Despite Krista's protests, nobody except for Zachary had responded to her. It was what she expected: what other choice did they have? If they didn't do anything, they could risk Aleecia's health deteriorating to the point of no return, or worse... somebody deciding to take matters into their own hands... At least Zach was right about one thing. Those that are going through with this stupid plan are actively choosing their fate and... it was better than their choice being snatched away. Reluctantly, Krista conceded.

Ice nodded. “Well put Zachary.” He turned to the rest of the group. “I'm well aware that they are going to hear our plan, which is why all we can do is go at it expecting the worst moving forward. But do remember the Hospital rules of conduct. Number six says that they will stop looking at the camera feed during the night of carnage. If there's one thing our captors have displayed, it's their obsession with adhering to these rules. So perhaps that's the time to discuss the finer details of your individual plans is during the night itself.”

“I guess I'll need to explain things to Alexandria. I'll drop by later and see what needs making.” Calvin turned around and walked away.

As the group going after Alexandria's carnage chassis talked amongst themselves, Krista approached the two she felt were likely to join her for the hunt for the telephone. "Bliss? Jezebel?" She said their names as she approached, her arms awkwardly wrapped around herself. "Would you guys mind joining me tonight? To look for the phone?" She asked quietly, taking what Ice said seriously.

Jezabel was the first to answer. “Fer shur! We're totally going to find that phone for you. Isn't that right, Betty?”

“Who me?” Bliss pointed at herself. The clown gave a single nod of her head. “Ah, well.” She folded her hands together. “Of course I'll come. I didn't watch over you with Mondatta just to abandon you now. I'm not sure how much help I'll be, but I will if I can!”

That was a relief. She gave the two ladies a grateful smile. "How about we meet in front of the break room when the night of carnage begins?" She suggested. "We can collect something to defend ourselves with from Calvin just before we go looking... just in case we run into some treble." Krista did not make her signature goofy smile at the pun. It was as if she was trying to avoid implying that the would come across any danger.

“A-a weapon?” Bliss held the bottom of her chin. “I'm not sure any of us would last too long fighting a carnage sister or monokuma directly. They looked kind of scary.”

“Yo-low!” Jezabel giggled. “The mastermind made the mistake of leaving me with most of my gadgets. I've totally got offense covered. Though maybe I'll talk to baldwin number two about making some bitchin' upgrades.” She folded her arms with a grin. “Though I totally agree with Bliss, it would be best to avoid them. Well, maybe all but one. We gotta tear something up.”

The grateful smile on Krista's shifted into an awkward laugh at Jezabel's... 'enthusiasm'. At least somebody was going to enjoy themselves tonight. "It's... preferable that we avoid directly confronting the carnage sisters whenever possible... but it's good to be prepared. I'll go talk to Calvin about getting myself ready for tonight." She then took a step back, nodding at each of them. "I'll see you two tonight then." She said, leaving the group to go find Calvin.

---

The talk with Calvin had gone surprisingly well... Though that could be explained due to the lack of awful puns Krista had been sharing with the group lately. Krista promised the metalsmith to return the weapon she had decided to take: a surprisingly light sledgehammer. Even if Krista hoped that she would never have to use it, it still made her feel safe to have something to protect herself with.

For the rest of the day, Krista remained by herself in her room, looking through the map on her e-handbook with a hint of excitement. She could finally talk to her brother again! She almost felt like she did at the beginning of all this: chipper and optimistic. It was a good evening.

Soon enough, it was the beginning of the night of carnage. Finally emerging from her room, Krista collected her sledgehammer from Calvin before he sprinted off towards the crematorium. The cameras were off, so Krista felt there was no reason to hide the weapon. At least if there were going to be any surprise attacks from a raging carnage sister, Krista could maybe defend herself. Maybe.

Maybe if it was Nariko.

Krista wondered whether Nariko could even harm anybody. She was a crybaby, so Krista felt like she was no threat. Geina or Alexandria on the other hand... Krista shivered. With the weapon securely in her grasp and pressed tightly against her chest, as if to comfort herself from the troubling thoughts, she waited by the break room for her two partners in crime.

Bliss arrived with a weapon not too different than Krista's. It was just an umbrella with a pick smelted onto it. “I told him that I thought this was a waste of a perfectly good umbrella, but he assured me that it could still function. And I'm happy about that.”

The infinite clown didn't appear to have any weapons on her, but she was dressed a lot differently. She was wearing jeans and a denim jacket over a black shirt. Her hair was also covered in a beanie, and what flowed out was tucked into her jacket. Jezabel still had her white makeup on. The only thing that might have been a weapon was a black fanny pack that was buckled up to Jezebel’s hip. “I've watched enough of those scarey movies, and I'm so not going to snag my skirt on something. Like that would be really uncool.”

Bliss looked between Krista and Jezebel. “You prepared well.”

Looking at how Jezabel had changed for the night made Krista feel under dressed for the mission. She was still in the dress she was wearing that morning, but her hair was tied up in a tight ponytail to prevent it getting in the way. "I thought I looked pretty sharp..." She barely had the time to giggle at herself before she was quickly hushed.

“Totally, but no more time to chat.” She pointed up at the roof. “The carnage sisters are leaving their rooms right now. We should totally check some places out before they come for us.”

Bliss tightened her grip on her pick. “We're following you, Krista.”

"Right!" Krista pulled out her handbook from her pocket to check the map. "I feel like it will be in the resort somewhere... Let's check the theater first." With a decision made, Krista gestured Jez and Bliss to follow her back through the patient's quarters up towards the resort.

The moment the fountain was in their sights, they saw the phone booth. A red, British telephone booth that looked out of place in a hospital-resort-hell-hybrid like this. She barely suppressed the urge to cheer loudly, but she gave Jezabel and Bliss an excited look, pointing at the booth as if to say "oh my god it's here!" as quietly as possible. Krista didn't think for a second about what she was going to do next. She dropped the sledgehammer as she bolted towards the telephone booth without thinking twice, her handbook in her grasp and ready to call her brother.

“Krista! Wait!” Bliss's words did little to stop the violinist from reaching her goal. But something was amiss. A metallic figure leaped over the telephone booth and started sprinting towards Krista. As soon as she realized who it was, Justiciar snatched the E-handbook out of Krista's hand and stopped half way between her and her companions.

"Sorry Krista. It's nothing personal. Justice has more need for this than you."

Not long after that, a depressed carnage sister rode into the room, katana at the ready. Her eyes were shining red like rubies. “W-what's going on? Why doesn't Krista have her E-handbook?” Nariko circled the traitor and violinist on her horse, making no move to strike yet.

There was barely any time to react to anything. One moment everything was going well, and the next came Krista's worst nightmare. She tried to speak out, but she was frozen in place. After the traitor came Nariko on her carnage chassis, circling around them like a predator does their prey. Krista had no way to defend herself, and she was stuck between the telephone booth and the traitor, with no way to scurry away without being noticed immediately by Nariko - and she was sure if she tried to run she'd meet the same fate as Shona.

Krista shivered, her eyes welling up from the stress. "That is my one chance to find out if dealing with all this is even worth it! I need to know if my brother is safe, please! Give it back to me!" It was pathetic, but Krista could do nothing else.

“W-well anyway..." Nariko's horse started to walk closer. “I guess this is the part where I chase you, huh?” The horse started to run faster as Nariko prepared her blade. The first swing went clear over Krista's head as she ducked out of the way. The violinist found herself on her back as she crawled away from Nariko. The carnage sister was yelling “I'm sorry!” over and over again as she attempted to stab Krista with her sword. Fortunately, the katana was short enough that the robot couldn't very easily stab Krista without leaning half way off of her horse. “I'm sorry Krista!” She said, stabbing just beside her thigh. “I'm sorry!” she called out again, this time stabbing just under her arm pit. “I'm sorry!” She said again, before soaking the violinist with hydraulic fluid. Bliss and Jezabel had come to Krista's side and helped her to her feet. Before the three girls was the upper half of Nariko, with the lower half of her body still on the horse. The infinite vigilante stood over the robot with a blade soaked in hydraulic fluid. “B-but why? We were suppose to be friends, weren't we?”

"I was never on your side, I'm on the side of justice." Justiciar drove its blade through the robot's neck and twisted it, severing Nariko's head from her body.

“NOOOooooooo...” The light in the robot's eyes went out.

At this time, Geina rode into the room. “Swords are for chumps who don't use firear-” Her head vanished with what sounded like a shotgun firing. But what parted the android's head from her shoulders with one round from Justiciar's odd pistol. The traitor turned away from Krista and started to walk towards the phone booth.

"N-no! No! Please!" In a desperate attempt to stop the infinite vigilante from taking away the only chance to really know if her brother was safe, Krista snatched the umbrella out of Bliss's hand and stumbled forward, closer to the traitor. Krista wanted to apologize, but there was no other choice. Maybe this way they can capture the traitor and figure out who it is once and for all! At least that's how Krista justified her next action.

"Stop right there or I WILL attack!" She called out to the Justiciar, noticeably trembling in her place. It was a risk, but there had to be a reason why the infinite vigilante did not just let Nariko kill Krista. Krista could only hope that the reason why was because the traitor did not want to be a traitor, and thus saved her from certain death.

The traitor stopped and looked over it's shoulder at Krista. It's metal helmet showed no emotion, and seemed to stand as still as a statue in the passing seconds. Was it scared? Angry? It was impossible to tell.

“The queen is here!” Willow called out before firing at the vigilante. Without missing a beat, it caught the cannon ball with it's free hand and spun with it, allowing the momentum to spin Justiciar around. It released the cannonball back at the carnage sister. Willow was too dumbfounded to evade the returning cannonball and was knocked off her horse, littering the ground with her pieces.

"Justice knows no queen." With the threat taken care of, the vigilante turned back towards Krista. "Krista, would you really get in the way of justice?" It didn't wait for a response, and made it's way for the telephone booth.

“That was three of them, and Alexandria should still be in her room.” Bliss looked to Jezebel.

“I'd rather not stick around for that grody bear.” The clown stood next to Krista and put her hand on her shoulder. “I can't possibly know how much that phone call means to you. But if he is alive, I think he'd be a lot happier thinking you are too."

Krista remained silent. The vigilante had single handedly destroyed three of the four carnage sisters with no problem at all. If they were no problem to the traitor, what threat could Krista pose to them? She wanted to cry at the unfairness of the situation, but Jezabel was right. If, if her brother was safe, she'd need her to stop acting so recklessly. Her shoulders slumped, and she returned the umbrella to Bliss, her eyes never leaving the floor. "I'm sorry for taking your umbrella. I... shouldn't be so reckless." She mumbled her apology shamefully.

Bliss placed her hand on her other shoulder. “It's okay sweetheart. We did our best. And while you may not get your phone call, we're all going to survive.” She took Krista's hand and started to jog back towards their rooms. “Let's get back inside in case more come.”

Jezabel picked up Krista's hammer before running after the rest of her squad. “Maybe the other team had better luck than us.”

---

---

When the night of carnage came around, Ice, Zachary, and Alice were approaching the crematorium door. Calvin had intentionally left the door open and let Ice steal Alexandria's E-handbook to close the door behind them.

“Alright, so the camera feed should be dead now.” Ice turned towards Alice. “If Calvin had any luck convincing Alexandria that we aren't going to ambush her tonight, then he should be installing horse shoes on her Carnage chassis fairly soon.” he looked between his two companions. “There should be a quiver filled with arrows made out of surgical steel just on the other side of the door, along with the weapon you requested, Alice.” The infinite blood donor sighed. “So according to that book Monokuma was talking about, the minotaur was originally killed when Theseus took hold of its horns and snapped its neck. So if I had to guess, that's the key to destroying it.” He took another deep breath. “One of us has to climb onto that thing and twist its head around. Man, I didn't realize how nuts this was until just now.”

"Hmm..." Zachary rubbed his chin at that bit of news. It seemed like he was deep in thought for a moment, but he soon snapped out of it. "So, is there perhaps a different way to go about this? Call me pessimistic but I feel like jumping on the back of a robot-minotaur and trying to break its neck is not the most ideal plan imaginable. Someone could maybe chip a nail or be maimed horribly."

“It's more of a robot-minotaur-centaur hybrid.” Ice corrected, mostly out of nerves. “I suppose alternatively, one of us could stand on the others shoulders and snap it from the front.” The blood donor waited in silence. “Well, maybe we can think of a way to bring it down first. I did decide on this segment of chain, seems like a good tool for that sort of thing right?”

"Well isnt that a flawless idea." Alice spoke up rather statistically. "What if one of us lose our balance? Or better yet, how are we gonna attack her in the front without being stabbed or stomped to death?" she asked before checking a pocket watch that had hidden in her jacket pocket since she arrived. "Anyways, Mercy should be arriving sometime soon as support. I doubt that she will fight though, she panics when she hurts someone on accident."

“No one forced you to come.” Ice said with a grumble. “And that's why there are four of us. We won't be attacking her from the front, that's a death sentence. If someone does attack her from the front, they'd better have decent cover.”

"Oi, just saying." The recon said, shrugging.

Ice sighed. “Alright, I understand why everyone feels a little uneasy about this. I know I do. You've likely heard stories about the last time Monokuma gave everyone an opportunity to be a hero. The fact that neither of you have actually seen a carnage sister powered up probably doesn't help either. So...” It took Ice a moment to summon the words. “Thanks, the two of you have a lot less to gain out of this than I do.” He pointed. “Well, let's assess the situation. We might be able to plan better once we know what things are like inside.” Once everyone was inside the crematorium, Ice shut the door behind them. After taking a few steps down a narrow corridor, they approached the mouth of Alexandria's room. There was a heavily decorated princess bed, an anvil, and one wall was lined with the ovens for cremating bodies. Calvin and Alexandria were also there, and Alexandria was using her carnage class chassis. Though the arrangements were not quite as they had been planned. The giant silver centaur was holding her spear against the side of Calvin's neck, while he held his arms up in the air like a hostage. It would seem something went wrong. Fortunately, he was still alive, and Alexandria was too occupied to pay much attention to the newly arrived. “Well, at least she's distracted.” Ice whispered. “I never cared much for Calvin, but I'm glad he's still alive.” He looked to his two companions. “Any ideas?”

"Hmm...maybe one of us could sneak in behind Alexandria and snap her neck from there." Alice suggested , picking up a cutlass from beside the door. "But we would have to be silent enough for it to work."

"Calvin appears to be in a bit of a pickle. It's a shame we aren't bathing in alternatives, because I can't say I'm a big fan of this approach." Zachary admitted, keeping his eye on the intimidating beast that was the Carnage Chassis. He kept a straight face but was most certainly terrified of the thing. That being said, such situations were "do or die" and fear was the enemy to him and everybody else right now. As were mistakes. "The Infinite Recon sounds like our best bet for this particular mission, but I can volunteer if need be."

“Alice does sound like our best shot. Though we should be prepared to assist should something go wrong. The traitor could be hiding.” Ice nodded for Alice to go ahead with her part of the plan.

The recon nodded back as she crouched down and snuck up behind the centaur as quiet as she could. One of her hands rested on her sword, in the case a fight would break out, as she signaled Calvin to stay silent.

Calvin was unable to do much from where he was standing, aside from pretend he didn't notice Alice. “What's the matter Alexandria? Why the hostility?” The robot didn't budge. “I'm not sure what you plan on accomplishing. You don't appear to be able to speak in that form.” Calvin didn't take his eyes off of Alexandria. “Do you know Morse code? Do you have anything to write on?” The robot slowly shook its head. Which was not really the most ideal thing for her to do. In turning her head, she spotted Ice preparing to follow after Alice. Alexandria's head snapped to the blood donor and didn't look away. He and the carnage sister just stared at each other, waiting for the other one to make the first move. “Fuck!” Calvin swore. The centaur pulled the spear away from Calvin's neck as as Ice pulled his chain taught. The room was so quiet one could hear a pin drop. The next person to move would surely provoke the machine. Alexandria did not appear to notice Alice, but how much longer would that keep up?

For once, Alice was stumped. With the centaur distracted, she had two choices. Wait and see what happens, or strike and risk death. She slowly got into position to jump on Alexadria, but hesitated to see if anyone will break the silence.

Things took an unfortunate turn, as they always seemed to do in this place. Ice's cover was blown and now Alexandria was in high alert, meaning that it was possible that Alice would be spotted before she could mount and terminate the beast. If that was the case, then that meant they were to engage the Carnage Chassis in combat, which was a very... unpreferable event. Something needed to be done. Their best bet was to win without actually fighting. If they couldn't do that then casualties would most certainly be suffered. What could they do?

Zachary took a deep breath in, loud enough for Alexandria to hear. In the heat of the moment, he could only think of two choices. One was to remain hidden and wait for his own opportunity to strike. That left Ice and Calvin alone to deal with this thing, while either Zachary himself or Alice could go for a takedown. But... he didn't like that idea. If he wanted to be the Infinite Assassin, then he would be. He was not, so it was probably best to help the others out instead of making a shoddy attempt to sneak around. His other option, of course, was to provide support and as even more reason not to look Alice's way. He would be placing his trust in a stranger to end this for them, but they all wanted out of this mess, so hopefully it wasn't a move he'd regret.

Having grabbed the arrows made for him just before Alexandria noticed Ice, Zachary readied his bow as he eyed the machine, looking for any spot he felt an arrow could do some real damage. Also noticing the eyes had switched to him made him feel that perhaps he had made a mistake. This thing was absolutely terrifying! That being said, he wasn't able to back out now. Hopefully, with the added threat of his presence, Alice would have an easier time getting into position.

Or maybe they would die? Zachary didn't want to think about that.

Alexandria's attention was fully fixated on the archer. She leveled her spear with Zachary's chest, making her next target apparent. The infinites didn't have much time to react before the centaur turned her entire body towards the archer and bolted. It was a small space, and Alexandria was able to reach her max speed fairly quickly. Ice was only able to get his chain around one of her back legs. He was pulled off of his feet by her sudden charge, but did manage to get her to stumble, if only for a moment.

As Alexandria bared down on Zachary, he was momentarily dismayed to see that all of the plating on the carnage chassis was tight. The only gaps were around moving joints, and they all had skirting to prevent things from obstructing their movement. But the neon red eyes, that might have been a weak point. It was the only part of the entire beast that looked like it might break.

It looked like a change of plans for Alice, as she took evasive action and leaped onto Alexandria, keeping a grip as tight as she could, reaching for the centaur's neck.

The already-intimidating beast was made even more frightening by the sheer speed at which it took off. For a very brief moment, he wondered if matadors felt as small as he did right now. A helpless feeling nearly overcame him. What was it called? Despair? ...no, he couldn't act like that. If he did, then perhaps the others might follow. If anybody gave up now, then they might all die. Zachary was no hero, but the courage he mustered up in this moment might have made him look like one. Because to the Infinite Archer, in this very moment, notching an arrow and readying his bow was much more difficult than the alternative, which was to make a mess of his pants.

Thankfully, he did not choose said alternative.

"Tsk."

It was irritating that the design of this Carnage Chassis was actually not horrible. There wasn't much for Zachary to aim at that would prove to faze the beast, and what was there was obstructed. Of course they eyes did not go unnoticed. They were just really cliche. A glowing weak point would be the first thing he went for in a video game, but this was real life! Nobody would have such a flawed design, would they? There was probably some form of protective barrier there.

But it was not as though he had a choice. If he was going to fire, that's where it would have to be. And silently thanking Ice for the brief opening he provided, Zachary took that shot, hoping for the best.

The arrow flew true, and struck Alexandria in one of her eyes. Aside from her head jerking upward from the impact, the robot did not react very much. But it did throw off her trajectory enough that she completely missed the corridor and struck the wall beside Zachary. She was only a few inches away from the archer's heart. The robot used it's free hand to pull the arrow out of its eye moments before pulling the spear out of the wall. Both eyes appeared to be functioning. This did not appear to be a typical boss weak point. There was nowhere to run, and Alexandria would be ready to stab again shortly.

The sudden impact threw Alice against Alexandria's back. While the robot didn't react initially, she attempted to stab the recon with the arrow she pulled out of her own eye. But the head was close. Alice's hands were resting at the base of the robot's neck.

Even though her arm was stabbed, Alice didn’t waver and finally had her hands on Alexandria's head and neck. "Sorry, doctor's orders." She managed to say, before snapping the centaur's neck. Alexandria immediately stopped moving. Her entire metal chassis seemed to freeze in place, shooting sparks out of the bottom of her neck. Alice was able to jump off the carnage sister seconds before it collapsed to the ground. Ice hobbled over to the crematorium door and opened it for Mercy, who ran inside the room. She was here to heal the wounded, and promptly fixed up the recon's arm. "Where have you been?" Alice asked the doctor as she wrapped bandages around her arm.

"I had some difficulties to work around, and I was helping Krista look for that phone thing." Mercy said, strangely monotone, as she put the rest of the bandages back in her bag and stood up. "Anyways, looks like the nurse wasn't too much trouble, so ill be on my way." The doctor said with a smile returning to her face. But before she could leave...

“HEY!” Ice called out. He had been dragged a good distance before the carnage sister had been put out of commission. “With the night of carnage still going, it might be safer for everyone to stay in here. Besides, I have Polycythemia vera!” Even though he hadn't gotten scraped up very badly, he was bleeding from the scrapes on his arms. His shirt sleeves were turning white to red. “Please tell me you brought something for this...”

