Time flowed on until evening, and every last student gathered in the dining hall.
"Hiiyaah~! Dinner tastes the best after getting over a sickness~!"
"You still eat well... enough that it's a pleasure just watching you."
Owari was devouring food with the ferocity of someone making up for every meal she'd missed while bedridden. Nidai watched her with a relieved expression.
By this point, Nidai should have already become a robot in the original course of events, but thankfully, it seemed the current Nidai had completely escaped the fate of becoming Mecha Nidai.
"Ibuki is totally back, babyyy!! To celebrate this glorious resurrection, it's time for a death live sho—!"
"No. Restrain yourself."
Ibuki had returned to her usual hyperactive self. She was someone who should have been dead and gone by now, but once again, we'd managed to twist fate out of shape. Honestly, I was just glad I'd get to keep seeing her this lively self from now on.
"Ahaha, seeing everyone gathered together like this feels really nice...! I'm still weak, but I can definitely feel the hope...!"
"We're really just going to leave that guy out here...?"
"His body's tied up, isn't it? Well... it's true he did help with this incident..."
"Even so... that bastard isn't just a little crazy..."
"Stuffing him in the storage room won't solve anything. He'd just keep crawling back out anyway. Better to keep him beside us and watch him."
"...If you pull anything funny one more time, we're throwing you into the ocean."
Komaeda sat there with his entire body bound, smiling as the abuse rained down on him. As expected of a hope-obsessed deviant.
"E-Everyone...! I'm so, so sorryyy...!! Trash like me... tr-trash like meee...!"
Tsumiki had been apologizing to all of us nonstop for a while now. When she came down with the Despair Disease and regained her memories, she'd remembered everything—but as the illness weakened, those memories naturally slipped away from her again.
Still, the memories of hurting the others remained, which made calming her down a nightmare.
"Tsumiki, calm down. The others have already forgiven—"
"No...! It's nowhere near enough to atone...! I have to offer up my body, at least..."
"Mikan. Stop."
"....."
At Nanami's firm voice, Tsumiki finally fell silent, then started crying in muffled little sobs. Watching the others comfort her, I sank into thought.
'A personality-reversal disease... what a joke.'
Thanks to that, I'd lived long enough to become a first-rate troll. And after piling up way too much karmic debt, I'd just gotten my soul sucked dry by Kirigiri.
...The fact that I kind of liked it was a secret.
"...Why are you grinning like that again?"
"Ah... Kyoko..."
"You still haven't come to your senses, have you...?"
"Th-That's...!"
Kirigiri spoke to me in a voice cold enough to frost glass.
"I-I want K to... come to his senses already... ngh...!"
"...?"
"...Forget what I just said."
Come to think of it, Kirigiri's way of speaking still hadn't completely gone back to normal. Because of that, these weirdly adorable situations kept happening.
"By the way... where did Monomi go? She was the biggest reason the Despair Disease got cured, so we even prepared a welcome party for once..."
"You guys really are idiots... throwing a welcome party for someone who might be on Monokuma's side, and even if she's not, might only maybe be one of the good guys..."
Saionji muttered that under her breath. Well, she had a point... but considering she was the one who got excited and took the lead in making the cake look hideous beyond reason, she wasn't exactly in a position to talk.
"Yeah...! A party means food...! I'm drooling already..."
"Hanamura, I always think this, but your cooking really is incredible. As expected of the [Ultimate Cook]..."
"No, not 'cook'—it's 'chef,' got it...? Anyway, I made all this because you asked me to... but can Monomi even eat food...?"
"Well, if she can blow out the candles on the cake... and get that cake smashed all over her, I don't think it matters, right...?"
More than anything, it felt like the others just wanted an excuse to celebrate something. To commemorate something. After everything we'd been through, I understood that impulse... but the truth was, this wasn't the time to relax.
Because this motive...
"Upupupu? So this is where everybody was? But... what's with this cake...? D-Don't tell me this is a surprise present for me, your beloved headmaster...?"
"That's for Monomi—!"
