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takonei · 3 years

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Beta AU - Main story, Chapter 6, Trial (Part 8)

Note of the author: The long awaited part 8 is here! My excuse this time is about 8 exams, 34 mental breakdowns and trying to put my life back together. Enjoy the read!

Chapter 6: My killing game, our killing game

...

The notebook contained everything the two soldiers had carefully sealed away from the mastermind's eyes.

What they had concealed under layers and layers of secret codes and messages, sitting in the palm of her hand.

He knew what type of information was in it. He had read it with the ringleader herself. However he couldn't help but feel a sense of dread, as if she was going to tear apart the fragile paper, sending them a very clear message.

That they never stood a chance against her.

"What... is this book?" Kaito asked. "Is this your script?!"

"No, this notebook belonged to Ryoma." Shuichi replied. "It's everything Rantaro and him didn't live long enough to tell us."

Miu seemed to start fearing the same outcome as him. "Give that back!! It doesn't belong to you!!"

"Don't worry, I do not plan on destroying it." Kirumi said. "I hold great respect for those two, it would be dishonorable and unfair to take that victory away. Besides, even if I do destroy it, Shuichi and I read the content. He can tell you what is in it if he wants to."

She couldn't lie her way out of this. It was a good thing that they would take his word for it and not hers.

"No. I just thought it would be a good way to tackle the subject of the motives."

Was it, really? Or did she just wish to taunt them with the death of the two geniuses?

"Ohoho... That sounds exciting! Let's see how far from the truth these two rascals were! But shouldn't we make this a bit more... amusing?" Monokuma said with a vicious grin.

Every time the bear mentioned entertainment in some way, it never ended well.

The only question was how he would spread despair this time.

"And for the next round..." The bear hid behind his podium only to jump back in the spotlight wearing a grotesque teacher outfit. "... Let's see if you listened to the lesson well, it's time to take a test!"

Slamming a button with his hammer, the podiums of the survivors changed to present a screen on the front.

"Those fools had their theories, but now you know more about this game than them, don't you?" the 'teacher' snickered. "The goal of this mini-game is to guess how accurate their theories were, on a scale from 1 to 5! Whoever has the biggest amount of correct guesses, gets a bonus!"

Whatever the bonus was, he didn't count on Monokuma to give them something nice.

The ringmaster, unlike the bear, was silent. She was observing the scene, not bothering to comment on Monokuma's little show.

"And what do you get from this?" Kaito asked.

"Oh, absolutely nothing." Monokuma nonchalantly replied. "Aside from the sweet despair that comes with retrospection, of course!"

Rolling his eyes, Kaito silently grumbled. "I don't even know why I bother asking questions anymore."

"Anyway, your beloved headmaster will read the theories out loud, and it's up to you to judge their accuracy based on the lessons we've learned!"

Somehow, this looked less complicated than the previous mini-games, but knowing Monokuma, he would find a way to make things more unlikable than they already were.

"And no peeking on the neighbor's answers! I will know if you cheat! Now then..."

Monokuma turned around and extended his paw.

"Perhaps shall I start reading their reasoning for our dear survivors to review?"

Kirumi stared at Monokuma. She was still holding onto the notebook, her finger pressed between the pages that he wanted to read. But the more she glared at him, the more an unknown tension seemed to be rising.

At last, she took the book in her hand, closed it, and handed it over.

"I would hate if it got damaged or dirtied in any way." For once, the venom in her voice was directed at Monokuma. "Everyone in this room is a subject to judgment, no exception."

"Of course!~" He chanted. "I am but a loyal bear, always respecting his promises! Lies and treachery aren't in bears' vocabulary!"

Monokuma twirled around on his foot and opened the book to the correct page, he assumed.

"Well, well. Let's make a test first to see if everything is functioning, so lit up those monopads and vote like good citizens of the country! How ready are you four?" he asked.

Feeling his monopad relentlessly vibrating in his pocket, he had no choice but to take it out.

He had to answer not what he wanted, but what Monokuma wanted. And only one answer was acceptable.

He pressed the obvious option, and waited for the others to do the same.

The podiums all played a jingle one by one.

"Alright! I'm sure your motivation is off the charts, let's see!"

The others' screens lit up. Miu had 3 stars, Kokichi had 5, just like him.

Kaito, on the other hand, did not hesitate to show his disgust, as his screen was showing a bare 1 star.

"Oh! So the screens work perfectly, great! Which means now we can start!" Monokuma clapped his hands, ignoring the results.

"Round 1, Pledge your allegiance to me!"

"The first motive: the time limit and the first blood perk, were obviously to start the game by all means necessary. I don't know what else to say. Easy way to start things with someone obviously falling for this shit. Fantastic."

Monokuma grumbled. "What a foul mouth... Only knows how to throw uncalled insults." he looked up. "But anyway! You now have thirty seconds to rate this theory! Ready? Set! Go!"

He decided to ignore the name given to this round to focus on the theory.

It was accurate, by the looks of it. It did sound like something she would do. His mind wandered to Tenko and Gonta, who had been the ones falling for it. But who wouldn't, really? Threatened by impending doom, rationality is thrown out of the window, unless you know for sure it is empty or if you lived your entire life walking on a trembling bridge over the Sanzu river itself.

He pressed the 5 stars button and waited.

"Alright! Let's see the results!"

4, 5 and 4 stars for Kokichi, Kaito and Miu respectively.

"Okay, are we done now?" the latter sighed.

"Puhuhu! I can already feel like this is going to get exciting!" Monokuma cheered. "Of course we had to start off with a simple question. But indeed!"

Green spotlights illuminated both Kaito and him.

"Ryoma was a-bso-lu-tly correct, no flaws in his reasoning!" he turned to Kirumi. "Would our dear mastermind care to give some delicious details to our participants?"

She narrowed her eyes for a moment and then uncrossed her legs, sitting straight in her throne. "If you insist."

"The beginning of the game is the hardest part. The arena is inflammable, but that isn't enough. A spark is needed for the fire to go out, and then it will spread by itself." she explained. "The bigger the spark, the more devastating the fire. The first trials are very often the ones that leave the biggest impact on both the audience and the participants' minds for a reason. The players have to face a high-panic inducing motive, watch the most beloved person in the group die, witness a gut-wrenching execution worse than the ones yet to come... And sometimes, all at once. It's something that is planned very carefully by the team and the masterminds."

"There are several motives that can make a killing game start with a great emotional impact, and thus we chose the time limit, the most efficient one of them. Though, you can guess that behind the scenes, it was more complicated than it looks like."

"Aaaaand thus we have our first motive!" Monokuma clapped. "We may thank our mastermind for those detailed explanations!"

He wasn't sure if they were necessary, though.

"Round 2, The wolf and the lamb!"

... So Monokuma didn't care if their grades were wrong, which was a relief. As for Kirumi, she was only a spectator, not exactly amused by this little performance.

"The second, we're not sure. That might have been to expose some of our secrets, like Kirumi's talent. The tablets were obviously switched intentionally. There's no way the only two tablets that didn't reach their owners coincidentally happened to be those of the one who hid her talent and someone who was likely to watch their video. In other words, it was to reveal stuff that we would have never guessed if not for Monokuma's 'help'. The accomplice perk was made to turn our cooperation against us. To dissuade us to work together, make sure we all become paranoid and break us mentally. Not difficult to understand."

"Ohhhh, this one's trickier! Good luck!"

Despite Monokuma's morbid playfulness, he knew this was in fact less simple.

But still, he didn't hear anything wrong with this explanation. Was this a trap?

Either way, it wasn't like he had enough time think about a correct answer when it didn't matter in the end.

The vote ended, the screens lit up, and it seemed like everyone had voted 5 stars, which wasn't a surprise.

"Aw... You guys are not funny!" Monokuma pouted. "At least show some excitement or diversity in the results!"

"Are we wrong, though?" Kaito looked as bored as the mastermind herself.

Monokuma stared at him for a moment, and then the green spotlights turned on for the four of them.

"No. You're right." he said. "Congratulations! You didn't fail! And now, our explanation!"

Kirumi sighed. "There isn't much to say. The second case is often the one that reveals the past and the secrets worth noting. Of course the pads were intentionally switched to reveal my talent. If I had my own kubs pad from the beginning and if I wasn't the mastermind, you would have probably never known about this."

"As for the accomplice perk, everyone getting together to fight the mastermind early game was a scenario that had to be anticipated. This is one of the more... Fair methods, that we have to 'restart' the game."

"Grrrreat!" Monokuma jumped in place, getting the attention on him. "Though until now, the motives were not the most interesting to look into, were they? So..."

"Round 3, What is beyond humans' control!"

Shuichi could feel unease growing inside of him. Things were already messed up to no end, but an unknown feeling was making his heart drum stronger than thunder.

Focus.

He shook his head. The despair disease... What had been the biggest mystery until not so long ago was now fully in the light.

"The third is incomprehensible to me. By that, I mean the 'how'. Why would I turn into a coward? I don't know if I was kidnapped again or some shit, but whoever was with them wasn't me. But anyway, the mastermind obviously wanted to eliminate temporarily the smart people (Tsumugi, Rantaro and I) to do their little scheme in peace, which was Keebo's murder."

"Ohohoh... Now we're getting into the sweet failure!"

Of course Ryoma couldn't expect the flashback lights to be the source of this disease. But he had a point. To get rid of the smart people was the goal of the motive, as confirmed by Kirumi earlier. Keebo had to be eliminated for a reason he didn't know, and the despair disease offered them the perfect playground to do so.

He quietly sighed as he pressed the 3 stars button.

3, 4 and 2 stars for Miu, Kaito and Kokichi respectively.

"You said it yourself that Kokichi's reverse disease was cheap shock value." Miu spat. "It wasn't just Keebo's murder that you wanted."

"Now things are getting spicy!" Monokuma cheered. "That's what this entire game is about!"

"I saw it in your rules earlier." Kokichi added. "That you would accept a second person dying for the third case. It was planned from the start, wasn't it?"

He didn't get the implications of that at first, but it was logical.

"The third case was a win-win situation for you, right?" Shuichi looked at the mastermind. "You get to kill Tatsuya while the biggest threats are unable to cause any problems. You get to kill- no. Torture Himiko senseless for your so called despair. And you get to play with everyone's feelings by putting the blame on both Kaito and Kokichi for murders they had nothing to do with."

Kirumi silently stared at him. He was used to the lack of emotions on her face, and this time it told more than needed.

"Ding ding ding! We got a winner!" Monokuma congratulated him. Right on cue, the green spotlights illuminated both him and Miu. "Our dear bomberman guessed some things right, but he really needed to understand that sometimes people do things for fun, and not just because they have to!~ Sheesh, some people really don't know how to smile."

Perhaps because you made him that way, Shuichi thought.

The fact that Kirumi had not uttered a single word made his blood boil. Why wasn't she saying something? Anything?

On second thought, it was either an eerie silence or poisoned words driving the whole room insane.

Perhaps silence was the better option.

"Round 4, Dance, dance, hanged puppets!"

"The fourth may have been to expose our last secrets like Kaito's leg, Kokichi's trauma, Kirumi's condition, and as Rantaro said, manipulate Kiyo into killing Tsumugi by putting more and more pressure on him."

Judging by what Monokuma just said, Ryoma's theory must be less accurate than he had first expected.

Why had she given him this wicked hope that those motives were not just to satisfy her wretched desires?

Though, perhaps Ryoma was still partially right about those reasons. She had just said earlier that Kaito having his fake leg pierced by a spear was completely intentional, but was it purely out of a need to expose him? Was seeing him nearly dying a spectacle for her? Or perhaps was it a mix of both?

...

Considering she could have revealed the truth any other way, the chances that orchestrating this scene was out of necessity rather than for superficial entertainment were getting thinner.

An academy of nightmares isn't created to expose secrets. It's to make people suffer, and that's all there is to it.

He bitterly pressed the 2 stars button, waiting for everyone to do the same.

It wasn't a surprise to see Miu with the same score. Kaito and Kokichi had voted 3, but their beliefs were barely any different from theirs.

"Aww, it's heartwarming to see my students learning so fast, don't you think so too?" Monokuma cooed, his paws on his cheeks. "And even now, we can still throw in a little pinch of despair, it is the pastry that serves as their well deserved reward for graduation!"

Narrowing her eyes with an eternal indifference, Kirumi hummed. "... It is quite the sight."

Monokuma giggled to himself for a little while, but everyone's silent treatment bored him rather quickly.

"But yes, your guesses were fairly accurate! While guiding those two nasty pests to the afterlife was one of the main goals of our dear instigator, the Sanzu garden is first and foremost a playground where the spirits of madness enjoy themselves for all eternity!"

"And where madness reigns, the despair thrives to the greatest heights! It truly is one of the most awful, most tragic, most despairful motives in Danganronpa history!"

And he was not wrong. When they had become the prisoners of Kirumi's sadistic tendencies, he had felt his mind crumble to pieces as everything was tearing his sanity apart. Though it hadn't been just his.

It had been Kokichi, it had been Kiyo, it had been Rantaro.

The fourth trial may have happened a week ago, but it sure didn't feel like it. Not with the amount of details he could recall from this living nightmare, especially coming from the pseudo-medic.

With an attitude as reminiscent as the one he had when the blade of white steel had almost taken his life, the memory of that day became a tower of cold black iron looming over him.

A tower that the rain would hopefully erode to vermilion dust, no matter how long it takes.

The fourth trial was were the strongest and smartest of them all had fallen, but not enough to rest in peace. The spider's thread had tangled itself around his wrist, the souls of the sinners and his own corrupted desires pulling him down, and yet, his gaze would forever be aimed at the tiny hole of light in the dark skies of hell, where the sun was still shining.

It was a fate worse than death, and one could argue that the devil taking his hand was the most merciful act that she had performed.

As rational as Ryoma was when writing this, unlike his partner at the time, there was no way around it.

Shuichi didn't even pay attention to the green spotlight embracing him and Miu, he just stared at the ground waiting for this hell to end.

"My, my! This truly is exciting! But all great things must come to an end. Let us start the round that shall determine the winner of our fun little pop quiz..."

"The fifth and final round!"

"The fifth motive doesn't make any damn sense. I know he blackmailed Kiyo to make the trial last longer to extend a new time limit, but he could have ditched it after his death for despair or some other stupid excuse. Although with the circumstances, I can see why he would..."

Monokuma's voice started fading away, submerged by the white noise of his own mind.

What was the point of playing his game anyway? They were not learning anything new.

It simply confirmed what they all knew already.

Everything was made for the entertainment of the masses, and for the freaks who created this show.

Even this trial was getting dragged on and on for the sake of despair.

He had been way too naive, thinking Kirumi was telling the truth when she said the motives were here for a concrete reason.

A reason other than "To please the public and herself".

...

"..."

"Hello?"

...

Someone was talking, but he couldn't recognize the voice.

...

"Helloooooooo?"

...

"Saihara Shuichi, super highschool level violinist, A.K.A, lone heir of the Saihara family corporation?"

...

Ah.

Monokuma was speaking to him.

Despite not wanting to, he raised his head a bit, only to be met with the others' silent empathy. Though he realized rather quickly that their screens were showcasing cartoonish stars.

... He had forgotten about the quiz.

"Mister Saihara Shuichi decided to give back an empty copy, huh?" Monokuma tilted his head to the side.

His tone would have been terrifying had he not stopped caring.

"... Let me guess."

"The time limit was just your part of the deal with Kiyo, and the equipment was to give us a false sense of hope that we could have been able to escape if we killed someone. A hope that you would have destroyed anyway 'for the sake of despair'."

The bear blinked, and his smile grew bigger and more vicious.

"Puhuhu... So you knew the answer after all, hm?"

With a clap, green spotlights appeared on Kokichi, Kaito and their single star.

"And with a score of 4 out of 5, our grand winner of this fun little exam is... Shuichi Saihara!!"

A white spotlight shone on him, and confetti fell out of the ceiling as a cheerful jingle rang to congratulate him for his 'victory'.

He looked at the eternally silent Kirumi as he felt the colored pieces of paper gently landing on his hair.

They would lose their motivation to fight, those two would gift them faithless hope, and then they would crush it.

Was this funny to her? Was it how she wanted to end it all? Was this the killing game she had envisioned? Did she feel any sort of satisfaction? Pride? Pleasure?

Whatever ounce of joy she was getting from their despair didn't reflect on her face.

She closed her eyes, breaking the contact between the two.

Wrapping her fingers around the microphone that was sitting on the armrest, she placed her other hand on the opposite side, two of her fingers gently tapping on the wood, to communicate her impatience, he supposed.

"Does the winner of this quiz wish to comment on his victory?"

So now she wanted him to speak.

She would not get that from him.

"Any thoughts plaguing your mind that you wish to set free, once and for all?"

And just like she did before, he kept the cold facade of a statue.

He would not keep singing songs of despair for her.

If she couldn't feel the same euphoria seeing him drowning in despair anymore, then it was her problem.

"It can be anything, really."

...

He closed his eyes.

Perhaps by ignoring her it would send a message.

And what followed was a silence that was more soothing than he had expected.

Nothing but the sound of her impatience, resonating through her nails in a constant rhythm.

"Are you satisfied by what your ears have listened to?"

Perhaps it was time to end this meaningless one-way conversation. Once and for all.

"I could ask you the same question."

"We're about to give up, you give a reason not to, we follow your lead, you throw us back into the abyss, and it's back to the start."

"Do you like this song that much?"

Of course, she didn't respond.

"You have your answer. There's nothing to be satisfied by. Especially when all you do is lie through your teeth just to get a funny reaction out of us."

"Now do yourself a favor and end this useless trial you don't even seem to enjoy."

...

"Shuichi... You do realize that's not what I'm asking, right?"

He couldn't care less what the 'real meaning' was. After all, if there was anything the flashback light containing his talent gave him, it was the ability to memorize patterns by heart.

Shuichi couldn't even begin to understand how Kirumi could still try playing the same melody now, hoping for a different result.

But just as silence had settled in, footsteps resonated in the courtroom.

Kirumi stood up, and slowly made her way to Monokuma's podium by walking down the stairs that had appeared before her. The mascot retreated on the throne to leave her enough space.

"I don't know about everyone else since I didn't get to hear enough of their thoughts...

She wrapped her hands around the podium, now staring at him at his own level.

"... But you are probably the one pissing me off the most right now."

"Good."

"Is it, really? Is despair the way you want things to end?"

Taking the confetti out of his hair and clothes, he glared at her. "If that's the only way to get you to stop this killing game, then yes."

...

She huffed with annoyance.

"You give up, the trial ends, despair wins the killing game itself, and you four get stuck here forever."

"Is this the ending you wish for yourself?"

...

An ending.

So this was what would happen if they gave up.

They would stay here, not going back to an outside world that viewed them as nothing but dolls, strangled by the bloodied strings they had wrapped around their own necks and wrists.

No matter how many times he mentally repeated Kirumi's words...

... He couldn't find a single downside to this.

Which meant they could give up. They could end this. This trial that only served to exploit their despair for money and entertainment could actually be stopped.

She had slipped this little, surprisingly hopeful piece of information. Did she truly not think her words through?

No matter how badly she words it, succumbing to despair was an actual outcome of the killing game.

It may not be the ideal ending, but... Could they truly hope for something better at this point?

Even if they do manage to 'defeat' her and escape the academy... What was waiting for them aside from Team Danganronpa, ready to hunt them down?

Nothing. Nothing and no one was waiting for their return.

What was the point, really?

...

"So what you're saying is..." Shuichi stared at her. "... That we can end this killing game right there and then."

Kirumi frowned, but stayed silent.

"What you're saying is, we can stop the trial now, end the killing game by staying here, and you would actually leave us alone for the rest of our lives?"

He noticed a spark in Kaito's eyes. Like he had drawn the same conclusion as him.

"Hold on Shuichi-" Miu stared at him worryingly. "You... You want us to give up on escaping?"

"Why not? Name one positive thing that would come out of our escape."

She breathed in, about to say something but... No words came out of her mouth.

"Escaping was our number one priority until Rantaro suggested we take out Monokuma and the exisals to live in peace here. We had all agreed and accepted our fate, can't we do the same here?"

"But that was before we knew the outside world was still alive!" she slammed her hands on the podium. "We were all resigned because we had seen the outside world in ruins! Now we know it's not, we know humanity is still alive!!"

"Is it truly that different from our current situation?"

Miu paused. She looked astonished that he could say such a thing.

"Think about it! We get to end it all right now! We get to stop the killing game, something we've literally been dying to do for ages now!"

"We get to live! Isn't that the ending everyone wanted for us?!"

...

Everyone stared at him, all with the same expression of stupefaction, and yet their true feelings managed to stand out from the collective shock.

When looking at Kaito, he knew he was considering the option of the so-called despair. When looking at Miu, he knew she was thinking the opposite. Kokichi was a mixture of the two, and Kirumi, well...

... It was a silent rage, burning brighter and hotter than the flames of hell.

"Guys... Tell me... What good is waiting for us outside worth everything bad we will go through?"

"I..." Miu muttered shakily. "I don't know."

"If we can end all of this, if we can leave the killing game behind us forever..." Kaito looked at her. "Then we'll have won, right?"

"Winning through despair... Can we really call that a victory though?" Kokichi hesitantly asked.

"It doesn't matter the method. If this is the only way we can win, then... I'm willing to give up on the world outside the academy. You know..."

He stared at Kirumi.

"A world that laughs at our suffering."

...

The mastermind stared back. Though it was clear she was not trying to think of a response.

She was observing. Waiting for everyone else's thoughts to make themselves known.

"Our game will end, but... What about the killing games that will follow this one?" Kokichi muttered. "People will still die in them... We'll have stopped nothing."

Shuichi sighed in resignation. "... You heard Monokuma. The killing games will go on forever, and there's nothing we can do about it. Those killing games live in the hearts of the people. They don't care if we end up dying, all they want is their own amusement."

He bitterly laughed.

"Kirumi said wrongness was now part of entertainment itself, what difference will we make?"

Kokichi looked at the ground, dejected.

"I wouldn't put it like that, but..." Kaito turned to the latter. "At least our game will be over. And to me, that's enough."

Miu looked at them. Her eyes were wet, searching for a spark of hope in their hearts, in vain. "But... We can't just leave people to die so horribly..."

"There are things we can't do anything about, and that's one of them." Kaito replied. Shuichi noticed he also had tears in his eyes that were threatening to spill, that he hid behind a weak smile. "Perhaps we shouldn't look at it as 'giving in to despair' but instead..."

"... Finding hope for the ones who can still be saved. Finding hope for us."

Miu also seemed to have noticed the fragility of his only solace. She let out a tiny, shaky laughter that made the tears spill out. It's with a smile that she wiped them away. "Then despair it is."

"If that's the best ending we can get..." Kokichi mumbled. "... Then I'm fine with it."

Shuichi glanced between them. They agreed with him. They would follow the same path as him.

He couldn't help but smile with them.

They had done it.

Was that it?

Was the despair that made Kirumi so ecstatic the way she would be defeated?

Speaking of the mastermind, she was staring at them, her face as blank as a white canvas. And yet, he could still discern a storm of emotions in her eyes. A poor attempt at hiding her frustration for being defeated, he supposed.

"So you all decided to 'give in to despair'." She said. "What an ending."

"It's an ending if we want it to be." Kaito answered. "You said yourself what would be waiting for us and we're ready for it. The killing game is over. End of the story."

The spotlight shining on Kaito turned off.

"It may not be the way we envisioned to end it, but things might as well end this way. The audience can go fuck themselves."

Those were Miu's final words before her own spotlight did the same.

"There will always be killing games. You two repeated it several times." Kokichi continued. "We may not be able to stop those who create them, but at least we can end our own."

The third spotlight turned off, leaving only Shuichi and Kirumi, facing each other.

"We made our decision. I believe we can settle things now."

...

Her response was a giggle.

"It would have made an interesting ending. But I can't let you do that."

"With the circumstances in which you want this trial to end, I simply can't let you make such a drastic decision. And I cannot let things remain that way."

Was she going to force them again into her games? Resume the killings until there are only two remaining?

"And what are you going to do then? We know the truth. We know who we were and what we've done. We know who you are, what you've done and why you did it. And so, we decided to put an end to this disgusting game."

Kirumi closed her eyes. "If only you were telling the truth. Naivete can be cruel. Not just to you, but also to everyone else in this room."

"We are less ignorant than you think." he added. "There aren't any more false hopes you can bait us with."

"And no more lies you can spit out for us to listen to."

"Lies..." She smiled. "Tell me."

"You've been so unwilling to believe what he has thrown at you for weeks, thinking it was only lies and idiocies to deceive you for the sake of despair. And who could blame you? What sane mind would trust such a monster?"

"And every single word of his was proven to be a lie in the end. You were right not to believe the voice of despair. When has this changed, tell me?"

The rage that was painted on her face had crumbled down.

"Please, if you're going to give up on everything, at least answer this one question before you do."

The raw malice suddenly radiating from Kirumi's eyes took him off guard.

Just when he thought again that he had seen everything about her, her wicked smile was here to remind him that she would always prove him the opposite.

"You don't sincerely believe everything Monokuma just told you, do you?"

#ndrv3 #danganronpa v3 #ndrv3 au #beta au #main story

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crimecaro14 · 4 years

Text

@saiouweek Day 2 Past life/despair disease

Just another, bound to be boring day was about to start with it's first lesson on hopes peak academy - the school of the ultimate elite. Well class sure won't be boring for Shuichi Saihara since one of his classmates entertained him every single day. But today was something off, he wasn't there.

"Hey", Shuichi leaned over to his best friend Kaito, "have you seen Kokichi?"

The boy shrugged disinterested, "Don't know, don't care. Maybe he's sick."

Shuichi hummed as he turned his gaze to the missing boys chair. He had never been absent from class - even though they were allowed to do so - something had to be off.

Between classes Shuichi met with Makoto and Hajime in the cafeteria like every Thursday. After talking for a while they noticed that in each of their classes one student had been missing. Beside Kokichi also Kyoko and Nagito were missing today.

"That's rather strange", Makoto thought out loud. "Kyoko never misses a class, at least not without telling me."

"Similar to Kokichi", Shuichi threw into the round.

"Did you guys try to reach them somehow? Nagito also doesn't answer the phone, which is odd since he always picks up right away to tell you that he can't believe someone called him", Hajime explained.

As he spoke his classmate Ibuki Mioda passed their table and overheard their conversation.

"Oh, Mikan confiscated their phones so they could rest properly", she explained as she sat down next to Hajime without asking.

"You know where they are?", Makoto asked excited to finally have a clue. Ibuki tilted her head in response. "What, you didn't hear Kirigiris screams earlier as she tried to flee from Mikan?"

"She did what?!"

Ibuki laughed, "Yeah, the girl sure can get wild."

Hajime interrupted, "Ibuki, how do you know all this?"

"Uh well duuh, I checked on Mikan before I got here. The tree are in the nursery, sick or something."

With that testimony the three boys decided to visit the nursery - after Ibuki had finished her lunch since they didn't want to leave her alone.

Stressed and nervous as always Mikan rushed back and forth until Hajime was able to stop her.

"Hey Mikan, is Nagito here?"

"A-among others, y-yes."

"Why?", Makoto interrupted.

"He h-has caught th-the despair disease, just -just like Kirigiri, Ouma and Akane...", Mikan explained the situation.

"Despair disease?!", the three boys asked in union.

"Ah w-well it's another j-joke from that... bear... they all...all act like the opposite they are usually. Like while Nagito has the l-lair disease and always means the-the opposite of what he says... K-Kokichi can't lie at all... A-Akane is sc-ared o-off everything and... Kyoko-"

In that exact moment they all heard a furious scream of a female voice. "Is loud." Makoto of course recognised his girlfriends voice and headed over to give Mikan a bit of a break.

Without asking Hajime and Shuichi also made their ways to the boys they had worried about.

"Ohh, my beloved~", Kokichi greeted the detective as he saw him enter the room, "I didn't expect you to visit me."

Shuichi sat down on the edge of the bed.

"Hm, Tsumiki is right about your symptoms", he mumbled rather to himself than Kokichi.

"How come?"

"You would've said that you expected me, like the villain in that cop movie we watched together." Shuichi chuckled a bit over the memory, while Kokichi slid deeper under his blanket, he felt so naked in front of Shuichi when he couldn't lie to hide his true intentions. Yet Shuichi was the only person he wanted to see him like this.

"Why didn't you tell anyone you were sick? We could've taken some extra notes for you", Shuichi asked in a worried tone.

"Oh I just don't want anyone to know my current state, since they all would just ask me millions of questions to get a true answer", Kokichi shrugged it off as it wasn't really a problem. Shuichi could understand the urge to ask the mysterious boy everything one ever wanted to know about him without the risk of it being a lie, but taking advantage of Kokichis state wasn't right.

"Anyway, why are you here, Shumai, don't tell me you were worried about me."

Shuichi raised an eyebrow, "You've been in every class since we got to this school, except for today, of course I was worried."

"Well now you know where I am, you can might as well leave." Kokichi turned his head to look out of the window. The sudden rejection hit Shuichi on a different level. Did the boy expect that he would also take advantage of his situation?

"Kokichi... are you afraid I'm gonna ask you a lot of stuff to find out the truth too?", he asked a bit insecure. Kokichi still didn't look at him but nodded.

"Like you out of all people aren't curious."

"If course I am but I want to get behind your lies without any help of a stupid disease. That won't help me to understand you next week, when you're no longer sick."

Kokichi turned his head back to face Shuichi again, a slight smile on his lips. "Then you are allowed to stay, my beloved."

"A-Actually...", Shuichi got a bit flustered, "there would be one thing I'd like to ask you..."

"Ask. You'll see if you get an answer."

"You always call me your beloved... do you... do you mean it?", Shuichi averted his gaze, embarrassed that he asked in the first place.

"Would you ask me that without the disease too?", was all Kokichi wanted to know beforehand.

"If I... if I'd bring up the courage eventually... some day...", he stuttered, "Since... I fear that you'll tell me what I want to hear but then just state it as a lie..." ... and hurt me, Shuichi couldn't say the last bit, even now he missed the courage.

"What you want to hear?", Kokichi tilted his head, "you want to hear that I mean it, right?"

Shuichi nodded.

"Weeell then today's your lucky da-", he couldn't finish his cheering announcement due to the stupid cough coming with the disease.

"Kokichi! Are you okay?! Should I get you some-" amused Kokichi grabbed for his glass and emptied it in almost one gulp. "-water, you know nevermind." Embarrassed Shuichi scratched his cheek.

Too cute, Kokichi thought, happy to see that Shuichi actually cared.

"I mean it", he suddenly said.

"Huh?"; Shuichis head snapped up.

"I mean it when I call you my beloved. I like you the most out of all people in this school. You are not boring." Kokichi smiled at him as he explained how he saw Shuichi, who stopped working for a moment. He really didn't expect that, even though it was what he wanted to hear.

"Then... then I got one more follow up question..."

"But just one."

