Arc 6: To end with freedom or funeral:

Chapter LI: Tempered Reunion:

XxX

Naegi

My eyes widened and I jumped to my feet, barely able to believe what-or, rather, who- I was hearing.

"Komaru-kun? I-is that you?" My voice broke and wavered, all of the past week's events catching up to me and landing on my shoulders like a ton of bricks. I slowly turned to face her and could barely believe what I saw. Gone was the shy girl I had left hesitatingly waving from the door of my house. In her place was someone who'd clearly been through hell and grown stronger for it. This impression was undoubtedly helped by the large weapon she had holstered on her hips. She caught my eyes, grinned, and unholstered it, tossing it to me.

"You'll want one of these, Naegs. I've got another in my pack." I could see the concern lurking behind her eyes as she took another step closer.

I pulled the semi-automatic from my holster.

"Any reason it's better than this?"

She smirked.

"Two, actually. One: it runs on batteries. 2: it only targets monokumae, and it enables reprogramming from a distance. No use shooting a friendly, right?"

I laughed.

"What the heck happened to you, Komaru?"

She sighed as her expression grew harder.

"We can talk about that later. Right now, I have a more pressing concern." She stepped next to Mukuro and flicked a blade from the inside of her wrist. "Why are you with a known agent of Despair?"

"Turned her."

Komaru gaped.

"You...you what? You turned one of the Gemini twins? How did you even-"

Mukuro silenced her with a quick motion.

"I never really did like that name. My sister was so...dramatic about everything. Anyway, yes, he did turn me. The many Monokuma chasses with coal black eyes fighting for us should convince you of that."

"That was you!" she exclaimed. "The entrance force was wondering why there were mysterious reinforcements appearing every so often."

I smiled.

"Entry force? Komaru, you brought friends?"

"Yep!" she replied brightly. "About 60 well armed and expertly trained soldiers with floor plans! We've reached the second level already!"

Mukuro froze.

"Did you find any of the other students?" Her voice was cold, steel showing through her earlier joviality.

"Other students?" Komaru echoed. "No, I...I can't say we did-oh. Oh no." Her face fell. "You're saying-"

"Monokuma has them now," I finished. "We need to move."

XxX

Kirigiri

The other students and I slowly filed into the dojo on the fifth floor, hands bound. Monokuma had attacked suddenly and with nearly no warning the night before. We couldn't have done anything more to defend ourselves. Hopefully the plans we had made in prior hours would be enough. As we reached the center of the range, a Monokuma appeared from behind a tree and snapped a picture of me.

"Thanks, Kyouko-kun! This'll be perfect!"

I instantly realized why he needed the photo.

"You can't seriously think Naegi will walk into the trap you're setting here, right?"

Monokuma laughed.

"You'd best hope he does! If he doesn't show himself here in the next...let's say 48 hours, I start off the next motive! This one's a doozy! After all, that's why I'm giving you the extra time. You all deserve a bit of a breather...upupupupupupu..."

With that, the robot vanished. I slowly walked over to the others, unflexing my wrists to loosen the ropes. Togami and Celestia had seemingly done the same, judging by the looseness of the ropes on their hands. Fukawa, who was apparently in her Genocider persona, had managed to smuggle a pair of scissors past the sentries. Although, on reflection, I couldn't say I was surprised. Prior murders had shown the entire police force just how ingenious Genocide Jill was at getting those scissors into secure spaces.

Togami looked up at me, expression appearing as though he was barely suppressing anger.

"So, what now? Are we supposed to sit here and wait for Naegi to save us as we always do?" His hands tightened into fists.

I allowed a half smile to enter my expression as my own hands closed slightly more. Signal one received.

"Who do you take me for? We're going to escape, obviously."

Celestia sighed theatrically as her own right hand clenched shut. Signal two received.

"So, Kyouko, are you at any point going to tell us how we're supposed to break out when we're currently being watched by about 20 Monokumae, our hands are theoretically meant to be bound, and we're outclassed in every relevant way? This is just my professional opinion, but the odds do appear to be against us."

I smiled slightly more as I stepped closer to her, quickly grasping her hand in mine and surreptitiously passing the earpiece in my hand to hers. As I stepped backwards and released her hand, I shrugged.

"Why, Celeste, I can't say I quite know what we're going to do. Crime is, after all, closer to your domain. But I'm sure you can come up with something."

Her hand flew to the side of her head as she gasped.

"Why, is Kyouko Kirigiri admitting that she doesn't know what to do and is thus fallible? Your family would be shocked!" Her empty hand returned to her side. Step one accomplished.

Togami stood a bit straighter. His next words were ice cold. The Togami family might not have been well liked, but everyone who knew them knew they could act.

"So, Kirigiri, if I understand you correctly, you have no ideas? Not a single one? Oh, that's just excellent. You plebeians always think that as long as you're on the right side, you will end on top. Well, I have news for you. If we don't figure out how to escape, we are going to die. Every one of us."

I inclined my head, acknowledging the message.

