The Truth
"Nnngh....."
"You're lasting longer than I expected."
"...Nngh!?"
"But you won't be able to keep your mouth shut forever."
".....!!!"
Peko Pekoyama gouged the knife into Kei's thigh as she spoke, her voice as cold as a drawn blade. Kei twisted against the chair with a pain beyond anything he could have imagined, but the more he writhed, the deeper the steel sank, and the agony only climbed.
"Nngh-nngh!! Nngh!! Nngh!!"
"What is it?"
"Nnnnngh!! Nnnngh!! Nngh!!"
"....."
Beside them, Koizumi thrashed and sobbed as she watched the torture unfold. Peko finally stopped, crossed to her, and tore the tape from her mouth.
"Hah... haaah..."
"Something to say?"
"You... you pieces of trash!! How can you do this and still...!"
"It seems I had best tape your mouth shut again."
Peko reached to press the tape back into place, but Koizumi twisted her face away and began to scream, her voice raw with fury.
"I...! I was going to apologize to you...! At first I tried to dodge it, just like you said I would... but today I'd made up my mind to say I was sorry...!"
"There is neither a means nor a method by which I might believe that. And even if you did apologize, the past would not change."
Koizumi stared at her, incredulous, and shouted back.
"Of course... if that game was real... then I'd be guilty of trying to cover the incident up, I know that... but Ku... Kuzuryu murdered my friend!! That's a murder charge!! Both sides did something wrong... so why...!!"
"....."
"Do you think you're some kind of agents of justice!? Even if how heavy the crime is isn't supposed to matter here... between covering something up and actually killing a person, which one do you think is the worse—"
"Silence."
"Ghk...! Gahhk...!!"
Peko closed her hand around Koizumi's throat and choked the rest of the words off, then leaned in and whispered, ice-cold.
"The weight of a crime? Agents of justice? That is not the principle by which I act. The principle by which I act now is this: Lady Natsumi, daughter of the Kuzuryu family, is dead — and Young Master is furious with you."
"Gahhk... hhk... what... does that even...?"
Koizumi could barely draw breath. Peko looked down at her and went on, perfectly calm.
"I am Young Master's tool. I am an assassin and a shadow raised by the Kuzuryu family. It is my duty to protect Young Master, and every soul who belongs to that house."
"Th-that's..."
"And yet it would appear that the me of the past failed to protect Young Master's younger sister. Failed, even though I was at the same school."
"That's... ghhk...!"
Koizumi kept trying to force words through. Peko tightened her grip until speech itself became impossible, and continued.
"And Young Master, having learned the truth, is now extremely furious with you — you who tried to bury that truth not once, but twice. So I am merely punishing you, as a tool should."
"Gahhk... ghk..."
"Once I have obtained that photograph and confirmed that this incident is real... I will kill you, in Young Master's place. You, who dared try to conceal the one who murdered his sister."
"Gah... hhk..."
"If everyone who committed a wrong in that incident dies... then I, as a failed shadow, will be able to atone. And I will be able to atone to the late Lady Natsumi."
"....."
Koizumi's eyes rolled back. She went limp. Peko released her, stepped away, and returned to Kei.
"Well? Have you reconsidered telling me where the photograph is?"
"Kh... hhk..."
"If you will not speak, the other thigh is next."
"Kuzuryu... is this really the ending you want...?"
"...What?"
Kei was shaking so hard his teeth nearly clicked, but he forced both eyes open and looked past Peko — to Kuzuryu, standing far back with his fists clenched — and spoke as if he were begging for a life that was not his own.
"You get the photo. You confirm the truth. Then you hand the ending of an incident that's already over to Pekoyama — so Koizumi dies, and Pekoyama dies. Is that honestly the ending you want!?"
"....."
"A tool!? Don't make me laugh!! How can a person be a tool!! You feel it too, Kuzuryu!! Pekoyama isn't a tool to you — she's someone preci—"
"You talk too much."
"AAAAAAAAAAGH!!"
The knife punched into his other thigh. Kei's scream tore the air apart. Kuzuryu stared at him and muttered, almost to himself.
"I... I..."
"You're... a coward..."
"Wh-what did you just...?"
"The despicable coward here... was never Koizumi... it was you, Kuzu— AAAAAAAGH!!"
"There is nothing you will not say."
Even as the blade carved his thigh to ribbons, Kei locked eyes with Kuzuryu, blazing with fury, and roared until his voice broke.
"A despicable...! Coward...! Who couldn't get over the past...! Who didn't even have the guts to step forward himself...! And in the end used the person more precious to him than anyone...! As a scapegoat... you're the worst kind of pathetic loser— AAAAAAAAAGH!!!"
"Nnh... nngh..."
"Young Master, there is no need for you to concern yourself. We have lost a great deal of time, but within three minutes the truth will—"
"Pe... Peko..."
