Day 4: Rejecting dreams and re-entering despair

The circumstances under which Shuichi had fallen asleep had all felt so terrible-- to a life-threatening extent, really-- that he thought he might never wake up again. When he began to see a dim light, he thought he might have survived, but after blinking a few times, he determined he must be having a dream or some kind of nightmare. The prison was entirely dark with no sounds of Miu, panting, snoring, or otherwise. Assuming she must have gone home, he moved one leg slowly in front of the other, carrying his weary body out from the cell, past the interrogation room and metal detector, then out of the prison entirely.

The moon seemed impossibly large in the sky. How many chances had he even had to see it? By the time night fell, students were supposed to be indoors-- further proof that none of what was happening right now was real. Still, he appreciated the peace and idyllic nighttime stillness. He lay down in the grass of the courtyard and sighed heavily, looking to the sky for some kind of meaning in his dream.

A large, familiar bosom, clad in a pinkish sweater, suddenly eclipsed his view, before being replaced by Kaede's smiling face as she repositioned herself. "I'm glad you're finally resting, Shuichi. You've been pushing yourself really hard for everyone's sake," she spoke quietly.

He knew it was just a dream, but he found himself wanting desperately to confide in her and seek some kind of forgiveness. Or rather than forgiveness... maybe just to have someone to listen to all of it.

"Have I?" he questioned, knitting his brow. He felt more like crying than celebrating. "I'm no closer to catching the mastermind than when I started. Nobody's died, sure, but... but what am I doing? The things I did to Tsumugi, Himiko, Kirumi... not to mention Miu. None of them were in their right minds. Miu especially. Kaede, I... w-without a condom... she might be-" he babbled, then bit his lip, unable to finish. Why was he confessing to this dream version of his friend? "You're probably lucky I haven't run into you yet. Who knows what would have happened..."

"Isn't it more like you've saved everyone? Has the game world ever been as peaceful as it is now?" the fake Kaede questioned, smiling more brightly to help him set his fears aside. "Sometimes you have to turn your thinking around and examine things from another perspective. You're so worried about finding the mastermind, but is there even any need to? It's almost like you've brokered peace with the bad guys! Who ever heard of Monokuma not killing people? This may be as close to a real victory as anybody ever gets."

Her words and voice were both so soft, he ought to feel soothed. Just being around her was always so pleasant... privately, he admitted to himself that he had been smitten from the moment he'd met her. She'd seemed like a natural leader and mood-maker, the kind of person that people would rely on. All of that had been taken away from them far too early. Seeing her again following her **** at all was a blessing of the mastermind... the same mastermind he was trying to rebel against.

Shuichi clenched his eyes shut, feeling even more guilty as he realized that as nice as this dream might be, in the end, he was subconsciously trying to convince himself it was okay to embrace this game by speaking the words through Kaede.

"Shuichi... Shuichi! I can't let you keep beating yourself up over this. Lucky for you, I think I know how to cheer you up!"

As if rising to the challenge of winning him over, the dream presented the boy a new incentive. When he looked back over, she was stark naked, her body an approximation of Miu's he'd seen earlier: flushed, breathing heavily, with sweat rolling from her neck to the tips of her pointed nipples. Her curvaceous hips shifted against the wet grass as she sat up and repositioned herself with her large, bare breasts hanging over his face and an uncharacteristic, teasing smile.

He **** himself not to hear the words coming out of her mouth now, understanding that they had mostly shifted over to manic dirty talk like Miu had given him earlier. He tried to block out all of his senses and go back to the ****-like blackness he'd entered earlier.

To his surprise, he felt someone shaking his arm, pulling him awake. His eyes jolted open. He was back inside the prison with nothing left of his dream but the morning wood it had given him. The cold from earlier was replaced with an unhealthy, feverish heat, causing him to sweat through his clothes and soak the cot.

The thought of who would be present to wake him up was pretty terrifying on its own, but the answer was less frightening than he expected. It was also a stark reminder that it wasn't quite true Monokuma had abstained from killing altogether; only two Monokids remained and both of them had a sense of frantic anxiety that suggested they thought they were next.

"Finally! I was starting to think he was dead," Monotaro sighed.

"You could have helped!" Monophanie grumbled, letting go of Shuichi's arm and climbing back off the cot.

The thought that she'd been roughly where Kaede was in his dream was pretty unsettling to Shuichi, but not as much as the sight of the two spooked automatons. "What? What's happening?" he asked groggily, sitting up and rubbing at his eyes.

"There was some kind of error and uuh... you've slept in four hours," Monotaro admitted. Shuichi's mouth fell open in shock, but Monophanie covered his mouth with one paw so that the red bear could continue speaking. "But that's not important! What is important is... We need you to solve the game, today!"

The dream flashed back into Shuichi's mind: a perfect world achieved by doing nothing other than enjoying himself to the fullest every day and satisfying his sexual whims. A voice inside his head told him that he shouldn't be so willing to give that up, while another, much louder one told him that his motivations and the Monokids' just so happened to align perfectly in this case. "Okay, okay... I'm trying! I really am! But... by myself...!"

"You're right! It's hard by yourself, because unlike us, you're not that smart. Luckily, the two of us are going to help you! For starters, check your monopad there," Monotaro encouraged him, nodding his head eagerly.

Shuichi raised one eyebrow with a skeptical expression. The last time someone had given him a pitch like this, they'd ended up wasting one of his daily missions on an impossible task. Still, he tried to hold on to a little hope as he checked his missions for the day.

