(3rd Person's POV)

When the students got to the dressing room, the first thing they saw was Toko sitting alone on one of the benches, the laptop resting on her lap.

"...Fukawa." Makoto called out, getting her attention. "Did you decide to come hear what Alter Ego and Doppelgänger has, too?"

"I-I already heard it...with M-Master and that short Italian girl..." She then smirked. "And Master!"

"You don't have to keep saying it..." Hina remarked.

"Oh, so Shirayuki heard it, too?" Makoto commented.

" Y-Yeah... She was the first to hear about it. A-After blondie heard about it, she told m-me and Master." Toko told them.

"Anyway, so what are you doing right now?" Hina asked.

Toko scoffed. "Shut up. Stop b-bothering me."

"Get out of the way. We have to talk to Alter Ego and Doppelgänger." Hiro said.

"N-No. I made Master a p-promise."

"A promise?" Sakura inquired.

"Master told me to w-wait here, so that's what I'm d-doing." Toko said.

"What are you, his dog!?" Hina exclaimed.

"If it's wh-what Master wants, I'd do anything h-he asks." Toko lustfully grinned as she pushed her index fingers together.

"You just love being mistreated..." Hiro sighed.

Toko frowned. "W-Well fine, if you really want me gone, by a-all means... Hachoo!" As soon as her sneeze rang in their eyes, a chill went down the student's spines as Toko immediately switched places with Genocide Jill. "Hey guys! What's goin' on!?"

"Um...we'd like you to move." Hiro requested, apprehensive of the serial killer's sudden appearance.

"Sure thing! Just kneel before me and beg!" Genocide Jill cackled.

"First a mega masochist, now a super sadist!" Hiro stepped back in fear.

"Um, Fukawa...? Seriously, I'm asking you nicely to let us use the laptop." Makoto spoke up.

"Hm? HmmMMmMmmMmMMMmmMm~~?" Genocide Jill then pointed her scissors at Makoto. "Didn't you hear what I said!? I told you to kneel and beg!"

"Come on, Naegi! Give her the ol' one-two combo!" Hiro exclaimed. "One--drop to your knees! Two--beseech!"

"Why are you acting like you're not part of this...?" Makoto sweatdropped and sighed. He reluctantly kneeled down in front of Jill. "Please, I'm begging you... Will you please let us use the laptop?"

"Kyeeehahahaha!" She cackled as she blushed. "Such an ultra miraculous feeling of happiness! All my pent-up anger at Master for abusing me is evaporating!"

"So even you realize it's abuse..." Hina mumbled.

"That should be enough, right? Hurry up and let us talk to Alter Ego and Doppelgänger." Kyoko spoke up.

"O-kaaaaaaay!" Genocide Jill complied as she stepped aside.

Makoto got up from the ground as the others gathered around the laptop as the saw a pale green and light blue light coming from it.

"Bout time ya got here!" Doppelgänger exclaimed.

"Everyone, come closer!" Alter Ego requested. "We already told Togami and Shirayuki, but... we were finally able to crack open all the files that were on this laptop! Sorry to have kept you all waiting!"

"Just what I thought..." Kyoko mused.

"Finally...the time has come..." Sakura said.

"Nng...I'm starting to get kinda nervous..." Hiro anxiously said.

Makoto approached the device, his hands started to shake. But...

"Move." Kyoko sternly ordered. The single word was like a sharpened blade. Wounded, the boy moved to let her take over. "Here we go..." She said as she began typing, the words appearing at a fast rate.

"Can you tell us what you found out?"

"Sure. We analyzed the files and extracted all the useful information we could find." Alter Ego said. "And one particularly important fact we discovered was that a certain plan had been put into effect here."

The plan in particular popped up in front of the screen.

"To isolate the students of Hope's Peak Academy and create a communal life for them."

"This is what it said... But it was more than just ya standard school life." Doppelgänger chimed in. "Everyone was meant to life the rest of their lives here until they kicked da bucket.

