Chapter Text
His head was killing him.
That's the first thing he realized, before he even noticed the feeling of someone shaking his shoulder like crazy. God, he needed an asprin or water or maybe more sleep - yeah, more sleep. That sounded right. Heavy lids started to close, his head trying to bury itself against a hard surface - is that why it hurt? - when the shaking becomes rougher than before.
"Hey! Hey, wake up, are you okay?" The voice is high pitched, it rings in his ears and makes his head hurt more, but there's concern in it. "Come on! Wake up!"
"You're being fucking annoying, Miki." Another voice growls out, the owner less concerned than the first. "Let's just let him sleep it off. He'll be fine."
"We should at least take him somewhere to lay down, not leave him on a desk!" The first voice (Miki?) cried out, and before they could say anything else, he groaned.
"Please, I have a headache..."
There's a yelp, and the hand on his shoulder shot away. He hears the second voice grumble something about being careful, and then it directs itself to him. "Listen, sleeping beauty, I'd be more than happy to let you rest, but no way is she going to give you a break, so -"
He groaned again, finally raising his head to look where the voices were coming from, blinking a few times until the people in the room with him come into focus.
It's two girls, one with short, tied up off white hair, and the other with longer, dark pink hair. The second girl stood with her arms crossed, leaning against the back wall with seemingly no care, while the white haired girl stood less than a foot from him. He grimiced, looking between the two. "I'm up, are you happy now?"
The white haired girl shook her head as her hands landed on her hips. "We were just checking on you, no need to be so rude, geeze."
"I wouldn't say i was being rude - I told you, my head hurt." He straights in the desk chair, rolling his shoulders, making note of the crick in his neck, surely from how he was sleeping. His eyes dart around the room a few times before settling back on the girls. "Where.... are we, by the way?"
"A class room." The pink haired girl replied, smile on her lips before she leaned forward. "You slept through the whole first day of school, dude."
"Miya, you're not that funny." White haired girl scolded, pulling her eyes away from him to look at the other girl.
"What are we doing at a school? I don't even remember getting ready this morning.." He mumbled, ignoring the two for a few moments.
"Uh, we're not actually sure about that, actually. None of us remember." The first girl admitted.
"None of us?"
"Yeah, it's not just the three of us here, in case you were wondering." The pink hair girl finally started approaching, and he noted that she was easily half a foot taller than her friend. "There's like... thirteen other people wandering around, we made groups and decided to look around this place. Didn't think we'd find someone new."
"By the way," The shorter girl jumped in. "I realize we didn't actually introduce ourselves, huh? I'm Miki Otonokoji, the Ultimate Composer!"
"And this right here is my cousin, Miyako Hashimoto, the Ultimate Forger."
"Ultimate Composer.... Ultimate Forger... What is that all about?" He asked, tilting his head.
"Huh?" Miki's brows furrowed a moment before her eyes widened. "Wait, are you saying you don't know what an ultimate talent is? Do you not have one?"
"No, I do. I just never introduce myself with my talent attached. I'm more than just what I can do."
Miki blinked while Miyako smirked, speaking up again. "Cute little mini speech there, but some of us realized, when we were trying to think of something we all have in common, that it's just that we're Ultimates. So I'd say its kind of needed."
He considered this for a few seconds before nodding his head. "Fine, whatever. I'm Ryōsuke Yamaguchi, the Ultimate Judge."
"The Ultimate Judge? Aren't you just a kid?" Miyako questioned. "Seem a little too young to me."
"And you two aren't too young to be the Ultimate Composer and the Ultimate Forger?" Ryōsuke replied. There's a brief pause before he shrugs. "Originally, I acted as a defender for students who had to go to the school disiplinary board, but eventually the board realized I was much better at making the decisions on students than helping them. Eventually, because my father is a lawyer, I was working under real judges, and, well -"
"Impressive. You could work on making the story less boring, but it's pretty cool." Miki interruped. She tapped her finger against her chin a few times. "Ryōsuke.... you think I can just call you Suke for short?"
"Huh?"
