Taka hadn't uttered a single word since the execution. A few of the others tried to speak with him, but their efforts were fruitless. I helped Taka to his room and told him that if he needed anything that he could ask me, but he didn't reply.

The next day, Taka still never said a word. It was obvious that he hadn't gotten a minute of sleep, the events of Mondo's execution still replaying in his head. The other students in the room pitied him yet tried their best to ignore him as they ate their breakfast in the dining hall.

Taka sat alone at one of the smaller tables in the room. His eyes gazed ahead at nothing and he mumbled incoherent words beneath his breath. After finishing my own meal, I got another plate of food. I walked over to Taka and sat down across from him, placing the plate of food in front of him.

Though it seemed he was looking at me, he didn't acknowledge me. I waved my hand in front of his face and received no reaction. "Taka...?" I spoke as I tapped his shoulder lightly. "I brought you some food if you want to eat..."

Taka looked down at the food and stared blankly at it. I sighed, standing up from my seat. I walked over to the other ultimates that were surrounding the large table at the center of the room to hear what they were talking about.

"I think we should search the school! Now that another class trial is over, there should be new places for us to explore!" Hiro suggested. "Maybe we'll find some sort of clue!"

Hiro was right; perhaps now that another trial was finished there would be another floor to explore. I turned away from the table and head over to the exit of the dining hall. Before I could open the door myself, someone came bursting into the room with a loud laugh.

I was shoved aside by the person as they ran to the center of the room. "Here I am bitches! Genocide Jill!!" Hifumi let out a loud scream at Genocide Jill's appearance. Genocide Jill continued to laugh and ramble about how she thought this place was amazing.

I shook my head and proceeded to exit the dining hall. I didn't want to stick around there if there was the possibility of a new area being revealed to us. I walked through the halls until I made my way to the second floor. I walked through the second floor in search of a staircase to the 3rd floor.

Sure enough, I had found a staircase leading to the next floor. I began to head up the stairs and looked at the new floor before me. The third floor was an odd purple colour, just as strangely coloured as the other floors. I wonder what sort of rooms this floor would have.

I walked down the hall and to a room labeled, Twisting the handle and opening the door, I encountered a room filled with things such as a pool table, magazines, board games, and more. Ah, so this was the recreation room; a place for students to relax.

Walking over to the magazine rack, a specific magazine caught my eye. A gasp escaped from my parted lips when I grabbed the magazine. On the cover was Junko Enoshima, my former friend. "Junko..." I mumbled, clutching the magazine.

"Ooo, let me see!" When those words were spoken, the magazine was snatched from my hands. I turned my head and saw Monokuma looking at the magazine with a grin. "Hey! Give me that back!" I shouted.

Monokuma laughed and held the magazine out of my reach. "Nope!~ I don't need you in a bad mood just because you're looking at a magazine of your old friend!" Monokuma pulled a lighter out of his pocket. With an innocent smile, he opened it and set a flame ablaze.

The small flame grazed the tip of the magazine, setting its paper on fire. My eyes widened when the fire erupted upon the magazine. I watched as Junko's face was devoured by flames.

"Alrighty, that's not an issue anymore!" Monokuma giggled, putting the lighter back into his pocket. I glare at Monokuma. "What the hell?! What's wrong with you?!"

"Ah, (Y/n)! The despair in your expression is lovely~" Monokuma hummed. He grabbed my face and pulled me closer. His face was close to mine as he stared at my face with a large smile. "I love the despair in your eyes, my princess. Ah, it's so lovely!~"

"Stop being weird!" I wailed. I shoved Monokuma away from me. Monokuma laughed as though he wasn't faltered at all by what just happened.

"Alright, enough fooling around! I came here to tell ya something!"

"What did you want to tell me?" I questioned.

"I'm very, very lonely-"

"That's not my problem. Leave me alone."

Monokuma pouted. "Hey! At least let me finish what I'm saying! Anyways, since I am so lonely, I wanted to spend time with my favorite (Y/n)!~ I planned something for us to do together!"

"What do you have planned?" I raised an eyebrow.

"Its a surprise!!" Monokuma cheered as he threw his arms up. "You'll find out what it is later~ For now, finish exploring the 3rd floor. I'll see you later, my dear." Monokuma winked at me before turning around and exiting the room.

That damn bear.

After that encounter, I proceeded to explore the rest of the 3rd floor. There was an art room, a physics lab, and then the rec room. The art room was filled with many sculptures and had a room attached to it that had many sorts of art supplies. The physics room had a large air purifier stored inside of it as well as an equipment room in the back.

After exploring the 3rd floor, I began to head back to the dining hall to grab a snack. When I entered the dining hall, mostly everyone was there as well. They were all surrounding Hina who was talking about some sort of ghost. I walked over and decided to listen to her story as well.

"I heard a strange sound. It was coming from the bathhouse. I headed that way...there was a halfway opened locker, so I took a look inside of it. I saw a human shape surrounded by a green light!" Hina explained to us. "Without a doubt, it was Chihiro!"

Hifumi and Hiro let out a scream of terror at Hina's story. I stared at Hina with confusion. Celeste blabbered about how it was simply not possible and was just a result of Hina's weakened state.

"Well, we all should go see for ourselves, right?" Sakura stated. "Let's go to the bathhouse and see."

Celeste argued that it was a waste of time, but in the end everyone in the dining hall went to the bathhouse. When we entered the bathhouse dressing room, Hina insisted, "I heard a sound and opened the locker...that's when I saw a pale outline of Chihiro..."

