It's the last school figure he'd want to confide in

Inside Shuichi's room, a miniature party buffet had been set out across the studying desk, while streamers, balloons, and even a "CONGRATULATIONS" banner had been strewn all about, giving it a festive appeal that contrasted so strongly with Shuichi's mood, he felt like screaming. Merry music drifted from a small radio by the bed-stand while Erokuma whimsically wagged his oblong, fuzzy butt back and forth to its rhythm. The bear spooned out punch into a glass, then turned to hand it to Shuichi. "Upupu! Heeey! Shuichi's here! Now it's a party, boys!" he greeted the sweating, nervous wreck that had just entered the room. Despite his words, it didn't seem like anyone else was present, making this a party of two. "You reached 100 Ero Points! These days, games that make success easy are all the rage. Kids get a dopamine rush just by clicking a button and seeing their scores go up. The only hassle is rerolling to get the girl you like, right? My poor wallet-"

"I'm not in the mood for jokes," Shuichi complained, sighing as he removed his hat and put it on the rack near the entrance to his room. "You rigged the game. I don't know why I suspected anything different." Part of him had been hoping the fact that Erokuma didn't seem to have total control over this environment meant that the antagonist wouldn't get away with his usual schemes. In a way, though, these "Triggers" were very bit as potent as the tools the mastermind had wielded during the V3 game.

Erokuma spat out his punch in a comical spit-take, then wiped at his lips and began pointing his claw. "I gave you the easiest, fairest game I've ever given anyone and this is how you treat me?! Uuuuu... I'm so mad... It makes me want to kill you! I don't have any rules this time that say I can't!" The bear's claws gleamed in the low light of the room as he curled his lip threateningly. "Try me, Shuichi!" When Shuichi reacted by raising his hands and backing away nervously, Erokuma broke into a big laugh. "Puah-hahaha! That's a good reaction! I used to see you make that face all the time! I've been missing it!"

"Can we end this for the day already? I'm not using my Triggers any more today. I've got enough points already," he sulked, sitting down at his study desk with a dull frown. Shuichi felt defeated and disgusted with himself; he wouldn't touch the food on the desk, even if it wasn't suspicious by the association with his long-time foe.

"I figured you'd probably want to go straight to bed. That's why I decided to have the party now, so we can get it out of the way and you can go straight to sleep!"

"You're not really telling me we're going to have a party every night, are you?"

"Nah. I just thought you deserved a special party for this big first step into your fun new ero-game life! You got a party like this when your balls dropped, didn't you?"

"Th-There's no such party!"

The bear doll tilted its head slightly in confusion. "Isn't there a celebration where they count down till the balls drop? Anyway... Let's see how you did! 100 Ero Points with four missions cleared and one left on the table. Not a fan of panty flashes? Or did you just want to keep both pairs of panties for yourself?" A paw raised up to Erokuma's mouth to stifle a laugh.

"I couldn't find him! I looked all over the school for Erokid and I'm not wasting another second looking for him," Shuichi protested, pressing one hand over his face and fighting back against a pounding, stress-induced headache.

"That was pretty weird, huh? Anyways, let's welcome the cubs back! Erotaro! Erophanie! Erodam! Erosuke! Erokid! Assemble!" the ringleader continued, clapping his hands and summoning each in turn. The sight of the blue-furred Erokid, laughing and throwing one arm around Erokuma like they were old chums, set Shuichi's blood boiling. "Relax, Shuichi! It's for the best that one of the cubs helped you get your feet wet. Tomorrow would be reeeeally hard, if you had no experience at all using the Triggers."

"That's right! I'm the man of the hour!" Erokid guffawed, patting his father on the back jovially.

"Not like that dumb Erodam. He practically gave you a Trigger for free! That kid grew up in the technological era where he got handed everything for free. I can't trust a guy like that for these kinds of jobs at all," Erokuma sighed, shaking his head pityingly.

Monodam didn't say anything, but Shuichi could see the green bear's bell-like ears jittering nervously.

