Chapter Text
For the very first time, the light of the outside truly shone upon the Ultimate Academy For Gifted Juveniles… which was no more than a pile of rubble, wood chunks, broken bricks, and other wreckage having all fallen into scattered piles with broken glass from the dome. There were no more Research Labs, no swimming pool or area where the Casino once stood strong, no residential rooms or its building, and the main Academy? A fragment of an unfortunate past full of bloodshed, despair, and betrayal amongst those who could have otherwise bonded. With its Mastermind finally gone, and her ursine minions having followed her in death, the Killing School Semester that should have never been rebooted found its permanent close. All that remained was one question:
Who’d survived? Who’d evaded disaster and destruction to live and tell the woeful tale, if anybody did? A snapped piece of lumber that used to help build the frame for the Dormitory stood in the way of that answer, until a dust-covered hand pushed it far away. Someone kept forcing themselves up, uncowed by the stone slab blocking them off from the above world and eventually coming out on top. Literally so. Inhaling and exhaling, Kaede was the first to rise above the ruins and brush the dirt from her clothing, looking to see the full aftermath for herself.
“What a mess…” she commented, spooked by a familiar fist punching a hole through more debris until it tried to grab at nothing. “Hang on! I’ve gotcha.” Kaede grabbed the hand, walking backwards and pulling out Shuichi with a grunt until he was finally free.
“Thanks,” he coughed. “Seems it’s always us that’s the first to wake up, huh?”
“Are we the only survivors, though? Did anyone else make it out okay?!”
“Kaede, look.” Shuichi pointed to a certain metal arm protruding from a pile of wood and cinderblock. Without wasting a second, he pulled on the hand expecting to see Rantaro… only to find nothing else connected to the limb. “AH!”
“Oh, that’s where it went, huh?” Rantaro exhaled, limping up to Shuichi and taking his arm back. “And I see you guys followed.”
“We could have done without the 3-second heart attack,” Kaede panted, relieved to see Rantaro.
“Sorry. The blast was kind of a mess. Just a sec.” Rantaro turned his arm around and reconnected it to his body, hissing loudly as he endured the pain and made sure nothing was going to detach again. “Ohhh, that’s painful. That’s very, very painful…!” Exhaling hard, he tested the hand and was pleased to see it still listened to his brain. “Good as new!”
“Gross. Did you find anyone else?”
“Over here,” Shuichi said, leading Kaede and Rantaro to a new pile. Sliding down from the hill they were standing on, they all gasped seeing Ouma lying on his side with his eyes closed. To make it worse, a stray piece of wood looked to have gone through his little gut.
“Kokichi! Kokichi, wake up!” Kaede knelt down and shook the boy in a panic, listening for a heartbeat and calming down some when she heard one. Ouma winced, opening his eyes slowly and sitting up.
“I-I… I…!” he grunted, immediately after removing the wood from himself— turning out to be two halves connected by a piece of metal bent into a small arch. Ouma, on the other hand, was completely fine despite being scuffed and dirty, grinning even. “I made it myself! You like it?” As punishment, Kaede punched him in the head, taking the art project and throwing it away. “OWW! Now I really am hurt!”
“You deserved that for making me worried, and you know it.”
“Were you even unconscious?” Rantaro asked.
“Obviously,” Ouma said. “I just woke up in time to make something that’s clearly underappreciated. Like me.”
“If we didn’t appreciate you, we wouldn’t be angry at such an unfunny joke,” Shuichi groaned.
“Ugh. So sensitive. Even more than you, Kiiboi!” Ouma turned, and right on cue, Kiibo limped over to the group with a skinned knee among other injuries.
“I don’t know what he did, but it was probably something stupid,” Kiibo sighed, covering his cut.
“Here, let me get that,” Kaede offered, using the wound disinfectant and roll of bandages from her bag to treat Kiibo’s injury. “If anyone else needs first-aid, form a line!”
“Is that every— agh…!” Kiibo winced when Kaede cleaned his cut. “...Is that everybody who made it? Where’s Tenko-san?”
“Last I remember— she had that bomb inside of her,” Shuichi gulped with a heavy heart. “I hate to say it, but I don’t think there’s any chance of coming back from that.”
“You’d be right saying so,” Ouma earnestly confessed, digging through the nearby pile and holding up Tenko’s head, completely separated from her body with a lack of power having shut her eyes. Kaede screamed, while Shuichi and Kiibo jumped back completely horrified. “...We lost her, guys.”
