Disclaimer: I do not own Danganronpa or Miraculous Ladybug. They belong to Spike Chunsoft and Thomas Astruc respectively. I only own the OC characters.

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Adrien's head was still pounding dully when he woke up the next morning. He swayed slightly on his feet as he made his way to the cafeteria for breakfast, most of everyone who remained already there. Marinette bounded over to him enthusiastically, only to frown when she took in his distressed state. "Adrien?" she asked, concern edging her tone. "What happened? Did you find anything?"

In the boy's aching mind, he recalled what had occurred the night before, and embarrassment filled his gut. "I'm sorry, Marinette," he replied weakly. "That trapdoor led down to a room where I believe Monokuma watches us from. But that wasn't the only thing. Files and other information were scattered around. Someone knocked me out before I had a chance to look through it, though." He hung his head, his gaze downcast. "By the time I woke up, everything was gone."

"Damn it!" Marinette cursed, something that the blond never thought the gentle girl could be capable of doing. She caught his flinch though, and she immediately discarded her serious demeanor. "I'm not mad at you, Adrien," she told him. "I should've known that someone didn't want us snooping around. It was careless of me." Her features hardened into determined intentions. "You'll have to show me later. Just take it easy for now."

It was left at that, despite Adrien wanting to assure the fashion designer that none of this was on her; he had willingly allowed himself to be attacked, after all. Instead, they ate breakfast together, unable to make much more than small talk due to Adrien's splitting headache that was still present. Once they were finished, he excused himself to the locker room, hoping that a nice, long shower would help clear his head.

He was instead greeted by Maddie emerging from the bathroom (that would have been public otherwise if the school wasn't on maximum lockdown), blinking at him as he appeared. "Adrien," she acknowledged, inclining her head. "Hey, Maddie," the teen offered back. The unknown Ultimate's eyes narrowed. "Are you alright? You look pale."

Adrien chuckled sheepishly. "Yeah, it's nothing. Probably just a cold or something." The fact that no viruses from outside should be able to penetrate the school atmosphere since it was completely sealed was not brought up, but Adrien figured Maddie must have found that explanation suspicious regardless. However, she said nothing, continuing to look him over. "You've been spending a lot of time with Marinette lately." This was more of a neutral statement than anything else. "Making headway on your investigation, I presume?"

The young model flinched. "That's not-"

"I know that's what you two have been doing. Suddenly rushing off together after the trial yesterday didn't go unnoticed." Adrien withered in on himself, knowing that he had been caught. Yet, Maddie didn't look angry in the slightest. "I understand," she said. "There have been enough murders already that it would be hard to trust each other. All I'd tell you is that you better watch your back. That's more advice than it is a warning." She began walking away.

"I don't think that at all!" Adrien protested, making the brunette stop in her tracks, turning to face him once more. He took that as his que to continue. "I trust you with my life! I'd bet that Marinette does too!"

"A foolish decision," Maddie scoffed, placing her hands in her trenchcoat pockets. She didn't look menacing, however; she was just level and logical. The sight made Adrien's hands clench into fists. "So what?!" he shot back. "If we're all going to survive, we need trust! It's the only thing we have left." He levelled his stare at her, trying to emphasize his point. "I at least want to try and save everyone who's still alive."

They stared at each other for a few moments before Maddie smirked again, that prideful one she had shown him before right after the first trial. "I keep underestimating you, Agreste," she said, that same display of respect towards him coming out. "You know, you could make a great superhero."

Adrien laughed, rubbing at his neck. "I don't know about that." He immediately got to business again, facing her head-on. "Tell everyone to meet us in the boiler room later. There's something we all need to show you." Maddie looked like she wanted to question him about this, but she decided against it, flashing a knowing smile before walking off. She waved a two-fingered salute in his direction before she disappeared from view, leaving Adrien confident that she, as well as everyone else, would listen to them.

