"Did you guys hear that?"

Everyone faced the gymnasium stage as the sound of a fuse went off. In a matter of seconds, before them was a black and white bear.

"Puhuhuhu!!" The bear cackled as the crowd of teens before him only stared in confusion, "you have no idea how excited I am for this! The day has finally arrived!!"

"What the hell is this?!" Eren clenched his fist angrily, "who are you?!"

"How very nice of you to ask!" The bear cleared his throat, "my name is Monokuma! I am your school principal! It is my pleasure to welcome you all to Hope's Peak Academy!"

"'Principal'?" Taiga murmured, "a teddy bear? Oh please."

"Hey!" Monokuma screeched, "for heaven's sake, I am not a teddy bear!"

Korra wiped her nose, "you sure look like one to me."

"You kids have absolutely no respect for your elders!" The bear shook his fist at the group, "trust me. You don't want to upset me."

"Oh yeah?" Eren cracked his knuckles, "I was about to say the same thing to you..."

"Uh-oh, is someone about to lose their cool? Puhuhuhu, do what you want! I don't care! Check out your wrists, Kiddies! I gave you all a lovely welcome present!"

"Huh?" Mitsuha looked down at her wrist, and sure enough, there was, what looked like, a black and white wristwatch, "what is this?"

"This lovely item," Monokuma held up a prototype, "is an inhibitor band!"

"Inhibitor, as in..." Haru inspected the band.

"What?!" Luffy appeared as if he were stretching, "m-my arms! They... I can't extend them!"

"My fire powers are a bust, too." Natsu looked at the palm of his hand, "this isn't good."

"Easy." Taiga gripped onto the band, "I'll just break this off, then get the hell outta here."

"I wouldn't do that." Monokuma snickered, "you see, if any rules are violated, including removing or tampering with your wristband, you will be injected with a deadly toxin. So try anything dumb, and you'll be wiped from the face of the Earth!"

"Okay, fine." Kirito looked around, "but can you just tell us what's going on? Why can't we remember ever coming here?"

"Because." the bear giggled childishly, "it's all part of the killing game!"

"'Killing game'?" Kaori stared at the floor, "what does... What does he mean?!"

"That means..." he threw his arms open, "you're all going to kill each other!"

The room went silent.

"No way!" Ash stepped forward, "there's no way we're going to just kill each other! What makes you think we could give in to you so easily, huh? You're just a bear!"

"Yeah, well...." Monokuma shrugged, "since I love you guys so much, let me explain. You're all trapped here at this Academy, and you're only ticket out is at graduation!"

"Simple!" Tamaki threw his arms open, "we pass the exams and we're golden."

"Only catch?" Monokuma chuckled, "only one of you will make it out of here alive."

"Like hell, we will!" Korra yelled, "we're all making it outta here alive!"

"Hold up, before you start acting all heroic, let me explain how the killing game itself works." Monokuma pulled down a presentation screen and slipped on a pair of glasses, "ahem. You will live everyday lives here at Hopes Peak Academy until the day of graduation when a single person remains standing. You have two options to get out of here. One, you can become the blackened. The blackened, meaning you can kill a fellow classmate. However, once that happens, you will all be forced through a class trial, in which, with the evidence you gathered, you must find the killer, aka the blackened. Once you find the culprit that killed your classmate, he or she will be executed. However, if you choose the wrong classmate and you vote off an innocent bystander, then... Puhuhuhu!"

Eren was losing his cool really quickly, "just tell us, damn it!"

"Well, how do I put this?" Monokuma laughed hysterically, "you all die, and the blackened gets to graduate from the academy!"

We all die...

"Now, your second option." Monokuma continued, "you can survive until the final class trial. That's all."

"Why..." Yuri scanned the group of teens around him, "why are we here?! How did we get here in the first place?! I mean..."

"This sucks!!" Taiga kicked the wood flooring underneath her, "I'm going to kick your ass so hard, Monokuma!!"