"Do not waver. Young Master, you must survive. Once this is finished, you will deal with Kei..."
"Th-that's..."
Peko's face was calm as she began to lay out something ghastly. Kuzuryu looked at her and tried to form a reply—
"Steel your hea—"
"But..."
—BANG BANG BANG!!
"Open this door right now!!"
"".....!""
The crash of fists on wood cut them both off cold.
—BANG BANG BANG!!
"Hey!! You kidnappers!! We know you're in there!! Open the damn door!!"
"Owari...! You can't break the door down... that's against the school ruuules..."
"This is bad!! Kei and Koizumi are in danger and the door's locked!! At this rate, what was the point of me rounding up every kid I could find!?"
"Everybody move! Picking a locked door is child's play! Did you forget my talent is Ultimate Mechanic!?"
The students milled in confusion before the sealed door. Souda yanked a set of tools from his pocket and shoved his way to the front.
— click... click... clack!
"Got it!! It's open!!"
""Then we're going in!!""
—CRASH!!
The instant Souda turned the lock, Owari and Nidai kicked the door in. It flew wide with a sound like a gunshot.
"All of you. Do not move."
"Hah... haaah...."
Beyond the ruined doorway, a nightmare was waiting.
"G-guys...!"
"You two. One more step, and this blade goes into Kei's throat."
"Kh..."
"I-is that Koizumi...?"
"S-Sis!!!"
"She's unconscious!? This is bad!!"
"Th-they both need treatment right now...!"
Kei was bound to a chair, a knife buried in his thigh. The blood sheeting down his leg told them, with ugly honesty, exactly how long the torture had gone on.
Koizumi hung limp and insensible. The red handprints ringing her throat, the tear-tracks on her face, the bruises mottling her arms and legs — all of it made horribly easy to imagine what she had just endured.
Peko held a blade to the throat of each of them, and her voice, when she warned the students who looked ready to charge, was winter itself.
"Final warning. Step back. Immediately. If you do not, I will cut them."
"You two... stop this!! I heard from Kirigiri how all of this started! It's not that I don't understand where you're coming from... but this is too far!!"
Hinata shouted it hoarsely, a bandage still wrapped around his stomach. Peko answered without warmth.
"I have never asked for your understanding. I am simply... following Young Master's wi—"
"...And then what? You kill Koizumi right here, and you die too? Koizumi did something wrong, yes — but it wasn't something you kill a person for. If you go through with this... I think both of you would deserve whatever hell you fall into."
Kirigiri's voice shook with anger. Peko closed her eyes, and when she spoke again it was almost mild.
"In that case... if you give us the photograph you are holding and allow us to confirm the truth... I will consider stopping at making her a cripple."
"...What?"
"We have already torn Nanami's room apart, and we tore Kei's room apart before coming here. Which means you have the photograph, Kirigiri. Do you not?"
"....."
"Young Master and I... wish to confirm the truth. So if you hand that photograph over... we will spare the redhead's life, instead of crippling her or blinding her. If you refuse... we will take your boyfriend's life as well."
The color drained from Kirigiri's face. She shut her eyes, and when she spoke her voice was not quite steady.
"...I have a condition."
"A condition?"
"I'll give you the photograph. In exchange... you hand Kei over."
"Hmph..."
"I think a condition of that size is more than fair."
"Ki... Kirigiri! Then what about Koizumi—"
"...If Pekoyama so much as twitches a finger right now, Koizumi dies. If we want to keep her alive... we don't have a choice."
"Th-that's..."
No one could quite bring themselves to argue. A low, sick murmur ran through the group. Peko looked at Kirigiri.
"Very well. In exchange... you come to this side alone. At the midpoint, I will hand over Kei. You will hand over the photograph. Young Master — this may become dangerous. Step back."
"...Peko."
"Quickly."
"....."
Kuzuryu squeezed his eyes shut and retreated. Kirigiri started forward, ignoring the hands that tried to hold her back.
"...Here."
"So this is the photograph..."
Kirigiri drew an envelope from her coat and held it out. Peko reached for it with one hand, the other still angling the knife at Kei's throat — but then—
"I'm counting on you with Kei and Koizumi."
"Kh...!"
Kirigiri threw herself forward. Peko got her fingers on the envelope, but she never had time to use the knife. The two of them hit the floor in a tangle.
"Kya... kyaaah!!"
"W-we have to help—!"
"Kei and Koizumi first! Secure them!"
The students reeled for a heartbeat at the sudden chaos, then split — some rushing to pull Kei and Koizumi out of the open, others charging to help Kirigiri. They did not get far.
"Hah... hah... Not bad."
"...Kh."
"All of you. Step back. If you do not... Kirigiri dies."
Peko had the knife at Kirigiri's throat before anyone had seen her move. The students fell back with faces twisted in helpless rage.
