Chapter 3: Part 11

"Oink, oink, piggies!" Monokuma snorted through the school's intercom. "It's 7 am! As a result, all food and water are available once again for use! I hope you all have just a great day together, friends!"

For the first time in weeks, the entire student body (minus Kokichi) made their way to the cafeteria for the morning meeting. Perhaps Monokuma's words actually had some effect. Perhaps there was something in the air. Perhaps everyone just happened to be in a good mood. Whatever the case may be, all the groups and cliques sat themselves down. They weren't sat together. Celeste's group sat off in one of the corners of the room, while Angie's cult and Chiaki's group sat at the far ends of the main table. Sakura had dragged both the handcuffed Mukuro and Kiyo out of their cells to eat at another corner. Ibuki was speaking with her new bandmates about their song list. Then there were the smaller duos of Miu and Nagito as well as Rantaro and Mikan, who were simply chatting and eating.

The last person to enter the room was Sayaka, who was slow with her approach. Her eyes were locked in on the back of Rantaro's head. She could barely contain a scowl as she lumbered behind him before stopping with a rough scrape of her shoe. The sound caught Rantaro's attention, who glanced over his shoulder and smiled.

"Good morning, Sayaka," Rantaro greeted before turning his attention back to his breakfast.

Sayaka couldn't even bring herself to wear a mask of joy for the lime haired boy. What she knew made it impossible to, and there was no point in allowing him to hide it any longer.

"Hey, Rantaro?" Sayaka spoke up. "Do you still have that key?"

"What key?" Rantaro asked, still focused more on eating his breakfast than anything else.

"The key you used to unlock the front door." Sayaka went for the kill shot.

There was a collective sound of silverware clanking against dishes followed by silence. Everyone in the cafeteria stared at Sayaka and Rantaro, not quite sure they heard the conversation properly. Some people, like Celeste and Kiyo were quite enthralled by the possible direction this confrontation would go. Others, like Chiaki and Taka, were praying that they simply misheard Sayaka. Then there was Rantaro, who despite feeling a bead of sweat trailing the side of his face, played the question off nonchalantly. He kept his back to Sayaka and just tried to eat more of his breakfast.

"Um, I don't think I understand the question," Rantaro said.

Chiaki rose from her seat. "Rantaro, what is she talking about?"

"Do…do you know something about how the door was unlocked?" Shinji asked.

Rantaro glanced over at Mikan, who was looking at him with an expression of confusion and worry. He opened his mouth to speak, but Sayaka spoke over him.

"Remember how we all thought someone picked the lock to the front door?" Sayaka asked everyone. "Well, last night, I remembered something. During the game night we had, I saw Rantaro win a silver key from the Mono Machine. At first, I thought it was one of those Love Hotel keys like I won, but…"

"But, wait," Mikan took a hold of Rantaro's hand, ready to defend him. "We all saw Mukuro eat the key to the lock! He…he couldn't have gotten it!"

"It doesn't need to be the same key Mukuro had," Celeste rose from her seat. "It could've been a copy or maybe even a skeleton key."

Rantaro forced out a chuckle and shook his head. "That's…ehehe…this is just ridiculous."

"And weren't you the only person who saw Mukuro leave her room with Kokichi?" Sayaka asked again.

Mukuro's eyes widened as recalled the morning of the second class trial. "He was. He saw me catch Kokichi in the middle of an escape attempt…He could've gotten into my room the moment we turned our backs."

"N-no, I went to get Mikan afterwards," Rantaro laughed again.

"And it was your idea that the person who bumped into Kaito could count as the killer," Sayaka finished her accusations.

At that moment, everyone thought back to the class trial and one by one, everyone began to recall the trial. Then, one by one, they all narrowed their brows and faced Rantaro.

"Holy shit, he fucking did say that!" Miu gasped.

"Y-you're the actual killer?!" Hifumi gasped as well.

"What the Hell's the matter with you?!" Mondo growled.