“She’s gone?! J-Just like that…?” Kaede sniffled, tearing up. “Right as we all make it to the end, she gets taken away from us!” She gritted her teeth and used her sleeve to clean her eyes, but nothing could make her tears slow. “Tenko deserves to be standing right here, right next to us instead of being just a head!”
“Without her, we couldn’t have gotten rid of the Mastermind,” Shuichi mournfully sighed. “She gave up her life just to protect ours. I don’t just say this as a sort-of martial artist, but that girl was a fighter to the end.”
“It didn’t have to be the end for her!” Kiibo cried, also tearful. “One last minute trick just— took her from us. It’s not fair…”
“Hmm…” Rantaro pondered, looking around for something and digging through another pile of debris. “I wonder if it hasn’t been bent outta shape too much…?”
“What are you doing?” Kaede hiccupped. “Don’t you care that your best friend’s gone? Or are you just holding it all in?”
“Just a minute, ma’am. I think I’ve almost— ah-ha!” Rantaro grunted, moving aside some more clutter and fishing out Tenko’s dented torso. Everyone screamed seeing it, but he paid no heed and opened the chest plate using his screwdriver. Black smoke blew right in his face, wafted away by the coughing inventor. “A little well done, but so was the job.”
“What job?” Shuichi inquired.
“Of getting rid of the Mastermind. My only worry is whether or not all of it worked.” Rantaro used his apron to wipe away a bit of smog, reaching inside of the torso and getting something going from within. “That should do it. Kokichi, hand me her head, please.”
“Here,” Ouma said, carelessly tossing it to Rantaro, who thankfully caught it.
“Don’t just throw somebody’s head like a ball!” Kiibo chastised. “That’s not a sentence I thought would come out of my mouth in my lifetime, but I’ve been wrong about lots before…”
“Neck bone’s connected to the rest of the torso…” Rantaro murmured, twisting Tenko’s head around until it clicked in tightly. “Now, we wait and hope for the best.”
Everybody watched what was left of Tenko do nothing initially, but all except for Rantaro was surprised to hear the faint sound of something… powering up. Her headband’s light blinked a few times and finally turned green, then her eyes slowly opened and went from pitch black to her normal tea green. She gasped, darting her pupils around to truly process her surroundings, though relieved to see her surviving friends had made it out of disaster okay. And without a sign of the Mastermind present and spoiling things, that meant the killing game’s permanent end. It’d worked… it’d really, really worked, she thought. Tenko was so caught up in her personal moment that she nearly failed to notice the tearful expressions of Shuichi, Kaede, and Kiibo, along with the satisfied smiles of Rantaro and surprisingly Ouma. What made her come back was being picked up and hugged tightly by the only blonde, whose uncontrollable tears had turned into joyous ones.
“You made it! Oh, Tenko, never EVER scare us like that again!” Kaede wailed. “We thought for sure you’d been a goner!”
“The fact that you weren’t is a miracle,” Kiibo said. “How… did you survive that? You’re even in pieces!”
“Oh, that,” Tenko answered. “Don’t only thank me for my survival. Rantaro deserves some credit as well.”
“What’d you do now?” Shuichi asked, pleased.
“A good while ago after Tenko woke up from being unconscious during those few days, I discovered she had something… a little unusual planted inside of her,” Rantaro explained. “It didn’t take much looking, but I believe She-Who-Isn’t-Getting-Named had it planted in her to blow us all to bits in the event that we got too deep under her skin and ruined her game. I mean, who else but her own audience transmitter, huh?”
“Former one,” Tenko growled. “I miss my ribbon, but not enough if it was just a gateway to evil. I am happy to say that I certainly don’t miss that stupid inner voice of mine. I should have known it’d been trouble from the start.”
“That’s why, we worked together to take preventative measures. Unfortunately, taking out the bomb without doing even more damage wasn’t possible— the Mastermind made good sure of that. So, instead, I installed a way to protect all of the important parts responsible for keeping Tenko alive from getting burnt beyond repair. Nothing I could do about her body being scattered after exploding, but, hey! Her system’s just fine, and what matters most is our favorite robot girl still being here with us.”
“I’ll be honest, I wasn’t entirely confident that it’d work. Since it did, however, you’ll never see me complain!”
