Danganronpa 4: Impure Hope

Chapter 2: Hidden In The Sand (PART ONE)

Chapter 2: Hidden In The Sand
Part 1

Ichigo and I met up in the dining hall with everyone else. They all seemed much more energetic than they were last night. "Okay, should we partner up in duos again?"
"Yeah. That way if we come across another body, we'll at least have some idea of who did it."
Okami took a napkin, wrote on it, tore it up, and put the shreds into his top hat. "Alright, let's draw names. Who's going first?"
"I will," I volunteered. Nervously, I reached my hand into the hat and pulled out a name; Daichi Kobayashi. I looked over at the blind, red-haired boy. "Daichi, you're with me," I told him.
While everyone else drew names, I stayed with Daichi. Although he was clearly an independent kid, I felt a little bad. No one else seemed too willing to help him. Before her execution, Gigi even ditched him to get drunk. I didn't want to seem like I pitied him just for being blind, because deep down, I knew he didn't need my pity, or anyone's for that matter. But then again, maybe he did need the extra help.
"Okay. Meet back here at dinner time," Raiden told us. We all agreed and left the dining hall. Daichi and I made our way to the stairwell. We went to the second floor together, and were greeted with a rush of cold air. Shivering, I untied the jacket from my waist and put it on. It wasn't super warm, but it did its job well enough.
"You doing okay?" I asked him.
"Yeah."
"Great. Let's move then."
The two of us kept walking until we found a door that had been left open the slightest bit. As we opened it, the hinges creaked loudly. From what I could tell, it must have been a literature class, judging by the name Emily Dickinson written on the chalkboard. I remembered learning about her when I was still a student. I think it was the relationship between her and Susan Gilbert that made me realize why I always thought I was different from everyone else, and why I could never relate to my friends when they talked about the boys they liked. I remember having a crush on a girl in my third grade class, but I was too ashamed to talk about it and always wondered if there was something wrong with my brain, because girls couldn't like other girls. Queerness and sexuality as a whole was a foreign concept to me until I studied Emily Dickinson and realized there was nothing wrong with me after all.
Then my thoughts trailed off to Kaoru. Her soft, enchanting voice. Her beautiful strawberry blonde hair. Her pale skin and green eyes. She was kind, warm, meek, and honest. Everything about her was perfect. I don't think I've ever wanted a person so badly before. My heart ached for her. I wanted to hold her in my arms and ease her pain. I wanted to run my fingers through her hair and take in the sweet vanilla scent of her perfume. I wanted to become lost in the greenest forests of their eyes until I couldn't get out. In fact, I think I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her.
I was snapped out of my reminiscing by a loud thud. In a panic, I whipped my head around, only to find out it was just Daichi bumping into a desk. I took a sigh of relief. "You alright buddy?"
"Yeah."
We kept searching the building, and came across a room filled with all kinds of plants. It was there that we ran into Hanako and Hotaru. Hanako spun around the room in glee, occasionally stopping to touch a plant or scoop up some dirt, only to toss the soil into the air and let it dirty her clothes. Meanwhile Hotaru sat up in the corner, sighing in boredom as he watched his distracted search partner. I approached Hanako, a smile on my face. "Enjoying yourself, I see?"
She let out a squeak and froze, holding her balled-up hands to her chin. "I'm sorry, I must have gotten distracted!"
I laughed a bit. "It's okay," I said. "No need to apologize for having fun. I think we all need a break in a situation like this."
"Yeah, I guess you're right," she agreed. "Nature always makes me feel better."
"I can tell." I looked at the back of the room, where Hotaru sat. "And what about your partner?"
"Huh? What partner?"
"You know, Hotaru?"
"Who?"
I paused for a moment. "Forget it." I smiled.
"Alright."
I turned around. "Daichi? Where'd you go?"
"I don't know!" He shouted back. When I followed the sound of his voice, I found him around the corner, examining a plant with his hands. His curiosity was sweet at first, until I realized he was inspecting a venus flytrap. I quickly grabbed his hands and pulled them away from the plant's mouth. "Hey, what was that for?"
"That's a flytrap Daichi," I told him. "It could bite you if you're not careful."
He winced away from it in fear, grabbing onto my arm to steady and defend himself. Hanako walked over to us and knelt beside him. "Hey, it's alright, flytraps can't hurt you," she reassured him.
"But she said it would bite me!" Daichi exclaimed.
"It can, but it wouldn't hurt a human. It only hurts insects."
"Really?"
"Mhm! That's how it gets its food. The trap has to be closed fully airtight to hurt anything, and a human finger is too big to let that happen." To demonstrate, Hanako slowly placed her finger inside the mouth of the flytrap. Just as she said, it closed its mouth, but she was just fine.
"See?"
"No."
"Oh, right-"
"What happens when it's closed?"
"Well, let's say a fly gets stuck in there. The lobes close up, and the plant releases a bunch of digestive juices in order to eat the insect. Then, once it's done eating, it opens back up again!"
Daichi turned around and faced me. "Can I try?"
"As long as it's okay with Hanako."