"Would you go out on a date with me, once you're well?" They were alone, something that didn't happen often, so Shuichi had to use that chance, especially after Kokichi just confessed that he liked Shuichi.

There was silence for a while. When Shuichi lifted his eyes again he saw Kokichis red face. "Ah- is it your fever?! Should I call Mikan?! I can-"

"Of course."

"The fever or Mikan?"

"The date."

"Oh... OH..."

"But no more questions for today, kay?", Kokichi played it off like this was some sort of payment.

"Okay, then I won't ask", Shuichi mumbled as he leaned in closer to Kokichi.

"Sh-Shumai what are you...!", the boy was interrupted by the pair of lips that closed his own off.

Ze, ze, can't even wait for the first date, my beloved, would be what Kokichi would say right now but he was too busy returning the kiss gently.

"I heard my name is something- WHY ARE YOU TWO KISSING?!", Mikan had entered the room but stopped right in the doorframe after she saw what the two boys were doing.

They broke the kiss and stared shocked at Mikan, who screamed, "HE IS SICK! YOU CAN'T KISS SOMEONE SICK!"

They shared a short look before it dawned on Shuichi.

"It's contagious!?", Shuichi asked shocked.

"YES IT IS!!"

Instead of their date Shuichi joined Kokichi in his infirmary just a few days later - he really got infected too after just a short little kiss. After only two days Kokichi was already sick of Shuichis extroverted behaviour, he wanted his beloved nervous emo back as soon as possible!

#saiouweek #saiouma #saioma #omasai #oumasai #oma kokichi #ouma kokichi #kokichi ouma #kokichi #kokichi oma #saihara shuichi #shuichi saihara #kokichi x shuichi #shuichi x kokichi #ouma x saihara #saihara x ouma #not entirely satisfied but eh

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commentaryvorg · 5 years

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Danganronpa V3 Commentary: Bonus 4.2 - UTDP (Still Mostly Kaito Edition)

This is postgame content, so people shouldn’t be reading this without having already finished the main game anyway. But just to be safe: while this is non-canon character stuff, I will sometimes be mentioning events that happened in the main story, so there will be spoilers for the main game.

Last time in the first half of my Kaito-centric Ultimate Talent Development Plan coverage, it was all about Kaito helping people! Kaito encouraged Shuichi to use his detective skills to help out his schoolmates, and Shuichi passed some of Kaito’s advice about relying on people onto Kyoko. After some incredibly stubborn persistence to even get her to open up in the first place, Kaito nudged Maki into letting Kaede play piano at her orphanage, and Maki also bonded a little with Chihiro over keeping secrets and projecting their issues onto a dead bird. Then, after a brief sports festival interlude, Kaito helped Mondo be more positive about his future, and I lengthily compared Mondo and Chihiro’s relationship to Kaito and Shuichi’s one in canon, because both had similar issues and dynamics going on.

There’s still a bunch more Kaito-related stuff to cover in this mode, so let’s start off this second half on a high note, shall we?

Ryoma (featuring Kaito’s issues)

Another of Kaito’s friendly events is with Ryoma, so you can bet I’m interested in it. Remember, Kaito’s fondness for tennis meant he looked up to Ryoma as a hero, and as a result, all of Kaito’s unreasonably high standards for heroes that usually only apply to himself also apply to Ryoma. Ryoma therefore provides a delightful look into Kaito’s hero issues that can’t really be found anywhere else in this AU, since Kaito hasn’t been dying, and nor has Shuichi been saving everyone’s lives in class trials without seeming to need Kaito’s help.

This scene also features Usami – yes, she’s also here in this mode, as is Monomi, though never at the same time. I don’t even know, just go with it.

Usami: “I just came to talk to Ryoma! I’m everyone’s teacher… so if you ever wanna talk to me about something, please feel free!”

Ryoma: “Thanks, but there’s nothing to talk about. Don’t bother with me. Go back to your students. It feels… wrong for such a cheery mascot like you to be around someone like me.”

Kaito: “Really? I think talking about stuff will help. Come on, just talk to her.”

Of course Ryoma talking about things will help! And it’s… actually rather surprising to see Kaito doing something that amounts to trying to help Ryoma get stronger, by encouraging him to do this. Kaito is usually so hung up on Ryoma being weak in the first place that he can’t even get as far as suggesting some kind of help for him. So I can only assume that the reason he manages to do so in this instance is because Usami was the one to suggest it first, which made Kaito actually briefly see Ryoma as someone in need of support for once, because she was treating him that way, and agree with her.

Ryoma: “Hmph… is being nosy your talent or something?”

In my Kaito-isn’t-into-tennis AU, I wrote Ryoma’s POV describing Kaito as “nosy” for reasons I couldn’t quite place, but it seems I was subconsciously remembering that he does so here, even though I didn’t recall the details of this scene back then. Kind of like how Maki considers anyone worrying about her to be “gross”, “nosy” may well be Ryoma’s way to refer to people who are going out of their way to help him, as a way to try and brush off their help because he doesn’t consider himself worth it.

(In that sense, yes, being nosy practically is Kaito’s talent. Or at least it is with everyone except Ryoma.)

Kaito: “What did you say?”

Usami: “Hey! Fighting’s a no-no!”

Kaito: “We’re not gonna fight. There’s no use butting heads with him anyway. Because this guy’s a total sad sack now. He used to be an amazing athlete before.”

Being called nosy probably wouldn’t normally rile Kaito up, not when he considers it a good thing to be invested in other people’s wellbeing. But apparently something about it coming from Ryoma in particular gets to him and causes him to snap right back to his Ryoma-specific mindset of “he’s not worth helping because he’s supposed to be a hero but he’s weak”. Specifically, I think it might be because the “nosy” comment was essentially Ryoma brushing off Kaito’s attempt to offer help. That refusal to even try and get stronger is another kind of weakness – and a more meaningful kind, one that it makes more sense to be upset at someone about, because it’s a choice.

Not that that’s a thing that usually stops Kaito from trying to help someone, of course! He openly called Maki a coward for running away from her issues at first, but that didn’t change the fact that he knew she had the potential to be brave enough to face them, if he just pestered her stubbornly enough to convince her. It usually takes a lot for Kaito to conclude that someone really is beyond help and isn’t ever going to decide to change, as we saw with Kokichi in canon. But not when it’s Ryoma, apparently. Even though Usami got Kaito to temporarily see past Ryoma’s initial weakness and try to help, refusing that help even once and not wanting to change is even more weak of Ryoma, and is therefore again disgraceful for a hero and sent Kaito’s opinion of him right back to square one.

Which seems quite relevant to how Kaito was in canon, considering how much he refused any help with his own weaknesses. Particularly in trial 4, where it was very apparent that he was struggling to face the truth and should have reached out for support, and he was only making himself look even more obviously weak by not doing that.

This moment here with Ryoma, thanks to Usami letting Kaito get as far as offering help at all, is essentially illustrating to Kaito that if a hero does do the unacceptable and be weak in the first place, then refusing help for it when people can already see that he needs it only looks even weaker and even less heroic of him, and he should at least cut his losses and accept help. I would say that if only a moment like this with Ryoma had happened in canon then it might have served as a lesson of How Not To Be A Worse Hero (When You’re Already A Bad One) and taught Kaito to actually accept the support he needed. Buuuut I still very much doubt that, because Kaito here definitely seems to have fallen too far back into his general frustration of “heroes shouldn’t be weak at all!!!” to be using this as any kind of example.

Ryoma: “You knew about me?”

Kaito: “A little, yeah…”

Ryoma: “So you get it now. The Ultimate Tennis Pro… I’m not that guy anymore. That’s in the past.”

Kaito: “Yeah, I guess not… The Ryoma I knew was invincible and would go up against any opponent.”

Oh, Kaito, why am I so right about you. Throughout all of the lengthy rambles I’ve written about Kaito’s unhealthily unrealistic standards for heroes, including the fact that he also applies these standards to Ryoma, I had basically forgotten about this scene and didn’t use it to help me figure any of that stuff out. And yet here Kaito is, describing the Ryoma that he looked up to as invincible. Of course he saw him that way. Kaito’s writers have always known exactly what they’re doing and I love it.

Usami: “K-Kaito… Is everything okay!? Please calm down!”

Kaito: “My bad… I’m gonna go cool off.”

[Kaito leaves the room]

I like how Usami managed to notice, even though it wasn’t showing that much in his face based on his sprites, that Kaito was beginning to get really worked up about this. And credit to Kaito for actually acknowledging this when it’s pointed out, apologising for it (a more worthwhile apology than like 90% of the ones he ever gives) and leaving to calm down. Kaito can often react to things that upset him with a cycle of getting more and more riled up until he snaps in some way. At least in this case, he realised that he doesn’t want to end up lashing out as that doesn’t help anyone, and that the best thing for him to do is to just step away from the situation before he reaches that point. This is Kaito actually showing decent self-care! That’s rare.

…It’s probably only because Usami pointed it out to him. I said it’s ridiculous that she’s even here in this AU, but… Usami actually subtly did a lot for Kaito in this scene. Maybe he ought to talk to her. (You know, because Kaito is so good at talking to people about his issues.)

Usami: “The air feels so tense… It’s all my fault… I shouldn’t have said anything at all…”

No, Usami, you did a good. If you hadn’t been here and it’d just been Kaito and Ryoma, Kaito wouldn’t have even vaguely acknowledged the possibility of helping Ryoma and might have actually lashed out at him. This is a scene about Kaito’s issues with Ryoma, but it seems the writers included Usami in it for a reason.

The scene ends with Ryoma acknowledging that Usami cares about him, but also saying that he’s still not planning on actually talking to her and accepting her support. Damn it, Ryoma, you aren’t helping yourself either. He needs someone a lot more stubborn than Usami to really get through to him, but… yeah, there’s an issue with that, isn’t there.

There’s also a final year seasonal event that somewhat follows up on this. Ryoma heads to the gym to help Himiko set up for her Christmas magic show and finds Kaito already there.

Kaito: “Oh…”

This is Kaito’s evasive face. This particular kind of reaction rather reminds me of Kaito’s reactions to Shuichi’s presence in early chapter 5. Which is only appropriate, since this is a similar situation of him awkwardly not really wanting to talk to someone who sets off his issues, but not wanting to admit why either.

Ryoma: “Did Himiko get you to help her out, too?”

Kaito: “Well, something like that. You too?”

Ryoma: “Yeah. I may not be as fit as I was back in my glory days, but it should be enough…”

Kaito: “How pathetic… An athlete at your level should say stuff like, ‘I’ll take on any challenge!’”

Heroes like Ryoma are meant to be full throttle, larger than life, all the time, with no half measures. That’s what Kaito’s like when he’s setting an example for his sidekicks and anyone else he’s trying to inspire; Ryoma’s supposed be like that too!!

It’s not even acceptable that Ryoma is saying he’s still strong enough to get the job done and is going to do his best. Simply admitting to any kind of weakness in the first place isn’t allowed and will definitely prevent anything else he says from ever being inspiring. (Won’t it?)

Ryoma: “Hmph… Don’t bring up such an old story now. Those days are long past.”

Kaito: “I don’t care about your past!”

Kaito, you extremely care about his past. Not about the past of him being a murderer that led to all his self-loathing, because he doesn’t have to let that define him and can move on from it and do better in future. That’s a lot like Maki’s situation, and obviously Kaito doesn’t care about her past in that sense, so I can believe he also wouldn’t do so analogously with Ryoma. But here they were actually talking about Ryoma’s past before the murders, when he used to be a superstar athlete. Kaito very obviously still cares about that past, because that’s why he can’t deal with Ryoma properly. If Kaito was capable of seeing Ryoma as nothing but the person he is today, then he’d be able to help like can usually help anyone.

Kaito: “There are plenty of tennis players that look up to you. They’re trying to surpass your memory. One of them might become the next Ultimate Tennis Pro! So quit it with that mopey face you’ve got on all the time! When you see a tennis fan, can’t you just smile at him and say, ‘Tennis is pretty great, huh?’”

Kaito is kind of giving some reasonable advice here, but only on the level on which he looks up to Ryoma as his tennis hero. He’s managing to encourage Ryoma to be a little better at being that hero to people who look up to him, even if he’s not necessarily ever going to pick up a racket again. That’s something, but it’s not remotely what Ryoma really needs; it’s really more just what Kaito wanted from him.

Kaito: “That’s all… I just wanted to say that to you before we graduate.”

Apparently this really has been bothering Kaito on and off for the past three years such that he would have regretted not getting to say it in the end. But still, “you should be a better hero” is not remotely addressing the real problem here, Kaito. Three years and Kaito was still too hung up on Ryoma being a disappointment of a hero to actually be able to figure out how to help.

Ryoma: “Were you… just waiting for a chance to talk to me about tennis?”

Ryoma, perceptive as he is, does seem to have picked up that this whole speech Kaito just gave him was really more for Kaito’s own benefit. He just did it because he wanted Ryoma to become someone willing to talk to him, or at least others like him, about tennis.

Ryoma: “Well, even if I agreed to… do you really think you’re qualified to talk to me about tennis? Well… you’d probably say that something like that didn’t matter.”

Kaito: “Heh, so you do get it after all!”

Kaito has a point here, though. Someone shouldn’t have to also be a superstar with ridiculous anime tennis superpowers to be able to have a conversation about tennis with Ryoma, and if Ryoma’s trying to claim that just to avoid talking to people genuinely interested in tennis, then he’s only making excuses. (And I like how Ryoma’s perceptiveness lets him realise Kaito would say that to him before he even said it.)

Apparently Ryoma and Kaito do then end up chatting about tennis with each other as they set up the stage, which is at least some level of progress for both of them. Ryoma would probably have refused to talk about tennis if this’d been earlier on, but by now it seems he’s mellowed out enough – for reasons that have nothing to do with Kaito, of course – to be up for it if pushed. On Kaito’s end, though, this is still only him interacting with Ryoma as a fan of his and a fellow tennis enthusiast. He hasn’t stopped being incapable of properly seeing and helping with Ryoma’s real problems because of his own messed-up standards for heroes.

But even though Kaito still wasn’t able or even really willing to help him, we don’t have to worry about Ryoma in this universe. We can see this most clearly in one of Mahiru’s third year winter scenes in which she’s giving him some photos that he asked her to take as keepsakes of his time here…

Ryoma: “I won’t let it end so easily. During the three years we spent in this academy… I found something I don’t want to let go of. Something I thought I’d never find again… And your pictures… have captured their smiles so clearly. These pictures will always remind me that the time I spent here was worth every second.”

…so, Ryoma’s going to be okay. He’s found his new reason to live.

Year 2 seasonal events

Year 2’s seasonal event is the school festival in which a lot of the students are doing shows or exhibits displaying their talents. Kaito isn’t doing anything like that himself and only helped set up the stage, but then he can check out one of the shows afterwards.

- Can’t miss Kaede’s recital

Kaito’s POV wording for this option is great. It’s not just that he’s checking out Kaede’s show because eh why not – he actively doesn’t want to miss it!

Kaede: “Huh…? You came by yourself, Kaito?”

Kaito: “Yeah, my bad. Shuichi’s not here yet, but he’s on his way.”

Kaito, why are you apologising just because you didn’t bring Shuichi when she didn’t even ask you to? The fact that Kaito apparently on some level feels like this counts as doing something wrong suggests that he assumes Kaede doesn’t think much of him on his own and only ever cares about seeing him if he has Shuichi with him.

(I’d be surprised that he doesn’t know Kaede better than that, but… maybe what other people think of him is another inherent blind spot in Kaito’s intuition. I never quite thought about it in that way before, but that really does make a lot of sense and is kind of heartbreaking to think about. Oh, Kaito, you idiot.)

Kaede: “I-I didn’t mean it like that! It’s just… I’m a little surprised you came to listen to classical music.”

But of course Kaede didn’t mean her comment in the way Kaito assumed! Instead, however, it seems that she similarly assumes that Kaito doesn’t think much of her on her own and would only ever come to her recital if he was tagging along with Shuichi, rather than for his own enjoyment.

Kaito: “Hey, of course I’d come. You’re the one playing, so there’s no way I’d miss it.”

Obviously, though! Kaito respects and admires Kaede a lot, so of course he’d want to see her doing the thing she’s best at and loves so much! Classical music may not be personally Kaito’s area of interest, but that doesn’t mean he can’t appreciate Kaede’s passion for it and get excited about it anyway!

Kaito: “I know you’re gonna do great! As far as I’m concerned, you’re the best pianist out there!

Everyone is supposed to think Kaede is the best pianist out there; that’s literally the point of her being the Ultimate Pianist. So I love how Kaito doesn’t care about that, and instead he makes a point that her being so great at this is his opinion of her.

While it’s less prominent in this AU, Hope’s Peak tends to do the rather unhealthy thing of putting people’s talents first and acting like that’s the only thing about them that matters. If Kaede is the Ultimate Pianist, then that means that her being so great at the piano is just the baseline expectation for someone with that title and not really anything special at all. But Kaito doesn’t see her as an Ultimate who’s already destined to be good at her thing – he sees her as a fully-rounded person first and foremost who just happens to have an amazing talent that deserves to be praised and admired rather than expected of her. And he does this despite spending all day every day surrounded by Ultimates and being one himself to the point that someone being talented at a particular thing should be difficult to see as anything special any more. He’s so good.

Kaito: “Be confident and knock their socks off. I’ll be watching from the seats!”

Kaede: “Hahaha, thanks. That’s so Kaito of you.”

I love Kaede using “Kaito” as an adjective, much like I’ve done many times throughout this commentary. His personality is so impactful and distinctive that sometimes there’s no better way to encapsulate it than that. And the fact that Kaede does this goes to show that she also appreciates Kaito’s outlook a lot, because she wouldn’t describe it in this way that expresses just how uniquely him it is if she didn’t.

Both Kaede and Kaito assume that the other doesn’t think much of them or see them as anything more than another close friend of Shuichi’s, but they’re so wrong! You should be better friends with each other as well, you two! You have so much in common other than just being Shuichi’s friend!

Kaito’s other two options for the festival aren’t especially noteworthy. He can talk to Ibuki before her concert and see that she’s already plenty hyped up about it without his help, or he can check out a fashion show featuring the class 1 girls and have “Junko” (really Mukuro) accuse him of being a perv when he’s genuinely just interested in the show. (Why wouldn’t he be interested? There’s nothing unnecessary in this world!)

However, Kaito’s appearances in other people’s events for this school festival are all quite noteworthy in one way or another.

One of these festival events is with Byakuya. This is not someone you’d expect Kaito to go out of his way to talk to, because he’s empatically neither someone Kaito respects for being invested in helping others, nor someone who might benefit from Kaito’s support. But apparently there is one reason Kaito is interested in him, and therefore approaches him after a speech he was giving at the festival…

Kaito: “I’ve got a question for you! The Togami Corporation funds all kinds of stuff, right? What about space exploration?”

…Which is, of course, SPACE.

Byakuya: “That is within our power. The Togami group, and myself, can move mountains. We are obligated to spread our grasp into space. A loser like you wouldn’t understand.”

Byakuya, you asshole, you are talking to the Ultimate Astronaut; if you actually cared about a Togami space program then he’d be an incredible asset to that. Evidently Byakuya does not actually care about space travel itself and is only interested in doing this as a way to make his name seem even more big and important.

Kaito: “I’m no loser! I’m Kaito Momota, Luminary of the Stars!”

…At one point in the main commentary I mentioned that Kaito never actually responds to being called useless (which “loser” is pretty analogous to) in this overblown way. But that was because that kind of overblown response would have sounded like an obviously-desperate defence during the times when he actually was afraid he was useless. Here in this AU, though, Kaito has no such issues going on, so all that’s happening here is his genuine overblown confidence. Being called a loser just bounced right off him; he knows he’s not.

(Also look at how Kaito would rather inform Byakuya that he’s the Luminary of the Stars, even though him being the Ultimate Astronaut is pretty relevant to this conversation. His luminary title is so much more important to him.)

Kaito: “But I see you understand how great outer space is.”

I am kind of surprised though that Kaito didn’t pick up on the fact that Byakuya doesn’t understand how great space is, at least not in any meaningful way.

Kaito: “Alright! I’ll make you my sidekick!”

…Kaito? Clearly Byakuya is not a potential sidekick, what are you doing.

Kaito then apparently spends a while following Byakuya around and pestering him about space despite his protests. Given this, I can only assume that in this instance Kaito means a somewhat different kind of sidekick, one that only applies in the context of space travel. Obviously Kaito is the foremost authority on space around here, so he wants to teach Byakuya all about space exploration and how he can make the Togami corporation the best at space. Maybe Kaito does realise that Byakuya only “understands” how great space is in the sense that he superficially recognises it’s big and important, and so Kaito wants to teach him exactly why it’s so great so that Byakuya will definitely decide to throw all of his money at it.

Kaito, cut your losses, dude. You could do so, so much better than him for a space sidekick.

On a similar but much more interesting note, Kaito can also interact with Izuru Kamukura. (Yes, he’s in this mode like it’s no big deal. Hajime is also in this mode. They’re never both seen or mentioned in the same scene, so I guess we’re just running with two alternate universes here?)

Kaito: “How about it? You wanna become my sidekick, too?”

And Kaito just casually offers this out of nowhere after they’ve done nothing but help set up the stage together.

Izuru: “It wouldn’t make sense to have a sidekick who is better than you at everything, right?”

Oh, Izuru, you don’t get it at all. Kaito absolutely can have sidekicks that are better and more capable than him. The only thing required for them to be his sidekick is that there’s something standing in the way of them reaching their full potential, something that Kaito’s support can help with.

Kaito: “Heh, Ultimate Hope? That’s nothin’! I’m Kaito Momota, Luminary of the Stars!”

Heh, there’s another instance of him seeing his luminary title as far more meaningful than any of these Ultimate talents, even the most Ultimate one of them all.

Izuru: “I can analyze everything about a future you would follow.”

Kaito: “Analyze? You’re just talking about predictions. My destiny’s too big to be predicted! Plus… I’ve got Shuichi and Maki Roll as my sidekicks. If we include their strengths, the possibilities are endless.”

Silly Izuru, assuming Kaito has limits, that there are things that might just be impossible for him. That’s not how Kaito works! And I love that Kaito brings his sidekicks into it, too; he believes in their potential so much! More than that, he believes that when people work together, they have unlimited potential that could never be predicted!

Izuru: “As I predicted, you are an idiot. How boring…”

Kaito: “That’s a bad habit. If you keep saying that, you’ll start to think everything’s boring. Are you okay with that?”

…See, Kaito gets it. He knew exactly what he was doing in this instance when he asked Izuru to be his sidekick. It doesn’t matter that Izuru is infinitely more talented than him – he still has weakness that he needs help with. After nothing but a brief session of helping each other with some manual labour, Kaito managed to pick up on that. His intuition is incredible.

This weakness of Izuru’s – to see everything as boring because he’s such a super-genius that he can predict every possible outcome – is, as far as I understand it, ultimately the reason he ended up contributing to the apocalypse in his canon storyline, because Junko convinced him it was the least boring thing he could do. But it didn’t necessarily have to be that way. If he’d only had the right help, he could have ended up using his talents to do far more productive things than ending the world.

If anyone could teach Izuru how to have more passion for life, to see the value and excitement in things even if he already knows everything about them, surely it would be Kaito? If anyone could let him realise that people are inherently unpredictable and he’s never going to always know everything that will happen, surely it would also be a beautifully reckless doofus like Kaito?

Plus, Izuru was supposedly implanted with every single talent imaginable, but only insofar as he’s one person. He evidently doesn’t have Kaito’s talent, because that’s all about teamwork and co-operation. Izuru is already a super-genius, but he could be so much better than he is. If Kaito could convince him that this interpersonal kind of talent is worthwhile to have as well, then he could teach him that, and Izuru would learn to value other people’s strengths no matter how predictable they are! There’s just so much Kaito could do for him.

Unfortunately, Izuru brushes Kaito off as boring again and ignores continued attempts to sidekick him, so we can only assume that Kaito eventually backed down and decided it wasn’t worth it because Izuru wasn’t willing to try and change. Which I’m only begrudgingly accepting because if Kaito did succeed in making Izuru listen to him then that’d be the beginning of a whole storyline that this side mode just doesn’t have the capacity for. Otherwise, I really do believe Izuru had the potential to change, and that Kaito would believe that too and not give up so easily.

Just… man, imagine Kaito being a part of actual Hope’s Peak canon and just casually averting the apocalypse because he saw Izuru’s weakness and did his usual Kaito thing and it worked.

At some other point during the festival, Nagito approaches Kaito and is disappointed to hear that the Ultimate Astronaut isn’t putting on any kind of show about space today.

Kaito: “Oh, are you interested in space, too?”

Nagito: “Of course I am! The vastness of space… that’s the only stage suitable for your talent, right!? There’s no mistake that you’ll be able to bring hope to the world from outer space!”

Kaito: “Hmm… something feels off.”

Nagito: “Off? What do you mean?”

Kaito: “You’re not interested in space… Or me. That’s how it feels. Like it’d be weird for you to cheer me on…”

Kaito’s intuition is so good. He barely knows Nagito, but he can sense well enough just from a few sentences that Nagito doesn’t actually care about Kaito himself or his interests at all and is only obsessed with the “hope” that he thinks Kaito represents. (Not that Nagito’s concept of it is anything close to the actual meaning of the word “hope”, but let’s not go into that again.) Kaito hasn’t seen enough of Nagito to know for sure that this is the kind of creep he is (like I imagine Nagito’s classmates are probably fully aware by now), but even without that, he can instinctively pick up on it straight away.

Kaito would probably have a lot of very interesting things to say to Nagito if he was exposed to him more and got to know his deal better, especially if it’d been in the context of an actual killing game. …But really, Kaito’s already had to do more than enough giving a piece of his mind to a selfish asshole who keeps making the killing game about himself and his own bullshit philosophy, and there’s so much more to Kaito’s character than just being stuck doing that all the time. Let’s give him a break.

Nagito: “Hmm… did I get too excited? I’m sorry if my blabbering made you uncomfortable… But it’s true that I want to cheer you on, Kaito…”

Kaito: “Well, I guess you’re not lying… My bad.”

No, Kaito, not your bad, because you were right! Just because he really isn’t lying about “wanting to cheer you on” doesn’t necessarily mean he cares about you.

This shows something neat about how Kaito treats his hunches that never really came up in the main storyline. If Kaito’s hunch about someone is negative, then he won’t act on it without further proof. Despite how much faith he puts in his intuition, he’ll give someone the benefit of the doubt if they deny whatever negative thing he suspects about them. (We saw this kind of thing very briefly in trial 2 when he picked up that Kirumi was trying to save an “everyone” who wasn’t here but then stopped pushing the subject when she denied it, even though she was lying and he probably still suspected that.) After all, it’s just a hunch. Kaito doesn’t want to form firm negative opinions of someone based only on that, because that’s not fair. That’s just being a dick to someone for what’s really no good reason, especially if it then turns out he was wrong about them and they didn’t deserve it.

Of course, Kaito is quite happy to act upon unfounded positive hunches about people, because why shouldn’t he? There’s nothing wrong with being nice to someone for no reason! Maybe it’ll turn out he was wrong about them and they didn’t really deserve his kindness, but then, still, no-one was hurt; he was just being a bit too reckless by believing in them is all. Kaito is so often recklessly kind like that – yet we can see here that he also tries not to be recklessly unkind. He’s so good.

Elsewhere in the school festival, Mikan is working as a receptionist for the haunted house exhibit. In an attempt to attract more guests, she tries inviting passers-by… one of whom happens to be Kaito. As you can imagine, this does not go down well.

After his initial freakout over the idea, which rather startles poor Mikan, Kaito tries to calm down and talk himself into it.

Kaito: “Wait, wait… I’m not scared. Everything in there is just fake, right?”

Obviously he doesn’t want to be seen as a coward, but this could also be partly because he feels bad for freaking out at Mikan when she was genuinely just trying to be a good receptionist for the exhibit and doesn’t want to disappoint her.

Mikan: “Yes… they’re all just props for the festival. So it’d make me happy if you tried it… sorta…”

Kaito: [looking ill] “Sorry… I still can’t.”

But I’m glad he realises that he’s not going to be able to handle this and backs out before actually forcing himself through the exhibit and fucking up his health a lot more. Sometimes these things just can’t be helped, and that’s okay, Kaito. Looking after yourself is more important than saving face or preventing someone from being mildly disappointed. (And don’t apologise for it, you moron.)

Since Kaito already did make himself feel a little ill just thinking about it, at least he happens to be with Mikan, so she’s able to take care of him.

What interests me the most about this scene, though, is just the fact that it’s here at all. I went over at great length in the main commentary how I’m absolutely convinced that Kaito’s phobia only existed as something that Tsumugi deliberately wrote into him so that she could weaken him when she wanted to. It didn’t make sense for Kaito to have that phobia for any other reason – it was in-universe bad writing that was justified in an out-universe sense because Tsumugi was a lazy writer.

But in this AU, Kaito is not a fictional character written by Tsumugi and nobody is trying to nerf him. There’s no in-story reason for Kaito to have the phobia in this AU – the only reason is that “he had it in canon”, but the reason he had it in canon does not apply here. Every other one of his character traits is here in this AU not only because he had them in canon, but because they’re all a part of what make him Kaito. But I think it could be argued that his phobia is not a part of what makes him Kaito – it sure as hell isn’t connected to anything else about his character at all – and therefore that it doesn’t need to be here.

So it honestly would have been entirely plausible to me to see Kaito not have the phobia in this AU. They could have instead had a scene of Kaito excitedly going into the haunted house exhibit with absolutely no explanation as to why he’s okay with this, because why should there be an explanation for something he’s never had a problem with in this universe? It would have been a delightful subtle hint as to the reason behind his phobia in canon. I’d have loved that. Alas.

Instead, it seems the writers just decided to take the in-universe bad writing that gave Kaito his phobia originally and make it a part of the out-universe writing for Kaito in this AU. Which I guess is acceptable if we consider that Gonta is also here at all.

Gonta had by far the most obviously-fictional backstory – raised by a race of creatures from a videogame? – and so that shouldn’t be a thing in this universe where he’s not made from fake memories. However, they also can’t just briefly edit it so that in this universe his forest family really were wolves, because wolves don’t have a proper language. Apparently, if a human child is isolated from any kind of language for a prolonged amount of time at the ages Gonta would have been at, it severely fucks up their ability to grasp language at all and they become basically non-functional. This is not an issue with fictional-Gonta, because Reptites are sapient and have a language that he’d have learned instead, so his backstory is perfectly consistent with the person he is. But if some kind of sapient non-human creature is not able to be part of his backstory… Gonta’s entire character falls apart and does not make sense. So Gonta existing as the Gonta we know in any non-fantasy universe in which he wasn’t made from fake memories is bad writing.

