Danganronpa: Hope for the Hopeless/Chapter 2 - Lodge Life

## Story

Ding dong, bing bong.

Once more, Monokuma’s announcement played on the school speakers. “Rise and shine everyone. It is now 7 A.M. It is officially morning. It’s time to enjoy another beautiful day here at Newpoint Lodge!”

I stirred at first, but I eventually opened my eyes and groaned as I forced myself to sit up. I felt well rested physically but I still felt as though I was dragging by as my thoughts went back to what happened yesterday. The murder, the execution, the fact that it almost happened to us instead of the culprit, everything Machi did, and not to mention the fact that at least one other person recognizes me as a threat to future blackened.

I sighed as I more or less crawled out of bed. Somehow, I had managed to sleep in spite of all of everything. Sure, the events of yesterday kept replaying in my dreams but none of them woke me up. Apparently I had been more tired than I thought I was when I went to sleep because I couldn’t think of any other explanation as to how it would be possible.

Regardless, I slowly pulled myself from my haze as I tried to refocus to the present. After all, there were things that needed to be done so I couldn’t stay idle no matter how I felt. Especially in light of yesterday’s events. For starters, I needed to find a better means of deterrence, I still needed to talk to Eto, and we as a group needed to go on the offensive if we were going to get out of here alive.

*(Shouldn’t be too difficult right?)*

That was what I sarcastically thought to myself as I aimlessly looked down at my two remaining recorders and a gold Monocoin on top of them. Although it didn’t completely solve the problem, I knew that It would help to actually go through with hiding one. So, I slowly picked up the three items and looked around.

I thought back on my plan. It was kind of stupid in hindsight but it was better than having no plan at all which is likely why Senji didn’t suggest I drop it. Unfortunately, my room didn’t really have very many places where nobody would search. The only major pieces of furniture would be the bookshelves, couch, bed, and nightstand. And of those, the bookshelves were definitely too obvious and the nightstand and couch didn’t really have any hiding spots save for the drawer which also wouldn’t work. So I continued to look around until I found a bad spot that seemed better to me than the rest. With that, I placed a recorder inside one of the pillows.

Everything after that was pretty much routine. I changed, got ready, pocketed the Monocoin as well as the ElectroID and the last recorder, headed out, and closed the door behind me. It was only after I had started for the cafeteria that something went differently than the days before. Namely, when I started to bound up the stairs, I saw Seno alone with Koike in the central area.

I just stopped and listened as the two of them spoke about something. Granted I could have gone up and interrupted but judging by the gestures that Seno kept making and the way he clearly looked pleadingly at Koike, it would have been awkward to say the least.

“Koike-” Seno began after drawing a long sigh. “I’ve said this before but I’ll say this again. I know I messed up and I swear I’ll make sure that it never happens again- do you atleast understand why I did it?”

“You said you convinced yourself that I did it because you desperately wanted to be right.” Koike said as she looked away from him. In spite of that though, she didn’t sound angry so much as she sounded hurt by him. “That still doesn’t change the fact that you wanted me to be the killer. In your ideal scenario, I would have been- beheaded just so that you could be the hero.”

“And I promise that it will never happen again Koike.” Seno said as he brought his right hand to his forehead and rubbed it. “I just wanted you to know that and well, I know a lot of people are disappointed in me. While I know I won’t be on good terms with many people here, I hate to be on bad terms with anybody. So if you could ever find a way to give me a chance to make up for that poor decision, It would mean a lot to me. I messed up and I want to make it right.”

Koike just nodded and looked back at him before she spoke though it looked like the words were painful to say. “I don’t blame you for everything that went wrong. Yesterday was just a bad day for me in general but- do you know what it was like to be the first to know how Naya died, to see her up close and then have someone spearhead the trial against me?” Koike stopped at if to think of what to say and she opened her mouth once only to close it. But the second time, she continued. “Just leave me alone Seno. I think I need time to get over it.”

At that, Seno stepped back as though he had taken a punch to the gut even though he hadn’t, closed his eyes, and nodded. There was a silence that followed where neither person looked as though they were comfortable being there but nothing happened from it until Seno spoke solemnly. “Alright then. Let's just get to the cafeteria. After that, I promise I won’t bother you.”

Without even waiting for a response, Seno took a deep breath, mustered up the strength to try and keep his chin up, and left into the halls. Shortly after, Koike followed him. And not long after that, I made my way up the stairs and followed the two of them.

The trip wasn’t too eventful after that. I made my way around the corner and bounded after the two when I made my way past the AV room. Seno took a quick glance at me but otherwise he and Koike stayed silent and did nothing other than keep their distance and eye contact from each other the entire trip.

It was almost a relief when Seno opened the door to the cafeteria just as I chose to catch up with them. For some reason, the cafeteria felt as though it was brighter although that might have been my eyes adjusting to the lights. More importantly though, the students were all gathered at two of the three tables. And while Sanda was the only one smiling, nobody else who was already sitting down when Koike and Seno entered the room appeared to be outright depressed. No, instead they seemed to be talking, getting along, and based on a few murmurs, some seemed to be trying to cope with what happened.

I went into the kitchen, got bacon and eggs ready, and returned to the cafeteria to take a seat between Koike and Shiro. The former of which was busy speaking with Saeki and appeared to feeling better for it as she was neither in a slumped posture nor looking idly at her food. The latter seemed preoccupied with sipping a cup of tea. Judging by the fact that a smile curled across her face, she seemed to be enjoying it.

I myself looked down at my plate and started to eat when a familiar half-white and half-black teddy bear came from seemingly nowhere and landed in the center of the table where I sat not too far from Shiro. He didn’t actually land in anyone’s food but Shiro and Sanda both grabbed their food and pulled it away from him.

“What a beautiful day here at Newpoint lodge!” Monokuma began. “I’ve got big news for all of you because life is going to be changing drastically following yesterday’s trial!”

I maintained a neutral expression as I looked up at him but I was more than displeased with his presence. Everyone was trying to heal, to move on. But here he was interfering with that by reminding everyone that someone was here to force us to kill each other. And I had a feeling that he knew that. Still, it wasn’t entirely unexpected since I remember him telling me and Yakawa something along those lines last night.

“This had better not be another murder motive.” Sasori said as he began to scowl. Quite frankly, I agreed with him. One class trial was one too many as far as I was concerned. Granted his motive could go ignored, but I wasn’t going to count on that.

Luckily it appeared to be too early for another motive because Monokuma shook his head. “I like your hustle but no, the next motive won’t be until later. For those of you who don’t know, a new area is unlocked every time you survive a class trial. I just came to tell you guys that the second floor is open to you.”

*(That surprisingly isn’t bad news.)*

I still eyed the bear cautiously however. Our space being expanded was a good thing but it didn’t seem like he was doing this out of altruism. There had to be a catch that I was sure we’d suffer through eventually if we hadn’t escaped by then. I just haven’t figured out what it was yet.

“So I take it gate that blocked the flight of stairs is unlocked?” I asked cautiously. To be honest, I wasn’t sure how asking him would help anything but it was just something I did while I tried to process what was happening and the consequences of it.

“Yep! Did you not hear me the first time?” Monokuma jabbed. “I’m only going to say this one more time. You survived the class trial so the second floor is open. Now if anyone needs me, i’ll be preparing the motive for later. I know I’d hate to be kept waiting if I were you guys.”

As I winced at the prospect of another motive, Monokuma jumped back from the table and slid off to wherever he came from to do who knew what. To be honest, I both wanted to know and didn’t want to know what he was going to do to us. But at the very least, the motive could wait until later so I had more time to prepare and we had more time to look for a way out of this lodge before someone else died.

Eventually, I pushed the thought from my mind and resumed eating my food. A few quick glances showed that everyone around did the same. Some took longer, but they all shrugged it off eventually. And after that, breakfast pretty much continued as normal until I had finished eating and took everything I brought back into the kitchen.

As I put everything where it was supposed to go, I heard the double doors open behind me. And as I peered over my left shoulder, I could see Eto follow me into the kitchen with her own plate and utensils. I almost smiled at the coincidence since I had wanted to check up on her but my smile almost faded when she gave me a vacant one in response. It was then that I got an idea. It wasn’t a great idea but it was an okay one.

I waited until she put everything back where it belonged and followed her back into the cafeteria, where half the class still ate, before I asked her a simple question. “So Eto, we just heard that a new floor has opened up recently. I’m sure Monokuma has some malicious reason for it but we just might find some way to escape.”

“Yeah-” Eto said with a quick matter-of-fact nod. “The bear said he’d open a new place up for us after every trial but with luck there won’t be any other trials.”

“Hopefully.” I agreed wholeheartedly as I looked over at the window and back at Eto. “That’s why i’m going to explore it. You can join me if you’d like.”

At first there was a brief silence among Eto who must have been thinking about the consequences and Sanda who faced the two of us from his seat having apparently listened in on my conversation with Eto. But must have Eto eventually figured that I could be trusted because she gave me a genuine smile and a thumbs up. “I think that would be great actually.”

Once she agreed, the two of us made our way out of the cafeteria, down the hall, and to the open area where all of those stairways were including the ones to access our bedrooms and such. But we didn’t go down those stairs and we didn’t go up the other stairs that led to the Gym library. Instead, we turned right and approached the once blocked stairwell. True to Monokuma’s word, the path was clear. The gate was lifted and folded up loosely at the top of the stairwell entrance.

The two of us continued. We went up the only stairs provided which seemed to go up only for the stairwell to loop around to spit us out a floor above where we entered. Once the two of us made it up the stairs, we were met with a choice as our path converged on a T-section hallway that went left and right.

I took a quick glance at the routes. The left path was fairly flat and opened up into an area not unlike the place behind the AV room. Except for the fact that that a totally different room stood in the center which seemed to have several full glass window sets which were currently covered by shutters. To the right however, seemed to be a stairwell that paralleled the one to the library a floor below us. All in all, this place appeared to be similar to the first floor. The only difference seemed to be the wall color which was a dark blue instead of the dark green like the floor below.

“Can we go left?” Eto asked in an earnest tone but one that interrupted my train of thought. “I kind of want to see what’s behind all of the shutters. It could be something really useful or dangerous. And before you ask, I especially want to know about it if it’s dangerous.”

I nodded since it didn’t matter to me what we searched first. “I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t Eto. We can just explore the right path later once we’re finished.”

With that, the two of us went right until we got to the the front door of the art room complete with a silver lock and a shuttered window. As I looked around, I also noticed that the area wrapped around the room much like the first floor did to the AV room, that there was a hallway opposite of the mysterious room that led somewhere else, and that if we had continued to walk past the room that Eto wanted to explore, we would have made our way to that balcony that circled around the greenhouse.

I frowned and stared for a moment too long as I quickly thought back to finding Naya’s body in there, but I quickly dispelled the thought and looked back at the lock. I gripped the handle with my left hand and gave it three quick tugs. But each time the thing failed to budge. After that, I looked at Eto.

“It seems like this is locked from the inside because I can’t get it open.” I said. “Perhaps we should search around the back.”

Eto nodded. After that, the two of us took the right path to the back of the room and to the front of the lodge. It wasn’t a very long trip of course but I still noticed that something was wrong. A quick glance at Eto told me that she was agitatedly fixated on the room since her gaze was fixated on the windows. Whether she was concerned or just excited, I didn’t know. But I assumed she was at least slightly apprehensive given our current situation.

“Hey, don’t worry about it. We’re going to figure it out.” I tried to reassure her only for her to briefly glare at me before she realized what she was doing and softened her expression. I expected this however because I’ve gotten the same kind of reaction before so I didn’t flinch. “What i’m trying to say is that this either has something extremely useful to us, in which case Machi or someone will find a way inside, or there is another way in. The main door is probably just locked because the room isn’t ready for us or something.”

“I’m not too worried about it. It’s just a minor nuisance after all.” Eto assured me with another smile. “Besides that, If it’s meant for us then there has to be a way in there. If there isn’t, then we probably don't need to worry about it because none of us can get in there. Except maybe the mastermind behind all of this but then we’ll know who they are.”

*(Right.)*

By the time Eto finished her explanation, the two of us had made our way into the front area of the second floor. And there were a few things that immediately caught my attention as I examined the place. The first was that I was right about the hallway looping around the room in a square, the second was that there were two windows on each end of the hall and each had a chair in front of them. But the third thing I noticed was that two structures blocked the area where most of the other windows would have been and as I took note of another hallway opposite of a back room entrance to the central room, I saw what they were.

At the end of the third hall was another window with a chair in front of it but there happened to be a door on either side. The one on the left was marked as the women’s restroom and the one on the right was marked as the men’s restroom. I took note of the public restrooms for future reference in case I ever needed to use the women’s, but before I could even consider searching it, Eto interrupted me.

“I got the back door open.” She briefly surmised as she did in fact pull the door wide open for me. “It just came open the first time I tried.”