Fwoooosh!!
Monokuma blew hard, and the candles stuck into the cake went out in an instant. Thanks to that, the cake—already a visual monstrosity—was blasted apart so thoroughly it didn't even leave a recognizable shape behind.
"M-My masterpiece..."
Ignoring Saionji's tearful whimper, Monokuma slowly looked around at all of us and began to speak.
"Well then... now that we've gotten rid of that eyesore... I guess it's about time I gave you all a biiig service...!"
"A big service...?"
"That's right! Unlike your exploration so far, this time I've prepared a very special reward...!"
The moment Monokuma mentioned a reward, everyone started pressing him for details. Grinning, he answered.
"On the new island, I've prepared tons of things you all want...! For example... clues about the Future Foundation, parts you can use to build a boat, and even your profiles from your Hope's Peak Academy days...!"
At those last words, Hinata flinched, but then he shook his head and glared at Monokuma. Looks like he'd realized something after all.
"Th-This... we have to go, don't we? If there really are boat parts... maybe we can escape this island!"
"Ahaha, 'Future Foundation,' huh... In that case, I should go too. I'm curious about the watchers' true identities, after all..."
"What the heck? I haven't even finished eating yet..."
"...First, we should finish all the food here before moving."
That wouldn't work. We still hadn't prepared anything. We couldn't afford to get trapped already.
"Um... the patients only just recovered, and a lot of people haven't slept because they were taking care of them, so... how about we investigate tomorrow instead...?"
The moment I cautiously spoke up, everyone went quiet and looked at me.
"Whoa... that's really K. Normal K."
"You've been so quiet, I thought you were secretly still infected with the Despair Disease and planning to do something weird... what a relief."
"K-kun, you really are K-kun, right?"
"Tch. Sick or not sick, those two are glued together either way."
"Come to think of it... you look weirdly exhausted. But the detective next to you looks weirdly refreshed."
I'd only opened my mouth once, and this was the reaction I got. I hadn't realized my personality shift had made that much of an impact. At this point, should I just pretend to be insane and keep acting like I did when I had the Despair Disease?
"Well... if it's normal-state K saying it..."
"I am pretty tired right now... and it's almost night anyway, so I think it'd be better to start searching tomorrow."
"Yaaawn... I wanna sleep..."
"Munch munch... in that case... let's all gather in the dining hall tomorrow morning... and head to the new island together."
It was a real shame I couldn't aggressively close in on Kirigiri anymore, but still, my normal self was definitely better than Despair Disease me. At least the others trusted me.
"Upupupu... well, do whatever you want... the reward isn't going anywhere... upupupupu..."
Monokuma let out that revolting laugh and disappeared.
With Monokuma gone, everyone finally started eating in earnest. After surviving one brush with death after another over the past few days, the group had grown much closer, and they were laughing together, enjoying the party with surprising warmth...
But I couldn't laugh at all.
This motive can't be stopped.
Because this motive was one of the most hopeless in the entire series: lock everyone inside the Funhouse and starve them until a murderer appears.
Even if we secretly stockpiled food, it would run out eventually. Even if we desperately tried to keep hope alive, somehow, some way, a victim would still appear in the end.
A lot had changed because I'd come to this world, but every motive on Jabberwock Island had played out exactly like the game. I couldn't cling to the hope that only this one would be different.
Once my thoughts reached that point, my chest tightened and my throat went bone-dry. I grabbed the glass of water beside me and gulped it down, but the suffocating pressure didn't ease in the slightest.
In the end, unable to bear the oppression and turmoil any longer, I quietly stepped out of the dining hall.
.
.
.
.
.
"Haa..."
I was walking alone through the park. I knew exactly what kind of situation was waiting for us, so there was no way I could sit there calmly eating dinner. I just started wandering without any real destination.
Usually, walking around like this would clear my head, but now it only made the pressure build higher and higher. Well, of course it did. Anyone would feel this way if they knew that soon, no matter what they tried, one of the people they'd grown attached to was going to die.
