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The end of the world starts with a phone call.
Chiaki waits outside the entrance to the Reserve Course class, sitting on the ground with her legs drawn up as she leans against the stone fence, gaming console in her hand and a spare console in her bag. She’s filling in time by playing the next level of the platforming game she bought the other day to play with Hinata-kun. Her ninja leaps over obstacles and avoids traps easily, despite the fact that her attention is split between her game and listening for the sound of any boy running eagerly in her direction. The light is bad, but Chiaki waits outside the Reserve Course every day until it gets too dark for her to see her console screen without the backlight.
In all of her time waiting outside the Reserve Course, she hasn’t seen Hinata-kun. It’s a truth that makes her chest hurt to think about, how the last thing he said to her could have been read as a farewell rather than a see you soon, and how she had chosen to look away from the bruises swelling his face and the grazes on his chin seeping blood. She has replayed the conversation over and over in her mind, looking for the flag that she missed, and all she can think of is that she didn’t ask enough questions. Unlike with games, other people don’t tell you what you need to do next.
There’s no do-over option either, but Chiaki hopes that if she waits outside long enough that she can trigger the next cut-scene and progress the plot. She’s waited for Hinata-kun for months, with the persistence that has helped her to platinum every game she has played, even as the season changes from fall to winter and then to spring. While she still has to wear fingerless gloves to keep her fingers nimble as the temperature drops in the afternoon, Chiaki now wears her lucky spring hoodie.
As her character reaches the last sequence of platforms before completing the current level, her phone rings in her bag. For a brief moment she considers letting it ring out and go to message bank so that she can finish her level, and then call the person back later. She decides against it. The call might be one of her classmates, and now that Yukizome-sensei has been assigned to the Reserve Course it is more important than ever that their class representative is available to them.
She pauses her game, pulls her phone out of her bag, and frowns at the unfamiliar number on the screen. Over the last four months Chiaki has collected the numbers of most of her classmates, carefully programming them into her phone and associating them with ringtones from video games, and handing out her number to those whose numbers she doesn’t have yet, such as Kuzuryuu-kun. The call might be from him, finally accepting the support that their class has to offer him. She accepts the call, placing the phone to her ear.
“Hello, Nanami speaking.”
“Nanami?” The voice on the other end is hoarse and quiet, a harsh whisper that’s barely audible over the sounds of the students making their way from school to the dormitories. Chiaki’s heartbeat in her ears as she recognizes the speaker almost drowns out the next question. “Where are you?”
“Um … I’m outside the Reserve Course building.” She looks around hopefully, searching for Hinata-kun, her heart in her throat. “Will you be here soon?”
The crowd of students has thinned out from the mass of bodies it had been a few hours ago, and is now limited to students leaving after cleanup duty from their school clubs. There are still enough people around that Chiaki’s breath catches every time she sees a tall boy wearing a Reserve Course uniform. “Hinata-kun…?” she asks when he doesn’t respond right away, when she doesn’t see him anywhere.
“Sorry, but I — I can’t leave where I am right now.”
“Oh…” Chiaki deflates, shoulders sagging as she leans forward to curl up around her knees and the pain in her chest. It’s been months since she has seen him, always waiting for the tomorrow that she promised she would see him that has yet to arrive, games she chose to play with him collecting dust on her gaming shelf.
Her first instinct is to apologize back, paste a smile on her face, and not ask the questions that have troubled her for the last four months. If Hinata had sounded less worn and strained she might have swallowed her questions despite the dread that is creeping up on her. She had choked back her concern four months ago. Then he disappeared, and she had resolved to never make that mistake again. If a friend is in danger — and it sounds like Hinata-kun is — she will come to their aid.
“Hinata-kun, I’m worried about you,” she says. “I want to talk to you in person. If you can’t come to me, then I can come to you if you tell me where you are.”
There’s a choked gasp on the other end of the line, the gasp of a protagonist who has learned the true motivations of an important NPC and is struggling to adjust to the new information. “I wish you could.”
“Why can’t I?” Dread causes her chest to tighten, her breathing to quicken, and the butterflies in her stomach to flutter sickeningly. “Are you in trouble?”
“No … it’s nothing like that.” He sighs. “I just wanted to hear your voice again. I thought I’d forgotten what it sounded like.”
Everything about this conversation is strange, but Chiaki is disturbed by how small and lost Hinata-kun sounds right now. The more she hears from him, the more she’s convinced that something is terribly wrong with him. Her hand tightens around her phone in a white-knuckled grip as she tries to make sense of what he’s telling her.
“You really don’t sound very good.” Chiaki worries at her bottom lip. Hope’s Peak tries to encourage self-sufficiency in its students, but this seems beyond a girl with a knack for games. “Should I call your parents?”
“My parents?” Hinata-kun makes an anguished sound in the back of his throat. “I — I would have parents, wouldn’t I…?”
Chiaki feels sick at the dull horror in his voice, even if she doesn’t understand what it means. “I … think so?” she offers. She remembers vaguely Hinata-kun mentioning parents in passing, but he tends to gloss over his life before coming to the Reserve Course as if it never happened. “You’ve mentioned them before, I’m sure. Can you tell me what their numbers are?”
“No. I don’t remember that either.” Hinata-kun’s laugh is brittle and mirthless. “That’s another thing, I guess.”
Everything is spiraling out of control, and Chiaki doesn’t understand what is going on. She is convinced now that something terrible has happened to Hinata-kun since the last time she saw him, something that has worn him down to a voice at the end of a phone line, with disquieting gaps in his memory and a fragile grip on his composure. She doesn’t know what she can do, but she will try to help. She can’t not help.
“Hinata-kun … what do you need?” She looks around for witnesses before dropping her voice to a whisper to match his. “Are you somewhere nearby?”
There’s a long silence, broken only by Hinata-kun’s ragged breathing. Chiaki waits, hoping that his silence means that he will tell her. “I have to be somewhere in Hope’s Peak,” he says finally.
“You’re in Hope’s Peak?” Nanami pushes herself to her feet, shifting her bag onto her shoulder and brushing off her skirt in preparation of making her way back into school. “I’ll be there soon. Do you know where? Are you near a window?”
