[action] arrival of super high school level good luck (bad luck?)

[rebut]

[ Good morning, Smash Academy! Today you might see a half shoeless young boy frantically running down the hallways after...a small and quick blur that looks suspiciously like a black cat. Yup, that's right. He will never get a cool entrance. Ever. He'll be doing his best to not run into anyone, but he can't say the same for the pursued, who's running every which way in order to avoid getting caught. Apparently he or she has really taken a liking to that shoe! Or just wants the boy to play tag. Who knows? He sure doesn't.

Maybe, just maybe though, he'll catch up to the cat and get his missing shoe back mostly intact. Or he can just give up on—hahaha, no, he won't. After all, he doesn't exactly have a spare available to use instead!

So what will you do? Help a dude in distress out? Laugh at him? Set traps for fun? ...Help the cat instead? Your choice! Either way, he can be found running about anywhere around the school while the looooooong chase is still on. Occasionally, you might hear him pleading for the cat to "Please give it back already!"

...Sorry beforehand for the ruckus? ]

Comments

[butterbelieveamanspromise]

Damn it! All that death and killing for something as small as that?! How's trapping a bunch of high school students in a school gonna prove anything about despair? All it proves is how twisted and fucking sick she is...

[They may be at a different school entirely - plane of existence, dimension, country, didn't matter; it felt different- but their life full of murder and suffering still feels very real, almost like they could be swallowed up by that depressing place right this minute, all over again. It only happened a little over a week ago for Mondo. It's no wonder he seems so distraught.]

[rebut]

[ Twisted is a understatement... He doubts he'd ever meet someone quite as insane and obsessed with despair as her again in his life. And then Lady Luck takes that as a challenge. ]

Well, she wanted to make an example of Hope's Peak students, who are said to be hope for the future. I think it's safe to say she wanted to make the world more chaotic than it already is after that one incident...

[ Oh, right. Context. Time to tack on something important to that! ]

...And by that, I mean The Worst, Most Despair-inducing Incident in the History of Mankind.

[butterbelieveamanspromise]

The... Worst, Most Despair-inducing Incident in the History of Mankind? What's that?

[rebut]

I'm not entirely sure of the fine details...but to keep it short, many people fell into despair. Out of despair, they started to destroy the environment and each other all over the world.

[ And wear Monobear masks apparently. ]

To keep us safe from that, the headmaster asked us to agree to stay in the school for the rest of our lives in needed. In exchange, he'd make sure we'd have everything we need to stay inside, but...

[ The next thought brings up a certain "present" to mind, causing him to wince and look away. ]

Enoshima killed him.

[butterbelieveamanspromise]

[Panic begins to settle in. It sparked when he heard of the outside world, and was fed further by details of their circumstance that didn't add up to his own experience.]

Hold it! I don't remember agreeing to any of that shit! I'd never lock myself up in a gloomy place like that...!

[rebut]

[ Since when did this become a courtroom? ]

That's because our memories have been messed around with. We've...actually been classmates for a couple of years now.

[ Congratulations, you're actually 18! ]

[butterbelieveamanspromise]

[HE LOOKS HORRIFIED. You thought he flipped his lid when he heard about the twin switch? That was child's play compared to what he's hearing now.]

Y-You're... seriously messing around with me... right? Right?! So cut it out... Say you're joking!!

[rebut]

I'm...I'm not. I wish it could all just be some huge elaborate dream, but...

[ Evidence. He needs evidence here, doesn't he? But the only piece he has on him, the one he couldn't bring himself to leave with his luggage...should he show Oowada-kun?

> Try to load and shoot the evidence bullet.
> But what if that raises a Ishida v2 flag?
> Wait, isn't that the cat from earlier?
> Run aw—I WON'T LET YOU ESCAPE. ]

...If you want more concrete proof, I still have a class photo taken from that time. But I'm not pictured in it, since I'm probably the photographer.

