Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was just a normal day. A day unlike any other.

Ah, sorry. I’m getting ahead of myself. You’d probably like to know who I am, right?

My name is Kaito Tsukumo and I’m… a completely normal sixteen year old boy. I don’t have any special skills or abilities like the people you’d usually hear about getting into situations like mine.

Well, there is one unusual thing about me. One thing that I take pride in: I’m a student at Hope’s Peak Academy.

…Well, that’s a bit of an overstatement. I only attend the Reserve Course. You know, the one you gotta pay to get into.

I guess that’s actually a little embarrassing, now that I think about it. I’m so untalented I had to pay to get into Hope’s Peak instead of trying for a spot!

Ugh, self deprecation isn’t my thing. Personally, I wouldn’t trade my place in the Reserve Course for a spot in the ‘real’ Hope’s Peak. I love my school, and I love my classmates.

I’ve been attending Hope’s Peak for three years, meaning that next year is my last year. Honestly, I’m a little scared to graduate. I don’t know what I’m going to do after, unlike my classmates.

Sorry, I’m rambling. You’re here for my story, not the inner workings of my head.

The day started like any other. I was walking to school with my best friend, Ayame Takeba.

“Aya, what class do we have first period?” I asked, looking down at her. She looked up at me and quietly did her hand gesture that meant ‘math’.

Oh, right. Ayame can’t talk. Well, she can, just only with me and never in public. When we were with other people, she communicated only with written notes and hand gestures that only I understood.

I nodded and smiled. “Thanks, Aya. I forgot to pack my schedule this morning.”

Ayame gave me a disappointed look and teasingly shook her head. I rolled my eyes and sighed. “Look, I know I should memorise it. It’s only like, the fourth day of the school year, though. It’s only April seventh.”

Ayame shrugged and gestured to her bag before holding up her index finger. I understood what she meant: ‘I memorised mine on the first day.’

“Okay, well not everyone has the memory of a god, Aya.” I retorted, playfully scoffing. It wasn’t like Ayame had a photographic memory or anything. But because she almost never spoke, she had a lot of time to observe her surroundings and take in a lot more than your usual sixteen year old girl would.

We arrived at school and the first thing I heard was a familiar, angry voice shouting. I turned to the noise to see my disgruntled classmate Umeji Ichibangase kicking a vending machine.

“You stupid fucking piece of junk!” She yelled, “That was the last fucking money in my bank account!”

I walked over to her. “Umeji, what’s wrong?”

She turned to me and scoffed. I could see the scar she had across her neck now. “Why do you care?”

Ignoring her remark, I looked at the vending machine. “Did this thing break? I can pay you back whatever money it took.”

“Pfft, don’t bother.” Umeji grumbled. Ayame walked over and tapped Umeji’s shoulder, making the pink haired girl jolt like she’d been electrocuted. “Gah—! What the hell?!”

She turned to Ayame and frowned. “Jeez, it’s you. Why are you always so quiet?! You gave me a fuckin’ heart attack!”

Ayame looked away and silently handed Umeji some money. Umeji rolled her eyes and snatched it, walking away.

I sighed and looked at Ayame. “Hey, you alright?”

Ayame suddenly hugged me. I held my hands away from her since I wasn’t wearing gloves, and Ayame didn’t like it when people touched her with their bare hands. “Aya, can you let go for just a second?”

She nodded and let go. I got a pair of grey gloves out of my pocket and put them on before gently pulling her back into a hug. Ayame pressed her head against my blazer pocket. “Ume… mean..”

“…Yeah, I know.” I whispered, gently patting her head. “C’mon, we’ll be late for class.”

We went into school and changed our shoes before bumping into another of our classmates. This time, thankfully, it was a classmate that was far more pleasant to be around. The Treasurer of the school Student Council, Antantaru Kanamori.

He smiled at us, fixing his red hair back into a ponytail. “Kaito, Ayame! Almost thought you two were absent today.”

“Ha, wouldn’t dream of it.” I said, taking my gloves off and shoving them in my pocket. Antantaru beamed. His positivity was infectious. “You two still up for that fundraiser after school?”

I nodded. “Yeah, I’ve got nothing better to do.”

Ayame nodded as well. Antantaru fixed his fingerless gloves. “Great! Uh, anyway, have you two seen Umeji today? She just passed here and she seemed pretty upset…”

“Yeah.” I grunted, “She screamed at Aya for being nice to her and stormed off.”

Antantaru sighed and put his hands in his pockets. “Sounds like her. I’m gonna go check if she’s alright.”

“Why bother?” I asked, “She’s just gonna yell at you.”

Antantaru played with his tie. He seemed really fidgety today. “She’s just.. I can tell she’s been through a lot. I mean, she’s got that huge scar on her neck. I don’t want to look down on her for lashing out when it seems like it’s just because of trauma.”

“You’re too kind, dude.” I said. Antantaru smiled. “Oh, there’s no such thing as being ‘too kind’.”

He waved goodbye to us and walked away down the corridor, presumably looking for Umeji. Ayame looked at me and made a heart with her hands before pointing at him. She was asking if Antantaru had a crush on Umeji, most likely. I nodded. “Pfft, probably. He’s way too tolerant of her practically bullying everyone to not like her like that.”

I shrugged. “But then again, I’m like… eighty percent sure Antantaru is into guys.”

Ayame giggled. We had about an hour to kill before class, so we decided to go hang out on the rooftop of the school for a while. From the rooftop, we could see practically the entirety of Tokyo. We could even see the recently opened Hope’s Peak University.

Ayame leaned on the railing and pointed at something. I looked at where she was pointing and smiled. There was a man with bright, multicoloured hair walking a kid with long, brown hair in a Hope’s Peak uniform to school. The kid couldn’t have been older than twelve, so I was kind of surprised to see him in the uniform for the high school.

Ayame looked at me. She got a notepad out of her bag and wrote something down, passing it to me. ‘That man is Seira’s friend.’

“Ah.” I said. Seira was another one of our classmates. A loud, energetic, wannabe J-pop idol. The man with the bright hair seemed like the type of person she’d be friends with, so I wasn’t surprised. 

Seira wasn’t someone I’d personally be close friends with, but she was in the school drama club with Ayame so we ended up hanging out quite a bit.

Ayame and I continued to people-watch until it was time to head to class. We walked through the hallway together until we got to our homeroom. I opened the door and held it for Ayame before following her inside.

The classroom was surprisingly calm. Antantaru was in the corner talking to Umeji, who was… completely ignoring him. Really, he should just give it up already. On the other side of the room were two of our more eccentric classmates — Yoru Kutsuki and Keiko Hime.

Yoru was loudly talking about some gruesome method of torture, as she usually was. She had a weird fascination with torture and death. Keiko was actually her polar opposite, obsessed with love and romance. But the two of them were childhood best friends, so they remained close despite their differing interests.

“Yoru thinks it’s really interesting how a body can react to things like that.” Yoru said cheerfully, despite the gross subject matter. Keiko smiled. “I think so too, but it is a little.. grotesque for a school conversation, Ruru.”

Yoru hummed. “You’re right, Koko. Yoru will think of something nicer to talk about.”

“Oh, I did something fun over the weekend.” Keiko said, playing with one of her heart shaped pigtails. “A boy asked me for advice asking out a girl! I’m finally getting to be a real matchmaker!”

“Did it end well?” Yoru asked, tilting her head. Keiko’s face went red. “Ah… not really.. he ended up getting fined for disturbing the peace. But it’s a step in the right direction!”

I stopped watching them and went to my seat, sitting down and getting my books out. I doodled in the corner of a page as someone walked over to me. I looked up to see Yuki Date, my smartest classmate.

They set something on my desk. It was a… flower. I looked up at them. “Why?”

Yuki didn’t say anything. I raised an eyebrow and lifted the flower. I wasn’t good at botany like they were, so I didn’t know what flower it was. They gave a small sigh. “It’s a begonia.”

“…And?” I asked. I didn’t mean to be rude, I just.. don’t understand flowers. Yuki pointed to my book. “It means knowledge. Because you’re the only one with your books out.”

“Oh.” I said, twirling the begonia around my fingers. “I’m only drawing, though…”

Yuki shuffled in their dirty bag and gave me another flower. “Narcissus. Means creativity.”

I looked at the flower. It looked like a dirty dandelion they’d picked from the pavement on their way to school. Before I could ask why Yuki was giving me flowers, they left and went to their desk.

I sighed and bundled the flowers together. I got a spare hair tie out of my bag and bound them together with it. Maybe Ayame liked flowers…

After a while, our teacher walked in. She set her books on her desk and walked to the middle of the room before pausing. “…Where’s Miss Hoshimiya and the Matsumoto twins?”

I looked around and noticed our class was three people short. Seira, Hikari, and Hiroshi weren’t here.

Our teacher sighed. “If I split the remaining thirteen of you into groups, will you go looking for them? The twins are most likely together, so we’ll only need two groups.”

Antantaru’s hand shot into the air. “I’ll go!”

She nodded. “Yeah, I figured you might. Okay, Mister Kanamori is in one group with…”

She looked around and pointed at Umeji. “Miss Ichibangase..”

And at Yoru. “Miss Kutsuki…”

And at Ayame. “And Miss Takeba.”

Ayame nervously glanced at me. I went to say something when the teacher pointed at me. “Mister Tsukumo is in a group with…”

She pointed to… the other three Student Council members in our class. Did she think I was some kind of misfit?

Everyone else got to stay in the classroom. The eight of us left and went our separate ways. I looked at my group.

Chikara Tokei, the Secretary of the Student Council. He liked to read and write, and was an aspiring novelist. He pushed his glasses up. “So, which one of them should we look for?”

He glanced at our tallest companion, an absolute tank of a boy named Mamoru Satō. Mamoru was just a regular member of the Student Council without any important role. I was fairly certain he’d only joined because of Chikara. He fidgeted. “Um… we could look for Seira..”

The only girl in our group nodded. Haruka Kagami, the President of the Student Council. She fixed her large hat so that none of her skin would be exposed to sunlight. “I have a feeling I know where she is.”

I sighed and followed them out of the school. Haruka walked with such elegance and grace that I almost felt embarrassed to be walking so casually behind her. She led us to a small hair salon with a sun on its sign. 

Before any of us could say anything, she took a deep breath and pushed open the door. I looked inside and saw the man I saw from the rooftop earlier in the middle of dying our classmate Seira Hoshimiya’s hair. Up close, I could see a lot more details of his face. He had a huge scar covering most of it, and whatever skin wasn’t scarred had some kind of piercing. His eye was just as colourful as his hair, but it didn’t look like a contact lens.

He saw Haruka and frowned before shaking his head and smiling at us. “…Hi. What can I help you with?”

Haruka pointed at Seira. “She’s skipping school. We’ve been sent to bring her back.”

The man looked at Seira and scoffed. “Didn’t you say school started at nine today?”

Seira’s face went red. “I… may have lied.”

He sighed. “Come on, Seira. I guess since I’ve started dying your hair, I’ll finish it. But then you have to go to school. Just because I don’t doesn’t mean you need to follow in my footsteps.”

Haruka gave a small bow and smiled. “Thank you… ah, I don’t think.. I know your name.”

He looked surprised to hear that. He brushed a hand through his hair. “…Haruto Hyuga. Just Haruto’s fine, though.”

Chikara’s eyes lit up. “Wait, you’re one of the new Ultimate Students at the University! Ultimate… Hairdresser, right?”

Haruto nodded. “Guilty as charged. I don’t start until tomorrow, though, so for now I’m just a normal guy.”

“What happened to your face?” Mamoru asked a little bluntly. Haruto sighed. “…Homophobic hate crime.”

“Ah.. sorry.” Mamoru said. Haruto waved him off. “It’s fine, I don’t blame you for being curious.”

Haruka looked away nervously as they spoke. I’d never seen her so nervous before.

He tapped Seira’s shoulder and brought her over to rinse her hair. “You four might be here for a while. You can sit down if you want.”

Chikara sat down in the waiting area and got a notebook out of his bag. He got a pen out and started to write. Mamoru sat next to him. I felt a little awkward sitting down when I wasn’t here to get a haircut, so I decided to stand. Haruka stood as well, giving Seira an expectant glare after regaining her composure.

When Seira’s hair was done, she paid Haruto and the five of us left. Before we could leave, Haruto followed us out. “Hey, uh.. white haired girl, K—”

“It’s Haruka.” Haruka said, looking directly at him. He nodded. “Haruka, right. Can I talk to you inside? Privately?”

She looked back at us before reluctantly nodding. We all decided to wait for her. When she came out, she looked a little rattled.

Haruka sighed and fixed her bow. “Seira, you should’ve made a hair dye appointment for after school. Not to mention, you’re not allowed to have dyed hair in school.”

Seira played with her newly purple hair. “I mean, who’s gonna be able to tell? Umeji’s got pink hair, Yoru’s got that blue-pink gradient, I’m pretty sure Keiko’s wearing a wig. Plus, you’ve got that hat and veil and all.”

“I have my hat because of a medical condition.” Haruka countered, “I have albinism, that’s not something I can control.”

Chikara suddenly stopped. “I… think I left my notebook in that hair salon. I’ll go get it.”

Mamoru played with his tie. “I— I’ll come with you, Chikara.”

The two of them ran back the way we came. Haruka, Seira, and I walked back to school. We were waiting so long that it was time for lunch. Just as we were about to go into the school, Haruka spotted something. A little girl was being picked on by a bunch of first years in our school.

Haruka walked over to them and grabbed one of the students by the arm. “What on earth do you think you’re doing?”

The student tried to free himself, but Haruka had a tight grip on him. “Answer me. Why are you tormenting this poor girl?”

The boy didn’t say anything. Haruka dragged him into school with all of his friends before coming back out. She knelt down next to the little girl and picked up the books and toys the bullies had thrown on the ground for her. “Are you okay?”

The little girl suddenly hugged Haruka. “Thank you.”

Haruka smiled and patted her head. “Of course.”

She handed the girl her belongings and sent her on her way. Seira smiled at Haruka. “Wowww, you’re so authoritative!”

“That’s a big word, you think of that yourself?” I joked. Seira kicked me. “Shut up.”

Haruka sighed. “Stop fighting.”

“Kaito started it.” Seira protested. I rolled my eyes. “I was just joking.”

“Stop it.” Haruka scolded, “You’re sixteen years old, act like it.”

Both of us didn’t say anything in response. We went into school and I went to find Ayame. She was sitting on the rooftop with three of our classmates: Hikari and Hiroshi Matsumoto and a very distracted boy called Katashi Kaneko.

Hikari spotted me and excitedly waved. I noticed she wasn’t wearing her uniform, as usual. Instead of the blue and yellow striped bow and blue blazer, she had a red bow and a beige cardigan. She grinned. “Hiya, Kai~!”

I sighed and sat down next to Ayame. “Don’t call me that.”

Hiroshi fidgeted with a roll of bandages. I wanted to ask where he got it, but considering it was him, I figured it was in his bag somewhere like all of the other random medical supplies he carried.

Katashi was tinkering with something. He mumbled to himself and adjusted his glasses as he worked away at what seemed to be just a hunk of metal.

Hikari watched him. “Kata, what are you doing?”

He glanced up at her. “Prototype.” He mumbled before going back to his work. Ayame handed me a note.

‘Antantaru wanted to know what time we’d be meeting up at after school for that fundraiser.’

I paused for a minute. We could probably meet up at around five. But it’d probably have to be later if Ayame had drama club or Antantaru had a council meeting.

I looked down at her. “Is drama club on today?”

She shook her head and scribbled another note. ‘No after-school activities until next week.’

I nodded. “Then we can meet up at around five.”

She smiled and wrote down the time before putting her notebook away. After lunch, we went back to class. I spent the majority of the class period doodling in my book. I mean, I tried to pay attention, but school is just… so boring…

I noticed that Chikara, Mamoru, Antantaru, and Haruka weren’t there. I figured they were just doing some Student Council business, so I brushed it off.

After class, I got up to leave when someone stopped me. I turned around to see a small person with blue hair. Mikoto Isoarashi. They handed me a box. “I made you these…”

I took the box and opened it. It was a bunch of pastries. I smiled at Mikoto. “Thanks. You’re a really good baker, y’know?”

Mikoto didn’t say anything. They just stared up at me. After a few seconds, they looked around. “Huh..? What am I doing…?”

Oh right. Mikoto had this condition called chronic amnesia. They had pretty frequent mind blanks and couldn’t really retain memories properly. It made them seem really sleepy all the time. I gently patted their shoulder. “You were giving me a box of pastries, remember?”

“Oh.” Mikoto said, “Sorry, I forgot.”

“It’s fine.” I assured, “I’ve… got to go, sorry Mikoto. I promised Antantaru and Ayame I’d meet them.”

I waved goodbye and left the classroom. A few steps down the hallway, I had a terrible feeling about something. Ignoring my worries about being late, I turned back to the classroom. Mikoto wasn’t there. 

Panicked, I looked around for them to no avail. I took a deep breath to calm myself and shook my head. They probably just left after I did. No reason to panic.

I went to leave the school when I bumped into the last of my classmates — Myojo Tsukino. They stared at me, his eyes wide and her hair a little ruffled. She covered her face with the collar of his navy hoodie. “K- Kaito—! I.. um… didn’t s- see you there.”

I smiled at them. “Hi, Myojo. Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

He blushed. “It’s… it’s okay… um.. are y- you going home now?”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

Myojo took a deep breath. She played with her mittens like a nervous child. “Um… can.. can I— I… can I walk h- home with you—?”

