[ okay well i'mma be real i can't keep writing all these super custom questions bc they are very time and labor intensive so
you know
the rest of the exam is full of difficult questions across various subjects, think SAT level questions. But peppered in every now and again is one of those targeted questions, ones designed to pick at your worst fears and insecurities. And with every single one, you know:
There is only one right answer. And it's there on the page somewhere. An answer that will tell you what to do, what you should do, or should have done. Only one right answer that will guide you onwards into the future. Any other one, stepping off the path of correct answers, will instantly derail your entire life.
Are you sure about your answers? What about that one? Maybe you should doublecheck this other one too...
Mr. Lancer calls out that the test is halfway over.
[She can do it. Math, science, the rules of language -- she knows them inside and out. She can use logic to surmise the best answer to any question.
... But why are so many of these questions so damned subjective!? Why does it feel hard to breathe when she tries to reason through every option? How much time has she lost, getting stuck on one after the other?
She won't... she can't cheat. This has to be possible for her.]
[ Unfortunately he is, by all means, a law-abiding doofus who follows his instincts and heart. So while I WANT TO (GRITS TEETH) he doesn't cheat. He just simply suffers an endless tidal wave of moral dilemma.
[ Moral dilemmas don't give Hanako much trouble because he doesn't have very strict morals to begin with: he knows what he wants, and will do what he can to get there. That includes using other people (aka he will also stare at the back of Mr. Date's head and try to peek at the answers for the maths and languages) and playing to his own strengths (he can do science and health on his own, at least, he thinks).
Looks over at Rita and Ryuki struggling... ganba, friends... ]
[ Speak for yourself, Hanako. With that 1, he's not even a quarter of the way through the exam, forget about the accuracy of anything he has done.
Rita, with her 9, isn't doing so hot either. She's only about halfway through the exam now, not counting that first subjective question she skipped over to come back to later. That time may now be upon her--but so is the entire back half of the exam.
Ryuki, with a 17, is...actually doing pretty okay so far? He's got most of the exam completed, and aside from the more...personally challenging questions, seems to doing okay.
Mr. Lancer calls out: 10 minutes left. Make your final choices about what to do on the test--fill it out randomly and hope for the best? Leave your fate up to chance? Or...
Rita can't cheat. Why did she even bring the cheat sheet? Rita's pride would never allow her to succeed through cheating. She has to do it with her own knowledge... even while there's so much on the line.
She hurries through the next several questions, selecting whatever her intuition tells her is the best answer. It won't steer her wrong on the questions that fall into her wheelhouse... but those subjective ones? Ugh, who knows? She doubles back to that one she didn't answer earlier.
... C. She's second-guessing her earlier response. If a friend murdered another, she'd want to know why, first and foremost. That has to be the right answer.
Now she just has to finish the rest of the questions. If she really is about to run out of time... she'll just pick something.]
[ Somehow he's going through most of this exam fairly alright, and that's giving him a bit of a confidence boost. He knew he was well-studied, he just needed to believe in himself...!
That being said, he does go back and end up marking A after some deep thought on the question he skipped. Scoldings ring in his mind, and in this very moment where his career hangs on the balance, him being able to get this job at all hangs more important than his stupid personal feelings. Besides, what kind of person dismembers a human and then feeds it to their dog? That's just crazy, come on. He feels for the fictional man and he likely either had a really bad trip or had pre-existing issues that were woefully ignored by society, but that doesn't just excuse something that horrific.
Puts his pencil down as he re-examines his previous answers for anything he may have missed, any questions he wants to revisit, etc etc... he's feeling alright. ]
[ Hanako's 25% being the ones he actually answers... It's fine, though. He'll just mark down A for the remainder of the answer sheet so he has something in there, and then goes through and does all the morally subjective ones, because those are kind of fun and at least he can answer them confidently and unhesitantly.
