"The sound of your heart beating...it grates on me."

oh wow its fucking chapter 1

"I'd prefer to lead the mission myself." Byakuya added in to a conversation he'd overheard between kyosuke and juzo.
"Huh? And why would that be? Id expect you want to stay away from hopes peak entirely, given how recently you've been released.." juzo remarked with a sigh, turning toward byakuya.
Byakuya was extremely reluctant to admit exactly why he wanted to return to hopes peak on the mission to find and extract alter ego's code from the school's database, so he quickly thought of a reasonable lie in place of the truth.
"Chihiro fujisaki, the creator of the alter ego program, gave me some useful information about alter ego before his death, which would make the retrieval much easier." He explained, his calm and composed tone not faltering even a bit over the lie he told, despite his already guilty concience, and the urge to apologize to alter ego for how he had mistreated chihiro after his death.
"Very well, i'll assign you.. kyoko, and makoto to the mission. Makoto still has the control to hopes peak's doors, therefore you may leave whenever." Kyosuke agreed, turning in his black leather chair to face a laptop placed on a desk and typing some notes into it.
Byakuya quickly abandoned the work he was doing, as most of it was small, meaningless tasks, and he favored the mission he'd assigned himself to more than anything else. Walking down the hallways of the large building, byakuya quickly located the office in which makoto and kyoko were also working, likely similar mundane tasks, as the future foundation as a whole didn't have much to do at the time.
After knocking on the door and hearing makoto shout out from the other side of the room to come in, byakuya slid the door open, walking inside to share the news about the mission.
Makoto and kyoko both looked up at byakuya from where they sat across from eachother at the desk in the middle of the room, the only light coming in from a small window behind kyoko.
"So, whats up? Have we finally found some new recruits?" Makoto asked, recalling the days of research that everyone had participated in to help find new recruits, as the workload would eventually grow in size, and the company would have to aswell.
"No. Not exactly. I've assigned us to a mission. We are to return to hopes peak with a USB drive and a laptop, and find the execution room in which alter ego infiltrated the computer system to save your life. Once we find it, we simply need to extract the files, download them onto the laptop, and bring alter ego back here." Byakuya explained, taking off his glasses to clean them with a neatly folded cloth stored in his pocket, his hand nudging an old ball point pen that he'd kept with him as he tucked the cloth back inside.
Byakuya glanced away from kyoko and makoto, the memory of his sister's death had been yet again triggered by the pen in his pocket, which was the last physical memorabilia remaining of her.
"Byakuya! Did you hear any of what i just said?" Kyoko asked, pushing byakuya back into reality.
"I didn't. I was just.. thinking." He replied, not caring much about his weak justification.
"Alright, whatever. What time do we leave?" Kyoko repeated herself, seeming on board with the idea despite the fact that she was assigned to the mission without being asked first.
"Well, since makoto still has the exit button from hopes peak, we're free to leave whenever, as long as we keep in contact with kyosuke and be back for any important meetings, though i doubt there'll be any."
"Why don't we leave now? Me and kyoko have nothing to do, and you don't seem too occupied." Makoto suggested, getting up from the office chair he sat at before quickly saving a document on his computer.
As byakuya and kyoko both agreed, the three of them headed out to hopes peak.