[butterbelieveamanspromise]

[The fear of this truth keeps grinding inside his chest, but curiosity gnaws in the same spot. He's entered a weird paradox where he's fiercely denying what he suspects is actually the grim reality Naegi's telling him. He can't answer for a moment, tearing his eyes away from him and staring intently to the side somewhere.]

How am I supposed to know it's not some... faked photo? Like those damn videos Monobear showed us. [Enoshima, fuck, whoever.]

1/2

[rebut]

[ "How am I supposed to know it's not some... faked photo?"

> Enoshima's faceless appearance ]

...While the pictures were meant to trick us into suspecting each other, they also served as a clue towards Monobear's identity. Every one of us had a photo besides Kirigiri-san...and each one of those photos did not show Enoshima's actual face. Think about it... Five photo given to us by Monobear, and none of them clearly showed her. If she wanted to fake those photos so badly, then she should have edited her face to look more like her sister instead of just hiding it from view, right? Otherwise we'd figure it out eventually once we showed each other the photo we got. Which, in fact, ended up happening.

Of course, the photos could have been a red herring, but considering we used it to corner Monobear into revealing herself... It's safe to say it's likely genuine. But if you don't want to see it, it's fine.

[rebut]

[ Whoa, wait that's a lot of info at once. Better slow down. ]

Sorry... I know this is a lot to take in at once. Feel free to stop me at any time, okay?

[butterbelieveamanspromise]

[It didn't even matter what Naegi told him; the information was all too elaborate to just be some kind of fraud. It's not just that, though. He feels like he can trust what comes from Naegi. And that's probably why he can believe it so well. His denial can only hold up for so long.]

No, I got most of it.

[But he's so floored by everything he's hearing being piled up on him at once that he feels lightheaded, in a way. Like he needs to take a second to himself and just leave the conversation because it's too much for him. He always leaves the conversation butthurt in free time events; why not now!! He moves over and slumps down to sit at the edge of his bed, propping his head in a palm as he collects his jumbled and rattled thoughts. Two years... Classmates who had spent two years together, forgetting each other completely. The world had gone to shambles and Enoshima was the true mastermind who had locked everyone up while they thought they were safe from the outside world. The outside world...!]

The Crazy Diamonds... So they really...

[He can't say it.]

[rebut]

[ Naegi tries to wait for him to finish, but when it looks like Oowada wouldn't, he started to say something anyway. ]

I don't know, but...there's no evidence saying they're not okay. So I want to believe that the people we know outside are still fine.

[ He really doesn't want to think of his family as dead, which is why he's rather adamant about not accepting at least that part without concrete proof. And plus, Monobear's clearly trying to use it as a motive for murder rather than a motive to get them to suspect each other, so the videos aren't very trustworthy, if at all. ]

[butterbelieveamanspromise]

[Mondo lifts his head to look at Naegi again. Resolve seems to have returned, even if it seems like it's just a small flicker of it.]

...I'd like to believe the same thing. My gang is tough... If anyone made it through whatever despair-inducing event happened, they'd be able to handle it for sure. We've fought through thick and thin together before. What's a little despair on top of it?

1/3

[rebut]

Yeah, I wouldn't expect anything less of Oowada-kun's gang.

[ There's no way a gang led by him would go under so easily, he thinks/ ]

And if there weren't people outside still holding hope for the future, then she wouldn't have gone through the trouble of broadcasting—

2/3

[rebut]

[ ...

......

.........

Wait, did he just say... ]

[rebut]

[ W h o o p s . ]

[butterbelieveamanspromise]

[Why did he look so scared all of a sudden? Should HE be scared? ...! Wait one hot second...]

Broadcasting? [Then he got snappier.] Fuck! What about broadcasting?! Spit it out, quick!

[rebut]

Ah, well, you see, umm—

[ Yuuuuuuuup, he totally slipped up there. ]

...She was broadcasting parts of the mutual killing school life to the world outside.

[butterbelieveamanspromise]

Tch-!

