Chapter 43
. Maizono exited Classroom 3-A and moved back into the violet-lit hallway. She was not sorry to leave the chalkboard of half-green, half-purple, and regular Monokuma or that garish brown wallpaper.
. "Time is money. Unless I had a Delorean." Maizono thought as she left the classroom.
. "God, I'm starting to sound like Celeste." Maizono muttered quietly.
. Looking back on the motive Celeste had presented for murder, and it had been pure profit. It didn't sit well with Maizono. Though Celeste had been smart enough to wait a full trial before going after someone, it was still upsetting. And all for what, a fancy house and some servants? But it seems the group had gotten to her after her motive had been revealed. After all, Monokuma had taken the money off the table. Once a trial involved a particular motive was completed, the motive was implicitly removed.
. Maizono stepped into Classroom 3-B and found Kyoko Kirigiri pacing back and forth, clearly turning off their present situation in her mind. Within the classroom variety from its next door counterpart, Maizono looked at the security camera.
. "Hello, Kirigiri."
. "Hello, Maizono. Have you found anything?"
. "I have no idea."
. "Fair enough."
. Kirigiri's eyes darted to the security camera.
. "Oh screw them." Maizono flippantly replied to Kirigiri's eye movements.
. "What?"
. "Look, while I'm pretty sure that there are plenty of people who want to watch celebrities non-stop, I find it pretty hard to imagine that people wouldn't object to this."
. "Really? You've come to the conclusion that the reason nothing is being done is because they can't."
. "Yes, Ms. Detective. I don't know what you've done on your cases to make you so cynical. But I have no such problems."
. Kirigiri glanced at the security camera and back at Maizono.
. "You're only saying that because Naegi isn't in play."
. "What do you mean?"
. "I mean that if Naegi weren't still where he was, you would be responding in a very different manner."
. "But he is where he is. And for that, I can be grateful to Monokuma." Maizono smiled.
. "And how do you know that? How do you know he hasn't starved to death? I saw you ready to go after the Ultimate Martial Artist, knife in hand when she threatened Naegi. And it appears the whole world did."
. Maizono smirked and instantly Kirigiri was nervous. Without Naegi available, nothing was going to get in her way. The competitive spirit that had fueled her career was showing. A freight train had been set in motion with potentially no way to stop it.
. Maizono continued to look around Classroom 3B. The white wall paper had blue flowers splattered all over the place. The windows were still covered with metal plates. The chalkboard taunted with "Getting Tired of This" as a drawing of Monokuma reclined all over the board. It was becoming obvious to her that Kirigiri wanted to be left alone, and so she moved on.
. She rounded the corner and passed the stair case she walked up to reach the floor, and moved onto the recreation room. The opaque glass of the round window prevented her from seeing if someone was inside. Nevertheless, it was up next, and so she entered.
. She stood and surveyed the room. The Othello board was still on the table. She never did care for shogi. The alternating blue and black diamonds that painted the room were trying to do their damnedest to create an optical illusion. The dart board, pool table, and various other devices seemed to be undisturbed. Maizono made the call that nothing was important here, even as she noticed that Asahina's locker had been put back thanks to Monokuma's handiwork.
. The purple light covered the hallway as she turned left and then right. As purple exchanged for cyan, the art room appeared on her left and she entered in. The back wall was covered with various amateur drawings and paintings that almost seemed to be repeating themselves. The only thing that seemed appropriate were the six sketches on canvas surrounding the arm-less Venus statue.
. On a whim, Maizono checked the art lockers in the back left corner of the room. They were empty. She supposed that not everything put into a room was going to mean something. But it could have. The potential was always there.
. Maizono moved back and glanced at the statue on the left side of the room. The plaque said it was a statue of Nio. It made sense for it to be there. It was super Japanese after all. She couldn't say the same thing about the Monokuma statue opposite the Nio statue.
. "Who makes a statue of himself? That's really medieval."
. She peered into the repository. It seemed undisturbed. The hammers remained hung up. The dolly was still in its original location. Several stacks of canvases of various sizes lined the far right wall.
. Maizono exited the repository and art room. The cyan lights illuminated the hall of columns. The sense of danger was continuing to hack away at her.