If he has time left over, he'll sit up a little higher in his seat and try to peer at Ryuki's test as he goes over it at the end, angle it this way a little more please, don't make him lean back in his seat and try to stretch his legs out so he can nudge Ryuki's backpack and maybe see if he can get the answer sheet to poke out a little. ]
[ You have five minutes left. Are you sure this is what you're okay with? Are you okay with what you've done here and having it hang over you for the rest of your life?
Hanako's attempt to peek at Ryuki's test doesn't go too hot. Last chance. Does he want to try for the answer sheet in the backpack?
do. you. cheat? ]
[ also something drips onto tsukasa's and nene's exams, but everyone is too busy scrambling to the finish line to pay much attention to it. don't worry about it! ]
Why are there so many other people here!? It's distracting. Why is there so little time left? Why did she overthink a few stupid questions? She knows better than that!
[ Forbid I rolled an 18 so I guess Ryuki is just vibing! Life sucks in the murdergames but at least he's good at taking exams.
The 10 can be for him noticing Hanako trying to cheat, which he thinks is a bad idea, and you shouldn't have shoved your answer key into his backpack maybe!! But he doesn't want Hanako to fail either so he surreptitiously moves his exam a little to the left and continues to flip through the pages. For however much that'll help Hanako given their personalised questions, but maybe he can get lucky and score some general ones. ]
[ Rita's anxious vibes are worse than Ryuki's smug ones, somehow.
The thought of cheating disappears from Hanako's mind the moment the little drip drip catches the corner of his eye. Water? Is the roof about to collapse due to some freak fortuitous plumbing incident? NOW would be his chance to grab the answer sheet, but instead he tenses, prepared to grab Nene away from any potential downpour of sewage. Tsukasa can get drenched, he'll be fine. ]
[ The exam is in its last two minutes. And the drip becomes more obvious: it's not sewage, but rather something bright reddish-orange. The exact same color as the Nasty Sauce from your lunch earlier. The beads of sauce on the ceiling build larger and larger, until...
drip
A big fat glob of it falls directly on Nene's head. And her head begins sizzling. The sauce eats away at her flesh, burning and melting it off. She screams bloody murder in the silent exam room. Everyone startles--half the class beginning to panic and rush to her, while the other half notices that this isn't just one singular leak. Rather, hot sauce seems to be seeping into the room from every angle and every corner. It begins to drip on other students now, too--Sam and Tucker are screaming as their flesh melts off. Estelle, in her panic, slipped and fell into a puddle of sauce where she now lays, slowly turning into a nasty sludge as if becoming one with the sauce. Date and Tama are both drenched in thick globules that make quick work of reducing them to nothing but screams and bones.
And most interestingly, the sauce begins to puddle up from Hanako's exam, particularly the filled in answers for the questions that he tried to sneak the answers off of Ryuki for. Ryuki himself will notice his own little puddle, pouring out of the backpack and the answer key that he nudged towards Hanako.
The two boys (ryuki is a grown man) boys will get the sense that this is all their fault. ]
[ Everything else is forgotten as Rita shoots out of her chair and runs over to reach for her hand. There's the irrational impulse to pull her free, that if she can get her away from this, she'll be okay somehow. Even as there's less and less of Estelle to even try to grasp for. ]
[ He was doing so well on the test what the heck!!! Throws pencil down.
Well you know what. Ryuki is just not going to acknowledge this as Nasty Sauce, this is clearly some kind of noxious superacid and their high school is under a terrorist attack for some reason??? ]
No, no, no, no -- everyone, get out of the hall!
[ OUT, ANYONE WHO'S STILL IN ONE PIECE AND ABLE TO MOVE. RIGHT NOW. Meanwhile he will not listen to his own advice as he scales over the tables to run towards Tama and Date. Granted all he meets is sludge apparently, this is horrendously effective acid. ]
[ He's not quick enough. Even though he was so close, he could see the drop of sauce reflected in Nene's eyes before it touched her, time frozen in that single moment before it all burst forth like a flood.
