Kaede woke up to someone aggressively shaking her shoulders, her body sore and her mind groggy. The area that she was in was large and dark, a lot more threatening than any area in the Ultimate Academy that she knew.
Why was she here? She didn't really remember anything but being hit in the head and taunted by someone she didn't know. Did she do something wrong? Was this another of Monokuma's tricks?
As soon as her mind became focused enough to ask these questions, her other senses went on high alert, trying to protect her.
Her nose and the tips of her fingertips detected the heavy scent of blood.
It was all around her, so much more than any crime scene that she had seen. What had happened for so much blood to accumulate?
Her vision slowly returned, making out the form of the person on top of her. He was a lot smaller than her, with darkish hair that was stuck lankly to the back of the nape of his neck. His expression was almost rabid, savage from fear and stress, his eyes wilder than Kaede had ever seen them.
Kokichi.
"Kokichi?"
He looked a little relieved that she was responding, and he grabbed her hands, trying to get her to sit up.
He was mouthing something that Kaede couldn't hear. What was wrong with her? Had her wonderful ears, her wonderful sensitive ears that had been one of the biggest factors to her talent in the piano, broken?
Kokichi opened his mouth a little wider, and Kaede couldn't stop her mouth from releasing a little sigh of relief.
It wasn't her. Kokichi was still mute.
But why? Wasn't the fourth motive over already? Kaede subconsciously ran Claire de Lune in her head. Her memories and love for piano were still there.
Wait. Wasn't Kokichi dead?
What the hell was happening?
"Kokichi? Why are you alive? I thought Tenko's blow killed you!"
Kokichi seemed excited to see that she was conscious, and he started animatedly tapping his index finger on the ground. It took Kaede about 10 seconds to realize what it was.
"I don't know Morse."
The Ultimate Supreme Leader gnawed his molars in frustration and moved away from her.
"Kokichi? KOKICHI!"
Kaede stood and tried to go after him when she hit her toe on something large, hard, and sticky.
<em>What?</em>
She looked down to inspect what she had bumped into. Blood was all over her shoes, making little blooms in her socks. She had hit her shoe on the fractured head of Rantaro Amami.
"AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!"
<em>
"Hi guys!" Kaede Akamatsu opened the large cafeteria doors. "Did you wait for me?"
"Kaede!" Angie brought her hands to her cheeks. "Kiibo said you passed out!"
"Are you alright, Kaede?" Kirumi inquired.
"Yeah, yeah," Kaede sat down. "I was just a little shocked that Monokuma had placed Shuichi's hat in front of my dorm."
"It was a really horrible trick on Monokuma's part," Korekiyo commented. "He did it to taunt you, obviously. Maybe to unhinge you and try to lure you into suicide."
"You shut up!" Tenko yelled.
"Well, it's good that you feel better now, Kaede," Kiibo smiled.
"Of course!" Kaede exclaimed. "I can't keep looking back at the past! We need to focus on the future and believe that there's an exit in this horrible place. We can't keep moping! "
Cue the slow clap. Cue the shocked and tired expressions of the other students as the cafeteria doors open again. Cue Monokuma's sinister laugh. Cue the doors opening automatically because this stupid game show host is too short to reach the doorknob. Try to make it as realistic as possible because we can't have them believe that the mastermind is controlling everything with a simple remote.
"It's nice you've got your confidence back, big tits!" Monokuma grinned. "It wasn't really fun to see the lot of you moping around the last 48 hours, but with everyone geared up and ready to kill, let's get this killing semester going for its final stage!"
"Final stage?" Kiibo asked. "Why is it the final stage? Are you going to let us all go?"
That tiny glimmer of hope led all the other students of hoping. Hoping that this nightmare would finally end.
"Nope! There are only six of you left, right? The maid, the robot, the pianist, the anthropologist, the sexist akidio master, and the artist. Two more murders and the killing game will have to end! I told ya that I'd have to end the killing game once there were only 2 people left, right? It's in the rules!"
"Oooh, oooh, what will Monokuma do will the two people who survive? Will he let them go to the real world?" Angie asked.
"Of course not! I'll execute the final two in a fiery ray of light execution! So here's the thing...the only way to survive this killing game is to kill."
Cue a slight drop in the room temperature to make everyone uncomfortable. Kaede glanced at the students around her. Almost all of them had to have been thinking the same thing as her---everyone else in this cafeteria was now an enemy, even more than before. Because right now, the only way to ever guarantee survival was to kill.
"Oh yeah!" Monokuma turned around, facing the cafeteria doubles as he prepared to make his exit, "Don't think that you'll be able to keep your little lies by staying static! I've prepared another totally <em>blasting</em> motive that I'll present same time next time! So long, bear well!"
Cue Monokuma placing his paw on the doorknob. Cue the door opening. Cue a bit of fog so that it's a little mysterious, but not too much so that someone still sane would question why. Thankfully, there weren't many sane people left here.
"What are we supposed to do?" Kiyo asked. "The only way to survive is now to kill and get through a class trial. This is no longer a problem of greed for the world outside."
"It has become our only way out now," Kirumi muttered. "This is quite a dilemma."
"Kaede?" Angie asked. "You're smiling."
"Uh, yeah, sorry. " Kaede tried to get herself to calm down. "I'm...not quite sure what we can do about this."
