Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"Ugh... what the hell...?"

Ena Shinonome awoke to the feeling of cool metal beneath her cheek, and a splitting headache raging inside her skull.

"My head..."

When she opened her eyes, she found herself alone inside of a tiny room, having apparently been sleeping with her head down on a small metal table about the size of a school desk.

The room was spartan, with nothing more than bare white painted walls and a dull metal floor. It was also incredibly cramped—about the size of a small closet—with space for little more than her seat, the table in front of her, and a footlocker on the floor to her right. Somewhere in the distance, she could hear the brrrrrrrr of a running engine, and the roar of ocean waves. The smell of the ocean filled the air, too: salt and seaweed.

"Where the hell am I...?"

Ena pushed her seat back from the table and tried to get up—only to stumble as the floor beneath her swayed, sending her off balance. She fell backwards into a door behind her; her head made a loud clang as it bounced off the metal, only further adding to her headache.

"Owwww!" she yelped. "What the fuck—"

The footlocker beside her began to rattle and shake as something inside banged against the lid. Ena froze in shock, her head snapping towards the locker.

"Hello! I-Is someone there?!" a familiar voice called out from within. "Please, let me out!"

"Hang on!" Ena called back and dropped to her knees to inspect the locker, her pain now entirely forgotten for the moment. "I'll get you out of there!"

Fortunately, the box wasn't locked, but merely held shut with a pair of latches on the outside. Ena quickly unfastened the latches and popped the lid open—

"ENA?!"
"MIZUKI?!"

—and when she did, she found Mizuki curled up inside, staring up at her with wide, terrified eyes. The pink-haired girl sprang to her feet instantly, only to nearly lose her balance as well as the room continued to rock back and forth.

"W-Where are we?!" Mizuki asked frantically, grabbing hold of the table in front of her to keep herself steady. "How did we get here...?"

"I don't know!" Ena replied, getting up and leaning against the wall for balance. Ugh, god, she was starting to feel queasy. "T-This must be a boat, though..." she mumbled.

Ena turned and tried the handle of the door behind her—and luckily for her, it opened without resistance, the hatch swinging open into a narrow corridor. Mizuki stopped her before she could step out of the room, though.

"Hey, wait a second..."

When Ena turned around, she found Mizuki bending over to grab something inside the locker: a pair of identical-looking devices that were either large smartphones or small tablets, one of which she handed to Ena. The device was rectangular with rounded edges, with a hard outer case on the back that was cool and smooth to the touch like metal; one half of the case was painted stark black, while the other half was painted pure white.

Ena touched the device's screen, and it immediately came to life, showing a startup screen.

Ena did as requested, and a few seconds later the so-called 'e-Handbook' beeped, flashing a short welcome message.

A second later, the startup screen faded away to an information display. This screen had a large textbox in the center, overlaid atop a satellite picture of an unfamiliar-looking island in the background.

Ena turned to look over at Mizuki's e-Handbook; the same information was displayed on it as well, though Mizuki's device identified her as Student #19, the Ultimate Fashion Designer.

"Eh...? 'Ultimate' is taking it a bit far," Mizuki muttered bashfully, her face flushing a bit. Then she looked over at Ena. "What does yours say?"

Ena stared down at her e-Handbook, frowning. "I'm the 'Ultimate Artist', apparently," she replied dubiously, holding the device out for Mizuki to see. Mizuki looked at it thoughtfully for a moment, but otherwise said nothing.

"Anyways, let's go find this main deck," Ena said as she stepped out of the room, with Mizuki following along behind her.

The corridor outside was almost as cramped and spartan as the room itself, with the walls and floors left as unpainted bare metal, and the passageway only just wide enough to allow two people to squeeze past each other. Numerous identical metal doors along one side of the corridor led to more rooms that were presumably just like the one Ena and Mizuki had awoken in; meanwhile, glass portholes built into the opposite side of the corridor offered a view of the open ocean outside. Finally, a set of metal stairs leading to the deck above stood at the end of the passageway, to Ena's left.

As Ena and Mizuki began to walk down the passageway towards the stairs, though, they heard the door to one of the rooms behind them opening; the two of them turned just in time to find Kanade and Mafuyu poking their heads out through the doorway, looking around curiously.

"Ena? Mizuki?" Kanade gasped as they caught sight of each other, before she and Mafuyu stepped out into the hallway to meet them. As the two of them drew closer, Ena noticed that they also had more of those strange 'handbooks' in their hands.

"You got taken here too, huh..." Ena sighed. "I'm guessing neither of you know anything about where we are?"

Kanade and Mafuyu both shook their heads, as expected. "Not at all," Mafuyu replied. "I can't even remember the last thing I was doing before waking up here."

"What do your handbooks say?" Kanade asked, holding up her own e-Handbook for Ena and Mizuki to see; Mafuyu did the same, while Ena and Mizuki followed suit a few seconds later with their devices. Kanade's e-Handbook named her the 'Ultimate Composer', while Mafuyu was the 'Ultimate Doctor'.

"Does everyone have one of these titles..?" Ena muttered lowly, wondering if this was some kind of joke at her expense; as far as Ena was concerned, 'Ultimate Artist' was the last title that would ever apply to her. "What the hell?"

"I wouldn't read too much into the titles," Mizuki said, patting Ena on the shoulder. "Like, how can Mafuyu be a doctor? We're not even out of high school—"

Mafuyu cut Mizuki off with a shake of her head. "No, I..." she began, closing her eyes and frowning deeply. "I don't understand how, but I am a doctor, actually."

Ena just stared at her in disbelief. "Huh? How?" she asked, mouth agape. Part of her wondered if this was some kind of joke, but... on the other hand, she was talking to one of the last people she'd ever expect to tell a joke. "Did you go to med school or something while we weren't looking?"

"I do remember going to medical school, in fact," Mafuyu muttered, still keeping her eyes closed. "And I have all the knowledge you'd expect from that. But I don't know how or when it possibly could have happened."

"So you're saying all that information's just been crammed in your head, somehow?" Ena said, now somehow even more baffled. She and Kanade both stared up at Mafuyu with concern.

"Yes," Mafuyu nodded, opening her eyes again. "Though... whoever did this to us is clearly capable of erasing memories, correct? Perhaps it shouldn't be a surprise that they can add new ones as well."

"In any case, perhaps we should go up to explore the rest of the ship?" Kanade interjected, glancing towards the stairs behind Ena. "Maybe we'll get more answers upstairs."

The stairs led up to what was almost certainly their intended meeting area: a large cabin filled with benches and other spaces to sit, along with some fixed tables here and there; meanwhile, large windows all along the walls offered an expansive view of the bright blue sea around them. Aside from the stairs Ena'd taken to get up to the cabin, the only other exit was a glass door on the far side of the room, that led out to an open deck at the bow of the ship.

And speaking of the bow of the ship... as Ena looked out the windows up front, she could see an island looming in the distance ahead of them all. Their destination, presumably.

Something about it made Ena feel uneasy—as if something very, very bad were about to happen to her there.

At any rate, the four members of N25 weren't the first ones to make it up to this deck, apparently; as Ena stepped into the cabin, her eyes immediately caught on an all-too-familiar head of orange hair standing by one of the windows.

"Akito?!" Ena shouted. "The fuck?! You're here too?!"

Her brother spun around as if burned, his head snapping to look towards Ena, and the two siblings gawked at each other for a stunned moment.

"Damn, they got you all, too..." An muttered from her seat on a bench next to Akito, noting Ena's friends all following behind her. "Do any of you know what's happened to us?" she asked. "Or did you get your memories wiped, too?"

Mizuki shook her head with a defeated sigh. "We're in the dark, too," she said. "Have you seen anyone else around?"

"N-No, you're the first people we've seen come up the stairs... so far, anyways," Kohane replied, before glancing back out the window at the island in the distance.

"Though we haven't gone around to explore the ship or anything yet," Akito said, sighing as he went back to leaning against the window next to him.

"We haven't been waiting here for very long, though," Toya countered, eying the stairs behind Ena. "We ourselves only woke up less than ten minutes ago. If there are others on board, I'm sure they'll come up shortly."

The four members of N25 all took a seat around one of the tables in the cabin, not far from where VBS were sitting (or in Akito's case, standing). Before anyone could ask anything more, though, a loud clanging sound echoing up the stairs drew everyone's attention, heavy footfalls running up the steps—

"WONDERHOY!"

—and then Emu burst into the room in a torrent of noise and an explosion of eye-searing pink, hurtling up the stairs and flinging herself through the doorway like a human cannonball. She still managed to land on her feet, of course, bouncing on her heels as the other three members of Wonderlands x Showtime came up the stairs behind her. "Does anyone know where the heck we are?!"

It took no time at all for WxS to find places for themselves in the cabin, and for everyone else to fill the troupe in on what they knew—which was to say, absolutely nothing.

"Well, regardless of our current situation, it is still good to see you all," Rui said with a small smile. "Though I do wish it could've been under better circumstances."

"Indeed!" Tsukasa boomed, his voice filling the room as usual. "Though I have no doubt we'll be able to overcome this most unusual challenge!"

"That island has to be our destination, right?" Nene chimed in, standing up at the front of the room and staring out past the glass, as if entranced by the sight of the island slowly growing larger in the window. "What do you think we'll find there?"

"Whatever it is, it's probably nothing good," Ena said, thinking aloud to herself. "Though this is still surprisingly chill for a kidnapping."

Out of curiosity, Ena got up and tried opening the door at the front of the room leading outside; it refused to budge, though, and upon closer inspection, there seemed to be some kind of electronic lock built into the door, with a blinking red LED beneath the handle.

"Of course it's locked," she sighed.

Before she could try anything more, though, several more people came up the stairs into the room: the four members of Leo/need, followed shortly afterwards by MORE MORE JUMP!, for a total of 8 people. At this point, Ena wasn't surprised that they were all people she knew.

"Oh, um... were you all waiting for us?" Ichika asked, looking around at all the people already sitting and standing around the room.

"Yeah, but not for very long," Akito replied, still leaning against the window. Meanwhile, Ena checked her e-Handbook; it looked like they still had 10 or so minutes to go before they reached their destination. The two newly-arriving groups quickly fanned out, taking various seats around the room.

Now that Ena thought about it... it was starting to get kinda crowded in here. Fortunately, as she looked around the room, she noticed that everyone had helpfully broken up into their own little groups of four, making it easy to get a headcount: 20 people in total, including Ena herself.

"There's twenty of us here now... is that everyone?" Ena wondered.

"Well, all of the rooms on the deck below were already open and empty of people when we looked," Airi replied. "And we ended up checking pretty much all of them, I'm sure..."

"Really?" Ena queried, her eyebrow raised. "How do you know that?"

"Ah... we, erm, may have gotten a bit turned around belowdecks, haha," Shizuku answered with a sheepish laugh. "The corridors all looked very much alike."

Meanwhile, Shiho just facepalmed, sitting with the rest of L/N on the opposite side of the room from her sister. "Onee-chan led everyone in the exact opposite direction we needed to go," she sighed. "Away from the stairs. We only realized when we hit a dead end."

"...You guys didn't leave anyone behind in your rooms, right?" Mizuki then piped up, clearly having not forgotten her earlier experience inside the locker, in her and Ena's room.

A shiver ran through exactly half the room at that, followed by the other half nodding their heads frantically.

"Yeah!" Saki said. "Yeah, we made sure to open up all of the boxes in each room as we came across them. There shouldn't be anyone left down there."

"Phew," Ena sighed in relief.

At that moment, her e-Handbook buzzed—and judging by the sudden looks of surprise around the room, so did everyone else's. Ena pulled hers out to look, and found a new message waiting for her.

Ena looked up, and found two people walking around on the deck outside of the room, right on cue: a maid and a butler, both with short blonde hair, and both dressed in immaculate black-and-white uniforms. The two of them walked up to the glass door leading into their cabin, which buzzed and unlocked itself to let the pair in.

"Rin? Len...?" Ena asked as she got a good look at the 'attendants' who had joined them. Really, it was impossible to mistake the blonde twins for anyone else—though that didn't explain how they were able to walk around outside of a SEKAI, or why they were dressed as servants. "What are you doing here? Where are we going?"

The two of them bowed deeply. "Our apologies, Ena-sama," Len said, his face completely devoid of emotion. "But we must ask you to hold your questions for now. Our mistress has requested that we first ensure all students are in attendance."

Rin unbowed, and pulled out a sheet of paper, studying it carefully. "We will go in numerical order," she called out to everyone. "Please state your full name and Ultimate Talent when prompted."

She glanced around the room briefly to make sure everyone heard, before turning to Ichika. "Student #01?"

"Oh, um... Ichika Hoshino, Ultimate Guitarist...?" Ichika replied.

"Excellent," Rin said, nodding approvingly, before looking at Saki, sitting in the next seat over. "Student #02?"

"02...? Oh, me! Saki Tenma, Ultimate Keyboardist."

"Student #03?"

"Uhm! Number 03, Honami Mochizuki! Ultimate Drummer."

Shiho, Student #04, continued shortly afterwards. "Shiho Hinomori, Ultimate Bassist."

The rest of the roll call went from there:

#05: "Minori Hanasato! Ultimate Aspiring Idol!"
#06: "Haruka Kiritani, Ultimate Basketball Player!"
#07: "Airi Momoi... uh, Ultimate TV Personality? What does that even mean?"
#08: "Shizuku Hinomori... Ultimate Archer."
#09: "K-Kohane Azusawa! Ultimate... um, Photographer."
#10: "An Shiraishi! I'm the Ultimate Barista, apparently."
#11: "Toya Aoyagi. Er... Ultimate Classical Musician...?"
#12: "Akito Shinonome. Ultimate Beatboxer, for what it's worth."
#13: "Tsuuu-kasa Tenma!! Ultimate Actor!"
#14: "Oh, oh! Emu Otori! Ultimate A-cro-bat!"
#15: "N-Nene Kusanagi... Ultimate... uhm, Gamer..."
#16: "Rui Kamishiro... I have been named the Ultimate Director, ehehe."
#17: "Kanade Y-Yoisaki... _{U-Ultimate Composer...}"
#18: "Mafuyu Asahina. Ultimate Doctor."
#19: "Mizuki Akiyama, the Ultimate Fashion Designer!"

And then finally... that left Student #20.
"Ena Shinonome," Ena sighed. "Not sure how, but I'm the Ultimate Artist."