“Me, neither,” Shuichi agreed. “But, Tenko— wouldn’t you rather be able to walk and wave to people?”
“What do you mean—? Ah! That’s right!” Tenko hopped up and down in a panic. “Don’t just stand there, Rantaro! You or someone else go find the rest of me!”
“I, for one, think we should all give Tenko a BIG HAND for suicide bombing the Mastermind!” Ouma laughed, waving Tenko’s singed and dented arm around before it turned to him by itself and slapped him. “Ouch! Does this thing have a computer of its own?!”
“Enough of a computer— ugh, MIND! To knock your teeth out if you don’t behave. Now, give me my arm, and let’s go find the rest.”
“What do we do after, though? Yeah, we’re alive and the Mastermind’s presumably not comin’ back, but… this IS a simulation, remember? None of us can exactly shut off something that’s powered by our consciousness just ‘cause we wanna.”
“And even if we could, what do we do when we get out?” Kiibo wondered, frowning. “None of our old memories are coming back, and all of our new memories are counterfeit. Where does anybody go from that point? How do we move on from this?”
“Do you wanna turn around and go back inside?” Tenko tested, using her reattached arm to point at the decimated Academy using her thumb. “In case you haven’t noticed, there is no ‘inside’ to go back to!”
“Which is definitely for the better,” Kaede said. “Sure, we don’t know what we’re gonna do if/when all of us leave this place behind, but I’d much rather face real confusion over fake comfort. Wouldn’t you guys agree on that?”
“This school was absolute Hell on Earth,” Rantaro agreed after coming back with one of Tenko’s legs. “Or, should I say off Earth? But, she was lying to us about that, too. Honestly, in everything she said in her last moments, I can barely tell fact from fiction anymore. All of it just meshed together in an uncomfortable mess.”
“Plus, without our real-world memories, we’re still stuck being the fictional characters she turned us into forever,” Ouma sighed. “Did we even win?”
“Yes,” Shuichi answered with certainty in his smile. “Everything you guys just said is no less the truth. We’re never getting our memories back as far as we can tell, it’s impossible to know exactly how much of what she said is trustworthy and not, and there’s no telling what’s waiting for us in the event that we return to the world we came from. But, despite all of that? We need to go home.”
“Even if nobody knows what ‘home’ feels like anymore,” Kaede added. “Our entire lives may feel like lies now, but it doesn’t mean they need to stay lies forever. As soon as we leave this place, we’ll have the first say in where they go. Yeah, somebody else made us like this, but she’s gone now. She’s got no more power over us and no more control.”
“Yeah, like it’s that simple,” Ouma scoffed.
“Nobody said anything about it being simple, just something we’ve gotta do at some point, whether we like it or not. Do you have any other ideas, Kokichi?”
“...I guess not, but I am a little disappointed that I’ve got no authority blowing up Earth for realsies. Which stinks; I still would’ve done it… but, only after you all died before me.”
“What makes you think you’d outlive us? Your diet consists of nothing but candy and soda,” Kiibo said.
“Because I said so. I don’t wanna die first, so I won’t. There.”
“Okay…”
“So, even though we’ve known nothing but lies up until now, we still have the power to turn them all into the truth. Our truth,” Shuichi said, looking at Kaede fondly first before turning to the others again. “Maybe everything we’ve felt for each other and everyone else was made up for us, but it’s still there in some way. And, the Ultimate talents that got planted into our heads didn’t actually exist, but it doesn’t mean none of us can make good use of them in some way.”
“Yeah! Just because I don’t know the old me doesn’t mean the new me didn’t learn anything worthwhile,” Tenko chirped, jumping onto her two feet when they were reattached and stumbling over before Rantaro caught her. “Gah! Thank you.” She stood up more steadily, though her knees were still a tad unstable. “As I was saying, it may be part of my make-believe character, but I can still truthfully say I’ve come to care about all of you. Granted, filthy degenerate males that need to be punished are unfortunately still out there, but I’ve at least met some who haven’t fallen into such a category.”
“Even me~?” Ouma teased, batting his eyelashes.
“The ice has never been thinner with you. I’ll spare you, but you’re no less an annoying little pest.”
“Why, thank you! I’m just glad that I didn’t learn a darn thing in here.”
