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As much time as Shirou had been allowed to spend, near enough alone, thinking, meditating, the days that passed had begun to wear on him. Izo spent his days pointlessly and repetitively, as though stuck in an endless loop, day in and day out. On the surface of things, Shirou was hardly one to judge. In many ways, his own days were fairly repetitive, and with the limited options for activity in the camp, all that truly remained was to fruitlessly investigate, and explore the various relationships he had with his fellow captives.

Grateful though he was for the chance to sit near enough idle, thinking and considering the avenues and threads of suspicion he held towards the Killing Game, the constant attachment to Izo left Shirou more than slightly irritated. The Fanatic sat in the forest, or the field, for hours on end, meditating and praying, only to leave for the bathroom, or something to eat, and return shortly after. Then Izo would take his leave to their shared room, remain awake for hours in the dark praying still, fall asleep, and wake up again to do the same thing again the next day.

In a certain sense, Shirou could respect the dedication Izo held towards his faith. It resonated with him, on an intrinsic level. But at the same time, Shirou cursed it - both his own dedication, his training regiment and drive to heroism, and at the same time Izo’s own rigid religious practices. The latter refused to bend. Suggestions to investigate some more, or interact with the other Ultimates, was met with the same, stubbornly deterministic perspective. That they would murder each other, with nothing to be done about it. The attitude was grating, and though and his soul Shirou desired deeply the capacity to appreciate and accept his fellows, being anchored to Izo day in and day out, with nary an avenue for escape, gnawed at his resolution ceaselessly.

No chances to explore his curiosities. No chances to develop further friendships with others. And no chances to smooth over the lingering resentments sparked in the first few days that Shirou knew everyone. A sensation of dread had loomed on him from the beginning, but even three days in, his patience was tested again and again, pulling at the walls of his resolve. Each day he wanted to shout at Izo, or command him to move somewhere with more people, and each day Shirou swallowed it down, reluctantly allowing it to fester. In his mind, it would do no good to create conflict with the person he was restrained to for who knew how much longer.

The morning of the scream came to pass. As with every prior morning, Shirou had awoken early - four thirty in the morning, sharp - spent thirty minutes warming up, disconnected himself from Izo, and took his twenty minutes of freedom to exercise outdoors, with another twenty indoors, chain reattached. It robbed him each day of the chance to interact, and to build further bonds, but at his core, the regime was something Shirou could never bring himself to break. Izo had awoken, too, an hour after, as Shirou finished up his warm down stretches. The monotonous regime continued. Each showered in turn, and the prayer began once more. Over the course of the days, Shirou had taken to writing notes, in a notebook Lilly had brought from her lab. Possible motives, general ideas, scribbles, drawings, and other theories - all to pass the time over the day.

The scream came suddenly. While Shirou dropped his book, leapt to his feet, and made his way to the door, struggling against the cable to look out of his partners room, which the fanatic had insisted the two stay in, Izo himself remained still. His left eye opened halfway, glancing half curiously, half nonchalantly, towards Shirou’s sudden reaction, with little indication of his own that he intended to arise. Shirou craned out of the door, scanning along the path leftways of the cabin, towards the direction of the cry, for any indication of whose room it came from. And, frustrated, by his lack of information, and lack of freedom, he turned back to look at Izo.

[colour=Red]”You plan on moving at all?”[/colour] he called back to the listless Fanatic, making little effort to conceal a deep seated, underlying passive aggressiveness,[colour=Red]”Somebody out there needs some help - you just gonna sit on your ass through this too, or can I have your permission to do my job?”[/colour]

Izo made no effort. To pay attention, to get up, to even acknowledge the scream from just moments prior. His half open gaze fell shut once again, bathing him in the darkness, and near silence, that accompanied it. In the camp, surrounded by Ultimates chained to the self proclaimed Hero of Justice, the darkness of his own closed eyes was one of the few places that Izo felt was right. Everything outside of it was non-conforming, and most definitely inconsistent, and everyone in it clung to weak, poorly functioning rationales. The boy in front of him beheld every stereotype to that inclination that Izo could even begin to think of. Relentlessly optimistic, grasping at straws of altruism while ignoring the bigger picture of the Killing Game at large. The last few days had been magnitudes worse than uncomfortable.