“There’s no windows,” Hinata-kun says, which means that Chiaki can eliminate any room she has been in already. Every room at Hope’s Peak has windows so that its students can look down at the world below them from their classrooms. She takes a step towards the school and then freezes as she hears a sharp intake of breath on the other end of the phone.
“I’m sorry,” Hinata-kun says, his voice hushed and hoarse. “I have to go. Thank you for answering your phone, Nanami. Please don’t call this number. It’s not mine, and I don’t want you to get into trouble.”
“What?” Chiaki blurts out. “Why would I —?”
The call ends abruptly before Chiaki can finish her question. Her head hurts, her hand aches from its tight grip on her phone, and nothing makes sense. She’s heard Hinata-kun deflated, she’s heard him upset, angry, frustrated, bemused, but she’s never heard him like this. She’s never heard of anyone forgetting their home phone number, or that they have parents, and she doubts she’ll forget the awful hopelessness in Hinata-kun’s laugh as he said that he didn’t remember any of those things.
Hope’s Peak’s faculty have never really encouraged their students to reach out to them. Hope’s Peak encourages self-sufficiency, a single-minded drive towards honing your talent to the exception of all else. For most of their teachers, Chiaki wouldn’t dream of asking them for help. But there is also Yukizome-sensei, who is in the Reserve Course now and can tell her how long Hinata-kun has been like this and whether he has been in the main building for long.
She looks across at Hope’s Peak’s main building, torn between going straight there and searching everywhere for Hinata and going to Yukizome-sensei. She wants to go into the school, but has a feeling it’s the final dungeon and she’s only starting off on her adventure. All that would happen if she challenged the ultimate boss now is that she would be defeated. She needs more information before she can try the final challenge.
“Sorry, Hinata-kun,” she says to the school. “I’ll be there soon.” She takes off at a run towards the Reserve Building, hoping that Yukizome-sensei is still there.
Yukizome-sensei’s classroom is the second along on the third floor, and Chiaki takes the steps at a run. She dashes up the three flights of stairs, using the bannister as a pivot point to spin around the corners of each landing and pull herself up when she stumbles. Her footsteps are very loud in the empty school, echoing off the linoleum floor and white-washed walls, and Chiaki worries that she is too late and Yukizome-sensei has gone home for the day. If she has, then Chiaki will have to wait until tomorrow morning and she doesn’t want to; every gamer instinct she has is telling her that this is a time-critical mission.
She hits the third floor almost literally, stumbling as she exits the stairwell and catching herself on the wall. She takes a moment to gasp for air — a year of physical education has meant that she can run up three flights of stairs but she will never be an athlete. Once she has recovered enough that her legs aren’t threatening to spill her to the floor, she stumbles forward towards Yukizome-sensei’s classroom.
She pauses outside, briefly, and peers through the glass set inside the door panel. She catches a glimpse of Yukizome-sensei’s brilliantly orange hair as she looks towards the teacher’s table, and in her relief Chiaki opens the door more forcefully than she had intended. Yukizome-sensei jumps at the sound, the papers in her hand slipping from her grip to drop onto the desk below her.
“Eh?” Yukizome-sensei exclaims, her eyes going wide as she looks towards the door. “Nanami-san? What are you doing here?”
“Yukizome-sensei,” Chiaki pants, leaning forward and pressing her hands against her thighs as she struggles to catch her breath. “I’m glad I caught you. I just got a call from Hinata-kun. It sounds like he’s in trouble. Did something happen here?”
“Hinata-kun…?” Yukizome-sensei frowns the more that Chiaki speaks, and she looks very troubled. She seems to come to some understanding about Hinata-kun that Chiaki cannot follow, as her expression becomes far more grave than Chiaki has ever seen it. “Nanami-san, I need you to start from the very beginning. Can you close the door behind you?”
Chiaki swallows, suddenly very afraid. “Yes, sensei,” she says, and closes the door behind her.
Yukizome-sensei’s new classroom looks a little like Chiaki’s classroom. The desks are arranged in the same orderly lines, all facing the teacher’s desk at the front, and there’s a blackboard behind the teacher’s desk for the teacher to write on. Her classroom is older, more battered than this one as the Main Course students are going to move into the new building with the new year, but there’s no warmth in this classroom of gleaming metal fixtures and sleek aesthetics.
Her classroom may be older, but it is full of memories of her classmates enjoying their time together. This one has two desks with a single flower in a vase, one for Koizumi-san’s friend and one for Kuzuryuu-kun’s sister, and Chiaki is reminded that there had never been a formal announcement about their deaths. While her class knew about it, to the Main Course generally, it is as if the two students vanished without anyone noticing or caring. Three, she supposes, given that Hinata-kun has also disappeared. She shivers as she takes a seat up the front, where Souda-kun would be in her classroom.
Yukizome-sensei sits down at the desk next to Chiaki and looks at her very intently. There’s no cheerful energy to Yukizome-sensei now, and she is serious in a way that frightens Chiaki. She folds her hands in her lap and says nothing, presumably waiting for Chiaki to start speaking.
“I got a call from Hinata-kun just now,” Chiaki starts, but doesn’t know what to say next to convey how terribly wrong that call was. She shakes her head fractionally to dismiss her self-doubts. “He was saying some really strange things, like he couldn’t leave where he was, that he didn’t remember things like whether he had parents, and that he was somewhere in Hope’s Peak.”
“Did he say something about Kamukura Izuru?”
It’s a question that makes no sense from Yukizome-sensei, but the way she asks it suggests that it means something, like it’s a different color in the text boxes from an NPC. Chiaki frowns, momentarily shaken from the anxiety that has gripped her, and shakes her head.
“No…” she says. “That’s the name of the school founder, isn’t it? Why would he say something like that?”
“It’s just a rumor the kids here talk about. They think that the founder of the school haunts this building.” Yukizome-sensei laughs. “They’ve even gotten me half-believing it now!”
She’s lying to me … Chiaki realizes. Something very wrong has happened with Hinata-kun and the key word is ‘Kamukura Izuru’. This is the part where it’s foreshadowed that the mentor knows more about the villain than what everyone’s been told. It’s a sobering thought. Chiaki loves video games, loves to crack open their secrets with nimble fingers and a knack for puzzles, but she is suddenly reminded of all the times that her protagonists died while she was learning how the game was played.
“I don’t think that Hinata-kun would believe in ghosts,” Chiaki says carefully.