I followed her into the room just in time to see what was inside when the lights turned on. And to be honest, it was underwhelming. The room was a bright and cheerful yellow in spite of the fact that the many windows were covered by the blinds and the floor seemed to have a white tarp cover the otherwise polished wooden floors. Inside were racks on either side full of tools that were used for various forms of art neatly categorized by method. Apart from that there was a sculpture of Monokuma with his arms in the air as though he were lunging at you and two blank tripods and canvases. In summary, this was clearly an art room and definitely not worth the tension that Monokuma built up.

“Well that was a bit underwhelming to be honest but I suppose Monokuma’s probably just trying to psyche us out.” Eto said inadvertently voicing my thoughts as she headed over to the nearest window. “I guess i’ll open up all the blinds so we can see outside.”

“Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. Oh and Eto, I have a question for you.” I said cautiously after a pause and some consideration. When she turned around and looked at me, I made sure to keep a safe distance from her just in case something went wrong. “I know that you and Naya were close before she died. In light of that, I thought I might go ahead and ask. Are you okay?”

To be honest, I expected Eto to accuse me of inviting her just to ask her that question or to tell me that it was none of my business in any degree of politeness. But she didn’t do any of that. Instead, she just took a deep sigh and looked down at the ground before speaking in a somber tone. “I’m about as okay as anyone else here. I really wish that Naya hadn’t been murdered. I don’t have too many friends but she was one-”

“So am I.” I interrupted in an attempt to cheer her up a little. It appeared to work because it drew a smirk from Eto.

“I’m glad to hear that Nishi. I figured as much since you invited me to come with you.” Eto said pleasantly enough as she looked up at me although she still maintained the same tone. “I just hate to see my friends die.” She said with a sigh towards the end before she continued. “Still, I’m trying to move on. Naya wouldn’t have wanted me to be depressed for the rest of my life. That’s no way to live.”

I nodded in agreement. “Well if you need anything, i’m here.”

Eto opened her mouth as if she were going to say something. But before she could, I heard the door open from behind me. The both of us turned around to see who had entered and it turned out that it was Shiro.

“Darlings, I heard you were exploring the lodge. Although I’m not to keen on this lodge-” Shiro said as she stuck out her tongue in disgust. “It’s probably a good idea to familiarize myself with the establishment. Especially since we’ll probably be here for a while. I suppose what i’m saying is, may I please accompany you two?”

Eto and I looked at each other. Truth be told, I wouldn’t have wanted her to come with us since I invited Eto so that I could spend more time to make sure that she was alright and possibly try to make her feel better if she wasn’t. But I couldn’t deny Shiro if she wanted to join. Not that I had the time to before Eto spoke.

“Of course you can join us Shiro.” Eto said as she maintained her smile and finished raising the last of the blinds. “There’s no harm in having you join us.”

I just copied Eto’s smile and nodded. It wouldn’t have been my first choice to let her join but I probably would have anyways. And besides that, I formed this little search party to help cheer Eto up anyways so I wasn’t about to complain if it made her happy.

“So we were about to search the room straight past that door if you want to join us.” I said motioning to the locked door in the room. Hopefully, it could unlock from the inside.

Instead of an audible response, Shiro just nodded and headed to the locked door. It appeared as though it could be unlocked from the inside because shiro did so easily and held open the door for the two of us.

“After you.” Shiro hummed pleasantly enough.

We followed her out of the art room and the three of us went down the hallway to the double doored room from earlier that I passed by. The trip went by uneventfully and we safely made it to the doors. Then, I opened one of them to see what was inside.

Almost immediately, I realized that the room followed a sports design. The walls were a bright red and the floor was a polished bright white for starters but mainly it was the furniture and other items that gave it away. On the opposite end of the room, the room was aligned with mirrors despite the size of the room which held a four laned mini-track that looped around the place. Inside the mini track was a tennis court, one of those sack toss games, and what looked like a fencing ring. What was even more impressive was that each place had racks with the proper equipment and props set up.

“Hmm. Well, I must admit that this place is nice.” Shiro commended as she put her right hand up to her chin in thought. “Don’t get me wrong. It still has its fair share of faults. But this is a nice start to this otherwise horrible establishment.”

It was about the time that Shiro finished speaking that I looked over and saw glass windows stretching along the right wall of the massive room all the way to a door near the wall which had the entrance to the place. The window was unobstructed so I could have looked through it, but I decided to go through the door instead. I opened the door to step inside the new room and others followed me through.

It appeared to be an archery range of sorts. In contrast to the previous room, the wood showed on the walls and the floor was black tiled. On the far end were several racks filled to the brim with different arrow types, bow types, and even crossbows. All of which were inside a thematic wood stand behind a glass pane that was held in place by a single combination lock. And on top of that the room seemed to have a waist high grey metal fence that divided the safe area from the area where you could accidentally, or intentionally, get shot while picking up the arrows. There were no less than six different lanes albeit ones with human shaped targets on the far wall but the only gate was to my immediate left.

The next thing I noticed was that Wakuni and Sasori were both using the range in the third and fourth closest lanes respectively. Both were using crossbows of the same model and both were in the middle of what they were doing. Slowly, my gaze drifted to their targets. As to be expected, Wakuni was only making perfect shots but Sasori wasn’t doing too badly either as he was hitting the target most of the time. As soon as I winced from looking at Wakuni’s target, Wakuni seemed to notice me because he turned to face me and held out his hand so that Sasori would notice us and do the same.

“Hey ladies. Do you wish to join us? There are more than lanes for you all to join in.” Wakuni happily offered with a smile as he gently pulled an arrow out of his crossbow and pointed the thing at the ground away from us.

I just looked around at the others in the group. Shiro had nothing to say though I did notice a few beads of sweat but Eto luckily declined so that we could continue our search though she frowned as she did. “Sorry Wakuni. Maybe later but we’re searching the school. Monokuma mentioned a motive later so we need to cover as much ground as possible.”

“I didn’t know you knew how to shoot a crossbow Sasori.” I remarked as I tried to think of a better response to what Eto said and the reality of the situation that we were in.

Sasori just nodded and replied calmly as though nothing was wrong. “As a child, I got bored fairly easily. I never really got taught anything too advanced in any subject but I learned a lot of them including psychology if you ever want to talk.”

I smiled but declined his offer. “Maybe later but we really do need to get going if we’re going to find a way out of here.”

“We won’t keep you then.” Wakuni said. Sasori just nodded in agreement before Wakuni continued. “You just focus on getting out of here and we’ll focus on making Naya’s murder the last one.”

With that, we waved goodbye, headed out of the archery range leaving them to refocus on target practice which gave me an unsettling feeling in my gut, headed out of the sports room, and made out way back down the hallway until we reached the place in front of the art room. It was then that Eto and Shiro turned around.

“So now what should we explore?” Shiro asked with a somewhat curious tone.

“I’m searching the area around the greenhouse since it might be connected to some other rooms. Now, you don't have to go with me-” I said emphasizing the last part as I took a glance at Eto. “If you don’t then you can explore the rest of the floor and we can meet up at the stairwell.”

“I’m going with you Nishi.” Eto said with more than enough resolution. “What happened at the greenhouse wasn’t fun for anyone but I’m not going to let it interfere with our search. Especially if we’re trying to get out of here.”

I silently protested because I knew it could bring back bad memories, but ultimately I gave Eto what she wanted because she deserved to make her own decisions. So, I turned towards the greenhouse and led the others towards it. I did so a little reluctantly knowing that Eto was following but nobody seemed to notice or care.

By the time we were at the glass, I was ready to search around the place but Eto took a brief moment to look into the greenhouse. Coincidentally, the glass seemed to be clear at the moment which gave her a view of where it all happened. But Eto took it well enough. She just let out a sigh before turning around to follow me.

Regardless, I took a quick glance around and it looked as though I was right. The balcony did in fact loop around the greenhouse and there were four doors that connected to other rooms. Albeit they were all on this side of the balcony. To my right were two doors with no indication as to where they would go but to my left were two separate changing rooms with the closest marked as the men’s, the farther one marked as the women’s, red card readers on the walls on the walls and metal plates on the floors for both, and Koike standing between them both.

As soon as she noticed, she enthusiastically waived for us. “Nishi! Eto! Shiro! Guess what I found? I’ll tell you what I found. I found a pool!” At that, she stopped waiving and dropped most of the energy in her tone though she was still smiling. “It has those metal electric floors though just like the coat changing rooms. So we’ll have to make sure that everyone is careful.”

“Well you certainly seem to be happy about the pool.” I replied contentedly enough before looking at the metal plates on the floor. Admittedly I didn’t care for that aspect of the rooms but I doubted that that would be a problem since we could just tell everyone and I was sure that they would just assume it to be like the coat changing room even if we didn’t.

“You better believe it Nishi! It doesn’t quite compare to diving but I still find it relaxing to go for a swim every now and then.” Koike surmised cheerfully. “I don’t know if you agree but I know that some people do. In fact, Sama went ahead and suggested a pool party when she passed by.”

I put my left hand to my chin and thought about it for a brief moment. It wasn’t the worst of ideas. It would be safe by virtue of at least some people being there so everything done would be in public and it definitely wouldn’t hurt to have some event to cheer us up in light of what happened yesterday. The only way that I could see it backfiring was if Monokuma showed up which I unfortunately suspected he probably would.

“It's not the worst idea.” I said slowly as I thought about it and it’s consequences. “It would be good for our psychological health and it would also be safe so long as Monokuma doesn’t show up.”

“It's the last part that I’m afraid of.” Koike said as her tone dropped to a serious one and the smile on her face faded. “I can’t help but feel like something bad is going to happen soon and I don't want any pool party to be a part of it.”

“Come on Koike, nothing bad is going to become of this. At worst, the bear will pester us like he usually does.” I insisted. “Besides, we can’t ignore Monokuma. All he has to do is call for us and we have to show up or we die. The pool party is a good idea. Right ladies?”

I looked to Eto and Shiro for support, but only Eto seemed to consider it if his appearance was anything to judge by. Because while she took a few glances at the door, Shiro just crossed her arms as though she were shut out to the idea.

“It sounds like fun really.” Eto slowly admitted with a shrug. “Don’t get me wrong. We’re still trying to figure out how to escape this place as soon as we can but we might as well take a break every now and then.”

“I don’t-.” Shiro began to say before she looked away and sheepishly admitted what she had to say. “I don’t know how to swim. Perhaps I can endeavor to learn later but I don’t care to make a fool out of myself in front of everyone.”

At that, the three of us looked at Shiro. I did so with pity though I didn’t let myself show any signs of it. Eto looked as though she were a tad disappointed if her frown was anything to go by but she didn’t say anything. It was only Koike who had an obvious look of pity. Of course, Shiro picked up on this right away and gave an irritated glare during the awkward silence that followed.

“So uhm, Koike, you mentioned Sama coming through.” Eto asked in what was clearly an attempt to break up the awkward silence. “So which way did she go?”

Luckily for her and all of us, Koike just nodded and pointed in the direction opposite of the way we headed and to the two doors on the far end. All a little too quickly. “Sama followed me here but she went on to the second farthest room. If you’re going to search those rooms, then let me know what you find because I’m going to stay. I have to tell everyone the news and warn them about the metal plates after all.”

Shiro winced a little at the mention of the metal plates again but wholeheartedly agreed if her nod afterwards was anything to go by. “I think we are headed in that direction actually so I’ll be sure to explain what we find to you later if you just keep making sure that everyone knows about the pool.”

After that, Shiro waved goodbye and started off towards the second farthest door on the other end of our side of the greenhouse balcony. Eto and I followed in tow. It wasn’t too much of a trip however so nothing of note happened on the way to the room before Shiro turned the door knob and opened the door for us.

To be honest, there wasn’t too much inside the room either. It had darker wooden floors, tanned wall lining, and chandeliers for a cozier environment as well as three windows to the outside of the lodge. All of which were evenly spaced and surprisingly well insulated considering I hadn’t felt any difference in temperature since entering the room. As far as furniture went however, there wasn’t too much. Just six mahogany tables organized in a hexagonal fashion each surrounded by wooden chairs, a human-sized podium in the far right corner, a door in the middle of the left wall, and a small table on the right wall.

“This appears to be some poor imitation of a catering or recreation room.” Shiro surmised clearly unimpressed by it. I just shrugged it off because, while the situation we were in was bad, the lodge didn’t seem to be that bad of a place to stay in of itself.

“What I want to know is where Sama went.” Eto asked as her eyes darted around the room. “Koike did say that she would be in this room right? Because I can’t think of a reason why she’d want to hide from us.”

I took a minute to think about it. It made sense that Eto would be worried about Sama not being there here given the situation that we were in but I doubted that anything bad had happened to her and I doubted that Eto thought that either or she would have sounded more worried. Besides, there was a perfect explanation in the room. Slowly but surely, my eyes drifted toward the door on the left wall.

“She probably moved over a room.” I said gesturing towards the door in question. “Perhaps we ought to take a look. I mean, we’re exploring the place anyways.”

