Chapter 42: Uncovering Discoveries

(3rd Person's POV)

Sora walked through the halls of the destroyed halls of the dorms of the 2nd floor. She looked lost in thought as her legs moved on their own.

"..."

Finally, she stopped and turned her head to her destination. She would turn to the door that contained the locker room.

---

Walking in, Sora would immediately head to the locker door with the card reader.

Only the owner of the locker has access to this. Normally, none of us would be able to use it... Sora thought. But... 

She pulled out the headmaster's E-Handbook. "What about this? According to Kiri, this handbook has no limitations. Let's see..."

Sora took the emergency handbook and ran it across the card reader, and...

BEEP!

 Looks like it worked. Let's see here... Sora thought as she opened the locker up, but aside from a few standard objects, there was nothing that could be a clue.

"Disappointing..." Sora mumbled as she walked through the locker room. Some of the lockers looked like they're empty, but... "What about this one?" She wondered as she looked at a intact locker room. 

She used the emergency handbook on the locker, and...

BEEP!

"Alright, let's see what's in here..." Sora mused as she opened the locker. ...Huh?

The locker was practically empty. The only thing that was in it was some kind of pocketbook. Sora didn't see a name written on it, so she doesn't know who it belongs to. But there's some writing inside, so it looks like it could be important.

Sora reached inside and grabbed the pocketbook. Opening it, the blonde could tell that it was a girl's handwriting. And all the letters are spaced out evenly, like whoever wrote them was measuring them. Whoever wrote this must have been really meticulous.

Somehow, I have a pretty good idea on who this belongs to...

"...?" Sora raised an eyebrow. She was flipping through the pocketbook, but her hand suddenly froze when she arrived at a certain page. She saw something written there, words that she's heard before from a certain person...

---

"There's a plan to turn Hope's Peak into a shelter, and isolate the students here in a communal life. I decided to talk to the one who came up with the plan directly. It just so happens to be the headmaster--and my father. He was willing to give me some more details regarding the plan. Here's what he said...

"'The point is to keep our student prodigies safe, to keep them as our hope for the future. Only their genius can overcome disaster, and only their hope can overcome despair. For the future of our country, our world, it's not an exaggeration to call this our final hope. We must isolate our superior youth from the corrupted world, to server as the foundation for a new era. This is the only hope we have. I hope that you'll be willing to go along with this plan...'

"So that's what my father had to say to me. As usual, he made a selfish decision without consulting anyone else. I can't imagine a worse father."

---

Sora let out a sigh. "I knew it..."

It was as clear as a crystal. This pocketbook belonged to Kyoko... There's no-one else who it could apply to.

"But...if this belongs to Kyoko and she wrote this..." Sora mused. What's it doing in this locker that belongs to our upperclassmen? And...what's written here clearly contradicts what she told me. According to her, she hasn't seen her father since she was a child.

---

  "I decided to talk to the one who came up with the plan directly. It just so happens to be the headmaster--and my father."

---

"What the heck is this supposed to mean...?" Sora wondered. She quickly scanned the remaining pages of the pocketbook. She must've been looking for some more information that can give her some ideas on how to answer the questions she had.

But when she reached the last page, the questions she had were joined by a couple more. When she looked at the last page, she saw that unlike the rest of the pocketbook, the writing was messy and disorganized. Still, she managed to make out what it said.

"Despair walks among us. And so, we survive. There's a second and third despair..."

"What in Kami's name...?" Sora mumbled. "This doesn't make any sense..."

Truth Bullet: Locker Pocketbook

---

BEEP!

Now what's in this one...? Sora wondered as she opened the next locker to the right. It was very orderly. If she had to guess based on how neat this was, the person this locker belonged to was probably a neat freak.

Disregarding the majority of the objects in the locker room, she focused and her eyes seemed to zoom in as she saw a large book in the school of items. The cover was light blue and had a four-leaf clover on the back.

What the heck is this...?

 Sora grabbed the book and looked closely at it. Her curiosity peaked, she opened it. Just like the locker, the handwriting was really neat and orderly. Whoever this locker belonged to...did they write this book? What were they, the Ultimate OCD or something...?

Shaking her head, the blonde flipped through the book, absent-mindedly breezing through each page like a child who's reading a book they have absolutely no interest in.