"N-no!" Gonta began to cry. "Rantaro supposed to be friend! Not killer!"

Tears streamed down Kaede's cheeks. "How could you do something like this?!"

Rantaro took a deep breath and shook his head once more. "Guys, come on. This is just a-"

"Coincidence?" Nagito interrupted. "I doubt any of us will believe that."

Chihiro clenched his fists in anger. "You…you killed Kaito then framed Nekomaru!"

"You could've gotten us all killed!" Hiyoko hissed.

Rantaro sighed and shook his head. Clearly none of his explanations would work for his classmates. The only person that would've been on his side was Mikan, but when he turned to her for some words of support, Rantaro saw the nurse's whimpering lip.

"You'd…you'd really let us all die to get out of here?" Mikan asked.

Knowing there was no exit from this situation, Rantaro gave the nurse a weak smile and lightly patted her hand. "Of course not. I'd never. If I did, I wouldn't even have brought up the theory in the first place."

"So, then you admit that you're responsible for Kaito's death?" Sakura asked.

Rantaro let out another sigh. "I guess…that was a confession, huh?"

"But…but why?" Chihiro asked, tears sprinkling down his face while anger rose in his voice. "What did Nekomaru or Kaito ever do to you?"

Rantaro released his hold of Mikan and crossed his arms while averting his gaze from the rest of the group. "They didn't do anything. I wasn't targeting anyone with that trap. It just…needed someone to trigger it. I didn't expect it to be Kaito, and I didn't expect Nekomaru to bump into either. It all just…worked out that way."

"Why even set the trap up in the first place?!" Taka shouted. "You could've simply gone through the maze and retrieved the photo at the end of it without causing any harm! There was no reason to plant a death trap!"

"Well, it's like Celeste said. If we want to learn more about what's going on, people are going to need to die. The only way we'd ever progress is through the class trials."

"So, she told you to do this?" Mahiru asked.

"Of course not, don't be ridiculous," Celeste defended herself. "I've had little interaction with Rantaro up to this point. My dear associates can vouch for me."

"We could've found a way around this though!" Kaede said. "We beat the second motive just fine! All we needed to do was to just remain strong and maybe Monokuma would give up-"

"That's not how Danganronpa is played!" Rantaro finally raised his voice. This caught everyone off guard, both due to how loud Rantaro was but also due to what he said. Danganronpa. It was that word again. Rantaro cleared his throat before continuing. "Maybe…if the rest of you investigated as much as I have, you'd understand."

"So…you're saying Tsumugi was telling the truth?" Keebo was the first person to respond to Rantaro. "That…we're all in this Danganronpa show?"

Rantaro paused once more, which was when Chiaki spoke up again.

"We've already gone over this," Chiaki said with a rare tint of anger in her voice. "You can't fake memories. You were the first person to disprove Tsumugi, yourself."

Rantaro took a deep breath before he retorted. "Look, I can't say that Tsumugi was telling the truth. What she told us didn't add up perfectly. But I know what I've read. Both from that Danganronpa book and Tsumugi's journal. She wasn't lying when she said these killing games had patterns. The doubt murder for the third trial, a giant dying by the fourth trial, the fact there's always someone that acts as a rival to the rest of the group." Rantaro suddenly pointed at Sayaka. "The fact that there's a "main character" with an ahoge that solves all the mysteries."

Sayaka raised an eyebrow at the sudden remark. "What?"

Rantaro continued. "But the most important pattern I discovered was that the sixth trial was always the last. So…everything else, it's just extra steps we must take if we want to find out the truth. Whether it's some game show or something else…I know that I've won it once before. And I can-"

SMASH!

One of the many porcelain plates at the table has been bashed against the back of Rantaro's head, breaking it into several shards. Some of the shards scattered across the floor, while some of the tinier pieces got stuck in the boy's head and became lost in his lime green hair. Rantaro's eyes went cross, and he weakly attempted to reach for the back of his head, but lost conscious soon afterwards, falling to the floor face-first. Everyone in the room was stunned by the sudden assault and watched Rantaro's fall before turning their attention to the perpetrator; Leon Kuwata.

