Chapter 3: Part 12

Keebo looked at the still fuming Sayaka as he spoke up. "After everything that I've seen here, I can't say for sure."

Sayaka growled and took a step back. "Don't give me that! I'm sick of not getting clear answers! I'm sick of these clues pointing one way before point another way! Tell me the truth!"

"I can't, Sayaka. I can't. I'm sorry, but after seeing that footage of Junko, I'm not sure what to think. I mean, it proved that there was a way to create new memories and identities for someone, it was Junko that did it…So, we also got evidence that points to Junko, the Tragedy, and all the killing games being true too."

Sayaka's anger diminished slightly. Only slightly since Keebo's response was yet another unclear answer. Sitting herself down at the edge of Rantaro's bed, she let out some air from her nose.

"Rantaro was right though," Keebo continued. "We'll only figure out the truth when we get to the end of the killing game. Until then, all we can do is speculate."

Sayaka looked away from the robot and back at the books on Rantaro's desk. Shooting up to her feet, she dashed over and gathered all Rantaro's notes as well as the two textbooks. "Then I'll have to do my own research."

Keebo's eyes widened. "Wait, by yourself? What about everyone else? Shouldn't we be researching together?"

"You saw how everyone else was acting," Sayaka responded. "We can't trust Celeste and Angie, and everyone else is at each other's throats. I can share what I find once everything calms down."

"So, you're going to keep all this to yourself like Rantaro did?"

Sayaka paused, dropping all the books back onto the desk and leaning against it. "I just…I can't wait around. I can't just watch people die anymore and hope someone comes along at the end to say whether it even mattered or not! That…all my struggles, my guilt is a lie…I have to figure that out myself!"

Keebo frowned as he reached out to place his hand on Sayaka's shoulder. "Sayaka…I know I haven't really spoken to you that much, but you don't seem like someone that would push everyone away. Please, we can't abandon each other right now. Let me help you."

Sayaka looked over her shoulder to face Keebo, taking in his words and weighing her options. 'We are all supposed to be working together. So, I should be sharing this information with everyone. But what if we find out something we don't like? How would we react? Should we even believe anything these books say? And what do we do about Angie, Celeste, and Kokichi? Keebo has a lot of weapons. We could use him to keep everyone in order. No. Threatening everyone would just make things worse. Then there's Rantaro. He knows the most about what's going on, but I can't expect him to share everything with me. The only person left that would have any idea about the truth to all this is…'

For a brief moment, Sayaka's train of thought halted. As she stared at Keebo, she took note of his spikey hair, his boyish face, and his polite demeanor. It was all too familiar to her. Sayaka sighed. "OK. I'll go with you. But I doubt things will go well."

"If things go south, then we'll adapt," Keebo smiled.

With a nod, Sayaka gathered all of the notebooks and textbooks before following Keebo out of Rantaro's room.

"OK, but who should look after him?"

"I-I can do it."

"No. You've been with him this whole time and you never noticed what he was planning. Not to mention how you were previously manipulated by Junko."

"Yeah! So, butt out, Pigbarf!"

"And yet, none of you were able to keep Kokichi locked up. Clearly, my followers and I are the best option here."

The bickering of the surrounding students broke through Rantaro's fog and caused him to regain consciousness. As his vision refocused, he noticed that everyone was towering over him. He attempted to stand-up, but he would be stopped short, with something yanking his wrists down. He glanced down to see that a pair of handcuffs were applied to his wrists, with the chain wrapped around one of the legs of the table. Rantaro attempted to wiggle free, but the jingling of his chain with the shaking of the table caught everyone's attention.

"Well, well, well," Mondo crouched down, getting in Rantaro's face. "You finally up, you son of a bitch?"

Rantaro grunted. The back of his head was still burning in agony, so having Mondo shouting in his face was both uncomfortable and painful. The rest of the group approached Rantaro.

"I'm sure you understand what has to happen now," Shinji said.

Rantaro looked back down at his handcuffs before nodding. "I do."

Miu threw her hands up. "Good, he's caught up to speed. We still don't got a fucking clue how we're going to watch him."

"Well, we got all you all your security cameras," Kaede pointed out.

"They're called Mobile Voyeurs, Kaediot!" Miu said. "I built them, I'll patent it, I'll fucking name them! And no shit we got them! But there's no way watching his bitchass through a camera is the best way to keep him in check!"

"I'll look after him," Mondo cracked his knuckles to intimidate the lime-haired boy. "He's not gonna get past me."

"Absolutely not!" Taka shouted. "We need someone much more stable to keep Rantaro in line! As everyone and myself had already stated, Yonaga is clearly the most logical option for this task!"

"We just went over this," Leon whined. "She's crazy too!"