“Good idea.” Eto commended as she led the way over to the door and opened it for us. “By the way, It’s kind of cool how these rooms are connected but it’s kind of a strange coincidence if you ask me.”

As I stepped through the door, the truth of what Eto said struck me. It really was strange that these two rooms just happened to be connected the way that they were. It didn’t make sense of course given the context of the recreation or catering room being next door but at the same time, not many rooms in this lodge were connected to multiple other rooms.

*(Could there be something hidden in one of them?)*

As I scanned the room that I had just stepped into, it became evident that it would have to be hidden if there was something but it was just as likely to be a coincidence. This room appeared to be a perfectly inconspicuous billiard room with dark red embroidered walls, a pool table in the center, two soft lounging chairs that surrounded tables in every corner, candles on the walls, and a grey plate on the left wall with a door that a human could barely squeeze through and a handle built in. Apart from that, it had a velvet red rug in the center, a single window to the right, and a human-sized door to the left with a silver lock on the knob that I knew by this point went out to that loop around the greenhouse.

Of course, I wasn’t the only person in the room. Apart from Eto and Shiro, I saw Sama and Senji in the room conversing with each other. Sama was leaning back with both hands against the rim of the pool table and Senji just stood straight but looked to be in deep thought with a purely neutral expression.

“Each time somebody commits a murder?” Sama said as she raised her eyebrows in what I guessed was surprise. “How is that possible? The building is only two stories tall. I know because I’ve been outside before.”

Senji scarcely had time to formulate a response before Shiro interjected. “Senji, Sama, have you found anything worth our efforts?”

At that, Senji and Sama glanced over at us. It was Sama however who waved and greeted the three of us. “Hey Shiro, Eto, Nishi. We were just talking about some interesting developments that we’ve found.” After that, she muttered quietly to herself. “Well, ‘interesting’ isn’t a quality this killing game lacks.”

“Anyways, I can explain everything we’ve learned if you come over here.” Senji added as he motioned for us to form a circle around the metal door in the wall. All four of us followed suit and stepped closer for him to begin his explanation.

“So what does this have to do with your discovery?” I said gesturing towards the small metal door in the wall.

“That’s actually a minor discovery.” Senji remarked as he took an idle glance at the thing and back at us. “For anyone who’s noticed, there is a dumbwaiter in the kitchen directly below this room. And for those who are wondering, I can confirm that this was what the dumbwaiter was, and still is actually, connected to. The second matter is more important. The stairwell that took us to this close stops on this floor and I could not find any other stairwells on this floor either. Barring any basement that I do not no about, this is the full extent of the main building.”

“Do you mean that this is everything we have to search?” Eto asked with just a slight hint of disappointment in her voice.

“Well that doesn't account for basements or any of the buildings outside such as that gate in the mountainside that Saeki found.” Senji said in a reassuring tone.

“You act like you want another murder to happen Eto.” Sama scolded as she pushed herself off of the pool table in the center of the roof and stood up near the center of the group before giving Eto a suspicious glance.

As a result of this, Eto just waved her hand no and vehemently denied it. “It’s nothing like that Sama! It’s just-” She stopped, took a deep sigh, and continued. “It's just that I’m worried that it’s going to happen again. I was just hoping to take my mind off of it.”

“Well it doesn’t matter anyways.” Senji calmly stated. “This is going to be the last area to open up because we’re going to keep a closer eye on everyone following yesterday’s events. Through a combined effort and some vigilance, I do believe that we can prevent any more motives such as the last one from working.”

*(Is that true though?)*

I couldn’t for the life of me tell whether or not Senji believed what he was saying and it didn’t help that I lied to Koike in the elevator about the same thing. But Senji seemed like a practical guy so he probably had some contingencies in place in case a murder was going to happen and in fact, he gave me several instructions on not getting murdered. Besides, it wasn’t impossible that nobody else was going to die.

Before I could think about it further, the door to the hallway nearby Senji opened up and Saeki stepped through the door. And while she wasn’t panting or tired, the expression on her face made it clear that she wouldn’t be happy if we interrupted her. The end result was more or less all five of us keeping our mouths shut and staring at her.

“Hello everybody.” Saeki said as she began a hum and a slight smile that quickly disappears when she continued. “Sanda sent me and Yakawa to tell everyone upstairs that he is arranging an emergency meeting in the cafeteria. It isn’t an actual emergency-” She emphasized the last part. “But I believe it is about what to do next about one of the many problems that occurred yesterday. He didn’t tell me the details but I think it would be a good idea for all of us to hear it together.”

I nodded in agreement and everyone else more or less made similar gestures of agreement. The last time Saeki had something to tell the group, she was right about waiting because that was a bit of a shocker. In fact, I doubted that I would ever look at Machi the same way and a chill went down my spine when I remembered her murder plan for me. Not that I wasn’t grateful to find out about it. As much as it concerned me, it was a wake-up call and I’d rather know about a murder plan than not know about one that was still there.

“I suppose we should all follow you then.” Shiro chimed in a neutral tone. Judging by her facial expression, she didn’t seem particularly pleased with the fact that everyone was headed to the cafeteria. She was likely inconvenienced. But still, she must have thought that it was important enough to join in or she wouldn’t have agreed so readily.

At that, everyone began to file out of the room. First went Saeki, then Sama, then Senji followed closely behind her. Shiro took a few seconds after that and the others had disappeared by the time she left the room, but she did leave to the cafeteria nonetheless. Finally, I started to leave but Eto stepped in the way.

“Hey Nishi, I just wanted to thank you for inviting me on your little search.” Eto said with a fading smile. “It was great. The only way it could have been better would be if Naya were here.” Eto’s smile notably dropped completely on the last part.

“Or if we weren’t trapped here.” I dryly remarked as I looked around at the room and the lodge in which we were trapped. I knew it wasn’t the best thing to say, but It was the truth. We were supposed to be in Hope’s Peak having the time of our lives by now. Not kidnapped in the middle of nowhere while the world slowly forgot about us.

Eto put her finger to her chin in thought for a second, but quickly lowered it and shook her head. “I know this is hard to believe Nishi, but I actually don't mind it so long as we all could have been rescued and not forced to kill each other. I know what Shiro says, but this place isn’t that bad without the danger of a killing game. Plus, we’d all have a chance to actually make friends with each other and we’d be back where we were supposed to be in the end.”

*(Are you really that desperate Eto?)*

In spite of thinking that, I refrained from sharing those thoughts with Eto. Instead, I opted to head towards the door. “That certainly would have been better than this. That much I do agree on.” I said before shrugging. “Anyways, let’s get going. We don’t want to keep them waiting after all.”

At that, I made my way out of the billiard room into the hallway and Eto more or less did the same closing the door behind her with a click. After that, the two of us simply went into the left hall, continued until we reached the stairwell, made our way down the stairs, and headed over to the cafeteria on the first floor without any trouble. Finally, the two of us opened the doors. I took the left and Eto took the right.

What we saw when we entered two tables with five people at each and Sanda was at the far end coughing into his right hand as though he were preparing to make some sort of argument or speech. I myself sat down at a table next to Koike and Eto sat down at the other table next to Saeki.

About the time we all sat ourselves, Wakuni spoke up from the other end of the table in which I sat. He didn’t sound condemning but he was to the point. “You sent for everyone except Machi but you haven’t told us why we’re here. Well we’re all here. Are you ready to tell us now?”

*(Wait. He didn’t send for Machi so that means-)*

Although I was quick to process the new information, Sanda announced it before I had time to connect the dots myself. “I’m sure that you all know that I summoned you for an emergency meeting in light of what happened yesterday. Granted a lot of bad stuff happened yesterday but I just want to focus on how Machi made plans to kill eight of us and I think that something needs to be done about her?”

“Done about her?” Yakawa said. He crossed her arms and raised a left eyebrow at that. “I’m just as ticked as my brother that she made plans to murder us but if you’re advocating harming her then-”

Sanda interrupted by shaking his head vehemently, responding immediately, and in a frantic tone. “No, no, no, no! I don’t want to anybody to harm anybody. All I want to do is make sure that she can’t go through with her threats.”

“Right.” Sama replied in a slow, drawn out tone that made it clear that she didn’t believe her. Followed by more than enough sarcasm. “Because the last time we tried to protect everyone, it turned out so great.”

“How do you expect to make sure that she doesn’t try anything anyways?” I asked sincerely ignoring Sama’s comment entirely. Unlike her, I was willing to listen if the suggestion was feasible.

“Well,” Sanda said as he rubbed the back of his head nervously. “I suppose we can pool our ideas together but I say we’ll be fine if we just take away her equipment. That’s what all of her plans revolved around. Anyways, the threat would be taken care of and she wouldn’t have to suffer too much for it.”

“We can’t do that.” Saeki interjected fervently. “Her talent is far too important for our investigations. If we take that away, we could be staying a lot longer which means more murder motives from Monokuma.”

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to side with Sanda on this.” Seno said with a sigh. He almost looked like he was going to shrivel however when everyone looked at him. “We’re in the middle of a killing game now with no way out and I can’t think of a more humane solution.”

“Well I don’t think you guys are going far enough.” Wakuni grumbled upon what I could only guess was the memory of the plan for his own and his brother’s murder. “When people attempt murder, most governments lock them up for it. If you absolutely want to make sure that everyone is safe, then that is what we have to do. Perhaps in her room.”

Yakawa winced but nodded in agreement. Apparently, his brother managed to change his mind on the subject. “I hate to agree with Wakuni’s sentiment but in my personal experience, some people do need to be restrained before they can harm others. It wouldn’t be fair to endanger everyone else for one person who we know has made plans to kill some of us. And if we did this it would only be until we escaped.”

“Yakawa, she isn’t going to do anything. First and foremost, I don’t think she’s a monster like you say she is. And she knows she’d get caught.” Sama argued in a critical tone. “All of these precautions are unnecessary and quite frankly, It wouldn’t be fair to do any of them to her.”

“Do you really believe that we shouldn’t do anything?” I asked. “She wanted to bash your brains in with a cinder block as I recall.”

Sama frowned at the sentiment but looked over to Koike and smiled once more. “I messed up the last time the group suspected someone and I don’t ever want to treat someone like that again.”

“I can’t believe you guys. Well, most of you guys.” Saeki said as she looked at us with obvious disappointment on her face. “But especially you Nishi. You’re the one who more or less said that treating someone like a murderer could cause them to act like one.”

Her words stung. In part, because I knew they were true but also because Machi made plans to kill me and she was still making me out to be the bad guy. In fact, I could even think of anything to defend myself before Sasori interjected with no evidence of being affected by Saeki’s remark. “What do you propose then? That we all side with Sama?”

“Not quite.” Saeki said as she shook her head before pointing to herself with her right thumb. “I do agree that we shouldn’t hinder her life but I also think that you should leave it to me. I will keep her on the straight and narrow so that you people don’t have to worry about her.”

“I agree with the sentiment.” Koike replied. “But are you sure that you’re the best person for the job? I don’t mean your idea is bad but she might resent you for exposing her.”

“Leave that to me Koike.” Saeki calmly replied. “I believe I’ve said this before but I am Saeki Masu and I will never tolerate failure until I’ve given my best.”

I bit my lip unsure what to think about Saeki treating Machi like another one of her challenges, putting herself in danger, or being literally the worst person to volunteer for the role that she gave herself. But I kept my mouth quiet about it just like everyone else.

Apparently, we kept quiet for a while because Sanda was the next to eventually speak up. “Alright guys. I guess we can do this by a show of hands. When I call for who the person who you agree with, just raise your hand I guess.”

Everything was pretty straightforward after that. One by one, Sanda called out the people who offered suggestions. The first up was Wakuni but it only got votes from him, Shiro unsurprisingly, and his brother Yakawa. After that was Sanda’s own idea which faired a bit better with votes from Seno, Eto, Sanda himself, and myself although I frowned as I did so. I knew it was my bias but I didn’t have it in me to ignore it. I wanted to apologize, but I couldn’t.

*(I’m sorry, but I just can’t think past how she tried to hang me.)*

After that, Sanda called for Saeki’s plan which got a whopping five votes when Sama voted and most of her followers apparently switched plans with her. As a result, Sama, Senji, Sasori, Tanabe, and Saeki herself voted for it. And finally, Koike agreed to Sama’s plan and it was obvious why since she made an obviously nervous glance over at Saeki as she did so. But the votes were tallied in spite of her attempts and Saeki had clearly won.

“Alright I guess Saeki will get her chance.” Sanda said with more than a hint of worry in his voice. “The groups dismissed then. And Saeki, I think she went to the second floor earlier so she should be there right now but are you sure you want to do this?”

Saeki nodded and posed confidently as she stood up first. “I’m not worried about Machi. I don’t think anything is going to get hairy but I know I can handle myself if it does anyways. The point is, don’t concern yourself with me.”

“Huh, I thought she was in the storage room.” Seno remarked blankly. Apparently though, I was the only person to hear him because if anyone else did, they showed no signs of it. It was more of a dull surprise than an assertion anyways.