I looked past their shoulder and saw Ayame waiting at the lockers. I nervously smiled. “Sorry, I promised Ayame and Antantaru I’d go home with them. Maybe tomorrow?”

Their face went a deeper shade of red. “Y- yeah! Tomorrow! I’ll… s- see you then… have a nice w- walk home!”

Myojo scurried off to their locker. I walked over to Ayame and smiled. “Hey, Aya.”

“Ojo… like.. you.” She murmured. I chuckled. “Yeah, I know. He’s kind of cute about it, though.”

I looked around. “Antantaru’s not here.”

Ayame played with her green bracelet. “Haven’t seen.. Taru… since we.. found.. twins.”

“You haven’t?” I asked, “I figured he came back to school with you.”

She shook her head. “Dropped… wallet. Went.. to look… for it..”

“That’s… weird. Surely he’d have found it by now.” I said. Ayame nodded. “Think.. so t—!”

She suddenly stopped talking. I turned to see what she was looking at and saw Keiko approaching us. “Hi! Have you guys seen Ruru?”

Ayame hid herself behind me. I cleared my throat. “Not since last period, sorry.”

Keiko frowned. “Man… she promised to walk home with me. I haven’t found anyone else in the school either.”

“Wait, really? We’re the only people in school?” I asked. Keiko nodded. “Yeah. I even checked the bathrooms.”

The bad feeling I had after leaving Mikoto abruptly returned. I didn’t see them leave the school, so there was no way they could’ve left of their own volition. Something bad must have happened.

And Haruka, Antantaru, Chikara, and Mamoru not returning to class wasn’t Student Council business… something had happened to them too.

Ayame nervously played with her gloves. Keiko fixed her skirt. “You guys don’t think something.. bad happened, right?”

Despite what I was thinking, I shook my head. The last thing I needed to do was worry Keiko or Ayame. “I’m sure they all just went home early. Maybe Yoru forgot you two were walking home together.”

“Ah.. maybe.” Keiko said, “Well, I need to head home anyway. Bye, Kaito! Bye, Ayame!”

She left the school after changing her shoes and disappeared out the gates. I turned to Ayame. “Well, since Antantaru’s not here, do you wanna head home?”

She nodded. We changed our shoes and left, walking down the street together. It was getting really dark already, even though it was April. Before I knew it, the street lights were on. Ayame nervously grabbed onto me. Right, she was scared of the dark. We always tried to get home before sundown so she wouldn’t be scared.

I put my gloves on and comfortingly patted her shoulder. “It’s alright, Aya. I’m here, nothing’s going to happen.”

Maybe I should’ve said nothing. Maybe if I didn’t say anything, they wouldn’t have known we were there.

A group of masked people came out from an alleyway and wrenched me and Ayame apart. She kicked and fought and cried, desperately reaching out for me. I reached over to grab her. “Ayame—!”

I kicked the person holding her. “Let go of her!”

They weren’t fazed. Before I knew it, something had been shoved over my face and I passed out.

When I came to, I was tied up in the back of a van. I was still too sluggish to move anything but my eyes. I could make out a few of my classmates’ sleeping silhouettes in the darkness. Myojo was slumped against the door. Umeji was next to me.

I didn’t realise I’d passed out again until I woke up somewhere else. I was in some kind of container. I could kind of move my arms, but I was still tied up. There wasn’t anybody else in the container with me. I tried to kick the wall. When my foot made impact, it made a loud clanging noise. After a few seconds, the container was opened and a person in a mask spotted me awake. 

Before I could fight back, they stabbed me with a syringe and administered some drug into my system. I passed out again and collapsed.

When I woke up for the final time, I was lying in a surprisingly comfortable bed. I was still in my school uniform, but I felt cleaner than when I was leaving school. 

I looked around the room I was in. It seemed like a dorm room of some kind. There were two bunk beds pressed against the walls. Each bed had custom bedclothes. My bed was yellow, like my eyes. The other beds were different colours.

I spotted a mirror next to the bed and looked in it. My hair was a mess. I wasn’t sleeping with anything covering it, so all of the curls got tangled. My skin looked ashy and dry, like I hadn’t showered in a week. 

I shook my head and looked away from the mirror. My appearance wasn’t what was important. I needed to figure out where I was, and I needed to figure out how to get out of here. I spotted a door at the other end of the room. I walked over to it and opened it, only to stumble out into the hallway.

That was weird. I’d never lost my balance like that before. Maybe whatever drug those creepy people gave me was still affecting m—

In the panic I’d almost forgotten. I hadn’t seen Ayame once during my sporadic awakenings. I had to find her, I had to make sure she was okay. There was no way I could let her get hurt again, not like when we were ten, not like when that guy—

No, no, I needed to calm down. If I was just placed in some bedroom, Ayame probably was too. I stood up and made my way past the corridor I was in. I pressed myself against the wall in case I fell again.

This place felt… weirdly clean and comfortable for a place used to hold people hostage. It was almost like a hotel. I passed a room labelled ‘dining hall’ that looked like a five star restaurant on the inside. Eventually, I made my way to a room that was labelled ‘lobby’.

I pushed open the door and found my fifteen classmates gathered there. All of them looked just as tired and confused as me. I spotted Ayame sitting in an armchair and ran over to her, ignoring how light I felt on my feet.

She saw me and smiled. I hugged her. “Aya! I’m so glad you’re okay!”

She hugged me back. I let go of her and looked at her. “Nobody touched a single hair on your head, right? You’re okay?”

She nodded and gave me a thumbs up. Someone cleared their throat and I turned to see Haruka standing in the middle of the room. “Everyone, I’m sure we’re all worried about our situation. But I think we should remain as calm as possible until we know more about what’s going on.”

“Somebody shoved me in a van!” Katashi yelled, nervously pulling at his tie. Haruka swallowed. “I— I know. I know this is frightening, but there has to be a reasonable explanation.”

“Haruka’s right.” Antantaru said, standing up and crossing his arms. “We’ll only exhaust ourselves if we worry. Besides, this place doesn’t look too bad. It’s not like we’re at risk of getting sick.”

Hikari frowned. “Speak for yourself. Hiro’s been throwing up non-stop since we got here.”

Hiroshi, like Hikari said, suddenly vomited into a paper bag. Hikari pat his back. Hiroshi trembled. “Hi.. ka…”

“I know, I know.” Hikari said, brushing his hair out of his face. “I’m here, Hiro. Hika’s here.”

Yuki hummed. “…Could we be being held for ransom? Hope’s Peak is an affluent school, after all.”

“Maybe.” Yoru said, playing with her necklace. “Yoru thinks we’re here for something else.”

Myojo fixed his eyepatch. “Like what?”

Yoru shrugged. “Yoru doesn’t know! It just seems weird that we’d be used for ransom, no? Wouldn’t a kidnapper go after the Ultimate Students and not normal teenagers like Yoru?”

Chikara fixed his glasses. “Normal students are easier to get a hold of.”

“That’s exactly right.” A voice said. It sounded like it belonged to some kind of wealthy, aristocratic man. I looked around, but I couldn’t see anyone in the room besides us.

Suddenly, I felt something at my feet. I looked down and saw… a monochrome cat. I jolted back as it hopped up onto my lap. Before I could say anything, Mamoru pointed at it excitedly. “It’s a kitty!”

He ran over and scooped up the cat, playfully petting it. The cat hissed and jumped out of his arms. “Put me down!”

Mamoru stared at it in surprise. “It.. spoke.”

“I am a he, thank you.” The cat clarified, “My name is MonoCat, and I am your chaperone.”

“Chaperone?” Yoru asked, “Like a field trip?”

“Exactly.” MonoCat said, hopping up onto a table next to Ayame’s armchair. “The sixteen of you have been gathered here for a wonderful field trip. Your needs will be met by our wondrous attendants, so don’t worry about sickness or hunger.”

“When’s the trip over?” Antantaru asked, “I appreciate the break, but I need to do my weekly hours at the soup kitchen I work at.”

MonoCat regarded him with what looked like a smile. “Ah, the end date of this trip…”

He tilted his head to the side. “How about the day you die?”

Antantaru’s eyes widened. He stumbled back and his hair caught on one of his piercings. Haruka looked at MonoCat. “The day we die?”

“You’re never leaving, to make a long story short.” MonoCat explained, “At least, not without some work.”

I gritted my teeth. “…Explain.”

MonoCat pawed in my direction. “Gladly. The sixteen of you, you ordinary, plain, useless children, are here to participate in a game. Essentially, kill somebody here and get away with it and I’ll let you go home.”

“Kill—?!” Myojo asked, frightened. MonoCat nodded. “Kill, slaughter, murder, ‘unalive’ as the youth say… bleh, I loathe the way children speak of such things nowadays. Saying the word murder will not murder you. But I digress. You kill somebody and as long as your peers don’t catch you in a class debate dubbed the ‘class trial’, you’ll go home.”

MonoCat licked his paw. “Of course, what is a game without rules? Oh, Abyssinian~!”

The door to the lobby opened and a woman wearing an orange cat mask walked in. She didn’t look at any of us, instead walking over to MonoCat and setting a box in front of him. He nodded at her. “Thank you, my dear. You may go back to cleaning now.”

She turned and left as quietly as she arrived.

MonoCat chuckled. “Such an obedient worker, that one. She’s one of the two maids that will be cleaning up after you messy teenagers.”

He opened the box with his tail, revealing sixteen wristwatches. “These devices are called MonoWatches. They do a lot of things, but primarily they contain the rules and regulations for this place. Each of you has one with your name and favourite colour on it, aren’t I just so thoughtful like that?”

Nobody moved. MonoCat sighed. “They won’t inject you with poison or anything. I will make a guard come in if you don’t take your MonoWatches.”

I tentatively got up and grabbed mine — a yellow watch with my name engraved into the side. I put it on and heard a click once I’d fastened it to the size of my wrist. 

MonoCat put a paw to his face. “Did I forget to mention that? Once they’re on, they don’t come off.”

MonoCat sighed. “Ah well. Obviously, these watches have far too small displays to be usable for reading the rules. However, connect them to one of the various screens around this place and you’ll be fine and dandy!”

I nervously looked at MonoCat. “Uh, I’m right handed. I put the watch on the wrong wrist, I was just trying it on.”

“Too late now.” MonoCat shrugged. Chikara looked at me. “That’s your concern with having a device permanently stuck to your body?”

“Forgive me for wanting to be practical, Chikara.” I said, rolling my eyes. Everyone else nervously took their watches and put them on. MonoCat smiled — or well… well, I’ve already said how I couldn’t really tell. He was a cat, after all. — and cleared his throat. “Good, now you’re all connected to the system.”

“The system?” Katashi asked. MonoCat tapped his watch and its display changed to show a number.

We all did the same and saw the same number: sixteen.

MonoCat swished his tail. “This number represents how many people wearing these watches are detected. However, it stops detecting a person if their pulse stops.”

“So if we die, the number goes down?” Umeji asked. It was the first thing she’d said the entire time. MonoCat nodded. “Correct, Miss Ichibangase. So make sure to regularly check your MonoWatch to ensure that all sixteen of you are alive and okay.”

“Couldn’t somebody cut off their watch to fake their death?” Yoru asked, “Like, if Yoru got a pair of scissors and cut off her watch.”

MonoCat stared at her, unamused. “Miss Kutsuki, if you remove your watch, I’ll kill you.”

“How do we know you’re being serious?!” Seira challenged, turning off her purple watch. MonoCat chuckled. “Excellent question, Miss Hoshimiya! Here’s a better answer.”

He slammed his paw against the table. My watch buzzed and an image showed up on the display.

Seira looked at her watch and trembled, tears running down her cheeks. “Haru… to…?”

Hiroshi vomited again. Antantaru covered his mouth. “Shit—! Is that guy dead?!”

I looked at my watch and saw an image of the man from the hair salon, covered in burns and cuts with his throat slit. He was unmistakably dead.

Seira looked at MonoCat. “What did you do to him?! He has a little brother, you monster!”

MonoCat pawed at the table and sat down. “I did nothing. Your friend there took part in a killing game exactly like this one, although run by a separate individual. He killed a sweet baker girl named Chiyo and got caught, so this was his punishment.”

Seira pulled at her hair. “Haruto… killed someone..? No… he’s a good person… Haruto would never…”

MonoCat scoffed. “Even the best people can turn into vicious monsters with the right motivation.”

Seira furrowed her brow and ran towards MonoCat, lifting him from the table and throwing him against the wall as hard as she could. “You bastard! I’ll kill you! You killed my friend!”

Haruka looked at her watch before looking at where MonoCat had landed. “This image isn’t fake, right? He’s really dead?”

MonoCat coughed and got up, hissing at Seira before turning to Haruka. “Correct, Miss Kagami. That boy is as dead as a doornail.”

He turned to Seira again. “Now, you. Violence against your chaperone is strictly prohibited. That constitutes a punishment.”

He growled. “Owl, get in here.”

The door opened again and a woman wearing a barn owl mask came in. She had a gun in her hand and pointed it at Seira. Just as she was about to pull the trigger, Antantaru threw himself in front of Seira. “Wait! Seira didn’t know she was breaking a rule! Let her go, just this once, please.”

MonoCat regarded him for a moment before humming. “Fine. Owl, you may go.”

The woman lowered her gun and left. Antantaru turned around to look at Seira. “Are you okay?”

Seira didn’t reply, instead throwing herself at Antantaru and clinging to him. She sobbed. 

Yuki fixed their hair. “…What now?”

MonoCat hopped back up onto the table. “Now, I say the sixteen of you get exploring this place.”

“Yeah, quick question,” Hikari started, “What is this place, exactly? You said this was a field trip, so are we in a hotel?”

MonoCat breathed out a quiet laugh. “You haven’t realised, Miss Matsumoto? Your brother there seems to have been affected the worst, but all of you should have realised what’s going on. You’re unsteady on your feet, Mister Matsumoto there can’t keep anything down, haven’t you realised?”

Ayame looked at me. I looked back at her. We were both thinking the same thing, but before we could say it…

“It’s a boat.” Myojo said, “We’re on a boat. Hiroshi doesn’t have any kind of illness, he’s seasick.”

MonoCat grinned. “Correct! The sixteen of you are aboard a cruise ship in the middle of the ocean. Don’t worry, your needs will still be adequately met just like if you were on land.”

And with that, MonoCat disappeared. I stared at my classmates. I’d known these people for three years… there’s no way any of us would kill.

The only noise in the room was Seira sobbing into Antantaru’s chest. I didn’t blame her, she seemed incredibly close to that guy. Speaking of… that photograph couldn’t possibly be real, could it? There’s no way someone would really do that…

Haruka fixed her hat. “I… I suggest we explore this place, like MonoCat said. It’d be good to know our surroundings, right?”

Chikara nodded at her. “Right. I think we should go in groups. One Student Council member per group, to keep us all organised.”

Antantaru looked at Seira. “…I’ll go with Seira and two others.”

I grabbed Ayame’s hand. “Can me and Aya be in the same group? …Please?”

Haruka nodded. “I don’t see a problem with that. Ayame, do you?”

Ayame looked at her and silently pointed at me. Haruka nodded again. “Very well.”

Just as we were about to sort ourselves into groups, Ayame stood up. She walked forward, dragging me along. We got to the door before she fainted, falling to the ground with a thud.

My eyes widened. I felt my heart hammering in my chest. I could hear the blood rushing in my ears. I shot down next to her and shook her.

“Aya, what’s wrong?! Wake up!”

Chapter Text

My heart was going too fast for me to comprehend. Why did Ayame just faint like that?! I desperately tried waking her up to no avail.

Mamoru came over and went to pick her up, but I grabbed his wrist before he could. “Wait! Aya— she.. she doesn’t like being touched without gloves. Please don’t touch her.”

Mamoru looked at his hands. They were too big for me to give him my gloves, so he opted for a tablecloth on the table that MonoCat was on. He covered his hands with it and scooped Ayame up in his arms, carrying her over to a couch and setting her down.

Hiroshi walked over to her, despite his sickness, and rested one of his hands on her forehead after putting on some blue plastic gloves he kept in his pocket. “She doesn’t have a temperature.”

He checked her pulse and breathing. “And her heartbeat’s steady… and her breath. On the surface, she seems entirely healthy.”

“So then why did she faint like that?!” I yelled, clutching my chest and unsuccessfully trying to control my breathing. Hiroshi crossed his arms. “Hm. Perhaps the problem isn’t physical, but psychological.”

“Huh..?” I said, looking down at Ayame. Hiroshi glanced at me. “You understand her needs and her… quirks more than any of us. Is there anything that might have scared her into fainting?”

I thought back. Ayame was trying to lead me away from everyone when she fainted. She seemed distressed.

Suddenly my eyes widened. “Ayame’s scared of crowds! So us all being crowded together and that weird cat’s speech must have scared her enough to make her pass out!”

“Is there anything that chick’s not scared of?” Umeji asked, rolling her eyes. “For fuck’s sake, she’s in a small secluded room with all of us for five hours a day, five days a week. More than that, actually, since she’s in the drama club.”

“Umeji…” Antantaru mumbled, “be nice.”

Umeji knitted her brow and turned to him. “Who are you to tell me what to do?! You’re not my fucking dad, Antantaru!”

I scowled at her. “How dare you talk about Ayame like that? You have no idea what she’s been through.”

“Then tell us.” Haruka said, fixing her hat. “You clearly know.”

I shook my head. “No. I promised Ayame that nobody but us would ever know. I promised her that she could forget that ever happened and that she could live a normal life. It’s been six years since I promised her that, and I don’t plan on breaking it now!”