"You know, we can pull a name out of my hat again," Ryoma suggested. However, the tennis player's suggestion fell on deaf ears.

"To dismiss another person due to their beliefs is a narrowminded way to engage in life," Angie spoke as she pressed her hands together, as if she was praying. "My beliefs may appear strange to you, but my principles are to guide me to protect all of you."

"Yet your ideas are no better than anyone else's," Celestia commented. "I can at least come up with a way to push us further in our investigation."

"For the final time, we're not letting anyone die," Chiaki responded.

"Then I'll do it."

Everyone turned their attention to the doorway where Sayaka stood, with Keebo by her side and several books in her hands.

"I mean, I was the one that discovered he was the killer," Sayaka explained. "Maybe I could look after him and interrogate him."

Tenko smiled, quick to support her friend. "That's a great idea! You've been investigating so much anyway I'm sure you'd be able to do it!"

Celestia had a different opinion. Stepping forward, the gambler crossed her arms. "Are you really the best option to play prison warden? Let's not forget your last physical encounter with a boy stronger than you."

Celeste intentionally bringing up Sayaka's trauma caused the idol to grit her teeth. The gambler couldn't care less about her pain. In fact, she seemed to revel in it as a massive smirk appeared across her face.

"Or are you letting that main character comment go to your head?" Celestia asked.

This comment dragged everyone else into the conversation. Chihiro spoke up. "Yeah, what did Rantaro mean when he called you a main character?"

Kaede lightly tugged on her own ahoge hair spike. "Does everyone with an ahoge count as a main character? Do me and Keebo count as main characters?"

"I…I don't know yet," Sayaka answered. She glanced down at the stack of books in her hands. "But I'm sure I'll find out in one of these books."

"And you will be sure to actually share your findings with us, no?" Angie asked. "We can't risk you making the same decisions as Rantaro."

"I know, and I will share my findings," Sayaka said.

"But we have to settle something right now," Keebo spoke up. "I know you've gone through a lot since you've been here. Especially with all this talk about fake memories or now finding out Rantaro is a killer, it is a lot to handle. However, splintering off into your own groups and turning on one another is exactly what leads to more murders happening. So, we're ending this group feud thing now."

"Nyahaha! Oh, poor Keebo," Angie shook her head. "You misunderstand my intentions. I hold no ill will against anyone here. I want everyone to work together as a group more than anything. All we need to do is to throw away all of our temptations and personal interests, then we'd be able to work together."

"I know, and I agree," Keebo said. "We do need to stop thinking about ourselves, but that includes you too, Angie. You've tried this student council strategy before and it didn't work. It made everyone more tense. So…for your sake and everyone else, you have to stop."

Angie frowned, which gained the ire of her followers, who all shot up to their feet and shouted at Keebo. Before anything can get worse, Ibuki finally had enough. Wiping away her tears, Ibuki chimed in.

"Ibuki says we do our group day again tomorrow!" Ibuki shouted over the rest of the group. "We haven't had fun in a while. When we have fun, we all get along. Right?"

Chiaki nodded. "Right. Despite how everything turned out afterwards, we were able to put our differences aside that day and just have fun. What do the rest of you say?"

Celestia twirled a strand of her hair around her finger. "Fair enough. I've been wanting to play another game of poker anyway."

"Our group dynamic was much stronger that day," Taka muttered to himself. "Very well! I say we take a break tomorrow from the investigations in order to reestablish our bond!"

For the first time that day, Ibuki flashed her toothy smile and began to cheer. "WOOOOOOO! HELL YEAH! IBUKI'S GONNA ROCK THAT HOUSE! WE'RE GONNA HAVE A POOL PARTY!" The old Ibuki was back.

"So, are we done here then?" Leon asked.

"I'd say so, yes," Shinji said before turning his attention to Miu. "You should go ahead a make another cell to keep Rantaro in."

Miu stood up from her seat. "Yeah, yeah. I'm fucking on it. Come on, Nagicuck."

As the students began to leave the cafeteria, Sayaka smiled at Keebo. "I don't know what to say. The fact you actually got everyone to calm down is…a miracle."

"Hey, robots are capable of being diplomatic too!" Keebo immediately became defensive.

Sayaka held her hands up. "I never said that you weren't."

Before their conversation could continue, Taka stepped in between Sayaka and Keebo. "Maizono! You had mentioned that Rantaro had used some sort of key to unlock the front door! However, I could find no such thing when checking his person. Did you find this key?"

"Oh," Sayaka reached into her skirt's pocket and pulled out the skeleton key. "Sorry. I actually took it after Leon knocked him out."

"Ah, excellent news, Maizono!" Taka cheered. "Now, could you please hand it over?"

