The day started like any other day with Monokuma's morning announcement. Then for some odd reason, he called them all to the gym. Reluctantly, everyone followed the bear's order, knowing that there could be deadly consequences if they disobeyed.
They were all frozen with anticipation as they watched Monokuma stand on the stage with his permanent sadistic grin. With every possible outcome that ran through each of their minds, no one was prepared for what Monokuma did next.
"Okay! Lift your arms up, and down! One, two, three, four!" Monokuma started lifting his arms up and down, confusing everyone. They all looked at each other to confirm that they were all seeing the same thing with only Taka placing himself in front of the bear and mimicking Monokuma's actions.
"One, two, three, four!"
"Now reach waaay up, and bend waaay down!" Monokuma stretched his arms as high as he could before bending over to touch his toes. Taka continued to follow Monokuma's instructions. "Tighten those muscles! Let's add a little strength, a little speed to those young bodies of yours!"
Seeing that there was no risk of danger of not participating, everyone moved to different parts of the gym and did their own thing.
TK chose to sit down on the bleachers to rest for a bit. He didn't get a wink of sleep last night. Whenever he closed his eyes the corpses of Sayaka, Junko, and Leon flashed through his mind as he heard them all screaming at him to save them. By the time when he was able to get those images out of his mind the morning announcement came on.
He kept telling himself that there was nothing he could've done to save them, but that was a lie. If only he were able to convince Sayaka to share his room or see through her lie then all of them would still be alive right now. He wonders if his friends would still care about him if they find out what he did.
Speaking of his friends, he started to lose hope that they were coming to save him. It's been days since he's been trapped and he's heard no signs of anyone trying to break them out. Then he thought about his video and if what it showed him was true, something terrible must've happened.
"Are you feeling ok?" TK heard someone ask. He looked up to find a worried Hina standing over him. He managed to muster up a small encouraging smile to ease her worries a little.
"I'm fine," he said, but Hina seemed to worry more.
"Man, you look horrible. Did you sleep at all last night?" Hina sat next to him and patted his back while he rubbed his eyes to clear away the bags that were under them.
"I tried but I couldn't stay asleep, you know?" TK partially lied. It wasn't far off from the truth, he didn't want to burden her with his problems that's all.
"Oh, I totally understand. It usually happens to me before a big game or swim meet. I always got so excited that I couldn't sleep or forgot to sleep," Hina recalled cheerfully. TK smiled because he was happy to have a distraction but also glad that she didn't press him about what kept him up at night.
"You sound like a big ball of energy," TK chuckled, before quickly shutting his mouth when he saw how annoyed Hina looked.
"Hey, are you making fun of me!?"
"Oh, no, I didn't mean it in a bad way or anything. I actually think it's awesome that you have so much energy to do the things that you want to do," TK clarified. He saw Hina calm down a little as she eased into her seat with a small smile creeping onto her face.
"Sorry, it's just that I used to know this one guy, he was always like, 'Hina, you're like, a super spaz!'" Hina grumbled the last part in a deeper voice while waving her arms around to not only mimic the boy but also show her annoyance.
"Why would he say that?"
"I don't know, maybe it's because he'd seen me wear shorts during the winter," Hina shrugged before she looked away with a pout. "But if you lose to the cold like that, it just means you weren't dedicated enough!"
"That's kinda impressive, but aren't you worried that you could catch a cold doing that?" TK asked with a bit of concern in his voice but Hina casually shook her head.
"Getting sick is for the weak! If you're really dedicated, winter means even lighter clothes! It's all part of your training!" Hina said with clenched fists and a driven look in her eyes.
Thinking about it, TK realized he kinda does something similar to what Hina said. Due to sleeping outside a lot in the Digital World or walking in frigid environments in his Summer clothes, his body temperature makes him a lot hotter than an average person. Though he doesn't wear shorts in the winter, the shortest he would go is covering most of his shins, but he doesn't wear any heavy clothing either.
"So, like, are you the type who gets sick easily?" Hina asked, breaking him out of his thoughts.
"Oh, no, I think it's been years since I've had a cold," TK admitted while shaking his head. Hina smiled while poking his arm.
"Yeah, I can tell, you seem like the type of person who takes good care of themself," Hina said before she crossed her arms and thoughtfully stared off into space. "Though it wouldn't hurt to tell you this perfect remedy to keep you fit as a fiddle. It's something I do every morning."