Mercy seemed to perk up when she heard that the blood donor had a health problem, she scrounged through her bag and pulled out two bottles of pills. "These should cut back your blood count, plus relief the symptoms temporarily." She explained, handing the pills to Ice. "One's asprin, and one is hydroxyurea, you can pick one though! As asprin can thin your blood than subtract it's regeneration." The doctor then used the rest of her bandages to patch Ice up.

"I see we're not all dead." Zachary exhaled in relief to the conclusion of the battle, if you could call it that. It was much shorter than he expected, but real life was much different than movies and games. They could have been wiped out just as fast, and it wasn't as though nobody was hurt. He felt his heart still beating rapidly due to all the excitement. Honestly, it did not feel quite bad after the fear of a giant robobull disappeared. But hopefully things didn't come to this again, or at least not until they got some rest. "So that went relatively well, all things considered. Not to jinx us or anything."

Calvin took a few steps. “Jesus fucking Christ!” He said all at once. “I was sure she was going to kill me, I have no idea why though.”

“Talking about the plan in public like that probably wasn't the smartest decision.” Ice growled while he walked towards the doctor. “But we're all alive, we did it. Aleecia will be safe.”

"So...what now?" Alice spoke up, eying the broken carnage chassis. "Wait out the night or what..?"

"Hopefully not die."

“I personally think waiting in here would be safest. We could get attacked on our way back to our rooms.” Ice was looking at one of the bottles of pills. “Hey, do you need to take this with water or?”

Alexandria's body made a metallic groaning sound, and everyone hopped backwards. The head seemed to straighten itself out as the carnage chassis stood completely upright, ready to continue fighting. Aside from the damaged eye, it was like it never even went down. Alexandria looked at each infinite in the room before raising her spear over her head. Instead of thrusting it at one of the infinites, Alexandria held the spear completely vertical and a flag unraveled, displaying the phrase “You won!” Confetti and sparklers shot out of her back as she paraded around the crematorium. There was even some audio playing, like a chip tune from an old video game. After making a full lap, the far wall was covered in a puff of pink smoke. Shortly after the carnage sister rode into the smoke, it disappeared. Once the smoke cleared out there was no sign Alexandria had ever been there. Aside from the confetti and exhausted sparklers that covered the floor.

Calvin shook his head. “Holy shit, I think we're all insane."

"Agreed."

"Same."

“Screw this, let's get back to our rooms.”

---

Shortly after the night of carnage ended, all of the carnage sisters returned to their normal, nonlethal selves. No one was around to see Nariko enter the Aleecia's room and roll her out on her hospital bed. We're going to the second floor. Nariko whispered. You won't be in as much pain there.

Meanwhile all of the monitors in the hospital, even the ones in the infinites' own rooms, turned on with static. Anyone who was trying to get some sleep would find themselves rudely awakened by a voice.

Hey kids! It was Monokuma who chose to appear at this hour. In the words of your favorite mastermind: Conquest is yours! You put the woopin' on Alexandria, and now the second floor facilities are open to you. Aleecia has been moved into the POD room, where she has been put in stasis. And POD is not an acronym for 'Palace of Death,' though that would have been cool. You can talk to one of the nurses if you want to know more. Killgood put his paws behind his back and lowered his head. But not everyone was able to seize this grand feeling of conquest. My angles were ambushed by that dirty good for nothing traitor! They stole Krista's E-handbook for their own personal gain. He sounds more like a super villain if you ask me! The bear's face lit up with fury as he punched the air. “You guys should have stuck around, we'da kicked the crap out of 'em if we worked together.” Killgood pressed his arms to his sides. “And nobody died!? You can't have a heroic sacrifice without death! This whole outing was pointless!” Just as quickly as he had fired himself up, monokuma started to calm down. “Anyway, just cluing in all the folks who decided to stay in bed. I guess you were the real winners. They did all the work, and you reaped the same rewards.” The bear shrugged. “But that's how it's always been hasn't it? When something needs to get done, it's always a very small number of people who ever get up off their tails to actually do anything. Kind of like every war, every rescue effort, or that time Davis decided to fight back against Neo Alexander.” The monochromatic bear stared into everyone's room for several seconds before continuing. “Anyway, I think that covers everything. I'll see you again when it's time for the morning announcement.” And then the monitors went silent.

---

Currently With: Mercy Evergreen |BGM:Serenity

---

"Ugh..can't I get break for five minutes, you pretentious sods?!"

Having grown the habit of being a light sleeper from military experience, Alice shot up from her bed as soon as the tvs were turned on, and grumply threw a pillow at her room's television. She didnt pay much atention to what Dr. Killgood was saying, except the part where the other team had failed their objective. "Thats a shame though, wish I could've helped Krista out, but assisting Aleccia and unlocking the rest of this floor came first.." she talked to herself, shaking her head, lightly slapping her face, and rubbing the sleep out of her eyes to wake herself up.

Alice actually felt bad for the violinist. It would make sense that Krista's E-handbook would be stolen, with the whole despair nonsense, but what if she wanted to check up on a family member? That would be what the recon would do if she got the phone call herself, more specificaly her younger brother.

"Well, as long as i'm up, guess i'll explore around." shuffling off her bed, Alice walked out of her room, and into the resort.

As soon as she walked out into the patient's quarters, Alice was greeted by Mercy walking out of the hospital area. "Cant sleep?" she asked the doctor.

"Seriously? You know I STILL have insomnia, and you ask that?"Mercy asked back, obviously annoyed.

"Oh yeah, I forgot. Anyways, im gonna check out the plaza, wanna come with?"

The doctor replying with a shrug, the two made their way to the resort. "Alright, you look around over here, and ill check the dining room." Mercy said before walking to the dining room entrace, while Alice stayed in the music plaza to check out the stage and instruments.

---

---

Zachary was not asleep when the teddy bear of doom had decided to rudely appear on the screen. He could found it somewhat difficult to allow himself to drift off, what with the threat of death looming over him. This was odd, considering he typically found it easy to succumb to slumber when he wasn't staying up late at night, watching shows or playing games, or even training. But somebody had apparently died not too long before he appeared here, and if those frightening robots weren't just for show (which they certainly were not) then it was entirely likely that he was going to witness death here, maybe even his very own.

"How cruel."

The Infinite Archer found it hard to actually listen to the announcement, but he did catch the part about the stolen handbook. That was not good, though if he was going to be honest, he was more upset over the fact that the traitor had won a round rather than being sad for the Infinite Violinist. Such is to be expected, however. He was not exactly close with anybody here yet, and he wondered if he would ever be. He desired to place his trust in a certain other he spent some time with, but was not ignorantly idealistic and couldn't entirely do so. Befriending people in these situations had always, at least in shows with similar plots, led to betrayal or sadness. Having experienced a near-loss of the most important person in the world to him before, he was terrified of that feeling more than anything. Perhaps even death itself.

Zachary sank into his bed and closed his eyes. He stayed like such for a minute, yet realized that sleep would still not come to him no matter how hard he tried. Perhaps he should think of something to get his mind off the negative? Yeah, that always worked. But what? He wasn't sure what he could ponder, until it hit him. There was something extremely important to him that he could think of, that would possibly help him get through this mess, mentally.

Man, if this weren't real... if all of this was fake, like maybe a game... then, who would be the main character? And which girl would be a best?

How he made it to this point, survived an encounter with a dangerous beast, and was even breathing right now without having mentally solved this beforehand was nothing short of a miracle, really. Such important matters dictated the flow of life itself. But perhaps a delay on this subject was necessary. After all, of course, people rise and fall in rankings based on their actions and interactions with other people due to you learning more about who they are and why they do what they do.

It might be best to see how things might have changed from the moment I had met each and every one of them, even if it was very brief with a few. We'll go aesthetics first. And aesthetically, I have to say I rank blondes rather high. There's a reason I 100% completed Golden Tale and all of the routes. So I would say... The Infinite Violinist has won this one. 10/10, would choose route solely due to looks.

The Archer crossed his arms and legs and closed his eyes as he laid on the bed, thinking intensely. Had someone been able to walk in on him, they perhaps might think he was overworking himself trying to think of a way out or something of that nature. It was unlikely anybody could have any other reaction but disappointment and probably disgust to know what he was truly thinking, however.

Of course, we cannot rank someone merely on looks alone. At least not in the real world. Though that's probably why 2D will always be superior in every way except the fact they don't exist. So, then we move on to whom seems most pleasant to hang around. At least for now, this is a work-in-progress listing, me.

Jez?

Pretty sure I have not really interacted with any of the other girls that much, so this is to be expected, me. Although this also means she has been the least pleasant, too, what with trying to force me to touch those filthy casuals! Ah, just thinking about it makes me shudder!

...

...There are people who actually think like that. How sad. Anyway, me, how do you feel, really?

About what?

You know what.

No, I don't.

Yes, you do. You're me. And I'm you. Literally. You can't actually not know, you're talking to yourself. In your head.

Yeah well... you're right, but fuck you, me.

Please answer.

Okay, you're inquiring about that embarrassing scene that happened earlier, with the clown? I FEEL like something horrible is going to happen, and it's going to really suck.

Is that all?

What do you mean? Wait, why am I asking. I know what you mean. And no, I don't think I want to try to go down clown route. That happened with Castle Crashers and honestly it wasn't that good. The ending, I mean. The game was fun.

I know that. It was a good game. Anyway, what if she goes down you're route, hmm~? What then?

Impossible. You couldn't accidentally trip my flags and nobody would even if they knew them.

Don't lie to yourself. If you were genderswapped, then you would probably just be the default route with how easy you are to please. All somebody has to do is play nice. I'm surprised you aren't used goods yet.

Oh, I make one measly promise on the first day of the Death Olympics and you start slut-shaming me? I'll go do something actually productive or interact with other people if you keep this shit up, me. See how you like that!

You won't.

And so Zachary shot up off the bed, irritated at himself for essentially calling himself a slut in his own mind. If people could have actually witnessed what just happened inside of his head, then surely he would have been considered the Infinite Crazy or something. Thankfully, that was not the case and in all honesty, he was just a perfect mixture of bored, tired, and anxious. He probably should go speak to others, but considering the time, he wondered if anybody would be up?

Well, that might not be a problem since a certain bear decided to abruptly disturb them. Since he was not going to fall asleep anytime soon, he figured he would at least walk around. Maybe he would bump into somebody doing so? It surely would be better than ranting at himself, in his own head, about silly things that didn't matter much.

Man, I'm fucking weird.

As night turned into day, many more of the infinites would go exploring the newly opened up floor. This took priority even over breakfast, as it was still a bit too early for most of them to eat.

The entire second floor had a more complete look to it. The walls were painted for one, and it no longer felt like a basement. There were also pictures here and there of coastal buildings, beaches, and even a few kangaroos.

---

Ice and Calvin had gone to the POD room. The walls were lined with pods that didn't look too different from cryogenic chambers from any sci-fi fantasy show. And sure enough, that was exactly what these were here for. Ice was looking through a window at Aleecia, who was laying inside one of the pods.

“So we saved her.” Ice didn't look away from the pod.

“I guess.” Calvin sighed. “I'm really surprised no one got killed last night.”

“By the way.” Ice turned to face Calvin. “I had you figured out wrong. I thought you were a selfish crybaby, but you risked your life for Aleecia.”

Calvin scoffed. “We never did see eye to eye, but I think we're both the type of people who can set aside their differences for the right reasons.” Calvin didn't want to say it, but Aleecia reminded him of his sister. He felt really bad that krista wouldn't get to talk to her brother, but was glad that everyone was alive. “So is she going to be alright in there?”

“Nariko said that the way this machine works is that it freezes the body so fast that none of the flesh and tissue gets damaged. It sounds like something out of science fiction, but this is Axis Mundi we're in.” He turned to look at Aleecia again. “Nariko also told me that they would have her back on her feet in a few weeks.”

“Wonder why they didn't fix her up before this whole killing game.”

“If I had to guess, it was part of that bastard's plan.” Ice peaked over his shoulder. “If he's the ultimate mastermind, he could have predicted that the roller coaster would have triggered her bleeding. Then he could make us do something as crazy as fight a carnage sister.”

“But we beat it, and without suffering a single casualty.”

“That's what bothers me though.” Ice leaned on Aleecia's POD. “We didn't kill it. Alexandria got right back up again and paraded around the place before leaving. Was our victory part of his plan too? That makes no sense.”

Calvin shrugged his shoulders. “I've given up trying to figure out what anyone's end goal with all this shit could be.” Calvin made his way for the door. “I'll be in the crematorium if you need me.”

---

Jezabel was quite happy. She tended to wake up before the morning announcement anyway, so the extra early one didn't bother her much. She hadn't changed back into her clown outfit yet, and was still sporting her denim look. Though it was on her list of things to do once she woke up all the way.

“Zach, where are you? You didn't turn into a total zombie did you?”

She had wanted to meet up with the other team, just to confirm what Monokuma said was correct. Of course Zach was the one that she was the most familiar with, being that they were both equally new to this group and had spent the most time together. Though she would have been equally happy to see anyone from the carnage busting team. But before she could get very far from her room, Braden spotted her and put on a show with his dolls.

“Hi Elias Wait a minute! That's totally the cutest last name I've ever heard.” She became a bit more serious in tone when Braden introduced himself and asked what was going on. “Like, we have a politician who's a lot better at explaining things than me. But like, I can probably sort of explain most of what we know. It's not going to make you happy though. Our situation is a bit of a downer.” Jezabel would spend the next few minutes doing her best to explain the situation to Braden.

---

Cyrus finally woke up from his long rest. After the recent discoveries he attempted to find out more information about this alleged traitor going through as many news files he could find in the study. Alas, it seemed all information about this figure had been promptly erased from existence. It was weird. You'd expect a figure as the infinite vigilante to make more headlines. Perhaps the article Marianne had found was a forgotten fragment from this sweep? Or had it perhaps been left here as an introductory teaser? Ultimately, the fruitless search was rewarded only with a fatigue that drove Cyrus to sleep the second he hit the pillow.

And what a night he had missed. He could quickly gather that people had somehow been succesful in defeating Alexandria from the new additions to the map of his e-handbook. He did not know how they had managed to beat such a monster, but that was not his concern right now. A new area meant new facilities, new possibilities and perhaps even new clues.

But first, a quick detour to the kitchen for a healthy breakfast.

As soon as Cyrus entered the dining area, he could see that someone had beat him there. But that wasn't a bad thing. Bliss was making everyone breakfast. He could just see a glimpse of her through the window into the kitchen area. She wasn't wearing her usual hat, which made sense. The wide brim probably would have hit something while she was moving around hot instruments. But she was wearing a hair net.

"Oh!” She placed a hand on her head and walked out of the view of the window. Not long after, the nanny emerged from the kitchen with her original head piece. “Hello Cyrus. I didn't expect everyone to be up so early.” She was holding onto the rim of her hat with both hands. “It's mostly done. I think everyone will like this a lot more than those breakfast sandwiches.”

Cyrus looked at the Nanny with a smile, the smile of someone who clearly hadn't been awake long. "Good morning. I didn't expect anyone to be cooking." He said frankly. "I am happily surprised. Do you need help with something?" He proposed, then quickly recoiled. "Actually, never mind, I'll just screw it up." He chuckled, scratching his head. "I am, by all accounts, a terrible cook." After that embarrassing revelation, perhaps a change of subject was for the best. "Did you sleep well?"

“I don't really need a lot of sleep, so going to bed late and waking up early hasn't effected me much. I'm also still recovering from the jet lag educed from watching over Krista with Mondatta...” It seemed like that wasn't a very cheery topic to dabble in either. “I-I'm fine, thank you for asking.” She forced a smile and folded her hands together in front of her chest. “Just sit down and I'll be back with something to eat. I just need to pour the orange juice.” She quickly headed back into the kitchen. “So.” She called out from behind the door. “I'm glad nobody got hurt last night, but I feel kind of bad for Krista. It seems like the traitor was more interested in the phone call than messing around with the other team.”

It was rather apparent that Bliss was not that comfortable talking about two days ago, to no one's surprise. What had happened was terrible, and Bliss had been in the middle of it. Not to the same extend as Krista, but Cyrus imagined it weighed on her heavily. However, instead of pursuing that, the next topic drew his attention. It almost caused him to jump up from the seat he had just settled himself in. "Wait, what happened?" he said surprised. "You mean the traitor attacked you last night?"

Bliss emerged from the kitchen with breakfast. Two plates, each with scrambled eggs and cheese, french toast, and two slices of bacon. Everything was held on a large serving tray that also contained two glasses of orange juice. The eggs were still steaming, and Cyrus could smell the sausage as soon as the door to the kitchen opened. Despite bliss's small frame, she managed to hold the entire thing with one hand. Perhaps she had spent some time as a waitress? It wasn't hard to imagine. Bliss set down the large tray and moved the breakfast in front of Cyrus and a seat right across from him. “Well, attacked isn't entirely correct.” Bliss sat down across from Cyrus. “He, well, it stole Krista's E-handbook. Then it made it's way towards the phone booth. They did attack the other carnage sisters, but didn't make any aggressive motions towards us.” She split her sausage with her fork “The traitor is not on our side, but it most certainly isn't on Davis's side either.”

Cyrus gave an impressive look at the meal Bliss had prepared. "Thank you, it looks really good." But when the appreciation passed, he got back on topic. "I... I don't know what to say." He silently cursed, This made it the second night of carnage they had struck. "I mean, I guess I'm happy nobody got hurt, but why steal a phone call?" He then muttered a little as he took a bite from the egg. It was as delicious as it looked. "It also doesn't make sense. Calvin and Alexandria were positive that they were working with Monokuma last time. Alexandria even confirmed as much." He shrugged. "A sudden change of heart? I really don't get it." He was dumbfounded. The so called vigilante was proving to be more of an agent of chaos than righteousness. He took another bite of his sausage. "To think that one of us would... bah..." He cut himself off, obviously growing slightly more agitated.

Bliss hadn't taken a single bite out of her meal. She was eyeing Cyrus carefully, a small piece of sausage on the end of her fork. When Cyrus looked more intently at the nanny, she shook out of her trance. “Well, there's nothing that can be done about it right now.” She proceeded to eat her meal, but after swallowing her fifth bite, she started talking again. “I wasn't going to bring it up while you were eating, but I noticed that you take a lot on your shoulders.” She smiled, but it vanished quickly. “I mean, I suppose that's part of what being a good politician is. But it seems to make you really irritated and volatile. Even now you're a lot more worked up than everyone else is.” She kept looking between Cyrus and her plate. “I want to say that it's because Mondatta isn't here to share the burden of leading everyone, but you know what happens when you assume things.” She lifted a slice of bacon to her lips. “Did you want to talk about that a bit?”

Cyrus looked up, then sighed and put his fork down. "Well, you're not entirely wrong. It's an issue that's been around since before we got here. This situation just added a lot of fuel to the fire." He averted his eyes, though he wasn't sure where else to look. "It's not like I like stuff like what happened in the court. And honestly, that never happened before." Ultimately he just ended up looking down at the plate. "It's not particularly the burden of leading everyone here. Though perhaps it can get a little too much in the extreme cases... I'm just a few years behind on rest, miss Buckly. And surely we can both try, but I'm not going to catch up on it here." He gritted his teeth. "Neither can I afford to die here. The world still hasn't recovered. I'm the authority on post-apocalypse policy. So I must keep up the work."

Bliss nodded. “I guess this is just something we're going to have to deal with then. But do remember that while not everyone is fit to carry a burden like that, a lot of the people here have talents that make them well suited for carrying that burden easier. So don't be afraid to ask for help from time to time.” Little else was said while the two finished their meals.

---

Geina, Nariko, and Willow were all in the art plaza. The most aggressive of the dolls was panting a picture. Or perhaps it was more accurate to say she was stabbing a canvas with a paintbrush? She held her paintbrush in the same fashion an assassin might hold a dagger. With each aggressive stab, she splattered paint all over herself. Her pigtails were no longer perfectly blond, but also a little blue, red, and every other color she chose to paint with.

“Pray tell Nariko, what is our sister painting?”

the depressed samurai twisted her hair “She is expressing her emotions on a canvas. Geina took it really hard when Alexandria's boyfriend used the girl's faith in him against her. He made weapons for the other patients, and even lured Alexandria out in an attempt to kill her.”

“I knew Calvin was a ruffian, but I suppose that's the part I liked about him.” She chuckled. “Where is she anyway? Locked in her room?”

Nariko's eyes closed with a click. “She can't even go back to her room without seeing Calvin, since he spends most of his time in there. She's with daddy now on the top floor.”

“Well I do hope she gets over herself.” Willow placed her closed fists on her hips. “Her sister is a queen, and this undignified display of self pitty only serves to make the royal family as a whole look bad!”

Geina swung her brush at the canvas. “This night of carnage I'm going to get Alexandria's spear, get Calvin's weenie, and roast the shit out of it over an open fire!”

“While your word choice is off point, the mental image you just painted was quite poetic.”

After finishing his meal, Cyrus exited the dining room. He made the decision to check out the hospital first, but doing that took him straight into the direction of art plaza. Though the noise of the three sisters was clearly audible from a distance, he was only treated to a full visual display the moment he came around the corner. Honestly, he wasn't sure why he was expecting anything better. He stopped for a moment, giving the three girls a questioning look. Perhaps he could slowly pass them by while he hadn't been noticed yet.