Sayaka paused. Even with Taka's smiling face looking down at her, Sayaka sensed dread emanating from it. It was as if Taka wasn't the one who asked the question, it was Angie. Angiie was perhaps the fourth worst person who could get her hands on a skeleton key. Slowly, Sayaka retracted her hand away and placed the key back in her pocket. "No…I…I don't think I will."

Taka was taken aback by this decision. His face went from puzzled and shocked to disappointment. Without saying a word, Taka stepped around Sayaka and exited the cafeteria. Taking advantage of the small window in time Taka left, Tenko stepped up to speak.

"Hey, Sayaka?" Tenko asked. "Do you need any help dealing with Rantaro?"

Sayaka looked down at Rantaro. He was still seated on the floor with his hands cuffed behind his back. Normally, Sayaka would say no, but Celeste's comment left her with a small amount of doubt in her mind. She knew Rantaro was relatively reserved due to her previous encounters with him, but that small amount of doubt was enough to sway her decision.

"Yeah, you can," Sayaka said to Tenko.

With a salute, Tenko unwrapped the chains of the handcuffs from the table leg before lifting the lime-haired boy up by the arm. Sayaka noticed that Rantaro refused to make eye contact with her or Tenko. If was going to talk, it wouldn't be for a good while. Sayaka led the two out of the cafeteria.

Mikan slammed the door to her bathroom behind her, isolating the already lonely girl further from anyone else. She placed her hand over her heart, feeling how fast it was pulsating. Her breaths became shorter and louder. She couldn't even stand on her own feet anymore, falling back against she door before sinking down to a sitting position. Everything around her was falling apart. The one person she had met there that had pulled her away from the darkness Junko drowned her in, the one person that made her feel confident in herself, he lied to her. He lied to everyone. He was a killer. Voices rang through her mind.

'You really are the dumbest person, aren't you?'

'You fell in love with not one, but two killers? Seriously?'

'You were with him that long and you never suspected he was up to something?'

'You are a monster!'

Mikan grabbed the sides of her hair, violently yanking them. "Please…please leave me alone," Mikan whimpered. "I'm not a monster…I didn't know…"

Tears poured from her eyes as she physically abused herself, hoping that would drown out her intrusive thoughts. However, something else would break through her madness. A knock at her main door. Mikan planned to ignore the knock, but whoever was at her door just kept banging away. After around thirty seconds of knocking, Mikan growled and left her bathroom to open the door.

"WHAT?!" Mikan shouted.

Much to her surprise, it was Kokichi, who immediately played his offended routine. "Geez, where did that come from?!" The purple-haired boy push past Mikan and hopped onto her bed. "So, what's up? Where is everyone? What did they talk about?"

Mikan sheepishly backed away towards the wall. "Wh-what are you doing here?"

Kokichi immediately laid himself down, kicking his feet up on her bed. "You know, just wandering around, listening in on conversations. So, what's this I hear about finding out who killed Kaito?"

Mikan frowned, looking down at her feet. "It…it was Rantaro…He was the one that set up the trap."

"Hmmm," Kokichi sat up, completely unphased by the news.

"Y-yeah…" Mikan wiped away her tears. "If it wasn't for Sayaka, we'd…never figure it out."

That caught Kokichi's attention. He shot up from the bed with a twinkle in his eyes. "Sayaka? Sayaka was the one who figured it out?"

Mikan nodded, a bit puzzled by the boy's sudden reaction. Even more so when wicked smile formed on his face.

"Tell me more."

All of the books and notes were laid out across the table. Whatever the true nature of their situation was, it was bound to be in one of them. Or there would be a major clue that would point them in the right direction. Knowing that the investigation would be lengthy, Sayaka sat herself down and began to read. While the pop idol jotted down notes in her own notepad, Tenko just finished wrapping the chains of Rantaro's handcuffs around one of the bed's legs. Tenko then walked over to Sayaka, peaking over her shoulder to check her work.

"Have you found anything yet?" Tenko asked.

Sayaka shook her head. "I'm still early in this investigation. It may take me a bit to find anything."

Tenko glanced at Rantaro. As much as she hated to even consider asking him anything, he was the only one that had made any progress on researching the killing games. "How long did it take for you to read all this?"

Rantaro leaned his head back, but he refused to answer. Tenko's eye twitched at the boy's silence. She approached the lime-haired boy and grabbed him by his shirt's collar.

"I asked you a question," Tenko shouted, "and you got no right to ignore it, you…degenerate!"

Realizing what she had just said, Tenko's aggression immediately died down and she nervously looked over her shoulder to see Sayaka glancing at her.

"Um…sorry," Tenko said.

"It's fine," Sayaka said. "He is one."

With an official sign of approval, Tenko nodded and turned her attention back towards interrogating the prisoner.

"Now, talk!" Tenko shook Rantaro violently.