What made this motive especially vicious was that suicide didn't count. In other words, even if someone sacrificed themselves like Sakura Oogami did in the first game, there would be no Class Trial, and the confinement would continue. The only thing that could break the imprisonment was murder.
'Then all we have to do is avoid the Funhouse... ah, no. It's not that simple.'
The current Enoshima's Alter Ego wasn't like the Junko Enoshima of the previous killing game, whose goal had been to broadcast our despair to the entire world.
Its goal was simply to kill us by any means necessary and unleash Enoshima Mark Two on the world. Luring in the Future Foundation along the way was just a bonus.
So there was no way an Alter Ego like that would abandon such a useful motive just because we refused to enter the Funhouse. It would definitely find some way—any way—to lock us inside.
'Then... the only method left is...'
On the way to the dining hall after I'd fully recovered, Nanami had told me that a "one-time escape code" had been activated on my E-Handbook.
So I turned it on, and a window with the following message had appeared.
One-Time Escape Code Input:
※ Warning: Due to security rules, if you enter it incorrectly even once, the escape code will be disabled.
I knew how to input the escape code, but I had no idea what the code itself was. Worse, only Kirigiri and I could use it.
If that was the case, then the only hope left was Monomi. The players used to call her "Uselessmi," but with how many things had changed, she'd actually shown herself to be surprisingly competent, so maybe...
'Good grief... how did Monomi end up becoming our only hope...?'
Thinking about it any longer felt like it'd just split my head open, so I sat down on a bench in the park and closed my eyes. I was sitting there with my eyes shut, letting out a deep sigh, when suddenly someone spoke to me.
"What are you doing here?"
"Kyoko."
"The wolf turned back into a puppy... and now you're a stray dog?"
Kirigiri smiled as she tossed out the joke, but even seeing her face now didn't make me smile. And how could it? This motive was going to put her in danger too.
In the original story, she only barged in during the final trial. The reason she'd gotten dragged into this killing game at all... was probably entirely because of me.
Trying desperately to hide the guilt and fear in my eyes, I stared at the ground. She sat down beside me and spoke.
"...What's wrong?"
"Kyoko..."
It was cowardly, but with her alone, I wanted to confess everything. If I didn't, I felt like I was going to lose my mind.
"If... a motive appeared that couldn't be stopped no matter what... and no matter how hard we tried... in the end, a killer and a victim were still going to appear... what do you think we'd do...?"
"....."
"And if the trust and hope we've protected all this time... shattered in an instant, and a killing game of mutual suspicion began? Then what are we supposed to do...?"
"K."
Kirigiri looked at me in silence. I looked back at her just as quietly, and for a while, neither of us said a word.
"Is it a motive that can't be stopped even with a sacrifice?"
"....."
"I thought so."
"...Hoo."
Kirigiri lowered her head without a word and began staring at the ground.
"...That's a relief, in a way. If sacrifice could solve it... you definitely would've thrown your life away without saying a word."
"That's..."
"It's true, isn't it? Kind, hopelessly kind K. K who's fine with anything happening to himself, as long as everyone else turns out okay... K who's selfish only toward himself."
"....."
Seeing me rendered speechless, Kirigiri smiled faintly and spoke in a quiet voice.
"Until now... you've probably thought that if things got bad enough, you could just throw away your own life. So how does it feel? To face a situation you can't solve even by sacrificing yourself?"
"...It feels like hell."
"Yeah. It really does feel like hell. To think the day would come when our dear counselor's signature move—self-sacrifice—would be completely worthless."
When I glanced at Kirigiri, her expression was as cold and composed as ever, but her body was trembling little by little.
Well... of course. Even she couldn't stay untouched in a situation like this.
Just as I was about to say something to her, Kirigiri spoke first, her voice trembling.
"But... what if one more person were added?"
"What...?"
Still shaking, but with a voice that was proud and unwavering, Kirigiri declared it to me.
"Sacrifice isn't yours alone."
The instant I heard those words, I bitterly, viscerally regretted telling Kirigiri the truth.