However, I noticed. And as the rest of the group go up and dispersed, I remembered that I had forgotten to check out the first back room in the storage room. And although I didn’t know what was in there, I knew from my first trip that it had all sorts of dangerous devices so I couldn’t forget to search it.

*(But I did forget)*

I wasn’t too worried about it though. I could always panic and run around like a headless chicken over every problem if I wanted but I wasn’t going to. Besides, this problem could be solved rather easily. So instead of panicking, I walked the opposite direction as most of the group when they got up and made a calm but brisk beeline for the storage room.

The trip itself was uneventful, but I thought about what Machi might have been doing there and Machi in general. I frowned a little at the thought of her sneaking around, continuing to do whatever she wanted, and Saeki of all people putting herself in danger while she got off the hook. It’s not that I wanted to make her life miserable even if the thought of her made my fists tighten just a little, but I didn’t want to be at her mercy and I didn’t want anyone else to be at her mercy.

I sighed about the same time I made it to the Storage Room and opened the door. Thankfully, everything appeared to be more or less in the same as before except a few of the shelves and crates weren’t nearly as full as earlier. But I wasn’t focused on that. Instead, I was focused on the far left heavy door which was lifted up. Save for a caution tape that lined the place where the door could come closing down, the room behind it had the same grey color. It only had two racks lined with more stuff but it also had two crated with both lids half-removed on the right side of the smaller room.

I crept up to the two crates as the stuff of the racks weren’t much different from what I’ve seen before save for some PVC pipes, weights, and metal wires which did not interest me. I peered inside both of them through the gap in the lids, fully took the lid off the one closest to me, and blinked twice at what I saw. Inside the one closest to me was a pile of black-bladed serrated combat knives and they all appeared to be about 8 inches. Briefly shuddered a little at the implications of them knowing full well that anyone could have one by now. Yet I took one for myself with hand and hid it. I didn’t know how to use it and I never wanted to, but I felt safer with it in my possession nonetheless. Besides, I planned to have a knife since the game started.

With that taken care of, I fully closed the lid on the crate and turned my attention to the other one. I had seen the contents inside when I peered through the opening but now I removed the lid to get a closer look. Like earlier, I noticed that it was nothing but a simple and neatly stacked crate full of hardcover books. Eight of which were missing. Specifically, they were all a murder mystery called ‘Blue Ink’. I more or less sighed and grabbed one and hid it in my shirt before heading towards the exit.

*(I don’t want to read the murder mystery. I hate murder mysteries. But if someone ever decides to pull something from the book then I don’t want to be left ignorant so I don’t have much of a choice.)*

In spite of my mood not having improved much, the next few things I did were fairly uneventful. First, I made my way out of the storage room, made my way to my own room, swiped myself in with my ElectroID, and put the book down on the nightstand before doing a quick Dorsi Stretch for a second. I had to admit that carrying the book was a tad uncomfortable so getting rid of it put a brief smile on my face once all was said and done. But my mood quickly reverted back.

After that, I took a brief glance at the door. The book needed to be dropped off but I wasn’t going to spend the afternoon reading it. Especially not when there was no area to explore which I knew I hadn’t explored half off. So, I opened my door once more, made my way out of my room, and carefully closed it behind me until I heard the click. After that, I set off.

I went up the stairs to the room where everything seemed to be connected and made my way up the stairwell. But this time, I turned right when I reached the top of the stairwell and went up the other half-flight of stairs to continue my search.

When I reached the top, I came upon a cross-section of hallways with a room at each corner judging by the fact that the entrances seemed to be neatly lined up through door facing each other on either side both before and after the intersection. A few step closer further revealed that each hallway seemed to stop at about a room’s length away. Furthermore, the one straight ahead of me had a portrait of Monokuma wearing one of those stereotypical fancy velvet red night robes and smoking a pipe, the hallway to me right had an ornate fountain statue of Monokuma spitting into the pool, and the one to my left had a glass window.

I just shook my head in mild disgust and headed into the far right room since it was the closest after stepping out into the intersection. Clockwise seemed to be a good enough search pattern so I decided to use that search order. What I saw was simple enough. The room had cheery red and yellow checkered tiles, orange walls, but it had the same white roof however.

As for the furniture, there were several cabinets that lined the wall on the far end each clear and containing a wide variety of games. Furthermore, a round clock which hung from the middle of the wall. On the far right wall seemed to be a fold out table of all sorts of beverages as well. And on the left appeared to be another wooden podium. Finally, there were seven tables of four aligned in a star pattern. The middle of which was occupied by Sama and Sasori playing a game of chess.

It was then that they both took notice of me even though Sama kept looking at the board and it was Sasori that spoke up. “Hello Nishi. Would you care to join us? I can get a second board out and I’ll play you both.”

“No thanks, I’m still searching the place.” I said as my eyes gravitated towards the board. Sama didn’t appear to be doing too well with both horses, one bishop, four pawns and a queen missing in contrast to Sasori who had lost only a rook and two pawns. “Isn’t chess largely a game of probability?”

They both nodded in agreement though Sama was definitely less enthused judging by the look on her face. I pretty much decided not to press the issue any further than that for obvious reasons.

Instead, I just waved goodbye and ignored the fact that I saw Sama move Sasori’s other rook behind his back. “I’ll see you around guys.”

“See you around.” They both replied though Sasori sounded a little more pleased than Sama did when he said it.

With that, I opened the door, headed out into the intersection, closed the door, and made my way across the hall to the next room in the clockwise pattern. This time, when I opened the door and headed inside, I came across something decidedly less pleasant. Right away I noticed that the layout was different and that the room was rather narrow and before me, the room’s walls and ceiling were evenly divided down the middle with the left half being white and the right half being black. About the only thing that was different was the checkered black and white tiled floor.

As if that wasn’t enough to deter me, the right side of the room had an armored door on the far end with a long dark grey metal shuttered window that stretched back to the entrance. There was also a giant spinning wheel on the far end of the room like one you would find in a game show with 15 green sections, 15 red, and 2 with a half-white and half-black Monokuma face on them. Finally, the middle of the right wall had a round wooden kiosk next to what looked like a bubblegum machine only it held tickets inside of the clear balls. I more or less immediately turned around before I heard Monokuma’s voice coming from the stands behind me and turned back around to face him.

“Don’t you want to play for prizes?” Monokuma suggested with a hint of glee in his voice.

“I might-” I said as I began my retort with sarcasm. “Except I have the feeling that everything in this room is going to kill me if I do.”

“Upupupu. You’re not completely wrong.” Monokuma remarked evidently pleased, or at least unoffended, with my answer. Something that made me wince before he continued. “But none of the games in this room will kill you. This is simply the prize room! A place where you can play the MonoMono Machine for a random prize-” He gestured towards the device that looked like a bubblegum machine. “Or you can try for a bigger game-changer at the wheel behind me. If it lands on green, you get one prize from the room next door. One Monocoin equals one chance of either.”

I blandly stared at him and pulled out the one Monocoin that I had found earlier in my room before handing it to the animatronic bear. “If it will prevent you from pestering me to come here then I’ll humor you with a wheel spin.”

I more or less walked up to the wheel, pushed the thing, and took a step back as it spun around. It took a few seconds to friction to start to work on the thing but after that, it only took about a minute. And in the end, the arrow landed on green and it finally came to a halt.

“Wow, four for five. I thought this was supposed to be rigged in my favor!” Monokuma exclaimed as he put his paws up to his mouth in mock complaint before reverting to normal. “Anyways, you’re clear to go inside and pick one of anything you want.”

I did my best to ignore him and headed inside the room to look. I doubted it would be anything good but I was surprised when the door opened and I had a peek inside. Apart from the black and white tiles on the floor, the entire room was black despite being well lit by three light fixtures overhead. But the contents of the room were what truly made me stepped back in awe and quite frankly, horror. The room was empty except for the walls which were lined with more gadgets and weapons than I could count. Three of which were missing and could only be identified by labels.

The first was labeled as a simple gold plated revolver which, that one didn’t scare me as much as the other two missing ones. The second was a psychological profile of the entire class. That one sent another chill down my spine when I saw that it was missing. But it was the last one that I was the most worried about. Just a simple empty ticket holder with ‘last blood’ written in it.

“Oh that.” Came what I knew was Monokuma’s voice behind me. “Someone has already taken that. If you want it then you have to find the one hidden around the lodge because they don’t replenish unless they get destroyed or used up.”

“I was actually more interested in figuring out what it does.” I explained without even looking back at him.

“Hmm. Are you sure you want to know? Alright but spoiler alert!” Monokuma declared ecstatically. “Once upon a time I thought to myself, why not offer a golden ticket out of here? So that all someone would have to do is kill somebody with the ticket in their possession to graduate? No class trial, no execution, no hassle. They leave, and everyone else continued their lives like normal. But in the end I decided that there’s no fun in not punishing anyone.”

A felt a few drops of sweat materialize on my forehead upon hearing that anybody could just walk up to me, kill me, show Monokuma the ticket, and get out of here. The prospect made me tense but I took a deep sigh of relief as I turned around to face him because he changed his mind at the very least.

“So what does it do?” I asked the bear. As soon as I did, I couldn’t help but feel a wave of foreboding that wasn’t helped at all by the way his red eye lit up.

“Oh, it does pretty much the same thing still.” Monokuma said blissfully with no regard to how I felt. “The only real difference is that I still punish everyone else as if the blackened graduated normally. By the way, I need feedback on the name. Is ‘Last Blood’ too edgy in your opinion?”

I ignored the last part as I became a few shades paler and took another nervous glance at the place before looking back at the bear. It was nothing less than a death sentence and we both knew it. So when I spoke, it shouldn’t have been a surprise that I couldn’t keep the dread out of my voice.

“And you’re telling me that there are two of these in the lodge!?” I said as I barely fought down the urge to panic. Monokuma just nodded however.

“Most of the stuff here can be found hidden around the lodge as bonus items. Though some of them are exclusive to your rooms like the sniper rifle on the wall for instance,” he said pointing towards a sniper rifle. “Although the ones here are typically better. For instance, I won’t say any names but a certain someone doesn’t have any firearms with quite the range as that thing.”

*(I hate you.)*

I felt another chill run up my spine when he said that and I gave a quick shudder as a result. Whether it was the prospect of a mystery person, who was obviously Wakuni, owning a sniper rifle or Monokuma’s sadistic little perk I didn’t know. But it was probably the latter since it was a death sentence for anyone who didn’t have it and it was at the front of my thoughts.

“Yeesh, you don’t make any sense to me. I mean, if someone was going to kill you, wouldn’t you want it to be quick rather than drawn out and agonizing?” Monokuma chimed in apparently picking up on my reaction to his last quip about the sniper rifle. “Whatever. Just pick something here already. I have places to be and motives to explain.”

I just glared at him but nevertheless. After that, I headed over to the center of the room as calmly as I could and took deep breaths all the while in an attempt to stay calm despite my pulse pounding beyond the normal bpms. At first, I wasn’t sure what to choose, but eventually, I found something that caught my interest. Namely, some sort of lattice hanging on the wall and connected by a wire to be specific.

“Oh that’s a good one.” Monokuma chimed in. “If you get it, I’ll add it to the inside of your coat. Then it’ll probably keep someone like you toasty for leagues longer than your coat normally would.”

To be honest, I wanted to get out of this room as soon as possible before I learned another disturbing revelation but an extra time outside without dying and a warmer coat would open up new places for me to explore. It would probably make me less miserable while I was outside exploring as well. So, I agreed fervently to the offer.

“I’ll take it,” I said as calmly as I could which still wasn’t calm at all but better than my previous statement.

With that, I headed out the armored door without so much as waiting for a response from Monokuma. After all, he already told me that he was just going to add it into my coat later. I took several more deep breaths as I trudged out of the prize room as I would call it and made my way back into the hallway. Once there, I just stopped and continued to take deep breaths until I could focus on exploration again.

*(To the next room.)* I thought in an effort to suppress what I had learned. Ignorance truly was bliss in this case. I didn’t have that anymore but at least I had things to take my mind off of it.

And so, I made my way into the next room almost wondering whether opening the door would be worth it while I did. But luckily there didn’t seem to be anything malicious in the room when I opened the door. It was just a simple Ballroom with smooth wooden floors, an ivory piano in the far left corner where Eto was sitting, white walls with gold embroidered patterns on them, two windows on the right side with white draping curtains on each, and a magnificent white chandelier in the center that was roughly the size of the piano and had two golden rings inside of it. Upon seeing me, Eto got up to say hello.

“Oh hey Nishi. I’ve been wondering where you were- oh. You don’t look too well.” At first she started off mildly pleasant, but she must have noticed that I still didn’t feel too well. “Is something wrong?”

“It’s nothing.” I denied as I shook my head and started to walk away. “Anyways, you can come with me to explore the last room if you want.”

I got about three steps before a right hand grabbed mine and tugged me back. Obviously, it belonged to Eto and she didn’t seem too happy to hear that from me. “Isn’t that more or less what Yasui told you? At least, Yakawa told me that’s how he duped you after the class trial.”

