than you."

Celeste stared down at Kokichi for a moment, the redness in her face slowly fading away and returning to her naturally pale skin tone. She released her hold on Kokichi, who immediately placed his hand around his neck as he breathed heavily. A large smile grew across the gambler's face as she turned to her three followers.

"We have a new goal, everyone," Celeste said.

As she spoke, she'd glance over at Peko and noticed that her bodyguard had averted her gaze. Celestia immediately deduced that Peko was a bit hesitant over the idea of ruling over everyone with an iron fist. Celestia placed her hand on Peko's shoulder.

"There's no need to be worry, Dear Peko," Celeste explained. "We'd be better leaders than Angie's cult or even Chiaki's pathetic group. I mean, you wouldn't find enforcing my rule any different from enforcing the will of the Yakuza?"

Peko looked back at Celeste. "No. It wouldn't be."

Celeste lightly patted Peko's shoulder before turning back to Kokichi. "Oh, and Kokichi? By the end of all of this, when everyone is bowing down the me…everyone's going to call me Queen Celestia Ludenberg."

Life's been a drag lately and I've been having a way harder time focusing than I usually do. I've been working on this since Mid August. I would've made this part longer, including two scenes of Sayaka training with Chihiro and her talking with Ryoma, but it's just been too long since I've updated.

I was a bit worried about the Kokichi scene. It's inspired/taken from an old Youtube series called Joker Blogs. I liked the scene and, since Kokichi is kinda a Joker character in the series and being in a Celestia would often involve cards, I thought it would fit. But I'm worried it was just lifted directly from it rather than taking a similar concept and doing a new spin on it. What do you guys think?

Anyways, I'm tired. Next part will hopefully be out quicker and more polished. I'm not sure what my next steps are though.

See you all soon.