Notes: I was feeling pretty glum, so I decided to write something completely ridiculous to cheer myself up.

This is the result.

This is School Mode fic, and I kind of sort of took some inspiration from the Naegami doujinshi "Togami-kun wouldn't say that" by Yumemiya. But this isn't Naegami. It's not even shippy or anything in general (unless you wanna see it that way, I won't judge your life choices).

This is a two-part story, and the second part will be up within the next day or two~

The Swear Jar
Part One

Kiyotaka Ishimaru was quite pleased.

He wasn't pleased, of course, about being trapped in a school and being forced to create bizarre robotic bears with fourteen other students. No, that was quite disagreeable. There weren't even any classes being held! How would he ever keep his grades up?!

But while the overall circumstances were distressing, Ishimaru couldn't help but be in a good mood after that morning's hunt for materials. He had managed to discover quite the treasure, after all.

So it was with a spring in his step that Ishimaru returned from the physics lab to the gymnasium, where he saw that most of his classmates had already returned from their morning assignments and were relaxing on the stage.

"Ah, Ishimaru-kun, you're back!" Naegi looked up from his notebook briefly—Monokuma had arbitrarily assigned the luckster as the project coordinator—before jotting down a few notes. "Okay, then we're just waiting for Fukawa-san, Hagakure-kun, and..."

Ishimaru left Naegi to his mutterings and climbed up onto the stage, where all the gathered materials had been dumped into an upsettingly haphazard heap. He sighed; even after a week, most of his classmates still hadn't learned to keep everything in a more organized manner. The only exception seemed to be Kirigiri, who knelt by the pile and was beginning to separate the materials by type.

"Is that an integrated circuit?" she asked, taking note of the items Ishimaru held. "I've begun gathering them over there. You can put those wrenches with the screwdrivers in this pile here." She looked up to consider the materials in Ishimaru's arms again. "And that's..." Kirigiri trailed off. "Is that meant to be for construction?"

Kirigiri's question caught Naegi's attention and he craned his neck to see what she was referring to. "Ishimaru-kun? What's that for?" He quickly skimmed his notes, brows furrowed in thought. "I mean, it might be helpful somehow, but that's not on any of the material lists..."

Ishimaru chuckled, proudly brandishing his newfound treasure. "No, this is indeed not a construction material!" He proudly held it up before placing it atop the podium with a thunk. "Behold!"

All students present were paying attention now, and silence fell upon them for a moment as they stared at Ishimaru's new find.

It was a glass jar.

"What the fuck?"

"Aha!" Ishimaru turned on his heel and pointed an accusatory finger at Owada. "And that is exactly the problem I wish to address! Owada-kun, please christen our new Swear Jar with a coin, if you will!"

Owada rose to his feet and strode over to Ishimaru, staring down the hall monitor. "Why the hell should I?"

"Two coins, please!"

Owada looked like he was about to explode or yell Ishimaru's ear off or both. Noticing this, Naegi hurriedly scrambled between the two other boys to attempt to diffuse the situation. "Hey, uh, let's just calm down here!" He smiled weakly at them both in turn, finally deciding to speak with Ishimaru first. "Ishimaru-kun, what is this all about?"

Ishimaru crossed his arms and stood ramrod straight, defiantly keeping Owada's gaze. "Unconventional though our situation may be, I am determined to salvage what I can of a wholesome school life! The first step will be endeavoring for an environment free of profane language, since some people here have quite the potty mouth!"

Owada growled, his eyes narrowing dangerously. "What did you just say, you piece of shit..."

"That will be three coins that you owe the jar!"

Naegi struggled to hold back Owada as he tried to advance on the hall monitor.

"So, what?" Enoshima picked the jar off of the podium, inspecting it as she turned it over in her manicured hands. "This is that thing where you put money in each time you swear, right? What are we supposed to put in here, those dumb bear coins?"

"That was the idea!" Ishimaru declared.

