Chapter 2: Part 6

Teruteru: Teruteru was a bit confused looking at his photos. The first one was of the remaining students on Jabberwock Island eating in the cafeteria. It made some sense. He certainly enjoyed their company, and judging from the quality of their food, they clearly needed him back. The second photo was of his family's restaurant. The once great Hanamura Dinery was now in a state of disarray. The windows were completely destroyed, the door was torn off its henges, and the sign above the entrance was hanging on a single nail. He swore he'd rebuild his family business once he escaped. The final photo was of an empty plate with hardened crusts of food stuck to it. Sure, he missed cooking outside of this prison, but he wasn't sure why an empty plate was meant to be important to him. He looked back through his photos and noticed none of them showed his mother. Was she hurt? Was the dinery attacked with her in it? Where was she?

Korekiyo: Korekiyo was honestly confused as to why he even received three photos at all. Afterall, his sister was the only one he ever truly loved, and she was long gone. At least, she thought she was. The very first photo was of her walking into a building while waving at a group of other high school girls. Was this before she died or…perhaps, maybe Monokuma had messed with his memories like how the Hope's Peak students lost their memories. He tucked the photo of his sister into his shirt pocket and quickly glanced at the other two photos, but he hardly cared about what they showed. Just a photo of his father waiting at the train station and a photo of his mother cooking in her kitchen. He was at least curious about how someone could keep such a close eye on them without alerting them. Perhaps Kiyo could take notes on how to stalk victims from the photographer.

Gundham: The first photo Gundham was almost everything he wanted to see. It was of Princess Sonia taking care of his four dark devas of destruction. She still had that same beautiful smile she always had, and it seemed to have infected the dark devas as a joyous light could be seen in all their eyes. The second photo was of the rest of the class from Jabberwock Island relaxing on the beach. It seemed that Monokuma could see through his tough, loner façade. Showing him a picture of the group only proved what he already knew; they were his friends. The final photo puzzled him. It was of…a basket. And due to the angle the photo was taken, Gundham couldn't what laid inside the basket. Clearly, what the basket held had to mean something to him.

Shinji: Just running his thumb across the closed envelop let Shinji feel there was a lack of items in said envelop. Or the contents were so tiny and thin he couldn't make it out from the outside. Opening up the envelop proved the latter. Instead of three photos like the rest of the students, the Ultimate Imposter was a letter written in crayon. "Man, oh man. Trying to find out who your loved ones are was tricky. I only had so many photos of those twerps back on Jabberwock Island, so I instead had to leave this note for you. Be happy your beloved headmaster took the time to specifically write to you. I mean, after all that identity changing and disguising, do you even remember your actual family? Is Shinji even your real name or an old identity you took on years ago? Anyways, hope to hear from you soon. XOXO." All of that was ended with a stamped image of Monokuma's face on it. Shinji crumbled the note and tossed it into his

Gonta: Gonta wasn't too sure what his photos could've been. Afterall, he was raised in the woods by wolves. Perhaps they would show something he didn't know. The first photo was of an ant farm set on desk, lit by a desk lamp to show off small colony at work. It was one of Gonta's first and longest lasting insect colonies he had set up through the years. It had been so long since he had been placed in the killing games, he forgot he had left them alone for months. Ants truly are stubborn creatures. The second photo was a pack of wolves. Humorously enough, the photo seemed to have been taken from a high branch, looking down at the wolves circling the tree with anger and hunger visible from their eyes. The third photo was what truly took Gonta by surprise. It was a picture of a middle-aged couple, man and woman, sitting at a table during what appeared to be a birthday party due to the balloons and streamers surrounding them. They were both very muscular, their biceps nearly tore through their sleeves, and the woman had dark green hair in a ponytail while the man had the long, shaggy hair. Were these Gonta's true parents? Why haven't they looked for him after all this time?

Peko: Peko already had a very clear idea of who at least one of her photos was of and sure enough, when she opened the envelop, she met with the sight of her master. She actually hadn't seen him since her execution, so this was the first time she saw Fuyuhiko with an eyepatch. She actually liked how he looked with it. It gave him a bit of an edge to offset his boyish looks. She smiled to herself as she looked to the next photo was of the rest of the group on Jabberwock Island. Peko immediately frowned when she saw them, knowing that she almost killed them all just to save her master. She quickly put the photo away to look at the final photo. The final photo puzzled her. It was a black and white photo of her as a baby. Even as a sleeping baby, she held tightly onto her sheathed sword. Certainly a bittersweet memory. Who would've guessed being the bodyguard to a yazuka leader would be the most normal part of her life?