"Whoa, whoa!" the bear retaliated, "before you do that, open your super handy-dandy system screens and read through the game rules! Yeesh!"

Everyone swiped the air and the screens appeared.

Rule #1 - Students may reside only within the school. Leaving campus is an unacceptable use of time.

Rule #2 - Tampering and/or removal of wristbands result in automatic expulsion.

Rule #3 - "Nighttime" is from 10 pm to 7 am. Some areas are off-limits at night, so please exercise caution.

Rule #4 - Sleeping anywhere other than the dormitory will be seen as sleeping in class and punished accordingly.

Rule #5 - You are free to explore Hope's Peak Academy at your discretion.

Rule #6 - Anyone who kills a fellow student and becomes "blackened" will graduate, unless they are discovered.

Rule #7 - Once a murder takes place, a class trial will begin shortly thereafter. Participation is mandatory for all surviving students.

Rule #8 - If the guilty party is exposed during the class trial, they alone will be executed.

Rule #9 - If the guilty party is not exposed, they alone will graduate, and all remaining students will be executed.

Rule #10 - Lending your entrance key to another student is strictly prohibited.

Rule #11 - The guilty party may only kill a maximum of two people during any single "Killing Game"

Rule #12 - Attempting to break into locked rooms is strictly prohibited

I can't believe I'm actually seeing this... Mitsuha's hands trembled.

"No way..." Maya stared at the screen, "is this really happening?! We're dreaming, right?! This has to be a dream! There's no way we actually have to kill each other!"

Everyone was far too shocked to say anything.

Monokuma's laughter broke the silence, "Well, you're all smart children. Go out and explore!"

"Like hell, we will!" Haru yelled, "you think we're going to play along with your little game?! We already said this once, but we'll say it as many times as we need to. We're not killing each other, and that's final!"

"You know, it's a shame." Monokuma chuckled, "that's what they all said. But I always keep my promises, especially when I say that I promise... By the end of this week, the number of people in this room will be split down the middle! Puhuhuhu!"

Suddenly, in the blink of an eye, the devilish bear was gone, leaving the stunned teenagers staring at each other in horror.

"I..." Mitsuha looked down at her hands. Do I really have to... Kill to get out of here? There's no way...

"We need to make an oath. Right now." Everyone turned to Natsu, who had set his right hand over his chest, "we're not killing anyone for as long as we live here. We'll live here for years, hell, for the rest of our lives. But at least we'll have each other. No one's dying. We can't satisfy that excuse for a teddy bear and give him what he wants."

"Yeah." Korra nodded, "we'll just have to watch each other's backs and look out for each other. I mean, there's nothing we need that we don't already have, right?"

"What if..." Yuri pursed his lips, "what if Monokuma's just going to let us starve here and die?! We need food!"

Ash chuckled weakly, "ah... I doubt he would let us starve to death here if he wants us to participate in a killing game, it'd defeat the whole purpose."

"But..." Kaori squeezed her eyes shut, "I'd rather die of starvation here than take part in such a horrible thing like this..."

"No, we can't think like that." Mitsuha clenched her teeth, "if we hold a negative mindset like that, then we can just kiss the outside world goodbye. Hell, we can kiss life itself goodbye. Monokuma wants us to give up. So... Natsu's right. We're not going to give him what he wants. The satisfaction of watching us kill each other."

"That, or..." Taiga smirked, "we can just kill each other right now."

Korra looked at her in horror, "are you insane?!"

"No, dumbass." Taiga glared at her, "just put us all out of this misery, already. We're going to suffer either way. Better sooner than later."

"That's one way to look at it..." Mitsuha sighed, "so what now?"

"Don't leave me alone with Taiga..." Luffy muttered.

"I think..." Naruto looked around, "we should split up. Didn't you see what Rule #5 is? We're allowed to check this entire place out. And look, here on the status screens." He opened an application and on it was what looked like a blueprint, "it's a map of the school. Looks like there's only one floor plus a basement, so we should probably check these spots out."

Kirito crossed his arms and nodded, "that's probably our best bet."

