Danganronpa: Algorithmic Alteration Chapter 24: Misalignment in the Stars (Part 4), a dangan ronpa kibou no gakuen to zetsubou no koukousei fanfic

Chapter 3: Misalignment in the Stars (Daily Life Part 4)

Warning: This is a Danganronpa fic. Things can be pretty bad, especially regarding gore and the foul language used. Although, if you've made it this far, I don't think that kind of stuff bothers you anyways, sooooo…

It was early morning in the house, and the chatter could already be heard as the oldest sibling bounced down the stairs.

"Up already?" He reached the bottom of the stairs, looking to the kitchen.

However, he hadn't expected all of them to be up already. Had he slept in or something?

"Oh." The older man, named Corvus, called out seeing him approaching the kitchen table. "How did you sleep, Gemini?"

Gemini, being the oldest of the siblings, let out a small laugh. "Guess I slept too much." He slid right into the last available chair.

Amazing that there even was one, given how many people were even at the table. A full ten people.

"Gemini!" One of the younger siblings called out, a sparkle in his eyes.

Despite having so many siblings, Gemini seemed to have the same amount of love for all of them. "Yeah, yeah. I wouldn't miss this." He ruffled his brother's hair, before turning his attention towards the meal.

Sure, compared to what most people might have, it wasn't much food. It was whatever they could get here…

But for Gemini? Yeah, it was enough for Gemini.

"Gemini!" One of his youngest siblings called out to him. "Can you read a book for me again?"

One of the things Gemini loved doing the most was reading. Honestly, any work that required him to use his mind a lot, he tended to love. "Yeah, sure thing, Leo." And reading was at the top of that list.

However, before he could go anywhere with that, another sibling got his attention. "Gemini…" She said softly. "Would you draw with me later?"

Looking over at Pisces, Gemini smiled. "Sure thing, I can make time for that." She had recently begun drawing, so it was something he wanted to encourage.

He just had to make sure he had enough time to get food for the rest of the day as well. But hey, he's never failed them yet, so he wouldn't fail them now.

Having finished breakfast, Gemini moved over to the very small library they had. Once again, there wasn't much, but there was still stuff he hadn't read to Leo. "How about… This one?"

His brother didn't really seem to care. "Yeah! That one!" As long as Gemini was reading something for him, he'd be all for it.

"This one here is about a bird." It wasn't really, but Gemini felt like the story would be easier to explain if he opened up with that.

From just a simple look, the book seemed a bit darker than what his brother should be listening to, so it was up to him to transform the story, while still delivering a coherent story.

"Once upon a time, there was a small bird." Although, the only birds around here were crows and what else didn't mind the habitat. "The bird, however, wasn't free as one would think. Around its house was a nasty cage."

Hearing that, Leo couldn't help but frown. "That sounds… awful."

Letting out a small laugh, Gemini shook his head. "Yes. It is awful. But don't worry, I'm sure the bird can get out of there."

Turning his attention back to the book, Gemini quickly read over the page, using it for inspiration on how to continue the story.

"The bird, wanting to be freed one day, tried everything it could to leave the cage." Gemini continued, frowning internally as he came up with the story.

But those thoughts were quickly dispelled out of his head as he moved onto other words.

"No matter what the bird seemed to do, nothing really seemed to work out for it. It couldn't peck away at the bars of the cage, and it was much too large to sneak through the empty space."

"Then what did the bird do?" His brother asked him, curiosity in his eyes.

Smiling a bit, Gemini shook his head. "You see, this bird was different from all the other ones, for it was cunning."

Reminds him of someone.

"Because of that, he was able to think of things nobody else could have thought of." Gemini continued the story, turning to the next page, despite it no longer mattering. "You see, the bird knew to get into the cage, there had to be a way in, and a way in, is a way out."

Leo nodded along, trying to read the words off the pages, but being unable to do so, so he'd just have to trust Gemini's words.

"Spotting a door, the bird attempted his best to open it, but no matter what he did, his beak couldn't open the handle." Gemini continued, getting really invested in the story he literally made up.

"Then what did he try?" True to being a child, Leo kept asking questions everytime Gemini took a pause.

He didn't mind in the slightest, because it meant he was leaning.

Smiling at him, Gemini turned his attention back towards the book. "But, being a bird, there was much more than just his beak he could use. Thinking for a moment, the little bird reached over with its talon, grabbing onto the hook manually. And slowly by slowly, the bird was able to slide the hook right off, opening the door for itself."

Leo cheered a bit, hearing that. "What did the bird do then?"

"Well, the bird could do whatever he wanted to do. He was free." Gemini glanced away from the book, but quickly shook his head. "But let's find out what the bird got to do…"

The rest of the book seemed to detail the bird discovering the world outside, and it was a good read.

But I didn't want to write an entire story for this backstory, so here we are.

Finally, Gemini closed the book, the story was over. Not that he even used the actual book to tell it.

At one point he'd run out of stories to invent. Or even worse yet, his brother would pick up how to read better on his own. And then there'd be no use for Gemini.

However, seeing the joy in his brother's eyes put a smile on Gemini's face.

It was great here, all things considered.

As he finished the book, Pisces entered into the room, ready to get to drawing.

That's pretty much what the rest of the day entailed. Gemini just went around, entertaining his siblings like he was the parental figure here. Not that he minded. Sometimes his dad was busy with other things.

Everything was fine, and while Gemini seemingly yearned for more of this world, he didn't want to step out and face the risks.

…

It was now late at night, and while Gemini would normally be sleeping, that story had been keeping him up.

Maybe he had lied to himself earlier. Maybe he really did want something to change…

Stepping towards the kitchen, he heard some voices speaking.

His parents.

"Keeping him here… He's meant for so much more." His mother, Carina, said, a bit worried.

A few seconds later, Corvus responded. "But, the chances of-"

"I know they're low, but we know he's smart." Carina let out a sigh. "He deserves much better than staying here would do."

Gemini wasn't sure who they were talking about, but he could make an educated guess. Taking a deep breath, he stepped into the room.

However, stepping into the room, he felt as if the mood had changed slightly. "What's… What's going on?"

"Oh!" Carina took a step back, not having expected him to show up. Taking a quick look at Corvus, she let out a sigh. "Gemini, we've been meaning to talk to you about something…"

At first, he was confused. There wasn't much to talk about around these parts. He already knew about their awful living conditions, so there wasn't much to-

"I'm…" Corvus hesitated for a few seconds. "We're not your real parents."

"..." It took a few seconds for the sentence to register in Gemini's mind, and all he could think to respond with was laughter. "Haha, a nice joke you got there."

If that was the case, then that would mean that he wasn't related to anyone here. And obviously that couldn't have been the truth.

"No, I'm being serious." It pained Corvus to have to admit this. "I found you when you were a baby. It was clear what happened when I saw the scene."

Feeling an eerie feeling coming along, Gemini seemed to hesitate a bit, but a more serious expression appeared on his face. "What… What happened?"

"When I found your mother, there was no chance I would have been able to help her, so instead I took you in."

What…?

Something like that wasn't exactly uncommon around here, but to think it happened near him.

Still, despite being told something like that, it didn't seem to bother Gemini that much. "I…" Finding out the death of people he never really knew?

For all he knew, the people standing in front of him right now were his parents anyways. That's how it always was, and that's how it will continue to be.

"No." Gemini shook his head, glancing away. "You two are still my parents." He didn't specify real parents, so the intent behind his words were clear.

"Oh…" Carina felt her heart break slightly. In a good way :D

Letting out a sigh, Corvus spoke up again. "You're much too smart to be stuck in a place like this for us."

"Huh?" Gemini wasn't quite following what he meant. "What are you…?"

Stepping forward, Corvus gave him a big hug. "You're getting old enough. Don't let the family hold you back…"

Don't… What? This was all happening too quickly. "I don't…" What were they wanting him to do, exactly?

This was starting to hurt Gemini's head.

It was a lot of information to drop on him all of a sudden.

"I… What?" No matter what words Gemini tried to get out of his mouth, they never left.

They wanted him to leave? All of a sudden?

That was a tall task for someone like Gemini.

But they had explained their reasoning.

"Alright…" Letting out a sigh, Gemini let them win in the end.

If it's what they wanted, who was he to deny their request? They never asked much of him, so he should be able to do just this.

Closing his eyes, he had to just wonder how he'd accomplish something like that.

At that moment, images began flashing of him and his siblings. To leave them…?

Would he be able to do that?

…

As Gemini turned to face his hometown one last time, second by second it began to shrink as he made his way further.

All while the only thought on his mind was…

Did he make the right choice today?

Cafeteria

There was one thing that needed to be said… And Michael knew it had to be said to everyone else. While he had missed breakfast for the past couple of days, this time he had shown up.

"Oh!" Melody smiled brightly upon seeing him. "Didn't expect to see ya!"

Michael offered a small smile in her direction, but it didn't last long. He was worried about what most people would say about him. He had only briefly shown up for the motive yesterday, and then he left.

But, they didn't seem to react.

Also why the FUCK was Laki here?

"Huh…" Michael felt at a loss for words. But he wasn't going to let this chance go away. "Something happened yesterday…" He said in a rather soft voice.

"What?" Lorelei called out loudly. "Can't hear you, cult boy."

Yeah, of course Lorelei would start pushing him around as soon as she realised he was here. "I… There was a gunshot last night."

While most people didn't pay attention to him at first, that did seem to get everyone's attention.

"What…?" Hae-Won narrowed her eyes, glancing over at him.

Now that all eyes were on him, he felt a bit nervous. "Well… Huh…" Michael tried to avoid eye contact with anyone. "I left my room last night, before the nighttime announcement played out… And while walking, I heard a gunshot…"

"Is that it?" Atlas narrowed his eyes.

"Ah- No…" Michael was just waiting for everyone to acknowledge his words. "It came from the other vacant room… When I went to explore the hallway… Someone had registered the room there… However… I couldn't read who did it…"

"What was stopping you?" Seira looked up from the table.

For a few moments, Michael remained silent, before letting out a sigh. "They had shot the name display… So I couldn't tell who had it…"

Gennosuke frowned slightly. "And you were able to see who had the room by doubling back?" It was said in a mocking tone.

"No… I… None of the names were missing."

"What?" Lorelei narrowed their eyes. "Are you telling me that none of us did it?"

Letting out a hum, Gennosuke tilted his head to the side, an idea clearly on his mind. "Well, we know that someone had to buy a bullet, right?"

"Yeah." Lorelei crossed their arms. "And they cost about two hundred and fifty coins."

Atlas narrowed his eyes, taking a step over towards her. "You seem to remember the price of it?"

"Are you for fucking real?" Lorelei placed her hands on her hips, rolling her eyes. "I've been to the prize corner a few dozen times. I probably have the most money out of-"

Slamming his leg onto the table, Atlas glared at her. "Open coin app." As soon as the app opened, it revealed his total being around the five thousand range.

Seeing this, a frown made itself apparent on Lorelei's face. "Fine, fine." They had only barely been beaten.

"Wait, wait, wait." Gemini took a look at the amount of coins Atlas had collected. "Do you think you could spare some of those for me?"

"Why the hell would I do that?" Atlas gave him a look full of disdain, before moving his leg off the table. "I earned them fair and square."

"What do you even hope to achieve?" Hae-Won hummed out, leaning her hand on her hand. "It's not like you'd ever reach the million coins required for the escape key."

"Watch me." Atlas sat back down.

Of course they couldn't believe he'd be able to do anything.

Wanting to get back on track, Seira spoke up. "Enough of that, we need to worry about who bought the bullet."

"Where did they even get a gun?" Gigi questioned, looking around the table. "From what I was told, the casino only sold blasters."

Lorelei shrugged, not really caring in the slightest. "Your guess is as good as mine." Her guess wasn't good because she really didn't care.

May had an idea, but chose not to say, instead nodding her head along drowsily. "Yeah…" She seemed extra sleepy today.

"Everything alright, May?" Edison slid down beside her. Besides Hae-Won, May was the closest thing he had to a friend (Closest because who would want to be friends with Edison, let's be real)

"Yeah…" May lifted her head up, before rubbing her arm. "I think I fell asleep on it… And now it feels numb."

"Huh…" Well that was something that should go away quickly. "Do you position yourself before sleeping?"

… "No… I normally just plop in bed and pass out…" May, that's not good.

Ah, Edison wished he had the power of instantaneous sleep. Unfortunately he was cursed with staying up an extra half an hour after he goes to bed.

Back to the important conversation at hand. "Do we know if anyone has been spending a lot of time at the casino lately?" Seira looked around.

"Well!" Lorelei had a grin on her face as she turned to look at Winter. "Winter has been looking around for a while. And I heard she's been going around asking people for money."

Frowning slightly, Winter let out a sigh. "This is completely unrelated. Please drop the topic."

Boring. Lorelei then turned her attention towards Gemini. "There's also-"

Before she could even finish her sentence, Gemini was already ready with a comeback. "Don't you have the most money if we leave Atlas out of the picture." Bro couldn't shoot a gun, even if the wheel of fate said otherwise that one time.

Frowning slightly, Lorelei crossed their arms. "So what? You think I bought the bullet? Just so I can shoot the room display."

Unlike a trial, there clearly wasn't enough evidence to figure something out right now.

"I say we drop it." Hae-Won had slowly begun to lose interest in the conversation the moment she realised it was impossible to solve. "We'd just be wasting our time, y'know?"

"Still…" Gigi crossed her arms, raising an eyebrow. "We should be trying to do something."

Shrugging, May spoke back up. "It… Doesn't really matter right…? Unless they bought more bullets."

"At that point just buy the goddamn ray gun." Atlas shook his head. "Why waste so much money on bullets, if you're just going to waste one on a door."

Yeah, this conversation was heading nowhere fast.

"Like I said." Hae-Won shook her head. "Unless we get more evidence, there's not much we can do."

Hearing that this entire thing fell off, Michael let out a sigh. He was hoping that they would have solved something by now, but he wasn't good enough to help with that. "Sorry nothing came of it."

