Danganronpa: ReProgrammed

A Next Generation Legend: Part 6

Once again, Chihiro woke up the next morning, like the previous day, when the trial happened, feeling quite sore. However, once you've exercised your butt off once, it becomes a little easier to do the next time.

Chihiro slumped himself to the cafeteria. When he arrived there, he noticed that Taka and Mondo were laughing there, jovially, acting like they had done the day that everyone found out they had bonded in the sauna.

"You know, I really don't know whether I should curse you, or thank you..." Junko leaned in to say to Chihiro at the dining table "for one thing, they're being annoying again, but for another, at least they're not depressed anymore..."

"It's not my doing either way!" Chihiro exclaimed "we just worked out together last night and talked and stuff...I didn't really do anything..."

"Well, it's nice to see people getting along," Kyoko added "especially given the sour mood everyone was in yesterday..."

"Yeah, it's good to see Mondo happy again. He seemed real down and out after he told us all that stuff about his brother...Oh, and here's your coffee Kyoko..." Junko said, handing Kyoko a cup of coffee, which Kyoko took with a smile.

"Speaking of people getting along..." Makoto joined in on the conversation "since when are you two such good friends?"

"Huh? U-Us?" Junko seemed quite surprised at this incentive.

"He has a point," Chihiro said "the two of you seemed kind of hostile towards each other before now...What brought the change?"

"I wouldn't say we were hostile..." Kyoko replied "Junko just doesn't seem to trust me fully..."

"That's only because you keep so many things from us and smile like you know all my secrets," Junko told her "but now that there's less of us...I'm deciding to give you the benefit of the doubt for now..."

Kyoko seemed happy at this, but as she nodded her head, Taka suddenly cut short his conversation with Mondo and addressed the group.

"Ok everyone," he boomed "it's been long enough, so I believe this is our numbers today...So we have...1...2...3...4...Um...9 out of 11 people! Who's missing?"

9 people... Chihiro thought and there were 15 of us to start with...

"Well, Byakuya's not here, which is nothing new..." Makoto reminded him "but the other..."

"Yeah, looks like Sakura's bunking again..." Junko said.

"Damn, she must still be hurtin'" Mondo thought "if only we coulda invited her to exercise last night..."

"She's a strong hearted woman. I doubt she'll let it burden her for long," Taka considered "we'll probably see her around later today. I will excuse her absence just this once!"

"But...you've done it twice man..." Hiro reminded him "and you've done if god knows how many times for Byakuya now..."

"Hey," Mondo leered "how 'bout you shut up?"

This worked.

"Yeah, I agree with Mr Ishimaru," Hifumi said "Ms Ogami is not the type of person who will crash to the ground at the slightest disturbance. She'll pick herself back up again...I'm sure..."

"Congratulations Hifumi," Celeste smirked "you finally said something motivational for a change..."

Breakfast went by pretty uneventfully. Sakura didn't show up, but Byakuya appeared for a split moment. He entered the room, and didn't glance in anyone's direction, despite a few people staring at him. He just headed straight into the kitchen and left with a plate of food, presumeably to head back to the library. No one even tried to talk to him.

During breakfast however, Kyoko approached Chihiro, and took him over to a corner of the cafeteria. Thankfully, no one seemed to notice, so no one was going to interrupt.

"You seem well," Kyoko observed "that exercise has done you good..."

"I'm as good as I can be given the situation," Chihiro explained "I'm thinking of going to check up on Alter Ego tonight...But I don't know if I'll be able to because of my new schedule with Mondo, and Taka if he decides to keep joining us..."

"You needn't worry about that," Kyoko said "I will gladly do it for you...But that brings me to what I wanted to ask...How sure are you that nobody else is going to discover Alter Ego in that locker?"

"Well, I'm confident enough, and I assume so is he," Chihiro told her "Alter Ego is an AI based around me, so they think exactly like I do. In reality, if I were them, if I were to be attacked or stolen, my first instinct would be to yell as loud as possible so someone would come running."

"Forgive me, but that's a fairly primitive backup plan..." she couldn't help but snark "and besides, how exactly is that effective during the night time? The walls of our rooms are soundproof."

"A-Ah! That's right..." Chihiro recalled "I completely forgot about that...but, as long as someone hears them, they won't be in any danger. At least one or two people are about during the night..."

"Once we've all returned to our rooms, we wouldn't be able to hear them scream at any volume..." Kyoko reminded him.

"Right..." Chihiro said "then, how about during the night, we watch over the dressing room in shifts?"

"With your training regime with Mondo and Taka, that may be difficult for you, and as serious as I'm taking it, I wouldn't want to stand guard to the changing rooms at night," Kyoko said bluntly "furthermore, doing that would draw too much attention to the changing rooms. Not only do we risk the suspicion of the others, but we also risk being noticed by the Mastermind if we keep going in and out of that room...But there is one solution..."

"And...what's that?" Chihiro asked. The answer however, made his blood run cold.

"I'll keep my door open during the night time," she said "that way, I'll hear their cries with no problems. I won't fail to notice if they end up in any danger."

"But Kyoko, that's really dangerous!" Chihiro exclaimed, shushing himself as he accidently said it louder than he meant to "i-if you leave your door wide open during the night, th-then-!"

"I know," she smirked "there's a chance that I could be killed...but you'd be the only one who knows...And also...could anyone here really kill me? Personally, I'd like to see them try..."

As she said this last part, her smirk completely vanished. There was power in Kyoko's words. Power that Chihiro noticed almost immediately. The air of confidence in her words, as well as her words themselves, reminded him of something that Byakuya would say...However, there was a fundamental difference. The difference being akin to comparing someone who was thrown into a war, to someone who was raised on the battlefield. Thoughts began to pile up in Chihiro's head, before he finally responded.

"Ok...I'll just trust your judgement for now," he said "but I want to go and check on them later."

"Fine by me," she said "just don't stay too long or the Mastermind may get suspicious..."

Right now, rather than reckless endangerment at the hands of the mastermind, the best course of action seemed to be allowing Alter Ego to continue their analysis. After all, that was their only hope...