Danganronpa: Shuri's School

Chapter 25: Fourth Floor Investigation

As usual, the 7am alert went out, informing everyone that Nighttime was officially over. As usual, I got up, got myself showered, put on some clean clothes, and made my way to the Dining Room to meet with the remaining students for breakfast.

I started realizing a few days ago just how bad this situation was affecting my psyche, and started wondering how everyone else was holding up. Originally, there were 16 of us, but now we were already down to just 10. Taka, Gonta, Keebo, Miu, Ibuki, and Soda were no longer with us. I knew Byakuya was gathering information on this place, and that Nagito and Kokichi were hatching some plan of their own, but I wondered about the others. I hoped that no more of us would die in this place, but knew in my heart this would be unlikely.

Kirumi made everyone Biscuits and Gravy with Scrambled Eggs. I mixed mine all together, and ate it that way. Some people think that's weird, but that's how I've always eaten the two.

As I figured, the Fourth Floor was now open to be explored, though we all knew there was a Fifth Floor yet to go. Still, everyone seemed to be in reasonably good spirits, and we all agreed that we needed to check out the Fourth Floor at once.

Nagito and Kokichi paired up. Maki and Peko grouped up together, with Mikan joining them. Byakuya headed off by himself. Akane and Hina met up and headed up the stairs, as well.

That left me with Kirumi, which suited me just fine. We had gotten split up during our Third Investigation, and I felt the need to make things up to her for that. With that in mind, I approached Kirumi.

Kirumi turned towards me and curtsied. "Have you a request for me, Shurinku?"

I nodded. "Yes. I'd like for you to accompany me to the Fourth Floor, to check it out."

Kirumi thought for a moment, then nodded. "If that is a request, I shall accept it. We got separated during our last investigation, anyway, so I would appreciate the opportunity to make up for this."

I nodded in return, then led the way to the Fourth Floor, talking about the trial. Kirumi revealed that the cleaner used on Ibuki was, indeed, found in the Kitchen, but she never had a chance to bring it up. As for me, I still found it hard to believe that Soda would go through all this, willing to kill everyone, over what Miu did to Keebo and Ibuki. Even jealousy didn't make much sense to me; Miu sealed her own fate by sabotaging Keebo and trying to pin it on Ibuki. Kirumi agreed with my assessment, but seemed to think that Soda's behavior could not be explained in a rational way.

We finally reached the Fourth Floor. As expected, there were two empty classrooms to our left, Classrooms 4-B and 4-A, and an empty hallway before us. The courtyard windows allowed us to see into the Courtyard, where we could see down into the courtyard.

We turned left, walked past the empty classrooms, and were once again greeted by a blocked-off stairwell, likely leading to the fifth and final floor. We turned right, and the first door to our left was marked "Bowling Alley". Intrigued, we entered the Bowling Alley.

I have to admit, the Bowling Alley was an amusing sight. The bowling balls looked almost exactly like Monokuma heads, with the two finger holes where the eyes were, and the thumb hole going into the Monokuma head's mouth. At the other end of the alley were ten pins, all looking like Monokuma. So you pick up the Monokuma head, and bowl it into the Monokumas...I grinned at the sick irony of this mental image.

Kirumi picked up one of the bowling balls. "I see there are numbers on each of these balls. If I am not mistaken, these numbers correspond to the ball's individual weight."

I nodded. "Yeah, that sounds right."

Kirumi continued, spinning the ball slowly in her gloved hands. "These balls seem to be polished well, too. Someone has taken good care of these bowling balls."

She then glanced down the alley, then tilted her head and frowned. "Normally, there are two alleys, side by side. Yet, there's only one alley here."

I glanced over, and noticed the same thing. "Yeah...Not sure how much we should look into that, though. It's possible that the school thought it'd be easier to teach bowling with only one lane to keep watch over."

Kirumi's face briefly showed disbelief at my explanation, but quickly hid it. If I hadn't been paying attention, I might not have even noticed it.

Deciding not to call her out on it, I shrugged instead. "In any case, there's only one lane, so only one person can bowl at a time."

Kirumi nodded in agreement, then glanced towards the door. "Shall we resume our search of this floor?"

I sighed, glanced again down the alley, then agreed with Kirumi. Part of me wanted to bowl with her, but we had more important things to do here. Kirumi stepped aside, briefly surprising me, but remembering her nature, I decided not to ask her about it. Instead, I continued down the hall, coming across two rooms, both across from each other.

Opening the door on my left, there were baseball bats, batting helmets, and some batting gloves. Curious, I decided to open the door across the hall. In that room was a batting cage, with a Monokuma face stylized into Home Plate. There were white lines coming out from Home Plate, noting where Foul Territory was, and the backdrop you hit the balls into looked like a typical stadium outfield, filled with Monokumas for fans. Of course, this wasn't a true stadium-sized batting cage, but I estimated it was probably about 100 feet from home plate to the "outfield wall", so still usable.

We left the Batting Cages without saying a word, and instead headed for the room at the end of the hallway. This one was labeled "Chemistry Room". Instantly, a feeling of dread swept through me, like an icy chill. This was a dangerous room; I felt it in my bones.

Entering the Chemistry room, there were a lot of shelves, marked with various types of compounds. Everything from medicines like acetaminophen and ibuprofen, to poisons like cyanide and arsenic, to vitamins and minerals like Iron and Calcium.

Kirumi immediately took an interest in the contents of this room, but I wanted no part of anything in here. This room REEKED of bad news, so I left Kirumi to explore the Chemistry Room and went back to the Courtyard windows.

To my surprise, Kokichi and Nagito were down there, speaking with Byakuya, over by the fountain. Byakuya seemed to be agitated, as his arms were crossed in front of him and he was leaning slightly away from the two. From this angle, it looked like he was facing Kokichi more than Nagito. However, due to the soundproofing on the glass, I couldn't hear anything going on, nor did I like the feeling I was getting from this confrontation. However, Byakuya was the type who preferred handling things on his own, so I didn't expect him to come running to me over it, so I would have to approach him about it later.

Turns out, I was focusing on the wrong person that day, and the consequences would be deadly for 3 of us...