Chimon, January 9th, 7:50 am

There was a lot going on when these machines first got revealed to us. I was skeptical about them from the beginning; I didn't know technology existed that was advanced enough to make simulations feel as real as those do. But aside from that quick glance I gave them to discover the Team Danganronpa symbol, I didn't think I was allowed to examine them in close detail. Besides. I was wrapped up in mourning the dancers, dealing with my emotions toward Yuu, and trying to make sure nobody else died. I think none of us were super focused on finding answers. Now, our lives all depend on finding those answers, and fast.

"Well, hello, my sweet little chickadees! Are you ready to begin?"

"Oh, it's you. You won't be bothering us for too long, right?" I ask hopefully.

"Bother?! How dare you imply that I'm a bother! But you're right, I have a lot of super special preparations to make, so I'm only able to stick around for a little bit! I need to make sure you all have everything you need!"

"Are we just supposed to believe you? You lied to us and hid evidence from us before. Now we're meant to expect that you'll just hand us a shit ton of information on a silver platter?" Gou counters.

"We kinda don't really have much of a choice. We're already trusting that the words on all of the pictures are real, right?" Fujiko points out, shifting her foot uncomfortably.

"She's right. If anything, it just seems like he's making us jump through hoops. His game isn't to hide shit this time. It might be to leech all our time, though, so we've just gotta go along with it and try to gather all the clues in two days."

Gou grits his teeth and shuts his eyes tight. His fists clench. "Fine. Whatever it takes to put an end to this."

"Well isn't that just swell? We're all getting along splendidly!"

"I told you," he seethes, "I'm never, ever going to get along with you."

I give him a slight pat on the back. "Gou, don't let him get to you. Remember, he's wasting our time. What did you need to tell us, Monokuma?"

"Wellllll, you need some items to really get the full experience of these machines! Technology is a slippery thing, after all! I'm an old geezer, so I don't know anything about it, but maybe you could do better with this!" He chucks a remote at Fujiko's head.

"Ouchie! What a bitch!" she squeals. "And what is that about being a geezer? Are you an old guy or are you just messing with us?" She bends and grabs it, rubbing at her head.

"He's been operating these machines this whole time. If the person controlling Monokuma is elderly, they're an elderly person with a LOT of technical know-how," I emphasize. "I doubt they're serious."

"Also, you'll definitely be needing this! It'll help you tighten any loose screws in those dopey little noggins of yours!" he cackles, flinging a screwdriver at Gou. He catches it midair and glares, but says nothing in response to the insult. "Alrighty! Bye bye! See you later, my favorite losers!" He books it out of the room with his strange waddle.

Fujiko sighs. "Okie... that was super duper weird. Normally he can pick whether he hates us or loves us, but I guess it's both today. Here's this remote. It's got sixteen buttons on it, all numbered like that. One for each of us? It also has two other buttons, called Start Simulation and Quit Simulation."

TRUTH BULLET: FEAR MACHINE REMOTE

"Alright. And we've got this screwdriver, which makes me think there's a control panel or something like that on these babies," Gou announces, cracking his knuckles. It's pretty easy to find it; there are small screws affixed to the back of the fear machine, so small that they're unnoticeable unless you know what you're looking for, but they match the size of the screwdriver. Gou quickly twists each screw out and then pries the back off effortlessly. There are five buttons and a screen. The buttons are labeled as follows: New Simulation, Delete Simulation, Copy, Script (Optional), and Forced Shutdown.

"I guess one of us should probably get hooked up so that we know what each of these mean."

"I'll do it! You guys stay here, and I'll report everything that happens!" Fujiko insists.

"Are you sure?" Gou asks.

She nods. "I'm sure. If anything bad happens, you guys need to be okay. Gou's our commander and Chimon's really smart."

"I don't want to hurt you," I hesitate.

"You can't stop now! We're so close to the end now, and we need these answers!" She puts her hands on her hips in determination. Before we can do or say anything, she hands me the remote, sits down in the machine, and closes her eyes.

Gou takes a deep breath. "Okay, Chimon. We gotta get started now."

"These sixteen buttons make me think of the sixteen of us, and the simulations of our worst fears. Let's test that first." I hit the Start Simulation button. The screen prompts me for a number, and I press nine, the one we identified as Nari's fear. Fuji isn't claustrophobic in real life, so once the scenario ends, she won't be afraid anymore. The pod closes around her and we wait for a few minutes until the pod and her eyes fly open. "That was Nari's fear, right, Fuji?"

"Yep! It was exactly like before, nothing strange."