Hiroshi adjusted his mask. “Kaito, it would be in Ayame’s best interest if you told us. If we don’t know what her potential triggers could be, then we cannot stop this from happening again.”

I shook my head again. “No, I promised her. I promised I wouldn’t tell anyone.”

Antantaru walked over to me and set his hand on my shoulder. “Kaito, Kaito, come with me. Uh.. Myojo, you’re in our group. Stay with Ayame.”

“What about Seira?” Myojo asked, “She’s still…”

Seira was still crying, but her tears had mostly subsided. “I… I’m okay. Don’t w- worry about me.”

Hikari pulled her into a hug. “You can come with me and Hiro.”

Chikara took a deep breath. “I’ll go with your group so you have a council member.”

Everyone else sorted into groups. Antantaru led me out of the lobby into the hallway and kept walking. “Look, I know how much you care about Ayame. Trust me, I care about her too. She’s one of my best friends.”

He looked at me with the kindest but sternest expression I’d ever seen. “But if we don’t know what’s wrong, we cannot help her. You don’t have to give us all of the details, just tell us what happened.”

I swallowed and looked away. “She… she was..”

I teared up and stopped walking. “…I’m sorry, Antantaru. I can’t tell you. Not without her permission.”

Antantaru sighed and nodded. “I understand. I have a lot of secrets too.”

I looked at him. “You? What, did you steal a candy cane as a kid?”

He laughed and shook his head. “No, no. I, uh… look. Promise you won’t tell anyone when I show you this, okay?”

I nodded. “You have my word.”

Antantaru rolled up his right sleeve and showed me his arm. It had a massive scar on it that looked like it was from some kind of surgery. “I…”

“What the hell happened to you—?!” I asked. Antantaru smiled nervously. “I… I f- fell down the stairs as a kid and broke my arm. It ended up so badly broken I had to get surgery to fix it. I don’t really tell anyone about it because people tend to get the wrong idea.”

I looked at him, confused. “The wrong idea?”

He nervously rested his hand on his hip. “They think I get beat up or I get into fights or something.”

I didn’t say anything. Antantaru cleared his throat. “I— I don’t, by the way. Anyway, you’re feeling better-ishhh, so let’s head back to Myojo and Ayame.”

I nodded and followed him back to the lobby. He opened the door and held it for me. “After you.”

I went inside to see Ayame sitting on the couch, holding a pillow over her chest. I ran over to her and hugged her. “Ayame! Oh, I was so worried, thank god you’re okay!”

She hugged me back and pressed her head against my shoulder. Myojo played with their hoodie. “Sh— should we l- look around n- no— now?”

Antantaru nodded. He looked at his watch. “That cat said we needed to hold this up to something to bring up a map.”

He looked around and found a podium with a screen built into it. He pressed the screen of his watch onto it and a robotic voice said, ‘Opening Antantaru Kanamori’s notebook’.

We all gathered around him and looked at the screen. His notebook had a red background and showed a small profile of his name, age, likes, dislikes, and even a small paragraph about his home life.

Antantaru read the paragraph and quickly clicked away from it to the map section. It showed a map of a ship, but some areas were blocked off and darkened so we couldn’t see what they were. 

Antantaru hummed. “This seems like it’s just got residential areas and things we need for our quality of life. Look, there’s a medical bay there.”

“Well, we are on a boat.” Myojo said, “If we get hurt, we can’t exactly go to a hospital.”

Ayame pointed at something on the map. I looked where she was pointing. The dorms. There were only four bedrooms, but sixteen of us.

Antantaru sighed and put his hands in his pockets. “Guess we’re sharing rooms.”

He looked at the screen. “I wish there was a way to bring this map with us. It’d come in handy.”

At that, I jumped in fear as MonoCat appeared on his shoulder. “There is a way!”

Antantaru screamed and fell back, sending MonoCat flying off his shoulder. MonoCat landed on the podium and grumbled something before shaking his head. “Apologies, Mister Kanamori. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

Antantaru looked up at him. “Well, you did.”

MonoCat groomed his paw. “Yes, yes, well I’ve come to tell you that there is a way to have the map up on your watch. Simply hold it up to this screen again and it’ll show a holographic display.”

Antantaru did what he was told and, lo and behold, the map showed up as a hologram. “This is way more technical than I was expecting.”

“Mhm.” MonoCat said cheerfully, “Impressive, isn’t it?”

“More like creepy…” Myojo mumbled. MonoCat sighed and disappeared. Ayame looked at the map on Antantaru’s watch. She pointed at something. He looked where she was pointing. “What’s that, Ayame? Oh, you want to check the cabins?”

She nodded. Antantaru smiled. “Alright, let’s go.”

We all followed him to the corridor I walked into after waking up. There were four doors, and each of them had a sheet of paper stuck to it.

I went over to the sheets of paper and read them.

‘HOPELESSNESS VANQUISHMENT PROGRAM CABIN ASSIGNMENTS*

CABIN ONE: CHIKARA TOKEI, KAITO TSUKUMO, MYOJO TSUKINO, MIKOTO ISOARASHI

CABIN TWO: HARUKA KAGAMI, YORU KUTSUKI, KEIKO HIME, YUKI DATE

CABIN THREE: ANTANTARU KANAMORI, UMEJI ICHIBANGASE, SEIRA HOSHIMIYA, KATASHI KANEKO

CABIN FOUR: MAMORU SATŌ, AYAME TAKEBA, HIKARI MATSUMOTO, HIROSHI MATSUMOTO

*Note: Participants should feel free to swap cabins if both parties swapping agree or if the bed they wish to take is vacant for any reason. All the attendants ask is that they are notified forty-eight hours before the cabins are swapped to accommodate the changes in bedding.’

I turned to Myojo. “We’re roommates.”

He blushed and covered her face. “G- great! That’s— I’m glad we’re.. um…”

Antantaru looked at the sheet with his name on it and quietly cheered before looking away in embarrassment. “M- me and Umeji are roommates.”

“Why are you so excited about that~?” I teased, “Okay, but like seriously, aren’t you gay? Why are you so excited?”

Antantaru stared at me. “I’m… not gay…?”

“You’re not?!” Myojo asked. Antantaru turned to them. “No! I’m straight. Completely heterosexual. Wait— does our entire class think I’m gay—?!”

Ayame nodded and giggled behind her hand. Antantaru looked at her, surprised. “Okay, jokes aside, I think that’s the first time I’ve ever heard you make noise. I didn’t think you physically could.”

She stopped laughing and shuffled over to me, hiding behind me. I smiled at her before clearing my throat. “Ayame can make noise, she just doesn’t.”

“Why?” Myojo asked, looking at her. Ayame mumbled something before covering her mouth. I swallowed. “…Traumatic event.”

I reached back and held Ayame’s hand. She grabbed onto me tightly, like she was afraid of what would happen if she let go. I squeezed her hand comfortingly. “…Let’s just keep looking around.”

We all left the cabins and walked around until we found a door labelled ‘Medical Bay’. We went inside and saw Yoru, Keiko, Mamoru, and Umeji. Next to them was a woman with a rabbit mask in a green doctor uniform. Yoru was bothering the woman, poking her mask and asking her ridiculous questions.

“Have you ever cut someone’s arm off?” Yoru asked excitedly. The woman nodded, but didn’t speak. Yoru excitedly poked her mask. “Can Yoru call you Bunbun?”

The woman didn’t react. Yoru took that as a yes. “Okay, Bunbun! Are you allowed to talk to us?”

The woman glanced at her before sighing. “Not about anything unrelated to my work. And my name is Rabbit, by the way. Not Bunbun.”

“Mmm, okay.” Yoru said. She thought for a second before reaching out to grab Rabbit’s mask. “This looks cool, can Yoru hold i— gah—!”

Rabbit grabbed Yoru’s wrist and twisted it to subdue her before pushing her onto the bed next to the wall. “Do not attempt to remove my mask. Participants are not allowed to see the faces of the attendants.”

Keiko dashed over to Yoru and checked her arm. “Are you okay, Ruru? Did she hurt you?”

Yoru reoriented herself and smiled. “Yoru’s okay, Koko!”

Umeji chuckled behind her hand. “You really shoulda seen that coming.”

Rabbit ignored her and went over to a medical cabinet, starting to sort out medical supplies. I looked at the cabinets. Some of them were marked with a red tag, and the rest were marked with a green tag.

I walked over to Rabbit and tapped her shoulder. “Um, Miss.. Rabbit…?”

She turned to me. “…Yes, Kaito Tsukumo?”

“How come some of the cabinets are marked with different colours?” I asked. Rabbit glanced at the cabinets before looking back at her supplies. “Red cabinets are cabinets opened to the students, green cabinets are the cabinets with equipment only I can access. That is, unless one of you wants to commit a murder with surgical equipment.”

I recoiled at the word murder. She chuckled and fixed her mask. “What, did you expect me to not know about the killing game? I’m just as much behind this as MonoCat. Just because I’m here to give you medical treatment doesn’t mean I’m not on the side of your kidnapper.”

“But can’t you save our lives?” Mamoru asked, walking over. “If we were attacked, you’d be able to prevent a murder.”

Rabbit crossed her arms and turned around to face us. “You misunderstand. I am here in case someone has a life threatening illness or accident. If you are attacked and in need of surgery to keep you alive, I am explicitly not allowed to save your life. A situation in which a student dies with no blackened to blame is what I am here for.”

“What do you get out of this?” Antantaru asked, glaring at her. “Why are you helping kill sixteen teenagers?”

Rabbit hesitated. “I— I don’t have—”

MonoCat suddenly appeared on her shoulder. “Now, I think the eight of you have bothered dear Rabbit enough. Run along now, let her continue sorting out the medical supplies.”

“But we—” Myojo started, only for MonoCat to hiss at them. “Go. Now.”

We left without any other resistance. MonoCat had already made it explicitly clear that he’d kill us if we didn’t do as he said. We walked around and eventually Mamoru’s group split off from ours. We walked to the cafeteria I’d seen earlier and went in. 

The room looked like it belonged to a monarch. Gold plates and cutlery lined the tables and the furniture had that distinct look about it that made it just seem expensive. There was a door at the back, so we went over and opened it to see a kitchen.

Inside were two women in chef outfits and animal masks — one a honey badger, the other a wolverine. The woman with the wolverine mask walked over and stopped in front of us. “Participants are not allowed in the kitchen. Please leave.”

Ayame pointed at her before pointing at the floor. The woman stood, confused, before realising who she was talking to. “Ah, you’re the mute girl. Are you asking if I work in here?”

Ayame nodded. The woman brushed dust off her uniform. “I do. My name is Wolverine and my colleague is Honey Badger. We’re the ones who provide your meals while you’re here. We’ll also provide you with food at other times if you ask us, and there is a small snack pantry in every dorm room underneath the desk.”

“What if we have allergies?” Antantaru asked. Wolverine tilted her head to the side. “I was able to pick your friend there out as the student with a speech-related disability after a single look. Rest assured we’ve been well informed about the participants and their needs.”

“My bed did feel the same as my bed at home…” Myojo mumbled. Wolverine nodded. “That’s our housekeepers’ doing. They are tasked with providing an environment for the participants that is comfortable and clean to live in. Feel free to request specific meals as well, but I’m afraid I simply must ask you to leave. I don’t want you contaminating the kitchen, as you haven’t washed up.”

We thanked her for her information and left. Antantaru checked his map. “There’s only a few storage rooms left on this floor. There’s a staircase in the lobby, I’d like to check what’s at the top of it.”

We followed him back to the lobby and went up the staircase he mentioned. When we got to the top, Antantaru opened a door and we were…

We were outside. The top deck was furnished with benches and tables and all sorts of outdoor equipment. There was a telescope off to one side, which Myojo eagerly ran over to and examined. “This is the best civilian telescope on the market! I’ve never seen one of these in person, it’s so cool!”

“Someone’s excited.” I teased. Myojo went bright red and covered her face. “Um— yeah, I really.. I really like s- space.”

Ayame walked over to the railing and looked out. I followed her and looked out with her. There was no land as far as I could see. Just miles and miles of ocean.

The ship rocked and I stumbled back. Ayame stumbled forward and grabbed onto the railing. I helped her stand up correctly. She smiled at me appreciatively and continued looking out. Antantaru came over and looked at the ocean as well. “At least they’re letting us outside. Could you imagine if they forced us into this ‘killing game’ and made us stay indoors?”

“That’d be pretty barbaric.” I said, “We’d probably die of a vitamin D deficiency before we killed each other.”

“Why do I feel like something like that’s happened before?” Myojo mumbled. Antantaru shrugged. “No clue.”

A high pitched noise sounded from a speaker nearby as MonoCat started to speak. “Attention participants, it is now about time you had dinner. Please make your way to the cafeteria.”

The four of us looked at each other before all collectively realising how hungry we were. We all went down to the cafeteria to see the rest of our class sitting around. 

I sat down with Ayame and watched our classmates talk. Chikara and Mamoru were sitting together, pouring over Chikara’s notebook. It seemed like as long as it couldn’t connect to the internet, we were allowed to keep our belongings. Yoru even had her red satchel full of her school supplies and stuff.

Chikara looked up at Mamoru. “Is it good? I— I mean, I just wrote it on the way to school this morning…”

Mamoru hugged him. “Chikara, it’s great. I love your writing, you’re going to be famous one day.”

Chikara blushed. “I, uh… thank you, Mamoru.”

I turned away from their conversation and looked over at Seira. She was sitting on her own, crying into her arms with her head down. Ayame tapped my arm and pointed to her with a concerned expression. I nodded and we walked over to her.

I sat down next to her. “Hey, Seira? How are you holding up?”

Seira didn’t look up, instead she just weakly mumbled, “It isn’t fair…”

“What?” I asked, gently patting her back. Seira sat up and wiped her eyes. Her makeup had smeared all over her face. “He— he had a life.. he had a family and friends and… and now he’s dead.”

She covered her face with her hands. “He didn’t do anything to deserve being hurt like that… he’s suffered so much and he’s worked so hard to finally make something of himself and now it’s all for nothing!”

I gently hugged her. “I’m so sorry, Seira. He’s— he’s not hurting anymore.”

Seira wept into my chest. “It’s not fair, Kaito. It’s not fair. I— I don’t want to die l- like he did! I’m so scared— of what MonoC— MonoCat is going to d- do to us!”

I hugged her and shushed her. “It’s okay. We’ll be okay.”

As I calmed her down, the woman in the cat mask came out of the kitchen holding a tray. She was followed by another woman in a mask of a different breed of cat. They gave everyone a plate of food before disappearing into the hallway in silence.

Seira didn’t eat. She pushed her food aside and got up, walking to the door before it suddenly shut. Seira yelped and jumped back. MonoCat suddenly appeared at her feet. “Hello, Miss Hoshimiya.”

Seira stared at MonoCat with wild fear in her eyes. I was scared she was going to hurt him again, but instead she just ran back and hid amongst us. 

MonoCat laughed and waved her off with his paw. “I’m not here to hurt you, I’m simply here to inform you that there’s pyjamas for each of you on your beds.”

And with that, he disappeared again. Seira stood there for a second before she just broke down sobbing, falling to her knees. Antantaru rushed over to her and brushed her hair out of her face. “Hey, hey, you’re okay. It’s okay. Come on, let’s get you somewhere to lie down.”

He stood her up and wrapped her arm around his shoulder. “There now, there… it’s all going to be okay, Seira.”

He walked her out of the room and closed the door behind him. Hikari nervously fidgeted before standing up. “I— I need to check on her. I’ll be back.”

She rushed out. Hiroshi watched her for a second before hurriedly following.

Katashi picked at his food. “What a brilliant dinner this has been, huh?”

Nobody replied. He continued. “We all know it’s not going to be okay. With that friend of hers, I mean.”

“Don’t say that.” Haruka scolded, “Haruto— I… I mean her friend might be alive. The photo could have been faked to scare us.”

Katashi stood up and slammed his hands on the table. “Wake up, Haruka! That guy died, and we’re all going to die too! I don’t want to sit here and deny the truth, because that’ll only hurt us more! It’s better to accept our deaths than to fight it!”

Haruka grabbed his wrist. “Who do you think you are?! You are not the deciding authority on if we survive or not, Katashi.”

“Well who is?!” Katashi yelled, freeing his arm and aggressively pushing her back. “That cat? Those stupid women in masks? We’re going to fucking die!”

He picked up his plate and fork before leaving. “I hate eating with people anyway. I’m going to my room.”

Katashi stormed out. 

The rest of us ate in silence before going to our rooms. I got changed in the bathroom of my cabin before getting into bed. I must’ve drifted off before my roommates got back, because when I woke up the light was off and Chikara was standing over me, shaking me.

“Kaito.” He whispered, “Kaito, are you awake?”

“Nnh… I’m awake.” I said, stretching. “What is it, Chikara?”

Chikara swallowed and looked at his notebook. “…We’re friends, right?”

I nodded. “You know we are. We’ve been classmates for three years, and you’re friends with Antantaru, so…”

Chikara looked at me with worried determination in his eyes. “You’d tell me the truth if I asked you something, right?”

I nodded again. “Of course I would.”

He pushed his notebook into my hand after lifting it from his bed. “Can I write?”

I looked at the notebook. “…Well, yeah. That’s all you do, dude.”

“No, I mean—” He took a deep breath, “Am I a good writer?”

I hesitated. Chikara had been writing stories since he was a kid, it was all he’d ever wanted to do. He never seemed even slightly insecure about it, so it came as a shock that he was asking for validation the way he was now.

