After the literal jaws of life drag her from the trial room by the neck, everything goes black for both her and the students. When the lights turn back on, Tsunami winds up on a stage, blindfolded, with an entire stadium filled with audience members staring up at her. Filling the middle rows were her classmates, whom a spotlight shone on. Even though she wasn’t able to see anything, she knew there were people and where exactly she was. One of the scariest places she could imagine.
A siren goes off, startling her at first and a screen turns on behind her, which is visible to the students. A few words pop up, which are also read aloud by an announcer, as well as some following notes.
[ROUND ONE; MEMORIZATION]
“This was your most recently choreographed song! Surely you remember it!”
After a few moments, the words blink away, a music video replacing it, while monitors to the side show close ups of her, of course, she isn’t aware of that. She followed along with the music, matching all of the moves in the video with pin-point accuracy. The ground in the audience went wild, and the excitement only grew as fireworks went off, a bit too closely to Tsunami, as bits of her clothes were now scorched, but nevertheless she continued to dance.
By the time she finished, majority of her clothing was burned black, but of course, the crowd only screamed and cheered.
[ROUND TWO; INPROVISATION]
“One of your noted skills is being able to come up with dance moves on the spot! Let’s put that to the test!”
Another song came on without video, and the same process repeated itself. Except, instead of fireworks, near the end of the song, fire rained from the ceiling and was spat through holes in the stage ground. Tsunami ended up even more scorched than before, but nevertheless, she continued to dance. By the time the song had finished, the crowd was insane, not including her peers.
The announcer’s voice seemed warped, and was hardly understandable, not to mention the screen started glitching out. Music once again began to play, though more demonic and didn't seem to have a steady time signature. Tsunami stood with a confused look on her face. She heard a rumbling noise, and decided to remove the blindfold, and she and students both watched in horror as audience members suddenly climbed on to the stage, grabbing and reaching at her with no hesitation. The monitor finally switched to another, final text.
Enough of the audience had finally surrounded her on the stage, as she was no longer visible to the students even on the monitors. The only thing they had to rely on were hearing her high-pitched shrieks and wails, and even as they died down, then nothing. The audience dispersed, and the only things visible were stray body parts, shredded pieces of clothing, and a blood-stained stage.
Before leaving with the others, Tsunami decided to take her time while gathering her things. Namely, the dolphin and orca plush toys from a motive some time ago, as those were really the only belongings she wanted to tow with her. Clothes were replaceable as were other things. Cradling the plush toys in one arm, she shoved her other hand in her pocket, her eyes suddenly widening. Rummaging deeper in it, she pulled out.. that key.
The one that had opened the monitor room.
At first she considered throwing it out, but decided to keep it. Why?.. She didn't know. Maybe to serve as a reminder for what happened. Did she want to forget everything that happened here? With a bit of thought, she realized.. no.
Before leaving completely, she did bow to thin air.
"Iwakura-san.. Tachibana-san.. I will never forget you two."
Clutching the key in her hand, she finally emerged from the building with the rest of her peers. It took her a second to spot her parents, there were so many people.. it took her by surprise to see her mother there was well, though her eyes never left her father after they were put on him.
She dropped the plush toys on the ground, immediately running towards them, the tears already threatening to fall from her face. Calling out to them over and over, she only stopped when she was in their warm, welcoming embrace. By this point, she was sobbing as loud as possible for her, not very loud, but you could still feel every emotion pour out of her that she's done her best to hold in the entire mutual killing.
There wasn't any point in holding everything in anymore. The mastermind was dead, and she had nothing to worry about. In the arms of her parents, she didn't have to act like she was strong and with the program, when on the inside she was screaming for help.
"Tsunami.. we are so glad you're okay... we are so proud of you.."
Simple praises such as this were spoken in hushed voices as the family reunited for the first time in sixteen years.
Breathing hard, partially due to her panicking, Akira explained the situation to Eisuke in between pants.
"A har…poon… A fucking… Harpoon… Almost killed… Mitsuki-kun… Out of nowhere…" She was extremely anxious. Simply standing there was a death wish, but was there really anywhere to run? The place could have been littered with traps just waiting to be sprung. The fact that the harpoon only came recently from the arcade proved that.
"Of course it wouldn’t be this easy… That scumbag would never let it be this simple…"
"You’re shittin’ me…" he muttered, "There’s more traps in here? Jesus."
That was real ad. He’d figured all of the traps were in the basement, that they were safe on the upper levels. But if the whole archive was trapped, that made investigating a hell of a lot more dangerous.