"Th-That's...!" Makoto stammered.

"It's...exactly the situation we've found ourselves in." Sakura's eyes widened in slight shock.

"It's quite unthinkable, isn't it? And what's more, the one who came up with the plan was non other than the administrators of Hope's Peak themselves." Alter Ego revealed.

The students widened their eyes. All this time, they thought that the mastermind trapped them here...

"What!? Wait, hold on!" Hina exclaimed. "Then the reason we've been imprisoned here... It wasn't the work of some psycho freak or criminal organization or whatever... It was...the school itself?"

"That doesn't make any sense! Why would they do that!?" Hiro asked.

"I don't think they're finished. Perhaps we should hear the rest..." Kyoko said.

"It seems that the reason they devised this plan was because of what happened one year ago. This is how they described that event... They said it was the "biggest, most awful, most tragic event in human history.""

"What does that mean...?" Hina wondered.

"Yeah, what kind of name is that for something!?" Hiro shouted.

"..."

"You can call it The Tragedy for short." Doppelgänger told them. "Apparently, it was some kinda event that was so big, Hope's Peak closed down."

" I see. Things are finally starting to make sense... What this means is, one year ago, this thing--this tragedy--took place. And whatever it was, it forced Hope's Peak to shut down. From there, they decided to use the school as a kind of staging ground..." Kyoko mused. "They planned to sequester the students here, where they would live out the rest of their lives."

"But...why would the Hope's Peak administrators want to shut everyone in like that?" Hina asked.

"And what could this "tragic event" have possibly been?" Sakura wondered.

In a flash, Kyoko had typed their questions into the computer. And the answer we got was...

"Yeeeah...we don't exactly know." Doppleganger rubbed the back of her head.

"Y-Yeah... If that information was ever on this computer, it's gone now... I'm totally useless... I'm sorry." Alter Ego meekly apologized.

"Then...is this really the end? We get halfway through the answer, and that's it?" Hiro fearfully put his hands on his head.

"It would appear so. Disappointing..." Kyoko lamented.

"Oh, wait! There's one other thing we forgot to mention. I think it might be important." Alter Ego spoke up. "We believe it has to do with the mastermind..."

"The mastermind!?" Makoto exclaimed in shock.

Kyoko's fingers moved even faster than they had so far...

"Did you figure out the mastermind's identity?"

"We don't know that, either." Doppelgänger shook her head.

"But we did find a clue, I think." Alter Ego took over. "The one leading the Hope's Peak staff, the one who finalized the plan to isolate you was the Hope's Peak headmaster. So that same person may very well be the mastermind who planned all this out. And according to the files, the headmaster is a man in his late thirties. It seems possible, even likely, that he's somewhere in this school right now."

"The headmaster...is here in the school!?" Kyoko uncharacteristically exclaimed.

"Then that's gotta be the mastermind! I mean, Monokuma's been calling himself the headmaster, right?" Hina pointed out.

"Which makes the real headmaster that much more suspicious..." Sakura closed her eyes.

"But if we break down the door to his room, we're dead, right? So what are we supposed to do?" Hiro asked.

"I'll find a way..."

"Huh?"

"No matter what it takes...I will find the headmaster. No matter the cost..."

Everyone looked at Kyoko, who had a conflicting and violent expression plastered onto her face.

"Kirigiri? What's going on...?" Hina asked.

"...I can't explain why. I just...know that I have to find him." Kyoko responded.

She "has" to? What's going on with her? First that tense conversation in the dining hall, now this... When the topic about the headmaster came up, her reaction was almost...violent. Like the tranquil fury kind. Like it was...personal to her.

"...We should see if Alter Ego and Doppelgänger has any more information." Kyoko changed the subject. That seemed to be an attempt to regain her composure, and she started typing again.

"Did you learn anything else?"

"Nope, sorry. That's all we could find on this thing." Doppelgänger said.