“No, probably not. He’s always been really serious when I’ve seen him.” Yukizome-sensei tilts her head thoughtfully. “Nanami-san, can I look at your phone to see who called you?”
Chiaki pulls her phone out of her bag, letting her hair fall over her face to obscure her expression. She hadn’t told Yukizome-sensei that Hinata had rung on someone else’s phone. She thumbs open the lock, and displays the last called number on her screen before passing it to Yukizome-sensei.
Yukizome-sensei’s face goes very blank.
“Is that a number you recognize, sensei?” Chiaki asks, more to confirm her suspicions than because she doesn’t know. If Hinata-kun is trapped in the school somewhere, the phone he’s borrowed must belong to someone belonging to Hope’s Peak. If simply calling it would get her into trouble, that must mean that they’re very important. Maybe the headmaster, but Chiaki suspects with a sick dread that it’s far higher than him.
“Nanami-san, I need you to do exactly what I tell you,” Yukizome-sensei says, confirming Chiaki’s suspicions. “You need to go back to your dorm room tonight, and go to class tomorrow, and leave this to me to sort out.” She hands Chiaki’s phone back to her and closes her hand over it. “I may be teaching the Reserve Course right now, but I’m still a teacher and that means I take care of things like this.”
“Sensei…?” Chiaki manages over the dizzy horror that grips her. This is the flag that is tripped when the mentor dies, she knows it, and she has spent so many hours gripping her console and hoping that this is the game where the protagonists see the signs on the wall and saves their mentor from their certain death. “What’s going on, Yukizome-sensei?”
Yukizome-sensei smiles, and even this is like her games. “Everything will be all right,” Yukizome-sensei promises. “Don’t worry, Nanami-san. This will be cleared up before you know it. Just go back to your dorm and continue your school life, okay?”
“Okay,” Chiaki says. It sounds strained and thin, but she manages to return Yukizome-sensei’s smile because that is how this script goes. “I’ll go back to my dorm tonight and leave it to you.”
“Good! Hinata-kun will be back before you know it!”
Chiaki’s smile feels forced, but she knows what she must do now. She had promised to go back to her dorm tonight, but she had not promised to keep secret from her classmates what she has learned. She won’t ask them to help rescue Hinata-kun, because they don’t know him and that would be an unfair request from their class representative to make.
But they’d want to know that Yukizome-sensei is investigating something really wrong about Hope’s Peak, something that frightens her more than two dead students. Chiaki’s sure they’d want to know, and that they’d want to help. Between all of them, they’re sure to uncover something useful for Yukizome-sensei’s investigation.
“Thank you, Yukizome-sensei.” Chiaki picks up her bag and tucks her phone inside it. “I’ll go straight back to my dorm now.” She does not look back at Yukizome-sensei as she leaves, for fear that her face will betray her intentions.
Chiaki doesn’t quite make it to her dormitory.
The main course’s dormitories are located on school grounds, overlooking the artificial lake that was constructed when Hope’s Peak started its expansion. It’s a fair walk from the school, but a pleasant one when it’s not raining, with the path being shaded by trees and well-maintained plants lining the route. Chiaki pays little regard to her surroundings when she’s alone, her hands and mind engaged with the current game of choice, but today her hands do not itch for the gaming console. This walk back is important and she needs the time to think about what to say.
She spends the time rehearsing what she plans to say in her head, trying different combinations of speeches to try and impart to her classmates how unsettling Hope’s Peak Academy has become lately, how Yukizome-sensei has triggered every single death flag a mentor has in a video game, and how Chiaki wants to help protect her. She plays with certain sentences, trying to work out how to phrase her fervent wish that her classmates help her save Yukizome-sensei, and her thoughts fall into rhythmic patterns in time with her footsteps.
Her footsteps slow to a stop as she reaches the entrance to the girls’ dormitory, and she stares in shock. Sitting on the front steps, one arm in a sling and a manila folder on his thighs, is Komaeda-kun. There’s a hospital identification tag still looped around his good wrist, and he looks paler and more drawn than the last time she saw him, but he’s dressed in his Hope’s Peak Academy uniform.
“Nanami-san!” he calls out cheerily, as if he has only seen her a few hours ago and has not been missing for four months. He picks up the folder from his lap with his good hand, stands up, and steps toward Chiaki to offer the folder to her. She accepts it out of sheer dumbfounded amazement that this is how she meets Komaeda-kun again, after months of his being missing, but does not look down at it. “I’ve been waiting to give this to you!” he announces.
“Komaeda-kun… What is …?”
“You should look at it,” he suggests, overriding her bewildered queries. He nods at the folder in her hands. “It’s interesting reading.”
Komaeda-kun always smiles, but this is one of his darker ones, one that looks like a hook and Chiaki the fish. She is drawn towards it, even while being afraid of what it might be hiding, and she reminds herself that Komaeda-kun is a classmate as well.
The folder is a plain manila folder, with the only splash of color on its cover a post-it note with Chiaki’s name on it and a suggestion to take care of her. She doesn’t recognize the handwriting and she feels like if she opens the folder then the ground under her feet will give way entirely, causing her to fall forever. She swallows, reminding herself that knowing is better than not knowing, and opens the folder to start reading.
The first document is one page, titled ‘Briefing Note’, and appears to be addressed to the trustees of Hope’s Peak. Chiaki’s attention is arrested by the reference line, ‘Kamukura Izuru Project’, and she reads the document intently, trying to divine any information from its contents. For all that it is short, only three paragraphs, Chiaki finds herself struggling to interpret the vague phrases into something tangible and understandable. She thinks it’s about an experiment, but it’s unclear what it’s intended to achieve. One particular phrase stays with her as she moves onto the next page: ’to date, the subject has responded well to the preparation stage’. She isn’t sure why that phrase seems particularly ominous.
The next two pages seem to be laboratory results, strings of numbers that are all but incomprehensible. The numbers appear to be going up over time, if she reads the columns correctly, but Chiaki does not know what it is measuring or what the results mean. She notes that the results are addressed to a Matsuda Yasuke, a name she doesn’t recognize, and moves on.