"So, er, what’re we gonna do ‘bout investigatin’ now? And did I miss any freaky pieces of evidence while I was gone?"
After a few moments, Tsunami took a few deep breaths, folding her arms across her chest, hugging herself. "Investigating.. we are definitely going to have to be careful. Who knows what else we could trigger."
Upon hearing his question, she shook her head. "We haven't found anything on these floors. That just leaves the second and first floors along with the basement.. Though."
Tsunami went ahead towards the stairs, leading down. "If.. the mastermind decides to fire anything else at me, I think it would be best for us if I parted ways here. We don't need.. more people being injured than necessary."
She didn't give them time to argue about it, and descended the stairs, probably clean up.
The rooms of the second floor had some more rooms related to the victim and the most likely suspect so far. Of course, going through an entire biography wouldn’t be possible before a trial.
"To switch things up, I can tackle the three biggest rooms: the atlas room, the… Adult’s section, and the courtyard while you can handle the mural room, . And then I can meet you back in the biographies room to help you skim through. Maybe there’s something we overlooked." Akira shrugged. She hadn’t paid much attention to most of the deceased’s biographies and Hotaru’s was no exception.
In the middle of their conversation that presumably led itself to the arcade for some odd reason, the harpoon CAME IN LIKE A WREEECKING BALL, leaving no time for Akira to even scream. She just stared at the note for a few seconds in stunned silence before grabbing Tsunami’s hand and breaking into a run.
"Damn it—We can’t stay here-!" She could not let Tsunami die. She couldn’t. Her only hope was not allowed to die…
Eisuke returns at this point from a very quick shower. He’s also changed clothes, and the firefly blood is all washed off. He goes back upstairs to where he left the two girls but finds that they’ve moved on, so he heads back down and searches them out.
He finds them by the noise, the loud crash and the shouts, and spots them running.
"The fuck happened here?" he called, catching up to them.
Tsunami agreed to the way they would take the second floor, and was about to take off once more, before the harpoon stopped her head in her tracks. She wasn't able to look at it, only read the note before she was being pulled away. Trying her best to run, she stumbled a bit due to the amount of shaking she had been doing, and stopped when she heard Eisuke.
For once in her life, Tsunami actually.. looked spooked, and was shaking to no end. Having her life flash before her eyes probably contributed to this a lot. If she were standing anymore forward, there was no doubt she would be greatly injured, no, she'd be as good as dead.
"There was.. there was a.. I don't. know. Why did it say that."
Probably much slower, she bypassed the gym and the ballroom to enter the sports books room. Nothing. Then, she went to the arcade. Still nothing. Akira paused to briefly look at the games with disgust before leaving. Next were the cook books room and the history of motorized vehicles room, and there wasn’t anything in either.
"Fair enough…" It certainly felt like useless tasks, but no evidence could go undiscovered in this investigation. Their only chance at taking down the mastermind was here. With a sigh, she made her way back over to the stairs where Tsunami was waiting.
"Everything’s as normal as can be." Akira folded her arms over her chest, waiting for her partner’s input.
"Figures.. There are so many rooms here, it's hard to point one out and find evidence. This is pretty time consuming, but it's not like we can help it. Either way, there wasn't anything in the gym nor ballroom of interest."
This time around she didn't look through very many rooms, so she could afford to look a bit more on the next floor down. She was quick, it wouldn't take very long for her.
"Well, that leaves the second and first floor, as well as the basement. Is there any way you want to go about doing the next floor?"
Good thinking. She honestly preferred that more, since it was a little safer. Akira had always been a little paranoid. Monobear wasn’t there for some reason, and the idea of the mastermind possibly being under a trapdoor of all things made her uneasy. Who knew if there was some sort of secret passageway in the Archive? Nonetheless, she’d probably be able to run to Tsunami or holler in case something happened.
Tsunami nodded, and zoomed past her to investigate. It took about ten seconds for her to walk down the stairs and into the gym. Looking around, nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary, and she peeked into the weight lifting room. Still nothing strange. Sighing, she left the room to take on the ballroom.
"..."
Although she was a bit hesitant to go into it, she put what emotions she had behind her for the moment and opened the door. She went in, looking around. There didn't seem to be anything out of place here as well. Taking a detour from her investigation, she went over to the piano, pressing down a few keys.
Figuring she shouldn't be fooling around, she left it at that, and left the ballroom once more, going over to wait by the next set of stairs for her investigating redhead.