"But..." Tamaki looked at them, "we should probably stick together in groups of more than three... You know, to avoid... Any unexpected murders..."

"Yeah, that'd be best." Mitsuha agreed.

"I've got these two." Natsu pulled Luffy and Naruto aside, "we can check out the far end of the basement."

"Okay, then..." Kaori looked at the map and pointed to a spot, "I can check out this part of the basement, then."

Tamaki took her hand swiftly, "you can't go down there by yourself, my dear. Teams of three, remember? I shall accompany you if that's what you wish."

"O-oh, ah, thank you!" Kaori blushed and nodded.

"Ah!" Maya ran up to the pair, "I'll go too!"

"Wonderful!" Tamaki clapped his hands together, "shall we get going, then?"

"Alright." Korra grinned at Ash and Eren, "how about you and me check out the west and east sides of the first floor?"

Yuri looked from Kirito to Celty, the three of them standing on one side of the gym, "we can go check the north and south sides... I suppose..."

"Then...." Mitsuha scanned the remaining two, "I guess it's us three, again."

Haru nodded then looked at Taiga, "nobody wanted to be with you."

"Shut up! Like I care!" She retaliated and crossed her arms angrily, "so, where do we go, huh Smartass?!"

"Shut your mouth." Haru watched her spitefully.

"Uhm..." Mitsuha scanned the map on her system screen. All the places in the building are already covered... So..., "hang on, there's a door here... Maybe we should go check that out."

"Yeah." Haru shot Taiga a final glance before following Mitsuha out the doors of the gym.

"Hey, you idiots! Wait up!" Taiga ran after them to catch up and grumbled inaudibly to herself.

So that's what the announcement meant... "Expelled permanently"... But whatever happens... Mitsuha looked at Haru and Taiga over her shoulder as they walked through the hallway. No matter what happens, I'm going to get us all out of this hell hole. I don't know how we got here in the first place, but I'm certain we're not staying here.

________________

At the end of the thirty minutes, four of the groups met in the foyer at the center of the building.

"So." Natsu scanned the group, "what do we have?"

"In the basement." Kaori began, "there's the game room, some bathrooms, a media room, and a library."

"Well, down the hall from that..." Luffy continued, "there's the boiler room and the laundry room."

"At least we can do our laundry while we're here." Kaori chuckled, "how about the others?"

Kirito stepped forward, "at the south side of the building, the gym we were just in, the boy's bathroom on the left, and the girl's bathroom on the right. Then at the north side is the cafeteria and a second library."

"Two libraries?" Korra chuckled, "do you think there's some good reason behind it?"

"Probably not." Kirito scratched his neck, "I mean, we didn't really check it thoroughly, but I also noticed something a little fishy in the same hallway. It was a strangely decorated door with a plaque over it. The door was covered in stars..."

"Huh, weird." Eren added, "we found something kind of like that. The west side of the building is where all our dorm rooms are. There's also a break room there, most likely for the teachers. The east side had a blocked off staircase, so there's a high possibility that there are more floors to this building. However, there were also three doors with plaques over each of them, too. They all said something like 'Ultimate Lab'. The doors were all decorated differently."

Maya shrugged, "do you think it's... For us?"

Tamaki crossed his arms, "Why would Monokuma want to give us our own Ultimate Labs if he wants us to suffer? Were any of the labs open?"

"Well, we couldn't access them, because..." Yuri thought hard, "how do I explain this? There was a keypad."

"Hang on, there was that one rule in the rulebook. Not to share our entrance key with anyone."

"Well..." Naruto nodded, "whoever's labs they are, they can check them out later."

Natsu looked around, "hold up. We're missing a group."

Celty typed on her phone and held it up. >> They found the exit. <<

"Exit?!"

>> The door by the dormitory hallway. <<

They all walked towards the door until they recognized Taiga's small body peeking out the opened door.

"Taiga?"

"Hey!" she glared at the group, "don't scare me like that... I'm so paranoid right now! Sheesh!"