"I did not want to believe it... but as I thought..."
"Na... Natsumi...! She... she really..."
Peko and Kuzuryu opened the envelope. For a moment their faces went slack. Then they slid the photograph back inside.
"...It would appear this incident was the truth after all. Wouldn't you say, detective?"
"....."
"In that case, I will have to kill Koizumi."
Peko murmured it against Kirigiri's ear as if she were commenting on the weather. Kirigiri answered in a voice just as cold.
"If you kill Koizumi... do you really think we're going to leave Kuzuryu alone after that? The one you'd be leaving behind?"
"Young Master will leave this place unharmed. I will kill Koizumi. And Young Master... will kill you, the traitor."
"...What?"
"If a traitor is killed, a Class Trial is not convened, and the blackened escapes the island at once. We will use that school rule. Originally we intended to kill your boyfriend. Killing you instead should serve just as well."
"Everyone— mmph...!"
Kirigiri tried to shout something to the others. Peko's hand clamped over her mouth, and she addressed the room.
"The terms are similar to before. Hand Koizumi over. If you refuse, I kill Kirigiri. If you comply, I will release Kirigiri, and Koizumi's life alone will be spared."
"Nngh! Nngh! Nnnnngh!!"
"You would do well to decide before I count to three. One..."
"Wh-what do we do...?"
"I think my head's going to explode!!"
"Two..."
"Damn it! Every option here is the worst one!"
"E-even so... handing over Koizumi is still the better—"
"What are you talking about!! We are NOT handing Sis over!!"
"But if we don't, Kirigiri dies!!"
"Three...!"
"No!!! Kill me instead!! Please!!"
They were still tearing themselves apart over the choice when Peko finished the count. She ignored Kei's raw, breaking plea and brought the knife down toward Kirigiri's throat without a flicker of hesitation — and then—
"Wait!! Pekoyama!! Look at this!!"
"Stop!! This whole motive was fabricated by Monokuma!!"
Nanami burst in at the last possible second and flung a photograph. Peko's eyes caught it without thinking — and her whole body locked in place.
The children from the game were all there, smiling out of the frame.
"Th-this is..."
And dead in the center of the picture—
"Ah..."
—stood Kuzuryu's younger sister and Koizumi's friend, the two girls they had believed were dead, grinning with their arms slung around each other's shoulders, their hair and faces dripping with blood.
"Aah..."
Then Peko read the words printed underneath, and the knife slipped from her fingers and hit the floor.
In commemoration of our first play,
which concluded to great success.
"Idiots! Idiots! Idiot idiot idiots! You bunch of idiots!! What the hell do you think you're doing!!!"
"Na-Natsumi... please calm—"
"Fujisaki!!! Put me in the Neo World Program infiltration op!! I'll go in there myself and beat the stupid out of those idiots!!!"
"Even so... those people have lost their memories, so..."
"Idiots! You morons!! You goddamn moron of a brother! You stupid sister! Die! Just die already!!!"
"...Haaah."
The girl watched Natsumi vent her fury at the footage that had been broadcasting to the Future Foundation for days now — and then storm off to throw a full-blown tantrum at Fujisaki, who had been put in charge of the entire Neo World Program incident — and thought, not for the first time:
That temper of hers hasn't changed one bit...
The first time they had met, she would be lying if she said it had been easy to adjust. If she had never received counseling from him as a child — if that twisted personality of hers had never been set right — would a murder like that one really never have happened?
Nah... no way...
She shook her head and pushed the thought aside. Their first meeting had been a disaster, yes. But she had kept trying, and Natsumi had finally opened up, and now the girl was as close a friend as Koizumi herself. How could she ever have killed her?
The twisted child she used to be, maybe. The girl she was now — the one whose sickness of the heart had been healed — could not even imagine it. She let out a quiet breath and walked over to where Natsumi was still laying into Fujisaki.
"That's enough, Natsumi... We already agreed to leave the Neo World Program infiltration to the 78th Class."
"B-but! Those morons are—!"
"Monokuma is the one in the wrong. He's the one who took our play and twisted it on purpose to look like a real incident, and fooled everyone with it. Monokuma is the one you should be angry at."
"No!! How does a bunch of Ultimates fail to see through something like that!?!"
"Because it was a play every single one of us poured months of our lives into... and because we spent several times more effort on the makeup than on anything else. Of course they didn't recognize it. So stop just being angry, and..."
"Do you have any idea how worried I wa...!"
The anger cracked. Natsumi's voice went thick, and the tears came up behind it.
"You just... try dying on me... hic... if you die for a reason that stupid... I'll kill you myself..."
"It's all right... Luckily Fujisaki hacked the game, and Nanami played through it and found the truth... Everything's going to go back to the way it was..."
"Hhk... hic... waaaaah..."
"Hoo..."