"Leon! What the hell?!" Mondo shouted.

"What?" Leon's voice became high-pitched as he defensively shrugged. "He was freaking me out!"

Mikan rushed over to Rantaro's side, carefully examining his head and gently plucking some of the porcelain bits out. "You could've killed him with a strike like that!"

"What? I couldn't have," Leon said to defend himself. However, thinking over the fact he bashed something against the back of someone's head, got sharp objects stuck in it, and then let their head crash against the floor, it made Leon panic. "Oh shit, I could've killed him!"

"I-is he dead?" Chihiro asked.

Mikan pressed two of her fingers against Rantaro's neck to feel for his pulse. After a few seconds, she shook her head. "No."

Leon wiped some sweat from his forehead while letting out a sigh of relief. "Oh, great."

"Still, there was no reason to take such a rash action, Kuwata," Taka lectured.

"What the hell do you mean? He's a murderer!"

"But we could've subdued him easily," Taka said. "Then, we would place him into a cage and-"

"Wait," Celeste rose from her seat. "You plan on locking him up?"

"Of course, Ludenberg!" Taka proclaimed. "Just like with Ikusaba, Shinguji, and Oma, Amami is a clear threat to the group. Locking him up is the only way to handle this."

"Can we truly be sure that would work though?" Celeste asked. "After all, Kokichi was able to escape his cell, and considering all of you are here instead of searching for him, I'd say Rantaro would be more than able to break out."

"What?!" Hiyoko gasped before turning her attention to Sakura. "You were stupid enough to let him out?!"

Sakura frowned as everyone turned to her. "I apologize…I didn't wish to cause anymore panic in the group than need be."

Angie side-eyed Chiaki and her group. "You shouldn't be afraid to inform us of important details. Especially if it affects the entire group, no?"

"Then what should we do with him?" Kaede asked.

Everyone in the room went silent once again. They all looked at Rantaro's unconscious body as they weighed their options. Obviously, leaving him free to roam around on his own was out of the question. Yet, Celeste was also correct in assuming locking up someone that could set up a booby trap could also escape his cell.

Celeste stepped forward. "I believe I have a simple solution. We make him kill himself."

"What?!" Mikan gasped.

"Here we go again with this bitch's fucking ideas," Miu rolled her eyes.

"We not kill anyone!" Gonta shouted at Celeste.

"And here we go again with this fucking conversation," Miu commented.

Celeste held her hand up to silence the room. "Of course we're not going to kill anyone. However, I can't help but agree Rantaro's point. The only way we make progress is through the class trials. And since we now know that all these killing games only go up to six trials, we can speed up the process a bit."

"We've already been voting for the guilty to face their damnation," Gundham added on. "It's only fair to do so once more."

"No," Angie said. "What Rantaro has done may be evil, but to force someone to throw their life away makes us no better than Monokuma. Atua says that all life is precious, and everyone deserves a chance at redemption, even sinners."

"Then what do you expect us do with him then?" Kirumi asked.

"I shall be the one to watch over him," Angie smiled. "I will gather all information that he has hidden from us, then I will help him on his road to redemption."

"No, we are not allowing you to be in charge of a prisoner or anything else," Mahiru suddenly snapped.

"Why can't she?!" Hiyoko snapped back. "You guys keep getting on Angie's case when she's the only person trying to help! You guys should be getting on that goth for being a creep!"

"Because that chick's crazy and turning everyone against us," Mondo shouted.

"Maybe if you guys were better at your jobs and didn't keep secrets, maybe you'd have a point," Hifumi rushed to defend Angie.

"I'd like to remind both of you that the only ideas you have keep us from making progress," Celeste commented.

