“So what would you say is your best trait then?” The therapist had flipped to the eighth page of his legal pad, writing more notes.

“Honesty.” There was no hesitation in John’s answer. “I’m an honest guy, that’s why people like me.”

The therapist raised an eyebrow but said nothing, just kept writing.

“What would you say is my best quality, Dr. Heinz?”

The therapist looked at John. “I can tell you’re a very ambitious young boy. I can tell you care deeply about your talent.”

“I...I want it to be more than a toy. I want to be someone important.”

“...is that why you hypnotized that boy into shooting up the school?”

“No.” John crossed his arms. “He...he was just pissing me off. All of them were.”

“What you did was very serious, John. You’re very lucky nobody got killed or you’d be going to jail for a long time.”

“Ha! Yeah, it’s definitely a good thing!” John smiled.

“I’m serious, John.” The therapist put his legal pad to the side. “I’m not going to mince words. You’re a bad kid. You like to hurt people.”

There was a long, unsteady silence. John’s face dipped to the floor. “I...I think you’re right.”

The therapist’s eyes widened.

“Honestly, I’m glad you’re here to help me. In a lot of ways...I respect that you told me that upfront. And I know I’m bad but…” He dug his nails into his palms to the point where he drew blood. “It’s not like I’m the only one who’s bad, you know?”

John remembered the conversation distinctly. He was standing in the middle of a downpour at the doctor’s grave. It had been a year since he died, murdered along with his family in the middle of the night. He wasn’t going to cry, he didn’t feel like it. The whole situation just...pissed him off.

“Hey.” An older man in his 40s stood next to John.

“Doesn’t it bother you?” John asked.

“Hm?”

“Doesn’t it bother you that the scum keep feeding off of the earth? That decent people are hurt everyday, and that so many people destroy their lives? All the while pretending they’re decent too...”

The man did nothing but put a reaffirming hand on John’s shoulder. He handed him a manila envelope. “One of the people you’re looking for--I got a name.”

John looked again at the grave, clutching the envelope with a sense of relief and closure. Like something had finally been accomplished. He opened the top and read the name aloud. “Saitou Kagayaki…what do you know, I think I may know her.”

It had been several days since they’d escaped out of the Cluedo board. Everyone had been going through the motions of living out their lives, but it was clear that losing a quarter of their number in a single outing had left no one’s psyche untouched. A general moroseness had settled into what, funnily enough, should be a place of recreation and relaxation.

A few more days passed with no activity-- after all, what could a few days mean when they’d been away for over two years?

Then, suddenly, S found himself stuck on the elevator wall. Molly had had the dubious honor of riding the elevator with him at the time.

“What’s wrong?” asked Molly.

“Well… I simply had my hand near the wall, and I heard something mechanical… and… now a part of my glove is… in the keyhole of the elevator control…” said S, concerned. “It is… unusual…”

Molly inspected, and indeed S’s gauntlet did seem to have grown a protrusion out of its index finger that had lodged itself into the keyhole of the elevator. It was she that had gathered the rest of the students together and looked.

“Can… can you pull yourself out?” asked Sachiko.

“Well, I have attempted it, but…” said S. “I could probably pull harder, but I don’t want to damage my suit or the elevator.”

“It is… stuck in the keyhole, Lord S?” asked Kagayaki. She put her hands on either side of S’s gauntlet and turned it. Perhaps miraculously, everyone heard a click, and a button whose label had long since been scraped off (presumably by Monokuma) lit up. The doors closed, and the elevator began to ascend with everyone in it.

“W-what did you do?!?” asked Sachiki, concerned.

“I thought it might have been a key…?” said Kagayaki, unsure.

Not too long after, the elevator beeped, indicating that it had arrived at its destination, and the door opened to an empty hallway. Well, nearly empty.

Monokuma stood there studying a clipboard in an adorably small lab coat.

“Hmmm… This data looks weird…” said Monokuma, before looking up and seeing the students. “Oh… Er… I mean…”

He tossed away the clipboard.

“Hello!” shouted Monokuma excitedly. “I totally expected you all! Um… follow me, and let me show you around!”

“I would, but…” S said, but before he could finish his sentence, the protrusion ejected from the keyhole, revealing a perfectly formed key, that then ejected itself from S’s gauntlet. “...Oh…”

“Yeah yeah-- burning daylight here!” shouted Monokuma behind him, spurring the other students to follow.

[Acid Etching room]
A large room with a robotic arm that houses a directed spray nozzle. It is usually controlled by an automated process but can be directed manually either via computer terminal commands or by grabbing it and spraying it as well. The arm leads to a large vat of acid whose top can be opened. There is a small stairwell that leads from the ground floor to the top of the acid vat.