“Yasui duped everyone.” I defended myself with a sigh. Nonetheless, I supposed that Eto was right. So I told her the truth and I didn’t try to hide the concern either. “It’s just that I learned that someone has a tool that can allow them to kill one of us, graduate automatically, and get the rest of us executed.”

Eto froze for a minute as she bit her lip with what I could only assume was deep concern. For that time, I felt guilt stir in my chest for telling her as it wasn’t like she could do anything about it. But eventually, she spoke up in a reasoning tone. “Well- he or she could have used it by now if they wanted to- so we can assume that they don’t plan to use it. Who knows? Maybe they just didn’t want the threat out there so they took it for themselves. Or maybe they want it in case they accidentally kill someone. Or maybe Monokuma has some sort of stipulation. The point is, I don’t think it’s going to get used. But- I promise I’ll find it for you just in case.”

I nodded knowing that I hadn’t thought of it like that. And furthermore, I managed a smiled back at her. I still didn’t feel safe with it out there but I felt better. “Thank you Eto. I would really appreciate it.”

“No problem Nishi.” Eto said giving me the warmest reassuring smile that she was capable of. She didn’t look as though she completely believed her own story but the gesture was enough for me. After that, she let go of my hand finally and pointed the way out of the ballroom. “To the next room then Nishi. Lead the way.”

I did so and the two of us headed out the ballroom and into the hallways before making out way to the final room that I intended to explore. Once I approached, I glanced over at Eto to make sure that she was right behind me and opened the door.

The inside wasn’t too grandiose or anything special really. The walls, ceiling, and floors inside the room were all the same as the ones outside the room. The furniture was a little different however as there appeared to be a giant mounted telescope in the center of the room, a board chart on the far end of the room with a ton of pictures connected by pins and threads lie one would see in a detective show, and a round wood table in the far right corner with four wooden chairs around it each with dark red cushions. But most importantly, Machi and Saeki were standing next to the telescope in an argument and neither noticed us.

“You ruined any chance that I had of not being hated by everyone!” Machi shouted. “Do you think that I would just forget about what you did?!”

“You did that to yourself.” Saeki replied in a cool and stern tone. Her arms were on her hips in an impatient posture but she otherwise refused to stoop to Machi’s level. “You chose to make those plans. I understand the reason but that doesn’t change the fact that it was your choice Machi.”

“And yet, you’re the person who showed everyone. Why?” Machi protested with a glare at Saeki. “I was already getting rid of those plans!”

(*Well it looked like diplomacy has failed-)*

“Did you seriously think that I wouldn’t tell everyone about your trying to kill them?” Saeki replied with a scoff and looked away. In fact, she looked at me and was almost startled when she saw me and Eto standing there. At the same time, Machi saw me and was taken back as Saeki resumed speaking. “How long have- never mind that. It doesn’t matter. Why don’t we ask Nishi what she thinks? After all, she was one of your targets.”

“I-uhm- yeah!” Machi said with definitively less confidence before turning to me and pleading with me. “Nishi. I was getting rid of those plans. I only made them because I was desperate and I decided not to use them in the end. Otherwise I could have hidden them in my room. You believe that much right?”

I drew a long tired sigh and brought my left hand to the bridge of my nose. “I understand that Machi. But I also know that you were going to hang me and probably only changed your mind because you didn’t think that the plan was feasible.”

Machi winced but replied in the same stern demeanor that she had been using against Saeki. “Do you really think that is the only reason why I didn’t kill you?”

I opened my mouth to make a retort, but before I could, an announcement interrupted courtesy of Monokuma, our fake and terrible headmaster.

Ding dong, bing bong.

“Attention students, the time has come! And by that I mean you have a super special surprise waiting for you in the lounge! Be here in five minutes.” Monokuma said for what I hoped but doubted would be the last time over the speakers.

Eto just looked around at the others and gulped. I imagine that it was because whoever had the perk was about to receive a motive and I suddenly felt sick to my stomach when I connected the dots myself. Meanwhile, Eto spoke up. “I- guess we’d all better go before he punishes us for absence.”

Everyone must have agreed with Eto because we all silently followed her out of the room, across the hall, and down the stairs. All while awkwardly exchanging wordless glances at each other. By the time we reached the bottom of the stairwell, the had trip become awkward for me. But we made it to the front of the lounge and made our way inside without any actual trouble.

When we entered, everything was like it had been on day one. No special props or any gadgets with which to psychologically torture us. The only difference, of course, was the fact that there were now ten people waiting for the four of us, Monokuma was already there standing on the podium, and Shiro was arguing with him over something.

“What is the meaning of this? We’ve already had a murder and we solved it just a day ago.” Shiro said as she waved the notion aside with her right arm. “On top of that, you’re cutting into our dinner time. Can’t this wait?”

“I agree with most of Shiro’s points.” Koike said with a raise of a hand. “We already played your game and solved one murder and I-” She shook her head deliriously. “I really don’t want to go through another one. The pool was nice but please just let us go.”

“Well let me check- no and no.” Monokuma asserted blankly. “That would be like ending a movie after the first act or only letting one person ride a rollercoaster before shutting it down! There wouldn’t be any fun in that at all!”

“Except people choose to do those things.” Sama retorted with a blank, presumably unamused stare before crossing her arms.

“It is a choice! I chose to host this game! I chose to bring you all here instead of killing you where I found you, you bunch of ingrates! And I choose to continue with the motive.” Monokuma defended before he glanced over at me. He must have realized that everyone was here because he mockingly cleared his throat. “Well it looks like everyone is here. And wow, you all came with three minutes to spare. Well since you all came so quickly, I guess I won’t waste your time. Time for the motive then!”

*(This can’t be good.)* I thought as an ice cold dread crept up in my stomach.

“Until one of the remaining students here commits a murder, or suicide because I’m open-minded, I’m going to shut off the power as of now.” Monokuma stated as he raised his left paw to the roof dramatically. But he quickly dropped it and continued. “There we go. Any second now, the lighting will run out of juice.”

“You expect us to pull off a murder when we can’t even see?” Tanabe asked in a tone that showed a mixture of curiosity and irritation. Apparently even he could break his calm quiet demeanor every now and then.

“Alas no.” Monokuma said as he looked down at the ground in mock disappointment before looking right back up at us. “The last time I tried that, it took a full week for someone to come up with a murder. It turns out humans don’t have night vision. Who knew? Anyways, most of the bear essentials like lighting and plumbing will be running on emergency power once it kicks in. Now i’m pretty sure it’ll last roughly four days but it won’t matter because I know one of you will kick the bucket by then.”

Something about the way he finished his speech made the cold dread I felt sweep over me even worse. And to make the situation even worse, it was then that the lights finally shut off with a loud click and the room faded to near black. It would have if it weren’t for the fire crackling in the fireplace or Monokuma’s glowing red eye. It was much darker than before, but I noticed that other people were starting to show signs of fear from what little light there was. Already they started to murmur among themselves.

But Monokuma apparently wasn’t finished. “Now before I leave you to your murderous selves, I probably should explain the card readers-”

“Are they out of power too?” I asked as calmly as I could. Luckily, I did a better job than I did when I met up with Eto earlier. In no small part thanks to the slow deep breaths that I was forcing myself to take.

“I was getting to that.” Monokuma replied to me. “I’m sure everyone here has noticed that certain doors require you to swipe your ElectroIDs through a blue or red card reader? Well I’m telling you now that the blue ones will work on emergency power but the red ones are gone until one of you takes some initiative and kills someone. And uh- well that’s about it.”

“You can’t do this-” Seno begged the bear. From what little light we had I could see him on his hands and knees though the only reason I could was because I was close by him.

“Well you’re half right. I can’t do it again because I already did.” Monokuma replied. “Sayonara everyone!”

“Wait!” Sama called out in what sounded like utter fear as she reached towards the bear. Unfortunately, the red light that came from Monokuma’s eye quickly fade to nothing so he was gone long before Sama could reach him to stop him and plead. Like that, he had left us all to bask in our fear and despair.

“This is really bad.” Machi commented in a weary tone. Her breathing picked up just a tad but otherwise she stayed silent after that and left to assume that she was scared which made me raise an eyebrow since she usually wasn’t so obviously concerned.

“Relax Machi-” Sanda spoke in what I knew was fear and displeasure based on his voice. “He said we would have the bear essentials so we still have time to find a way out of here.”

“He said we would have most of the bare essentials, not all of ,hem.” Saeki said. She sounded like she was trying to stay calm but even her voice was wavering. “It doesn’t matter anyway because we still have a limited time before we lose the emergency power.”

“Oh Crap. Someone else is really going to die.” Seno muttered. By the sound of his voice, he was standing up once more. Apparently he knew that he wasn’t helping the situation though because he tried to make a last-ditch save. “I’m- I’m sorry guys. I don't know what came over me.”

It was then that the emergency power must have kicked in because the lights turned on once more with another click. Only it still wasn’t the same as before because they were about a third as bright as they were before and it gave the room an eerie pale atmosphere. At that time, the room went silent and started looking up at the lights.

After about a minute of awkward silence, Yakawa spoke up. “Let’s all just calm down. We don’t know what Monokuma meant when he said what he did but we have no reason to panic when we don’t even know what we don’t have.”

“Yeah- yeah-” Eto began as though she were snapping out of some trance then she mustered up the most uplifting tone that she could. “There is absolutely no need to murder somebody when we don’t even know that something is wrong. It’s probably just another one of Monokuma’s scares like before. We- we aren’t going to let that happen again are we class?!”

The class more or less gave their respective gestures of agreement at her statement though it was all but impossible to tell which ones, if any, were true. After all, anyone who admitted otherwise would be a prime suspect if I murder was to occur.

Ding dong, bing bong.

“Attention everyone. The time is now 10:00 P.M. It is now officially night time. Goodnight everyone and rest well. You never know what tomorrow will bring.” Monokuma said through the monitor. Apparently, emergency power covered those to my dismay.

“Alright then.” Senji said as he slowly drew everyone’s attention. “I suppose that in light of recent events, I propose that dinner will be on me. If anyone is interested then I will take a headcount in the cafeteria.”

With that Senji, and almost everyone else, left the lounge. Koike was the first to follow Senji naturally, but everyone eventually headed out. Whether or not they would find their way to the cafeteria would be anybody’s guess, but they all left the lounge at the very least.

I myself followed the process of heading back to my room head drooped and I passed by Seno and Machi on the way. If anybody asked, I planned to tell them that I was tired. And to be fair, I was beginning to get a headache just thinking of the motive’s implications. But really I was fighting back the fear of knowing that, not only was Monokuma’s motive probably lethal in some way, but someone had both a motive and a ticket that got them out of here without a class trial. Monokuma flat out admitted earlier that everyone else, including me, would be executed if the guy or girl used the thing. So in conclusion, he could show up at any moment and declare that I was going to be executed and there wasn’t a thing that I could do to stop him.

But nobody asked and I made it to my room with no further trouble. From there, it was an easy process of swiping my ElectroID through a thankfully glowing blue card reader. After that, it was the same routine as before. I changed my clothes, put the two recorders and knife on the nightstand next to the book, cleaned up, turned out the lights in my room, and fell into bed.

I closed my eyes, yet sleep didn’t come. My mind was filled with thoughts of what would happen, who could have had the perk, who was going to die, and whether or not I would somehow be lucky enough to not get murdered or executed this round. Oh I was sure that murder was going to happen given how dangerous the motive sounded, it was just a matter of whether or not the killer would be able to walk away without giving us a chance to save ourselves. So, I just stared up at the ceiling waiting for sleep to come. But it didn’t for the next several hours.

...

By the time 1:30AM came around, I considered self-hypnosis to try get some sleep. I had managed to calm myself down by virtue of how exhausted I was. Yet there didn’t seem to be any sleep in sight. So here I was considering something what I knew to be a waste of time. Self-hypnosis was the one area of hypnotherapy, or hypnosis in general, where I completely failed. Whether I wasn’t susceptible or just couldn’t do it to myself, I didn’t know but it didn’t matter. Regardless, I sighed, grabbed a nearby watch from the closet, went back to bed, closed my eyes, and tried to focus on the slow methodical ticking.

…

Ding dong, bing bong.

Monokuma’s announcement played on the school speakers again. “Rise and shine everyone. It is now 7 A.M. It is officially morning. It’s time to enjoy another beautiful day here at Newpoint Lodge!”

To my surprise, I woke up groggy. As I sat up and looked around, I groaned. The world felt like a blur to me as I forced myself up and when I did, I felt a splitting headache shoot through me. It wasn’t the ideal morning by any stretch of the imagine. Even by killing game standards. But somehow I had managed to fall asleep. And as the haze I was in started to clear, I realized that fact and looked over at the stopwatch on top of my book with the vague recollection of giving up on hypnotizing myself. This led to the question of how I actually fell asleep but I was too tired to care.