"Okay. Now, let's see what some of these other things do. A lot of these things seem self-explanatory. Like 'Delete Simulation' or 'Quit Simulation.' But some of these are weird. What do 'Copy' and 'Script' mean in this context?"

"Nothing left to do but try them out!" Gou nods.

He presses the 'New Simulation' button. A keyboard slides out of a crazy compartment. The screen lights up with a checklist. "Insert Location," "NPC Pictures," "NPC Relations to Avatar."

Hoo, boy. This is gonna be way more complicated than I would've liked.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ren, January 9th, 8:26 am

We've been groping around uselessly through rooms for over half an hour, and we've found literally nothing of note. There are so many rooms in this building and so many places where these secret passageways could be. Under rugs or cushions, behind walls or furniture, even in the ceiling. "Okay, guys, this isn't going to work. We need a damn plan," I insist.

"I concur," Azumi admits, expression serious.

"This was a bad idea. We should've started with a different lead. I just figured this would be important for investigation... it would be bad to miss clues in rooms that we didn't know existed," Yuu sighs. "I just wish we had any sort of way to predict where these passageways are."

"Hmm. Well, in our efforts to unlock the Vault, Monokuma left the keys to everyone's rooms to us. Wakumi's bedroom blessed us with information, so perhaps our companions' might bear fruit."

"That's a possibility. We could also look through the garden or investigate the Monoinu. They may not help us find new routes, but they sound like they'd be good ways to get new info quickly," I emphasize.

"Mmm! The Monoinu! That had not occurred to me, but I am greatly curious as to the origin of our temporary ally."

"Works for me," Yuu nods. Monoinu tend to be found in the garden, library, and kitchen the most, so we head to the library, which is the closest one to the pool, where we'd been searching. There are a few of them/him sorting through books and dusting things to within an inch of their lives.

"Hello, Campers! Do you have any inquiries? Monoinu as a whole is very busy right now, but we have been instructed to receive inquiries and answer any that Monokuma approves of!" one of them asks, wiping down the checkout desk (which is useless) till it's shiny.

"Indeed we do. How much information do you know about the Monoinu unit who defected?" Azumi asks. She turns on Keiji's tape recorder.

"Anything you need to know surrounding him, we know about."

"How long have you had that intel?" Yuu continues, furrowing his brows seriously.

The Monoinu pauses for a second, as if asking Monokuma permission for something, and then says, "Since you all arrived in the building."

Pure bewilderment falls upon my shoulders. "I– You knew about–?! But then, why did Monokuma let him live until the end of the fourth trial?!"

"That unit was doing its job. It was unaware of this. But it was not a defect. It followed its own coding till the bitter end. Monoinu follows rules. That is our coding. It was designed to be a 'rebel' assisting you. If it was truly problematic, Hive Mind would have caught on immediately."

TRUTH BULLET: MONOINU'S ACCOUNT

My heart sinks hearing this. Monoinu seemed to value his freedom and his ability to care for us so deeply, and to know that he didn't actually do any of that of his own free will stings. He was just following someone else's script for him. "How did we meet that unit in the first place?"

"You remember your 'First Trials,' correct?"

"Indeed. It struck me as rather peculiar that these were not included in any of the Danganronpa seasons I read about."

Monoinu hesitates again at Azumi's point. "They were meant to establish bonds and help you all get a feel for each participant's individual skills and weaknesses. You were sorted based on attributes, and those attributes were required for success in the trial."

"I'm assuming mine had to do with music?" I pipe up, half joking because of how obvious a conclusion it is.

"Yes. For you and Kana, the theme was 'auditory sensitivity.' Yuu and Gou had 'dexterity,' because Yuu was forced to craft a doll for Gou to use on that toy car track. Both jobs required a precise hand. Azumi, yours and Tozen's was 'discipline.'"

"I can see how that would apply to us, though the task itself seems unrelated."

Monoinu's stoic expression melts away into a strangely endearing smile. Sometimes, despite the fact that they're complicit to all of this awful shit, Monoinu just feel like little butler puppies that I wanna pet. "Admittedly, we just wanted you to do acrobatics, and we knew Tozen would have food to help you get your strength back. That's not the point, though! Sayuri and Fujiko had 'aesthetic sensibilities'; Fujiko's keen eye and Sayuri's special form of self-expression were intriguing assets to the team."

"Team?" Yuu calls out swiftly. By now, he's begun to clean, too, probably out of some instinctive need to keep his hands busy.

