Danganronpa 4-Despair Loop

32

A flash drive. A way to possibly get out. 
Yuma stares in disbelief, digging her fingernails into her palm to make sure that this was real, not just her imagining it. Nao tilts her head slightly to the left. Yuma reaches out her hand, then stops. She leaves her hand hanging, her mind frozen in fear. Fear of what to come. Fear of what she would learn…
“Níl aon namhaid ag an neamhchiontach agus ag an álainn ach am.”
Yuma snaps out of her gaze and looks around. Nao was staring at her, eyes intense.
“D-did you say that?” Nao nods.
“The innocent and beautiful have no enemy but time.” Nao takes Yumas outstretched hand and puts the flash drive into it. She closes her hand around it, and pats it lightly.
“Don’t waste the things most precious to you. I trust you Yuma.” Nao smiles, brighter than the sun. Yuma nods. This was the most important thing right now. Figuring out what was best for everyone.
“Thanks. I guess I’m just lucky.” Yuma stares at her hand.
“Everybody feels a little lucky every day. You just gotta make sure you don’t use that feeling of luck all the time.” Nao explains, fidgeting with her hands.
“Feeling… lucky?” Yumas' red and blue eyes brighten as she realizes something. After saying some quick goodbyes, she runs down to the engineers lab.
She quickly types in the first password. With shaky hands she presses on Hope’s Peak Academy. She types in “feeling lucky?” but was immediately greeted with an error. Spaces were not allowed. 
“What? What else am I supposed to do?” Yuma tries several times, “feelinglucky?”, “feeling-lucky?” until she gets to “feeling_lucky?” The file opens and Yuma sees another video and a .txt file. She exhales, letting out a sigh of relief. 
“One of the participants was the Ultimate Lucky Student, huh? Nao, you helped me more than you thought…” Yuma clicks on the video, and Miana’s face pops up again.
“Hey! You passed the second trial!” Miana and Ayane are sitting right next to each other, both grinning like children.
“The history of Hope’s Peak… it’s kinda confusing. Let’s start at the beginning. There was peace. Everything was nice and calm. But two people didn’t ever want that. They wanted destruction, they wanted death. They wanted despair. So they influenced the Tragedy. The most despair inducing event that humankind ever saw. After that, most everything shut down. Locked up. Both of the girls were hungry for even more destruction, so they took over a school and locked 15 teenagers up. Each of those 15 students were forced to kill each other, just like this. It went exactly like how this went, the killings started and didn’t stop. There were 5 people left, and the Ultimate Hope was born. 
“They went out into the world, spreading hope to fight despair. But then 16 more people got stuck in a program with a killing game virus. The killing game ensued again and forced them to kill each other, killing their personalities in real life. That ended and created chaos in the world, then it was all revealed that they were all fake and that collapsed and yeah.” Ayane stops talking and smiles. Yuma looks at the screen in horror. They were in a set of killing games?
“So yeah. Now onto this set. How many are left… 8 right? That’s horrible… especially because we all knew each other… But hey! That doesn’t matter! Uh, Yuki. She’s been kinda like this since I’ve known her, which is her whole life. I think, it’s been about a day right? Then go in and talk murder with her. It’ll work, or just try and shoot her. That’s a last resort though. Don’t aim for any vitals.” The video cuts off and the screen goes to the file folder with the .txt file left.
Suddenly the door slams open. 
Yuma shuts the computer quickly but quietly so as not to attract any attention from the person who entered. 
“Okay, what the hell are you doing in here?” Yuma stiffens as she recognizes the voice, remembers the glint and the barely restrained anger. After a couple of seconds of silence, she feels a blade pressing against her neck.
“Answer the damn question or you’re gonna be the next victim, and nobody will find your body.” The blade presses down further, drawing blood. 
“Miana was my friend,” Yuma says simply. The blade loses some of its force, then starts pushing down harder.
“Yeah right. You’re a liar.” The person says behind her. Yuma pushes the blade away, cutting her finger open and turns to face the person. The deep purple eyes, dancing with flames and insanity, bears deep into her soul. They slowly put the blade, belonging to a hatchet, back in their boot.
“I’m not lying, Yuki.”
“And how am I supposed to believe you? Huh?” Yuki, bringing back the pure insanity Yuma and Koko saw, leans in close and smiles.
“Yuki.”
The door opens again, and Koko walks in.
“Oh yay, more people I have to kill. Get out of here if you don’t want to be a fucking witness.” Yuki smiles and holds up her hand.
“No. Yuma, come here…” Yuki blocks Yuma as she tries to get up.
“Yuki… move.” 
“Eeny Meeny Miney Mo... How should both of you go? Just give up, I will NEVER let you go... eeny meeny miney mo…” Yuki chants and giggles maniacally, showing in all of her features. Her eyes were wide and looking around, her mouth contorted into a huge smile. Both of them stare, looking at the person they used to know.
“Yuki, please calm down…” Yuma's voice was small and quivering. Yuki spins around, facing her.
“Calm down. Such an easy concept.” Yuki says and laughs again. In a flash her hatchets were out again, one on Yuma’s neck and the other on her stomach. Yuma tries to recoil, forgetting she was in her chair, and gets pushed back closer to Yuki.
“Yuki, stop!” Koko yells out and grabs her. Yuki jams her elbow back, sweeping Koko’s legs under at the same time. Koko falls, stunned, and then gets back up again. Yuki presses the hatchet deeper into Yuma’s stomach as she grits her teeth in anger. Koko jumps up and pins Yuki to the ground, knocking her out. 
“What… the hell… was that?” Koko, while panting heavily, asks while looking at Yuma.
“I don’t know.. Help please?” Yuma tries to take the hatchet out, but winces every time she starts to pull. Koko walks up to her, places a hand on the hatchet, and then black.