I flicked open the notebook and read a portion of his writing. It was good. I smiled at him. “Course you are. You’re the best writer I know, Chikara.”

That seemed to calm his worries. He took his notebook back and closed it. “…Do you think I’ll ever be, like, Ultimate Student good?”

I paused. It was possible, if he published a book and it sold well, that he’d be accepted as the Ultimate Writer or Ultimate Author after he graduated, but Chikara had never so much as submitted a snippet of writing to competition, let alone published a book.

I stood up and gestured for him to follow me. We walked to the top deck and looked at the ocean. “Chikara, you know being an Ultimate is unrealistic, right? I mean, even the most famous writers in the world weren’t Ultimates.”

Chikara nodded and leaned over the railing. “I know. I just… I want to be someone my parents could be proud of. Chikara Tokei, world famous author. Ha, could you imagine?”

He smiled and looked up at the moon. His glasses glinted in the starlight. “I… I want to be somebody. I don’t want to be just another person. I want people to remember my name when I die.”

I listened to him quietly. He glanced at me and nervously laughed. “Sorry I woke you up to go on a tangent like that.”

I brushed him off and sighed. “It’s fine, if you were up and moving about I’d have woken up anyway.”

Chikara sat down on the deck, leaning against the railing. I sat down next to him. He set his notebook down and sighed. “Mamoru thinks I’m going to be the next Ultimate Author. He always tells me how good my writing is, but… what if he’s just being nice because we’re friends?”

I gently took Chikara’s hand into mine. “Chikara, Mamoru’s not really the kind of person to tell white lies. If he says it’s good, then he probably means it. Now come on, let’s get back to bed. It’s cold.”

He nodded. We went back to bed and went to sleep. When I woke up in the morning, my watch was blaring an alarm. I sat up and hit my head off the bunk above me. I hit my watch to turn it off and rubbed my head before getting up and getting dressed. The only clothes we had were school uniforms, but I decided against wearing my blazer and tie.

I left my room and went to the dining hall, where most of our classmates had gathered. Umeji was still in her pink pyjamas with her hair tied back. I could actually almost see her eyes. 

Antantaru was in the red shirt he wore under his uniform and his school trousers. His hair was down and it didn’t look like he’d brushed it yet. He saw me and smiled. “Morning, Kaito!”

“Good morning.” I said, waving. He stretched and walked over to me. “You sleep well?”

I nodded. “Yeah. It’s almost scary how comfortable that bed is.”

“You’re telling me.” He said, playfully scoffing. “I’m convinced they just robbed the mattress from my house.”

As the rest of our classmates filtered in, Mikoto stopped next to me. “…You and Chikara woke me up last night.”

“Ah,” I said, “sorry, Mikoto.”

Antantaru raised an eyebrow. “Oh? What happened last night? You have a little midnight rendezvous~?”

I elbowed him. “You’re not funny. We talked.”

“About what?” He teased, pointing at me. I sighed. “None of your business.”

When everyone was seated in the dining hall, I noticed Katashi didn’t show up. Umeji noticed me looking confused and groaned. “He refused to leave his bed. Seems like he’s adamant about not eating with us, the fuckin’ loser.”

Myojo played with their fork. “…It’s kind of funny. You’d think since MonoCat wants us to kill each other, we’d be living in terrible conditions. But we’re being treated like royalty and he’s not trying to make us desperate to leave.”

Mamoru nervously cleared his throat. “Perhaps MonoCat is under the assumption that we’d get tired of living here eventually and snap.”

Yuki stretched and put their hair up in a bun. “Doesn’t make sense. He’s treating us like honoured guests and ensuring all of our needs are met. The only reason we’d have to kill someone is missing our families or friends. And even then, would any of you really kill somebody just to see your friends again?”

“Yoru wouldn’t!” Yoru said cheerfully. She hugged Keiko. “Her best friend is right here anyway!”

Keiko chuckled. “I wouldn’t kill anyone either. Even if Ruru was back home, I know she’d be disappointed if I took someone’s life for her.”

“In what world would Yoru Kutsuki be disappointed to hear about death?” Hikari asked. Yoru pouted. “Just because Yoru likes studying death doesn’t mean she thinks murder is okay. Yoru thinks killing people is bad.”

Umeji groaned. “Why do you talk like that? Like, genuinely, why do you talk in third person? It pisses me off.”

Yoru looked at her. “Why not? Yoru likes talking like this.”

Ayame giggled behind her hand. Umeji scowled at her. “Quiet, pipsqueak.”

Ayame nervously put her head down and ate her breakfast. I went to pat her shoulder, but I remembered I didn’t have gloves on just before I touched her. I dug around in my pocket, put my gloves on, and comfortingly patted her shoulder.

She smiled at me. We all ate breakfast and went to go about our day. Ayame and I ended up hanging out with Yuki in the lobby. They’d found a book about plants in one of the storage rooms and were reading it aloud to us. 

“‘Plants and trees play a vital role in our lives.’” They started, “‘Plants are inextricably linked to our life, and we are both dependent on one another. Plants supply us with food, oxygen, and other things, while we assist them in photosynthesis with production of carbon dioxide. Plants aid in the preservation of the world’s ecosystem, as they often help regulate rainfall and temperature in humid areas.’”

I nervously laughed. “I can’t lie to you, I only understood maybe… ten words of that.”

Yuki closed the book. “Plants are important for humans to live because they provide food and air. Meanwhile humans are important for plants to live because they provide food.”

“Ah.” I said, slightly embarrassed that they had to dumb it down for me. “Gotcha.”

Ayame looked at the book cover and pointed at one of the plants on it. Yuki looked at the plant and cleared their throat. “That’s a lotus. It’s a symbol of abuse survivors.”

“How come?” I asked. Yuki smiled. “Because lotus flowers grow through thick, hard mud. They struggle and struggle and drag themselves up to the surface where they blossom.”

Ayame smiled. She made a heart with her hands. Yuki noticed the green bracelet she had over one of her gloves and pointed at it. “What’s that?”

She looked at the bracelet before pointing at me. I smiled. “I got her it. Look, I got myself a matching one.”

I showed them my matching yellow bracelet. They nodded. “Interesting. I noticed you both wear green and yellow chokers respectively as well.”

“Same set.” I said, “Chokers are kind of uncomfortable, but it looks cool.”

“I see.” Yuki said, nodding. Ayame looked at them like she wanted to ask something. They looked over at her. “Yes, Ayame?”

She looked around for something to write with. Yuki handed her a pencil and a blank piece of paper. She scribbled down her question and handed it to them.

Yuki read the paper and smiled. “Why do I study so much if I’m only into plants? My parents want me to keep my intelligence sharp. Can’t have me slipping up and my grades end up falling, right?”

Ayame looked like she understood. She nodded and pointed to herself before pointing to her head. Yuki nervously glanced at me. “Ahem.. I’m afraid I do not understand… that. I’m guessing you do?”

I nodded. “She means she’s the same. Her parents like to make sure she keeps on top of her studies.”

“I see.” Yuki said, fixing their hair. “What about you, Kaito?”

I played with my shirt buttons. “Ah, as long as I’m happy at school and not failing, my parents don’t really care if I get top grades.”

“Lucky you…” Yuki mumbled. I didn’t know what they meant, so I brushed it off. We stayed with Yuki until lunch, when the three of us left to go to the dining hall. 

Katashi showed up this time. Keiko and Yoru were trying to talk to him, but he wasn’t interested. Antantaru was talking to Umeji, who likewise looked like she’d rather be anywhere else. 

Halfway through eating, Seira stood up with a smile. She’d been less upset today, and she’d seemed to have reverted to a calmer version of her normal self. “Hey, I have an idea. To keep our spirits up, let’s have a party in the lobby!”

“No thanks, I don’t do parties. Especially not with people like y—” Umeji started, but Antantaru covered her mouth with his hand and let out a strained laugh. “Haha, what she means is that she’d love to come and that she’ll do her best to find something nice to wear in the storage rooms.”

Umeji scowled at Antantaru. He suddenly yelped and pulled his hand away. “Did you just lick my hand?!”

“Yes. Never do anything as stupid as that again.” Umeji warned. Ignoring their antics, I smiled at Seira. “I think that’s a good idea. Are there formal clothes in the storage rooms?”

Haruka nodded. “There are. I checked them with my group. Though, most of them are very old and will require repairs.”

“Oh, I’m so good at sewing!” Seira said excitedly, “Leave that to me, kay?”

Hikari walked over to her and hugged her from behind. “Me too! I’ll be your personal runway model, Seira.”

“Just don’t rip the dresses with that luck of yours.” Seira teased, looking back and playing with Hikari’s ponytail. Hikari grinned. “I’d never. Hiro, do you wanna come model for her too? You can try on the suits and stuff.”

Hiroshi looked surprised at his sister’s request. He nervously pulled his mask up. “I— um… alright. As long as it won’t take too long, I want to continue studying.”

“That’s alright! I just need you to try the clothes on and make sure I didn’t miss any holes or tears.” Seira assured. 

Ayame looked nervous about the idea of a party. She walked over to Seira and tapped her shoulder. Seira turned to her and smiled. “Yeah, Ayame?”

Ayame gestured to her skirt and did a gesture of pulling it down over her knees. Seira looked at her and thought for a moment. She got an idea and smiled. “If you want a dress to cover you a specific amount, you can come model with these two as well!”

That solution seemed to worry Ayame more. She eyed Hiroshi suspiciously and shook her head, pointing at him. Seira looked at Hiroshi before turning back to Ayame. “Don’t worry, I’m not gonna make you change in the same room.”

Ayame sighed with relief and smiled, nodding at Seira and doing a thumbs up. She walked back over to me and sat down. I smiled at her. “I’m sure you’ll look great, Aya.”

Seira played with her watch, twisting it around her wrist. “Alright, let’s have the party in… two days? That should give us time to prepare for it.”

We all said something in agreement and finished our lunch. After lunch, I decided to hang out with Antantaru, Mikoto, and Umeji (who was absolutely not there willingly) on the top deck.

Mikoto fixed their headscarf and hair while sitting on a bench. Antantaru sat next to them. “How come you wear that thing all the time, Mikoto?”

Mikoto twirled a strand of hair around their finger. “It’s for baking. It keeps my hair out of my face while I bake.”

“Why not just use, like, a hair tie?” Umeji asked, crossing her arms. Mikoto hesitated. “…Hair ties hurt my head.”

Antantaru nodded and smiled. “I see! It suits you. It’s even the same colour as your hair.”

Mikoto looked at the strand of teal hair in their hand. “…Not really. My scarf’s a darker shade of blue than my hair.”

“It’s still blue.” Antantaru said cheerfully. Umeji lightly yanked on his ponytail. “Yeah, it’s not bright red like this guy’s.”

Antantaru swatted her hand away. “Stop that.”

“Make me.” Umeji teased. I chuckled. “You two are really funny together.”

Antantaru’s face went the same colour as his hair. “You— I— um.. thanks, Kaito! Aha…”

Umeji scoffed. “Way to play it cool.” 

She checked her nails and I noticed her hands were covered in scars. “Umeji, what the hell happened to you—?”

She sighed and put her hands in her pockets. “A lot of things.”

Antantaru lifted one of her hands worriedly. “These don’t look like they’ve been treated right at all! We should go see that woman in the medical bay, she might be able to help you.”

Umeji pulled her hand away. “Fuck that. I don’t need her help.”

Mikoto frowned. “Antantaru’s right. You need to make sure your wounds don’t reopen or get infec…”

They suddenly looked around, confused. “Huh..? Where am—”

“Oh great, the amnesiac’s come out to play.” Umeji grumbled. Antantaru elbowed her and patted Mikoto’s shoulder. “You’re on the top deck of the ship, Mikoto. Did you have another memory lapse?”

Mikoto nodded and yawned. They suddenly fell asleep on Antantaru’s shoulder. He looked down at them. “Ah…”

I looked at Mikoto as they softly snored. “They should go get tested for narcolepsy.”

“I think the sleepiness is a side effect of their amnesia.” Antantaru said quietly, “Their brain is working so hard to recover lost memories that it tires them out… I think.”

“How does that damn condition even work? Some people are just, what, born without a long term memory?” Umeji asked. I thought for a moment. “It’s a result of the alterations people’s brains suffered during the Tragedy. People had their memories wiped or their brains scrambled and the conditions developed from that passed onto their kids and eventually became what we know as chronic amnesia.”

“I didn’t expect you to know something like that.” Antantaru said, “That’s pretty interesting.”

I smiled, slightly embarrassed. “Ah, it was just something I picked up from an old book.”

“I remember a news story about this one person that had the worst ever documented case of it.” Antantaru said, “They were the kid of these two super famous actors. Turned out both parents carried the condition but didn’t develop symptoms and passed it onto their kid.”

“Oh, yeah.” I said, “Kiyoshi Suzuki, right? Last I heard, he became an Ultimate. I think he’s a..  journalist.”

Antantaru snapped his fingers and pointed at me. “That’s him. Chikara’s pretty into his writing.”

“If someone like that can become an Ultimate, we all must be extra stupid.” Umeji joked. Antantaru rolled his eyes and fixed one of his earrings. “Shush. He worked for his title. Just because he has amnesia doesn’t mean he’s not talented.”

“And what’s so special about having a title anyway?” I asked, “I mean, none of us have one and I don’t think we’re.. boring or anything. Far from it.”

“Yeah!” Antantaru said. He realised he was too loud as Mikoto stirred. “Mm… what’s going on?”

“You fell asleep.” I said. Mikoto made some noise of acknowledgement and fell asleep again. After a while, I decided to leave those three to their own conversation and walk around. 

While walking around, I overheard a conversation between Seira and Haruka from the dining hall.

“Haruka, please, what did he say to you?” Seira pleaded, “I have to know. You— you were the last one of us to hear him speak.”

Ah. They were talking about Seira’s friend. 

“Seira… I’m sorry, I can’t tell you.” Haruka said apologetically, “It was nothing bad, and it was nothing about you, but it’s a secret.”

“Haruka, please.” Seira begged, “Please… I have to know..”

Haruka took a deep breath and reluctantly replied. “…Fine. He— Haruto and I went to the same middle school. We were close friends, actually, but something happened to him that drove us apart.”

“What was it?”

“You’ve seen that scar on his face?”

Seira gasped. “Was that you?”

“No! Heavens, no.” Haruka said quickly, “It— it was my… it was my twin brother, Kiichi. Haruto told my brother he had romantic feelings for him and my brother.. attacked him. I was so ashamed to be related to that— that monster that I never spoke to Haruto again out of fear that he hated me for it too. I was apologising for what happened when we spoke to him.”

Seira hesitated. “…You never told me you had a brother.”

“I’d rather pretend he doesn’t exist.” Haruka explained, “He’s not even in my life anymore. He was arrested for doing the same thing to someone else when we were fourteen and put in a juvenile detention centre. He’s been there ever since.”

I sensed that I had probably heard too much and quickly left. Haruka… I didn’t even know she had a brother, much less one that would do something like that. 

I wandered around until dinner, when I went back to the dining hall. There, I saw Ayame in a beautiful green dress, happily twirling around and showing everyone. I put my gloves on and caught her just as she spun out of control and fell. 

She smiled at me appreciatively and stood up. I smiled back at her and pointed at her dress. “You look pretty in that, Aya.”

She played with her skirt, her cheeks tinted slightly red from embarrassment. We had dinner. Everyone in cabins three and four left early to try on clothes for the party, including Ayame. 

Myojo played with his hair and ate her food. “Do you think they’ll be back? Most of them haven’t even finished eating.”

“Maybe.” Chikara said, picking at his food. “Maybe not. Depends on how quickly Seira can get their outfits made.”

“Hm.” Myojo said, lost in thought. “Maybe someone should bring them food when they leave.”

“I will.” I said, “I’m used to doing things for Aya anyway.”

After I finished my dinner, I left to go to my cabin with a plate of food for Ayame. 

As I walked down the corridor, she ran up to me and clung to me desperately, making me drop the food. I looked down at her and noticed she was in tears. Her dress had been torn slightly at the back and I had the worst feeling possible. Someone had hurt Ayame.

I held her, stabilising her. “It’s okay, it’s okay. What happened? Did someone hurt you?”

“Help… Kai..” she muttered, pressing her head against my chest. “Attack… scissors.. behind me.. thought… wanted to.. again…”

My eyes widened. Someone.. someone tried to kill her. Someone tried to hurt Ayame. I felt my breath quicken, and I felt a knot in my throat. I held her, rocking her back and forth. “It’ll be okay, I won’t let anyone hurt you, never again… I’ll never let someone hurt you again..”

“Don’t know… who..” she whispered, “hid.. behind…”

“It’s okay, it’s not your fault.” I brushed her hair out of her face. “Are you hurt, Ayame?”

She nodded. “Back… struggle.. cut.”

I felt her back and felt something wet seep into my glove. I pulled my hand away and saw blood. I took a deep breath and, with a lot of struggle, picked Ayame up and put her on my back. I carried her to the medical bay and set her on the bed. The woman in the rabbit mask wasn’t there.

I looked through the red cabinets for something I could help her with and found a roll of bandages. I took them out of the cabinet and turned to her. “Ayame, are you wearing anything under your dress?”

She shook her head, still sobbing. I cursed. The last thing I needed was to freak her out more. I continued looking and found one of those plasters that use adhesive. I reached through the tear in her dress and put it over the cut on her back. “There. It’s okay. It’ll all be okay.”