The writers had Gonta exist in this AU anyway, of course, because obviously they didn’t want to deprive us of our lovely gentleman friend in this mode, and if that means there’s technically some bad writing here, then so be it. So I guess with Kaito as well, they used that same philosophy of keeping him exactly as he is in canon, even including the parts that make a lot less sense when he’s not made out of Flashback Lights for Tsumugi’s story. Hence Kaito’s phobia still being a thing even when it kind of actually shouldn’t be.

A few more miscellaneous scenes

Kaito’s last friendly event isn’t nearly as interesting to me as the rest of them and I’m not covering it in full, especially because it features Leon and Teruteru and I refuse to quote a single word that comes out of Teruteru’s mouth. But it’s still at least a little worth talking about. The gist of it is that Leon and Teruteru begin to discuss going after girls and are shallow and gross, but they’re vague enough about it at first that it somehow spurs Kaito to start talking about “a man’s passion” and sound like he might be agreeing with them.

Kaito: “I never said I wanted to peep! I’m talking about chasing after unknown worlds!”

But he was never agreeing with them; they were actually having two entirely different conversations at once without realising it. When Kaito said “a man’s passion”, he was talking about going to space, obviously, what the hell did they think he meant?

Kaito: “Listen up! I’ll teach you what a man’s passion really is!”

Kaito’s concept of manliness does not and never did have anything to do with gross sexualising misogyny, and if anyone thinks that is what being a man is supposed to be about, then he’s going to set them straight, dammit!

…Okay, admittedly that is probably not what Kaito’s about to do – presumably he’s just going to try and tell them how great space is, incidentally sidestepping the actual problem with how they were behaving. Danganronpa’s occasionally-shitty writing is thankfully not so shitty as to directly include Kaito in it (except for the literally four single lines in the main story in which he is still nowhere near as bad as these idiots and which are out-of-character outliers that should be ignored). However, it’s unfortunately still bad enough to not go and actually have the dudes who are shitty be called out by another guy for being like this. But if Danganronpa’s writing wasn’t Danganronpa’s writing, I really feel like this is the kind of thing Kaito would absolutely do.

While the writing isn’t letting Kaito properly acknowledge how gross those two are being, it is otherwise at least having him be very Kaito about this. Even if the other two were being legit and non-gross about it, Kaito would still rather talk about going to space than getting a girlfriend, obviously; space is way more exciting! (…Which, actually, means that this scene is some actual evidence supporting that that one line in one of his Salmon Team hangouts about crushes on girls is likely to be out of character for Kaito. And the one about reading dirty books, for that matter. Ha! Take that, clueless intern!)

Anyway, thankfully this is the last piece of Danganronpa shittiness that goes anywhere near Kaito that I am ever going to have to defend him from being seen as a part of. Let’s move onto something better.

The final year’s seasonal event is less of a specific school event; it takes place in winter close to graduation (the Japanese school year ends in March) and generally involves characters reflecting on their time here over the past three years. I’ve already covered a bunch of the ones I find interesting in conjunction with friendly events they’re connected to, but here’s a few of interest that are a bit more standalone.

Shuichi happens to come across Maki and Himiko on the morning of the winter closing ceremony. This is an unusual trio to see together in this universe and definitely has no particular out-universe reason behind it at all.

Shuichi and Maki are both feeling rather sentimental about the fact that graduation is coming up soon, but Himiko is having none of it.

Himiko: “Ugh, don’t make that face! It’s not like we’re graduating today!”

Shuichi: “H-Himiko?”

Himiko: “Besides, we can still see each other after we graduate! I’ll invite you all to my magic show! My magic can still improve. The next time I show it to you, it’ll be even more amazing! See? Why don’t you guys try to think of the future in a more fun way? Look forward to it!”

Look at her go! She’s been spending enough time with Tenko over the past three years to have reached basically the same point in her development that she reaches in canon in terms of how upbeat and optimistic she’s able to be. This is just the kind of thing that can help cheer Shuichi and Maki up when they’re feeling down, and also exactly the kind of role she’d be playing in this trio in canon as they’re trying to get by and deal with their trauma in the outside world. Since this scene rather pointedly has these three together (when they’re otherwise not seen together in any other scene in this mode), it’s got to be a deliberate nod to the canon ending, so it serves to show us that this is the kind of thing Himiko would have been doing for them there, too. In this universe she’s not been specifically inspired by trying to fill Kaito’s shoes or anything, but she’s doing this anyway simply because she’s a performer and this is what her magic is all about.

Shuichi: “Hey… Kaede played a performance at Maki’s orphanage, right? Why not have Himiko do a show at the orphanage too?”

Himiko: “A show for orphans, huh? Yeah, that’s a good idea.”

Aww, that would be adorable! Both Kaede and Himiko perform to make people smile, and those kids definitely deserve to smile. Also it’s lovely to see confirmation that Kaede really did end up going to Maki’s orphanage and it went off without a hitch.

Himiko: “I might even get an apprentice. How about it, Maki?”

Maki: “…I can’t imagine you as a master. I think you’re moving too fast.”

Nah, Maki, I think Himiko would be great at that. She ended up greater than her own master despite seeming to be the apprentice on the surface, so I think that makes her plenty qualified to be a master herself and train her own apprentices now.

(Since Himiko’s master actually exists in this universe, I am Very Invested in her reuniting with him one day. She needs to help him realise that having messed up in front of her one time doesn’t mean he’s failed her because she still looks up to him and cares about him even if she’s become greater than him, and he was being an Idiot to ever feel like she’d be better off without him because they are not just master and apprentice but also friends.)

Meanwhile, for Kaito’s final year event, one of his choices is obviously the most correct and worthwhile, but I’ll save the best for last. If he instead chooses to go for a walk on his own, Kaito bumps into Kokichi and has a predictably infuriating conversation with him, most of which I’m not going to bother covering, but there’s one part of it that I find interesting enough to talk about.

Kaito: “You haven’t changed a bit in these last 3 years…”

This seems at a glance just like a general way to express exasperation, but it is very like Kaito to focus on Kokichi not having changed. After all, Kaito’s watched his sidekicks grow and change so much and is generally invested in the idea of people changing as they meet and form friendships with others. But of course none of that happened to Kokichi over these three years, because, as ever, he refused to let himself change.

Kaito: “You’re still like this at your age? Doesn’t it make your parents cry? Do you even visit?”

Some very good questions! What is going on with regards to Kokichi’s parents? Did he live with them? Does he visit? Are they in the picture at all?

All questions that like hell we’re ever going to get the answers to, of course, and I don’t have nearly enough basis to bother speculating. But I do love that Kaito has thought about this. He’s trying to make some sense of why Kokichi is this way, but he’s also thinking about what Kokichi being this way must be doing to the people out there who actually unconditionally care about him.

(At least, Kaito is automatically assuming that Kokichi’s parents care about him, even though them being assholes could potentially begin to explain a few things. Apparently Kaito considers parents being decent to be the norm, which is another indication that his own parents being assholes is not the answer to why they’re not around.)

Kokichi: “Hey now, you don’t really ask the supreme leader of evil such normie questions. Also, if you wanna know my origin story, you’re gonna have to bet two lives for it.”

Kaito: “Idiot, everyone’s only got one life and there’s no way I’d waste mine on your story!”

Kokichi: “Aw maaan, how boring. If you’re not gonna bother learning the truth about me…”

Kokichi, of course, responds with some evasive insincere bullshit rather than actually be honest about himself for a second, and then acts like it’s Kaito’s fault for not caring enough to want to learn. It couldn’t possibly be that Kaito really does want to understand him better and Kokichi is just refusing to open up because of his trust issues, nope, not at all, nothing is ever Kokichi’s fault.

For the other obviously-not-correct option for his winter event, Kaito goes to the dining hall and comes across Hifumi, who just finished submitting some fan comics of his before the end of the year.

Hifumi: “The crunch time for them was difficult for even my golden hand… But as you can see, I overcame it and triumphed! I’ve raised the bar for fanfic yet again!”

Kaito: “In other words, you wanted to show your manliness, huh? Good for you!”

While I’m not entirely sure why he decided to bring it up now out of nowhere, Kaito’s concept of manliness is still not inherently gendered. He’s just talking about Hifumi giving it his all and wanting to show how good he is at what he does. It’s about being true to yourself!

Kaito: “Alright! Then next you can make a manga about me, Kaito Momota, Luminary of the Stars!”

Hifumi: “Huh? A manga about you, Mr. Momota?”

Kaito: “It’s gonna be a legendary manga! If you make it about me, it’s gonna be a global hit! Cuz it’s gonna be filled with manga-style adventure before it even gets to the space part!”

What an absolute dork. What I can only assume he means by this is that he’s going to have Hifumi manga-ify the ridiculous make-believe games he played as a kid. Obviously that’s the kind of story that everyone’s going to be able to appreciate, children and adults alike, right? And in his narration at the end of this scene, he calls this his biography, because it’s all definitely true. Oh, Kaito.

Hifumi: “Well, that aside, if I’m gonna make it… It’ll definitely be a global hit! You’ve got a good eye for talent, Mr. Momota!”

Kaito: “Of course! I’m a hero with many sidekicks!”

Kaito is citing his status as a hero with sidekicks not as part of why his story will obviously be a global hit, but as a separate thing, in terms of why he’s good at spotting talent. Because he is! His hero-and-sidekick thing is all about seeing the potential in people and bringing it out of them, and he’s so good at it!

Reflections with the sidekicks

But anyway, speaking of Kaito’s sidekicks, let’s get back to the obviously correct option for his final year event.

The stars are especially pretty tonight… What will you do?

- Take a walk with my sidekicks

Kaito’s POV is again being wonderfully Kaito – of course he’d notice that the stars are pretty. He definitely goes for walks on clear nights all the time just so that he can look up at them. Space.

(How many times do you want to bet he’s tripped over something and made a doofus of himself because he was too busy looking up at the stars to watch where he was actually going? A lot. The answer is a lot, I will accept nothing lower.)

Kaito: “You can see the stars pretty well tonight, yeah? Before long, I’ll be up there with ‘em!”

Maki: “The stars are pretty, but… is this really the only reason why you called me out this late?”

Shuichi: “He does this a lot…”

See, he does do this all the time! And what better way to enjoy the beauty of the night sky than by sharing it with his sidekicks? This isn’t even a training session; they’re just hanging out under the stars.

Shuichi: “But isn’t it kind of fun?”

Maki: “…I never said this wasn’t fun.”

And Shuichi and Maki have come to appreciate Kaito’s impromptu starlight walks too! They are friends.

Kaito: “So many things happened in the last three years after I met you guys! We did some school stuff, went to Sonia’s country during the break and solved a case!”

This is indeed another thing that happened. One of Shuichi’s friendly events is with Sonia, in which she tells him about an unsolved conspiracy causing problems among the nobles of her country that ultimately boils down to a lot of missing pets. Since that’s his area of expertise, Shuichi offers to look into it for her, and Sonia takes him up on that. This is more of him trying to help people out using his detective skills, like Kaito was encouraging him to do near the beginning!

And while Shuichi didn’t mention his friends at all during that conversation with Sonia, apparently Kaito later heard about it and invited himself and Maki along. He probably just wanted the three of them to have an adventure together, didn’t he.

Maki: “Hm, I still don’t know why I had to tag along, though.”

Kaito: “You were great at wiping out all those assassins! That’s my sidekick for you!”

Maki: “Correction. I protected us from danger and Shuichi solved the case…”

It sure sounds like they did have quite the adventure, too. Maki used her assassin skills to protect her friends! She even seems to realise this! (Kaito’s wording doeees kinda imply that, while he’s trying to gloss over it, she might have straight-up killed those enemy assassins, though. That’s a shame if so, but it was probably the only way to keep her friends safe.)

Maki: “If anything, I don’t know why you’re tagging along, Kaito.”

Shuichi: “If Kaito hadn’t invited you, Maki, then Sonia and I could have been in big trouble.”

Kaito: “Issuing orders to sidekicks is the most important job a hero has!”

Maki: “Then your job was over before we even left the country.”

Kaito was helping, you guys. His decision to bring Maki was a good call, but then he also came with them for, uh, you know, moral support! …Which probably genuinely did help them, at least a little, because Kaito is the actual best at moral support. If Maki did kill those enemy assassins, they could potentially have been the first people she’s killed since enrolling in Hope’s Peak, which might have caused a setback in her growth that Kaito would definitely have helped talk her through.

Kaito: “After graduation, when I’m in space, I’ll look for you guys from up above!”

Maki: “Huh? You’d never find us.”

Shuichi: “Ah, well, he might be able to see the approximate area…”

It’s lovely how Kaito says this even though it’s extremely unrealistic to think he could actually see them from there. He wants his sidekicks to be able to feel, even while he’s gone, that he’s watching over them from space!

(This is also a sentiment that very much applies in canon when he really is gone. He died up there in space, which means he’s still up there and watching over them from among the stars, isn’t he?)

Kaito: “And then I’ll take you guys into space one day. After all, I need my sidekicks to help me out.”

Kaito pulls this out of absolutely nowhere despite how clearly unfeasible it is. And the idea that it’s because he’d need them to help him is obviously an excuse, because that’s not what the word “sidekick” actually means to him.

Kaito just… doesn’t want to be without them for such a prolonged amount of time. He’s so positive-minded that he’d always have thought of only the good things about going to space, so his comment just a moment ago might have been the first time it’s properly occured to him that going to space does have its downsides, because he’s going to have to say goodbye to Shuichi and Maki and leave them behind for months at a time. There’ll be video chats and such, but it won’t be the same. Kaito wants to keep being with them all the time not just for their sake but for his sake, because even if he still isn’t calling them this in this AU either, they’re his best friends and he loves them to bits.

So obviously that just means that they’ve got to come to space with him too, yep, that’s definitely plausible and definitely something they’d both want, and Kaito’s not going to think about anything else.

Shuichi: “You need us to save you, Kaito?”

Maki: “Well, yeah… We’re the only ones who would do it.”

Kaito: “Hey, Shuichi, what do you mean ‘save me’!? Maki Roll, what do you mean, ‘the only ones’!? Geez, what sassy sidekicks. I gotta teach you guys some manners.”

They are the best sassy sidekicks and I love the way they’re making such affectionate jabs at him like that. He’s an idiot in some ways, but he’s their idiot and they wouldn’t have it any other way. And they really would be there for him if he actually genuinely needed help, even though they’re making it sound like a joke on the surface and Kaito is bound to be assuming that they don’t mean it as anything more than that, goddammit Kaito.

Shuichi: “…How did we end up agreeing to go into space with Kaito?”

Maki: “There’s no way it would go that smoothly. You really are all talk, Kaito.”

Kaito: “Shut it! The impossible is possible, all you gotta do is make it so! It’s already been decided!”

Bad sidekicks, stop telling Kaito it’s impossible! And, okay, technically it isn’t completely impossible for Shuichi and Maki to potentially become astronauts and go to space with Kaito if they both trained hard enough. But that’d require them to put in far more effort than they’d be willing to do just to be able to keep Kaito company in space, considering that space isn’t their passion and they have their own lives they want to lead. Of course Kaito knows this – he just doesn’t want to think about leaving them behind, and so he’s trying to use his own line to tell himself that bringing them to space with him is something he’s totally allowed to imagine happening.

Kaito: “Both of you gotta keep up your training!”

Shuichi: “I don’t know if we’ll ever end up in space, but… I’ll keep on training.”

Maki: “…If I feel like it.”

But regardless of how unrealistic the space part is, they will definitely be keeping up their training, even while Kaito’s up in space without them! Including Maki, despite that she’s acting all dismissive about it here. (She’s smiling when she says that.)

You made a promise for the future with your sidekicks…

Kaito, no, that is not what you did. They did not actually promise to come to space with you. (It’ll be okay, though! You’ll be friends with the other astronauts too, because that’s what astronauts do! And you’ll get plenty of time to see Shuichi and Maki in between missions when you’re back on Earth, and plenty of video chats from space!)

Since this scene is only available while you’re playing as Kaito, it has more of a focus on Kaito’s perspective. Of course Shuichi and Maki also each have a third year seasonal event with Kaito that I’m about to get to, and theirs focus more on their perspective, namely what Kaito’s done for them. Because that gets covered in their scenes, Kaito’s scene is free to be about what Shuichi and Maki mean to him, beyond the purely selfless sense of him being proud of how much they’ve grown – and they’re his best friends that he wants to keep hanging out with and having adventures with forever! This scene isn’t really about them as his sidekicks. They’re more to Kaito than just that, even if he still won’t actually use the word “friend”, the big doofus.

Let’s move onto Maki’s scene, then, and talk about what he’s done for her. (Both Maki and Shuichi’s scenes with Kaito are only one-on-one, so Shuichi’s not here for this.)

Kaito: “It was a lot of work taking care of you guys these past three years. You didn’t even try to talk to people in the beginning.”

Maki: “Yeah. If you hadn’t annoyed me so much with your constant pestering… I probably would have never been able to talk to Shuichi and the others so casually.”

Kaito helped her relearn how to be friends! Here is confirmation that he very much did employ copious amounts of stubborn pestering to get through to her, not that that aspect of how it happened was ever in question. Kaito is even actually more or less admitting that it was pretty hard work getting through to her – he refers to both her and Shuichi when he says that, but let’s face it, he definitely had to put in a lot more effort in Maki’s case at first.

Kaito: “You’re being pretty frank today. It seems you finally understand how great I am!”

It is unusual for Maki to be openly admitting things like this – which is also a big sign of her progress! And it’s very like Kaito to respond to her genuine expression of how much he’s done for her by being over the top about it rather than just directly, earnestly accepting it. In this instance it’s definitely not that he’s having any issues that make him not truly believe he deserves such thanks. So I guess it’s instead just due to him feeling kind of awkward when it comes to heartfelt, down-to-earth things like this, and he’s more comfortable putting on the super-awesome-hero fiction for it. (More on this in Shuichi’s scene.)

Kaito: “Or… are you sad because graduation is getting closer?”

Maki: “…Yes.”

Kaito: “…That’s a bit too frank.”

It does seem that Kaito’s also kind of awkward just thinking about generally sentimental things at all. After all, we saw in his scene that he doesn’t like thinking about the fact that he won’t be seeing his sidekicks every day any more once they graduate.

Maki: “Well, there’s no point being sentimental. It’s not like we won’t ever see each other again.”

Looks like Maki could tell that Kaito’s also feeling more sentimental than he wants to be. At least Maki is capable of being pragmatic about it even while she’s feeling sad. (Kaito would of course be capable of being as optimistic about it as he can, but for his part he doesn’t even really like to think about the sad bits in the first place if he can avoid it.)

Kaito: “Yeah… you’re right. It’ll be hard for me to see you on a daily basis after this, but… it’s not goodbye forever.”

Maki: “What do you mean, it’ll be hard?”

Kaito: “Hm? Well, because I’ll be up in space, obviously.”

Maki: “Oh, yeah… You still want to go there.”

Obviously! Keep up, Maki Roll! Don’t tell me you ever thought for a second that he wasn’t serious about going there, or that he’d change his mind one day! I’m going to instead put this reaction down her just having not quite properly thought about what that means in terms of the future of their friendship, in that he’s not going to be able to be around as much. Kind of like how Kaito himself in his scene apparently hadn’t thought about it properly until now.

Maki’s looking distant and a little sad in her last line there, and it seems like Kaito picks up on that.

Kaito: “But you’re my sidekick! If something happened to you, I’d fly back here, right away! I look out for my sidekicks! Cuz I’m a hero!”

Therefore obviously it’ll totally be possible for him to do this if Maki needed him to! Aborting a space mission on short notice in the middle of it and zooming back to Earth for personal reasons is definitely something an astronaut can do, right? This is adorably like the previous scene in which Kaito insisted they could totally come to space with him. He really does not want to think about the fact that going to space will unavoidably separate him from his sidekicks for months at a time.

While the last scene was more from Kaito’s perspective and was therefore about what he’d want – his sidekicks in space with him! – this one is reversed. This scene has been about what Kaito’s done for Maki, and her talking about that has made him focus on what she’d want. So of course he would selflessly abandon space and come right back to help her if something serious happened and she really did need him! …If only he could. His reluctance at the idea of being separated from his sidekicks is, just as you’d expect, also partly out of selflessness for their sake, in terms of him not being there to support them like the hero he’s supposed to be. Kaito can’t bear the thought of Maki needing him and him being uselessly stuck out in space, not able to help her.

(She’d be okay, though, Kaito! Maki’s got other friends too who’d be able to help her in person. And if she really did need Kaito in particular, video chats would be enough, because Kaito always helps the most with just words.)

Maki: “Huh… that again? Well… I’ll be waiting, but I won’t be expecting much…”

Maki is of course fully aware of how unfeasible these claims of Kaito’s are, but it seems, based on her wistful smile at the end, that she at least understands and appreciates how much he genuinely wants to be able to do that for her if she ever needs it. He is a hero who looks out for his sidekicks, after all, and Maki knows this, no matter how ridiculous she might think that way of wording it is.

Last but not least, Shuichi’s scene begins with him waking up early on the day of the winter closing ceremony. (This is remarkable in and of itself, considering how emphatically not a morning person Shuichi was in canon. Perhaps that was partly for mental health reasons, though, and after three years of being friends with Kaito and Kaede and working on his issues, he’s got better at waking up in the mornings.)

Thinking about only having a short time left at this academy makes you sad… And from that comes restlessness. What will you do?

- Exercise is perfect at a time like this

It’s lovely how Shuichi thinks of this entirely by himself as something that’ll improve his mood. Kaito really has taught him well!

So Shuichi heads to the school field and finds that Kaito had the same idea as him.

Kaito: “Oh, hey there bro! Are you training too?”

Shuichi: “Yeah! It’s good to sweat some things out!”

Kaito: “Right on! That’s the spirit! It’s all thanks to your training with me!”

Of course it’s all thanks to his training with Kaito! Shuichi would never have even considered doing this kind of thing to help himself if Kaito hadn’t been his friend.

Shuichi: “…You’re right. You befriended me, and encouraged me, and gave me advice… You’ve… helped me so much, Kaito…”

Kaito: “Hey, hey. What’s all that about? Don’t dampen the mood, bro.”

…But Kaito still can’t quite just earnestly accept such heartfelt gratitude. This is kind of a reverse of last scene with Maki, in which he responded to her acknowledgement of how much he’d done by being kind of flippantly over-the-top about it. This time, he started with the over-the-top “well, it’s because I’m awesome!”, but Shuichi responding with an earnest “no, you really are, thank you so much,” still managed to wrong-foot him. And again, this isn’t the canon storyline where Kaito had heaps of issues and ended up with a gaping hole in his sense of self-worth, so it’s not because he doesn’t feel like he deserves any kind of thanks at all.

It seems bizarre to be using this word for Kaito, but… he might actually be kind of modest? Sure, he’ll act over-the-top about his achievements, but it’s like he only really thinks of that as a fiction for the sake of keeping up his usual luminary image, an image that people might buy into and play along with because it’s fun and it helps encourage them, but not because they really think he’s that ridiculously amazing. If someone takes his overblown words at face value and seems to genuinely feel that they’re true, then he’ll back up and try to brush it off, because nah, he’s all right, but there’s no way he could really be quite that awesome. (You are that awesome, Kaito. At least when it comes to supporting your sidekicks.)

Shuichi: “Ah, sorry… I was just thinking about what we’ve built over the years…”

Friendship! You built the best adorablest friendship, is what you did. (Also what are you doing apologising for this, Shuichi; there is absolutely nothing wrong in telling Kaito how amazing he’s been even if he’s too much of an awkward dork to properly accept it.)

Shuichi: “If I ever find myself in trouble, I can look back at my time with you for inspiration, Kaito.”

Just like he’s also able to do in canon even though Kaito’s not there any more!

Kaito: “That’s true, but… Graduation won’t be the end for us!”

But thankfully, in this universe, Kaito is always going to be there. (Just maybe sometimes only over video chats, from space.) He doesn’t ever want their friendship to end!

Kaito: “Listen up! Even if things get tough in the future…”

Shuichi: “Don’t bear it all by yourself, right?”

Kaito: “Oh… well if you get it, then it’s all good.”

Pfft, I like how Kaito seems almost miffed that Shuichi stole his line. But it definitely is okay so long as he understands that, and evidently Kaito has told him this enough times over the years that Shuichi has that well and truly ingrained in his mind by now and already knew exactly how Kaito was going to finish his sentence.

Kaito: “When things are bad, me, Maki Roll, or Kaede will help you carry your burdens. As long as you understand that, you can get stronger.”

And it’s good to see that Kaito isn’t just focusing things on himself as the sole figure of support (after all, he wouldn’t have any reason to in this AU where he hasn’t been having massive issues). He’s happy to remind Shuichi that he has other friends as well who’ll be there to help him.

Shuichi: “The same goes for you, Kaito. If there’s anything I can help you with, just say so.”

Shuichi is also so very good. Every time Kaito says something along those lines to Shuichi, I’m always burning with the desperate urge to tell him that goes for you too, Kaito, you selfless idiot, you deserve it – so it’s really lovely and cathartic to see Shuichi actually telling him that. He’s such a caring friend and really would be more than happy to do anything for Kaito if he ever needed it.

Kaito: “Heh, now we’re talking. Of course you’d help me! I’m the hero and you’re my sidekick!”

…

*tilts head almost 180 degrees*

Who are you and what have you done with Kaito.

This is not how Kaito works. He seems to be actually acknowledging that helping the hero is one of the roles of a sidekick, but no it isn’t, not in Kaito’s definition!

Okay, so. When I was starting to think about writing these UTDP bonus posts, I had one hell of a hot take in mind for this line. That take was that the reason Kaito says this here is because in this AU, he’s not “fictional”.

As I explain in greater length in my post about Kaito’s entire character arc from my main blog, it seems reasonable to assume that Kaito’s childlike black-and-white view on heroes and sidekicks comes from the fact that he was in-universely written to be the perfect ideal hero to inspire Shuichi. It’s somewhat unrealistic to think that if Kaito had actually experienced growing up, he wouldn’t have gradually gained a more nuanced appreciation for fiction, as he started reading more complex stories containing more fallible heroes who were still capable of being inspiring not despite but because of that. So I was going to say that Kaito not being fictional in this AU and having actually grown up meant he’d been able to gain that greater understanding of what made a hero inspiring, which’d mean that Kaito’s usual double-standard about heroes simply doesn’t exist in this version of him, and therefore that he genuinely means it here when he says of course Shuichi can and should help him out too.

…Except that clearly doesn’t track with some of the other scenes in this AU, now, does it. Mostly I’m talking about the scenes with Ryoma, in which Kaito’s issues about heroes clearly still apply to Ryoma in the same way they did in canon. There’s also that one scene with Hifumi in which Kaito is quite happy to have his ridiculous childhood games made into a manga and doesn’t seem to be aware of the fact that mayyyybe a lot of people wouldn’t actually find them to be particularly compelling narratives.

And while the scene with Kaito’s phobia isn’t about the hero issue, the point I was trying to get at there is related to this. It doesn’t quite make sense that Kaito has his phobia if he’s not “fictional”, just like it maybe doesn’t quite make sense that he has this view of heroes either. But ultimately, when writing this AU, the writers just decided to keep the characters entirely as they were in V3 canon, even including the parts of them that don’t actually quite make sense if they’re not made out of Flashback Lights for Tsumugi’s story.

So never mind, scratch all that. I only brought it up because I found it an interesting concept to think about, but it’s definitely not what’s going on here. Kaito not being “fictional” in this AU is not actually why he’s willing to admit that of course Shuichi would help him out as his sidekick.

Instead, presumably the reason Kaito is saying this here is that… he doesn’t really mean it, the idiot. It is at least not quite as bad as in canon where he knows full well he already has problems and is consciously lying when he insists that he’d totally ask for help if he needed it. Here, it’s more just that he’s never expecting he will need help and so he’ll never have to actually think about whether or not this claim is really true. Ultimately, it’s easier for him to just casually claim this here, because the alternative is being all “oh but I won’t need your help!”, which’d just make him sound like he doesn’t even appreciate Shuichi’s willingness to be there for him.

I do like to believe, though, that whenever Kaito does run into some kind of trouble in future in this AU (and I say “when” not “if” because nobody can ever go through life without having at least some problems here and there), he’ll actually be able, with Shuichi and Maki’s prodding and reassurance, to admit it and ask for help. Without the stress of the killing game making Kaito tunnel-vision into the fact that he needs to keep supporting his sidekicks and that the only thing that matters is how much of a difference he can make to everyone’s survival, I think he’d be a lot less completely and utterly averse to acknowledging weakness. Plus, hopefully his astronaut training will drill it into him that part of good communication is telling your teammates when there’s something wrong with you, because holy crap is it only going to make things way worse not just for you but for everyone involved if you don’t, you moron. And the more Shuichi and Maki grow and the less obviously they need his help and support most of the time, the more Kaito will come to consciously see them not just as his sidekicks but as his friends, and friends can open up to each other about anything.

One way or another, Kaito is bound to eventually realise what an idiot he’s being and overcome these issues of his. He just needs to live for long enough to get that far.

Kaito: “Alright then… wanna run for a while? Better hurry, or you’ll be eating my dust!”

Shuichi: “Ah, hey! No fair, Kaito!”

Working up a good sweat, you chased Kaito all the way to homeroom.

Aaaaa look at them racing each other off into the sunrise. They are friends and they are going to live happily ever after. Kaito is going to go to space multiple times under normal circumstances and come back alive each time, and also one day learn not to be a hypocrite about asking people for support. Shuichi is going to start his own detective agency where he exclusively takes on jobs that involve helping people and continue to have confidence in his talent in between relying on his friends for help when he needs to.

And Maki… I refuse to accept that she’s just going to have to go back to killing people in this universe when she’s come so far; that is Not Okay. Either Hope’s Peak really is going to somehow absolve her of being an assassin as part of its “set for life” policy, or Kaito and Shuichi are going to do something about it. Maki may still try to claim that assassins are necessary and therefore that totally justifies her being an assassin – there’s no real evidence in this AU that she quite got over that part of her issues – but Kaito would be having none of that. So Shuichi’s first job as a full-fledged detective may have to be to find evidence of her assassin cult’s awful deeds and report it to some kind of authorities that can take it down and take custody of all the kids from the orphanages and give all the other child-slave assassins some goddamn therapy because the rest of them don’t have a Kaito. Then Maki can rid herself of her awful past forever and get a normal job, maybe as an actual child caregiver, where she never has to think about killing anyone ever again and can live a relatively happy life after everything she’s been through, because I say so.

I just love these three so so so much and want them to get to be happy and keep being adorable friends for the rest of their lives, because they’re the best and they deserve it. So I’m glad we have this AU where nothing particularly drastic goes wrong at all, everyone is fully real, and their adorable friendships are still there like in canon, so that there’s at least one world in which we can imagine that they really are going to be okay.