“Bishonen alert! Bishonen alert!” Nariko spoke in an unusually robotic voice and pointed at Cyrus.

“Quit disturbing my concentration!” Geina growled. “How about you go get a girlfriend or something? Get fucked, I dunno.”

“Baka...” Nariko lowered her head and walked in the direction of the zen garden. While most of the carnage sisters had more or less avoided Cyrus, Willow decided to approach him.

“Well? Do you find the new area to your liking?” Even though Willow's lips were molded into a permanent smile, Cyrus felt like she was actually feeling proud of herself when she spoke. “I don't much care for your response, but you should know that it was prepared by royalty. Oh, and Nariko helped a little bit.”

Cyrus sighed inwardly at his failed attempt to avoid the silliness that was the carnage sisters. However, perhaps there was something to be gained from speaking to their 'queen' alone. "So far I have only checked out the dining hall. However I must say that area was very much to my liking. Very good work." Cyrus was being nice, unusually so, to Willow.

“Really?” the doll pulled it's head back. “Well, I mean of course!”

“Shut. Your. Face. Please!” Geina was trembling, the paint was dripping off of her pigtails and running onto the floor. Her master piece was starting to turn black with all the colors mixing together.

“You would dare-!” The queenly Willow sighed. “Well, I'm quite proud of the beach retreat. We should go there and you can continue to shower me with praise.”

Cyrus really wasn't that interested in inflating Willow's ego further, but perhaps it was best he went along with it for now. Trying his best not to cringe, he nodded as he lead the way. "Right this way then, your queenly majesty." He replied. It wasn't something he liked, but he figured this would probably get him into her good books even more.

---

The beach scene was actually quite nice. Of course he had seen it before, from the window of the dinner. It really did feel like he was in an outdoor environment. The rocky cliff side on either side of the beach concealed the fact that it was a room, as did the careful arrangement of the ceiling light. Though if one looked hard enough, they could see that the horizon was just a wall painting, and that they were indeed still trapped inside a hospital. There was a volleyball net set up as well as a great number of other items that one might find on a beach. From buckets to blankets laid out in the sand.

“Not that I mind spending time with you like this, I must say it is rather sudden.” Willow was examining her nails. “Few seem to take a liking to me.”

Cyrus wasn't truly sure how to respond to that. Last time he checked, it was Willow who had initiated this conversation. How was this sudden? Whatever, he just ran with it. "Solitude is the price of leadership, is it not?" Cyrus mused, looking at Willow. "That's what we both are, no? Leaders. The queen and the politician."He grinned slyly, wondering if he could inflate her ego even more.

“But there is also a great divide between us Cyrus. You were selected by the people, but I was selected by a god.” Willow looked up into the sky. “I suppose for the greatest minds among the sisters and the greatest mind among the patients to meet is still quite the occasion though.” She giggled. “Together I'm sure we could do anything. Well, I could do anything.”

Cyrus was silent for a bit, surprised at the notion of a robot talking about god. "Not so different, I'd say. For if the people are god's beloved children, how different is that from being selected by a god itself?" Cyrus grinned. "It's a matter of perspective. Personally I do not concern myself with who did the selection, it's the station that comes with it that is of importance, no?" He wandered for a bit. "So what I am left to wonder. How is it that a queen is content serving under her... paternal bear, and perhaps also Davis?" He paused for a second. "How come you are content ruling just over three siblings when you could rule over all?"

“Well, perhaps it is premature to call myself a queen, but since daddy doesn't have a wife, I've decided to take the roll of queen for myself. As for Davis, well, which god did you think I was referring to?” She shrugged her shoulders and looked back at the sky. “I do rule over all. None of the patients would dare touch their queen. They might not respect me the way they do you, but there is fear. And where there is fear, the hope of overthrowing the monarchy can not seed.”

"A worthy station, but is that where your ambition ends?" Cyrus chimed in. "Is that not one of the greatest traits of a ruler? To grow in their station to greatness? To elevate their divinely bestowed station to the greatest heights that can be achieved? I wonder, Willow, is this where you are satisfied? Or will you achieve an even more amazing greatness with your own hands?" He grinned, taking out his golden sceptrer and holding it out for Willow to take. "Is that not the right of one who rules?"

Willow turned to look at the scepter. “Well, it is certainly food for thought.” She reached for the scepter and gently pulled it out of Cyrus's hands. “To rule over every patient in every killing game, and the sisters that reside there.” She closely examined the scepter. “This isn't some cheap piece of trash you got out of the vending machine is it?”

Cyrus smiled. "You believe I would tarnish a queen's honor like that?" He said, making a gracious bow. "Your ambitions can bring you as far as you want. As long as you dare break the barriers in your way. This game? This entire hospital? This entire world? Ultimately it all comes down to how far you are willing to go." And with those words, he slowly walked off. "I wish you a good day, Queen Willow."

Willow continued to eye the scepter long after Cyrus left. "Well, he gave me something. That's more than I can say for any other vagrant who's run this gauntlet." She held it out in front of her. "But it's not very much like a queen to remain in one's debt, so what shall I give Cyrus?" she scratched her chin. "A matching scepter? He'd get the wrong idea. Panties? Far too crass, and a bit too soon to boot." Then her head shot up. "I know, a motive!"

---

Krista's attention was snatched away when a familiar depressed robot stumbled into the room. “H-hi Krista.” She wasn't making any eye contact, and her sword wasn't at her side at the moment. “Why are you all by yourself?” She looked at Krista out of the corner of her eye. “Are you feeling sad? Did I do this to you?”

Krista jerked in surprise at the sound of Nariko's voice, but remained tense as she realised who it was. "I was just... appreciating this room. I'm fine!" She gave the carnage sister a quick smile. "What are you doing here...? I don't mean to be rude but... I didn't think this was the type of room you'd like..."

“I-I'm not here for the room. I'm here for you actually.” She let out a small chirp. “What I mean to say is that, I'm sorry about yesterday. As bad as I feel about not being able to kill you, I'd of felt Much worse if I did.”

Krista stared at Nariko dumbly, the smile on her face fading by the second. Was that supposed to comfort her? "O-oh. Thanks? I think?" She rubbed the back of her neck. "What do you want from me?"

“I see you're confused, I'm just not sure which is worse. It was wrong to try to cure you like that.” Her eyes shut with their familiar metallic click. “I guess I'm also a little upset that Aleecia is so badly hurt. We're going to have to take her out of the game pretty soon. If there's a murderer while she's in there, the rules state that she needs to be punished if she remains. So I won't be able to see her for a while.” She whimpered. “Everything is horrible, there are no right answers...”

Do robots have feelings? She was still dumbfounded at the series of events. What was going on?! "I'm... sorry to hear that..." Did that mean Aleecia was going to be safe once she was out of here? Krista decided to ask. "If Aleecia gets out of here... does that mean she's safe outside?"

“She will still be in Axis mundi, just outside the killing game.” Nariko let out a long sigh. “She might not even get reinstated in this killing game. I'll probably never see her again. I won't be able to protect her.” She took a step towards Krista and raised her head. “But I can still protect you.” She held out her hand, and there was an E-handbook inside of it. “I know what happened to Alexandria, and I know it's only a matter of time before you use this to betray me. But if it's you... I feel like it'll be okay.”

"Betray...?" It took a moment before Krista realised what was going on. She did not reach out to grab the handbook, still feeling hesitant. "You tried to kill me yesterday. What if this is another motive or something?"

“Aleece...” water started to run down the robot's face. “Aleece didn'ty think my love was genuine either.”

Cue the freak out. "WAIT YOU CAN CRY?!" Krista hurriedly adjusted herself so she was kneeling on the ground facing Nariko. "Okay! I believe you! Please stop that!"

The doll's tear ducts turned off. “I'm sorry for disturbing you with that. I want to cry some more, but I know that would just disturb you further.” her voice was cracking. “So you'll take it?”

"Yeah... I'll take it." She carefully plucked the handbook from Nariko's hand. "But... what about my own handbook? The traitor stole mine last night..."

“Oh right.” Nariko reached into her shirt and pulled out a second handbook. “I found this on the floor when I was cleaning up our body parts. It seems like they just dropped it on the floor after using the phone.” She whimpered. “I'm sorry, I should have given that back to you first.”

Krista pet Nariko's head, worried that the robot would start to cry again. "Thank you, Nariko."

In response to being touched, the robot stumbled backwards, bumping into the door as it did so. “A-anyway!” She looked away from Krista. “If you want to hang out or just lay in one of the freezers for a while, You can use that to enter my room.” she sighed. “G-good bye for now.” The doll wandered out of the room, leaving Krista in silence.

Krista looked at the two e-handbooks in her hand before jumping to her feet. There was no time to waste, she had to go meet somebody!

...after a quick shower first.

---

---

The first floor had been conquered!

Zachary Ackerson had personally visited every single room he was capable of entering during the time he was wandering around and was now completely confident that the layout of the place was down. It wasn't really anything impressive, but it did keep him occupied for a while and that kept his mind from doing... whatever it was it did. It was now time for the second floor, which probably would have made more sense for him to begin on, but he started where he wanted to and that's that.

*ROARRRRRRRRRRRR*

A beast roared, shaking the very foundation of the building. Zachary nearly leaped right out of his skin, startled by the sudden noise. What could that even be? One of the Carnage Sisters? Were they planning revenge on the attempted murder from last night? No, that's crazy. Nobody could be that big of a hypocrite, right? Well, then again they weren't exactly people, were they?

*Grooooooo~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~wlllllll~~~~~!*

While still audible, the next time was rather... pathetic. But it allowed Zachary to home in on the exact location of the noise. He looked down at his stomach and sighed.

"Keep it up and I'm eating beans." he threatened under his breath.

His stomach ceased its rumbling, likely realizing how bad that would be for it, him, and anybody within the immediate area of them both. It was a true hero. It also did its job of alerting him that he required food. Coffee couldn't sustain him forever, and he had not eaten since he got here. This could have led to difficulties if they tried anything crazy like last night again on an empty stomach.

Coincidentally, his nose had picked up on an appetizing aroma. It was the smell of bacon. Glorious, delicious bacon. Zach followed his nostrils, leading him to the dining room where others happily ate a meal that had been provided for them. How lucky, assuming their food wasn't poisoned. That would be very unfortunate.

"Ohaiyo, fellow victims... today was... err, I mean last night was quite the fiesta. Let us try to take it easy today... yeah?" he barely managed to say to the others in the room. Zachary might have looked like a zombie to the others. He was pale, he was obviously struggling to speak, and with how fast he was currently walking, one might think he'd lose a race to a turtle. And, of course, he had humongoid bags under his eyes. It would be fairly impressive for someone to not be able to pick up on his lack of sleep because of this. though one might also think he was terribly ill. However, that would also be ironic, given their current setting.

Ignoring the source of the smell and disappearing into the kitchen for a few moments, Zach presumably set out to make his own breakfast. Once more, the smell of eggs and bacon filled the air. A while later, Zachary emerged from the kitchen with a plate and a glass of OJ, but interestingly there was nothing but a singular piece of toast on the plate.

At this moment, it had seemed Cyrus had left the room. Zach briefly wondered where he disappeared to, but it did not stop him from taking a seat and staring at the lone toast on his plate. If the Infinite Nanny was still there, he had probably not sat next to her because of their lack of relationship. It wasn't polite, after all. Either way, he appeared to be in a much better condition than before. The color returned to his skin and he didn't appear AS tired, though the bags under his eyes hadn't magically left. However, a lone tear dropped down on the table he had sat at as he mumbled something perhaps too quiet for anybody to hear if they weren't listening.

"They never make it out of the kitchen. Just once, I'd..."

Why was life so cruel? Would things ever look bright again for the poor archer?

---

---

"Woaaahh..." Once Mercy walked inside the dining room, she was already admiring the nostalgic style it retained. She walked up and looked through the window that connected to the indoor beach,kind of like a curious child. The beach actually looked fairly real, if not looking closely enough to notice the walls, either way, it was nice to the doctor. Mercy then looked out the window to the music plaza, tapping the glass to get Alice's attention, lightly waving at the recon.

“Oh, hello Mercy!” Bliss was still eating breakfast. She probably would have said hello to Zachary, but he had started eating and seemed preocupied with his own thoughts and wasn't going to bother him. Bliss had been doing most of the talking during her meeting with Cyrus, so she still had plenty of her own food to eat. “So I guess Monokuma wasn't lying, everyone came back safe.”

One pathetic piece of toast would not hold off Zachary for long. Not while he had a drink! Despite its best efforts, the bread did very little to halt the march of his stomach, and became fuel for Ackerson in no time at all. Any food that stood in his way would inevitably perish before him. It was ordained. And now that that was finished, nothing could distract him from the important task at hand.

"I dunno about that." Zachary had shifted to a table next to Bliss, but not the same one. It seemed he was intentionally keeping some distance from her. "I'm sure everybody involved with fighting the carnage sister might have some doubts about their mental stability after what happened. I know I do." he mentioned, then very quietly added "Especially recently", though it was unlikely Bliss would have heard that had she not been paying very close attention. It wasn't particularly important, anyhow.

"I guess it depends on one's definition of 'safe', though."

"Oh hey Bliss, Zachary!" Mercy turned around to properly greet the nanny and archer, taking a seat besides the two. "And yes, the night of carnage was sucessful, more or less. But not without a few wounds for some." She said, holding her bag.

“Oh um.” Bliss turned in her seat to face the other two infinites. “I suppose it would have been more correct to say that everyone came back alive. I think we all saw a darker part of ourselves yesterday. I didn't do any fighting, I can hardly believe I picked up a weapon. Even when I saw it resting in the corner of my room I could hardly believe I touched that dreadful thing.” She sighed. “I guess last night made me realize how seriously I took my survival. Our survival even.” Bliss looked away from everyone. “I wonder, would I have been able to attack if I needed to. I think I would have.”

"Hopefully."

Zachary recalled the events of last night. Had he not been able to fire that arrow, would everybody have died? Yes, there was no doubt about it. If even one of them hesitated and could not pull through, the ambush would have failed and he wouldn't be here, talking to either of these Infinites. "There's no room for doubt here. At any given moment, it seems we hold more than just our own lives in our hands. I don't want to die. But I especially wouldn't want to die with that weighing me down. Hopefully, neither do you."

"Yeah, and besides, it's normal that you didnt fight." Mercy remarked. "I didnt fight Alexandria, myself. Just patched two of the others up in the aftermath."

“Hah!” Bliss smiled. “I guess that makes Zachary the soldier among us.” She folded her hands in her lap. “Have you ever had to defend yourself with your bow before?”

"...No, I have not."

Zachary seemed to have a bit of difficulty answering that question as it took him a moment to answer and his hand found its way to the back of his neck. Perhaps he was not the best liar? "I haven't once used a bow to protect myself, before last night." he smiled. "I am certainly no soldier, I just don't want to let my father down, dying in a place like this. I'll do what it takes to see him again, or at least make it a pain for whoever locked us up here."

"That's quite a noble settlement you got." Mercy said, getting up out of her seat to get some breakfast for herself. "In my opinion, your talent is probably gonna be a key to getting through this, combat wise really. So you should get used to using your weapon more, kinda think of what your shooting at as a target, and your trying to get a bullseye. Like a video game, or something." She advised zachary before heading inside the kitchen.

Bliss nodded to Mercy. “The eggs and bacon should still be warm, but you'll need to make your own toast if you want it.” the nanny called out as she left the room. “And.” She turned to face Zachary. “Well, do you have any plans for the rest of the day? I was thinking about going into the hospital wing later, but I find the hospital part of Axis Mundi to be kind of scary to walk through by yourself.”

"I'd feel weird training for such a reason, but maybe I should..."

Zach faced Bliss. "Ahaha. I can certainly tag along if you want. Not a fan of hospitals either, as unfortunate as that happens to be right now."

"I could guide you two through the hospital." Mercy spoke up as she walked out of the kitchen with her plate of eggs and bacon, and sat back down in her seat. "I looked around there after Alexandria was defeated, and the night was over, "defeated" being an understatement. But anyways, the new hospital wing's nice!"

“Well, I suppose if it means Aleecia can be saved, then that's good.” Bliss had managed to clean her plate this time. “Alright, I'll meet up with you two in a bit then. I spent most of my time preparing breakfast, so I'm going to take a look around the resort for a bit.” She took her paper plate and plastic utensils and dropped them in a garbage can. “I'll meet up with you two around noon, alright?” She stopped before going out the door. "Oh, and Mercy?" She turned to face the doctor. "Do you... Always wear that mask?"

"Uh...yeah.." Mercy was supprised at Bliss' question. No one else had mind her mask since she arrived. "I mostly wear my work clothes when im out. It's just comfortable for me.." She replied, one of her hands on the bird mask.

Zachary looked at Mercy and couldn't help but acknowledge the strength of character she must have. "You're a strong person, to not have taken that chance to reference Batman. I cannot say I would have done the same."

He stood up. Food had given him the energy to keep himself awake. Going to sleep now might screw with his schedule so it was best to stay awake. Besides, he now had plans. "Anyway, I haven't really looked around on this floor at all so I'll probably be doing so. I wonder what lies up here besides this kitchen and a fake beach? Hmm." Picking up his glass and retrieving the plate he had used earlier, he set about putting them away.

Bliss gave Zachary a momentary glance, raised an eyebrow, and then looked back at Mercy. “Well, I guess it would be rude to ask you to remove it then, if it makes you comfortable.” The nanny turned around. “We'll all meet up later then, okay?” Bliss opened the door to the resort and let herself out.

It took but a moment for Zachary to put everything away so he reappeared in the dining room just as Bliss had left. Seemed to be him and Mercy now.

"So, care to join me in walking around? I've done enough walking alone today that I would appreciate the company." he asked the other Infinite. "Of course, you can certainly finish your meal."

"Sure, I havent seen the rest of the resort anyways." Mercy nodded, and discarded her plate and untensils into the garbage can. Dusting her hands off, she opened the door to the resort for Zachary. "After you."

Zach stopped at the door. "This had better not be the part where you say "ladies first", cus that's something only immature people do. Like myself."

The Infinite Archer stepped outside the dining room and looked around. To one side, he noticed a smaller room. To the other, a very large room. He was split between these two things, as the resort did not particularly interest him since he saw a bit of it in the Dining Room. Torn between these two possibilities knowing they could impact the very fate of him and the entire group trapped here, he asked his new companion a very important question.

"Small room or big room?"

"Now why would I say that? Im not that childish.." Mercy said, closing the door behind her. She walked up next to Zachary and looked at the two other rooms that werent explored. "Hmm..I think we should check out the bigger room. It might have more to see than the small room."

There was a pause.

Some silence.

More silence.

Zachary rubbed his temples, and finally spoke, his voice betraying conviction unlike anything before. "I believe... that you are correct. That means that objectively-speaking, the big room is the best place to go, assuming our goal is to discover more things in less time." Zachary punched the palm of his other hand, as if he were getting ready for something big, something hype-inducing.

"Mercy, I believe we're onto something big. Let us indeed head for the big room. No other option could benefit us more."

And so Zachary started towards the door to what was actually merely a dojo.

Mercy followed suite and opened the door for the archer again, looking inside the dojo silently. "...This is it?" She spoke up. "Kinda anti-climactic, but also kinda fitting for ya."

The Archer thanked Mercy before heading in himself and sighed at the sight. It was just some kind of dojo? There could be so much more in a room like this! What a disappointment! "Man, and I hyped it up and everything. Now I'm kinda sad."

Zachary gave the room a quick glance again. "There's not really...."

"...anything better and more convenient to have in this room for me, given our earlier discussion." His eyes lit up upon seeing the archery-related things in the room. "I guess this isn't a disappointment after all. Training for the final boss here should be easy as taking gold in every tournament I participate in! Eheheh..."

Mercy smiled through her mask as she walked around the dojo. "Glad you found this place useful. Me, Im more for the hospital wing." She said sitting cross-legged on the floor."Is it okay if I watch you practice for a bit?

"Ah, it's a bit embarrassing, but sure."

---

---

Meanwhile, Alice had tried out the piano in the music plaza. She didnt know what else to do after, with the other rooms not interesting her. "Ugh, im bored.." she sighed, before faceplanting on the piano keys, emmiting a cluster of foul-sounding notes. Getting up from her seat, she made her way to the art plaza.

Geina was still in the art plaza, frustrated as ever. The center of the canvas was a black swirl, only giving way to white where the canvas bled through. The corners of the picture hadn't been colored as heavily, and still showed a lot of different colors.

“Ah!” Geina lowered her brush. “I like how if you keep mixing colors together, my favorite eventually comes up.” She giggled. “Shit's so surreal, Picasso couldn't resist touching it.”

"Hm?" Alice curiously went over to Geina and took at look at the robot's artwork. "Nice consistency with the color mixing, but was there a thing in mind that you wanted to paint?" She asked, turning her atention over at the carnage sister.

Geina shrugged. “Real artists paint concepts like emotion and all that crap.” She lowered her brush into a glass jar that contained some water. It quickly grew cloudy as the paint from the brush mixed with the clean water. “So I just let my emotions guide my brush to where it had to go, and boom, instant master piece!” She stood behind Alice and placed her hands on her shoulder. “But art is all about interpretation or some crap, so how about you tell me what YOU see.”

