...

...

Chloe: What the...?

Ashlyn: So many things happened at once... What...

Hanako: Maki wasn't killed!

Yu Xuan: She was... In a cell. But why?

Ashton: Remember when they captured her? They must've locked her in a cell...

Rachel: Well we know that, so now we need to figure out who Professor Idabashi and Kaori Akamatsu are.

Randi: Am I the only one who thought Kaori looked familiar?

Chloe: Didn't we see her in the cinema just now? She was the girl in Danganronpa V3.

Yu Xuan: No but that was Kaede Akamatsu, not Kaori.

Ashton: Do you think they're twin sisters? One participated in the killing game, the other works for Team Danganronpa.

Hanako: That's likely...

Ashlyn: How about Professor Idabashi?

Chloe: Well, Kaori said "have you back on the project", so maybe he's an old member of Team Danganronpa.

Randi: But why did he leave in the first place?

Chloe: Kaori said something about an incident with his "creation, K1-B0".

Ashton: K1-B0 was a participant in V3!

Rachel: Then does that mean that Professor Idabashi is K1-B0's father?

Hanako: Then why did she use the word "creation" and not "child" or something?

Yu Xuan: The name K1-B0, could he be a robot?

Chloe: If we assume that K1-B0 was a robot, then we can also assume that Idabashi was an engineer who was capable of making a robot that was so smart that it was able to participate in a killing game.

Ashlyn: So what was the "incident" with K1-B0?

Ashton: He was in a killing game, so if there was an incident, he's probably dead.

Hanako: And maybe he left Team Danganronpa because K1-B0's death was a huge blow to him. I mean it was his creation...

Yu Xuan: So now we know who Professor Idabashi was, we can start to decode what they were talking about.

Chloe: If I'm not wrong, Kaori mentioned something about their highest paying partners pulling out of a scheme, and that they no longer have proper funds.

Ashton: So they have proper funding from outside sources?

Rachel: And they said something like "it left two of our valuable participants in less than favorable conditions" or something. Who are these participants?

Chloe: The V3 participants?

Ashlyn: But this was after V3, and most of them are dead. Maybe they're talking about Maki or her friends?

Yu Xuan: But before that they talked about something like "recruiting strategies". Maki and her friends weren't recently recruited, so maybe they weren't talking about them.

Hanako: Then... Who were they talking about?

Chloe: Could they be talking about... Us?

Just as Chloe said that, something began to beep.

Rachel: Guys that's my watch, it's ten. We gotta get to the Mastermind room.

Ashton: We'll try to continue the conversation later, okay?

Everyone walked to the Mastermind room and we pushed open the familiar wooden door. The room was as stale and bare as we'd left it, and I could almost still see Annan's dead body lying on the ground.

I was rooted to the ground, memories playing in my mind like a broken record, then all of a sudden, the large door in the corner of the room opened up to reveal the same narrow, purple hallway we had seen a while ago.

Rachel: I guess it's my time to go. Wish me luck.

Hanako: Wait. Are you sure this is safe? It could be a trap.

Rachel: Don't worry, that's against the killing game rules. I'll be fine.

Hanako: Oh... Okay... Be careful.

Rachel: I will.

Rachel walked through the large metal doors and once she was inside, they closed with a loud metallic ring. It reminded me of something that I didn't want to think about.

Ashton: So what do we do now?

Chloe: Wait.

Pov: Rachel

Oh my god this is scary.

Once the doors closed behind me, I began to feel some sort of dread I had only felt a few times before.

That time I took my math test and when the killing game first started.

I wondered what was going to happen next. What if I die here? All alone?

I heard the taps of my shoes on the floor, echoing through the whole hallway.

Tap, tap, tap.

And then at the end of this long hallway, I saw the television with the button. Preparing myself, I pressed the button and waited, but nothing came up on the screen. Instead, a voice came through. A man's.

???: Hello? Can you hear me?

Rachel: Y- Yea. Yes I can.

???: Good, you're Rachel?

Rachel: Mhm.

???: Alright, I can't say much, but I have something for you.

Rachel: Why can't you say much? Will something happen if you do?

Silence for a moment.

???: They'll- They'll- It's nothing I just- They'll take them and me and they'll-

And then I heard soft sniffles.

Rachel: Are you... Crying?

???: No no it's nothing really- I just can't control- Why am I doing this?

Rachel: Are you okay? We don't need to talk anymore...

???: Wait- Before you leave, take these files. I can't tell you guys anything but I can show it to you.

From a small gap in the wall, a thick, black book was ejected. I took it and looked inside. There were 16 files inside of it, but nine of them had red crosses on the front.

Rachel: What's all this?

???: All the necessary information you need.

Rachel: What do you-

???: You can show them the normal files, but show them the crossed ones at your own risk. The information in the crossed files is way too valuable to be in any other hands than yours, and sharing it with everyone might cost you your life, or even more.

Rachel: So I can't tell my friends what's in the crossed files? Why though? What's inside of them?

???: Take a look.

And so I did. I flipped through all the files, and I felt the dread become realer and realer by the minute. Beads of nervous sweat dripped down from my face.

I couldn't believe what I was seeing, who the Mastermind was, who was the one behind everything, it was all so obvious now.

But I couldn't tell the others.

Not all of them.

And definitely not now.