Despite all the shouting and shaking, Rantaro held onto his composure, not making a single facial expression or noise. He did eventually make a move, lifting his index finger to pause Tenko. Tenko eventually did cease her shaking and placed her hands on her hips, waiting for Rantaro to speak.

"Can I talk to Sayaka?" Rantaro asked.

Sayaka paused her reading and turned in her seat to face Rantaro. "I'm right here."

"I meant alone," Rantaro said.

"No way!" Tenko shouted. "Sayaka, this guy could have a knife or something!"

Rantaro attempted to lift his hands up, but the length of his chains was far too short for that. "You made sure I couldn't make a move, Tenko. I won't hurt Sayaka. Not that I even wanted to."

Tenko made a pouty face at Sayaka, hoping that her friend would make logical choice and keep her in the room. Unfortunately, curiosity is far too strong of a feeling to ignore for most. Sayaka frowned and motioned her head towards the door, signaling for Tenko to leave.

Tenko sighed. "Well, I'm going to be right by the door, so if anything happens-"

"I won't do anything, Tenko," Rantaro interrupted. "I promise."

"That doesn't really mean anything," Tenko grumbled before stepping out of the door. The Aikido master however was not willing completely shut herself out of the room. She kept the door slightly cracked to peek inside and listen.

Meanwhile, Sayaka rose from her chair and stood in front of Rantaro with her arms crossed. Rantaro gave a weak smile to the pop idol.

"I'm the glad you're the one that figured it out," Rantaro said softly.

"So, you wanted to get caught?" Sayaka asked. "Why didn't you just admit it at the trial?"

"Come on," Rantaro chuckled. "This is my third killing game. I'd prefer not to die again."

"Then why are you happy I figured you out?"

"Because it proves there is a pattern to all this. No matter what happens, someone like you will always be there to make things right."

"You mean…a main character?" That word suddenly raised Sayaka's blood level. "Look, when you say stuff like that, with all those other clues, you make it seem like you know that we're all fake."

"I never said we were fake. Remember, I even pointed out Tsumugi was wrong about my sisters."

"Then what's with all the notes about us being character types or seasons or trial clichés? You either think we're all fake or you know we're fake. There isn't an in-between here."

Rantaro sighed. "Look, you can't ignore that there's evidence for us being both real and fake."

"No!" Sayaka shouted. "No more of this…back and forth crap! Just tell me the truth!"

"Sayaka…I told you, the last trial is the one when we'll learn for sure. We could keep manipulating the trials and the murders to speed through this, or maybe you can find another way around all this."

"And how am I supposed to do that?"

"I don't know, but I know that you can. You have all the tools now. The textbooks, my notes, my skeleton key…And like I said before, I can't be certain that all those Danganronpa notes are true, but you have to admit something has been going own with you. The first person to die in her killing game is now solving all the mysteries. And we know the exact layout each of these killing games go through. If we think long enough, we can find alternatives that can get us through this faster. If we don't, then we're stuck playing the same game as before. We can go ahead and expect a double murder soon."

Sayaka looked back at the notebooks on her desk. 'It would take a long time to go through all of that, even if I skim through it all.' Sayaka glanced back at Rantaro. 'I can't plan a murder. Not again. But Rantaro is my best lead for solving all of this.'

As much as it pained her to do it, Sayaka knew what she had to do. "Why don't we start by going over everything you know."

"WHAT?!" Tenko shrieked from outside.

"I know all of you guys are getting along oh so well, but it's 10 pm," Monokuma mocked the students through the intercom. "As a result, all the water has been shut off and the food is unavailable until the morning. So, sleep tight. Maybe even so tight that you STRANGLE YOURSELVES! Toodaloooo~!"

There were plans to make this chapter longer, but I felt that was an ok stopping point as well. I'm trying to get back to being more descriptive with actions, character's feelings, and environments as well as working on my prose. Hopefully it's ok and just keeps getting better. Next chapter should have more stuff going on. I'm a little bit scared that the group conflict storyline is just going in circles, but big changes are coming. Don't worry. I also hope Rantaro's logic and words are consistent. Also, someone once asked for a scene with Mikan and Kokichi. It was weird, but that was a duo that has potential for some fun, so there you go, buddy.

I had thought a bit about starting my own killing game with OCs fanfic, but I feel like all my best tricks would be done in this story. I've also been think about writing something related to RWBY or My Hero Academia especially since the former is on hiatus and the latter had an awful ending. Whatever I feel like, I guess. I do feel better, btw. When I'm away from work, I can get distracted and happy. Hopefully things just keep getting better and better.

Also, to the many typos that have riddled this story. I have been slowly but surely doubling back through my story and fixing them...Mostly on AO3, so to my fan fans, sorry but this site is so weird about editing your work. As always, thank you for your patience, everyone. Leave your thoughts below and keep being good.