"Humm..." Alice held her chin as she looked over the painting. "I see...hatred." she told Geina. "I assumed a participant in the night of carnage pissed you off?" She asked, looking over at the robot, a bit concerned.

“Nah man, all of you pissed me off!” She growled. “Well clearly we need to do some touch up to this, my hate isn't shining through strong enough.” She picked her brush up and, without dipping it in paint, started to go over the black circle some more. “The hell do you want anyway? You've been pretty close with my dad recently. You're not trying to become Ms. Killgood are you?”

"What? no." Alice said, shaking her head in confusion. "And frankly, I dont swing that away. Dr Killgood is just curious for a sociopath. You all are, really." The recon explained, grabbing her own canvas and paints. "And, im sorry about your sibling, it was necessary to ambush her so this floor could be unlocked, but I kinda feel..guilty? For it?"

“Unlike Alexandria, I don't believe everything you plebs say. Like, I don't see how anyone can keep their hands off of daddy.” She chuckled. “Though I do like that you think we're all psychopaths.” The black spot looked like a black and white swirl now, as the water caused the canvas to bleed through more. It did create a few runs however. “But if you want to talk to a real psychopath, you'll talk to the sister in the study.”

"The study..?" Alice hadn't been in the study since she arrived, so the mention of a fifth carnage sister peaked her interest. "What do you mean?"

“I mean there's a fifth one of us, and she's batshit insane.” Geina turned to face Alice. “I mean I want to shoot the crap out of you patient types, but I have restraint. She'd even kill her fellow sisters and her dad if given the chance.”

"Curiouser and curiouser..." Alice told herself, before puting the canvas and paint back, and walking away to the first floor.

---

The study appeared more like a library to Alice as she walked inside. She looked around for abnormalities, and any sign of a carnage sister. Before she decided to try and look around again the next day, she found the vault at the end of the room. The recon slowed her walking speed as she approached it, looking inside the sliver opening.

Nothing inside.

Moving away from the crack, she hesitantly knocked on the iron vault.

Nothing.

As soon as Alice turned around, she could hear a knock from the other side of the vault.

She quickly turned back around and knocked on the vault again, waiting longer for a response.

Alice didn't have to wait as long for a response. “Shaun, is that you?” The robot whispered.

'Shaun? Wait..the web designer was here before me?' the recon though, before looking into the opening again to answer. "Um..im not Shaun..but are you a friend of his?"

“Oh, why didn't you speak sooner? Shaun introduced himself the same way.” Alice Masson didn't see much more than Shaun did when she looked through the crack. Just the glowing red eye of a carnage sister with curtained black hair. “My name is Alice Parker. I'm surprised he didn't tell any of the others about me.”

"Funny, we have the same name." Masson chuckled, before introducing herself. "Im Alice Masson, ive heard of a fifth carnage sister here and decided to investigate for myself." The recon said, a small smile on her face.

“I see.” Her fingers crept along the edge of the vault door. “I do not consider myself among their ranks. I do not even consider myself part of this 'game.' I simply wish to be free. And if you survivors keep on surviving, and killing, maybe there will be an end to the infinite killing game.”

"Thats what everyone else is hoping.." Masson sighed before looking back at Parker. "Your different from them. I can tell..Ill figure out how to get you out of there! Somehow.." she said with a quick nod.

“Oh, it's no mystery as to how to get me out of here.” Parker continued to reach through the gap until the tips of her fingers were past the edge of the door. “I just need five. Five inches. And I get an inch every time a blackened is executed. So if there are five murderers, and five executions, I get five inches.” Her eye glowed brighter. “Five-five-five. It's never happened before though.”

"Well, maybe this time could be different." Masson said, taking a small step to the side for Parker. "With more infinites arriving from time to time, five executions could be possible, and maybe then we can meet formally!"

“You want to meet me without this door between us?” Parker retracted her hand back inside the vault. “I'm glad you're going to work hard to remove this barrier. I'd like to meet all of you. All of the survivors.” There was a brief, noticeable pause before she continued. “But why do you want to do that?”

Masson thought for a little bit, before answering back to the carnage sister. "It may just be my morbid curiosity. Or it could be the idiotic kindness I have, hahahah.." she told Parker, resting her head in one of her hands. "It could also be that you could be more human than machine? Or that..we both are different from the others..?" the recon said, crossing her arms with a tight grip.

Parker just stared out of the hole at Masson. Before long, she moved away from the opening. “This room is linked with the study for a reason. If you want to know something that isn't on that side of the door, I might be able to find it for you. I told Shaun just as much.”

"Right..well, id best be going before my dissapearance becomes suspicious!" Masson said, before walking away from the vault. There was no response from the other side of the vault door, but she knew the robot had heard her. But just before she left, Alice turned around to say one more thing. "After every trial, ill come back to check on you." The recon said, then left the study.

Zachary found himself questioning the quality of the facility he found himself in. Were they truly trapped inside a high-end building for the Infinites? If so, how could they have skimped out on quality bows? The one he was gifted yesterday was of superior quality in ever conceivable way. Well... considering who it was made by, that wasn't exactly surprising.

The archer gave a sigh before nocking an arrow and firing it at the target that sat on the other side of the dojo. He was, of course, looking at Mercy as he did so. "So, I will admit I don't know much about you." The arrow that had been fired landed dead-center of the bullseye. A fairly impressive shot, but nothing that proved to be difficult to Zach. When he wasn't under pressure, he could do this at an even greater distance if he wanted.

"Tell me about yourself. I mean, if you don't mind."

"Oh?" Mercy tilted her head in curiosity. "Well, ever since I was 5, I have always had an interest in the medical arts. I was usually that one 'lonely child that always kept to themselves at school.." she started to tell, hugging her bag. "I'd actually was more advanced than the school nurse, and only when I had patched up one of my classmates' broken limbs that my talent was known. Thus, my parents enrolled me into medical school when I was nine." The doctor then sighed in resignation. "But then with the overabundance of advanced studies and all kinda..ended up with my insomnia." Mercy told the archer, then seemingly perking up under her mask. "The burdens payed off however, as I, after graduation, was able to become one of the best doctors in my town. Diseases and ill alignments being my specialty."

"Is that so?"

Zachary turned to face the target he had nailed with an arrow. His lack of excitement might have suggested this was nothing new to him, almost like it was routine. Having grabbed a quiver and stocked it full of arrows, he was able to retrieve another one, nock it, and fire it into the same place as the last. It was often referred to as the "Robin Hood" achievement. He did this one extra time, and only then did he show any happiness at his shot.

Turning back to Mercy, his expression darkened a bit. "I hate the word 'talent.' It's such a cheap way of ignoring the hard work and effort people put into the things they love or just an excuse for those who can't be bothered to try. Infinites in particular... I'm speaking from my experiences from before I got the title of 'Infinite Archer', but many people like to act like I was given these skills instead of earning them. But like yourself, I am a product of time, effort, and ambition. I earned my place." There was a brief pause. "Err, I am sorry if that seemed to come out of nowhere. I'm still a wee bit tired, running on food and coffee at the moment and hearing about how you got here kinda reminded me that some people don't respect that."

The door to the dojo swung open violently, and one agitated carnage sister with chain guns mounted on her arms entered the room. She was still dripping with paint, and didn't look especially pleased to see any of the infinites present. “What is this shit?” She pointed at Mercy. “You don't have any firearms, and YOU!” Her finger moved over to Zachary. “My sister wasn't enough practice? Ass hole!?”

Before Mercy could reassure the archer. Geina barged into the dojo, earning a slight yelp from the doctor. "Uh, I d-dont mean any harm to you, n-nurse.." She told the carnage sister, slowly backing away.

Zachary seemed a lot calmer than Mercy, but it was probably simply due to irritation more than actual bravery. He slowly turned to face the Carnage Sister, bow in hand, but he was doubtful it would do very much were she to go berserk and attack. That being said, he still found it hard to not blatantly betray his annoyance at her arrival. "I very much dislike some savage machine insulting me all of the sudden. Can you go? I'd rather not deal with your kind more than I must."

Geina's eye lids made a click when they opened up all the way “Excuse me?” With two long steps, she was just a few inches away from Zachary's face. “The FUCK did you say to me?” If this was a real woman, the archer might have felt her warm breath beating against his face. Instead it seemed like her body was robbing the heat out of the air. Zachary could hear light static from Geina's interior speaker. “You wanna dance or somethin' punk!?” The carnage sister wasn't even taking note of Mercy's presence now.

"N-now now, there's no need to break one of the r-rules over this.." Mercy stuttered, standing up from her spot and walking over to the other two.

The Infinite Archer turned his head away from the Sister for a moment, but then, as if coming to a realization, turned it back towards her. "I'm very sorry, I had expected some bad breath to go with that horrible attitude of yours." It might be safe to say the sight of one of the causes for their imprisonment had set Zach off. Of course, he was acting as defiant as he was because of the "safety net" that was the rules. He would probably have bit his tongue and stayed quiet else-wise. Giving a strained smile to Mercy, he assured her. "The only one here at risk of breaking rules would be this savage machine. I wonder, do they get punished for being disobedient?"

“It would be interesting to see.” Geina said in a low growl. “Too bad you wouldn't be alive for it.” The carnage sister stepped past Zachary and looked down the archery range. She lifted her wrist at Zachary's target and started to spin one of her chain guns. “Guess we're stuck with each other until the night of carnage rolls around again. Or the rules change.” She looked at Zachary out of the corner of her eye. “And we ARE do for that.” A single bullet flew out of her revolving chambers, and struck the bulls eye. “Untill then, I guess we should find more, what did Willow call them? 'Constructive' ways to vent ourselves.”

Mercy silently sighed when Geina instead went to practice herself instead of causing a fight. "I didnt ask for this.." she mumbled to herself, holding her head in relief.

Zach couldn't help but feel happy Geina suggested such a thing. Perhaps because even if it did not mean he could escape, beating her in something at least meant he would have a win against her. "Would you care for a competition then?" he asked the Carnage Sister. "That is, assuming you aren't too big of a sore loser."

The doll looked away from the range. Even though the carnage sisters had some human features, it could be difficult to tell what type of emotions they were really feeling. Willow always looked proud as a peacock, Nariko perceptually depressed, and Alexandria was happy. For the most part this always captured their personalities. But if they were controlled by humans, they probably felt other emotions as well. And if they were sophisticated AI, there was a chance they could possess some form of emotion. Geina's face was still full of fury. But the infinites present got the impression she was genuinely interested.

“A competition huh?” Her gatling arm was still spinning when she turned to look at them. “And what type of contest would we have? You don't wanna pit that bow against my arms do you?” She looked at Mercy. “You gunna judge the show?”

"Umm, maybe...?"The doctor replied to the carnage sister, shrugging nervously.

"Are you frightened that this little bow might make you look bad?" He taunted, the grip on his bow tightening in anticipation. He wasn't sure exactly what kind of competition he wanted. Simply shooting targets would prove to be both pointless and boring. Perhaps something a bit more interesting to spice things up? He could not imagine this machine having terrible accuracy, what with it being designed to shoot, mostly.

Zachary took a minute to think, and then simply asked. "Do we have any ping-pong balls or something of similar size? I think shooting a small target out of the air would make for a decent game, don't you think? Of course if you've got a better idea, I'm all ears."

“Yea, I do, mister fancy pants.” The doll pointed at it's head. “How about we shoot shit off the top of each other's heads? I think that would make for a really interesting game.” She chuckled darkly. “We could use duct tape or something to hold them in place. Then the targets could actually move. And if one of us misses, we get to find out what happens when a rule gets broken.”

Perhaps angry at himself for not thinking of the idea himself, Zachary mouthed a word better left unsaid to himself. "Sounds good enough. Though I can't say I look forwards to being shot." he agreed. Hopefully this did not lead to him being killed, that would be... very unfortunate.

“Guess you should try not to move into my bullets then.” Geina spun around on her heel.

"Um.." Mercy started to say something, but instead cleared her throat and laughed, obviously fake. "Oh boy.." She said to no one, before going out of the dojo quickly to get a small canvas and paintbrush so she could keep score.

With her back to everyone, Geina spoke. “Alright, I'll go get the duct tape and targets. You park your ass here and practice.” With that, the doll disappeared in a puff of smoke. When it cleared out, Monokuma was standing in her place.

“You know.” he placed a paw on his chin. “I kinda get the feeling this is something I should be trying to stop.”

With a less intimidating foe standing before him, Zachary felt something vaguely akin to relief, if only for a second. He certainly would have preferred that puff of smoke to just disappear with nobody or nothing else inside of it, but then again, he'd also prefer not to be in this mess in the first place. Things did not always go as one wanted. But it mattered not. Letting the presence of this bear cause him too much irritation would benefit him in no way, so the Archer merely sighed at the doctor.

"You're certainly a bit too late to play the part of a responsible adu... err, bear...doctor...robot...I'll just go with forgettable mascot. Anyway, I don't think it matters too much at this point." Zachary simply stood there as he spoke to the bear, ignoring Geina's "order" to train. There was not enough time to set up a proper way to train for what they were about to do, and when it came to the act of shooting a bow, well, shooting at a stationary target was not going to improve the Infinite Archer's skill very much. He was as good to go as he was going to get. Unless for some reason Mercy suddenly wanted to volunteer, but that was unlikely, and Zach was not really keen on shooting at one of the others trapped in this game.

The bear giggled. “Oh this is far to interesting to just stop! But I very much consider myself a father first and mascot second.” He tipped his head. “Or was it doctor second and mascot third?” His head tipped the other way. “Or was it robot third and mascot forth?” Killgood shrugged. “Anyway, my children can be a handful at times, but I'm glad Geina isn't falling for you like my youngest!” Monokuma snorted and threw his hands into the air. “Boys like you are no good for my daughters!” He calmed himself down immediately. "And a mascot is only as good as the product he's pushing. So you might want to watch what you say about your representative."

"You seem to at least vaguely resemble somebody who loves their children." Zach smiled warmly. "But I assure you, you don't need to worry about them around me. Unless this plot is poorly written or there's some strange event I can't even currently fathom, I could not see myself approaching any of your daughters with any intent beyond something akin to last night. Not that I'm a racist, I wouldn't discriminate against robots. I mean, in ideal circumstances, perhaps I wouldn't mind befriending them." Putting a finger to his chin, he pondered aloud. "I wonder what those would be. I guess...if I wasn't in a death game. If I wasn't worried about something horrible happening. If they weren't accomplices. If they didn't have huge weapons that made it hard to approach them. If they weren't so quick to anger. If they didn't constantly attempt to intimidate me. If maybe they had kinder personalities. If maybe they weren't deathbots. If maybe I was even worried about finding someone to care for. And, of course, if they could even wear thigh-high socks properly." Having said that in one, huge breath, Zachary took a deep inhale and ended with. "So... I really think as a father bear you don't need to worry. I currently and for the foreseeable future, do not have any interest in your daughters beyond beating them in competitions. And I'd imagine I'm not acting in a way that would have them be interested in me." Thinking about it, Zach actually shuddered. "Hopefully. Anyways, are you here to watch us? Can you tell us what happens if one of your daughters decides to break a rule?"

All monokuma did in response through most of Zachary's explanation was nod along, occasionally taking notes on an unusually large clip board. “ Yes, I'm here to watch my daughter, the lovely nurse Geina, lift the spirits of a patient she is tasked to watch over.” Monokuma swallowed his clip board when he was done with it. “I actually haven't ever seen one of my daughters unjustifiably harm a patient. So I can't say for sure what will happen.”

Sortly after Dr. Killgood stopped speaking, Geina appeared in a puff of pink smoke. “I'd have been back sooner, but I found these wicked sick socks!” Geina raised one of her legs to show off her new socks. They were black with a white skull and cross bone pattern. They also went all the way up to her thighs. “Uhu? What are you doing here daddy?”

Monokuma looked back at Zachary, but was clearly talking to Geina. “You'd better hope this guy doesn't leave this death game and stops worrying about bad things happening. You'd better not put away your weapons, stop being quick to anger, or constantly trying to intimidate him. You'd also better not have a kinder personality, stop being a death bot, or that he suddenly finds someone worth caring for.” Monokuma threw his paws up in the air and roared. “Because I can see the lust in his eyes when you walk around with those thigh-high socks!”

Geina raised an eyebrow. “T-the fuck dad, they're just socks.”

It happened suddenly. There was no warning, no indicator to prepare for it.

A pure bloodlust unlike anything anybody had ever witnessed before overtook the room, no, the entire building. It was likely even those in other killing games had to take a brief pause to recover from the sudden, murderous air that struck. One that not even the mastermind could comprehend. Was this the end?

With the desire to end a life hanging so thick in the air, would the cause discriminate? Would everybody and everything be caught up in this pure rage? Victim or foe, did it matter? It did not feel like it. Even the smallest insect tucked away in the corner of the furthest room did not feel safe. Simply by existing in proximity did a living organism guarantee its death.

At least, that's what it felt like for a brief second after Geina said "they're just socks". And just as quickly as a potent wave of anger and despair hit everybody at once, it was also gone.

Zach look as calm as can be. "I've decided that should I win without breaking the rules, as I assume that just means I die, I'll also have you wear those socks for as long as I live. Of course I am willing to accept terms from you as well, so long as it doesn't include me dying."

Geina was momentarily shaken, but shook off whatever amount of dread might have taken hold of her circuits. "Oh, so we're going to make it a wager? Hell yea I've got terms! They're uh..." She trailed off in thought(?)

Okay, was habe ich verpasst? Mercy thought when she had noticed Monokuma was inside the dojo. She listened to the conversation between the other three in silence, as Geina had re-entered the dojo after her, wearing...pirate stockings? The plague doctor could tell the carnage sister would make a neat pirate, but that's ridiculous. She tried not to giggle as Dr. Killgood was ranting out at his daughter to not become, well, Alexandria #2., but alas, a giggle had slipped out of her mouth either way. "By the way Zachary, you're ridiculous." The doctor said, her tone changing to annoyed.

“Is something amusing, Mercy?” Monokuma seemed to have appeared beside Mercy. Not only had his position changed so drastically, but so had his attitude. He appeared to be completely unaffected by the murderous aura that permeated the room earlier. “Were you thinking of a funny joke? Or could it be that you're going to try and enjoy this more than I am?”

"Oh, a little bit of both really." Mercy told Killgood, the bear having moved over to stand next to her. "I meant, with Zachary's talent, he should be fine, but I just don't want things to turn into Arrrrmageddon." The doctor joked with a comical shrug. "Sorry, I couldnt help myself, but don;t make me walk the plank!" She tried not to laugh as she awaited the others' reactions.

Zach had to give a soft chuckle at the puns. Puns hit him right in the funny bone, typically. "High sea what you did there, and I liked it."

“Hey!” Geina turned to face Mercy. “It's punk, not pirate!”

Monokuma appeared behind Geina's leg. “Focus on what you want sweetie, we're growing our winter coats over here.”

“Ugh!” She looked back at Zachary. “Alright. How about if I win, you'll give me that silly bow?”

"I feel in this moment I cannot let this chance go, or else I might not get another one." Zach sighed. "Fine, I will give up the bow if I lose."

Not that it was possible, of course.

The nurse and doctor looked at each other. They seemed to freeze in place for several seconds before the bear started to giggle on his own. “So here's how this game works.” Monokuma stepped between the archer and carnage doll. “We're going to take a single ping pong ball and duct tape it to the top of your heads. You will then stand at either end of the dojo and wait for Mercy to count to three. On three, you will be required to break the ping-pong ball on your opponent’s head. The winner is the first one to break their opponents ping pong ball. Think of it as a modern William Tell, only this is a versus mode and one of you has chain guns.” Monokuma raised one of his paws into the air. “However, the game will end if either of you suffer an injury, and the hospital's regulations are of course still in effect. Any objections?”

"None whatsoever." Zachary answered.

He decided it would be best to grab a few more arrows before this game began, but after doing so was ready for the game to begin.

Mercy sighed as she sat cross-legged on the floor again and got her scoreboard ready. "Alright, everyone ready?" She asked, looking up from the canvas, a small paintbrush in hand.

“A score card?” Monokuma tipped his head. “You want to do this over several rounds?”

"Depends on what they think." Mercy replied to Killgood, refering to Zachary and Geina.

"Winning once or winning thrice, it does not matter to me."

“Then let's go best out of three, so that you can't say it was luck that kicked your ass!” The doll's body was trembling.

“In that case...” Monokuma and Mercy stuck the ping-pong balls on their respective partners and adhered them with duct tape. Geina needed to kneel so that her father could wrap the tape around her head, going over the top of the ping-pong ball and under her chin. The entire time Monokuma was grumbling something. After she was squared away, she ran to the far end of the dojo and turned around. Killgood just stepped off to the side and watched Mercy finish up. “Ready when you are!” The bear said in it's happy, sing-song voice.

"Almost done, Killgood." Mercy asured the bear, wraping tape around Zachary's head herself. "Aaaaand, finished!" She exclaimed, but before getting out of the way, the doctor moved her mask to the side, revealing half of her face. "And frankly, your still ridiculous." She told the archer, before she moved her mask back in place, and stepped out of the way.

With a small laugh, Zachary said "Thanks." and moved into position at one end of the room. Wasn't this whole situation ridiculous? Hopefully she meant it as a compliment. Well, even if she didn't, he would take it as one.

With the two competitors in their respective positions, Mercy simply counted to three to start the match.