Chapter 4: The Even Flow

"Why are we here again?" The remaining students had all gathered in the boiler room below the school, facing Adrien and Marinette, wondering what was important here of all places. The one who had spoken, Alix, placed a hand on her head, darting her gaze around unconvincingly.

"There's something important we have to show you," Marinette explained. Adrien nodded along with her. "We think it could help lead us to whoever's behind this."

"Markov has yet to breach the school's servers," Maddie piped up, fixing a confident gaze at the pair. "In the meantime, this could be worth our while."

"If you say so," Alya remarked, but said nothing more. With that, Adrien and Marinette led the students to the trapdoor at the far left of the room, opening it and descending downwards. It turned out that they were telling the truth after all; finding the place where their self-proclaimed principal watched them through the CCTV cameras was quite a discovery in and of itself.

"At least Monokuma was telling the truth about there being no cameras in the locker room or bathrooms," Marc said out loud, expressing relief. With all of them in there, the room was a bit cramped, but not enough that they could hardly move. Nino perused the monitors before making his way to the control station, scanning it. His eyebrows shot up to the brim of his baseball cap. "Uh, guys," he said, all heads turning towards him. "This might be a mistake, but... just come look at this."

Everyone shuffled to the control station, peering at the red blinking light that Nino was pointing to. Alya pushed up her glasses. "What is this?" she asked. The DJ swallowed, sweat beginning to bead on his forehead. "This means there's a live broadcast."

Maddie's eyebrow raised, slightly perturbed. "Everything's being broadcasted to the outside world?" she inquired. "Who would watch something like this?"

"If that's true," Juleka said, "then why hasn't anyone come to rescue us yet?"

"Hey! You aren't supposed to be in here!" Everyone jumped at the sudden voice blasting out from behind them. Monokuma stood there, looking absolutely furious. Despite the bear's small and cuddly physique, Adrien couldn't help but swallow nervously. The monochrome animatronic, however, continued to wave his arms around angrily. "This is staff only! You're getting your grubby hands all over my stuff!"

Suddenly, he pointed a white paw at a particular blunette. "You!" he accused, red eye flashing. "You somehow got ahold of my code! Stealing from the principal is a direct violation of school rules!"

Marinette squared her shoulders, not backing down. "I didn't steal it," she explained. "It was given to me."

"Doesn't matter!" the bear shouted, getting more worked up by the second. "You hacked into my database to steal my code, so you're still an accomplice, which is still a violation!"

"Hold on. There's something more important here." Adrien directed the bear's wrath towards himself, not liking what the situation was turning into. "You're broadcasting our killing school lives to the outside world. Do people actually watch this crap?"

"Of course, people are watching!" Monokuma declared. "It's not like they have anything better to do!"

"What does that mean?" Luka demanded. "Why won't they come to rescue us?"

"Even if they wanted to, they can't! This place is a fortress, remember?" Monokuma seemed irritated. "They'd be gunned down if anyone even got within a square mile of this place!" His claws were unsheathed, the sharp edges glistening in the fluorescent lighting. "If you're done jabbering, I suggest we get on with addressing our rule-breaker." His aura became dark and murderous. "You broke school rules, so you gotta be punished, miss Ultimate Fashion Designer!"

"Wait-" But it was already too late. Before Adrien had a chance to protest, the gatling gun whirred to life from its compartment in the wall, aiming right for Marinette. He wanted to move to push her out of the way, but he knew he would never get there in time. The bullets rang out, the sound of them hitting flesh grating on the model's ears. Red sprayed out, yet, to his surprise, it was not Marinette's body that slumped to the floor. Instead, a familiar shock of bright orange hair fell to the ground, the body having taken Marinette's place in the bullet's path.

They all knew that Nathaniel was dead before he even touched the ground, the bullet having pierced right through his heart. While many had quite vocal reactions, all Adrien could do was stare frozen at the blood pooling beneath the Ultimate Comic Artist's corpse. Marc had screamed, throwing himself at Nathaniel's side, violently sobbing, begging for him to wake up. Juleka had run out of the room altogether.