Everything else and everybody else is forgotten as Hanako launches himself towards Nene, even shoving other students aside to plunge into their dooms to get at her, throw himself over her, protect what little left there is of her that screams in pain and horror at his slightest touch. ]
[ Students make a mad dash for the door, but no one is able to make it before the sauce leaves them writhing in agony on the floor. It's too late for Estelle and Nene; they bubble away into nothing but a horrific meat sludge. Tama and Date are done for too, even if they still have enough of them left to panic with.
Mr. Lancer is also dying in the sauce leak but who cares about him (I DO)
And then the sauce ignites. The room, and everyone still left alive in it, goes up in a fiery blaze of condiment catastrophe. Tsukasa and Yuri go next, screaming in pain. Then Adlet, and Hung, and Reigen, trying to put out the flames that have already decided to eat them alive.
And then...Rita herself. Still holding Estelle's hand, kneeling in the puddle of combined sauce and Estelle-sludge, she catches fire too.
Ryuki can tell himself it's some horrifying acid attack and ask why, but he and Hanako will both know deep down to their cores: they did this. ]
[ The horror around her is too sudden and too unreal for Rita to find any words to yell. She ran here purely on instinct, and even as it's clear there's no Estelle left to save, she's still holding on to this hand.
She hears familiar voices screaming, sees familiar faces twist in pain and become obscured in flames, and it's all too fast to do anything. To even react.
That is, until that hand ignites and the fire starts spreading up her arm, and even if her mind can't fully process what's happening, the pain is what gets her to scream and scramble back, away from the sludge. She tries to throw herself against the floor to smother the flames. It's a desperate, panicked effort to survive. ]
[ Unfortunately Ryuki would also be concerned about Mr. Lancer but it's like, he can't do anything about it anyways?
I guess he would panicked-ly try to reach out for Tama and Date like that would even do anything. Are they immune to Nasty SauceTM.
Why? He didn't do anything. He's only adrenaline and nerves as he desperately tries to look for one of those fire alarm thingies that you pull for emergency sprinklers as he shrugs off his outer jacket, throwing it towards Rita. ]
H-Hanako, please help her try to snuff out the fire --
[ Or hopefully Rita is able to do that herself if Hanako is too busy watching Nene get cheesed. This is nachour day. ]
[ Ryuki would need to grab Hanako's shoulders and scream into his ear and maybe still Hanako wouldn't be able to hear him over the white noise in his head and his chest as the remains of Nene Yashiro slip through his arms and splatter across his shoes.
He did this. This is his fault.
But as Hanako stares at what's left of his friends and classmates, there's that voice in his head that goes "so what?" Nene is gone, so what else matters? Tsukasa is gone, and he feels hollow and gutted just as much as he's relieved.
[ Rita can try and stumble back from the sludge, but it's too late, the fire is sustaining itself off of her already. Ryuki's outer jacket just melts onto her from the intense heat, melding with flesh.
And there is no emergency fire alarm to pull.
The flames and the sauce lick at Hanako and Ryuki, but nothing seems to catch. They're just trapped in this box watching everyone die slowly and painfully and knowing, keenly, that this is all because they had the audacity to try and cheat--or aid another in cheating.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
you know
the rest of the exam is full of difficult questions across various subjects, think SAT level questions. But peppered in every now and again is one of those targeted questions, ones designed to pick at your worst fears and insecurities. And with every single one, you know:
There is only one right answer. And it's there on the page somewhere. An answer that will tell you what to do, what you should do, or should have done. Only one right answer that will guide you onwards into the future. Any other one, stepping off the path of correct answers, will instantly derail your entire life.
Are you sure about your answers? What about that one? Maybe you should doublecheck this other one too...
Mr. Lancer calls out that the test is halfway over.
do you cheat? ]
no subject
... But why are so many of these questions so damned subjective!? Why does it feel hard to breathe when she tries to reason through every option? How much time has she lost, getting stuck on one after the other?