Melody turned to him, offering a smile. "Don't be sorry for something like that."

Michael offered her a small smile, before looking away again.

However, he found himself looking over at Laki, almost a bit unsure of why she was out and about. Had he missed something…? He had seen her during the motive reveal yesterday, but for her to just be back here at the table like nothing happened…

It didn't make him feel great.

Of course, he wasn't going to make a scene out of it

Watching Michael the entire time, Hae-Won slowly followed his gaze, eventually landing right on Laki.

"Oh, right." How could Hae-Won forget any of this? "We're going to need someone to watch Laki today." Once again, if nobody volunteered, she would-

Melody stood up, a smile on her face. "I'll be-"

"No you won't." Dae-Hyun spoke up, a bit of sterness in his voice. "You barely watched her last time, and we have the show today. You won't be able to keep an eye on her."

"O-oh…" That was true, but Melody was worried about how the others would treat Laki.

"Then!" Edison adjusted his goggles. "I'll do it."

Hearing this, Hae-Won sat up straight, narrowing her eyes. "Are you even sure that's a good idea?" This felt like it would end in disaster.

More specifically she was just worried about Edison.

Shaking the closed flask, he didn't really seem to mind. "I have a few questions I feel need to be asked. Besides, I will likely only be remaining in one room today." He glanced over at Seira.

"Right." She stood up, glancing at the time. "We should be going soon."

What they didn't expect was for Tatiana to also stand up. "I too, shall join up with the rest of you."

"Huh?" Seira turned to look at her. "What use would you have to come with us?"

Stepping away from the table, Tatiana made her way towards the elevator. "There's a show today, and I must make sure that nothing unexpected happens!"

Watching her leave, Dae-Hyun let out a small sigh. "Then, we'll be at your station… Whenever you're done, just come join us." He glanced over at Melody and Benjamin, nudging them to come with them.

Seeing them leave to get ready for the show, Gemini quickly stood up. "I would love to join up with you, Seira, but I have some things I have to do today."

"O-Oh…" Seira was a bit disappointed to hear that, but it would be fine.

She'd just have to deal with Edison on her own.

However, Gemini wasn't going to leave her with just those words. "We should catch the show today, though." He flashed a smile and a nod, before getting into the elevator with the circus gang (this one doesn't get a trademark. They aren't good enough yet).

Now that he was gone, Seira turned towards the others. "Alright, we should head over to navigation now."

With half of the people gone, there wasn't much room for a conversation, given the people who were left.

And given that there were so few people… "I'll be taking my leave." Winter stood up rather hastily, almost as if she was trying to avoid someone for the time being.

Michael went to say something, but couldn't find himself to say anything.

At this point, he felt like there was no hope. "Right…" He stood up as well, although giving enough time for Winter to actually leave before he made an attempt to leave himself. "I… I'll be in my room."

As he left, May opened one of her eyes, watching him go away. "..."

Psi Sector

Given that he had almost no interest in watching the show that was about to happen, Michael found himself returning to the room from yesterday.

He had told everyone what they needed to know, and there was nothing else to be said.

So then why…

Why did he hear footsteps behind him, which could never be a good sign.

But maybe their only goal was to head to the garden.

He couldn't really see a reason why, but a few people did like the garden, so that was always a possibility.

However, the footsteps persisted even after the door to the garden, which meant two things. Either they were purposely following him, or they had business with the vacant room.

Either way, it wasn't good.

Now, Michael was growing increasingly more worried with every following step.

Eventually, he couldn't take anymore, and stopped. "Why are you following me?" Michael didn't bother to look behind him. "Is it to get into the vacant room?"

And that's when the footsteps stopped.

Silence…

With neither party wanting to say anything.

Finally, the stalker spoke up. "I wanted to apologise…"

Hearing that, Michael was a bit shocked. Especially since he hadn't expected them to be following him. "Um…" Turning towards them, he found-

No it wasn't Winter, get fucked.

May was standing several feet away from him, looking at him with a tired look in her eyes.

"You want to… apologise…?" Michael mumbled out. He was unsure why she would want to apologise. She hadn't really done anything-

"Astrophel."

Michael felt his entire soul freeze up, and his vision began to blur. He looked around the room in a panic, looking for the source of the sound. When finally, his eyes met with the person who spoke up. He hadn't expected much from this person, given they hadn't done much to begin with. "How… How…" He mumbled out, looking at them with horror. "What did you say?"

The person he was staring at was May, who had a rather indifferent look on her face. "Astrophel." May repeated. "That's your name, isn't it?"

Quickly, Michael looked around the room. "W-what?"

"Michael Astrophel." She repeated, a rather neutral look on her face. "The moment I saw your face, it clicked." May put her hands in her sweater pockets. No wonder he would try and hide his identity.

"He's…" May began to say, but her voice was quickly drowned out by Michael himself.

For once. Michael raised his voice. "Stop! I'm ordering you." The last part was said in a softer, more pleading voice.

Keeping her eyes closed, Michael had no effect on May. "He's…" This would completely change the dynamic of how everyone perceived him. But for the sake of this trial, it was going to be very important. "He's… The Ultimate Cult Leader…"

For a moment, Michael remained silent, staring at the wall.

Neither party really said anything, mostly just standing there.

Finally, May broke the silence again. "I want to apologise… For exposing your talent to everyone…"

"Oh…" Michael kept staring at the wall. "You… You don't have to apologise for something like that… I should have told people a while ago…"

A difficult conversation for the ellipsis gang.

Still, May had done all of that thinking that Michael had been the killer. "Yeah… But still, you got caught in the crossfire of the trial…"

Turning back towards the room that used to his, Michael let out a sigh. "In the end… It didn't matter… I was going to have the secret revealed no matter what happened… It was the only way we could get Ian."

That is true… But there still could have been ways to figure out everything. "No…" May shook her head. "I noticed that Laki's coin total was changed, and we could have reasoned a few other things."

Letting out a small sigh, Michael shook his head. "That doesn't really matter… I was too ingrained in the case anyway."

Being able to keep this a secret wasn't going to work out from the start…

"I… If it hadn't been for the motive, and it wasn't in front of everyone else…" Michael had spoken to Benoit about this.

He wanted to tell people…

It's just… He didn't want to be forced to do so.

May didn't say anything. Instead, closing her eyes. Was she sleeping now? Hard to tell.

"I too… would like to apologise." Ever since Michael had attempted to do it, he felt bad. "During the trial… I… I tried to…" There wasn't really any easy way to say this…

"Hmm…?" May hummed out opening her eyes, not knowing where he was going with this.

Letting out a heavy sigh, Michael shook his head. "During the trial, I tried to get you to shut up… But not in the traditional way… Instead… I tried to…"

Wow, this was much harder to admit than he thought.

Catching on to what he wanted to say, May spoke up again. "Did you try to control my mind…?" She was almost a bit offended that he would attempt to do something like that.

"I… Well… Yeah…" Michael avoided eye contact again. "But you weren't looking into my eyes, so it didn't work."

That's when something finally clued in for May. "Is that why… You always avoid eye contact?"

"I…" Michael hadn't realised it himself, but he always tried to avoid looking someone directly in the eyes. "Yes… I think that's why I always try to avoid that…"

Looking at him for a few seconds, May let out a yawn. "Wouldn't that mean… You don't want to be able to control people?"

… Michael didn't say anything right away. Instead, once again, looking away. "I… I guess so… I've never wanted to do… any of that…"

"Then…" May hummed out, looking away. "Doesn't that at least make you… a good person in spirit?" There was a lot she didn't know about Michael, and she might have made some assumptions based on information she thought she knew.

But from what she's seen so far, he was mostly harmless, unless something was happening to him.

"No… It…" Michael was struggling to find the appropriate words. "I wouldn't say I'm a good person." Something he was going to be firm on. "I shouldn't have tried to manipulate things…" So many times during the murder did he attempt to control people.

"It's not who I want to be…"

The two of them spent a few seconds in silence, mostly because May was thinking on what to say next.

She wasn't exactly the most social, so interactions like this came with its own struggles. "You want to help people…?" She eventually asked him.

Looking at her for only a fraction of a second, Michael quickly glanced away. "I… Maybe."

May spent a few seconds looking at the floor. "I think I want to help people too…" Especially since she didn't bother helping before it was too late.

Lorelei was right when they had spoken…

She had pretty much just chosen the laziest approach she could have while being here, meaning if she actually wanted to be able to talk, she needed to be able to help around.

Michael didn't bother looking up at her, instead, also choosing to look at the ground. "Then… We should both improve ourselves, right…?"

There was a lot that Michael wanted to change about himself, but doing so with most people distrusting him would be difficult.

"Thank you…" Michael hadn't felt the need to smile since that talk with Benoit. He got close with Melody, but hearing May's apology made the weight on his shoulder slowly lift off.

Now that May had gotten the talk with Michael she wanted, she was content with leaving.

Looks like she didn't come here to investigate at all. Just a talk.

It seems that Michael and May have grown closer.

Navigation

Given what Nova said yesterday, this was an important place to go to.

Opening the door, Edison made sure he stepped into the room first. "Ah! There it is!" What he was looking at was some sort of printer. Although, it seemed to use a different type of paper, almost like it was going to print a graph.

"Hey…" Seira stepped in after him, followed by Laki and Tatiana. "I thought we'd agree that I'd handle this."

"Science should be handled by me, of all people." Edison swirled around a flask, the liquid inside turning red.

Not being one to take this, Seira moved onto the machine. "Yes, that may be true. But the stars are my department."

"Technically speaking, asteroids aren't stars. They are rocks." Edison said, as matter-of-factively as he could, with a smile to match it.

Seira spent a few seconds looking at Edison, before turning back to look at the machine. "How does this work?"

Given that they weren't the only two people there, Tatiana finally spoke. "Perhaps we should ask Nova if she could tell us how it works?"

"Yes, I think that would be a good idea." Nova nodded her head.

This caused Tatiana to jump, while Laki just waved at her.

"Do not sneak up!" She took a few steps back, recovering from her brief panic.

"My apologies." Nova shook her head. "I just figured I should explain how it works, since you've never used it before."

While Nova was talking, Edison was testing out some of the buttons.

"H-hey! Stop! We don't know what that-" Seira slapped his hand away, which kind of led into them slapping each other's hands over and over again.

"..." Nova had no words to say, watching this going down.

Given that the two of them weren't paying attention, it was Tatiana's turn to speak up. "Yes, explain to us how it works."

Nova's visor changed to one of joy, given someone was interested. "Yes, the machine works automatically. You don't need to input anything into the machine, as I've already configured it the best I could."

For once, Seira and Edison stopped fighting, with the former turning to look at Nova. "So we just have to check in every so often?"

"Exactly! Approximately sixteen hours before an asteroid will hit the station, the printer will print a graph of the station, detailing where it will hit, as well as when it will be hit." Nova approached the printer, looking around at it.

"Nothing has been printed so far." Edison noted.

Pulling out a piece of thin paper, Nova handed it to the nearest person, who happened to be Laki.

Looking it over, Laki slowly nodded her head. "In eight hours."

"Then!" Tatiana frowned slightly, given she wanted to have her show around that time. "It means we will have to do the show much sooner than expected."

"Or… just after." Seira frowned slightly.

"Haha!" Tatiana let out a laugh. "If that asteroid is going to affect the station, I'd much rather have the show happen before anything terrible happens. I hope you understand."

This already seemed like a losing battle, so Seira decided to back away from this.

Meanwhile, with Laki and Edison, the latter was taking a closer look at the printer. "So, how exactly do you collect data for this?"

"Oh! Huh!" Nova definitely had an answer, but it was one she was going to refuse to answer.

Speaking of which, Seira had her own questions. "I'm curious… How are you able to even get asteroids to hit us?"

"Oh! Huh!" Another question Nova didn't want to answer. "Oh! Would you look at the time!" She took a glance at her wrist, which was missing a watch. "I must be off now."

"H-hey!" Seira called out to her, but she was already gone.

Walking back and forth, Edison began to mumble some things under his breath.

"Whatcha thinking?" Laki kept her eyes on him as he walked back and forth.

"Well!" Edison stopped walking, almost like he came up with an idea, although the look in his eyes revealed that he had quickly lost it. "Huh…"

Seira took the paper from Laki, giving it a look…

And also she didn't trust Laki with it… for some unknown reason.

"This entire motive feels weird." However, while looking at the paper, her eyes focused on something. "Wait…" It displayed where on the ship it was going to hit. Of note… There seemed to be something on the ship there. "It's almost as if it's purposely targeting that…"

Now Edison ripped the paper out of her hands. "Yes, I see!" Adjusting his goggles, he let the paper flutter to the ground. "I wonder what kind of asteroids these are. If they are made from iron or nickel…"

Seira quickly clued in to what he meant. "Right! Then wouldn't they be magnetic?"

Rare Seira and Edison working together moment.

With guest star Laki.

I guess…

Also Tatiana left or whatever. She has a show to run.

Edison nodded his head. "Theoretically speaking, the reason they are able to calculate exactly where the asteroid will hit is simply because of the magnetic pull from the ship."

"Then…" Laki hummed out, thinking of an answer. "Shouldn't we try and disable whatever is pulling the asteroids towards us?"

A solid idea… however… Edison shook his head. "We don't know where controls like that are, so we'd probably just be wasting our time."

Seira let out a small sigh, realising that while this line of thinking helped them figure out how it worked, it was all meaningless if they couldn't do anything about it. "Maybe we should go explore the ship outside tomorrow?"

"Huh? Why not today?" Edison was eager to go explore right now.

"Well…" Seira glanced the other way. "I did want to see Tatiana's show. Gemini asked me if we could go see it together. And then later, the second asteroid will hit, so I think we should just wait a bit."

Adjusting his goggles, a little infuriated, Edison shook his head. "Fine, then I'll just go with Laki."

Hearing that, her eyes sparkled a little. "We're going out into space?" Although, compared to how she usually got excited, it seemed toned down.