“Le mian é tharraingt isteach san lios mór…” Calm, sweet voice, dragging her…  “C’mon Yuma, you have to wake up… The motive is being presented…” Yuma wakes up with a start, almost hitting Nao’s head.
“W-how-why…” Yuma looks around and realizes she’s in her room, laying in her bed. She has bandages all over her abdomen.
“Hey we gotta go, Yuma!” Nao says, gently grabbing Yuma’s hand and guiding her out of bed. Yuma accepts it, and numbly walks behind Nao. Nao pushes open the door to the gym, revealing everyone… even Yuki. She still seemed off.
“Okie dokie! Looks like we got everybody here!” Monokuma pops out of the floor and does a little twirl.
“Oh great, it’s that fucking bear again…” Izumi sneers.
“I-izumi… d-don’t say that…” Sayuri says.
Nao leads Yuma to Koko, who holds onto her, then runs over to Sayuri. Yuma chuckles a bit as both of the two girls' eyes light up.
“H-hey Nao!” Sayuri gives a small wave.
“Hiya!” Nao smiles and waves back.
“Okay! Time for your new motive!” Monokuma struts up to all of the students, “This time, it’s a reward!” 
“Other than getting out of here if we win the rigged trial?” Naoto asks angrily.
“Yep! I will give you the entire history and way to get out of here… only if you murder someone! You’ll get it, even if you don’t live during the trial!” Monokuma laughs and disappears into the floor again, leaving everyone astonished and terrified. 
“...nobody will actually do it, right?” Chinatsu peeks out from behind Naoto, clutching onto his shirt. He smiles.
“No. None of us are that stupid.” He turns around to hug her, her shoulders shaking softly. Yuma looks over at the other group, Nao, Sayuri, and Izumi. Izumi is looking directly at her, but diverts her gaze as soon as she sees Yuma staring. Yuma, weirded out, looks over at Sayuri and Nao.  Nao was on the floor, shocked, and Sayuri was hugging her tightly. Yuma smiles at the two. Nao sees and weakly smiles back. Yuma turns back to Koko, getting a glimpse of the blood-stained Yuki strutting out of the door.
“What do you think?” Koko asks.
“I think it’s a trap. I don’t think he’ll actually do it.” Koko nods at her words.
“I was thinking the same thing… but we need to keep an eye on Yuki… She’s kinda dangerous now… not saying she wasn’t dangerous before…” Yuma nods. Yuki wasn’t okay anymore, and Yuma knew it had to do with Miana’s death. 
“I hate the fact that there are 8 of us left…” Yuma sighs sadly, leaning on Koko for support. Everyone starts to file out, one by one, until it was just Nao and Sayuri left.
“N-nao?” Sayuri gently strokes her head.
“Mhm?” 
“A-are you okay?” Nao nods, nuzzling closer to Sayuri. Sayuri blushes a bit and smiles.
“You’re warm,” Nao says, muffled. 
“You are too… little flower.”