. "Do you remember during our first year of Junior High, that huge bird wandered into the school pond? It was like out of a fairy tale. The turtle once every million years, that bird once every thousand." It was a conversation Maizono had wanted to have with Naegi here, but there always seemed to be something else that had gotten in the way.
. The first reason she had wanted to talk to Naegi was about that crane. When the two were in the middle school, a crane had essentially wandered into the pool. It was too large for the teachers to handle it, and yet Naegi had gotten the crane out of it, and brought it back to where it belonged. If he was that delicate with wild animals, Maizono felt she could have peace of mind with him. And for the past few years, peace of mind had been hard to come by. As much as she hated to say it, it might take a miracle at Trial seven to pull this off.
. "Miracles can happen! No, we can make miracles happen!" Maizono imagined Naegi saying.
. "Hmhm... That sounds like the Makoto I know. But miracles aren't all that common in everyday life, right? So.. this miracle...?"
. "Sayaka." Maizono imagined Naegi saying.
. "You worked to create a future for yourself. It was meant to be. And then it came to pass, because of you... But for me, it's different. This future I'm facing now... it's a miracle."
. Maizono suddenly had a small head ache. She felt a small sense of residual pain near her stomach. It was probably just stress. Maybe some hunger. She didn't feel that the deja vu was anything to worry about.
. She moved into the white-lit area. The fork in the floor plan lay ahead of her. On her left was the Physics lab. On her right was the staircase up to the fourth floor. Turning her back to red-arrowed third floor sign, she made her way to the Physics lab. The dark gray section led to a pair of doors that belonged more to an elevator than a school.
. There was Celeste. She was standing on the platform next to the air purifier. Her brow was furrowed.
. "Celeste, what are you doing up here?"
. "Maizono. I'm taking a look at this."
. Maizono climbed the ladder in the back and made her way across the L-shaped platform. Ludenberg turned to face her. The darkness of Celeste's expression stood in direct contrast to the clear plastic sphere behind her. Her hands were in the pockets of her jacket.
. "So this is it?" Her eyes went to the security camera.
. "Yes. Last one."
. "You sound confident."
. Maizono smirked. "Nothing gambled. Nothing gained."
. "Really?"
. "What? I thought you loved gambling?"
. "I mean, I don't love foolhardiness. This is insane. He's rubbed off on you. More than you know."
. "Is that supposed to be a bad thing?" Maizono asked accusedly.
. "Depends. Does it affect your judgment?"
. Maizono glared back at her.
. Celeste sighed. The atmosphere was tense.
. "Are you going to let me through?"
. "No."
. Celeste looked around. Drawing on her past experience, she knew her way out of this scenario.
. "You think you have me cornered?"
. Maizono's eyes narrowed.
. "I mean, there's no other way safely off this platform." She offered up with no alternative appearing to her. But there was no way Celeste would leap over the railing, right?
. Celeste smirked. "Behind me."
. Maizono could only stare as Celeste took a step back and off the platform. As she dropped, she used her hands to grab the floor ledge of the scaffolding. Maizono was already sprinting towards the edge. And within another second, Celeste had let go and landed on the keyboard and hopped off. She had take a way that Maizono couldn't follow. Maizono raced around the way she came, but by that point, Celeste was out of the physics lab, and presumably somewhere else. The school may not have been big, but it had plenty of hiding places. Maizono made it to the door and wrenched it open. Celeste was already gone. There was no way to know whether she had gone up or down. She turned back in frustration and looked at where Celeste had landed. The dozen or so screens were still dark, even with all of the input of Celeste's feet.
. "Wait, shit. I have to find Fujisaki." Maizono thought as she realized that the air purifier device had been overlooked. Though they had all seen it, had anybody but Celeste really bothered to inspect it? She looked around, and noticed that the computer portion of the device was slyly unplugged.
. "Oh this is ridiculous. If I hadn't noticed this, where would we be?"
. She plugged in the machine and looked at the screen.
. Genocider stood in the biology lab. She was in the middle of checking the slots with lights on. Was it possible that Ikusaba's corpse had never made it back to the Biology Lab? They had access to just about everywhere inside this school, and she was pretty sure the mastermind wouldn't be happy sitting next to a rotting corpse.