I hugged her and we ended up falling asleep in the medical bay. When I woke up, the rabbit woman was standing over me. “Why are you in here?”

I rubbed my eyes. “Ayame… she got hurt. I bandaged her up and sat here with her to calm her down. We must have fallen asleep.”

Rabbit sighed. “Well, you best head to breakfast. I turned your watch alarms off so you wouldn’t disturb her.”

She gestured to Ayame, who had been changed into her uniform. “I noticed the bloody plaster and cleaned her wound. I also put proper dressing on it. I’m assuming there was an accident involving that green dress she had on and a pair of scissors?”

I hesitantly nodded. It wasn’t an accident, but she didn’t have to know that. “Yeah. She was trying on a dress and she must’ve accidentally been cut while tailoring it.”

Rabbit hummed. “Well, run along now. She’ll be in good, safe hands with me, Tsukumo. I know how important Ayame Takeba’s safety is to you.”

I got up and brushed myself off, thanking her before going to the dining hall. Myojo came up to me as I walked through the door. “Wh— where were y- you last night, Kaito? We… we were all really worried…”

I smiled nervously. Myojo was in the dining hall, she couldn’t have been the one to hurt Ayame. “Aha, I ended up falling asleep somewhere else. Sorry for worrying you, Myojo.”

I gave him a knowing look, acknowledging the fact that they were probably the only one of my roommates to be ‘really worried’.

She blushed and covered their face with his hands. 

I scanned the room. Seven of my classmates could have possibly been the one to attack Ayame. I made a mental checklist of the seven suspects.

Suspect one: Antantaru Kanamori. As much as I’d hate to admit it, Antantaru was one of the students that left dinner early. But could I really see him trying to kill someone with a pair of scissors, much less his friend? Still, it was more likely than some of the others.

Suspect two: Umeji Ichibangase. An antagonistic character already, I had to admit she made a strong contender to be the one to attack Ayame. She hated everyone and had no problem sharing that fact, so she seemed like she’d have no problem with committing murder to escape this place.

Suspect three: Seira Hoshimiya. Another one I doubted. Seira and Ayame had been friends since freshman year at Hope’s Peak, and Seira had been too emotionally unstable recently to come up with a plan of attack like that.

Suspect four: Katashi Kaneko. Other than Umeji, he was the person I suspected most. Katashi had made a show of proclaiming our inevitable deaths on our first day here, so it made sense if he chose to attack and seize his chance to escape.

Suspect five: Mamoru Satō. If I was being honest, Mamoru was one of the last people I’d suspect. He was a shy, clumsy mess of a boy with an affinity for animals. However, he’d most definitely be strong enough to attack Ayame.

Suspect six: Hikari Matsumoto. She certainly knew her way around a pair of scissors, as I’d seen her cut up fabric with ease in art class. However, there was the fact that her twin brother was here. Would Hikari really be comfortable escaping without him?

Suspect seven: Hiroshi Matsumoto. I almost laughed at the idea. Hiroshi had the opportunity and the medical knowledge to carry out a murder, sure, but there was a single problem: Hiroshi Matsumoto was severely hemophobic. He went into a catatonic, panicked state at the sight of any more blood than a nosebleed, a fact I’d learned after cutting my finger in front of him in a home economics class. He’d even vomited when we were shown the photo of that guy’s corpse.

If I had to put the seven of them in order of suspicion, it’d be Umeji, Katashi, Hikari, Seira, Antantaru, Mamoru, and finally Hiroshi. I should investigate in that order.

I walked over to Umeji, who was sitting on her own for a change. Where was Antantaru? She turned to me, annoyed. “What?”

“Did you pick out a dress last night?” I asked, putting my hands in my pockets. Umeji groaned. “Yes. Antantaru made me pick out a pink dress. It’s this gross, tacky thing too.”

“I’m sure it’s not that bad.” I said. Umeji brushed her hair out of her face only for it to immediately fall back over. “It is. I had to cut up the sleeves and all for it to not look like I’m a ghost.”

Cut. With scissors. Ayame didn’t know who attacked her, presumably because she couldn’t see their hands.

…Had Umeji really hurt someone so vulnerable and defenceless?

Umeji looked around and played with her hair. “Say, where’s Ayame? Usually you two are attached at the hip.”

I accidentally scowled at her. She knew damn well where Ayame was, she was the cause of it! I quickly fixed my facial expression and sighed. “She’s not feeling well.”

If Umeji noticed my anger, she didn’t point it out. She nodded and turned away from me, ignoring me.

I ate breakfast in silence and when I was done, I followed Umeji out and stealthily followed her around. I didn’t want to use.. that particular skill of mine again, but if it was for Ayame, it was worth it.

Umeji went into her room and shut the door after her. I sighed. I couldn’t open the door on my own if she’d locked it. 

As I loitered in the corridor, Seira, Hikari, Keiko and Yoru came up to me. Seira smiled. “Hi, Kaito! Do you wanna come try on some clothes for the party?”

I hesitated. If I went with them, I couldn’t watch Umeji. But if I didn’t, it’d seem suspicious. Before I could answer, Hikari grabbed my arm and excitedly pulled me with them. “C’mon!”

The girls led me to a storage room where there were several mannequins with suits and dresses on them. I saw Hiroshi standing with the mannequins in a fancy blue suit. He locked eyes with me and mouthed something that I could only imagine to be expressing how much fun he was having playing dress up with his sister. 

Seira handed me a yellow suit and a white shirt. “Here, try this on! I have to go talk to Haruka really quickly. She’s made plans to give a speech during the party and I want to know where she’s gonna stand so I can make sure she’s not blocked by decorations.”

Seira zipped out of the room. I looked around for something to hide behind to get changed. Yoru noticed and pointed me over to a divider propped up in the corner of the room. “Yoru thinks you’re meant to get changed back there.”

I went behind the divider and got changed into the suit before coming out and showing everyone.

Keiko grinned and clapped her hands. “You look great! Oh, it’s almost like you’re matching Ayame. Maybe I should set you tw—”

“No.” I said flatly, “My and Ayame’s relationship is platonic and that is how it is going to stay.”

Keiko raised her hands in surrender before sighing. “Mannnn. Alright.”

We finished trying on clothes. I changed back into my uniform and went to find Ayame. I needed to know if she was doing better. I looked around for her and ended up bumping into Katashi.

I accidentally knocked him to the ground and he dropped what he was holding. Apologetically, I helped him up and went down to pick up what he’d dropped. When my hand closed around it, I noticed it was Chikara’s notebook. A lump formed in my throat and I clenched my fist around the spiral column on the side. Chikara never went anywhere without his notebook. He slept with it in his bed and everything.

I looked up at Katashi and sternly asked, “Why do you have this?”

Katashi snatched the book from me. “None of your business. It’s not like you care what I do anyway, nobody does.”

Before he could leave, I grabbed his wrist and pulled him back. “Why are you so insistent about that?! Katashi, I’ve known you for three fucking years, of course I care about you. What’s gotten into you?”

Katashi stared at me for a few seconds before… breaking down in tears. I nervously let go of him and he sank to the floor, dropping the notebook.

I sat down next to him. “Hey, Katashi, what’s up? You can tell me.”

“I— I can’t stop—” Katashi choked out, “I c- can’t stop thinking th— that you all want to kill me! I’m so scared of this place and— and every time I see you all I can’t stop myself from thinking that you’re going to kill me!”

He sobbed. I hesitated. “…We would never do that, Katashi. Look, let me..”

I reached up to one of my ears and took out one of my earrings, wiping it off and setting it in Katashi’s hand. “Anytime you have a thought like that, look at my earring. Look at it and remember that, even if everyone else is against you, you’ll definitely have me on your side, okay?”

He sniffled and hugged me. “Thank you, Kaito..”

Katashi looked at Chikara’s notebook. “…I took it from him. I— I saw him writing in it and watching me and I was just— overcome with the thought that he was planning to kill me… I thought if I took away the book it’d stop him from killing me..”

I picked up the book and smiled. “Do you want to return it to him with me so you can apologise? Would that make you feel better?”

He nodded and wiped tears from his face. We stood up and went looking for Chikara. We ended up finding him on the top deck, frantically looking for something.

He spotted us and saw the notebook in my hands. He ran over and took it, clutching it close to his chest. “Oh, Kaito, you found it! I thought I’d lost it, I was so worried!”

I smiled. “…Actually, Chikara, Katashi here has something to tell you.”

Katashi shuffled out from behind me and played with his tie. “I— um.. I stole your book. I thought you were… god, I know it sounds dumb, but I thought you were planning to kill me. I thought taking it would make you stop. I’m sorry.”

Chikara looked at Katashi and softly smiled. “I appreciate your apology. Don’t worry Katashi, I get it.”

He opened the book. “Do you want to see what I was writing to calm your worries? So you know I wasn’t writing out a murder plan or anything.”

Katashi subtly nodded. Chikara showed him the book. “I’m writing an account of our time here, so that I can give it to the police when we escape. I was just writing what you were doing.”

“Oh..” Katashi said, “I.. um… sorry for getting the wrong idea and taking it.”

Chikara patted his shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. I’m glad you feel better.”

Watching them happily talk made me feel better. After a while, I left and continued looking for Ayame.

I ended up finding her in the lobby. She was sitting in a chair by herself. I sat down next to her. “Hey, Aya. You feeling better?”

She nodded. “Hurt… less.”

“Do you.. remember who attacked you?” I asked hesitantly. She shook her head. “Wear gloves. Behind… me.”

I noticed she had her dress in her hands. The back was stained with her blood. She looked down at it. “Can’t wear to party now. Dirty and broken.”

I gently took the dress and looked at it. “One of those attendants could probably fix it. I’ll take it and go find one of them, okay?”

She smiled appreciatively. “Kai.. thank.”

“Of course, Aya.” I said softly. I set my hand on her shoulder comfortingly before realising I didn’t have my gloves on. She hit my hand off of her and stood up, backing away and breathing heavily. She rapidly shook her head and clutched her chest with one hand, pulling her skirt over her knees with the other.

I cursed. “I’m sorry, I forgot to put them on. It’s okay, I would never hurt you like that monster did. I’d never do that to you, Ayame.”

She didn’t seem to hear me. Her eyes were still wild with terror. I put my gloves on and approached her. I knew it’d be bad to touch her, but just in case my hand accidentally brushed against her. “It’s okay. You’re safe, Ayame. You’re safe.”

“No..” she whispered, “no, don’t.. want…”

She kept whispering to herself until she tired herself out and fainted. I carefully picked her up and set her on a couch.

…I suppose I should explain what happened to Ayame to you, even if I didn’t explain it to my classmates.

When me and Ayame were ten, we were playing in the park. Ayame had dropped a ball and it rolled away. She came over to me and tapped my arm. “Kaito, I dropped my ball, I’m going to get it.”

I nodded and smiled at her. “Okay, Ayame. I’ll be waiting here.”

She ran off after her ball and faded from view. After a while, I heard her screaming for help. I ran to where the noise was coming from and saw her in an alleyway with a man. He spotted me and ran away, cursing.

She looked up at me in terror. I didn’t understand what that monster had done to her at the time. I noticed her clothes were hanging off of her, took my coat off, and put it on her before zipping it up. “There. You won’t get cold.”

I brought her home and told her parents what happened and they rushed her to a hospital. The man ended up never being caught.

Over the next six years, Ayame started talking less and less. At first it was speaking in a quiet voice, then it was avoiding her friends, then it was shutting out her family. I became the only person she trusted enough to speak to, because I helped her that day, and even then her speech was limited. 

Once, I asked her why she stopped talking, and she told me it was because she didn’t think her voice had any power. She tried to tell that man ‘no’ and he ignored her. 

Truth be told, I never stopped thinking about that day. When I realised that Ayame had been assaulted, I focused all of my attention on finding that man and bringing him to justice. I found him three years later and… I made sure he would never hurt anyone ever again.

Ayame had no idea, she still thought he was out there. I swore to her that I would protect her for as long as I lived, and that I would never let her be hurt by anyone like that ever again. I’d be damned if I didn’t keep my word.

I looked over at Ayame and sighed. She looked so peaceful. She was so happy as a child, she was on her way to being an actress, and it was all violently taken from her. 

I stayed with her until she woke up and brought her to her room. I found one of the women in the cat masks and asked her to clean and repair Ayame’s dress, which she nodded and said it’d be in her room in the morning. The rest of the day passed with no other events.

The next morning, everyone got their party clothes on and went to the lobby.

I spotted Ayame in her dress. She saw me and ran over, hugging me. She let go and did her hand symbol that meant ‘thank you’. I smiled at her. “No problem, Aya. I’m glad you’re feeling better. Is your back okay?”

She nodded. She made her symbol for ‘no’ and ‘headache’, which I’m guessing she was using instead of pain.

Chikara and Mamoru walked over to us. Chikara smiled. “Hello, you two. You look great.”

He scribbled something down in his notebook. I looked at his suit. It was olive green with a dark green tie. “You look good too.”

“Thanks.” He said. Mamoru played with a cat-shaped button on his blazer. “I’ve never been to a party like this before, I’m afraid I don’t really know what to do.”

Chikara turned to him. “Really?”

He nodded and blushed. “…Well, I have an idea of what I want to do, but this isn’t the right atmosphere for it. I’ll do it later.”

“Alright!” Chikara said cheerfully. The two of them left, waving goodbye to us. Ayame looked up at me and pointed to Mamoru before making a heart with his hands. I chuckled. “Oh, yeah, he’s absolutely into Chikara. And I’d make a damn good bet that Chikara likes him back.”

Ayame giggled. We walked around the lobby and saw Myojo in a black dress with white glitter. It looked like their hair, like a perfect night sky. There was a line of white fabric draped around his entire body, like a comet. She noticed me looking and blushed. “A- ah! Kaito! Um, hi… I like your suit..”

I stared at his dress. “I… wow, Myojo, you… you look beautiful.”

She nervously played with their skirt. “Th— thank you! So do you!”

They ran off, flustered. Ayame looked up at me and pointed at my face with a teasing smile. I looked at her, confused, before catching sight of my reflection. I was bright red.

We spent the first half hour or so of the party talking with our classmates. Then, Haruka walked up to the table in the middle. “Excuse me, everyone? I’d like to say a few words. But first, Mamoru has something very important to say.”

She encouragingly smiled at him. Mamoru nervously walked over to Chikara and grabbed his hands. “I— um.. Chikara, you’ve been my best friend since I started at Hope’s Peak, and you inspired me to join the Student Council. I… to be honest, I.. like you more than just as a friend. I’m in— I’m in love with you! Will you go out with me?”

Chikara stared at him for a few seconds before smiling and kissing him. “Of course I will, Mamoru. I love you too.”

Ayame and I looked at each other. I leaned over and whispered in her ear, “Called it.”

Haruka cleared her throat. “Now, I’d like to give a speech.”

She took a few steps forward and a strange mechanical noise sounded before the lights went out. 

I heard Chikara scream, “Haruka, watch out—!”

And then I heard it. The sickening noise of metal piercing flesh. Of blood spilling from someone’s body. The sound of death.

The lights came back on and I saw Mamoru standing, covered in blood, with a horrified expression on his face. He was shaking and staring at his hands. It was such a stark difference to the happiness from just a few moments before.

I looked at where the source of the blood was and saw something horrifying.

I saw my friend, who was so hopeful for his future. My friend, who had just started dating the boy he loved mere moments before. My friend, unmistakably dead. 

My friend, Chikara Tokei, pinned to a support beam with a crossbow bolt through his head.

Chapter Text

It was still for just a moment, as we all stared at the bloody remains of someone we once called our friend.

And then Mamoru screamed, running over to Chikara and trying to wake him from his eternal slumber. “Chikara—! Hey, this isn’t funny, come on, wake up, please—!”

I felt a pit in my stomach and remembered a feature of the watches MonoCat had given us. With vain hope that Chikara had somehow survived, I shakily lifted my watch and tapped its screen.

And when I saw the number displayed, my heart shattered into thousands of pieces.

Fifteen.

Chikara was really dead.

As Mamoru sobbed and the rest of us stared in horror and disbelief, MonoCat appeared by Chikara’s body. “Well, that was faster than anticipated. Congratulations to the blackened amongst you all for taking initiative.”

He chuckled. “Ordinarily, there would be an announcement regarding the discovery of a corpse right now, but I see that as pointless seeing as you’re all here.”

Mamoru stared at him, still crying. “N- no. No, he’s alive, he’s not dead.. he can’t be dead… not now…”

MonoCat nudged Mamoru’s wrist with his tail. “Check your watch if you don’t believe me, Mister Satō. Remember, it keeps track of how many of you are alive.”

Mamoru looked at his watch and tapped the screen. Upon seeing the number, he choked back a sob and pressed his head against the ground.

Haruka, who’d landed on the floor during the blackout, dragged herself over to Mamoru and hugged him. “It’s okay.. it’s going to be okay…”

She didn’t sound like she believed her own words.

MonoCat purred and groomed his paw. “Well, children, I believe that I informed you what the murder of Mister Tokei calls for.”

“The trial you mentioned.” Umeji said. She was strangely calm. MonoCat nodded in her direction. “Excellent, Miss Ichibangase! After a few hours of investigating the crime, the fifteen of you shall debate the murder of your classmate and attempt to catch the blackened behind it. Succeed, and Mister Tokei’s murderer shall be joining him in the next life. Fail, and it’ll be the rest of you instead.”

I regained my composure and looked at MonoCat. “Is that everything?”

“One more thing.” He said cheerfully, “The data on Mister Tokei’s death including time and cause of death has been uploaded to your MonoWatches.”