“Gunna enjoy the shit out of this.” Geina walked towards Zachary at a leisurely pace. Her left hand was on her right shoulder, and she was lifting her entire right arm to take aim. The barrels on her arm were coming up to speed, filling the room with a dreadful whirring sound.

As Mercy began her countdown, Zachary's smile disappeared and was replaced with a serious, and somewhat bored look. As the doctor counted, he retrieved an arrow, performed a spinning flourish with it, and quickly nocked it and fired the arrow straight for the ping-pong ball resting atop Geina's head just as the round had started, ignoring the noise made by her gun pointed at him. Were Geina not to realize this and react quickly, the arrow undoubtedly would strike its target.

It seemed Zach was not going to mess around.

Being a doll with very limited expressions, it was difficult to tell exactly what was going through the robot's circuits. If it did have a human operator, their surprise might have been a justification for her not taking any immediate action against the incoming arrow. But with blinding speed, the doll's left hand flew off of her shoulder and opened up in front of the arrow. When the arrow struck her palm, it shattered the synthetic skin that covered her hand. The wound made Geina bleed out Hydraulic fluid like it was blood. While her hand was more or less in tact, it was clear to everyone that the robot had been damaged.

A rule had been violated.

“Oh my.” Monokuma's eyes where as white as snow.

Geina licked the “blood” that was trailing down her arm. “Looks like my target just got a lot larger!” Her prismatic eyes suddenly turned red.

"Oh God, Zachary what did you do?!" Mercy yelled at the archer, having lifted up her mask over her hat. Despite the obvious bags under her eyes, the plague doctor's expression can be clearly seen as a mix of scared and pissed off. She already knew that Zachary would be okay, but this was, again, ridiculous.

A mistake.

The Infinite Archer had gotten so caught up in thoughts about beating the machine in a competition that he had completely neglected the possibility that something like this would happen. Would arrogance lead to his demise? He still had something he needed to do, but he was certainly not optimistic about his chances against the Carnage Sister. After all, a bow with blunt arrows against a machine with a machine gun in a room with very minimal cover was, contrary to popular belief, a situation that favored the Sister. And even in the unlikely timeline where he came out the victor in this clash, would the other Sisters not simply finish the job?

How unlucky.

How unfair.

How... rather appropriate. Zachary began to think of what came next.

...He was going to die...?

...He was not going to see his family again...?

...How would he be remembered...? A man who messed up and was executed? It was possible later he would be remembered as a ********. Or at the very least, a liar. He at least hoped Jez could forgive him.

...

...

How cruel. He did not want to die. He did not deserve this... or, well, maybe he did. But it wasn't supposed to happen this way. He hadn't made up for what he did.

A mostly-blank expression. Not one of fear, but closer to irritation. He ignored Mercy for the time being.

"...That's a bit cheap." he complained, nocking another arrow. His words were then seemingly directed at Monokuma, but his attention was solely on the Sister. "You're going to allow this?"

If that was the case, then he had one more plan.

“C'mon dad! You let Alexandria turn the knight into a fuckin' shishkabob.”

Monokuma simply stood there in thought, a paw on his head. “Well.” Monokuma looked at Geina. “According to regulations, it says that violence against us is prohibited, but the attack was directed at the ping-pong ball, not you.”

“Uh?” Geina grunted.

Monokuma sighed. “As fun as it would be to watch Zachary get turned into Swiss cheese, the nurse staff should probably refrain from putting themselves directly in harm's way. The goal of the regulation is to prevent the patients from attacking us off hours. It's a killing game, not a slaughtering game!”

Geina's form was shaking. “This shit ain't fair!”

“Now.” Monokuma looked between the two of them. “I think this contest just got a lot less interesting. I'm not sure how we can properly enforce it now. Who's to say if a stray bullet or arrow was due to incorrect accuracy or an intentional faint dodge?” Killgood's face turned bright red. “You kids and your crazy games! You shouldn't be doing drugs or firing weapons at each other! You should be playing hop scotch, or videogames, or maybe Clue! Who are your parents!? Where are they!?”

“Seriously dad?” Geina groaned.

Zachary exhaled through his nose and lowered his bow, presumably relieved at Monokuma's decision. It was nice to know he was not going to die to something like that, but if he had, and that if ghosts were real, he'd be haunting the robot for time itself ceased. Or, at the very least, he would have ensured his second plan - that is, to shoot the ball off her head in spite - would have been accomplished.

In reaction to Monokuma's bit about the game, Zachary had to admit that he mysteriously did not want to partake in the competition anymore anyways. Unexpected, right?

Ignoring the bear and the Sister, he turned to Mercy. He wasn't able to even bother with a forced smile. "How long do you think it has been since we left the dining room?" he yawned. "I'm pretty tired."

"No clue. Maybe an hour or so?" The plague doctor replied, holding her head in weariness herself.

“Yea, you eat lunch and sleep on it!” Geina shouted. “I'da had your ass and you know it!” The doll walked backwards, still pointing at Zachary. “And I'm going to keep wearing these socks, BECAUSE I LIKE THEM!”

Monokuma didn't say anything. He looked very annoyed however.

"Huh...I could have sworn it was late at night. Was worried I broke a promise or something." he seemed to be purposefully ignoring the yelling from behind. The bags under the Archer's eyes seemed darker. He appeared spent. "I'm going to continue taking a tour of the area, but I won't make you continue to tag along if you don't want to."

"Uh, ill catch up later.." Mercy said, grabing her bag that she'd forgotten. "I just need some time to process this nonsense.."

"Understandable."

A single word was given to acknowledge her decision, and then Zachary quickly left the dojo before anything else insane could happen.

Wile the infinites went about their day, Monokuma appeared on the monitors again. He was dressed up like a doctor sitting in a cozy office.

“Good morning sunshine! How do you like the new floor? Don't thank me, you guys earned it. If there's one thing you lot are good at, it's doing whatever it takes to achieve your goals. Just like Alexander the great, Genghis khan, Hitler, or even Stalin.” He chuckled. “It's kind of amusing isn't it? Stalin killed a lot more people than Hitler did, but Hitler is the metric we use for evil. Did you ever wonder why that was?” The bear paused for effect. “Because Stalin never started any wars. He was content to kill the citizens of his own country.” He lifted a paw to his chin. “Oh, this is starting to sound like Monokuma theater, But I do have some trivia before I skip to the announcement. Ahem. You may have noticed that the second floor has a distinctly Australian theme to it. Right? Kangaroos, beaches, ee-tee-see-ee-tee-see.” Dr. Kill good climbed onto his desk and started to pace back and forth. “One of the first killing games was the 'saints and sinners' killing game. This one was hosted by a mastermind who called himself Sinner Hector Ecclesia. A rather eccentric individual, but what he chose to wear isn't nearly as important was what he did. Ya see, he acquired this virus called “horseman” and unleashed it on Australia. Funny thing about it is that roughly half of the people in Australia were immune to it, while the other half descended into violent madness. Hector reasonably believed that those that were turned by the virus were saints, angered by the sinners of the world. That sin being hope of course. Did anyone see twenty eight days later? Picture that, only in Australia.” The bear sat down on the table, showing his feet to the camera. “Oh yea, Hector was a real champ. But he was ultimately brought down by a group of orphans that stormed his fortress. After being defeated, he fed himself to his own men. There was a vaccine there to prevent future infections, which was how he ensured he and his men hadn't been turned. But by that point Australia was in ruins. Still, it was a win for everyone. Hector cause a lot of carnage, and the orphans completed their conquest.” The bear sighed. “Now for the boring announcement...” He changed his clothes for those of a news anchor. “So you may remember that I promised everyone prizes after the roulette game.” He arranged some papers. “Well, I am not one to lie, so I'm going to be giving everyone a monocoin to use at the monoshoppe. My daughters should be-”

The image faded into static. Seconds later, Willow appeared on screen. She was sitting on a throne, gilded in gold and covered with jewels. The carnage sister held the scepter Cyrus gave her.

“The queen is here!” she announced. “And the queen does not approve of such petty rewards.” She waved her scepter from side to side. “Those machines contain nothing but garbage, and you peasants, while lowly garbage yourselves, deserve far greater spoils. A chance to climb out of your station towards the heavens, ever upwards, elevating not only yourselves, but your queen!” She stood up. It was more apparent that there was a regal red robe resting on her shoulders. “So instead, My sisters and I will be delivering the second motive right to your rooms. What are they, you ask?” She tossed a bunch of pieces of paper into the air. “Notes! Each one contains a detail about one of you. A pointlessly... harmless detail about each and every one of you.” She giggled mischievously. “So! Look forward to that, vagrants. My sisters and I don't exactly have our father's blessing with this crusade. But fear not, we will be successful. It just might take some time.” She threw out her arm. “Long live the queen!”

The screen changed back to Monokuma.

“...Why did it have to be four human daughters? Why couldn't I have had some adorable kubs instead?” The monitors went dead.

Their situation was quite the downer indeed. Braden had run into none other than Jezabel Volcov, the Infinite Clown- no, Trickster. Braden had to take a moment to recognise her. The last time he'd seen the tiny woman was back when they worked together on TV and he had always seen her in her jester getup.

She began replying to his questions, giving him the basic idea of what was going on. Braden was hoping that Jezabel was just exaggerating, but going by what she was talking about... A night of carnage? A killing game? This was just too serious to be a mere prank. The puppet scratched it's head, "Can we not just... leave? The lift had to have come from somewhere?" Braden mutely pointed towards the elevator he had come out from.

“Like.” Jezebel sighed. “You'd think so, but the buttons totally don't work. Whoever is controlling them has disabled the control panels or something. They don't even open up again unless someone's coming out.” She placed her hands on her hips. “But anywho, it's been a while since the whole TV thing right, what have you been up to?” The clown's face beamed brightly with a toothy smile.

The puppet edged closer towards the clown, partially covering his mouth whilst looking back over his shoulder towards Braden. "Mister Fussy Pants right here has been staying home like a loooooooser-" Braden, who was initially looking the other way, snapped his head towards the puppet. He pulled it closer, shoving Elias into his pocket like a disposed tissue before bringing out Erica.

"I meaaan, Elias isn't wrong but he's still kinda a dumbass." Erica grew silent as she regarded Jez. "You look human. I like it. Better than the trash you'd wear on TV." Braden immediately shoved Erica back into his pocket, pulling Elias back out instead to rectify the situation.

"Just ignore Erica, she doesn't realise what a total bitch she can be! How have you been doing?" Braden looked at Jezabel mutely.

Jez giggled. “Don't get too used to the new look. I just felt so grody when I got up this morning that I didn't bother to change back.” This was not the first time Jezebel had to talk with the dolls, which was probably why she wasn't overcome by their strangeness. “Turns out my eyesight needs to get corrected. I can't even shoot a crossbow at a target twenty feet away. Everything just kinda looks hazy in the distance.” She looked over the dolls head. “Like, they could have at least corrected my vision before sticking us in here ya know?” She looked at the puppet master. “Speaking of, what did you go to Axis Mundi for?”

"You still look mighty fine, I might add. Ignore Bitchica, she's just jelly." There was an odd muffled sound coming from Braden, but it was unclear whether it was Braden himself or if it was Erica protesting her nickname.

“Well, there’s no better treatment than seeing me, of course!” If the puppet could wink, it would have done so. “So here I am! Axis Mundi’s very own hot treat~!”

Braden sighed impatiently. He wrapped a hand around Elias’s mouth (or the general region anyway) and asked the question that was bothering him. “Where are the rest of the patients? The video on the elevator said there were more people?” His voice, unlike Elias or Erica, was flat and almost monotone, but his eyes showed the confusion he was feeling.

“They're all up already.” She was about to reach for one of Braden's hands, only to realized he was using them to control and subdue his puppets. “So like.” She gestured. “Follow me, we'll find someone.”

With his hand still on Elias's mouth, Braden continued asking the important questions. "I assume we're not exactly in Axis Mundi...? I mean... it looks like it but..." He grew quiet. "Well... I don't really remember my time in Axis Mundi outside my room so..." Braden would have rubbed the back of his neck if both his hands weren't busy.

The two wandered the hallways for some time, until they found Mary, skulking around a corner. In her attempts to catch Caora, she had developed a skill for stealthy movement, and thus was often difficult to find, let alone talk to. She jumped when she heard voices behind her. "Oh damn! You scared me!" She made a puffy face and pointed at the two. "What are you two doing here?"

Braden glanced up towards the new character. He could recognise the voice, but couldn't place the face. He furrowed his eyebrows as she enthusiastically approached the two, blaming them for her fright. "Oh my~! Another pretty girl? Maybe I don't mind this after all~!" Elias eagerly gave Mary a once-over. Braden panicked. When the fuck did his hand slip?! His hand immediately shot back up to cover his puppet's mouth.

"I apologise. Elias... can get excited in the presence of girls." There was a high pitched muffle that sounded suspiciously like "damn right!" coming from his pocket.

“I'm just showing the new kids around.” Jezebel placed a hand on Braden's shoulder and pulled him closer to herself, seemingly oblivious to what was going on. “Come to think of it, you've totally been here longer than I have. You could so help me show Braden around. I could get to know the other Betty hanging around these parts.” Jezebel's smile seemed to grow wider and more devious. “Maybe help you find your little Baldwin.”

Mary was a bit miffed that these guys snuck up on her. But she had to admit, she liked the attention she got, so she gave them a courteous smile. "Is that a puppet in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?" She quipped, and put a hand on her hip. She then giggled a bit.
"Well, I can't say I've been here a terribly long time either. But I suppose, I've been here longer than some..." She looked aside, a frown on her face. She then brought her smile back. She had an audience after all, and she could distract herself from Cookie-hunting once in a while.

"But sure, I can give you boys a tour. And don't you call me Betty, sir; the name's Mary Hanson, the Infinite Streamer and today's internet sensation." She then leaned over a bit, just to further drive her point as a web celebrity home; give them a view to remember.

"Dear, I'd be happy if I could see you all the time." Braden inwardly groaned as the puppet still tried flirting with the giggly blonde. He looked to Jezabel for help, maybe she could distract Elias? Instead, Elias took the look of help as a sign of something else. The puppet's voice grew louder until muffling the puppet wasn't enough. The damned thing wanted to be heard. "Ooooooooh boy! Lookie here folks seems like Braden can't make up his mind~! Thoooooooough to be fair Jezzie is a hottie too, so I can't blame ya~!"

Braden spoke out before Elias could be taken seriously. "This is just the stupid puppet talking. Please ignore him when he's being stupid." The irritated man gave Elias a threatening glare until the puppet grew limp, seemingly giving up.

"Alright funs over ladies. Mr Fussy Pants looks like he's gonna have a fit." If Elias could pout, he would be doing so now. "Let's go on a little house tour, eh? Don't forget to show me your rooms too~!"

Jezebel groaned uncomfortably at the mention of rooms. “Actually, I'd like to see more of the new place first.” Her smile returned. “I think Icing and Calvo are the only ones who have been over there. You can totally show lover boy your room later.”

Mary was amused by the ventriloquist's antics. "Oh, is that how it is? Blaming your perviness on a doll with a hand up its ass? How naughty~"
She then turned to Jezebel. "Sure, I haven't been there yet either. Let's-a-go!"

Despite being the one to ask for help, Jezebel led everyone into the second-floor hospital wing.

---

Greeting them as they entered the hospital was a pharmacy. The front of it had fairly large windows, and one could see the hundreds of bottles of medicine contained within. “I wonder if like, someone should guard this place? Looks like a drug abuser's haven.” To the group's left was another window. Through it there was a conveyer belt holding some gel implants. The conveyer belt wasn't moving though. “Oh cool, we can get stacked!” Jezebel laughed and spun on her heel. “I don't suppose either of you have gotten that kind of operation in the past, have you?”

When the group entered the wing and saw the bottles, Mary's attention seemed to have been drawn. "Yeah, just some drugs....I bet there's no subscription-level..." She mumbled to herself. She shook her head. "Nope, these puppies are all natural!" She lifted her arms past her shoulders and bounced, grinning at Braden. "Not a single trace of silicone~"

Braden looked away, letting his hair cover most of his face whilst Mary... showed off her girls proudly. Elias on the other hand? "Nope, it's all natural" Mirroring Mary, the puppet extended the word all whilst unabashedly staring in Mary's direction. If Elias were a real guy, he would no doubt be bleeding from his nose at the sight. Braden stiffly moved towards the implant workshop to look through the window. The Ventriloquist pulled out Erica from his pocket, leaving Elias to gawk and be distracted by the Streamer whilst he talked through his female puppet.

It felt like Erica was his only chance to look normal...

"Oh hun, it's definitely not us who needs some help in that department." Erica answered Jezabel.

Yeah, he was doomed.

Jezabel scratched the back of her neck. “Right.” She looked between her companions. “Only reason why I ask is that I've totally been thinking about getting some work done. I heard that Axis Mundi has some pretty state of the art facilities. Not that I want to get anything too serious done.” She hugged herself. “But it seems like, over time, that kind of stuff just makes you super grody anyway. Like that chef on that cooking show? So not cool.”

Mary winked at Elias, sending it a flying kiss. She then heard Jezebel, and set her arms to her hips as she sighed. "Oh Jezzie, you don't need to do plastic surgery. You're beautiful as you are....But you could thin your makeup just a bit. You know, less Sun King, more Cute Fling!" She hid her smile under her hands. "Guys are not into the whole whiteface thing. I think it might offend some, too. I'd like to see you all natural."

Elias finally turned to 'look' at Jezabel. "Hey come on girls, loosen up a bit. Jezzie is cute in her own way. She's totes a Betty." Elias mimicked Jezabel's way of speaking, tone suggesting that he was proud of himself. Meanwhile, Erica also peered through the window Braden was looking at.

"Can we not go inside? I'm bored of window shopping-" Braden didn't waste a minute trying to search for the door into the implant workshop. Before he could turn the corner, the sound of static filled his ears before...

"Good morning sunshine...!"It was that same cosplaying teddy bear on the screen in front of them. For once since leaving the elevators, Elias went quiet. At first, Monokuma seemed to rant about Stalin before abruptly changing the topic to Australia. It felt like a routine announcement until static filled the screen before being replaced by a carnage sister that distinctly reminded Braden of a certain puppet currently inhabiting his right hand...

When the monitors cut out, leaving a blank screen for the infinites to stare at, Braden turned to face the two girls. "What are they talking about? What motive?" Braden asked, his two puppets remaining quiet on either side, as if stunned.

It felt like something was going to go horribly wrong.

Krista stepped out of her bathroom, never feeling so clean or… hopeful until now. She brushed her still damp hair, working the knots out of the blonde strands as she thought over what she had to say. She wasn’t even sure it was going to work — it relied too much on uncontrollable variables and even to her it sounded like a bad idea…

But she had to try!

If she could convince somebody understand and appreciate the thought behind the idea, then maybe her idea might stand a chance? She chewed on her lips nervously as she pulled on her clothes one by one.

The person she had in mind to talk to about her idea was none other than Cyrus Brandon, the Infinite Bishi Politician. He was the leader of the group, at least to her. It made sense, didn’t it? A politician leading them? He seemed like the smartest one too, someone that would spot the plot holes in ideas… idea holes? Krista cringed inwardly.

Maybe it was best to keep her game face on and believe her idea! Yeah, surely that’ll work!

...Right?

---

Cyrus scribbled various difficult words onto his notepad, which the more medically-minded people amongst them would instantly recognize as anaesthetics. At the top of the notepad he had made a small schematic drawing on which he labelled every cabinet and every shelf within. He precisely noted how many bottles of everything he found and where these were located. After mere minutes in this room, Cyrus could tell this cosmetic surgery lab was a dream come true for the malicious minds in the group. If anyone in the group had the gall to follow Lucas’s footsteps, he’d make sure they’d have another thing coming. He didn’t want to suspect anyone of thinking so, but he’d rather err on the side of safety.

But that was not the only record they held of the inventory. Next to Cyrus, Noel brandished her camera at every shelf, every pointy object. A tool to remember the condition everything is in, just in case they might need it. Noel wasn’t really ecstatic of her duty here, she’d much rather aim her camera at humans. However, she had found no good reason to refuse the politician’s insistence after they had run into each other in the hallways of the hospital.

“I think we got everything?” Noel questioned.

Cyrus responded with a curtly nod, but no words passed his lips. Instead, his attention was drawn by the sudden creaking sound of the door as it was opened from the outside.

“Cello Mr Brandon!” Krista peeked her head through the opening, relief on her face when she found the man she was looking for inside. “You have no idea how many times I've said that to an empty room.” She opened the door fully so she could step inside, spotting Noel beside Cyrus with her camera out. Looking between them, she asked. “Am... I interrupting something?”

Cyrus shook his head. “We just finished up here.” He then looked at Noel, then back at Krista. “Inventory.” He added, just to prevent the establishment of any… erroneous thoughts. “Do you need me for something?”

Noel, sensing the mood, quickly saw herself out. “I’ll check out the room across of here.” Honestly, she hoped there wasn’t much to record there. She had enough of doing inventory.

Krista side stepped out of the way to let Noel through. Before letting the reporter go, Krista quickly stopped her. “Thank you for doing the inventory,” She rubbed the back of her neck as she directed her thanks to Cyrus and Noel. It was comforting to know that measures were being taken to avoid a Lucas 2.0. “I would've never thought to do such a thing…” She admitted the latter part sheepishly.