For a moment, Edison seemed a bit weirded out by her lack of enthusiasm.

However, he was quickly snapped out of it, as Seira took a step towards him. "No, we'll do it tomorrow. Just wait for me!"

Was she really going to bug him about this? "Ugh…" However, Edison knew that if he did it, he wouldn't ever hear the end of it from her. "F-Fine!"

With Seira gone, that left Edison and Laki alone.

Alone for a FTE-

Later.

Ultimate Knife Thrower Station

The show hadn't started yet, but for some reason, Gigi had decided to stop by earlier. Mostly due to her schedule being thrown so out of focus over the past two days.

Of course, she was the first person here.

In fact, the only person she could actively see was Melody, who was doing some dancing on stage. As soon as she saw Gigi, however, she quickly stopped. "The show doesn't start for another hour, you're early."

For a moment, Gigi didn't answer, only looking off to the side. Then, she turned to look back at Melody. "I'm just going to wait here for a bit, if that's fine."

Well, there was nothing wrong with that! So Melody didn't complain.

Of course, Melody wasn't one to miss how someone was feeling. "Is everything alright?"

At first, Gigi didn't answer, simply staring forward. After a while, she shook her head. "Why would anything be wrong? The only thing that's wrong is being stuck in this place."

Frowning slightly, Melody moved down to sit on the edge of the stage. "Let's bump gums for a while."

"Let's…?" This wasn't worth the effort to decipher what Melody meant, but given the type of person Melody was, Gigi figured it wasn't going to be anything bad. "Alright."

Letting her feet swing, Melody spent a few seconds looking over at Gigi. "What's eating you?"

"Melody…" Gigi glanced the other way. "I've been wondering, why are you so prone to…" She wanted to say trust people, but that wasn't the right phrase here. "Why are you prone to forgiving people?"

Or maybe it was…

"Hmm?" Melody tilted her head to the side. "What do you mean?"

"Ah… Maybe not forgiving people." This was a much more difficult conversation than Gigi would have thought.

Especially since it was so far outside her comfort zone in terms of topics. "I guess why do you choose to trust people so much? Despite what we learned about Michael, you were one of the first people to stand up for him."

"Oh, that?" A smile appeared on Melody's face. "Distrusting the fella wasn't doing us any good, besides, in the grand scheme, he didn't do anything wrong."

Saying he didn't do anything wrong wasn't entirely the truth… "He lied to us." Gigi crossed her arms, frowning slightly. "He lied to me about his whereabouts during the case, and he didn't provide us any information until the timer was halfway gone."

However, Melody didn't really see it like that. Shaking her head, she offered a smile. "Yet he found himself in a spot of bother with a black scheme. One can hardly expect him to act normally."

That was true, but still… There was still something nagging at the back of Gigi's mind.

"Michael… Is an enigma to me." Gigi couldn't find any better wording here, she waved her hand slightly. "His actions so far, ignoring the trial, has mostly been one of a good, albeit, weak person. Looking at him like that, I see no faults with him. However, he lied to my face about something important, and hid evidence."

What makes him a riddle?" Melody hummed out, shaking her head with a smile. "Some folks are just that way, you see."

"His actions have been inconclusive to determine whether he was a good person or not." Gigi frowned slightly, crossing her arms. "Although, I'd be more lenient in putting him in the bad person category."

Hearing that, Melody displayed a small frown. "Yet he's still been a real sport." She wasn't about to let Michael be painted in a bad light. "Why can't a chap be both?"

"Because nobody is down the middle." Gigi made her perspective known. It was either black or white, never in between.

"What?" How could that be true? Melody let herself drop down from the stage, placing her hands on her hips. "Now, I ain't privy to what you're jabbering about, but it strikes me as an utter load of malarkey. How could one ever pigeonhole folks into but two categories?"

For Gigi, it was quite simple actually!

It was because that's how she viewed the world. "Because everyone is one or the other. Anyone in the middle is simply trying to fool you into thinking they have some good in them."

This caused Melody to frown slightly. What a black and white worldview. I'm not thinking in that manner, not one bit... That's simply a tall tale!"

Frowning slightly, Gigi crossed her arms. "I've seen enough people to know that my point stands."

"What led you to that notion?" Melody tilted her head.

"What made me…?" For a second, Gigi was a bit taken aback by the question. Given nobody had ever asked her that. Instead, just shutting down her worldview.

The answer was… She didn't really know why she thought like that. The only thing she had conditioned herself to believe was that it was the truth.

"Like I said, I've seen a lot of people over the years. And they've all fit into two categories."

"What kind of people have you met that you would consider bad?" Melody wasn't going to judge her, but she at least wanted to know why Gigi thought like this.

Not answering for a bit, Gigi spent a few seconds looking at the ground.

She didn't really want to bring it up, but Melody fit into what she would consider good. In fact, she probably fit the criteria better than anyone else.

"The… The mafia."

"The- huh?" Not in a million years did Melody ever think Gigi would know anyone from the mafia. "Did they squeeze a pretty penny from you?"

"... Something like that…" Even so, Gigi didn't want to admit the full truth. "I had a run in with them when I was younger, and since then, they have only gotten worse."

Which meant that Gigi had to still be running into them. "What did they start doing?"

"…" Once again, she was choosing to remain silent about the matters. "It's rather personal, so I'd rather not say. Besides, none of them are the point of this conversation." They kind of were, given that Gigi brought them up. "People like that never change, and thus are relegated to being on one side."

Which brought Gigi to her next point. "You seem to be acting kind to Laki as well, despite what happened."

Seems that even while she was being fair to not let her starve, she wasn't going to forgive Laki. "Well!" Melody, on the other hand, was different. "How is the dame supposed to change, if we don't give her the time to grow?"

"Time to grow?" Gigi didn't seem to quite understand. "She was an accomplice in murder. There's no changing that."

That was true, the past couldn't be altered in the slightest. But… "Yeah…" Melody had a saddened look on her face. "However, we can't try and prevent her from improving. We're all entwined in this same predicament." Which meant they had to at least try and cooperate. "She found herself in a pickle and did something rather ill-advised."

Hearing that, it seemed to strike a silent chord in Gigi, who only turned away, crossing her arms. "That… That doesn't make it any better."

For some reason, she reacted differently to that.

"Is everything alright?" Melody didn't want to say something that would hurt her.

"It's nothing. Forget it." Gigi moved away from Melody. "Shouldn't you be trying to get ready for the show?"

She should, but Melody couldn't just leave Gigi like this. However, when she went to say something, she could tell that Gigi was just going to ignore her completely.

"Right…" Standing up, she moved past the curtains, disappearing behind them.

Sitting down in the audience, an intense frown appeared on Gigi's face. "Situational…" She mumbled out, not elaborating further on that…

It seems Gigi and Melody have gotten closer.

Navigation

Given that Edison didn't want to see the show, and instead focus on the printer, that meant that Laki was forced to stay with him in navigation.

There was just one thing wrong with this…

It was boring as all hell. "Why can't we go see the show…"

However, Edison was too busy to even bother to look at her. "Because, science is at work here!" He adjusted his goggles. "I want to know the most I can about the motive, so staying here is theoretically the best option we have."

Glancing at the paper he had been holding, Edison examined it closely. "Besides, it would be nice to be here next time a paper prints."

"But the show-" Laki had begun to say…

But she was cut off by Edison, who frowned in her direction. "And do you think you should be going to the show?" He still felt a bit bitter about what happened during the trial. "You almost got half of us killed."

"I…" Laki was trying her best to forget it…

If she just forgot about it, it never truly happened, right?

Things could just go back to normal…

And yet… That wouldn't bring Ian back, would it?

"You seem awfully chipper after what happened." Edison titled his head to the side, trying to see just how Laki was actually feeling, but he was no Gennosuke, so he wasn't able to actually figure anything out.

Hearing that, Laki's voice stuttered a bit, and she quickly looked away, before looking back with a smile. "Of course! I'm… I'm always chipper!"

And yet, the only thing she could really feel was uncomfortable. Why… Why was this what she felt?

Swirling a flask around, it slowly changed to the colour blue as Edison inspected it. "I don't believe that in the slightest. Hypothetically speaking, you are lying to me."

Laki's smile quickly faded away again, replaced by an expression she wasn't used to. "I…" What emotion was she even facing right now?

All these new feelings were scary…

Laki moved over to the one chair in front of the console, sitting down on it. She adjusted her position so she could also place her legs on the chair, hugging her knees. "I don't know…"

Seeing Laki like this was a bit unsettling to Edison, who quickly glanced the other way. "Still grieving?"

At first, he wanted to be a little mad at the entire stunt they had pulled off during the trial…

But he felt that feeling slowly fading away with every second, seeing the state she was in right now.

Letting out a sigh, Edison turned to face her completely. "Isn't that what happens when you attempt to tempt fate?" He swirled around his flask, albeit with less energy then he would normally do so, causing the dye to take longer to mix in with the rest of the liquid.

Was it?

Was it because her and Ian had decided to make this entire plan?

Were they doomed from the start?

"No… It…" No matter how much she had tried to act earlier, it had all fallen down. She thought that after eating, she would be in a better mood, but just thinking about the events made her feel uncomfortable.

Grappling with these new emotions wasn't something she was used to.

"Aren't you going to answer the question?" Edison put the flask down onto the printer, making sure it won't tip over.

"I…"

Still… No matter how much she tried, Laki couldn't even find the right words.

Was she supposed to apologise?

Was she supposed to cry?

She never had to do anything like this person, it was… it was unnerving…

After watching her for a few seconds, Edison was able to conclude a few things. "You two are used to things going the way you want, aren't you?"

"Yeah…" Laki responded. "When we were kids, nothing really went… Wrong. At least not for long. But… There's… It's not going back to the way it was before."

Because of her mistake, Ian was dead, and he wasn't coming back.

With every passing second, Edison found himself getting calmer. No longer was he as angry as he would have liked to be.

"Were you manipulated in doing this?" Now he was trying to see if he could find a way to make her more innocent.

"No."

Despite everything, Laki wasn't going to view herself as manipulated.

The actions she did were her own. Sure, Ian was there too, but some of the ideas shared were her own, and not Ian's. "Ian isn't like that…"

"I don't know." Edison had grabbed the flask again, swirling it around. "He seemed like that to-"

For once, Laki took a step towards Edison, causing him to take a step back.

"H-hey!"

Realising she acted a bit weird, Laki took a step back. "Sorry… I…" What was wrong with her? She'd never do that before.

This was all so frustrating…

Frowning slightly, Edison wasn't sure how to take this conversation. Yelling clearly wasn't going to be the answer, but accountability still had to be taken. "Will you be doing something like that again?"

"Why… Why would I?" Ian wasn't here.

There was nobody to do that stuff with.

And even if he was, it clearly didn't work out at all, so there'd be no point.

Edison had a feeling that would be her answer, especially given how she was acting. "You've never experienced these emotions before, haven't you?" Despite not being good socially, he had a feeling that it was the problem here.

"No, not really." The more Laki spent talking about it, the worse it got.

Half of her just wanted to be flung out of the ship to see what that felt like, but there's no way Edison would take her there.

She wanted to go to the show, but no way Edison would take her there either.

"It's… It's all new for me." She tried to force her usual smile, but it was weak.

"Then! Maybe you need someone to teach you all there is to know!" It was outside Edison's area of expertise… Given his area was chemistry. But he was always down to teach someone.

And if he got a few things wrong… She wouldn't notice!

"Teach me?" Even Laki felt like that was a ridiculous idea. For once, an actual smile formed on her face, almost as if to mock him a bit.

Adjusting his goggles, Edison frowned. "I could just leave you to your uncomfortable feelings instead, you know."

That's… DEFINITELY not something she wanted. "W-wait!" Alright, alright, Laki would have to take him up on his offer. "Fine."

Not that she would like it, but it beat not knowing what the fuck was going on half the time.

"Perfect!" Forcibly removing some paper from the printer, he handed some of it to Laki.

After inspecting it for a few seconds, she looked up at Edison. "What do you want me to do with this?"

"I want you to write every emotion you've felt before-"

Before he even got the time to finish it up, Laki ripped up the paper, making eye contact the entire time.

"GAH!" Edison took a step back. "But how am I supposed to teach you if I don't know what to teach?"

Laki could only offer him a shrug.

But no way was she doing homework while stuck in a killing game.

Sweeping the mess away with her foot, Laki shook her head. "Teach me another time, alright? Maybe not… today."

Her mind would be far too clouded to even process any information she was given.

It seems that Edison and Laki have grown closer.

Ultimate Knife Thrower Station

Quite a bigger crowd than expected had gathered.

Of course Gigi, Seira, and Gemini were there, but there were quite a few other people who had decided to join. Namely, the likes of Winter, May, and Lorelei.

Glancing to the side, Gigi looked down at May. "I'm surprised to see you here."

Letting out a small yawn, May shrugged. "I thought it would be a nice change of pace…" Although she seemed to be on the verge of falling asleep.

Of course, Lorelei and Winter showing up was a bit more surprising, but she wasn't going to make a comment on that.

Oh. I forgot to mention fucking Nova was here.

Seems she just went whenever talents were being displayed or something. Can't get rid of her.

While waiting, Seira turned to look over at Gemini, her legs swinging since her feet didn't exactly touch the ground. "Do you normally go to the circus?"

"Not really, this would be my first time." Gemini said this with a smile on his face. "However, with how things have been lately, I felt it was appropriate to show up; to get our minds off things."

Hearing that, Seira smiled warmly, humming a bit to herself. "I think you're right."

Soon, Tatiana walked out from behind the curtain, looking at the rather small audience in front of her.

Not like she expected a huge crowd, given there were only sixteen people in total, and a quarter of them were currently hosting the show.

But she was surprised to see Nova amongst them. Was something bad going to happen?

Naaah! Nothing bad ever happened during shows in Danganronpa.

"Welcome one and all!" Tatiana placed her hands on her hips, a grin on her face. "I know this may not be what some may call an amazing show, given the limitations, but we've still gone ahead and prepared a masterful show!"