It’s when Chiaki reaches the fourth page that she thinks she is beginning to understand what is going on. The next bundle of documents, stapled at the top left corner, appears to be a dry recitation of a neurosurgical procedure to excise memories and that on its own would explain the dread that has settled in Chiaki’s stomach. However, it’s the photograph clipped to the first page that makes her want to be sick. It’s a photograph of a boy in a hospital gown, strapped into a chair. He’s pulling against the metal restraints towards the back of the chair as if he can escape that way. His face is obscured from the mouth down, and all that Chiaki can see is the knotting of his jaw, but she knows who is in the photograph.
The photograph of Hinata-kun is dated two weeks ago.
She reads the rest of the report quickly and feels like the ground has opened up underneath her when she is done. She understands now why Hinata-kun had called her, distraught about the gaps in his memories. She hopes that he doesn’t understand that there is more to come for him, unless he is rescued, and soon. Her heart aches at how she has been waiting outside the Reserve Course, wondering what she had said wrong to him, when all along he had been experiencing this.
“Where did you find this folder?” she asks, her mouth dry.
“When I was coming back to school I ran into a security guard who dropped a security card. I thought about giving it back to him, but it wasn’t his ID so I tried to find the trustees’ office to return it to them, but instead all I found was this. I saw your name on a post-it note on the cover, so I thought you should see it.” Komaeda-kun pauses at the end of his mad-cap narration, and hums in thought. “I thought that this would balance out the bad luck from my car accident, but the plane did crash, so maybe not…?”
Chiaki is distracted from her sick horror at Hinata-kun’s predicament by Komaeda-kun’s off-hand remark. She looks at the hospital ID band around his wrist, the plaster cast around his other wrist, and now that she is paying attention she can see the thin silvery lines of healing scars against his too-pale skin. “You were in a car accident? Does anything hurt?”
“Don’t worry about scum like me,” Komaeda says breezily, waving his good hand in cheerful dismissal. His smile is wide and unsettling in its serenity. “I can endure anything if it helps the hope of our class to shine even brighter.”
Chiaki puffs her cheeks in indignation. “You’re not scum,” she says firmly. “You’re an important part of our class, and we’ve missed you these last four months.”
“Really?” Komaeda-kun looks taken aback for a moment before his bright smile appears once again. “You missed me? You really are more kind to me than I deserve! I’m so glad that I came straight here to give this folder to you.”
Chiaki looks down at the folder again, the photograph of Hinata-kun trying desperately to pull away from the chair, and thinks that she will have to break her promise to Yukizome-sensei. She can’t leave this for another minute, not when the future recommendations of that report make it clear that Hinata-kun’s amnesia is both deliberate and intended to be total.
“Komaeda-kun, can you tell me where you found this?” Her voice sounds far more confident than she feels.
“You’re going to investigate?” Komaeda-kun’s eyes light up. “I’ll come too.”
“That’s … that’s not a good idea,” Chiaki says earnestly. “You’re hurt, and you could get into trouble. More trouble.”
Komaeda-kun laughs. “You don’t have to worry about me! You’re the one in trouble.”
Chiaki’s breath catches.
“They know your name, after all!” Komaeda-kun says, seemingly oblivious to Chiaki’s dawning panic. “That means that they’re about to start looking for you, and I couldn’t sit by and let the hope of our class fall into their hands!”
“I’m not the hope of our class…” Chiaki says helplessly.
“But you are!” Komaeda-kun says with utmost confidence. “And all I want to do is safeguard that hope of our class for the future.” He shrugs then, a languid movement that immediately makes Chiaki wary. “Besides, if you don’t let me come, I won’t tell you what else I know…”
“What’s that?”
Komaeda-kun’s reply is a smile. “You’ll have to let me come to find out!”
Chiaki doesn’t like any of this. She wants the information badly, but Komaeda-kun is still injured and she is uncertain if he will tell her that he hurts too much and needs to rest. He is capable of remarkable feats in the name of what he believes in, she knows, but it’s her job as class representative to keep him safe and happy. His grey-green eyes are lit with determination and faith in her, which is more disquieting than she had thought it would be. Is this what it feels like to be the protagonist in a game, where everyone believes in you before you’ve even done anything to earn that faith?
She notices now that in the photograph there’s a tear streak cutting across Hinata’s face and off his jawline.
What else is Hope’s Peak hiding inside its glittering metal fixtures and sleek aesthetics?
“All right,” she says. “But we have to be careful, and look after you as well. Okay?”
“If that’s what you want,” Komaeda-kun says diffidently. “Now, I’ll show you where I found this folder.”
“Now?”
“Of course. Why wait?”
It’s a fair point, Chiaki has to concede.
“Okay. But let me send a text to everyone letting them know where we’re going.” Chiaki pulls her phone out and sends out a mass text to their class: Komaeda-kun and I are going into the school to find out what’s going on. Meet up later to discuss helping Yukizome-sensei. She hits send, and Komaeda-kun’s phone chimes, notifying him that he has received a message.
“Now let’s go.”
She follows in Komaeda-kun’s wake, and hopes that this impulsive decision does not result in everything going terribly wrong.
Underneath the campus of Hope’s Peak Academy seems to be a gleaming labyrinth of burnished metal, with a security camera at every corner, miles away from any of the facilities that Chiaki has seen at school so far. She had had no idea that her school had a series of well-lit, sterile corridors underneath it, accessible via a secret passageway underneath a statue of the first headmaster of the school. It looks more like the setting of a futuristic shoot-em-up than a school. Chiaki’s palms are sweaty and she looks from side to side cautiously as they make their way through the corridors, looking for any clue as to where they are. There are rows upon rows of doors, each locked with either a swipe card, keypad or a small hole with a red light in it that may be a retinal scanner. She tries to peer in through the windows set in the doors to see inside, but the lights are dimmed, and she only has time for a fleeting glance before she must move on. Komaeda-kun sets a blistering pace, and she is struggling to keep up.
He leads her further into the maze, through two doors that require the swipe card he gave her, and three that require a security code. She watches the codes that he enters, trying to see if there is a pattern to them, but each sequence seems to be different in both sequence of numbers and length of combinations. Komaeda-kun seems untroubled by the unpredictability of the key codes, entering numbers with a desultory swipe of his hand. It almost looks like he is picking them at random, but he cannot be as each door unlocks easily without any alarm going off.
“Have you memorized all the key codes?” Chiaki whispers.
