Chapter Text
Some students of Class 77-B were gathered around the central island of Jabberwock. The sky only had few clouds on it. Almost an ideal day, has it not been for one factor. One black and white factor.
“Upupupu! Thank you for coming to the meeting, fellow participants!” a bear named Monokuma greeted those students.
On sight, Chiaki was already glaring at him.
“Bummer, just when I thought it was going to be good. Can you go away already?” thought Chiaki to herself, already barely tolerating the bear’s presence. Her rabbit friend was of similar sentiment.
“Monokuma, you foul bear! What kind of evil shenanigans are you up to today?!” Usami, previously turned into “Monomi”, a rabbit clipped of its wings while being a facsimile of the bear.
“What do you think? Have you forgotten in what kind of conundrum did I all put you in?” Monokuma raised his index finger on his paw, showing off his claws.
“Right, Killing Game….” sighed Hajime, feeling like he has experienced such situation before.
“Brownie points for you! I am so glad that youngsters these days can remember a thing said yesterday!” approved the bear, giving them a rather bothersome reminder what sort of events will happen to them. Chiaki was already growling at him, although quietly.
“One of those again….” she really wanted to roll with her eyes, even though she wasn’t really against playing games of such genre. Just that her arch-nemesis was the host was something that annoyed her to no end.
“Monokuma, you may speak with your foul mouth. Elaborate your reason on why should we heed your deceiving words.” Gundham, one of few other students present in the meeting. Chiaki also recalled that Fuyuhiko, Peko, Sonia and Mikan were there. She wasn’t sure why were others absent.
Aside from Teruteru, he was blocked from her mindspace.
“Very well! Allow me to announce…..the first motive!” Monokuma performed a gesture, worthy of being put in a theater, as he announced what they all dreaded. Someone’s going to be kaput in the forthcoming days.
Or so they thought.
Just as the bear was about to elaborate with his scheme, Chiaki lost focus due one thing: from far away, she saw something odd. She squinted her eyes to get a clearer look on what appeared to be a Merkava Mk. II main battle tank on a balloon, flying upwards.
“Wait, what was that?” she thought to herself, still more focused on the background event than to ramblings of the bear.
However, it didn’t seem like others saw it.
“Tch, you think we’re gonna fall for shit like this?” scoffed Fuyuhiko, thinking it was one of those “Oldest tricks in the books” that one had to be an idiot to fall for.
“They always say that and someone always kicks the bucket over it….” Monokuma himself almost sounded bothered, perhaps due to his experiences with other Killing Games, some more grandiose than others.
“Yeah, because you gonna skew it that way.” grumbled Chiaki out loud. She was already aware of the formula, might as well try to do her best to prevent it.
“Oh, me? How could you say that! My paws are always squeaky clean! Mr. Clean approved, even!” the bear acted coy, solely to provoke everyone.
“Squeaky clean, my ass!” retorted Fuyuhiko as he shook his fist at the bear.
“Mr. Clean would never approve of your evil deeds, you foul bear!” seethed Sonia at him, almost getting all huffy.
“Intense anger over cleaning equipment brands is nice and all, but aren’t you all forgetting something?” Monokuma attempted to remind them of their place, but Chiaki was quick to notice some kind of rustling of bushes nearby. Others still paid more attention to bear’s theatrics.
“I am the Headmaster of Hope’s Peak Academy and your-”
Suddenly, a horned one eyed man with a red prosthetic arm jumped out of the bushes and sprinted straight towards the bear, charging like a maddened bull.
“W-WHAT?!” yelped Mikan, already wondering how events in front of her eyes were scientifically possible. Not to say others had any other different reactions, with the sole exception of Gundham, who just observed the whole ordeal like a hawk.
Even Monokuma was caught off guard.
“WH-”
But he couldn’t say much, because the horned man threw him on the ground, instantly “decommissioning him” in the process. First motive was already announced, and Monokuma was out of the game. It didn’t seem like there were any more back up copies of him coming either.
Needless to say, everyone (except Gundham) stood there with their jaws dropped as the horned man turned towards them. Chiaki felt like the man in question was rather familiar.
“...Snake?” she revealed his name and to some extent, she was correct. They were face to face with Venom Snake.
“The man who sold the world…” commented Gundham as he gave him a nod of respect.
Venom Snake did not say much before two of his colleagues emerged from bushes. A blond man with aviator glasses, holding a cane, was one of them, while the other one was an older man with a penchant of playing with his revolvers.
“Cipher won’t get his iron claws on this island. This shall be a haven of freedom and vengeance!” announced the blonde man, who went by the name of Kazuhira Miller. Oddly, the other “Kaz” was absent.