Taking a step forward, she looked down at all six members of the audience. "That's right! Today, we have four amazing acts for you all!"

"Four…?" May hummed out. "I thought there were only three…"

Shrugging, Winter closed her eyes. "Maybe one of them has two acts?"

"Can't wait for the doll to start her solo career." Lorelei let out a small laugh.

Not bothering to look at her, Winter spoke up. "Why are you of all people here?"

"Can't a person almost watch someone die in peace?" Lorelei also didn't bother to look at her.

"That's the spirit!" Tatiana called out from the stage, nodding her head. "But fear not, as no actual death will happen on stage today." She waved her hand around. "The performers today are well trained, especially for the dangerous acts."

At the mention of no actual death, Nova's visor displayed a blue sad face. "Aww, but why can't there be death as well?"

"Because why would there be!" Ah, who was Tatiana kidding? She was trying to argue with Nova of all people. It was better to just continue her monologue. "A grand show awaits!"

"Heh." Gemini didn't seem to mind in the slightest. "Looking forward to it."

Seira hummed out, thinking of something. "Shouldn't the only dangerous act be Tatiana's?" Why was it plural…? That was a bit off.

Shrugging, Gemini didn't seem to pay it any mind. "Don't worry about it."

Now, back to Tatiana, she got a bit closer to the edge of the curtains. "Now, of course, we shouldn't start with too much excitement, shall we. We don't want death to be at the forefront. So instead, we'll start with two acts that are sure to get your spirits up!" Tatiana extended her hand out, striking a pose, before disappearing behind the curtains.

After a few seconds, they opened back up again, revealing the first performer.

Well, the performers was more accurate.

Sitting on a chair was Benjamin, with Dolly on his lap.

"Master! It's starting!" Dolly looked on eagerly for a bit, before quickly growing bored. "They aren't doing anything." She crossed her arms with a slight pout.

As… As much as a doll could pout.

After a few seconds, Dolly began to realise just what was going on. "Wait a second… Are… Are we the show!?"

"Yes!" Lorelei called out. "Not get on with it!"

Panicking for a few seconds, Dolly looked over at Benjamin, then the audience, then back at Benjamin. "We didn't even prepare a script!"

Impossible to tell if this was a bit, or if they were being genuine. Truly master comedians.

"Didn't even come prepared?" Winter hummed out audibly, tilting her head to the side.

"What was that?" Dolly quickly turned towards her. "We didn't need to come prepared!"

If Winter had tea on her, she'd drink some right now. "Oh? And here I have chosen to dedicate some of my time."

Why the hell was she being a heckler right now? Who goes to a comedy show just to insult the comedian?

I mean, a lot of people, but-

"We don't need to listen to the audience, master!" Dolly raised her hands in the air. "We prepared hard for this show, so we'll be sure to deliver!" She had no problems contradicting herself.

Alright, time to actually get on with the show. No more distractions! Probably!

"Master! Look at all these people who come to join us! It's too many to count on one hand." Dolly seemed pretty excited, despite the fact that the minimum requirement was six.

Which is exactly how many people were in the audience because Lorelei doesn't count as a person.

That's right. Nova is more of a person than Lorelei.

Figure that one out.

"Master! Master! What kind of performances can they expect from a show like this?" Dolly turned to look at Benjamin, who only glanced at her.

"W-what!?" She raised her hands in the air, in a panic. "You think that someone will die?"

Long pause, before Dolly slowly turned towards the audience. "Hey! Nova! We have a role for you!"

"Oh goodie!" Nova's visor changed to her joyful expression. "What does it involve me doing?"

"Dying." Zero hesitation from Dolly.

"..."

"Hmm… Any other roles?" Nova wasn't too keen on dying for no reason.

Thinking for a moment, Dolly was quick with her response. "We need a janitor."

"That's Monokawa's job, you can always ask him." Nova was also quick with her response.

From the sounds of it, Nova didn't want to work. "What will you do!?" Dolly raised her hands in the air.

"I can do what Tatiana does, but instead with a gun." Nova pulled out her blaster, aiming it directly at Dolly.

"Hold on, let me consult my advisor." Dolly reached her hand behind her back, before pulling out a mini sock puppet. Then, she started making affirmation noises, while nodding her head.

After a successful negotiation, Dolly let the sock fall to the ground. "Sorry, there isn't really much of a market for someone who shoots guns here. Try Twisted Tragedy instead."

Suddenly, Dolly pulled out another sock puppet. "What's that? There's already one in there?" She let that one fall to the ground too. "You'll never find a place where you belong."

"That's OK, I'll keep killing off participants." Nova didn't seem too phased from this.

"..." Now Dolly was at a loss of words.

And you want to know what you do when you are at a loss of words?

You make puns. Easy as that.

"Who wants to help me throw her Nova-board?" Dolly raised her hands in the air.

After such a terrible pun, the audience remained silent.

"Ha! Get it!" Dolly looked for approval from the audience. "Nova-board, like overboard?"

But all she received was a tomato, splattering as soon as it connected.

"Gah! Master! My hair!" Dolly began to panic, trying to get it off.

One look at the audience, and it was clear who had thrown the tomato. "Heh." Thank you Lorelei.

"Are you getting paid for this as well?" Winter hummed out.

This prompted Lorelei to give her a dumbfounded look. "Wait, you're getting paid?"

Whistling to herself, Winter didn't answer the question.

Now her actions were starting to make a lot of sense.

However, before Lorelei could ask another question, she got splattered by a tomato as well. "What the fuck-"

"Haha!" Dolly let out a laugh, almost imitating Tatiana. "I knew something like this, so I had master prepare some tomatoes!" What Dolly pulled out were just smaller tomatoes, but hey, whatever works.

OK, Lorelei only had like… one other tomato, and she didn't want to waste it on Dolly yet. "Whatever, loser. Just get on with your show."

Crossing her arms, Dolly seemed determined. "Hey, at least whatever I can do is much more entertaining than you."

"Can't we kick her out?" Winter suggested casually, not even bothering to look in Lorelei's direction.

"Ugh, shut up, I don't want to hear this from the girl who's getting paid to be here." Lorelei rolled their eyes.

Winter said nothing in response, and continued to watch the show.

Raising a hand in the air, Dolly nodded along. "I agree! Let's kick her out! Kick her out! Kick her out!" She began to chant. "Do it with me!"

The only people who seemed to join along were Gemini, Nova, and Winter. Everyone else had remained silent.

"Aww! That's it?" Dolly was a bit disappointed to see the lack of engagement. But she was used to this sort of thing by now.

Also it was at this point that it became very obvious that there really wasn't any script because all of this had been improv.

And boy was Dolly running out of things to make up on the spot.

Which meant only one thing!

Time to end the show!

"You've been a really good aud-" Dolly stopped herself, figuring that she should reconsider what she was saying. "You have all been an above average aud-" No. That didn't sound right either.

"You've been an audience." Yeah, that'll show them.

As the curtains began to close, it wasn't without one last tomato flying through the small opening between the curtains.

"Really!?" Dolly called out, prompting Lorelei to laugh a bit.

"Alright, I've done what I wanted to do." Now they could watch the rest of the show without any regrets.

"Honestly…" Winter shook her head. She couldn't understand why someone would come to this show just to hate on it.

Alright, technically Winter herself did exactly that, but she was compensated

There was a bit of silence while the next act got itself ready.

"Well, I thought it was a funny show." Nova clapped her hands together. "It's always nice seeing Ultimates in their natural habitats."

"Why do you make us sound like animals in a zoo?" Seira blinked a few times.

Nova didn't respond.

Suddenly, the curtains began to part.

Stepping out of the curtains was Tatiana again. "And with that, our first act concludes. But you must be asking yourself, what our next act will be."

"Not really." Lorelei even seemed bored.

As a professional heckler, life was hard.

"Well, assuming yours is last, Melody would make the most sense, right?" Winter tilted her head slightly.

Ignoring her completely, Tatiana continued on. "It's a mystery for sure. But fret not, the acts will resume very shortly. Just cleaning up after the last act."

Right, Lorelei did throw a few tomatoes.

Of note, they already cleaned themselves up from the reverse tomatoes.

Given that there was nothing to do but wait, Gigi moved away from the audience seating, instead, decided to check out what was nearby.

However, the only other thing they could even check out was the knife rack, and some racks of clothes. Notably, all the knives were missing, but Tatiana was getting ready for her own show.

"Getting bored?" A voice called out from behind, but when Gigi turned to look at who it was, it was only Winter.

"Yeah, I don't want to spend too much time here than is necessary." Especially with the motive now active. However, Tatiana assured everyone that she had checked the asteroid forecast, and there wasn't going to be any during her show.

Winter began sorting through the clothes. "Nice collection here. Must be all the outfits she's worn to her performance." Then, she pulled out her regular outfit. "Oh, and I guess spare clothes."

Notably, none of the outfits were missing. "Hmm… I guess she won't be wearing anything special."

Well, it would be weird for Tatiana to suddenly come out in a different outfit, especially considering her current outfit was already pretty fine.

However, before Gigi could do anything else, the voice of Tatiana called out again from the stage.

"We are finally ready to continue with our next act!" She had moved to stand right on the edge. "Is everyone ready for what it might entail?"

Silence, followed by Gemini cheering. "Come on! You're a boring audience!"

"Umm…" Lorelei rolled her act. "Some of us are here because there's nothing else to do."

May let out a small yawn, before trying her best to cheer. "Go…" Yeah that's all she had. Not sure what you were expecting.

"No matter!" It seems that wasn't enough cheering. "It's time for the next act!" The curtains opened up, revealing Benjamin and Dolly… again…

"Hi! It's us again, ready to deliver-" The curtains closed up.

Tatiana waited a few seconds, tapping her foot on the floor.

After enough time had passed, she turned to look at everyone else. "Let's try that again, shall we?"

When the curtains opened up again, Melody would be standing in the middle of the stage.

However, she wasn't the only person there. With her was Dae-Hyun, who wanted to be anywhere but here. "This isn't what I agreed to-"

Ignoring him completely. Melody smiled at everyone watching her. "Hello everyone!" It was always fun to have a crowd.

Meanwhile, Dae-Hyun attempted to avoid any eye contact. "Melody, I can't-"

His pleas went unnoticed. "I came here today with a dance. It tugs at my heart to know I haven't spent enough time dancing."

Thanks Gennosuke, you bastard.

But now, it was time for Melody to show off what she could do. "With me, is Dae-Hyun."

Who'd rather… be anywhere but here.

And that was something that Melody knew, but she also felt like he needed to get out a bit more.

Bro was absent during Chapter 2, Dae-Hyun needs more screen time.

"Please… Just let me go-" Dae-Hyun had more to say, but he got cut off by an audience member.

"Who let the homeless person in here!?" Lorelei yelled out.

"H-hey!" Melody took a step forward, pouting slightly. "You can't simply utter such a thing!"

"Even if it is the truth." Nova let out a small sigh. "Dae-Hyun is an ultimate, so he's clearly not homeless."

"D-Don't encourage it!" Melody mumbled out.

Dae-Hyun let out a sigh, taking a step back. "I'm just a distraction up here… I don't want to be center stage."

And yet, Melody wasn't going to let him off the hook just yet. "No, just dance a bit, alright?"

Despite wanting to say no, Dae-Hyun let out a small sigh, standing beside her again. "Fine…" He couldn't really say no to a student. "But don't blame me if things get ruined…"

Things weren't about to be ruined with Dae-Hyun here.

It was always nice to have someone to dance with. A rather eager expression on her face, she turned towards the audience of seven. "I think it's finally time to dance. Hit the music!"

Despite it being in view of everyone, nobody noticed the record player that was on the back of the stage, simply because the author never pointed it out until now.

After a few seconds, Tatiana was forced to start the music, given that Dae-Hyun would normally do it, and he was a bit preoccupied.

"This kind of music…" Gigi twirled a strand of hair with her finger. She hadn't been into Melody's Station, so she was unaware of what type of music normally played.

Now that the music started, Melody was content with tapping her feet on the ground.

As always, the rhythm she was tapping her feet at seemed to match the music that was chosen.

Despite not knowing what the fuck to do, Dae-Hyun had spent enough time watching Melody practice over the last two days, that he managed to remember most of the timings.

Now, was he good?

No. Of course not.

It's Dae-Hyun.

But he tried, and that's all that matters :)

"He's a bit off beat, isn't he?" Lorelei rolled her eyes.

"Hmm…" Winter hummed out, finding herself agreeing with her. "Not to mention he seems to be messing up a bit."

Still, Nova seemed entertained. "In no time, he could also become an Ultimate Tap Dancer."

Hearing this, Dae-Hyun turned to look over at Nova, shaking his head in annoyance.

"Ah! Maybe not." She wasn't about to force someone to do a talent they hated.

Now that the tempo of the song increased, so did Melody's taps, as she began to dance around Dae-Hyun.

None of this routine had been practised, so he wasn't exactly sure what she was doing.

While this performance was going on, Seira found herself humming to the tune that was playing. "See, this is nice and relaxing."

So was looking at the stars, but it was nice to have some variety every so often.

"Yeah, it sure is." Gemini's eyes darted over to the side for a second, before looking back at the performance.

"Come on, Dae-Hyun!" Melody kept going around him in circles, tapping the ground in rhythm. "You've listened to the song countless times while I practised."

Sure, but that didn't exactly make him good at this. "I really shouldn't-" Ah what the hell was any of this.

He knew agreeing to this show was a bad idea, and now he was regretting it.

Still, Dae-Hyun didn't want to ruin the show that Melody had been so excited for, so he still tried his best to follow her lead.

Of course he wasn't very good, so he sort of began to make his way for the nearest exit, stage left.

Seeing this, Melody couldn't help but giggle a bit, as she began to circle around Dae-Hyun, tapping her feet on the ground. "Isn't this fun?"

"Not really…" Dae-Hyun mumbled out. If you could see his eyes, there would be a lot of annoyance behind them

As Melody continued to move around Dae-Hyun, she began to hum the tune to the song she was dancing to.

