#hoooo....

Before your eyes is a stage, something not unlike you’d see some magicians looking to get their name known performing on back home. Nothing seems amiss about it at first, but you notice the bright red curtains drawn tightly together, and looking a bit closer to the front of the stage than they normally would be. Ah, but you don’t have much time to dwell upon that--for the show is about to start! 

 > BEGIN THE FINAL PERFORMANCE.

 Hibiki Wataru stands tall upon the stage in front of the tightly-drawn curtains, with Bendy poised alongside of him as the magician’s ‘assistant.’ The crowd consists almost entirely of Monokuma copies (save for you, their peers, who can do nothing but watch from the very back of the room), and all eyes are upon Wataru as he attempts to start by performing some of the simpler magic tricks--card tricks, and pulling things out of a hat! ...But each and every one he tries, oddly enough, somehow fails to be properly executed. Almost as if he were rigged for failure. 

 Regardless, with each failed trick the dissatisfied jeers and objects thrown from the Monokuma crowd grow louder and more intense. It seems as though Wataru is visibly forcing himself to keep smiling as the protests thrown his way grow more violent. After one too many desperate attempts to get something to work, it seems the unsatisfied crowd demands something more, they came to be astounded, after all! Bendy feels something tug at his wrist, urging him to pull the curtains much to his dismay, revealing behind them a setup that might seem familiar only to anyone knowledgeable enough about famous magician’s tricks.

Set up behind the curtains is a table--steel and sturdy, though you can immediately notice a number of restraints attached to it at each of the elongated legs holding it just above the stage. It all seems to be the perfect size for a certain magician, doesn’t it? A little ways above the table is what seems to be a curtain raised up high, with some sort of lever meant to lower and raise the thing as needed, it appears. And what’s behind the curtain--well. Most of what the contraption is has become silhouetted by the curtain, but you have no doubt about what you see. There’s some rather deadly looking spikes protruding from the steel sheet that hangs ominously above the table. 

 The Monokuma crowd has waited--only long enough that both you and the magician standing upon stage can get a look at what’s in store, before they grow impatient with anticipation and start to cheer for the next act to begin. His lovely inky assistant begins to move; though it’s clear he doesn’t want to, visibly struggling to keep himself from progressing the inevitable. But the shock band is once again around his wrist, and it seems that the more he struggles, the more pained he appears to be. Bendy has no choice but to push Wataru back, back onto the table, all the while the magician attempts to keep that same smile upon his face. Is he trying to make this better? Certainly that’s not going to change anything… 

The magician’s assistant again has no choice but to proceed with attaching the restraints to his body. There are cuffs binding Wataru’s wrists to two of the contraption’s legs, and two more binding his ankles in a similar fashion. They almost appear comically oversized, but that’s probably the intention here. After all, Wataru loved to amuse people, didn’t he!

Once it seems the magician is certainly and securely restrained to the table, his assistant seems to be almost pulled aside, as Monokuma briefly appears to place something next to him--a ridiculously large timer that he sets up next to Bendy at the base of the contraption, right by the lever. It’s easy to tell that Bendy’s visibly uncomfortable, with the way he’s doing his best to struggle against Monokuma’s orders. Cackling to himself, the Monokuma assistant starts the timer before he scurries right back off--only a minute long, but at this point you’re fairly certain you can guess what comes once it reaches zero. And from the looks of things, Wataru and Bendy are both aware themselves. The moment the timer starts, Wataru begins to struggle in place, pulling as hard against the restraints as he possibly can; how odd, that you can’t ever recall him looking as desperate as he does now. Seconds tick away almost dreadfully slow, as you continue to watch Wataru trying his damned hardest to pull away, as Bendy is forced to stand there to witness first hand, all the while the magician relentlessly tries to slip his wrists out, release his ankles, something, anything--until the countdown reaches fifteen seconds. Suddenly, his struggling stops, as he relaxes himself against the table and he almost seems to be laughing… no. He isn’t laughing. 

The timer ticks down--ten seconds left, and he tilts his head away from the crowd, and for a second you’re not sure what he’s looking at. But then you understand. 

Five seconds left--it seems he’s smiling sadly towards Bendy, perhaps an attempt at reassurance, but nothing about this scenario is reassuring in the slightest. 

Two seconds--you can just barely see a tear falling down his cheek. Is he…?

One second, then zero--the timer rings, and it almost feels like what happens next is a nightmarish blur. 

Bendy’s body moves unwillingly to pull down hard on the lever, and the curtain slides down to turn your view of Wataru’s body into nothing but a silhouette; then, barely even a second later, the contraption that had been hanging ominously above the table falls too. You understand what the curtain’s purpose is, now. 

 When the contraption releases, the spikes fall down, and the curtain is immediately painted with a horrendous, vivid color that you seem to recognize all too well by this point in time. 

 It’s certainly a good thing that curtain is there; though even then, you can still slightly see the silhouette of that magician’s body limp against the table, pierced through and through, now devoid of all life.