"What's out here?"

"Well..." Taiga opened the door further, "at first we thought it was a closet. But then..."

Everyone stared in awe past Mitsuha and Haru's heads at the large courtyard in front of the school building. The campus stretched across for miles before getting cut off by a large glass dome that cut the teens off from the outside world.

"There's no way to get out of here... We really are trapped." Mitsuha muttered.

"No need to think like that just yet." Kaori grinned, "we still have a chance."

"Look at all this space..." Ash chuckled, "at least we have plenty of space to run."

"Is that..." Haru's gaze landed on a large brick building by the school building with a sign over the double doors, "it says gym. If there's another gym out here, does that mean..."

Without warning, Haru took off running in the direction of the new gym as the rest of the group followed.

"We may as well investigate the gym, too. While we're here." Yuri shrugged and pulled on the gym door. It didn't open immediately at first, which he noted, "seems like it's jammed." He tugged harder and shifted the door until it finally opened, "well, then."

"This place is huge!" Korra ran in and stood at the center of the large basketball court, then she pointed at the far wall, "hey, you guys see that?"

"Another Ultimate Lab..." Tamaki tilted his head at it, "hey, the way it's decorated."

Yuri walked up to the door and smiled at the design of an ice skate, "is this..." He pressed the button on the keypad next to the door and scanned his fingerprint. The door clicked open and he pushed the door open. A rush of cold air wafted out of the room as Yuri smiled brightly at the ice rink that waited before him.

"No way! That's so awesome!" Luffy laughed as he peeked over Yuri's shoulder at the sheet of ice.

"Okay, uh, no time for skating right now." Yuri chuckled to himself and stepped out of the room, shutting the door behind him, "we need to figure out how to get out of here."

"Where's..." Mitsuha looked around, "where did Haru go?"

Naruto cleared his throat, "I think I found him..."

That's when they spotted Haru standing on the edge of the outdoor pool right outside the gym.

"Wow! This is so great!" Kaori beamed at the pool, "let's go swim! "

"Wait." Kirito stopped her, "we don't have time. Someone get Haru and let's move on."

"But I don't think there's anywhere else to check." Korra crossed her arms and looked around, "we've already investigated what we can."

"We should check our dorm rooms. And if we can, the Ultimate Labs for whoever has the four rooms we didn't have the time to check." Natsu suggested. Everyone agreed and went their separate ways.

"Hey, Taiga!"

The girl turned to look at Mitsuha, "whattaya want?"

"The Ultimate Lab down the hallway, the one with the stars? Do you think that might be yours?"

"Don't know, don't care. How do you know it's not Maya's?"

"I mean..." She tapped her chin, "it had more of a Lolita feel than an excavator feel..."

Taiga stopped walking, "okay, why the hell are you so attached to me? I barely even know you!"

"Well, I'm sorry for being nice!" Mitsuha crossed her arms, "would you rather stay here in this place all lonely with no one to trust?"

"Yes, actually. The more trust you have in someone, the harder you fall in the end. That's just how the reality of life works. Deal with it."

Taiga sent her one final glance before walking off and back into the school building.

"Dang it..." Mitsuha sighed and headed back to the school. She looked around and headed towards the double doors with the sign over the door reading 'Dining Hall'. She opened the door and looked around. It was a normal cafeteria setup, just like any ordinary school cafeteria.

"Ah, Mitsuha!" Kaori greeted her, "did you see this?! They even have a kitchen chock-full of awesome food! There's no way we can starve here!"

"She's absolutely right." Tamaki came up behind the two girls, "we can hold feasts every night! All fifteen of us together! Maybe living here won't be so terrible..."

His voice trailed off.

"Tamaki..."

"It's alright, my dear." Tamaki chuckled softly, "I just had a... Realization is all."

"Anything worth sharing?"

"Not exactly. However, I was serious about having a feast! It's a celebration of friends meeting by sheer coincidence! Forget this killing game. We'll just start a new life here!"