Dae-Hyun should honestly just consider himself lucky he even watched what Melody was doing these past two days, or he would have been completely screwed.

Having watched him for enough time, Melody let out a small giggle, tapping her way over towards Dae-Hyun. "You did amazing." She cheered out.

With a gentle shove, Melody was informing Dae-Hyun that she had the rest.

To his relief, he was able to step off stage.

Which meant that finally Melody could increase the speed of her dance.

Her legs were moving pretty quickly now, to the point where it looked like she spent a lot of time in the air, but the clacking of her heels on the wooden floor informed otherwise. "Everyone, you can dance too if the mood strikes."

Real shit? Gemini stood up, having grown bored of sitting down for the last bit. "You heard her." He turned to look at Seira.

She, in response, blushed and quickly shook her head. "I don't know how to dance like that!" And also she would be too much of a mess to dance with Gemini right now.

Shrugging, he didn't seem to mind. However, when he attempted to copy Melody's dance, it was clear he literally had no idea what he was doing. "See? I'm a master."

Yeah OK buddy.

Well! One person had begun dancing, and that was more than enough to make Melody smile brighter than she was before. "See? It's that easy."

Cue Gemini being bad at it again.

Honestly, Melody could have kept her dance going for an hour. She's danced for that long before.

The only thing holding her back was that this was a show, and there were still other people who needed to perform.

As Melody tapped her feet on the ground, she began to spin around the stage, travelling as she went, before returning towards the center.

And with one last final spin, Melody bowed down, letting the applause happen.

The applause was mainly from Nova, Seira, and Gemini, but that was enough.

Once enough time had passed the curtains slowly began to close.

After a few seconds, Tatiana walked out of the curtains again, a confident look on her face. "Now, for our next act, it might be a bit different from what you might think."

"Isn't it just your act?" Lorelei raised an eyebrow, having barely paid attention to the last two acts.

"Yes, one would think that to be the case." Tatiana turned to face the curtains. "However, we have a rather special act today!"

Seeing this, Gemini let out a sigh, before turning to look at Seira. "Hey, I'll be right back. I just remembered I have to take care of something."

"A-ah…" Seira didn't want to see Gemini leave, but if he had something to do, she wasn't going to stop him.

Pulling out a smoke bomb from his pouch, he slammed it on the ground, disappearing in a puff of smoke.

For a few seconds, Seira was looking at the smoke, coughing a bit. "Why… Why do it like that?"

Sometimes he confused her.

But that was fine, it was cute.

"You might be asking yourself…" Tatiana continued, closing her eye. "Just what kind of special guest we might have today?" She took a few steps off the center stage, moving to the left.

"Then behold! Feast your eyes upon this!"

When the curtains finally opened up, it revealed…

…

Benjamin and Dolly… Again? Sitting in front of a water tank.

"Master! Master! We should go again!" Dolly raised her hands in the air.

Coughing a few times. "We appear to be having some… technical difficulties." If Tatiana could even call it that.

In an instant the curtains were closed again. "Alright, let's get the real special guest on stage right now!"

When the curtains opened up again, this time it revealed…

…

Gemini!?

"W-what?" Seira quickly stood up, a bit shocked to say the least.

But it now made sense with why he had to go! And why he even invited her to the show.

Now that the show was back on track, Tatiana walked center stage again. "Of course, I managed to call a friend in for today's performance."

"Oh wow, we're friends." On closer inspection, Gemini seemed to actually be… Handcuffed? Just what was about to happen?

However, it didn't take long for Seira to clue things in when she noticed the water tank behind him, with a bunch of different locks around it. "Wait, you aren't going-"

Before Seira could state her observation, Tatiana continued on. "For this performance, Gemini will be able to demonstrate his talent to us. As the Ultimate Escapist, he hasn't been able to escape anything as of yet."

"My pride." Gemini mumbled monotonously.

Guiding him over towards the water tank, Tatiana showed him the ladder. "Right this way, sir!"

Gemini did as he was told, standing above the water tank. "You know, sometimes I start to have second thoughts." He said this, clearly as a joke.

However, it didn't seem he was ready to be shoved right into the tank, falling right into it.

As Gemini was dropped down into the water tank, he began to look around wildly.

Quickly, the top part was sealed off by Tatiana, who had placed some locks on the inside before this performance had started.

"H-hey!" Seira stood up quickly. "Did you even tell him you were going to do that?"

Tatiana ignored her completely, continuing to narrate her show. "Now, fully trapped inside the water tank! Hands bound, and the way out barricaded, can Gemini, the Great Escapist actually make it out?"

It looked like Seira had no choice but to watch it unfold right in front of her.

Inside the tank, Gemini didn't seem to panic that much. He held his breath, sure, but he was keeping his cool.

Slowly, he began to move his hands behind his back, getting a feel for the handcuffs. Clearly, Tatiana wasn't just going to murder him here in front of a live studio audience, which meant there had to be a trick to this entire thing.

A trick he hadn't been told, but what kind of escapist has to be told the way out?

Not him, that's for sure.

Letting himself sink to the bottom, Gemini let his legs relax as he focused entirely on the handcuffs.

They had to be a trick handcuff, the only problem was that he has never needed to get some of those off of him before.

Moving his hands around some more, Gemini was able to grab one of the handcuffs with the opposite hand. This allowed me to pull the handcuff open, freeing one of his hands.

Which lead to the other hand also being freed.

Perfect, now he could actively do the puzzle.

Still, holding his breath for so long was starting to strain him. Sure, he had definitely messed around underwater, that was always with the freedom to resurface whenever he needed to.

Now, this was different…

Glancing up, Gemini was able to spot the lock that was keeping him inside the tank. But there wasn't a single key in sight.

Unless he just hadn't seen it.

Taking a glance around the area, Gemini spotted one all the way at the bottom.

Using his legs against the ceiling, he propelled himself down, managing to grab the key, and doing the same movement against the floor, to propel him towards the ceiling again.

Inserting the key into the lock, Gemini was met with a terrible realisation…

The key wasn't for this lock…

"Tatiana…" Seira had a worried expression on her face. "Why… Why didn't the key open the lock?"

Letting out a laugh, Tatiana shook her head. "Why would I make a great escape like this simple?"

Now the rest of the people were worried along with Seira.

"Should we… Do something…?" May wasn't sure if he would be interrupting the show if they did.

Even Dolly was getting nervous. "Huh… Tatiana…? He's been there for a while…"

"Nonsense! This is perfectly safe!" She glanced over towards Gemini, changing her expression to a neutral one.
Lorelei tilted her head to the side. The entire time, they hadn't been interested in the show, but now…

Oh now this was good.

Back in the tank, Gemini was running out of time, letting the key float out of his hands, he attempted to move the lock around himself.

The moment he felt something click, he knew he was on the right track.

Continuously, Gemini messed around with the lock, hearing another click as soon as he lifted up the base of it. Almost there…

This was just a simple trick lock. No key required…

After moving the lock in one last direction, Gemini heard a much more resonating click, with the slow falling to the ground.

Perfect… He knew he only had a few seconds left before he passed out anyways. Time to push the ceiling open-

And that's when Gemini saw it…

One last lock…

Requiring a key.

Panicked, Gemini looked around for the key that he had left floating around, before spotting it being dragged down by the trick lock.

Shit.

Doing the same trick again, he boosted himself towards the bottom of the tank, reaching out for the key…

Only to grab the trick lock.

Where?

Where is it-

Despite the panic Gemini found himself in, he was able to spot the key floating around near the bottom.

With next to no time left, he had to react quickly, swiping for the key, snatching it.

With another boost, he was able to move back towards the top, quickly pushing the key into the lock, and…

With…

A final…

Ah… It was getting difficult to see now…

With a final twist-

…

Seira stood by, watching, a bit frozen. It had been so long, and while before she could easily see Gemini, the water had been agitated so much by his wild movement, it made the visibility in the tank significantly lower.

Did he do it? Did Gemini finish the escape?

And just when it seemed like it took too long…

The ceiling opened, and Gemini pulled himself out.

For a brief moment, he seemed to be in a bit of pain, but after one good breath of air, he had a bright smile on his face. "Ha… That was no match for me."

"And we have a success!" Tatiana declared, bowing slightly at the finishing show. "See, he was never in any real danger."

"I almost drowned." Gemini didn't really seem to be too beat up about it.

Dolly, from backstage raised her fists in the air. "It's only part four, there was never any danger!"

Quickly, Seira jumped onto the stage, waiting for him at the bottom of the tank, before quickly turning towards Tatiana. "How could you just make him do that without asking?"

"Haha!" Tatiana laughed out loudly, before her voice got quieter. "I asked him beforehand… He said he was fine with doing this…"

Dropping down, Gemini nodded his head along. "It's fine." Well, that sure simultaneously took the life away from him, and made him feel alive.

Try to logic that one out.

Now that the act was finished, Tatiana called upon Dae-Hyun. "Now, we only have one last act remaining. Mine! And it's sure to close out the act for sure."

In the background, Dae-Hyun could be seen pushing away the water tank. Why was he doing this? Cause fuck him, that's why.

One pull of the rope, and the curtain had closed again.

When Gemini and Seira sat back down, people seemed to gather around Gemini.

Gigi frowned, looking down at him from the back row. "You shouldn't be doing something so dangerous."

"One thing could have gone wrong, and your life would be over…" Winter let out a sigh, shaking her head. "How can you be so trusting?"

"Because if something went wrong, Tatiana would obviously be the killer." Gemini let out a small laugh. "I think she's smart enough to not risk something like that."

Was Seira worrying about nothing…?

No, of course not. Had anything gone wrong…

Before she could say anything else, Gemini shook his head. "Seira, I'm fine. I live for this type of thing sometimes."

Albeit, way less dangerous, but he wasn't going to tell her that part.

Feeling her heart come to a bit of a rest, Seira let out a sigh. "Alright…"

Time to enjoy the rest of the show. Then again, there was only Tatiana left, and it was obvious what her routine would be like.

Music began to play again, probably coming from the same record player as before, which could only mean one thing!

Now, it was finally time for the last act of the day!

The moment we've all been waiting for!

Tat-

When the curtains opened up, it was Benjamin and Dolly again.

"Huh- Master! I think we've already done our part. We can't keep showing up like this!" Dolly looked at the audience, who seemed slightly disappointed.

Benjamin remained silent.

Slowly, Dolly nodded her head. "You know what? You're right! We deserve an encore! Let's go master- GAH! MASTER! THE CURTAINS ARE CLOSIN-" The rest of the sentence was muffled behind the curtain, and soon the stage fell silent again.

"Was that… part of the act?" Gemini crossed his arms. Besides his role in all of this, he wasn't even sure what was planned or not.

Finally, after even MORE time, the curtains opened again, letting Tatiana take center stage this time. "What a lovely audience we have today!" She called out to the like… seven people here.

Look, it's difficult to get a lot of people here, alright? There's barely anyone alive anymore (an entire normal Danganronpa game worth of people).

"I thought you'd be throwing knives at a wheel." Winter hummed out, looking around.

Slowly, Gemini shook his head. "Don't tell me you need another volunteer." He already almost drowned, even if it was exactly what he signed up for, that didn't mean he wanted to almost die again.

"No no!" Tatiana raised both her hands in the air. "No volunteer from the audience required."

Catching on quickly to what she meant, Winter hummed out. "Oh? Did you have someone volunteer from the show?"

"Haha-" Tatiana let out a nervous laugh. "Now, why would I go ahead and do that?"

Slowly, in the background, Dae-Hyun and Melody moved over the death wheel onto the stage.

Given that almost everyone was seen, it became pretty obvious who might be on the wheel.

When they finally turned the wheel around- Oh yeah it was Dolly and Benjamin.

"Master! Master! She didn't like us usurping her show." Despite being tied up, Benjamin still had one hand free to move around Dolly minimally.

"Huh…" Tatiana looked over at the two of them, before beginning to whisper. "I meant only Dolly!"

Dae-Hyun slowly turned his head towards the wheel of death. He already went through the effort of getting things set up, he wasn't about to change it now. "Well, you should be fine."

Melody, on the other hand, seemed far more concerned. "Huh… Are we sure?"

Dolly let out a laugh. "You couldn't hit us even if you tried!" She tried to raise her arms up, but Benjamin was so limited on movement, that it wasn't possible.

For a brief moment, Tatiana appeared nervous, but she replaced it with a laugh. "Hahaha! This will do splendidly!" Quickly pulling out a knife from nowhere, she twirled it around. "What better way to finish a show, then with a sense of danger?"

"Huh?" Gemini raised an eyebrow. "But you're not the one in danger."

"True, true." Tatiana nodded her head along, with a smile on her face. "Nonetheless, it doesn't make it any less dangerous. Dae-Hyun! Start the wheel!"

For a moment, Dae-Hyun didn't move. Instead, he stayed right where he was. "When I said I'd help manage the show, I didn't mean I would do all the grunt work."

For a moment, Tatiana frowned. "You're right. I haven't been treating you very wel- Melody! Start the wheel!"

"On it!" Melody had no issues here. She pressed her foot on the pedal, which began the rotation of the wheel.

"Woah- Woah Woah Woaaaah-" Dolly called out as they spun, with Benjamin trying his best to keep a neutral expression. However, it quickly proved to be difficult with how much they were spinning.

Twirling around her knife, Tatiana made sure to watch the wheel spinning. For a moment, she seemed a bit nervous, but she still attempted to throw the knife.

As the knife travelled, it felt like silence had overtaken the audience. One wrong move and-

It stuck neatly into the wood, missing both Benjamin and Dolly.

"Master! Master! We're alive." Dolly cheered as she continued to spin around.

Long pause.

"Is it over-"

The next knife lodged itself right next to one of her hands. "GAH! It's not stopping!"

Now, with only three knives left, Tatiana began to twirl them around her fingers. "Haha! Why would I stop at merely one knife?"

That wouldn't be exciting!

