#kikkawas

You notice the folder of a CD pop up. It has a single video, several minutes long, and a notepad. Clicking the video brings a familiar place to the screen; the Consultation Room. You cannot see the face of who’s speaking, but you can see who’s sitting in the chair opposite. It’s Hiro Morikawa.

“Before I go on… I’ll tell you a bit more about all this. The New Hope Foundation… after… Hope’s Peak fell, we gathered whatever survivors we could. People like you. And like the staff. Together… we vowed to eliminate SHSL Despair. Any means necessary. But the general public… well… Hope’s Peak itself is a dirty name now. What we want is to bring back… the good side of Hope’s Peak. To bring back hope itself.”

“We will not force you to do anything, you understand.” The man says. He has a deep and gravelly voice, giving you the impression he’s seen things you never want to.

“This is a risk, after all. It would be safer to stay with Midou and continue therapy but… while you’re here… the others, your schoolmates, would…”

“I’m in.”

It feels… strange to hear Hiro’s voice after all this time. The man looks up from his papers.

“Do you know what it involves?”

A pause.

“The old lady said it was a bunch of tests. I’m used to acing tests so it shouldn’t be a problem. Besides… if it means bring those despair guys down… it’s not even a choice, right.”

Hiro obnoxiously takes a cracker from the desk without permission. The old man’s back tenses and for a second there’s a sense of peace and normalcy. Seeing Hiro here like this, relaxed and in control. Confident in his statements. Definitely alive.

“We’ll be saving Hope’s Peak. Of course, I’m not really doing this for the institution. And I’m certainly not doing this for your foundation. In a few years, give or take, I might just take this thing down, too. I’m only doing it to pay them back. Killing our classmate and then going ape-shit on the school itself? Puts a bad taste in my mouth.”

He talks in between bites of his snack. The man pushes a clipped set of papers towards Hiro.

“Then you agree to stay here with the New Hope Foundation and staff of Shiawase? In the name of hope… to fight against those infected by this plague of despair… and to show the world there is nothing to fear from Hope’s Peak’s best?”

Hiro looks up at the man over his glasses, slamming down his palm and dragging the papers closer. He gestures for a pen and upon receiving it, he begins scribbling away.

“I. Said. Yes. Already. Thank you. The redundancy gets old.”

The rhetorician, pleased, leans back in his chair and throws the papers back onto the desk. You only a small glimpse but you can clearly see the paper seems to match the one Atsuko Tengan herself was given so long ago.

Closing the video down, you bring up the notepad. It appears to be a class list of some kind.

Atsuko Tengan, SHSL Cult Leader (prefers Fan Club President)

Chuichi Genda, SHSL Conspiracy Theorist

Félix Achille Krier, SHSL Poet

Hibiki Inori, SHSL Epidemologist

Hiro Morikawa, SHSL Rhetorician

Itsuki Kawashiro (prefers Niki Ikutano), SHSL Survival Expert

Izo Omori, SHSL Marionette Puppeteer

Katashi Miyashita, SHSL Astrophysicist

Kimiko Genkaku, SHSL Naginatadoka (SHSL Despair member)

Nijino Takajo, SHSL Confidant

Ryota Mizushima, SHSL Surfer

Sachi Kikkawa, SHSL Axe Thrower

Shiwa Hirayama, SHSL Harpist

Yasu Komori, SHSL Horror Game Developer

Yasu Shimamoto, SHSL Commercial FIsher

Yuichi Chinen, SHSL Coroner

Their hands together, their hearts united, the remaining students stride forward with determination, led by Sachi herself. One by one, they file into the room and as they enter the last room they feel like years have passed them by in this hellish landscape... but it’s over. It’s over now...

With the Beginning card from Niki changing hands, Sachi heads to the White Room and carefully puts her card in the slot before she gets too close to the floor. It enters with a smooth click and one side of the room lights up, even brighter than before...

Sachi hits the lever and the doors of the Cream Room open, making a strange cranking noise. The lever begins to slowly fall back into place and the doors, too, fall down. Thankfully Nijino, even in a weakened state, manages to roll into the Amber Room.