She almost didn’t want this to be true. So far, nothing. Only Hotaru’s room had something of note, and that kept threatening to mess with her head. At least she was feeling a little better after getting away from that man's execution room…
Still, a dull pain arose in her chest as she looked towards Yasu Chieko’s designated execution chamber. Feeling some sort of obligation inside of her, Akira went on ahead to look inside… [Reaction cannot be determined because execution does not exist. Skipping in three… Two… One…]
With thoughts finally sorted out, she managed to drag herself out of the room and headed toward Bibi’s instead. Upon opening it, she found a motorcycle obstacle course… Of death. Akira shook her head and stepped back out.
"Well… That’s it. But leave no stone unturned, right? We could… Split the Archive by floors… Or by halves of floors… Whatever you prefer."
"Doesn't really matter to me. If you want we can divide the floors up, you take one half and I'll take the other, then after we are done we can meet up and discuss anything out of the ordinary, and move on."
Seemed like an effective way to get stuff done, and divides the work up evenly. That's what they're shooting for, right?
"If we do it that way, then on the third floor, I can tackle the gym and ballroom, while you take the rest. Or however you want, I don't really care."
Tsunami glanced down at her clothing as well, and cringed a bit as it kind of dawned on her. Nevertheless, she shook it off and pressed on. She could shower later.
She noticed one of the first rooms had been Asahi Iwakura’s, she glanced over at her only partner in crime. “If you want to wait here, I don’t mind.”
With that being said, she slowly opened his door. It’s set up to look like.. a destroyed apocalyptic city. Crime scene tape is everywhere and it’s overrun by muck. She pulled at some of the tape, though nothing seemed to be off about it.
Understanding, Akira nodded as Eisuke went off to wash up. She then recalled when he walked around clad in only a towel and almost blushed. Almost. She was too pale to blush, and coming across Asahi’s room didn’t help.
Akira nearly wished she hadn’t peeked in, but if she hadn’t, the curiosity would’ve plagued her for the rest of her life. The sight was even more overwhelming than all the blood. Something like this… Was the execution tailored to fit him. It was crazy.
"Asahi…" she whispered breathlessly. This would definitely give her nightmares. She shook her head and quickly drew her head out of the room once more to wait outside, trying to distract herself by picking another destination in her head.
Finally leaving the room, she tapped her chin. There was so much area to explore.. would they really be able to find anything by searching through these rooms?
"I honestly think we've found all we can be searching through these rooms.. But, leave nothing behind. We need to search everything with what time we have."
Taking off once more, Tsunami found herself in front of Tomoko's door, and went in. Everything was exactly how it looked after her execution, which made her actually frown. She left the room rather quickly, and repeated this process with Sonya and Yasu Ieyasu's rooms. Same result.
"There are only two deceased rooms left, which I'm assuming are the only ones left unlocked. After that we should probably part ways to cover more ground."
Akira almost questioned why she was doing this. She wasn’t really helping. She just kept getting so disgusted with the scenery of the rooms. With a grimace, she quickly tailed after Tsunami, though she really didn’t want to think of her own execution. Why would she even have one set up? Perhaps the mastermind underestimated her… That could only be the case. Even after everything, her will was still going strong.
Eisuke glanced down at his gore-covered clothing. It was probably Hotaru’s blood, now that he thought of it. Somehow, he was far less revolted than he thought he should be. That was a scary thought - the archive had clearly desensitised him.
"I’m gonna go change clothes," he said, “‘N maybe have a shower. I’ll come back later." With that he headed downstairs, leaving the two girls to continue working.
Tsunami glanced down at her clothing as well, and cringed a bit as it kind of dawned on her. Nevertheless, she shook it off and pressed on. She could shower later.
She noticed one of the first rooms had been Asahi Iwakura's, she glanced over at her only partner in crime. "If you want to wait here, I don't mind."
With that being said, she slowly opened his door. It's set up to look like.. a destroyed apocalyptic city. Crime scene tape is everywhere and it's overrun by muck. She pulled at some of the tape, though nothing seemed to be off about it.
God. The evidence just continued to point at Hotaru. Why? They grieved. They felt deep regret over not being able to do anything. If this was true, then it was all for naught…
…But that would be the point, right? Akira reached up to briefly pull at her own hair. She wanted to scream, but there were better things to do than scream. Gritting her teeth, she slowly began to follow Eisuke.
From the movie duo’s room, Eisuke proceeded in turn to Himiko, Fuuka, and Kakemono’s rooms. Himiko’s room contained the stage on which she had died, and the other two rooms had a bunch of unfamiliar machinery that he assumed were executions meant for them. There was nothing suspicious, though. Absently, Eisuke wondered what was in his own room…
"I don’t see much else here. Wanna go up a floor?"