. "That's impossible. Hidden anywhere else would be impossible. The smell of the rotting flesh should have been a dead give-away."
. She stopped.
. "Oh my god, this is why I can't get Master to go out with me. I make puns to myself in a makeshift morgue."
. "We offer an eco-friendly alternative to standard dry-ice for all your cadaver needs. In addition to germicidal lamps, we also provide an ozone generator for the removal of ethylene gas. Simply insert the cadaver and the blue light will let you know the automated systems have activated. Temperature and humidity levels will be adjusted automatically for optimum settings. With our system, anyone can keep a body fresh as a daisy for as long you need. In the unlikely event of a problem, the red light will activate and an alarm will sound immediately. The exterior is stainless steel, and we do offer an optional leather upholstery package."
. This just raised one important question in front of Genocider. One small, but rather pressing matter about the fact that this institution of higher learning had a biology lab that could be converted into a morgue, and that was why?
. "Who the fuck installed a morgue in this school? Were students dying THAT frequently over their three to five years here? What kinda of higher education was this! This institution was supposed to replace high school and college for its youth? The fuck outta here. And if this was installed for the 'School Life of Mutual Killing', how the fuck did this set off no alarms? Why yes, sir, we just need a toasty morgue installed in our Biology Lab. Why? No. We're actually down on fatalities this year, that's why we only need sixteen slots. "
. She heard a burst of laughter behind her. It was Kuwata.
. "That was hilarious. You ever think about dropping the serial killer life and being a comedian?"
. "You!" She snipped his scissors three centimeters from his throat. "How long were you listening?"
. "Since the 'dead give away pun'?"
. Genocider lowered her scissors in frustration and sighed. She should have known. The rest of her classmates were still exploring and discovering things on their own as well. Eventually she would run into one of them. Her mind thought back to the photo, and the ramifications of it.
. "So batty, what do you see?"
. "A nutcase and a bunch of lights."
. "Count them. You see why I'm not so sure I can find Ikusaba's body in here."
. Leon counted seven lights as Genocider opened the next door. And then like a sudden record scratch, the whole complexion of the upcoming trial stopped on a dime and gave
her nine cents change. A morgue was supposed to only contain dead people. She never expected to find an alive person. The idea that someone could still be alive after staying in one of these high-tech coffins astounded Leon.
. "Greetings. What in the world is going on?", the guy blinked, his eyes still groggy from his long sedated-state. He felt around his arm and felt a feeding tube.
. "Let me get that out of you there." Genocider said, carelessly ripping the feeding tube out.
. "Yowow." the guy said, rolling around in response as the pain created mental stimulation. He proceeded to crawl perpendicular out, and, for lack of better options, slithered onto the floor.
. "Where am I? Did we all escape?" the guy asked as he rolled his sleeve down, still clearly confused about his time under sedation, but it was a face Kuwata and Genocider both thought dead. And yet here it stood in front of them. The impossible was plausible.
. "Kiyotaka Ishimaru?"
. "The one and only. What seems to be the problem?"
. "How? We saw your corpse back in the second trial."
, "My corpse?" Ishimaru looked at his hands in shock and clinched them into fists. His unbuttoned jacket revealed a white undershirt.
. Genocider stuck her hand inside the tube. It was warm enough for a human body to lay in there, and she smelled sort of gas. "They kept you sedated with gas. I think dental gas. The sheer gall and brilliancy of this move is astounding. Hot damn. They're almost as smart as master. But my god, the tampering that must have occurred even before the fifth trial."
. "The hell?" Leon said, his eyes wide. This wasn't happening. This couldn't be happening. Why was a dead student alive? What sort of plan did the mastermind have in mind? Robot? Clone? Time-Travel? None of those seemed likely within the closed system of this school of death, but Monokuma loved to keep tricks up his sleeve.
. "So where are we?" Ishimaru asked.
. "The fifth floor." Leon replied. "In a makeshift morgue."
. "I'm sorry, what? We're on the fifth floor? In a makeshift morgue?"
