Gou, January 9th, 9:56 am

This is big, and every passing minute, I start to feel more and more scared. This is like the first real major step toward unlocking the truth behind this whole thing. My gut is telling me that everyone figuring out what's going on behind the curtain won't make everything better. It's gonna be a fight for our lives.

"Do you seriously think you figured out what WDR stands for?!" Ren asks, totally thrown for a loop.

"Ren," Azumi says intensely, "Cast one look my way and you will know the answer to that inquiry." Her brown eyes are wide, her skin is flushed, her grip on Hachi's journal is trembling. Ren's expression hardens; he knows how serious she is right now.

"Well, like, what are we even waiting for, then?!" Fujiko squeals. Her Mary-Janes clatter along the hallway as she runs toward the dining hall, and the rest of us book it to follow her. The four of them zip into their seats, with Zu and I standing. She practically slams the book down onto the table and swallows. I try to stand up straight, to give off some impression of confidence. If it'll even slightly inspire the others, it's my duty to keep my chin up. Morale is everything. Hope is everything.

"Yuu, do you recall me mentioning anything off about this journal?" Azumi starts.

He furrows his brow. "Well, yeah. That was the whole reason we kept it. Wasn't it like... she kept repeating something in the margins? I have to admit, I haven't exactly read through it."

I nod, aware that my face is uncharacteristically serious. "You're right, though. A good chunk of the pages– the last twenty-seven, specifically– had this phrase over and over. We found it sixty-two times, to be exact. Do any of you know anything about something called, 'The White Daisy Room?'"

The words hang heavily in the air. "I want to say that it sounds like a song, but when I think about it, I can't remember anything with that title, instrumental or otherwise," Ren offers. Nobody says anything else after that. It's an unsettling feeling. "Well, one thing's for sure: if that's really what WDR stands for, there has to be clues as to what that means. And we'll find them," he encourages.

"Hey, wait! Maybe it's the craft room! Remember that giant vase? The daisy-patterned one?" Chimon mentions, eyes lighting up.

"Normally, I would be inclined to agree with you. However, paradoxically, most of the pages in which Hachi addresses our mystery location predate our imprisonment," Azumi squints.

"I– um– come again?" Fujiko pipes up.

"She talked about the White Daisy Room even before we came here for the first time," Yuu explains. "Can we see?" Zu slides the book toward him. "Ah, yeah. It started up on June 23rd. We got captured sometime around July 20th, since that's when summer vacation starts."

"Read that page! Maybe it has something important!" Fujiko emphasizes., but he's already reading a more recent page.

He scans through it quickly. "Oh, Hachi. She wrote about our smells because apparently it's easier to remember us that way than our most obvious physical features. But that's beside the point."

"What did I smell like, according to Hachi?" Chimon asks, legs kicking enthusiastically.

"Uhhh... her grandmother's attic. She said you smelled a bit musty."

He shrugs. "Makes sense. That dull blue hoodie was freaking ancient."

"And me?" I ask.

"Oil and metal. She joked that maybe you're secretly a robot."

"OMG! I wanna know, too! Hachi was such a total cutie pie!"

"Fujiko, she said you smell like lavender. She also commented on Keiji's crazy cologne usage."

"Tozen smelled of orange and ginger," Azumi sighs wistfully.

"Okay, we're moving on from this. June 23rd... Oh! That was her birthday, apparently! This part just talks about spice cake... this section talks about making flower crowns with her mother. Then she says that her mom started acting out of it midway through, and that she got a sudden memory of a room filled with white daisies. She said it felt like something that happened when she was little... that sort of foggy feeling. It made her feel scared."

"Scared? Why would something as simple as that scare her?" Ren asks, leaning in with interest. "And why did she fixate on that for over a month?"

"Little things can set us off. When we push dark thoughts out of our mind, it's the small, seemingly insignificant stuff that can drag shit to the surface," Chimon ponders.

"Like... a cookie causing flashbacks," Yuu mumbles.