“Now, Kokichi who was it that just said he’d wait to blow up Earth after his best friends are gone?” Rantaro teased, Ouma’s pale cheeks turning bright pink as a result.
“I didn’t say ‘friends’, you Dr. Octavius wannabe!” Ouma stamped his feet and turned away with his arms folded like a huffy child. “Put anymore garbage words in my mouth, and I’ll let everyone live except you! …Maybe.”
“Don’t be so embarrassed, buddy. We’re all leaving this place richer for the poor experience. No shame in that.”
“To think all these lies we’ve been fed had a smidge of a chance of ending well for us,” Kaede remarked. “Kinda. I’m not giving it or her too much credit here. Instead, I’m just gonna take it from here. You guys in?”
“I am,” Shuichi said. “Anyone else?”
“Sure,” Ouma nonchalantly agreed. “Whatever beats this place. Or, what’s left of it. You all oughta be worth some entertainment.”
“I’m ready,” Kiibo decided.
“So am I,” Rantaro concurred.
“Then… let’s go! Out into the real world!” Tenko cheered, looking up at the glowing blue light beyond the hole in the dome above everyone’s heads. “However we get there… we will.”
“Soon,” Kaede stated with a smile, her and Shuichi standing in-between their friends together. “And that’s the ultimate truth… among all the lies.”
Feeling hopeful, the six survivors each took a step forward towards the light and a world their minds had long forgotten. Leaving behind what used to be an academic Hell responsible for taking away everything and everyone they’d grown to hold dear, now was the moment where a much better reality could be standing on the other side. Even if it was all false, all fabricated for the sake of sadistic entertainment thanks to a single woman and her broadcasting team, the experience was not to be forgotten, lest it happen again somewhere down the unfortunate road. However anyone could go on from that, they would learn to. The remaining participants only stopped when directly under the bright blue light, which had become a beam that engulfed every one of them. It only got brighter, making the six affected shield their eyes from the luminosity until they all blacked out. After, their physical forms became the same color as the light, full of code and moving numbers until they were all taken above ground into an unknown place past the dome’s hole. When the last participant went, everyone’s data registered altogether, registering as a new change in the system…
Killing Game 53.2 Complete
Ending Program: New Danganronpa V3BOOT: Killing Harmony Redux
Deactivating: Simulation Pod 01
Deactivating: Simulation Pod 02
Deactivating: Simulation Pod 03
Deactivating: Simulation Pod 07
Deactivating: Simulation Pod 10
Deactivating: Simulation Pod 11
Initiating: Standard Wake Up Procedure
10%
50%
79%
88%
97%...
6 of 16 have now been opened
Kaede groaned tiredly, instinctively sitting up and rubbing her eyes despite the overwhelming malaise that first took her body by surprise. Her vision blurred at first, but slowly came back into focus as she saw she was in a very unusual kind of room. It was dark, only illuminated by the artificial glow of machinery belonging to what she’d woken up in, which she quickly realized wasn’t at all a bed. Although equal in length to one, it looked more like a horizontal version of the cold sleep pods found in Ouma’s Lab with black exteriors instead of white ones. The inside was cushioned, likely for a comfortable slumber, and Kaede was still attached by all the sticky pads putting wires all over her body and the metal helmet that sat on her head. Right away, she reached for that, only to be stopped by someone she didn’t know at all.
“Oh, that has to come off last, Akamatsu,” Hoshimi warned. “Here, let’s get all of those sticky pads off of you first.”
“Who the heck are you?” Kaede spat, leaning back so Hoshimi couldn’t touch her.
“That young lass is Hoshimi Abe, whilst I recommend you call me Michi Dąbrowski, as that is my name,” Michi introduced. “We also used to be so-called ‘Ultimates’ just as you and your castmates were. Her, the Ultimate Theater Actress, and myself, the Ultimate Linguist.”
“With only one difference, of course,” Hoshimi giggled. “We’re forever immortalized in the stars of the stage and have the honor of running the show, thanks to Team DR.”
“Team D—?” Kaede gasped, slapping Michi’s hand away and angrily ripping off her sticky pads before getting up in Hoshimi’s face. “You! You two are behind putting me and my friends in that godforsaken killing game! Wait until I get my hands on you!”
Hoshimi merely backed away while Michi restrained Kaede, though having a hard time doing so thanks to the blonde’s rage. “My, somebody’s woken up on the wrong side of the pod. Expected, but no less unwarranted.”