. "The fucking hell is this?" There were not many things that surprised Kyoko Kirigiri, but this, this was one of them as she entered the Biology Lab.
. "We're going to need to fill you in." Kuwata regretfully explained. "Oowada is dead, along with Asahina, Hagakure, and Yamada."
. "No. How?"
. "Well, after your corpse was discovered. Oowada went nuts. He died in the sauna."
. "And who killed him?"
. Leon's eyes went down. The explanation to Ishimaru was going to be hard. "Fukawa."
. "But she's standing right here." Ishimaru shot Genocider a glare.
. "Easy there tick-tock. I'm not Fukawa. Well, I am, but I'm not. Or I was."
. "What does that mean?"
. "You see when Monokuma executed Fukawa, she only executed one personality. I'm Genocider Syou."
. Ishimaru jumped back. "The serial killer? You guys just let a serial killer roam free without any sort of watch? She isn't tied up or anything? She should be accompanied by at least two people at all times."
. "Relax, she hasn't killed anybody."
. "That's not a reason. You're supposed to try and prevent bad things from happening."
. "Hey, will you stop rushing to judge. I can't murder with my modus operandi in here. It'd too obvious for me to get away with it." Genocider said as though that was supposed to placate Ishimaru.
. "But you're a serial killer!"
. "One that values Togami too much." Kirigiri said. "That's why she hasn't killed anybody."
. "In other words, as long as Togami is alive, Genocider isn't going to be a culprit." Leon yawned.
. Ishimaru slammed Kuwata into the morgue wall.
. "Hey, the fuck dude."
. "I don't think you're taking this seriously."
. "You don't think we're taking this seriously? Naegi is currently starving in a dumpster. He's on the clock. And you don't think we're taking this final trial seriously enough."
. "What? Let's get him out!" Ishimaru's yelling was frantic.
. "It's not that easy. Monokuma went to trouble of framing him." Kuwata sighed. "If we tried to free him right now, he'd just be executed again."
. "Or to be more accurate." Kirigiri said, biting her lip. "Monokuma was trying to frame me."
. "What? And you just let him get away with it? Naegi took the fall for you and yet here you stand."
. "No." Kirigiri's voice was uncharacteristically soft. "But it's half why we're in this position and you're standing here today. We never would have gotten access to this biology lab, reached Trial Seven, and freed you if we hadn't pulled off a gambit of our own." Kirigiri said.
. ""And that gambit was?"
. "I had Maizono kill me afterwards."
. "You mean she sacrificed herself after Naegi went into the dumpster, and then you waltzed in and pretended everything was fine." Ishimaru was in disbelief, letting go of Leon's shirt. Kirigiri had never struck him as the most friendly of individuals, but this had gone further than he had anticipated.
. "No, she's still alive. I wasn't..."
. "Wasn't what?"
. "Wasn't going to let her die."
. "You say that, but Naegi is starving in the school's garbage disposal room. How many are left?" Ishimaru tensely spoke.
. "Genocider, myself, Kirigiri, Maizono, Celeste, Togami, and Fujisaki." Leon said, rubbing the back of his head that had made contact with the pseudo-morgue. "Like I said, Naegi is in the dumpster. If he wasn't, Maizono never would have agreed to Kirigiri's plan."
. There was a pause. "The math doesn't add up." Ishimaru said after working it out himself. "Unless Monokuma attempted to frame Kirigiri multiple times."
. "Well, see." Leon said. "For trial 3, Yamada was the culprit of killing Hagakure."
. "Okay."
. "And trial 4 was Hagakure killing Asahina."
. "How? Hagakure was dead. Are you absolutely sure?"
. "Yeah. We, uh, we didn't find Asahina's corpse for several days, until well after Trial 3. So that's why it was Trial 4."
. "You didn't notice Asahina was missing for several DAYS? What the hell is wrong you guys?"
. "We did." Leon lamely tried to justify the students' lack of awareness. "It's just that we weren't really in the mood to care at that moment. After the second trial proved the first one wasn't a fluke, we didn't care if we didn't see someone for several days. Why should we? Unless we were trying to establish alibis, there was no point in actually seeing anybody else."
