[A/N] Hey, all! Sorry for the slow-going. It's almost time for the last trial! It may not wind up being the absolute best, but I swear to put my whole heart into it. Also, I'm just gonna admit right now that I intended for a certain list to have lots of strikethrough, and that doesn't translate from Docs to WP. I couldn't figure out how to apply strikethrough to Wattpad, so imagine that underlines are lines running through the words.

Chimon, January 9th, 10:38 am

The garden's stumped me a little. We had a few leads pointing in that direction– Nari's in particular, about how the plants are always in season despite the crops being the same and the seasons changing, but also, now that we're assuming WDR stands for White Daisy Room, the garden is an obvious place of interest. We got nothing on EITHER front. Actually, that's sort of a lie. We discovered that there are no white daisies at ALL in there. There weren't any among the rest of the daisies, but when Gou and I literally walked the entirety of the massive garden looking for any trace of one, and nada. What we did wind up finding was... our loved ones letters, carefully arranged with the pottery pieces Bisque made. It was weird, because they had all of our letters, including students who weren't alive when we received them and even Gou's. It wouldn't normally be strange for his to be there. But he claims it was in his room yesterday (as was mine), and yet we were all in his room last night. For someone to sneak in and get it would probably alert at least ONE of us, even though we didn't have guard shifts.

I feel weird reading the letters of other survivors, since they aren't exactly here to give their consent. But we're working to read the rest of them. I scanned them each for hidden messages– we've already seen that happen twice over the course of the killing game– and finding nothing, we even went as far as to grab a book on ciphers from the library. I've pumped each letter through three ciphers already, and it doesn't seem like anything's encrypted in them.

"Chimon! Gou! We have made discoveries!" Azumi exclaims. She's running toward us, and she's got enough stamina that she isn't even breathing hard by the time she reaches us. The same can't be said of my big sis– it still feels weird but gratifying to say that– who is far behind, clutching her heels, and panting.

"Whatcha got?" Gou asks. A little spark of enthusiasm fills his eyes, after all our time drawing blanks. They explain the email transcripts they found, and I scan those for tips, too– one of the emails spells HINT with the first letter of every sentence, but ironically, I don't know what that would mean in this context. Gou and I both claim not to know a Sora Yamamoto. I briefly wonder whether they could be one of my former clients who I forgot, and I tell them this, but they don't seem to think that's important enough.

"One last thing. We found the cut-out pages of the Danganronpa book," Fujiko declares. She looks a little pale, and I don't blame her; she had once intended to cut those out herself, and yet someone else beat her to it and hid them away in a secret passage.

"This perplexes me," Azumi admits. "We are supposing that Wakumi and the Mastermind are the only individuals who knew about that tunnel, yes? Then, why would the Mastermind supply us with the full volume of the book only to hide the book and stash multiple chapters in an inaccessible location?"

Fujiko and I look to each other, silently asking if we should say something. Her voice is tiny. "I... hid the book. I wanted to take out those chapters cause it was making you and Tozen and Chimon cry every day, but when I went to ask Monokuma if that would get me killed, he said someone else already did it. It sounded like he wanted to kill them but couldn't cause it wasn't against the rules. So, I, uh... found the book and hid it somewhere else. I was, like, hoping I could freak out the perpi–prer– the person who tore out the pages– enough to get them to slip up, but it didn't work." She can't look Azumi in the eyes.

"H-Hey, if you're gonna do that, I can't just let– I was involved, too. When she came to me with the half-empty book, I'm the one who suggested we hide it. I didn't want either of us to get caught with it, and I was hoping we could figure out whoever did it by who started acting shifty," I admit, moving closer to Fujiko.

Azumi's chin is tilted up slightly. Her eyes are narrow and her eyebrows drawn together, and she steps back a little. "You two. Did you learn nothing from the schism? We need to communicate about these things when they occur. I understand you feared being suspected, but having kept yet another secret from us looks worse than if you would have told us immediately." Despite her wary expression, her tone is sad, not angry.

"I... I'm sorry. I panicked, and then after a while, I thought it wouldn't be important anymore. I was wrong," Fujiko apologizes.

"Me too. I should've given it more thought before rushing into a half-baked plan and lying to you guys. I'm sorry."

Azumi's jaw loosens and her eyes soften. "Well, at this point, what does it matter? Though, if the person operating Monokuma was not the one who removed the pages, can we assume it was Wakumi?"

"Why would she do that, though?" Gou pipes up. "The mastermind wanted us to read the book, and she was mad at us, so it's not as though she'd do it to protect our feelings like Fujiko wanted to."

"Conundrums upon conundrums. Perhaps it would be best if we turned our attention toward what you two were searching... Also, where are Ren and Yuu?"