The door to the storage room opened and Haru stepped out with a plate of some sort of fish.

"Haru?" Mitsuha, Kaori, and Tamaki watched as he made his way to the stove in the kitchen, "what are you doing in here?"

"I'm hungry. I'm making myself something." Haru set the plate down and pulled out a pan, "they have a rice cooker. I'm in the mood for rice and mackerel."

"Huh... Mackerel." Kaori chuckled, "we should do something! You know, to keep our minds off this whole situation. Let's just have fun."

"Let's go swimming." Haru suggested, "all of us."

"Yes!" Kaori clapped her hands together, "I need to go spread the word! Pool party tonight!"

As she ran out of the dining hall, Mitsuha laughed and watched as Haru took a knife from the knife block. She felt a shiver run down her spine as he used the knife to cut the fish. However, in the atmosphere they were currently in, seeing a potential murder weapon right in front of her scared her.

"Are you okay?"

Mitsuha looked from the knife up to Haru who was staring at her with confusion, "haha, ah, yeah, I'm good."

"Well." Tamaki grinned, "we will all go swimming tonight!"

"Do we have swimsuits, though?"

"I found some swimming trunks in my closet when I checked out my dorm room." He turned to Mitsuha, "I'm sure you'll have a swimsuit as well!"

That's right. I should probably go check out my room. The west side of the building is where all the rooms are located, right? She opened her system screen and studied the map.

Mitsuha scanned the long hallway of doors, all the same shade of red and the same golden plates with their names etched into them. She stopped at the door with her name then inspected the keypad. It was the same as the keypads outside each Ultimate Lab door and the other dorm rooms around her. She scanned her fingerprint and walked through the door. The lights turned on automatically and revealed the simply furnished room. There was a small couch, lamp, bedside table, desk, and bed. She opened the closet and went through its contents. To her surprise, there was nothing but the essentials, two or three swimsuits, and many more uniforms like the one she was wearing.

"That disgusting bear sure had all this planned out, huh?" She shut the door of the closet and turned around. To her dismay, she spotted the small security camera in the corner of the room sitting just next to the large tv monitor, "no privacy here whatsoever."

In no time, Mitsuha collapsed on her bed having forgotten how exhausted she was. With everything that was going on, she felt extremely uncomfortable. She couldn't remember anything before waking up in the classroom or ever hearing the name of Hope's Peak Academy. Her eyes shut with the hopes that maybe the next time she woke up, she wouldn't be in this nightmare of a killing game.

That is... if she wakes up.

___________________

"Hey, Mitsuha. I heard you're going to be out of town for a bit."

"I am." Mitsuha slung her bag over her shoulder and nodded, "are you gonna miss me?"

"Of course." He walked up to her and hugged her, "you get home safely, okay? "

"I will."

"I love you."

"I love you, too."

...

...

"Puhuhuhuhu! What a little sob story! To think you had a lover in your past life! Do you remember his name? Guess not, huh? Well, that's alright! I don't think he was worth remembering anyways! I don't think you'll mind if I paid him a little visit, now, would you? Of course not! Now then, let's get on with the show! See ya later!"

...

...

Mitsuha jolted upwards in bed, panting and sweating. She wiped her face then looked down at her wet hands, "are these... Tears? What the hell was that dream..." She sighed heavily and collapsed, falling back into deep slumber.

___________________

Four hours passed until the tone of the doorbell rang. Mitsuha rubbed her eyes, stumbled out of bed towards the door, and opened it, "ah! Maya! Good evening."

"Heh-heh, um, it's only 4:30. I already ate, but Yuri asked me to get everyone to go to the Dining Hall. He says we're going to eat dinner and talk game plans."

"Dinner? This early?" Mitsuha blinked a few times, "O-okay then..."

She stepped out of her room, shut the door behind her, and started towards the dining hall until Maya called her, "ah, Mitsuha!"

Mitsuha turned back to look at her, "yeah?"

"Are you..." Maya clenched her fists, "aren't you scared at all?"