With that, I tried to get up out of bed only to feel an ice cold chill wash over me and sat back down pulling both covers back over me in reflex. I only shivered for a second before the covers did there job of keeping me warm, but I came to a realization when I did. Heating was one of the things that didn’t make the cut when Monokuma switched to emergency power. I must not have noticed because the temperature change had been gradual.

*(That might have interfered with my rest as well.)*

I forced myself to sit back up and sighed. I would have to get out of bed later but for now I wanted to take time to adjust to the sudden temperature change. At the same time, I looked over at the book on the nightstand and the stopwatch on top of it. If I was going to get stay for a while then I might as well get to actually reading that thing. As much as I didn’t want to, I didn’t want to be left in the dark if someone tried to copy something from the book.

So, I picked the thing up and slowly flipped through the pages to the beginning and made it past a chapter list to the front cover somehow. It was there that I noticed something peculiar. Written in what looked like perfect, neatly written, cursive handwriting was a message that seemed to be exclusively for me that read;

‘To Nishi Toshiro, one of the few people to figure me out. ~Senji Kenazane.’

I just stared at the writing as I tried to wrap my head around the fact for what felt like minutes, but I managed to at least process that sentence eventually. And when I did, I learned two things; That Senji had written the book and that I had somehow figured that fact out despite having no such recollection. I knew I couldn’t make sense of it unless Seno was right about our memories being erased so I didn’t try. Instead, I made a mental note to myself to talk to Senji about it and started to flip the page again. But before I could continue to the book’s actual content, the doorbell rang.

I sighed again. I didn’t want to get out of bed yet but I knew that I had very little choice in the matter. So, I dragged myself out of bed fighting the bitter cold the whole time, put the book on the nightstand, and headed over to the door before I grabbed what I noticed to be an ice cold doorknob and opened the thing. When I did, it revealed none other than Sasori getting ready to ring to door again and the hair on his skin was standing up just like mine. It was then that he noticed me and backed away from the doorbell.

“Oh, greetings Nishi. Yakawa called for a wake up call to make sure that everyone is okay. Sorry to bother you.” Sasori calmly remarked as he somehow didn’t show any signs of discomfort in spite of his skin’s hair standing on end just like mine.

“Is everyone okay?” I asked without any attempt to hide my concern. I wasn’t as worried as the night before but I still wouldn’t have been happy to see anyone sick or worse. And it felt like there was plenty of potential for worse.

Luckily, Sasori nodded. “Luckily yes, in spite of the change in temperature which i’m sure you're aware of by now. Anyways, Senji also sent me around to tell you that he went ahead and made breakfast for everyone.”

My stomach growled at that. As I recalled, I didn’t bother to have dinner last night and I instead opted to go to sleep. It had turned out to be a waste on my part of course, but I had no way of knowing that. Not that it mattered. The last time Senji made everyone breakfast, he went all out. And I couldn’t help but smile just a little at the recollection in spite of everything else.

“I’ll just leave you to it then.” Sasori said as an amused smile briefly crept across his face. After that, he started to walk off without even waiting for a response. In spite of everything that was happening, he also seemed to be trying to make the best of our situation.

With that, I closed the door and did my best to get into the swing of things despite the cold. I hid the recorder, back inside the pillow, and changed my clothes only this time I put on two T-shirts hoping that it would make a difference. Though if it did, it was negligible. After that, I pocketed my ElectroID, Knife, and recorder. Then I simply placed the stopwatch around my neck under my coat again and headed out the door.

The trip to the kitchen wasn’t too different than the trips before. Granted, I felt a little better walking through the hallways because they were warmer by virtue of not being next to any windows save for the front which gave me a cold chill as I passed by. But otherwise the only thing of note that happened before I opened the door was that my pulse picked up and my breathing shallowed by a negligible amount.

In spite of the lights being severely dimmed, the room was bright from the light outside and I could clearly see the that all thirteen of the other survivors had made it, were sitting at one of two tables, and were eating away at their breakfast. I myself took a seat next to Koike and across from Senji and looked down at my food.

I frowned when I realized that it was a cold meal and that it had to be a cold meal but I quickly put on a smile for Senji. It wasn’t his fault he wasn’t given anything warm to work with after all. It was a bowl of rice along with pickled Daikon with a side of Natto, Umeboshi, Dried seaweed, and of course there was the center plate mixed with all sorts of fruit and two slices of uncooked bread. It was then that I gave Senji a wink and started to eat as well.

“So why did you do this for us?” Koike slowly, and what I assumed was carefully, asked. “Not that i’m complaining or anything. You do an outstanding job and I’m sure you always have.”

Senji looked over at Koike but he wasn’t the next person to speak. Everyone close by heard what she said and Tanabe was the first to reply. Although not in a fond tone. “I’m afraid that I think he’s doing this because of the motive. I think that the cold is likely to kill if us the temperature continues to drop at this rate. Isn’t that right Yakawa?”

“I highly doubt that-” Senji tried to interrupt. But to no avail.

“I- uh- yes it is.” Yakawa said as he rubbed the back of his head nervously. He did however, insist on making a counterargument. “That is, only if the temperature continues to drop. This could be another trick from Monokuma to psych us out.”

“I’m worried that it might not be.” Koike said with grabbed her right arm with her left hand and looked out the window. “The cold is very real and the temperature really is dropping. I- I’m sure we’ll know soon whether he was lying or not but this could be a real death threat.”

“Did someone say death threat?” Came a cheery voice that I only had to look up to see the source of. Like so many times before, it was Monokuma. Reactions to him varied. Some begrudgingly turned around to listen to him but most did their best to ignore the bear. Much to what looked like his increasing frustration. “Did I hear that someone had a question about my motive?”

“You can’t seriously expect us to keep living like this do you? Mr. Monokuma sir,” Koike said after what I presumed was a nervous swallow. “Is this another trick? Like the one you used against Yasui?”

“It has to be-” Machi rationalized though the sound of her voice didn’t make it sound like she believed it. She did earn a few hostile glances when she spoke but she made an effort to ignore them. “It would defeat the whole purpose of dragging us here and forcing us to kill each other if he killed us off from some dumb motive. Not to mention it would ruin his stupid killing game.”

*(You wouldn’t be saying that if you heard what I did in the prize room.)*

As if to confirm my thought, Monokuma shook his head and stopped before raising his left hand and protruding his claws again. “Bear’s word, everything about the motive is true. I don’t know what you know about me, but I wouldn’t go around making assumptions if I were you. Everyone’s noticed and commented by now so I’ll just say it. The heating didn’t make the cut. And spoiler alert, it won’t come back until somebody is killed.”

Koike just shivered as he said that and looked between Senji, myself, and Yakawa. Unfortunately, nobody denied what Monokuma said and Senji only agreed in a resigned tone. “I’m afraid I suspect that he’s telling the truth.”

“Of course i’m telling the truth. Bear’s word remember? Well you should because I said so a few seconds ago.” Monokuma said in a not-so-friendly tease. “I’m going to give you time to think that over. You can think what you want of course, but I think you’ll find that temperature isn’t so subjective. Sayonara.”

With that, Monokuma left and everyone was stuck in a brief period of not knowing to what do or say. I looked around and even those who initially tried to ignore the bear weren’t able to ignore what he said about the temperature. After all, it was pretty big news to hear that Monokuma wasn’t bluffing about us freezing to death.

“So now what?” I asked around in a desperate effort to try and salvage the situation.

“Well-” Machi began with what I guessed was an uneasy shrug. “I think it’s time for us to make our exodus. We’re going to freeze to death if we stay here but we might be able to make a route to slowly make our down the mountain if we play it safe.”

“No can do Machi.” Tanabe countered although he did so without showing a sign of irritation towards her like most did. “The coat locker doors had red locks which means no coats for us. Unless you want to commit a suicide then there’s no reason to go out there.”

“I’m going to stop you right there.” I said in a low, dead-serious tone with a glare that made him look away. “Nobody is killing themselves. Especially not to feed that bear’s sadistic urges. Yes I know it would mean that nobody would be executed but we can’t give in to Monokuma. Heck, he could just keep hitting us with similar motives so it’s not like it would accomplish anything.”

“Nishi, you realize that someone is going to die without outside interference.” Tanabe said with obvious regret in his voice. “It is either one person, two people, or everyone. If you suggest that we’re all going to live then what do you expect us to do?”

I just growled at him. All the sudden, I didn’t feel too cold or scared anymore because the constant calm, quiet attitude Tanabe always had combined with the suggestion that someone killed themself made my blood boil. But my irritation faded as soon as it had begun as it dawned that I didn’t have any other suggestions. I wracked my brain for something, anything that would save the group without ending in someone’s death, but I came up blank. I didn’t relent, I refused to relent, but Tanabe picked up on my failure and gave a knowing look.

It was about that time that Seno got up from the other table and came over to address us. By the look of his face, he looked like he was fighting back the urge to panic. “Guys- the other table has been talking about this and well, they have a message for me to pass on to you guys. Someone is probably going to die soon. We’ve come the agreement that we’re going to hold out as long as we can but if murder is inevitable, then we should try to enjoy what could be the last few days of our lives as much as possible.”

I wanted to say something but once again, there wasn’t much room to argue with him. So I was left with an argument that I myself had trouble believing. I pushed it as convincingly as possible however. “Tell them not to give up okay? I’m still holding out on a rescue which I’ll admit is unlikely but we don’t know.”

“In the meantime, i’ll see if I can’t somehow make a warm dinner or something to raise everyone’s spirits. See if that cheers your table up Seno.” Senji said in what looked to me like an effort to play along with what I said. Granted, I said what I did fairly convincingly but some things just weren’t possible to make other believe as evident in the reactions of most of the others at the table. Senji noticed as well. “I will not be making in promises but I think I might have discovered a way just now.”

Seno left and sat down at that. And breakfast afterwards was more or less an awkward silence. Mostly because of me and Senji trying to push ideas that I didn’t believe and that I doubted Senji believed while most of the others only ate in resignation. The food was great of course as to be expected from a Super High School Level Butler but that didn’t change our circumstances. In fact, I watched one by one while almost everyone trickled out of here and everybody showed at least some sign of stress or concern. There was no doubt in my mind that a murder would be happening tonight.

*(Please don’t let the killer have the perk.)*

It wasn’t until we got down to the last three people, Koike, Senji, and myself, that Koike finally thought of something to break the awkward silence that had filled the cafeteria. Granted, it wasn’t anything pleasant with the threat of death looming over everyone.

“Hey guys-” Koike began softly. “Do you think that- well is it possible that Monokuma will call the motive off if somebody freezes to death accidentally? I know we’re holding out but- I don’t want anyone else to die pointlessly. That would be even worse than the last class trial.”

Senji hesitated but both Koike and I noticed his frown and the conclusion was obvious. Senji didn’t want to say it of course and neither did I, but I was pretty sure that we both agreed that the answer was no.

“I can’t say that he will i’m afraid.” Senji said as he crossed his arms in disdain. “Monokuma was specific about the requirements when he said that only a murder or suicide would put an end to this motive. However, that does not mean we won’t find another way out of this establishment before somebody dies. And if you want to stay with me, I can promise that you will get through this motive unharmed.”

“Thanks for the offer but no.” Koike said with the shake of her head. “Sama and Sanda already invited me to some sort of game in the rec room. I told them I would go so it would be rude if I didn’t. I promise that I will get back to you later though.”

“I understand.” Senji said pleasantly enough before looking over to me as Koike got up to leave. “And you Nishi? What will you be doing?”

“I’m not sure yet, but I’m not staying here. I can already see my own breath. I’ll probably stay in the lounge or something. It has a fireplace and all.” I replied to him meaning everything I said as I looked at my own breath.

“Well, if either of you need me for anything, I’ll be either here or near the greenhouse.” Senji replied.

With that, I got up and took everything to the kitchen once more. This time when I opened the metal doors to the kitchen, it was surprisingly cold on my left palm. Though I realized that I should have known since metal was an excellent conductor of heat and the handle to my bedroom door was pretty much the same. But I pressed through regardless and put everything down in the sink without any real problems. After that, I opened up the back door and headed out. This time, I realized just how cold I was and gave a brief violent shiver before I left the kitchen for the relatively warmer area around the greenhouse.

It was then that I noticed something that had power. The vending machine did not but I didn’t care about that. I looked at the greenhouse which still seemed to be operational and steamier than ever as the warmth inside contrasted the cold halls. I stared at the place for a minute. It was then that it occured to me how badly I wished of get to go inside if only for a few minutes. But I recalled there was a red card reader needed to get in there so that wasn’t an option. I wasn’t oblivious to the fact that Naya had died in there nor had that fact changed. But at the moment I could see my on breath and knew that I had only stopped shivering because some of the greenhouse heat ebbed into the hallway around it.

*(I need something to take my mind off of the temperatures.)*

About that time, it occurred to me that there might be something in the game room to help me take my mind off of the temperature. If not, I supposed that I could grab that book that apparently Senji created and take it to the lounge. It was then that I had another realization that made with press my right hand against my face in disappointment. Namely, the fact that I forgot to ask Senji about that.