He breezes past that without so much as a blink. "Wakumi and Monterio had 'physicality,' an obvious choice for them, as people so in-touch with their own bodies. Nari, Keiji, and Hachi had 'environmental knowledge. Most importantly to this conversation, however, is that one last group. Haruto, Joanie, and Chimon had 'persuasion.' In very different ways, those three had a very powerful ability to win friendship and favors. In order to display this, they needed someone TO persuade. The unit of Monoinu you all connected with was stationed with those three specifically, because it was the one who COULD be swayed. All they really needed to do was appeal to its loneliness."

"Loneliness, huh?" The library is pretty much silent, aside from muffled shuffling noises, so Yuu's words, despite being soft, sound especially potent. Loneliness. It's such a powerful feeling. It can lead us to seek out other people, and those people fundamentally influence the versions of ourselves that we become. I can't even really imagine a world in which I never had to feel lonely. Would I even be the same person? Azumi takes my hand and rubs the back of it. The strands of my gloves feel funny being moved like that.

I sigh. "I'm glad to know that we gave him some companionship for that last little bit of his life."

"He didn't... have to die," Yuu grimaces. If Monterio hadn't– if it was just me–"

"Cease. It is far too late to dwell on thoughts like that. I did not know him very well, but from his words, he seemed proud to be able to protect you."

"It wasn't real. Monoinu are expendable. We're literal robot work dogs mass-produced. Aside from that unit, 137, we have no identity separate from one another, and even that one was just a bundle of ones and zeroes. You original sixteen are the stars of this show. Don't feel bad for it."

Part of me is insulted. Part of me is angry, no, enraged, that they care so little for one of their own. They won't even refer to him as "he." They just keep calling him "it." The other part of me just feels bad for Monoinu. None of them have any semblance of self aside from "Monokuma's disciplinarians/servants," and because of that, they have no self-worth. It's awful. Yuu and I give each other emboldened expressions, so I contradict him, stating, "We do feel bad. Not just for him, but for all of you."

"Misplaced, but okay."

"All that aside, you have our gratitude for your assistance," Azumi bows in thanks.

"Just doing my job."

Azumi turns her back as if to lead us out, but then, finally unable to resist, she starts to pet him. He giggles, and it feels sad. This one could never be our friend, but I wish he was. We finally leave the library. "Well. Though it did not yield any hints as to secret passageways, we did find the answer to Joanie's lead. That is a start."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Fujiko, January 9th, 8:12 am

"If we make a new simulation, just to see what everything does, will we have to delete one of our fear simulations?" I hear my little dude ask.

"I-I think so. It's kind of hard to pick which one to get rid of, though. We don't know if any of them in particular are important, especially since we never figured out exactly who each one belonged to," Gou affirms.

"Kana's. We can get rid of Kana's. I knew her fear the minute I saw it, and I couldn't forget it if I tried," I tell them. Hers is super duper scary. I always, always wish that she was still around, but like, I'm glad she never had to be put through that.

"Does that sound okay?"

"Yeah. If Fujiko remembers it like the back of her hand, I don't see any harm in that. That was number sixteen, right? That's what we'd said?" I hear Chimon make a "yes" sound. With a series of beeps, Kana's worst nightmare is deleted. And my shoulders sink, like I didn't realize how much it would relieve me. Monokuma can't hurt her anymore, not even in any sort of afterlife.

"It says 'Insert Location.' Where do we want this new simulation to be?" Gou asks.

"I got it," Chimon answers without even a tiny pause. I hear sounds of a keyboard clacking. "Okay. Now what? We have this menu that says, 'NPC's,' 'Props,' and 'Script.' What should we start with?"

"Uhhh... NPC's, probably. Considering there are so many people we can see in there, there's probably a menu of them."

"Fuji, I'm adding in your brother. Okay?"

"Yeppity yep!"

"Okay, relation to participant... brother, of course. Props... hit Copy button? Uhhh, okay... WEIRD! What even is this machine?!"

"For reference, Fujiko, one of those, like, grocery scanner things popped out and it's telling us to scan an item for insertion into the simulation," Gou explains.

"I have a funny idea!" A few seconds later, Gou is cracking up at something Chimon is doing, but neither of them will tell me what it is! I wanna know the joke!

"Script (Optional). Okay. It seems like here we can add in a general summary of things that happen, stuff people say, and an end condition. I'll keep it short."

The wait seems to take, like, a million gajillion years, and I shift in the seat nervously. "You didn't make it bad again, did you?"

"We wouldn't do that to you, Fuji. Don't worry. This is harmless," Gou assures me. I close my eyes. "And... done! Let's give it a play, see if it works." My breaths start to get quicker and my heart thump-thump, thump-thumps, pounding. I hear the pod close shut.