"Ren had a smart idea for a possible secret passageway, and Yuu went with him. They've been gone for over half an hour, though. I hope they're okay," Gou mentions.

"As for the two of us, we went to the garden. I'm not exactly sure why, but all of our loved ones' letters were with our pottery. All of us, not just the people who were alive when we got them. We haven't looked at the four of yours, cause that seemed intrusive, so don't worry. We didn't find any secret messages, even under a whole load of ciphers. I don't want to think this was a waste of time, but it's looking kinda hopeless," I answer. I stare down at the letters before me.

"Mmm... perhaps the messages themselves are not what we should be focusing on."

Gou leans in. "You mean we should look into who sent the letters?"

"Well, it'll be good to get some more names!" Fujiko nods vigorously. So the four of us start making a list of each person who sent us letters, as well as their relationships to us. Occasionally, we have to ask Monoinu for information we don't have, but the Mastermind doesn't resist us; we're allowed to know these things. We wind up with this:

"Chuya Sasaki– Mentor figure of Azumi

Himari and Arata Gima– Parents of Bisque

Koemi and Shoji Teruya– Parents of Fujiko

Noriko Seikiguchi– Mother of Keiji

Tatsuya Omori– Oldest Brother of Kana

Minato Mukai– Little Brother of Monterio

Rika Igarashi– Little Sibling of Nari

Shinobu Enomoto– Mother of Ren

Danuja Asai– Father of Sayuri

Junpei and Ruri Chiba– Siblings of Tozen

Orochi Bushida– Captain of Wakumi

Tsunade and Fumihiro Ueda– Parents of Chimon

Marcus and Rafael Moore– Uncles/Guardians of Joanie

Tohru Bando– Father of Yuu

Mika Endo– Mother of Hachi

Hibiki Iwai– Cousin of Gou"

TRUTH BULLET: LETTER SENDERS LIST

I hear the sound of chains jangling and turn to see Ren and Yuu running up to us. "Woah! It looks like this table exploded! Haven't you four ever heard of workplace organization?" Yuu exclaims.

"Yuu– I– Priorities, dude. We found something really, really weird," Ren announces.

We all look at each other. "'Weird' seems to be the word of the day," Gou nods.

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

Yuu, January 9th, 11:00 am

"Sorry we took so long. The passage was in the last place we looked, it took a while to figure out how to open it, and I had to measure things. But hopefully, we found something strange enough to make it worth the wait." I take the carefully folded sheet of paper out of my pocket and lay it on the table, smoothing out the creases before turning to start tidying up the area. I'm surprised to see all sorts of shit over here– pages upon pages of the Danganronpa book that went missing, emails, our loved ones' letters– but decide to leave that be until we finish talking about this.

"It's a list of our names? That's not TOO out of the ordinary, is it?" Fujiko notes.

"Not alone. But there are a couple weird things about it. First of all, I have no idea why we're in the order we're in. It's not the order we RSVP'd for the enrichment program, like your list over there, and it's not in death order. Second, there's what comes before it. 'HI, FRIENDS,' is at the top, followed by 'Officially sanctioned by WDR,' and finally, what looks like the title: 'Inheritance.' It's all just so out of context," Ren explains.

"What could we be inheriting?" Gou asks, gripping his chin like he's deep in thought.

"And why are most of the names crossed out?" Fujiko asks.

The list goes like this:

"Gou Kita

Chimon Ueda

Wakumi Furutani

Sayuri Asai

Keiji Seikiguchi

Joanie Moore

Yuu Bando

Tozen Chiba

Azumi Hirabayashi

Ren Enomoto

Monterio Mukai

Kana Omori

<Chimon Ueda

Fujiko Teruya

Haruto Gima

Nari Igarashi

Hachi Endo"

"Well, my assumption is that the names which are crossed out are our deceased peers. We are the only six still listed, after all," Azumi points out.

"We'd figured that much," I nod.

Quietly, Chimon pipes up. "Are we just gonna ignore the obvious? My name's crossed out, too, and crammed in afterwards a lot lower. It's even in writing and not typed out like the rest of them. We literally don't know what we're supposedly inheriting, and for some reason I got bumped way down in the pecking order. And I'm the only one."

TRUTH BULLET: INHERITANCE LIST

We all stay silent, unsure of what that means. He bites his lip and lets out a soft, disappointed sigh. "Did you, like, die? And then come back to life? You could be a secret angel!" Fuji offers, obviously trying to lighten the mood up a little.

He manages a twisted grin at that, but I can't tell if he's really cheered up or just smiling for her sake. "I think I'd probably remember dying! But I am pretty angelic, huh?" His eyes are doe-like and innocent.

"Yeah, right, you little punk," I play. Before I can start to panic about that being too snarky or rude, he gives me a lighthearted shove.