The entire cafeteria broke out into a war of words with three different sides speaking the loudest. Angie's group of herself, Hiyoko, Hifumi, and Teruteru. Chiaki's group of herself, Shinji, Mondo, Mahiru, Gonta, and Sakura. Then there was Celeste's group of herself, Kirumi, Gundham, and Peko. The rest of the group were caught up in the crossfire, with their own arguments and pleas getting thrown in and overshadowed. The only person that wasn't speaking, surprisingly, was Ibuki. Ever since Rantaro was revealed as the killer, the musician had remained seated, dead silent through the whole ordeal. She sat back and watched as everyone's voices rose and grew more volatile towards each other. She could feel both her eyes begin to water and her lip quiver as her friends got worse and worse.

Eventually, Ibuki could take no more. "STOOOOOOOP IIIIIIIT!" Ibuki shouted over everyone, stopping all their arguments and gaining their attention. "PLEASE STOP! JUST STOP FIGHTING, PLEASE!"

The enterally positive, enterally energized rocker broke down. Her eyes produced a waterfall's worth of tears, and her body shook violently. She eventually buried her face in her hands as she continued to weep.

"Please…" Ibuki lowered her voice, still shaking with sadness. "Ibuki just want us to be friends…we were doing so good…"

The group was stunned by Ibuki's sudden change in attitude. Even Celestia couldn't help but be confused by this development. Kaede joined Ibuki's side to hug her and gently rub her back to sooth her. While the group was distracted by Ibuki's cries, Sayaka looked down at Rantaro's unconscious body.

'He might still have that skeleton key on him,' Sayaka thought to herself. 'Maybe I can take it.'

Sayaka checked to make sure that Mikan's attention was diverted before slowly scooting herself over to Rantaro's side. She then knelt down as stealthfully as she possibly could, quickly slipped her hand into Rantaro's pocket.

'Please don't look at me, please don't touch his crotch,' Sayaka repeated to herself as she slowly wiggled her index finger around the pocket before she felt something cold and jagged. 'That's got to be it.'

She wrapped her index finger around the object and pulled it out as she slowly stood back up. Once Sayaka fully stood up, she glanced down at the object in her hand and sure enough, it was a key. 'Got it.'

Turning her attention back to the group, Sayaka noticed the group had taken their conversation in a calmer direction.

"So, what do we all do then?" Chihiro asked.

Kiyo had crossed his arms as he pondered over a possible idea. He raised his index figure upon reaching a conclusion. "We should ask Monokuma."

"What?!" Tenko almost shrieked. "That is a terrible idea! Why would ever want his help?!"

"I will admit, my idea may not work, but I believe it's worth testing," Kiyo explained. "Considering how Monokuma had already brought us all back to life before, why don't we ask him again for Nekomaru?"

Chiaki shook her head. "There's no way Monokuma would do something to benefit us."

"True but consider this. Nekomaru was an innocent man, yet he was successfully voted as guilty. That breaks his rules, and we all know he loves his rules. We could ask him to correct this by trading Rantaro for Nekomaru."

The doors to the cafeteria immediately swung open and in stepped the monochrome bear himself. He waddled his way over to the table and hopped up onto it. "No can do, my little kiddies!" Monokuma said. "After all, I was asked by YOU GUYS if you were allowed count someone bumping into the victim as the killer."

"But we got the real killer now!" Leon said. "Can't you…I don't know, fix it or something?"

"Of course not!" Monokuma growled. "Don't you know what I'd have to do to get Nekomaru back?! I'd have to go all the way to…" Monokuma paused before snickering. "You sly dog, you almost made me slip a spoiler there."

"Wait, what do you mean?" Sakura raised an eyebrow.

"But enough about all that," Monokuma chose to ignore any and all questions. "You twerps actually got me to start thinking about…how I've been far too lenient with some of my rules. Like, yeah, sure, I obviously keep all the rules of the killings and class trials consistent, but I've done just a horrible job with some of others. Like…"

Monokuma spun on his heel and faced Leon. "Like Leon just broke a perfectly good plate! That counts as destruction of school property, and I'm going to have to punish you for that."