"Don't fight it, she'll do it anyway. She does it for everyone." Miyako explained, shaking her head. "Come on, let's head back to the gym. I'd say we got a pretty interesting discovery right here." With that, she turned on her heel, making her way out the door.
"Just follow us, Suke!" Miki chirped, following her cousin out.
Ryōsuke frowned, rolling his shoulders and neck again before he got off the chair, trailing after the two girls. The hallway had an eerie feel about it, and like his skin was starting to crawl. Miki pushed a door open, revealing a large gymnasium in front of them, empty except for two people sitting on the bleachers, a boy and a girl. The boy had an arm around the girl, running a hand along her back and speaking something to her quietly. The girl, for her part, simply just nodded, staring at her shoes.
"Yuu, Mi, you're both back already?" Miki called, practically skipping toward the pair.
"Yuu and Mi?" Ryōsuke mumbled, looking to Miyoka, who shrugged.
"She thought it was funny."
"Ah, Miki, hey." The boy spoke, seemingly startled by the high pitched girl. "We um. We didn't really leave yet, I'm sorry. But you two are done too -" His words were cut off as his gaze landed on Ryōsuke. "Uh, hi?"
"Hi, yeah, nice to meet you. I'm Ryōsuke Yamaguchi, the Ultimate Judge. I uh. I guess I wasn't present for the first introductions." Ryōsuke chuckled, heading to the others as well.
The boy nodded as he started to stand. "Nice to meet you. I'm Yuuto Makunouchi, the Ultimate Wrestler."
"It's nice to meet you - Ah! Your shirt! Is that.... blood? Are you okay?" Ryōsuke yelped.
"Huh? Oh, yeah, I'm fine, its old. Sometimes in wrestling, you hit someone hard, you get some blood." Yuuto smiled shyly, shrugging the jacket hanging off his shoulders back on to hide the stain. "Sorry, about that. And uh, this is my sister, Akemi Makunouchi." He said, gesturing to the girl.
Ryōsuke paused for a few moments, waiting for Akemi to speak up. When she didn't, he tilted his head. "And her talent?"
"I don't have one." Akemi's voice sounded dejected, shaky, as if she were about to cry.
"Akemi, uh... She's just having trouble remembering what it is right now." Yuuto jumped in quickly, his words more directed to her than anyone else. "She'll remember it soon, I promise."
"So, you two are brother and sister, and Miki and Miyako are cousins, that's actually pretty interesting. A little weird, too." Ryōsuke noted, fingers running through his hair as he thought about it.
"There's another pair of sibilings too," Yuuto added, his shoulders shrugging. "As far as I know that's the only other family."
"I thought Mana said that she and Ku are cousins with Zuki too." Miki blinked, fingers holding her chin gently.
"Riku told me it's just that their dad and her mother are technically adopted, so I guess in that way, yes, them too." Akemi explained, finally looking up from her feet. Her gaze met Ryōsuke, and she offered him the smallest of smiles.
"Faster, Kentarō! Susumu wants you to go faster!" A muffled voice cried out as the doors opened, three more people coming in through the doors.
"Speak of the devil," Yuuto smiled, as the trio rn to the center of the gym. Or, at least one of them was actually still running.
A boy with dark green hair tied into a bun on top his head lead the pack, on his back another with long, braided blue hair and a mask covering half their face pointing forward in a charging motion. A blonde girl was trailing behind them, finger poking into her cheek. "Hey guys, you don't want everyone to think we were goofing off the whole time, do you?"
"Actually, we wouldn't be that surprised, Yuzuki." Miyako corrected, gaining the trios attention.
"Oh! I didn't know so many people would be back by now. Here - Susumu, get off." The green haired boy said, causing his blue haired friend.
"Aw, but Susumu was having so much fun!" Alas, Susumu agreed, and Ryōsuke noted that they seemed to somehow be shorter than Miki. "Oh! Hello there, Susumu didn't see you earlier, did he?"
"No, I just woke up and joined everyone. Hello, I'm Ryōsuke Yamaguchi, the Ultimate Judge. Nice to meet you."