"My Trigger's pretty great, right, Shuichi? It's the kind that's so easy to use, it's like free points! You should definitely try it out tonight!" Monophie spoke up, moving past the others to pour a second glass of punch and attempt to hand it off to the sullen boy. When he didn't take it, she crossed her arms and pouted. "I didn't spike it!"

Elsewhere, Erotaro had begun to play a violin, which seemed totally out of tone for the rest of the party. The song was a little somber and didn't match the music on the radio at all, but he seemed to be having a good time. Erosuke was, for whatever reason, standing back in one corner with a nervous expression somehow similar to Shuichi's. The boy didn't quite understand why.

"Well, I've got a few more surprises for you, too. Let's discuss what you can expect tomorrow! First of all, there will be a special present for each new day, assuming you don't fall on your face and embrace the sweet familiarity of a new killing game. For at least these first new days, a certain secret Santa tells me that a whole new facility is being transported in for you degenerates! That's right: when you wake up tomorrow, you'll find a whole new building waiting for you!" Erokuma continued, still hugging his arm around Erokid like a proud father.

"I-Impossible... A new building? Even Tsumugi, with all her resources, couldn't have made a whole building appear on campus in just one night! How can you possibly accomplish something like that? And what is this 'secret Santa?'" Shuichi questioned desperately.

"Puah-ha-ha! You know I don't give answers like that! Search the school for clues on your own time!" the bear chortled. "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, Shuichi. The new facility is something that'll be a great advantage to you in your new erotic school life! Now, since I've given you a new gift, I've got to balance it out with a couple of lumps to the noggin. First off, a new rule: when your time cuts off at 12, you have to be back in a designated 'Safe Room,' or else, a new killing game starts! No exceptions! Your own room is one such place, but anywhere with a bed-- and with anyone-- will work. Do you get what I mean? Upupu..."

Shuichi nodded, while blushing slightly and turning his face from the bear. He wasn't nearly to the point that he could imagine spending the night hours on anything like that.

"Secondly: your alarm clock, watches, Eropad, nor any other external means of telling time, can be used after 12:00 am. They'll all be killed as dead as victims in an exciting school massacre!"

This seemed suspicious; could it be another hint about the mystery? It was hard to imagine, but he made a note to analyze that clue more later.

"Third and finally: the difficulty's going to ramp up a bit in the next day. This was reeeally easy, right? I need some assurance that the missions are going to get harder and harder, forcing you to go wild with your Triggers! The Trigger Happy Detective! Upupupu!" The whole room laughed along with him, filling the small space with mean-spirited chortling at Shuichi's expense.

In one corner Erotaro switched to a new song and began to sing in a terrible, off, low-pitched key: "Oooh remember, remembeeer, the Hope's Peak Academy Massacreeee~" The half-red bear dragged the bow back and forth across the instrument gracelessly, grinding at Shuichi's nerves.

"These dumb kids of mine can't be counted on without the proper motivation, you know? They might come up with some really stupid stuff if I don't give 'em a kick in the butt now and again."

"Ba ha ha ha ha! You said it, Pops!" Erokid cackled, spilling punch out of the cup in his fist and onto the floor of Shuichi's room. "I learned my lesson in the last game! This time, I'm going to be an overachiever! Only the best for my dad!" The music began to swell in the background, although, due to Erotaro's poor violin skills, it really only became louder and more cacophonous.

"They can be reeeeally thick-headed, Shuichi." Erokuma left his high-spirited progeny and began to rifle under the bed for something.

"Bwah ha ha ha ha! He's talking about you, Erodumb!"

"They might miss suuuper obvious cues and be the only one in the room who doesn't get this reference yet!" The music had suddenly stopped, but the bear kept on laughing regardless.