She then approached Cyrus, letting Noel go through the door. When Krista felt like enough time had passed in silence, she spoke up. “I... don't know who to talk to about this but... I might have some information.” She began to explain her run in with Nariko.

Krista stared at Nariko dumbly, the smile on her face fading by the second. Was that supposed to comfort her? “O-oh. Thanks? I think?” She rubbed the back of her neck. "What do you want from me?"

“I see you're confused, I'm just not sure which is worse. It was wrong to try to cure you like that.” Her eyes shut with their familiar metallic click. “I guess I'm also a little upset that Aleecia is so badly hurt. We're going to have to take her out of the game pretty soon. If there's a murderer while she's in there, the rules state that she needs to be punished if she remains. So I won't be able to see her for a while.” She whimpered. “Everything is horrible, there are no right answers...”

Do robots have feelings? She was still dumbfounded at the series of events. What was going on?! “I'm... sorry to hear that…” Did that mean Aleecia was going to be safe once she was out of here? Krista decided to ask. “If Aleecia gets out of here... does that mean she's safe outside?”

“She will still be in Axis Mundi, just outside the killing game.” Nariko let out a long sigh. “She might not even get reinstated in this killing game. I'll probably never see her again. I won't be able to protect her.” She took a step towards Krista and raised her head. “But I can still protect you.”

She stopped just before Nariko offered her the handbook. Was it safe to tell Cyrus? She chewed on her bottom lip again before dropping it. She knew she could trust him but… it wasn’t the right time. Not yet. “When Nariko said Aleecia would be outside the killing game but still in Axis Mundi... it gave me an idea. I don't know how much of a long shot it is but... what if we send a message with Aleecia? Hide it somewhere on her body so when she's in Axis Mundi, the real one... we can get some help?"

Cyrus gave it a few seconds thought, then shrugged a bit. “Sounds like a long shot, but I don’t think there’s anything against trying it. In the worst case, nothing happens. In the best case, we might get some outside help.” He put a hand on her shoulder, a small token of praise and support. “Any idea what you want to put on the message? Or where Aleecia is right now?”

He was willing to listen?! Krista perked up excitedly as it seemed like Cyrus was into the idea without her having to convince him. “I think we have to send a list of all our names, including Quill and Mason… and Kara and Rika... since I'm not sure whether they've been sent to the same place they'll be sending Aleecia. Nariko... cares a lot for her and I don't think she'll let anything happen to her… but I don’t think the others were lucky to get the same treatment.” It was a wild guess, but then again, this entire plan depended on Nariko telling Krista the truth. “If they haven't been sent back to the real Axis Mundi then it would be useful for them to know that they're also missing! We'll also have to tell them we're stuck in a killing game in a place that looks like Axis Mundi…” She bit her thumb, thinking carefully as she tried racking her brain for any ideas where Aleecia was.

“Well... Nariko didn't tell me where she was... and I didn't ask.” Her shoulders dropped, disappointedly. “But! But but but! We dealt with Alexandria's carnage chassis for Aleecia right? So she has to be on this floor somewhere! I... haven't really explored the hospital side but she wasn't in the resort when I last went…” She didn't state the obvious; why would a comatose patient even be at a resort?

“So… it’s somewhere on this floor… in the hospital side…” She finally concluded. “Sorry it isn’t much…”

Frankly, Cyrus was rather sceptical of this idea. If they were sent back to Axis Mundi, that meant that they likely collaborated with Davis in some way. How else would you simply take back a person that had been missing from your hospital for days without any questions? And otherwise, they were likely taken somewhere out of the public eye, for people probably working with Davis. That said, he didn’t want to discourage Krista. The girl needed some positivity. Not to mention, there was nothing to lose.

“There’s two rooms on this floor I haven’t looked at yet. One of them seems to be the room of a carnage sister. Noel just headed to the other one.” He stated. “I guess that’s where we should go first?”

“Yes! Let's go check it out! We gotta scope this out like spies!” Krista energetically bounded towards the door before halting mid-step just as she was reaching for the handle. Cyrus mentioned he hadn't visited two rooms; one where Noel was, and one that was the room of a carnage sister. A carnage sister... Krista's hand slipped into her pocket to touch the cold handbook before pulling it out.

“By the way…” Krista spoke up, with her back still to Cyrus. “It's Nariko's room… and I can go inside.“ Krista turned in her spot, taking quick steps to reach Cyrus and show him the carnage sister's handbook. “Nariko gave this to me... this was her way of trying to protect me.” Krista told Cyrus, a bit hesitantly.

“Did she now?” Cyrus said, somewhat surprised, as he eyed the handbook for a second. “Interesting. We ought to check it out later. If we’re lucky we might find something half as useful as a makeshift forge in there.” He smiled at her. “Aleecia is probably in the other room then, if anywhere. I don’t think Nariko would let anyone into her room if Aleecia was there.” He snickered, then followed Krista outside.

Krista returned Nariko's handbook back to her pocket. “But... do you really think we'll find something in there? What if Nariko is messing with me?” Krista led the way towards the POD room, her hand playing with the ends of her damp hair. “ mean... Why give me the handbook? I know Nariko cares for Aleecia, but I didn't see her interact with anyone else, let alone me.”

“Can’t say for sure. It’s hard to imagine what might be going through the minds of these robots… or whatever is controlling them.” Cyrus stated bluntly. “But if she’s taken a liking to you, then why not make the best of it? Nariko doesn’t seem like the type to mess with people for fun… unlike the other three.” He chuckled a bit at the realisation. The carnage sisters were an odd bunch, but out of all of them Nariko was the one who seemed the most genuinely concerned about the group. “Even if there’s nothing of use in there. It’s still a room only you and Nariko can enter. It might come in useful in that way. You’ve been given a boon, make good use of it.”

“B-but wait! Nariko is the most evil of them all!” Krista cried out suddenly. She didn’t like the implication behind Nariko giving her the handbook. It felt like a lot of responsibility-especially right after Krista lost her own handbook to the traitor the night before. She did not want to look a gift carnage horse in it’s mouth, but she didn’t know what to do either. So… she attempted to make a joke.“Did you know Nariko cried?! Yeah!” The slightly over-exaggerated hand movements made it seem like Krista was joking around, but her face indicated she was completely serious. “I don't like it when people cry... and the robot looks kinda human too…” She trailed off. Was this supposed to be a joke or her admitting she hated seeing people/robots-that-look-like-people cry? She shut up before she embarrassed herself any further. ‘Just stick to puns, Krista.’

She scratched the back of her ear, glancing elsewhere as they approached the POD room. She stopped just as they were about to enter. “Do you think I should tell the others about this handbook?” She looked back at Cyrus when she finally figured out how to change the subject without embarrassing herself. “I mean... this handbook is needed to open the room so... really anyone that holds this handbook can just waltz right in and somebody could try using it for their…” Her voice trailed off at the end.

“Normally tears are the weapons of empathy and compassion, not evil.” Cyrus smirked, though he was not really sure what to think of a crying robot. Cyrus was not sure what to think of the carnage sisters to begin with. Thankful for the topic change, he pondered for a bit. “Perhaps it’s better to see what’s in the room first before we decide? Regardless, the decision is yours, I think.” He paused for a bit. ”I can understand if you’re not… comfortable with others knowing.”

She nodded slowly. What Cyrus said made sense. If there was nothing that was... useable in Nariko's room, then maybe she could share the knowledge with the other patients. “But…! I trust you. If I do find something in there... I want you to add it to your inventory list. Deal?” She stuck her hand out, pinkie raised and wiggling in front of Cyrus’s glasses. “We’ll pinky promise it. We won’t let anyone die!” Krista beamed at him.

“Of course!” Cyrus responded confidently. He was surprised when Krista showed her pinky, it wasn’t a method of promising he was actually used to. He couldn’t exactly genuinely promise that, but he could at least lift her spirits. “I’m certainly going to try.” He said as he latched onto her pinky with his own.

A pinky promise is a very big deal. With a final cheer, Krista pushed the door into the POD room open, revealing Ice and Noel with an unconscious Aleecia inside a POD. She carefully approached the POD, as if worried that her mere presence would be a disruption to Aleecia's delicate state. Looking between Aleecia and Ice, then at Cyrus, she quietly questioned Ice.

She asked simple questions; how long he had been in the POD room, did he see the carnage sisters place Aleecia into the POD, etc. Her hopes rose with every answer. Ice likely knew how to open and shut the POD without putting the comatose girl at risk. She felt like she could trust Ice and Noel with her plan, and so she quietly informed them of her idea. Krista could not tell how Ice took the news, but she pleaded him for his help; and so he agreed.

“Okay... I need to go back to my room to make the note but I promise I won't take too long! I'll look for you when I'm done!” Directing the final part of her closing statement to Ice, Krista began backing away, intending to leave. There was no time to waste, especially after that worrying Monokuma-carnage sister announcement; there was a message to send!

Several days passed since the carnage sisters announced the motive. Just as they said, each infinite would receive a motive envelope with a message in it. Despite the carnage sisters saying that no dark secrets lingered in the notes, it was decided that reading the notes was genuinely a bad idea. While everyone held onto their own note, it's hard to say if this decision was honored or not.

Meanwhile, Krista made several revisions to her letter to the outside world. Almost everyone was in the second-floor resort, but not Ice. He was headed for Krista's room. As soon as he arrived, he gently tapped on her door.

“Are you almost done?” Ice and Krista both knew they had to be very careful with a message like this. If Monokuma or Davis ever caught wind of it, what might they do?

Hearing Ice outside her door, Krista scrambled from the desk and opened the door for him quickly, fearing somebody would overhear him. In her hand was the Braille Othello board game she had received a while ago from the carnage sisters. At Ice's look, she explained her idea loudly. "It's why we're going to see Aleecia, remember?" Her intention was to use the board game as the excuse should they get caught sneaking around in Aleecia's room by Monokuma or the carnage sisters. Nobody would bat an eye at such an innocent gesture, right?

Closing the door to her room behind her, Krista began leading the way. "Do you think she'll be okay once she gets out of here?" She decided to make small talk.

“The temptation is to say that no place could be worse than here.” He placed a hand on the back of his neck. “But I don't know anymore. Ya gotta wonder if things aren't just as bad on the outside. We've been here almost a week now. ” he sighed. “Anyway, I invited Mercy to come along, just in case something goes wrong when I try to thaw her out. I don't think there will be any problems but.” The blood donor trailed off. Did you look at your motive letter?

Mercy was coming along? Krista chewed on her lower lip. It wasn't as if Krista distrusted Mercy... but she was not sure how comfortable she felt with an extra person knowing. But regardless, it was a good idea to keep a doctor around while messing around with Aleecia's pod. The last thing Krista wanted to do was to end up killing the comatose girl by accident. When the conversation moved on to the motive letters, Krista shook her head at Ice's question. "I've been too scared to do it." She admitted sheepishly. "I want to know what's in there but... I'd rather not open it if it means nobody has to die..." She then looked at Ice. "Did you open it?"

Ice groaned uncomfortably.“They use a bow almost every day, but they are not an archer.”

The surprise was evident on her face. "W-wait, so you got Zachary's note? But... he's the infinite archer for a reason, right?"

“Maybe it's not him.” Ice walked up some stairs. “The only reason why I opened it was because I figured someone was just as likely to kill to figure out what was being said about them. As it turns out, it's just a stupid motive cooked up by some robots with room temperature IQs.”

"I don't think anyone will want to risk becoming the blackened after what happened to Lucas. That... was brutal, who would wanna try after that?" Maybe it was just naive hope on her part, but Krista wanted to believe in the remaining infinites.

Ice's eyes quickly darted between Krista and the path ahead. They just had to circle around the pharmacy to get to the pod room. “It's not smart to think that someone's going to get deterred by an execution. That could have been all of us except for him had we not figured out he did it. He was pretty close too.” He shivered. “There was a moment there where only Davis thought we could discover the blackened.” He turned to look at Krista. “He's not going to be helping us this time, he's going to be watching us.”

Krista wanted to insist that a second murder was not going to happen, but how sure was she? "I just... would like to think that we will never have to go into the court room again. Last time was hard enough..." She added the final statement quietly. It was obvious Krista was feeling uncomfortable with the topic. "Enough with the trebling thoughts," Quick to change the topic with a pun, Krista continued. "We've got an interesting adventure ahead of us!"

Ice let out another sigh. “I'm sure it doesn't need to be said, but I'm not that trusting of others.” He crossed his arms. “I'm glad so many of you are proving to be... trustworthy.”

The doors to the pod room opened up.

"Oh, hey guys!" Having arrived early, Mercy was taking notes on Aleccia's condition. Putting the clipboard she was writing on to the side, the doctor walked Ice and Krista over to the dice master's pod. "I haven't exactly seen someone put in stasis like this before, so I did a bit of research when I could." She said, stepping aside for the other two.

"Thanks! That'll be of great help!" Guided by Mercy, Ice and Krista entered the pod room and shut the door behind them. "Since you're the expert now, do you think it's safe to open it up?" Krista questioned the plague doctor after setting the cardboard box on a table beside Aleecia's pod.

“The problem with cryogenically freezing someone is the thawing and freezing process.” Ice approached a terminal beside Aleecia's pod. “From what I understand, this freezes and thaws a body so quickly that the tissue isn't damaged in the process. It sounds like science fiction, I know. I told Nariko that I thought she had killed Aleecia, which is how I discovered how to run this thing. ” Ice touched the display, and some images came up on a holographic screen. “Okay, so then she went to this menu, and then she selected thaw, she confirmed. And... ”

The cover of the glass clouded up for just a second, but when it thawed, Aleecia was awake. She was still in a lot of pain, but clearly alive. ”W-what's going on!?” Her eyes were squinted shut. “Who's there!?” She was starting to panic, and Ice didn't know what to say.

Aleecia was awake! That was a pleasant plot twist, to say the least. Though Aleecia looked like she was still in pain, she seemed to be okay and... well, being awake and in pain was probably better than being potentially brain dead. To try to calm the dice master, Krista softly spoke up. "It's okay, you're okay!" Krista wanted to touch Aleecia on the back to calm her down, but felt that it was likely not going to help their case very much. "It's me, Krista... Ice is here too! And we also have Mercy here, she's our doctor!" She looked at her two companions, hoping they'd speak up and make themselves known to the blind girl.

"Seien Sie nicht beunruhigt, we only thawed you out of stasis." Mercy reassured Aleccia, putting a hand on the glass. "Are you feeling any different? Has your condition worsened, improved?" She asked the dice master.

“It's just us, Aleecia!” Ice was smiling, if just to try and cheer up the dice master. But he must have been panicking because there was no way the blind girl was going to see Ice's face.

Aleecia's body was trembling. It was hard to say if it was because she was still cold, or the pain was just that great. “Familiar voices...” She listened to the doctor's words carefully. “Yes, I'm-” her face scrunched up in pain. “It comes in waves. The back of my head feels like it's beating like my heart.” She was sweating, and reached a hand up to hold her head. “I think it's about as bad as last time.” She seemed to be calming down, but her pain was evident in her breathing.

Krista breathed a sigh of relief. Aleecia was calming down. "Is there any possibility we can give her some painkillers? Or something to ease the pain? I don't like that she's hurting..." Part of Krista felt guilty, did waking her up cause the pain?

Ice shook his head “ Nariko said that if we do anything to ease her pain, it will cause her to bleed faster.”

“So...” She paused to regain her breath “Are you going to fix this? Is this why I'm awake now?”

"Not... exactly..." Krista picked up the braille board game from the table. She leaned closer towards Aleecia to explain in a hushed tone, loud enough for Mercy to hear too. She was already here, why keep her out of the loop? "Nariko... told me that you were going to be sent away and... I thought that maybe we could send a message for help with you." Krista explained. She then stood up carefully. "I wanted to give you this gift before you had to leave... so you could have something to do or remember us by when you're safe in the real Axis Mundi." Krista gently placed the board game on Aleecia's lap, guiding her hand towards the box where she could open and feel the message stuck inside.

Everyone could see Aleecia's eyebrows raise in surprise.“Something to remember you by, outside the killing game...” For a moment, it was like all of her pain had gone away. “I definitely won't forget any of you” She placed her hands on the box. “When the rest of you get out of here, I'm going to play a game with each of you. But Ice first.”

“Yea.” Ice leaned on the edge of the pod. “We'll all come play with you.”

“I can't wait...”

Ice didn't waste any time in rushing up to the controls and initiating the freezing sequence. The lid lowed back down onto Aleecia and froze her under a blanket of white mist. She looked like she was sleeping with the Othello box under her arm. Or she was dead. Though neither of those were right.

“Thanks, doc.” He gave a nod to Mercy. He turned to Krista and winked. “Hope she enjoys the gift.”

Krista grinned at Ice, giving him a thumbs up. Knowing that Aleecia was going to be sent away to safety was already a relief, but with the added bonus of knowing she was fine under all that ice. It was cute, actually. She and Ice seemed to be really close, and it was ice that was keeping her safe. "I have a good feeling about this." With Krista's job now done, she began backing away. "I think this is my cue to leave. I feel... a little tired so I think I'll head back to my room. See ya guys later~!" She left the room.

Krista started to walk back to her room by herself. Without Ice by her side, she was reminded of how creepy abandoned hospitals were. Even with all the work done to the third floor, you could tell this floor didn't look much different than the one below until recently. She knew this wasn't the real Axis Mundi. It couldn't be.

By the time Krista got to the stairs, she could see something was resting at the bottom of the stairs that hadn't been there before. If the clothes were anything to go by, it was Shaun. But he was laying on his face, his scarf sprawled out like a river of blood.

Slightly panicked, Krista manuevered around Shaun towards the bottom of the stairs to try assisting the web designer. "Shaun? Here, lemme help you up..." There was no response. Krista assumed he had fainted and fallen down the stairs. She reached out to pull him up intending to make Shaun lean on her for support.

While Krista was able to pick up Shaun's torso, he made no attempt to assist her efforts. Shaun's torso was leaning against her leg, but would fall over if she didn't support it with her hands. But Krista was finally able to see Shaun's pale face as she pulled him up, making him lean heavily against her shoulder. It was paler than she remembered, and she felt her stomach twist uncomfortably. "...Shaun?" She checked his breathing.She could feel his breath coming through his nostrils. As she continued to panic, she felt his wrist for a pulse. It appeared that Shaun was alive, but unconscious. Feeling relieved, Krista set Shaun back down again carefully, muttering she will be back as she bolted up the stairs to find Mercy.

It didn't take long for Krista to retrace her steps. Mercy and Ice were leaving the pod room together when they saw her. Krista looked distressed enough that the two were able to tell something was very wrong.

“What happened?” The two didn't wait for a response and immediately followed Krista down the stairs to Shaun's body. “Shit! Doc, you've got to wake him up!”

"Hold on, I may have some smelling salts in my bag somewhere!" Mercy quickly assured the other two, searching through said bag, trying to hurry. "For now, check Shaun's pulse when he doesn't seem to be breathing. But does he have a spinal injury? How cold is he?" She asked Krista, trying to find out what's wrong with the web designer.

Ice was quick to follow the doctor's orders.“Uh, he seems pretty normal. I don't think his back is broken, and he feels warm.” Ice turned to look at the base of the stairs, and his eyes shot open. “Son of a bitch!” While still holding Shaun, Ice reached for something and held it up for everyone to see. It was a syringe, and most of the fluid had been squeezed out of it.

Krista began stammering at the sight of the syringe, panicking. "What is that? Is that poison?" She was keeping a hold of Shaun whilst Mercy and Ice examined him together.

Just as the doctor found the salts needed, Mercy's eyes widened in fright when Ice found a syringe on the stairs. "Oh no, no no no no no...!" Right away, she already knew what it was. "It's not poison, but anesthetic..." She hesitantly told Krista.

At first, there was nothing; sensation had seemingly vanished for a brief second. A numbness permeated throughout Shaun's body shortly after the smell hit his nose, and in the short time following the feeling somewhat lessened. Nausea struck at his stomach quickly, as did a dull headache, and before long his eyes fluttered open, blinking profusely as to shield his eyes from the light.

At first, he barely moved, listening idly to the comments made by those around him. Did he recognise those voices? The headache made thinking about placing them a difficult task, but still he tried, as their words gradually came into clarity. "Wh-" he tried to speak, but all that escaped his throat was a dry croak. His eyes opened fully, watching the otherwise blurred shapes manifest fully as people, two of which he knew, and instinctively he panicked, attempting to stand.

Ice steadied Shaun as he stood up. “What happened?” the blood donor held the web designer as he seemed to wave back and forth.

Shaun's mouth opened slightly, as though he were about to say something, but closed again shortly after as his eyes scanned the surrounding area. His gaze took in the location, and the people, attempting to formulate an idea of what was going on. "I-I... I don't..." he stuttered, before raising his hand to his mouth a minor bout of nausea.

"Ice!" Krista chided. Shaun had only just come to, would it be so bad to ask if he was feeling alright first? "I found you just lying on the stairs like this, are you feeling alright?" Krista pressed a palm against Shaun's cheek anyway, to check his temperature like a child dealing with a fever. Seeing Shaun react by covering his mouth to stop anything from coming out, she felt like she got her answer.

"Do you have some water with you, Mercy? I think he needs it..." She asked.

"Not really, but I can get some if you don't mind!" Mercy told Krista, stepping up one of the stairs' steps just in case.