You were awarded 20 points for two uses of Level 2 Daily Wardrobe Change! LEVELED UP to Level 3 Daily Wardrobe Change! You may now designate 3 targets!

(5) New Monokub Missions are now available!

Monokub Missions

Monokuma's Black-And-White Mission: Double-penetrate any girl. One penis can be substituted for a similarly phallic object. Reward: Anytime Put That In

Monokuma's White-And-Black Mission: Have sex on stage at the Strip Club. Reward: Passive Good for Morale

Monokuma's Monotone Mission: Use three different machines on a girl in the Prison. Reward: Anytime Cavity Search.

Monophanie's Pink Mission: Satisfy somebody's sexual kink. Reward: Anytime Second Sense

Monotaro's Red Mission: Talk a girl into trying a new sexual experience. Reward: Anytime Q&A

A new feature is available! Check the courtyard!

"Wait... huh? D-Didn't I pass out before using Daily Wardrobe Change?" Shuichi questioned, suddenly shivering as he remembered the experience from yesterday. "I felt like I was dying."

"Guess you were really tired, buddy! But don't worry about that for now, let's focus on the important part: as a token of good faith, we took the liberty of grabbing your hand and manually writing in a couple of costume ideas for today. We each picked one! Kinda surprised it works for us to do it, but apparently your hand holding the pen is good enough. You don't know how hard it is to write something with somebody else's hand, though, especially when you've got bear mitts!" Monotaro explained at length, sounding upbeat about the whole thing.

"What? W-What did you write?" Shuichi gulped. Privately, he was sort of excited to hear... there was something more titillating about not knowing what he was going to encounter.

"We played it safe. We picked Kaede and Maki and gave them both school-girl outfits! Not that different than the usual, right? You ought to feel nice and calm with that pick!" Monaphie giggled. "See? We're on your side!"

Was he happy about that? Part of him felt let down that he wasn't going to get to use this as a chance to see them in something truly crazy, while another part of him was irritated that the bears had chosen the two people he was most trying to avoid affecting with any kind of triggers. "Fine," he murmured, watching the expressionless faces of the bears as he rubbed his temples. "Was there something else?"

"Yeah! Did you see our missions? You might not be able to tell, but those triggers are more than meets the eye! I'm not allowed to tell you exactly what they do, but you can kind of guess, right? The real trick is how they work together! If you play your cards right and get both of them, you can use them to find the mastermind hiding among the students and put a stop to their plans, 100% guaranteed!" the pink bear cheered. "Just make sure you unlock both triggers!"

Shuichi blinked in confusion, then raised his eyebrow suspiciously. "I don't understand. If Monokuma 'kills' you, he can always bring you back, like he's done any number of times. If I find the mastermind and stop them... won't you bears just deactivate? Why would you help me stop them?" he questioned.

"**** never stops being scary, no matter how many times you go through it!" Monotaro scoffed, then crossed his arms. "Anyway, there's no guarantee we go poof after you stop the big cheese. I'd rather take my chances on that than pray Papa gets tired of killing us in elabroate references to popular media."

"You should have seen the showdown yesterday! They fought in robots for so long, then finished by getting out and dueling with fencing swords in zero gravity," Monophanie added.

"... I figured something like that would happen," Shuichi grimaced. "Anyway, it sounds like I've wasted a lot of time. I need to start... and I need to eat! I haven't eaten anything since..."

He couldn't even remember, but moreover, he realized that his worries were unfounded. He didn't feel hungry at all. Was this really the Vitality Vitamin at work? It didn't seem like that was connected with nutrition...

"Nevermind. I'd rather go straight to work. I have to get those two triggers... It's not going to be easy. I don't suppose you two can make the missions a little simpler?"

"No can do, chief. We have to keep them looking tricky, or else, Papa's going to catch on to what we're doing," Monotaro explained, shaking his head quickly. "Come on! This is easy. You ought to be able to hit two birds with one stone on this one, and with what you did to Miu yesterday, it's gonna be a piece of cake!"

Shuichi clicked his teeth; what he did yesterday was nothing to be proud of. "Fine. You two hide... I'm going to go get started."

The bears offered no objections. "You do that! Remember, if it looks like you're sucking at this, we're going to sell you out for brownie points. That's just the way this works! Byyye!" Monotaro finished, sounding eager to leave the rest of the work to somebody else.

Once again, Shuichi was alone with his problems. As he made his way back out to the courtyard, he realized that at least the part of his dream where Miu was gone had been true... but he could only guess what she was up to now. With any luck, his activities yesterday had made her give up the manhunt for him, but he wouldn't know until he saw her.

The light of morning was a welcome sight as Shuichi exited the prison. Remembering he was still wearing the warden's cap instead of his own, he winced and threw it back inside aimlessly, then placed his own upon his head. As he spun back around, the latest addition to the campus fell into his sight, along with a certain figure already standing beneath its shadow, waiting for him...

Assigned Triggers:

Miu Iruma- Level 1 Anytime Take That! (Off)

Tsumugi Shirogane- Level 1 Anytime Dirty Talk, Level 1 Anytime Grope Forgiveness

Kirumi Tojo- Level 1 Anytime Totally Soaked

Tenko Chabashira- Level 1 Anytime Shake it, Baby

Maki Harukawa- Total Game Ignorance

Himiko Yumeno- Total Game Ignorance, Level 1 Anytime Boner Emergency!

K1-B0- Total Game Ignorance

Available to Use/Assign:

Level 3 Daily Wardrobe Change

Level 1 Anytime Headmaster Authority

Passives:

Self Virility Vitamin XXX

Self Nudisty Colony

Global Desire Multiplier