"Ryōsuke! Hello hello! Susumu is Susumu Inori, the ultimate Emergency Physican!"
"You're a physican? You're not what I would expect of one, honestly?"
"Eh? What do you mean? You don't think Susumu would do their best to help people?" There was almost a sad look on Susumu's face, though the mask over their face was hard to really tell.
"No, it's not that," Ryōsuke explained, holding his hands out. "Just, when I think of a doctor, they're just less casual, just a lot more stuffy or serious."
"Which is fair, people would say the same about a judge too though, right?" The blonde girl said, hands resting on her hips, her expression more insulted, seemingly for Susumu's sake.
"Think of it this way, Ryōsuke," The green hair boy joined in, though his face was more gentle, pushing at his glasses. "If you are in an emergency room feeling very ill, would you rather a stuffy and serious doctor who will simply tell you whats wrong or move on, or someone like Susumu, who is full of energy and will cheer you up?"
"Okay, okay, I'm sorry. I didn't mean anything by it, really."
"It's okay. But, moving on, I'm Kentarō Uehara, the Ultimate Curator. But if you want to, you can call me Ken for short."
"And I'm Yuzuki Kurokawa, the Ultimate Scribe!" The blonde introduced, her former bad mood seemingly gone.
"I know what a curator is," Words came out slowly, careful not to annoy Yuzuki again, "but what exactly is a scribe?"
Before she could even respond, Ken spoke up. "The simplest way to think of it is almost like a court clerk, but sometimes more for religious or medical things. In Yuzuki's case, she seems to mostly scribe medical information."
"But Yuzuki and Susumu have never worked together before, if you were wondering!" Susumu chirped.
"That's pretty good for introductions, you three!" Miki was suddenly by Ryōsuke, one hand on her hip, the other pointing accusingly at the trio. "Did you actually find anything out, or were you just goofing off!"
For a moment, Ryōsuke wondered if Miki saw herself in charge in some way of the rest of them.
"Well, we didn't find much." Ken admitted, taking his glasses off and using his scarf to wipe them off. Ryōsuke thought to offer him one of his glasses wipes. "There's a bunch of staircases, but they are all blocked off. We couldn't find anything due to that."
"Susumu feels like Ryōsuke is probably going to be the biggest discovery we find today!"
"Ah, yeah, I guess I am..." Ryōsuke rubbed the back of his neck; Yuuto and Akemi were talking amongst themselves again, and Miyako seemed to just watch the group, bored with their discussions.
The gym door swung open again, and two more entered the room, much quieter than the previous group. Ryōsuke blinked as they came in; the two almost looked identical, but the differences in their hair and eyes, while slight, gave it away that they weren't.
"So, sadly, it looks like the infirmary is blocked off for us to get into. Susumu, if someone gets hurt, I'm not sure what you're going to do." Said the one with short, reddish hair, their eyes a bit more narrowed than their companion, who in turn had longer, darker hair and bigger eyes.
"So the stairs and the infirmary are all blocked? That's... odd." Yuuto said, tuning back into the conversations.
"Not just that, but the entrance of the school too. How did we get in if that's blocked off?" The new girl mused.
It was weird. What kind of school had so much blocked off, even the way to get in?
"Before we go through this again," Miki said, clapping her hands together (Yes, Ryōsuke decided, she did think she was in charge.) "Kisaragi twins, this is Suke, Suke, this is the Kisaragi twins!"
"Miki, we explained, we're not actually twins," The red head sighed. "We have the same father, yes, but different mothers, and we are a day apart."
"Different mothers, but just a day apart? That's weird timing, isn't it?"
"Well, it was planned by the three of them." The dark haired girl admitted. "It's a long story. But I'm Manami Kisaragi, the Ultimate Seamstress. Nice to meet you!"
"And I am Riku Kisaragi, the Ultimate School Counselor. As my sister said."
"It's nice to meet you both. But I really am concerned about what I'm hearing." Ryōsuke crossed his arms, closing his eyes for a moment. "So any staircase in the building is closed, and so is the infirmary, so if we're hurt, what are we supposed to do? And you said the entrance is blocked off, right, Manami? So... is there a way out of the building?" His headache from earlier started to return, and he peeked an eye open to look at the blue haired doctor. "Susumu, what are the chances you have an asprin on you?"