"Sure it is!" she said. "Ai, let's switch places for a second."
I handed Daichi off to Hanako and moved to the right, where I sat on my knees and watched. Hanako put one arm around Daichi's torso, and guided his wrist with her other hand. "Alright now, gently," she instructed him. He ran his fingertips down one of the leaves before placing his index finger inside the plant's mouth. He smiled as the lobes closed around the appendage.
"It tickles," he said.
"That's 'cause of the trigger hairs," Hanako explained. "Those are what makes it close."
I smiled at how happy both of them looked. Hanako seemed to know how to work with kids, and had a pretty clear soft spot for them. She cheered Daichi on as he played with the plant, giggling more and more as the minutes passed. But as cute as the scene was, we had to keep going. I stood up and brushed myself off. "Alright Daichi, time to go."
"Aw, no fair!"
"Fairly fair." I shrugged, teasing him.
"Come on, just five more minutes?"
"It's already been fifteen."
He waved goodbye to his newfound botanic friend and got back up. "See you around, Hanako," I said on my way out.
As we kept walking, we found another library. This one was much bigger than the one hidden on the first floor, and was visibly better cared for prior to the school's abandonment. However, most of the chairs were unstable, and one of the tables dipped at one end. Paperwork and textbooks cluttered the desks, as if everyone suddenly got up and left. One of the computers was turned on, but all the screen contained was a GIF of Monokuma's head bouncing back and forth and tilting from left to right. A red dot shone at the top of the monitor; he was watching us. To be fair, he was probably watching us everywhere, but the way he taunted us about it made the idea more scary somehow. My eyes scanned the room again, and something caught my eye; a desk lamp was on. "How?" I thought to myself. "Was someone here before us?"
When approached the desk, I could see a spiral notebook sitting underneath the lamp. I pulled out the chair and sat down, flipping through the pages. Most of the drawings were monsters with Japanese writing next to them. Different statistics were listed in ink; charisma, dexterity, wisdom, constitution, intelligence, and strength. The page that drew me in most was a detailed composition of a six-headed dragon (one head in the middle, three to the left, and two to the right), with green wings, webbed feet, giant claws, and spines protruding from its "main" head. Feathers and fur trailed down the dragon's spine, and its pupils looked like sharp blades, glaring at me through the paper. "Woah," I said quietly. "Whoever drew this is crazy talented."
I turned the page and read the text to the right of the drawing. "What the hell is a Yuan-Ti Pureblood?-"
An excited noise interrupted my thought process. When I looked over to see what it was, Daichi sat in the back of the library with a grin on his face. He had found the braille section. In his hands was a copy of The Outsiders. "That one's good," I told him.
"You've read it?"
"Oh yeah, it's an American classic!"
"I like Ponyboy. It's a cool name."
"It's definitely interesting."
We sat in silence for a moment before I thought of something. "Why don't you take the book with you?"
"Huh?"
"You seem to like the book. Why not take it with you when we leave?"
"Won't I get in trouble?"
"Can't get in trouble with no librarian around. Plus, what's Monokuma gonna do? It's a book, it's not like it's his kid or something."
"True," he paused. "Alright! Thanks, Ai!"
After leaving the library, the clock chimed, calling us to the first floor for dinner. Upon our arrival, we were greeted with a plate of green beans, mashed potatoes, and meatloaf. Raiden smiled at us. "Here, I made dinner this time."
"Aren't you a baker?"
"Doesn't mean I can't cook too."
I took a bite of my food, and my eyes lit up. "Wow, this is really good, Raiden!"
"Thanks."
"When did you have the time to do all this?"
"Well, my buddy here wanted to cook with me, so I had a bit of extra help. Isn't that right, Haru?" he smiled, ruffling the little boy's hair. Haru nodded in agreement. "I helped season the potatoes!"
"That's great!"
"And I also put ketchup on the meatloaf, and I-"
"Alright buddy, that's great, we're all very proud of you. Why don't you take your seat?" Raiden pushed him away. "Isn't he just lovely?" he said through gritted teeth.
"You sure seem to like him," I replied sarcastically.
"Oh, please, just eat your dinner."
As we all ate our food, we conversed about what we had discovered. It seemed to be mostly classrooms, but Juro had something interesting to say. "Ria and I found the teacher's lounge."
"Did you?"
"Yeah. A file cabinet fell on her and she got cut by the corner of it."
Ria stared daggers at him as if to tell him to shut up. "It wasn't that big of a deal, it was just a little scratch, nothing to worry about."
"I don't think a tiny scratch would have made your arm bleed that much."
"Jesus, are you okay?" I asked.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Anyways, the more important part was the papers that came out of the cabinet when it fell. There were a whole bunch of documents talking about some previous killing games."
"So this has happened before?"
"Yeah. Three times to be exact. The school was supposed to be destroyed at the end of the third, but it was rebuilt by some sort of organization."
"Did you happen to see the name of it?"
"Yeah." She pulled out an envelope and handed it to me. On the front was a strange logo, and underneath it was the name of the organization:

