Danganronpa: GHOST TOWN

Chapter Nine, Part Five: The Last of Us

"Hey Kena." I slipped into a seat at the Diner counter.

"Hey." She flipped a pancake solemnly.

I frowned. "What's up?"

Kena sighed, moving her shoulders nonchalantly. "Nothing really." Her eyes widened tiredly. "I'm just sick of being stuck here."

I looked into my cup of coffee. "That's an understatement." How much longer did we have to stay here? My thoughts strayed to Toshiro's hope that Kiyoshi would be able to help us. We'd get no aid there, for there was no possibility he'd be helping us the way he was right now. I sighed heavily and took a sip from my cup. It had been a small chance anyway.

"What's up with you?" Kena questioned, slipping into the seat next to me. She stabbed at her pancake with a fork but instead of shoving the hot food in her mouth this time she blew on it first.

It was best not to involve anyone else in the plans and ideas made with Toshiro and Kyofu. I didn't like thinking that Kena could be the one against us but it was a possibility. It was something I hated thinking too much about. "I just wish I could remember what we've been forced to forget." I twisted in my seat, angling myself towards her. "And I wish I wasn't here either."

She nodded. "But thinking about it and the world outside, I wonder if it's any better."

"Better?" My breath trembled while I considered what she had said. It had been destroyed and ruined. That's what Monokuma had said and that's what we had seen in our memories. Yet Kena was right. Was what we had seen really better out there if those things were still waiting?

Kena poured syrup onto her breakfast. "You know it's weird. Here we have food whenever we want it and places to sleep and bathrooms." She raised her eyebrows. "And even places and things for entertainment. From what I've been allowed to remember." She narrowed her eyes icily. "There's nothing like that outside anymore."

I stared back into my coffee like it could give me something wise to say.

"I don't want to be here. It's horrible and I hate it and the way everyday life is so easy with the simple things makes me hate it even more." She pushed a clump of her pancake through a pool of syrup in agitation. "And the worst part is that I can feel the effect it's having on me. The endless stress and fear in every waking moment." Kena was deep in thought, pancakes far from her mind I was sure. "I feel it eating away at everything that gives me the ability to make people laugh. And everything that makes me want to see people laugh."

Her words rang with familiarity in my ears. It sounded like what Kiyoshi had said the night before. He'd lost his motivation. He'd lost his drive. This place- Monokuma- it was destroying everything about us. Our lives, our trust, our hopes, our love, our morals and our passions. It was sapping up all aspects of who we were and eventually there would be nothing left.

"I don't know how to make it stop either which is the most impossible part about all of this." She stabbed a piece of the cake and chewed on it unhappily. "If we live here without killing then Monokuma will find a way to force our hand and it will happen anyway. There's no winning."

Unless there was some way to stop Monokuma. Unless we could find the mastermind and get them to stop this madness. But how could we nine possibly manage that?

"You realize it too don't you?" I felt her eyes on my face.

I took a hurried sip of my coffee before answering. "I do. There's no way out of this if we can't get rid of Monokuma and we can't get rid of Monokuma."

Kena watched me still, a curious look in her eyes. "Have you thought about this already?" Her dark eyes flashed to the camera that was steadily watching us.