Leon's face lost all color as fear took over. "W-w-w-wow, wow, wow! Hold on a sec! You can't kill me over a plate, man! Come on!"

"I mean, I totally can," Monokuma said.

"OK, but…you shouldn't," Leon begged. "I mean, proportional punishments or, something!"

"You mean the punishment must fit the crime," Kiyo said.

"Yeah, that!" Leon pointed at Kiyo in agreement.

"On top of that, you never said that destruction of property would result in someone's death," Taka shouted. "Therefore, Kuwata shouldn't face such a punishment."

"Ok, I never said that it did…but I also never said it didn't either," Monokuma giggled. "You gotta consider the fine print, kiddos. That's how people screw you over."

Leon began to sweat. "N-no way, man! That's cheating!"

"It's a fucking six-dollar plate anyway," Mondo shouted at the bear. "You fucking buy another one easy."

Monokuma tilted his head to the side as he thought it over. "Hmmm. That is true…Ok, tell you what, I'll update the rule." Monokuma cleared his throat before raising his voice. "Destruction of property does not result in one's execution! However, depending on how expensive the item is, the punishment will vary in severity."

"That's…hardly any better," Teruteru commented.

Angie tapped her chin as she processed the new rule. "We'll have to deal with it…"

"Sucks to suck," Monokuma turned back to Leon. "So…how do I punish you? Should I saw off your hands or feet?"

"The hell?!" Leon's eyes widened. "That's not fair!"

"Well, you have to lose something. That's how punishments work."

Tenko watched as Leon cowered in fear, almost sinking into his sink and balling himself up. Even without the threat of death, Monokuma knew how to inflict terror in someone. It was cruel, too cruel for anyone to face. Tenko suddenly raised her hand. "Wh-why don't you shave all his hair off!"

Everyone in the room turned their attention to Tenko, baffled by her suggestion.

"Pfff, whaaaaat?" Monokuma asked. "What kind of punishment is that? That's letting him off easy!"

'Crap, why did I even say that?!' Tenko thought to herself. 'There's no way Monokuma would let someone off that easy! This is what I get for trying to help without thinking! Think, Tenko, think!'

Tenko nervously pressed her fingers together as she formulated an idea. "W-well…I mean…. Leon's…really full of himself. Like, he's always trying to hit on women, and he wants to be seen as cool. S-so…why not make him look stupid?"

Leon scoffed at Tenko's suggestion. "Come on. You wouldn't actually consider that, right?"

"You got yourself a deal," Monokuma said.

Leon's eyes nearly bugged out of his head. "WHAT?!"

"Come on, Leon," Monokuma cheered before snapping his fingers. This caused one of the ceiling panels to open up and for a mechanical arm to lower down. "We're going to give you….A SHAVE! You've clearly been putting it off judging from that godawful goatee."

The mechanical arm grabbed onto Leon's waist and began to raise him up into the air. Leon screamed in terror and both Mondo and Sakura attempted to reach out to him. However, the arm and Leon became far too high for anyone to reach. Monokuma held his paw up at the students. The arm dragged Leon up until it eventually stopped when Leon's head could no longer be seen behind the ceiling panels.

"Don't bother trying to stop it," Monokuma said. "I promise he'll be safe…although I can't say if he won't look stupid."

About thirty seconds would pass before the mechanical arm began to descend, revealing Leon's clean-shaven face and his new buzzcut. Leon wrapped his arms around his head to shield his shame from the rest of the student body. The arm would eventually lower Leon back to his seat before grabbing a hold of Monokuma and retracting back up, disappearing from sight. This left the group alone to witness Leon's new look.

Miu immediately began to laugh at the baseball player. "Pffff ahahaha! Nice buzzcut, you bald bitch!"

"Sh-shut up!" Leon snapped at the inventor.

"I don't even get why you're so ashamed of that," Kirumi said.

"Yeah, buzzcuts are common for punks," Mondo commented.

