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[color=00e4df]"Well that feels a little better."[/color] Shona’s wound had been properly splinted and bandaged. There didn’t seem to be any pain when she walked. [color=00e4df]"Isaiah is pretty good with bandages, I’m glad he’s with us."[/color] She needed to use her scabbard as a cane however.

Daimyon held a hand to his hurting shoulder, which had also been properly bandaged. It was still extremely sensitive to touch, so he quickly let go of it. [color=seagreen]“I just wish he didn’t...dislike me so much…”[/color] As grateful as he was for the blood donor’s help, he could not help but feel like he had only helped him because him bleeding out at the finish line would have really tanked the team morale.

As the rest of the Infinites fanned out to investigate other places of importance, Daimyon and Shona stepped closer to the Amnesia machine. It really looked like an awful thing to be strapped into. [color=00e4df]"I wonder if anyone would willingly subject themselves to something like this?"[/color]

[color=seagreen]“Willingly?”[/color] the poet winced. [color=seagreen]“How privileged that would be...”[/color] Looking at the large and terrible machine felt like gazing into the proverbial abyss: the more he looked, the more he could imagine himself being strapped into it, restrained, as evil forces ripped out what made him, him. In the same vein, he could not imagine how anyone could [i]willingly[/i] part with something as precious as their memories.

He looked away before his thoughts got too dark. In his search for something, [i]anything[/i] else to focus on, his eyes stumbled on a patch of brown amidst the white counters that surrounded the machine. It was a manila folder: filled with papers, he realised as he cautiously slid them out. Years of skimming his notebook every morning had made him an exceptional speed reader; he was blazing through the pages. It helped that what he was reading was terribly interesting, too: the papers seemed to detail another killing game, taking place in a Japanese high school for the gifted, masterminded by a woman who had been more than what everyone thought. The account was quite thorough: there were pictures of the school, first-hand accounts from the participants, even secret-looking logs from a certain Future Foundation.
Taking it all in, Daimyon had to slow down. Especially because he [i]knew[/i] about the killing game. He quickly took out his notebook to confirm: and indeed, he had written about the Killing School Life when it took place, as he had been worried for his family’s safety in Japan. That was as far as his knowledge went, however: he knew nothing about this Junko Enoshima, who masterminded everything. His heart was beating faster just thinking about it. He grabbed the folder with everything in it and brought it to Shona. [color=seagreen]“Look! This is from that place—Hope’s Peak, where the students were forced into a killing game! Do you remember it?”[/color]

Shona took the papers and looked them over. [color=00e4df]"I am aware of it. Though we were without television for a while in Ireland. We just got snippets after the fact."[/color] She shrugged her shoulders. [color=00e4df]"I must confess some level of apathy. While the death of such bright students is indeed a tragedy, the death toll was far less significant than what we suffered in Ireland. More people perished trying to rescue them than to the game itself. I did not pay it as much mind as I should have."[/color] She was looking through the report backwards, starting at the end and moving back. [color=00e4df]"Though according to this, she was the one who orchestrated everything."[/color]

[color=seagreen]“It’s difficult to believe…”[/color] mused Daimyon, looking at an image of Junko. There was something sinister behind her unassuming smile, but it could have also been his imagination imbuing her with it. It probably was.

Shona stopped her page turning when she got to a picture of the device that was before them. [color=00e4df]"It seems as though all of the students at one point or another were a victim of this device. Symptoms are getting dizzy and blacking out. All of the survivors remembered experiencing something like that on their first day of school, before they even entered the building.Though it seems that’s just an artifact it creates in your memories when the device is used."[/color] She handed the papers back to Daimyon. [color=00e4df]"I would have to conclude this device was not used on me. I did not experience any vertigo like the report states. During a jousting reenactment I fell off my horse as intended, but there was a wooden post that I collided with. I blacked out instantly, with no sense of vertigo. When I woke up later, the reenactment staff were taking me to Axis Mundi. I did not experience any sort of dizziness or a black out after that."[/color]

The poet looked at the picture, then (begrudgingly) at the machine, then to and back again, thinking. He eventually turned back to Shona. [color=seagreen]“But you [i]do[/i] have amnesia—I hope you trust me on that, at least. And it is, might I say, [i]quite precise[/i] of an amnesia: you remember being brought to the hospital, and you remember everything since you...well, came back from the dead. But everything between these two points is just gone, is that right?”[/color] Still holding onto the folder, he found himself stepping closer to the machine, the fascination with the mystery gradually overcoming the fear of the unknown. [color=seagreen]“Hitting your head will not do that. I’m no chemist, but I doubt drugs will, either. If this...thing really works, then what else could cause it?”[/color]

Shona nodded and closed her eyes. [color=00e4df]"Perhaps there is a trick then. But I hope not, as that would mean any one of us could have been a victim to this contraption."[/color] She opened her eyes and gazed at the paperwork. [color=00e4df]"I feel this is worth sharing with the others. Was there anything else you wanted to inspect?"[/color]

[color=seagreen]“No, I…”[/color] Daimyon scoured the room to confirm, [color=seagreen]“don’t think we can find anything else here. This place is [i]too[/i] spotless—except for the folder, of course, but that had to be planted. Not a doubt in my mind that everything had been set up to be found this way.”[/color] Trudging to a nearby elevated chair, he sat down, overcome by a sudden weariness. He reached for his notebook but decided against writing anything. [color=seagreen]“This entire time, we have been acting exactly like those up there wanted us to. Even now, we are marching—no, [i]being[/i] marched towards some endgame that we have no agency over. Maybe they’ll let us out, maybe we’ll all die. Awfully depressing to think about.”[/color] Clutching the folder tighter, he got back on his feet with a sigh. [color=seagreen]“Anyway, I of all people should be the least worried about it: I’ve lived my entire life without agency. Let’s get out of here.”[/color]

[color=00e4df]"You’ve managed to get to the end of that which our host has planned for us."[/color] Shona looked through her handbook. [color=00e4df]"Many others did not. Remember Daimyon that a predator never attacks the strongest members of the herd. They always go for the weakest first. You may have the power to surprise the mastermind and not even know it."[/color] She looked at Daimyon’s notebook. [color=00e4df]"Are you going to take any notes? It might be best to do that before we leave."[/color]

The poet certainly did not expect to be called the ‘strongest’. Shona's kind words lifted his spirits a little, just enough for him to grab his pen in earnest. [color=seagreen]“You're right. I should.”[/color] He leafed to the first empty page in his notebook—noting that it was close to getting filled entirely—and began writing down his observations. Writing as quickly as he could read, he threw in rhymes, abbreviations, even simple drawings, everything to make it memorable. [color=seagreen]“I wasn't going to make notes. I don't want to do it, even now. Writing is remembering, and I don't want to remember any of this, but you [i]are[/i] right—this is greater than just me. I have to be selfless about it.”[/color]