"Sure, if you think it would help. I could even tell my friend who gets sick a lot and help them too," TK smiled.
"Okay, so what you do is you strip down to your waist, then take a dry towel and start rubbing down your bare skin!" Hina listened and TK slowly lost his smile as he realized he couldn't tell his friend this without being called a pervert. "I call it…! I call it… uh…"
"Towel Treatment?" TK answered and Hina beamed.
"Oh my god! Yeah, that's it! I love going out on my apartment balcony, stripping down, feeling the wind on my skin…" Hina sighed as she slouched down on the bleachers. "God, it feels so amazing! I never let a morning pass without getting a good rubdown!"
"Is it really that good?" TK asked, ignoring how she worded her sentence and how she said she does it on her balcony.
"Yeah! You should give it a try! If you haven't got your health, you haven't got anything!" Hina said energetically before putting her head down and quietly mumbling to herself. "I'd hate to see you catch a cold or something…"
TK gave her a supportive pat on the back and a bright smile.
"I'll make sure to try it out when we get out of here," he told her. They soon heard something hit the ground and when they looked all over the gym they saw that Monokuma was sprawled on the stage breathing heavily. "I guess the morning exercise is over."
The two walked back over to the crowd that was forming. They watched Monokuma breathe heavily for a few seconds before he sat up, drenched in sweat.
"Ahh, doesn't this feel just great!? Being stuck inside like this, you gotta make sure to stay healthy!" Monokuma then flexed his arm as if he were showing off his huge muscles, even though they looked like noodles.
"You're the o-one keeping us 'stuck inside'…" Toko rebutted, but Monokuma brushed her off.
"Don't sweat the small stuff! That's my motto," Monokuma let out a loud gasp before showing off the proud look on his face. "Whoa, I sounded pretty cool just now, don'tcha think? Did you fall in love with me? Am I just to die for? Am I just to die in writhing agony for?"
TK heard a few annoyed groans behind him, and he was going to let one out himself, but he was too tired and he didn't want this meeting to drag on longer than necessary.
"So… why did you call us here? Certainly it wasn't just to make us exercise…" Sakura spoke up and TK could tell she was annoyed by Monokuma's antics.
"'Just' to make you exercise? JUST to make you exercise!?" Monokuma repeated angrily. He then started pacing back and forth waving his arms as he spoke. "If exercise makes you laugh, exercise will make you cry! Now, if you keep doing these exercises, you will uncover the secret of the Assassin's Fist! Passed down from generation to generation in the empire of darkness. The power can be yours!"
More groans echoed throughout the gym and TK couldn't help but join them.
"That sounds like the kind of junk a middle schooler would come up with…" Hifumi muttered to himself. A few of the students were talking with each other, shocked that it was Hifumi of all people who said that to Monokuma.
TK just rolled his eyes, unamused behavior.
"Oh, just get on with it! Did you seriously call us all here to waste our time with exercises!?" TK assumed that it was because he was extremely tired, but he found Monokuma extremely annoying this morning.
"Of course not! You think I have that kind of free time on my hands!?" Monokuma shouted at him, causing a few of the students around him to flinch. TK stood his ground, making Monokuma sigh.
"I'd like to make an announcement! Every time you overcome a class trial here at Hope's Peak, a whole new world will open up to you!" Monokuma announced.
"A whole new world…?" Hiro asked the question that everyone was thinking.
"It'd really suck if you had to live here forever with nothing new to stimulate you! Besides, I know how you kids get these days with your ADD and ADHD. I gotta keep you motivated! So go ahead, look around all you want! Enjoy the brave new post-trial world till you explode!" Just like he has done countless times, Monokuma vanished, leaving them all with more questions than answers.
"A new world…" TK hummed to himself.
"Is he talking about… a way to get outside?" Hina asked in a hopeful tone.
"That seems… unlikely" Celeste shot her down. TK had to agree with her because he couldn't think of any reason why Monokuma would give them a chance to escape after giving him a taste of what he wanted.
"Well we don't know till we look!" Mondo argued.
"Whatever he meant, it seems we'll have to search the school one more time," Sakura stated and everyone agreed.
"Okay, then let's split up and start investigating! When you're done, everyone meet back up at the dining hall and we'll share what we found!" Taka instructed after he took charge of the group.
