Danganronpa Extra Life

Turning Into Watanabe Keiko

Automatically brushing a strand of black hair behind her ear, a nervous gesture she'd adopted to cover up how she checked her wig was still in place, Chiaki glanced up at the doors to the third division building. It was situated on the corner of the street, and had been constructed to be similarly curved at the front, with a wide, triangular back. Tall and towering, it stood at least five or six stories high, pale grey brick and black glass windows. She flinched as someone whizzed by on a bike, centimeters away, and tugged her business suit jacket closer, as if to shrink away from the crowd pressing in on her; after a year in the country, she was struggling to readjust to the busy, high-speed nature of city life.

Chiaki hadn't known where in Japan they'd been hiding out, and hadn't particularly cared. Kamukura-kun, it turned out, had taken them all the way north to the Iwate Prefecture, near a town called Shiwa. Future Foundation's headquarters were stationed back in Tokyo—a gutsy move, considering it had one of the largest rises of despair and death during the Tragedy. Rumor had it that Munakata Kyosuke had declared the Future Foundation was reclaiming the city for hope, and would not take a single step out of it until then. He and the other division heads had kept that promise, impressively managing to restore order to half the giant metropolis—and that was before Enoshima's demise.

Since then, Future Foundation has established other division buildings—or branches— throughout Tokyo. The trip there had taken almost an entire day, rather than the normal six hours—they kept having to drive off the roads whenever the pavement suddenly broke apart in slabs, cracked and destroyed from the Tragedy. Kamukura-kun's luck had ensured the ambulance's gas held until they reached her new apartment building. He'd helped her move her things in, disposed of the ambulance, and left in the morning. But he'd given Chiaki a cellphone with his number in it, as well as the disguise she was wearing. It was easy enough that she could put it on without him, just a black wig and some fake glasses, but Kamukura-kun had promised it would be effective despite the simplicity. She hadn't yet tried it out. She'd been hit by a sudden bout of nerves and fear, and now was paralyzed right outside the building. And her interview was in ten minutes.

Telling herself to stop stalling, Chiaki forced herself to take one step forward, then another, and another, until she was pushing open the doors and striding into the building. It was simple and clean, with white walls and the symbol of Hope's Peak Academy emblazoned on the back wall. Beneath it was a large receptionist's desk, the woman at it preoccupied by texting.

Chiaki approached her. "Excuse me?" she said. The woman glanced up, her nametag reading Yokono Shizue. "I'm here for an interview with Iguchi-san?"

"He's up on the third floor. The elevator's down the hall to your right." She turned back to her phone.

The gamer swallowed, mouth automatically drying. "Um, actually, I need to take the stairs instead. I can't go in elevators. I'm sorry for the inconvenience..."

The receptionist looked up again, her face softening. "A trigger? Don't worry about it, most people who survived the Tragedy have at least one. Can you walk past elevators? The stairs are little ways beyond them..."

"I...don't know? If I don't look at it or go in it, I should be alright, I think..."

Yokono-san slipped her phone into her pocket. "Alright, I'll walk with you. I could use a reason to stretch my legs anyway."

They set off down the hallway, and for Chiaki, it was like creeping through a horror game, distinctly aware of danger around you but not sure where or when. She refused to look left or right, instead keeping her gaze fixed on her feet, hoping no one was using the elevator, wherever it was, hoping that she wouldn't have to hear it ding or accidentally see it slide open and get transported back to that betrayal or Enoshima's sneer or the pain—