"That's not the point," Leon finally stopped covering his head with his arms only to use them to smash his fists against the table. "I got out of baseball so I could stop getting buzzcuts! They're so itchy!"

Mahiru crossed her arms. "Well, you can get over it. You should be thanking Tenko for her quick thinking. If she didn't say that, Monokuma probably would've killed you."

Leon turned his attention to the Aikido master. While he clearly wasn't over the humiliation of losing his badass spikey hair, he also understood how lucky he was. While still frowning, Leon nodded at Tenko. "Thanks," he said softly.

Tenko nodded back at the baseball player. "No problem."

Celeste sighed dramatically to gather everyone's attention. "I hate to break up this up, but we still haven't come to a solution for Rantaro."

"So, we're back to square one again?" Kaede asked.

Keebo sighed as the group began to repeat their earlier conversation. As his eyes darted over to the door, thinking about how he'd rather just leave, he noticed that Sayaka had managed to silently break away from the rest of the group to exit the room. Keebo looked around to see if anyone else had noticed, but everyone else was still recycling their stale points of view.

Sayaka used the skeleton key to unlock the door to Rantaro's room and immediately stormed inside. Making her way over to Rantaro's desk, she shoved all of the miscellaneous books and pens out of the way before retrieving both Rantaro's notebook and Tsumugi's notebook. She rapidly flipped through the pages, taking mental notes of anything that stood out to her.

"All killing games go up to six class trials."

"All third class trials must consist of a double murder."

"The fifth class trial is always the most heartbreaking for the audience."

"Reoccurring characters include: main hero, chaotic rival, main confidant, weird looking guy, muscular giant, fighter, musician, an idiot that never helps, tan girl, the secret mastermind, etc."

"The main character is always identified by the ahoge in their hair."

"The main confidant is most often a love interest for the main character."

"The rival often messes with crime scenes and will almost always act against the group's interests."

"A player can sacrifice themselves at the end of the game at the cost of appearing in another killing game."

"There have been 53 seasons of Danganronpa."

Sayaka took a step backwards, grabbing the back of her head. 'No, no, no,' she thought. 'This…this can't be true. This has to be a trick. Tsumugi and Monokuma are just lying. Yeah…yeah, that's it. I know it is. That Hope's Peak book proves it. Makoto beat Junko, then became the headmaster.'

"Sayaka?"

Sayaka turned her attention to the door she had accidently left open. The person who called out to her was Keebo of all people. Unexpected, yet he was someone that Sayaka needed to talk to. She immediately picked up Tsumugi's notebook and shoved it into the poor robot's face.

"What does any of this mean?!" Sayaka asked. "What was Rantaro talking about?!"

"G-give me some space," Keebo pushed the notebook out of his way.

"You said that Tsumugi told you everything about the killing games!" Sayaka pushed her finger against his chest. "What did she say?! What did Rantaro mean by main character?!"

'Is she normally this intense?' Keebo thought to himself. "Look, maybe you should calm down a bit."

"Don't tell me to calm down! You're the only person that was at the end of the Ultimate Academy killing game. You know more about all this than anyone else…Keebo, how real are we?"

Got this done much faster. This chapter was going to be longer, with a few more scenes, but I chose to cut it off there. I also originally planned for Leon to full on disappear from the group for a chapter or so, but I didn't like the implications and complications of that. Him being gone would kind of get lost in the shuffle of dealing with Rantaro, dealing with Kokichi, the group splintering off from each other, and so on. So, it was shifted to a more simple comedic punishment that was done quickly. Also, I guess that counts as a redesign lol.

I briefly watched some clips from Inglorious Bastards a day ago and immediately became jealous of how rich and colorful the dialogue in that movie is when compared to my dialogue. I'm really struggling not to make Mahiru, Sayaka, Kaede, and Keebo sound the same and not have Leon and Mondo sound the same. Let me know what you guys think.

I doubt the next part will be out as fast, but I'll try my best. See you all soon.