Once again, Lorelei seemed to be watching this one more intently than the last ones. "What if you miss?" Almost as if to taunt Tatiana.

For a second, she hesitated, before shaking her head. "Haha! I, Tatiana, would never miss!"

Allegedly.

Getting her focus back, a serious expression appeared on her face.

Tatiana didn't need to be heckled by a crowd, and she sure as hell wasn't going to let it affect her performance.

Getting the rhythm back in place, Tatiana threw her next knife…

But she didn't throw it at the wheel.

Instead, she threw it at the floor.

However, the knife did not get lodged. Instead, the hilt of the knife hit the floor, bouncing back off, before lodging itself into the wheel, right next to Benjamin's left leg.

"Woah! Did you see that master!" Dolly seemed pretty excited by that one. "Huh? What's that? You're going to be sick if this ride doesn't stop anytime soon?" Pause. "GAH! Master! Not when I'm here! My clothes!"

Now Tatiana was down to her last two knives. One of them had a tiger carved into it, and the other one was her signature moon knife, with the word Luna etched onto it. "Now, I may be running out of knives, but fret not, as I still have a lot to show!"

Twirling around the animal knife, she turned her focus back over to Benjamin and Dolly. "Master! She's looking at us again!" However, her voice was beginning to break as Benjamin found it hard to stay in character while spinning so much.

Maybe he was finally getting tired-

Nope the wheel increased in speed.

Spending an extra second to figure out the timing, Tatiana's normally chipper personality had grown more serious; she needed all the concentration in the world right now, as to not accidentally butcher Benjamin.

Dolly was fine to butcher, though.

And so, that's who her target was this time. Readying the knife, it left Tatiana's hand, flying towards where Dolly was going to be.

However, obviously she wasn't going to kill Dolly. Instead, it landed right above her head.

"Master! My hair was almost cut!" Not that she could reach over and check for it.

Which meant, there was only one knife left…

Right?

Before Tatiana went onto her last stylised knife, she pulled out… regular knives?

That's right!

More than one!

"Haha! Hope you didn't expect me to only throw five knives and call it a night." She twirled two of the knives around on different hands. "What a lame way to end a show."

"No, I expected you to throw five knives and call it a knife!" Dolly still had time for jokes- Oh hey the wheel increased in speed. Weird.

Jumping onto the chair that Benjamin had done his act earlier, Tatiana turned towards the audience for a brief moment. "What you've seen so far is nothing compared to what's going to happen now."

She stopped twirling her two knives around, holding them, ready to be thrown. "What if I threw them both at the same time?"

"Bad! Idea!" At this point, this was all Dolly could say as the dizziness was beginning to take over Benjamin.

"And a bad idea is exactly why it must be accomplished!" Tatiana turned towards the duo, twirling one knife.

When she stopped, she threw them both towards the wheel.

Dolly let out a scream, as if her life was going to end any moment…

But…

The two of them were perfectly fine, as one knife landed between Benjamin's fingers, and the other one narrowly missed Dolly. "Woah! Woah!" She called out in a panic.

And yet, Tatiana wasn't going to stop there. Now, it was on to three knives.

"Woah! Woah!" Despite being spun around, Dolly could still count.

"If you thought two was amazing! Just wait till you see three!" Tatiana let out her iconic laugh as she held out the three knives.

"She's just throwing more knives." Gemini noted, crossing his arms.

"She's a knife thrower, what did you expect?" Seira kept her eyes on the stage, not bothering to even look at him.

While throwing two knives was pretty difficult. Throwing three of them was a different challenge entirely.

Mostly because Tatiana wasn't a freak of nature and had two arms.

Wait… Does that mean Atlas is a freak of nature- :boom:

"Haha! You may be asking yourselves, how am I to pull something like this off?" Tatiana took a step forward, waiting for an audience response.

After a bit of silence, Lorelei was the only one to call out. "By throwing them?"

"The answer is… I do not know."

"WHAT!?" Dolly could be heard, before her voice was overtaken by the wheel.

Tossing one of the knives into the air, Tatiana began to poorly juggle the knives around. She wasn't amazing at it or anything, but it was enough for her not to cut her hands. "You see, as a member of the circus, I've learned many useful skills!"

"You know, I also learned juggling, but it's never come up in life before." Gemini mumbled out. "Maybe I took the wrong career path."

Maybe he should try to escape something while juggling…

Yeah! That'd be fun.

Back to the main girl, Tatiana had to time this right, since she wanted to throw all three knives in quick succession.

As soon as the first knife landed in her right hand, she tossed it out, landing it right beside Benjamin's left hand.

As the first one left her hand, the second one was halfway through its arc, and the third one was just leaving her left hand.

Second knife was thrown the moment Tatiana could, and it landed right between Benjamin's legs.

As the second knife left her hand, the third one was slowly descending towards Tatiana.

With one last breath, she caught the last one, making sure to bounce this one off the ground. It managed to land where Dolly's head used to be.

"W-Woah! M-Master! She's trying to kill me!"

Now, it was down to one last knife.

Twirling around the Luna knife, Tatiana took one last deep breath. "I hope you enjoyed a night of excitement! Sure, it wasn't like a normal circus, but we did what we had to, after all."

She pointed her knife at the audience. "May you all have an amazing rest of the day."

Now, her attention was back to Benjamin and Dolly… Figuring out the timing, it was clear what she was aiming at, given what her knife was following.

She was seemingly aiming at where Benjamin's head was.

For a few seconds, Tatiana had a nervous expression, but it quickly went away.

With one last throw… The Luna knife bounced off the ground, seemingly going to strike where Benjamin's head would be…

Only for him to barely avoid being hit, as the knife landed right where his head used to be a moment ago.

"Perfect!" Tatiana raised her hands in the air, praising herself. "And with zero injuries to boot."

"Can! We! Stop!" Dolly yelled out.

A few seconds later, Dae-Hyun moved over closer to the wheel.

Finally, the wheel that held Benjamin and Dolly slowed down to a halt, allowing Dae-Hyun to unstrap them, and for Tatiana to collect her knives.

Turning towards the audience, she took a bow. "Thank you one and all for coming for such an amazing show! I know the timing is a little off, given that the motive is in full force, so I appreciate the effort."

Everyone from the audience began to clap, except for Lorelei, who didn't enjoy it one bit, and May, who was currently sleeping.

What an amazing audience.

With that, the curtains slowly began to close, hiding Tatiana behind them.

"That was pretty good." Seira stood up, letting out a sigh of relief.

The third act was still causing her heart to nearly burst out of her chest.

"Yeah, it sure was." Gemini responded in his normal cheery mood, before seeing the look of disapproval on Seira's face. "You… You aren't going to let this go, aren't you."

Given how much she was freaking out, it was difficult for Seira to ever forget it. "We need to have a better talk later."

He should consider himself lucky she didn't want to interrupt the show after his act.

"Right…" Gemini let out a sigh, before turning his attention towards the exit.

One by one, everyone left, leaving the only people behind the ones in charge of the show.

Ultimate Tap Dancer Station

After such a show, Gemini needed to be somewhere with more pleasant vibes. And what better place than the room that played music from an entire century before he was born!

Alright, I didn't really have an excuse, I just wanted this to happen in a different scene. Shut up.

As Gemini sat down to relax a bit, he heard the door opening. Looking over at it, he expected Seira.

However, instead he got…

"Lorelei?" Gemini raised an eyebrow, seeing her enter the room. "What are you doing here?"

Placing a hand on their hip, Lorelei shook their head. "What? Got a problem with me being here?"

"No, no. Not at all. It just doesn't feel like a room you'd hang out around." Gemini stood up.

Lorelei made her way over to the bar. Despite this being open for a while, she actually hadn't bothered checking Melody's Station. Mostly because that was someone she didn't want to run into. "Just wanted to check something out." Oh, the fucking alcohol- Goddammit Lorelei-

Gemini shrugged, as he sat back down. He didn't have an issue with her presence. Not that he really had an issue with anyone's presence…

"Say…" Lorelei trailed off, placing a bottle down on the bar counter. "I've been curious about you for a while."

That wasn't ominous or anything… Gemini frowned slightly. "And why would that be?"

Waiting a few seconds, a mischievous grin appeared on Lorelei's face. "It's about your talent. It feels so weird."

Hearing that, Gemini grew a bit defensive. "Why would it be weird?"

"Hmm…" Lorelei hummed out, pouring herself a glass. "Hard to tell. But it just does, you know?"

Given the way this conversation was going, Gemini already wanted out of here. "I don't see how it would be weird. A lot of people can be escape artists. There's people who do it all the time. Not like my talent is a lie, you saw me perform today."

"Ah! There it is!" Lorelie looked over at him, a glint in their eyes. However, she refused to say what she noticed. "Now I at least have some admission."

What… What was she even talking about? "Lorelei, you're going to need to start making some sense…" Maybe he chose the wrong room to relax in, because Lorelei was giving him hell.

Moving the finished glass off to the side, Lorelei shrugged. "I think you know exactly what I'm talking about. You got a secret, didn't you?"

Frowning slightly, Gemini glanced the other way. "What about it?"

"Well, the way you acted was rather odd." Lorelei hummed out, sitting down at the same table as him. "What kind of secret could a man like you have?"

Crossing his arms, Gemini shook his head. "No, you've got that wrong. I pulled Gigi aside because I came to the realisation about who put us here. Nothing more."

Was that really the case? Lorelei found it hard to believe, but she didn't have concrete proof. "So, who put us here? You don't mind telling me, do you?"

Honestly… Gemini didn't have any reason to not tell Lorelei, so he let out a sigh. "The realisation I had was that Hope's Peak was 100% the people behind putting us here. There was a secret only they knew."

"Did it have to do with your talent?"

What an odd accusation, but Gemini didn't say anything for a bit, frowning slightly. After a few more seconds, he finally spoke up. "Why do you keep asking these questions?"

Giving him a look of disdain, Lorelei shook her head. "Who cares why I'm asking the question. Just answer the question already."

Given Lorelei wasn't leaving him alone, Gemini would simply have to resort to attacking her right back. "I could say something about your talent, too."

Now it was Lorelei's turn to be a bit defensive. "What do you mean?"

"Oh, nothing." Gemini frowned at her, crossing his arms.

Why did almost every FTE event with Lorelei end up in a game of chess, or just her bullying Edison.

There is no in between.

Lorelei narrowed her eyes, looking at him. "No, you definitely meant something."

Fine, it was time for Gemini to mention what was really on his mind. "How do you always acquire those coins? I've never seen you gambling."

"Huh… Duh! I just do it when you're like, not there." Lorelei rolled their eyes. "I don't see how that's a big deal."

Shaking his head, Gemini crossed his arms. "I've been spending a lot of time there, and yet, I've barely acquired any coins."

"Wow!" Lorelei held back a laugh, a giddy look in her eyes. "Sounds like a skill issue, then." She turned away.

"Be honest. You're cheating those coins in, aren't you?" Gemini frowned, looking down at her.

For a moment, Lorelei didn't say anything, only looking off towards the door. After letting out a heavy sigh, they turned to look at Gemini. "And what if I do?"

"Why? You aren't using it for-"

However, Lorelei wasn't going to let Gemini finish that sentence. "What? You want me to try and get the escape key?" The thought was laughable. "As if. They'd notice if I somehow gained a million coins."

"Then, how about-" Gemini wasn't able to get a word out.

Placing a hand on their hip, Lorelei had a condescending look on her face. "Oh? What? You want me to buy you the map? Sorry, you'll just have to do that yourself."

Shaking his head, Gemini glanced to the side.

Why even bother with her? "You're a bit of a pain, you know." Gemini let out a sigh. "What if I told the others?"

"Mutually assured destruction." Lorelei didn't seem to mind in the slightest. "You tell them about me, and I tell them about you. A fair deal, if you think about it."

Now, a frown appeared on Gemini's face. "What do you stand to gain from any of this? I don't understand you."

"Why would you want to understand me?" Lorelei had a disgusted look on her face. "That sounds so boring."

Her expression slowly morphed to a cocky grin. "So how about we keep what we know between us, mkay?"

Out of everyone to notice something, it had to be Lorelei of all people. Letting out a sigh, Gemini glanced the other way. "Fine, fine… Whatever…"

"Thank you~" Lorelei's tone was irritating as she turned around, leaving Gemini alone in the room.

This was when he could actually start relaxing, but the mood was pretty much ruined after that, so, letting out a sigh, Gemini quickly left the Ultimate Station.

It seems that Gemini and Lorelei have grown closer.

Ultimate Knife Thrower Station

Now that the show was done, it was time to clean up the stage, and put everything away.

Melody and Benjamin had moved on to do other things, which left only two people behind for the clean-up.

Not that Tatiana minded in the slightest. She knew how she wanted to clean up!

And it wasn't like she was alone. Dae-Hyun had stayed behind to organise things. "You know." Tatiana turned to look at him, placing a hand on her hip. "You didn't need to stay behind."

No, he didn't.
And normally, Dae-Hyun wouldn't have bothered with something like this. This wasn't what a talent manager did. He just wanted to help because she didn't have a full crew.

Instead, the reason he had stayed behind was entirely different. "I wanted to talk to you…"

Hearing that was never good, so Tatiana closed one of her eyes. "About what? Did you not like the show?"

"No, it wasn't that." Dae-Hyun stopped moving the box he had in his hands. Instead ,he stuffed his hands into his pockets, and took a step towards Tatiana. "Are all of your shows like that?"

"Haha! Absolutely not!" Tatiana raised her hands in the air. "Instead, the shows back home are much more entertaining. The only people who were trained in the life of the circus was myself and Benjamin."

Letting out a sigh, Dae-Hyun shook his head, crossing his arms. "You know that's not what I meant."

Letting out a sigh, Tatiana knew where this was going. "Are you talking about the dangers performed today?"

"Obviously… I don't want to see you guys getting hurt." Gemini almost drowned, and there was a chance that Tatiana could have injured Benjamin.

Or worse!

Dolly!

Dae-Hyun didn't think that last part, that was me, the narrator.