"Very good," Len said, nodding to Rin. "All twenty students are accounted for."

Their ship was quite close to the island now, weaving between a pair of rocky cliff faces to enter a narrow cove. Ena watched as they passed a tiny red torii gate, built on a small rocky outcropping to their left—the first sign she'd seen yet of anything artificial beyond their boat.

"We will be arriving at the dock in approximately five to seven minutes," Rin called out, drawing Ena's attention back to her. "Once we arrive, we will guide you onwards to our final destination."

"We understand that you undoubtedly have a lot of questions right now," Len continued. "But we are forbidden from answering them at this time. Please, save your questions for the mistress."

Not long after that, their ship docked beside a small concrete pier, built along the shoreline. As the vessel slid to a stop, everyone's eyes went to the side windows, looking out at the craggy slopes and thick forests just past the pier and the beach. After a few moments, the ship's engine stopped, a buzzer sounded, and the door leading outside swung open on its own.

"We have arrived," Rin said with a bow. "Please ensure you take your e-Handbook with you, as you disembark."

As one, Ena and the rest of the students all filed out of the ship, down the gangway, and onto the pier, finally stepping onto dry land.

The island shore was all but silent as they disembarked, save for the sounds of their footsteps and the crashing of waves against the sand; the silence pressed upon the group like choking poison, a compulsion smothering word and voice alike without a trace. The world itself seemed to be holding its breath: the sea breeze, the seagulls, the students... all falling quiet, as if in dreadful anticipation.

Where the hell was everyone?

The two servants took opposite positions: Rin stood at the head of the group, leading everyone forward; Len, on the other hand, took up the rear of the group, and was the last one to disembark.

The ship's gangway lifted up and retracted itself as soon as Len was safely on the pier, and within seconds the ship started up its engines again and began to putter away. Everyone turned to watch in silence as the ship sailed off towards the empty horizon, seemingly charting a course directly away from the island.

There went their only means of transportation... not that it really changed how trapped they were.

Their only path forward, now, lay in a worn set of stone steps built into the bluffs overlooking the shore, leading up to a trail that vanished into the thick forest covering the island.

After a few moments, Rin cleared her throat, and finally, finally broke the suffocating silence that had fallen over the harbor.

"Please follow me," she said—though something in her tone, and in the way Len hovered vigilantly behind the group, made it clear that this was not a request.

"We shall take you all to our final destination, now. Do not wander off or straggle."

Meanwhile, elsewhere... the mistress of the island waited patiently for everything to come together.

The double doors to the room creaked open somewhere behind her, and pair of footsteps stepped inside.
The mistress, of course, did not need to turn to know who it was.

"My mistress," Luka began. "We've just received word from the ferry. The students have arrived."

The pink-haired servant looked down at her files and reports for a second, before continuing.

"And... our secondary acquisitions have also been successful, madam," she added. "They and the videos are at your disposal."

The mistress smirked—a nasty, sharp grin, full of anticipation for the slaughter to come.
Laughter began to escape from her throat: first a low chuckle; then a louder, higher guffaw; all the way up to a shrieking cackle fit for a true witch.

"ahahahaAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!"

"Mistress...?" Luka asked, her voice trailing off as the mistress's laugh filled the room.

"Perfect! Perfect!" the mistress shrieked, with a wild-eyed, manic grin stretched across her face. She did a small dance out of glee, sending the hem of her two-toned dress (half-black and half-white, of course) flaring out as she twirled in place. "Most excellent, ahahahaha! Oh, it's all falling perfectly into place!"

Soon... the pieces for her killing game would take their proper places on the board.

Soon, she wouldn't be known as just 'Mistress'—but rather 'Headmistress'!

And soon... yes, very soon, she would see for herself all of the delightful, delectable despair these students had to offer her!

Mistress Miku's laughter rang through the halls of the mansion, as she eagerly awaited the arrival of her class.

It only took about five minutes of walking through the forest for the first student to crack.

"Grrr... okay, everyone, stop!"

Everyone froze in their tracks as Ena's shout ripped through the quiet forest air—even Rin, who turned to look back at the artist, her face still completely flat and expressionless. The crowd of students around Ena parted like the sea as she stormed up to the maid, her fists quivering and face contorted with barely-contained rage.

Ena vaguely registered Mizuki trying to grab her arm, but paid her no heed, shaking off the hand trying to hold her back.

"Look, Rin, I don't know what you and Len think you're doing, jerking us around like this, but I've fucking had enough!" she yelled, getting up in Rin's face. "I want answers, damnit!"

"Ena-sama," the maid began, seemingly completely unphased. "I must insist that you save your questions for—"

"No, don't give me that bullshit!" Ena snapped. "I'm not taking another step until you tell me—"

Click!

—and then Ena's words came to a sudden strangled halt, as she felt cold metal pressing against her throat.

It all happened practically within the span of a heartbeat—so fast that Ena couldn't barely even see the motion, much less process what had happened. One beat later, though, and Ena's brain caught up to her eyes: Rin was holding a revolver up to her throat, the gunmetal gleaming silver in the dappled light shining through the forest canopy overhead.

Where the hell had the maid pulled that from...?!
Oh god, was she about to die here?

"Ena-sama, I implore you to reconsider your actions," Rin said in a dull monotone, her finger hovering just above the trigger. "Whatever questions you have will be answered by the mistress in due time."

"A-Ah..." Ena choked out, her throat unable to form words in the heat of the moment. "I... P-Pl... please... don't..."

"This is merely a warning," Rin continued, still with that monotone. She slowly withdrew her gun, pulling the barrel away from Ena's throat centimeter by agonizing centimeter, before safely tucking it somewhere within the folds of her dress.

"In any event... if that is all, Ena-sama, then shall we continue?"

They all shut up and kept walking after that, led from the front by Rin and pushed along by Len in the back—like prisoners shuffling to jail.

In spite of the scare just now, though, Ena stuck close to the front of their gaggle, just behind Rin, with Mizuki, Kanade, and Mafuyu following not far behind Ena in turn. Threats or not, Ena's questions continued to simmer in the back of her brain, and she wanted to be the first to see wherever it was the maid was leading them.

The path they were taking was long and winding, with terraced steps that curved upwards through the island's hills; the forest around them, meanwhile, was incredibly thick and dense, shrubs and leaves forming impenetrable green walls on both sides of the path.

"This island is largely uninhabited, save for the mistress and us servants," Rin said suddenly, apparently having noticed Ena looking at the foliage. "And the majority of the island has been left as untouched wilderness. No one can save you if get lost or hurt in the forests."

The implied threat in her words went unspoken: don't try to run.

Eventually, though, they came to one last set of carved stone stairs at the end of the path, at the top of which lay a wrought-iron gate.
Rin pulled out a key to unlock the gate, and following her, Ena and the others ascended these last few steps...

A massive garden lay at the top of the steps, filled with countless carefully cultivated roses of all colors, arranged in elegant patterns. Their fragrance suffused the air with a sweet and pleasant scent, and even in spite of their terror and apprehension, the students couldn't help but stop and stare as they came up to the garden, a round of gasps breaking the silence as everyone took in the sight before them. The space was a work of art, and a part of Ena's mind wished she had a sketchbook right now to draw in.

Rin and Len seemed to understand that too, for that matter, and the two servants paused to let everyone enjoy the splendor.

"This is our mistress's prized rose garden," Rin announced, before she and Len bowed to the group. "Unfortunately, due to the cooler conditions this past summer, this year's blooms are not quite up to our usual standards. We deeply apologize for our failure."

"Y-You're seriously saying this isn't 'up to standards'...?" Mizuki said, her eyes wide with disbelief.

"This is still a beautiful garden, either way," Honami remarked, crouching down to inspect one of the roses. "You all must've put so much work into this garden..."

"Indeed," a new voice said. "That is so."

Everyone turned to find Meiko standing not far from them, wearing a gardener's attire: a black apron slightly smudged with dirt over a white shirt, along with a dark red beret. A wheelbarrow filled with stacked bags of fertilizer stood beside her, and she held a trowel in one hand.

"This is Meiko-san, our head gardener," Len said, as if the students needed to be introduced to the brown-haired woman.

The gardener bowed to them nonetheless. "It is a pleasure to meet you," Meiko said, speaking in the same dull monotone as Rin and Len; Ena was starting to get the suspicion that all of the servants here were being drilled to act like emotionless robots. Meanwhile, out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Mafuyu staring at Meiko with an unreadable expression on her face.

"You must be the class we've been expecting," Meiko continued, unbowing. "In any event, I will not keep you. Good day."

Meiko took her wheelbarrow in hand and walked off with it, continuing her duties.

"Let us continue," Rin then said to everyone, turning towards one side of the garden. "Please follow me to the mansion."

The maid led them all to one end of the garden, where they found an enormous mansion at the top of another short flight of stone steps.

The mansion was as imposing as it was majestic: three stories tall with an ornate classical design and a facade built from aged brick and stone, it loomed over them all, commanding respect from all in its shadow. In any other circumstance, Ena could've confused it for some kind of museum... and even now, she still couldn't believe people actually lived in buildings like this. It all felt a bit unreal—as if she'd walked onto a movie set or something.

"This building has seen over seven decades, now," Rin remarked as they all looked up at the colossal manor. "Though it has undergone numerous renovations over its lifespan. The mistress and us servants take great care to ensure the mansion is well-maintained."

And then, as they all walked up to the mansion's entrance, they found yet another servant waiting for them in front of the doors: a familiar pink-haired woman now dressed as a butler, wearing a white shirt beneath a crisp black coat, along with long white gloves and a red bowtie. She bowed to the assembled group, and spoke with the same cold tone and flat face as the other servants.

"Greetings. I am Luka, this island's head servant. It is a pleasure to meet you all."

Luka opened the doors for them, before bowing once more and gesturing for them to enter.

"Please, come inside. Lunch is being prepared as we speak."

As Rin and Luka led them all into the mansion, the first thing Ena saw was a massive portrait hung up on the wall of the entrance hall, stretching almost from floor to ceiling.

The painting was clearly done in classical style, and depicted none other than Miku Hatsune—her long twintails and light blue eyes couldn't be mistaken for anyone else. The Miku in the painting wore a long, flowing sleeveless dress in two colors, split neatly down the middle: pure white on the left, and deep black on the right, both framed on either side by her signature electric blue twintails. The clips in Miku's hair followed the same white-and-black color scheme, too, mirroring her dress.

The painted Miku looked down at them all with an enigmatic expression: not quite a smile, not quite a frown—but not flat, either. The more Ena looked at it, the more her mind went back and forth over the portrait's expression, vacillating between different interpretations.

"This portrait of our mistress was commissioned several years ago," Luka said as they passed by it. "Along with a smaller copy that now hangs in the library."

She glanced over at Ena. "As a matter of fact... I believe this piece was the Ultimate Artist's work, was it not?"

Kanade, Mafuyu, and Mizuki all turned to look at Ena in confusion.

...Was it her work?

Faint memories pulled at the back of Ena's mind: long nights spent slaving away in an atelier with a massive canvas just like this one, working with a photograph of Miku wearing the very dress depicted in the painting. Mizuki coming over, asking Ena to take breaks for her own sake as she worked on the portrait, and even helping her with parts of the creative process at times. Miku herself looking at the finished painting, and happily declaring it to be to her satisfaction.

"I... I think so," Ena mumbled, frowning. "But..."

When did that happen?
Was it last year...? No, the year before that, in the spring; it was an extravagant commission from an eccentric backer, she remembered.

But, hang on... How was that even possible?
She was already a part of N25 by then—she wouldn't have had the time to paint something like this... nor would she have had the experience or expertise for it. Wasn't she still struggling to get better at art, even now?

Ena couldn't have made this. And yet she definitely did, somehow.

That contradiction continued to tug away at her brain, as Luka and Rin led them further into the mansion.

They passed through a set of massive double doors, and entered what was clearly the dining room.

The dining hall was as grand and elaborate as the rest of the mansion, with fine wooden furniture and extravagant fine art decorations. Orange lamps hanging from the ceiling illuminated the hall with a warm glow, together with sunlight shining in through windows on one side of the room. Ena was honestly afraid to touch anything—everything here probably cost more than her own life.

The centerpiece of the room, though, was a long dining table covered by a white tablecloth, with delicate white flowers in pots set out at intervals down the middle. Seats for all twenty of them had already been prepared—ten on each side, with the head positions on either end of the table left empty.

One thing stuck out like a sore thumb, though: a large flatscreen TV had been bolted to the wall over a fireplace mantel, where it looked like a painting would've normally gone. Ena had seen several other TVs like them placed here and there on the walls in the hallway outside, too, for that matter... though all of them seemed dormant, for now.

"Please, sit wherever you like," Luka said to them all as they entered. "We will serve lunch shortly."

As expected, they all sat in groups: Ena sat next to Mizuki, with Kanade and Mafuyu across from the two of them, while the other students did much the same with their own groups of four. After they'd all taken their seats, the servants left, disappearing behind another set of doors that seemed to lead to a kitchen.

There was plenty of room at the table for all of them, but even so, Ena saw that Kanade had pushed her seat over to be especially close to Mafuyu, looking around fearfully at the rest of the dining hall.

Mizuki sighed, leaning back in her chair and staring up at the ceiling. "Am I dreaming right now?" she asked nobody in particular. "This has to be some weird dream, right...?"

"Yeah, it feels like I've walked into a TV show," Airi added, resting her elbows on the table. "Amnesia, ninja maids, creepy mansion... it's like an anime, or something."

Toya looked around at their surroundings, stroking his chin as he thought. "Actually... a group of stranded guests, all brought to a mansion on a remote island by a mysterious mistress? That's a classic mystery novel plot."

"Indeed," Rui agreed, smirking as if he weren't in the same boat as everyone else. "You don't suppose this 'mistress' is plotting to murder us all one-by-one, is she?"

"Don't you even joke about that, you two!" An snapped, leaning forward with both palms down on the tabletop. Next to her, Kohane seemed to be trembling, eying her surroundings fearfully, much like Kanade.

"Yeah, but if they really wanted to just shoot us all dead, wouldn't they have done it already?" Shiho countered, leaning back with her hands behind her head. "I mean, I was pretty sure Ena-san was going to get her head blown off, back there."

"That maid pulled her gun before any of us could even blink," Akito agreed, glancing over at his sister. "They probably could just kill us all if they wanted to, I bet."