"You're basically a one-trick pony, you know that?" Byakuya snarkily remmarked.
"More like a staple food source!" Taka countered, taking no offense from the progeny's comment. "Now let's get moving!"
Taka charged out of the gym while everyone else calmly walked after him to begin their search. TK stayed back for a few seconds to think over what Monokuma said.
"There were a couple of rooms blocked off on the first floor, but I don't think that's what he meant when he said a new world. I also remember the stairs were locked too so maybe they're open now."
With a plan in mind, TK made his way to the stairwell. It was a short walk and when he arrived the gate was now gone. Not wanting to waste any more time, TK ascended the steps and reached the second floor.
He was met with a hallway, similar to the one on the first floor, but instead of ominous purple lights, there were slightly more comforting light-blue lights. In TK's opinion, the second floor is already a major improvement from the first floor. He barely took a few steps from the stairway when he was met face-to-face with a big ball of energy.
"Oh, TK! Hey, guess what! Guess what I found!" Hina exclaimed, filled to the brim with happiness. Before TK had the chance to respond, Hina grabbed his arm and dragged him to a purple door that a picture of an anchor and the word "POOL" above it. "There's a pool here! A POOL! Pool pool pool!"
"I can see that, you don't need to keep repeating it…" TK told her and she chuckled with slight embarrassment. She lead him inside and he saw that both Celeste and Chihiro were already there. He also saw swimming equipment and two doors, one blue and the other red, which he assumed were the locker rooms.
"And there's a ton of exercise equipment in the locker room! Sakura's gonna go nuts when she finds out!" Hina excitedly added. She continued on about what type of equipment was in the locker rooms or how big the pool was. TK could tell that she was a lot more excited now than when they talked in the gym earlier.
'Makes sense, she's getting something that she loves,' TK thought as he continued to watch Hina ramble on about all the exercises that she could do now. 'But I think she's in her own world now.'
TK moved away from the energetic girl who was still off in her own world and spotted Chihiro who was fidgeting in the corner.
"Have you checked out the pool yet, Chihiro?" TK asked. The small girl jumped a little before calming down after seeing who it was.
"Oh, no, I-I… don't like wearing swimsuits," she revealed.
'Yeah, she doesn't seem like the type of girl who would be into that kinda thing,' TK thought while nodding knowingly.
"But still… it sounds like the locker rooms here have all the exercise equipment you could ask for. Maybe I'll give it a try. I'd kind of like to get a little stronger…" Chihiro said while trying her best to flex a muscle before looking away in embarrassment.
"I gotta say that it's kinda unexpected that you wanna get stronger, but I think it's awesome that you want to better yourself," TK said, making the small girl smile.
"Thanks, but…" Chihiro dropped her head in shame. "I'm not even brave enough to step foot into the locker room."
"How come?"
"It's not that I don't want to. It's just…" Chihiro stopped talking as her eyes lingered on the boy's locker room door.
TK followed her line of sight and moved in front of the door. He didn't see anything special about it, it was just an average door. There was a keypad next to it, which he assumed was how they were supposed to open the door.
"Oh! And I guess you need your handbook to get into the locker rooms!" Hina came up behind him after breaking out of her world.
"Really?" TK took out his handbook and looked at the keypad.
"Really really!" Monokuma popped up behind them, causing Hina to squeal and TK almost drop his handbook.
"If you wanna unlocker the locker room you'll have to swipe your personal e-Handbook across the card reader next to the door," Monokuma informed them. TK did as he said and he heard the door unlock. "However, to ensure maximum security within each locker room only a boy's handbook can open the boys locker room, and the same goes for the girls! And that's the bottom line!"
"But what if someone opens the door, and then someone else sneaks in?" Hina inquired.
"Anyone who commits such indecency will be punished without mercy for their scandalous sexual depravity!" Monokuma snapped his fingers and a huge turret slowly lowered from the ceiling. "This Gatling gun will make sure of that. It'll be all DUKKA DUKKA DUKKA DUKKA!"
"I bet it'd really hurt to get shot by that thing!" Hina exclaimed and everyone gave her a look of disbelief.
"Um, no… I think it'd be a little worse than that…" Chihiro said softly to herself.
"But what happens if someone loans their handbook to someone else?" Celeste pointed out. "A boy could borrow a girl's handbook, and that would get them into the girls locker room, would it not?"