Sato — Koizumi's oldest friend, and by now Natsumi's closest one as well, for all that Natsumi was Kuzuryu's little sister — pulled the sobbing girl into her arms and rubbed her back. Then her eyes found Kei on the monitor in the center of the office, and her thoughts drifted.
Still... Kei really is a strange one. I'm sure of it... he told me he wouldn't be able to enroll at Hope's Peak Academy because of a terminal illness...
After the play had ended, she had suddenly remembered the man who had rehabilitated her childhood self, and she had gotten in touch. Hearing that he had received an acceptance notice from Hope's Peak Academy had made her so happy.
And then he had told her he would not be able to enroll at all. She had asked why, startled — and he had said he had an incurable disease.
In a few months, he had said, in that bitter, tired voice, he would probably no longer be in this world. She could still remember how much that had hurt.
She had gone to visit him. He had been lying in the bed in his own room, waiting in lonely silence for the day he would die. When she had shouted at him for letting himself go like that, alone, he had said he did not want the children he had counseled to learn of his death and be sad.
Then why call me, she had asked. Because, he had said, she was one of the people who had left the deepest impression on him in his entire counseling career, and he had wanted to see her face one last time before he died.
Watching him scratch his head and talk about his own death as if he were discussing the weather had torn something in her. She had tried, after that, to forget him.
And then, on the day of the 78th Class entrance ceremony, he had walked in looking perfectly fine.
She had asked, stunned, what had happened to the illness. He had given her a vacant look and asked what on earth she was talking about. He had been even more of a fool after that than he used to be... but in the end, the way he always did, he had been there for everyo—
—Crack!!
Sato, still adrift in the past, heard the sound and looked at the monitor — and froze.
So did Natsumi, who had been crying her heart out. So did Fujisaki, who had been watching the two of them with a quiet smile.
"That's impossible... then... this incident... this whole incident...!"
"It was all a play. The photograph I showed you is the proof."
"Then... all this time, we..."
"Puhuhu!! Looks like I've been found out!!!"
Monokuma popped into existence the way he always did, laughing with a nastier edge than usual, and launched straight into it.
"I didn't think they'd actually intervene from the other side... How underhanded... wait, no, I'm the one who hacked in to begin with, so I guess what they did was a legitimate countermeasure...? This is kinda hard to define..."
"Monokuma! Things aren't going to go your way anymore...!"
"Monomi... one little moment in the spotlight and you get full of yourself, huh? I already cleaned that intrusion up completely! From here on out, I've locked the whole thing down so nobody can ever interfere again! Puhuhuhuhu!!"
"E-even if that's true... we stopped this one, so... that's..."
"Puhuhu... You really think you stopped it completely? Not quite... because, you see..."
Monokuma's laughter cut off. He turned a look of pure malice on Peko Pekoyama, and said something that dropped the temperature in the room.
"I still have to carry out Pekoyama's punishment!!"
"Wh-what...?"
"Puhuhu...! Don't tell me you forgot the very first school rule? Peko Pekoyama violated the rule against violence between students... and a fitting punishment is in order, don't you think...?"
Monokuma's hand unfolded into the shape of a cannon, and he announced it to the entire hall.
"All right, all right! Every student in Pekoyama's vicinity, please step away! We will now commence Pekoyama's punishm—"
"I won't let you!!"
"Puhuhu...?"
"You don't have the right!!"
"Monomi... you still don't know your place, do you? I already have full control of the sys—"
Monomi looked Monokuma dead in the eye, her voice ringing and clear.
"I deactivated School Rule Number One a little while ago!"
"Puhuhu...?"
"Thanks to the intrusion earlier, your enforcement authority dropped for a short time... so I used a portion of the authority I had left and deactivated Rule One! Which means you — bound by the school rules — cannot execute Pekoyama!!"
Monokuma let out a long, theatrical sigh, and muttered in a voice gone suddenly sulky.
"Haaah... And here I thought I was finally going to get to kill someone... Nothing ever goes my way... I miss the old days, when I could kill whoever I wanted, whenever I wanted, just like last time..."
"If you understand, then go away..."
"Fine, fine... Guess I'll just have to kill Monomi instead and work off some stress..."
"U-ugyaaaa...!"
Monokuma had her before anyone could move. Monomi's scream stretched and broke as she was dragged down through the floor, and then a thick, ringing silence settled over the banquet hall.
"...So. School Rule Number One is currently deactivated."
The silence had gone on a long time before someone broke it. Kirigiri was staring down at Peko and Kuzuryu — both of them sitting on the floor with the souls gone out of their faces — and her gaze was sharp enough to cut.
"Th-that's true, but... why are you bringing that u—"
—Crack!
"....."
—Slaaap!
"...Nnh."
Kirigiri put everything she had into both blows, one across Peko's cheek and one across Kuzuryu's. Then she looked at the students frozen around her, and opened her mouth.