Dangan Ronpa - DISTRUST

Beautiful Life

"What?" a girl with indigo hair whispers, breaking the silence for a moment. Other than that, the room is deadly silent. The only way to escape is to kill one of your classmates and get away with it... That sentence repeats over and over in my head. Monokuma laughs as we all look around in disbelief. "Would anyone actually do that?" Haruka stares at Monokuma. "Under the pressure of escaping? Of course! Who knows? One of you might already be planning to kill someone," Monokuma replies. "Oh, two more small things. Come get your student iDs. It's very valuable as it's the only way to get into your room! If you lose it, the joke's on you," It picks up a box that was on stage and opens it. The iDs were phone-like items, with a name on each. "The time is high noon! Please meet up in the music room at five for an important event. Have a despairingly great day!" Monokuma jumps and disappears through the floor. 

"What was that about?" "Oh god...oh god..." "What if..." and a few other things were spoken around me. "Hey, how about we continue introducing ourselves, investigate this place, then come back and discuss?" A boy with a robotic arm suggests. "Yeah, that would be a good route to take." I agree, and pretty much everyone else did too. That would take the situation off of our minds.  The air seems to shake as everyone tries to calm down.

"Heyo, Nishida Shunsen's the name, Ultimate Robotics Engineer's the game," the robotic arm boy from before walks up to me. "Sato Ryosei, Ultimate Track Student. Nice hand," I comment. "Yeah, made it myself," Shunsen grins and shakes my hand. His metal palm is cold to the touch. The girl with indigo hair, the one who broke the silence earlier, was yelling something. "Blue jacket with moon symbol! Come over here!" I realize she was talking about me, so I silently walked to her direction. "Hoshi Tomi, Ult. Deej, or DJ." she grins wildly. "I'm Sato Ryo--" I begin, "Yes,yes, I've heard. You're THE Sato Ryosei, fastest man here," Tomi shrugs. "Any thoughts on this 'kill or be killed' order thing?" I ask her carefully. "Nah, nothing yet. But here's your student handbook," Tomi hands me my student iD. "Thanks." We shake hands.

I sigh, thinking about the situation looming overhead. I overhear an exchange of words between two girls. "Hey," I pipe in. "Who do you think set up this bear thing?" one of the girls, with short blonde hair, promptly asks. "I don't know....?" I glance at everyone around us. Anyone here could have set it up. "I told you that's what he would say," The other girl crosses her arms. "My name is Jin Maiko, the Ultimate Marine biologist. This is Kubuta Kureia. Ultimate Ice Skater." she says. "You're the Ultimate Track student." Kureia comments. "I know all the sports kids here," I nod, as it was common for things like that to happen.

"AHHHHOHMYGODSORRY!" I hear someone yell as a girl runs past me. A lanky but quick person flashed past. "I GOT YOU!" they laugh. "Calm down!" I yell, catching up to the first girl. "Umm...who are you? I might have seen you before..." she squints her eyes even with her glasses on. "Sato Ryosei. You?" I reply calmly. "Oh, yeah, Akiyama Chinya." she stops, "I'm the surgeon here." Chinya salutes at me. The person who was chasing her walks up. "Ueda Mina, Tennis player. I've heard about you online. No wonder you caught up," she grins at me. 

The two resume their running. "Okay, everyone has meeted and greeted, right?" Tomi calls out, probably knowing her grammar was incorrect. I looked at everyone in the room. There were two girls I didn't talk to, but I could always meet them later. "Everyone divide into groups of four, and begin investigating the hallways for exits," Naoki orders immediately. I join up with Sojuro, and the two girls I hadn't talked to join us as well. "There were some stairs around here, right?" The taller one suggests right off the bat. "Yeah,"I nod, "I'll lead the way." I tell them. We begin walking in silence to the staircase. "By the way, I never caught your names," Sojuro says, not turning around. We stop in the middle of the hall. "Oh, Kido Nayoko, Ultimate Journalist at your service," The shorter blonde girl bows. "Sonoha Asahi. My talent is acting, so Ultimate Actor or actress works for me," The other girl flashes a bright grin at me.

All four of us continue down the bland hallway. Soon, we pass a corner, and the staircase is at the end of it. We jog down the hall to them. Thick chains block us from going up the stairs. Sojuro yanks on the chains, but they don't budge. "Strange," I hear him mutter under his breath. There were two doors along to hallway. They were on the right wall, and Asahi had already wondered into one of them. I open the first door, the one closer to the staircase. Nayoko drifts behind me as I walk inside.

It's a simple classroom. From what I could tell, there were twenty desks, and a chalkboard lines the front wall. Some bookshelves, although mostly bare, cover the back wall. Together, Nayoko and I investigate. A chill runs down my spine. Something is wrong, but I can't place my finger on it. For a split second, I think about our situation, and how strange it was. I feel Nayoko tug on my shoulder as I blink back into reality. She hands me a book from the shelf, and we open it together. The pages are crisp and thin, and some pages are black and burned. I sigh in annoyance; the only thing we could read about in it was something about types of vegetables in Europe. We open another book, but it's no use. There was some mumbo-jumbo about roses or something. Pretty boring.

"This might have been a gardening or herbology class...at some point," Nayoko breaks the silence. She walks over to a window, which was covered in metal like all the other windows. As I peer over her shoulder, I see what she found. A broken pot. Soil spilled out of one crack. I step over next to her. The words "white rose" are printed on it, but it was barely visible. Nayoko puts the pot down, and we leave the classroom. I can see dust flutter as I drag my hands along the desk. "What didja two find in there?" Asahi promptly asks the second we step out into the hall. She tilts her head and glances over us. "Just some books on plants and a broken pot," I reply, shrugging. "How about you and Sojuro?" Nayoko pipes up, raising her hand. "There were some lockers in the room back there, but there was no way to break them open," Sojuro shakes his head glumly. "This place is kinda creepy just to be honest," Asahi admits. I open my student iD. It's similar to a phone to say the least. 

"The map shows the places I've been," I notice, pulling up the map feature. The classroom I woke up in, the hallways, the auditorium, the staircase, and the classroom I just left are highlighted on the map. About twentyish rooms were outlined outside of it. "Same here," Nayoko confirms but pulling out her student iD as well. I see Sojuro glance up for a moment, so I follow his gaze. A clock is stationed on the wall. 2:23pm, it read. Time must have passed really quickly... "Let's continue exploring, alright?" I suggest. Asahi nods, and Nayoko holds my hand for a moment. I squeeze it tight.