"All the information on this laptop seems to be pretty old, so that's all we can do from here. We're really sorry..." Alter Ego put her head down in shame.

"Then...it really is all over." Hiro lamented.

"Wait. They seem to have more to say." Kyoko said.

"Um, well... It's kind of a different topic, but...we were wondering about something. We haven't seen Celeste, Yamada, or Taka since yesterday..." Alter Ego said.

A heavy silence fell across the room. The only sound was the flat, precise clicking of keys as Kyoko typed.

"They're all dead."

Alter Ego looked shocked to the core, while Doppelgänger simply winced.

"Oooh..." Doppelgänger winced.

"I see... Certainly I knew that was a possibility, but...it really happened..." He briefly put her head down before lifting it up again. "Oh, sorry... There's no point in me getting depressed over things I can't do anything about..."

"Well then, I guess that's it." Kyoko folded her arms.

"That's it." A simple phrase that held so much meaning... She began typing again...

"You've done your job. Thank you. Both of you."

"We're done? I guess we are, huh?"

"Welp. That's that, I guess." Doppelgänger yawned. "I'mma go take a nap. Ciao. Buh-bye."

With that, the laptop entered sleep mode...

"So Alter Ego and Doppelgänger did everything they could..." Sakura closed her eyes again.

"We won't have to talk to them all that much anymore." Kyoko said.

"But...I feel kinda sorry for them." Hina said.

"You feel sorry...? But "they're" just computer programs, right?" Hiro spoke up.

"I know, but still...they did everything they could for us, ya know?"

"I mean, yeah, they did. But that's what computer programs are designed to do. You don't tell a computer "good job" every time you shut it down, do you?"

"Well, no... But when we talked to Alter Ego and Doppelgänger, I guess I just...didn't see it that way."

"I know what you mean. I feel the same way." Makoto nodded in agreement.

But Hiro begged to differ. "Hey, come on! They're just a buncha programs! You can tell the difference between two programs and a friend, right?"

"But you know...what's the difference between us and those programs, really?" Makoto argued.

"Huh...?" Hiro looked at him.

"I started thinking about how you would differentiate a person and an AI." Makoto began. "Alter Ego and Doppelgänger aren't human, I know that. They're just two programs running on a computer. But at the same time, I couldn't help but think of them as our friends."

"Yeah! They're no different from us! They're still our friends!" Hina exclaimed before putting her head down a bit. "Especially since Fujisaki's dead and Shirayuki's avoiding us now..."

"I think...maybe I understand where you're coming from... Then there's no problem calling him a friend! After all, the more friends the merrier, right!?" Hiro laughed. "Check this out! Friendship has no survival value. Instead, it gives value to survival."

Kyoko rolled her eyes. "So anyway..."

"Don't "so anyway" that! It's a totally smart and cool thing that I quoted from I don't remember where!" Hiro yelped.

"Anyway, there's nothing more Alter Ego and Doppelgänger can do to help us. As such, they're role in this is over. Am I wrong about that?"

"No, but..." Makoto tried to say, but was silence by Kyoko's glare.

"And frankly, I question the ease with which you decide who is and isn't your friend." She shot out.

"The story's gotten off track." Sakura spoke up. "We should go over what Alter Ego and Doppelgänger said one more time."

"Yeah, good idea! What was the Hope's Peak staff thinking...? Why are they making us kill each other!?" Hiro cried.

"Alter Ego and Doppelgänger said that what happened one year ago is what started everything." Sakura said.

"Yeah, they said it was the biggest, most awful, most hopeless event in human history, right?" Hina asked.

"It must have been a huge incident, whatever it was... But did something like that really happen a year ago?" Makoto asked.

"I don't remember anything happening that you could describe that way. What about you guys?" Hiro looked at the other students.

"I don't really watch the news, so..." Hina rubbed the back of her head sheepishly.

Sakura shook her head. "Sorry, nothing comes to mind."