And with that, he disappeared. I took a deep breath and turned to Haruka. “Haruka, get Mamoru out of here now. The last thing he needs is to see us feeling around Chikara’s body while we investigate.”

She nodded and helped him stand up, walking out of the room with him. I turned to the rest of my classmates and saw Hiroshi was standing there, unmoving, with his face frozen in fear and nausea. Fuck, I forgot he was afraid of blood.

I looked at Hikari. “You too. Take your brother and calm him down somewhere else. The eleven of us will investigate and catch you four up when we’re done.”

Hikari looked at her brother before walking him out as well. Antantaru came up to me. “What’s gotten into you? You— you’ve never been this.. authoritative.”

“I don’t want to die.” I explained, “You heard MonoCat, if we get this wrong, we get killed.”

He swallowed. “R- right, it’s just… Chikara’s.. dead. How can you be so calm? He was your friend!”

“He’d want me to keep a level head and solve his murder.” I said, glancing up at Antantaru and raising an eyebrow at his frightened demeanour. “He’d want all of us to. Now I need to look at whatever data MonoCat gave us.”

I walked over to the nearest podium and held my watch to it. I skipped past all of the information I didn’t care about and opened the tab labelled ‘Chikara Tokei’.

‘VICTIM: CHIKARA TOKEI

CAUSE OF DEATH: SEVERE TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY

TIME OF DEATH: 9:23AM

INJURIES: CROSSBOW BOLT THROUGH HEAD

LOCATION OF DEATH: LOBBY’

I scowled. This didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know. Useless piece of crap. I turned it off and sighed. “Nothing we couldn’t have figured out ourselves. Chikara’s the victim, he died via traumatic brain injury, he died—”

I looked at my watch to check the time. “He died thirteen minutes ago, his only injury is the crossbow bolt in his brain, and he died in the lobby.”

I looked at everyone else. Nobody had even moved an inch. I walked over to Yoru. “Isn’t death your whole thing? Come help me.”

Yoru’s face paled. She looked up at me. “Y- Yoru’s nev— never seen a d- dead body in person b- be— before..”

I groaned and turned away from her. “Am I the only one that understands the gravity of our situation? We don’t have time to grieve right now. Chikara was murdered by one of us, so we have to find out who did it.”

I looked at them and pointed at Umeji and Mikoto. “You two. Guard the body and make sure nobody tampers with it.”

“What if you three were working together to kill Chikara?” Yuki asked. I stared at them. “Okay, Yuki, you can guard the body too.”

Yuki hesitated. “…I set myself up for that, didn’t I?”

I nodded. “Yep.”

I noticed something out of the corner of my eye and saw Ayame standing next to Chikara. She had his glasses in one hand and was wiping blood off of his face with the other’s glove. I walked over to her, put my gloves on, and gently set my hand on her shoulder. “Aya, are you okay?”

She nodded. She pointed at Chikara and looked up at me, leaning in, and whispering, “Kara… glasses dirty.”

Ah. She was cleaning his glasses for him. I gently took them out of her hand. “It’s alright, Aya, he doesn’t need them anymore.”

I pocketed them and made a mental note to give them to Mamoru. He deserved something to remember his love by.

I leaned into her ear. “Do you want to stay here? You can leave with Haruka, Mamoru, and the twins if you want to.”

She shook her head. “Don’t want.. leave. Want… stay. Help Kai.. find Kara… kill.”

I nodded. “Alright, Ayame.”

Ignoring everyone else still being in their stupor, I walked over to where Haruka was standing before the lights went out. I ducked down to the ground and looked around for clues.

I noticed a small X shape made of yellow tape and looked up, raising an eyebrow. Seira cleared her throat. “When.. when me and Haruka were planning where she’d give her speech, I marked it down with tape so she’d know where to stand.”

I nodded. I ran my hand along the floor and found a piece of thread. I tugged on it and it was pulled taut. I heard another mechanical noise and Ayame yelped. I turned around and saw another crossbow bolt on the ground rolling around in front of Chikara’s body. It must have hit off the bolt already in Chikara’s head and lost momentum.

I carefully lifted the thread and followed it to its source — an empty bookshelf at the back of the lobby. I looked in the shelf and found an automatic crossbow, loaded with two more bolts. A trap.

I dismantled the trap and looked at the crossbow, loaded with its third bolt. Umeji yelped as I lifted it and the end was pointed towards her. “Fuckin’ unload that thing before you swing it around unless you plan to send us to hell with him, you maniac—!”

“It’s a little rude that you’re implying he’s going to hell.” Yoru pointed out. She seemed to have regained her composure. “He might not even believe in an afterlife.”

“Shut up, Yoru.” Umeji snapped, swatting her hand at Yoru like she was going to hit her. Yoru yelped. “Eek! Yoru is shutting up!”

I stared at Umeji as I unloaded the crossbow, tossing the two unused bolts onto the floor carelessly. “Happy now?”

She smirked. “Very.”

I rolled my eyes and examined the crossbow. It was very technical and would require a lot of skill of practice to use. I looked over at Katashi. “Katashi, come here.”

He hurried over to my side. I handed him the crossbow and he struggled momentarily under its weight. He eagerly looked up at me like a puppy. “What do you want me to do, Kaito?”

“You’re into technology and engineering. Can you help me figure out how this trap was set up?” I asked. He nodded and gave me a thumbs up. I noticed he was wearing my earring as a ring.

Katashi looked at the crossbow and checked it for something. “Aha! This is a repeating crossbow designed to reload itself and be used like a gun.”

Myojo looked at him, confused. “How come your attitude’s changed so much? You were ranting and raving about how we’re all gonna die literally yesterday.”

Katashi glared at him. “I still think we’re all going to die. That hasn’t changed. Idiot.”

He looked back at me and smiled enthusiastically. “Is there anything else you want me to do, Kaito?”

I hummed. “Check the shelf I got it from. I don’t know a lot about traps, so I might have missed something.”

Katashi nodded and went over to the shelf after handing me back the crossbow. However, he was too short to reach it. I sighed and dragged a chair over for him to stand on. “Be careful.”

“I will!” Katashi chimed, looking in the shelf. “Hmm… there’s a loop of thread here. Was this attached to the crossbow?”

I nodded. “Around the trigger.”

Katashi hummed in acknowledgment. “And there was a thread where Haruka was standing?”

“Yep.” I said. Katashi climbed down from the chair. “Seems like the killer set up a tripwire that Haruka unknowingly triggered. When she stood in place to make her speech, she must have broken the thread and triggered the crossbow to fire. Doesn’t look like this is connected to the lights going out, though.”

“So what caused the blackout?” I asked. Katashi shrugged. “Dunno. Maybe the killer manually turned off the lights so we wouldn’t see Chikara die.”

I nodded. “Right. I’m going to investigate elsewhere. Do you want to come with me? Ayame, you too.”

The two of them nodded and followed me like a flock of baby owlets. Katashi eagerly picked up random things as we searched and asked me if they were useful. Most of the time they weren’t, but he did find a pair of scissors that seemed to be the ones used to attack Ayame. I thanked him and he made an excited noise. He was actually kind of cute when he wasn’t worried about his paranoia.

We found ourselves in the storage room Seira used to prepare our clothes. As I investigated, I kept my eye on my two little owlets. I found something on the ground. It was an empty spool of thread. I picked up the spool and showed it to them. Ayame came over and took it, looking at it. She pointed at it and then at her dress.

“Was this what was used to fix your dress?” I asked. She nodded. She mimed wrapping thread around it and shrugged. Katashi looked over. “Did it still have thread when Seira was done fixing your dress?”

Ayame nodded again. Katashi looked at the spool. “Hmm.. you had your dress made first, right? Maybe it just ran out as Seira was fixing them.”

Ayame shook her head. She pointed to a label on the bottom of the spool: 0.4km. I looked at it. “Is that how much thread was on it?”

Ayame nodded. Katashi paced back and forth as he thought. “Maybe this was the thread used for the trap as well.”

“You’re going to dig yourself into the floor if you keep pacing like that.” I teased. He blushed and abruptly stopped. “S- sorry.”

“It’s alright.” I assured, resting a hand on his shoulder. “C’mon, I think that’s everything here. I want to interrogate our classmates.”

And both of my owlets followed me out. First stop, though I knew it would be hard, was Mamoru and Haruka. The two of them were the closest to Chikara when he died, maybe they noticed something the rest of us didn’t.

We walked around looking for them until we found them in the dining hall. Mamoru was sobbing into Haruka’s shoulder and she was just patting his back and shushing him.

I gestured for Ayame and Katashi to wait and went over to them, sitting down next to Mamoru. “Hey, Mamoru. You doing any better?”

He looked up at me. He looked horrible. I remembered that I had Chikara’s glasses in my pocket and got them out, gently placing them in his hand. “Here. They’re.. they’re Chikara’s.”

Mamoru looked at the glasses and gently curled his hand around them. “He— he needs them. He can’t see without his glasses.”

“…Not anymore, bud. I’m sure he would’ve wanted you to have them instead.” I said, patting his shoulder. “I… I need to ask you two for your account of what happened.”

“Is now really an appropriate time to ask that?” Haruka asked, crossing her arms. I sighed. “I know. I’m sorry, but you two were the closest to him when he died. Maybe you saw or heard something the rest of us didn’t.”

Haruka took a deep breath. “I— Chikara is the one that pushed me over. When he screamed. You mean things like that?”

I nodded. “Any small detail.”

“I felt him die.” Mamoru suddenly said, “I felt him letting go of me and then— and then his blood…”

He teared up again and choked back a sob. Haruka shushed him and patted his back. “There, there, it’s alright. It’s alright, Mamoru…”

She looked at me. “I’m terribly sorry, but could you come back later? He’s in no condition to talk to anyone about Chikara right now.”

I nodded and stood up. “Thank you both.”

I walked back over to Ayame and Katashi and left with them. Katashi looked up at me. “Where else do we go?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. You two got any ideas?”

They looked at each other for a second. Ayame nodded at Katashi. He looked back at me. “I think we should talk to Hiroshi, if we can.”

“How come?” I asked. Katashi played with his tie. “He’s got a lot of medical knowledge. He might be able to tell us something useful about Chikara’s death.”

“True. One problem, he can’t get anywhere near Chikara without going catatonic.” I pointed out. Katashi sighed. “I know. But it’s worth a shot. Even if he can’t tell us anything, it’s still better to ask and make sure.”

I sighed and nodded. “Alright. Let’s go find the twins.”

We looked around for a while and found them on the top deck. Hiroshi had seemed to have calmed down. He and Hikari were talking to each other when we walked up to them.

Hikari saw us and waved. “Yo. Everything okay with… you know?”

“About as okay as it can be.” I said with a sigh, “Mamoru’s a mess.”

“I don’t blame him.” She said sadly, “He and Chika were really close.”

Hiroshi looked at me. “…You came up here to talk to us about the case, right?”

I nodded. “Specifically you, Hiroshi. Ah, no offence, Hikari.”

“None taken,” she said with a smile, “Hiro’s always been the smarter one.”

I nodded again and looked at Hiroshi. “You… you have a lot of medical knowledge. Is there anything you can tell us about the way Chikara died or just.. anything about the case?”

Hiroshi hesitated. After a while, he sighed and nodded. “Chikara’s death wouldn’t.. it wouldn’t have been instantaneous. He would’ve lived for a few seconds after the bolt struck him. I’d suggest looking at the body to see if he left behind a message, but… it seemed the trap was as much of a surprise to Chikara as it was the rest of us.”

“I think looking at him again could still be useful.” Hikari said, “You could ask that rabbit doctor woman to help look for wounds or anything that the case file missed.”

“Would she do that?” Hiroshi asked. Hikari shrugged. “Dunno. It’s worth trying, though.”

I thanked them both and left. I led Katashi and Ayame down the stairs to the lobby again and looked at Chikara’s body.

I looked at his face. His eyes were still wide open. Once full of life and shining like emeralds, they were now completely dull and dark. There were tears in his eyes, but it seemed like he’d died before he could cry from the pain he was in. There was blood trickling out of his mouth. I wiped it with my hand.

Just a few days ago, we were sitting on the top deck together talking about how he was going to be a world famous author. Just a few days ago, I reassured him that he would be a brilliant writer when he graduated. Just a few days ago, Chikara was alive and well and had hopes for the future.

I took a deep breath and smiled at him. “I’ll get your writing published for you, Chikara. I promise. I won’t let the world forget you.”

I bit my lip and stared at him. “I’m sorry I failed. I’m sorry I didn’t protect you. I should’ve known. I should’ve known something was going to happen. But I’ll make it right, I promise. I’ll find the one that murdered you and make them pay for their crimes.”

I noticed a small enamel pin on his suit. A sheep. I took it off and held it in my hand. As I stared at it, Myojo walked up to me. “…Have you found anything?”

I looked at her. He didn’t look stuttery and nervous like they normally did around me. I guess they were trying to put on a brave face for Chikara. I nodded. “Found the stuff used to make the trap. No indication of who did it, though.”

Myojo looked at Chikara. “I thought that was obvious. There’s only one person who would’ve known where Haruka was going to be standing other than her.”

I stared at them. “You… think it was Seira?”

“I know it was her.” He said flatly, “But you should investigate. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe she’s being framed. But after the breakdown she had when we first got here, I wouldn’t put it past her to kill somebody.”

“That’s.. harsh.” I said. Myojo looked away. “I know. But being harsh is how we solve this. The killer didn’t go easy on him, did they?”

“…No, they didn’t.” I said quietly. Myojo nodded and sighed. “No, they didn’t. I hope I’m wrong. I don’t want it to be Seira.”

They looked at the pin in my hand. “..He really liked sheep, huh? He had sheep stickers on his notebook too, I’m pretty sure.”

“I don’t blame him. They’re cute.” I said, shrugging. Myojo crossed her arms. “It’s kind of ironic. Chikara liked sheep, and then was the first one of us to die. Like a sacrificial lamb.”

“I don’t think now’s a good time to joke, Myojo.”

“S- sorry.”

They covered his face with her hand. “I didn’t mean to be rude. It’s just a thought I had.”

“It’s alright.” I said, patting his shoulder. They looked at my hand before going bright red and returning to her usual self. “I— I have t- to g- g- go inves— investigate—”

She ran off after stuttering out a goodbye. I sighed and remembered that I had to speak to Rabbit.

I ran off to the medical bay and found her. She looked over at me. “Ah, Tsukumo. I was wondering when someone would come see me.”

She closed the box she was looking in and walked over to me. “I’m assuming you want my help with the investigation?”

I nodded. “You have medical knowledge. And you’re not scared of blood like Hiroshi. Could you check Chikara for injuries?”

Rabbit nodded and lifted the box. “Alright. Let’s go, lead me to him.”

“You don’t know where he is?” I asked. She sighed. “Attendants are only told what they absolutely have to know. For me, that’s just which students are alive, which require medical attention, and which are dead. Before you came here, all I knew was that Chikara Tokei was dead.”

“So you don’t know who did it?” I asked, leading her to the lobby. She nodded. “Not a clue. Even if I did, I wouldn’t be allowed to tell you.”

We got to Chikara’s body and she set her box down, pulling out several pieces of medical equipment that I was definitely not smart enough to understand or recognise.

She took a deep breath and unbuttoned his blazer and shirt, pulling his tie off as well. I reached out and grabbed her wrist. “Hey— he’s only seventeen, that’s—”

“I’m the same age as him, Tsukumo.” Rabbit said flatly, “And I’m not doing this to expose him, I’m checking his torso for any wounds.”

“O- oh.” I said, “Sorry— wait, you’re seventeen?”

“Mhm. Most of the attendants are in the range of seventeen to twenty years old.” She said, looking for bruises and cuts on Chikara’s body. “The way his corpse is positioned makes this incredibly difficult, but I doubt that the crossbow bolt in his head will easily come out of the wall.”

I looked at Chikara’s head and noticed, just behind him, there were several holes in the wall. Must be some kind of structural issue with the support beam.

After a few minutes, she finished looking over Chikara. “Other than the obvious, the only injuries he has is bruises from his impact with the wall. His body shows no signs of ingesting poison either.”

“I.. thank you, um..” I faltered. I knew what her name was, but I felt like calling her Rabbit didn’t fit the mood. She sighed. “If calling me by my animal moniker is uncomfortable for you, you can call me something else.”

“What’s your name?” I asked, “Like, your real name.”

“Why would I be allowed to tell you that if I’m not allowed to show you my face?” Rabbit said, “You can just call me Doctor, if that’s easier.”

“Alright. Thanks for helping, Rabbit.” I said. She nodded and packed up her equipment. “I’ll update the murder’s file with the information I ascertained for you.”

And with that, she walked off. She presumably went back to the medical bay. After thinking over our conversation, I realised I could probably get a lot of information by speaking with the other attendants. I left the lobby and went looking for them.

I stumbled into one of them — Abyssinian, I think her name was. She had an orange cat mask. She looked at me but didn’t say anything. I cleared my throat. “Am I allowed to ask you for help with the investigation?”

She nodded. I took a deep breath. “You’re a cleaner right? Did you see anything suspicious while doing your job?”

She shook her head. I hesitated. “…Can you talk?”

Abyssinian nodded. I nodded back at her. “Okayyy, why don’t you?”

“I prefer to do my work in silence, Kaito Tsukumo.” She said quietly, taking a cloth from her pocket and playing with it. “I don’t even know which student is dead, so I’m afraid asking me for help will be redundant.”