"...?" Suddenly, though, Sora stopped as her fingers subconsciously screeched to a halt on a random page. From there, she actually began to read.

---

Log #324: Student #7 of Class 78th, the Ultimate Supergenius

"My friend Koichi happened to come across this young child as he left a local bar one day. From what he told me, this one really seemed like someone special. However, whatever he could've told me wouldn't have prepared me in the slightest for the arrival of them.

"Usually, I don't meet my students in person until orientation, but I had to see if they were as good as Koichi says. And...to say that she was a born prodigy would be the understatement of the century.

"The Ultimate Supergenius seems to posses an unpreceded amount of intelligence, along with a variety of other talents that they seem to excel at, though her main interests seems to revolve around art. And although it is not the origin of her intelligence, she also seem to posses a supernaturally analytical mind, hence the title. Though I do not know the true extent of this ability of hers.

"This student is perfection personified. Unfortunately, whenever she isn't excelling in her classes, she is usually prone to spending her time sleeping or slacking off for the majority of the day, and usually looks tired and uninterested in whatever is going on. 

"Regardless, I will do whatever I can to ensure a hopeful future for her. Not because of her talents, but because she is one of my students."

---

"W-Whoa..." Sora whispered in slight awe. The Ultimate Supergenius...? Can someone like that really exist...? ...Regardless, this book seems to belong to the headmaster. But...what's it doing here? I thought the lockers were for the students that were here before us.

"Not only that...but according to this book, this "Ultimate Supergenius" is a member of Class 78, just like us." Sora noticed. "But...nobody in this class has a talent like that." She pointed out. "Plus, according to the book, this Ultimate is a girl. But...from what I read, it doesn't seem to apply to any of the girls here, whether alive or dead. So who is she...?" 

And more importantly, why does that talent sound so familiar...?

Truth Bullet: The Ultimate Supergenius

---

BEEP!

"Hmm..." Sora hummed, opening another intact locker door. The locker was totally disorganized. Whoever it belonged to probably has organization problems in every part of their life...

Looking closer, she noticed a few key items that looked familiar. Is this a deck of playing cards? ...No, they're...tarot cards, right? They're only used for telling fortunes.

The dots started to connect in Sora's mind. "...This can't be...but there's no way it's just a coincidence."

The blonde's eyes then shifted a couple meters above as she saw a crystal ball. "...Oh, you've got to be kidding me..." She sighed. There's no way that he ever used this locker. ...Can it?

Sora then focused on all the stuff that was in the locker. There's all kinds of textbooks and notebooks stacked up in no particular order. And dust everywhere... I have to assume whoever's stuff this is didn't do a lot of studying. ...Amateur... 

Acting as casual as can be, she picked up a random notebook she saw. But the moment she looked inside, even she couldn't help but lose her easiness a bit.

"...What?"

There was no denying what she saw. Inside the notebook was written, "Yasuhiro Hagakure."

As in Hiro? Our Hiro...?

The notebook also contained a large number of notes for a variety of different classes. Which would mean...

Does that mean...he attended classes here? Sora thought before shaking her head. No, that's not possible. Hiro may be older than us by a few years, but he came to this school at the same time we did. And then we were sucked into this killing game. We never had the chance to take classes...

"But then...what is the notebook?"

Truth Bullet: Locker Notebook

Sora let out a sigh as she placed the notebook back and closed the locker door. The more she sees, the less sense it makes. These lockers...they had to belong to the students that were previously here, so why do they contain stuff that allegedly belong to people here?

"A notebook that belongs to Hiro, and a pocketbook that seems to belong to Kiri... Not to mention that book about the "Ultimate Supergenius"..." Sora mused. "There has to be some kind of explanation...unless..." She considered before shaking her head. "But that's just a theory. And a far-fetched one, at that. If I wanna find out more, I have to keep investigating."

---

Heading out the locker room, Sora found nothing else of interest so she left the depressing 2nd floor dorms to continue her investigation elsewhere. 

She went to the fourth floor and strolled on to the Data Lab.

---

Once she went into the Data Lab, the first thing she was greeted to was...

"Ah, Shirayuki! Are you here to look around, too?" Hina greeted.