TRUTH BULLET: HACHI'S JOURNAL

"What does any of that have to do with us, though? Why would one of Hachi's memories be the namesake for whoever trapped us here?" I ask.

Azumi adjusts her hair stick— it's weird seeing her with only one, but I've seen the other peeking out of Yuu's tool belt and it felt rude to ask. With the grace that only she can accomplish, she shakes her head. "I've not the slightest inkling. Though, if this is truly the acronym's meaning, I do insist we take Hachi's words with much more weight than we have prior."

"You're right. I know I said it would be useless, but we may as well check out the office lights. It won't take up much time if it's a useless lead."

"Office lights?" Chimon asks.

"Hachi apparently had a dream in which she was climbing through a secret tunnel beneath a light fixture, and the office reminded her thoroughly of it. Given the circumstances, her eccentric thought patterns may prove essential to our causes."

"Why do you talk like that, anyway?"

"E-Eh? Mere force of habit, I suppose! The adults in my circus find it important to teach the children an elevated vocabulary, and thus lead by example. I grew up hearing them speak in this manner. Why ask now, after all this time?"

"Cause now I'm not scared of offending you!" Chimon grins cheekily.

"Frankly, I find that your way of talking is alluring. There are only so many ways to say, 'You're hot,' but you probably know at least fifty," Ren winks.

"I shall neither confirm nor deny," she teases. After this, she seems to get a grip on herself, because her smile fades away and she swipes her hands across herself like clearing off dust. "Though this tangent is irrelevant to the task at hand. We ought to head to the office." She marches off, taking the lead.

Fujiko throws in her own opinion. "Your big words are confusing, but at least it gives me the chance to learn!"

"I like it, too. You speak with precision," Yuu chimes in.

"Alright, you've all commented on my speech patterns!"

Everyone swivels their head to look at me even as we head off. "Uhh... Big words, little words, doesn't matter too much to me either way! So long as people are willing to explain what they mean."

"Al-RIGHT," Azumi emphasizes jokingly. We make it to the office and stare up at the light.

"So what exactly are we supposed to do here? Can we just, like... yank it off somehow?" Fujiko's eyes are bewildered.

"I have a screwdriver, if anyone needs it!"

"Uhh... do you happen to have a power drill?"

"Oh! There's one in the craft room! I'll go get it!" Yuu sprints away, footsteps hardly making a sound.

When he's been out of the room for a minute, Fujiko guiltily shuffles her feet. "Y'know, sometimes I wonder about him. He has all those tools in his belt and knows where to find a power drill, and his murder weapon of choice... was bow."

We all fall silent, flabbergasted. "Well, I mean, his grasp of reality— but that shouldn't have made him forget about— You know, let's just drop it. Asking him would be insensitive," Chimon falters.

"Let's just be grateful he didn't go for the power drill," I sigh.

"The range," Chimon decides. "It's gotta be because of the longer range." We leave it at that, deciding that if he had any other reasons, that's for him to know.

...

Ren, January 9th, 10:10 am

Ikinari's room didn't really seem to have anything important to our investigation, which I feel conflicted about. On the upside, it means nothing involving her is suspicious– from what I've heard about Danganronpa, "dead" students can be the Mastermind if some sort of shenanigans are involved, so it's a relief knowing she's more than likely a victim of this whole thing. On the downside, coming up empty AGAIN makes me feel like a shitty investigator. I want to help everyone discover the truth!

Even so, it's time to shake any insecurities aside. When Yuu gets back with the power drill, Gou makes a move as if he's going to unscrew the fixture, but to our astonishment, that entire section of the ceiling budges under his hand effortlessly. He almost even falls off his chair, having been about to brace himself on the ceiling, but he manages to slide the panel out of the way. "Holy shit, that worked," he gasps.

"Hachi was right? You guys said it was like a dream she had, right? Why is there actually a tunnel in the ceiling? Shouldn't that be the next floor?" Fujiko questions.

"Ooh, maybe there's a small gap between this floor and the next."