Ena thought about that for a second. Something about that wasn't quite right... ah, wait!

"No, that's wrong!" Ena cut in.

"The gun that Rin pulled on me was a revolver," Ena then explained. "Six shots. Even if Len had one too—which I assume he does—that still only adds up to twelve."

"And there's twenty of us..." Nene said, her eyes widening. "They couldn't kill all of us back there."

"But why would Rin-chan and Len-kun want to kill us, though?" Emu interjected, sitting up straight and stiff in her seat. Hmm, wasn't her family super rich...? She was probably used to dinners like these—though it still looked weird, seeing her so stiff.

"That is something I've been meaning to bring up," Mafuyu said. "It cannot be a coincidence that the people we've seen so far look like and are named after the Virtual Singers."

Kanade frowned. "Wait... do you think we're inside of... um," she said, trailing off as she looked down the table at the others outside of N25. "Um, you know..."

Oh, right. Shit, how were they going to explain—

"Inside of a SEKAI?" Ichika said, instantly drawing all eyes to her.

"You know what those are...?!" Kanade asked, mouth agape.

"Y-Yes," Saki nodded. "And, um, looking at how everyone is staring at us... I'm guessing you all know, too?"

A round of 'yeah's and 'yep's and 'yes'es came from everyone at the table. Well, that saved a long explanation at least... but it also raised even more questions. Weren't SEKAIs supposed to be good places?

Unfortunately, before they could continue their discussion, Rin and Len returned... along with another servant wearing an all-too-familiar face. From what Ena could tell, Kaito seemed to be wearing a chef's uniform: all pristine white, with long sleeves and white gloves—complete with one of those poofy chef's hats atop his head, which he doffed as he bowed to the table.

"It is a pleasure to meet you," he said, speaking with the same flat affect and impassive face as the rest of the servants around here. "I am Kaito. I serve as head chef, and have been charged with overseeing the preparation of today's lunch."

He, along with Rin and Len, all pushed along carts laden with food and drink; the three of them set about the task of setting out dishes and drinks in front of everyone with astonishing speed and efficiency. The food itself looked like... uh, toast with toppings on it? Ena wasn't sure what—

"This is crostini, our appetizer for this meal," Kaito helpfully supplied for her. Ena stared in shock as the chef placed the 'little crusts' out in front of everyone; a full-course meal? They were seriously going all-out with this lunch, weren't they...?

"Please, enjoy," Kaito then said, once all the plates were set out. "We will return with the main course shortly."

The servants bowed to them all once more, before turning as one to leave, retreating back into the kitchen in preparation for the next course. Ena had to admit, they had this whole 'servant' act down pat...

Even so, no one actually touched the appetizer or their drinks at first, all of them wondering the same thing: was this safe to eat?

In the end, it was Emu who broke the deadlock, by taking a tentative bite of one of the crostini. Her eyes widened as she chewed and swallowed. "This is really good!" she said with no small amount of shock, before taking another bite.

Ena still waited another minute or two... but when Emu didn't keel over and die from poison, she plucked up the courage to try the appetizer for herself. True enough, it actually did taste pretty good; as she tried it, Mizuki did the same, with Kanade and Mafuyu following shortly afterwards... and slowly, everyone else followed their examples, and started to eat and drink as well.

The main course—some kind of roast lamb dish—was brought out for them shortly thereafter, and they all began to settle into a strange, half-relaxed atmosphere as they ate. After all, it was much easier to calm down and keep a cool head when you weren't hungry... not to mention the food was absolutely scrumptious. Whoever had prepared this for everyone clearly had a ton of money to throw around, if the giant mansion hadn't made that obvious enough already.

It also helped that nobody seemed to be dying of poison yet.

"We don't have to pay for this, do we...?" Honami asked, as Len poured another cup of tea for her.

"No, of course not," Len replied. "You are honored guests of our mistress, after all."

"Jeez... 'mistress' this, 'mistress' that," Airi groused, glaring at the butler. "Where is this mistress of yours, huh? Is she gonna show her face to us at all?"

"Our mistress wished for you to have lunch, first," Len answered, not rising at all to the idol's indignation. "She will meet with you all once you have finished your meal."

Eventually, they all finished eating lunch.
And, well, as loathe as she was to admit it... a lot of Ena's worries had faded, by the time lunch was over.

In her opinion, it was the dessert's fault, really—they'd rolled out plates of absolutely delicious flan for everyone, and in Ena's opinion, anyone who could make a flan that good was worthy of at least cautious respect.

Kanade, in particular, seemed to like the dessert; after her first bite, the composer had actually let out a quiet squeeee—a sound that Ena didn't even know Kanade could make, and one that sounded absolutely adorable coming from her. It'd also gotten Mizuki to giggle, which in and of itself did a lot to help break the tension. Even Mafuyu had lightened up some by the end, though she still seemed to avoid looking at the servants if at all possible.

It wasn't limited to N25, either: everyone at the table had grown livelier and cheerier.

Toya and Rui had were deep in a conversation about mystery plots, and had also pulled Akito, Tsukasa, and Shizuku into their discussion; and at the same time, on the other side of the table, An was busy pontificating about the merits of the coffee they'd been served to Haruka and Minori. Further down the table, Airi and Honami had somehow both managed to get ahold of Chef Kaito, and were asking him questions about the flan, as Kanade, Mafuyu, and Haruka listened.

Meanwhile, off to the side, Saki, Ichika, and Nene were watching with wide eyes (and no small amount of concern) as Emu juggled the silverware. And in the midst of all of this, Ena, Kohane, and Mizuki were busy happily chatting about the beautiful rose garden they'd seen earlier.

Still, they didn't completely forget their situation—and as the minutes after lunch continued to tick past, the atmosphere in the room began to grow more serious. More than once, Ena caught sight of people eying the doors and windows, as if judging their chances at making a successful escape from the dining hall.

The supposed mistress of the house was due to meet them after lunch, right? So... where was she?

Ena's questions were finally answered when, about ten or so minutes after the table had been cleared away, a loud, high-pitched, and melodic voice rang out through the dining hall.

"Ladies and gentlemen! Silence, please!"

Emu's juggled silverware fell to the tile floor with an echoing clatter.

The voice was one Ena would recognize anywhere: Miku's. But where was the Virtual Singer?

Everyone looked around for the source of the voice, all of them startled. From what Ena could tell, though, the only people left in the dining hall at this point were the twenty 'students': all of the servants had left the room, at some point in the past few minutes.

They didn't have to look very hard, however, because a few moments after that, the main entrance to the dining hall burst open with a loud BANG!, finally revealing the woman of the hour: Miku Hatsune.

< BGM – Fishy Aroma >

"Oh, I've always wanted to say that!" Miku squealed, her eyes squeezed shut with glee. "Seriously, what's the point of having a big fancy mansion like this, if you're not gonna use it for murder?"

The Miku before them looked very similar to the one in the portrait hanging in the entrance hall: long blue twintails, black-and-white dress, everything. Unlike the painted Miku, though, this Miku's left eye seemed to be glowing, pulsating slowly with an ominous red color. She also seemed to be unnaturally pale—iPod white, to be exact—and her 'skin' seemed to be broken up by narrow seams in places, suggesting she was some kind of robot.

The biggest difference, though, was in her demeanor: far from the dignified, regal mistress the painting and the servants had both led Ena to believe, this Miku... seemed more like a womanchild, simply going by the way she was squealing and spinning around happily.

She stood in stark contrast to her servants, who now flanked her on either side; by all accounts, the other Virtual Singers seemed to act and talk more robotically than the (apparent) actual robot in the room.

"...what the fuck?" Ena muttered, now completely baffled. Seriously, what the fuck even was her world anymore?

This seemed to get Miku's attention, and she stopped her squealing—as if only now remembering she had an audience to attend to.

"Oh, right!" Miku said, snapping her fingers, before turning to Luka, standing just a step behind and to the right of Miku. "Lu~ka, if you'd please~?" she asked with a grin.

"Of course, Mistress," Luka said immediately, producing what looked like a large tablet from... somewhere, and holding it out for her mistress to take. Miku took the pad from Luka with a flourish, and held it out in front of herself, glancing at something on it for a second. Then she looked up, to address her guests.

"A-hem!" Miku began. "Good afternoon and welcome, students from Hope's Peak Academy Class..."

She paused and frowned, squinting at something on the tablet in front of her.

"...oh, did I not write down your class number anywhere?" Miku muttered to herself, before shaking her head and grinning again. "Whatever, it doesn't matter!" she continued, with a carefree shrug.

"Anyways, point is: from what I've been told, you're all a class of Ultimates, and this is your new school campus!" Miku cheered. "See, the actual Hope's Peak Academy buildings are... uh, temporarily out of service, right now, so you've all been transferred here, into my tender, loving arms instead!

"Now, you all probably know who I am already, but let me introduce myself anyways: I'm Miku Hatsune, your new Acting Headmistress!" she said with a flourish and a bow. "I, along with my servants Luka, Rin, Len, Kaito, and Meiko, make up the faculty for this new campus!"

And then Miku's grin took on a meaner, sharper edge—one that made Ena's unease come back in full, and then some.

"So, now, in accordance with school policy, you will now live out the remainder of your lives strictly within the confines of this island and its facilities!" she laughed, leering at her new students.

"Don't worry, though. You all will, of course, be treated as my honored guests for the duration of your time here on this island, however long that turns out to be~! You won't have to worry about starving, or going without the usual necessities of life!"

So, they really were trapped here, then. It still sounded to Ena like there was a catch, though—she didn't take this Miku to be the type who would provide for someone indefinitely out of the goodness of her heart.

"Bu~ut, knowing you all... you don't wanna be stuck here forever, am I right?" Miku asked, with an irritating lilt to her voice. "Of course you do! You wanna get back home to your friends and families!"

"No shit!" Shiho shouted, glaring daggers at the Singer. "Just tell us how to get off this island, already!"

"That's the spirit!" Miku giggled, completely unfazed. "Now, it just so happens that I do have a ticket off this island. But just the one, though, and in order to see who gets it... we're gonna play a game! Specifically, a killing game."

"...a what?" Akito spat. "The hell do you mean, 'killing game'?"

"Oh, the basic concept is quite simple: if you murder someone and get away with it, you get to leave!" Miku replied with a carefree wave of her hand.

"...M-Murder?" Ichika stammered, her face draining of color.

"Yep, murder! M-U-R-D-E-R!" Miku crowed. "Death-dealing! Putting people six feet under! Making your classmates aliven't!

Miku cackled—a chilling sound that raked at the spine and made the Virtual Singer seem like some demented witch. "Ahaha! Burning, bludgeoning, slicing, dicing, shooting, exploding, doesn't matter how! The sky's the limit! The only catch is that you have to get away with it, in the end!"

"You seriously expect us to kill our friends?" An growled, her fists clenched tight.

Miku seemed to ponder the question for a second, tapping at her chin innocently, and for a split second Ena was almost reminded of her Miku, the white-haired one—

"...Pretty much, yeah~!" Miku beamed, her smile blindingly bright and sunny. "And even if you don't think you have the guts for it right now... trust me, I have ways of dealing with that particular issue! You'll see, ahaha~♪"

"The devil's really in the details, though, so why don't we go over the rules together?" Miku then said. "You'll find all of them in those nifty e-Handbooks of yours! Feel free to refer to them at any time!"

Ena's e-Handbook vibrated, right on cue, and when she pulled it out to look, she could see these 'rules' start to pop up on-screen.

"Oh, and FYI, I've added my own twists to these killing game rules, so make sure to pay careful attention!" Miku added, before launching into her explanation.

"These rules cover the core of our little game. When—not if, when—one of you murders someone, you'll all be given a short period of time to find facts and hunt for clues. After that, all surviving students will participate in a grand Class Trial, hosted and overseen by yours truly!

"There, you'll use all the facts at your disposal to try and figure out whodunnit! And at the end, there'll be a vote to decide who the class thinks is the culprit... or culprits," Miku continued with a wide grin. "Anyone who gets votes from more than 50% of the class will be deemed guilty of murder!

"And from there, there's two ways things can go. First: the class could get things wrong, and let at least one blackened murderer get away with their crimes without being voted out by the rest. In this case, the culprits who didn't get voted out will be allowed to 'graduate', and leave this island for good!

"Now, that's the carrot! The stick is... everyone else will get punished for their failure. And by that, I mean executed," she added, with an awful leer. "So, if you're innocent... make sure to do your best to find the truth! Your life depends on it!"

And then Miku giggled, doing a little twirl in place. "That's the basic idea~♪" she sang out, before stopping and holding up her index finger.

"But! In order to encourage an atmosphere of trust and cooperation, and to sweeten the deal for everyone, I've changed up the rules here!"

Miku held both of her hands clasped over where her heart would've gone, putting on her best 'lovestruck maiden' impression. Ena might've even called it cute, if the Singer wasn't threatening to murder them all.

"In this game, two extra people will get to graduate, in addition to the culprit or culprits themselves!" Miku declared. "And on top of that, if you're the self-sacrificing type of murderer... you can pick someone else to graduate in your stead, too!"

She cast her gaze over the class, eying the way everyone had naturally gravitated back to standing with their units.

"I've noticed you're all bunched together in tight groups of four," Miku remarked, smiling knowingly. "And I know it can be hard for you all to stomach the idea of killing for just yourself... but what about killing so your three closest friends can go free? Or how about killing to save your partner? Doesn't that sound a lot better~?

The Virtual Singer hummed to herself for a few seconds, letting those thoughts sink in for everyone.

Worryingly, Ena actually found a small, small part of her wondering if maybe it was worth getting her hands dirty, to make sure Mizuki, Kanade, and Mafuyu got out alive. N-Not that she seriously planned on condemning the other 16 people here—not to mention herself—to death, just for the sake of her friends! But, well... a tiny sliver of her mind was at least tempted enough to consider it, even if she couldn't seriously see herself killing someone.

No, no—she really didn't think she had the stomach to kill someone. But that was just her, right? What about the others...?

Ena surreptitiously eyed the other students to gauge their reactions—only to find many of the others doing the same.

Miku cleared her throat before Ena could ruminate on that, though. "But that's just one way a trial can end: with someone getting away scot-free. What happens if all of the culprits are found?" she said.

"Well, in that case, only the students voted out will be executed! Everyone else gets to live~♪" she answered herself, holding the last syllable for an extra beat.

