[A/N] AKA the one with hospitals. Trigger warning: cancer, as well a little bit of visceral body description, for the first of two scenarios we're covering today. Content warning for memory loss in the second. Stay safe and only read what you're comfortable with!

Ren's Fear:

Gou

I'm trying to teach myself how to rollerblade on the race car track. It's definitely not easy, but Azumi's been helping me improve my balance since we've gotten here, so I haven't busted any bones yet! A transmission comes in from the speaker in my helmet. "C'mon, little Fledgling. It's your turn on the Fear Machine." Obediently, I report to the meeting room. "Howdy," he greets, hardly needing to look up at me.

"Question."

"Yessss?"

"What's with the bird nicknames? As far as I know, you only ever use them with me and my friends. I figured it could be a thing you use for kids, but you don't do it with our younger cousins."

He hums to himself but it sounds weird through Monokuma. "First of all, birds are cool. Secondly. Maya Angelou."

"Who?"

"Don't worry your pretty head about it. Sayuri would've gotten the reference."

I sigh. I'm tired. I don't want to watch my friends hurt each other anymore, and I don't want to watch suffer through their own worst fears over and over. But even though I want to stop all this— even though part of me wants to scream out all of White Daisy Room's secrets or do something even more drastic— I know that this is my duty. For Hachi. For everyone. "Okay. Roll the wheel."

He does so, yawning. "Y'know, part of me wants to go into each of these and break it. Like Wakumi did to Joanie's fear that one time."

"Why? You've seen the scripts, right? And you're probably the one who chose to make things way worse when you try to deviate too far."

"Sure, but it'll get my heart pumping! There's no danger to being Monokuma. It's pretty dull. Six, by the way."

"Whose is that?"

"Chill. You'll know in a second."

I close my eyes and almost immediately feel a searing, burning pain. My arms look like fucking leather. Using two mirrors, I look at the back of my shoulders and see a couple of yellow, bulbous blisters. Long strands of my skin peel every time I so much as brush my fingers against it. I can't help but yell out. I want to sink to the ground but even just the motion would be complete agony. I fall an inch and then my muscle spasms and suddenly my knee is on the carpet. OW. OW! Between breaths, I scream for my parents. They're gonna freak! They tried SO hard to prevent this! I want to flip off my cousin right now. He planned this whole motive behind my back. Both the part of me that is Ren and the part of me that is myself want to cry– if I can feel THIS much pain in this simulation, then that means the murders and executions really were this awful.

My mother sees me and wails. "Gou! Gou, darling, baby! Why did you–?"

"Please, don't!" I beg. No excuse I could give would be enough for this. My father comes into the room and he can't even say anything. His eyes overflow with utter mortification, and he hugs my mother so tightly that it's a miracle she can breathe at all.

Time seems to skip– I don't know how much– and then suddenly I'm in a hospital. I can hardly breathe. I feel like I'm wheezing. I start to have a coughing fit, and my mom desperately holds a swath of tissues to my mouth. Blood soaks through it.

"I'm so sorry. It appears to have metastasized. It spread through the lymph system. A tumor has formed in his right lung." My mom stumbles into my dad with a whimper. She looks so vulnerable and small.

"Then what the hell was the point of the surger–?!" Before I can even finish, I'm hacking again. Blood spurts along the floor, and they have to call someone in to clean.

"We removed most of the cancerous squamous cells, but we were too late. The tumor had already begun to form, we suspect. I'm so sorry. I know that going through that only to wind up in a more worrisome position must be terrifying. But we will do our absolute best to clear up this cancer and send you into remission."

In a very tiny voice, my father asks, "And what if your best isn't good enough?"

Once again, I blink, and time has passed. My arms are now poked with IV's, one for chemo and one for hydration fluids; I can't just receive the chemo topically anymore, and I have to stay here instead of going home. They hurt from where I was pricked. My hair's fallen out and there's no way I can race this way. My mom cries almost daily now, though she tries to hide it and do it while she and Dad eat lunch in the hospital cafeteria.

One of my younger cousins is in the room, but my brain says "little sister." She's a fill-in for Tamiko. "I'm sure you're so fucking proud of yourself, huh? Gou Kita, such a little rebel. You should've already known what you'd be doing to this family by being so damn careless. I know Mom was overbearing, but you know what? She was right. If you hadn't been so desperate to fight back against her, you wouldn't be in this position. You wouldn't have put US in this position! We're going to LOSE you, Gou!"

"I know. It's all my fault. I know. I knew. I knew, and I did it anyway. How selfish can I ge–?" I'm taken off-guard by another coughing fit, and my hand is stained in slimy red when I pull it from my mouth. I start to feel woozy, and my vision blurs.

Once it clears, I'm back in the real world, still feeling a dull sting in my arms. "Moved to the lungs, huh? If Joanie were here, it'd freak her the fuck out, too. It's not even her fear."

He chuckles a little bit. "Ah, yeah, sometimes certain details affect other people than the target. There's fire in Bisque's fear, for instance. Azumi hates that one."

"I wish you would stop doing things like that. Like I said. They're not our enemies."

"I'm sorry, being so empathetic and sensitive must make this awful on you. But I've gotta be a convincing Monokuma. People will know something's up if I take it easy on them. They might start to suspect that this is a conspiracy."