"I didn't want to use Benjamin, you know that." Tatiana shook her head, before going back to removing some of the decoration. "However, Dolly was very insistent that they'd be the one on the wheel."

Wait, they weren't the original people. "Who did you intend instead?"

Tatiana couldn't answer that she wanted Dae-Hyun to volunteer, so instead she let out a mighty laugh, before changing the subject. "Had something gone wrong, Benjamin could have used Dolly as a shield."

That didn't make it right in the slightest. "And what about Gemini? What would happen if he couldn't make it out."

Moving onto that one, Tatiana placed a hand on her hip. From the looks of it, it didn't seem she was too worried. "If Gemini ever felt himself in danger, there was an emergency exit. Pushing on the back wall would open it."

Raising an eyebrow (not that anyone could see that), Dae-Hyun moved over towards the water tank.

It had already been drained out, so it was much easier. Situating on which side was the back, Dae-Hyun applied some pressure.

Sure enough, like Tatiana mentioned, the back opened up when enough force was applied. "Huh…" Dae-Hyun took a step back, looking at the tank, before he glanced over at her. "And you told him about this?"

"I don't want to be responsible for someone drowning." Tatiana nodded her head along.

So she had plans for both dangerous acts, didn't she? "Are safety features like these common for your troupe?" Dae-Hyun began to move the tank away again.

Tatiana nodded her head, a confident smile on her face. "Obviously. Dealing with such dangerous shows, we only want to make it seem like the performers are in danger."

Of course, there was an elephant in the room. "How exactly can you make knife throwing safe?" Dae-Hyun stopped pushing the tank, and instead gave his full attention to Tatiana. Slowly, his hand moved over to where his eye should have been. "On account of…"

"H-hey!" Tatiana glanced the other way. "Just because I play around with knives, doesn't mean-"

However, the visible frown on Dae-Hyun's face told her that he wasn't an idiot, so she relented.

"Fine. But it wasn't my fault." Tatiana crossed her arms, not really liking the attention she was getting.

Now that did get Dae-Hyun's attention. "I know there had to be an accident at your circus. What happened to you?"

Tatiana had to glance the other way, debating if she should even talk about it or not. After a few moments, she finally let out a sigh.

Her mind was made up.

"It happened when I was way younger." Tatiana turned her focus to look at the ground. "It was quite a silly accident, honestly. This was after I became known as such an excellent knife thrower, haha…" It was similar to her normal laugh, but it lacked the energy it used to.

Taking a few steps away from the edge of the stage, Tatiana let out a small sigh. "The person who caused this injury was the ringleader of the circus."

"Do you think he did it on purpose?" Dae-Hyun crossed his arms.

At the accusation, Tatiana got a bit defensive. "He would never. I've known him for years! Besides, his wife is the one who trained me to become a knife thrower. And she loves me! He'd have no reason to harm me."

"Then how did things go wrong? Was the first throw the one that got you?" Dae-Hyun tilted his head to the side. He felt like he should learn some things about Tatiana at the very least.

Slowly, Tatiana shook her head. "Not at all. He wasn't bad at knife throwing, but accidents happen."

Not that Dae-Hyun knew anything about the circus, he still needed a bit more information to go off of. "What was his name?"

"Grant Yorke." Tatiana had no problem giving that information. "And his wife, Sara Yorke was the one who trained me to be a knife thrower."

Nope, not a name that Dae-Hyun could recognise that well. Well, besides Yorke, but it's not like it hadn't been mentioned before.

"So, despite him directly being responsible for the injury, you don't think he did it on purpose?" Dae-Hyun frowned slightly, looking down at her.

Tatiana shook her head. "He had no motive for doing so! Besides, he was a great man who loved the circus just as much as I did. Accidents are prone to happen, and mine was just one of them."

Dae-Hyun still had some doubts, but that was mostly because he didn't know the man personally. For all he knew, Tatiana could be telling the truth about everything. "Alright…" Still, something didn't quite add up.

After a few seconds, Dae-Hyun chose to speak up again. "So, does that mean two incidents like this happened at your circus?"

Hearing that, Tatiana felt herself freeze up, before letting out a laugh. "I have no idea what you speak of! The incident with my eye was the only incident." She covered her eyepatch with her hand. "What other possible incident would there be?"

It was weird…

Dae-Hyun knew there had to have been a big event, but Tatiana had so easily told him about her eye…

And it wasn't even her fault, so what was she trying to hide last time? "Nothing…" Clearly he wasn't going to be able to figure that out soon, so he decided to drop the topic entirely. "Let's get back to work…"

"Already ahead of you!" Tatiana called out, doing her best to act chipper.

It was obvious as day that she was hiding something from him.

As of now, however, he wouldn't be able to do anything about it.

It seems that Dae-Hyun and Tatiana have grown closer.

Cafeteria

It was a bit after Tatiana's show, and those who had gone to see it were pretty content with themselves.

Except Seira, who probably lost ten years of her life while watching Gemini's performance.

And boy was she a bit irritated. Once she had gotten her food, she sat down with Gemini, looking up at him. "We need to talk."

"Huh? About what?" Gemini had never done anything wrong in his life, so he was unaware of the consequences of his actions.

Seira narrowed her eyes slightly. "You had me worried sick… Why didn't you tell me you were part of the show before?"

"Haha!" Gemini placed his hands on his hips, almost imitating Tatiana's laugh. "But then that would ruin the show."

What kind of reason- "Are you…?" Seira let out a sigh. As much as she wanted to stay mad at Gemini, she found it hard to continue doing so. "Just be careful next time… I know you're an Ultimate and all…"

Gemini shook his head. "That's not even the worst thing I've escaped from."

"Huh?" Seira blinked a few times when he said that. "How is that not-"

"Heh." It was obvious that Gemini wasn't going to answer her question.

Not like he would have the chance anyways, as the elevator door opened up, letting both Laki and Edison out of it.

"I've got news everyone!" Edison spoke up as he took a few steps forward, making sure to keep his eyes on his watch. "However, I'm assuming Seira already told most of you."

"H-huh…" Seira glanced away, avoiding eye contact with him.

She had been too preoccupied to even remember.

That was fine! As Seira wasn't the only person who knew. "Then I assume Tatiana mentioned-"

"Nope." However, unlike Seira, Tatiana wasn't embarrassed to admit so.

Which left Edison in an awkward position. "Then… Huh…" He scratched the back of his head.

What?

Did that mean that he would need to explain everything? "Very well." Edison preferred it that way. Nobody would get in the way of ruining his explanation. "I was able to deduce when the next asteroid would hit, based on the machine that Nova left us!"

Hearing that, Gigi perked up slightly. "And when would that be?"

Taking another look at his watch, Edison nodded his head along. "In three minutes."

Silence befell the room.

Breaking it was Hae-Won. "And why wasn't this mentioned sooner?" Although she couldn't fault Edison in this case, he likely didn't run into anyone else.

Instead, her gaze was towards Seira, of all people.

"Um…! Well!" Ah, who was she kidding, the show had occupied her mind, and spending some time with Gemini-

"Cut her some slack, alright. There was more than just her in that room." Gemini shook his head.

Wanting to get the conversation back on track, Gigi spoke up. "Where exactly is it going to hit?"

"Ah!" Edison had just the thing for this. Pulling out the graph, he placed it in the center of one of the tables, forcing everyone else to move towards it.

"Hey…" Melody had noticed that the target wasn't just a wall of the ship. "What's this here?"

Seira let out a small sigh, glancing the other way. "Nova refused to tell us."

"Typical." Lorelei mumbled. "Shouldn't we go send someone to see what these things outside the ship are?"

"Thank you for volunteering." Hae-Won didn't even bother looking at her.

"Huh?" Lorelei moved back a bit. "Like hell I'm risking my life going up there. Choose someone more eager."

"Edison and I already agreed to go outside tomorrow." Seira didn't even bother to look at the image, given she had seen it earlier.

Moving away from the table, Edison nodded his head. "Yup, if anyone else wishes to join us, you're more than welcomed to do so!"

"How much time left until this asteroid hits?" Gigi grabbed onto the table, ready to brace herself. After all, it was getting close to the three minute mark.

Moving to check his watch, Edison had a smile on his face. "Ten seconds remaining!"

Hearing that, everyone seemed to get ready for potential impact, with most people grabbing onto the table, which seemed to be bolted to the ground.

Edison adjusted his goggles, checking out his watch. "Everyone, get ready to brace yourselves, as the next asteroid should be hitting in five!"

Hearing that, most people grabbed onto the table in the center.

It was bolted to the floor, so it should be some safe haven.

"How do we even know this is accurate?" Gennosuke raised an eyebrow.

"Four."

Lorelei shrugged, holding onto the table. "You're free to discover it for yourself."

"Three."

Fortunately, Gennosuke wasn't that dumb, so he braced himself.

"Two-"

Alright, Edison's count was off by a second, as the entire ship violently shook.

That also meant that Edison hadn't grabbed on yet, so he went barreling down the cafeteria floor, while everyone held on tightly to the table.

But don't worry Edison! You aren't alone! Benjamin held on for dear life, which meant that Dolly also went flying, accompanied by another Wilhelm scream.

However, quickly after that, Benjamin quickly moved over to grab Dolly off the ground.

Slowly, Edison got up, shaking his head. "Haha… Everything is fine!"

After everyone had readjusted after the asteroid strike, one person seemed to realise something that nobody else had.

"H-hey! Wait a second!" Edison called out, trying to tap at his watch.

Seeing him do that, May glanced down at her own watch, briefly showing off an expression of surprise. "Our watches…"

The screen was completely blank. No matter what she did, she couldn't get it to work.

"These things can stop working?" Seira mumbled out, trying to see if there was a way to fix it."

Gigi frowned slightly, knowing exactly what happened. "Remember what Nova said yesterday…"

Edison swirled around a flask. "It doesn't really matter, right? If the station is able to handle asteroids, what concern is there? This hardly seems like a motive."

Monokawa shrugged, letting out a small laugh. "While it might not be able to affect you inside the station, there are still things outside that you might want to worry about."

The first person to clue things in was May. "Is that why we have access to the repair ship…" She hummed out with a yawn.

Hae-Won narrowed eyes a bit. "Are you saying that soon we'll have to fix this station?"

Nova nodded her head along. "We made sure you have the means to repair things if the need arises."

"What the hell!" Atlas stomped his foot down. "This is your station! Why the hell do we need to fix things?"

Having mostly stayed off to the side, Michael finally spoke up. "Because… The things that break are going to be a hindrance for us…"

"Right right!" Nova cheered on. "There are a few things that you wouldn't want broken out there… It would make living here rather tedious."

Letting out a sigh, Hae-Won glanced the other way. "I suppose that means we can't access our watches."

"So what?" Atlas narrowed his eyes. "Not like I fucking used the damn thing."

While Atlas may not have realised the implication, May had already made a discovery she did not want to figure out. "We…" She was standing next to the door to the Tau Sector. "We can't open doors…"

Brief pause.

And now panic.

"W-what do you mean?" Melody attempted to scan her own bracelet, but no luck. "H-huh?"

Other people, like Gigi, didn't really seem to panic. "I suppose that's what they meant when they said that it would be problematic…"

Michael let out a sigh. "I… I just didn't think they'd mean it like this…"

"Then… We're pretty limited." Dae-Hyun leaned back in his chair. "We can only access this room, and the Omicron Sector…"

None of the rooms could be accessed…

"Haha…" Tatiana frowned slightly, realising that this was bad. At the very least, they had done the show already, so it wasn't a problem.

Getting up, Lorelei moved over towards the scanner. "Let me see that…" They attempted their best to try and get it open. Maybe messing around with the wiring would force it open.

"Fuck…" Lorelei had to move away, realising that it just wouldn't be possible. "Can't open these things."

"What a room to be trapped in…" Dae-Hyun mumbled out. "It could be worse… We could have been trapped without food."

Ah! That was a good point!

"But that comes with its own problems…" Winter took a sip of her tea. "We can't access our rooms, which means we are forced to sleep here, or in the hallway."

The idea of being vulnerable at night did not sound like a great idea. "What if somebody kills us at night?" Edison was now panicking slightly.

"Tsk… Like I'd let that happen…" Atlas mumbled out.

Hae-Won shrugged, not even bothering to look in his direction. "It could happen more than you think."

"I already sleep with one eye open." Atlas scoffed, getting up from the table.

"Ohhhh!" Dolly hummed out, looking at him. "Is that why you're always angry? You should get proper sleep!"

The angry look Dolly received from Atlas informed her that this comment wasn't welcomed here.

Letting out a sigh, Winter looked at everyone else. "I don't believe there's much we can even do at the moment, so we might just be at the mercy of the motive-"

As Winter was speaking, the lights began to flicker, before completely turning off.

"Great." Atlas yelled out sarcastically. "Now we have no fucking lights."

"Relax, will you?" Lorelei could be heard taking a few steps forward. "I'm sure Nova will turn them back on soon."

"Wait…" Edison hummed out. "What if the lights are also tied to the outside?"

"Ugh, that would be fucking stupid." Lorelei would have glared at him, if they even knew where he was.

After a few small seconds, there was now a light source…

From Winter. In front of her, there was a small flame, illuminating her face. "I'm lucky I carry this around with me."

"Is that the lighter from your room?" Gemini hummed out.

Nodding her head, Winter continued. "Yes. I felt no need to leave it in my Ultimate Station, so I have it here with me."

"Oh, let me try." Lorelei also had a lighter from the last chapter. Now there were two light sources.

"Hmm…" May hummed out. "Shouldn't we try and use it to get to the security office?"

"Are you fucking stupid?" Lorelei waved the lighter around, trying to locate May. "The doors are still probably closed-"

"It's not." Winter had moved to inspect the door leading to the Tau Sector. "It seems that Nova removed all power."

"Oh hey!" That was great news for Gemini. "That means we aren't trapped anymore… We're just walking in the dark."

Out of the fire pan, and into the fire. Except there was significantly less light.