“You… don’t?” I asked. She nodded. “…I’m only going to be informed when I have to clean up the body.”

“It’s Chikara.” I said, “Chikara Tokei.”

She thought for a moment before nodding. “Ah, him. Blond, green eyes, glasses? Unusually tall for his age?”

I nodded hesitantly. “Yeah… him.”

She noticed my change in tone and sighed, resting a hand on my shoulder. “If it’s any consolation, I am sorry for your loss.”

“It’s fine.” I said, brushing her off. I shouldn’t accept her pity, she was working with MonoCat and the people behind this sick killing game. “Thanks for your help anyway.”

She nodded and went back to her work. I walked around and went back to the dining hall. After checking on Mamoru and Haruka again, I went into the kitchen.

The attendant from before, Wolverine, walked over to me. “I distinctly remember telling you specifically that students are not allowed in here.”

“I need to ask you something.” I said. Wolverine sighed and nodded. “Alright. It’s about your investigation, correct? Awfully tragic what happened to that boy.”

So she knew that Chikara was dead. I nodded. “It is. Were you asked to make food for the party?”

She shook her head. “I wasn’t. You can ask Honey too, if you’d like.”

At the mention of her name, Honey Badger came over. “…I also was not asked. The two of us are the only kitchen staff, so nobody else could have been.”

Why wouldn’t Seira ask for food to be made for the party? Seemed like a weird oversight. I thanked the two of them and left the kitchen as the speakers crackled to life.

“Attention, children.” MonoCat said over the speakers, “Report to the lobby if you are not already located there.”

I reluctantly went to the lobby and found everyone else gathered there. MonoCat was there. He nodded at me. “Alright, all fifteen of you are here. Now, it is time to go to the trial grounds.”

Antantaru looked at Mamoru before looking back at MonoCat. “Do we all have to?”

MonoCat groaned. “Yes. Attendance is mandatory. Participation, however, is entirely voluntary. Feel free to stand there in silence the entire time if that is what your heart desires. It’s your funeral, literally.”

Antantaru didn’t say anything back. He just quietly patted Mamoru’s back. Student Council members stuck by each other, I suppose.

MonoCat led us to a door in the lobby that he unlocked. Behind it was a staircase. We descended the stairs until we reached a waiting room. 

MonoCat turned to us. “Now, when you enter the trial room, you will go to a podium with your name engraved in it. As Chikara Tokei has died, his podium has been filled by a funeral portrait of him.”

“Why not just… make fifteen podiums instead?” Umeji asked, raising an eyebrow. MonoCat grumbled something under his breath. “Because, Miss Ichibangase, I didn’t know which one of you useless brats was going to be killed. So if I made fifteen podiums, I would have to guess which one of you would kick the bucket first, and there would be a fifteen out of sixteen chance that I was wrong, and that would be incredibly unprofessional.”

“…Jesus, okay.” She said. MonoCat looked at the rest of us. “If there are no further questions, then I suggest the fifteen of you go through that door there and stand at your podiums.”

After a few seconds of nothing, MonoCat groaned. “Go through the door or else I’ll have one of the security guards come down here and shoot you.”

That got us moving. We went through the door with no further comments. Inside the trial room, the walls were decorated with a mosaic of various execution methods. Injections, electric chairs, guns — hell, there were even some that had gone out of use almost a century ago like the guillotine.

I went to my podium, decorated with a mosaic of a baseball bat and with my name engraved into the wooden surface.

When we were all at our podiums, MonoCat appeared on a raised platform behind Chikara’s podium. Umeji turned to him and pointed at the mosaics on our podiums. “What’s with these?”

“Those are mosaics representing what the sixteen of you want to be talented in.” MonoCat explained, “though, some are not as literal as they appear.”

“Yeah, mine’s an X.” Umeji said, “And I don’t exactly plan on being a—”

“Hey, you know, let’s stop questioning the design of the trial room.” Antantaru suddenly said, flicking a spare hair tie at Umeji to distract her. Umeji grabbed the hair tie from where it landed and flicked it back at him, hitting him on the forehead. MonoCat sighed. “The X is meant to symbolise that you, Miss Ichibangase, want to do… ah, pardon my language, fuck all.”

Umeji didn’t say anything. Her face was tinted red from embarrassment. Yoru looked at my podium. “Yoru didn’t know Kaito liked sports.”

I cursed under my breath. “I— uh, yeah. I’ve been playing baseball since I was a kid…”

That was a complete lie. I’d never used a baseball bat for its intended purpose in my life. But I sensed that Yoru wouldn’t react very calmly if she learned what the bat on my podium really meant. Ayame looked at me, confused. I leaned over and whispered in her ear, “Just go with it. I don’t want to explain.”

She nodded and smiled before noticing a keyboard on her podium. She typed something on it and hit enter curiously. 

“What is this?”

The robotic version of her voice made her jump. MonoCat chuckled. “That is your method of communication in this trial, Miss Takeba. As you cannot speak and therefore cannot participate in the trial, a text-to-speech device has been provided for you. Simply type what you wish to say and it will read it out for you.”

She nodded and typed something else. “Oh. Thank you, I guess.”

“At least we won’t need Kaito to translate her hand gestures!” Keiko said cheerfully, but her voice had an undertone of worry. I suppose it was fair for her to be worried, as we were here to debate the murder of our friend. MonoCat cleared his throat and looked at us. “If you’re done with this idle chatter and are done asking questions about the architecture of the ship, then allow me to explain the class trial to you all.”

He hopped off of his platform and went into the middle of the podiums. “The fifteen of you shall debate the circumstances surrounding the death of Mister Tokei. After coming to a conclusion on who you believe to be the blackened — or responsible for the crime — a vote shall be held. Should the blackened receive the most votes, they alone will be executed. Should a spotless — the rest of you — receive the most votes, then all fourteen spotless shall be executed and the blackened shall be granted their freedom.”

He went back to his platform and sat down. “Now, let the class trial to determine the blackened that murdered Chikara Tokei in cold blood commence!”

“Now.” I said, “We should go over everything we learned. I really hope I was not the only person investigating.”

“Well, I would’ve.” Umeji said, “But someone insisted that I watch the body.”

I dryly laughed at her and cracked my knuckles. “Umeji Ichibangase, do not fucking lie to me. I know for a fact that you would’ve gone back to your fucking room and done, as MonoCat so wonderfully put it, fuck all.”

She raised her hands defensively. “What the fuck—?”

“..Kaito, are you feeling okay?” Mikoto asked. I took a deep breath and looked at them. “I’m fine. Sorry.”

“Alright..” They said, playing with their hair. Antantaru cleared his throat. “While you, Ayame, and Katashi were investigating the rest of the ship, Seira and I tried to figure out what caused the blackout.”

“And?” I asked. He adjusted his gloves. “We found another tripwire connected to a broomstick that fell and hit the lightswitch.”

“Was it where Haruka was standing?”

“No, it wasn’t. When the lights came back on, none of us were standing near it. The killer must have run away from the lightswitch to deflect suspicion.”

“Alright.” I said, “Thank you, Antantaru.”

Seira smiled. “And me! I’m the one that found the tripwire, after all.”

“Sorry.” I bowed my head slightly. “Thanks, Seira.”

“Should we figure out where everyone was standing prior to the blackout?” Haruka asked, “I was in the centre of the room, so I had a fairly good view of you all.”

“That would be helpful, but I’d rather present the rest of the evidence we found first.” I said. Haruka nodded. “Of course, that’s smart.”

I cleared my throat. “If nobody else has anything to add about the lobby, I’ll go over everything Ayame, Katashi, and I found.”

“First,” I said, “I discovered the trap used to kill Chikara. It was a tripwire connected to an automatic crossbow. It fired when Haruka tripped the tripwire.”

“Second, Ayame found the thread used to make the trap.” I explained, gesturing to Ayame. “And.. Katashi found…”

“A pair of bloody scissors.” He said eagerly. I hesitantly nodded. “That.”

I looked over at Ayame. She looked a little distressed. Yoru tilted her head to the side. “Yoru didn’t know that Chikara was stabbed.”

Before I could say anything, I heard Ayame typing on her keyboard.

“He wasn’t. It’s my blood.”

“It’s yours?” Hikari asked worriedly, “You were attacked, Yami?”

Ayame nodded. “When I was trying on my dress for the party. I went into the bathroom to look at myself in the mirror and someone snuck up behind me, grabbed me, and attempted to kill me. My back was cut in the struggle, that’s where the blood came from.”

“Who was it?” Hiroshi asked. Ayame sighed. She looked on the verge of tears. “I don’t know. Because they were behind me, I never saw their face. All I know for certain is that it was one of the seven people who were with me trying on clothes.”

“Why didn’t you like, scream for help?” Umeji asked. Ayame didn’t type anything. She just stared at Umeji until she figured it out on her own. After a few seconds, Umeji groaned. “Right. You can’t talk.”

“I can’t believe you all keep forgetting that.” Ayame rolled her eyes. Yoru rocked back and forth. “Why can’t you talk?”

“It’s nunya.”

“Whuh?”

“Nunya business.”

Keiko giggled behind her hand at the joke. I slammed my hands against my podium. “Can you all focus!? We’re not here to joke about, we’re here to figure out which one of us fucking murdered Chikara—! I can’t believe that none of you are taking this seriously! Wasn’t Chikara your friend!?”

Everyone stared at me, surprised. I took a deep breath. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to shout.”

“No, it’s fine.” Haruka said, “You’re right, anyway.”

“So… from, ah, from what we know, can we piece together what happened when he died?” Antantaru asked. I nodded. “I think so. Does anyone have a pen and paper? I wanna make a timeline.”

“Chikara doe—” Mikoto said before suddenly stopping. “Ah… I forgot that he’s… sorry.”

“It’s alright.” Haruka reassured, patting their shoulder. Yoru searched through her bag and pulled out a notebook that looked like it was based on some zombie show and a pen with a skull-shaped charm on it. “Here. Yoru still has all of her school supplies.”

I took them from her and thanked her, drawing a timeline of Chikara’s murder on a blank page. When I was done, I showed it to everyone else. “Here’s how I think it happened based on the evidence:

1. Haruka went to make her speech.
2. She walked through the tripwire, setting off the crossbow trap.
3. The lights went out.
4. Chikara heard the crossbow fire and pushed Haruka out of the way.
5. Chikara was shot and killed.”

I looked up at everyone. “Does that make sense?”

Haruka stared at the timeline before quietly grabbing her wrist. “…It’s my fault.”

“What?” Myojo asked, “No, it’s not.”

“It is.” She insisted, “If Chikara hadn’t pushed me.. he’d— he’d still be alive. It’s my fault he died…”

“But you would’ve died in his place.” Myojo pointed out. Haruka wiped her eyes — she’d started to cry. “I’d have preferred that! I— I’m supposed to b- be the Stu— Student Council President… I’m mean— meant to be responsible for you all!”

She fell to her knees, crying. “I’m s- sorry! I’m so sor— sorry I failed you a- all… I’m sorry I l- let Chikara die!”

“Haruka…” Antantaru said, kneeling down next to her. “It’s not your fault. We don’t blame you. You couldn’t have known.”

He lifted her hand into his and smiled. She stared up at him and suddenly hugged him. The sudden movement made her hat fall off her head onto the floor. Antantaru picked her hat up and put it back on her, gently brushing her hair out of her face and shushing her.

Watching them, I remembered Antantaru and I’s conversation from the morning before we were brought here.

“You’re too kind, dude.” I said. Antantaru smiled. “Oh, there’s no such thing as being ‘too kind’.”

Maybe he was right. After all, kindness was what Haruka needed to continue with the trial. 

It didn’t look like I was the only one thinking about it. Umeji stared at Antantaru, not with the usual contempt or malice that was fixed on her face, but… with a smile.

After a few minutes, Haruka was calm enough to continue the trial. She sniffled and looked away from us, embarrassed. “I’m sorry.. I shouldn’t have lashed out like that.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Antantaru reassured, “Chikara… I know how much he meant to you. I know how much all of the Council means to you.”

At those words, Mamoru lifted his head. He hadn’t said a word the entire trial. He looked at Haruka with tired, sorrowful eyes. “…He’s right. Don’t blame yourself, Haruka. Chikara saved you because he.. because he was a good person, so I’m sure he wouldn’t have been happy if he hadn’t done it.”

MonoCat hissed at us. “Enough with this sentimental nonsense! You are here to solve a murder — so solve it!”

I scowled at MonoCat before taking a deep breath. “Right. Myojo said something to me when we were investigating. He had a suspect in mind as the killer.”

“Who is it?” Seira asked curiously, tilting her head to the side. Myojo glared at her. “You. It’s kind of obvious.”

Seira stared at her, surprised. “Y- you think it was me?”

“It does make sense…” Yuki mumbled, “Seira was in charge of the party.. everything, even down to where Haruka was standing, was up to her…”

“Just because I planned the party doesn’t mean I murdered Chikara!” Seira yelled, her voice laced with panic. “B- besides, why would I— why would I even kill someone?”

“Maybe you snapped.” Myojo said, “After all, that photo of your friend… I’m sure anyone would lose it after seeing someone they cared about like tha—”

“Haruto has nothing to do with this—!” Seira snapped, “How dare you?! I— I didn’t— I didn’t kill Chikara! Just because I’ve been grieving my best friend since middle school doesn’t mean I’m suddenly a murderer!”

“You were one of the seven people with me as well.” Ayame’s speaker said. Hikari suddenly hit her podium. “W- wait! Rara’s not— she’s not a murderer! Myojo, you’ve got it all wrong!”

“Then enlighten me as to who it could be.” Myojo said, fixing their eyepatch. “Seira is the only person that could have put together this murder.”

“Myojo.. don’t you think you’re being a little harsh on her?” Antantaru asked, “I— I mean, you’re accusing her because her friend died.”

The trial room erupted into chaos, with half of us defending Seira and the other half accusing her.

“Do I hear discourse gracing this courtroom?” MonoCat asked, amused. “It seems your opinions are split. Half of you believe Miss Hoshimiya is the blackened you’ve been searching for, and half believe it could be someone else. How on earth shall we rectify this split?”

He held his paw over a button on his platform and laughed. “I suggest you hold onto your podiums, children.”

He pressed the button and the trial room… started moving?! Our podiums shifted to form two rows. One with Seira’s accusers — Me, Myojo, Ayame, Yuki, Umeji, Katashi, and Mamoru — and one with her defenders — Hikari, Hiroshi, Antantaru, Mikoto, Haruka, Yoru, and Keiko. Seira’s podium was moved between the two rows at one end, while Chikara’s was at the other.

MonoCat hummed. “The fourteen of you shall debate Miss Hoshimiya’s innocence in teams of seven until you come to an agreement. As Miss Hoshimiya is the focus of the discussion, she shall not take part in this debate.”

“You’re not going to let me defend myself?!” Seira asked. MonoCat chuckled. “Why do you need to? If you’re as innocent as you claim, the seven of them should be able to find a way to prove it.”

She didn’t say anything back, biting her lip. MonoCat gave an amused sigh and turned to the rest of us again. “Now, we’ll decide which side goes first the old fashioned way — a coin flip. Afterwards, your teams will present arguments in turns until an agreement is reached.”

He looked at me. “So… heads or tails, Mister Tsukumo?”

I hesitated. “…Tails.”

MonoCat pressed another button on his platform and produced a golden coin. He flipped it with his tail and watched it fall in front of him. “And the team that begins the debate is…”

He scoffed in amusement. “The defenders.”

Hikari leaned against her podium. “You’re saying that Seira is the killer because she planned the party and knew about Haruka’s speech, but she didn’t keep that information hidden from anyone! Plenty of other people knew about the speech too.”

MonoCat sat down. “Excellent point. Accusers?”

“It’s true that anyone could’ve known some of the information regarding the party,” Umeji started, “but I’m pretty fuckin’ sure Seira’s the only one who knew all of it.”

“Seira hasn’t been herself lately.” Antantaru said, “She’s— she’s not well enough to plan something like this out.”

“I’d argue her not being mentally well is a reason why she could be the killer.” Myojo said, “After all, mental health problems can cause you to behave irrationally.”

“Yoru doesn’t think Seira has it in her to kill Chikara. She’s been really, really nice to Yoru recently, she even let Yoru talk to her about her favourite cultural funerals yesterday.” Yoru pointed out, playing with her fishnet gloves.

“She could be acting.” Ayame explained, “She was inconsolable for the first day and a half of us being here, and then she just suddenly stopped suffering any effects of her trauma? That doesn’t just happen, especially not to a sixteen year old in a stressful environment.”

The seven of them looked at each other for a moment, as if thinking what else they could argue. 

Hiroshi pulled at his sleeves. “…All of your evidence is circumstantial. You can’t prove that Seira set the trap. And besides, she wouldn’t have known if the crossbow would even hit its mark — a much more skilled mathematician would, sure, but not Seira.”

My eyes widened.

Hiroshi was wrong. 

There was one way that Seira could know.

A piece of evidence I hadn’t brought up because I thought it didn’t relate to the case.

The holes in the support beam behind Chikara’s head.

I slammed my hands against my podium. “No, that’s wrong!”

The people standing closest to me jumped back, surprised. I didn’t turn to them, instead staring at Hiroshi. “There is a way that Seira could know that the crossbow would hit where she wanted it to without calculating anything.”

“Which is?” Hiroshi asked. I gripped the edge of my podium. “The holes in the wall from other crossbow bolts behind Chikara.”

“You— you’re just making that up!” Seira suddenly yelled. MonoCat turned to her. “I seem to recall mentioning that you were not to take part in this debate, Miss Hoshimiya.”