I hate this. As much as I wish I could deny it, I know that Hibiki doing this is twisted. But he's smart and has experience with Danganronpa, and I don't. I'm probably just overestimating how gentle he can be with us. I just want this to be over.

"Gather your courage, little mourning dove. Can't be looking too despondent when you leave here. You don't want the group to start suspecting you."

"...Okay."

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

Sayuri's Fear:

Ren

I've been preparing for this. I got my own fear yesterday, which was far from fun. But after Yuu and I held our do-over memorial for Nari and Sayuri, I decided that today, I'm gonna be the boss. Fujiko let me use this kickass purple eyeliner. I dug out the platform boots that are usually too obnoxious to wear but look cool. And I ate a lot of almonds and cashews today, because apparently nuts are high in serotonin. So I'm riding that wave of confidence all the way! I kick the door open and slam my foot on the table in my best Wakumi impression. Hell, it does actually feel kind of cool.

Monokuma is undaunted, even going so far as to yawn. "Hiiiii, scaredy-cat. Be careful; there's no guarantee you'll land on your feet if you make a misstep. Isn't there a video of you totally eating shit onstage?"

I blow a strand of hair out of my face. "Meh. Tripping is practically a rite of passage as a performer."

"Cute. Let's see how that bravado holds up to the simulator today."

"Bring it, bitch." I hop into the simulator and crack my knuckles.

"Aww, big boy waited to crack them so that they'd be ready for that!"

"Will you just shut up already?!" I demand before I can remember to keep my composure. I tug lightly at my choker and shake my head softly.

"Nice recovery," he teases. "Now, let's see... how do I want to do this today?"

"What do you mean? Just spin the whee–"

He launches the wheel into motherfucking overdrive. The thing spins so quickly and forcefully that I briefly worry it's gonna fly off its stand. "Fourteen!"

That's an unidentified one. Time to do some exploring. I close my eyes, welcoming the terrifying unknown.

When I open my eyes again, I'm sitting at my desk writing a song. There's this intense pressure, like someone's gripping my head, and my nose is so clogged up that I feel like I can hardly breathe. Damn, this is the worst cold I think I've ever had, and it's been going on for a while. I cough. Agh, I hate medical shit. I'm already over this. I stare at the page, trying to come up with the right word for this lyric. Come on. I know it's an obvious word.

My mother steps into the room. "How's it going in here? Making anything cool?"

"Sure. Based on Serpens. It's getting hard to stick to my constellation theme," I play.

A weird expression crosses her face. "Ren, honey, you already made a song called Serpens. You just released it as a single two weeks ago." There's a bewilderment in her tone.

"Huh? Wait, yeah, that's right. I guess this was a waste of time then. Unless my fans want a sequel." Something feels off. I suddenly feel a rush of lightheadedness and fall out of my chair.

I wake up again and the scene has changed dramatically. I can hear the doctor murmuring to my dad, and he just keeps repeating, "No, no, we would've caught it earlier." I feel my throat clench. Please. Please not another medical fear.

From what I can gather, my cold turned to sinusitis, and that turned to a brain infection. The double-layer of terror– this fear's owner's as well as mine– washes over me. Is this Keiji's? Or maybe Sayuri's? I ask a million questions, trying to wrap my head around this. They swear it's treatable. It'll be fine, I lie to myself. This'll all work out.

It wrecks me. I go from not being able to remember the birthdays of my online friends to not being able to remember favors they ask me to do, and then suddenly I lose whole chunks of their story; I can't recall whose parents divorced, which one is passionate about superhero movies, who was basically raised in their aunt's teashop. I feel like I've lost a password to my own head, like something else is control and denying me access. Then those thoughts just fade away entirely; I've forgotten that I've forgotten. But of course, as Ren, I know what I'm losing. It's an exercise in futility. All along the way, my parents have to remind me every single day to take my antivirals and antibacterials.

For a split second, my dad looks way older than I remember him looking, and that scares the ever living shit out of me.

I stop being able to write songs or play guitar; certain muscles are inexplicably weak, and anyway, it's getting harder to process and produce language. I hear words but they just sound like noises, and how the hell do you write like that? Anything that made me myself is fading. I feel horror in every lucid moment.

My mom comes into my room. But it's not my room (it's a hospital, but I don't know that). I try to ask where I am, but the words don't come out right. I try to ask for apple juice or if she'll teach me division today. I try to ask– Mom, why do you look so old and so tired? When did your hair start getting all grey like that?– and my mom in real life, in a whole different plane of reality, does have some greys, so this shouldn't be new to me. She looks at me in that distressed way that she did when she tried to teach me to tie my shoes. Seeing that this isn't working, I decide to just sleep some more.

I collapse into slumber. The only indication I get that I'm back in the real world is the roiling nausea. "How many of these have hospitals?" I ask, and am somewhat stunned when the words are clear.

"That's for me to know and you to find out!" I HATE HOSPIT–

I gag, which thoroughly takes me by surprise. A couple of Monoinu rush to my side with a bag to make sure I don't puke on the floor, but I manage to avoid doing that anyway. My body still feels frail and useless, though. "I'm gonna stay here for a little bit." I pretend I have a choice.

"Smart thinking, chickadee. If you fall face-first out of this thing, I'm totally gonna laugh at you."