But there was still fire!

"Let's go grab some flashlights…" May hummed out, moving to stand next to Winter.

"You know…" Lorelei waved around the lighter she had. "I should stay here with the others to make sure we have light."

"That would be a wonderful-" Melody had begun to say, but the light quickly went away, leaving the cafeteria crew in darkness. "Lorelei?"

"Fear not!" Edison began swirling around a flask. "This time for sure I will make a glow in the dark concoction."

CRASH!

"I dropped my flask again!" Edison.

Now that the trio was in the security office-

Wait… Trio? I thought only Winter and May went…

Haha, loser. Lorelei also joined, so the others had no light whatsoever. She's kind of a bitch like that.

"Why are you here…?" May hummed out, looking over at her flame.

Shrugging, Lorelei moved over towards the racks with all the flashlights. "Because now they can't really do anything. They're stuck in the dark."

Winter let out a sigh, approaching the flashlight rack as well. "I suppose we should have guided everyone here. I don't think we can bring back flashlights for everyone."

"Eh, we just need sixteen in total. It should be fine to divide between us." That's only like… Five flashlights per person. Remember back in chapter 1? What an awful time. What? Don't remember chapter 1. A shame.

"Hmm…" May's eyes slowly started to drift away from the flashlight rack, looking over at the other door in here. "Right… Bring a few, I will be back with some of my own."

Winter managed to grab five, looking over at Lorelei. "Are you only bringing three?"

"If the others want flashlights so bad, they can come get it themselves." Lorelei was kind of a bitch- Wait I already said this.

Letting out a small sigh, Winter turned to look at May. "How many are you-"

Wait… Where did she go?

Taking steps over towards the second door, May was stopped only moments before reaching it.

"Hey!" It was Monokawa, floating to block the doorway.

"..." May spent a few seconds looking at him before letting out a yawn. "What are you doing…?"

"Um…! What does it look like I'm doing?" Monokawa lowered himself so they could easily meet eye to eye.

Absentmindedly looking forward, May didn't say anything for a bit. When her eyes finally landed on Monokawa, she shrugged. "Being in the way…"

"Exactly!" Monokawa crossed his arms, making sure not to budge. "You should be happy that Nova decided to cut the power so you wouldn't be trapped in one area the entire time, but that doesn't mean you should take advantage of this."

Finally, Winter approached the duo, frowning slightly. "What's the issue over here?"

Looking May over, Monokawa let out a heavy sigh. "Where do I even begin? First of, purple isn't-"

Narrowing her eyes, Winter took a step forward, causing Monokawa to focus on her instead. "I meant, about you being here."

While Winter was distracting Monokawa, and now that she brought some lightsource closer, May attempted to see further into the room, but could only really see the entrance.

However, what she did notice… was dried blood that hadn't been cleaned yet. "Hmm…-"

Unfortunately, before she could make any other observation, Monokawa shoved both her and Winter away from the door. "Get out!"

Seeing all of this unfold, Lorelei couldn't help but snicker. "Having fun, guys?" They had grabbed only three flashlights.

Cool. They had seven in total! For fifteen people…

"We'll need to make more trips…" Not something that May was keen on, so she'd leave it to the others. Grabbing three flashlights, that brought the total up to ten! Yeah, Winter and Lorelei could take care of the rest.

Cafeteria

Given that the remaining people had no light source, they kind of just stood around.

"This is fucking boring…" Atlas mumbled out, having found himself back on a chair.

"Quick your bitching." Hae-Won let out a sigh. These past few days have been becoming too much for her.

Quickly, Atlas stood up, looking in her general direction. "What did you say, bitch? I can complain as much as I want-"

"Enough you two!" Melody called out, pouting slightly. "Fighting won't do either of us any good."

"Yeah, well-"

"Atlas." Gigi called out. "Enough."

For once, Atlas seemed to listen to her, sitting back down.

As the room slowly fell to silence again, it wouldn't be long before some light shone into the room with everyone else.

"We brought some back." Winter shone some light onto one of the tables, placing the extra she grabbed. "Of course, we didn't bring enough for everyone, so you're free to get more."

Those seven flashlights didn't last long, as the closet people seemed to grab some.

Turning hers on, Gigi looked around, before spotting Atlas. "It would probably be best if you stuck around someone."

"Yeah, yeah." The idea didn't exactly make him happy, but he didn't need to be tripping everywhere.

"Having light is good and all, but…" Hae-Won glanced at the rest of the group. "We still won't be safe at night."

"Right…" Seira mumbled out. "We wouldn't be able to close our doors, so…"

"Heh, nighttime got a little more dangerous." Gennosuke didn't really seem to mind in the slightest.

"Maybe we should all sleep in close proximity…?" May suggested, tapping her chin a few times. "Just… to make sure nothing… happens…"

"Um, I'm not hanging out around any of you." Lorelei raised an eyebrow, getting ready to leave the cafeteria. "I'm just going to hide while I sleep."

"Barring her…" Hae-Won trailed off, looking at the rest of the group. Slowly, a frown appeared on her face. "I agree with staying in close proximity. However, we could split off into smaller groups." She wasn't sure how she'd feel sleeping around fourteen other people.

"Should we make those groups now?" Edison looked around.

But before he could say anything, Hae-Won rested her shoulder on his head, almost like a sibling trying to annoy the other. "Well, I can pair up with you."

She made it sound friendly, but her eyes quickly darted over towards Laki.

She wasn't going to leave the two alone.

"Oh! Alright!" Edison didn't seem to have any problems with that. "What about everyone else?"

"I'll stay down here…" Dae-Hyun mumbled out, glancing the other way.

Before the rest of the group could figure out sleeping arrangements, however, someone walked in through the Tau Sector.

It was Nova. When she stepped into the cafeteria, she began looking at everyone else. "Ah! Perfect, you're all here."

"Nova, what was any of that?" Gemini glanced in her direction.

Clapping her hands together once, Nova tilted her head to the side. "Seems that all of your watches will be offline for the foreseeable future. So, to make sure you aren't trapped in one room, I turned off the power to allow most of the doors to open up."

"Most?" Hae-Won called out, noticing her usage of the word.

"Yes. Most. Unfortunately, the vacant rooms will remain closed. And there's one more door that can't be opened via power." Nova began to explain.

One more door? It was a long stretch, but Michael had an idea. "Was it… The door to the garden?"

"Excellent!" Nova's visor changed to one of joy. "Yes. The door to the Pi garden requires a button press, and thus, doesn't automatically open, nor does it run on the ship's main power."

Now the most important question of all, asked by Winter. "Will the lights need to be out the entire time?"

Nova shook her head. "No. The power is rather finicky, so to make it easier for now, I just turned it all off. In the next few days, I should be able to get the lights back on."

"Next few days?" Gemini ran a hand through his hair, clearly not liking the vague time span. "Are you able to get it up sooner?"

"Haha, I'm not too good when it comes to machinery. I normally leave that stuff up to Monokawa." Nova shook her head.

"And what's stopping him from doing it?" Winter raised an eyebrow.

Before Nova could say anything else, Monokawa flew in through the doorway. "Now, tell me why I'd help you during a motive. This is the first time since the casino opened up that I didn't need to work there. You can all suffer in the darkness for all I care."

So that's how it was going to be.

"You know." Winter hummed out. "If nothing is working, wouldn't it make it near impossible to kill anyone with things that require access to power."

"I'll be right back!" Monokawa flew off.

Content with herself, Winter let out a little giggle. "There, that should fix our power issues."

"Thank you." Nova sounded actually grateful, and her visor changed to the joy expression as well. "It's almost impossible to get him to do some actual work, unless it involves murder."

However, Winter didn't respond to what Nova said, instead choosing to hum to herself.

Given that she was completely ignored, Nova held her hands together. "Now that that's sorted out, I shall make my leave. You all have a good night." She quickly disappeared into the darkness of the Tau Sector, leaving the sixteen Ultimates alone again.

"Should we… go back to figuring out how to split off?" Michael mumbled out. Not that he was going to pair up with anyone.

In fact, he had a garden with his name on it.

"Personally, I think everyone should just do what they want." Hae-Won didn't really seem to have a preference.

"..." May remained silent, having her idea thrown out the window. But she didn't really seem to care. "OK…"

Walking away from the group, Lorelei was making her way over to the Tau Sector. "You can all go upstairs, I think I'm going to stake my chances down here."

"Same…" Dae-Hyun had a room he'd rather stay in if his was off limits.

When plans were finally figured out, four people were staying behind on the first floor. Those being Melody, Dae-Hyun, Lorelei, and May.

With the other twelve going into the elevator before it became nighttime.

The elevator ride up was in silence…

Mostly because while it still worked, there didn't seem to be any lights inside.

The only sounds were from Edison, who was humming.

But that didn't last as Atlas told him to shut the fuck up.

Now it was silent again!

As the group of twelve stepped out of the elevator, everyone seemed to have their own idea on where to go.

"I think I'll make my way towards the casino." Gennosuke didn't seem like he was planning on pairing himself up with anyone else.

"But won't the power be out?" Laki brought up, a smile on her face.

Shrugging, it didn't seem Gennosuke really cared about all of that. "Just feels like a very roomy place."

As he left, that left eleven people here.

"Gemini." Seira called out, taking a step towards the Pi Sector. "I'm going to go towards Navigation, if you want."

"Yeah, I have no problem with that." Gemini was just going with the flow.

"H-hey!" Edison took a step forward. "That's where I was going."

Taking a step back towards him, Seira pouted slightly. "You got to watch the room most of today, so now it's my turn."

"I am clearly more qualified." Edison adjusted his goggles.

Sensing that a fight was going to break out, both Hae-Won and Gemini acted out. With the former holding Edison back, and the latter almost dragging Seira away.

"H-hey!" She called out, trying to break free. "He can't just keep assuming he's better than me!"

"Grow up a bit." Hae-Won shook her head, but her small smile betrayed her actual emotions.

Seeing the other people heading off in their own direction, it left only Edison, Hae-Won, and Laki around.

"So…" Laki hummed out, not sure how to have a conversation with Hae-Won involved.

"Let's go." And it was clear that Hae-Won didn't want to have a conversation either.

But, before they could even decide where to go, Monokawa's lovely voice could be heard over the announcement.

"It is now nighttime. You may be asking yourself why I can still give these out when there's no power. It's called shut the hell up and let me do my nighttime announcement. Given that it's nighttime, I'd advise staying in your- oh! Would you look at that! You can't access your rooms." A laugh could be heard. "Well… You better pray you don't get murdered in the night, then."

Hearing the announcement, Hae-Won couldn't help but frown. "This is going to be another annoying motive, isn't it?" The last one wasn't any better.

Letting out a sigh, she moved over towards where Edison was going.

She didn't want to spend any time around Laki, but she also didn't want him to be around her alone. "Where are you going anyways?"

Turning towards her, a smile was on his face. "I figured since you would be part of our group, it would be great to go to your Ultimate Station."

"..." For a moment, Hae-Won didn't say anything, but slowly, a small smile appeared on her face, and she ruffled Edison's hair. "Yeah, let's hang out there."

Maybe she could work on her drawing if she wasn't able to sleep.

Wow! What a lovely show that was! I totally didn't struggle to write the entire thing or anything like that. Thank you Benjamin, Dolly, and Melody. (Gemini and Tatiana's were super easy to write)

Definitely one of the longest scenes I've had to write. It puts the other scenes to shame. Sorry 5k poker scene. Sorry the multitude of DnD scenes.

Soccer scene is alright, though.

But in all seriousness, that scene is OVER 7k words long. Definitely one of the longest scenes I've written that wasn't a trial. What the hell was I even thinking…?

I knew I wanted there to be a scene like, and originally it was just going to be three acts, but I had this sudden urge to almost drown Gemini, so I threw him in the water tank like any normal person would.

Don't worry about it…

And now, we see the motive begin to take more shape, as something was actually impacted, and now nobody is able to sleep in their rooms. Not to mention the power is out, and a lot of features can't be used.

Things at my new job are going pretty well. I was able to write a lot more than I thought I would be able to, so that's good. Of course, now that I'm back home, I'm able to write more reliably.

Except for the fact that I want to sleep for twelve hours a day, that might put a bit of hindrance in my plans. (Added note: This did not help, I ended up not finishing this chapter until I was back at work)

We're approaching a body drop minute by minute. Only two daily lives before you get to see who dies. Normally it would be the next part, but I decided to be cheeky and make this one six daily lives. I'm kind of an asshole to myself. But there was a lot I wanted to do in this chapter! So oops!

Trial progress has been pretty good. Almost halfway done with Trial Part 2, and Trial Part 1 is huh… getting there eventually.

With that, I shall be heading off, hopefully with the next chapter before I return from work. Or else I'll be really behind…

Participants Remaining: 16

Edison Thompton - The Ultimate Chemist [SilverMark16]

Seira Natsume - The Ultimate Astrologist [WolfieRed23]

Winter Hibiscus - The Ultimate Love Guru [Grandma Sue]

Giustina "Gigi" Giulio - The Ultimate Referee [Nekoja]

Gemini Strela - The Ultimate Escapist [secretnobody]

Benjamin Mason - The Ultimate Ventriloquist [NSPunny]

Lorelei Kaiser - The Ultimate Computer Security Specialist [CandleFire45]

Michael Astrophel - The Ultimate Cult Leader [Omakin]

Melody Eleanor Hopkins - The Ultimate Tap Dancer [Prince PokePersona]

Kim Dae-Hyun - The Ultimate Talent Manager [oddlyillregular]

Lakshmi "Laki" Krishna - The Ultimate Lucky Student [Sempi]

May Summers - The Ultimate Academic Prodigy [KadachiNova]

Tatiana Novak - The Ultimate Knife Thrower [ExtraMeme]

Atlas Constande - The Ultimate Soccer Player [ComplicatedYetSimple]

Gennosuke Yagami - The Ultimate Psychic [theotakureader101]

Kim Hae-Won - The Ultimate Tattoo Artist [Weekaro]