#danganronpa #danganronpa v3 #drv3 #ndrv3 #bonus content #ultimate talent development plan #commentary

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tres-spades-hotel · 5 years

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Becoming the Perfect Father: Making Time for You

Thanks to @leoamber66 @flatsuke and @otomemonogatari for having our conversation about Eisuke and families within the Bidder Universe. Apparently this is a famous blog so I thought I should try not to disappoint! Hope you all enjoy it!

We moved to New York recently and I met my new tutor. I kicked up a fuss when Daddy said I had to go to school so he hired an elderly woman to tutor me and a few other children from rich families for a while as I get comfortable with the city. But every time I come home, this happens…

I open the penthouse door, feeling the weight of my backpack on my back. Daddy and all my uncles are inside.

“Daddy! I’m home!” I squeal out happily. I ran to my adoptive father, Eisuke Ichinomiya, and kissed him lightly on his cheek.

“Hm, how was your day?” He asks.

“It was good!” I respond. Uncle Baba and Uncle Ota wave at me with exasperated looks while standing by the windows.

“Hello?! What about us?” Uncle Baba asks with a frown on his face. I giggle and run over to them, hugging them each.

“Hello to both of you!” I say.

“At least acknowledge our presence. We matter too!” Uncle Baba says dramatically.

I laugh and look around. Everyone rolls their eyes and shakes their heads. I run over to Dad, putting my backpack down by the couch, and tug on his sleeve.

“Daddy, will you play with me now?” I ask hopefully. To my disappointment, Dad says:

“I’m busy.” And promptly returns his eyes to his tablet. This happens almost all the time whenever I want to spend time with my father. The man who saved me from the streets. So I decide to do what any kid would do. Get revenge.

The next day…

“I’m home!” I skip into the penthouse as usual and see the usual faces. Like every day, I greet everyone starting with Dad, then put my bag down. But instead of asking Daddy if he would play with me, I walk over to Uncle Soryu. He looks up from his phone as I approach him.

“Uncle Soryu! Could you help me read some books my tutor gave me? They’re really hard and I need help.” I ask. I once found Uncle Soryu’s book collection and spent the whole day reading with him so, whenever I need help learning to read harder books for homework, he helps me as much as he can.

He smiles softly at me. “Of course Kiki. Let’s go to my room, it’ll be quieter in there.”

“Yay!” I take his hand when he stands up and pick up my backpack. As I pass by Dad, I see an annoyed face in the corner of my eye. And I know that Dad is watching us leave.

When we got into Uncle Sor’s room, I take out the books I was given by Mrs Sands.

“Too bad they’re not detective stories, I would have aced them no problem!” I say, pouting slightly as Uncle Soryu opens the book to the first page.

“Hm, too bad indeed. Still, the detective genre in itself is a hard-fictional topic to read so I think you’re already well on your way to becoming a reading star.” He says, patting my head.

“Thanks Sor!”

The next day…

I was given homework to learn about famous artists in history. Luckily enough for me, I have an uncle who is a famous artist.

“Uncle Ota!” I shout as I run into Uncle Ota’s suite. I find him and Uncle Baba sitting on the couch in the living room, looking bored as usual.

“What?”

“I have homework that I need help with.” I say.

“I think you came to the wrong person for that.” Uncle Baba says as he frowns and Uncle Ota narrows his eyes in response.

“Excuse me? I can help Kiki with her homework.”

“It’s my art homework.”

“See? I’m the expert in art.”

“I could help you Kiki. I know a few things about art.”

“Stealing paintings isn’t the same as knowing art Baba.” Uncle Ota mutters something under his breath.

“What?” I ask.

“Nothing! What’s the homework on?” Uncle Ota says, flashing me his signature smile even though I know it’s a devil in angel attire.

“I need to research 5 famous artists in history. I figured you would know about that kind of thing.” I say, sitting in between them on the soft couch.

“I know a few. Which one do you want to learn?”

“Which one will get me praise from my tutor?”

Later that night, I’m sitting in my room writing up the information Uncle Ota told me.

“So Edvard Munch painted the Scream which is the second most famous painting after the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci…” I mutter to myself. Suddenly, Dad walks into my room and I look up.

“Hi Dad!”

“Hm, what are you doing?” He sits on my bed and I turn towards him from my desk.

“I’m doing my art homework.”

“Why did you have Ota help you with your homework? I would have helped you.” He says in a matter-of-fact tone.

“Because you would have said you were busy.” I respond in the same matter-of-fact tone. He narrows his eyes before chuckling.

“I would have helped.”

“Sure you would have Dad.” I turn back around to my homework and roll my eyes. Once I hear his light footsteps and the closing of my bedroom door, I sigh.

I knew this would happen eventually since it was my plan to spend time with everyone except for Dad. This would make him feel bad about not spending time with me and in turn, make him spend more time with me when I ask.

The next day…

I come home to find Dad on the phone to someone.

“No, put pressure on them to do this…” Dad glances at me and I wave at him. He continues with his conversation so I decide to go over to Uncle Shuichi, who is reading a newspaper.

I sit next to him and whisper, “Are you busy Uncle Shu?”

He folds his newspaper away.

“Not particularly. Why?” He responds. “Well, some of my friends were teasing me yesterday because I don’t know how to play chess.”

“I suppose you would like me to teach you?” I nod a yes and he picks up his newspaper.

“Alright, let’s go to my room. I have a chess set in there.” I smile and follow Uncle Shuichi out of the penthouse, feeling Dad’s eyes on my back as I leave the room.

“So, the bishop cannot move forward or back directly. They can only move diagonally?” I ask, looking over the chess board as Uncle Shuichi plays a match with Uncle Hikaru.

“Yes, the bishop has to move diagonally and can replace any other piece that is in its way.”

“Chess becomes easier when you understand and play it enough Kiki.” Uncle Hikaru says, moving his pawn forward.

“I see…” I mutter to myself while taking a mental note of the basics. Suddenly, Dad walks into the room.

“Kiki, let’s go.”

“Why? Where?” He takes my hand and pulls me out of the room. I hear Uncle Shuichi whisper, “That possessive….” before the door shut.

“What were you doing with them?” Dad demanded.

“We were playing chess. Why?”

“You could have asked me to teach you to play chess.”

“But you were on the phone to someone. And you were busy.” He frowns in response and I skip ahead into the penthouse lounge.

The next day…

I walk slowly down the stairs from Dad’s penthouse suite, carrying some textbooks on biology, and hear Dad talking sternly to Uncle Luke.

“Luke? Are you listening to me? You have some surgeries to do next week and…” Dad continues to talk but Uncle Luke, like always, ignores Dad as if he isn’t there and carries on reading his medical book. I take the opportunity to tap Uncle Luke lightly on his shoulder.

“Uncle Luke?” I ask and he looks up from his book.

“Yes Kiki?”

“I was hoping you could teach me some stuff about the human body? My tutor taught me some things but I want to learn it in more detail since it sounded interesting to me.”

In response, Uncle Luke smiles at me.

“Of course. Let’s go to my clinic.”

“Why does Luke only listen to Kiki? He ignores us all the time but as soon as she starts talking to him, he starts listening to her.” Uncle Ota complains. Everyone sighs as Uncle Luke takes my hand and as we leave the penthouse, I swing our arms.

“The human body is quite extraordinary. There are 300 bones in the human body from birth.”

“Really?! That’s a lot!” I exclaim to him. I’m sitting on the bed in the clinic as Uncle Luke points to various places on the fake (?) skeleton.

“Once the body has reached adulthood at the age of 25, we are left with 206 bones.”

“How 206 from 300?” I ask.

“Because some bones fuse together during the development years. But make sure you remember that 206 is not the total. There are many other bones in the human body which are not counted.”

“So we have more than 206 bones technically?”

“Yes. Give or take.”

“Wow!”

“Yes, the human body is very fascinating.”

“Hey doc I need some help.” Suddenly, Uncle Mamoru walks in with blood on his arm.

“Mamoru? What happened? Sit down.” Uncle Mamoru sits next to me holding his arm.

“Hey kid.”

“Hello, what happened? Why are you bleeding?” I ask.

“Ah it’s complicated kid.” Uncle Luke comes over with some bandages.

“I was doing some work for Eisuke and he tried legging it. I caught him but he was swinging a knife around. I was lucky not to get stabbed that hard.” Uncle Mamoru explains.

“I see, well it’s not a deep cut so it will heal soon.”

“Thanks doc. And kid, what are you doing here?”

“I’m learning science.”

“Science makes my head hurt.” He says, rubbing his eye.

“Pfft, you know, it’s funny to see you talk about work Uncle Mamo when you sleep so much!” Luke and I giggle and he huffs in response.

The next day…

Grandpa Eiji came to visit us while I was in my lessons. So when I opened the door to see him with Dad and the others, I was visibly shocked. Dad turned his head to see me and he laughed.

“What a funny face.” I pout in response but run inside anyway, leaving my bag at the door.

“Grandpa!” I scream and run right into his outstretched arms.

“Haha, hello there Kiki! How are you?” He asks, kissing my forehead.

“I’m okay! I just finished learning about electricity!”

“Oh really? And what exactly did you learn?”

“That it doesn’t take much to make a lightbulb work.”

“Haha! It took quite a lot to make it work when it was being invented Kiki. But that’s for another time, come sit.”

I noticed Dad was looking as sour as a lemon so I kissed his cheek like I always do.

“Turn that frown upside down!” I say and he pinches my cheeks in response.

“Stwap ift Ded!” I tried to say. Suddenly, a video call request popped up onto Dad’s tablet screen and he promptly removed his thin fingers from my face. I rub my cheeks, pouting as I know what’s going to happen next.

“Hm, I’ll be back soon.” Dad says and goes into his office, shutting the door.

“Is your father always like this?” Grandpa Eiji asks. I nod and I crawl onto his lap.

“Every time I want to play with Daddy, all he does is say that he’s working.”

He was quiet for a moment before speaking. “When I was a little older than your father, I always put down my work for him whenever he wanted to play or my wife, his mother, needed some time to herself. There was never a point that I said my work was more important than him or our family. Remember Kiki, family is the most important thing to anyone. So always treasure the time you have.”

“How can I do that if Dad won’t even play with me?” He only sighed. “Do you remember when we first met?”

“In the restaurant? Yes. I was very nervous to meet you that I stayed around the corner of the wall even when Dad told me to come out.”

“It wasn’t that long ago was it?”

“Nope! But now I love you very much!” I said, getting up and hugging him with all my might.

He laughed and asked, “May I ask, why were you so nervous that day?”

I looked down onto my lap and fiddled with my fingers. I mumbled, “I was afraid you wouldn’t like me.”

“Why?”

“Because Dad adopted me. Because I’m not actually his daughter. And that you would say I’m not worthy to be his daughter. And I love being his daughter! I take a lot of pride in being his daughter!”

“You have every right to be proud of being Eisuke’s child. I have never and will never say or think such things. You know Eisuke is adopted to?”

“Yes, to Grandpa Akira.”

“Akira raised Eisuke while I was… away but that doesn’t mean I’m upset that he did that in place of me. In the same way, I am not upset that Eisuke is raising you in place your parents. In fact, I am very proud that he is doing it, like Akira did for him.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Now…’ Grandpa Eiji boops my nose and says, ‘Let me tell you some stories from when Eisuke was a kid...”

A few hours later…

When I come downstairs in the afternoon, there is no one to be found. I sit on the couch and think about the past week. I know Dad is annoyed with how much time I’m spending with everyone. But this is payback for his constant refusal to play or hang out with me. Suddenly, someone walks into the lounge.

“Hi, I’m here to clean the room….” She walks in with her maid trolley and I jump off the couch.

“Mummy!” I run over to her and hug her tightly.

“Hello hon, where is everyone?” I shrug my shoulders.

“I don’t know, I just came down for a break from my homework. Grandpa Eiji went off for some work or something.”

“I see, well I suppose I should start cleaning. This is probably the only time I’ll have to some peace and quiet! Do you want anything?” She asked, smiling down at me.

“Some apple juice please!” I say and sit back down on the couch. Mum walks over with juice and some snacks.

“Thank you!” I say happily. She kisses my head and starts to clean the room. Mama isn’t really my mum yet. She’s still engaged to Dad but I already consider her my mother. We talk about lots of things, including talk about Dad.

“You know sweetheart, your Dad is quite upset since you’ve been ‘distancing’ yourself from him.” Mum uses the bunny rabbit fingers and I giggle.

“It’s not my fault Daddy doesn’t make time for me.” I pout in response. She gives me a look and I just shrug in response.

“Are you going shopping later Mum?” I ask, wiping my face of crumbs.

“Yes sweetie. I have to buy some coffee beans plus some vegetables for dinner tonight. Why?”

“Can I come with you? I haven’t left the hotel in forever!” I exaggerate, opening my arms as if the length of my hands apart shows time. Mama giggles at me.

“Well… as long as you’ve finished your homework…” She decides.

“Sure! I’m almost done anyway.”

Later, Mum picks me up and we go to the nearest supermarket. When we leave, laughing about something that Uncle Baba and Uncle Ota did to Uncle Sor, we see a limo parked by the kerb.

“There you both are. What took you so long?” Dad emerges from the car and I run to him.

“Daddy!” I hug him tightly.

“What are you doing here?”

“I came to pick you both up. Who knows what would happen if I continue to leave you both on your own?” I huff in response and he lightly pushes me into the car.

While we’re on our way home, I look out the window. All the buildings, people, trees and cars passing by in a flash, sort of like the superhero. Everything went by in a blink of an eye. It felt like a few seconds went by rather than a few minutes.

As Mama and Grandpa Eiji were in the kitchen, Dad pulled me onto his lap.

“You’ve been spending far too much time with the others. When will I get my share of time with you?” He asked.

“Well….” I hesitated for a moment before saying, “Will you say that you’re too busy?”

“No.”

“No?!” I quickly turned my head, nearly headbutting Dad on his chin.

“I’ve finished all my work for a few weeks. I’ll spend all the time you want with you, Kiki.”

“Really? For real?”

“Yes. For real.”

I jumped up into his arms and hugged Dad to my hearts content. Unknown to me, Mama and Grandpa Eiji were smiling at us from the kitchen. Sometimes, just sometimes, it’s worth waiting for something special.

#kissed by the baddest #eisuke ichinomiya #kbtbb #kbtbb family #Soryu Oh #Ota Kisaki #shuichi hishikura #baba mitsunari #Luke Foster #mamoru kishi #hikaru aihara

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firesofdainix · 6 years

Text

I Learn to Live Half-Alive

AO3 Version

PREQUEL: LONG ROAD to SUCCESS

Everyone emerging from the simulation, all changed. And they hate it.

the former ultimate adventurer celebrates the day he dies.

Amami is happy that he dies the first in the game.

Rantaro remembered the time he was in love with Danganronpa. But that was a long time ago, before he goes in that virtual world. He hates it in there. Despair crawling on his back, and hoping it'd end soon. And it honestly did, after Chapter 6 of the fifty-second game. No, that wasn't the end. Since the Danganronpa fans 'loved' him so much, Team Danganronpa decided to bring him back to the virtual world. To bring him back to the place he hates so much.

Tsumugi Shirogane.

He knows she's the mastermind of v3, but of course, his avatar from the virtual world didn't know that, and ended up getting killed. And he enjoyed it.

Rantaro can't wait to just go back to the world where he was friends with Angie, Maki, Himiko, Shuichi, and, of course, Kokichi. Rantaro knows Kokichi loves him, and the feeling is mutual. Even confessed his love to him before the boy gets into the audition. He just wished he spent more time with the boy before they go inside the virtual world. But seeing each other was prohibited.

Rantaro is escorted out of the simulation room. The hallways, corridors, and doors were all familiar to him, because he's already been in here before. A Chapter One victim, huh? Very ironic, since in this season, he's the Ultimate Survivor, replacing his old Ultimate Adventurer talent. He can't help a smile creep up his face because he is already free from the hands of Danganronpa. He must be assuming all his fans are in an uproar because he was killed of so early in the game. But, you can't satisfy audiences with anything.

Before he goes home, he has to rest for some time in the Waiting Area. His father never cares about him, and only cares about his reputation. He sighs, knowing it can't be helped if his father has no interest in him. And Rantaro has no interest in keeping the Amami Family's name. Just give it to one of his sisters or something.

"You're Rantaro Amami, right?", a soft voice in front of him asks. He nods and looks up, seeing a face he never seen in real life ever: Kyoko Kirigiri.

"K-Kirigiri?", he says in disbelief. Why is a fictional character standing in front of him? Is he going mental?

"I see you don't believe me being alive", Kyoko says, sitting down next to Rantaro, who scoots away, with confusion in his eyes. "Don't worry. Eleven years ago, along with the Super Danganronpa Two cast, we were also in the virtual world."

"So... does that mean...?"

"Every Danganronpa show is from the virtual world." Kyoko sighs. "And we still carry the burden of being in those games."

"Um, not to be nosy, why are you here?", Rantaro asks.

Kyoko looks at a black television screen with sad eyes. "My daughter... is participating in that show."

Rantaro blinks. "May I ask... who is it?"

"Kaede", Kyoko replies, looking at her gloved hands.

Rantaro tilts his head. Kyoko, the first Ultimate Detective in the very first show of Danganronpa, is the mother of Kaede? This doesn't make any sense at all. First, he meets a character that is not fictional, and now, they're related to someone he hates? He has to get a grip of himself.

"May I ask who her father is?", Rantaro asks.

"Oh, I just adopted Kaede and her twin, along with Celeste."

And... she's married to Celeste. Rantaro sighs, and slouches on the chair he's sitting in.

"Who killed you?", Kyoko asks bluntly.

"The mastermind", Rantaro replies, feeling a little uncomfortable on talking about how his avatar died.

"Oh, then the mystery will be solved", Kyoko says.

Rantaro shakes his head. "No, knowing Tsumugi... she can frame someone anytime. But don't worry, the trials won't start until the next day."

Kyoko looks at him with something called... worry. "You've been in there... for two days."

Wait. Rantaro looks at his hands. They look to be a sickly pale color. And it looks skinny too.

"But... doesn't Team Danganronpa give them breaks?"

Kyoko shakes her head. "Sadly, not anymore. The fans wanted none stop Danganronpa v3."

That's... messed up. The reason why Team Danganronpa provided breaks is to (somehow) regain their sanity and make themselves comfortable with how they're living now. After all, they will gain their many riches in life. But remembering the traumatizing events in the simulation, and bringing it to the real world was making him mentally unstable, to the point of trying to kill someone before it was time to go back to the world of madness.

Without those breaks, each and every single one of those people in the simulation will be mentally unstable, to the point of attacking people in variety of ways. It made Rantaro mad because Team Danganronpa are filling their fans in for what they wanted, rather than what the participants want. He grits his teeth, controlling the anger inside him.

"Will Kaede be okay?", Kyoko says to herself.

Rantaro hates Kaede for being a bitch in the real world. Blackmailing people is her best hobby. Maybe she's the one who convinced Kokichi to go audition for Danganronpa. But in the actual show, she's a very positive, kind and caring students. He can feel his feelings mixing because of Kaede in that simulation.

"I think so..."

"If she comes back, I'll give her a scolding", Kyoko says. "But, you don't need to know that."

Rantaro nods. "Hey, don't you and Kaede have different surnames though?"

Instead of telling him to mind his own business, the purple woman just shrugs. "I told her she can pick any name... Anyway, as much as I like to tell you more, but I need to go to work. There is no point in watching their investigation if the television screen is black."

With only one wave of her hand, she dismisses their conversations. Her virtual self and real self are almost the same, except this Kyoko is a bit more open into sharing her experience while the virtual Kyoko doesn't. Maybe that's why he likes Kyoko when he watched Danganronpa for the first time. That hint of hype in the many shows of it made Rantaro love Danganronpa. But his favorite Danganronpa show was Super Danganronpa 2.

Well, it used to be, now he just can't seem to like Danganronpa anymore. It's really weird how people are changed so easily after discovering the dark side of everything you love. Like, becoming infatuated with this one person, but when they reveal their true colors, your affection for them lowers, until you have nothing to feel anymore. That's what Rantaro feels.

"You're giving up that easily?", a voice in his mind says. He looks around. The Waiting Area was empty. Maybe he's just hearing things. And he is.

"Hey, at least you'd still get the money", the voice speaks again.

Rantaro just lowers his head, ignoring his inner subconscious speaking inside of him. There's no way of refuting some imaginary voice inside his head. Until Team Danganronpa gives him therapy. But their only therapy is Tsumugi, and, as Rantaro recalled his therapy lessons with her, they were all pieces of shit, with her acting like nothing happened. The real therapist who pursued him was Keebo. Yet, he's also participating in Danganronpa, because he wants to be with his sister or some bullshit like that.

Apparently, they still haven't called his family, which was nice. He doesn't want to get back home yet. Hey, at least he has tons of cash he'll give to his family once he gets back. He doesn't really know what time it is, but he knows his been sitting in the Waiting Area for hours, until one of the Team Danganronpa staff comes in.

"Mr. Amami", she says politely. "It's time for your dinner."

Rantaro nods, and stands up, his legs shaking a little since he hadn't used it other than doing movements. It's nighttime already. Does this mean the trial is over? If so, who did Tsumugi frame?

"Excuse me, but is the first class trial done?", he asks the Danganronpa staff. She nods.

"Yes, but she needs some rest after her execution", she replies as they walk to the dining hall.

She. It must be a girl whom Tsumugi framed, then. But he wonders who it could be until he and the staff finally reaches the dining hall.

Rantaro realized he hadn't eaten for two days, so his stomach rumbles at the sight of the food on the table. He sits across from the Danganronpa staff, taking as much food as he wants, eyes shining and mouth drooling. When was the last time he ate real food than canned goods at the dark rooms of the building? Oh yeah, Tsumugi's mansion. He can't afford to think of his bad memories now when he starts to eat. He doesn't want to spoil his appetite.

Eating away his problems is basically what he did after the many trials of Danganronpa 52. And he's so damn skinny... he just needs food. That's it.

After getting his stomach full, he returns to the waiting room, to sit again on a seat at the Waiting Area. And no one was around. He sighs. He needs someone to talk to. He scratches the back of his head. He then suddenly remembers his death. He dodges that memory. He doesn't want to think about his death when he's this full.

It all started with the contract. He unwittingly signed it, because he was desperate for fame and attention. He wants to become a champion, someone who will win, someone who will be everyone's fan favorite. He did all this so he can be famous, not thinking of consequences, looking back now, he wouldn't have gone mental if he hadn't signed that contract.

"R-Rantaro?", a sad, yet familiar voice snaps him back to reality. He looks up, to see...

"Kaede?", he says. She looks like she's been crying, but there are still tears streaming down her face.

"I-I thought I was alone here, and y-you left", she says, hesitating to sit down next to him.

"Nah, my parents didn't know I fucking died and some shit."

He pats a chair next to him. "Sit. We have a lot to talk about."

Hesitantly, she sits down next to him. No one says anything for about ten minutes.

"Look, let's cut to the chase, okay?", Rantaro says, seemingly comforting the girl beside him. "You're the one Tsumugi framed to be my killer?"

Kaede looks up to meet Rantaro's eyes. "Yeah... wait, you mean the girl from 52?"

Rantaro nods. "Yes, her. She killed me."

Kaede facepalms. "And I thought I killed you..."

"Meh, your ball missed me."

Kaede's eyes widen. "It missed you? What the fuck?"

"Yeah, thanks to you, I got distracted by it, so Tsumugi can hit me with her own shot put ball."

"O-okay, so it's my fault you got killed?"

Rantaro shrugs. "Eh, kinda. By the way, your mom was here."

Kaede fidgets with her hands. "What? Did you know what she said?"

"Yeah, she missed you. Also, she said that she'll give you a scolding later."

"Well, Kyoko tends to do that. Goddamn, my neck is itchy." She starts to scratch it, then Rantaro catches a glimpse of her neck. It has red scratch marks on it, some obviously a little too deep.

"Death by strangulation?", he says out loud.

Kaede looks back at him, then attempts to hide her scars. She looks down again. "Actually, death by hanging..."

Rantaro fakes a cough. "O-Oh, I see..."

So, Kaede got executed by hanging. Well, this is off to a pretty brutal start, but he hopes the others don't actually get executed like Kaede. But, this is Danganronpa. They'll always get brutally executed, no matter how much you do or don't deserve it. He looks at Kaede, who's scratching her neck again. He wants to tell her to stop, but... she seems to be entranced by scratching her neck. So he minds his own business.

"Ms. Akamatsu, there you are!", a Team Danganronpa staff calls from the front of the Waiting Area. Ms. Kirigiri and Ms. Ludenberg are here to pick you up."

"They're here already...?", Kaede says. The staff nods.

"They were actually watching your... um, your chapter."

Kaede nods. "Tell them I need a minute." The staff nods, and exits the Waiting Area.

"I have to ask you something. You're close friends with Shuichi, right?"

Kaede looks at him with sadness in her eyes. "Y-yeah..."

"How do you feel about him now?"

"I have mixed feelings. Some part of me still thinks he's some kind of pawn, but the other part of me thinks of him as a friend."

Rantaro smiles. It's kinda nice that Danganronpa is giving them a change of heart for how they feel. It's one of those things Danganronpa does to make them confused with feelings. And he absolutely hates feelings. Why does he have to have these conflicting feelings that handle him, that makes him decide what kind of feeling he's supposed to show to anyone.

"Hey, are you gonna be okay being alone here?", Kaede asks him, still scratching her neck.

"I'm always alone", Rantaro replies, and watches her go. It seems like their conversation started a century ago. And he wanted it back. Why isn't his father picking him up yet?

"Excuse me, Mr. Amami?", the Team Danganronpa staff comes back, bearing some kinds of pills and a key. "Since your father is not yet here, you can stay in one of our rooms."

Rantaro yawns. "Okay, lead the way, then."

They walk through twist and turns, his head aching a bit, remembering the Ultimate Academy. Once they reach the room he's going to stay in the night, the staff gives him the key and bows, waiting for him to go inside.

The room is decent, at least for him. Yet it gives off being stuck in the Ultimate Academy. He shudders at the thought, and tries to push it back into his mind. But his dorm in the simulation keeps getting in the way of his train of thoughts. He inhales, then exhales, and goes in the room, closing the door.

He looks at the bed. It's very well-made, and it still reminds him of the school. He needs a good night's sleep. Yeah, just one good sleep, and everything will go away. All of his bad thoughts, his memories of the Danganronpa v3, will all vanish once he goes to sleep.

As his head hits the pillow, he goes to his dreams. But this dreams are not normal dreams. He opens his eyes, to find himself floating on dark water. It must be water, after all, it sounds like one. But... is that a fin, coming to get him?

Rantaro's eyes widen. He paddles as fast as he can, but he can only see darkness. Darkness surrounding everything. He's so confused, he keeps on paddling. But he hears the roaring of a waterfall. And he falls. He falls and falls, falling to darker waters. He looks up, to see nothing but darkness. But he feels like he's floating. Suddenly, he can't breathe. Were is he?

His limbs feel like wood, and he feels strings lifting him, higher, higher. He feels pain, he feels the strings burning his wooden limbs. Then he finally sees the person lifting him up. And it was him, before everything started, before he knew what Danganronpa truly is, before he stopped believing Danganronpa. The other Rantaro smirks.

"You're useless." Then he feels his limbs going slack, the strings around him falling. He looks up to see himself, smiling and laughing as he falls. This was who he is before everything, after all. Of course he's that cruel, a side he never tells anyone.

Rantaro wakes up, cold sweat on his forehead. He looks around. Just ordinary darkness. He's in a blanket. Nothing scary here. He lowers his head. And he thought he can escape his thoughts by going into his dreams. But no, that'll never happen, in his case. He'll always be followed by his bad deeds, his thoughts, everything. He'll never escape them. He'll live with it forever.

#danganronpa #danganronpa v3 #fanfic #i learn to live half alive #rantaro amami #kaede akamatsu #kyoko kirigiri #celestia ludenberg #oumami #amabo #kiibouma #kiiboumami

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yourdanganronpaneedshere · 6 years

Text

Random post I did on my previous blog

Like the title says this was a post I did on my previous blog

Shuichi, Fuyuhiko, Hajime, Kokichi and Nagito with a foreigner S/O!

Shuichi Saihara

When Shuichi found out that you were a foreigner he was really interested in your country’s history and culture

He asked a few questions about it and you replied with answers you think would be the most informative and maybe answer his questions with the best one

”So is that what you guys do every year? That’s nice!” He exclaimed he sounded very invested in the topic and that made you pretty delighted

The next couple hours you two were talking about everything about your country trying to get him to know everything about it who knows he might read about it next

He did learn a good few things and wanted to visit there for a holiday for some time just to get a feel on what it was like in your country

So you two decided to book a holiday to where you live so Shuichi emo boi can take a nice break forget about his for a week, and not worry 24/7

Kokichi Oma

To be honest Kokichi was just invested in the language and whether or not it was hot or cold, and he completely forgot that you were even a foreigner in the first place

”Sooooooo is it hot or cold? Is it soooo hot that you might melt? And die of the scorching weather? Or is it soooo bitter cold that you can walk like a penguin and might freeze to death?” He questioned rapidly. You were happy to answer everything but Kokichi just made it sound so much more dramatic

And when the topic drifted over to the language you speak it was a bit of a nightmare it’s Kokichi what do you expect

He’d ask things like “s/o how do you say ‘hello?’ or what about ‘asshole’” of course he’d ask things like that and you couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or not so you answer simple things and if you do he’d mostly say “that sounds so much more like this word!”

Eventually the topic finally took a turn to another topic, and you were glad to know that it did knowing Kokichi

Nagito Komaeda

Nagito was reading a book of his nice and quietly while you were just sitting beside him peeking in every now and then. Somehow it mentioned your country and you blurted out that you were from there, he laughed a little bit and carried on

”What a coincidence s/o! I never expected that to happen, so what is it like in your country?” After his question you explained some interesting things to not bore him since you two are not in a history lesson

After some time of you explaining he seemed to be pretty interested in reading his book again “s/o I really am lucky to be with someone like you of unique culture” He added in

You two thought of going there for a week but you never know that the plane could crash and you ended up on a completely different place opposite of where you were originally heading to

Who knows maybe there wouldn’t be such bad dreadful during the plane ride but when they arrive like maybe forgetting a document or maybe landing at the wrong place

Hajime Hinata

The time Hajime found out that you were a foreigner was when you were talking on the phone in a completely different language he raised an eyebrow in confusion and when you were finished with your long call he asked what language were you speaking and you replied calmly saying that it’s your home language {insert language name here}

You were a foreigner? He didn’t know that and was pretty curious on why you didn’t say anything earlier he shrugged that thought off and wanted to learn the language a little bit

”S/o do you mind teaching me your language? I’m pretty interested in learning it” you happily accepted his request really excited to teach him the basics

”So it’s like this {insert language word here}” he tilted his head a little bit and once he blurted it out you couldn’t help but giggle “so it’s {insert wrong way to say the word here}?” You said it again but couldn’t help but let your laughs out since his attempts were just hilarious, and you could hear him mutter under his breath “dammit!”