"Don't worry too much about it, Chimon. For all we know, the inheritance could be a bad thing. That seems like the kind of stunt the Mastermind would pull," Gou speculates.

"If you believe that is a possibility... are you frightened of what may come to pass? It appears as though you yourself are first in line." Azumi grips a fistful of her costume.

He doesn't answer for a long time, but then his thick eyebrows furrow and he gives a strong nod. "Well, it doesn't really matter whether I'm scared or not. You don't have to freak out for me, Azumi. If it's bad, it's better that it goes to me than any of you. If it winds up being good, we can share it."

"Aww, Gou, you're such a hero! You're like Ultraman! Or Spider-Man! But, if we're being honest..." Ren's eyes narrow and he gets that cocky smirk, "I'd rather call you my man."

"Ooh, can I be Kamen Rider?!" he blurts out excitedly, either missing the point or ignoring it.

"Why am I, like, not even the teeniest bit surprised that that's the one you want?" Fujiko winks.

"Regardless of what superhero I'd be, let's stop stressing out and get back to investigating! We have the Danganronpa book now, so that'll probably be really helpful!"

"Yeah, about that... Where were these chapters, exactly? And what do we know about them?" I ask, raising an eyebrow. Azumi gives this look at Fujiko and Chimon, one I can't quite read, and Fujiko giggles guiltily.

"Uh, yeah, a-about that!"

After hearing about those two hiding the practically empty book and not telling anyone that the pages had been ripped out by one of us, I wind up wanting to (softly) hit my head on the table out of frustration. But whatever, it's water under the bridge at this point. Afterward, Chimon stands up straight. "Um, to make it up to you guys, I can focus my efforts on reading this! Azumi, Tozen, and I only read one chapter a day for a while, and we've got TONS of content to go, so I don't know how much time I can waste. I'll write down brief notes on as many chapters as possible!"

"That might be the best idea, but if I'm being honest, it'd probably be better to start at the end... right?" Gou prods.

"Indeed. Given that this is a book on the History of Danganronpa, the latest pages would naturally be the most recent, and the most likely to be relevant to our causes."

"I'm on it!"

"How is the recording going, Azumi?" I prompt.

"Oh! Allow me to test..." I watch her rewind Keiji's tape recorder all the way to the beginning. It's still one of Keiji's messages, but it's not the first one. "I was suspecting this! After a certain amount of recordings, the oldest will delete of its own accord."

"How many messages did you record?"

"Eleven. And he had twenty. So the threshold is thirty recordings."

TRUTH BULLET: KEIJI'S TAPE RECORDER

"Hm. I don't know if this was what you were trying to do, but that opens up a particular... theory. Nothing completely certain."

Ren props his legs up. "Trust me, I think the occasional mysterious secret is attractive, but this probably isn't the time for that. You gonna let us in on this theory of yours?"

"Mmm... It's stupid. I'm probably wrong. In fact, I kind of hope I'm wrong."

"Yuu, you've got this! This is no time to be doubting yourself, okay?" Gou brings a fist down on the table lightly, shaking up my perfectly neat stack of paper. I suppress a scowl. It's annoying, but he's just trying to encourage me.

I take a shaky breath. "You remember those pictures in the Vault, right? Each of our friends had their own picture, but they looked like they were taken at the same place, and they were outside. It reminded me of that picture Fujiko and Gou showed us. The one of Fujiko and Kana that neither of them could remember taking. It makes me wonder if maybe... just possibly... the day we got here wasn't actually the first time we met."

The varying expressions going around this table make me real nervous.

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

Fujiko, January 9th, 11:11 am

I look at the clock on the wall. It takes me a second to figure out what it says, but then I let out a sigh. "It's time for us to make a wish," I say. It almost feels like too much effort, but I, like, have to fight that feeling. If I'm too worn out to even want something, if I'm too tired to hope, then what good will I even be? So I fold my hands together, close my eyes, and wish that we'll all be okay. I don't want Yuu to be right. If he's right, that means we forgot our friends and then killed them. I sort of feel like crying, but I even feel too spent for that. It's only been four hours of investigating. How am I supposed to last through the rest of today and tomorrow? And then the trial? Every trial is exhausting, and even I can tell this is gonna be a lot worse. Nobody else says anything, and I wonder how many of them are actually wishing like I did. I notice Yuu start to get fidgety, and his eyes are totally big even though he isn't looking at anybody. "Sweetie, you can relax. Your theory didn't, like, make us mad or anything. We're not saying anything cause we're not sure WHAT to say... I mean, at least that's what's going on for me. My brain feels fuzzy. Like in those cartoons where smoke starts coming out of a character's head because too much is happening."