Marinette, who had been just as frozen in shock as he was, finally spoke in a hushed tone. "What have you done?" Monokuma, meanwhile, appeared to be having a fit. "Gosh dangit, mothertrucker!" he cried, steam shooting out of his ears. It would have been comical under different circumstances. "Nathaniel had nothing to do with this! His self-sacrificial ass made me kill an innocent student!" Adrien couldn't muster up the strength to be mad.

"Don't you realize what you've done?" Maddie seemed to have no trouble voicing her thoughts. "You killed someone who wasn't a killer, or who had violated school rules."

"Which would effectively make this game of yours forfeit," Alya added, adjusting her glasses, glaring down her nose at the bear. Monokuma snapped to her, still agitated. "Now hold your horses there, buckaroo," he addressed, pointing at the journalist. "Don't get all excited now! If Dupain-Cheng would've taken her punishment like a champ, this wouldn't have happened!"

"Don't you dare blame her for this!" Maddie growled, the first time Adrien had seen her righteously furious. "Don't dump your own responsibilities on others. You broke a rule. You have to make up for your mistake!"

To Adrien's surprise, the bear didn't appear to want to protest, debating with himself. Even though he could all snuff out their lives with a push of a button, he seemed reluctant in breaking the rules he put in place. Perhaps those were his limitations. Monokuma grumbled to himself for a little bit before huffing. "Fine," he relented, but he didn't appear happy about it. "That little A.I. of yours that's been hacking into my system? I'll grant it access." They all gaped at him, holding at least some hope that the psychotic stuffed toy hadn't discovered the robot's presence. Then again, they shouldn't have been surprised. "Now, all of you scram!" Monokuma ordered. "I've gotta clean up this mess!" Without much protest, they all glumly filed out of the control room, sans Alya who appeared as indifferent as she always was. No one had the guts to complain about the bear's heartless dismissal to his face, so they all retreated with their tails between their legs. Adrien felt the same. They were once again shown how powerless they really were in the hands of their captor. He felt like curling into a ball, wishing that the darkness could consume him.

Light sniffling caught his attention. Getting closer, he found this was where Juleka had gone to hide after everything went down. The poor girl looked absolutely miserable. Adrien couldn't blame her, considering what happened during the second trial. Slowly, so as not to spook her, the boy sidled up to her, lowering to his knees to get to eye-level. "Juleka."

The raven-haired girl paused in her sniffling, tentatively lifting her head out of her tucked-in knees to meet his emerald-green gaze. She sniffed a few more times, muscles relaxing at his warm, comforting smile. "Are you alright?" Adrien asked. A stupid question, he knew, but he felt like this was what needed to be said in this situation.

Juleka rubbed at her eyes, trying to dispel the tears, and failing. "It's just..." She took a shuddering breath. "I'm sick of people dying. What's the point of it all?" While he was sat there patiently listening, he was aware of Marinette joining them, settling herself next to him. The shy girl didn't seem to mind it, though. "Is this really all for someone's twisted amusement? I don't... I don't know how much more I can take."

Juleka seemed to steel herself, swallowing hard. "It's true that I was the only one at the time who knew that Rose was dying." Adrien did his best to keep his expression neutral, knowing that this was sensitive territory. "She didn't want anyone to know because she was afraid everyone would treat her differently for it. She didn't want to be pitied or coddled, everyone being bogged down by the fact that she was going to die one day." The tears came back again, no matter how hard she tried to hold them back. "But I'm the pathetic one," she said, voice warbling. "If I had known that Rose was hurting, she wouldn't have needed to go to someone else for help. If I had been a better friend, she wouldn't have gotten killed! If I were better..." She trailed off, hiccupping and softly sobbing.

"Don't say that Juleka," Marinette said. "I'm sure that she just didn't want you to worry. You two were best friends, after all. She was always keeping everyone in high spirits."