After leaving the room, she had followed Eisuke to Himiko's room, looking in briefly before being driven out by the scent of blood. After that, she just waited in the hallway waiting for him and Akira. When he finished up, she just nodded.
"..I'd hate to see what's in my own room. I'm glad it's locked." No, Tsunami had a good idea of what her demise would be were she ever to murder. Talk about Dance Dance Revolution. She'd be rather surprised if dancing weren't involved. What a fun way to go out, right?
"Might as well."
With that she went on first, heading up the stairs pretty quickly. Waste no time.
Reluctantly, the girl opened her eyes and forced herself to watch Tsunami. She took in a deep breath. What did that ‘X’ even mean?
"U-Urgh…" she exhaled. Whether that was a sound of disgust or deep thought is unclear. Of course she was tempted to pick the lock, but the last time she tried to pick one, it didn’t go well. "…I really… Hate to think… About what this could mean…" Was that execution all a ruse? Was Hotaru… Alive?
Eisuke kicked the x on the floor with his foot, and it rattled slightly. “It’s a trapdoor. I dunno what it means, and it’s locked.”
He then went over to the wheel. “And get this.” He spun it hard and when it finally stopped, it landed on Hotaru’s name. He spun it twice more, and twice more it landed on her. He cocked an eyebrow. “You can try it out for yourself. I’m gonna check around other rooms.”
As she watching him spin the wheel over and over, then watching him get ready to leave, she decided to speak again.
"No matter how many times we spin it, the wheel lands on her so.. that obviously is a sign that when Tachibana-san spun it, someone had rigged it to land on her. Who did it and why, we can't be sure for right now."
Going to the edge of the stage, she sat down and scooted off of it instead of just jumping. "Though, if we assume the worst, then a lot of things seem to add up. I'm not saying to jump to conclusions as of right now, but.. Just keep an eye out."
Akira often had trouble standing the smell and appearance of blood. Recently, she hadn’t been as fazed by it, but then again, Asahi might’ve just been an exception. Especially because there wasn’t as much. She winced, then shut her eyes, breathing slowly. Now was not the time to be squeamish. After a few seconds, she managed to calm herself down and speak.
"This room’s… this is where they got killed," he said hesitantly, "It’s the execution chamber." He gestures for her to come inside, and from there a stage is visible with the giant bloody flyswatter that killed Hotaru. Over there is the stage for Minoru’s execution, although it’s been cleaned of blood, apparently. In the back is the wheel that was spun before Hotaru was killed.
As they went back into the room, Tsunami frowned a bit at it, but shook it off. Now wasn't the time to be fooling around if she had any hope of escaping. Leaving her spot, she walked over to the stage where Hotaru's last moments were made, pulling herself up onto it.
"There's a lot of stuff off about this room. I think you should see this at least."
Getting herself more bloody than she already was, she grabbed the flyswatter and lifted it up once more, using some effort herself to hold it up. She was strong but good lord. Underneath the flyswatter is some black tape that forms an 'X'.
"I wouldn't stand on it for very long. It's really unstable. It seems like a trap door, but I think it's locked from the inside."
All or Nothing, Now or Never | (Eisuke+Tsunami+Akira)
After Monobear’s odd little meltdown, Akira uttered only a few words of the utmost grace.
"What the hell, bear?” He’d usually say these things in person, not to mention that there was a strangely profuse amount of stuttering in his speech. Akira’s “onii-san” wasn’t frightening at all either. What the hell, indeed. As she was no longer afraid of death, she brushed the last sentence off and turned to the stairs right away.
"Well, whatever. Let’s get cracking then. Our lives are at stake, and we’re certainly more important than whoever’s behind this." Akira strode off, beckoning whoever was willing to follow.
Eisuke heard footsteps in hall. He had been a floor down, just about to tart in on the weight room when the announcement happened, so of course he had gone straight upstairs and began exploring. Hearing the others, though, he steps out of the room marked with Hotaru and Minoru’s faces. His hands and shirt are smeared with blood. Real nice.
"Yo," he says, seeing Akira and Tsunami, "You ain’t gonna guess what’s in here."
A few moments after Eisuke had emerged from the room, Tsunami appeared from it as well. After the announcement finished, she and her quick walking went to investigate the rooms pretty quickly. After figuring out hers wouldn't open, the next one she had tried had been Hotaru and Minoru's, where she had seen him already at work.
There had been a bit of blood on her as well, but not as much.