"Wh–! That never even occurred to me! To think someone could be so low, so cowardly, so devilish!" Monokuma fell to his knees, clenching his heart as if he's been stabbed. He then hummed before looking like he came up with an idea. "Okay, then how's this sound? Time for a new rule! As of this moment, loaning your e-Handbook to another student is strictly prohibited. There! So now nobody can give their handbook to anyone else, right? You like that? I'm kind of a genius, right? It's cuz my brain is 100% cotton!"
"I do not imagine anyone would have lent their handbook out in the first place," Celeste sighed, unamused by the bear. "After all, they would likely be held responsible for anything that person might do using the handbook."
"But ya know, you seem awfully concerned with all this locker room security stuff," Hina brought up.
"It's cuz all you teenagers are sex-crazed maniacs! You're at that age you'd try humping a plastic bottle!" Monokuma sultry said, covered in sweat. He then pointed an accusatory finger at both TK and Hina. "Just be glad I ain't banning you two from being alone in a room together."
"WHAT!?"
"Yeah, I've seen how you two been undressing each other with your eyes. You're just waiting for the perfect moment to throw yourselves at each other!" Hina was red in the face and took an aggressive step toward Monokuma. TK quickly placed a hand on Hina's shoulder to hold her in place. He knew that Monokuma was trying to bait them into doing what he wanted.
The trio had a small standoff, waiting for the other to make the first move until Monokuma grumbled to himself after a few seconds.
"You're no fun, you know that?" Monokuma pouted while kicking some dust.
"Well since you care so much about maintaining the integrity of this school, I would ask that you keep the same close eye on our dorms," Celeste requested as if she were challenging the bear's beliefs. "If some man and some woman decided to share a room, there would be nothing to stop them."
"All I care about is protecting the holy image of the school itself! I don't care what happens in your private dorms! By force or by cunning, do whatever you want!" Monokuma gave a suggestive wink at both TK and Hina.
"I hate you so much…" Hina snarled.
"Okay, so the new regulation is now in place! See ya!" Monokuma then vanished out of thin air before anyone could do anything.
"Maaan, that stupid bear totally ruined my mood!" Hina whined. "Maybe I'll go take a dip to cheer myself up. Celeste, Chihiro, you wanna come with me?"
"There is nothing I hate more than getting water on my face," Celeste declined.
"Sorry… I'll pass this time," Chihiro declined more politely than Celeste.
"How come! When you're in a funk, there's nothing better than a good swim to pull you out of it!" Hina then turned to TK with a pleading look. "Would you at least come swim with me, TK?"
"Maybe later, I still need to look around the second floor," TK told her and Hina pouted as she walked into the girls locker room. TK sighed while shaking his head, he'll have to make it up to her at some point.
TK left the pool area and made his way down the hallway. He walked past what he assumed were classrooms because they looked similar to the ones on the first floor. He then came up to a pair of double doors with a sign that said "LIBRARY" sticking out.
TK walked in and saw Kyoko and Byakuya standing off to the side investigating the room while Hifumi and Toko were arguing about something that he had no interest in. Not wanting to deal with another headache caused by Hifumi, TK chose to follow the lead of the more quiet people in the room and look around.
He spotted something that instantly shot his hopes up, a laptop. It was covered in dust but he didn't care because if he could find his Digivice and manage to open a Digiport on it then he could easily get everyone out of here.
"It's broken," Kyoko spoke up from behind him, instantly draining his hope. "I tried pressing the power button earlier, but nothing happened."
If Izzy, Yolie, or Ken were here then they would've been able to fix it and save everyone, but since they aren't there's nothing he could do, unless…
TK moved to the bookshelf and skimmed through each title in hopes of finding something that could teach him about fixing a computer. As he was doing that, he noticed how dusty all the books and bookshelves were. In fact, he noticed how almost everything was dusty in the library. It was as if no one had cleaned it in years.
'Strange…'
He found a letter with Hope's Peak seal.
"It was buried under a thick layer of dust," Kyoko walked up behind him and peered over his shoulder. "Well, shall we see what's inside?"
TK nodded and broke the seal on the dusty envelope, and pulled out a single sheet of paper that resided inside it. He unfolded the paper and cleared his throat before reading what was written on it.
