POV - Mikado
I woke up a good half hour before Nighttime's end this morning, and spent it lying awake, pondering the meaning of the library. Though it felt so familiar, no matter how hard I thought about it, I just couldn't bring the answers to the tip of my tongue. Before long, the morning announcement played, and the sun rose in an instant. Giving up for now, I got out of bed with a groan and headed for the dining hall area.
As I entered, my best friends seemed to be in better shape than yesterday.
"We gotta go to the library!" Teruya insisted.
"Yeah," Syobai agreed. "Maybe we'll actually get something useful,"
"Come on, everyone!" Nikei said. "Let's go!"
We headed to the library, where we started checking out every book possible there.
But we couldn't find any hints on why we were there, until...
"I think I've found something. Everyone, come here!" shouted a certain merchant.
We all rushed to crowd around him.
"For real?" Nikei was confused.
"What is it?" I asked.
Teruya ran his finger along the title of the book, his eyes scanning the cover with increasing concern.
"It's a file...on the Killing Game. It's happened before." Teruya spoke.
(watch?v=8ZP8Sw2DiP0)
"This isn't the only Killing Game that's happened." The merchant spoke.
Wh-What?
The implication behind Teruya's statement hit me with full force.
No...it...can't be...
The book was called "The Tragic Tale of Utsuroshima Island".
"We should read it." Teruya said.
"Well, what are we waiting for?!" Hibiki exclaimed. "Open it so we can start reading!"
The merchant nodded as they placed the book on the table and sat down. Once everyone was seated, Teruya opened the first book and began to read.
"Once upon a time, Mikado Sannoji's life was hell. He was bullied by his own class. He wanted to break them and leave nothing but traumatized shells. This caused him to plan a Mutual Killing Game that the members of Class 80 would be subjected to."
"I was the mastermind of another killing game?!" I exclaimed.
"Does it say what happened to the students?" Sora asked.
Teruya read on.
"The Utsuroshima killing game, as the result came to be known, deleted the avatars of Yuri Kagarin, Hajime Makunouchi, Kokoro Mitsume, Emma Magorobi, Setsuka Chiebukuro, Kanade Otonokoji, Hibiki Otonokoji, Shinji Kasai, Nikei Yomiuri, and Teruya Otori."
"I see, so it just deleted their avatars in the virtual world." Syobai realized.
"But then, what happened to their bodies in the real world?" Hibiki wondered. "If their avatars got deleted, then did their minds die too?"
Teruya continued.
"This left the victims in a comatose state. In a cruel twist, Monocrow prevented them from ever waking up again. Eventually, the remaining survivors stood up against the mastermind, who paid with their life. There was someone sracaficed, though - an AI. This AI was modeled after a student in Class 80, Sora."
My mouth hung open in shock. Dear sweet god was that a dark, bleak version of myself.
"That's pretty cool!" Sora said. "I died as a sacrifice, though..."
"...That takes guts." Iroha muttered with a hint of awe. "Standing up against the mastermind of a killing game."
"Indeed." Kokoro agreed. "Sora, your sacrifice was undoubtedly noble. There are many in my profession who could learn a thing or two from you."
Teruya kept on reading.
"It ended with four survivors: Rei Mekaru, Yoruko Kabuya, Syobai Hashimoto and Iroha Nijiue. Alas, a fifth survivor also escaped, Yuki Maeda, but no one knew of this."
"Here's a question...how do we know any of this is even real?" Sora asked.
"That's r-right!" Teruya stammered. "For all we know, Monocrow could have just made that u-up to give us false in-information!"
"False information?!" We turned with widened eyes to see Monocrow waddling up to us. "My my, looks like you got your hands on a real classic! In fact, that's one of my favorites to reread!"
Then he vanished.
We were left with more questions than awnswers at this reveal.
I headed to my motel room to talk with Hibiki.
"Oh, hi there!" She said.
"I got a gift for you..." I said, as I gave her a book on torture methods.
"This is so cute!! I love it sooo much! Thank you, a million times, over!" The anthropologist said.
Hibiki then gushed about painful execution methods, and I listened intently.
The rest of the evening was spent with Nikei, trying to put together a plan to escape from this island.
It took us until about an hour after Nighttime began, but we finished our work. We walked down the beach together back to the hotel Mirai, chatting hopefully about tomorrow. After saying our goodnights and returning to our cottages, I carefully set my smoothie down on my desk, took a shower, climbed into bed and went to sleep.
YOU ARE READING
SDRA2 Redux: Trouble on Jabberwock Island
Fanfiction(Originally on A03) My name is Nikei Yomiuri. I'm known as the Ultimate Journalist. When I received my acceptance letter to Hope's Peak Academy, I didn't expect to meet thirteen other students, much less get told by an insane bird about how we are t...