“No, not at all!” Komaeda-kun replies cheerfully. “But even a pathetic talent like mine can be useful at times like these. I’m sure a brilliantly talented person like you could do so much better than me.”
Chiaki shakes her head. “That’s not true. Your talent is amazing,” she insists. “I would have set the alarms off on the first keypad.” She looks around the corridor, the sixth that they have entered since coming underground, and takes a breath to steel her courage. “Komaeda-kun, where are you taking me? I thought we were going to where you found this folder…?”
“We can go there on the way back if you like,” Komaeda-kun says. “But don’t you want to know where he is?” He nods at the folder Chiaki has tucked under her arm.
Chiaki stops and stares at him. “You know where he is?”
Komaeda-kun continues on for a few more steps before stopping, turning to face Chiaki. “Yep. But we should hurry.”
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” Chiaki presses.
Komaeda-kun shrugs. “You wouldn’t have brought me along if I did,” he says, which Chiaki has to concede as being true. He adds, “And I want to see the clash between your hope and his despair.”
Komaeda-kun has been talking about hope for as long as he’s been a part of Class 77-B, and most of the students have learned to tune it out. Chiaki hasn’t chosen to do so, thinking that it’s part of her role as class representative to understand everything that motivates her friends, and so notices that this time he speaks of hope and despair as not only being opposing forces but essentially personified. It gives her pause, and she frowns up at Komaeda-kun. “My …what?” she asks, head tilting in query.
Komaeda-kun draws his finger up to his mouth. “Shhhh,” he urges. “There’ll be guards in the next corridor soon, and they’ll hear you.”
Chiaki abandons her question, and looks around for somewhere to hide. She wishes hopelessly for a box to hide in, even though she suspects that hiding in boxes only works for one particular character. Unlike the protagonists she has played in rogue-like games, she has no special abilities bestowed upon her by a higher power whose motivations are beyond human comprehension, no military or mercenary training, she doesn’t have powers from being part of an experiment, and she definitely does not have a futuristic weapon like a portal gun. She has a smartphone, two gaming consoles, a manila folder full of very incriminating reports, and some composition books from today’s classes. It’s the kind of inventory a protagonist has at the beginning of the game, not the end, and she is painfully aware that she is in the final dungeon grossly underlevelled.
She walks as quietly as possible behind Komaeda-kun, hoping not to trigger any random encounters.
He stops in front of a door, one that looks no different to any of the others that they have passed along the way.
“Here,” he says, pressing sixteen keys at what Chiaki suspects is truly random. It works though, and the door unlocks with a click that is terribly loud and echoes down the corridors. “Show me your hope.”
Chiaki’s question about what he means by that dies on her lips as the door swings open under his hand, exposing a sterile, almost empty room. Even with the lights dimmed, Chiaki can see that there is only one piece of furniture in the room: a bed, in the centre of the room. It looks like it is from a hospital, with a metal frame and white sheets that look painfully stiff and starched. Sitting on the bed, leaning against the bedhead, is Hinata-kun. He looks pale and tired, dressed in thin hospital clothes, and snaking up from his arm is a thin plastic tube attached to an IV of clear fluids. He looks up at Chiaki, a strangely delayed and slow reaction, and he frowns hazily at her.
Chiaki does not know how long she stands in the corridor staring at Hinata-kun. She forces herself to take a step inside, then another, and then all at once she hurries over to his bed.
“Hinata-kun,” she whispers urgently, and then jumps as the door close behind her. She looks around to see Komaeda-kun waving sheepishly.
“It’s just me,” he says, “but I figured this was a moment that the guards shouldn’t interrupt. Carry on! Don’t mind me, you won’t even know I’m here!”
“Thank you,” Chiaki says, smiling at him. “This won’t take long, I’m sure of it.”
“Nanami…?” Hinata-kun says, and Chiaki turns her attention back to him. He looks across and behind her, to where Komaeda-kun has taken up position in the corner of the room. “You again…?”
“Huh?” Chiaki blurts out. “You two have met before?”
“That’s right,” Komaeda-kun says breezily. “He borrowed my phone.”
Chiaki is sure that the number that called her earlier was not Komaeda-kun’s, but there will be time enough to ask questions about that later. Instead, she focuses on Hinata-kun.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Hinata-kun says. He shakes his head. “Either of you.”
“You shouldn’t either,” Chiaki says. “You should be outside, playing video games.” With me, she leaves unspoken, but from the way his mouth quirks she thinks he understands anyway.
Then he speaks, and she realizes that he doesn’t at all. “Once they’re finished this experiment, I can. Only I’ll actually be good enough for it to be worth your time.”
Chiaki feels like she’s been gut-punched. “No,” she manages. “That’s not true. Any time spent playing games with my friends is worth it.”
“No, that’s not true.” He looks at Komaeda-kun. “Why did you bring her here? I told you not to.”
“You did,” Komaeda-kun agrees airily. “But I wanted to see what would happen. I don’t really mind either way: either her hope is greater than your despair, or she fails and the hope born from that will be greater again.”
“I have no idea what you just said,” Hinata-kun mutters. It’s the first glimpse of something other than the distant, sedated distress that he has displayed until now, and Chiaki is heartened by it.
“Komaeda-kun just wants the world to be a more hopeful place,” Chiaki says. She hopes it’s that anyway, but from the flash of disappointment in Komaeda-kun’s eyes before he turns his attention back to Hinata-kun, it doesn’t seem quite right. Something else to puzzle over later. “But Hinata-kun,” she says earnestly. “When they finish the experiment … there won’t be a you.”
“That’s not true,” Hinata-kun says, but his voice and face belie his words. It’s not that he believes it’s not true, Chiaki suspects, but more that he does not want it to be true and is open to persuasion that his intuition is correct. She takes his hand in both of hers, clasping it close to her. Hinata-kun blushes but doesn’t pull away, instead staring at her with wide green eyes.
“It is true,” she says, searching his face for the impact of her words. “You’ve been forgetting things, important things.”
“That’s just a temporary side-effect,” Hinata-kun mutters. “It’ll go away soon.”
“It won’t.” She lets go with one hand to tug out the folder she has tucked under her arm. “Please, Hinata-kun, read this.”