"What's the big deal, then?" She walked over and shoved the jar into Owada's chest. "If you don't wanna put anything in there, just don't swear. If you wanna swear, just put one of those worthless coins in there and stop being a little bitch about it." She paused, glanced at Ishimaru, then sighed and pulled a coin from her cleavage. "See? It's literally not a big deal." She shrugged as she dropped the coin in the jar.

"Enoshima-kun!" Ishimaru yelled, scandalized. "I appreciate your willingness to participate, but that is not an appropriate place to keep your money!"

Enoshima just stuck her tongue out cheekily. "We're basically all done here, right? I'm out, then! See ya!" She hopped off the stage and exited the gym, deftly stepping around Hagakure as he entered with arms full of materials from the garden.

Hagakure stumbled slightly before righting himself and looking at the others gathered on the stage. "Uh... hey, guys. What's going on?"

Growling in frustration, Owada dug into his pockets and roughly tossed three coins into the jar, then shoved it back into Ishimaru's hands. "Fuck this shit. I'm outta here." He proceeded to then storm from the gymnasium, shoving Hagakure to the side on his way out.

"Owada-kun!" Ishimaru was hot on the biker's heels. "That's another two coins you owe to the jar!"

The spacious room fell into awkward silence with the two quarreling students out of the picture.

Hagakure was the first to speak up. "Like, I still have no idea what's going on here."

Over the next several days, Ishimaru proceeded to collect an impressive amount of coins. Some were from Kuwata, and occasionally Enoshima would have to throw one in, but the vast majority of the coins were courtesy of Owada.

By the third day, Owada was desperately seeking any avenue to avoid the Ultimate Moral Compass.

"Come on, Naegi, please!" he hissed, bearing down on the smaller boy in the most intimidating way possible while technically begging for mercy. "You've gotta assign me to be far, far away from him! I can't take this shit anymore!"

Ishimaru, hovering behind Naegi, lifted the Swear Jar over the luckster's head to shake it under Owada's nose. "One coin," he instructed.

"Uh..." Naegi shrunk behind his notebook meekly and made a show of shuffling through its pages. "But, well, the two of you have gotten good at scavenging, and we desperately need oil paints, so I kind of wanted both of you in the art room today..."

"One coin, Owada-kun," Ishimaru repeated.

"You could choose any of us to search the fucking art room," Owada seethed. "There are fifteen of us! It doesn't have to be me and him!"

"That's two coins now, Owada-kun!"

"Um..." Maizono, who had been assigned cleaning duty, halted her mopping of the gym floor to raise her hand tentatively. "Couldn't you maybe... just not curse?" She paused before adding, "Also, you guys are kind of in the way, so..."

Naegi smiled nervously at the biker. "Well, I mean, everyone else has gone off to do their assignment already, so someone has to search the art room... You could try what Maizono-san said and stop cursing."

"I can't just stop cursing!" Owada yelled. "It's in my fucking blood! Give me a break, Naegi!"

"Three coins, Owada-kun!"

"A break... right..." Naegi looked down at his notebook and jotted down a few adjustments. "Then Owada-kun, you can spend today resting instead."

Owada blinked down at Naegi for a moment. "That's not exactly what I meant by a break," he muttered.

Ishimaru shook the Swear Jar one more time, the coins inside jingling expectantly. "Owada-kun, you owe three coins."

A week into the exercise, Ishimaru had already gathered enough Monocoins to fill two-thirds of the jar.

He wasn't sure how to feel about that. While it was strangely satisfying to see how his collection had grown, that was not the point of the Swear Jar. In fact, it was the complete opposite of the result he had hoped for! Ideally, his classmates would have curbed their profane language entirely, putting an end to the coin collection.

Perhaps that was an unfortunate side effect of accepting coins that could easily be picked up around the school as currency...

But the more immediate issue, he mused, was that the jar was quickly filling up and would soon overflow. Even at two-thirds full, it was becoming awfully heavy, and Ishimaru was ashamed to admit that he wasn't looking forward to spending his free time that day carrying it around the school to monitor his classmates as usual.

So what was he going to do with all those coins?

"So what are you going to do with all those coins?"

