Everyone in the morning met in the cafeteria this morning. Even Ayanokoji and Kyoko who were normally separate attended.
"...Let's go look over the third floor. After that let's...try to relax," Horkita said tiredly.
'Did she not sleep well last night either?'
In fact, now that I looked around, everyone seemed super tired besides Kyoko, Ayanokoji, Cid, Hestia, and Rias.
And there was one more, who was the most tired.
"..."
Rimuru just stared endlessly into space, whenever someone would ask him something he would reply with some sort of snack name. But all of the snacks he asked for weren't there.
Anyway, leaving that matter with Rimuru aside, no one moved even after being told we could go explore the new floor.
Hestia clung to me like glue, so maybe she would go if I were to?
I stood up and so did she a second later.
"I'll go check it out," I said as I walked away.
"I'm glad one of you didn't lose your nerve," Kyoko said as she also got up and followed.
Ayanokoji then stood up and slapped Rimuru on the back of the head causing his head to crash into the table.
"OUCH! HEY, WHAT WAS THAT FOR?!"
"We're going,"
"Fine, Fine,"
He then jumped out of his seat and we then all left the cafeteria and went to the new floor. We split up from there.
The first room I decided to go into was the rec room, Hestia was still following closely behind.
There was a pool table along with an arcade game in the back of the room. In the center, there were two chairs facing one another with a table in between. On the table, a game of Chess is already set up and ready for playing.
"Do you know how to play?" Hestia asked while turning to me
"I know how too...As if I'm good at it though is another issue,"
I continued to look around when I found a photo hidden under the arcade machine.
"Wha...!"
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Just then, even before Hestia could ask me about what I had seen, Monokuma appeared.
"GIMME THAT!"
He snatched it out of my hands, and quickly hid it somewhere on his body.
"Forget what you saw, or a curse will fall on you!"
He then left just as quickly as he appeared.
"What was that?" Hestia asked
"It...Was an image. Naruto, Makima, Emilia, and Isagi were all in a classroom together. They seemed to be having fun and smiling. Isagi seemed to be a bit shocked at having his picture taken but other than that they were all smiles,"
"What?" Hestia asked just as confused as me then answered "Then...Maybe they're not really dead!"
"Huh?!" Now, it was my turn to be shocked
"Maybe this was some sort of game show like the game Werewolf, where someone is given the opportunity to kill and is told it's a game. Then he picks for someone to die and they bring in a body double or something like that,"
"Foolish," A new voice entered, it was Kyoko's. "If that were the case then it would be impossible for Shinobu's analysis to fail when inspecting. Also, then what about the motives? There would be no point,"
"Y-Yea, I guess you're right," Hestia reluctantly agreed.
"Kyoko, by the way..."
I then proceeded to explain the image I found to her, she nodded after hearing all the details.
"Then...Perhaps it is before? Or maybe it was photoshopped. I would need to see the image itself to confirm that but assuming it's not then it can only be in the past. Which would mean..."
"We...Are missing memories as well?!" I screamed
"Indeed. Unlike Ayanokoji and I, you guys still remember your ultimate talents, but the common thing we have forgotten was when this photo was taken. Sure we weren't in the photo but we likely would have remembered a photographer in the class with us. When was it? I assume relatively soon, but...It's hard to say when I don't have my memories in the first place,"
Then everyone else ran into the room, even the people who were originally in the cafeteria.
"We heard a yell so we ran over," Horikita said "It seems like everything is alright though,"
I then noticed the only one not here was Ayanokoji. It seemed like I wasn't the only one who had noticed either.
"Where's he off to now?" Kyoko muttered in a somewhat annoyed voice.
We then again explained the photo, and it threw everyone into confusion.
"Hm? If that's the case then...When was it?" Subaru said "If they were all smiles together then that would mean we had to have known each other for a while right? So then...Why don't we remember a time when we had bonded together?"
"Memory loss," Rias said "It's something I'm somewhat familiar with, but not like Amnesia, this is used by using a machine of sorts in order to mess with the brain and trick it into losing memory,"
"...Can this Machine do more than take away memories? As in...Add memories?" Kyoko asked
"We were working on making it do that, but sadly we didn't get to finish it. So either it was finished without my knowledge or someone else finished it,"
Kyoko was about to open her mouth again when she stopped herself, but it didn't stop a blue-haired king
"So, that means one of us could be a traitor right? Aww man, how bad would it suck for my whole life to be a lie, and I only ruled a made-up kingdom? Or, maybe like Emilia and Subaru didn't even know each other at all-"
"Watch it," Subaru warned "If that's the case then what's with Kyoko and Ayanokoji? They could also just have fake memories implanted instead of having memories removed,"
"The answer to that is likely the people themselves. They would be able to find out their memories were fake somehow. Maybe there's just no way to even make a fake memory replace the experiences they've already faced," Rimuru explained casually
Everyone glared at each other, but in particular, Kyoko was glaring at Rimuru.
I bet this is what she was going to say when she stopped herself, she knew it would lead to even more doubt.
In response to her glare, Rimuru stuck out his tongue and pulled down on his bottom eyelid.
(Ayanokoji POV)
"..."
This was...Surprising.
I found my hidden weapon of mine, it was hidden in the art room's storage. Kyoko went to the physics room so I was alone. I found this hidden in the wall. This one spot was just a barely a different color of white, it was nearly impossible to tell the difference but for some reason, I could.
From then I knocked on it and found out it was hollow. Just then, it opened like a door and revealed the vault that had a little mini version of me on the front.
I put my eye on the scan and after checking my eye it opened.