[Another noise like he'd been punched in the gut escaped him. What Naegi just told him shut out all hope that his secret had stayed inside the confines of the student trial circle despite Monobear's threat to reveal it to the outside, limiting the amount of people who knew of it. No, the whole world could see everything... even how pathetic he turned out to be when cornered and stabbed in the heart like that. Despair had no end- he didn't have to be in Hope's Peak for that special Junko Brand despair to follow him wherever he went.]

S-so everything we did... My secret... Even my terrible act of murder... Everyone saw it! Sh-shit...

[rebut]

[ Totally mentally berating himself for saying that at the moment. Looks like now's the time to fast-talk some sort of explanation for that slip-up. ]

We don't know what exactly she broadcasted! Or how much she could broadcast, since I doubt she could constantly hijack TV signals... For all we know, she could be trying to psyche us out again. All we know is that the very start was likely shown outside, since there was a rescue attempt. If those gunshots were any indication, I mean.

[butterbelieveamanspromise]

Naegi. [His head snaps back up. The severity of his eyes could cut metal, but there was a tinge of hurt to it, the kind a wounded wolf flashes at you.] Tell me the truth. Do you honestly believe that heartless bitch would miss out on such an opportunity? Back then... during that trial, I was in unbelievable despair. You can't tell me she wouldn't do anything in her damn power to get that kind of suffering on air!

[rebut]

............You're right. She wouldn't.

[ Naegi sighs and looks down for a moment, not entirely willing to meet that gaze head on after hearing that. While he knew he had to mention that part of their mutual killing school life sooner or later, he did not mean for it to come up like this. But what's done is done, and he'll just have to deal with the consequences. ]

I'm sorry for trying to lie there. I just...

[ There's a pause as he figures out what to say next. ]

...No, there's no excuse. Sorry, Oowada-kun.

[ He nervously swallows once before continuing. ]

She...she probably did broadcast all six trials.

[butterbelieveamanspromise]

[He didn't lash out with any kind of hasty reaction because he already expected this outcome long ago. The cutting look in his eyes dulled out. He let go of a shaky sigh and planted each fist firmly on his thighs.]

I should have known. She did say she would reveal it to the world, and even after I killed someone, she went ahead and did it anyway. My gang's probably broken up by now... [And then his face scrunches up with even more pain.] And if she broadcasted my execution...!

[It would seem strange that he should feel so worked up over his gang mates witnessing his death when you'd think the first thing he would do is protest that he hadn't died back there since he was, well, alive now. But whatever occurred to other people's eyes had been different; it was clear by Ishimaru's reaction that whatever he watched after he had been shot into the motorcycle death cage had been so traumatic for him that he couldn't even begin to verbalize it. Naegi too survived him and got to see all the events through to some kind of closure for Hope's Peak (in a sense of the word), at least enough to finger the mastermind and live to tell the tale.

With all that had happened, and all he had lost, life seemed bleak for him. He held onto a thought that entertained death to be a more desirable option than survival. So maybe this miraculous turn of events was a curse after all? He was starting to feel very tired.]

I feel like... there isn't any hope left for me.

[rebut]

You must not lose hope!

[ And suddenly, he's flashing back to the final moments of that trial. He can do this. Sure, it'll be harder to convince Oowada than the others, but he has to take responsibility for his actions and do it anyway. ]

Oowada-kun... You're the one who should know your gang best, right? Do you really think a gang you led would break up so easily?

[ Naegi doubts a gang led by a Super High School Level Gang Leader can be so easily broken. Otherwise Oowada-kun wouldn't have that title, no? It's certainly not something someone can get through sheer luck, unlike his own title. Surely they're still out there, even with everything that's happened to the world. ]

And either way, shouldn't you try to talk to them first? Have you even talked to them? Because if there's something I learned from that...time in Hope's Peak, it's that we shouldn't jump to conclusions without hearing the other side of the story. We always miss something if we're too hasty.

[ Yes, that's always when the bodies start dropping. ]