It was a pretty fun time of you laughing so much of Hajime’s failed attempts and sometimes he’d do the same, depending on how much you’ve laughed he’d probably only do it to hide off his embarrassment

Fuyuhiko Kuzuryuu

You and Fuyuhiko were in his bedroom playing a game, you told him that you were a foreigner and asked him to attempt to guess what county it was, of course when he first heard that idea he just went “tch” but when he saw how much you wanted to do it he couldn’t say no

After awhile of him saying out countries that first came at top of his head he eventually said out yours and you happily exclaimed that he was correct and he immediately asked about the food there

Knowing Fuyuhiko you turned away from him to hide your laughs, he’s probably trying to get the conversation into the candy they have over at where you live

H - hey! It was just a question dumba**! I’m just curious that’s all! I - I hate sweets so shut the f**k up!” He said all of that while blushing so you could tell he’s in tsundere mode

It was just adorable seeing him asking about candy over there, since he tries to pull off this tough demeanour

He eventually asked if maybe you could go get the baked goods if you ever had a chance, since he’s really interested in trying them out, of course a lot of cursing and a bit of stuttering was in the process and you joked around and denied it just to see his reaction

But of course your not a bad girlfriend so you did it anyway

Mod Kaede~

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loucifieri · 6 years

Text

To Hell and Back (v3 HPA AU)

[Part 1]

It’s a bigger hot mess than the previous one lol

04/21/18 09:21PM

ShirogaNYEH: welcome back! previously, Akamatsu-san creates a group chat, Ouma-kun uses it to stir some shit and in the end, a subtle confession was made!

starlord: shirogane what the heck weve been chatting continuously

Maki Roll: yeah what are you even going on about

ShirogaNYEH: but it's not the same case with the audience

starlord: what audience??

Lord Panta: can we go back to my moment

chaotic lesbean: no go away

Lord Panta: ANYWAY

Lord Panta: is it true Saihara-chan??

Lord Panta: do you find me irresistible?

The Only Hope For Me Is You: I wouldn't use that adjective but yeah

The Only Hope For Me Is You: you're hard to ignore

Lord Panta: !!!!!!

The Only Hope For Me Is You: since you constantly demand attention

The Only Hope For Me Is You: You're like an annoying itch that just won't go away

starlord: ooooh SHOT DOWN

Treblemaker: Damn Shuichi-kun, didn't think you would be a harsh heartbreaker

Do You Believe In Magic: lol rip........

Maki Roll: good job saihara

Lord Panta: I

Lord Panta: …

Lord Panta: that's hot

dumb blonde slut: haha the purple twink is obviously a bottom

Lord Panta: bitch it takes one to know one :)

dumb blonde slut: eek n-no im not

starlord: he didnt even deny it

Robot Rights Activist: I backlogged and I seem to recall you express dissatisfaction over your assigned nickname, Iruma-san

Robot Rights Activist: Why haven't you changed it yet?

Lord Panta: coz she actually likes it, duh

dumb blonde slut: piss off cockichi

dumb blonde slut: awww kibs ur concerned!! i always knew u were in love with me

Robot Rights Activist: I do not.

Treblemaker: yeouch

starlord: so many crushed hearts tonite

Lord Panta: EAT SHIT AND DIE DUMB BLONDE SLUT

Treblemaker: Hey! No attacking!

Imma meme: you literally attacked me moments ago smh

Kork: This is a mess.

dumb blonde slut: dont get ur panties in a twist, idiot virgins

dumb blonde slut: the great iruma miu is too gorgeous 2 be affected by this shit

dumb blonde slut: im hella gay anyway

chaotic lesbean: you go Iruma-san!!

Robot Rights Activist: Still, I apologize if I came across as rude in any way! It was not my intention.

dumb blonde slut: dont beat urself too much over it kibs

Treblemaker: Aww Iruma-san really has a soft spot for Idabashi-kun

The Only Hope For Me Is You: Uh, Kaede-san, I assume you have your headphones on because I've been knocking on your door for awhile now and you haven't shifted from your position to indicate that you will answer the door.

ShirogaNYEH: truly a detective,,,

Treblemaker: oh shit sorry!!

chaotic lesbean: AND WHAT IS A DEGENERATE LIKE YOU DOING IN THE FEMALE AREA OF THE DORM THIS LATE AT NIGHT

Treblemaker: It's fine Chabashira-san!! Shuichi-kun usually comes over so we can gossip or whatever

chaotic lesbean: WHAT??? USUALLY??????

Maki Roll: wow Saihara, you managed to sneak past chabashira several times already, im impressed

The Only Hope For Me Is You: Thank you Harukawa-san! I feel validated.

Lord Panta: is there really NOTHING going on between you two

The Only Hope For Me Is You: Kaede-san is my bestfriend??

Treblemaker: Yeah, why does that bother you so much Ouma-kun?

Kork: He likely feels envious of your relationship.

Lord Panta: lol no

starlord: sure jan

Lord Panta: quick question what are yall sexual orientations

imma meme: im fabulously gay

chaotic lesbean: isn't it obvious

dumb blonde slut: dont have 2 repeat myself

Do You Believe In Magic: ace...... sexual attraction is tiring.........

ShirogaNYEH: same!!

Kork: as am I.

Treblemaker: Actually, I'm Bi but I tend to prefer girls

starlord: well since were being honest ok im bi too

Maki Roll: same

Gokuhara Gonta: Gonta loves all!! And Hoshi-kun says he's Ace!

Treblemaker: Gonta-kun, it's getting really late. You and Hoshi-kun should start heading back here.

Gokuhara Gonta: Of course, Akamatsu-san!

Imma meme: spoken like another mom

Treblemaker: >:(

Robot Rights Activist: My attraction is not affected by one's sexual orientation

bitch I am the WAY: Angie is pan!~

The Only Hope For Me Is You: I'm gay

Lord Panta: YES!!!!

Maki Roll: wow he was not subtle AT ALL

Treblemaker: What about you @Mother Knows Best?

imma meme: why do you want to know (͠≖ ͜ʖ͠≖)

Treblemaker: It wouldn't be fair to leave out someone from a question addressed to everyone!

Treblemaker: also, another word amami and im bashing your head with a shot put ball

ShirogaNYEH: go get em Akamatsu-san!

imma meme: im having war flashbacks

Mother Knows Best: Thank you for your consideration, Akamatsu-san. Apologies for not replying the soonest as I had to attend to some last minute errands. To answer your query, my preference is of the same sex.

Lord Panta: okay cool thank you for your input everyone!!!

Maki Roll: you only wanted to know one person's tho

dumb blonde slut: how about bull balls what do u think his orientation is

starlord: are you referring to great gozu??

dumb blonde slut: yea dumbass

dumb blonde slut: oh fuck those huge man tits,,,

dumb blonde slut: annsd heds a wretslerr he g ets all sewaTYyna d

chaotic lesbean: OK TENKO HAS HEARD ENOUGH

Maki Roll: Iruma shut the fuck up

bitch I am the WAY: Angie hears moaning again and it is very disturbing~~

Treblemaker: To think our rooms are billed as soundproof...

The Only Hope For Me Is You: I am effectively traumatized tonight.

ShirogaNYEH: we need to take this up with the headmaster!!

imma meme: uhhh its kinda weird to explain how we discovered the walls arent entirely soundproof

imma meme: “our classmate was masturbating too loudly to thoughts about our homeroom teacher's man boobs”

Kork: Let us not prolong this discussion. Can someone take care of that horrid excuse of a human being.

bitch I am the WAY: oh, she has stopped

bitch I am the WAY: Ah, Angie hears loud noises of struggle

bitch I am the WAY: then some shuffling outside the hallway

bitch I am the WAY: it is dead quiet now

chaotic lesbean: what just happened

chaotic lesbean: Tenko was terrified to peek outside

Treblemaker: Harukawa-san we talked about this

Maki Roll: what? I didn't kill her

Hoshi Ryoma: yo

The Only Hope For Me Is You: Hello Hoshi-kun

Hoshi Ryoma: just got back in the dorm with gokuhara

Hoshi Ryoma: he want back to his room but

Hoshi Ryoma: im still in the lounge room rn

Hoshi Ryoma: im seein tojo with a gagged and immobile iruma wrapped in a blanket being dragged across the room to the front door

Hoshi Ryoma: tojo just dumped her out

Lord Panta: NISHISHISHI PUNISHMENT TIME

chaotic lesbean: :O

imma meme: what an ICON

Treblemaker: woah thats hot

bitch I am the WAY: she is doing Atua's work~~

Mother Knows Best: I was merely disposing of the trash.

Do You Believe In Magic: …..tnx mom........

The Only Hope For Me Is You: Best mom!

starlord: shouldn't that include ouma tho

Lord Panta: suck my dick spaceman

Robot Rights Activist: Language!

Lord Panta: da hell keeboy it wasnt even that crass

Gokuhara Gonta: Oh no! What has been going on here, friends?

chaotic lesbean: NOTHING! PLEASE CARRY ON WITH YOUR NORMAL NIGHTLY ROUTINE

starlord: hey gonta, buddy, do me a favor and dont backlog

Gokuhara Gonta: Alright, Momota-kun!

ShirogaNYEH: Gonta-kun should not be tainted in any way!!

ShirogaNYEH: we should probably let Iruma-san inside now though

Lord Panta: are you in league with the DEVOL

Maki Roll: not like you're any better

Mother Knows Best: Very well. I suppose she has learned her lesson, at least for this moment.

Imma meme: well this was wild

Treblemaker: Let's not talk about this ever again

The Only Hope For Me Is You: Group chats tend to spiral down into levels of insanity the longer we spend time in it

Kork: Might I suggest a more... family-friendly topic?

Treblemaker: What is it, Shinguji-kun?

Kork: Ghosts in Hope's Peak

starlord: FUCK NO

bitch I am the WAY: hmmm what about nicknames for Gonta and Ryoma!~

The Only Hope For Me Is You: Good idea, Angie-san

Gokuhara Gonta: Oh yes! Gonta is excited on what name friends will gift him!

Imma meme: okay we better not fuck this up then

Lord Panta: allow me~

Maki Roll removed Lord Panta from the chat

starlord: lol sniped again

imma meme: DEADT

chaotic lesbean: noone must ruin this special moment!!

Do You Believe In Magic changed Gokuhara Gonta to Good Noodle

imma meme: yumeno-san is our name-changing cryptid

Good Noodle: Thank you Yumeno-san! Gonta loves this nickname!

ShirogaNYEH: im,,, CRYING

chaotic lesbean: you're doing amazing, sweetie

Do You Believe In Magic changed Hoshi Ryoma to quail egg

ShirogaNYEH: s m o l b e a n

quail egg: NO

imma meme: hoshi-kun can literally punt us to the sun let's not baby him

starlord: not to mention that hes got a deeper voice than the rest of us guys

starlord: its so manly

The Only Hope For Me Is You: Momota-kun, your gay is showing

Treblemaker: Yay! Now everyone's got a nickname.

Treblemaker: We should probably add Ouma-kun back here.

quail egg: respectfully disagree

chaotic lesbean: you are too nice akamatsu-san!!!

ShirogaNYEH: funny how we somehow end up kicking Ouma-kun out the chat then add him later towards the end of the chapter...

starlord: ????

Treblemaker added Lord Panta to the chat.

Do You Believe In Magic changed Lord Panta to notto disu shitto agen

notto disu shitto again: i feel loved

dumb blonde slut: THE GREAT IRUMA MIU IS BACK YA DUMB VIRGINS

Maki Roll: fuck go back

Kork: This is the 10th Circle of Hell.

Mother Knows Best: I would like to inform everyone that the time is now five minutes past eleven in the evening. I believe this is the ideal time for all of us to get some rest as we have a class on Physical Education early morning.

Imma meme: omg I hate PE

notto disu shitto agen: but moooooom

Mother Knows Best: All of you go to sleep or I will not make breakfast for everyone tomorrow.

notto disu shitto agen: okay okay jeez

dumb blonde slut: yes mommy

starlord: aight mom

bitch I am the WAY: Apparently, Angie must postpone here sacrificial ritual tonight~~

ShirogaNYEH: awww I wont binge watch anime tonight then

Do You Believe In Magic: ….....good nyt...................

chaotic lesbean: Sleep well yumeno-chan <3

Do You Believe In Magic: …...........nyeh <3

Good Noodle: Goodnight everyone!

quail egg: night

dumb blonde slut: nyt cocksuckers

The Only Hope For Me Is You: Good night, all!

notto disu shitto agen: hey saihara-chan are you back at your room can i come over :v

The Only Hope For Me Is You: nah I'm sleeping over Kaede-san's tonight

notto disu shitto agen: WHAT

chaotic lesbean: WHAT

Mother Knows Best: Saihara-san, I am afraid I will have to escort you out. Now.

Imma meme: oof

nickname guide notto disu shitto agen: Ouma The Only Hope For Me Is You: Saihara Treblemaker: Akamatsu bitch I am the WAY: Yonaga starlord: momota shirogaNYEH: shirogane Mother Knows Best: tojo imma meme: amami Maki Roll: harukawa Do You Believe In Magic: yumeno chaotic lesbean: chabashira Kork: shinguji Robot Rights Activist: idabashi dumb blonde slut: iruma Good Noodle: gokuhara quail egg: hoshi

NDRV3 HPA AU Character Design Masterlist here and background information here [Facebook] [Instagram] [Twitter] [Blogger] [Kofi]

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lore-a-lie · 6 years

Text

Chapter 2, Act 4: I Stepped on the Bear

Daily Life

It was the morning announcement that woke Kaede up this time, with not a Kokichi in sight. Monodam was still there from the night before as he sat looking expectantly at the monitor in the corner. When it came to life Monosuke was there alone, like Monodam indicated he would be, but he was different now.

The setting was the one Monokuma would use for himself with the cushioned chair and city backdrop, not the cub’s couch, and his pacifier was gone. It sounded like he was giving one of the usual pointless spiels that typically came with these things as he played with his “mature” new champagne flute so Kaede paid little attention to him as she got ready in her bathroom before heading to the dining hall.

On her way there she saw Kokichi and Kiyo talking again, it sounded like the latter was planning to spend most of his time in his lab. Kokichi was pestering him to have a closer look at the gold Katana in exchange for helping Kiyo sort through things. Given who he was a “closer look” probably meant playing with it.

Luckily Kiyo wisely refused his help under those terms, since Kokichi handling a blade couldn’t lead to anything good. Kaede hurried her pace when she caught Kiyo’s eye so he couldn’t try asking her either. (NEVER AGAIN. I have a bigger mess to clean up right now as it is thanks. Technically a creepier one too.)

The arguing had already started back again from where last night left off when she got there, Kaito ready to go as ever. Ryoma and Maki stood on either side of him, while Angie, Tenko, and Gonta sat at the table with their morning meals. Monophanie was also with them, but like Monosuke it looks like she decided to try changing her own appearance to match their shifting dynamics.

She was apparently trying to literally take up the mantle from her eldest brother, as Monotaro’s scarf sat in place around her neck instead of her normal top. Monodam looked rather bothered by this new switch as he blankly stared at his sister from behind Kaede, almost full white in shock.

“Calm down Kaito, there’s no point talking until everyone shows up. With this group we’d just have the same problems we did the night before.” Kaede tried to take control of the situation best she could for now. At least it was enough for now, as while Kaito still looked conflicted he reluctantly went to get some food for him and his trio and seated themselves as far away from Angie as they could at the end of the long table.

When Kaede went to do the same she saw Kirumi looked rather hurt that the three of them chose to do this for themselves, so she tried to ease her friend’s stress by offering to help Kirumi with the cooking.

It was hard to keep up with Kirumi’s sudden lesson, but “teaching” her did help lighten the maid’s mood and it was fun in its own way, so Kaede kept at it until everyone else had arrived. She helped lay the plates out best she could too, which wasn’t the greatest as she hadn’t done work like this before. Kirumi even laughed a little for a change as she watched Kaede’s struggles with balancing some heavier dishes.

But now was time to get back to the business at hand.

“Alright, now that everyone’s here do we all know what the student council did yesterday?-” Kaede started, trying to be as neutral as she could before Kaito interrupted.

“ANGIE BLOCKED OFF OUR ONLY FUCKING ESCAPE ROUTE DAMMIT! As if her attempt at enforcing an unbalanced curfew wasn’t enough of a problem.”

“Now, now you have to think of the bigger picture. Atua knows best, and we all saw how the false hope the idea of escape drove Miu to murder before. Had Kaede not asked her to make her special hammers then her lab wouldn’t have been attacked in the first place and her paranoia wouldn’t have driven her to such extremes. And now one of the most practical talents among our number is gone.” Angie said, putting her hands as if in prayer despite her face never losing her "gentle" smile.

Kaede clenched her fists and tried to ignore the pain and guilt that the accusation caused her. Even if Angie wasn’t necessarily wrong that doesn’t make what this cult is trying to do right. The core of why Angie’s doing this was too flawed to ignore. (And who’s Angie to criticize others for “extremes” anyway?!)

So Kaede tried again. “We couldn’t have known that would happen and we had to do something! We can’t just stay here-”

“So you think the stress and traumas of the Death Road would have been preferable? We have no means of knowing if Miu’s tools would have even been effective in such a treacherous setting. It hardly matters if most obstacles are gone if we still can’t find our footing enough to make some of those jumps, and I doubt it would solve issues like the irregularly moving platforms. We don’t even know if there is an actual exit at the end. Staying is a safer choice as we know what we can generally expect here.” Kirumi said shaking her head as she cut Kaede off. Kaede's confusion must have been obvious as Kirumi gave her a sympathetic look and a small nod when their eyes met. Not that it actually answered anything. (Why is Kirumi of all people the one saying this? Doesn’t she still want to try and save everyone outside?)

“Then why not talk about it before you start enforcing rules like that? For a second I thought Gonta and Keeboy went to the Casino last night to just take me up on my earlier offer, neither told me about any curfews when I invited them. ” Kokichi countered, giving both Kirumi and Angie suspicious glances. After a pause he started lounging back on his chair with his hands behind his head as he gave Maki and Kibo a wink while addressing the room, "I mean thing’s gotta look preeetty bad if even I think it’s sketchy, right?"

“Because debate can take too long and may not get us anywhere if liars like you want to keep twisting our words around to best suit yourself!" Tsumugi shouted, accidentally shoving part of the table forward as she stood. She leaned across it a little, using her right hand for support while her left pointed at him accusingly. "It’s plain to see any complaints about us being too controlling will fall flat coming from someone as manipulative as you! At least you all know why we’re doing this.”

“Hey, he’s a fucking creepy little wack job but he’s not wrong you know? All the rules in the world won’t change the fact we can’t fuckin’ stay here. Especially if they don’t even apply to you.”

“Wooow Kaito, I think that’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me-”

“Shut it, we gotta stay on topic. You’re all still taking this way too far!” Kaito shouted, despite Kokichi's teasing.

“Gonta think Angie’s right though. We might not have nurse’s office or hospital here but we have food and shelter, and that most important thing! With Atua blessing protecting everyone now, Gonta can even release more bugs outside and try planting fruit to make food and air more reliable.”

“It hardly matters how hospitable we try to make this place." Kiyo cut in. While his tone stayed neutral as he continued there was an unmistakable frustration to his body language that was unexpected. Not like his tremors when he'd panic, but there was a harshness to his gestures and he spoke with his hands more than he usually did. "We’ve already seen first hand what happens if we try to reach a peaceful existence in here for too long, yes? And what do you propose we do should another kill or be killed styled motive try to present itself? Or worse, one based on disease or the like given said lack of medical facilities and how hard it would be for us to keep it from spreading and potentially causing multiple casualties. We must be here for a reason and we can’t trust our captor’s own conflicts will be enough to protect us or change whatever that may be.”

“Should another one of those motives come up we have an alternative solution now, so none of us would need to die the way Rantaro or Shuichi did. The Necronomicon can bring back someone who died once already-” Kibo began before trailing off when he heard Ryoma huff at his train of thought.

“So assuming that even works, you think it’s okay to bring someone else back from the dead just to use them as a sacrifice? Come on Kibo, you’re better than this. You know how fucked up that sounds. And what would you even do, be even more of a monster and try to drive them to suicide to help yourself?" Ryoma challenged, knowing that addressing that elephant in the room directly would help make his point. "Otherwise whichever one of us will be doing the “sacrificing” would need to die too in the next trial.” (At least he didn't follow that with offering to be that "sacrifice" again.)

“W-well, you see-” The robot tried to argue, but his words kept faltering under Ryoma and Maki's twin glares. As if one of them wasn't bad enough.

Which was likely for the best as Tenko took the chance to say her piece in this debate.

“Sorry Kibo, but Tenko’s agreeing with Ryoma here! But since the cubs have taken over, and only the degenerate among them intends to do us any harm, I don’t think any motives like that will come up. Not anytime soon anyway. So until that day comes Tenko will still enforce the will of Atua best she can!”

“If physical force and threats are how you really want to make us obey do you really think you can handle it? You and Gonta are hardly the only ones among us who can fight you know. Do you really think you’d stand a chance against someone like me? Do you want to die? ”

Maki’s cold glare was hard to read, eyes nearly glowing in their intensity, as Tenko tried to hold her ground and match it with one of her own. Ryoma and Kaito were quick to try and settle Maki, while Gonta and Kibo made their way to Tenko’s side unsure whether to stop or protect her if a fight started.

“W-wait, hold up there Maki Roll, no need to take things that far! Calm down okay?”

At that Monodam scampered between the two girls with something in his arms, head anxiously swiveling from side to side to look at them both as he waved his gift like a white flag. Kaede hadn’t even noticed he and his sister left to go get this, but they must have gone shortly after the arguing started.

“Yes-No-Need-For-Fighting! Let’s-All-Just-Get-Along! We-Have-A-Present-For-You-All, So-Please-Calm- Down. It’s-Another-Flashback-Light-To-Help-Bring-You-All-Closer-Together!”

“Are you sure? Because I think seeing a badass crazy catfight is more than enough to bring us closer-”

“Knock it off Kokichi, Flashback Lights are what we need more of right now. We need answers.”

“But is it the more awesome option Kaede? Didn’t think so. This would totally net us better ratings-”

“This isn’t a show you smartass! Just hand it over already-” But as Kaito reached to take it from Monodam Angie plucked it from his paws instead. Kokichi was still in the middle of giving the corner of the room a smug aside glance, like he was pretending that’s where a “camera” would be for his joke, before realizing Angie’s intent as she lifted the light high above her head as if to smash it on the ground.

Thankfully Kirumi intervened before that could happen. Using her height to her advantage, she took it from her supposed “president” and passed the light back to Kaito. Monodam and Monophanie both heaved heavy sighs of relief at that, but Monodam still looked rather hurt at Angie’s attempt to break it.

“We don’t need to give everyone more reasons to distrust the student council Miss President, if they want to use it to solve the mystery of why we’re all here then let them try. We needn’t be a part of this and I’m sure we’ll be able to stay in control of the situation regardless of what it might reveal to them.” Kirumi said matter-of-factly as she helped keep the frustrated Angie away from their precious clue.

“But these are merely reminders of the outside world, we have no need for such memories anymore-”

“Which is why we already removed the easiest false hope they could possibly reach for. What could it possibly show that would be a stronger call to action than my own motive video? And yet I’m still quite content where we are now despite its initial impact on me, so I’m sure the others will come around soon enough. Besides, from what we’ve seen of her Monophanie isn’t the sort that would try to hinder our group’s efforts with a trick like this, now is she?”

On Kirumi's cue, Monophanie frantically nodded her agreement. “R-right! We just genuinely thought that the memories this should give you all would be able to make you become better friends if you just sat down and talked about it! No need to get violent or participate if you don’t want to. We didn’t mean to offend Miss Angie, right Monodam?”

“C-correct. No-Need-For-Hasty-Action. Maybe-Just-Watch-This-One-And-Then-Decide-If-You-All-Don’t- Want-Any-Flashbacks-Anymore? If-You-Don’t-Like-Them-We’ll-Find-Something-Else-For-You-Later.”

“Fine, as Atua still thinks this is a foolish decision Angie will be leaving. The rest of you can feel free to make any mistakes you want for now. The rest of us can go pray to Atua for His guidance. Bye-onara~”

The disconnect between Angie's words and attitude was hard to ignore as she strolled out of the room. Her anger was hard to get a hold of since she always tried to present herself as carefree and chipper, but still there.

As the rest of Atua’s cult left to follow her Kaede caught a glimpse of Monosuke approaching Kibo, saying something about working in the computer room. (Well that can’t be good. Maybe Monosuke found out it isn’t set up or something and hopes to use Kibo to fix it since Miu isn’t here. But Kibo’s also bad with tech isn’t he?)

As tempted as Kaede was to see what that was about the Flashback Light needed to take priority right now. She stayed where she was as Kaito turned on the light, making the world twist and turn as it faded away in favor of the memories that flowed into everyone like water pouring into an already full glass.

At least this memory actually looked like one of her’s this time, but she was wearing some sort of brown blazer style uniform. Everyone was actually, Kiyo even had a normal black fabric face mask in place of his leather one and only Shuichi had a hat on, so it probably had to do with some sort of school. (Maybe we were all classmates once after all? But why was I still given what I remember wearing from my previous school to wear in here? None of us have this one. Not even Gonta’s looks like this, his tie’s too different.)

It sounded like they were trying to find some way to get out of being involved with some sort of project. A serious scientific sounding one too, not a normal school project, given how things went in favor of them all faking their deaths together so they could go into hiding. Hiding from the Ultimate Hunt.

As the real world came back into focus there was a warm sense of relief in Kaede’s chest.

They finally got a set of memories that answered more questions than it asked.

It felt like they made some progress with this discovery, despite having no idea what that “project” was called or could be about. Even if this new school was a complete mystery to her, it still helped answer why they were here to a degree and addressed what the funeral from the last one meant in context.

She just had to ignore how the relief turned to a sick low-burning anger at how Angie nearly screwed them out of all of this. There was no guarantee that if she had succeeded in smashing it that this would be used as the next Flashback Light. Hell if Angie had her way there wouldn’t be any new ones to follow it.

As she felt it was best to break the silence than linger on those thoughts Kaede began the discussion.

“We… We were all part of the same school after all, right?”

“Sure looks that way! But it didn’t sound like we were all in the same class to me. Maybe we were all friends? Does anyone remember what that school was called? I didn’t see the logo for very long.”

“No, I don’t. But part of the emblem struck me as looking too much like Monokuma’s red eye for my comfort. They may be playing a role in this.” (I think I remember what Maki’s talking about, it was a white shape across a black pen on some sort of shield. Almost looked like a European coat of arms.)

“Neither do I, but if that is the case why are we still wearing the uniforms we had from our schools prior to that one? Even with my travels I’ve never needed to transfer schools before, accommodations were always made to take into account the educational value of my field studies so I never fell behind either.”

“If I faked my death how could I have gone to prison? Or does this mean I was put in a program to take lessons in a real school despite being on death row? Did I get out? This doesn’t make any sense to me.”

“Ugh, how are we going to explain this to Angie and her little army of nutjobs? “Hey guys it turned out we all went to the same school together maybe, and then we all played dead to try and avoid some sort of hellish project. Guess we failed though, whoopsie daisy~” Are they going to buy that? Do we just not tell them? ‘Cause I’m pretty sure Ryoma’s not the only one here who’d make this pretty confusing.”

“If they ask we can let them know best we can, but you’re right in that it doesn’t answer that much about the Ultimate Hunt itself. But at least we can all rule out us being secretly dead or anything!”

“Yeah, that would make being part of a killing game preeetty weird Kaito. Or being able to bring students back from the dead. Unless being double dead is easier to fix than being normal dead-”

“Okay Kokichi, we get it. We still don’t know how that motive would work anyway, we haven’t even been able to read that weird book yet. I think Angie still has it.” Kaede looked to Monodam for a confirmation, seeing how it was their motive, and he nodded.

His attention shifted to Kaito though, as he was looking rather ill again. Odd seeing as the worst of what they’ve been dealing with was over now, but maybe that’s why the stress just caught up to him.

Kaito was out of it enough that when the Monokub offered to get him back to his room he actually accepted, which got Ryoma and Maki’s attention enough that they left with him. Leaving Kaede alone with Kokichi and Kiyo again. (Please don’t ask me anything, please don’t ask me anything, please don’t-)

“Well, it seems as though we’re all going our separate ways then. Unless you would care to join me in sorting through my lab Kaede? I assure you I won’t be so inattentive to your state of mind this time.” (GODDAMNIT NO! But I can’t just say that to him, it’d be rude. Gaaah, what’s the right way to say this?!)

“Nuh-uh, I was more than willing to help and you said “no” so you definitely don’t need her help. Besides I was going to ask her to play something for me in her lab! That sounds waaay more fun right Kaede?”

“Well I have been meaning to spend more time there but-”

“See?! Told you so Kiyo~ So come ooooon, let’s go get your piano freak on!” Kokichi didn’t even let her finish her thought before he started dragging her to the Ultimate Pianist’s lab, sticking his tongue out at a mildly bewildered Kiyo as they left.

Which was kinda a good thing as I don’t think I knew how I was going to finish that sentence anyway. He’s been acting weirder lately too so it’ll be good to have some time to see what’s up even if wanting to hear me play was a lie.

Kaede’s suspicions were quickly proven true as Kokichi made it clear he just wanted the excuse to talk to her and mess with Kiyo a little. Kaede couldn’t be sure why that was, maybe something happened last night after she left, but she didn’t mind too much as talking while she played was also a good form of practice. It was good to be able to multitask after all, even if it did mean she couldn’t focus on the music the way she’d normally like to.

Most of what he had to say was simple small talk, avoiding any questions about his behaviors, but he did note that the student council also locked up the warehouse tight enough even he couldn’t pick his way in anymore. (Hard to tell if it’s a bad thing or not, seeing how the shot put ball that killed Rantaro came from there. I’m still not sure how Shuichi hid picking that up as well as he did, I didn’t notice at all.)

“Are you sure something didn’t happen at the Casino after Maki and I left? You’ve been acting kinda strange around Kiyo lately, and you don’t have the sort of excuse I do.”

“Excuse? What excuse? You being a big ol’ pissbaby that couldn’t handle the history geek’s ramblings?”

“Hey, I am not! And at least it is a reason. What he do, reject you or something?”

“Eww, no. I have way better taste in guys than that. Something he said just rubbed me wrong is all.” Kokichi was facing away from her so she couldn’t see his face but it felt like that was something he wasn’t sure he should say or not.

Even though with how much Kiyo could talk and how much of it sounded bad enough as it was that really didn't narrow anything down for her and he knew it too. Which was likely why he didn’t mention it until after he said something he knew would distract Kaede first. And that it certainly did.

