Finding the Runaway Puppy

"Ikusaba...?"

"She... she isn't dead?"

"I-is she a ghost!?"

Leaving the stunned students behind, Ikusaba locked her eyes on Kei — seconds from being crushed beneath the press — and sprinted for the execution grounds.

"Enoshima!! This trial is invalid!! Ikusaba is alive!!"

Kirigiri shouted furiously at the surveillance camera.

Ikusaba tried to force her way into the execution grounds, but a swarm of Monokumas burst out to bar her path. She gritted her teeth and charged straight through them.

"I don't know what's going on, but Ikusaba is alive!! Enoshima!! Stop the execution!!"

"He's right! If you kill Kei like this, you're breaking the school regulations!"

"...Please, let Kei go!"

"...Do you really think a game can continue when even the most basic rules aren't being followed?"

"Ikusaba! You were wrong! Kei isn't the culprit! Stop the execution, now!"

Ogami caught up a moment later and threw herself in beside Ikusaba, tearing through the pack of Monokumas — but it may already have been too late.

"NO!!!!!"

The students' desperate cries meant nothing. The press came down without mercy on Kei's bewildered face — or so it seemed.

A heavy clank rang out.

Mid-descent, the press froze. Then, slowly, the floor beneath it began to open.

"Wh... what...? Waaaaaah—"

Kei let out a strangled, witless scream as he dropped through the hole. A splash echoed up from below, and just like that, the execution ended in the most anticlimactic way imaginable.

"W-wait, he didn't actually die like that, right?"

"The original punishment was to be crushed by that press. We heard a splash, but it sounded like shallow water. He's probably safe for now."

"...Enoshima. I think you owe us an explanation."

Kirigiri addressed the camera with a look cold enough to freeze steel, but the usual snickering Monokuma never popped out. Only silence answered her.

"Nngh... hh..."

The students, still reeling from what they'd just witnessed, snapped back to attention at the sound of Ikusaba groaning. She had fought her way halfway through the execution grounds before collapsing.

"Where the hell did she even come from...?"

"Are we really just going to leave her like that? She looks badly hurt..."

"B-but isn't Ikusaba the mastermind? She took Kei hostage, and that video we saw..."

"What matters is that she burst in at the last possible second and stopped Kei's execution. Those wounds weren't in the video. She must have been fighting before she even got here."

"...When she and I fought the Monokumas just now... I could feel her sincerity. She truly intended to save him."

Ogami's testimony only plunged the students into deeper confusion, and a low murmur swept through the group. In the middle of it, Kirigiri set her jaw and walked toward Ikusaba, her expression carved from ice.

"I think you owe everyone an explanation, Ikusaba."

At the sound of Kirigiri's frigid voice, Ikusaba closed her eyes and opened her mouth to speak.

A harsh, buzzing vibration cut her off.

"Wh-what now!?"

"Don't make such a fuss. The e-Handbook merely vibrated."

"You've got to be kidding me. This is completely unfair!"

"Enoshima! You cheap, perverted bastard! I know you're watching, so get out here!"

"...Just what kind of secret are you hiding?"

Ikusaba glanced at her e-Handbook, then let out a long breath.

"...If it were only my life on the line, I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠would have told everyone the truth. But with everyone's lives at stake, I can't just talk."

"...The one thing I can say for certain is that I'm not your enemy anymore. That much, I can tell you."

"Hah. You expect us to trust the former mastermind based on that alone? Even if she did save Kei... something about this still feels wrong."

The students stared at Ikusaba with undisguised suspicion. She met their eyes without flinching.

"I can't tell you everything. But from now on, I'll do whatever you ask. Just say the word."

"Then take us to Enoshima. Right now!"

"Wouldn't that count as a secret of the killing game...?"

"Ah. Right. Damn it — the rule means we can't even ask anything useful. What a pain..."

"...Does the rule even matter anymore, though?"

"...What are you talking about?"

Hagakure scratched his head.

"Y'know... everyone knows violence against the headmaster is forbidden. But you two just smashed a bunch of Monokumas to pieces, and nothing happened to you, right...?"

He glanced ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠at Ikusaba and Ogami with a distinctly uneasy look.

"Th-that might just be because it's those two..."

"True... Monokuma seems pretty capable in a fight, but those two tore through them like they were rag dolls."

"S-so if she just spilled the secrets of the killing game right now..."

"That's far enough. I've been lenient until now."

Monokuma popped out, cutting Hagakure off mid-sentence.

"M-Monokuma!! Where's Kei? And you said the culprit was one of us! Then what was that body, and you—"

"Boy, you sure do run your mouth, Naegi. Mind shutting up?"

"...?"

"What... the hell? Did this thing's way of talking just change...?"

"I'm just... sick of it all. Sick of playing Monokuma. Sick of looking at your faces. Sick of the killing game. Sick of despair itself. Maybe I should just kill everyone and end it here..."

The words came out in a listless, drained monotone. Combined with the unnerving content and the complete absence of Monokuma's usual theatrics, it was somehow far more frightening than anything they were used to.

"Anyway... break the school regulations from now on and I won't hold back. I could always call every Monokuma in the building and blow you all up at once..."

"...What happened with the execution just now?"

"I got bored of executing people, so I called it off. Happy...?"

"You weren't bored. You got caught rigging it, so you had no choice!"

"Haaah... I'm sick of backtalk, too. Everything is so despairingly boring. I'm even sick of being sick of things. I'm leaving."

With that, Monokuma went limp and vanished.

"...So what do we do now?"

"...There's something we need to take care of first."

"What's that, Kirigiri?"

Kirigiri answered with a look as cold as winter steel.

Still bound to the chair, I fell and fell — and landed in a pool of water.