[colour=Coral]”’Permission’, really?”[/colour] Izo returned, casually blinking open a pair of cold, brown eyes, [colour=Coral]”You wake up every morning, waste away your twenty minutes of freedom, and then get angry at me for it? I always knew you were a fool, but not an idiot. Y’know, it’s honestly a little hard to tell: do you actually believe this whole [i]hero[/i] shit, or is it just to make other people ignore your stupidity?”[/colour]

With a step of disbelief, Shirou edged back into the room from the crest of the doorway, the door itself still ajar, filtering crisp, cool air into the cabin proper. Golden eyes, conflicted in concern, anger, and shock, met Izo’s stoic gaze. Some portion of Shirou found comfort in the Fanatic’s words, that his own pent up frustration was not without merit, but the feeling quickly found itself consumed by that very same anger. Some things he was willing to tolerate. The wilful abandonment of someone in need was not one of them.

He took a series of steps forward, until the two were some five feet apart. [colour=Red]”I’m not going to play this game with you,”[/colour] Shirou said, keeping his composure temperate as best as possible, [colour=Red]”Hero or not, humans are meant to have this thing called empathy - when others are in trouble, you [i]help them.[/i] Not for reward, or the completion of some arbitrary goal, but for the sake of [i]dece[/i]-”[/colour]

His words were cut off prematurely, with the crackle of a monitor, springing to life on his left. Shirou head spun on a dime, attention utterly relocated, while Izo glanced at the thing from his periphery. Silence filled the room once more, but not the kind that Shirou had hoped for. It was a palpable silence, tangible and heavy, as Monokuma spoke the words that Izo had waited multiple days to hear. A body had been discovered. No doubt, Shirou reasoned, where the scream had just echoed from. The two turned back to each other, gazes deadlocked to the others face.

[colour=Coral]”What do you know?”[/colour] Izo lightly chuckled to himself, as he pulled the handcuffs from his wrist, and tossed it to the floor, [colour=Coral]”No need to flay myself. Mind telling Taya ‘I told you so’ while you’re out and about?”[/colour]

A sudden, overwhelming urge for violence welled up within Shirou’s chest. The pull to grab Izo by the collar, push him to the wall, and beat him within an inch of his life. He had no confirmation that anybody was really dead, but in his heart, Shirou could feel it - that something was truly wrong. And for Izo to act so casually, jovially almost, in the face of it, the frustration that he had taken care not to allow out for multiple days threatened to take over. Instead, Shirou pulled his own cuffs off, and dropped them to the ground. He made his way to the door, grabbing the baseball bat as he walked, and glanced back towards Izo.

[colour=Red]”Nobody cares if you were correct. If you’re not going to work with the group, you’ll always be wrong. No matter what.”[/colour]

Without leaving an option for response, Shirou took off in a sprint, baseball bat clutched in his right hand. He had spent an hour recently exercising already - the hot water of a shower had helped in part, but the pain of his still healing gunshot wound was pronounced. The searing pain couldn’t, though, match Shirou’s unbridled resolve. Already he had proved his speed - barely ten seconds had passed by before he had arrived at the congregation, outside the cabin of Fukuda Naomi, the Ultimate Linguist. A brief moment passed as he approached, as Shirou ran through his memory. She was sharing a room with Snow. Likely one of them was dead.

Shirou counted the people already present from outside, as he quickly walked up to the entrance: Chikako, Ayu, Hiroki, Taka. As Taka stumbled back from the doorway, Shirou slipped past him, and everyone else, to cross the threshold of the cabin. Snow, Ryuma. And his eyes trailed the cable, now detached from Snow’s wrist, up to the bed, where he laid eyes upon Naomi. A second of processing passed, while Shirou laid the bat against the frame of the door.

[colour=Red]”Ryuma, help Snow to her feet and take her outside,”[/colour] he instructed calmly, and walked past the two, up to the bed, scanning the room, and taking in the details of the body. Naomi was obviously dead: throat slit, eyes unfocused, skin cold to the touch. He sighed, [colour=Red]”If some of you can go and round up the others, that would be appreciated. We can begin the investigation once everyone is in one place. And if any of you see Lilly, tell her that I would like to talk to her.”[/colour]