Kyoko, who was standing beside the locker, noticed a locker that was slightly ajar. She opened the locker door to see a laptop. "I remember seeing this in the library. It was broken when I last checked it out. How did it get here?"

"I bet Chihiro fixed it. He was known as the Ultimate Programmer after all," Sakura mumbled.

"Hina, maybe you mistaked the light of the laptop for a ghost?" I suggested with a small chuckle. Hina crossed her arms and glanced at the ground in embarrassment.

"Whoever put it here seemed to be hiding it, but I don't think they were hiding it from us. There aren't any surveillance cameras in this room," Kyoko stated, tapping her finger on her chin.

"So this is the mastermind's blind spot. The person who hid it was hiding it here so the mastermind wouldn't find it," I concluded.

"Precisely. Perhaps we should investigate the laptop in more detail." Kyoko pressed the power button, causing the laptop to turn on. The screen glowed a dim green colour. There were many app icons neatly arranged on the screen, one of which was titled, "Alter Ego."

"What's that one?" I asked, pointing to the app labeled "Alter Ego."

""Alter Ego" means "another self," I believe. In the field of artificial intelligence, things such as this aren't uncommon. Creating different aspects of a personality...perhaps you can consider it a pen name," Celeste spoke.

Kyoko moved the cursor over to the Alter Ego app, double clicking. The screen went dark for a second. There was silence lingering in the bathhouse until a voice boomed from the laptop.

"Master, you're here!"

The previously dark screen was replaced with Chihiro's face surrounded by a green background. Hiro let out a scream, yelling about it being a ghost.

"It isn't a ghost, calm down," I grunted.

"Huh? What is it then?"

"Some sort of artificial intelligence...we can find out more if we communicate with it," I spoke as I made my way over to the laptop. Typing on the keyboard, I wrote the message, "what are you?"

"Hello, nice to meet you. I'm Chihiro Fujisaki," the program giggled. "I get so embarrassed introducing myself..."

"It's...Chihiro," Sakura mumbled.

"Alter Ego...I've heard about this AI program before. Though I have never seen it myself," Kyoko noted. "This is why Chihiro was the Ultimate Programmer. This AI lives inside of a computer, gaining knowledge bit by bit as it repeats different tasks. Apparently Chihiro came up with a breakthrough in AI design using this program."

Kyoko glances back at the screen, gazing at the Ai program. "If this AI continues to grow, it could be more than just software to help people. Some claim that this AI can even replace people someday."

"Ah, so that is why it is called Alter Ego. A fine name choice, I must say. The process isn't much different than how humans work. It creates memories, it has thoughts, it can grow...anyway, Chihiro fixed the broken laptop and installed his own program onto there."

"Let's talk to it a bit more..." Kyoko muttered as she began to type away on the laptop.

We talked to Alter Ego for a while longer, discovering the plan Chihiro left behind. He wanted Alter Ego to access the files stored on the laptop, but the security was tougher than expected. However, it planned to continue to try and get into the files.

Once we were finished talking to the AI, Kyoko typed one last sentence. "I'll come back later."

"Please do! It's a promise, okay?" Alter Ego exclaimed.

We all proceeded to leave the bathhouse. Hina let out an excited giggle, grabbing my hands and spinning around. I let out a laugh, "what are you so excited about Hina?"

"Ehehe! I totally did something, like, super awesome huh?!" Hina shouted with a grin.

"You guys seem to be in good spirits...what happened in that bathhouse?!"

Turning our heads, Hina and I gasped when we saw Monokuma standing there. His hands were on his hips and his lips were curled down in a frown. He looked annoyed, but there was curiosity gleaming in his dark eyes.

"Nothing in particular!" I replied quickly.

"Eh?! Keeping secrets? Totally not fair! I demand to know what happened!"

"No! Just 'cuz you demand to know something doesn't mean we have to do it!" Hina grunted.

"Huhhh? "Do it?" What kinda "do it" do you mean?" Monokuma laughed.

"What do you mean by "do it?!" Hina shrieked.

"Ewww, you said "do it!""

"What?! You said it first!"

"Guys, guys, stop being weird. I'll tell you, okay Monokuma?" I sighed. Monokuma smiled widely, poking my cheek. "I knew I could rely on you, (Y/n)!"

Hina looked horrified as though she thought I would actually tell Monokuma about Alter Ego. I turned my attention to Monokuma, my lips curling into a smile. "We wanted to relax for a bit, so we decided to go to the bathhouse. Unfortunately, the bathhouse doesn't have two separate sections for men and women. We decided to rock-paper-scissors who would go first: the boys or the girls. Hina won rock-paper-scissors for the girls, so we're kinda happy about that."

"Yeah, so the boys can go head to the dining hall or something until we're done! You guys can use the bathhouse tomorrow," Hina stated.

"Well, shall we go then ladies?" Celeste smiled. As we were walking back to the bathhouse, Hina whispered to me, "wow (Y/n), that was amazing!" I let out a small giggle and patted her shoulder. I mumbled a reply. "Well, they don't call me the Ultimate Actress for nothing."

Stopping for a moment and looking back behind me at the boys we left behind in the hallway, I could see Monokuma's expression clearly. An almost challenging smirk was present on his face as he glared at me. I felt tense just by looking at him. He mumbled a few words to me that I couldn't hear due to being too far away, but I could read his lips perfectly.

"Don't lie to me."

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I do not own Danganronpa or any of the characters. I do not own the artwork used unless stated otherwise