"The Future Foundation"

"The Future Foundation?" I read it aloud to myself. "Who are they?"
"I couldn't find anymore information about them," Ria said. "That was all there was."
"Interesting..."
I tucked the envelope into the pocket of my jacket. "Better save this for later," I thought.
"Anyone else find anything?"
"There's a closet under the stairwell," Kaoru added on. "There was a hair clip, a scarf, and a broken laptop. Aside from that, it was empty."
"That's weird, what would those be doing in a closet?"
"I don't know." They took out the scarf and hair clip and set them on the table. "I left the laptop in there in case Monokuma did something to it."
"Like what?"
"Maybe he hacked it, or planted a bomb in it or something. I don't know. He's too unpredictable to not be cautious."
"Dude, really? A bomb?" Okami interrupted. "Isn't that a little, I don't know, paranoid?"
"Again, we need to be cautious. What if he really did?"
"What are the odds he would have done something like that?"
"Hey, calm down, they have a point," I said. "We don't know what Monokuma is capable of. She did the right thing."
Hotaru squinted his eyes at one of the particular objects. "Let me see the hair clip."
Kaoru handed it to him. Almost as soon as he picked it up, he figured out what could have been a key detail. "Space Invaders."
"Huh?"
"The hair clip. It's the ship from Space Invaders."
I took a closer look at the accessory and it started to click with me. "Oh, yeah, you're right! Jeez, I haven't played that game since, like, high school."
"I know that game!" Ichigo said happily. "I played it at the arcade once!"
"What's Space Invaders?" Kaoru asked.
"It's a video game. Whoever owned this must have really liked to play it, huh?"
"So now we can find out what happened to them!" Ria jumped in. "Maybe their talent was gaming. We can go back through the documents and try to find something along those lines. Maybe we'll even find out if they're alive or not!"
"Good idea!" Juro chimed in.
"Well, we've got our plans for tomorrow then," I said. "We explored today, so tomorrow we can piece together the victims and give them the justice they deserve."
Ichigo stood on his chair and held his glass high. "Everybody, to the death game victims!"
Everyone's response filled the room as they raised their glasses. "To the death game victims!" they shouted, adrenaline ringing in their voices.
Once we were all finished with our food, we went to our bedrooms. I laid in bed and stared at the ceiling with a smile on my face. I couldn't be more proud of Ichigo. He was becoming stronger and stronger every day, and it showed. "That's my boy," I thought before drifting off to sleep; but little did I know what awaited me in my slumber.
I found myself in a dark void, trying to escape to no avail. "No point in trying," said a voice behind me. I turned around, and there he was. A tall, somber man dressed in purple and white. He had no eyes, only a shadow above his cracked, bleeding lips. The man spoke as he began to take off his jacket. "Even if you get out, you're stuck with Hope's Peak even after you die."
"Like hell I am," I told him. "I'm not going to subject myself and my son to a robo-bear cult."
"Cult. Interesting choice of words."
"That's what this is, isn't it? A cult?"
The man paused for a moment before nodding. "Yes, I suppose it is a cult." He fully removed his jacket and gently placed it around my shoulders. "Well then, Aikono, welcome to the Cult of Despair."
As he laid the cloth on my body, I looked up at him. "You're K. Momota, aren't you?"
"Well, aren't you clever?"
"What do you want?"
"I'm not going to hurt you. I'm here to warn you."
"Warn me about what?"
"Junko Enoshima has taken another form. Someone to carry on her legacy of despair."
"Who is Junko Enoshima?"
"Find the key and stop her."
"Wait! What key? Who is Junko?"
"Find the key and stop her," he said, his voice demonic and twisted. "Find the key and stop her." He kept repeating his sentence until his voice had become so distorted that I could hardly understand him. All I could hear was the ringing in my ears. Next thing I knew, I was sitting up in my bed. The room was so silent it deafened me. I looked around, and somehow felt safer trapped in a killing game than I felt in that dream.
I got up and opened the door, peeking my head into the hallway. It seemed like no one else was awake but me. I looked up at the clock. "7:45," I mumbled. "I woke up early."
Though hesitant, I put on the jacket and began to walk towards the kitchen to make myself a snack. As I went to open the door, my hand collided with another, larger hand. It turned out to be Raiden, on his way to make breakfast.
"Oh, hey."
"Hi Raiden."
"You look like shit."
"Good morning to you too."
He leaned against the wall. "Whatcha doin' up so early?"
"Didn't sleep very well."
"Fair enough. I can make you some tea or something if you want."
"Sure, that sounds good."
He opened the door and held it for me. I thanked him and walked inside, my nose hit with a strong, metallic smell. "Jeez, somebody needs to do the dishes in here..."
"Ugh, tell me about it."
I may have thought it was the dishes at first, but it was much worse. Because when I pulled the light switch, at my feet was Kaoru Matsuda, dead on the kitchen floor.