WHAT?! I didn’t mean to pry, I was just kidding! I mean… Is he serious about liking guys? Or is he just trolling me again? Monodam said Monophanie was shipping him with boys but I thought that was more about her interests than his! Does this mean he doesn’t like girls at all? Except Monophanie was still shipping me with him too, so how should I take this? Should I believe him if he tries to laugh it off or anything? Should I just forget he said that for now or respond to it? WHAT DO I DO???

“Mister-Kokichi, Did-You-Break-Miss-Kaede-Again? That’s-Still-A-Bad-Thing-To-Do-To-Your-Friends.”

“Maaaaybe, but only ‘cause she was getting nosy. Jeez she’s fragile. Hey Kaede, would it make you feel better or worse if I said only half of that sentence was a lie? Yooohoo~ anyone home? Don’t make me play chopsticks, I will and it will suck I promise. It might not even be an intentional sort of suck either!”

“... Why must you be this way?”

“Because it makes things more fun! Ain’t I a precious lil’ scamp? Nee-heehee~”

“What do you even want Monodam?”

“To-Give-You-A-Gift! Repayment-For-Last-Night. I-Had-Tsumugi-Help-Because-She-Is-Good-At-Sewing- And-Also-Has-Opposable-Thumbs.” True to his word the little bear held out an even smaller stuffed animal out for her appraisal, much to Kokichi’s continued amusement as he teased about “last night”.

It wasn’t quite a Monokuma doll, but the proportions were rather similar. At first glance she thought it was one of Monophanie, but the pink on this doll was a solid color rather than pinstriped. The ears were longer too, so it didn’t even look like a bear really, and instead of a flower there was a pink bow on the opposite ear. No pacifiers, but there was something of a diaper on it so they might be of a similar “age”.

“Well, thank you. It’s cute!... What exactly is it?”

“It-Can-Be-A-Not-Mother-Doll-To-Go-With-Your-Not-Fathers! Except-It’s-Of-Our-Auntie, But-Not-Auntie- Sounded-Weirder-To-Say.” (HOW DO YOU HAVE AN AUNT? Or… What are the implications of this?)

“So your aunt is your mother? This explains so much. Except why Tigger’s from the north, not the south.”

“No-She-Is-Not! We-Do-Not-Have-A-Mother. And-What-Would-That-Explain-Anyway? His-Name-Isn’t- “Tigger”-Either-It’s-Monosuke, Since-He’s-A-Bear. And-Bears-Do-Not-Tell-Lies. But-We-Do-Sometimes- Enjoy-Bouncing. What-Do-You-Mean-By-He’s-“From-The-North”-Anyway? North-Of-Where-Exactly?”

“Ignore him, he’s just being silly again-”

“Hey!-”

“Is for horses, which suits you rather well. But what is your “Auntie’s” name Monodam?”

“I-Can’t-Remember. I just remembered what she looked like.”

“So we’re not the only ones with memory problems?” Kaede asked, which made Monodam nervous enough to change the subject. (Were we not supposed to know that? From what little we saw of Monotaro it sounded like he was pretty forgetful, which could be related.)

“I’m-Glad-You-Like-It! I-Thought-You-Would-Because-It’s-Cuter-Than-Your-Not-Father-Dolls-And-Is-Also- Pink. Kaito-Said-Girls-Like-Cute-Things, Stuffed-Animals, And-Pink-Things! Like-Most-Of-Your-Stuff-Is.” (...He’s not trying to stereotype, he’s just a kid. I will not embrace my inner Tenko and hit the child. Yet.)

“Wooow, yup Kaito has the mysteries of the female mind all worked out hasn’t he? We’ve got the second coming of Einstein on our hands or something.” (...I will not embrace my inner Tenko and hit the larger more aware children here either. Even if this one knows he’s just asking for it. I am better than that.)

Instead Kaede simply put the bunny into her bag and continued to play, despite Kokichi’s continued snickers as he poked fun at their new companion. At least Kibo isn’t an isolated case in this regard, even if it probably helps his claims about Kokichi being a “robophobe”. (Which I still don’t think is a thing.)

She largely ignored their conversations as she played largely for herself, as neither of them had much in terms of musical requests. Monodam tried once but quickly learned his paws and lack of fingers meant she couldn’t actually teach him how to play “Der Flohwalzer” like he asked, though he wouldn’t say why he had an interest in it at all. Being a simple song for beginners seemed like a fair enough reason to her, but for whatever reason, he seemed to be under the impression it was mostly played on the white keys, not the black ones. (Probably another beginner’s mistake. Most newcomers tend to forget about those.)

At one point it sounded like Monodam started asking Kokichi how exactly “leaders” should act. It made sense, given how he and his siblings still hadn’t found a working solution to how to handle things after getting their father out of the picture. But then it began to dissolve into him asking why his siblings were so cold to him now, as if the answer wasn’t obvious. Obvious enough for Kaede to chime in.

“It’s because you’re a murderer now. They can’t just forgive or forget you killing your own brother, even if he was pretty awful. He was still family, and you all had already lost one sibling. Who’s to say you wouldn’t be tempted to kill either of them too if they didn’t agree with your idea of “getting along”?”

“But-Monokid-Was-Cruel-To-Me-And-They-Did-Nothing. And-Things-Got-Better-For-Us-Now-That-He’s- Gone. How-Was-I-Wrong? What-Else-Should-I-Have-Done? I-Don’t-Understand.”

“If you want to be a leader you have to know how to keep people from hating you, dumbass! What’s not to get? It’s not too bad to try and get others to fear you if you can’t make them love you, as long as it means they’re still respecting you in some way, but the second they actively hate you you’re dead in the water, got it? And you went and made yourself the scariest fish in the fucking barrel, idiot! You can’t just trust someone after you know they’ve killed somebody ya’know? There’s no coming back from that.”

It was hard not to be taken by surprise by Kokichi’s outburst and even Kaede had to stop playing for a moment. Monodam looked even more depressed than before as he processed those words.

“Even-If-It-Was-Justified-Or-Self-Defense? Or...Unintentional?” (Is he talking about Monotaro’s death?)

“For you it wasn’t any of those things. And no. There’s no such thing as a “justifiable” murder, simple as that. If you’re smart you’d be able to find another way, and if it was really an accident it’s not murder.”

There wasn’t much to say after that. After a while of sitting in that tense silence, Kokichi went through some of the CDs and passed one to Kaede to see if she could play it to break the tension. When she did though he started messing with her like a restless kitten, pressing various notes mid-song to see how she’d react to it, leaving Monodam alone with his thoughts. Kaede didn’t know how long they stayed like that before Maki came in, but a glance at her Monopad said it was nearly night time now at least.

“There you are. Kaede can I talk to you outside for a bit?”

“What’d you need her for? You already have like two besties in this place, so why do you need mine too huh? I only maybe have the one. You are my best friend right Kaede?” Kokichi clung to her arm like a jealous girlfriend and gave her his best attempt at Bambi eyes. Which given who he is would be an excellent rendition of them for anyone who didn’t know him. Unfortunately for both of them, Kaede did.

Excuse me what? I… No. I mean... technically, I guess I’ve been spending the most time with him but he’s definitely not my “best friend”-... But that could still make me his “best friend” couldn’t it? This might be the most depressing thought I’ve had all day. This probably also applies to Kiyo too if I’ve hung out with him more than Kokichi or Ryoma have so far . Nevermind that is easily my most depressing thought-

“Hey, Kaede stop zoning out with your weird inner commentaries or whatever and answer my question!” (FUCK.)

“I, uh, guess I am? I mean you did break into my room that one time so I’m getting mixed signals on if you mean I’m your only friend which makes me your “best” by default or if I’m your only “best friend”.”

“He did what?” Maki turned to Kokichi with a bone-chilling glare. Not that his now beaming face cared.

“See? she’s surprisingly mean too sometimes so it works!” (HOW ELSE WAS I SUPPOSED TO RESPOND?!)

“With how you are you couldn’t reasonably expect much better from anyone. But what’s on your mind Maki?”

“Kaito likes to do some physical training at night, something he and Ryoma started. So I’m inviting you because he’s an idiot and hasn’t yet. But only you. Kokichi isn’t allowed to come or I will end him.”

“Jeeez, Maki’s so mean to me too~ But fine! It’s not like I’d want to hang out with Kaito’s merry band of murder munchkins anyway. I’ll just see if Kiyo needs help enough to let me play with his katana now.” (You realize she’s still taller than you are right? Why do you keep trying to make the “short” jokes here?)

“Why do you even want a katana? They’re unwieldy, dangerous, and impractical as far as weapons go.”

“Shows what you know, Miss Murder. Because swords are awesome, duh! And everybody knows katanas are a special kind of awesome sword, since Japanese stuff is always the best. So since this one is an ancient golden katana that makes it a SUPER special awesome sword! Why wouldn’t I want one?!”

“Because Kiyo would kill you if you broke it?” Kaede deadpanned, remembering how single-minded he got before about the fragile nature of most of his lab’s contents and their surprisingly intact condition.

“No he wouldn’t, he likes me too much~” After the words came out of his mouth Kokichi took a moment to rethink his statement, getting a distant look to his eye as he nervously stared at a far corner of the room. “… He’d probably just make me wish he would. Said something about tearing out my nerves before. That was scary." After a beat the morose expression was gone, replaced with a toothy grin. "But I’m sure it’s fine! If I wind up dead you know who to blame~”

“Yes, you. For being an idiot and aggravating him." Maki deadpanned, and almost seemed to smile a bit. "Pretty sure that would count as a suicide in this case.”

“Would you two please not joke about things like that? I honestly don’t get how you both can in here.”

“Fiiiiiiine, you all have fun. Just don’t get caught by any crazy cultists while you’re out past dark~” Kokichi sing-songed as he strolled out the door with his arms behind his head, leaving Maki and Kaede to make their trek to the courtyard in relative silence to avoid unwanted attention. After leaving the school was a different story, as where Ryoma was waiting for them came into view.

“Only Ryoma’s there right now? Is it normal for Kaito to be late?”

“No, he told me he’d be skipping tonight. That’s part of why I invited you, since he’s inconsistent in his reasons why not to. He still honestly talks like he can’t believe someone “small” like me could be a killer when Ryoma is right there and he barely bats an eye, things like that. I’m choosing to assume he hasn’t tried dragging you into this to keep you from feeling pressured or anything, but if any of us could afford to get stronger it’s probably you.” (Oh come on I’m not that weak. I just… Don’t work out. Like... Ever. That and I’ve never really been allowed to do anything that could risk breaking my fingers, for piano.)

“Is he still feeling sick from earlier? It’s easy to get a bit worried about him.”

“He’ll be fine, I don’t think it’s an actual illness. I’ve seen targets get this way under stress before, and it’s at its worst when the resurrection ritual and Angie’s Student Council come up. It would be pretty ironic for the guy who has the most medical experience to be the one who catches something, right?”

“But can’t stress help lead to getting sick for real though? Or aggravate health conditions? I think I heard about that when some other musicians would get stage fright or need to call in sick due to nerves.”

“True, and I think I heard him tell Ryoma it’s been messing with eating and sleeping too. But still, you know what they say about idiots and colds. For a smart guy I’m pretty sure he’s too stupid to be sick.”

Kaede couldn’t help but laugh a little at that, even if it was a bit mean. Maki was never one to sugarcoat her thoughts, and her blunt honesty was appreciated in its own weird way. Though she looked oddly embarrassed now over making Kaede giggle like this, combing her fingers through a pigtail as she picked up her walking pace. Hearing Kaede’s laughter caught Ryoma’s attention too as he stopped his sit-ups to wave them over.

“You really were serious about bringing her over huh? No need to worry if you have trouble keeping pace with us, to be honest, Kaito’s a bit of a slacker so just trying would put you ahead of him. We just do basic exercises like sit ups and push ups. Kaito tried to make the numbers simple too, like 50 or 100 but they honestly don’t matter with how fast Maki and I are, and he never finishes either. It’s mostly time to talk.” (O-okay. That’s not too bad. Still sounds like this is gonna suck, I’m no good at this stuff.)

“Alright!... Wait a sec, sit-ups in skirts? That… Sounds like a poor plan. So I’ll just try some push-ups tonight!” (Maybe they aren’t as hard to do as I remember them being? Hopefully? Yeah no, this is bad.)

Ryoma got a far-off look in his eye and while it was hard to see in the lighting Kaede was pretty sure he was blushing a bit as he messed with his beanie. Maki, on the other hand, wasn’t concerned in the slightest, giving Kaede an almost confused look as she began her own sit-ups, short skirt be damned.

The two of them made this stuff look easy, barely needing to pause as they blazed through 100 like it was nothing. A far cry from Kaede and her noodle arms struggling to hold her up at 25. Not at all helped by how Maki pointed out she wasn’t really holding her body right for this in the first place near the end.

Neither of them objected when Kaede decided the ground was her new best friend and laid there like a dead fish as they talked, but she was sure the two of them were trading looks about her current state.

Most of the conversation was about how to handle the situation with Angie, but none of them could reach a real solution for this. The best idea they could come up with was if one of them were to try and approach Angie to “join” the Council to find out what exactly her plans were for the resurrection ritual. Maybe even try to use the position to try and curb how controlling or dangerous they were becoming.

But as Angie’s stance on Maki and Ryoma was fairly clear, and even if he was healthier Kaito’s hostility to her ruled him out, the only one there who could try was Kaede. And they needed to act fast.

A look at their Monopads indicated Angie was still in her lab, so now was as good a time as any to try.

They had no way of knowing for sure when Angie was planning to do the ritual in the first place, so Ryoma went ahead to try and make sure no other Council Members would notice Maki or Kaede as they headed up to the fourth floor. A game of keep away wasn’t exactly the most mature strategy they had, but Tenko still fell for it and tried chasing him best she could so at least it suited his intended “opponent”.

Since Kirumi’s marker indicated she already went to bed for the night and Gonta was patrolling outside, mostly in the backyard, Tenko was their biggest concern as she handled the first floor and caused a ruckus which helped bring others to her.

Tsumugi was originally wandering around the second but was one who came down to help Tenko, and Monophanie tried her best (without her Exisal despite the earlier discussion) to take care of the third, but neither caught so much of a glimpse of either girl as they made their way up. Kibo was still in his computer lab so they weren’t as worried about him showing up.

But when they did make it to Angie’s lab both doors were tightly locked. Kaede tried knocking and calling to get Angie’s attention, seeing how Kibo would be too far away to hear them, but it was no use. Neither was Maki’s attempt to break the door down with her pounding, much to Kaede’s distress.

“What are you two doing up here so late at night? There is a curfew in effect as you may recall. Shouldn’t you both be off to bed? I can escort you if you’d like.” (Well so much for this plan.)

“H-hi Kirumi. Wasn’t expecting to see you here. I thought you went to bed too. How-”

“That would be because I left my Monopad in my room tonight. I suspected that’s how they were able to tell us where everyone was so reliably, and wanted to test the theory a little. I assume Kiyo’s been doing the same thing, seeing how he’s in his lab right now despite what your map may tell you. I was fairly certain he’d end up sleeping in there, or not sleeping at all, if I didn’t stop by to remind him to go to bed at a more reasonable hour. Finding you here was more unexpected. Do you wish to speak to Angie?”

“Yes, that’s why we’re here. Or rather that’s why Kaede’s here. I decided to follow her so she wouldn’t be dragged off to bed before she got to try. Aren’t you supposed to be enforcing this curfew she set up?”

“Of course, for that is the will of our President and as her maid, I will gladly carry out her wishes, regardless of if it is for her or Atua. But as the curfew is for your own protection escorting you both back to your dorms after you finish talking should be following the spirit of the request. Allow me to get her for you, she had mentioned earlier that at night time she’d only open her doors for council members.”

As Kirumi predicted Angie had no issues opening the door for her, and despite how she ignored Kaede and Maki before made no indication she was bothered by their presence even if it broke her rules.

“My, my, now this is a surprise. What could Kaede and Maki be wanting so late at night? Oh, I know! You both wanna join the student council, don’t you? You’ll need to get acquainted with Atua first, but I’ll gladly introduce you to Him if you like. Come in, Come in~” (... Well that was anticlimactic. I thought she’d be angry, well her version of angry, at Kirumi for breaking her rules to help us or something.)

“Yes! Exactly. Sorry for the intrusion, I just… I wanted to help you so we could unite everyone again. I’m not sure I’m really fit to be leading everyone anymore, so I thought joining your group could help smooth things over with the others, like Kaito. Though Maki was just keeping me company.”

Kaede took a moment to tell Maki to wait for her outside the lab to be on the safe side. Maki might be too hostile or brutally honest about some of the things Angie may say so Kaede was best off alone here.

However, when Kaede entered Angie’s lab she was in for a shock, as Shuichi stared back at her. Not just him either, Rantaro, Miu, and Himiko were all there. Statues of them at least, but the likeness was uncanny. Though oddly enough Himiko’s hat looked like it was the same one she actually wore, rather than a wax replica like the rest of her, and Shuichi didn’t have his hat at all showing off his own cowlick.

Kaede could barely process Angie’s explanation of them as she tried to calm herself down, faced with everyone she’s failed like this. But when the resurrection ritual came up she was able to focus again.

“Divine aren’t they? Atua took possession of me to make these wax effigies for the resurrection ritual and I’m quite happy with how they’ve turned out. It didn’t really say how they would be used so Atua wanted to make them look as lifelike as possible, and Tenko even helped me get one of Himiko’s hats.”

EXCUSE ME WHAT?! Possession ?! Gah, as if Kiyo and his seances weren’t bad enough already. So… Is she crazy? Or maybe this is… Just some sort of metaphor? I can’t handle any gods or demons today...

“T-the ritual? I mean you… or “He” did really do a good job with them. I almost thought they were real.”

“Yup! The book says we needed an effigy of the deceased we intended to revive them, though we did go a bit overboard. Tenko made an excellent case for Himiko being the one we bring back so we didn’t need any of the others. I just thought I- WE might make a series out of it, to memorialize those we’ve lost. Just because murderers are too much of a risk to bring back it doesn’t mean I think they should be forgotten. And Rantaro’s a case where it’ll just be easier to trust Himiko, regardless of how things would turn out.”

“I-I see. So that’s why Tenko’s a part of the council? To make sure Himiko can come back?”

“Yup-yup-yup! I have my doubts how much she honestly believes in Atua, but she’s loyal if nothing else.”

“And when exactly are you going to be doing the ritual? Did you just recently finish these?”

“Indeed I did! It might be a bit too late to finish it tonight but I think tomorrow will work.”

“Are you sure? Because, if I’m a member of the council I could spend tomorrow trying to get everyone else on board with your plan. So we could all do the ritual together. No hard feelings between anyone.”

“Huh, Are you sure you’d be able to convince them all? Kaito was rather against we do this at all before. As were you. Have you really changed your mind?” (It’s okay Kaede, stay calm. Lying can’t be too hard.)

“Yeah, I mean look at how ridiculous some of these deaths have been! None of that could be real. And I’m sure he’s objecting because of issues with your previous ideas. I’m positive I could get him to listen!”

“Hmm… Well, in that case, Atua doesn’t mind putting it off until the day after. This isn’t a timed motive after all. And I’m sure our friends are all just waiting for us. Maybe we’ll even be able to bring all of them back! That’s what Atua tells me at least, and Atua is never wrong. We wouldn’t want Him to punish us.”

“R-right! Thank you Angie, I’ll do my best tomorrow! For… For Atua! And everyone else. Would you mind if I take a look at the Necronomicon, to see if there’s anything else I can help you with?”

“Sure~ But you aren’t allowed to take it from this room, okay? I still need it to set things up.”

With Angie’s permission and under the fanatic’s watchful eye Kaede took in what information she could to further delay things if possible. The effigies were already prepared so nothing could be done there, and it’d be easy to replace them even if she broke one since the requirements for it were so basic.

But she could prevent Angie from burning the book for now.

There aren’t many sources of fire in the school after all, so Maki could help her remove the candles from the side rooms. If the Necronomicon couldn’t be reduced to ashes Angie wouldn’t be able to do things ahead of schedule. That could give Ryoma time take this book and stop Angie’s plan entirely, no one would be able to catch him at his speed, and if the book couldn’t be burned the motive was useless.

Kaede thanked Angie for her time as she returned the book and followed Kirumi back to her room with Maki in tow. After she heard Kirumi’s footsteps leave the main area she knocked on Maki and Ryoma’s doors so she could share her plan with them.

They only had one day to act so they’d need to make the most of it. But at least there was something they could do to help curb this madness now.

She tried to ignore any guilt she felt over how she was plotting against Angie, or prioritizing the safety of the group over Tenko’s wish to see Himiko again. It was a feeling she knew well but they couldn’t afford to take any risks like this.

The motive videos turned out badly enough so they can’t trust this one, and no matter what the cult said there was no way of knowing if Kirumi really changed her mind about escaping.

Angie hadn’t noticed when Kaede lied after all, and Kirumi would surely be better at it than she was.

Kaede almost missed Monodam’s company as she struggled to sleep, but the Monomi plush helped a little. She had no way of knowing how long it took for her to finally fall asleep with the way her thoughts kept racing. The last thought she could remember was the wish that she was really doing the right thing.

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danganronpa-asks-and-imagines · 7 years

Note

NDRv3 boys helping a Fem!S/O who is on their period?

Shuichi Saihara

* He would have no idea what to do in this situation. * He’d start freaking out before eventually going to google for help. * Once he found out what to do, he’d make sure that you have everything you might need* He was taught about this at school but never thought he’d have to deal with it * He’d cover S/O in hugs, Kisses, Blankets and anything else you command* This will be a slow week for Saihara

Kaito Momota

* Lowkey freaking out* He was never taught about this* Not even by his grandparents* He’ll kind of just consult google * Once he’ll know what to do, he’ll be way too full of himself* That’s easy for Kaito Momota, Luminary of the Stars* Once he tries to help S/O though, it all goes down the drain* “Why are you being like this? I’m just trying to help!” * Eventually S/O will just adapt to his ways and let him help

Ouma Kokichi

* At first, S/O decided to just keep this from Ouma* But he found out * He always finds out* He get’s ‘offended’ (or so he says) that S/O didn’t tell him* He finds it kind of funny at first* Until you say you’re in pain, then he gets worried* He offers to help and S/O hesitantly accepts the offer* He brings S/O anything you need* He even hops to the shop at anytime if you want something you don’t have

Rantaro Amami

* Rantaro is actually pretty good with this stuff* He had to deal with his sisters while they had it going on with them* He was used to the attitudes, the excessive washing, bathing and eating of sweet stuff* When S/O told him, he was pretty calm about the situation and just started helping.* First he made sure there was enough sweet stuff to last the whole week* Then he made sure you wouldn’t run out of Sanitary Towels/Tampons* S/O and Rantaro would spend the first night watching a few movies while eating take-away, just to get your mind off of it* So S/O is in good hands

Gonta Gokuhara

* He has no idea what is happening * At first he thought S/O was dying, but after a long lesson of what it was, he kind of understood?* Atleast he understood you weren’t going to die.* He tries to be the best gentleman and help S/O in places you REALLY didn’t need help in.* You end up limiting him, saying it’s sweet but not necessary.* So he just helps with little things* Still very worried* The next day he’ll ask if you feel better, then freak out that you’re still bleeding* Goodie, more explaining.

Kiibo

* At first, he wasn’t sure what was happening* But then he just looked it up on google, now he knows pretty much all you need to know.* Maybe a bit much* He helps you everywhere, as if you were crippled.* You weren’t * You still found it sweet though, and your love bar raised to 150% for him* He would take you shopping all the time to make sure you were happy too

Ryoma Hoshi

* He was getting slightly worried about the mood change, having not being told before hand* He thinks maybe you had started to dislike him* Though he knew it was only a matter of time. * Instead however, S/O ends up telling him about her lady situation* This settles Hoshi’s nerves.* He would ask to help you anyway he can, wanting to feel useful* S/O lets him help, but doesn’t want too much strain on him. * You can still do stuff yourself

Korekiyo Shinguji

* He knew what was going on instantly, as soon as your mood changed * He was more than happy to help you with it, too. * He knew what to do, what to buy, what to feed you.* You were grateful for his help, but it was getting over the top* He wouldn’t let you go anywhere before making sure you were prepared* You had to tell him to calm it down a little* After that, he’d just stick to helping a LITTLE less* The whole week he was more attached with you than before* He would say his usual stuff on humans except some about the period cycle too

#mod ouma #danganronpa asks #answered #shuichi saihara #kaito momota #hoshi ryouma #korekiyo shinguuji #rantaro amami #ouma kokichi #kiibo #gonta gokuhara #period #tmi

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v3-killing-harmony-imagines · 7 years

Text

Could you do the guys with a s/o who doesn't really like to show much affection? And maybe if it isn't too much how'd they react when their s/o shows some form of affection? (like kissing / hugging / ect. ) Thanks and sorry for bothering you!

It's no trouble, anon! I hope that it’s ok!! If you want anything changed, let me know~

- Mod Angie

The drv3 boys with a s/o who doesn't show much affection (and their reaction when they do show affection!)

Shuichi Saihara

He doesn't really mind whether or not you show affection for him, he knows that you love him anyways. He loves you too!!

He doesn't show a lot of affection either, but he still likes to hold your hand sometimes! You don't really mind it and you think it's hella cute

Your relationship is perfect, even if you don't show much affection for him! You both still love each other!

After a few months of dating, he decides to move in with you and everything is great!

He does have work, though, but he always comes back around 8 pm

but this one night, it was 10 pm and he still wasn't home. he must be stuck in traffic or something, but he didn't answer his phone and you were so so worried about him.

You paced around and kept looking out the window in hopes to see his car, but no luck... You waited patiently by the door until he finally came home

Minutes turned into hours and you were getting more panicked. You probably called and texted him more than 100 times with no answer,,

where the heck was he ? is he ok ??

It was almost midnight and you were starting to lose all hope...

You were starting to cry but then! You hear a car park and a car door shut!! You look out the window and it's him!

You were so so relieved and you wait for him to get in the house

When the door opened and you heard his tired voice saying "I'm home," You immediately tackled him with a hug and kissed him on the lips (not for too long, though. just a little smooch,,)

He was shooketh as heck but he hugged you back. you could see that he was blushing like a dork and you were so happy that nothing bad happened to him. He laughed a little after a minute of hugging you.

“I didn't think you'd miss me that much, s/o... I'm sorry for being so late... We should get to bed now."

Rantaro Amami

Like Saihara, he doesn’t really mind. He’s not really into the lovey-dovey stuff, but his favorite thing to do with you is cuddle on the couch and watch a movie until you both fall asleep. He always stops showing affection whenever you feel uncomfortable, too.

You two hang out very often and this one night you decided to pop in a Disney movie and watch it. The movie starts and you both get comfy in a lot of blankets and pillows.

Not even 10 minutes into the movie, Rantaro lays his head on your shoulder and shares a blanket. You let him stay there for a while and let him relax.

You try your best to stay awake and watch the movie, since you’ve never seen this one before. Even if Rantaro’s calm breathing makes you want to close your eyes, you try to focus on the movie.

The climax comes up and a noise wakes him up, making him jump a little. You both laugh about it and he takes you in his arms, and does his usual thing of covering you with a lot of blankets, making sure that you’re warm. “...Tell me if you wanna stop.” He always reminds you when he does this, since he cares about your comfort too. You tell him that you don’t mind that much, as long as he doesn’t go any further, you’re ok!

You actually stay awake for the whole movie after that and you were pretty sure Rantaro was too. When the ending comes, you keep your eyes open and make sure you’re not missing a second of it.

The prince “dies” and the princess starts crying her eyes out, and magic happens and happily ever after! It’s always in most of these types of movies, so you aren’t that surprised.

The “true love’s kiss” is about to happen and you adjust yourself and kiss Rantaro when it does happen. He chuckles and smiles, his arms still around you. His warm lips kiss your nose.

“I wasn’t expecting you to be so affectionate today… I’m not complaining.”

You spend the rest of the night sleeping on the couch together.

Korekiyo Shinguji

He shows hardly any affection, so he completely understands and relates. He’s fully aware how much you love him, even if you two don’t really show it through affection.

He loves to show you things you’ve never learned or seen, and you think it’s absolutely amazing that the things he shows you actually exist.

You both decide to visit an art gallery as a little date, and you planned it for this weekend. You’re both really interested in going since one of your favorite artist’s work will be on display.

When you get there, he spends a couple of minutes looking at Jean-Antoine Watteau’s “The Lesson of Love”, and you tell him about the painting. He tells you what he likes about the painting, and then you both make your way to your favorite artwork.

It takes you a couple of minutes to find it, and a couple more from looking at the other paintings, but when you find it you’re so amazed! It was shipped here from the other side of the globe and it’s right in front of you, and you’re so amazed… it was like it was shipped here just for you!

You tell him a little about the painting and the artist, and he looks mesmerized as well. You spend a while in front of the painting, trying to contain your absolute excitement, and you spend the whole day teaching him about art. Even if he has a mask on, you can tell that he looks happy to learn.

On your way home, you’re so happy that he came with you! You thank him for coming and something slips from your mouth.

“I’m really happy you came with me, Korekiyo… and even if we were in an art gallery, I couldn’t help but stare at you, hah…Wait a minute.” You realized how bad that sounded and you blushed so hard???? Korekiyo’s eyes went a little wide.

“s/o, it’s not occasional for you to say something like that… I didn’t think you would show it right now… I thank you for today, dear.” His mask moved a little and it looked like he was smiling.

Kaito Momota

He’s okay with you not showing affection! He sometimes forgets, though, and holds your hand in public, but it’s not a huge problem or anything! He’s always apologizes too much when you remind him, and you two joke about it a lot.

On nights when the sky is really clear, he likes to teach you about the constellations and the names of stars, and there’s a lot of “Wait, that’s not a star? That’s a planet?! It’s so bright!” but he never actually showed them to you through a telescope

You asked him why the Ultimate Astrologist didn’t have a telescope and he laughed awkwardly.

Long story short, it dropped and broke, and he needs to get another one. You suggest that he should go to this one store in the mall, and that you saw a nice looking telescope on display. You also tell him that you have the money for it, as long as he pays some of the cost, and he’s sold

He decided to go with you this morning, as you were informed by a text from him, sent to you at exactly 6:32 am. Hoe was already at your door by 6:45 am, and you told him that the mall opens at 11. You both go get breakfast somewhere and go to the mall to snatch that telescope

You arrive and there it is!! It’s a really pretty one and you buy it. You agree to let him carry it and you set it up that night!

He positions and focuses it, smiling, and lets you take a peek.

You close one eye and look through the lens and holy shit is that the fucking rings around Saturn??

It’s really blurry but it’s so fucking cool! Then all of a sudden you feel a little poke on your cheek??

You look back and you see him blushing. “Sorry, you just looked so cute like that, haha.” You moved away from the telescope. “...and you look cute when you blush, Kaito.” You kissed his cheek back and he looked like he was internally screaming??????? He was smiling like a dork and was like that for the rest of the night.

“I’m so happy that I get to love someone as nice as you, s/o! I’ll see you tomorrow!”