“I don’t care about that!” Seira spat, “He’s— he’s making up evidence to frame me! I bet Kaito’s the culprit!”

“I’m not making it up.” I said, “I admit, I made a mistake in not mentioning it earlier, but I didn’t see what it could’ve been until now. I assumed it was a structural problem. But now I know exactly what those holes are — they’re from your practice shots, aren’t they?”

“Did anyone else see these mysterious holes in the wall?!” Seira snapped, “If not, then you can’t prove they exist!”

“…Someone might have.” I said with a confident smile. I looked at MonoCat. “This is a trial room, correct? May I call someone to give her testimony?”

MonoCat hummed. “You may. Who would you like to call, Mister Tsukumo?”

“The doctor.” I said, “Rabbit.”

MonoCat nodded. Speakers crackled to life around us as MonoCat spoke.

“Rabbit, please report to the trial grounds immediately.”

After a few minutes, she appeared. She walked over to us and stood beside MonoCat. “What am I needed for?”

“Mister Tsukumo has some questions for you, my dear.” MonoCat said, padding at the ground. Rabbit nodded. “Ask away.”

“When you conducted your examination of Chikara’s body, did you notice anything unusual about the support beam he was pinned to?” I asked. Rabbit thought for a moment before nodding. “The support beam had a lot of holes in it of similar diameter and shape to the crossbow bolt lodged in his head.”

Seira’s eyes widened. She didn’t say anything, but she just stared in shock. I smiled at Rabbit and thanked her. MonoCat dismissed her, as I was done asking questions.

I turned to the rest of my classmates. “Do you believe me now? Seira killed Chikara.”

“Anyone could’ve practised the shot.” Haruka pointed out. I sighed. “Maybe if they held the crossbow, but to get the angle right, it would have had to have been on the shelf. The killer would’ve had to repeatedly trigger the tripwire until they got the shot lined up just right.”

“And why does that.. why does that prove it was Seira…?” Mikoto asked sleepily. I brushed my hair out of my face. “Who repaired the outfits for the party and therefore had access to thread and scissors to repeatedly set the tripwire?”

“…I don’t know. I forgot.” Mikoto admitted. Antantaru leaned over to them. “It was Seira, Mikoto.”

“Oh. Thank you, Antantaru.” Mikoto said before promptly falling asleep. Umeji took her shoe off and threw it at them. “Up and at em, sunshine!”

Mikoto jumped and woke up. “H- huh—?”

MonoCat sighed. “Miss Ichibangase, please refrain from throwing articles of clothing at your classmates in the trial room.”

“So you’re fine with me doing it elsewhere?”

“Yes. I just want this trial room to remain tidy.”

“…Fair enough. Yo, somebody throw my shoe back over here.”

Yoru went and got Umeji’s shoe and walked over, handing it to her. “Here! Yoru got it.”

Umeji snatched it without even thanking her and put it back on. 

I cleared my throat. “If we’re done with… that, then I think we’re done here. Seira, do you have anything to say for yourself?”

“D- do I have anything to say…?” She asked shakily. She didn’t say anything for a while, just staring off into the distance and starting to cry. 

And after what felt like hours, she spoke.

Her voice was fragile and quiet.

I pitied her, I really did.

Because all Seira could say…

“…I’m s- sorry..”

…was an admission of her guilt.

She wept into her hands, falling to her knees at her podium. Hikari stared at her in shock. “R- Rara—? You don’t mean— you don’t mean you did it, right?”

Seira couldn’t bring herself to answer her. She kept sobbing uncontrollably. Myojo looked at her with pity. “…I was right, wasn’t I? It’s because of your friend.”

Seira stared at them. Shakily, she nodded. “I— I don’t w- want to die… I don’t wan— want t- to die.. not like him… n- not like he di— did…”

Ayame looked at Seira. “…Were you the one who attacked me?”

Seira nodded again, wiping her eyes. “I’m s- sorry, Ayame… I’m sorry.. you’re one of my best f- friends, but I— I couldn’t ta— take it anymore…”

Ayame didn’t reply. Mamoru stared at Seira with a look I’d never seen on his face before.

Complete and utter disdain. Hatred.

He glared at her. “…You murdered the only person I have ever loved.”

Seira didn’t say anything, just guiltily looking away. Mamoru scowled. “I hate you, Seira. I hate you. I hate you—!”

As he finished speaking, MonoCat cleared his throat. “Ahem, are we ready to come to a vote?”

Yuki fixed their knee brace. “…I don’t see why we wouldn’t be.”

“Hang on.” I said, “I want to.. go over everything. So if this ever happens again, we’ll be better prepared.”

“You think someone else is going to kill?” Keiko asked worriedly. I shook my head. “No. I mean, I’d hope not. But just in case.”

“That’s alright with me.” MonoCat said, “Feel free to explain the case to your fellow worthless students, Mister Tsukumo.”

I ignored the insult and cleared my throat. “This case started two days ago…”

After being shown an image of her friend’s dead body, Seira was mentally unstable. She was easily startled, and was almost always crying. However, something in Seira snapped after seeing that photo — a desire to escape.

After a day, she concocted a plan. She would throw a party and kill one of us. And her chosen victim? Haruka.

However, in the middle of planning, Seira came across an easier opportunity. A victim that wouldn’t scream or alert everyone else. Ayame.

She isolated Ayame while trying on dresses for the party and attacked her with a pair of scissors, but Ayame was able to flee and escape with her life.

After failing her attempt on Ayame’s life, Seira went back to her plan to murder Haruka. She arranged for Haruka to give a speech at the party, marking down where she would stand so she could set a trap.

She gathered supplies from the storage rooms — a spool of thread, scissors, and, most crucially, a crossbow. She set up a tripwire trap for where Haruka was standing.

It took trial and error to get the angle of the crossbow just right, but Seira had plenty of thread and plenty of time. When she got it right, she’d ended up using up the entire spool.

The day of the party rolled around and Haruka went to give her speech, only to be interrupted by the lights going out and the trap firing. 

Unfortunately for Seira, she didn’t predict what would happen next — Chikara pushed Haruka out of the way and died in her place.

When we got the lights back on, we found Chikara dead. Seira was surprised that Haruka had survived, but acted even more so that the attack had even happened at all. She investigated alongside us and everything, praying that nobody would find out what she’d done.

“Sorry, but you’ve been caught red handed.” I said, “Right, Seira Hoshimiya?”

Seira didn’t say anything. MonoCat got off of his podium. “And that should be everything. Are you ready to put it to a vote? Shall you make the correct decision, or the lethally incorrect one?”

A part of my podium slid open to reveal a screen for me to vote on. Taking a deep breath, I voted for Seira. After a while, all of the votes had been counted and were displayed on the screens. All fifteen votes were for Seira.

MonoCat hummed. “Well, I must say I’m surprised. Congratulations, children, you got it right. The blackened that killed Mister Tokei is none other than Miss Seira Hoshimiya.”

“You know, Miss Hoshimiya,” he said, “this case is extraordinarily similar to one in another killing game. One I’m sure you’re intimately familiar with.”

He walked over to her and pawed at her. “Your friend committed a murder almost identical to this one. Even down to killing someone he didn’t originally intend to. I suppose the two of you were simply meant to be.”

Seira stared at MonoCat in terror. He smiled and patted her cheek with his paw. “Now, it’s about time we get the final attraction on with, right?”

“Final… attraction..?” Seira asked. MonoCat sighed. “I believe that I have made this clear to you several times, Miss Hoshimiya.”

He cleared his throat. “The punishment for failing to get away with murder is execution.”

Her eyes widened and she dragged herself away from MonoCat. “N- no—! I don’t— I don’t w- want to die! Not l- like Har— Haruto di— died—! Please, p- please, I’ll do anything, just don’t kill me!”

MonoCat didn’t move. “…I’m afraid I cannot do that, Miss Hoshimiya. I am as much bound to the rules of this killing game as you are. But how hopeless and pitiful you are, grovelling and begging to be spared when you failed to grant Mister Tokei that same mercy.”

Seira couldn’t bring herself to reply. Hikari ran over and knelt down next to her, clinging to her. “I’m not going to let you kill her—! She.. she doesn’t deserve to die!”

Seira stared at Hikari before wrapping her arms around her. “I’m sor— sorry, H- Hikari.. I’m sorry…”

“Don’t apologise to me.” Hikari said, desperately holding her. “Don’t apologise at all. Don’t act like you’re going to die, because you’re not!”

“Miss Matsumoto, let go of her.” MonoCat said sternly. Hikari shook her head, clinging to Seira tighter. MonoCat hissed. “Let go or I’ll execute you both. Seira Hoshimiya is going to die. The only choice you’re getting is if you die with her.”

Before Hikari could reply, Hiroshi ran over and pulled her away from Seira. He held onto his sister tightly, stopping her from returning to Seira’s side. “Hika, don’t—!”

“Hiro, let go of me!” Hikari yelled, struggling against her brother’s grip. Hiroshi held her tighter. “No—! I can’t let you die, not when you haven’t done anything wrong—! Please, Hikari!”

Ignoring the struggle between the twins, Haruka walked over to Seira and stared at her through weary eyes. “Seira.”

Seira stared up at Haruka like a deer in headlights. Haruka closed her eyes. “…When you see Haruto, tell him that Kiyomi says hello.”

…

…Who?

I suddenly remembered when we were in that hair salon, what felt like years ago.

When Seira’s hair was done, she paid Haruto and the five of us left. Before we could leave, Haruto followed us out. “Hey, uh.. white haired girl, K—”

“It’s Haruka.” Haruka said, looking directly at him. He nodded. “Haruka, right. Can I talk to you inside? Privately?”

Had Haruka… lied about her name..?

Before I could question her, she walked away and stood by Antantaru and Mamoru. Her fellow councillors. 

MonoCat sighed. “Will there be anything else?”

I stared at Seira. “…I’m sorry. I had to. I couldn’t— I couldn’t let you get away with it.”

Seira looked back at me silently. The only sound she made was her hitched breath and sobs.

MonoCat laughed. “Well then, children. It’s time for the main event. I’ve prepared a special execution for Seira Hoshimiya — it’s punishment time.”

After a few seconds, two attendants wearing bird masks came down and grabbed Seira, dragging her to a door and shutting it after them. The screens on our podiums switched to show a live feed of Seira’s execution.

She was restrained and put in a sparkly, purple idol dress, complete with makeup and accessories. When the dress was on her, she was dragged into another room that resembled a forest. 

She was dropped in a clearing and surrounded by attendants holding crossbows and other hunting equipment.

…Seira was being hunted.

She picked herself up off the floor and started to run away, but the dress and heels made it harder for her to flee. She was slashed and shot at until her dress was torn and she was covered in blood.

Eventually she fell to the ground and couldn’t pull herself up. She stared up at who she’d fallen in front of — the woman in the owl mask that nearly killed her when we first arrived. 

The woman raised a hunting knife to Seira’s throat, but before she killed her, I heard Seira’s final words.

“I don’t w- want to die… not like h— him—”

And then the woman slit her throat and she fell to the ground, bleeding out and dying.

The screens switched off and I heard my classmates panicking and being sick and crying. Without even checking on anyone else, I sprinted over to Ayame and Katashi and hugged them, bringing them down to sit on the floor with me. 

“She’s dead…” Katashi whispered, “Seira’s dead…”

He tangled his hands in his hair. “We’re all gonna die—! I was right all along, nobody’s coming to save us! We’re all dead!”

I shushed him. “Shhhh, Katashi, it’s okay. We’re not going to die. We’re going to live. We’re going to live and get out of here and get the people behind this arrested, okay?”

He looked at me with tears in his eyes. His glasses had gone crooked. I fixed them, playing with the serpent charm on the leg to calm him. “You can trust me, right? You still have my earring.”

Katashi looked at his hand, at the earring. “…I trust you..”

I stroked his hair to calm him down and looked over at Ayame. “Are you okay, Aya?”

She nodded, but she was crying. It made sense, she and Seira were close friends. I fixed my gloves and pulled her in for a hug as well. “It’s okay. I’ll protect you both. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

After a while, MonoCat led us back up to the lobby. Chikara was gone, and the only sign that he’d ever been there was the holes in the wall from the crossbow. 

We were told that it was now nighttime. Most of us went to bed, but Katashi, Ayame, and I stayed in the lobby. Eventually, I went and got our bedding and we went up to the top deck to sleep. Ayame went and got her owl plushie that had apparently been left for her in her room.

I made a blanket and pillow pile with our bedding and they got into it, curling up under the blankets. I sat down between them, gently playing with their hair as I gazed at the stars.

I thought about Chikara and Seira.

They were really dead.

I know I had no involvement, but I couldn’t help but feel guilty. I’d failed to protect them both. I’d failed to see that Seira’s mental health had deteriorated to the point that she’d kill. I’d failed to stop Chikara from dying.

I looked up at the sky and sighed.

“…I’m sorry for not keeping you alive, Chikara. And I’m sorry I didn’t see the signs, Seira. I’m sorry I didn’t protect you both.”

I looked down at my sleeping owlets and took a deep breath.

“But I won’t fail again. I’ll be the protector I swore myself to be.”

Chapter Text

A boy stood breathless over a bleeding monster, clutching a bloody baseball bat in his right hand. He watched the monster writhe in pain and smiled.

The monster — a man, in his forties or fifties, with cruel eyes and a selfish smile — tried to drag himself away from the boy, but the boy simply hit him with the bat again.

“Where are you trying to go?” The boy asked with a grin, “Anywhere you go, you’ll have to explain what you did to deserve this.”

“What do you—” the monster coughed up blood, “what do you want from me, kid?! Is it money?! I’ll give you money—!”

“I don’t want your fucking money.” The boy said, hitting him again. “The only reason I’m here is to kill you.”

“What did I even do—?!” The monster pleaded. The boy leaned over him and smiled. “The little girl with the ball. The one you fucking raped three years ago.”

The monster’s eyes widened in realisation. “You— you were the kid that came into the alley— you—”

“Uh huh.” The boy said, kicking him. “And that girl? She’s my best friend. So because you raped and hurt her, I’m going to fucking kill you.”

The monster backed away. “It’s been years, I’ve changed, I’m a better man now—” 

The boy hit the monster with the bat again, making him cry out in pain. “…Rapists don’t get better. Once a fucking pig, always a fucking pig. You abused an innocent little girl to satiate your own disgusting sexual desire. You raped a child and faced no consequences because you fled as soon as you were done. You didn’t change. You didn’t become a better person. You’re still the same disgusting monster you were when you pulled her into that alley.”

He scowled. “She didn’t do anything to you. She was just looking for her lost toy. She was fucking ten years old. So because you get off on sexualising little girls, you had to take her innocence away before anyone else could, huh? You disgust me.”

The monster tried to wipe blood from his face. “I made a— a mistake. I gave into an intrusive thought. I would never want to—”

The boy knelt down to face the monster. “No. It wasn’t a mistake. You enjoyed every second of her pain until I walked into that alley. What you did to her was deliberate and vile. You’re a disgusting pedophile and a disgusting rapist and that’s the way you’ll die.”

Eventually, the boy decided that the bat wasn’t hurting him enough. He put it back in its bag and went into the monster’s kitchen, grabbing a meat cleaver and a lighter.

He returned to find the monster trying to grab his phone to call the police. The boy kicked the phone away and stabbed him in the hand with the cleaver. He pulled the blade out and slashed at him for a while, heating the blade with the lighter to make it hurt more. He stomped on the monster’s phone and smashed it as well, just to make sure.

The boy spent several hours torturing the monster with various things he found inside his home. After a while, he just… died.

After the monster was dead, the boy grabbed his bloody bat and started trashing the house. He broke everything he could find, smashing mirrors and glasses and plates over the head of the monster’s corpse.

After he’d had his fun, the boy started cleaning up the crime. He put broken plates into trash bags, cleaned off the cleaver, and of course he was already wearing two pairs of gloves to stop his fingerprints from getting on anything.

He looked at the monster’s corpse and hummed, dragging him into the kitchen and making a mock crime scene that appeared to have been committed by several people — he left several sets of bloody handprints on the doors, retraced his steps, and so on.

When he was done, he went into the monster’s shower and cleaned himself up, bagging up the clothes he wore to be destroyed. When he was out of the shower and dressed in his change of clothes, the boy saw himself in the only intact mirror left.

It was kind of funny. He was only thirteen years old, and yet he’d successfully committed murder. Well, could it really be considered murder? It wasn’t like the monster didn’t deserve it.

The boy went back downstairs and put on gloves again, deciding to write a message in the monster’s blood.

“All rapists must die.”

Short and sweet, but the boy figured it got the point across. After that, he threw away the gloves and left with his equipment and trash bags.

Two days later, the boy was sitting watching the news with his parents and little sister. The monster’s murder had been a top story for the whole day. Little did his family know, the one behind it was sitting right next to them.

The boy’s dad ruffled his hair. “Now, don’t you go doing anything like what that man did, okay?”

“I won’t, Dad.” The boy promised, smiling. His little sister tilted her head to the side in confusion. “What did he do?”

“…A bad thing, sweetheart.” His mom explained, “It’s still awful that someone decided to take the law into their own hands so violently, though..”

The boy’s eyes widened. His mom… thought what he did was awful? That couldn’t be right. He did a good thing.

After the news story came to an end, the boy went upstairs to get ready for bed. 

He got changed into his yellow pyjamas and when he looked at himself in the bathroom mirror, Kaito Tsukumo knew he’d done a good thing.