When I open my eyes, I'm in a swanky little arcade. "Oooh! I'm bad at these, but it'll be fun!"

Hayate suddenly runs up to me, with literal thousands of tickets in his arms. "Fujiko! Look at what I did!"

"Wow! What are you gonna get?!"

"C'mon!" He grabs my hand and pulls me along to the prize counter. I stifle a gasp when I see that every single prize is just Chimon's hat, over and over and over. Then I laugh so hard that I nearly fall to my knees. "Well," my bro proclaims with a snicker, "that makes my choices easier." He buys as many of the hats as he possibly can with his tickets, and suddenly we're drowning in hats. We laugh and try to stack as many of them on each other's heads as possible, and at some point I even stand on one of the chairs to make his tower taller. Now with... eight... eleven... fourteen hats on his head, he beams at me cheesily. Then his face softens into something sweeter, more nostalgic. "I love you, little sis. Get home safe, okay?"

Even though I know this is just something Chimon and Gou programmed for me, it's still really... really nice. "Love you too, big bro. I miss you. I'll see you for realsies soon."

The pod opens, and so do my eyelids, softly. There's still that slight nausea that comes from ending one of these, but I feel really fuzzy. "Thanksies... thanksies, boys. That was really nice. I think it worked out exactly like you wanted. I was in an arcade with my bro, and we bought tons of Chi's hats with tickets, and stacked them on each other's heads... and said nice things to each other."

"Perfect! So now we know how the Copy, Script, and New Simulation buttons work. Only a few more left to go," Gou says, pride in his tone. Chimon comes around the other side and peeks at me playfully. I give him a smile. He jokingly blows me a kiss and I pretend to catch it. He shares one last cheeky grin with me before getting back to it.

TRUTH BULLET: NEW SIMULATION FUNCTIONS

"Okay. Now let's try using the remote to quit a simulation while we're in the middle of it. I'm assuming you want to use the one we just made, Fuji?"

"Mhm. Better than fears, even fears that aren't mine."

The pod closes around me, and I close my eyes almost excitedly. Before I can even open my eyes, however, it opens again, and I find that the icky tummy feeling is there even without anything happening. "Boys? Aren't you gonna start the simulation?"

"What are you talking about?" Gou asks.

"The... the simulation? You said you were gonna quit in the middle of it, right?"

"Oh, God. Fuji, we did quit in the middle of it. You were in there for at least two minutes." My little dude's voice is way more serious than it should be. This is obviously a joke, right?

"Stop pulling my leg! I may be dumb, but I'm not that dumb!"

"Maybe something went wrong? Let's try again," Gou offers, ignoring me. Once again, the pod closes around me, and again, it opens up before I even get the chance to catch my breath.

"I'm serious. Stop playing with me. Nothing happened. The pod closed and then popped back open. I never even made it into the arcade." They're both dead silent for way, way too long. "The machine must be broken. L-Let's try it again with a different one."

"Okay... but I'm not sure if the others will have OUR simulation or Kana's... so just, be prepared, okay?"

"S-Sure. I gotchu, boo." We move over to the next pod and try again. The exact same thing happens. "Please. Please, please, if this is a joke, it's not funny. I also feel like I might be sick."

Chimon gives me one of the barf bags, and I clutch onto it tightly in case I need it. "I swear, even I wouldn't mess around here. We did three tests, and we left you in there longer and longer. If we quit a simulation, you don't remember any of it." I shudder.

TRUTH BULLET: QUIT SIMULATION FUNCTION

"Guys... I don't think we should mess around with that Forced Shutdown thing. I know Tozen's lead says to study the fear machines, but if even just quitting normally wipes Fujiko's memory of the simulation, I feel like a Forced Shutdown could be really, really dangerous." Gou's voice has an uncharacteristic gravity to it.

I'm trembling. "I-I don't want to die. I know I said I'd be the guinea pig because you guys need to stay safe, but I don't want to keep doing this. I'm scared," I stare down at my hands. "Even if he was fake, I still told my brother I'd see him soon."

"We're done, then. C'mon, guys. Let's try and figure out our next course of action." Chimon extends his arm, green eyes twinkling sympathetically. I take his childlike hand in mine and let him help me up. My knees buckle from under me and I fall, still too stunned to act normal.

"Sorry, sorry. I'm okay." The tininess of my voice makes it sound real unconvincing.

"Here, let me help." Gou gets behind me and lifts me up from my armpits, holding me steady. The three of us walk on silently, leaving those machines behind us.