Still, I let my hand drop back down and started to make my way to the game room since I figured I could just ask Senji about it later. The route was pretty straightforward. I just went left past the vending machine until I found the hall that went past the back of the cafeteria. From there, I followed it all the way to the front room, past that to the room with all the stairs, and turned right up the stairwell to the second floor without much trouble. Granted, I felt a cold chill on my back when I passed the front room, but it didn’t chill me too much more than the rest of the lodge.

After that, I slowly made my way up to the top of the stairwell, turned right, and passed by the intersection before pulling the door open and looking inside to see if there was anything useful in the room. Fortunately, there weren’t any problems with the room. The lighting was much darker than before to the extent where the room didn’t look nearly as bright or inviting as before. But I could still see everything well enough. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to see Sasori seated at the middle table playing a card game by himself.

He didn’t seem to notice me so I walked up to him and spoke up. “Hi Sasori. Do you mind if I join you? I need something to take my mind off of well- you know.”

“If you want to join then I suppose you can.” He said as he looked up at me. After that, he picked up his cards and dully headed over to where all of the games were stored without asking me anything about what I wanted. Naturally, he pulled out one that I barely even knew how to play. “Do you know how to play Gomoku?”

“Uh, I think I do actually.” I said as I tried to recall the rules. I was pretty sure I played it once or twice before but it was never something I did as a hobby. Still, I vaguely remembered what I was supposed to do. “It’s like a five in a row game right?”

“Pretty much.” Sasori said as he sat board down with a 19x19 grid board and started laying out the pieces. He gave me the black pieces. “We’re playing standard which means the first person to get exactly five in a vertical, diagonal, or horizontal row wins. Since you probably have less experience, i’ll let you go first.”

I silently did as he said and placed the first piece in the center. Despite my fingers feeling a little stiff and some minor shivers starting to set in, I managed. He placed a piece next to mine, I followed suite, and he blocked me off. After that, the game really picked up and the two of us started to get into the flow of things. We continued that way until I had six pieces down. After that, he looked up at me and away from the board.

“If I may ask, why are you here?” Sasori calmly and unapologetically asked me. I stared at him with a frown as he continued irrespective of my thoughts. “I know you wanted a distraction but we are quite literally dying from hypothermia and I’m curious to know why you want to spend what might be the last morning and afternoon of your life here with me.”

First, I gulped and nodded at that. After that, I gave a more violent shiver as a chill swept over me. But it eventually subsided and I replied in a serious tone when it did. “Don’t sell yourself short Sasori. You’re just like anyone else here and I’m not any less likely to spend time with you than anyone else.”

“I win. We can play again if you want.” Sasori said calmly as he placed a piece that did in fact, get him a row of five. “I take it your fond of spending time with your classmates then?”

“Absolutely-” I managed to say as a brief smile formed on my face and I put down another black piece. “You guys are some of the best classmates that a girl like me could ask for. Most of you are nice and all around fun to be around. I could easily see myself being just as good of friends with you guys as my old classmates if it weren’t for the killing game. And on top of all that, I’ve always dreamt of hanging out people like you. Understanding the psychology of someone who has a talent since most of the cases surrounding them are unique.”

“It must be a shame that we didn’t meet at the campus.” Sasori stated as he shook briefly and briefly clutched his left shoulder for warmth. Apparently he wasn’t far behind me in terms of how he was reacting to the cold but he continued the game regardless. “You would have met us under friendlier pretenses. We likely would have all have been friends. Including Naya and Yasui.”

“Probably.” I acknowledged as I put down another piece. “I don’t ever see myself being friends with someone like Machi, but most of you I’m sure I’d befriend.”

“Is that the reason you joined Hope’s Peak?” Sasori asked with an odd calm despite evidently getting colder himself. He put down another piece. “You just wanted to be friends with Super High School Level Students and this was the chance?”

I shook my head vehemently at that. “I joined because it was the perfect opportunity to turn my work with hypnotherapy into a career. Well maybe not perfect since the main campus would have been better, but it’s still a better opportunity than anything I could ever hope for. And don’t think I only care about you guys for your talents either. A life is a life whether they have special skill or not and I don’t intend to treat anyone differently because of it.”

“Besides your little psychology project you mean.” Sasori said. I froze for a second as I tried to think of a way to explain that that was just a minor bonus but he beat me to it. “Don’t worry, I believe you care more about us than that. I do find it intriguing that you think the main campus is any better than the Hokkaido branch however.”

“Well that goes into the whole fan girl part of me.” I reluctantly admitted. “It’s where everything went down. It’s where Makoto brought Hope’s Peak back from the ashes, drove to new heights, and filled the place with people just like us. And it’s where Hope’s Peak is known for churning out the best of society which is something i’ve really grown excited about. Not to mention that it’s where all the stories i’ve heard about talented students came from. I’m afraid the Hokkaido campus hasn’t quite reached that reputation yet- oh no.”

I felt it coming but I still wasn’t prepared. I shivered more violently than before to the extent that it was noticeable to anyone close enough. And this time, it wasn’t a brief chill. As a result, three black pieces more or less fell out of my hand before I managed to clench my fist. It still was rather ineffectual but it stopped any more pieces from falling onto the board and ruining the game any further. As a result, Sasori just bit his lip with visible signs of concern when he looked me in the eye.

“Nishi, I would have won the next turn anyways but I’m starting to worry about you. Your fingers are starting to turn blue and your shivering.” Sasori said as he started a minor shiver and without any attempt to hide the concern in his voice. “We should call it quits and head to the lounge until someone commits a murder and ends this-”

I wanted to argue with him, but I couldn’t. Everything he told me made perfect sense from the fact that we ought to head to the lounge to the implication that somebody was going to snap and commit a murder to save themselves. If, and it was a huge if, the person didn’t have the last blood perk, then I might be walking away from this. But there wasn’t any other possibility. So, I just looked at him with evident concern etched into my face. And of course, that was when we got an announcement.

Ding dong, bing bong.

“This is a severe weather alert, courtesy of you benevolent headmaster! We are expecting to have an impending snowstorm from 8:00PM to 1:00AM tomorrow. And by expecting to have, I mean we will have. It’s on the radar and you can probably see how dark it is outside by looking out the window you numbskulls.” Monokuma gleefully stated over the speakers as if to mock us about the temperature. “That’s all.”

“Huh, is it that late already?” Sasori remarked as he looked around for any indication of the time. Luckily he was able to find the clock on the wall which read 7:45 P.M. This would have made me raise an eyebrow but may face was starting to feel stiff. Regardless, Sasori turned to me and continued. “It doesn’t matter. You head to the lounge and get the fireplace started. I’ll make sure that everything here is put back in place.”

“I can help-” I insisted only for Sasori to shake his head and give me a stern silent glare. Between that and the fact that I knew he was right, I quickly sighed and relented. “I’m going to head to my room first to put an extra layer of clothing but I’ll meet you there.”

As he nodded in agreement, I started to get up. But I must have done so too fast because my legs almost buckled as a wave of exhaustion swept over me. My vision blurred and I was forced to pushed off the table to steady myself. Luckily It all went away after a few seconds except for the fatigue. It wasn’t until then that I realized how tired I was but I realized fairly quickly that I wasn’t supposed to be. I looked over to Sasori.

“Get going Nishi. You’re starting to get sick and you need to find a way to warm up fast.” Sasori said as an objective demand with evident and increasing concern in his tone.

I did as he said to the best of my ability and headed for the door of the game room albeit more carefully than I had walked in. I opened it, headed out, and closed it behind myself fairly easily. After that, I propped my left hand against the left wall of the hallway because, while I didn’t feel as though I was going to collapse, I still felt tired enough to not want to take any risks.

I walked down the hallway a little slower than usual until I reached the half flight of stairs. It wasn’t that I couldn’t go faster because I could have gone almost my normal walking speed if I had pushed myself, but I didn’t want to take risk and I wanted to conserve my energy. Movement was already labored enough as it was. Regardless, I made it down the half flight of stairs, proceeded to the stairwell, and successfully made it to the first floor without any issues save for a slower pace than I would have preferred as a few stumbles here and there.

When I got to the bottom, I looked over at the two half-flights of stairs to my right and headed over to the one that led to the rooms since I really did want to put on an extra shirt. Once again, there weren’t any problems getting across the room but when I got to the bottom of the stairs, I ran into Seno in both a figurative and literal meaning of the word. More specifically, our right shoulders bumped into each other though I didn’t feel much of an impact from it.

“Uh, sorry Seno.” I said as I stopped and turned around to face the guy who was now rubbing his right shoulder. Astonishingly, he seemed to be handling the cold a lot better than I was but that might have been because of his muscle mass. Regardless, I continued. “I guess I’m feeling out of it right now. I even managed to lose track of time earlier.”

I didn’t know what to expect from him, though usually someone would say that it was alright or at least to rudely tell me to watch it next time. But instead of either of those, Seno, opted to frown and look me over from top to bottom with evident concern on his face.

“You don’t look too good Nishi-” Seno began with concern evident in his tone when he finally looked me in the eyes again. It almost made me frown but I decided that thinking too much about my plight wouldn’t help anybody.

Instead, I cut him off in the most teasing tone I could muster which still wasn’t very good given my circumstance. “Geez, thanks. You know that no girl wants to hear that right?”

“Sorry.” Seno said in a somewhat nervous tone that made me wonder whether or not he understood that I was just joking. “What I meant to say is that you look like you could pass out at any moment. And I don’t mean that in a rude way. I just- It's concerning is all. You need to find a way to stay warm.”

“I know. I’m headed to my room to put on more clothes.” I said with a slow nod before asking a question of my own. “So, what are you doing Seno? And more importantly, how are you holding up?”

With that, Seno gave a sigh that told me everything I needed to know and looked down at the ground in what I knew was shame before he spoke up. “I think I should answer the second question first if that’s okay with you. I’m scared Nishi, I’m scared for everyone here because somebody is going to die by the end of the day. Because somebody needs to die by the end of the day for the sake of the group.”

“Seno-” I began in a mixture of concern and caution.

“Not now Nishi I haven’t finished.” Seno said with another sigh. Apparently he wasn’t having any of my advice. “I failed to top the killing game from starting and now I know that any of you could die at any moment. I know that I can’t save anyone, that i’m good for nothing, but I atleast want to make things right with Koike before the next round of killing. After all, the victim could be either of us. So to answer your first question, I’m looking for Koike.”

“Good luck Seno.” I said as I gave my own forlorn sigh. I didn’t know whether it was because of me being tired or the way he said it but the inevitability of death crept into my mind once more. Still, I knew at least that I had to end on a high note so when Seno started to turn around and leave, I continued. “And Seno? Don’t say your good for nothing. Making a mistake doesn’t mean you are worth any less than anyone else here.”

“Goodbye Nishi, I’ll be sure to keep that in mind,” Seno said in a tone that made it clear that he wouldn’t. Normally, I would have said something to argue with him, but he headed up the stairs at a speed that I couldn’t have followed in my current state. For starters, I was too busy feeling my body temperature drop. Simply put, I didn’t have the energy to chase him down.

*(You’re lucky this time Seno, but i’ll be back for you.)*

And so, I did the only thing I could do. I postponed arguing with him and turned around to head for the square ‘loop’ that was the dorm area as well as the place with the laundry room and the, unfortunately, locked coat room. And once again, I didn’t have too much trouble continuing. I made it to the loop, turned left, and rounded a right corner when I saw Yakawa. Apparently, he took notice of me as well because he headed my way.

“Oh hey Nishi. It’s actually a pretty good coincidence that you came here.” Yakawa calmly said as he more or less brandished a silver blanket in his hands, both of which had latex gloves on them. “I was actually looking for you. Have you ever heard of a Mylar blanket?”

Yakawa just held the blanket in question as though he wanted me to take it. I just stared at the thing for a second but I slowly reached out with my right hand to feel it. Not that I could feel it very well because my fingers were starting to get numb. For a second I considered retracting my hand because I didn’t trust that Yakawa would just give it to me. But I decided against it and cautiously took it into my own hands. Even as I did, he didn’t protest.

“I haven’t.” I answered cautiously as I carefully eyed him for any tells that he was tricking me in some way. If there were any, he showed none. “Was it your plan to give this away?”

“I was planning to give it to you specifically if I found you. It’s probably a good thing too because you look like you need it.” Yakawa remarked as he clearly tried to play it cool. His shallow breaths and forced smile gave it away though. “A haven’t had a chance to properly repay you for helping me a few days ago. Technically we’re even now but i’m still here if you need help with anything else.”

I wrapped the thing around myself. It smelled of a first aid kit and I had several reasons to give it back such as the fact that it could be dangerous or the fact that Yakawa was clearly gritting his teeth from the cold since he no longer had it. But at the same time, I quickly felt better and I couldn’t bring myself to even suggest giving it away.

