"D...Digital...?" Serenade stutters out barely. "But..." Flashbacks of his execution went through his mind.
"Serenade? You alright...?" Samurai asked from the entrance. Serenade shakily pointed to the bookshelf.
"I...he...over there..." He said.
"You look like you saw a ghost..." Olive says.
"I think I'm seeing one just now..."
"Pardon?" Orion raises an eyebrow. "I do not detect any spirits in the room..."
"T-then...who's that behind the bookshelf...b-because...only Digital Code has green eyes...." As if on command, the eyes moved to one side and disappeared from sight. D-did I just imagine that or...?
"What are you talking about? Did you hit your head or something?" Grimdark half-laughs.
"Yeah Serenade...we saw Digital die, remember?" Olive reminded him.
"Well...I didn't..." Grimdark contradicted.
"Whatever. The point is that you probably just imagined it..." Serenade paused at Olive's words. He took a deep breath before continuing into the room.
"I'll prove to you all...Digital is alive..." He muttered. "Hey! Orion, B. Do you guys think you could light up the room?" The two unicorns nodded before lighting up their horns, giving a slightly clearer view of the room. He edged around the bookshelf to see if the black unicorn that should have been dead was still around. He saw nothing. "That doesn't make any sense..."
"Seeing ghosts, eh?" Grimdark smirked. "But, onto the main issue...the mastermind, we need to find books on them..."
"Yes, Mr Sirens is correct, but first we should find a way to turn on the lights." Orion says.
"I'll look for the switch." B says venturing into the dark room.
"Alright, let's see what we've...huh?" Samurai paused. "Check this out...'Case UH-9: The Missing Students'."
"Missing students? What's that about?" Olive asked.
"I think the better query is: why are police case files in here?" Orion says looking at the file over Samurai's shoulder.
"Yeah. What's with that?" Samurai flicked through the pages. "Um...oh! Here's the case summary: 'On August 25th 2014'-"
"That's the day we entered the school!" Olive interrupts.
"Shh!" Samurai silenced the earth pony. "...'32 students disappeared from Hope's...Peak...Academy'..."
"W...what...?" Orion's eyes widened.
"That's what it says." Samurai tells them.
"Is that a file on us?!" Serenade asks.
"What's wrong?" B asked coming back. "I found a light switch by the way, but it doesn't work..."
"Well we found a file on our disappearance!" Olive told her.
"A, a file?"
"Hold on, listen to this...'We managed to find half of the students later, most found dead in a separate building but a few blocks away from the school. We suspect the rest to be inside the school somewhere because on today August 27th, the doors locked themselves and entry was unobtainable. Later that same day, weaponry systems positioned themselves automatically outside the door, threatening to shoot whoever attempted to enter the school'."
"There were other students?!" Olive said.
"...not exactly, apparently they were collage students that used to attend Hope's Peak. They were here for a class reunion which happens at the start of every school year apparently." Samurai explained.
"College students, eh?" Grimdark repeats. Serenade bit his lip when they mentioned that.
"Something wrong, Serenade?" B asked him.
"It's just...I had an older brother who attended Hope's Peak and...I think he just graduated from college."
"You have an older brother?" Olive asked.
"Yeah...I don't really see much of him though."
"Why is that?" Orion inquired.
"Um...personal matters...but, you see, he's a prosecutor and graduated from Hope Peak a few years ago but he wanted to take some time to feel like he really finished school so he went to college."
"So he was a Super High School Level Prosecutor?" Grimdark asked.
"All Rounder." Serenade corrected.
"A what?" Samurai raised an eyebrow.
"It's a special talent that only comes second to 'Super High School Level Hope', it's basically that but with less talents that he's good at. If I remember right it was fencing, prosecuting, bowling-"
"Bowling?" Grimdark repeated.
"Yeah, not sure how they added that but they did..." Serenade smiled. "Wait...does it say the survivors?"
"Um...no, it didn't mention their names..." Samurai checked.
"Oh...so...he might be dead right now..." Everyone was silent for a few seconds.
"I'm sure he's fine..." Samurai reassured him.
"But we don't really have a way to know, do we?"
"Oh, Serenade...try to look on the brighter side of things. He could have easily survived this, y'know?" B said.