"I shall investigate. Yuu, loan me one of your tape measures. I will gather dimensions for you to label later," Azumi says. She holds up Keiji's recorder, and he gives her a tape measure in response.

Before I can volunteer, Fujiko jumps in. "Ooh, me too, me too! I wanna go in there! It may be a bit icky, but I missed out on my chance to help last time, and I know all sorts of clues will be in there!" I suppress a sigh— there goes that idea. They're going to see a secret passage and I'm up creek without a paddle. Azumi hops into the tunnel with ease before pulling Fujiko up, and with some eager goodbyes and good lucks, they vanish to who knows where.

The other four of us think and think. "Garden. Nari's prompt was about the garden, right?" Gou offers. None of us have any other ideas, so I shrug, and we follow him. On the way, I continue to think. Come on. There has to be some better way I can use my time. There has to be some way I can really, really help. Think back to what Monoinu said– my trial involved auditory sensitivity. Is there anything my ears would be good for? Gears turn in my head.

"Hey, guys? Where was your first trial?" I ask.

"Game room," Yuu and Gou answer simultaneously.

"Mine was in the craft room," Chimon nods.

"Mine was in the parlor... but the thing is, where would a trial based on something like physicality be? Persuasion could've been anywhere... Environmental knowledge could only have been in the garden... but physicality?"

"Sounds like something that would've been in, like, the training grounds. Or the outdoor sporting area slash race track. Or, like, the gym. Right?"

"Not the gym. Zu and Toz told me in the past that their first trial was in the Warehouse. If Wakumi and Monterio had been in the gym, they would've had to get through the Warehouse to reach the rest of the building, possibly running into those two on the way. And they'd have seen the rest of the floor."

"But the same thing goes for the other two possible locations, right? They're not on the first floor, and the stairs were blocked at the time," Yuu points out.

"Wait– That's it! If none of the areas where they could feasibly have a test of physicality were open to us, that means there has to be a passageway through one of them!"

"Ren! You're brilliant!" Gou applauds, slapping me hard on the back in celebration. I can't help but grimace through my beam.

"Two of us should still go to the garden. It's guaranteed clues," Chimon says. "Seems only fair that Ren gets dibs on the passageway, since he figured it out."

"I'm going with him," Yuu demands. "Zu has the tape recorder, so I'd feel better measuring everything in this one myself."

"You got a magnet, Yuu?" I lean closer.

"No... why...?" His words are slow, as though he's afraid to ask, and for good reason.

I grab the chain at my hip and wink. "Cause it looks like you're attracted to me."

"More like we're attached at the hip," he quips back without a moment's hesitation. He blinks, taken aback by his own pun power, and then rolls his eyes sardonically. "C'mon, you menace. We have work to do."

We scope out the second gym first, tracing along every wall and shifting various pieces of equipment around, but there's nothing out of the ordinary. Honestly, I didn't think it would be this one. Considering we found the monitor room not too far from here, it seemed unlikely. We give the sporting area a go next, but we don't look too hard– there aren't too many places to hide a passageway here. We're left with the training grounds. Yuu shudders as we approach it. "Are you sure you want to do this?"

"I'm fine," he insists. "I already came in here to 'investigate' a murder I committed... so this isn't quite as bad."

We stay standing in front of the door for a second. "Do you know what frisson is?"

"H-Huh?"

I push the door open. "Frisson. It's essentially like getting pleasurable shivers from beautiful music... kind of akin to ASMR. Well, it's not exclusive to music. Poetry, scenic locations, other stuff can trigger it. Even so, music is most common. It often happens when the composition defies expectations, in a way, like with sudden modulation. The first time I experienced it was with a song in 12/8 time, and it had syncopation..." While I ramble, I manage to coax him inside and keep him distracted long enough for us to start our search without any dark thoughts ravaging him. Eventually, we resort to the Wakumi method of things— kicking and/or hitting the wall until we finally hear something different.

"Oh! That's promising!" Yuu exclaims. He beckons me over and then kicks the spot again. I press my ear up against it and he kicks a third time. Those sounds are funky!