"That event led to the closing of Hope's Peak. If nothing else, it must have had some kind of connection to this school." Kyoko mused.

"Maybe all the students here were killed or something!" Hiro assumed.

"That kind of catastrophe would have been all over the news." Sakura pointed out. "At least one of us would remember that..."

"Then...maybe they covered it up!" Hina exclaimed. " That would explain why none of us knew that the school had been shut down!"

CoughDanganronpa3coughcough.

"Totally covering up something like that... I suppose it's not totally impossible." Sakura said.

"What's wrong with our government!? Our taxes pay their salaries, they should be handling stuff like that!" Hiro grumbled.

"Maybe. But right now there's only one path open to us... We have to find the headmaster of Hope's Peak Academy." Kyoko spoke up. "We have to find him, and make him tell us everything. As long as we can get our hands on him, I think..." She clenched her fist as she made another violent expression.

"But even that is a problem not so easily solved." Sakura folded her arms.

Hina sighed. "Yeah...you're right..."

"Well, our business is done here, so for now we should get out of here." Kyoko said.

"Oh yeah, good idea." Hiro nodded in agreement.

"Then I..." Genocide Jill(who the students forgot was even there) was about to speak, but... "Ah...achoo!" She sneezed, turning back into Toko. "Huh...?"

"Is it really that dusty...?" Hina wondered. "...Wait, I mean...!"

"O-Oh no! I'm not w-waiting anymore!" Toko fearful expression then turned to one of concerning excitement. "I'm n-not guarding it... Togami's gonna b-be so mad at me...!"

"Let's avoid getting involved any further." Kyoko suggested.

"Good call..." Hiro said as they dashed out of the dressing room.

---

"My heart is pound-pound-pounding away..." A voice said as immediately after the students got out, Monokuma appeared. "It's pounding...with anger!"

"Y-You're not still mad about that whole "breaking into the headmaster's room" thing, are you...?" Hiro took a few steps back.

"Oh, that little matter doesn't matter even a little." Monokuma said. "And I'm a little jealous of you guys enjoying an indecent mixed bath, but that doesn't matter, either. It's building... I feel it building... My head's about to boil over with rage!" He yelled.

"D-Don't get so angry. Here, let me help center your chakra..." Hiro offered.

"Etch this on the walls of your brain, okay? When you do something to me, I do it right back..." Monokuma lifted his paw, showing his claws as he smired. "An eye for an eye, a fang for a fang..." He then disappeared.

"Fang for a...fang? B-Be careful! He just chanted the incantation of devastation!" Hiro freaked out.

"No... It's just a saying." Sakura told him.

"Oh, I see..."

"But what's he talking about?" Makoto wondered.

"..."

DING, DONG! BING, BONG!

"Mm, ahem, this is a school announcement. It is now 10 p.m. As such, it is officially nighttime. Soon the doors to the dining hall will be locked, and entry at that point is strictly prohibited. Okay then...sweet dreams, everyone! Good night, sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite..."

"So, it's nighttime. What does everyone want to do?" Kyoko asked. "Celeste was the one who suggested our nighttime rule, but she's gone now..."

"I think we should still avoid being out at nighttime. I know it'll make me feel better that way..." Hina requested.

"I agree." Hiro said.

"Very well then. In that case, time for bed." Kyoko said.

---

So everyone headed back to their rooms. Monokuma's parting words left everyone feeling anxious the rest of the night.

Once I was back in my room, I got lost in thought. What we'd learned from Alter Ego kept on spinning around and around in my mind.

The administrators of Hope's Peak had planned all of this... They did it because of "The Tragedy" which had happened a year before. And apparently the headmaster is the one behind it all--the mastermind.

All these mysteries made Makoto worried. But he still has to try and unravel them, bit by bit. He's sure the road will be long, and tough, but he doesn't have any other choice.

And with that, Makoto went to bed.

Chapter 27: End

To be continued...?