"Or he could have been brutally murdered...we've seen what high school students can do in here...Celestia knows what college students could do to one another..."
"Well...we should try to get out of here as soon as possible then, right? Let's look for books on the Mastermind!" Olive smiled.
"Right..." Serenade gave a small nod before returning to their search. There were a few more police files here and there along the shelves but none of them gave any information on the mastermind or the past events that Beau had talked about.
*THUD!* Everyone turned to Serenade's side where a book had fallen to his feet from one of the very top shelves.
"Whoops..." Serenade said. Why did I say that? I'm searching the bottom this is from the top...
"What does that one say?" B asked him. Serenade picked up the book and read the title.
"The...School Life of...Mutual...Killings..." Everyone paused for a few seconds before crowding around him.
"What does it say?! What does it say?!" Samurai shook him slightly in anticipation.
"Alright, alright...um...the School Life of Mutual Killings took place in a high school apparently, just like our situation and students of Hope's Peak Academy were forced to brutally murder each other in hope of escaping the school."
"Hope's Peak had an incident before this? You'd think we would have heard of it..." Olive points out.
"Yeah..." Serenade agreed before continuing. "In total, ten students of the class had been slaughtered, including the one that was behind it all...." Serenade paused before reading the name. "Junko...Junko Enoshima...."
"The same suspect that Beau had came up with..." Grimdark recalls.
"But, if she's dead, how can she be the one behind this?" B asked.
"What if it is a sort of doppelganger?" Orion suggests. "Somebody has been using this...'Junko Enoshima' Modus Operandi to trick us all into thinking she was the one behind this?"
"That would seem more...huh...?" Serenade looked back at the book. "What's this...? Location: 'Japan'?"
"What's a 'Japan'? Can I eat it?" Olive asked.
"There is nowhere in Equestria, Cheerag, Gryphonia, Grasslands or Badlands that goes by the name 'Japan'." Orion says.
"Check the survivor page...." Grimdark tells him. Serenade nods and flicks through the pages before finding six profiles on one of the pages.
"What the...? Look at this...they're all earth ponies with the same colour of fur and...their ears are weird..." Serenade raises an eyebrow.
"Creepy..." Samurai shivered.
"What the heck kind of case was this...?"
"It's from the human realm...." Beau's voice comes from the entrance.
"Human realm? I've heard the myths of it but...I never suspected it of really existing...." Grimdark says.
"It couldn't, right? I mean, that would mean this book is from a completely different dimension than ours and that's impossible..." Samurai argues.
"Not really..." Beau says.
"What do you mean...?" Beau stays quiet.
"Never mind...anyway..." She puts on her scowl and glares at the six. "I told you all to leave this area alone! What part of that didn't you all understand?!"
"But, Beau. You have to admit, we're kind of desperate for information on what exactly is happening here." B says.
"Shut up!" She yelled at the blue unicorn. "You realize that the mastermind is one of us, right?! That means you could have just ruined everything by opening the way here!"
"We couldn't just sit around though and wait until another murder occurred, could we?!" Olive yelled. "Seriously, if you just gave us a little trust we could just go and beat the mastermind now!"
"She's seen the books, she knows that we know things about her, it's not going to be so easy now!"
"And you still assume that Junko Enoshima is the mastermind and not a copy?" Grimdark asked.
"Yes." Beau simply stated.
"It would make sense for her to think that..." B says. "I mean...who could really create such despair other than the original mastermind?"
"But, humans don't exist, they're just fiction, B..." Samurai tells her.
"Then...it might be a copycat?" She asks.
"No. She's the real deal...no doubt about it..." Beau says sternly.
"Why do you believe that?" Serenade asked. She can think what she wants....doesn't change what I know though...
"Call it a gut feeling..." She rubbed the back of her neck.
"Hey, Beau? Why were you so worried about us coming in here?" Samurai asked.
"What do you mean?"
"I remember you went a little pale when you mention it."
"It...it's nothing..."
"Him..." Serenade said, causing Beau to look at him swiftly.
"What?"
"Him...the one in here...?" Everyone was the silent for a small time before Beau sighed.
"Alright then...come on out then..." Beau looked back as a figure stepped out of the darkness.
"....hello again..." The black unicorn smirked. "Long time no see...I've just been DYING without you all..."