"There's a catch to that too, though: it's quite possible an innocent student could get voted guilty along with the actual culprits of a case. If this happens... well, they're still gonna get executed! So, you've gotta be careful with your votes... I mean, unless you want to get an innocent person executed. I'm definitely not gonna judge you for that!"

Miku took a breath, tapping a bit at her tablet.

"Right, so that covers Class Trials and everything that comes after them... so now we have to talk about how we even get to the Trial, in the first place! If you'll please direct your attention once more to your e-Handbooks..."

"Now, the key to a good Class Trial is a good whodunnit mystery. And for that, there has to be plenty of clues up for debate, which means there needs to be an investigation!" Miku smiled, laughing to herself. "And, yes, I am a huge fan of mystery stories. Why else would I go to so much trouble to set up a game like this with you all?

"Anyways, the investigation part of the game starts with a dead body being discovered. When this happens, I'll make a campus-wide announcement so that everyone can come take a look, and then the investigation will begin! You all will have time to inspect the scene, chase down leads, find clues—and then, once I've decided you've had enough time to do all that, we'll move on to the Trial."

Miku drummed her fingers against the edge of her tablet for a second. "Now, the really interesting parts here, I think, are Rules 4a and 5," she remarked.

"If you'll recall, I said earlier that I wanted to cultivate an atmosphere of trust and cooperation, right? Well, that's what these rules are for: they're there to make it easier to have accomplices in any murder plots you might cook up! Murder isn't just fun to do to friends—it's fun to do with friends, too!"

Miku giggled. "I've seen accounts of other games like the one I'm running here," she mentioned, which came as a bit of a shock to Ena. Other killing games...?

"Those games all seemed be stopped by 'power of friendship'-type nonsense, in the end," Miku continued. "But now I want to see if I can take advantage of that instead, for this game. We'll see how it goes.

"Finally, Rule 6 is just there to spell out what ought to be obvious: the faculty here—or in other words, the servants—are a neutral party. We're not here to steal your spotlight by getting our own hands dirty.

"After all, we're not the stars of the show, here—you all are!" Miku said. Ena noticed that the Singer's smile widened noticeably, as she watched Tsukasa in particular grow pale at her words.

"Phew!" Miku then said, wiping an imaginary bead of sweat off her artificial forehead. "I know I've been talking for a while already... but there's some last few rules I need to go over. These are ground rules for your day-to-day life here on campus!"

"A lot of these rules should be self-explanatory. But there are some particular points I want to go over with you all!" Miku said, wagging her index finger.

"First: don't be jerks to the servants here. They're just doing their jobs."

Miku sighed, all traces of levity abruptly dropping out of her tone. "Be mad at me for trapping you here, if you must; in case you haven't noticed, I'm controlling a robot! I've got plenty of backups," she said with a dismissive shrug.

And then she shot a sharp glare at her 'class', her left eye suddenly blazing with a much brighter red glow than before. She delivered her next words in a flat, harsh tone that sent chills down Ena's spine.

"But know that there will be consequences if you hurt the servants. Killing them isn't gonna get you out of here, either. Understood?"

This came as a bit of a surprise to Ena—that sounded suspiciously like Miku cared for the other Virtual Singers. Pretty unexpected, for a complete psychopath like her.

"A-Anyways, um, second...!" Miku continued, taking a breath and winding back up to her prior insane enthusiasm. "A-hem! For the most part, breaking into rooms via force is A-OK! If a room is truly meant to be off-limits, I'll tell you all myself. We'll also try to make sure rooms don't end up permanently locked or unlocked.

"Third, and last: don't try and run off into the forests on your own. We will find you, no matter where you go on this island—and so will the bears, in all likelihood. The woods here are filled with them, these days... because I put them all there, ahaha~"

Miku clapped her hands together.

"Anyways, now that my whole spiel about the killing game is out of the way, why don't we show you all to your rooms?"

She hadn't even finished the sentence, though, before beginning to walk off, with all the servants following along behind her—except for Len, who once again silently placed himself behind the gaggle of students, in order to push them forward.

"Come!"

Chapter Text

The students' rooms, as it turned out, were in a building referred to as the "guesthouse", on the opposite side of the rose garden from the mansion.

The guesthouse was smaller than the mansion—being only two stories tall—but no less beautiful, with an elegant brick facade; its inside, meanwhile, was just as finely decorated, with fine oak and plush furniture everywhere.

"This building was designed and built as a hotel, as part of a failed plan to turn this island into a resort," Luka remarked as they passed through the entrance doors into the guesthouse lobby. "It has since been repurposed to serve as accommodations for your time here."

The first floor of the guesthouse contained the lobby, along with a workout room, a tea room which doubled as a rec room, a small library, a room set aside for the servants' use, and (of course) restrooms, all of which could be reached from the lobby. There were also two more doors leading out from the lobby, but both of them had been heavily boarded up for now.

Finally, the first floor of the guesthouse had 10 student bedrooms, divided into two wings of five rooms each.

"All of your rooms have been randomly assigned, by the way. Let's see..." Miku said, looking down at the tablet in her hands again.

"Rin, please show Saki-san, Tsukasa-san, Shizuku-san, Minori-san, and Nene-san to their rooms in the North Wing on this floor," she called out. "Meanwhile, Len, you can take Kohane-san, Akito-san, Kanade-san, Mafuyu-san, and Mizuki-san to their rooms in the South Wing."

"Understood," the twins replied, gathering up their respective groups and leading them into the halls on either side of the lobby.

"The rest of the bedrooms are upstairs," Miku then said, as her and Luka led them to a flight of stairs.

"To our right is the 2nd floor's South Wing, with bedrooms for Honami-san, An-san, Rui-san, Shiho-san, and Airi-san," Miku said as they reached the second floor, pointing down the hall to their right. "Luka, could you please show those guests to their rooms?"

"Of course, Mistress," Luka replied with a bow, before turning to the indicated students. "Please follow me."

"And the rest of you—Ichika-san, Haruka-san, Toya-san, Emu-san, and Ena-san—your bedrooms are in the 2nd floor North Wing to our left," Miku then continued, turning to one of the first doors on the left side... which, when Ena looked closer, had a nameplate on it that read 'Ichika Hoshino'.

Miku fished a set of keys out of her pocket and used it to unlock the door, before opening it and gesturing for them all to step inside.

"There's several important things I need to tell you about your rooms. You won't want to miss this tour!"

The bedroom was simple, but still well-furnished, with a bed, nightstand and lamp, dresser, a desk table with two chairs, and even a small potted plant.

To the immediate right of the bedroom entrance, a set of double-doors opened up into a closet, containing what seemed to be over a dozen copies of Ichika's clothes; meanwhile, another door next to the bed, on the far left side of the room, led into a bathroom. Finally, a single large window on the far side of the room let in the afternoon sun outside.

And up in one corner of the room, a ceiling mounted camera watched over everything inside with an unblinking electronic eye.

"As you can see, each bedroom is fully furnished, and comes equipped with a walk-in closet and a private bathroom—though unfortunately there's no lock for either the bathroom or the closet doors," Miku said as she gave them the tour.

"In addition, I've prepared a welcoming gift for each of you!" she added, pointing to a leather satchel sitting atop the desk.

"Ah, though, you probably don't want to open that right now, Ichika-san," Miku said, just as Ichika was about to peek inside. "Just saying~!"

Ichika quickly set the bag down on the desk again, with a panicked look on her face.

"Also, just so you know: all of the bedrooms in the guesthouse are structured identically to this one, and I instructed the servants to make extra sure nothing was wrong with the rooms, in preparation for your arrival. No ill-fitting bathroom doors here!" Miku then added, putting a little bit of extra emphasis on that last sentence for some reason.

Then Miku pointed over to a flatscreen TV bolted to the wall directly across from the bed—seemingly identical to the ones Ena had seen earlier in the mansion—adjacent to a smaller grey box that looked like some kind of wall-mounted speaker.

"Your rooms also come with a monitor and an intercom, which we'll use to make broadcasts and announcements if necessary! Or even just if I want to!" Miku hummed to herself happily. "I can personally guarantee that you will never be free of my beautiful voice~!" she sang.

"Oh!" she then said suddenly, snapping her fingers as if recalling something. "And speaking of voices: these rooms are all heavily soundproofed. Scream all you want inside these rooms—no one will hear anything out in the corridor or in the neighboring rooms, and vice-versa.

"On the other hand, each room also has a doorbell, as well as an intercom unit outside the door that's connected to the intercom on the inside, in case you want to talk to someone without letting them in."

Then she led them over to the window, pointing to a latch built into the frame. She undid the latch and pushed the window open, letting in fresh air—as well as the sweet fragrance from the rose garden in front of the guesthouse.

"The window in each room can be opened after undoing the lock from the inside," she said, before closing the window and flicking the latch shut once more. "Though, keep in mind that it's pretty easy to open the window from outside, too, if you don't keep it locked~!

"And, yes, the soundproofing extends to the windows, too: no one outside the building will hear anything you do inside, unless you have the window open."

Then Miku turned around and walked back to the door, stopping just short of it, and tapped the lock beneath the doorknob. "The doors to your bedrooms can also be locked freely from the inside, of course," she said with a smile. "For obvious reasons, I highly recommend locking your doors at night and whenever you step out!"

Then she turned, and handed a metal key to each of the five of them; Ena's had her name and her room's location (Guesthouse 2F – North Wing) engraved on a metal tag attached to the handle.

"Aside from individual room keys, each of the servants also carries a master key with them—and so do I, naturally," Miku explained. "If you ever lose your key, feel free to ask any of the servants, and they can provide you with a new one... but just remember: more keys means more potential ways for murderers to get into your room, ahaha!"

"A-hem. Anyways," she said, cutting off her cackling and pointing to a small chain attached to the doorframe. "For added security, each of your rooms also comes equipped with a chain lock," she continued.

"Though, I ought to mention: if you somehow end up in a situation where your room's door is chained up with nobody inside to unchain it..." Miku began, turning back to them with a leer. "We keep a pair of bolt cutters in the servants' room downstairs, which you can use to cut the chain from outside."

"But... how could something like that even happen?" Ichika asked, scratching her head along with Haruka. Meanwhile, Ena heard Toya sigh quietly beside her.

"Hmm~" Miku hummed, her grin widening. "I'll leave that for you to figure out, ahaha~!"

After that, Ena went to check out her own room, which happened to be right next door to Ichika's; as promised, it was practically identical to the one she'd just seen, though Ena still went through and checked it, just to make sure of that fact. After all, she'd be living here for the foreseeable future...

The room seemed comfortable enough, but as Ena looked around, she already found herself missing home.

There had to be people back home looking for her and Akito—their parents, at the very least. But would anyone even be able to find them, out in the middle of the ocean like this?

Would she ever go home again?

The thought settled like a leaden weight in her chest—the heavy, choking feeling of growing despair.

As she continued to look, she found another buttoned leather satchel sitting on her desk. When she opened it, she found a small collection of items inside, along with a printed and typeset note:

Killing Game Welcome Package

From the Desk of Headmistress Miku:

Once again, I would like to bid you a fair welcome to this island. Please relax, and have a fun and enjoyable experience during our time together with this game! Each student's room has been furnished with a welcome package like this one, containing tools and knowledge that I hope will aid everyone in whatever endeavors they may wish to pursue on this island.

These welcome packages come in one of three varieties, which have been distributed among each of you:

• The "Apprentice Locksmith Pack", containing lockpicking tools, a primer on lockpicking, and a transparent practice lock modelled after our very own door locks, provided to Students 01, 04, 06, 11, 12, 16, 17, and 18.
• The "Assassin's Essentials", containing a sharp dagger and an illustrated guide on how to use it most effectively, provided to Students 03, 05, 07, 08, 10, 13, 15, and 19.
• The "CSI Starter Set", containing essential tools for any would-be detective, provided to Students 02, 09, 14, and 20.

As this is a "CSI Starter Set" package, you will find the following items enclosed:

• 1 detective's cap and pipe
• 1 magnifying glass
• 1 pair of handcuffs
• 1 tactical flashlight w/ charging cable
• 1 roll of all-weather reflective marking tape (low adhesive strength)
• 1 instant camera
• 5 pairs of surgical gloves
• 5 tamper-proof evidence bags (plastic)
• 20 adhesive entryway seals

The provided flashlight is suitable for outdoor police use; at full power, it has a maximum output of 2100 lumens and a beam length of 200 meters, though it can also be set to medium- and low-power modes if necessary. It is water-, shock-, and shatter-proof, and can be recharged using the included cable.

Each of your entryway seals consists of a strip of extremely sticky reflective duct tape; each strip has a difficult-to-forge pattern printed on the front, and perforations added to make the seal easy to tear apart. They are intended to be placed between a door/window and its frame (see diagrams on reverse side).

A door or window that has been sealed in this way cannot be opened without tearing the seal, leaving behind clear evidence that the door or window was used; meanwhile, attempts to remove a seal (broken or not) will leave behind adhesive residue as evidence of such tampering. When applied with proper foresight, seals such as these can be an invaluable tool for proving or disproving suspect alibis.

The pattern on your seals is unique to this particular package. Your seal pattern is also depicted on the reverse side of this note, for reference.

Ena grimaced as she read over the note.
They really were expected to kill each other, huh...?

She wondered about her own kit, though. It was strangely nice of the lunatic keeping them here to give out kits that weren't all about murdering others—but then a sudden realization hit Ena: this wasn't their so-called 'Headmistress' being nice, it was her being fair. This was all just some sick murder mystery game to Miku, after all... she probably just wanted to level the playing field to make things more interesting.

Then Ena pulled out the 'seals' in question, and took a look at them for herself. They were almost like stickers made of duct tape; each was about the size of an index card, and each bore the exact same seal design on the front: a complicated pattern of whorls and curves drawn in black ink, in a style that reminded Ena of tattoo art.

As intricate as the pattern was... Ena felt like she was a proficient enough artist to replicate the design and make more of these seals herself, if they turned out to be useful. She was just as sure that making more by hand would be a pretty slow process, though.

Ena's inspection of the room was interrupted by a sudden buzzing noise—the doorbell, she assumed.

"Ena-sama, it is Rin," the maid's voice called out to her through her room's intercom. "It would appear that your classmates are gathering in the mansion dining hall. Do you wish to join them?"