Hiyoko: The very first photo Hiyoko saw was of Mahiru. In a blind rage, Hiyoko tore up the photo and threw on the ground as aggressively as one could throw paper on the ground. The next photo was hardly any better for the small girl. It was of the rest of the students on Jabberwock Island. They were all relaxing, having fun, smiling, not looking for her. Not caring about her. Abandoning her. She once again tore up the photo and threw it on the ground. The final photo hurt her the most. It was a photo of two gravestones, either marked with the name of her parents. Hiyoko dropped the photo instead of throwing it as the reality of her situation. She was alone. No one was looking for her. No one had been looking for her ever since she went to Hope's Peak. "No one cares about me," Hiyoko said to herself. "N-no one…except Angie…"

Miu: Miu skimmed through the first two photos without much care. Just her shitty parents sitting in their shitty dining room eating shitty food while watching shitty TV. And, of course, the second photo was of all the shitty one-off inventions she made for a bunch of numb-nuts and only made a few thousand bucks off of. Yawn. The fact Monokuma thought any of that would actually tug on Miu's heart was something the inventor found laughable. The third photo was something that did grab her attention. It was this string-bean looking guy wearing a beanie, and a pair of hoodie and jeans two sizes above his own, standing in an alleyway while smoking a joint. Miu stared intently at the man in the photo…

"I have no fucking clue who this jackass is," she said to herself.

Kirumi: Kirumi was hesitant to see what her photos were. She was certain at least one of the photos would most likely reveal the state of Japan and the world itself. She had heard the world was destroyed by Junko. She had also heard that everything was fabricated for a show. And even then, both of those could be lies in some way. Monokuma is not strange to deception. Kirumi slowly opened the envelop and pulled out all three photos. The first photo showed her parents dining in a dimly lit apartment. Even if she didn't count her time spent in these killing games, it had been far too long since she seen them. Her maid duties had dragged her away from home quite often. To see them living relatively comfortably was a relief to Kirumi. The second photo wasn't. It was the presidential office of Japan's capitol. It was in complete disarray, the windows shattered with glass across the floor, the main desk smashed in two, and all of the books and documents were missing from the desk drawers and shelves. Kirumi nearly crumbled the photo in her hand, but she remained calm and moved onto her final photo. It wasn't of a person or even a location. It was a list of what looked like text messages and all of them were just transfers of money varying from 100 dollars to 10000 dollars. These were most definitely from her various maid work over the years.

"Quite the amount of money you accumulated over the years," a voice spoke right next to Kirumi's ear.

The maid couldn't help but jolt in place. She turned to see Celeste looking over her shoulder, peaking at her photos. Kirumi calmly slid the photos back into the envelop and sealed it.

"I understand my role as your maid means I will assist you in any matter," Kirumi spoke politely, "but I respected your privacy to not look at your photos. I wish you'd do the same for me."

Celeste took a step back and giggled a bit. "You should know not to tip your hand to a poker player, Kirumi." Celeste sighed and folded her hands together, "But you are correct. You have been nothing but helpful and respectful to me. I shall respect your privacy from now on."

Kirumi frowned at Celeste. "I can't exactly take your word for that, can I?"

Celeste giggled once again. "A very wise assessment to make, Kirumi. But I feel you should be more worried of what photos the others have received."

Kirumi raised an eyebrow. "Is that so?"

"Of course," Celeste said as she sat herself down at the poker table in the game room. "Think of it, this is quite similar to the first motive Monokuma gave at Hope's Peak, showing us videos of our loved ones."

Kirumi tapped her chin as she thought it over. "It also has some similarity to the second motive from the Ultimate Academy…Are you suggesting this is secretly meant to be a motive?"

"Quite possibly," Celeste said as she pulled out a deck of cards and began to shuffle them. "Our only benefit for this is that we all know who are the ones most likely to be ruled by their emotions and ties to the outside word. Maizono, Hanamura,…you."

Kirumi turned her attention to the gambler who responded with a smile.

"Don't take that as an insult, Kirumi," Celeste said as she continued to shuffle her deck of cards. "As I've said, I respect your willingness to do anything to achieve your goals. It helps me remind me to not drop my guard." Celeste finally finished shuffling the deck before looking at Kirumi once again. "Now, would you be a dear and bring Tanaka and Pekoyama here for a game?"

If this was anyone else, they would've asked why Celeste would make such a request, but Kirumi asked no such question. It was her duty as a maid to follow through with her employer's requests to the best of her ability. She bowed and nodded her head to Celeste before exiting the room to fetch the two students from Jabberwock Island.