"Yeah." Sora nodded. "Is that what you're doing here, also? ...I mean, obviously, but..."

"Yeah. I can't help but wonder about that Monokuma door..." Hina looked at it. "So I figured...if all the doors in school had been unlocked, that one should be open too, right!? Although...I couldn't being myself to open it." She lamented. "Cuz it might explode, right!? And that'd really suck. So...you open it!"

Sora made a deadpan look. I'm sure she didn't mean it like that, but she made it sound like she was okay with me getting blown up...

"Oh, good grief..." Sora muttered under her breath as she walked to the door. "Guess I'll open it, then."

"Ah, wait! Lemme take cover first! I don't wanna get exploded!" Hina said as she raced to a nearby desk and hid under it. "Okay! Go ahead!"

"..."

I'm sure it'll be fine...right?

"Welp. Only one way to find out..." 

Sora threw all her weight at the door and shoved it open. And despite her short stature, the door opened much easier than she expected.

There was no explosion, thankfully. But what she saw...

"What in the...?" Sora wondered as Aoi walked in.

"Whoa! This place is totally sci-fi!"

"You took the words right outta my mouth..."

---

"I mean, every part of this school leaves a bad taste in my mouth, but..." Hina grimaced as she looked around. "...This place is like number one gross! It's in a whole different league of creepy!"

...Creepy in what way? I know it's a bit unsettling, but...

---

Sora walked up to a device with a chair behind it. What is this thing? It looks like some kind of...control panel. It's really over the top, though. Like some kind of military installation or something...

"Yeah, it kinda looks like a mech cockpit, right? Hifumi'd probably freak out if he saw it!" Hina said.

So the Monokuma room has a control panel that looks like some kind of...cockpit. Then could that mean...? Sora thought.

"Alright!" Hina exclaimed. "Let's start poking at it or whatever! I'm gonna start pushing buttons!"

"Uhhh...I don't think that's a good ide-"

But whatever Sora was about to say fell on deaf ears. Hina was already jabbing away at the control panel. But then...

BOING!

"Huh? Did you hear that?" Hina asked, turning to Sora.

"Yeah, it looks like it came from the other room. What did you press?"

"I-I'm not totally sure, but...I think it was that one. The button that says Data Center."

"Really now?" Sora took a good look at the control panel, and saw multiple buttons, each with the name of a room next to it. And just like Hina said, there was one labeled Data Center. That must be the one she pushed. But the data center... That's right next door. The room they were just in... That's where the strange noise came from.

"I'm gonna go check it out..." Sora said.

"Yes please! I'm kinda scared out of my mind right now, so I'll just...cheer you on from over here!" Hina said as Sora walked out of the room.

---

Did I just hear what I think I just heard...? Sora wondered as she headed out the room and saw Monokuma standing in the middle. 

"..."

"What in the...?"

"..." Monokuma didn't respond.

"Uhh...hello?" Sora waved a hand in front of him.

Suddenly, Monokuma started moving. "Graar! Groooar! Gimme all yer donuts!" He demanded.

"..." Sora looked at him with a deadpan stare. "...Hina, is that you."

"What!? Aw man, busted! How did you know?" Monokuma, which was apparently being controlled by Hina, whined. "Anyway, what is this? Some kinda remote-control camera kinda setup?"

"Wait a minute, you don't know what you're controlling?" Sora asked.

"Well I mean, I can't really see anything from in here. ...Ah, guess what I found! A self-destruct button!" Monokuma (Hina) said.

"Please don't push that." Sora pleaded, though by the sound of her voice, it sounded more like a command.

"Aww maaaan!"

"...You were actually gonna push it?" Sora shook her head. I guess that settles it, then. The room with the Monokuma drawing on it, and the control panel inside...

---

"Whoa! Hey Shirayuki, what the heck was that just now!?" Hina asked as Sora headed back into the control room.

"Monokuma."

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"You were controlling Monokuma just now."

"Monokuma...?" Hina repeated before paling in realization. "What!? For real!?"

"Yeah. Looks like the panel controls Monokuma. Which means that the mastermind has been controlling him from this room." Sora nodded. Yeah...she was definitely in here. The mastermind has been controlling Monokuma from this room. And this control room is totally separate from the data center area with all the monitors. In other words...