"Oh WOW. This is different than some of the other ones. It's big enough to walk in, and it widens out after a bit."

"It's right where Gou got the oil marks on the ground while tussling Wakumi. I wonder if they heard anything."

"I doubt they heard anything over Wakumi's yelling. Now how do we open it?"

"Probably has nothing to do with the weapons. Too much risk that we'd find it by accident... Protoinu, armor on, please!" The creepy-looking fake Monoinu transform into little knight dudes. "Ooooh, we better not have to fight these bitches. I have a nasty kick, but I doubt that would do much against weapons."

"We probably don't. If someone had to go through that every time they wanted to use the passageway, that would be loud and take a long time." We fiddle around with the swords that the Protoinu are holding, and eventually, we manage to do... something that works. The passageway opens menacingly. I take a breath. "Onward."

As soon as we cross the threshold, it shuts behind us. "Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, that's bad!" Yuu panics.

"Hey, hey. Deep breaths. We're gonna be okay." A light flicks on. "See? It opens up, so we're probably gonna find the exit." I follow the wall and find a lever labeled, "Obstacle Course." It's turned to "off," and for our sake, I don't plan on changing that.

"Oh, look. All sorts of dangerous shit like crushing obstacles. Now I feel relieved all I had were darts." He starts to clamber over stuff, beckoning me over.

"I had spikes." I follow him, a little more slowly, but he matches his pace to mine. Even just making my way through this long passageway and climbing over stuff is hard for me– as stupid as it may sound, I'm sore from working out with Chimon the other day, and I'm not particularly athletic to begin with. But I have fought through worse. Like a phoenix, I've been reborn, and I'm not the helpless thing I was when I was thrown in here. "Yuu, this is–" I pant, "probably gonna seem like a weird topic shift, but have you ever considered designing clothes?"

"Most fabric isn't sturdy enough. I don't particularly like sewing clothes. But I could, if I wanted. And I could definitely sketch up something super neat, given the chance."

"Design a beautiful, flowing phoenix-inspired outfit. I will pay you a shit-ton and wear it for a comeback concert. I'll give you a shout-out. People will lose their MINDS."

"Okay," he accepts, probably not actually taking me seriously.

Eventually, we make it to a more narrow starting point, empty aside from a whole bunch more Pronotinu and a single sheet of paper. I pick it up. It's a list of our names. The title is simple.

"Inheritance."

...

Azumi, January 9th, 10:25 am

"Oh gosh, I totally think we're lost. Why are there dead-ends in this stupid tunnel?" Fujiko asks. "My back is starting to cramp, too. A girl's gotta have good posture, y'know?"

"I understand. This environment is hardly conducive to a poised carriage."

"Azumi, big words meet small brain again."

"Apologies for any confusion I may cause. However, I feel inclined to remind you about the self-deprecating comments."

"Oh, right! Humble pie diet. My brain's not small, it's just not very good at school things."

The tape measure is trailing behind me, and I follow through until the next turn. I log the distance. Then I snicker, returning to my prior conversation. "Well, it is not as though I haven't been in odder positions." She laughs. "Though I agree that this is rather constricted. Perhaps Chimon may have been a better pick."

"That punk doesn't need the obvious clues. He's smart enough to find little details," she teases.

Light starts to filter into the area. "Ah! There appears to be an opening! At last!" I hasten my crawl and tumble into the room, landing on my feet.

"Um! I-I don't think I can do that!"

"You needn't be an acrobat. Just trust me to catch you, alright? I held Ren just fine during the last trial, and he is thirty pounds heavier than you."

"Eeek, okay, okay!" I stare up at her and can hear the soft clattering of the vent as she trembles. She wills herself to push out of the tunnel, and I catch her with ease. She sighs in relief and I set her down gently. She tucks a stray lock of golden hair behind her ear, and the jeweled clip shimmers.

"Sometimes, I am relieved you are not interested in men. You could single-handedly steal the heart of anyone I'd be attracted to."