"Bwah ha ha ha ha ha! He's talking about you, Erodumb-!" The blue bear howled with laughter, turning his head to face towards the other corner with his mouth open wide in a huge grin. The busy chatter in the room suddenly turned to horrified cries as Erokid's stuffed-animal-like frame suddenly flew across the room, propelled by an agent of **** too quick to follow with their eyes. The loud popping of a balloon rang out, then the thud of the bear's body against the wall. When they gathered around to inspect him, they saw that he was pinned there by a huge, almost comically over-sized crossbow bolt, running out of the back of his mouth while his body hung from around the point like a ragdoll. The red light in one of his eyes flickered a few times, then went out like a dead bulb, as he lay flat against the wall.

"I knew it... We're going in the same chronological order again!" Erosuke shouted angrily from one corner. "This is shit!"

"Does anyone know why Erokid has my big, thick thing stuck in his mouth?" Erokuma asked, while kicking the crossbow he'd used back under the bed. When nobody answered after a period of waiting, he raised one hand and answered himself cheerily. "Look... I'm all for you cubs making things hard for Shuichi. I want it to be hard for Shuichi! Don't we all want Shuichi's thing to be hard?" His kids all nodded along nervously. "But! But! Erokid... Stole my gimmick! I was going to do one where Shuichi had to find me to turn something in and Erokid stole it! So before you all try to steal my material, check yourselves before you wreck yourselves!"

Shuichi had nearly checked out earlier, growing too used to the antics of Erokuma and his cubs, but seeing the corpse of Erokid caused his memories of the killing game to throb through his skull. It was hard to feel any remorse towards the Erokubs, but the reminder that their father was always out for blood was still terrifying. He watched the motionless body of Erokid with an aghast expression frozen upon his face.

"P-Papa... what do you mean? Are you going to give Shuichi a mission too?" Erotaro questioned, picking back up his violin as he spoke, as though he might ridiculously start playing it again despite the circumstances. The chipper party music droned on in the background.

"I'm keeping things fair for Shuichi! Don't worry, Ultimate Detective- you'll get an exciting new Erokuma Mission to go with the others tomorrow, to replace that Blue one! It might be a little bit tougher, since it's an adult mission, but if you put on your thinking cap, you can do it!" the black-and-white bear encouraged Shuichi, crossing his arms and nodding. "Now... Shuichi's dead tired! Let's let the poor guy get some shut-eye! Since I just iced Erokid, I'll say the thing together with you guys. 3, 2, 1... BYYYYE KUMAAAA!"

"B-Bye kumaaaaa..." the others muttered, each of them staring at the dead body of Erokid nailed to the wall. Even once they all disappeared in colored smoke, that corpse remained.

Shuichi felt exhausted. Instead of changing out of his clothes and without tearing down any of the party stuff, any further than throwing the Erokid body under his bed and silencing the radio, he flipped off the lights and flopped into the bed.

...

He couldn't sleep. The victim in him felt like he owed it to himself to get a good night's sleep and forget the horrors of today, but the detective and survivor in him knew that he had to plan for tomorrow. The first thing he needed to do was test out the Daily Wardrobe Change. To get Ero Points, he needed to do something that the bears would construe as erotic... sitting up in his bed, with most of the lights off in his room and pondering his various friends in sexy clothes, had him feeling aroused to a degree that disturbed himself. Several times he wrote names and outfits on pieces of paper, only to crumple those papers and throw them in the trash. Finally, he came up with one that he could live with:

Kirumi Tojo - Maid

"She's ordinarily a maid. If I think about it that way..." he murmured to himself, before shutting it up inside the drawer. "Then there's really no danger." He'd be lying if he said he wasn't interested to see what would happen. Would she just wear the same usual maid gear she always wore? Or would she end up dressed in a fetish maid uniform? Would the outfit be pulled straight out of the sexually provocative images he couldn't stop from appearing in his head? As if worried about that possibility, he shook his head and tucked himself back into the covers, before killing the lamp light.

...

Shuichi had nearly drifted off when he noticed something strange. The wall... Erokuma had pierced it with his arrow. Weren't these rooms nearly indestructible before?

His weary brain couldn't make sense of it. He drifted off, not noticing as that clue became buried under a pile of other curiosities.