"Oh, I'll be right there...!" Ena called back, and packed everything back inside the satchel, before slinging it over her shoulder and making her way outside.

She made sure to lock her door on the way out, of course.

Ena quickly made her way over to the dining hall, and found almost everyone there already, with several of the other people with rooms on the guesthouse's second floor following behind her.

"Alright, looks like that's everyone," An said, watching Ena and the others file in. "We can get started then!"

"Get started with what?" Ena asked, looking around at everyone; almost everyone was standing around the dining table, though a few were leaning or sitting against the walls. An herself stood at the head of the table, on the far side from Ena.

An just looked at Ena like she was stupid. "Planning how to get out of here, duh," she said. "I dunno about you, but I have a world to get back to, outside this island."

"Okay, but... how do we get off the island?" Saki piped up. "The ship that carried us here left, right? Do you think we can take another one?"

"I doubt they're gonna have one just sitting around for us to steal..." Mizuki shook her head. "But maybe someone will come looking for us?"

"We can't count on that," Akito argued. "We're on a tiny island out in the middle of the ocean. Who knows how long it'll take for anyone to even think of looking here?"

Ena glanced over at the kitchen. "...No, that's wrong," she cut in. "A place as fancy as this probably gets regular shipments of fresh food and other supplies from outside. Maybe we could stow away."

"Ooo, clever thinking, Ena-san! But I'm sorry to say, that's not gonna work~" Miku's voice suddenly spoke up, from seemingly out of nowhere. Everyone turned to look around for its source—and then the monitor on the wall next to them lit up, showing the singer's face.

The Miku shown on the monitor seemed to be an actual person, for that matter, with a natural-looking skin tone and without those robotic seams on her face, and seemed to be seated in front of a control panel; meanwhile, a large bank of monitors arrayed on the wall behind her displayed what looked like surveillance footage.

"By the way: next time you go to discuss your secret plans to escape, don't do it where there are three different surveillance cameras watching you~" Miku chuckled.

"You seriously think you can keep us here?" Shiho growled.

"Yep! And if you wanna know why... all you have to do is touch your neck," Miku said, reaching up with her hands to point to two spots on either side of the base of her neck, just above her collarbone. "Right around here and here. Can you feel them?"

Ena pressed her fingers against the indicated spots on her neck—and her face paled when she found what felt like two hard lumps there, embedded beneath her skin. They clearly weren't natural. But what were they...?

"See, before you woke up on that boat, I had a team of doctors surgically implant a few goodies into each of you while wiping your memories, ahaha~!" Miku cackled, with a wide shit-eating grin all across her face.

"Those round things you're feeling inside your neck are a pair of explosive charges! They're connected to a device in your chest cavity that receives a keep-alive signal from radio transmitters set up all over this island," she explained, as a diagram of a human body popped up on screen, with the aforementioned implants shown and highlighted on it.

"If that device stops receiving the keep-alive signal for over 24 hours, then the charges go off—BOOM!" Miku exclaimed, waving her hands in the air as the head of the body on the screen exploded into cartoon gore. "And your neck goes bye-bye~! The device in your chest cavity also has a GPS receiver and a bunch of other trackers like that—meaning I know where you are at all times. So don't even think of trying to run!

"Don't worry, though! If you graduate, you'll of course receive all the information you need to get that stuff out of you!" Miku added.

Then she snapped her fingers.

"Oh, and just so you know, Mafuyu-san, Rui-san," Miku said with a frown, wagging her finger. "Any attempt at removing or tampering with these devices will be considered destruction of school property, by both you and your patients! And they have backup trigger mechanisms! So don't try to mess with them!"

And then she began to giggle again, as everyone stared at the screen in stunned silence; it was starting to sink in, now, just how futile any attempts at escape would be. There really was only one way out of here, it seemed...

"Ahaha, those looks on your faces..." Miku crowed, clearly relishing in their reactions. "They're beautiful~!"

Miku left after that, the monitor on the wall turning itself off once more—but even still, the room remained deathly silent.

"We can't give up!" Tsukasa said eventually, putting his hands down on the table with a loud bang that shattered the silence. "There has to be something we can do...!"

"But what, though...?" Kanade mumbled, tears welling up in her eyes. "We're trapped! Even if we do get away from the island, M-Miku can kill us anyways!"

Rui sighed, running a hand through his hair. "Perhaps we should explore the area more, first. Maybe we'll find something that could help us disable or sabotage the explosives... and if nothing else, we'll be spending quite some time here, so it's best if we get familiar with this place."

"That sounds like a good idea," Ena agreed, and everyone else around the room nodded with her.

The 'campus grounds' they were confined to, as a whole, were surrounded by a tall, smooth concrete wall topped with barbed wire; it was far enough away from the buildings and obscured by forests, though, so that you couldn't see it from any of the windows. Aside from the small slivers of woodland around the perimeter, though, the grounds themselves were mostly clear of trees, like a big, carefully landscaped back yard.

Ena decided to start her search from outside; looking at some signs set up outside the mansion, there were a few other places of note around here: a chapel (closed for renovations, supposedly), the aforementioned stage, a basketball court, and even an archery range.

The basketball court and archery range turned out to be fairly uninteresting, with no particular standout features and nobody around to use the facilities; Ena skipped over them for the most part, and went to go check out the stage instead.

The stage was big—rivaling the size of the chapel—and looked like the kind of thing you'd find at an idol or rock concert, with steel trusses, lights, and speakers everywhere, all in front of a flat black-and-white backdrop. The sleek steel skeleton and modern look of the stage seemed rather at odds with the whole 'classic' aesthetic of the rest of the buildings, in Ena's opinion.

Minori and Haruka were up on stage right now, apparently performing a dance number. Ena waved as she walked up to the stage.

"Oh, hi, Ena-chan!" Minori waved back.

"What are you doing?" Ena asked, raising her voice to cover the distance between her and the two idols on stage.

"Practicing!" Haruka replied. "We can't slack off just because we're stuck here!"

After that, Ena went back inside the mansion, and followed a large set of stairs up to its second floor.

A quick look around revealed that the hallways on this floor—and the first floor, for that matter—both went in a large loop around a glass-roofed atrium in the center of the mansion, with additional windows in the second floor hallway that looked down into the atrium from above. Another set of stairs nearby led up to the third floor, though these were blocked off with a sign reading "Library Closed for Renovations – No Entry".

The second floor had five rooms of note: two music rooms, an A/V room, a computer lab, and an art room; meanwhile, there also seemed to be a bathroom, a storage room, and a few extra rooms in the back that were empty for now.

Ena began to go through each room one-by-one, starting from the stairs and working her way around the floor.

The first music room—Music Room A, right next to the stairs leading up to this floor—seemed to be set up as a large recording studio, with several different instrument cases, a drum kit, and a keyboard all sitting inside. A thick glass pane set into one side of the room looked into a control booth containing recording equipment and a mixing console, with the booth connected to the main room via a soundproof door. Both rooms also contained wall-mounted monitors, as well as (of course) surveillance cameras on the ceiling.

Ena saw Honami and Shiho's eyes widen as all three of them entered the room together.

"They seriously brought our instruments here?" Shiho muttered as she walked up to one particular instrument case left propped up against the wall, opening it up to reveal a bass guitar. "...thank god for that, at least," she sighed. "I probably would've snapped if I couldn't play here."

"Indeed."

Ena whirled around to find Luka suddenly standing in the doorway behind her. "Our mistress has gone to considerable lengths to furnish the mansion with rooms designed to accommodate our students' unique Talents," Luka explained as she bowed to the three of them. "Each of you will find at least one place on the grounds with all the equipment necessary to practice your individual Talent."

"So this is Shiho-chan and Honami-chan's room, then?" Ena asked. "And I guess also Ichika-chan and Saki-chan's...?"

Luka nodded. "Yes. Though there are no restrictions on who may use it, it was designed with them in mind."

"How kind," Shiho muttered again, though Ena noted that she now sounded remarkably less pissed off than before.

Music Room B was the next door down, and had an identical layout to Music Room A, but with different instruments inside: a large grand piano stood off to one side of the room, with a violin case resting on its seat, while a large boombox sat neatly against the wall on the other side. Ena found Toya and Akito standing inside to go along with the instruments.

"So this is your room, then?" Ena asked the two boys.

"Guess so," Akito replied, while Toya nodded. "Though I can't really see myself using this place all that much, honestly. I can't really say I'm doing street music if I'm not on a street, y'know? Gotta be out amongst people."

Ena glanced inside the A/V room, she saw that it seemed to be set up like a home theatre. The centerpiece of the room was a massive TV mounted to the far wall; it was flanked by a pair of giant speakers, with smaller speakers set up all along the other walls to provide surround sound. Meanwhile, stacks of DVDs in one corner of the room provided an ample collection of media to watch, and large sofas in the center of the room provided comfortable seating for at least 4-5 people at a time, if not more.

Still, the room seemed to be empty of people right now, and from what Ena could tell, none of them possessed a Talent that had anything to do with this room.

Meanwhile, in the computer lab...

Kanade had already rearranged the furniture to form a sort of cubicle in one corner of the room—a square partition fenced off by tables set up in an L-shape. She'd also appropriated several of the computers, putting their monitors side-by-side to form almost a solid wall separating her from the rest of the world. When Ena stepped around to look inside, she found Kanade nestled comfortably inside a large and familiar-looking chair, alongside her synthesizer.

Mafuyu and Rin were also there, both of them watching Kanade silently as she worked.

"All things considered, this probably isn't that different from how you usually live, isn't it Kanade?" Ena remarked, as she peered around the side of Kanade's makeshift cubicle. "Except now there's maids who can bring food to you."

Kanade thought about that for a second, before shaking her head. "Well... there's no Internet access here," she sighed. "So I can't post new songs for N25..."

Oh, right... of course they wouldn't have internet out here. Damnit.

Meanwhile, Nene had also done something similar on the other side of the room across from Kanade, though her 'cubicle' had some arcade cabinets standing in place of one of the tables. She, too, had a gaming chair set up inside her space, as well as several consoles—judging by the cabling, those monitors Miku used to talk to them could double as regular TVs.

"You too?" Ena asked Nene, who seemed to be in the middle of playing some kind of rhythm game called CHUNITHM.

"...yeah," Nene replied sheepishly after she finished her song a few seconds later. "I-I mean, I'm the Ultimate Gamer, you know...?"

That was when Len walked in, carrying a stack of blankets and pillows. "Nene-sama, Kanade-sama, I have brought the items you requested," he called out.

Ena just sighed and facepalmed. "Are you two seriously planning on sleeping in here...?" she said.

"U-Um, yes..." Kanade replied, taking one of the blankets and pillows. "Nene-san and I talked about it, and we think it actually might be safer for us to stay here than in our actual rooms."

"There's no windows, so the door is the only way in—plus, the two of us will be able to keep an eye on each other throughout the night," Nene explained, as Len handed her the other blanket and the rest of the pillows. "Rin gave both of us extra keys to the room... and the door has a chain as well as a lock, just like the bedrooms."

"That... actually makes sense," Ena had to admit. "Just be careful, you two..."

After the music rooms, A/V room, and the computer lab, there was only one other room of importance left—and the one Ena was obviously most looking forward to seeing. Namely, the art room.

Ena bumped into Honami and Shiho again as she left the computer lab, and the three of them walked together to the entrance of the art room, at the end of the hall. Ena eagerly pulled the door open—

"Ehhh?!"

—and found Honami standing inside, alongside Kohane and Rui.

Ena spun around in confusion, just to make sure her eyes weren't playing tricks on her—and sure enough, she found Honami still standing behind her, next to Shiho, her eyes boggling in confusion.

"What the fuck?" Ena asked, whipping her head back and forth to look at the two Honamis. Shiho, meanwhile, glared intently at the Honami in the art room.

And then that other Honami shattered the illusion, by laughing with Mizuki's voice.

"Oh, for fuck's sake, Mizuki..." Ena facepalmed, before shooting Mizuki a sharp glare. "Since when were you a master of disguise?"

"I'm not, normally!" Mizuki claimed; Ena had to fight down a strange unease, hearing Mizuki's voice coming from a seemingly completely different person. "This is what happens when Rui and I work together!"

"Costume design is one of my particular specialties," Rui said by way of explanation. "And this room has plenty of material to work with."

"Yep! This room has a giant supply of cosmetics, clothes, and fabrics!" Mizuki happily reported, turning to point at a corner of the room containing shelves and racks packed with the aforementioned materials. "It's perfect for us!"

"...how long are you gonna keep wearing Honami's face like that, Mizuki-san?" Shiho asked, scowling. "Feels so weird, seeing two of her standing around."

"I think it's funny," Honami giggled, stepping up to Mizuki and leaning in to inspect her disguise. "Even if I was a bit shocked at first. It's like I'm looking into a mirror!"

Aside from the Ultimate Fashion Designer's and Ultimate Director's supplies, Ena immediately noticed a second corner of the room, which was filled with easels, canvases, and paints for her to use, as well as a shelf piled with other art supplies ranging from sketchbooks, pencils and pens and markers of all kinds, erasers, tape (including duct tape), craft knives and scissors, and loose paper.

A third and final section of the room had clearly been set aside for Kohane's use, with several tripods set up, a big display case full of camera bodies and lenses of all different shapes and sizes, numerous mirrors and lights and umbrella light reflectors, a printer, and several empty corkboards for displaying printed photos.

Ena grabbed a sketchbook and pencils before she left, tucking both away inside her satchel.

Although she wasn't expecting to find anything of note, Ena peered into the storage room on this floor anyways, for the sake of completeness. The room was musty and dark, and as soon as Ena flicked the light switch by the door, the bulb in the ceiling light burned out, forcing Ena to pull out her flashlight in order to see.

As soon as she turned the light on, though, she immediately understood what the welcome note had said about the flashlight being suitable for outdoor police use: its full power setting was far too bright for this relatively small room, nearly blinding Ena with its luminance, and it was only after a few seconds of frantic fumbling that she managed to turn the flashlight down to a lower power setting more suitable for indoor use.

At any rate, the room was filled with shelves and boxes, as might be expected from a storeroom... but, as Ena ventured deeper inside, she noticed something on the floor in the back—no, not on the floor, in the floor: a small hatch. She pulled at it experimentally, and the trapdoor opened up, revealing a ladder she could use to climb down into a room below.

"The hell?" Ena muttered to herself. "A secret room?"