“Thanks.” I said as I wrapped the thing tighter around myself. I was still shivering cold but it wasn’t nearly as bad as before. “Say, do you have any others? I’m sure everyone would cheer up a little bit if you gave these out.”

With that, Yakawa dropped his facade, held his arms for warmth, frowned, shook his head, and spoke to me with a dead serious demeanor. “Don’t go around flaunting that thing Nishi. I’ve only got two of them and I gave the other one to Wakuni. I hope you understand.”

“Hey, brothers first right?” I said as I returned a weak but understanding smile. Once more I felt guilty for keeping it to myself but I still couldn’t bring myself to give it away. “I’m just really thankful to have this at all.”

“There’s something else you need to know.” Yakawa continued in his dead serious tone. “That blanket won’t protect you from everything. Don’t go outside unless you want to die and tell me before you do-”

“Why do you want me to tell you?” I interrupted curiously enough. I normally would have been angry by his comment but I had too many other things on my mind to be and I was too grateful for him to be angry as well. So instead, I just asked why.

“So that I can stop you.” Yakawa finished swiftly.

“Are we going to get through the night?” I asked him as my smile dropped once more. It felt randomly to just blurt the question out but his warning to me brought the obvious subject to mind and if anyone knew the answer then it was probably him.

Unfortunately, the only thing that followed was silence as he scratched his head with his left hand and showed me a face that made it clear that he knew the answer. An answer that I knew from his silence was a resounding no.

“I see.” I said as I looked away from him and made no attempt to hide my concern. Though I personally felt better, the problem of inevitability still stood. Namely that I was only going to get worse and someone was going to die. “I take it that this won’t save me either then.”

“I want to lie to you, but I’m obligated to tell you the truth as a professional and a friend if I may call myself that.” Yakawa said just as serious as before but with a lot more grimm undertones in his voice. He almost sounded like a prisoner awaiting execution. Which, in a way, we were. “Don’t tell anyone that I said this, but I asked Monokuma what the temperature is going to be. Let’s just say that it’s impossible to survive through the upcoming storm. I’m sorry Nishi.”

I just took a deep breath and tried to take it in. It would be impossible for the group to survive unless someone committed suicide, or more realistically, a murder. And quite frankly, I didn’t know which was worse. Not that that mattered though. Someone was going to commit a murder. Seno knew it, I knew it, Sasori knew it, and I was pretty sure that everyone else knew it. The only questions were who, when, and whether or not I would make it through this.

But like always, I didn’t have much time to my thoughts before something interrupted me. Namely, the lights shutting off completely and leaving the hallway pitch black. About thirty seconds in, I tried to process whether to ask Yakawa what was happening or complain to Monokuma for breaking his light promise, but before I could, the lights turned back on. This time, at full force. Shattering the the eerie atmosphere with a shocking realization as Yakawa and I looked up dumbfounded.

“So soon?” Yakawa asked with shock evident on his face before looking at me and apparently deciding that he needed to explain himself. “I was referring to Monokuma’s condition. We need to look around and see if anyone is missing. Immediately if at all possible.”

I winced at the implication. Monokuma’s condition was death so if the power was back on, then someone must have died. Still, I suggested a weak alternative that I knew was plead for the sake of hoping that nobody else was dead.

“Is it possible that a rescue party turned the power on?” I asked insincerely because I more or less already knew the answer.

“Well It’s possible. Extremely unlikely, but possible.” Yakawa replied with a surprising amount of understanding and willingness to play along with my scenario. “But just in case we haven’t been saved, we need a plan.”

“How about we head to the cafeteria? The group always converges there so we can plan our search from there.” I suggested with no attempt to hide my fear for whoever was dead. And unknowingly to Yakawa, for us in the event that we were about to get executed.

But luckily for me, Yakawa didn’t seem to notice and Monokuma didn’t seem to show up with the declaration of our deaths. So Yakawa just shrugged and held out his right hand as if he were going to ask for something. Within seconds, I realized what it was.

“You aren’t going to need a heat reflective blanket anymore. Especially since you don’t want to warm up too quickly. Trust me on that. Anyways, give me the disposable blanket and head over there. I’ll catch up with you.” Yakawa surmised.

I figured as much and I knew there was no time to debate him, so I handed the thing over to him. And with that, I turned around and headed for the cafeteria with my pulse pounding. What followed was the second most frantic dash I had ever made, yet it was also the slowest I had ever made. Though I could feel the much craved warmth slowly returning to my body as though it was giving me new life, I still felt rather stiff and I still wanted to be careful in the hallways. The end result was a safe but slow trip to the cafeteria while my symptoms slowly started fading and my body slowly started reverting to normal. And at the end, Yakawa caught up to me just as I placed my hand on the still cold door for the front door to the cafeteria.

When I opened the door, I saw most my classmates gathered in the center of the cafeteria and standing up. Most of which were looking around quickly or showing other signs of nervousness but a few such as Senji and Tanabe seemed to be calmly trying to assess the situation judging by their demeanor though the latter was still recovering from the cold. I also noticed that Machi had a bandage wrapped around most of her right shin but I didn’t concern myself with that at the moment. Instead, I counted eleven people in the crowd and the addition of Yakawa and myself added up to thirteen. And it didn’t take me long to figure out who was missing.

*(Seno couldn’t have died right? I saw him alive less than ten minutes ago.)*

Apparently I wasn’t the only person to come to the realization because Tanabe turned to Senji and spoke up just loud enough for everyone to hear. “I just completed a headcount and Seno’s the only head in question who’s missing.”

“I understand. Well, that means everyone else is here then I guess.” Senji said with a sigh before looking up and addressing the crowd. “Seno has gone missing, the power is back on, and for those that don’t know it means he might very well be dead. We need to split up and look for the guy. I hope he’s just missing but I would prepare for the worst if I were any of you.”

“Is there any way that we could let it go?” Sanda asked in what sounded like a desperate attempt to avoid the inevitable. “No body discovery means no class trial and no execution for anybody right? I’m sure nobody here wants to go through another class trial.”

“Theoretically yes.” Sasori chimed in as he brought his left hand to his chin in thought. “But if we put this off now, the hypothetical body could always turn up later at a less opportune time. And if he’s dead, then most of the crime scenes would have been cleaned up by then. Now he might not be dead, but in that case waiting would continue to endanger him.”

“We don't have much of a choice then. We have to search the place and hope for the best.” Eto agreed with what I thought was desperation and a hint of hope. At that, she started to leave. “I’m headed out guys. I’ll let you know if I find Seno.”

“You forgot the preparing for the worst part.” Machi dryly but ineffectually remarked to a long gone Eto. After that, she just sighed and looked over at Saeki. “Bird brain is right. We don’t have much of a choice but to get going.”

Machi started to leave and instead of arguing with her, Saeki kept her mouth shut and followed the girl. After all, necessity trumped opinions and relationships. And when the two left, it was more than clear that they knew that.

The group more or less dispersed once Machi and Saeki left. Shiro was the first to go, but Sasori followed. Then Sanda, then Senji and Koike, then Wakuni, then Tanabe, then Sama. And at last, I was left with Yakawa. I just wordlessly looked at him, gave a nervous, weary smile, and headed back the way I came.

It didn’t take too long for me to get to my destination this time. Partly because I chose the closest place there was and partly because I had either recovered enough to walk at a decent pace again or the adrenaline pumping through my veins made it possible as my mind raced with possibilities of how Seno might be dead or in danger.

I swung the door to the first aid station open quickly and but not too hard before stepping inside and scanning the room. For the most part, everything seemed to be in place. The monitors, the cabinets, the gurneys were all in place, the biohazard container, and almost everything else was in place. But upon closer inspection, the place facility seemed to have been used. The biohazard container had wrapping and some other medical supplies inside of it. I refused to stick my hand inside and take a closer inspection, but I noticed from a distance just fine that it wasn’t empty anymore.

About that time, I heard a sound behind me. When I turned around, I saw that Yakawa was stepping into the first aid station. He took one quick glance around the place before he spoke up to me. “What are you doing in here Nishi? I know you didn’t have time to hurt yourself and we have a search to do.”

“This was the closest place I could think of so I thought I’d stop here just in case.” I said with a shrug but I ended with a nervous sigh and frowned at him. “I know Seno messed up but he doesn’t deserve to die.”

“Well of course he doesn’t. He made his fair share of mistakes but all he tried to do was save us.” Yakawa said solemnly as he looked carefully around the room and calmly stepped closer to the pharmacy door. “To be honest with you though, I don’t think anything happened here. Earlier, Machi had an injury that I needed to treat. Now I don’t know how long Machi stayed for, but Saeki was with her so she couldn’t have done anything. And this room is in the exact same condition that it was when I left it.”

“What about the pharmacy?” I asked as my gaze drifted over to the door.

“It would be tragic if he died there.” Yakawa with with more than just a hint of disdain. “There were three of us in here but none of us went in there. It’s also unlikely but if he were in there and unable to call for help then I could see how it might be possible. Perhaps I’ll check. You can either brace yourself Nishi or leave the room.”

I chose to stay and took a few deep breaths as Yakawa put his right hand on the door handle and slowly opened the door to the pharmacy. The anticipation nearly killed me for the seconds that followed even as I finally ceased shivering from the cold. But in the end, it turned out that I was wrong. Not only was the room devoid of Seno or anything related to a murder, but everything appeared to be placed right where it was supposed to be. At least, it did at first glance. I let out a sigh of relief and took note of how the room was in better condition than the last time I saw it.

*(You cleaned the place up pretty well Yakawa.)*

I just finished my thought when I high pitched scream filled the air. I immediately recognized it coming from Sama thanks to the whole debacle with the library but this one was decidedly not out of frustration but rather, what sounded like raw fear. Furthermore, it sounded like it came from the east of the building.

“Got to go Nishi.” Yakawa said as he just passed me by and made a quick stride through the first aid entrance in the direction that from which I knew the sound came. The wasn’t a bit of hesitation or panic from the guy but I suppose that that was to be expected from the Super High School Level Paramedic.

I followed out of the first aid station myself but Yakawa was clearly the person in better shape of the two of us and in much better condition as well. Because by the time I had left the room, Yakawa was out of my sight with only a closing door to the kitchen to give me a clue as to where he was headed. Luckily, I followed through just in time to see one of the double doors to the kitchen closing as well. I could even see Yakawa through one of the windows looking down at something.

But it wasn’t until I opened the door and saw for myself that I knew what I experienced the shock for myself. I shivered, this time from an ice cold wave of dread rather than the temperature of the room. I looked at the calamity before me and everything I feared but the last blood perk was realized with what I saw.

At first, I noticed Sama on the ground. She was perfectly fine, physically at least, though whether or not she was fine psychologically was likely to be a different story. After that I noticed that she laid on top of an overturned food cart frozen in what must have been fear before Yakawa more or less grabbed her by her left arm and gently helped her up. Still, her gaze didn’t shift from the contents of the cart just like Yakawa’s gaze and my own gaze remained fixated on it.

Finally, I looked at the cart and it’s contents. The cart itself had a single silver plate overturned on the floor stop a bloody puddle next to an overturned silver lid that appeared to have blood on the inside. Moreover, a small blood trail of periodic but frequent blood drops led from the silver plate to a head that rolled from the plate. More specifically, the head of Seno Sotatsu. It was partially covered it its own blood, had a gaping open mouth, a ring of bruises that went all the way around it’s neck just below the chin line, and worst of all, eyes wide open as though it were staring into our souls. The position didn’t help matters either.

Ding dong, bing bong.

The announcement began and felt my mouth dry. But before it could play, more people spilled into the cafeteria. Specifically, Koike, Senji, Tanabe, and Shiro all made it inside. And their reactions told me that they weren’t taking it well either. Koike could take her eyes off of it but she fidgeted closer to Senji with each passing second, Senji just crossed his arms and looked away, Tanabe audibly swallowed, and Shiro covered her mouth and stomach with the right and left hand respectively.

After that, Monokuma’s message played. “Attention everyone, a body has been discovered! Now I know you’re all either looking around or headed where you need to go anyways but being the ever efficient and forward-thinking bear I am, I’m going to cut to the chase and tell you where to go if you don’t know already. The dead body is in the kitchen so I’ll see ya there.”

I just hung my head and looked at the ground. Finally managing to tear my gaze away from what was my third dead classmate. I heard the sound of everyone else head inside the room shortly after that. I didn’t look up to confirm it, but I recognized their voices and the sounds of their reactions enough to know that everyone was here. I sighed.

*(I’m going to do everything I can to find out who did this to you Seno. That’s a promise.)*

## Trivia

* The creator is aware of the fact that a few liberties were taken with some of the symptoms of hypothermia like how quickly everyone is more or less able to recover enough to investigate and the fact that Nishi does not suffer confusion.
* The reason why plumbing is included in the list of things that still work is because several actual plumbing systems don’t use power.
* The last blood perk is a reference to a similar perk in the same series though it’s used differently.
* The motive is the same as another story on the wiki, but when the creator explained that they had this planned in advance, they got permission to use this motive anyways.