She hands him the folder. He goes pale at the post-it note on the cover, and there’s a flash of recognition in his eyes that frightens her. Then he opens the folder across his lap and starts reading. He reads faster than Chiaki does, faster than anyone she’s seen read, and her eyes flick towards the thin surgical scar near his temple. She wonders what has already been done to him that he can analyze data faster than anyone she’s seen. He goes paler the more he reads, to the point where Chiaki is afraid he may faint. Once he reaches the end of the material he just stares at the last page.
“I’ll … disappear?” he breathes and the horror in his voice is unmistakeable. There’s another emotion underneath that, something dark and unpleasant with its edges turned inwards to cut Hinata-kun. She knew that he didn’t like himself, but she had not realized how pervasive that dislike was. She feels like she’s on a knife’s edge, and that the wrong word will cause everything to fail. She does not have any fancy weapons, nor any special abilities. All she has is the truth: he is someone she cares about very much and does not want to see disappear.
“I think so,” she says. She’s not certain, but it seems the likely outcome. “There may be a person left when this procedure is done, but they won’t be you. They won’t remember anything that was important to you.” He doesn’t look up from the folder, jaw clenched, and Chiaki adds desperately, “Please, Hinata-kun. Come with us. I don’t want you to become someone else. I’m friends with you.”
“You came all this way just for me?”
Chiaki nods.
He closes the folder and tries to smile. It’s brittle and fleeting, but Chiaki smiles back at him. “All right, but I don’t think getting out of here will be as easy as you think.”
Hinata-kun’s agreement takes a weight off her shoulders that Chiaki didn’t realize she was carrying. That said, she has to agree with his assessment that it will not be as easy as she would like. She looks across at his IV, his pallor, and asks, “Will you be able to walk?”
“Maybe,” Hinata-kun offers dubiously. His smile shifts to something self-deprecating and twisted. “I’m always kind of dizzy after one of these procedures. I’ll try though.”
Komaeda-kun claps, and Chiaki jumps. He was right, she really had forgotten he was there. “You can lean on me!”
“Komaeda-kun, you can’t,” Chiaki says. “I’m stronger than I look, he can lean on me.”
“I can endure any pain if it furthers hope,” Komaeda-kun says as he pushes away from the wall. He winces, before smiling again. “You can count on me.”
“I guess being in the Main Course is guaranteed to make you an oddball,” Hinata-kun mutters ruefully as he swings his legs over the side of the bed and stands. He wobbles, catching himself on the metal rails of the bed’s headboard, and pushes himself into a more stable position. Chiaki lends him her shoulder, which he accepts. Up close, Hinata-kun smells of hospital-grade antiseptic, anti-bacterial soap, and surgical glue. More of his weight drops onto her shoulder, and Chiaki grunts. Komaeda-kun slips across to the other side, unhooks the IV bag from the stand, and takes some of the weight.
“Sorry,” Hinata-kun mutters. “I’m okay, I can walk.”
Chiaki doesn’t let him go, and he doesn’t try to step away from her and Komaeda-kun. “Let’s go,” she says firmly. “Once we get you out of here, we’ll work out what to do next.”
Exiting the underground facility is a lot easier than Chiaki expects. She had anticipated that there would be guards everywhere, checkpoints for them to pass through without being detected, maybe a few QTE. She is wrong, and it is not comforting. Though her heart is in her throat with every step, her breath sawing in her chest out of fear and the exertion of helping Hinata-kun to keep his balance, no one calls out to them to stop where they are or interrupts their progress. She sets a slow pace, solicitous of the fact that she is the most physically able of the three of them, and listens to the breathing of the other two for any signs of distress. Neither Komaeda-kun nor Hinata-kun say anything, and so Chiaki keeps silent until they reach the stairs leading from the underground facility to the outside world.
“We’re almost there,” she assures them. “We’re almost safe.”
The last flight of stairs are the hardest fifteen steps that Chiaki has made. Her knees wobble with each rise, and more of Hinata-kun’s weight falls onto her and Komaeda-kun’s shoulders. She can hear Komaeda-kun hiss with pain as they hit the tenth step, and she wishes that they could stop. “Not far to go,” she says, gritting her teeth as she forces herself to take another five steps. Soon they will be outside where they can rest on level ground.
It’s dark outside, and Chiaki hovers on the last step while her eyes adjust from the cool-bright light of the underground facility to the dimmer light of night time. It takes her a moment to see more than darkness, but when her eyes adjust she can see that there are no guards standing in front of the exit, waiting for them. If they were about to be caught, wouldn’t there be guards outside?
Her instincts, honed through hundreds of stealth sequences, tell her that there must be guards nearby, she just can’t see them. She looks around carefully, searching for any sign of a person standing behind a tree, but it’s really too dark for her to see clearly. They can’t stay in the stairwell forever, and Chiaki makes the final step outside. Komaeda-kun is panting in earnest now, and Hinata-kun’s breathing is ragged with exhaustion. Chiaki looks across at the two of them, pale and exhausted, and feels that she’s pushed them both too far. Surely they can wait a few moments for them to recover first.
She opens her mouth to suggest that they take a moment to catch their breath when a stick breaks. Her head whips up, searching for the source of the sound, and a flashlight is shined directly into her face. She winces, covering her face with her forearm, and curses herself for having been lulled into a false sense of security. Just because she can’t see the guards doesn’t mean that they’re not there, and there’s no such thing as a quick save in real life.
The security guard, from what little she can see with her dazzled eyes, is a tall man, muscular in a way that must make buying shirts difficult, and wavy hair cut short. She’s never seen him before, but there’s a gasp from one of her companions, suggesting that they know him. He’s an intimidating man, and Chiaki only barely stops herself from taking a step backward and falling down the flight of stairs.
“What are you kids doing here?” the security guard snaps, shining the flashlight on the three of them in turn.
“We could ask you the same question,” Komaeda-kun replies, and Chiaki shoots a quelling look in his direction. Komaeda-kun seems immune to her silent entreaty, and continues on with, “Where is Yukizome-sensei? Shouldn’t she be here with you?”
Chiaki freezes, horror drawing her throat closed in a painful vice. “Did you tell her too?” she manages in a strangled whisper.
“No, but I didn’t need to,” Komaeda-kun replies easily. “If he’s around,” and Komaeda-kun nods at the security guard, whose scowl has reached terrifying levels of intensity, “then Yukizome-sensei is also around. They were classmates, you see.”