Ishimaru stumbled backward in surprise, so engrossed in his thoughts that he hadn't noticed the animatronic bear popping into his room. "Monokuma, sir!" he gasped, then quickly righted himself, facing the cackling bear with the poise and attention deserved of a school's headmaster(?). "Actually, I was just wondering that myself! I hadn't considered what I would actually do with the money I collected."

"Hmm, yes..." Monokuma considered the jar thoughtfully, pacing before the desk it had been placed upon. "You certainly do have a lot of them. I don't even know how you bastards got your hands on so many! You're not supposed to be able to search for coins in this mode!"

"Excuse me?"

"So!" Monokuma blatantly ignored the question and faced Ishimaru directly, his red eye gleaming. "Ishimaru-kun, do you know of the Monomono Machine in the school store?"

Ishimaru thought back; he had taken a look at the school store only once. When he had quickly realized that it didn't offer anything actually conducive to an educational school life—not even notebooks or pencils!—he had left and hadn't thought of it since. "No, I can't say I'm familiar with it," he said carefully. "What is it?"

Monokuma laughed that signature laugh of his. "It's a capsule machine, of course! Everyone knows that any store worth its salt has at least one capsule machine for the frothing masses to throw their money at, hoping for that one super-duper-secret-rare treasure to pawn off on eBay for grossly inflated prices!"

Ishimaru had only understood about one-tenth of that explanation. "What?"

"You should go give it a try," Monokuma urged, yet again disregarding Ishimaru's confusion. "I mean, it's the only thing you can use those coins for, anyway. I've stuffed that machine full of goodies to appeal to all sorts. There's something in there for everyone!"

Ishimaru was hit with a sudden spark of inspiration. "That's it! That's how I can encourage others to stop using such profane language! Thank you, Monokuma, sir!" Ishimaru picked up the jar of coins and, with a polite bow, left his room, ignoring the mechanical bear's laughter echoing behind him.

His new plan was a simple application of positive reinforcement: he would use the Swear Jar's proceeds to stock up on a variety of different items, which he would use to reward his classmates for proper behavior. If Monokuma's statement was true that there was something in the machine for everyone, then surely there would be a prize in there valuable enough to convince even Mondo Owada to change his ways!

Ishimaru quickly arrived at the school store and was immediately able to locate the Monomono Machine—the garish black-and-white box contrasted starkly against the musty colors of the rest of the room. Eager to ease the strain on his arms, he wasted no time in feeding the many, many coins into the machine.

True to Monokuma's word, all manner of items came tumbling out of the machine with each turn of the dial, ranging from the typical corner-store fare to the completely bizarre. The machine seemed to have everything from toys to hair clips to books to military rations (which puzzled Ishimaru, as he was fairly sure they didn't have an Ultimate Soldier among their ranks). At one point what seemed to be a pair of disembodied hands fell out of the machine, which he inspected cautiously before flinging them across the room in horror when he realized it was, in fact, a novelty brassiere.

He did not want to find out whom Monokuma had intended that gift for.

Before long, most of what was coming out of the machine were duplicates of items that Ishimaru already had, but he figured that his classmates might appreciate receiving multiples of their favorite prizes, so he didn't worry too much. It was becoming quite repetitive, however, and the pile of presents was growing so large that Ishimaru had to wonder how they had all fit inside the machine in the first place, or how he would even carry them all back to his room...

And then his thoughts came to a halt when a completely new item fell out of the machine.

He picked up the metallic gray box curiously, and upon turning it in his hands, he noticed a large red button encased in a hinged glass cover. It seemed to be a switch of some sort, and upon further investigation of the box Ishimaru noticed the words "Escape Button" written on the casing in black marker.

Well, that certainly sounded promising!

Excitement growing inside his chest, Ishimaru took another look at the red button, and saw that there was that same black writing along its edge, reading, "Press for activation!"

Not being one to defy such direct instructions, Ishimaru promptly flipped up the glass hatch and pressed the button.

The next thing Ishimaru knew was a searing pain spreading through his body, and then complete darkness.

End Notes: I didn't mention this at the start, but this fic also borrows elements from Danganronpa IF. Obviously. Ehehehe.