"From the Hope's Peak Executive Office…
Throughout the years, we have been committed to shaping the youth who will one day shape the world. We have a long, proud history as an institution of higher learning with full governmental support. Our graduates enter society ready to take on active leadership roles in every major job field.
However, Hope's Peak Academy must now lower the curtain on its glorious history, for the time being. This decision was not an easy one to make, but serious issues beyond our control have made it necessary.
But make no mistake–this is not the end for Hope's Peak Academy. We intend to reopen our doors as soon as the issues forcing our closure have been resolved. That being said, this is the end for now, and I would like to personally and sincerely thank everyone for your help and support over the years. For now, we are awaiting official governmental authorization to formally cease operations…"
"What does this mean…?" TK pondered.
"Hmm… The contents of this letter are quite interesting indeed," Byakuya remarked.
"It would seem Hope's Peak had stopped functioning as a school," Kyoko said and scanned both the letter and envelope. "And judging by the amount of dust the letter had collected, it doesn't seem to have happened recently. If I had to guess, I'd say this letter could be at least a year old."
"Most likely, the mastermind took over the abandoned school in order to put on this little performance," Byakuya theorized from Kyoko's statement.
"But wouldn't that mean the school was closed when we got here a few days ago? It didn't even look abandoned when I got here," TK said. He knew that a year wasn't long enough to make a building as pristine as Hope's Peak Academy appear run down, but there were no signs of it being abandoned. In fact, it looked the same as the pictures that he and his friends saw online.
"And if the school had shut down, don't you think there would've been articles or reports of it happening? Me and my friends looked up a lot of stuff about Hope's Peak before I got here, and we found nothing about it being closed."
"That must have all been part of the mastermind's plan. They lured us all in here…" Byakuya rubbed his chin and read over the note again. "Someone who could create a place to judge and execute people could potentially be capable of anything. Of course, that's all assuming that the letter is real."
"If it is real, though, that does solve one mystery surrounding the school. The reason there are no other students here could be because the school had already closed down," Kyoko concluded.
"That would be a nice, simple solution, it's true," Byakuya agreed with a smirk.
"But what about this 'serious issue' they mentioned? Could there be a connection between that and what's happening to us?" TK asked. Kyoko hummed and read the note again.
"If the two events are in fact connected, uncovering that connection would be a useful clue, on top of figuring out the mastermind's motive. Although I can't really say any more until we find more details."
"So in other words, only the mastermind knows the truth right now," Byakuya begrudgingly summarized.
TK placed the note back on the shelf and left the library. He thought about what Kyoko said about the mastermind's motive. If they were to figure it out would it lead to them being one step closer to escaping or would it lead to something worse?
After a few minutes, everyone gathered at their table in the dining hall to discuss their findings. Hifumi told everyone about the library and Hina, bursting with excitement, told everyone about the pool and exercise equipment. Sakura sadly informed everyone about finding no possible exits which brought the mood down. Taka tried his best to raise everyone's spirits by revealing that the bathhouse and warehouse were open, and all the goodies that they could find in them.
He was met with mixed reactions.
"Okay, and what about a fuckin' way out of here? You find anything like that?" Mondo tensely asked.
"Oh, well… umm…" Those were the only words Taka managed to say.
"There wasn't anything in the warehouse we could use to get our asses outta here? Nothin'?" Mondo growled causing Taka to flinch.
"Unfortunately, no… not that I saw…"
"You fuckin' people…" Mondo angrily exhaled before slamming his fists on the table. "Who gives a shit if we have a goddamn pool now!? Or a warehouse, or whatever the fuck! We're still trapped in this piece of shit school! We need to find a goddamn way OUT!"
"Now, now. There is no point in taking your anger out on us. Adaptation is key, yes? For now, we must each find a way to enjoy our current situation," Celeste reminded the biker to try and calm him down.
"Whatever you say, ya fuckin' loon…" Mondo said the last part under his breath, but Celeste still heard him. TK swore he felt the air shift around her.
"For now, let's just continue our investigation, and let everyone know if you discover something," Taka quickly said to diffuse the tension in the room.
"So, are we done for today?" Kyoko asked, already mentally out the door.
"W-Well… yeah, I guess so," Taka said dejectedly.
One by one, everyone left, with only a few staying behind. The air began to grow heavy. After giving them a sliver of hope, the mastermind then yanked it away from them and spat in their face.