. Ishimaru's shoulders slumped. While he had been unconscious, his classmates had voluntarily whittled their own numbers down. This wasn't what he wanted to happen. He had been isolated, but why? Was the mastermind that eager for a second trial that his death would be framed?
. "This is even worse than I thought."
. "More importantly." Kirigiri asked. "How did you get in here?"
. "I was laying in my bed." Ishimaru said. "Trying to sleep off that nasty fall."
. "Appendicitis?" Genocider asked.
. "What? No. That's impossible. I had mine removed before I even got here. I had surgery for something else in that area anyway a couple of years ago so I had them go ahead and remove it."
. Leon's eyes widened. The initial premise of the second trial was wrong. Genocider was even more distraught.
. "Anyway, this masked figure caught me by surprise and forced a gas mask on me."
. "And pumped knockout gas into your face."
. "Yes, I remember seeing the canister. It was the same thing they used for wisdom teeth removal. I recognized it because I had my wisdom teeth removed before coming to Hope's Peak."
. "Why?"
. "It was getting to the point where they would have needed to come out soon and I figured I might as well do it before I even got to Hope's Peak. That way I wouldn't lose any breaks or summer time to it."
. "That is right up your alley." Kuwata admitted.
. Genocider was shaking with pure fury. She began snipping her scissors. The elusiveness of the mastermind astounded her. How long had the mastermind screwed with his proposed game? It wasn't exactly passing the smell test.
. "Hey, what in the world is this?" Ishimaru said, trying to catch up.
. "That makes two trials he's messed with directly. At minimum. I'm beginning to think that this game isn't as fair as he says it is. The very premise of Trial two was way off. If we hadn't thought believed Ishimaru was dead, then Oowada and Fukawa would still be alive. "
. "You're just now figuring that out. Let's leave before we freeze." Kirigiri snarked.
. The four of them left the Biology Lab. But they took care not to shut the door. There was no guarantee it would remain unlocked.
. Togami stood in the Data Center, lost in thought. As composed as he was, this School Life of Mutual Killing had affected him. He owed too many things to too many people to fall here. What would have been the point of winning against his siblings just to end here? On top of that, both Aloysius and Nanjo had invested their time and effort into him because they believed he could succeed. He had a duty to stop this School Life of Mutual Killing that was being broadcast across the entire country, maybe the entire world. But his top priority at the moment was just to survive.
. "Hey, Togami."
. " Monokuma."
. "Awww. Are you struggling?"
. Togami absentmindedly started look at the screens showing him where his classmates were. In the Biology Lab, he could see Leon, Kirigiri, Genocider, … and Ishimaru. Ishimaru was alive? How?
. Togami turned and stared down Monokuma. It was a stare that had been perfected over the match ups against his siblings.
. . "You do realize we'll be coming after you like a bunch of crazed dogs?"
. The warmth hit Ishimaru's face. It was more comfortable outside the Biology Lab than in it.
. "Monokuma must be laughing at us." Leon said, as he strolled away hands in his pockets.
. "Hey, wait. Where are you going?" Kirigiri asked.
. "We're done here. Glad to see you're alive, Ishimaru." Leon said tersely.
. Genocider was twirling her scissors.
. "Glad to be alive." Ishimaru said, looking himself up and down for any external injuries. "Wait, before I continue. There's something I must do."
. "And that is."
. "I must change my undershirt, maybe wash my armpits, apply some deodorant."
. "What?"
. "We were just in a cold environment moments ago. But I imagine I must smell at least a little bit here." Ishimaru felt his pocket for his room key.
. "Well, we're not exactly eager to leave you alone right now." Kirigiri said. "Why doesn't Leon accompany you?"
. "What, why?" Ishimaru raised his eyebrow.
. "Because this is a classic move by an antagonist. Show a key item or person to someone and then take it awhile when they aren't attentive." Kirigiri pointed out. "And neither Genocider nor I are considered trustworthy by the group as a whole."
. "I mean, you have a point." Leon sighed. "Come on, let's go."

Author's Note: I'm running towards the conclusion, but the further I go in the story, the harder it is to keep the continuity straight unless I re-read the prior chapters. I need to make sure I know where each character and what they're doing.