---

"Maybe the mastermind can't monitor us and control Monokuma at the same time."

---

Looks like Kiri theory was right...

"But...if the mastermind's been controlling Monokuma from here...that means they've been inside the school this whole time, right?" Hina asked, looking worried.

"I guess that true..." Sora admitted. But if it is true...

---

"Kehehe... It's a very polarizing approach, I know, but--okay, enough puns. Anyway, here's a hint... I'm sure I told you this already, but...this killing game began with seventeen participants, all of them high school students. And the only people to take a single step in Hope's Peak since the killing game began...are those seventeen students."

---

Then...the mastermind, the one controlling Monokuma from afar...is it the seventeenth student?

"..."

That's...not possible, right? I mean, the seventeenth student was Mukuro, and she's dead. Unless...

"What's wrong, Shirayuki?" Hina asked, seeing Sora frown. "I don't like that face you're making..."

"...Hm?" Sora snapped out of her thoughts. "Oh, don't worry. It's nothing."

"O-Oh, okay..." Hina said as she sighed and put her head down.

"What's wrong with you? You okay?"

"Oh, well, it's just... This is where the mastermind's been hiding, right? Who knows if they set up traps or something...?" Hina pointed out.

Well...I can't really say it isn't possible, but...

"So, like..." Hina spoke up. "You wanna leave soon? There's still lots of other places to check out."

"Good point." Sora agreed. "We don't have the time to stand around. Let's get going."

"Y-Yeah..."

---

The two girls left the Data Center, but as soon as the door closed...

CLICK!

"...What the heck was that?" Sora wondered.

"Ah! The door! It just locked on its own!" Hina exclaimed.

"...What." Sora reached for the door and tried to turn the handle, but...

RATTLE, RATTLE!

"Seriously? Looks like it. But...why?" Sora wondered.

"Of course it's locked!" A voice said as Monokuma appeared. "Because the data center is now restricted!"

"...Monokuma?"

"Hey, no fair! You can't just go around restricting whatever you feel like!" Hina barked.

"It's for YOUR benefit! Cuz if that room stays open, I won't be able to move around." Monokuma explained. "Imagine how depressed everyone would get if the school mascot just up and stopped moving!"

I think you're giving yourself too much credit...

"Then that room..." Sora trailed off.

"As you may have guessed, that's where my controls are!" Monokuma revealed.

"So...right now, you're being operated by someone in that room?" Hina inquired.

"Correctamundo!" Monokuma confirmed.

Hina narrowed her eyes. "But that doesn't make any sense! We were just in there, and we didn't see anyone!"

"Oh you didn't, did you? Puhuhu... Are you sure you were as thorough as you could have been?" Monokuma giggled. "Did you happen to check...a certain suspicious hatch?"

Sora realized what he was getting at and immediately facepalmed. "Kami..."

"Puhuhu, too bad! That was your one big chance, and ya blew it!" Monokuma mocked. "Of course, that hatch can't be opened from the outside anyway. So whatever!  Now then, this room is officially restricted. So no more investigating! I'll be relying on you guys to tell the others.  Puhuhu... Peace!" He saluted as he dissapeared.

"He's gone. But...was he telling the truth? The mastermind was hiding in there?" Hina asked.

Sora sighed. "I think so. When you think about how we got locked out of the control room, that proves it for sure." She explained before letting out a deep sigh. "Kami, I'm so stupid..."

"Then...when I said we should leave..." Hina looked guilty.

"Good grief..." Sora shook her head. "Don't start blaming yourself again... The hatch couldn't have been opened from the outside, so even if we noticed it, it's not like we could've done anything."

"O-Okay..." Hina nodded.

"Anyway, we can't let that get to us. We gotta stay strong and use the time we have left to solve all the mysteries in this school."

"You're right... If there's one thing I'm good at, it's keeping my body moving...!" Hina sprang her body up as she had a determined smirk. "Okay! I'm gonna go run around and tell everyone what we found here! Nice! You've got me all motivated again! Okay, I'm out! See ya later!" Hina took off in a full sprint.

"Oh, good grief..." Sora looked at her go with a small amused smile. "Looks like I'll have to do what I can, too..." She said as she walked off.

Chapter 43: End

To be continued...?

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