She gives an impish giggle and then swipes across her arms, as if to clean off. "Huh! Now that I think about it, there, like, wasn't any dust in there at all! Someone must've been up there recently."

"That is akin to the passage to the monitor room. I wonder when it would have been possible to pull this all off."

"Hmm. I dunno. It's kinda scary. Someone's been moving around through all these passages right under our noses."

The room we have just entered appears almost identical to the office we just left, though the layout of the bookshelf is different and there is a spotlight of sorts beaming down upon the desk. A large stack of papers rests there. "It appears as though these are transcripts of emails. Of course, the addresses are blotted out, as are a few names. Though I sincerely doubted they would just hand us names."

"I mean, I dunno! They made us go through all this bull to get here, seems pretty freakin' stupid that they won't just give us a name after all that!" she sighs impatiently.

"Well, there is one." She sidles up next to me and squints.

"So...ra. Yamo– wait, Yama...mo...to. Sora Yamamoto? I don't think I know anyone with that name. Girl or boy."

"I believe I concur. So, at least to us, this was sent to a stranger."

"Can you read it for me, sweetie?"

"Ahem.

Hello, sweet Sora Yamamoto,

Just letting you know ahead of time that we're all going to meet to make the list on Friday. We've been hashing out these logistics for a while, but it's time to really start putting this into action. I hope you understand that we can't let you be the one we choose, but please believe that we'll always carry out your will. I really hope it's obvious how much we love you, especially my family. Also, sorry that I have to talk in such vague terms. You know how it goes. People will be reading these. If you want to get more specific, you know where to find me.

Your fearless WDR leader"

We stay silent for a while, trying to parse out our thoughts on this. "So, the person who wrote this suspected that we would be in a position comparable to this. I cannot say I feel particularly secure knowing that. This sender being able to predict us so well is unsettling, whether they are friend or foe."

"It's more likely that they're an enemy, right? They're talking about, like, a list, and making things happen. And if it IS an enemy, I think we know at least one of these people, or maybe even both of them," Fujiko declares.

"Hm? Why do you suppose that? I cannot find any implications of that within this email."

"Cause of Wakumi's note! She said that the Mastermind knows us way more than we think is even possible, right? Then unless it's like, some kind of secret agent, I don't think it could be any kind of stranger. And maybe not ALL of us know them. But my gut instinct says that at least one of us has met these people."

"Ah! That is rather clever of you! Well done!" She twirls and hops a bit at my praise. "Now, if I may contribute an observation of my own..."

"Ooh, yes please! Be the smart queen I know you are!"

I curtsy playfully in response to her accolade. "Well, at last, we have confirmation that WDR– or White Daisy Room– is a group, though we were already mostly certain. Second, however, we now know that it is not a family– or at least, not exclusively so. The sender says that their family specifically loves the recipient. That means the recipient is not part of the sender's family. But they are still part of WDR, as made evident by the signoff."

"Wow! This is so cool! The Mastermind made it sound like they were trying to keep a lot of details from us, but look at us, churning out straight FACTS!"

I shake my head with an exasperated smile at her outburst, and she suddenly embraces me tightly. "Read the next one!"

I grab the sheet and my shoulders sink a bit in disappointment. "It is remarkably brief."

"Is it?"

"HI BOSS

I'll be there. Not mad, honestly it's for the best. Thanks, love you too.

SY"

"Oh, yeah, you weren't kidding. Maybe the next one will have a little more?"

I check the stack of sheets and then gasp. "What?!"

"What's wrong?!"

"These are not more emails! These are all the missing pages of that blasted Danganronpa book! Everything we had not read up until the book disappeared!"

"I– They're HERE?!"

TRUTH BULLET: EMAIL TRANSCRIPTS

TRUTH BULLET: TORN-OUT PAGES

"I feel as though we've a duty to inform the others. We may return here afterwards, for a feel as though I can navigate a bit more effectively now. But this may be game-changing."

"Okay! Let's go!"

How did these pages even get here, and why? Who are the sender and receiver of those emails? Every step we take feels ever more confusing.