The blood donor sighed. “You don't understand, I just saw him not long ago.” Ice stepped away from Shaun. “He came to see Aleecia, but she was in the pod so it wasn't possible for him to really talk with her at the time.” Ice looked back at the web designer. “Do you remember anything?”

"N...no..." he coughed out, casting a look between Ice, Krista, and Mercy, individually and respectively, "I-I... I l-left, a-and was gonna... return to m-my room... b-but..." his eyes scrunched closed, and he lay his head back against the wall, clearly not used to the experience, "...S-sorry..."

"You're silly for apologising." It was Shaun's turn to be chided like a child. Krista patted Shaun's head almost too faintly, trying to give him a comforting smile. "Everything will be okay! We can get you back to your room once you feel like you're up for it." She assured the web designer.

With a quick trip to the kitchen, Mercy came back to the other three at the staircase and gave Shaun a cup of water. "I still don't get it though. Why would a syringe of anesthetic be here in all places?" She wondered out loud. "Unless someone tried to attack Shaun..."

Readily, Shaun grasped the cup from Mercy, despite being unfamiliar with her, and quickly drank it down. The moment in was emptied, he removed it from his lips, but suddenly looked away sheepishly, realising how avarously he had done so. "Th-thank you..." he trailed off, before handing the cup back to Mercy.

Once she had taken it, he looked back to the group and gave something of a small, shy smile."I-I... think I'm o-okay..." he stuttered, reaching to his trouser for his handbook, "I-is it... a-alright to go b-back to my roo-" his train of thought stopped abruptly, and his eyes seemed to reflect something of a panic; his hands dipped into each of his pockets in turn, before he glanced around the area, "W-w-was my h-handbook around..?! I-I can't find it..."

Ice grit his teeth. “Alright.” The blood donor pulled the bandages on his wrists tighter. ”Let's get everyone together and find that notebook.” Ice immediately ran back upstairs, not waiting for a response.

"I'll go further ahead, maybe you just dropped it when you fell?" Krista stood up once she felt Shaun was stable enough, before hurriedly going further into the hallway to look around for the handbook.

"I'll try and get some of the others down here to help." Mercy said, then turned to Shaun. "You should take it easy. Maybe rest in the dining room till we find your handbook." She suggested to the web designer, before picking her bag up, and walking to the patient's quarters. The doctor's attention then turned to the study, seeing Alice walk out of said room. "Ah, perfect timing!" Mercy exclaimed, quickly grabbing the recon's arm, pulling her along.

"Wait what's going on now?"

"I'll explain on the way!"

In the bout of panic, Shaun barely registered what the others had said before each rushed off in their respective directions. Still slightly dazed from waking up, and everything that was going on, he chose to follow on behind Krista. "D-do you see a-anything..?" he said, slowly walking up behind her in the hallway. A muffled yell sounding like a 'no' was the only response he received.

Slowly, the quest to find Shaun's handbook spread like a plague. Before long, everyone was scouring Axis Mundi looking for the missing handbook. Some even stopped and checked each other in the event that one of them might have been hiding it. In their panic to find the book, they didn't realize that someone was uncounted for. Sadly, the search wasn't going nearly as fast as anyone would have liked. But no one gave up. When Ice returned check up on Krista, he noticed something strange in the patient's quarters.

"Everyone... There's something wrong here!"

Black smoke was escaping the seams in Shaun's room. Something very bad was going on in there. Fortunately, Krista found the hand book in the dump room. Someone had buried it under some trash. She placed it securely in her pocket.

"We have to go check inside! Someone, get Monokuma or Nariko to help stop the fire! We gotta go in now!" Krista had nothing to protect herself from breathing in the smoke, so she improvised by ripping a handful of fabric from her dress to press roughly against her nose. Looking back once more, she gestured people (specifically Mercy, the only one with a mask!) to hurry up and follow her inside to help stop the flame from damaging most of Shaun's room, handbook pulled out and ready to be used.

At the sound of Ice's exclamation, Shaun followed on behind Krista, happy that they had managed to recover his handbook. However, his mood quickly soured as they came to the door, to see the smoke billowing from the cracks in the frame. He panicked for a second, but quickly lifted his scarf over his mouth and nose as to not breathe in any of the smoke, and waited for the door to be opened in terrified anticipation.

"Right!" Mercy said, tightening her mask's grip to her face.

"Wait, I'll need to borrow your hat for this." Alice told the doctor, taking said hat off her head.

"Are you sure? The smoke might affect your eyes, well, eye." The doctor asked the recon.

"I'll be fine, now let's go!" Alice said, dragging Mercy to the door.

Ice put his sleeve over his face. “I never thought I'd say this, but I really hope a carnage sister shows up so that the fire can be dealt with.”

Sure enough, Geina emerged from the other end of the hallway. “Quit being a buncha fuckin' babies, the fire's out already. Fire suppression system took care of it.”

"What!?"

Krista slid the key card and opened Shaun's room. There was a lot of smoke, but it cleared out quickly. The fire must have just smoldered and burnt out. The room was a mess, but what everyone was looking at was the shape towards the back of the room. The smoke was being sucked out of the room through emergency fire vents. But everyone wished it was just a fire when they saw what was at the back of the room...



With a chime, everyone's least favorite stuffed doctor appeared on screen.

“A body has been discovered. The patients have a limited time to collect evidence before being called into the court of carnage. Do your best everyone!”

Ice placed his hand over his face. "Son of a BITCH!"

By this point, the others had started to show up Bliss was there to hold Ice's head. “Don't get so worked up sweety. You can't let your blood pressure get too high. Deep breaths, deep breaths." Bliss looked away from Ice to look at everyone else. She was clearly upset. “So-” Her voice cracked. “So it happened again, didn't it?”

In the panic of the scenario, Shaun had forgotten to think. He followed Krista as every Infinite they could find went about searching every nook and cranny plausible for his handbook. To see so many talented people, banded together in unison for a common goal, he almost felt awed. He didn't forget to feel. Deep set into head was a dull headache, slowly his thoughts; deep set in his stomach was nausea, that slowed his movement; and deep set into his chest, a heavy dread slowed his progress, leaving him trailing behind as the two explored Axis Mundi, keeping up as best he could.

When they came to the first floor, and Ice declared the discovery of the smoke, the dread gradually grew worse. His thoughts echoed with suspicion and nervous, afraid what they would all find, in his own room no less. The thoughts stung at his morale, leaving him clinging in despair, praying desperately nothing bad would come of the events past.

The moment Krista uncovered his handbook, thrown mercilessly into the mound of garbage that had been piled up over their stay, adrelanine rushed through his body, overtaking his senses in nervous anticipation. Feeling returned, overpowering the dread, headache, and nausea for the briefest of second, and the group crowded around his door. Everything was going to be alright, he thought, raising his scarf over his face to block the smoke.

Standing directly behind Krista and Ice, Shaun watched as the Violinist scanned his handbook, and pushed the door inwards. In response, a black cloud belched forth from the room, and up unto the ceiling of the corridor they found themselves crowded in. The sound of extractor fans filled his ears, and soon the room cleared of the dark miasma that filled it.

Except in the span of a second he wished it hadn't.

Thrice already had he seen it happen. Thrice had he watched the maw of despair, the final moments or aftershadow of those he once knew. When his parents died, that was one thing; he never saw their bodies, just heard what had happened. But in Axis Mundi, the hospital for the Infinitely Talented among society, a place of healing and hope, he had already watched the lives of three others come to a short, tragic, and unfavourable close.

The sight was more gruesome than he could have realised possible, and his eyes scrunched close at the mere sight of it.
"Th-tha-n-n-" were the muffled, pained sounds that escaped his lips before the hope and adrenaline that had built up in his core crashed down around him, kicking up dust and debris as it collapsed. Everything he had felt up until that moment rushed back ten fold, sparking a furious pain in his stomach that clawed its way viciously up his throat.

Shaun's eyes opened again, for just a second, and looked upon the sight for the second time. In the instance, everything went numb, and his hearing ceased in static - the sounds of his fellows drowned in white noise and shock. His knees buckled, reducing him to the cold floor baked softly in the residual heat of the room, and he collapsed onto all fours. His hand reached to his face, pushing away the scarf as in sudden haste, and went to cover his mouth, but too late, as a stream of lquid bile and vomit rushed from within him, painting the white floor a sickly yellow and green.

He coughed, and soon mixed into the puddle were fresh tears that streamed down Shaun's face, dripping from his chin and cheeks into his stomach contents surrounded by his friends, as he fell down into anguish and despair.

An ugly despair.

---

Max had spent the morning to train with Felix in his private quarter.

“So let’s get started!” Felix’s remark put a smile on Max’s usually dead serious face and they started to practice. While Max was trying to teach Felix all he could about the basics of hand to hand combat, Felix got more enthusiastic and energetic with every lesson. It reached a point where Felix got so excited that he tried to pull off a flashy move in a sparring match. He took a step back and came charging at Max before jumping high in the air with a foot coming straight at Max’s face. But in his excitement, Felix lost control of his body and couldn’t control the impact of the blow, and yet Max wasn’t moving aside at all; at this rate Max would be more than hurt by Felix’s flying kick.

“Bam!”

Before Felix knew it, he was laying on the ground with Max on top of him. He went from kicking Max in the face to being detained by him in a split-second. With big confused eyes, he looked at Max.

“What just happened, I was sure I was gonna hit you with that kick?”

“You overestimate yourself, besides; those flashy moves only work in movies. All I did was took a step to the side, grabbed your leg, and pushed it down, causing you to lose your balance and come crashing down.” Max was very meticulous in his explanation, and it made Felix even more enthusiastic to learn more.

But alas, before they could continue, they were asked to help find Shaun’s e-handbook; apparently Shaun had been drugged and left by a staircase. It could only mean 2 things, this was either a horrible prank…or a murder was taking place. Max had enough experience in his field of work to see it coming but he wasn’t sure if the murder had already happened. If there was still a chance to save the potential victims, he had to try; he had to. Meanwhile, a confused Felix was sheepishly following Max around with no idea why max was acting so weird.

With a dead serious, almost threatening expression, Max went to the dining room where Shaun was supposed to be, but when he arrived he couldn’t find him anywhere.

“Shit, where is that kid.” Max bit his tongue in frustration.

“You mean Shaun? He may have gone to look for his e-handbook. But do you look so frustrated?” Max ignored Felix’s question and cautiously took a step back; he smelled smoke. Suddenly, Max started sprinting towards the source of the smoke, it was Shaun’s room.

“Please tell me I’m not too late!” He shouted while pushing aside any people who stood between him…and Marianne. All he could do in response was close his eyes. A knob appeared in his throat as he tried to calm himself.

Felix was no better off as he didn’t even enter the room; his legs wouldn’t allow it. The cries and horrified expressions on the faces of everyone was enough for Felix. He wanted no more…no more.

Before allowing anyone to notice his pathetic emotions and posture, Felix ran, he ran as far as he could, away from the sorrow and despair that everyone felt. It was at the theatre that he finally halted his marathon. With tears on his face, he peered at the entrance. For some reason he remembered Shona watching him as he played the piano. That felt like a lifetime ago. He started thinking again. It happened again. I wasn’t strong enough back then, and I’m not strong enough now, I really can’t do anything. Wiping his tears away, he entered the theatre and simply sat down in a seat in the back, the same seat that Shona sat in back then. He closed his eyes and slowly fell into a deep slumber.

---

---

The search had been going on for a while. Something as small as a handbook, as important as it was, was pretty easy to hide. Even though there were only two floors, the number of places such a device could wind up were astronomical. Jezebel had proven she was pretty good at doing room searches, but even something like a tiny handbook in Axis Mundi would be tough to find. She was at the beach resort, dragging a sand rake behind her that she had snatched out of the zen garden. Today was a bad day to be back in her jester's outfit. The light hanging in the sky was every bit as hot as the sun's rays, and her uniform was quite heavy. Despite all the chaos going on, and even her discomfort, she managed a smile. And Jezebel would continue to smile, even as her efforts provided no fruit.

The door to the beach resort had opened, and Zach appeared at its entrance. "Jezebel, are you in here?" he asked just before he spotted the woman in the jester outfit. Despite what some might call them "sharing a moment" days earlier, Zachary still could not adjust to her choice of apparel entirely. He still seemed at... unease when he saw it.

She had turned to look at him and that is when he caught sight of her smile. "Er... well, I see you're enjoying yourself with the search, but it seems we've found the handbook. I think there was also some kind of fire or something but I decided to leave before figuring out what it was."

In truth, he wanted to be nowhere near that place, at least not without any mental preparation.

“Oh? They found it? And a fire too?” She slapped her hands together, allowing the rake to fall to the ground beside her. “ Tripendicular!” She giggled before running up to zachary. Her makeup was running a little bit with her sweating. “Thanks for getting me, I'm pretty sure you'd of had to drag me out of here if you had come much later.” She wiped her head with her gloved hand before placing a hand on Zachary's shoulder, smearing a small amount of makeup on his outfit. “Well, let's go see what the commotion is. Then I'll get something to drink.”

While he was glad to see she appreciated the spent effort, he would have preferred if it didn't come at the cost of his cleanliness. Thankfully, he was no neat-freak. But maybe he was a NEET-freak. But more importantly, he found himself confused at her choice of wording, being unaccumstomed to the slang she slung.

"I.. don't believe we're on a rollercoaster, so I can't say I feel that way too." he honestly declined. "A-anyway, we should probably go." He looked at her expectedly. Seemed he wasn't too comfortable with physical contact FROM A GIRL, FROM A CLOWN just yet.

Jezebel must have been able to sense his unease because she moved her hand off of his shoulder. Jezebel was unusually quiet. She would occasionally look at Zach out of the corner of her eye but otherwise seemed focused on getting straight to the patient's quarters. It wasn't until the staircase came in view that Jezebel sprinted in front of the archer and spun on her heel. She hid her hands behind her back like a shy schoolgirl. But that smile never left her face. She wasn't making eye contact with him, however. “So a few days ago, I actually caught Geina slipping my motive note under my door. She wasn't happy to be discovered but we talked a bit.” She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. “What's this about you and her almost getting into a shootout?”

Although he noticed the infinite stealing glances at him, he wasn't able to bring himself to ask what was on her mind as they walked. He felt a bit of guilt at his awkwardness at being touched, by someone who presumably had more reason to act like such. But eventually, Jezebel decided to confront him herself, so Zachary stopped, watching Jez spin and face him.

It would not be right to say Zachary had a smile or a pleasant expression on his face to begin with, but upon hearing Jezebel's inquiry, it noticably darkened for a second before his features broke out into a grin. "Oh, that? That was uh just me being very good at archery, and Geina being jealous, is all." he laughed, but dared not to meet her gaze either.

"...it wasn't anything serious, nobody was hurt."

“You beat her then?” Jezebel giggled. “I got the impression she totally creamed you. She seemed tre mad, so...” The cloun slowly spun until her back was faced towards Zachary. Though she was still looking at him. “This totally gnarly fire, where is it?”

As was tradition when dealing with Jezebel, Zachary found his hand on the back of his neck. He desperately needed to break this habit of his. "I mean... if you count her being disqualified and the game being called off a win...?" he couldn't bring himself to simply say "Yes, I did" and move on. While not a fan of lying in general, Zach couldn't bring himself to outright lie to Jezebel, perhaps because she was the only one he'd made any sort of personal connection with.

How ironic, given his dislike of clowns, and his inability to understand her eccentric way of speech.

"...Anyway, it sounded like the source was Shaun's room. I... can't say I had a good feeling about it." he admitted to his fellow Infinite.

“Well, that's why we're going to go together.” She started to walk down the stairs, careful not to walk too far ahead of Zachary. “Besides, everyone else is going to be there too, right?”

Once they both got down stairs, they could see that most of the smoke had cleared out. But the group of people outside of Shaun's room didn't look happy. The looks on their faces. What was that? The clown turned around again to look at Zachary. “It looks like everyone's here, but I don't see Marianne.” She wasn't smiling anymore.

All Zach could do was nod in response before continuing down the stairs with Jezebel. And once they had finished descending the steps, the bad feeling only got worse. A group had formed of everybody aside from Marianne and Felix, whom Zachary just barely caught sight of running away as he and Jez arrived.

...he already knew what had transpired, of course.

"...I, well... this is all some sort of prank, right? Allow me to check first." This time, Zachary took the lead, quickly forcing his way into the room. Maybe something silly, something dumb was causing people to freak out? Some kind of drama? Yeah, that had to be it.

...of course, that wasn't the case. The moment he spotted the corpse that had once been Marianne, Zachary knew that she was not among the living anymore. He was somebody who could tell from experience. But even worse? Someone else trapped with them was likely the culprit. He was, more than anything else, angry. Angry at whomever would do such a thing. Because that meant they were willing to kill off the rest of the Infinites to get out of here, not simply Marianne. And even causing her death alone was terrible.

...being a -------- is unforgivable...!
But sorrow also took hold in his heart, as well. The girl murdered did not deserve this, and while he wasn't especailly close to them, the others might have been. She gave him zero reason to dislike her, even in this tense environment. Someone like that couldn't have been bad, and it was a shame he would never get to know Marianne personally. But for those that did... parting in such a way...he could sympathize.

Making his way back out of the room, he couldn't exactly play this off. His solemn look probably betrayed the severity of the situation, just like the others, but if that wasn't enough, he could only really tell her, "You should prepare yourself before you go in, at the very least."

The gloomy atmosphere was starting to sink into Jezebel. She was no dummy either, even if she acted a bit silly sometimes. The trickster weaved between the other infinites, careful not to bump into any of them. Before long she was at the door opening. Everyone was in the way of course, some had even moved inside Shaun's room already. But she could see enough. The body of another Victim, suspended and butchered like some animal. The clown's initial reaction was to stumble backwards. This time she nearly bumped into a grieving Bliss. Anyone around could see that her body was injecting itself with adrenaline. She was sweating even more despite no longer under the heat lamp in the resort. Her breathing was ragged. Perhaps in some attempt to calm down, she inhaled sharply and clamped a hand over her mouth. Her eye lids lowered as she exhaled softly. It appeared to be working. She continued to hold her hand over her mouth when she walked back over to Zachary. When she lowered her hand, Zachary could see she was... smiling.

“Wow!” Jezabel said a little too loud. The rest of her words were much quieter. “I guess someone wanted to take a stab at getting out of here, huh?” Her eyes looked wet, and her body was visibly shaking.

Zachary was entirely unsure what to do in this situation. Jezebel seemed to be trying very hard to smile, but that only appeared to be making it harder on herself. Or at least that is what he gathered from her actions. He wasn't entirely an expert on dealing with emotional social situations like these, so he wasn't confident in this case. Speaking confidently in a public setting didn't translate to being confident in more private settings. Aside from his father, Zachary never really got very close to anybody, so it was not like he was ever required to help someone through a difficult time in their life. That being said, Jezebel was the only person he shared any true connection with in this place so far, and he should probably give her a real reason to place her trust in him. He could at least put in effort to comfort the grieving woman.

So, awkwardly, his hands did a few pointless motions in the air as he tried to find out what they should be doing. Ultimately, he settled for placing on on her shoulder and giving a light squeeze as he looked her in the eyes. His father would do this when he was sad (and a lot younger, but it's all he remembered at the time), and then he would say something that made things less bad. So, Zach tried doing that. But he didn't know what exactly to say and it probably looked pathetic. "...erm... please don't... push yourself so hard to stay in character. I'm sure it's already tough losing someone as-is." he... comforted? Said? Tried? He said words, at least.

Zachary remembered getting nervous and not being able to say everything he wanted the first time he was interviewed, but it was nowhere near as bad as this. It hurt knowing that currently, this was his best, and he didn't feel it was even approaching "acceptable".

Jezebel chuckled. “Is it in character for me to tell jokes after someone has died, hmmm...” Jezebel lifted a hand to her chin, but she didn't spend much time thinking about it. She gently brushed Zachary's hand aside. “I don't think it is. That's totally twisted, and I don't think you'd hang out with me if I was always like that.” She stopped chuckling and her smile vanished from her face. “But I'm glad you still remember our talk, Zachary.” She blinked. “We need to keep trusting in each other.”

The Infinite Archer mustered a small smile. "Certainly."

That had settled it. He was new to dealing with any true relationships, but he decided Jez was his friend and he'd be damned if he was going to let his first friend die down here. Also, he didn't particularly desire a death in this place, so that helped too. Either way, he felt the best way to ensure their continued survival was to take an active part in this investigation. He was no detective, but being up close to a corpse wasn't entirely foreign to him and the more people helping, hopefully, the better.

The murderer would be brought to justice, whoever it was. The only thing that was for sure was that it was an Infinite who took Marianne's life. Currently, he couldn't truly trust anybody in the group besides, well, Jezebel. Everybody else was equally likely to be the murderer in his eyes, but hopefully, some evidence would point the group in the direction of whom really killed the innocent Marianne. They deserved punishment, after all.

"..." his smile had gone and his teeth had started to clench.

Yeah, because killing someone for selfish reasons like rage or desire is absolutely unforgivable...!

Gluing his calm mask back together with his determination to get this case started, Zachary turned his attention to the group at large. There was no time to lose, to find the culprit, they would need to investigate.

"If we've all... gotten a chance to confirm that this has really happened... then I believe it best to begin the investigation immediately."