"Bluh—! Pffah! H-help! Is anyone th—"

I thrashed for a good while before realizing the water was barely knee-deep. After an awkward cough, I started looking around.

"What... is this the garbage dump? In the game this place was packed with trash, but why are there so many Monokumas...?"

There was more scrap Monokuma than actual garbage. Broken units lay everywhere, still throwing off the occasional spark. No signs of a fight down here, so these were probably the ones Ikusaba had wrecked — the defective units dumped after the battle. Just how hard had she gone at them for the Monokumas to outnumber the trash?

More pressingly, the ropes were starting to cut off my circulation. First things first.

"Nngh — just a little more... a little more... got it!"

I grabbed a sharp metal fragment from one of the wandering Monokuma wrecks and sawed through the ropes binding me.

"Hah... okay. I can breathe ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠again."

All I'd done was cut some rope, but after nearly dying while trussed up and completely helpless, the rush of relief was incredible.

"Alright then... time to get out of—"

Get out how, exactly? It hit me a second later: you couldn't leave this place without Monokuma's secret key, the one hidden in the headmaster's office.

I'd planned this whole fall into the garbage dump and somehow forgotten a detail that important. Yeah. I was definitely an idiot.

"Now what...?"

Looks like I was about to star in my own little survival show. Setting: garbage dump.

"Fuck... this place is hell..."

I had no idea how much time had passed. At first I'd tried to keep track. Now I just slept, weakly, whenever I could.

I hadn't had a real meal in ages — I hadn't even had water. I was so thirsty that if this went on much longer, I was going to start drinking the stagnant puddles.

I tried to sleep the cold and the hunger away, only to discover a cruel little fact of human biology: when you're hungry enough, your stomach hurts too much to let you sleep.

"A-am I actually going to die here...? After everything... this is just pathetic..."

Fear was creeping in now, too. I'd clawed my way back from the brink just to die like a dog in a garbage dump. Was there a more miserable way to go?

If I'm going to die, I at least want to see Kirigiri's face one last time...

The thought of her brought tears welling up before I could stop them. If I could just see her again, I'd do anything...

I was sinking back into that same helpless gloom, settling in for another miserable stretch of nothing — when I heard it.

A heavy, wet thud.

The sound I'd been waiting for. I whipped my head toward it, and there she was: Kirigiri, sprawled in a heap of garbage.

I'd gathered the softest trash I could find and piled it up, just in case she got hurt on the way down. Thankfully, it seemed to have worked.

"K-Kirigiri... long time no see...? Uh, you've got some ramen in your hair..."

Of course, the real reason I'd held back from eating that ramen — despite wanting it so badly I could have cried — was the once-in-a-lifetime chance to witness Ramen Fairy Kirigiri with my own two eyes. And there she was, a charming little topping of instant noodles crowning her head.

Kirigiri brushed the ramen from her hair with complete indifference, then looked at me.

"K-Kirigiri... what brings you... down here?"

"Kirigiri...?"

Something was wrong. She still hadn't said a word. She was just staring at me, cold as a blade. And then, unbidden, I remembered exactly what I'd done in the last Class Trial.

Oh, you have got to be kidding me. Past me, you absolute lunatic—!

I'd made her worry. I'd made her cry. Of course she was looking at me like that. It was freezing down here in the basement, but I started sweating anyway.

"I-I'm sorry...! It was all my fault...! I-I won't do it again, I swear...!"

"I'm so sorry!! Please forgive me, just this once... I'm begging you..."

My whole body ached, but I dropped to my knees and bowed my head anyway, desperate to get back on her good side. It probably looked pathetic. I didn't care. If groveling would make Kirigiri less angry, I would grovel for as long as it took.

She just kept staring at me, that same icy look carved ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠into her face. This wasn't working. Time for the trump card.

"H-hit me until you're not angry anymore...! If that's what it takes... I'll take as many hits as you want...!"

My body didn't matter. Not if it was for her. Of all the methods I knew, this one had the best track record. Maybe...

"Stay right there."

Kirigiri started walking toward me, her gaze still sharp enough to draw blood. I'd steeled myself for this, but that didn't make it any less terrifying. If it would cool her temper, though, a little pain was nothing.

She stopped right in front of me and reached out. I squeezed my eyes shut so she wouldn't see how tense I was — though there was nothing I could do about the trembling. Preferably she'd make it quick...

A sharp flick landed square on my forehead.

"Ow—!"

I clutched my forehead and yelped. Wait — this was no time to be whining. Had I just made her mood worse? I cracked one eye open and peeked up at her.

Kirigiri was smiling.

"That was your punishment."

"K-Kirigiri..."

She really was an angel. I didn't care what anyone else said — Kirigiri was the only one for me. Ahhh, Kirigiri...

"If you ever pull something like that again, I'll put a collar on you. Consider yourself warned."

"U-uh...?"

"Understood?"

"Y-yes, ma'am..."

K-Kirigiri...? The vibe just shifted. What's going on?

I was still trying to parse the change in atmosphere when she pulled something out.

"I figured there wouldn't be any food down here, so I brought some."

"B-bread and... milk...!"

After going so long without a proper meal, I snatched at the food—

"Wait."

"Hm...?"

"I said wait."

"Y-yes..."

Her tone had gone ice-cold again. I had no idea why, but Kirigiri's word was law, so I waited. After a moment, she smiled.

"Eat."

"Th-thank you...!"

Something about this felt off, but there was food sitting right in front of me and I was in no condition to overthink it. I took the bread and milk from her hands and tore into them. Kirigiri stroked my hair as I ate.

"Good boy."

...Alright, something had definitely been weird for a while now. I decided not to think about it.