Kokichi Ouma

He expects a lot of affection and attention when you first start dating! He's the one to start affection literally anywhere and everywhere, and he thinks that it's cute when you blush~ you tell him that you're not comfy with the idea of showing affection as often as he does and he understands!

He's a little upset for your lack of "love", but he knows that you love him no matter what!

He likes to kiss your cheek and hold your hand sometimes-- but definitely not in public! He doesn’t do it for a long time, either. If you tell him to stop he sulks a little but he does stop. He cares about your comfort too, but he wants to let you know that he loves you just like you love him!

You really appreciate the thought, even if it makes you feel uncomfy sometimes.

He shows the most affection when you come back home from school or work. The second you walk in he loves to shower you with love and you refuse to believe that this smol is the leader of an evil organization

Today you enter the house and you expect to be smothered with kisses but... he's not there.??

You look throughout the house and call his name a couple of times,, and he’s not answering back,,

You eventually find him sleeping on your bed, all bundled up in blankets, his angelic-looking sleeping face making you smile.

You quietly come over and gently kiss his forehead.

You walk over to the window, closing the blinds so he wouldn't have to strain his eyes when he does wake up

All you hear is a little “Nishishi~” and you turn back to him.. you can see a really big grin on his face. oh fuck he caught you

He sits up and his eyes are sparkling. Was he even sleeping in the first place?!

He gets up and zooms to you, and gives you a hug. Now that he’s awake, it’s time to shower s/o with love !! You’re still really embarrassed from him catching you but you feel kinda happy,, he starts to giggle while hugging you tight.

“Nishishi~ I caught you red handed, s/o! I knew you couldn’t resist me!”

Kiibo (K1-B0)

When you two started dating, he was so prepared with research on dating and everything! but,, after a while he started to notice that you weren't showing that much affection for him,,,

He thought that affection like hugging and kissing was essential in a romantic relationship, so he was confused and sort of afraid,,??

Do you not love him?? He asks you and he's really nervous,, look at this cute robo, he has anxiety

You assure him that you do and explain that you don't like showing affection! he's still a little confused but he's ok with it!

Most of your dates consist of just hanging out and playing board games, which isn't really considered a date he says ?

So on your 4th (actual) date, you decide to actually go outside and go to the amusement park.

You also decide to stay away from most of the rides, for Kiibo's sake. Robokid here doesn't do well on roller coasters.

You spend most of the night just talking about things and riding calm rides and such. You're both really happy and having a good time!

You spot a really cute rabbit plush hanging from one of the game stands and you really want it! You and Kiibo go to the stand and you try to win the plush!

You gotta knock over all of the bottles with a ball, which sounds and looks really easy but it's not-

Every time you throw the ball it just somehow misses or knocks only one bottle off, and you start to get lowkey frustrated.

Kiibo grabs one of the balls and just. casually throws it and he somehow knocks all of the bottles over

You're really shook and the bunny plush was just handed to you>?! You were so happy that you leaned over and kissed the robo's cheek

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! warning overheating robot please save him !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He blushes so much and he's speechless but so happy?? You agree to hold hands for a little while after that and he's smiling so wide!! he's so cute

On the way home, he's still smiling and he finally says:

"s/o, I am really happy you brought me on a date like this. I would like to do this again soon!”

Ryoma Hoshi

(This one has a car crash involved, so read at your own risk!)

Ryoma isn’t into lovey-dovey affection either, and so he doesn’t show it often. If he does, it’s usually accidentally, like falling asleep with his head on your shoulder. You think that it’s really cute when he does it without realizing.

Your relationship is rather stable, and even if you show a little, or maybe no affection, when either of you need help you help each other out. You disagree with him and comfort him when he self-loathes, and he comforts you when you’re buried in stress.

In other words, your relationship is going fine without the affection involved.

This one night, you hung out with your friends and Ryoma, and you decided to let one of your friend’s friends (who you didn’t know personally) drive you two back home.

There was barely any talk in the car, and of course the car radio was ripped out the car? The driver told you earlier that it was stolen. Who steals a car radio?

The seats in the back were a little ripped up and the seatbelts were itchy, and other than the roar of the engine, you all sat in silence.

That is, until the car jerked to the side and a loud screech was heard. After that, the car crashed and glass shattered. You were screaming even after the crash, and panic rose with your eyes still closed. You were crying so much after a few seconds, afraid to open your eyes to something really bad.

You hear a click of a seatbelt unbuckling and you feel hands grabbing onto you.

“s/o, it’s okay. Everyone is okay, don’t panic.”

You cry even more knowing that Ryoma is okay, and you open your eyes.

There’s no wounds on him, and you only have a scratch on your arm from glass. You hug him tight and cry into his shoulder. He whispers phrases to comfort you and you’re just so happy that he’s okay.

Luckily, nobody was severely harmed and Ryoma had a little grin on his face when you both got home.

“I’m happy that you’re okay, s/o… I also liked it when you hugged me.” He was blushing a little.

Gonta Gokuhara

A gentleman must show affection for his s/o! Well… you tell him that’s not the case for you. A gentleman does show affection for his significant other, like kissing their hand, but a gentleman also cares about their comfort! He takes notes and understands after you explain to him! After that, he tends to tell you that he loves you often, and doesn’t show any physical affection unless you want him to.

He’s such a sweetheart so you don’t mind his constant reminders that he loves you.

You both agree to spend time together this morning since neither of you have anything planned. He takes you to his favorite place in the woods and you both sit and talk about things.

While you talk, you start picking flowers around you and start weaving them together, making a flower crown. It was really fragile and flimsy, but it still worked! You’re really proud of it!

You place it on your head and make one for Gonta as well. He gets interested in your work and smiles like the cutie he is when you place the finished product on his head. After you adjust the crown so that it doesn’t fall apart, you plant a little kiss on his forehead. He makes a little noise and is blushing profusely. He speaks with a little confusion, “s/o?? Did you just do that to Gonta…?” You smile and kiss his forehead again, and he makes the same noise again. “s/o, Gonta is really happy that you are doing this, but will you allow Gonta to do the same?”

You let him gently kiss your forehead and part of the flower crown breaks, the flowers landing on your hair. You spend the rest of the afternoon teaching him how to make a flower crown and you can tell that he’s just so happy receiving that small kiss from you!

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oumakokichi · 8 years

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I'm not sure if this was asked before but I'll do it anyway. So, what's your opinion about Danganronpa V3 having three protagonists: Kaede Akamatsu, Shuichi Saihara, and Kibo? Do you think this strategy effective in terms of plot, gameplay, and people's reactions? And which protagonist gave you their most significant contribution throughout the game?

I feel like the multi-protagonist plot twist was very, very effectiveoverall! Ndrv3 is a game about fully subverting and playing on people’sexpectations, and they managed to keep doing this the whole way through. Byputting the game on such a meta scale and very intentionally dealing withthings like audience perception and the expectations people, even in-game, hadfrom each protagonist and each character in the cast, having those expectationsflipped upside down was all part of the fun.

I’ve talked about the fact that I’m not happy with the Kaedebait-and-switch protagonist role in particular, because of how shitty it is topromise a female protagonist and then snatch her away after getting people’shopes up. But I do like protagonist switches in general, when they’re welldone, and thematically, ndrv3 really does well with this kind of thing.

Not only the Kaede switch, but also the switch with Kiibo,and later even with Himiko and Maki, was exceptionally well done. It was meantto catch players unaware, and truly highlight the fact that contrary to “advertisement”or “audience expectations,” every single character in ndrv3 is meant to be theprotagonist of their own story. It’s one reason it was so hard for people topinpoint who the “intended protagonist” was from promotional materials alone:most people’s first guess was Kiibo, but there was also Maki as a close second,and then the “confirmation” about Kaede came. And there were so many characterswith ahoges this time around, further teasing at and playing on the assumptionmost people had that a protagonist would be marked just because of theirhairstyle or a certain physical quality about them.

Momota in particular really highlighted the theme of “anyonecan be the protagonist” super well. Momota is, technically speaking, adeuteragonist, not a protagonist. But hecalls himself the protagonist thewhole way through the game, and many things about his design allude to this aswell. His shirt, which most people took to be a throwback to either Leon’s orKomaeda’s, actually features a design meant to resemble kabuki face paintings. Thecolor red is often used to symbolize characters who are very passionate,heroic, and active: a protagonist figure, in other words.

The fact that Momota is clearly not the protagonist or even aprotagonist, both because of circumstances (his illness) and the fact that therole is clearly already Saihara’s, makes it all the more interesting that herefuses to stop calling himself one. Momota really doesn’t care if people don’twant him to take charge or be the protagonist. He’s going to do it anyway,because that’s what a protagonist is supposedto do, and because he loathes the idea of sitting back passively and justletting things happen when he should be taking a much more active role in hisown story.

Both Kaede’s bait-and-switch, as well as Momota’s veryactive stance as a “sidekick character” who nonetheless calls himself aprotagonist frequently, should tip players off to the fact that “theprotagonist” is a much more subjective role than they might have previouslythought. Saihara, who steps into the role rather unwillingly, was not meant tobe a character who either the players or the ndrv3 audience wanted to become their new protagonist.

It makes sense, then, that Kiibo would be Tsumugi and theaudience’s “ideal protagonist” figure. He was essentially designed as such fromthe start, which is why everything about him is meant to intentionally mimicand yet subvert on Naegi. He’s the same height as Naegi, his robot “talent” issomething beyond his control just like Naegi’s “good luck” was, and he’sultimately destined to be a force of optimism and hope within the group—whetherhe likes it or not.

Kaede’s take-charge attitude, her energy, and herwillingness to get things done was precisely what made her so likable right offthe bat, but Kiibo’s rather innocent behavior, his willingness to believe thebest in people, and his sense of fair play is what appeals to the ndrv3audience and even the players themselves in Kaede’s absence. And what’s more,he’s someone the audience gets to “participate” with. They can considerthemselves a part of Danganronpa as long as Kiibo’s around, and by contributingas his “inner voice” they get to feel as if they themselves are “the hope” ofSaishuu Academy.

This is why the baton gets passed to Kiibo in the Chapter 6trial. Saihara was never meant to be a Hope’s Peak-type protagonist, and whenthings seem utterly pointless, depressing, and crushing, he doesn’t want to goon. He’s tired, moreso as he slowly realizes that any option he could pickwould only be playing further into Tsumugi and the audience’s hands. But Kiibotakes over due to his inner voice, and his own innate desire to do what’sright.

Kiibo might contribute to a very “Hope’s Peak” type of hopemost of the time, since he’s only listening to what his inner voice says, butit’s true that he is a force of hope in his own right. While he starts outrepresenting “the hope of the outside world” by relying on his inner voiceexclusively, Kiibo truly steps into his own role the moment he discards thatvoice in the Chapter 6 trial. By being able to consciously evaluate thesituation, and by relying on his sense of fair play and objectivity which issomething inherent to him, and notsomething that was particularly part of Tsumugi’s or the audience’s plans, heembraces a very different kind of hope.

And that hope is something very simple, and admirable: hewants the rest of the group to live on. Even if Saihara and the others decidethat they’ll “use their lives” as sacrifices once and for all to stop thekilling game, Kiibo wants them to have futures, and wants them to live. This verysimple “hope” is something so deeply ingrained in him and something he wants sodesperately that even after the audience has, for all intents and purposes, “killed”most of Kiibo’s original personality before deciding to blow up the school andend the killing game at the end of the trial, Kiibo retains enough of his freewill and personality to intentionally avoid killing Saihara, Maki, and Himiko,and instead blasts the dome of the school open.

He provides them an option to attain that future with theirown free hands. Even if they’re all only fictional characters, even ifeverything they remember or everything they’ve done was a “lie” or “illusion”in one way or another, Kiibo’s “hope” is ultimately a wish that they’ll live onin spite of everything. They don’t have to give up completely in order toarrive at an outcome that’s neither hope nor despair. They can still end thekilling game without having to end their lives as well.

And this realization that his “inner voice” and that thedesires of the audience who wanted so badly to see a “hope vs. despair”showdown that imitated the Hope’s Peak killing games were wrong is why Kiibohands the baton back to Saihara. If Ihad to pick which protagonist contributed most significantly to the overallgame, I would have to say that it’s Saihara, without a doubt.

Kaede, unfortunately, we only had around for a very shorttime, and while she left a lasting impression on the whole group long after herdeath, it’s impossible to say that she really had a huge amount of autonomy.Kiibo’s contributions are significantdespite only really getting to shine as a protagonist in the last chapter(though there are certainly hints of his protagonist nature even earlier on,and in Chapter 5 particularly), but his largest pitfall was in unwittinglybeing a puppet for both Tsumugi and the audience for most of the game.

Saihara is a protagonist whose entire nature as someone whowas neither wanted nor expected by the players or the audience is the mostimportant point about him. His conflicts, his development, and the answer thathe reaches at the end, are all vastly different from previous protagonists likeNaegi or Hinata. As a detective, there are very different things expected fromSaihara than would be expected for a normal person. And as someone who,according to Tsumugi’s own words, “was supposed to be weaker than anyone” according to the personality sheplanned for him during the killing game, Saihara’s ability to step into theprotagonist role and constantly change himself despite anyone else’sexpectations is hugely important, not only to his character but to the themesof the game itself.

Without other characters there, and without the very reallessons and experiences he lived through alongside people like Kaede, Momota,Ouma, and the others, Saihara would never have been able to come as far as hedid. But it’s precisely because of the others’ contributions that Saihara isable to reach a truth no one else wants to reach, and seek a result thatTsumugi and the audience never once foresaw.

His conviction by the end that they can form “their owntruths,” and that lies and illusions can have a real, lasting impact onreality, gets through to Himiko and Maki to the point where even they become protagonists very briefly inthe Chapter 6 trial. They reach a point of deciding for themselves what tobelieve, no matter what “facts” or “truths” they are presented with, and it’san incredibly rewarding moment to see them all band together and arrive at theconclusion that yes, their lives do have real meaning, and yes, they can followSaihara’s example and do something entirely unexpected from what might havebeen planned or intended for them as fictional characters.

The theme of protagonists, and of what makes a story, andwhose perspective the story is being told from, is so incredibly interestingwithin ndrv3. There certainly are elements I wish had been handled better, butoverall, the protagonist switches were handled very well, because you couldtell it was an extremely important theme of the game which Kodaka had intendedfrom the start. I hope I managed to share my thoughts on it well, because Ihonestly feel like the ndrv3 cast shines so much specifically because so manyof the characters have this potential to shine on their own as protagonists oftheir own story.

#ndrv3 #new danganronpa v3 #shuuichi saihara #kaede akamatsu #kiibo #ndrv3 spoilers //#my meta #okay to reblog #trishiabidaure

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commentaryvorg · 5 years

Text

Danganronpa V3 Commentary: Part 4.1

Be aware that this is not a blind playthrough! This will contain spoilers for the entire game, regardless of the part of the game I’m commenting on. A major focus of this commentary is to talk about all of the hints and foreshadowing of events that are going to happen and facts that are going to be revealed in the future of the story. It is emphatically not intended for someone experiencing the game for their first time.

Last time, as chapter 3 concluded, Kiyo was the worst and I yelled a lot, Kokichi accidentally did something nice for once in the process of deflecting his own issues, Himiko had emotions and so did everyone else, and the out-universe writers quite rightly decided that Kaito’s character arc was important enough to be the focus of the chapter-end stinger.

Now that we’re done with the weakest chapter of the game, we can move on to one of the best chapters of the game! Yay. I hope you’ve been looking forward to this, because I sure have.

This opening stinger with Rantaro’s video message to himself is even more obviously a thing for the out-universe audience’s eyes only. The in-universe audience already knows exactly what Rantaro’s deal is, so this wouldn’t be interesting for them at all.

Rantaro: “You wanted this killing game, so you have to win no matter what.”

This is super misleading. I imagine the writers worded it this way for the sense of mystery it brings to seeing the scene here without context – making people think maybe Rantaro was the mastermind or otherwise a bad person who was only out for himself. But since that’s not the case, this really isn’t how you’d think he’d actually phrase things from his point of view. He didn’t want this killing game – he volunteered to sacrifice himself so two of his friends from season 52 could survive and escape, and at the time he presumably expected his “punishment” to be death rather than having to do it all over again. And he certainly didn’t want to “win” in the sense of “become blackened and get away with it” that this seems to be implying. He presumably wanted to end the killing game, especially upon having learned that this is an endless cycle, which isn’t something most people would describe as “winning”.

Live and Let the Languid World Live

I think I sort of get what this title’s relevance is, but maybe the Japanese title, “Living in a Lazy Parallel World”, gets it across a little better. It gives the sense of there being a separate world in which one can remain blissfully oblivious to the horrible reality of the situation, which fits in multiple ways. There’s their life in the academy versus the supposedly-ruined outside world, there’s Miu’s claim that the Virtual World is a peaceful world with no killing game, and then there’s the way that Gonta loses his memories as he leaves the Virtual World and remains oblivious to what he did in there.

At breakfast in the morning, one of the few people managing to stay upbeat is Kaito. Naturally he’s completely fine and definitely didn’t realise he was dying last night.

Himiko: “Heeey! You guys have no energy! You need to look alive! You’re all still teenagers!”

Himiko is also managing to be upbeat! She’s even taking a leaf out of Kaito’s book and trying to boost everyone else’s spirits too!

Maki: “…Weird. I thought you’d be the most depressed out of all of us.”

Himiko: “Of course… I’m depressed. This is the most depressed I’ve been in all my 200 million years. […] But… being depressed won’t help those who died rest in peace…”

And I appreciate that acknowledgement that she is still horribly depressed. That’s not going to magically go away just because she’s been inspired by Tenko. She’s just trying as hard as she can to fight it now, which is really admirable.

Himiko: “S-So anyway… Please… t-take care of the… new me…”

Kaito: “You’re out of breath already. You’re going full speed right out of the gate!”

Like you wouldn’t do the same, Kaito? Like you aren’t doing that right now, considering what’s going on with you?

Kokichi: “Ughhh… but now that there’s less people, I might… be the next victim… Woooow, so exciting! But I definitely don’t wanna die!”

Kokichi’s doing his usual shtick of pretending this game is totally fun for him. Since this is still before he sees the outside world, I don’t think this has any greater meaning to it than usual.

Then again, he’s also added more to the graffiti, meaning the “claim to be the mastermind” part of his plan is already in progress. So really, seeing the outside world isn’t going to change his intentions that significantly at all.

(I have a lot to say about Kokichi’s intentions in this chapter, but I’ll wait until we get to the part where he actually has seen the outside world.)

Tsumugi: “Wh-What about this world? What does it mean? Is there some crazy story going on?”

This is Tsumugi’s response to the graffiti possibly saying “this world”. It sure is telling that she’d think of what’s going on outside as a story, because that’s all it is to her.

Maki has started using her catchphrase at Shuichi in front of everyone else, by the way! She’s opening up more and starting to feel like the others aren’t going to think she really wants to kill anyone either. Progress.

Kokichi: “But Gonta stumbled onto the writing by coincidence, right? If it was a prank, they would’ve done it in a more obvious spot, not in the grass.”

Kokichi’s saying this to try and support the idea that the writing isn’t him, but this is misleading. The original message wasn’t his, and it’s only after Gonta found that and pointed it out to everyone that he started adding to it, since he knew at that point that people would definitely pay attention and notice his additions.

Kokichi: “There’s nothing more depressing than an unnoticed prank.”

This says a lot about Kokichi’s approach to things in general. He doesn’t just want to mess with people – he likes it best when they know they’ve been messed with and that it was him who messed with them. Keep this in mind in chapter 5 when I’ll be talking about the reasons his plan fails, because this is at the root of another one of them.

Kaito: “Well, I don’t really get it, but… Maybe it’s some kinda clue. Thanks for the report, Gonta.”

Another interesting observation about Kaito: he very rarely directly thanks anyone. Which might seem strange when he’s all about encouraging people and letting them know how much good they’ve been doing. But it makes sense when you consider that specifically thanking someone is a bit more personal to Kaito himself and comes with the implication that he needed their help, which is of course something Kaito does not like to admit to. This instance here is an exception to that probably mostly because he’s just thanking Gonta on behalf of everyone, so it doesn’t come across as if he specifically needed anything.

Gonta: “…Gonta just glad to help. Gonta want to help, even little. Tell Gonta if you need help with something, okay?”

But it’s also likely because Kaito knows how much Gonta needs to hear that and to feel useful and like he’s helped someone out right now, more than ever before.

(And Gonta’s not the only one. Which might be why Kaito is so aware of that.)

Kokichi: “O-kay, got it! I’ll let you know if I want you to punch someone.”

Himiko: “No! You don’t get to tell Gonta what to do anymore!”

Gonta: “Y-Yeah… Gonta learn lesson after Insect Meet and Greet…”

Yeah, Gonta’s definitely never going to get manipulated into doing something bad by Kokichi ever again, right? Hnnnngh.

Monophanie: “…a card key! Which just so happens to be the motive, too!”

So, uh. Let’s talk about this card key. First of all, it being a card key is super misleading, because the immediate thing I assumed when I first saw it was that it’s the key to the hidden door in the library. That’s the only door we know of with a card reader, so that’s the obvious assumption to make. But none of the characters comment on this at all, not even Shuichi, who found the hidden door and indirectly got Kaede killed because of it. You’d think it would have come to mind for him at least. Clearly the writers don’t have anyone comment on it because they don’t want the players to think it’s connected to the library door (since it isn’t), but if that’s the case then they really should have just made it a different kind of key so it wouldn’t bring that to mind.

Second, we never see the place in the school that the card key actually opens. It would have helped immersion to at least show some kind of mysterious locked door that could plausibly be what Kokichi unlocks with this. As it is, from the players’ perspective, that hidden route Kokichi finds simply doesn’t exist, so we just have to use our imaginations to pretend that it totally is somewhere that we just don’t get access to while playing the game, which is a little awkward. It’s also pretty unclear how this card leads to a place from where one can see the outside world. Does it lead to the same place that the Death Road to Despair does? Is it like, a shortcut through that tunnel so that Kokichi can reach the end of it without worrying about the traps? Or is there another totally different place in the school that also shows the outside world, meaning Team Danganronpa would have had to double-up on the special effects? It’s annoyingly unclear.

But what’s most annoyingly unclear is how seeing the outside world is supposed to be a motive. Presumably Monokuma expected everyone to use the card key and view the outside world, right? That would have been the very opposite of a motive! Everyone would have fallen into despair and realised there was no point killing each other to escape at all, which is exactly what happens when Kokichi shows them all the outside in chapter 5 and which really annoys and bores the audience when it does happen! The only reason it functions as a motive in this chapter is because Kokichi steals the card key and keeps it to himself, and then later decides to show the motive only to Gonta to convince him to try and mercy-kill everyone, since the mercy kill plan would be meaningless if everybody had already seen outside. The part where Kokichi shares the motive with Gonta explicitly isn’t Monokuma’s intended plan right now, since he has that conversation with Kokichi later where he agrees to go along with it. And I doubt he would have known Kokichi would steal the card key before anyone else could use it in the first place. Even if he predicted that as a possibility, he couldn’t know for sure that Kokichi would be fast enough to swipe it and run off without getting caught, and if that didn’t happen and everyone used the card key then that would have been the worst possible outcome from Monokuma’s perspective. It shouldn’t be worth the risk.

Like, I love this chapter a lot for most everything that happens in it. But this initial decision of Monokuma/Tsumugi’s that sets off all of the fun stuff that happens in this chapter feels kind of contrived and illogical, and it’s a shame.

Keebo: “Right now, we need your skills as a detective, Shuichi.”

Shuichi: “Right… in that case, let me hold onto that. I’ll look around again.”

Himiko: “Nyeeeh, Shuichi’s grown up! He’s become so reliable!”

Again – the job of using the objects on the mysterious items to open up new areas really does not require a detective. Kaito only gave that job to Shuichi back in chapter 2 to help make him feel useful when he was feeling down. But now that’s just become how things are done to the point that everyone’s forgotten they don’t really need Shuichi for this, and they’ve been relying on him so much in trials (where his skills really do make a difference) that it’s just kind of extended to outside the trials as well even when it’s a lot less necessary.

(Kaito isn’t here at this point, since he’s already run off after Kokichi, which is kind of a shame because I would have been interested to see how he’d respond to this.)

Gonta: “Shuichi is so amazing. Gonta wanna be useful to everyone too.”

Aww, Gonta looks up to Shuichi and desperately wants to be as helpful as him. And he’s being so open and honest about feeling this way. (Unlike someone else.)

(Again: it is a shame that Kaito has already left the room.)

Maki: “Don’t worry. When the time comes, we’ll use your body as a meat shield.”

Gonta: “Okay! Gonta hope time come soon!”

Maki is probably joking (she’s at that point in her development where she’s starting to make jokes that still don’t really sound like jokes because her delivery is too deadpan), but still, gaaah. It’s admirable that Gonta’s willing to risk himself to protect everyone, but he should still hope that it never has to come to that, so the fact that he’s actively hoping it will is pretty fucked up. He doesn’t just want to help if he’s needed, but he wants to be needed, even if that means he’ll need to get himself hurt.

Opening up the new areas, I’m starting in the courtyard with Keebo’s lab.

Keebo: “Anyway, Shuichi… That black object over there looks suspicious, doesn’t it?”

This goes to show that they don’t actually need Shuichi’s skills as a detective at all to open up these new places and Keebo would have been able to do it himself if he’d had the mysterious items.

Since there was nothing else to examine inside Keebo’s lab, I decided to examine the monitor (which I usually never remember to do), and…

Shuichi: (These monitors are everywhere, but I don’t see any cameras. How is the mastermind behind this killing game monitoring us? Or… are we not really being watched at all?)

An important question to ask, Shuichi! Even if he hasn’t figured out like Kokichi has that this is clearly being shown to people for entertainment, there still absolutely must be cameras in order for Monokuma to know who the blackened is in each case. Unfortunately Shuichi never quite thinks this through far enough until halfway through the fifth trial.

Shuichi: “But I imagine that a lot of things in here would really help you out. You should take a look.”

Keebo: “No… I do not want to be assisted by sci-fi technology.”

Congratulations, Keebo, you’ve just become partially responsible for every death that happens from this point onwards. The things in his lab include a jetpack and a laser gun, which make him an equal match for all five Exisals in a fight and are able to blow a hole in the wall to let everyone escape. (Well, apparently only after Keebo modifies them to be more powerful, but since he’s the one who’s capable of doing that, the point still stands.) If Keebo decided to use them right now, the killing game would be over in a matter of hours. The fact that he’s refusing to do so because he’s uncomfortable with sci-fi technology is not a remotely valid excuse in this situation when people’s lives are at stake. He should be willing to make temporary sacrifices like that for the sake of saving everyone! It’s not like he’d have to ever use those weapons again if he didn’t want to once they’re out of here!

What the out-universe writers really should have done here to justify Keebo not using these yet is make it clear that it’s because his inner voice doesn’t want him to. The only meaningful difference between now and chapter 6 is the lack of his inner voice, not any kind of character development to have become more okay with being sci-fi. The audience obviously wouldn’t want him to use his weapons to bust everyone out of here in chapter 4 – they want an exciting killing game.

Shuichi: (It doesn’t seem like Keebo is going to use this lab. Well, he’s free to do as he pleases. Nothing I can do about that.)

I mean, you could try arguing to him that he could save everybody’s lives if he used it, Shuichi. You’re still too passive sometimes.

Back up to the fourth floor, Tsumugi and Maki are there, which for some reason only happens if you’ve already been to Keebo’s lab first, hence me doing things in this order.

Tsumugi: “I still don’t get that stuff with his sister or why he killed Angie and Tenko…”

THEN WHY THE FUCK DID YOU WRITE KIYO THAT WAY.

Maki has also figured out exactly where to use the mysterious item, proving that splitting up into two groups with one item each would have been much faster than mindlessly assuming Shuichi’s the only one who can do it.

Shuichi: (Maki has never been this cooperative with investigations before… She must have been serious about what she said after the trial.)

Maki: “…What? Why are you making that gross face?”

Shuichi: “Wh-What!? It’s not *gross* …is it? I’m just happy… It’s, ah, really nice that you’re working with us like this.”

It’s really heartbreaking that Maki considers expressions like the one Shuichi’s making – expressions of caring about her as a person and considering her feelings – to be “gross”. Gah.

Maki: “Well, unlike Kaito, I’m not just all talk. I always follow through with my decisions.”

Maki still doesn’t quite properly understand Kaito. Kaito always means to follow through on his words, even if he’s not always as good at it as he wishes he was. She’s probably still annoyed at him skipping training last chapter because of the ghost thing.

I’m ignoring Tsumugi’s lab for now even though it’s closer and heading to Shuichi’s first.

Shuichi: (This also looks like an Ultimate lab. But whose lab is it?)

Even if you can’t see the icon for it on the map, it’s still clearly yours, Shuichi. None of the others left without a lab would have a door like this (except maybe Rantaro I guess). But of course Shuichi still kind of hates his talent and hasn’t been remotely thinking about what a lab based around it might look like, so it’s a nice little detail that this doesn’t even occur to him.

Maki: “But this place doesn’t match you at all. I think this lab is too good for someone like you.”

Ouch, Maki again being bluntly realistic about Shuichi’s detective skills still having room for improvement.

Shuichi: “There are a bunch of files lined up. It looks like about 50 of them.”

Not just “about fifty”. To be precise:

…there’s exactly fifty-two of them.

Maki: “The newer files have photographs, but the older ones have illustrations?”

Shuichi: “But why? Are the old ones just fictional?”

That’s exactly what they are. Almost as if something involving murder cases which has happened fifty-two times up until now used to be fictional at the beginning and then became real.

Each one of these files contains the cases from a single season of Danganronpa.

I didn’t pick up on this for the longest time – I assumed that it just included some random fictional murders in among with some real ones because why not? I didn’t quite register the fact that it was specifically all of the earliest files that were fictional, nor the fact that there were exactly fifty-two. But given both of those facts, this is so, so clearly what the out-universe writers intend for this to be, and it blew my mind when I figured this out. Have I mentioned how much I love it when there’s details like this that are deliberately hinted at but never made explicitly clear because they don’t need to be as it doesn’t stop them being true.

Maki: “Then this would make a good guideline for anyone who wants to commit murder.”

I’m not so sure about that, since these are all murder cases where the blackened got caught. If we’re to believe chapter 6, every single game ended with hope winning, which means no blackened has ever succeeded in getting away with it. They’d make a good guideline of what not to do, maybe.

Shuichi: (The first few files have only illustrations, but the others have photographs… Is there a reason for that?)

Oh, Shuichi, if only you’d sit down and spend longer thinking about what that reason might be.

I have to assume they kept the precise details of the overall context the murders happened in pretty vague so as to not make it obvious they all took place in a killing game just like this one. I imagine they edited the illustrated ones to make the blood red rather than pink, too, because that might have got Shuichi’s brain ticking.