She won't... she can't cheat. This has to be possible for her.]
no subject
Give him strength, back of Mr. Date's head. ]
no subject
Looks over at Rita and Ryuki struggling... ganba, friends... ]
no subject
Rita, with her 9, isn't doing so hot either. She's only about halfway through the exam now, not counting that first subjective question she skipped over to come back to later. That time may now be upon her--but so is the entire back half of the exam.
Ryuki, with a 17, is...actually doing pretty okay so far? He's got most of the exam completed, and aside from the more...personally challenging questions, seems to doing okay.
Mr. Lancer calls out: 10 minutes left. Make your final choices about what to do on the test--fill it out randomly and hope for the best? Leave your fate up to chance? Or...
do you cheat? ]
no subject
Rita can't cheat. Why did she even bring the cheat sheet? Rita's pride would never allow her to succeed through cheating. She has to do it with her own knowledge... even while there's so much on the line.
She hurries through the next several questions, selecting whatever her intuition tells her is the best answer. It won't steer her wrong on the questions that fall into her wheelhouse... but those subjective ones? Ugh, who knows? She doubles back to that one she didn't answer earlier.
... C. She's second-guessing her earlier response. If a friend murdered another, she'd want to know why, first and foremost. That has to be the right answer.
Now she just has to finish the rest of the questions. If she really is about to run out of time... she'll just pick something.]
no subject
That being said, he does go back and end up marking A after some deep thought on the question he skipped. Scoldings ring in his mind, and in this very moment where his career hangs on the balance, him being able to get this job at all hangs more important than his stupid personal feelings. Besides, what kind of person dismembers a human and then feeds it to their dog? That's just crazy, come on. He feels for the fictional man and he likely either had a really bad trip or had pre-existing issues that were woefully ignored by society, but that doesn't just excuse something that horrific.
Puts his pencil down as he re-examines his previous answers for anything he may have missed, any questions he wants to revisit, etc etc... he's feeling alright. ]
no subject
If he has time left over, he'll sit up a little higher in his seat and try to peer at Ryuki's test as he goes over it at the end, angle it this way a little more please, don't make him lean back in his seat and try to stretch his legs out so he can nudge Ryuki's backpack and maybe see if he can get the answer sheet to poke out a little. ]
no subject
Hanako's attempt to peek at Ryuki's test doesn't go too hot. Last chance. Does he want to try for the answer sheet in the backpack?
do. you. cheat? ]
[ also something drips onto tsukasa's and nene's exams, but everyone is too busy scrambling to the finish line to pay much attention to it. don't worry about it! ]
no subject
Why are there so many other people here!? It's distracting. Why is there so little time left? Why did she overthink a few stupid questions? She knows better than that!
She'll push through to the end. She won't cheat.]
no subject
The 10 can be for him noticing Hanako trying to cheat, which he thinks is a bad idea, and you shouldn't have shoved your answer key into his backpack maybe!! But he doesn't want Hanako to fail either so he surreptitiously moves his exam a little to the left and continues to flip through the pages. For however much that'll help Hanako given their personalised questions, but maybe he can get lucky and score some general ones. ]
no subject
The thought of cheating disappears from Hanako's mind the moment the little drip drip catches the corner of his eye. Water? Is the roof about to collapse due to some freak fortuitous plumbing incident? NOW would be his chance to grab the answer sheet, but instead he tenses, prepared to grab Nene away from any potential downpour of sewage. Tsukasa can get drenched, he'll be fine. ]
no subject
drip
A big fat glob of it falls directly on Nene's head. And her head begins sizzling. The sauce eats away at her flesh, burning and melting it off. She screams bloody murder in the silent exam room. Everyone startles--half the class beginning to panic and rush to her, while the other half notices that this isn't just one singular leak. Rather, hot sauce seems to be seeping into the room from every angle and every corner. It begins to drip on other students now, too--Sam and Tucker are screaming as their flesh melts off. Estelle, in her panic, slipped and fell into a puddle of sauce where she now lays, slowly turning into a nasty sludge as if becoming one with the sauce. Date and Tama are both drenched in thick globules that make quick work of reducing them to nothing but screams and bones.