"This is a disaster!" Taka shouted.

"Look, calm down, man," Kaito said as he walked along side Taka in the hall. "Look, they still count as clues, so we still use them."

"No, we can't!" Taka shouted before opening up the History of Hope's Peak book and pointing a page covered with black marks, as if someone took a marker and drew lines across the page. "As soon as the book gets to the reopening of Hope's Peak, some deviant decided to not only hide the information from us, but also desecrate a textbook! Do these delinquents know no respect for school property?!"

"Taka, this is…," Kaito began to speak but he quickly gave up. 'I'm really not in the mood to point out all the stuff wrong with what he just said.'

"Look," Kaito spoke up again, "let's just take these to Chiaki. She clearly knows a lot more about what's going on. Maybe if we just ask, she'll tell us."

Taka suddenly closed the book and smiled. "Ah! An excellent idea, Momota! Let's us check with Nanami!"

Kaito smiled as he watched Taka pick up his pace and march down the hall. Kaito sped up to keep up his fellow student leader. Upon the both of them turning a corner, they both noticed Tenko waiting right outside Chiaki's room. Knowing any unorthodox or sudden moves would upset her, they decided to make their presence known sooner.

"Hey, Tenko!" Kaito said from around ten feet away from the aikido master.

Tenko turned her attention away from the door and immediately frowned at the sight of two boys. "Hey," she said.

Kaito was especially careful when approaching, he made sure to stop about six feet away from Tenko. "So, you're here to see Chiaki too?"

"Yeah," Tenko said. "I've actually come up with an idea I think can really help."

"Really?" Taka said as he stepped forward….far too forward. He barely even gave Tenko two feet of personal space. "What is it?"

Tenko immediately held her hands up in a defensive position. "Take a step back, degenerate! And I'm not telling you! I'm only going to tell Chiaki. Strictly girl talk."

"Oh," Kaito said. "Well, I guess that's ok."

"Why won't you tell us, Chabashira?" Taka asked. "Momota and myself are group leaders as well."

"It's like I said. It's girl talk," Tenko repeated.

Just as Tenko lowered her guard, the door to Chiaki's room opened with the gamer herself poking her head out into the hall.

"Oh, hey, hey," Chiaki said with a tired expression across her face. "How are you guys?"

Tenko spun around smiled brightly at Chiaki. "Hey, Chiaki!" she said loudly as she grabbed a hold of the gamer's hands. "I'm doing great! Listen, I had an idea that I think can really help us out."

Taka stepped forward, "And we'd like to-"

Tenko turned to Taka, hushed him and turned back to Chiaki. "Come on, Chiaki! I'll tell you all about it."

Kaito scratched the back of his as he watched Tenko push Chiaki back into her room. "Um, Tenko, we need to talk to Chiaki too."

Tenko ignored both of the boys' pleas as she entered Chiaki and slammed the door behind. Taka and Kaito looked at one another with confused expressions. Taka huffed and crossed his arms while Kaito simply shrugged and leaned against the wall.

"I guess we just got to wait," Kaito said casually.

"I can't believe that Chabashira could be so rude!" Taka complained loudly. "I understand she has her biases, but she never seemed like she'd be the kind of person to get in the way of our investigation!"

"I guess she must really be proud of this idea of hers."

Taka frowned and softened his tone. "Maybe."

Rantaro had a long night. Comforting Mikan was quite the task. Some of her sadness and panic were justified, she did just discover her parents were dead. Plus, there was Junko's manipulation of her feelings. But there was also Mikan's usual timid apologies over minuscule mistakes like her constant tripping and dropping pieces of paper. It wasn't until Rantaro finally got her to sleep that he got some peace. Not that he minded Mikan's presence. Hell, he let her crash on his bed for the night, but he had been diving deep into Tsumugi's journal. He needed to solve that mystery. He read it all night and, before he even realized, he had passed out on the floor of his Ultimate Lab. There he laid, probably for less than three hours, until his eyes cracked open. With a yawn and rub of his eye, Rantaro attempted to sit up to greet the day, but he couldn't move. Something was holding down his left arm and it was heavy. He turned his head to the left to see what it was and…

Rantaro's face ran into…pillows? No, it wasn't pillows. Rantaro's face went red as he realized just what his face was buried between. Before he could back away, two arms wrapped around him and squeezed him closer.

"Mmm, stop moving, pillow," Mikan spoke in her sleep. Her voice was scratchy and slow.

"M-Mikan!" Rantaro shouted while his mouth covered. "Mikan, l-let go!"