The security guard looks to the side and behind them for a signal. Chiaki turns her head and her heart sinks. Yukizome-sensei, still dressed as if she had left their classroom, is right there.
“Sakakura-kun, I told you my kids are smart,” she says, puffing her cheeks in annoyance. She steps out from behind them and into view, brushing leaves and dirt from her skirt, and sighs at the three of them. “Nanami-san, I thought I told you to leave this with me. And you, Komaeda-kun! Why didn’t you come to me before going off on your own?”
The disappointment in Yukizome-sensei’s voice is painful to hear, and Chiaki winces despite herself.
“I wanted to see what would happen when they met,” Komaeda-kun says.
“I couldn’t leave Hinata-kun there once I found out what was going on,” Chiaki adds.
“That him?” Sakakura-san asks, nodding at Hinata-kun and looking across at Yukizome-sensei. Chiaki is now acutely aware that Hinata-kun is barefoot, wearing only a thin hospital tunic and pants, and is shivering from the cold. If she is feeling intimidated by Sakakura-san, then Hinata-kun would be terrified. She looks across at him, and is startled to see that his expression is a complex mixture of horror, loathing, and humiliation.
“That’s right,” Hinata-kun says, and there is a terrible amount of suppressed emotion lurking in that quiet agreement. “Don’t you remember me?”
Sakakura-san looks stricken at Hinata-kun’s words, before a pallid version of his scowl returns. “Look, kid, it wasn’t personal. Hope’s Peak is rotten to the core, and I had to keep you from investigating further.”
Hinata-kun laughs, and it is painful and ugly. “That didn’t work out.”
“I told you that you went too far,” Yukizome-sensei chides Sakakura-san.
Chiaki feels like there are several conversations going on at once, with each participant aware of the unspoken currents between them, while she’s left on the outside. She desperately wishes that someone would explain to her what was going on. She has a whole new empathy for protagonists who spend most of their time having information withheld from them ‘for their own good’. There’s an awful tension between Hinata-kun, Sakakura-san and Yukizome-sensei, and she isn’t sure how to diffuse it.
Instead, Komaeda-kun cuts it with a bright, “Oh, aren’t we missing someone? Where is Munakata-san?”
“Not here,” Sakakura-san says absently, and then his scowl deepens as Komaeda-kun’s smile widens. “What?”
“I see,” Komaeda-kun says dreamily. “Is that your plan?”
“What?”
Yukizome-sensei rests a hand on Sakakura-san’s arm. “We’re going to have to take them in,” she says.
Sakakura-san snorts derisively. “You think that’s a good idea? They’re a bunch of dumb kids.”
“Kyosuke would want us to.”
Sakakura-san blinks, non-plussed, and takes another look at the three of them. “You think? The lucky one, maybe, but her? She’s just a gamer.”
“Trust me,” and Yukizome-sensei is utterly confident. “You should really learn to look past people’s talents to who they are. There’s more to life than talents, and Nanami-san is a perfect example of that.”
Sakakura-san shrugs, conceding the argument, and pulls his phone from his pocket. “Whatever. We’d have to bring in the Reserve Course kid anyway.”
Any pleasure that Chiaki might have derived from Yukizome-sensei’s compliments is dashed by Sakakura-san’s dismissal of her friend. “His name is Hinata Hajime,” she says quietly.
“Don’t,” Hinata-kun says. “It’s not worth it.”
“You deserve to be called by your name,” she insists.
Sakakura-san isn’t listening, his attention focused on his phone and the speaker on the other end. “Yeah, we need a pick up.” He waits. “Sure. We can get there.” He ends the call and glares at the three of them. “Front gate in ten minutes. Get.”
“Hinata-kun doesn’t have shoes,” Chiaki protests.
“So what?” Sakakura-san snaps.
“You could offer to carry him, Sakakura-kun,” Yukizome-sensei says. “We can only go as fast as he can.”
“I can walk on my own,” Hinata-kun insists. “I don’t need his help. Let’s go, guys.” He takes a careful step, bare feet feeling the path in front of him for obstacles before he places his foot down and puts weight onto it.
Chiaki smiles apologetically at Yukizome-sensei. “I’ll help him get there,” she promises.
Yukizome-sensei bestows her brightest and most trusting smile on her. “I know you will! I am so glad everyone chose you as the class representative; I couldn’t ask for a better one!”
Chiaki warms under the praise. “You should go on ahead,” she suggests. “We’ll catch up.”
Yukizome-sensei hares off, followed by Sakakura-san. Chiaki considers whether they have enough time to run and hide, but doesn’t know where they would go or who would hide them. While there is something very wrong with Hope’s Peak, Chiaki is reassured, at least a little, by the fact that Yukizome-sensei seems to be standing against it.
“How did you know those two names?” Chiaki whispers to Komaeda-kun as they round the side of the main course building.
“I found photographs of their time here,” Komaeda-kun says. “What do you think will happen next?”
He asks the question as if he already knows the answer and is testing Chiaki’s understanding of their situation.
“I think we’re going to find out what’s really going on,” Hinata-kun says quietly. “If we were really in trouble, they’d just put me back in the lab.”
“I think we’ll be okay,” Chiaki says. “Yukizome-sensei would never put us in danger.”
“You’re right,” Komaeda-kun says brightly. “I can’t wait to see what happens next.” He sighs. “Who could have guessed that this is what your hope would lead us to?”
“Shh,” Chiaki says. “We don’t want to get caught by the faculty.”
There’s a limo out the front, long and dark with tinted windows, and with the Hope’s Peak logo on the side. Chiaki stops when she sees it, heart in her throat and even the sight of Yukizome-sensei standing beside it does little to calm her fear.
“It’s okay, Nanami-san,” Yukizome-sensei says. “Kyosuke works for Hope’s Peak but he’s not involved in the Kamukura Izuru Project. You can trust him.”
Chiaki isn’t sure that she can trust Munakata-san, but she is sure that she can trust Yukizome-sensei. She helps Komaeda-kun and Hinata-kun into the car, before climbing in herself. Yukizome-sensei climbs in after her and closes the door behind her. There’s more than enough space enough for the four of them in the back, but Chiaki is relieved that Sakakura-san chooses to sit in the front passenger’s seat instead, next to the driver. She’s nervous enough as it is.