"Oh, Ryōsuke, you're in luck! Susumu always carries a bag with various safe medicines in them!" Susumu grinned happily, rocking back and forth on their feet.
But offered no such bag.
"Uh, Susu?" Miki smiled shyly. "Do you... have this bag here? I think Suke would like it now."
"Ah! Oh, Susumu is so sorry. Susumu hasn't seen his bag since he woke up."
"It's.... it's okay. Thank you, anyway." Ryōsuke sighed, rubbing his head gently.
The door swung open again, and two more boys made their way into the gym. "So, the good news is that there seems to be some sort of school gift store," One of the boys, who looked as tall as Ryōsuke and sported a short brown ponytail announced. "But the bad news is that there doesn't seem to be anything in it but magazines, waters and some sort of weird looking gumball machine."
"We also ran into Mayumi and Chiyoko," Continued the second boy, face completely covered by think blond bangs that made Ryōsuke wonder not only how we knew who the pair saw, but how he saw them at all. "The said they thought they found some sort of staircase and were gonna go down it."
"A staircase? But all the ones we found were blocked off." Yuzuki said, crossing her arms over her chest. "How, exactly, did those two plan on going down it?"
Before either boy could answer, another voice interrupted. "It wasn't like the stairs going up at the end of the halls, Kurokawa." Answered a blue haired girl, marching to the group with an urgency that none of the others from before really had.
Just steps behind was another girl, hair a split between a lime green and a cotton candy pink. Of the four new members, she was the only one who seemed to notice Ryōsuke there, looking at him over the rim of her glasses. "You're new." She noted, halting her search partners next words. "My name is Chiyoko Mitsume, and I'm the Ultimate Social Worker."
"Uh, yeah, I am. I'm Ryōsuke Yamaguchi, the Ultimate Judge." Ryōsuke nodded at her, though she was already bringing her attention back to everyone else in the gym, everyone who already presented their findings sitting on the bleachers at this point.
"The Ultimate Judge, huh? Well, that answers the question about that last room down there. And here I was hoping we had an answer for Akemi." The blue hair girl sighed.
"What do you mean?" Akemi perked up, Yuuto looking with interest too.
"So, down the left hall from the gym, tucked in a corner, is a door with a staircase going downstairs. And in this basement area are these four large rooms, all called Ultimate labs." The girl answered.
"Each of these rooms are marked clearly." Chiyoko continued. "There's the Ulitmate Curator lab for Kentarō, The Ultimate Scribe lab for Yuzuki, The Ultimate Sculptor lab for Haruto, and then there was the Ultimate Judge lab, which until now we thought may help with Akemi's lapse in memory."
"I'm sorry to interrupt this," Ryōsuke said quickly, drawing eyes to him. "But I only know Ken and Yuzuki. Who is Haruto?"
"Oh, that's me!" The brunette ponytailed boy from earlier said, raising his hand. "Sorry about that! Haruto Kasai, Ultimate Sculptor, at your service!"
"And I am Hachirou Magarobi, the Ultimate Model." The blond boy he came in with added.
"You're a.... model? No offense, but with your face so covered, I don't understand who you're modeling for." Ryōsuke admitted sheepishly.
"Geeze, you sure are judgy, Suke!" Miki hissed, elbowing his side.
"Makes sense for the Ultimate Judge," He heard Miyako laugh out, causing him to glare at her from the corner of his eye.
"I understand," Hachirou interjected. "Truthfully, it's a way to keep some sort of anonymity. Yes, you could look up my work and easily see what I look like, but sometimes people are looking to see facial features if they think they know who someone is, right? So, I keep that covered when I'm not working. Of course, this isn't the only measure I take to ensure privacy, but..."
"Yes, well, for the sake of continuing our talk, I hope you don't mind I interrupt and introduce myself, do you, Magarobi?" The blue haired girl asked. Hachirou gestured for her to continue, and she did. "Mayumi Kinjo, the Ultimate Archer. Now, is everyone here? Can we continue?"