And most interestingly, the sauce begins to puddle up from Hanako's exam, particularly the filled in answers for the questions that he tried to sneak the answers off of Ryuki for. Ryuki himself will notice his own little puddle, pouring out of the backpack and the answer key that he nudged towards Hanako.
The two boys (ryuki is a grown man) boys will get the sense that this is all their fault. ]
no subject
-- Estelle!?
[ Everything else is forgotten as Rita shoots out of her chair and runs over to reach for her hand. There's the irrational impulse to pull her free, that if she can get her away from this, she'll be okay somehow. Even as there's less and less of Estelle to even try to grasp for. ]
no subject
Well you know what. Ryuki is just not going to acknowledge this as Nasty Sauce, this is clearly some kind of noxious superacid and their high school is under a terrorist attack for some reason??? ]
No, no, no, no -- everyone, get out of the hall!
[ OUT, ANYONE WHO'S STILL IN ONE PIECE AND ABLE TO MOVE. RIGHT NOW. Meanwhile he will not listen to his own advice as he scales over the tables to run towards Tama and Date. Granted all he meets is sludge apparently, this is horrendously effective acid. ]
What the hell! Why?!
no subject
[ He's not quick enough. Even though he was so close, he could see the drop of sauce reflected in Nene's eyes before it touched her, time frozen in that single moment before it all burst forth like a flood.
Everything else and everybody else is forgotten as Hanako launches himself towards Nene, even shoving other students aside to plunge into their dooms to get at her, throw himself over her, protect what little left there is of her that screams in pain and horror at his slightest touch. ]
Yashiro! YASHIRO!!
no subject
Mr. Lancer is also dying in the sauce leak but who cares about him (I DO)
And then the sauce ignites. The room, and everyone still left alive in it, goes up in a fiery blaze of condiment catastrophe. Tsukasa and Yuri go next, screaming in pain. Then Adlet, and Hung, and Reigen, trying to put out the flames that have already decided to eat them alive.
And then...Rita herself. Still holding Estelle's hand, kneeling in the puddle of combined sauce and Estelle-sludge, she catches fire too.
Ryuki can tell himself it's some horrifying acid attack and ask why, but he and Hanako will both know deep down to their cores: they did this. ]
no subject
She hears familiar voices screaming, sees familiar faces twist in pain and become obscured in flames, and it's all too fast to do anything. To even react.
That is, until that hand ignites and the fire starts spreading up her arm, and even if her mind can't fully process what's happening, the pain is what gets her to scream and scramble back, away from the sludge. She tries to throw herself against the floor to smother the flames. It's a desperate, panicked effort to survive. ]
no subject
I guess he would panicked-ly try to reach out for Tama and Date like that would even do anything. Are they immune to Nasty SauceTM.
Why? He didn't do anything. He's only adrenaline and nerves as he desperately tries to look for one of those fire alarm thingies that you pull for emergency sprinklers as he shrugs off his outer jacket, throwing it towards Rita. ]
H-Hanako, please help her try to snuff out the fire --
[ Or hopefully Rita is able to do that herself if Hanako is too busy watching Nene get cheesed. This is nachour day. ]
no subject
He did this. This is his fault.
But as Hanako stares at what's left of his friends and classmates, there's that voice in his head that goes "so what?" Nene is gone, so what else matters? Tsukasa is gone, and he feels hollow and gutted just as much as he's relieved.
And Rita? He doesn't even really like Rita. ]
no subject
And there is no emergency fire alarm to pull.
The flames and the sauce lick at Hanako and Ryuki, but nothing seems to catch. They're just trapped in this box watching everyone die slowly and painfully and knowing, keenly, that this is all because they had the audacity to try and cheat--or aid another in cheating.
rita mordio is dead. ]