The car drives them from the school across the city and to a large house on the other side near the river. The house is protected by a large fence that looms overhead and seems impregnable, though as the car approaches the fence a gate opens smoothly to allow the car access. The gate closes behind them with a heavy thud. Chiaki looks back and swallows hard. She had used the opportunity to think about what she had learned in the last few hours, trying to slot pieces of information together like a jigsaw puzzle, or following the trail of foreshadowing breadcrumbs in a game. She has seen a glimpse of the rotten core hidden inside the shiny fixture of Hope’s Peak Academy, and she knows that Yukizome-sensei is not a part of that. What she does not know is why they are being brought here.
“We’re here,” she says aloud. “Are you guys okay?”
“Never better,” says Komaeda-kun, which is not very reassuring.
“I’m okay,” Hinata-kun whispers. He sounds as afraid as Chiaki feels and she smiles at him briefly.
“Don’t you kids worry,” Yukizome-sensei says cheerfully. “Kyosuke is a really good guy. You’ll see.”
Good can mean many things. Chiaki supposes she is about to find out which one describes Munakata-san.
The car comes to a stop outside the front door. Yukizome-sensei opens the door of the car, and gestures for the three students to get out first. Chiaki climbs out first, because she thinks that the others may find it difficult to get out of the car after the long drive. Komaeda-kun’s movements are slightly stiff as he pushes himself out one-handed. Hinata-kun is better able to balance now than he was in the past, but he still needs to lean against the car frame to catch his breath. Chiaki waits, hands out to steady either of them if they needed it.
Yukizome-sensei climbs out last, closing the door behind her and brushing her skirt back into neat lines. “Are you kids ready to go in?” she asks.
“Too bad if they’re not,” Sakakura-san says from the door, already inserting his key to unlock it. “Let’s get them to Munakata.” He opens the door, revealing an empty corridor with two visible internal doors immediately in sight, and folds his arms impatiently. “Come on, move it. Room on the left.”
As Chiaki walks alongside her friends inside the house, she wonders what kind of man Munakata-san must be, to have the loyalty of both Yukizome-sensei and Sakakura-san. She pushes open the ajar door on her left and learns that Munakata-san is a man on the tall side of average, with startlingly white hair and blue eyes, and whose self-assurance immediately draws the eye. He is sitting at a desk, piled with papers and at least two tablets, and he looks up at the door opening with a pleased smile. His smile fades as he takes in the sight of Chiaki, Komaeda-kun, and Hinata-kun, and he looks up at Sakakura-san and Yukizome-sensei as they come in behind their students.
“What’s this?” he asks.
Chiaki can’t think of anything to say, and so she stays silent and smiles nervously. Hinata-kun says and does nothing. Incongruously, Komaeda-kun waves jauntily and says hello.
“They’re my students,” Yukizome-sensei says. “I’ve told you about them before: Nanami-san, Komaeda-kun, and Hinata-kun.” Chiaki is flattered by the fact that Yukizome-sensei tells her friends about her.
“Oh, Nanami-san,” Yukizome-sensei adds. “Could you please give Kyosuke the folder you have with you?”
“Oh … okay…” Chiaki says. She’s held onto the folder for most of the night, and now that she is being asked to hand it over she doesn’t want to. It’s a request from Yukizome-sensei, though, so she walks across the office and hands the dirty, battered, sweat-stained folder to Munakata-san. He seems untroubled by the condition of the folder, flipping it open and beginning to read.
Unlike the rest of them, Munakata-san gleans something important from the briefing note, by the way his eyebrows go up in surprise. He glances at Hinata-kun, eyes dark with questions, but keeps them to himself as he continues reading. When he gets to the end, he asks one question of Hinata-kun: “Did you know what you were agreeing to?”
Hinata-kun’s mouth twists into a sharp-edged smile, with all the edges aimed towards himself. “I thought I did,” he says, and Chiaki winces at the self-derision in his voice.
“That’s because they lied to you,” Munakata-san says. He shakes his head. “This isn’t what Hope’s Peak is meant to be about. When it was founded, Hope’s Peak was meant to further talented people, allow them to reach their full potential. This —” and he flourishes the manila folder for emphasis — “is a sign we’ve lost sight of that. Now we focus too much on talent and not enough on the people. It needs reform.”
Chiaki can hear Yukizome-sensei’s sharp intake of breath. “Kyosuke … you’re going to ask them to join us?”
“I am.” He turns to the three students. “I am going to reform Hope’s Peak,” he says, and Chiaki finds herself believing that if anyone could do it, it’s him. “I’m going to make Hope’s Peak a beacon for talented people once again, what Kamukura Izuru would have wanted his school to be. But to do that, I need supporters. Will you join me?”
His presence is overwhelming and Chiaki finds a ‘yes’ on her lips without thinking. She purses her lips closed.
“I would love to help you,” Komaeda-kun says immediately, eyes alight with a strange fervor.
“I can’t really go back,” Hinata-kun says. “But I don’t know why you’d want me of all people.”
“And you?” Munakata-san asks, looking at Chiaki.
“Um … I’d like to,” Chiaki says carefully. “But I’d need to ask all of my class whether they will or won’t. If we all want to, then I would be happy to help you.” She remembers her phone in her bag. “Could I have a moment please to ask them?”
“Of course.”
Chiaki steps outside the room, closing the door behind her. She calls Sonia, who then brings the rest of the class into her dormitory room for the talk. Chiaki tells them everything she has learned: the Kamukura Izuru Project’s purpose and where it was obtaining its money, the frighteningly futuristic complex built underneath the school, that Munakata-san wants to make things better. She says that Yukizome-sensei believes in Munakata-san and that he seems to have a vision for the future of how Hope’s Peak should run, a place more focused making friends rather than what talents they have. She then asks them if they want to help him.
Their answer is unanimous.
“We’ll join you,” she tells Munakata-san when she returns to the room. “We’ll work with you to make Hope’s Peak what it should be.” She looks across at Hinata-kun, and Komaeda-kun, and smiles at them. It feels right, to see that something is wrong with Hope’s Peak and make a promise that things will change for the better.
“Welcome to the Future Foundation,” Munakata-san says in reply.