"Hold on, Umi!" Miki stood up quickly. "Ko and Kei aren't back yet!"
"Who and who - would it kill you to just use our names? There are plenty of people who use both those names in their full names." Mayumi fumed.
"Well, actually, Keiko is the only person with 'Kei' in their name." Riku pointed out.
"Hah, actually, she uses both Ko and Kei then, huh?" Yuzuki giggled.
Before Mayumi could shoot anything back, the door opened one last time.
"This just in, breaking news!" Cried the blue haired boy running into the gym, grin pulling on his lips, a pink haired girl sprinting past him before skidding to a stop. "The Ultimate Investigative Duo known as Keiko and Aiko have made a big discovery! The biggest discovery of them all! Far better than anyone else here could... possibly... have... hey, who the hell is he?"
"This is Ryōsuke Yamaguchi, me and Miki found him when we were looking through the classrooms by accident. So unless you two found another person, I think we may have won that one." Miyako corrected.
While the boy seemed to deflate at this, the pink haired girl just laughed before sticking a hand out toward Ryōsuke. "Keiko Tomori, Ultimate Triathonlist. Nice to meet you, Ryōsuke Yamaguchi."
"And my name is Aiko Chiebukuro," The boy added, bouncing back quickly. "The Ultimate News Anchor!"
"If you couldn't already tell, by that entrance." Keiko giggled again.
"Nice to meet you both. I'm the Ultimate Judge."
"Ultimate Judge, huh? That's fascinating, especially with how young you seem to be." Aiko said, leaning forward a bit. "Remind me when we get out to tell my dad, he'd love to write a story about that."
Ryōsuke laughed nervously, not sure what to say, when Miki cleared her throat.
She really, really wanted to lead this discussion.
"Ko, Kei, what is it that you found?" She asked, foot tapping impatiently.
"Oh, right!" Aiko straighted, flashing a smile. "We found another hallway that lead to what I'm assuming is an attached building to the school, and it's got a whole bunch of dorm rooms, and some sort of storage room with a bunch of supplies."
"As well as a cafeteria, and a kitchen that's pretty packed with food" Keiko added. "We're guessing that building is where we're going to stay while we go to school here."
"And I have to assume," Mayumi spoke, "That the rest of those Ultimate labs Mitsuki and I found are on those blocked off stairs. Hashimoto also said there's actual classrooms, so... what we seemed to have done is.. find out that..."
"That we're just in a school. Probably one under construction." Riku interrupted. "I feel like we could have discovered this without splitting up and all. Who's bright idea was it to do that again?"
Miki flushed, and then sat down wordlessly.
"Ryōsuke! If there is a stoage room with plenty of supplies, Susumu thinks there must be something for your head! They will go with you to look." Susumu declared.
"I could go for some food right now," Yuuto sighed, standing up. "I can't cook to save my life, but there has to be stuff for sandwiches, right?"
"I do know how to cook a bit," Manami said, smiling happily. "I can try and make us all brunch!"
The group agreed, and everyone started to get up, stretching and climbing down the bleacher steps to make their way to the attached building Aiko and Keiko found.
As they did, Ryōsuke noticed, out of the corner of his eye, a television attached to the far wall of the gym flicker on, and a static filled image filled the screen. He paused, looking to it curiously.
"Suke? What's wrong?"
"Am I on? Can everyone hear me? Okay, well then.. To all incoming students! I would like to begin the entrance ceremony! Please make your way to the gymnasium at your earliest convenience!"
The television flickered off, and the group stood there for a moment, dumfounded.
"Gymnasium?" Riku repeated after a moment. "Aren't we here now?"
"Ah, so you are! Wonderful!"
Heads turned to where the voice came from, near the stage, and watched as out of nowhere, a black and white colored bear spung from underneath the stage and on top of the podium that was on it.
What the....
"Hello, all new students, and welcome to the New and Improved Hope's Peak Academy! I am your headmaster, Monokuma!"
Silence.