"Nooooope~" a girl said, speaking directly into her ear—

"KYAAAA!" Ena shrieked, spinning around on her heel and falling back on her ass—fortunately not into the open hatch in the floor. She quickly picked her flashlight back up, aiming its light beam at the girl looming over her.

< BGM – Mr. Monokuma's Lesson V3 >

"A-hem!" Miku cleared her throat, putting one hand on her hip and wagging a finger as she lectured Ena. <! "Knox's Third: It is forbidden for hidden passages to EXIST!" !>

She whipped out her tablet with a flourish, pulling up a map of the second floor for Ena to look at and pointing to a little ladder icon in the corner of the storage room.

"If you'd bothered looking at the map in your e-Handbook, you'd have seen that this hatch is not only explicitly marked for everyone to see, but it's also labelled as connecting this storage room to the servants' room on the first floor! All connections between rooms and floors are listed on the map!"

Before Ena could even begin to work up a response to that, she heard footsteps come from down the hall; a second later, two silhouettes appeared in the doorway.

"Ena?! I-Is everything okay?!" Mizuki shouted, now wearing her usual appearance once more. "What...?" she trailed off, evidently noticing Miku standing inside. "Huh?"

"Oh, don't mind me~" Miku said, turning to look at them with a smile. "I was just giving Ena-san an informative lesson!"

And then she turned back to Ena—who was still on the floor—with a frown, wagging her finger again as she continued to chastise her.

"And speaking of lessons: you're being quite careless, Ena-san, walking into a dark room all alone! If I were one of your classmates, I could've stuck a knife in your back a dozen times over before you even turned around!"

Ena paled—and so did Mizuki, for that matter. The pink-haired girl quickly scurried into the room to help Ena up, clinging to Ena's arm protectively and glaring at Miku. "But, I... surely..." Ena stammered in the meanwhile.

"...Miku-san has a point," Rui sighed, leaning against the side of the doorway. "You really ought to be more careful, Ena-san."

Try as she might to argue, Ena was forced to admit: Miku and Rui were both right. As much as she hated to think about it... she knew she couldn't necessarily trust anyone else here, anymore. But still, it was hard for her to think of her friends as potential murderers!

Her friends were good people... right?

"Well, it's a reasonable mistake to make! It's only the first day, after all~♪" Miku said with a sing-song lilt to her voice. "But I just know you'll all warm up to the idea of murder soon enough, ahaha!"

Mizuki stuck by Ena's side after that.

They climbed down the ladder from the storage room, and entered the servants' room on the first floor. From the name alone, Ena had been expecting some kind of fantasy cottage room or something: cramped and dingy, with maybe a bed or two for the maids to sleep in and a flickering lantern for light.

Reality, meanwhile, turned out to be vastly different: the servants' room really just looked like a typical workplace break room—complete with a water cooler, which was set up next to a small kitchenette equipped with a stove, a coffee maker, and a tea kettle. The room did have a bed, at least, sitting in one corner by the door, with a row of metal lockers set up along the wall past its foot.

On the far side of the room from the main entrance—and right next to the ladder leading up to the second floor, for that matter—stood a large wooden writing desk; meanwhile, a sofa and a pair of seats were arranged around a living room table in the center of the room, for lounging in front of the room's requisite monitor.

Kaito and Meiko sat on the seats across from each other here, the two of them seemingly enjoying a tea break for now; they nodded in greeting as Ena and Mizuki climbed down.

A large box containing a first-aid kit was affixed to one wall, next to a large whiteboard that seemed to have the servants' schedules written out on it. Next to that, however, was a much larger metal case; through the glass on the front, Ena could see it contained numerous keys hanging from labeled pegs inside, as well as a pair of bolt-cutters.

"That would be the key box," Kaito said, noticing Ena and Mizuki peering into the case. "As you can see, it contains keys for every room in the mansion, as well as the garden shed. It also contains a pair of bolt cutters for cutting door chains, should the need arise."

"The servants' room in the guesthouse is set up much like this one, and has its own key box for the rooms in that building," Meiko added. "Though it does not contain copies of your room keys."

Curiously, as Ena and Mizuki made to leave the room, Ena noticed that the door didn't actually have either a lock or a chain. "Weird..." she muttered, her eyebrow raised. "Do you really let people just waltz in and out of here?"

"Correct," Kaito replied. "The mistress insisted upon it."

After Ena and Mizuki stepped back out into the hallway, Ena checked her e-Handbook's map: aside from the entrance hall, dining room, and servants' room that she'd visited earlier, this floor contained the mansion's kitchen, a parlor, a sickbay, and entrances to the atrium in the center of the building; it also had bathrooms (naturally), another storage room that was significantly larger than the 2F storage room, and several more unused rooms.

Three connections were listed that led to a basement level below: a set of stairs just past the entrance hall, a second stairway in the atrium, and a cargo elevator (?!) in the first floor storage room. The map didn't say what each connection led to in the basement, however; instead, they were all simply marked as off-limits for now, with the basement as a whole currently "Closed for Renovations", much like the library.

Finally, aside from the front entrance (and the windows), there was one other entrance to the mansion as a whole on the first floor: a back entrance in the kitchen.

The parlor seemed to be the closest thing the mansion had to a living room: a wide room with numerous sofas and chairs set up around several tables, with elaborate chandeliers hanging from the ceiling and numerous windows for lighting.

Tsukasa, Saki, Ichika, and Emu were all in here right now, playing a game of...

"UNO!!" Tsukasa yelled, slapping a card—a Red 5—down on the table with a loud clatter.

The next two people up, meanwhile, were Saki and Ichika; the two girls shared a brief look, before putting an unspoken plan into action: Saki put down a Red 2, followed by a Red Reverse from Ichika, and then—

"I'm sorry, Onii-chan!" Saki shouted. "Draw Four! Blue!"

"NOOOOOOO!!!"

"Oh! Ena-san! Mizuki-chan! Wonderhoy~!" Emu shouted, waving as the the two of them walked in—before turning back to the game, slamming down a Blue Draw 2 with enough force to make the table shake a bit.

Ichika then followed up with an identical Blue Draw 2 of her own, and all Saki could do was shoot her girlfriend a look of betrayal, before picking up 4 cards.

"Hey!" Mizuki waved back. "...where did you all find this?"

"In the cabinet over there," Emu replied, pointing over to a big wooden cabinet by the wall. "There's a bunch of board games in there!"

After checking out the parlor, Ena and Mizuki went to go look into the sickbay.

The sickbay was divided into two rooms: a main room with beds for patients to rest in, and a separate examination room accessible via a door from the main room.

The main room contained four hospital beds, each surrounded by a privacy curtain and equipped with a heart and vitals monitor, an IV stand, and a nightstand. The flooring here was sterile white tile, the walls painted a uniform teal; meanwhile, bright ceiling lights flooded the room with fluorescent light, and the smell of antiseptic filled the air, completing the whole "miniature hospital" aesthetic that the room seemed to be angling for. Curiously, though, Ena noticed that the door leading inside from the hallway had a lock and a chain as well; was this formerly a bedroom?

Meanwhile, the examination room looked more like a regular doctor's office or school nurse's office to Ena, with a cushioned examination table and numerous large metal cabinets arrayed along the walls. The room also had a counter with a sink, a box of disposable latex gloves, and a box for safely disposing of used needles and surgical blades.

Ena and Mizuki found Mafuyu and Shizuku looking around inside; the Ultimate Doctor was in the midst of looking around inside one of the cabinets, which seemed to contain a massive number of medication bottles and plastic vials. They turned as Ena and Mizuki walked in, nodding to the two of them.

"This room is stocked with a surprising variety of medications and equipment," Mafuyu said without any preamble. "And I've been told that the storage room on this floor contains additional pieces of medical and surgical equipment for me to use. All together, it's on par with a typical hospital, albeit with far fewer beds."

"They're expecting us to get seriously injured out here," Ena grimaced, another knot twisting in her stomach. "Of course."

"These cabinets also contain a number of different poisons," Shizuku sighed. "Including an especially large bottle of cyanide... this Miku-san really loves her murder mystery tropes, it seems. There's even a card here listing all the different poisons in stock and their symptoms."

Shizuku pointed out the card, and Ena took a look for herself. True to form, it listed a bunch of different toxic substances and even some sedatives, with sections for "Classics" (arsenic, strychnine, cyanide, chloral hydrate, chloroform), to more modern substances (insecticides, fentanyl, flunitrazepam, sodium thiopental, pancuronium bromide); each substance had its symptoms, lethal dose range, and time of onset of symptoms listed for reference, as well as where it could be found in the cabinets nearby.

Ena also went to take a look in the cabinet for herself (while being watched carefully by both Shizuku and Mafuyu)... and as it turned out, the cyanide was front and center in one of the largest cabinets, stored in a big glass bottle, with a plastic stopper that was secured by a latch; said bottle also bore a printed label that read 'Concentrated Hydrogen Cyanide Solution – Now With 5000% More Bitter Almond Scent!'.

"The cabinets also contain antidotes, however," Mafuyu pointed out shortly afterwards. "And more than enough supplies to treat poisoning symptoms, if we can get the victim here in time."

"But let's hope it doesn't come to that," Shizuku said... though Ena had a feeling it would.

Aside from the kitchens (which Ena decided to skip for now; it didn't look like anyone was inside, and she didn't find anything unusual after a quick peek inside from the dining hall), the last place she and Mizuki had yet to see in the mansion was the atrium, smack in the center of the building.

Two doors led into the atrium from the first floor, neither of which had locks; aside from that, there was also the aforementioned door connecting the basement and the atrium, though this door was boarded up for now, with a "Closed for Renovations – No Entry" sign hung up in front. A wide glass ceiling spanned the entire room, giving a clear view of the sky and letting in plenty of afternoon sunlight.

The atrium was rectangular in shape, and about half of it was taken up by an indoor garden, with grass and colorful flowers planted amidst paved stone paths. The other half of the atrium, though, was dominated by a raised stage platform, with a clear paved space in front for an audience to stand or sit.

Ena and Mizuki found Luka down here once again, standing in front of the stage.

"This place used to be an open-air courtyard," Luka said unprompted, as the two of them approached. "Though the mistress later demanded the installation of a glass ceiling to keep out rain and storms, turning the space into an indoor atrium instead."

"Does this island get bad storms?" Mizuki asked, staring up at the sky.

"Indeed," Luka nodded. "Especially at this time of year, during typhoon season. I believe it's one reason why the mistress chose this island for her game... the remote island cut off by a storm; another reference to classic murder mysteries. You can always check the weather forecast in your e-Handbook, however."

"What's the stage for?" Ena asked.

"For the most part, this stage will only be used for class announcements and meetings," Luka replied. "Students with performing Talents are encouraged to use the much larger and more elaborate stage outside the mansion, instead."

As Ena stared at the stage in front of her, a sinking feeling began to settle inside her gut—nothing good could come of this particular place in the mansion, she suspected. But... she didn't quite know what that meant right now.

Not yet.

Nighttime saw Ena stumbling into her room, in a somewhat confused daze.

Even now, this whole situation felt too surreal, too weird for Ena to accept: remote private islands and mansions; creepy, insane Virtual Singers; exploding head implants; killing games... everything about this day was just too farfetched. It couldn't be real.

Maybe it was all just a bad dream.

...yeah, that had to be it.

It was just a bad dream; she'd close her eyes, and wake up again in her actual bed tomorrow, and then she'd go tell Mizuki about it on Nightcord—and then Mizuki would probably tease her for having such batshit insane dreams. And she'd go to class and work on music with N25 and just... go back to living like normal.

Ding, dong! Bing, bong!

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a bell tolling—played over her room's monitor speakers, of course; there actually was a large bell in the mansion that would also ring at this time, she'd been told, but it'd of course be impossible to hear from within the soundproofed bedrooms.

The monitor turned itself on, displaying Miku sitting in her control room once again.

"A-hem! This is your Headmistress speaking!" Miku announced. "It is now 10 PM, and therefore nighttime! The mansion kitchen and guesthouse fitness room will now be locked. Kitchen and gardening staff are now off-duty!

"Good night, and sweet dreams, ahaha~!"

And with that, the monitor shut itself off once more, leaving Ena in silence once more. She made sure to check her door, ensuring it was both locked and chained, before going to bed.

Sleep came to Ena slowly, even after she'd settled in beneath the covers—but after some time, she managed to finally fall asleep...

Chapter Text

"Mistress, your coffee," Luka called out as Miku awoke, carrying two cups of the black beverage on a tray in her hands.

"Ughhh... tired..." Miku mumbled from her seat at the control console, still not fully up yet, sitting with her head face-down on the panels in front of her. Still, she turned her head, and offered Luka a weak smile as the pink-haired Singer set the coffee down on the table, next to Miku. "Thanks, Luka..."

"Of course, Mistress."

Miku sighed and slowly sat back up, peeling her cheek off the cold metal panel, before taking a long sip of coffee from one of the cups, draining it halfway. "Ahhh... your coffee's the best, Luka," she hummed, savoring the taste for a few silent moments.

Then she glanced over at a small stack of DVDs sitting on a table across the room, frowning as she contemplated matters.

"Is something wrong, Mistress? Are the videos not to your satisfaction?"

"Hrm..." Miku grumbled to herself, before shaking her head with a defeated sigh. "No, it's not your fault at all. The videos are great! I'm just worried that the whole motive might not have enough impact, the way it is right now."

She downed the rest of her first cup of coffee. "Especially with how vague the videos are," she groaned. "I know it worked for those other games, but... what if these students don't buy it? It'd be easy to say they're faked, after all."

"Plus, it doesn't really do anything special to hit Akito-san or Mizuki-san," Miku continued, before turning to glare at the camera feed showing the computer lab. "And we don't even have anything at all on Kanade-san and Mafuyu-san, to begin with! Everyone they care about is already here!" she shouted, throwing her hands up in the air in frustration.

The Singer leaned back in her seat, staring up at the metal ceiling. "Think, Miku, think... what would she do...?"

"...'She'? Mistress...? Are you certain that's—"

Miku ignored Luka for now, instead continuing to think. "Something brutal, for sure. Ripping out guts is her specialty, after all," she muttered to herself.

"Especially in front... of others..."

Miku snapped her fingers suddenly, her face brightening. "That's it!"