"Togami, you aren't telling me anything I don't already know. Now, can you stop with this nonsense and help us solve the problem?"

He fell silent. Internally, I grinned. That past exchange had given us a lot of information: we now all knew there was a turned Monokuma in the back left corner of the room pretending to be a normal robot. Also, we all knew that every single one of us was fully equipped. More importantly, Celeste now had the earpiece. Which meant events were going to be moving quite a bit faster from here on out. We might not be able to fight our way out, but we damn sure wouldn't just be waiting helplessly.

XxX

Naegi

Komaru instantly launched into action, opening up 4 or 5 comms channels and snapping orders at her men. Some of them I could understand, like seizing exits and clearing a path to the transit centers of the building. Others were filled with so much jargon they might as well have been incomprehensible. After a few minutes, she fell silent and turned to me

"That...that's all we can do, for now." I could hear the concern in her voice. "We may as well sit tight here."

I sat down heavily.

"So be it. While we're stuck here, mind telling me how all of this happened? I don't know much beyond the initial murders of the council."

She nodded.

"Sure. So, after that, there was a bit of chaos in Japan for a week or so. The school was splitting down class lines, stuff like that. It looked like it was dying down for a while, and then..." Her voice trailed off.

"And then what?" I urged.

"And then a dirty bomb was detonated in Tokyo," Mukuro finished. "It was reasonably large yield, and the fallout contaminated the whole city. Within hours, the Novoselic army had claimed responsibility. Nevermind was one of ours."

Komaru's eyes widened.

"But we found her body-"

Mukuro cut her off.

"You found a well prepared double. Nevermind had planned to fake her death and escape the royal family for years. We merely gave her an opportunity which she snatched up eagerly. Moments after Novoselic claimed responsibility for the bomb, the US president was found dead. Cause of death was poison The vice president launched a retaliatory strike against Novoselic. 24 hours later, every Scandinavian country joined the Novoselican side. Russia followed within 36. The first civilian comms satellite fell a month later, brought down by an accidental misfire of anti-space missiles from earth. Within 2 months, every single one was down. Within 4 months, chemical weapons were widely used on both sides of the war. At that point, all my sister needed to do was to provide a rallying flag for the poor and downtrodden. It took her 8 hours to establish support through all of Japan. Word of the movement spread slowly over water to other countries, but it held. After only 2 more months, Despair was everywhere."

"Almost everywhere," Komaru corrected. "Even at the worst of times, pockets of resistance still existed. We never truly gave up hope. Within weeks of Despair's growth, a counter-movement formed, made of the greatest minds humanity could assemble in short notice. We too grew slowly, but we never gave up ground. You in Kibougamine were symbols to us, really. Symbols that even in the heart of the darkness, there was still a light. When you went dark too, everything started to fall apart. We started losing conflicts, territory, morale, everything. Now that we've found you again, we can re-galvanize the movement."

My eyes widened. That story sounded...strangely familiar. Also, there was no way the Mastermind would just let that hope slide. Almost as if it had heard my thoughts, Mukuro's communicator suddenly crackled as Monokuma's voice began to play from the speaker.

"Hello again, Naegi-kun! Enjoying your little reunion? Well, I'm just so glad that you've found some new friends! So glad, in fact, that I don't think you really need your old ones anymore. On the other hand, if you were to come ask for them back in person, I might be convinced. So, I'll give you 48 hours. Get to me by then, alone, and I'll let the other students go. Otherwise, I'll have to show them all how...disappointed I am in your failure to show. I just want one final showdown, Naegi-kun, one last battle of hero and villain. Who are you to deny me?"

With that, the communicator shut off. Komaru turned to me, eyes widening.

"You can't seriously be considering going in there after them, can you? Naegi, that's idiotic. Enoshima will kill you if you do."

I shushed her quickly, mind blurring through possibilities. I had been given 48 hours, but why? I knew where Monokuma was, and I knew where the students were. The Mastemind knew I knew. Why such a long time? It was almost as if he were daring me to plan, daring me to use it, but why would that be the case? The Mastermind's style was to move quickly, keep us off our guard, never let the students catch their balance. This didn't feel like Monokuma. No, this felt like-I gasped. That was it. That was why the Mastermind's demeanor had changed so suddenly, that was why the conflict had seemed strange, that was why the 48 hours had been chosen. That deceptive bastard. I had been played, and if I was right about how the other students thought, so had we all.

"I have been an absolutely unforgivable idiot. We need to move. Now."

XxX

Alter Ego

Operations 301x and 690x have been completely successful. Reunion of Asset Tact and Asset Rat successful. Positioning on Asset Gamb: Successful.

Future actions: Begin step 3 of operation 001x. Chance that Asset Rat has been told of conflict by Assets Tact and Wolf: 95%. Chance of successful derivation: 80%. Execute Version 2 of 001x to account for differing levels of knowledge.

Time til completion of step 3 of 001x: 48 hours.

A/N: Welcome to the endgame.

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