We also have to assume, then, that nobody ever happened to look at file number 1. Otherwise, when they all see the Flashback Light about Hope’s Peak in chapter 5, that would definitely raise some fucking questions.

If this weren’t a killing game, I’d be very sceptical about why an Ultimate Detective’s lab would need actual poisons in it. Facts about poisons, sure, and antidotes, maybe, but there’s no need to have a whole cupboard full of the means to actually kill someone.

Shuichi: (…I suppose that’s right. There’s a fine line between criminal and detective.)

All it serves to do is make Shuichi feel awful about his talent again.

Shuichi: “The only time I can use my detective talent is after someone dies… A detective… can’t save anyone. I’m only useful after it’s already too late.”

Maybe in the real world, detectives don’t usually save lives, but giving loved ones closure is still worthwhile, Shuichi! But of course he still thinks of everything in the context of that one murder case where the culprit had a sympathetic reason for doing it and hated him for figuring out the truth.

More to the point, though, in this killing game, Shuichi is absolutely explicitly saving the lives of everyone except the victim and the culprit. Sure, it’d be better if the murders didn’t happen at all, but given that the murders do happen and nobody is able to stop that part, Shuichi’s talent makes him the biggest hero out of anyone here.

Maki: “Why are you so upset all of a sudden? Do you want to die?”

Shuichi: “You’d kill me just for that!?”

Kaito: “Nah, I understand why Maki Roll would say that. Your face looked pretty gloomy.”

Thankfully, both Maki and Kaito realise how ridiculous it is for Shuichi to think that he’s not saving anyone in this situation and call him out on it appropriately.

(I also really like that this is the point in the conversation at which Kaito happens to show up.)

Kaito: “With a face as gloomy as that, I can’t believe you’re my sidekick. Be more proud of yourself, Shuichi! Everything you’ve done up until now has been amazing!”

Of course it has! Of course Kaito thinks that! And he can hardly believe that Shuichi could still be self-deprecating even now when it’s so clear from where Kaito’s standing that Shuichi has been the real hero all along.

Shuichi: “Ah… thanks.”

Shuichi’s response is somewhat lukewarm, like he still mostly thinks Kaito is just saying this to encourage him and doesn’t quite fully believe it. No, Shuichi – Kaito absolutely means it.

Maki: “Because of how well you did in the class trials, people are keeping their eyes on you, Shuichi… The next culprit might come after you.”

So I’ve seen some people complaining that it’s unrealistic that nobody ever does try to murder Shuichi, since this is a very valid point. But it makes perfectly good sense in the context of the actual people who attempt murder. Obviously Kaede believed he wasn’t the mastermind. Kirumi probably should have targeted Shuichi, but her thing was that even though she was desperate to escape, she still couldn’t bring herself to directly kill anyone who actively wanted to live, which is why she targeted Ryoma. Kiyo only targets girls. Miu is an idiot who might have never had the issue of Shuichi’s prowess in trials occur to her, and even if it did, she falsely believed that Kokichi trusted her, which is why she goes for him.

Honestly, this argument about how the culprits should go for Shuichi because he’s so good in class trials is most relevant to the question of why doesn’t Kokichi choose Shuichi to be his accomplice in chapter 5? I’ll talk more about that later when we get there, but suffice to say that’s probably the biggest reason his plan is really not as clever as he thinks.

Kaito: “Heh, you don’t need to worry about that! I won’t let anyone mess with my sidekick! I’m gonna protect both of you! It’s a hero’s job to protect his sidekicks!”

Kaito, meanwhile, is probably quite unnerved at the realisation that Shuichi is an even more likely target than anyone else now. Naturally, he’s going to do something about that – because, you know, it’s totally possible to make absolutely 100% sure that a particular person will not get killed. Short of designating himself Shuichi’s personal bodyguard, which he’s obviously not going to do because that’d come across as ridiculously paranoid, there’s… really no way to come close to guaranteeing that at all. But even though he has no way of knowing for sure that he can back up these words, that doesn’t diminish the intent behind them one bit. Of course he wants to protect Shuichi! Of course he doesn’t want to stand back and let Shuichi get killed if there’s anything he can do about it!

Also, consider: Kaito almost certainly feels that he in particular should have been able to prevent each of the murders that have happened so far. Rantaro left Kaito’s meeting to “go to the bathroom” just before getting killed, which Kaito should have realised was suspicious and at least offered to go with him for safety. I’ve made it very clear that Kaito could and should have saved Ryoma just by reaching out to him, and I’m pretty sure he realised that himself in the end. And if he’d just been able to be his usual self last chapter, then surely he’d have done something to stop the resurrection ritual, or noticed Kiyo acting strangely, or been at the seance and noticed something off there, or something. Which is admittedly the kind of thing everyone is probably thinking in hindsight, even though really they were trying their best and couldn’t have done any more than they did – but Kaito could have done more, couldn’t he, if he just hadn’t let something as stupid as being scared of ghosts get to him?

But this time, it’ll be different! This time, he’ll definitely notice whatever’s going wrong and step in to do something about it before it’s too late, especially if the person lined up to be the next victim is Shuichi!

…Right?

I also enjoy how he promises to protect Maki too even though she is clearly the person least in need of protection from being murdered. Kaito is trying really hard to seem like he’s being a good hero to his sidekicks.

Maki: “…What if I end up as a future culprit?”

Kaito: “Are you stupid? That’s impossible.”

And guess what Kaito actually will end up protecting Maki from? Becoming a future culprit! He will manage to keep this promise that he’s making here! More or less. It’s not like he directly promises that he’ll prevent Maki from becoming a culprit, since he believes in her so much that he doesn’t think he’ll need to (I love the way says it’s impossible for her to become a culprit like it’s just obvious), but that’s absolutely something he feels just as strongly about as preventing her from becoming a victim.

(Also, Maki still not believing in herself enough to assume that she wouldn’t ever kill anyone any more. Which she’s unfortunately right about, but still. Gah.)

Maki: “How… can you believe in people so easily?”

Because he’s Kaito, of course!

Other than still questioning why he believes in a murderer like her, I think part of Maki might be asking this for the same reason Shuichi also asked Kaito this back in chapter 2 – because she’s starting to wish that she could also believe in people more and wants to know how it comes so easily to him.

Kaito: “Huh? Didn’t I tell you before? I believe in people I wanna believe in. And if they betray me, it just means I made a bad call believing in them. Of course, you’re one of the people I want to believe in, Maki Roll!”

Maki: “…”

I think she’s finally starting to accept that Kaito really is just like this – and that it is possible to be like this in general. Also, she’s given up on protesting the nickname, so that’s progress! Sort of.

(Also this is literally the fourth time Kaito has explained his principles about believing in people and acknowledged that he could be wrong but chooses to believe anyway; this shouldn’t remotely be something that is easy to miss about him.)

Anyway, Kaito couldn’t catch up to Kokichi, but he found the Flashback Light instead.

Kaito: “So let’s all gather in the dining hall!”

Maki: “Huh? Me too?”

Of course you too, Maki! You said yourself that you want to start working together with everyone and getting them to trust you, so of course you should be at important gatherings like this!

The reason I did this lab before Tsumugi’s is that you miss out on some dialogue here if Shuichi doesn’t still need to check any more places and they can just head straight to the dining hall.

Maki: “…You’re not going to check this place?”

Kaito: “I’ll let Shuichi handle it! You got this. Right, Shuichi!?”

Kaito’s still being so encouraging! I guess he really is okay with Shuichi continuing to be the one solely responsible for opening new areas even though it really doesn’t need to be him any more. Kaito gave him that job in the first place to boost his confidence, which Shuichi doesn’t need anywhere near as badly by now, but Kaito’s still continuing to use it to boost his confidence anyway.

Maki: “…You didn’t even complain. You seriously *are* his sidekick now.”

Shuichi: (…I can’t even argue with that.)

Aww, look at Shuichi becoming more used to the idea of being Kaito’s sidekick (not that he ever actively protested it in the first place). And Maki still thinking the word means “someone who does whatever Kaito tells them to”, when that’s not it at all. Kaito only tells Shuichi what to do as a way of encouraging him to do things he might otherwise be hesitant to try, even if that’s not really as necessary now as it used to be.

Tsumugi: “Yeah, I think it’s just plain fun to become fictional characters. To become a completely different person and feel like you’re part of a different world.”

Yeah, it really must be fun to become someone who doesn’t enjoy watching real people kill each other and immerse yourself in a world where the idea of real people killing each other is barbaric rather than everyone’s idea of a good night’s entertainment, huh.

Tsumugi: “Doesn’t that sound interesting? Don’t you want to live in a fictional world?”

Why are you asking Shuichi this? You already think he does.

Tsumugi’s lab is way bigger than it really needs to be. Someone just wanted to give herself the biggest lab, now, didn’t she.

Also, in the thing at the back that keeps putting up and taking down different backdrops, one of the possible backdrops is very much a Hope’s Peak classroom complete with Monokuma graffiti on the blackboard. Like it’s just a place she’d want to do cosplay photoshoots in or something.

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Danganronpa V3 Commentary: Part 4.3

Last time in chapter 4, Kokichi figured out that everything is fiction after seeing the “outside world” (and told precisely nobody, of course), we started hanging out with Himiko, Maki was incredibly aromantic despite her burgeoning crush on Kaito, and Kaito was totally fine and didn’t have any worries whatsoever. Also, Gonta came to a decision that he was going to tell everyone about next morning, so now we’re heading to the dining hall to hear from him.

On the way there, Maki very briefly continues the conversation she was having with Shuichi last night.

Maki: “You probably assumed I didn’t care… But, that wasn’t it at all.”

This is essentially her apologising for offending Shuichi by coming across like she didn’t care. It seems like she thought about it enough to realise that she unintentionally hurt him and wanted to make sure he knew that wasn’t her intention. She’s getting somewhere with this whole interpersonal-interaction, dealing-with-emotions thing!

Maki: “You’re not fit to be a detective when you assume things without listening first.”

Shuichi: “Maki…” (Then… what were you trying to do? Why did you bring it up?)

Come on, if you can’t think of at least a possible reason why she brought up your feelings for Kaede other than to be a dick, then maybe you really aren��t a very good detective. Maki gets a pass for her obliviousness on this matter because she’s apparently arospec, but you’re not the one who was having trouble comprehending the idea that people could “like” each other in this situation, Shuichi.

Shuichi also bumps into Himiko, who’s trying to figure out how to live up to Tenko’s words and become more positive, so Shuichi suggests that Himiko should do a training session in Tenko’s dojo.

Himiko: “…Will that make me positive? Can I live life facing forward?”

Shuichi: “Ah, I can’t say for certain… but it’s better than just sitting around doing nothing.”

It is absolutely thanks to Kaito that Shuichi realises exercise can be helpful and is able to pass that advice onto Himiko in turn. And he acknowledges that training isn’t going to magically fix all her problems, just like it hasn’t done for him – but it’ll still help, at least a little.

Himiko: “You’re a good person. But does that make you a good detective?”

Being a good person and being a good detective are quite different things. Of course, Shuichi is both.

Shuichi: “Ah, *apprentice* detective.”

Oh, Shuichi. He’s still not confident enough in his skills to call himself a full-fledged detective, even after having solved three class trials.

Anyway, we get to the dining hall, and Gonta is declaring his intent to fight back against Monokuma.

Tsumugi: “L-Like I said before, It’s reckless! There are still two Exisals, right!?”

Of course Tsumugi especially would want to discourage him from this sort of plan – not because it’s reckless, but because of the possibility it might succeed.

Gonta: “Watching friends disappear… Seeing everyone get weaker…”

Obviously their numbers dropping is bad, but has everyone who remains really been getting weaker? Shuichi, Maki and now Himiko have all gotten stronger as this has gone along. I think the only reason Gonta believes this is because he’s the one who’s been feeling weaker the more this goes along, due to not having been able to do anything to stop it. (And Kaito’s been getting weaker too, of course, but Gonta doesn’t know that.)

Gonta: “Waiting around, doing nothing just make more victims…”

Gonta gets it. It’s far too easy in this situation to tell yourself that surely there’s not going to be another murder because everyone here is trustworthy, and therefore not give it your all to escape because doing so seems like more of a risk than just staying here and waiting. But Gonta still realises everyone’s lives are in danger even though he blindly trusts them all, so he is willing to risk his life for this.

Gonta: “Real gentleman would risk life! Gonta gladly give up life to save everyone!”

Gah, Gonta. Sacrificing your life if it means everyone else escapes is one thing, but sacrificing your life in a fight you can’t win that doesn’t get everyone else out of here is a waste and not what a gentleman should do. This isn’t a fight he can win on his own.

Kaito: “Gonta, I get how you feel, but don’t you think you’re getting ahead of yourself?”

Kaito definitely gets how Gonta feels. He’s someone else who would absolutely risk his life if he knew it stood even a chance of getting them out of here – but he’s less naïve than Gonta, so he knows that’s not possible right now (as far as he’s aware) and would just get Gonta pointlessly killed. (Especially since Kaito almost got himself pointlessly killed by an Exisal in chapter 1 – he hasn’t forgotten the lesson he learned from that.)

But it’s only impossible as it’s being presented here because Gonta’s strength alone isn’t enough to take on two functioning Exisals. If everyone thought like Gonta is thinking and was willing to make sacrifices to try and escape, then… well, they’d all escape within about a day. I’m looking at you, Keebo, with your jet pack and laser guns, and you, Kokichi and Miu, with your Electrohammers and Electrobombs and remote control that someone agile like Maki could slip onto the Exisals to hijack them. They already have the means to escape. The only problem is that the people who actually have those means aren’t willing to fight as hard as they can to help everyone, like Gonta is here.

Kokichi: “…More like meaningless. You shouldn’t do that.”

YOU HAVE ASKED MIU TO MAKE WEAPONS THAT CAN DISABLE EXISALS. You selfish asshole. We could all get out of here today if you actually cared about saving everyone instead of just “winning” this game and satisfying your own petty vendetta against Monokuma.

Kokichi: “And even if you did do that, it wouldn’t stop the killing game.”

Implying he knows that even if they escape, the “killing game” won’t stop – as in the overall killing game that is Danganronpa, rather than this particular one, because he’s realised what’s really going on here. (Remember when way back in chapter 1, one of his pre-free time dialogues hinted that he already suspected the game would just start over with new people if they all died? Yeah, he knows that for sure now.)

But, hey, sure, Kokichi, go ahead and tell me how your end goal of tricking Monokuma into getting a verdict wrong is going to stop the gamemakers from just starting over with a new cast like you’ve realised they do every time. That’s not going to stop the overall killing game either.

Kokichi: “Me…? The next blackened? Yeah, sure. If that would help me win, then I’d do it.”

And here’s Kokichi not-so-subtly hinting at the fact that he’s redefined “winning” this game to be something other than simply “become blackened and get away with it”. Becoming the blackened might help him “win” by his own definition of fooling Monokuma – it doesn’t seem like he’s figured out his exact plan just yet – but he also knows that it’d be possible for him to do that in other ways too.

Kokichi: “So, c’mon guys! Let’s enjoy this more! It’s not often you get to play a killing game, y’know!”

Kokichi is playing up even more than usual his lie to himself that he’s enjoying this whole thing, which is presumably his redoubled attempts to cover up the fact that he hates this killing game more than ever, now that he’s realised what’s really going on and that it’s even crueller than he already thought.

Kokichi: “So someone, start killing already! If you dooon’t, then I’ll kill someone instead! Just like I promised, got it!?”

Kaito: “Why you… That’s enough!”

(Kaito shot at Kokichi like a bullet, and…)

*bam!*

Kaito punching Kokichi here is a very different situation to the time he punched Shuichi. That time, Kaito was simply lashing out because he was deflecting his own pain over Kaede’s death and his powerlessness. But this time, Kaito’s not feeling that way and doing it out of an inability to control his emotions – he’s doing this deliberately in an attempt to help.

Kaito: “Kokichi… what the hell’s gotten into you?”

Kokichi: “…”

Kaito: “You were messed up to begin with, but this is a whole ‘nother level of weird… If you keep acting like this, I’m gonna knock your senses back into you!!!”

He’s trying to snap Kokichi out of whatever the hell has caused him to act like this. Sure, Kokichi acts bewilderingly at the best of times, but it seems like Kaito, thanks to his intuition, can sense that there’s some vague semblance of a decent person somewhere inside him. He’s almost certain that Kokichi isn’t genuinely someone who would want another killing to happen, and if he’s acting like he is, then something’s wrong with him, something which it should be possible to snap him out of and bring him back down to his usual level of not-quite-this-weird. But since it’s Kokichi, and he’s playing up his whole emotional-evasiveness thing even more than usual, simply talking to him probably isn’t going to suffice to get through those defences – so Kaito’s trying a more direct approach.

Keebo: “Kaito, please stop. There is never a good reason to commit violence. Even minor aggressions… can lead to atrocities such as murder.”

Kaito: “…”

(Keebo got through to him. Kaito dropped his clenched fist.)

Keebo got through to Kaito, but sadly Kaito did not get through to Kokichi.

Kaito: “Tch… fine. I’ll stop for now.”

The “for now” being because he’s hoping he did get through to Kokichi, but if he learns that he didn’t then he would absolutely try again. Kaito doesn’t want to just sit back and let Kokichi do anything stupid like, I don’t know, inciting a murder that somewhere way deep down inside him he doesn’t really want to happen.

(But unfortunately, this taught Kokichi that he needs to stop acting so over-the-top and pretend that he’s back to his version of normal so that Kaito will get off his back about this.)

Kaito: “But, Kokichi… I hope that whole stupid speech of yours was a lie.”

It was a lie… but a lie that he fully intends to play out until it really does get people killed.

Still, Kokichi is being very quiet right now, so maybe Kaito did get through to him just a little bit, just temporarily – buuut he’s sure going to quickly rebuild his defences and get right back to where he was before Kaito punched him.

Miu: “I’m serious, there’s no reason for Gonta to do something so reckless. Because I, Miu Iruma, the gorgeous girl genius, will save you all!”

…With your Electrohammers and Electrobombs and Exisal remote? No? Okay then. (What she’s actually saying here is that she’s going to take them to the Virtual World to totally not get all of them killed in a class trial.)

Honestly, her reason for not sharing her weapons is more justifiable than Kokichi’s. She genuinely wants to escape and would be willing to do so with everyone if it were possible – she just believes it’s not possible because she’s paranoid enough to be convinced someone will betray them and make it fail, which is why she instead plots a murder and tries to escape on her own. Kokichi is even more paranoid and terrified of betrayal, but that’s not why he doesn’t share Miu’s inventions. In his case, he doesn’t even want to escape – he just wants to “win” the killing game, which he doesn’t consider escaping to be, and is willing to sacrifice whoever he feels like he needs to to do it.

Next, it’s time to go train with Himiko! This and the second bonus scene in this chapter are most of the reason I made a point of covering the bonus scenes. Prior to this chapter, they’ve been very extraneous – I enjoyed poking fun at Kaito being ridiculous in the casino one, but it’s not like that really mattered – but these ones are significant and relevant to the character arcs going on in this chapter. It’s kind of a shame they’re only bonus scenes and some players will miss out on them.

Shuichi: “Huh? You’re here too, Gonta?”

Gonta: “Gonta wanna help Himiko!”

And Gonta came too!

Gonta: “Gonta wanna be useful, even just a little!”

This is one of the things I like the most about this scene. It’s not just about Himiko doing her best to live positively for Tenko’s sake – it’s also about how badly Gonta wants to do anything he can to help everyone. Which is, you know, kind of extremely relevant to why he does what he ends up doing in this chapter.

Himiko: “I don’t need any help…”

Gonta: “…Huh? No?”

Gonta’s expression is getting a bit unintentionally scary with his line here. He is so not okay with the notion that nobody needs him.

Himiko: “N-No… well, maybe you can help me just a little.”

Gonta: “Really? Gonta can help with something!?”

Himiko: “U-Um…”

Gonta: “Tell Gonta! Gonta do anything for Himiko!”

He is just so goddamn desperate and it’s kind of heartbreaking.

In general, Gonta’s making a lot more of his scary faces here than he usually does outside of when people mention not liking bugs. His feelings of powerlessness must be making him incredibly emotionally wound-up.

Himiko: “I need energy to use magic. And the best way to get that energy is by having someone with overflowing vitality nearby.”

Translating the Himiko-speak, she’s basically saying that it’ll help her to get motivated and energised if she’s with someone who’s always full of energy. It’s kind of like how Kaito inspires Shuichi. Gonta can help her just by being his usual self!

Himiko: “We haven’t even started and I’m already tired…”

This comes across less like Himiko’s previous habit of complaining about being tired, since she’s resolved not to do that any more, and more like she’s feeling this way specifically because Gonta being so offputtingly overzealous like he has been has kind of been more of a hindrance than a help.

Still, Himiko totally goes for it once she starts training. This illustration is really freaking cute. I love how exasperated Shuichi is and how into it Gonta is, too.

Himiko: “Don’t forget to smile for the audience!”

And see, she really is an entertainer at heart. This makes it even more likely that her nervousness before her water tank escape was just an act for the sake of the show, because she wouldn’t not smile for the audience without a good reason.

Gonta: “It important to smile, too! Smile like Gonta! Smile like gentleman!”

Gonta is so damn precious. He really is doing his best.

Shuichi: (Hey, Tenko… Can you see Himiko from wherever you are? You’ve reached her, Tenko.)

Aww. This line even still exists if you don’t have the item to trigger this scene – instead Shuichi thinks it after talking to Himiko for the conversation that would have triggered it, where she’s showing her desire to become more positive somehow. It’s nice that they kept that line there regardless.

Onto regular free time – or rather, the usual Shuichi thoughts before free time that awkwardly ignore the bonus scene that just happened.

Shuichi: (The reason Gonta said he wanted to fight Monokuma was to save his friends… I think… Miu is the same.)

Haha, nope, Miu is selfish and only doing this for her own survival.

Shuichi: (What about me? My friends die… and all I can do is solve their murder after it’s over.)

Kaito and Maki already berated you for thinking like this, Shuichi! You save everyone else after one of your friends dies!

Shuichi: “There has to be something more I can do…”

It is true that he might also be able to do more than that and figure out a way to escape before anyone else is killed. So now to go and… hang out with someone and not make any progress on escaping whatsoever. Even if I were to make Shuichi hang out with Keebo, Kokichi or Miu, it wouldn’t result in him managing to convince them to use the weapons they have to try and escape, which is really what he should be doing (not that he knows the latter two even have weapons).

Kokichi is in his room. Maybe he’s still being a little bit thoughtful after Kaito’s punch. (As I said, that won’t last.)

Kokichi: “Ouch… Kaito almost pummeled me to death…”

He punched you once; stop playing the victim to more of an extent than is warranted. An “Ow, Kaito’s punch really hurt” would be appropriate, but not this.

(While it’s not made clear here, there will be a line later indicating Kokichi knows full well that Kaito was trying to get through to him and not just being a violent bully. So him playing the victim here and acting like that’s all it’s about is doubly unwarranted… which means he’s probably doing it precisely to distract himself from what Kaito really wanted from him, isn’t he.)

Kokichi: “…Althooough, I don’t plan on dying so soon, y’know? When I become the victim… or the culprit… I’ll set up lots of tricks…”

Well, that sure was a slip of the tongue there. You’re planning on becoming the victim now, are you, Kokichi? And you’re still going to set up lots of tricks even if you do? Yeah. He’s already working on his grand plan for chapter 5. What he does in this chapter has nothing to do with wanting a mercy kill outcome and everything to do with merely facilitating his greater plan.

Kokichi: “So everyone can have loads of fun…”

Which “everyone”? The other participants of the game, or the audience that you’re now even more completely sure is watching this and getting a huge kick out of everything? Because, you know, your plan is only going to give them exactly what they want. Kokichi even seems aware of that with this line here, which makes him deciding to go through with his plan even more bewildering.

Kaito: “That Kokichi… He better not have been serious… He must just be frustrated by everything that’s happened… I think.”

Look at Kaito still trying to understand Kokichi, trying to come up with an interpretation of what’s going on in his head that makes him still be a somewhat reasonable person! He’s not too far off, but there’s a lot more going on than he’s aware of, mostly because Kokichi has a lot more information than him.

Kaito: “Well, it’s fine now. My punch probably brought him to his senses. If not… I’ll speak to him through my fists as many times as it takes!”

He really hasn’t given up on trying to get through to Kokichi if this time didn’t work. And see how he really does think of the punch he gave Kokichi as a way of trying to communicate with him.

(Kaito is hanging out on the creepy floor right now. I have no idea why; he should hate it here.)

Tsumugi: “I wonder why Gonta’s so worried about being useful to everyone.”

You should know why; it’s because you wrote him that way.

Himiko: “It’ll be meaningless if we’re saved, but Gonta loses himself.”

Aww, Himiko’s worried about Gonta! And that’s also kind of painfully foreshadowing what actually ends up happening (or what Gonta at least tries to do), gaaah.

Anyway, since he’s just been so desperate to save everyone and then did his best to help out Himiko, why don’t we hang out with Gonta? He doesn’t need to be protected from manipulation right now, but he still definitely needs a friend.

In fact, it’s interesting to note that Gonta not being manipulated by anyone right now is probably part of the reason he’s being even more desperate than usual. Back in chapters 2 and 3, Kokichi and Angie convinced Gonta that doing what they told him to would make him useful (even though it really wouldn’t), since that was what he wanted to hear so badly. But now, with nobody to reassure him that he’s totally already making a difference, Gonta is so lost.

Gonta: “Miu say she take us to world with no killing game, right? Did Miu find way out of here? How come she not tell us?”

Oh, Gonta. If only it were that simple.

This time, Shuichi decides to talk to Gonta about his talent.

Gonta: “G-Gonta nothing special. Gonta just listen to what bugs say.”

Shuichi: (He’s always so humble…)

A bit like you, right, Shuichi?

Shuichi: (And he once discovered a parasitic worm that was causing disease, and was praised as a hero.) “You’ve saved so many lives, Gonta.”

Gonta’s a hero! Even niche academic talents like his can be used to make a difference and save people! Aww. It’s just a shame that he can’t use his talent to make a difference like that in this killing game. (Although him spotting the “tiny bugs” does lead to Shuichi getting a pretty important clue in chapter 6, so there’s that!)

Shuichi: “I don’t think you need to work so hard to be a gentleman. You’re already incredible.”

Shuichi’s right. If Gonta’s definition of “gentleman” is basically just “the best person ever”, then he’s already pretty awesome just based on his talent.

Gonta: “B-But, Shuichi! Gonta must become gentleman! For forest family!”

But Gonta’s still stuck on becoming his human family’s definition of a “gentleman” so that they’ll accept his forest family.

Shuichi: “Your forest family helped you develop into the talented man you are today!”

Gonta: “That all Gonta need…?”

Shuichi: “That’s plenty, Gonta. From now on… As long as you work hard as the Ultimate Entomologist, your family will accept you.”

Damn right. Gonta’s human family shouldn’t need him to become their definition of a “gentleman”, which presumably just means casting off all the non-human habits he learned in the forest even though that’s his culture now. They should just want him to be a pretty awesome guy, which he is. Don’t be so prejudiced, Gonta’s human family.

Gonta: “… But… Gonta no help to anyone right now.”

Heh. There’s no proof of when this FTE is meant to take place canonically, or if it even really is meant to be in the main canon storyline in the first place, but this line sure does seem appropriate coming from Gonta in specifically this chapter.

Shuichi: “Gonta… you’re a more amazing person than you think you are.”

Gonta: “Sh-Shuichi!”

Gonta’s moved to tears! Aww. He really needed to hear that this chapter and I’m so glad I got the chance to have Shuichi say that to him.

Gonta: “At first, Gonta do it for forest family. But now… Gonta just wanna be gentleman.”

And why shouldn’t he? You go, Gonta. You go reach your goal.

(A goal which isn’t going to be heartbreakingly cut short by the events of this chapter, nope, not at all.)

Gonta: “Thank you so much, Shuichi. Gonta understand a lot more cuz of you. Gonta glad he meet Shuichi.”

At least he has this, before everything becomes terrible.

Gonta: “From now on, Gonta keep you and everyone else safe… like true gentleman!”

GAAAH. Yes, you will, Gonta. Yes, you will.

For the next free time slot, Kaito is in his room. If you knock on his door, he emerges while looking evasively off to the side.

Kaito: “Oh, it’s you… What’s up? You need to talk with me?”

He sounds somewhat less enthusiastic about seeing Shuichi here than he usually does, too. What we can assume from this is that he’s almost certainly just been feeling like crap and hacking up blood in his room and was really hoping not to suddenly be visited by Shuichi right now and risk letting him see. Still, he’s not going to refuse if Shuichi wants to hang out with him (and especially not if Shuichi needs to talk to him about something), because he doesn’t want to have a repeat of last chapter and make Shuichi think there’s anything wrong.

If you do hang out with Kaito here, he suggests they go to Shuichi’s room, even though Kaito just came out of his own room and hanging out in there would be the more natural thing to suggest. Sooo he’s probably got some bloodstained tissues or bedsheets or something that he can’t let Shuichi see.

Maki: “…Does Kokichi really plan on becoming the blackened? Maybe you should be more careful about letting him into your research lab. There are lots of poisons in there, so…”

Maki, as ever, is thinking pragmatically. Though she should also be worried about letting him near anything from her lab, in that case. But maybe she’s especially worried about him using poisons because she assumes he’s the kind of coward who’d rather use an indirect method of killing such as that. (Which he sure is.)

But rather than hang out with either of them yet, let’s follow up on this morning’s training and go see Himiko again. Maybe we’ll learn a tiny bit more about her master other than just that he exists.

Shuichi: “You said you had a master, did he inspire you?”

Himiko: “Hm, when I saw my master use his magic, I awakened as a mage.”

That seems to be Himiko-speak for the fact that yes, he did inspire her to become a magician! …I mean mage.

Shuichi: “Did your master also say he was a mage, not a magician?”

Himiko: “Huh? My master is known around the world as a legendary mage.”

Shuichi: “I see…” (Himiko insisting she’s a ‘mage’ is probably her master’s influence.)

That’s actually pretty cute and goes to show just how inspired by her master Himiko is, since she’s so committed to her act and she got that from him.

She goes on to talk about how her master trained her to use magic and how she worked as an assistant in his show while she trained.

Shuichi: “In any case… I’m sure your master is worried about you right now.”

(Or, you know, he would be if he actually existed, but.)

Himiko: “Well, maybe… He might… be worried…”

Shuichi: “Himiko?”

Himiko: “I’m too tired to talk. I’m going back to my room.”

…

Shuichi: (Himiko was acting strange for a minute there. I wonder what’s wrong…)

And that’s all we get to lead into the next event. Most characters have multiple different things they talk about throughout all five of their FTEs, but Himiko’s are basically all just one story, so it gets… spread out quite thinly. This is going to go somewhere, I swear. It just might not quite be the direction you expect, even if you’ve seen Himiko’s FTEs before.

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