“Cipher? Haven? What are you talking about?” Hajime said some questions out loud that everyone had on their minds. Chiaki sort of knew what were they talking about, but found it difficult to explain to others.
But Kazuhira did not elaborate. Instead, Venom spoke.
“Today, you’re all Diamond Dogs.”.
Suddenly, Chiaki’s whole point of view changed entirely, now being an “external participant”, viewing some kind of collection of events that almost felt like a trailer. A song played amid these events:
“Invisible…”
“Invisible…”
Suddenly, she saw Gundham traversing through some kind of psychedelic tunnel. Both ends were dark, but the tunnel itself was filled with green and magenta light. Gundham just strolled through it with a determined expression on his face.
Then, like a jump cut, she saw herself, dressed up like a legendary soldier with bandanna on her head. She was sneaking through some kind of arctic base, filled with masked men in white, who carried Soviet era guns like AK-74.
What followed next was an entirely different setting, a dimly lit room with a big poker table. The elder man with revolvers, revealed to be none other than Revolver Ocelot, was playing a risky game of poker with Celestia Ludenberg. Both kept their stoic faces on as they held their cards.
“I’ve still got some tricks up my sleeves.” said Ocelot as he revealed his cards, but before it could be shown, it was obscured by a montage of Venom Snake extracting all sorts of tanks with his FULTON device. First, it were Soviet T-72’s in Afghanistan. Then, there were South African Olifant tanks in Angola. Lastly, there were Argentinian Assault Amphibious Vehicle’s in Falklands. No matter what side, he always extracted them so flawlessly.
Then, Monokuma returned, now in an entirely different location. He was now present in a secret base, storing a colossal but lumbering Metal Gear Sahelanthropus, in its “hunched” form. He was accompanied with a sharp dressed man, whose face was damaged beyond recognition. He went by the name of “Skull Face”.
“My plan has succeeded before it went into motion.” said the man while conversing with the bear, but before it could be revealed, Chiaki found herself, along with Venom Snake and Sonia, driving an M1 Abrams tank in the middle of Iraq, hunting for their opponents. She has heard Sonia yell “FIRE!” and “LOAD SABOT” or “LOAD HEAT” so many times, that she has lost the count. For some reason, Chiaki also wore an eye patch, even though both of her eyes were totally fine.
Before she could even recollect the event, a sudden scene of AC-130H Spectre gunship was circling above somewhere in Grenada, already sending a message for what will happen next.
Almost like a contrast to what happened before, she recalled another scene, of Major Zero just looking at the newspaper in his office while sipping tea. “Empire Strikes Back” was the main headline of the newspaper. Then, he commented out of the blue:
“The revolution will not be televised.”.
Fighting ensured somewhere in Angola after the statement was said, between PMC forces and Venom Snake. He was accompanied by Chiaki, who was providing armored support with Olifant tank while Venom Snake kept knocking out PMC grunts.
Then, once again another corridor, but this time Venom Snake was walking through it. Right in front of him was Skull Face, who was also approaching him, with a perpetual but forced grin on his face. Like two cowboys, they pulled out their guns, but before the outcome could be known, it all faded to black.
Lastly, Chiaki found herself in the same arctic base, now accompanied by Revolver Ocelot.
“You’re pretty good!” he said it to her as he made finger gun gestures to her.
But then the song ended.
And so did her dream.
She wasn’t even entirely upset that it ended. She was more flabbergasted and in awe.
“Wow….I must have played quite a bit of Metal Gear lately, heh….Would love to play that some day.” she mused to herself as she got out her bed, went to the bathroom and brushed her teeth.
After all of that was done, she went to her living room, where Hajime already awaited her. He was preparing her breakfast.
“Good morning, Chiaki.” he greeted her as he was already done with breakfast, just a bunch of American pancakes with maple syrup.
“G’morning, Hajime. I’ve got something crazy to tell you, I think.” she reported to him as if he were her “Colonel”, in a way.
“Another crazy dream, huh? I had a feeling it would be that.” Hajime already anticipated it, since he was essentially her “dream journal”. She had many dreams of equal surreal value. None than less, he allowed her to elaborate, since he did enjoy hearing her ramblings.
And so she did. She explained to him all.
It was a rainy day outside, so they had no plans to go out. Just a lazy day at Chiaki’s house.
But someone else was not having a lazy day.
Meanwhile on the Rainbow Bridge in Tokyo, a man in a black cloak was walking across it, until he saw some kind of ship passing by. He then jumped off the ship and landed perfectly on that suspicious ship. What happened next to him was something very few knew….Perhaps the man has already went through it before, but in New York….