Mikan giggled a bit. "You're tickling me…"

"Mikan, I-I can't breathe!" Rantaro shook his head around.

Mikan giggled again. "Your hair's so soft, pillow…."

Mikan's eyes shot open. "Wait, hair?" Mikan looked down to see that Rantaro was buried into her chest. Mikan shrieked and released her grip on the lime-haired boy. "R-rantaro! I'm sorry! I-I must have been sleep walking! A-are you ok?!"

Rantaro sat up and rubbed his face. "I-I'm ok. Uh…do you do that often?"

Mikan blushed and nodded. "S-sometimes. I actually d-did it twice back on Jabberwock Island to my friend, H-hajime."

"I see…" Rantaro said as he slowly stood up. "Well, I guess that's good to know."

"Y-you don't mind?"

"I'd prefer if we avoided that happening. I don't want to feel like I'm taking advantage of you. But if it helps you sleep, I guess it's ok. Just…give me a heads up"

Tears formed in Mikan's eyes and smiled brightly. "Y-yes. I promise I'll try my best."

Rantaro smiled back at her. "Why don't we go ahead and eat?"

Mikan nodded and followed Rantaro out towards the cafeteria.

Sayaka had been laying on her bed for the past few hours. She wasn't asleep, she couldn't. The moment she got to be alone again, her mind immediately shifted back to the photos she received. As much as the photos of her father and bandmate could make her smile, that photo of Makoto and Kyoko just ate at her. Just seeing that emotionless girl smiling made her want to… To…

Sayaka couldn't figure out why, but she couldn't be angry at it. She wanted to be. She had such a strong bond with Makoto and to see this cold, stoic, standoffish person on a date with him should make her furious. Sayaka should be dating Makoto. And yet, she wasn't. She tried several times to tear the photo in half, but she couldn't. She looked back at the photo, specifically looking at Makoto.

'Am I…proud of him?' Sayaka thought to herself. She smiled a bit. 'Maybe he's more a player than he was at Hope's Peak.'

Sayaka then looked back at Kyoko. 'I hope you had your fun, Kirigiri. Because when I'm out of here, I'm taking him back.'

Sayaka put the photos back into the envelop. 'I should probably do something to get my mind off of this. But should I do? Maybe I'll finally talk to Ryoma again. Maybe Ibuki will drag me and Kaede to finally play some music together.'

As Sayaka pondered about her next move, her eyes glance over to the entrance of her Ultimate Lab.

'Hey, I never did check out my Ultimate Lab, did I?' Sayaka thought to herself. With that in mind, Sayaka rose up from her bed and approached the door.

Opening the door, Sayaka was greeted with a room that could reasonably be considered the physical representation of the word "girly." Bright pink rugging, bright pink wallpaper with Valentine's style hearts painted all over, there was even a stage towards the back wall of the room that was painted pink. Lining the stage's edge was a long, white, ribbon wrapping around the grounded stage lights, causing the stage to look like a cake with frosting on the edge. Outside of the garish pinks, whites, and occasional reds, there were several black speakers on each side of the stage, a closet full of stage outfits like her pink idol gear, and a make-up stand just right next to it.

Sayaka stared in awe of the lab's layout. Memories of her time as Japan's biggest idol came flooding back. The lights of the stage, the cheers of the thousands and thousands of fans, the uplifting music, her bandmates by her side, her as the center of attention, it all reminded Sayaka of her life…The life that had been taken from her. Overwhelmed with emotions, Sayaka fell to her knees and began to cry.

I feel like I've let you all down. I know I should care about my own mental health, and I have been having more fun with games and friends lately, I still hate how little time I've had to get back to this. I think part of what killed my drive to write more of this, outside of my ADHD and poor time management, is that I came to hate the photos. I wanted to hint at what was happening without spoiling anything, but that just led to everything being samey and I hated it.

I hated it so much, I didn't even really care to establish when the hell this all took place. I guess it was after one of the morning meetings. Ugh. Well, at least I'm getting back to some of the plot lines I've been dying to get to. So, I'll probably have fun next time I write. Well, until I have a school visit and wedding to go to. Yeah, there's probably going to be a lack of parts this month too. I may just have to turn my tumblr account into where I give you guys updates rather than the dried husk it is now. Let me know on that one.

I had some fun with the Celeste scene, but it's only part 1 of something I'm going to love doing. And the Rantaro and Mikan scene is a nice throw back to that scene from SDR2. I really struggled on writing fan service without being sleazy. I could have gone further into detail, but I'm scared my family will stumble upon this story again. Ugh.

Anyways, thank you for reading and stay safe.