Complete and utter silence for what felt like minutes upon minutes.
"What? Have you people never seen a bear headmaster before."
"No, it's not that - but also no, I haven't, ever." Ken said, shaking his head. "It's just that... What is Hope's Peak Academy?"
"Yeah," Miki agreed, "And why is it New and Improved?"
"Is... is that where we are?" Keiko asked.
"You kids never heard of this school? Were you not scouted based on your Ultimate talents?" The bear, Monokuma, asked.
A small rumbles of "No," and "Not that I remember" followed.
"Huh, well, that's unexpected. I'll have to figure out what went wrong there later." The bear didn't seem too concerned about this. "Well, either way, this is where you are now, and it's where you'll be staying for the rest of your lives!"
"What? What do you mean?" Aiko said, looking around. "You.... You can't actually keep us here forever."
"Yeah, what?" Yuzuki chimed in. "I'm telling you right now, I don't think Manami or Riku's dad would allow that, and I think he has the power to shut this down." Manami nodded in agreement, though Riku was watching Monokuma carefully.
"Kids these days. Did you not notice that the doors and windows are blocked off? I know I heard you talking about that before." If Monokuma could sigh, he probably would. "However, if you don't want to spend the rest of your lives here, there is one way for you to leave the school."
Nobody said anything, but niether did Monokuma. Finally, Mayumi spoke up. "Well? What is it?"
"As headmaster, I've crafted a special clause for those of you who would like to leave! I call it... the Graduation Clause! And the way to graduate.... is to kill someone else."
Silence filled the room again, but it was a confused, shocked one this time.
"K-Kill someone?" Yuuto finally said.
"Puhuhu... Yes! Kill someone, anyone! Murder! Stabbing, strangling, bludgeoning, crushing, hacking, drowning, igniting, how you do it doesn't matter. You must kill someone if you want to leave. It's as simple as that. As long as you don't get caught, you can walk out those doors freely!"
It was quiet again. Everyone was staring at each other, with varying levels of concern and confusion.
"Nobody is doing that..." Ryōsuke broke the silence, looking at the strange teddy bear now, eyes narrowing. "That's stupid. Nobody is just gonna kill someone like that. And even if they were, this school would just be a bloodbath. That's stupid."
"You're not the first one to say that, bucko! And while a bloodbath does sound fun, that would be against the school rules!"
"Rules? What rules?" Riku asked.
"Glad you asked! If you go to your rooms, you'll find your own Student Handbooks waiting for you in there, where you can find all the school rules for living a peaceful life! Keep those on you from now on, because they'll be the only way to enter half the rooms in here anyway."
A new silence fell, but it wasn't so quickly broken this time.
"Geeze, you guys are boring. Well, I'm going to figure out why none of you knew you were coming here, you can go back to your nice little lunch break. See ya later!"
And with that, the odd bear sunk away, leaving everyone in the gym in their silence.
Ryōsuke stood in the middle of the group, looking around him as each gaze of his peers started to grow nervous, anxious, paranoid. Nobody had any clue what that thing was talking about, or where it went, or what they were going to do now. Ryōsuke was standing in his own little world, letting it all sink, when he felt a hand on his arm, causing him to turn.
"Ryōsuke?" Keiko was beside him, concern in her eyes. "You look pale, why don't you sit, they said your head was hurting and this... stress can't be good."
"No, no, I'm fine. Thank you. I think... I'm just going to find my room instead." Ryōsuke said, turning on his heel and pulling away from Keiko, who just looked at him concerned.
He moved quickly to get out of the gym, and he didn't stop until he found the connecting hall. He felt like he was on autopilot, walking into the new building, following a sign that said dorms, and finding the door with his picture on it. Ryōsuke pushed the handle, slipping into the room and letting the door shut behind him. He heard a sound like the door locked by itself; it made sense, he was pretty sure there was a sensor next to it, probably for the handbook.
But he didn't worry about that right now, instead letting his body hit the floor, the pounding in his head worse, making him feel sick.
What was going on?
Why was this happening?
What was he going to do?
Prolouge: Welcome to Hell's Peak, END.