“Happens all the time—!” Michi started to say until Kaede socked him in the cheek. “GAH! You little—!”
“—Yikes! In the words of the late Jackie Gleason: ‘pow, right in the kisser’!”
Michi irritably rubbed his reddened cheek. “One of these days, Hoshimi…”
“I won’t be going straight to the moon for trying to lighten the mood, Michi-chan.” Hoshimi raised an eyebrow at Kaede, getting in front of Michi in case she tried hitting him again. “Have we calmed down now?”
“No,” Kaede snarled. “Where are the others?”
“Waking up. Rather slowly, but everyone should be coming to right about…” five other pods powered down as their lids lifted up, the inhabitants stirring and beginning to sit up as their comatose states all ended, “now. Welcome back, superstars~!”
“Careful. Saihara-kun still has the memories of a martial artist,” Michi warned. “So, Akamatsu-san, would you care to let us explain, or did you want to force feed me another knuckle sandwich before I have the chance?”
“Make it quick,” Kaede huffed. “Team Danganronpa really exists, huh?”
“And your Ultimate talents don’t. Also, no, before you ask, we haven’t reached Armageddon, nor has the government blown millions on sending sixteen random strangers into space. I wanted to get rid of that ridiculous subplot and try something new, but noooo…”
“Then, these pods… everything was virtual! None of us really died!” Kaede paused. “Or… is that not true after all?”
Michi opened his mouth, but somebody else spoke instead. “Kaede?” Shuichi yawned, his sticky pads falling off his exposed flesh as he looked around. “Where are we?”
“Looks to be the real world,” a drowsy Rantaro guessed when he also came to. He looked at his left arm, which was entirely human and confirmed to be real after getting a pinch. “Ouch! Been a while, old friend…”
“I LIIIIVE!” Ouma crowed, sitting up with his arms out and hands tilted down like a zombie. As soon as he sat up, though, he nearly fell back down thanks to muscles he hadn’t used for an unknown amount of time. “Urgh… that wasn’t as much fun as I hoped it’d be.”
“Hrnm…?” Kiibo moaned, propped up by his left hand while using his right to rub his head. When his fatigue mitigated, he gasped, looking at everything around him in a panic. “I’m— I’m alive? We’re alive? We’re all alive, r-right? Right?!”
“Chill. We’re alive.”
“Don’t act so casually about it! We just woke up from a physical simulation, remember?!”
“Of course I do! We were all there, ya know.”
“And now, you’re probably wondering what’s gonna happen next,” Hoshimi said. “We’d be happy to fill you in on the details, but only if you want us to!”
“You don’t have a choice,” Shuichi spat. “First things first, is anybody else gonna wake up besides the six of us?”
“Well, I mean if our dear Tsumugi can wake up before, then—”
“—Nobody cares about her,” Kaede bluntly hissed. “We mean our actual friends that died because of her.”
“Rude, much? She’s more real than any of you will ever be again.”
Kaede growled, but before she could do something, a third stranger stepped into the room— a middle-aged man with clean dark hair wearing a gray suit with a necktie identical to the one Tsumugi wore as the Mastermind. “That will be all, Abe-san. Dąbrowski-kun,” he said. “You’re free to go.”
“Now, who?” Shuichi inquired.
“Kataka. Ichikiyo Kataka, CEO of Team Danganronpa. It’s a pleasure to see you again, Akamatsu-san and Saihara-kun.”
“The pleasure’s not ours,” Kaede snarled.
“I’d be more surprised if you didn’t respond like that at this point. Why don’t you all come with me and let me explain everything? All of you could use a little mind jogging, I’d bet.”
“We’re not going anywhere. Tell us here,” Rantaro refused.
“...You could all also stand to stretch your unused muscles. That’s a good way for them to atrophy, you know. Plus, I know where everybody’s clothes and luggage are, so I’d obey me if I were you.”
“Our clothes?” Shuichi quizzed, looking down to see he wasn’t wearing anything except his gray plaid boxers and a silk, pale blue hospital robe. “Ah!”
“I thought so. Make sure the wires are off before you remove the helmet, or your brain might go right back to sleep, this time for longer. After that, step out carefully and follow me.”
“Well, the victory was fun while it lasted, guys,” Ouma lamented, doing as told and making himself dizzy by hopping out of the pod too fast. “They’re finally gonna executed us for real. Death by firing squad.”