"Yeah," Adrien agreed. "You aren't guilty of anything, Juleka. The only one who's guilty is the mastermind." His fingers curled while resting on his knees, slightly scrunching up the denim fabric. "We'll beat them and bring them to justice. Rose would've wanted that. To persevere." He looked back up at her then, confident and kind. "But I'm sure, most of all, she would've wanted you to live."

Juleka blinked at them, sniffing. She wiped away her fresh tears, a few stragglers leaking out. She nodded at them, giving them a wavering smile. "Yeah," she murmured. "I know." They both smiled back at her, rising to their feet. Adrien held out a hand for Juleka to take, pulling her up with them. The boy also wondered how many more people had to die before they finally escaped this hellhole, but for now they just had to keep on living.

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Just as Monokuma promised, Markov had full access to the school's servers. It took him a day to analyze all of it, but by the time he was done, everyone was patiently waiting for what he found. They all gathered in the principal's office, huddled in front of the monitor that the robot was plugged into so he could display his discoveries.

"I will say that, unfortunately, there wasn't much about how you all got trapped in here, or who did it." The A.I. sifted through lines of data. "There is evidence that a portion of the software has been erased."

"Really?" Nino inquired. "Bastard knew what they were doing, then."

"Quite," Alya added, pushing up her glasses.

"But I have discovered a few things that you may find interesting." Markov scrolled through data files until he landed on a photo. "This is one of them." The image was opened, and everyone gasped at what they saw. "How is Lila in this? Didn't she say she just transferred?"

"She did say that," Maddie answered Alix, brow furrowed in concentration. "So, she was either lying again, or something else was going on."

"I don't remember her hanging out with us before school started," Luka stated. "But this looks like she was good friends with Rose and Myléne."

Adrien could hardly wrap his head around it himself. This photo of Lila, who was posing for a selfie with Rose and Myléne, throwing up a peace sign, suggested that they all knew each other before the school year began. But he knew that wasn't possible. He would've known if he was friends with everyone before he started attending public school. "That's not all," Markov told them, moving on to the next image. This time it was Chloé and Sabrina standing next to each other, the blonde girl appearing as if she was telling off the bespectacled tutor. Sabrina looked so cowed in this; it didn't surprise him that Chloé would treat her like that. But what was truly strange about this photo was what was going on in the background.

"This is in the middle of class," Marc noted. "All of us are in this. Except..." The writer fidgeted with his hands nervously. "I would remember going to class with all of you."

"Yeah, me too," Nino affirmed. The background of this photo did indicate that the classroom was full, capturing a wide angle of the room. It appeared as though everyone was idle, waiting for the lesson to start. Marc had voiced Adrien's thoughts exactly; if they had all gone to school together, wouldn't they have remembered that?

The next photo was even more bizarre. It was Marinette and Alya, walking down the street together, laughing with each other. Just from this picture alone, you would think that they were best friends. But again, that couldn't be possible, since Alya had transferred just recently. "What the hell?" The journalist in question looked taken aback, eyes wide in shock and disbelief. "I don't remember this at all."

"Me neither," Marinette murmured, looking just as haunted. But it was the next photo that made Adrien's breath catch in his throat. It was an image of him and Marinette jamming out together to whatever Nino was cranking out on his turntable on a stage in the background. There was a decorative border around the picture, words inserted along the bottom reading: "Happy Birthday, Adrien!"

The boy could feel his heart begin to race. His hand clenched the fabric over his chest, an uncomfortable chill crawling down his spine. "That can't be true," he said. "My birthday isn't for another four months."

"Aside from this," Markov explained, "there were plans hidden in secure data logs to make Collégé Duponte into a safe haven for the prodigies of Paris." The robot emitted a few clicks and beeps. "It was called the Hero's Day Initiative."

"The Hero's Day Initiative?" Alix looked more confused by the second. "What the hell was it for?"

A few more whirs from the A.I. as rolls of code ran by. "In the wake of the Tragedy, Paris's elite decided to put in safeguards to preserve humanity's best and brightest in the event of such an apocalyptic scenario happening again. Much like what Hope's Peak Academy did for its 78th class in Japan."