Cyrus had confined himself to the tiny place of nothingness that was the zen garden. This little place had been his for the last two days. Surrounded by mind-numbing simplicity, there was nothing here for him to think about, to react to or to stress out about. Here he could pretend for a bit that the entire hospital didn’t exist. Though he did not lose sight of grim reality, he could be at peace. When was the last time he had been this relaxed? When was the last time he could just sit down and not have anything of importance on his mind? The answer was six, six years.

Perhaps there was one saving grace to this predicament. An escape from the turbulence others called life. You know, maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea to stay in this killing game for a bit, to just let the world be for what it was for a bit. To just live a simple life for a while, even if it was in confinement. Perhaps he could find rest here. Nothing could go wrong here, as long as everyone played nice.

“A body has been discovered. The patients have a limited time to collect evidence before being called into the court of carnage. Do your best everyone!”

”Dipshits.” Sounded Cyrus’s annoyed mumble as he got up and left.

---

Noel had made herself at home next doors. The dojo had been open in her prior killing game, and she very much welcomed the opportunity to practice her moves a little. It would surprise many people how physically fit the reporter actually was. That said, she preferred to train in solitude, so very few people would know… unless she needed to defend herself, of course. She aptly assaulted the dummy with a low kick into a punch to the throat. Finally, she lifted the dummy and threw it over her shoulder and planted it solidly into the ground face-first.

She smiled with satisfaction to see that she hadn’t gotten rusty. She valued her physique. In a way, it was her true secret skill as a reporter. It allowed her to go placed too dangerous for others. And in here, it was her ticket to survival. But that privilege wasn’t for everyone, as promptly demonstrated by the sound of the body discovery announcement.

Bloody hell.

Without time to switch out of her training gi, she rushed out of the dojo, clutching only onto her handbook.

---

Cyrus and Noel jointly arrived at the crime scene, having met up as they both left the second floor resort. Cyrus developed a clear wrinkle of anger on his forehead by the display of cruelty before them. The lingering smoke somewhat irritated his throat, but he forced his own composure as he looked. He had so hoped that after last time, nobody would dare commit such an atrocious act again. Alas, he had been proven wrong. Apparently filth still hid amongst them.

Noel, looking more like a martial artist than a reporter right now, grit her teeth as she solemnly stared at the lifeless body of the female. Rarely had she seen murder committed in such a cruel manner. This wasn’t a spur of the moment. It was very clear that someone had taken their time to kill her. It was a sickening display. She forced away a few tears that tried to escape her eyes. ”I’m sorry, Marianne.” She whispered softly ”We failed you.”

Cyrus felt an anger boiling up inside him, an instinctive movement made his hand reach for his glasses. But no, this wasn’t the time for that. He had to remain calm. He had to channel that anger right now, for her sake. He stood up straight and made himself audible. ”Everyone, a tragedy has befallen us once again. I am sure we all deeply mourn our loss. Rightly so.” He paused for a bit, taking a moment to recompose himself as the emotion in his voice had gotten very apparent. ”However, one person here right now is not in mourning. One is quietly reveling in their deed. I implore you all to join me in finding Marianne’s murderer. Let us bring peace to Marianne’s soul, and teach all that nobody shall get away with murder.” He turned back to Marianne’s corpse, and bowed his head in mourning for another few seconds before approaching solemnly for investigation.

While Daimyon did not want to, he forced himself to look at the body of his closest friend. This was the only person in the killing game who knew his secret, and now she was dead. Her passing was not one that he would take lightly. With a shake of his head, he started to write in his notebook.

Bliss was still holding onto Ice's shoulder. She hadn't seen the body, but her goal right now was just to calm down Ice. He was of no use to anyone unconscious. Fortunately, he was regaining control of his breathing. “Are you going to be okay?”

Ice nodded and stood up. “I'm okay.” he ran his hands over the front of his vest when he stood up. “I'm good. I just.” He sighed. “I just didn't expect it to be her.”

“I know.” Bliss looked away from Ice. “She never got to see me wear that hat she gave me. Even though she wasn't always nice to me. I think Marianne's heart was always in the right place.”

“I knew it.” Calvin's gloved fists were trembling as he pushed past everyone to get inside the room. “I knew that motive note was going to mean the death of someone.” He pointed at Marianne's lifeless body and started to raise his voice. “We're infinites! How fucking shallow do you have to be to kill someone over some note? They're probably not true anyway!” Before the metalworker could go on, he was cut off by a royal carnage sister.

“The queen is here!” Willow announced before riding in on her steed. “Hello vagrants, I am glad to see you are all eager to get this show on the road. It would appear...” She raised and lowered her eyebrows swiftly at Cyrus. “...That you appreciate my gift?”

“Where the hell is Monokuma?!” Calvin walked out of Shaun's room.

“You have no idea how happy it makes me when I realize how observant low-brow peasants can be.” She leaned over, practically sitting vertically on her horse. “Daddy's still a little sore about us doing things our way. He wanted you all to feel more hope before sending you plunging into despair. But my appetite for conquest simply wouldn't permit it. But rest assured he will get over himself.” She sat back up on her horse. Willow had to adjust her crown when she did so. “And pow, you've got your Monokuma file downloaded onto your handbooks. Have fun.” And with a queenly laugh, the carnage sister disappeared down the hall.


Victim: Marianne
Time of death: Within the hour.
Cause of death: Fatal stab wound through the heart. Marianne also appears to have been stabbed in the torso in various places, and shows signs of blunt force trauma to the back of the head.

Ice approached Marianne's body with the information up on his E-hand book. “Looks like the Monokuma file is correct.” Even though the Monokuma file was a lot more detailed than in the previous case, it didn't mean the case would solve itself. Everyone would need to investigate.

The ringing continued, vibrating in his ears long after the body was discovered. Somewhere along the line, someone lifted him off the ground and took him away from the scene. Or... did he get up and walk? He couldn't exactly remember. In either case, he found himself sat, back to the wall, knees to his chest and face, crying.

Why did somebody else have to die? After Lucas and Mondatta, he had been sure nobody would be stupid enough to attempt to escape again, even with the added motive. Although he hadn't checked his, reason told him it was going to be something stupid since it was divvied out by the Carnage Sisters; their ways thus far in the game, save the murder of Shona, seemed to suggest as much.

Shaun lifted his head slightly, and through the mire of tears, he could see the other Infinites reeling, discussing, and entering his room to deal with and investigate the body. But, he also caught glimpse of something else. He let his gaze trial back towards it, and up towards the ceiling, whereupon he found the face of Krista - immediately making him remember that she had pulled him aside.

"Th...thank you..." he whispered, before looking back down.

Krista gave him a comforting smile, but anybody could tell it was hard to muster up the strength to do so. Somebody was dead, and Krista’s heart was hurting too much. She rest a hand on Shaun’s shoulder to keep herself steady in her crouched position opposite to him. “Everything will be okay… We’ll find out who did this…” She tried to comfort him further with her words before going quiet again. She took that moment to look Shaun over, still pale and looking like a scared rabbit. Her heart twisted again in pity for the web designer.

“Come on, let’s get you to the dining hall. You need a drink.”

The comforting barely helped. They had already defeated one killer, but they were just people. There was no guarantee that they could do it again. He didn't want to die... What would his girlfriend think? Would she ever even find out? Or would he just be considered missing, and never found again? And how disappointed would his parents be if their son died so young, at the hands of someone like Davis?

Shaun lifted a hand to his eye and wiped it, trying to clear it of tears, and then proceeded to do the same with the other. They were all Infinites. Krista was right, they could do it... they could win. "O-okay..." he said, and nodded his head slowly, before standing up somewhat unsteadily next to her, and following along behind her towards the dining hall.

Krista didn’t let Shaun remain behind her for very long. Once they crossed by Shaun’s still crowded room, Krista slowed her pace so she could walk between him and the door into his room. Fearing that Shaun was still weak from the anaesthetic earlier, Krista held onto his elbow to keep him standing as they approached the stairs to the first floor resort. She felt the silence between them to be too uncomfortable, so she tried filling it with talking. Who knows? Maybe her questions could help with the trial? “Did you get to open your note?” She asked as the crossed they monoshoppe.

Walking past his room, Shaun instinctively averted his eyes as best he could. He didn't wanna have to see that sight again, not unless he had to. At the very least, he was grateful to Krista for helping him; to think that someone could still be selfless in a time of crisis such as this gave him just the tiniest amount of hope, and for that he was happy.

"I... n-no..." he stuttered, slightly flustered at the sudden question amidst the quiet on their excursion. "I... a-assumed they would be st-stupid, or... d-designed to divide us, s-so I-I didn't read i-it..." he trailed off, thinking about who could have possibly had something worth killing over in the notes.

So Shaun didn’t look at his note. Krista hummed to herself. “I guess that’s a good call… Going by what Ice found when he opened his… sounds like lies made up by the carnage sisters.” Then she went quiet again. What now? “How are you feeling? Do you still feel ill?”

Shaun gave a gentle nod and glanced over towards Krista. "Y-yes..." he said, somewhat quietly, and continued walking, before quickly amending his mistake, "Wh-wh-what about you..? A-are you okay a-as well..? I-I'm... s-sorry for not a-asking..."

Krista tilted her head in confusion. “Me?” She opened the door into the dining room once arriving on the second floor. “I’m… okay.” As okay as they could be in this situation. She guided Shaun to a seat close to the kitchen, finally releasing her light grip on Shaun’s elbow once she saw him sit down. She told him to wait for a moment as she disappeared into the kitchen, emerging once she got Shaun a cold glass of water.

She took a seat in the booth, only now taking the time to check out the dining hall. Who would’ve thought a vintage diner was still popular enough to be a theme in a place like this? “Are you hurting anywhere else? You took quite the fall from the stairs…”

Taking the glass, Shaun took a light sip, feeling the cold water against his dry tongue, washing away the lingering taste of vomit from earlier. Being in the dining hall made him fall a tad hungry, after all, he hadn't eaten all day, however he knew he couldn't stomach anything - not in the situation they were in.

At Krista's question, he looked up from the glass and drank down another glassful. "N-no... I d-don't think so." he tone sounded somewhat calmer and more refreshed now that he was away from the scene, but even still his voice was shaky, "I-I guess I got l-lucky..."

Krista smiled again. “We should get Mercy to check you later, just to be sure. But at least you’re looking better now!” At this point, Krista was certain that the investigation was commencing. She knew she was going to be of no use during the investigation but at least she could be sure Shaun was taken care of. “Do you really not remember anything before you were attacked?” Krista rubbed the back of her head. ”I’m sorry if it seems like I’m questioning you too much… I just think that your memory could help this case… But I don’t think you’re the killer! You’re not that sort of person… I think...”

Shaun smiled back, if only slightly, and listened on to what she had to say. He nodded gently at the idea of Mercy checking him out - it was best to be certain he wasn't injured, after all, even if he didn't feel like he was. But, his eyes widened at her last comment. "N-no..! I-I... I could n-never... n-not to a-anyone, e-especially not s-someone as nice as M-M-Marianne..."

But even with his protests, he knew people would suspect him. His head dropped, realising the implications. The murder had occurred in his room. It was only natural to suspect him...
"I-I'm sorry... I-I d-don't remember m-much..." he started, "I was l-looking around th-the s-second floor, and I-I was g-gonna head back t-to my room..." as he spoke, his voice seemed to grow more strained, "...b-but I remembered A-Aleecia was sick, s-so I was g-gonna visit her... wh-when I got there, she w-was already in... st-stasis..? A-and Ice was looking a-after her... W-we talked f-for a bit - h-he said it was st-strange I-I was there, c-cause I didn't t-talk to her much at all... I-I said I just w-wanted to see she w-was okay... Wh-when I w-went to leave, I-I decided to t-take the stairs to the f-first floor hospital, b-because it seemed f-faster, b-but..." his voice seemed to catch, "I-I remember being gr-grabbed, a-and... th-thats it... I-I'm sorry..."

Krista’s reached out to touch his shoulder, shaking her head. “It’s fine, I really don’t think you’re the killer! I’d lose faith in humanity if you were!” Despite what she was saying, Krista took a mental note of Shaun’s testimony. She gave him another smile. ”Thank you for telling me what you can remember, I just want to help you when the trial comes around.” Her smile faltered a bit at the thought.

Lifting his head slightly, a tear rolled down Shaun's cheek, finally feeling the effect of the encouragement. As guilty as the thought made him feel... Deep down he was glad that it wasn't Krista who had died. Where he'd be without cheering up he wasn't sure, especially since the scenario seemed mounted against him.

"I... th-thank you... I-I mean it..." as quickly as he said so, he averted his gaze and shuffled slightly awkwardly in an attempt to remove Krista's hand from his shoulder in embarrassment.

She pulled her hand away quickly after feeling him shift. “Ah, sorry about that… my way of comforting someone can be a bit more… touchy than others…” She laughed awkwardly as she passed him a tissue from the tissue box in the middle of the table. “Anyway… So just to be clear. You did have your handbook with you before you were attacked, right? You didn’t just… leave it somewhere?”

Shaun took a tissue and dabbed at his eyes with it, and murmured "Th-that's okay..." under his breath. At her question, he shyly shook his head, and his eyes began to train on the floor.
"N-no... I-I didn't... I n-needed to h-have it on me..." he trailed off, before clenching his eyes shut, "B-b-because... I-I was s-supposed to meet M-Marianne at my room..."

The revelation was definitely shocking for Krista. She remained quiet for a few moments, letting it sink in. “Were you planning to…?” She didn’t want to ask if he intended to kill Marianne, she knew he couldn’t do it… But it was important for the case to know for sure...

"N-no, of c-course not!" his head snapped instinctively upwards to defend himself, his voice slightly raising. But the moment he did, his face dyed itself a red of embarrassment and he forced his gaze away, "...sh-she read her note... a-and asked me to h-help f-figure out who it b-belonged to... b-but... she d-didn't tell me wh-what it said, th-though..." he trailed off once again, this time staying silent afterwards.

Krista’s hope rose only for it to crash again as Shaun admitted he did not know what was on the note. “Okay… what about where she kept it? Maybe the killer knew she had it and did not want you to help!” Krista felt like they could have a lead.

Shaun's head shook slowly. "I-I don't know... Pr-probably in her r-room, or... o-on her person..?" he questioned, not expecting much of an answer given that Krista knows even less than he did.

“This is good, I think…! If we can find the note, we can find who did this!” She smiled at Shaun again. “Now we just have to hope that someone found Marianne’s note…”

Shaun gave a small nod and smiled towards her.

"Y-yeah... o-or her handbook..? M-Monokuma might have l-left her door open for th-the investigation." he rattled off a couple ideas, trying his best to think of where it could be. He wanted to be useful... To prove he didn't do it...

Feeling encouraged, Krista hopped up from her seat. “We’ve got ourselves a start point! Let’s go to her room, even if we don’t find the note it’s possible we can find something else!” She gestured him to get up. “If you’re feeling better, we can go now and help with the investigation!”

"O-okay then..!" Shaun said with a somewhat enthusiastic tone, and stop from his seat alongside her. His hand wrapped around the glass of water, and he took another sip, before placing it back down in order to follow on behind Krista towards Marianne's room.

---

As if Max wasn't anxious enough, Willow entered the scene on her ghoulish horse. As much as he hated to admit it, he preferred the teddybear over these creepy robot dolls who seem much more dangerous. When Willow announced the monokuma File, Max tried to focus on it, but he kept an eye on Willow until she left his sight.

Looking at the file showed some interesting info, almost enough to determine how she was killed. Of course it's never as easy as that; there were always secret truths hidden behind the clues.

And those clues were not gonna find themselves, so Max set out to collect as many as he could before the trial would inevitably start. looking around the room, he immediately noticed Noel in her gi. Her talent would most likely be very handy in their current situation, so ignoring the fact she was wearing something like that, Max approached her.

"Noel, if you are feeling up for it, I'd like to ask if you've seen anything weird or suspicious while searching for Shaun's e-handbook."

Noel looked up with a startle, her gaze had been completely affixed on Marianne. Her head still filled with sadness and disbelief. She muttered a little incoherently as her concentration was broken by the police officer. "Uhm, search?" Noel started as she regained her composure. "You guys were searching for Shaun's handbook? Well... I didn't know. I was training in the dojo. I wasn't informed." She told him. She hung her head a little. Sorry, I don't think I can provide any sort of useful testimony."

She was training in the dojo? I should've invited her to train together this morning. Thought Max before focusing on the task at hand.

"Don't sweat it, I doubt anyone found anything while searching anyway." He said with a slightly forced smile before turning it into a dead serious expression.

But while your testimony may be absent, you could help me with gathering the testimonies of everyone else. That is one of your best qualities, isn't it?"

Noel nodded, her smile lingering somewhere between relieved and solemn. She was happy that Max didn't press her too much on the absence of her testimony. Then again, nothing much she could do about events she had no knowledge of. "Interviewing is the backbone of journalism!" She answered, firing herself up."Let's get to the bottom of this together, Max!"

Max was a bit startled by Noel's enthusiasm; he didn't expect her to recover from her depressed state so quickly, but it was endearing to see. Giving a nod in response to Noel, Max turned to everyone around. He was searching for anyone that acted out of place or suspicious but he found none that fit the description. Fortunately for him, Noel was helping him out, and she might be better at spotting such things.

"Noel. Have a target yet?"

Noel put a hand to her chin. "Well, I don't think it's a coincidence you were looking for Shaun's handbook, and then this murder happened in his room." She started. "Does anyone know more about what exactly happened with Shaun, anyway?" She could see Shaun himself wasn't exactly in a state for questioning right now, maybe later. "Who organised this search?"

"Ice was the one who told me to look for Shaun's handbook, he might know more." He said before walking towards Ice. Max flinched for a second at the sight of marianne's corpse; it looked very gruesome up close, but he had to keep it together, just like he always did.

"Isaiah. If you have some time, Noel and I have some questions for you."

Ice was still examining Marianne's body when he could hear the police officer try to talk to him. "Oh, Max." He turned his head. "And Noel too." He had clearly gotten over his emotional outburst from earlier. Or at least he appeared to. "A police officer and a reporter. You must want a testimony."

"Correct." Noel replied. "I heard you were involved with setting up the search for Shaun's handbook. Since it's needed to open up his room, there might be a lead there." She explained calmly. This clearly wasn't the first time she was doing something like this. "Please tell us everything you can recollect regarding what lead to the search."

"There's not much to say." Ice folded his arms. "If you want me to start at the beginning, I was practicing opening and closing one of the pods... so that I could talk to Aleecia again." Ice gestured to Shaun with his chin. "He came in, thought Aleecia was awake. I explained to him that she had been out for a while. We talked a bit, but then he left. Once I was confident I could do it, I got Krista and Mercy before opening Aleecia's pod. We gave her the Othello game and sealed her back up. Shortly after Krista left, she discovered Shaun. It couldn't have been more than ten minutes since I last saw him. But I wasn't really looking at the clock." He looked at Marianne and unfolded his arms. "But I did watch the minutes tick by after he was discovered. It took us about twenty minutes to find Shaun's hand book. I think Krista found it in the trash room. And then we discovered the body." Ice turned towards the police officer and the reporter. "Anything else?"

"Yes actually. Did you see anything suspicious or out of place during your search for the handbook?" It looked like Max spacing out and not paying attention when he asked that, but the opposite was true. He was already formulating many different theories while simultaniously observing Ice with a close eye. His nature as a police officer did not allow him to trust Testimonies at face value so he payed close attention to Ice in order to find any weird movements or discrepancies.

There was nothing odd about Ice's behavior. Nothing that couldn't be explained away with nerves. Typically before an interrogation, it was important to let an individual's emotions “drain out” before talking to them. With the smell of death still lingering in the air, it was unlikely Max was going to be able to correctly read anyone. The only odd thing Max might have noticed was the unusually long pause before answering. "No." he said with a bairly noticable shake of his head. "I didn't see anything out of place." He turned to face Noel. "Do you have any ideas of who it could be?"

Noel shook her head. "Too early to accuse anyone at this point. We're going to have to gather evidence first." She told him. "Do you know if Shaun had his hand book with him the first time?" She asked with interest. The hand book was likely pivotal to the case, so they needed every bit of info they could get. Noel had noticed a few oddities about the testimony, but nothing she suspected Ice to know outright. She made mental notes of them to review for when they had a solid body of evidence.

Ice groaned. "I don't actually go around asking people if they have their hand books on them. I guess it's possible he didn't have it on him. That would make him the killer, wouldn't it?"

Noel shook her head. "It would primarily affect the timespan in which the murder could've occured. But yes, it would cast suspicion upon Shaun." She answered honestly. "Do you have anyone in mind, though?" She asked, having noticed how eager Ice had been to point to someone as a suspect.

"Honestly, no." Ice folded his arms. "But you have to admit, having someone die in your room would make you look a little suspicious, wouldn't it?"

"Don't be so quick at pointing fingers." Max placed his left knuckle under his chin. "It's suspicious yes, but we barely have any clues. If you want to find the killer you can't be partial, so instead of suspecting him, why don't we go ask him."

Noel interjected. "He was looking pretty bad earlier. Maybe we should give him some time to recover first?"

"Entirely the reason why I wasn't going to pressure the issue." Ice looked away from Max and Noel. "I think I've said enough. Hopefully the others can tell you something more helpful."

"I think you were plenty helpful, Ice." Noel reassured him. "Good luck with investigating."