She began to look through some files on her control room computer, pulling up some old execution chamber designs that she'd scrapped a while back. A few of them had gotten to the prototyping stage before she'd nixed them—and if she remembered correctly, there was one particular component she'd prototyped back then, which would be perfect to use here! She was sure it was still lying around the island somewhere... ah, yep, it was!

Oh, this was gonna be great! She couldn't wait to see everyone's faces when she pulled this motive out...!

Ding, dong! Bing, bong!

Ena woke up the next day to the sound of the same bell she'd heard before falling asleep last night, and realized that she was still on this godforsaken island. It really wasn't all a dream...

"A-hem! This is your Headmistress speaking!" Miku announced; on her room's monitor, Ena could see the twintailed Virtual Singer lounging in her control room chair, grinning smugly at the camera.

"And this... is your daily wake-up call, everyone! It's 8 AM, and nighttime has just ended! Rise and shine, and get ready to take on another amazing day here with us~♪"

Ena grumbled as the announcement blared in her ears—she was already starting to get sick of hearing Miku's voice. As the announcement ended, though, she simply rolled over and closed her eyes again.

Really, it was just too early...

...for her to be up...

...

Ena woke up half an hour later to someone ringing her doorbell.

"Enanaaaan?" Mizuki's voice called out to her through the intercom. "Are you there? Helloooo?"

That finally got Ena to get up, groaning as she did so; she slowly shuffled over to her door and unlocked it—only for it to bang against the chain when she tried to open it, prompting her to grumble even more.

"Oh! Phew," Mizuki said as Ena undid the chain lock. "You're actually there..."

"Mizuki, why...?" Ena yawned, pulling the door open fully. Ugh, god, she probably looked like a mess right now, didn't she? "It's way too early..." she mumbled.

"I-I wanted to make sure you were awake..." Mizuki replied, staring down at her feet and holding her hands together behind her back—her usual nervous tells, Ena knew.

"...and, um. Alive," Mizuki then added quietly, a second later.

"...Oh," was all Ena could think to say to that at first, Mizuki's obvious concern hitting her in the face like a splash of cold water. "S-Sorry," she mumbled. "You know how I am with mornings, right...?"

Mizuki giggled and nodded. "I know~" she said. "But still, I was a bit worried. Do you want to go get breakfast together?"

"Of course, Mizuki. Just... let me wash up and get dressed, first."

Ena grabbed her satchel and locked her door securely after getting dressed, before making her way over to the mansion with Mizuki.

"Is Kanade up yet?" Ena asked on the way; it was more than fair of her to ask, considering that the composer's sleep habits were just as bad as her own, if not worse.

"Yeah. She and Nene-chan tried to sleep in too, but as it turns out, the computer lab isn't soundproofed like the bedrooms," Mizuki explained, and began to giggle. "So Mafuyu just banged loudly enough on the door that Kanade had to get up, and then she woke up Nene-chan for us!"

Ena laughed along with Mizuki. "So they both got dragged out to breakfast?"

"Yep!"

Breakfast was predictably Western-style, which meant—

"Oh, pancakes?" Ena said, her eyes widening as she caught sight of the plate being passed to her, and the glorious stack of fluffy brown pancakes piled atop it.

"Indeed. Help yourself," Kaito said, also passing her butter and syrup before bowing. "Enjoy."

With that, he retreated back into the kitchen, leaving everyone assembled to their own devices. Ena did a quick headcount; all twenty of them were here... though it seemed like Kanade and Nene were only half-awake, the former slumped over slightly in her chair and the latter outright laying her head on the table.

Ena took an experimental bite of the pancakes before her and—holy shit these were good pancakes. She was practically in heaven!

Meanwhile, out of the corner of her eye, Ena noticed that Mizuki seemed to be enjoying herself too, leaning forward with her elbows on the table as she watched Ena eat. At the same time, she could also make out the sound of Airi giggling, as she in turn watched the two of them from off to the side.

"Alright! Since we're all here for breakfast anyways..." An said, walking around to stand at the head of the table. "I say we should have a meeting!"

"A meeting about what...?" Saki asked, tilting her head.

"About everything!" An replied, spreading her arms out wide. "About being stuck here, and about this whole damn game Miku's trying to play with us! There has to be something we can do to get out of here!"

"Did anyone see anything weird or suspicious after we all split up, yesterday?" Akito then asked the room. "Anything at all?"

"Oh!" Honami said, raising a hand and looking at An. "Um, An, you checked out the kitchen with me yesterday, right?"

"Yeah?" An replied.

"Well, I returned later that evening to go check out the mansion's back entrance," Honami recalled, glancing at the kitchen door. "And I found a manhole behind the mansion, with a ladder leading somewhere underground. It's covered up by a heavy metal grate, though, with some kind of electric lock on the inside. I couldn't see what was at the bottom."

"Underground..." Akito echoed, looking at Haruka. "You know, Kiritani and I went out for a run earlier this morning, at around 5, and we noticed all of the servants were going somewhere together, near the chapel."

"We followed them, of course," Haruka continued. "They all walked into a building that seemed like a concrete shed at first—except it had this big, thick blast door. It was hard to see, but we think we saw a set of stairs inside, going down underground.

"Unfortunately, the door closed again before we could follow them in," Haruka sighed, shaking her head.

"There must be some kind of underground bunker or tunnel system beneath the island, then," Mafuyu concluded. "And it would be logical to assume that's where the person controlling all of this is hiding."

"How did they open the door?" Rui asked with his hand on his chin. "Did they have any sort of key?"

Akito shook his head. "Nope. They didn't do anything; they just stood outside the door for a second, and it swung open for them on its own. It swung shut behind them on its own, too, as soon as they were in. The door didn't even have a handle or anything."

Rui frowned. "They must use some form of wireless key, then... or perhaps the door is remotely controlled," he said, his face darkening. "The latter would be most secure, as long as the mastermind never has a reason to leave the bunker themselves—and they don't, since they have servants and that robot to do everything for them outside."

"Has anyone actually seen Miku or any of the servants, since then?" Ena asked, thinking. "Well, besides Kaito, of course."

Ena's question was greeted by silence and shakes of the head all around. "No one?" she asked again. "So they've been down there all morning?"

"We saw Miku on the announcement earlier," An pointed out. "Though I guess that could just be a pre-recorded video. Do you think they're up to something?"

"They have to be," Ena replied. "Why else would they need all hands on deck, down there?"

"What do you suppose they're doing, though?" Tsukasa asked, turning to look outside the dining room windows, at the chapel in the distance.

"It's almost 9 AM now—they've been there for close to four hours," Mizuki pointed out, checking her e-Handbook for the time. "So... it has to be something big."

That was a scary thought to Ena. Whatever it was, it couldn't be good for them... and considering the seemingly limitless resources this Miku had at her disposal, the sky was the limit, in terms of what she could be orchestrating down there.

"With the way this Miku's been acting? We'll find out soon enough," Akito muttered.

"Oh, and one last thing: why don't we agree to meet up like this every morning, at breakfast?" An then said. "That way, we can check up on each other, make sure we're all okay."

Most of the people around the room seemed to agree, except for Kanade and Nene—and also Ena, for that matter.

"...I don't think I could survive waking up at 8 AM every morning," Ena groaned, laying her head down on the table in front of her. "I take night classes for a reason, damnit."

"Don't worry!" Mizuki grinned. "I'll make sure you get up every morning~"

"And I can go wake up Kanade and Kusanagi-san," Mafuyu added. The two of them both shot her stricken looks of horror, which she promptly ignored.

"Great!" An beamed. "So that's settled, then!"

They all split up after breakfast, to go about their days individually.

Meanwhile, hidden hands continued working their own insidious magic, from behind the scenes...

Later that morning, Ena found Shiho and Honami sitting together on a bench, in the garden—or rather, Honami was sitting, while Shiho was seemingly asleep with her head on Honami's lap.

"Honami-chan?" Ena said, waving as she approached the pair, before looking to Shiho with concern. "Is something wrong with Shiho-chan?" she asked.

"Well..." Honami said, her voice trailing off worriedly as she brushed a few stray strands of hair away from Shiho's face. After a few moments of silence, she sighed. "I think Shiho-chan had trouble sleeping, last night. She was really worried about... um, you know. Our situation."

"Shiho-chan?" Ena replied, raising an eyebrow. "Er, no offense, but I didn't think she was capable of worrying."

"S-She is! She worries a lot about all of us!!" Honami said, looking up at Ena with a frown. For a second, Ena was taken aback by the force in her tone... and so was Honami herself, for that matter. "I-I'm sorry—I didn't mean to yell..." Honami said afterwards, shrinking in in herself.

Ena shook her head. "It's fine, really!" she said, glancing down to Shiho again. The bassist stirred briefly... but remained asleep, stilling once more, a moment later.

Honami looked around furtively, before continuing in a quiet voice. "Shiho-chan really does worry a lot about Saki-chan, Ichika-chan, and I," she said. "She just never tells anyone."

"And, um... please don't tell her I said this..." she then added, with a sigh.

"But... it's kind of frustrating, sometimes. I wish she'd just tell us what was on her mind..."

After spending some time with Honami—and Shiho, who woke up a few minutes after Ena's quiet conversation with Honami—Ena's footsteps carried her to the computer lab, some time after lunch.

As expected, she found Kanade and Nene in the lab, standing in front of the arcade game she'd seen Nene playing yesterday; this time, however, Nene seemed to be in the middle of showing Kanade how to play the game in question.

"Um, the basics are actually pretty simple..." Nene said to Kanade, as Ena walked in. "Notes come down from the top of the screen, and when they reach the line at the bottom, you need to tap or hold the matching part of the slider down here. Though, for the notes with the arrows above them, you need to move your hands up into the air, through the sensor here...

"...oh! Um, hi, Ena-san," Nene then said, when she noticed Ena standing nearby. "Did you need something?"

"No," Ena replied, shaking her head. "I was just wondering what you two were up to."

"Oh, um..." Kanade said. "I was curious about what Nene-san was playing, so I asked her to show me. I'm not normally very good with video games... but this seemed fun, so..."

"I think I saw Nene-san playing this yesterday... it's a rhythm game, right?" Ena asked, with a glance towards Nene, who nodded. "Yeah, it does seem like your kind of game, Kanade," Ena then said, smiling at the silver-haired composer.

Kanade smiled back at Ena, and nodded—but before she could say anything in response, Mizuki poked her head in through the doorway.

"Aha! There you are!" Mizuki said, walking up to them with a cheeky grin. "Are the three of you busy right now? Rui and I wanted to try something."

Ena, Nene, and Kanade all looked at each other for a moment. It didn't seem like any of them had any objections...

"Um, sure?" Ena said back to Mizuki. "What's going on?"

Mizuki just hummed in response. "You'll see~!"

And that's how, an hour later, Ena found herself in front of a mirror in the art room... looking into a reflection of Mafuyu staring back at her.

As it turned out, Mizuki and Rui were still working together to develop more 'costumes', like Ena had seen yesterday—though, in Ena's opinion, this went way beyond just a mere costume. The two of them had managed to put together a small kit of clothing and make-up that, when taken together, made Ena look almost exactly like her purple-haired friend...

...though, as Ena stared at the mirror with a decidedly un-Mafuyu-like look of bewilderment on her face, she quickly noticed that even these costumes had their limits. It was pretty funny, though, seeing Mafuyu's face make an expression that Ena was pretty sure the lyricist would never make in reality.

Meanwhile, beside her, Nene and Kanade were both looking into the same wide mirror with identical looks of surprise and bewilderment spread across their faces. Except, with how similar their voices and demeanors already were to begin with... Ena had already lost track of which was which. It was a bit scary, just how accurate these costumes were.

"...What are you doing?"

And then Ena, Kanade, and Nene turned around to find the real Mafuyu standing right behind them... or at least, Ena was pretty sure she was looking at the real Mafuyu, judging by the blank look on her face, and the slight tilt of her head as she stared back at Ena.

Ena tilted her own head to indicate Mizuki and Rui, standing not too far away; the two of them were chatting excitedly to each other as they worked on yet another 'costume'—one that looked like Airi this time, meant to be worn by both Kanade and Nene.

"It was their idea, I swear," Ena said to Mafuyu with a sigh. "I'm as surprised as you are."

Nene(?) and Kanade(?) both nodded.

"Yeah... they're really, really good at this," Nene(?) said, glancing again at the mirror behind her, standing with one arm drawn loosely across her body.

Kanade(?), meanwhile, turned her head to look sidelong at the other quiet girl next to her, holding both of her hands together up by her chest. "It's almost scary, actually. It really is like I'm looking into a mirror..."

Mafuyu looked at Kanade(?) and Nene(?) for a long, quiet moment, her eyes flicking back and forth between the two of them...

...and then she nodded to herself, and went to go stand by the first girl—the one that looked like Nene.

"Eh? How did you tell...?" Kanade asked, looking up at Mafuyu.

"The way you're holding your left wrist with your right hand. You do that a lot. Especially when you're nervous," Mafuyu answered, before leaning in a bit to take a closer look at Kanade's face. "And, also... your face. You look tired. And somewhat dazed... did you remember to eat lunch, Kanade?"

"Um, no..." Kanade shook her head—and in response, Mafuyu promptly grabbed her hand and pulled her away, to the dining hall.

"Eh? Mafuyu?! Waaaaaiiit...!"

They all finally learned what Miku and her servants were up to later that evening, right around sunset.

It started with the bell in the mansion chiming; Ena was outside in the garden again, so this time the chimes she heard were the real thing.

Ding, dong! Bing, bong!

"A-hem! This is your Headmistress speaking, ahaha~!" Miku announced, her voice spilling forth from a monitor mounted on a nearby pole. A shiver of genuine fear went down Ena's spine as she noticed that the headmistress sounded positively giddy this time, grinning maniacally and jittering in her control room seat with excitement.

"All students, please report to the mansion atrium immediately, for a mandatory class meeting! You won't want to miss the surprise I have waiting for you~♪"

Then the monitor turned itself off once more, as a feeling of sheer wrongness hit Ena like a punch to the gut. Somewhere behind her, she heard the doors to the guesthouse swing open as people filed out, on their way to the mansion.

Fuck, fuck, fuck... what on earth could that deranged Virtual Singer want with them now?

Everyone arrived at the atrium to find Luka, Rin, and Len waiting for them all in front of the stage. In their arms, they held stacks of what looked like... DVD cases? What?

