Danganronpa: Shuri's School

Chapter 27: Bowling Tourney!

We all met in the Dining Room the next morning for breakfast, and I noticed a few of the others chatting eagerly. Hina, Kirumi, and Nagito seemed to have something in mind, but I could only catch bits and pieces of it. Something about a tournament, but I didn't catch it all. After breakfast, I decided to head back to my room for a bit, to clear my head from recent events.

We started off with 16 students, 8 boys and 8 girls. At present, we're down to 10 students, 6 girls and 4 boys. We've only unlocked 4 out of 5 floors. Byakuya is gathering information on Hope's Peak Academy. Kokichi and Nagito are, apparently, concocting a plan of their own. And none of us were any closer to escaping this place.

I was interrupted from my pondering by my doorbell ringing. Not expecting anyone, I opened my door, and saw Hina, Nagito, and Kirumi at my door. Curious, I approached the trio, wondering why they were gathered outside my door. Hina, of course, was all too eager to answer me.

"We've decided to have a bowling tournament on the Fourth Floor, to try to raise everyone's spirits! What do you think?"

I thought for a few moments, then nodded. "That actually sounds like a lot of fun. Let's do it! When?"

Nagito responded, "Well, we're still working all of that out, but it'll probably be late this afternoon, maybe early evening."

I nodded. "Well, count me in! Let me know who else will show up, and when, and I'll be there."

Hina hugged me, excitedly, while Kirumi merely curtsied. Nagito turned to walk down the hallway nearest me, apparently to check on Byakuya and Kokichi.

No longer interested in dwelling on my situation, I decided to head upstairs, to the batting cages, to hit some balls until the Bowling Tournament was ready. I swiped my E-Handbook in front of a scanner to get a set of 20 balls pitched to me. I had four speeds to choose from; Softball (lobbed slowly at an arc), Slow (straight, with a speed similar to a casual game of catch), Medium (straight, with a speed typical of a high school pitcher), and Fast (straight, like what you would probably see from a professional baseball pitcher).

I batted right-handed, with an tall open stance, wagging the bat back and forth away from me, and awaited my pitches. Fast was WAY beyond what I could deal with, and Softball was far too easy, so I mostly alternated between Slow and Medium, doing Medium when I felt Slow was too easy, and doing Slow when I felt Medium was getting too hard.

After several hours of hitting balls in increments of 20, I decided to give the Batting Cage a break. While I was happy with my hand-eye coordination, my power swing wasn't what it used to be. Guess I've been out of practice for too long; I used to play baseball a lot more before I moved back to Japan.

I returned to my room to take a quick shower, then took a short nap to kill some time and rest my body. Between several hours of hitting baseballs, and walking up and down those steps, I was a bit tired, and wanted to be at my best for this bowling tournament. Glancing at my E-Handbook, it was 3:15pm. I laid it on the nightstand, next to my bed, and zonked out.

I woke up a few hours later, to the sound of someone ringing my doorbell. Looking at my E-Handbook, it was 6pm. Normally, everyone would eat dinner at this time, but I wasn't particularly hungry. Stretching, I got up, grabbed my E-Handbook, and opened the door.

Hina was there, looking at me eagerly. "The Bowling Tournament starts in half an hour! Everyone's gonna be there, except for Byakuya, who's being a jerk again!" Hina glanced off to the side, clearly irked by Byakuya. I decided not to comment on it.

"Alright, I'll head up there then," I replied, and made my way to the Fourth Floor.

Upon arrival, everyone except Byakuya, Hina, and Mikan were inside the Bowling Alley, talking amongst themselves. Nagito was sitting by himself, looking dejected for some reason.