"I'm... trying to think. If we knew each other before all this, what would that even mean? It's a common thing in Danganronpa for the participants to have lost their memories of each other, but I just– how did we get along? Were we close to the same people the first time? A lot of the time, the participants lose their memories so that they'd be more willing to kill each other, but sometimes there's another reason. And that's IF you're right. There was fifty three fucking seasons of this garbage, and some of the, um, casts were legitimate strangers. There's just so much to think about with something like this," Chimon rambles. It makes me feel even more tired.

I stand up. "I need to go do something else. Do we have ANY other direction to go in, or am I just gonna go wandering around like a headless chicken?"

"We should get a Monoinu. I don't know if they can give us such a direct hint, but we may as well try," Gou says. He suddenly yells out, super duper loudly, "MONOINU, WE NEED YOU!"

"I shall be sincerely flummoxed if that works," Azumi smiles shakily, eyes wide. I don't know what that word means, but I think I can guess based on context clues.

Ren shakes his head and his blond hair tosses. I really did give him a fantastic haircut. "I'll go look for one in the meantime."

He doesn't even make it all the way to the door before a little puppy comes trotting in. "How can we be of service?"

Azumi moves a hand to her mouth to stop herself from giggling. "Consider me flummoxed."

"Um, alright, I will. I don't know why you would need to call a Monoinu unit for that Status Report, but I will mark Azumi as 'flummoxed' and report it to the Hivemind." A few of us cackle at the stupidly literal way he took that.

"What were you doing that you were close enough to hear Gou call you?" Yuu asks.

"Dogs have hearing roughly four times the strength of humans," the Monoinu explains all deadpan. "Now, how can we be of service?"

Azumi gives a tiny bow. "Are you qualified to grant us hints in the event that our investigation slows?"

He pauses for a real long time and then goes, "You've missed something in the Monitor Room."

"Thanks. So that's where we should–"

"And your time is being cut short."

A chorus of "WHAT?!"s erupt from all of us.

"You're progressing significantly faster than expected! Congratulations; you six ought to be proud of yourselves. But because of that, Boss decided that it wouldn't be very interesting if you spent several hours doing nothing but reading. So, instead of forty-four more hours, you'll have six."

"Hey, that is NOT fair. Part of this whole ordeal was that we'd get two days." Gou's voice is serious, and deep, and quiet. The power and energy he usually talks with is gone, and it makes me shiver. "You're all about following rules, right, Monoinu? Please, do something about this. This is fucked." His determined expression falls literally in the middle of the sentence, like he sees how useless it is to argue.

A long, eerie wait as Monoinu listens to Monokuma. "Boss says that you never officially set terms with him aside from 'two days of normal life, a scavenger hunt, and one last trial,' and that he is free to switch conditions since he's the one responding to your challenge. Um, I'd personally recommend heading to the Monitor Room now. And, uh, reading the book. I need to go now." Monoinu waddles away, leaving us all stunned and speechless.

Gou yanks off his helmet and curls into a ball. "Oh shit. Oh fuck, oh shit. How could I have been so stupid and impulsive?! I didn't even– I was so fucking dumb that I didn't even make sure this asshole couldn't change the rules! EVERYTHING hinges on us succeeding in this trial, and it's all my fault!" Tears of panic flood out.

We all rush over to try and comfort him, barely remembering to ask him if it's okay to touch him in our hurry, and when he squeaks out a desperate, 'Yes,' we basically dogpile him. "Gou, Gou, it's okay. You saw what happened with Tozen and Wakumi... no matter what we do, the Mastermind is willing to twist the rules and toy with us just to keep this murder game going. If you didn't call them out, this would never end," Chimon reasons.

"And even if it WASN'T the smartest choice, which I guess it was, you did what you thought was best for everyone! You're always just trying to do the right thing, and I think you're, like, the coolest person for being like that!" I encourage.

Azumi starts to give him a palm massage, and it seems to relax him just a bit. "Furthermore, you did this not only for us, but because you wanted to do right by Wakumi. You vowed to her that you'd end this, and so it shall be."

Yuu, the only one hovering back from the group, still offers support. "Look, Gou, we all believe in you. So what if you didn't cover every base? Monokuma is slimy, and I'd be damned if I pretended the rest of us never fucked up, too. All we gotta do is work five times as hard, and that's totally doable."

Ren starts to hum a little bit. It's the song he made for everyone. All the tension falls out of Gou's body. "Okay. I'm okay now. C'mon, crew. We need to get back at it. Azumi, you and Chimon work on the book together– since it's not bound up anymore, you can technically read two chapters at the same time. The rest of us should go to the Monitor Room." He stands up and stares at his helmet for a sec before putting it back on. "Let's go."

And so we do.