“Be quiet, Kokichi,” Shuichi sighed. “It’s just a talk, let’s all get it over with.”
“Someone wants to talk to us?” a familiar sixth voice yawned, sitting up and shocking everybody. It was none other than Tenko, who looked as she always did… except completely human, free of the two lines that ran down her eyes and any sort of metal or synthetic material in her dark green hair. “...Why are you all staring at me like that? Do I have a spot on my face?”
The six survivors of Danganronpa’s rebooted 53rd season all had seats before Kataka’s desk, now wearing what they assumed were their former school uniforms prior to entering the game. Kaede and Shuichi had both seen theirs in the ambiguously genuine audition tapes, Rantaro’s was a white collared shirt and red necktie beneath a loose brown blazer with indigo pants, Ouma and Kiibo both had normal black gakurans and pants (did they go to the same school? To be fair, a lot of school uniforms looked similar, if not identical) with only one difference lying in the latter’s black gloves and hat that his friend now kept stealing from him to try on, and Tenko had an unbuttoned blue blazer on over her tan vest and striped aqua necktie with a blue-and-green plaid miniskirt. Her headband was plain and black, and in place of her smaller two bows tying together her helix braids sat powder blue hair beads.
Kataka sat at his desk as any normal adult would, not the least bit affected by the scowls he was currently receiving. Same old, same old end-of-the-season tradition.
“First, I’d like to congratulate you six for making it out of our game alive,” he began, praise ignored entirely. “This was actually double the survivors we had in the first version, thanks to the stunts pulled in the third and fifth cases. Granted, I felt the suicide was a tad overused for the latter, but everyone else didn’t seem to mind!”
“Who gives a crap what they think?” Ouma spat, now sitting on Kiibo’s hat so he struggled to get it. “They were all way too stoked to watch us all slaughter each other like they were watching a movie.”
“More or less, Ouma-kun, they were. Nothing permanent actually occurred in your game and hasn’t since our DISTRUST pilot of season one, which remains unaired to this day for… obvious reasons that I won’t be getting into.”
“So, everyone who died. They’re…?” Kaede wondered, Kataka nodding to confirm her hopes.
“Comatose, but stable. As long as nothing bad happens while they’re dormant, they should wake up eventually. Their brains are still convinced they’ve died for real, so it’s going to take some time before they readjust outside of the computers.”
“Th-That means I’m going to be reunited with Himiko!” Tenko sniffled, tearful. “I wonder what she’ll think of the new— umm, old? The old-new me?” She pinched herself, yelping. “Ouch! I still don’t know what to think of it myself.”
“You get used to it,” Rantaro said. “Hopefully better than you did while you were getting dressed.”
“What would you have done in my shoes? Can you blame me?”
“It also means I’ll get to see Miu again soon,” Kiibo mused, relieved. “Gonta, too.”
“Don’t forget Kaito,” Shuichi said, hopeful. He glanced at Ouma, who said nothing.
“...What? I don’t have a girl back home like you sappy idiots do,” Ouma claimed. “Who cares who wakes up?”
“Not even if it’s Toujou-san or Sh—?” Kiibo teased.
“—Moving on. Can we get an ETA of when everyone’s gonna rise from the dead? And can we or can’t we pull the plug on the Mastermind?”
“Neither,” Kataka declined. “Anything could happen while the ‘deceased’ contestants are out cold, and permanently ending Shirogane-san’s life lands not just us in hot water, but all of you as well after it’s investigated. Don’t worry, though. We still intend to part ways with our failed Mastermind, just like we warned her before.”
“Good,” Kaede hissed. “The least she deserves is to lose her job.”
“I’m afraid because our fair test audience has spoken, the company’s gonna have to think up something else to broadcast, too. If we don’t, we’re finished.”
“Not our problem. We intended to see the end of Danganronpa, and we got our wish.”
“Oh, but it is your problem, Akamatsu-san.” Kataka held up six different pieces of paperwork, all signed with the survivors’ full names. “If we go under before your contracts are up, that means you’ll be forced out of here not only before you’re given proper psychological treatment, but also as penniless as we might wind up. So, for a good while, all of you will remain legal property of Team Danganronpa.”
“We are not your property!” Shuichi snapped. “We just got roped into this stupid show, and you wiped our heads clean of that.”