Up on the stage behind Luka, Miku grinned and waved. "Come closer, come closer~♪" she sang. "We have something for everyone! Or... well, almost everyone!"

As everyone approached, the three servants began going around from person to person, handing out the DVDs—though, curiously, it seemed like three of the discs were meant to be shared: Saki and Tsukasa shared a disc; as did Shiho and Shizuku; and so did Akito, Toya, An, and Kohane.

Ena actually didn't receive a disc of her own at first... until Miku singled Ena out specifically, right after Mizuki got her disc. "Actually, Ena-san: I originally had a separate disc for you!" the Singer called out from on-stage. "But, knowing how close you and Mizuki-san are, I figured it might be better if you just shared hers, instead!"

Meanwhile, after everything had been distributed, it became apparent that Kanade and Mafuyu didn't get discs at all, for some reason. "Oh, you two," Miku said, addressing them specifically. "Due to your... special circumstances, you two are exempt from this half of this afternoon's events!"

"What do you mean by 'events'?" Tsukasa asked, holding up the disc he shared with Saki. "What have you just given us?"

"Allow me to explain~!" Miku said with a twirl and a flourish. "This... is one half of your first motive! As it turns out, just locking people up usually isn't enough to get them to start killing each other in cold blood—most people need an extra push down the slope to murder!

"So, that's what this is: a genuinely good reason to get to the killing, already!" she continued. "I think you'll understand what I mean once you watch the videos we've given you, ahaha~!"

She clapped her hands together with a bright smile. "So, everyone! Rin and Len will see you all back to your rooms. Please watch the provided video using the DVD player in your room's monitor, then return here for the second half of your motive in... oh, let's say fifteen minutes! Got it?"

Ena and Mizuki stared down at the DVD in its case, in silence.

"Is it really a good idea for us to watch this?" Ena muttered, glancing over at Mizuki. "I mean, Miku said it was designed to get us all to want to kill each other, right? It's probably not a good idea to trust anything she gives us..."

"Hey! I heard that!" Miku cut in, speaking to them directly through the room's monitor. "I'll have you know, I am perfectly trustworthy!"

Then she huffed. "Anyways! Mizuki-san, just so you know: the video in your hands right now is about someone very, very important to you—and no, I don't mean Ena-san, here. Someone different, who isn't here right now. You can probably guess who I'm talking about, right?"

Mizuki's eyes widened, her face growing pale. "W-What...? What do you mean by that, Miku?!"

"Ahaha, why are you asking me?" Miku laughed. "The answer's in your hands! Just watch the video, you'll see what I mean~♪"

Then the feed cut off again.

Mizuki stared at the DVD for a second longer—before popping it out of its case and sliding it into a disc slot built into the side of the monitor. Ena silently took Mizuki's hand as she sat back down on the bed again, the two of them bracing themselves for whatever it was they were being made to watch...

The last visitor to Yuuki's shop for today was decidedly unusual, to say the least.

She was a young woman with long blue hair that almost reached the floor, done up in twintails; furthermore, she carried herself with the peculiar sort of graceful impetuousness that suggested she was not only of the upper class, but also that she was also old money—raised up in the classic aristocratic lifestyle.

She walked right up to the counter as she strode in, not stopping to look around at all before approaching Yuuki. At first glance, the woman seemed to be smiling brightly... but upon closer inspection, Yuuki noticed that the smile didn't quite reach her eyes; what Yuuki found in her eyes, instead, was a deep and intense focus—the look of someone who had an objective in mind.

Now, normally, Yuuki prided herself on never judging anyone by first impressions—but something about this woman deeply unnerved her, on an instinctual level.

"Good afternoon," the woman said in perfect, crisp Japanese, bowing to Yuuki in greeting. "Are you Yuuki Akiyama?"

"A-Ah, yes, that is correct," Yuuki replied, stumbling for a split second as she switched back to speaking in her native language. "To whom am I speaking, right now...?"

"Miku Hatsune. Pleased to meet you, Akiyama-san," the woman replied. "Though please, just call me Miku."

"I am pleased to meet you as well," Yuuki said, bowing back. "Is there anything I can help you with, Miku-san?"

"Yes, in fact!" Miku replied, with a nod that was just a bit too enthusiastic. "I'm actually here on behalf of your sister's school. You see, your sister is currently set to participate in a highly specialized extracurricular program that will take place over the course of a few weeks; I was wondering if you could spare some time to record a short motivational message for her, before she begins? It's a tradition we have, you see, to help encourage the students in their studies."

"For Mizuki?" Yuuki echoed, with no small amount of surprise. "O-Of course! Where would you like to do the recording?"

Miku had brought some assistants and the necessary recording equipment in a van along with her; within no time at all, they'd set themselves up to record the message in Yuuki's office.

"There's no need to worry too much about what you're going to say, Akiyama-san," Miku said, from behind the camera. "It's just a motivational message. What's important is that you send her your love!"

Yuuki thought for a few seconds about what she wanted to say, before nodding. "Okay, I'm ready."

"Hi, Mizuki! It's your big sister, Yuuki!

"I'm not sure what you're doing right now, but whatever it is, I hope it's something you believe in!

"Please, don't ever forget: I'll always be on your side, Mizuki. Whatever you choose to do, or wherever you choose to go, I'll always be there to support you, every step of the way.

"So, no matter how hard it gets... keep doing your best, okay? I'm rooting for you!"

"Okay! The recording's done!" Miku smiled, giving Yuuki a thumbs up. "That was perfect! Thank you for your time, Akiyama-san."

"Of course, Miku-san. Anything for my sister," Yuuki smiled. "Is there anything else you need from me?"

Miku seemed to think to herself for a second, tapping her foot... before smiling at Yuuki, and giggling. Unlike before, though, the smile actually did reach her eyes this time—

and Yuuki realized with a start that something was about to go terribly, terribly wrong.

"Actually, there is one last thing we need from you, Akiyama-san!" Miku replied, gesturing to her assistants, standing behind Yuuki.

...wait, behind her—?

"What's happening? W-What are you doing?! Stop!"

*CRASH!*

"L-Let go of me! Please! Help! HELP!"

*THUMP!*

"Whoops! You nearly got the camera with your foot, ahaha~! That would've been bad!"

"SOMEONE, PLEASE, HELP ME! HELP!

"MIZUKI!"

. . .

. . .

"Oh my, how awful...! What ever could've happened to the Ultimate Fashion Designer's beloved older sister? What twisted fate lies in store for Yuuki Akiyama?

"The answer... is up to you, dear viewers! You can change her fate, with your very own hands!

"All you have to do... is graduate~!"

And then the video ended, leaving Ena and Mizuki in utter, stunned silence.
What the fuck did they just watch...? What had happened to Mizuki's sister? Where was she now?!

"N-Neechan...?" Mizuki croaked, her face drained of all color.

Were all of the videos like this?

"That has to be a fake, right...?" Ena mumbled, more to herself than to Mizuki. "No, there's no way Miku could arrange to kidnap someone on the other side of the planet...! M-Maybe it's just an actress who looks like your sister, or CGI, or... or something...!"

Mizuki didn't respond at all, instead just staring blankly at the darkened monitor.

Another announcement ushered them all back to the atrium, after that—and Ena's stomach dropped when she remembered: this was supposedly only the first half of the motive. It was only going to get worse from here, wasn't it...?

As they all walked back to the mansion, Ena could see that the videos had managed to shake everyone. There wasn't a single face in the crowd that hadn't grown pale and terrified, after watching their video—

—except for Kanade and Mafuyu, Ena noted. Why were they the only ones not being threatened like this...? What the hell?

They all entered the atrium once more—now illuminated by bright floodlights overhead, since the sun had set—and like before, they were met by Miku standing up on stage. Rin, Len, and Luka stood dutifully in front of the stage like bodyguards... though it wasn't as if Miku needed them.

This time, though, there was something new up on stage, just behind Miku: a big, seemingly empty pedestal.

Miku waved at them all as they arrived. "Hello, hello~♪" she said, with that infuriating sing-song lilt in her voice again. "Did you enjoy the videos~?"

"YOU BASTARD!" An screamed, as Kohane and Toya struggled to hold her and Akito back from rushing the stage. "WHERE THE FUCK DO YOU GET OFF, TORTURING US LIKE THIS?! WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY DAD?!"

"Uh, excuse me? You did watch the video, right?" Miku said, giving An a dumbfounded look. "I kidnapped your dad. Duh."

An's only response was an angry snarl and rabid screaming, peppered with copious amounts of profanity.

Then Miku clapped her hands together suddenly, as if remembering something. "Oh! I suppose I owe you two an explanation, right?" she said, pointing to Kanade and Mafuyu in particular. "After all, you didn't get videos!

"See, this whole thing is supposed to be about the people outside the game who are dearest to you!" she said to them. "I mean, everyone's gotta have a family or a partner or even a pet to come back to, right?"

Miku began to cackle, leering at the two of them. "Ahahaha! That's what I thought, anyways! So, you can imagine my surprise when I found out: no one out there loves you!" she taunted, and something in Ena's gut shriveled up. "Mafuyu-san's family didn't even care enough to record a message for her—and Kanade-san's loved ones are dead already! There's no one left to leave a message for her!"

Practically everyone in the audience shot the two of them looks of pity. Oh... that would explain why they hadn't gotten discs of their own. Ena should've realized sooner...

"Unfortunately, that makes things a bit complicated when it comes to the second half of this motive..." Miku continued.

She tapped her foot for a second, thinking. "Ah, but I'm getting a bit ahead of myself, aren't I?"

"A-hem! If you'll direct your attention up to the stage, please!" Miku announced, stepping aside to allow everyone a full, unobstructed view of the pedestal. And then, with a snap! of her fingers—

Click!

A large sliding hatch in the middle of the pedestal opened up; then, a loud mechanical hum filled Ena's ears as a platform lifted up from underground, carrying with it what looked like a giant archery target, with a large wooden post set up in front. A crash test dummy was tied down to the post, with thick metal straps around the ankles and neck, and with the dummy's hands likewise strapped down to the sides of the post using more metal restraints.

Then Miku snapped her fingers again—Snap!—and four pencil-thin laser sights turned on, trained on the dummy. Ena whirled around to find a quartet of large turrets mounted on the back wall of the atrium.

"These were actually parts of a bigger execution that got scrapped," Miku said, as if that explanation made any sense to Ena. "But I might be reusing them soon, so I wanna see if they still work!"

Miku twirled around, and with a wide flourish, she pointed dramatically towards the dummy. "AAAAAAAND... FIRE!"

Ka-thunk! Ka-thunk! Ka-thunk! Ka-thunk!

As it turned out, the turrets didn't fire bullets, but rather ornate ceramic stakes—though they were clearly still just as lethal, embedding themselves deep within the dummy's "flesh", all the way to the hilt.

It only took a few seconds for the turrets to reduce the dummy to a pincushion, when finally the coup de grace came in the form of one last stake, sent straight through the dummy's forehead.

Shortly afterwards, the metal restraints released themselves, and a hidden mechanism launched the dummy—stakes and all—forward, straight into the unsuspecting audience. Ena grabbed Mizuki and dived out of the way on reflex, both of them only barely dodging getting hit in the face by the flying crash dummy.

"Great, everything works perfectly~!" Miku cheered, pumping her fist in the air as the whole setup retracted back beneath the stage again. "This mini-execution is ready for action!"

"Now, you're probably wondering what that whole demonstration was for, and what it has to do with the videos you just watched!" Miku then said, before breaking out into wild, manic cackling. "Ahahahahaha! Well, let me answer that!"

Ena's heart sank.
Here came the other shoe, dropping fast...

"A-hem! Introducing the second half of this motive!" Miku announced. "Dah-da-da-daaaaah~♪"

Snap!

All eyes went to the pedestal as Miku snapped her fingers, calling the 'mini-execution' setup back onto the stage.
The first thing Ena noticed, as the whole sick mechanism returned once more, was a shock of short, but still familiar pink hair—

Oh no.
No no no no no.

"N-Nee... chan...?"

"Kyahahaha~! Say 'hello' to our first special guest!" Miku laughed, as everyone stared in horror at the stage—

"MMMMM!!!"

—and at Yuuki Akiyama, whose muffled screams filled the air as she struggled against the metal restraints lashing her to the execution post.

< BGM – At Death's Door >

"NEECHAN?!" Mizuki screamed—and Yuuki's eyes widened in response, her own screams growing ever louder as she caught sight of her younger sister standing amongst the crowd.

"As you can see," Miku said, raising her voice in order to be heard over the muffled shrieking behind her, <! "those videos weren't faked! No acting, no CGI, no AI! Everyone you saw was the real deal, and they're all here somewhere on this island right now!" !>

"PLEASE, STOP!" Mizuki wailed, her voice already growing hoarse; Ena caught her as she fell to her knees, like a puppet with its strings cut, holding Mizuki tight as tears streamed down her face. "PLEASE! DON'T DO THIS TO HER!"

"Ahaha~! Ahhh, that look of despair on your face, Mizuki-san... exquisite!" Miku hummed. "Buuuut, luckily for you... there is a way to make it stop!"

Everyone cringed in fear as Miku snapped her fingers again—and this time, another sliding door on stage opened up with a loud whirrrr, revealing a countdown timer that read 24:00:00.

"Here's how this motive will work: I'm going to execute the people featured in your motive videos one at a time, until one of you finally works up the guts to start murdering your fellow students!" Miku declared, pointing threateningly at the assembled class. "And I'll start with the lovely Yuuki Akiyama, here—Mizuki-san's beloved older sister, in case you couldn't tell by her anguished wailing already."

Then she smiled. "But~! It'll all be called off for good, the moment one of you commits murder!" she continued. "Whoever's up on the chopping block will be spared, and all remaining captives will get to go free after that—as in, back to their homes, wherever those are."

She waved over at the timer on the pedestal. "The first execution is scheduled for 6 PM tomorrow, and if we get there, I'll make sure you're all in attendance to watch Akiyama-san die! More executions will follow every 24 hours after that!"

Miku dismissed them all with a wave of her hand—including Yuuki, whose execution setup retracted back into the hidden chamber beneath the atrium stage. The countdown timer remained up there, though, steadily ticking down...

"Sooo... there you have it! Your first motive, in full!" Miku said, wrapping up this class meeting.

"You've got twenty-four hours before the executions start! Don't dally, now~♪"