"What are you talking about? Of course, I'm scared."

"Tamaki came and found me. We're all going swimming tonight, but... How can you all be so calm? We're trapped here and forced to kill each other if we want to survive..."

"Yeah, of course. That's normal." Mitsuha smiled sadly, "but for the time being, we want to bond even more and become closer as friends. Maybe with the hope that we could all just live here in peace and harmony and just have fun. Maybe if we all bond, we won't worry about one of us killing someone."

"That's true." Maya smiled, "I just worry so much about this... I just don't want to die, you know? I mean... I'm sure we all want to get out of here..."

"Y-yeah..." But in the end... Mitsuha pursed her lips. Is there even anyone waiting for us out there? I mean... That dream...

"Thank you for this talk, Mitsuha." Maya smiled and took off towards the exit, "I'm going to go meet up with someone, I'll see you later!"

"Yeah." Mitsuha smiled and continued on to the dining hall where everyone else was already waiting for her.

"Good. We're all here." Yuri gazed over his audience seated before him.

"Ah..." Korra rose her hand, "excuse me, we're still missing Maya..."

"It's okay. Let's keep going. We don't have any more time to waste waiting for her." Taiga spat, "besides, I'm hungry."

"Y-yeah, uh..." Yuri scratched his neck, "I had a dream when I took a quick nap earlier. It was weird, but... It gave me motivation. We don't have the time to be having a pool party. We need to find a way out of here."

So... He had a dream too... Mitsuha watched him carefully, "so... What do we do?"

"We need to take out Monokuma." He nodded, "we need to join forces and find a way to stop him. Then we need to find a way to get out of here. If anything, escape plan should be number one priority."

Ash shook his head, "the dome, remember? We can't get past that."

"Someone with a very hard head can smash through it," Naruto added and Luffy stood up in response.

"I volunteer!"

"No." Kirito stopped them, "no one is smashing through the dome. Let's not risk a life while it could be avoided."

"It's okay." Luffy gave him a thumb's up, "I'm made of rubber, so there's no way I could die."

Kirito glanced at him, "forgetting something?"

They all looked down at their wrists and at the thing that was really holding them hostage.

"So there's no way we could find a way out. For now, why don't we just take it easy?" Tamaki smiled, "nothing will happen while we're all enjoying ourselves, right?"

"That sounds risky." Eren cleared his throat, "that leaves us all open to an attack."

>> But... << Celty held up her phone. >> We don't have anything better to do. Getting out and swimming altogether actually sounds more productive than just sitting in our rooms cooped up by ourselves. <<

"She's absolutely right." Tamaki stood up from his chair, "so I say: Let's go swimming!"

Mitsuha looked around, a stroke of realization hit her, "we're missing someone else..."

"Hm..." Eren looked around, "she's right. There are only thirteen of us. Maya's absence was counted, so then..."

"Haru." Taiga growled, "that dog! He's hiding, isn't he?!"

"I'll go look for him." Yuri ran towards the door.

"Hold on!" Kirito called, "take someone else. Naruto, Ash. Go with him."

"Right!" Naruto and Ash followed Yuri out the door.

"That kid..." Korra muttered to herself, "they think that they could just get up and leave whenever they please."

"I mean...." Kaori chuckled, "this meeting wasn't really mandatory, but..."

"She's right." Kirito agreed, "none of us are forced to be here. But like Celty said, we really have nothing better to do except talk with the people here."

They waited for almost twenty minutes before a tune played on the speakers of the school building. The TV monitor turned on and the image of Monokuma appeared.

"Hello there, Kiddies! It is my pleasure to announce that for the first time..."

The entire atmosphere of the room went cold.

"A body has been discovered! Everyone make your way to the gym across the campus!"

That's exactly where everyone ran to even before the announcement was complete.

Mitsuha kept running until she saw Haru standing in front of the gym, his face pale as he stared at the cold, unmoving body before him.

This is real... Mitsuha froze, tears welled in her eyes. This is not a dream...

This killing game...

Has just begun.