“And? That doesn’t erase the penmanship on these contracts, now does it?” When Shuichi did nothing except glare, Kataka put down the papers and folded his hands on his desk. “I thought so. Now, on the subject of your memories, I’m afraid we can do very little about giving you back your old lives. As far as we’re aware, the people you were before are gone forever.”
“Honestly, if we really did sign up so willingly for Danganronpa, I say ‘good riddance’ to the old Rantaro,” Rantaro admitted.
“What about our memories from version one?” Ouma asked.
“Those we have access to, but it’s entirely up to you all if you’d like them in addition to retaining your new memories,” Kataka said. “Amami-kun also has the option of regaining his memories from Danganronpa V2, if he’d like.”
“Pass,” Rantaro refused. “Two versions of one killing game is enough. Whoever I was that associated with her can stay in the past.”
“No matter what you all choose, you’ll still be subject to watching old footage of the previous session. The comatose contestants will also need to watch this as soon as they’re conscious again, whenever that shall be. In the meantime, we’ve prepared housing and food nearby for your collective stay until your contracts are up and we can put you all somewhere else, plus transport if any of you need to— well, go out and enjoy yourselves or run errands.”
“Gosh, how generous of the people who scarred us for life,” Ouma scoffed, rolling his eyes.
“Your stay is mandatory. You’ll all also be assigned therapists for coming to terms with the trauma you’ve all been through during the course of the season, plus actual medical care. Therapy sessions will be twice every two weeks, and mandatory, so we’d best not hear any of you played hooky.”
“Can we go now?” Tenko growled. “Or do you have any other bad news for us to sit through against our will?”
“That will be all. Any further questions you all might have are to be directed at our staff members. Thank you for your time.”
All six survivors refused to respond, getting up and leaving to do what they all could in a time like this. Tenko, Rantaro, and Kiibo headed for the residential rooms they’d gotten dressed in to try and get a better feel of them, but Ouma went off by himself in the same direction as the pod room. Neither Shuichi nor Kaede had anywhere to go, but they didn’t stay together, opting to clear their minds elsewhere, but outside where fresh air could possibly help with that. This was it. This was the reality away from the virtual killing game, and no chance of anymore murders or seasons of a depraved show to come. It was everything anyone could ever ask for, and a definite victory in the short and long run. And yet…
Kaede never found it more impossible to smile than now.
Yes, they’d won. That she truly was happy about, but… the present was coming in all at once. She didn’t know her old life and knew that to be for the best, though as an unfortunate price, she had to adjust to a brand new one under Danganronpa’s say. Just when she believed herself to be through with them, here she and her friends were— stuck with the company for even longer against their will. And it wasn’t like any of them had any other option, either, loath as she was admitting so. Out of a searing hot frying pan and into a barely cooling pile of embers…
Just her luck, she thought. Just her luck, indeed…
It’d been a few days after the survivors awakened, bringing them to their first weekend at the housing facility they were stuck at indefinitely. Nobody else had woken up aside from Tsumugi, but although her termination from Team Danganronpa was outwardly amicable with Kataka, she was still dead as a doornail to the group she’d tortured twice. As soon as she exited company grounds, none of them would ever see or hear of her again. One less thing to worry about, but the rest weren’t going anywhere.
Kaede exited the building after her second session with her “special therapist”, head hurting thanks to all the work done getting rid of a certain, highly dangerous fabricated memory buried deep in her mind’s inner recesses. She popped a single ibuprofen pill, now just playing another waiting game for it to kick in. In place of her former school uniform, she donned a black tank top with straps visible through a pink, off-shoulders wool sweater, a pleated lilac miniskirt, lacy white calf socks, and black Mary Jane flats. She knew Rantaro, Tenko, and Shuichi to be eating together in the dining hall (judging by the sounds of Tenko excitedly crowing about digestion), but she hadn’t seen the other two yet. That answer came upon peering into the pod room, where Kaede saw Ouma having fallen asleep against Pod 12 with a blanket over him, which was put there by the supervising Kiibo letting him rest beside him. He saw Kaede, but only put a shushing finger over his lips and hinted for her to not interrupt until Ouma woke himself up.
He’d most likely stayed up all night, Kaede was willing to bet. No surprise there, but it shouldn’t be long before the one in the twelfth pod came back to them, assuming the group’s personal theory on the pods deactivating reverse of the death order was actually true.