[Chip fabrication]
A nanofabrication facility in which the boards for the chips are mechanically produced. There is a conveyor that leads to the Etching room. There is a large industrial tub of 99.9% pure ethanol. Adjacent to that, there is a large tray that has a setting to send sound waves through the alcohol in order to agitate it.

“It’s for cleaning the chipboards without anyone actually having to touch them!” said Monokuma.

“W-what are the chips for?” asked Anissa.

“Ohhhhhhh…” Monokuma hesitated. “It’s all very technical. I don’t really expect you to understand.”

[Firmware Programming]
Several terminals exist with large oversized monitors with codes and wheely chairs. They’re connected to a keyboard and computer. The room is relatively cold. There is a slot for the chips to be inserted.

“This is for loading firmware directly onto the chips-- you just load the chip in this tray, and the corresponding video feed will be displayed of the casino.”

[Decontamination]
Connects the hallway and the clean room-- there are no other entrances. A small terminal with decontamination settings could be controlled to configure the exact parameters of the decontamination protocols.

As the door opened, air whooshed outwards, and the students entered the positive pressure room. A bunch of hangers suspended a series of clean room smocks that cover everything from your ankles to your face, as well as microfiber booties that were designed to fit over everyone’s shoes.

Monokuma demonstrates the decontamination procedure that includes getting sprayed with hyper-cleaned water, then getting zapped with light, and then being heated to an uncomfortably hot (but not dangerous) temperature.

Each student then donned one of the smocks at Monokuma’s insistence and entered the clean room.

[Clean Room]

Several softwall dividers separated this room into several smaller rooms which could be traversed. Each seemed to have its own specialized equipment set up for some experimental purpose, each with its own set of implements-- some dangerous-looking, some not-so-much. Every subdivided room had its own dedicated vent that sucked gas into a vent that drew gas upwards into the ceiling.

[Large Machine Room]
The room had several large cables going into various walls. There was a sizeable thrumming motor as well. The students covered their ears as well as they could, but still the sound was stifling. But the room was dominated by a single crazy machine that looked like something out of a science fiction book.

“THAT MACHINE IS CRAZY!” shouted Casey. “WHAT IS IT?!?”

“ALL IN GOOD TIME!” shouted Monokuma.

“NO, I DON’T KNOW ANY GOOD RHYMES!” shouted Lyla. “WHAT DO I LOOK LIKE, A POET?”

“I THOUGHT ONLY LORD CARDOR USED WORDS LIKE ‘SMOTE’!” shouted Kagayaki.

As if sensing the gag was getting old, Monokuma turned off the power generator, taking the room from uncomfortably loud to relatively silent. That prompted most of the students to look around the room.

The machine seemed to have a pad that was meant to be stood on, but it’s not clear why or what purpose it would have. There was a nearby touch terminal that was active, but the symbols on it made no sense.

Only S appeared not to want to explore the room, instead silently staring at the large machine before wandering over to what appeared to be a metal trunk, set into the ground, and laid his hand on it. A padlock sat on it, locking it.

“Whuzzat?” asked Akio.

“I… I am not sure…” said S. “It’s just…”

S went silent.

“It’s… locked-- it must be important somehow, right?” said Silas.

“Seriously though, what’s this machine…?” Silas asked.

“Ok, I won’t leave you guys hanging too long! It’s a time machine!” Monokuma popped up. “Fresh off the press!”

“That’s ridiculous.” Kagayaki seemed oddly insulted by the presence of the machine. “That goes against the laws of nature.”

“W-We were just t-trapped in a board game where time moves faster though...it can’t be that strange at this point.”

“Regardless Lady Silke, time only moves forwards. Yet he’s saying that with this we could go backwards?”

“Yup!” Monokuma smiled. “In fact, time only moves backwards with this baby!”

Shirly rubbed her temples. “I better not have to hear about this thing again. I don’t even want to think of the logistics...I hate time travel.”

“Well, the motive is the gift of time!” Monokuma got to the point. “A successful graduate will be allowed to use the time machine!”

“Actually, I’m curious.” Silas thought. “I’ve read a lot of time travel stories, what theory of time travel does this world operate on?”

“Jesus, kid. Do you really think anyone wants to hear that? It’s a time machine. You use it to travel through time. Think of all the experiences you can live again! Or the ones you never got to! Maybe become rich on the stock market? Undo a terrible mistake? This baby does it all!”

“I don’t trust that thing.” Casey pursed her lips and headed towards it with the bat.

Monokuma got in front of her. “Hey, hey! This thing runs on antimatter energy, you know?! One wrong swing and everything within 10,000 miles will get vaporized off the face of the Earth!”

“You know what?! I’m starting to think you’re making up these penalties for messing with these supernatural objects!”

“T-That’s...w-wel...it doesn’t matter! This is now considered property of the school! Therefore, anybody who tries to destroy it is in for a harsh execution! Well, unless the antimatter kills you first…”

Monokuma left the room, leaving the class to just stare at the machine.