"Watch out--" I only had about three seconds to react before my body was harshly thrown to the side. I rolled a bit before finally halting to a stop. "Another person-- oh wait! Are you okay!?"
"Urgh... you really... knocked the wind out of...
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"I guess not knowing someone doesn't mean you don't understand them."
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"So she's just... free?" Leon snarled, he pulled me backwards as we walked back down the dining room to meet up with everyone for lunch. I was pretty sure even if he had lowered his voice, the singer could loudly hear him.
"What were we supposed to do? Keep her locked up as a dog?" I mumbled.
He shrugged his shoulders and walked ahead, "If something happens to anyone else it's going to fall partly on your hands..."
'My fault huh..' he wasn't wrong... If Sayaka did go on a murderous rampage I would have no control over it. We all walked in and sat down at a table, Chihiro instantly noticed my bandaged arm. "W-What?! What happened to your arm?!
"I uh... tripped?"
Before Chihiro could come interrogate me further, Makoto came barling in shouting apologies and headed eagerly to Sayaka. "Sorry I'm late..."
"You sure took your sweet time! I was just about to go get you and drag you back here!" Taka crossed his arms.
"Geez.. do you always have to be so stuck up?!" Mukuro mumbled from my left.
"I am not stuck up."
"You are! You're driving me crazy with the little dictatorship you have going on!"
"Guys... lets not argue!" Aoi shouted at the duo. They both huffed and sat back down. "Awh come on, cheer up! Getting depressed isn't gonna help anything, right? If we all work together, I'm sure we'll find a way out of here! So everyone just...try and cheer up and get back on track!"
"Is that honestly supposed to make us feel better?"
"Huh?" Taka looked as if was going to drop kick Mukuro..
"We were already 'working together' and yet someone could still be murdered." Byakua chuckled, "Anyone could betray us at this point. Now that it's happened once, it's a question of when, not if, the first one will take place."
"B-But...if we work together against the mastermind, nobody'll have any reason to do something like that!"
"Keep telling yourself that. I'll be over here in the real world. Working together, fighting a common enemy... Like it or not, it's not that simple."
"...What do you mean?" Toko asked, silently shaking in the corner of the room.
"The mastermind seems to be much more powerful than we ever suspected. They took over Hope's Peak, which was supposed to be well defended, then modified it to fit their desire." Celestia explained. "They created Monokuma, which seems to be incredibly advanced, and they're providing for our every need. And the cherry on top is the execution we witnessed. Everything has been planned down to the last excruciating detail. This is not the work of your everyday psychopath. Defying them may be too great a risk..."
Hiro asked after nobody spoke up for a while, "Then...what are we supposed to do?"
"Anyone who truly does want to escape...will just have to follow the rules." Bayakuya shrugged, "In which case, the only option is to deceive those around you, and win the game."
"N-No..." Chihiro mumbled from next to me, Byakuya glared down in our direction not knowing fully who spoke out against him.
"No what?"
Chihiro gripped the edge of his skirt, "I don't want to live...if it means killing someone else to do it. I don't want to kill anyone else...!"
"Anyone...else? What do you mean?" Hiro instantly choked on his water. Before Chihiro could explain to all of us, the nightime announcement went off and we were forced to slumber....
◥◤◢◣◥◤◢◣◥◤◢◣
"He's giving me second hand embarrassment..."
I looked away as Taka was happily doing the exercise Monokuma was doing up on the stage. All sixteen of us just watched the ultimate moral compass in shame.
"What's he gonna do to us this time?" Makoto cringed.
"Okay! Lift your arms up, and down! One, two, three, four!"
"One, two, three, four!"
"Now reach waaay up, and bend waaay down! Tighten those muscles! Let's add a little strength, a little speed to those young bodies of yours!"
Monokuma giggled a little, "Ahh, doesn't this feel just great!? Being stuck inside like this, you gotta make sure to stay healthy!"
Toko argued, biting her thumb nail, "You're the o-one keeping us 'stuck inside'..."
"Don't sweat the small stuff! That's my motto." Monokuma waved his hands--er... paw? "Whoa, I sounded pretty cool just now, don'tcha think? Did you fall in love with me? Am I just to die for? Am I just to die in writhing agony for?"
Sakura looked up to the stage, she asked "So...why did you call us here? Certainly it wasn't just to make us exercise..."
"Just to make you exercise? JUST to make you exercise!?" He roared, "If exercise makes you laugh, exercise will make you cry! Now, if you keep doing these exercises, you will uncover the secret of the Assassin's Fist! Passed down from generation to generation in the empire of darkness... The power can be yours!"
Hifumi sobbed, "That sounds like the kind of junk a middle schooler would come up with..."
"It doesn't matter! Just get to the point. Did you really call us down here just to exercise?" Makoto clenched his fists.
"Of course not! You think I have that kind of free time on my hands!?"
"Okay, so then..."
"Ahh, I'd like to make an announcement! Every time you overcome a class trial here at Hope's Peak, a whole new world will open up to you!"
"A whole new world...?"
"It'd really suck if you had to live here forever with nothing new to stimulate you! Besides, I know how you kids get these days with your ADD and ADHD. I gotta keep you motivated!" Monokuma giggled.
"W-Wait but we didnt do a class trial!" I argued.
"Yeah yeah, i know. I see it all, how about this first one is on me and the next floor you guys actually have to murder for. Sounds fair huh? Just think of me being nice." Monokuma sent us a cute little wink, "So go ahead, look around all you want! Enjoy the brave new post-trial world till you explode~!"