Maddie stepped forward, eyeing the robot intensely. "Who facilitated the installation of these safeguards?" she asked. A few more whirs, then a loud ding. "The ones who carried out this initiative were the mayor of Paris and the principal of Collégé Duponte, Mr. Damocles." The initial shock that Monokuma seemed to be a usurper was brushed aside with what Markov informed them of next. "As well as Gabriel Agreste, the esteemed multimillionaire and fashion designer."

Adrien felt the air leave his chest. His head began to pound again. His father had helped orchestrate this entire ordeal? No, wait. It sounded like this school had been built to be a fortress and was subsequently infiltrated by Monokuma and whoever made him. It didn't explain the photos though, or why they were all locked up here. The world couldn't have ended again, could it?

There were so many questions that they didn't have answers to. The boy stared blankly at the last photo Markov showed them, his mind far away. This place now felt more like a madhouse than a school. What more brain-breaking twists and turns were in store for them? Adrien realized he was afraid to find out.

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Even though Monokuma offered it up to make amends for his "mistake," the new data Markov was able to uncover still brought them no closer to escaping. Perhaps it was foolish of them to get their hopes up from the start. Alya would certainly think so. However, the A.I. said that there could be another way to obtain the information that they needed.

"If you can somehow get me connected to the internet, I can scour any global data that could be useful," he explained.

"That sounds like a great idea," Marinette concurred. "I think there are some cable ports in the computer lab."

Making sure that he wasn't being followed this time, it was here in the late evening that Adrien found himself tiptoeing through the school halls towards the library, Markov tucked inside his designer shirt. He encountered no one on his trek there, entering the computer lab and using the ethernet cable he and Marinette found to connect the A.I. to the wireless internet port. "Is that good?" he asked after he finished setting everything up. Markov beeped enthusiastically. "Yes, Adrien. Everything seems to be connected." He looked the boy in the eye. "I promise that I'll report anything that I find relevant."

Adrien smiled at the robot, relief flooding him. "Thanks, Markov," he said with gratitude. "You really are a great friend."

Markov blinked owlishly at him. "A... friend?" The hovering robot tilted his head in the air. "I don't think I've ever had... friends before, besides my creator, of course." Adrien worried that the A.I. had sobered up at the thought of his late creator, but instead his face lit up. "I am so glad that you think we are friends, Adrien!"

A warm feeling filled Adrien's chest at that. He had never had friends besides Chloé his whole life until now. It seemed as though they had a connection on that matter, despite one being a computer program and the other a flesh-and-blood human being. He had meant what he said when he told Markov that he was his friend.

Leaving the program to do his thing, Adrien headed back to the dorms, his job now done. On his way back, however, he heard what sounded like hushed whispering. As he stood on the second-floor walkway surrounding the courtyard, he could make out Juleka and Luka huddled in a dark corner, talking with each other furiously. He was too far away to make out what they were saying, but it must have been important.

They paused suddenly, and the model worried that he had been detected. He hurried down the hall as quietly as he could until he was sure he was out of sight. He let out a huge sigh, basking in the feeling that he was home free. After another few deep breaths, the teen finally made it back to the boys' dorm, falling asleep in his bunk as soon as his head hit the pillow.

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Author's Note: I know that this death was sudden, but there are eighteen of them. Gotta whittle them down somehow. I also thought it was appropriate because Nathaniel had a crush on Marinette first. I'm so sorry, Marc. The photos, too. Do you think it could reveal who the mastermind is?

The fourth chapter title in Trigger Happy Havoc is a Nirvana reference, and there are other references to the band in other games. Seems that one of the writers (if not all) is a fan. I love Nirvana, but I decided to put in a reference to another band I really like. Comment on what band you think the chapter title is referring to.

I watched Yuri On Ice finally and I'm in love.

Praise is appreciated and constructive criticism is encouraged.

See you next time!

-The_Mayflower