Kaede kept going on her way to obey Kiibo and give him and Ouma some privacy, left all alone once again. She took it outside, but kept going until she was a fair distance away from the facility. The walk wound up being long enough to take her all the way to the park just a couple blocks down, even if it required the half-hearted chat with security to let them know she wasn’t sneaking out permanently. Finally free of them for a little bit, Kaede kept strolling along, taking a seat on the nearest bench along the rim of a busy playground covered in innocent children. Usually, them playing would bring a smile to her face without fail, but after learning she never really had a bond with any, it only brought a cruel slap instead. This was her life, now. And, there was no telling when it wouldn’t be, either. For all that talk of having control after defeating the bad guy… it just felt like that, now.
All talk…
“Is this seat taken?” a voice gently asked her. When Kaede looked up, it turned out to be from Shuichi, now dressed modestly in his white T-shirt with thin black stripes under an unzipped dark gray hoodie, silver jeans, and brown sneakers that had white midsoles.
“That old man over there might be eyeing it, but you’ve got a chance now,” Kaede sighed, letting Shuichi sit beside her.
“How’d your session from today go, if you’re okay with me asking?”
“I’m happier now that it’s done. Well… actually, I can’t even say that. They still haven’t completely undone the fake NOBU brainwashing yet, and they don’t know how long it’ll take to undo what the trigger phrase does to me. What— SHE, did to me…!” Kaede hit the bench with a tight fist, frustrated tears in her eye corners. “To think I actually tricked myself and you guys into thinking it was gonna be okay after we beat the Mastermind! I haven’t learned a darn thing after all, have I?! Once again, my pointless optimism just led us all into an even bigger Hell than before!”
“Life may not be fantastic or perfect right now, but I personally don’t think anything can be worse than what we went through in the simulator.”
“Oh, so a slightly less terrible life beats an awful one? I don’t know if you know this, but they’re still both terrible lives to live! Either we’re stuck in that prison school wondering how much time we’ve got left, or we’re stuck in a place where the people who ruined our lives still have the final say in what all of us do! Choose your poison, Shuichi.”
“Given those are our only two options? The second one, any day of the week.”
Kaede shook her head. “Why did I see that coming from you…?”
“Because I have a feeling you’re thinking the same thing. Don’t get me wrong, I hate having to still associate with Team Danganronpa and knowing I’ll never know what life was like before we got into this. But, here’s the thing: if it was bad enough to convince me that driving myself into a killing game that was gonna scar me for life assuming I didn’t die first, maybe forgetting about it and not looking back is a safer bet. Besides, back then, I didn’t have any of you guys with me.”
“So? We weren’t the same people back then. We weren’t even classmates, I don’t think.”
“I know that, but I know who you all are now, and there’s no such thing as turning back time. Maybe you’re thinking differently, but I feel a lot better off going through this with all of you than I would doing it all alone.”
“Yeah, fantastic how we’re all suffering together instead of by ourselves.”
“No, Kaede. We’re getting better together and bringing us all up, not suffering and falling down all at once. And there’s only gonna be more of us supporting each other through times like this to come. If it weren’t for you, we’d still be back in that simulation fighting to stay alive just for another day, but instead, here we are. Away from all of that forever.”
“We’re not away from it, we’re still Team Danganronpa’s dogs! Even if or when we do leave, we’ll just be taking those horrible memories with us for the rest of our real lives. All my cheering on and positive attitude has done is just give you all a hope to follow that’s not even really there, and never has been. That’s what I’ve pulled before, and it’s what I’m pulling now. I was wrong, Shuichi; nothing’s ever gonna be different with us…”
“...You really are wrong. But, not in the way you’re thinking right now.”
“Hmm?”
“Didn’t a certain someone admit that our lives might feel like lies at the moment, but they won’t stay like that? And how things will feel grim for a good while, but there’s still a chance for them to get a lot better later? Funny, I can’t seem to remember who that person was… a little help?”
“Ugh… me. That was all me.”
“Right, right. I think I remember now, thanks. Now, if the old you that we’ve seen were put in that situation, she probably wouldn’t have been so quick to say that nothing’s gonna be simple or easy to deal with. She’d just say we can all do it without giving us any room for considering anything that might make it really hard to pull off, then wind up in for a very unpleasant surprise.”
“Don’t remind me. I didn’t have half a clue of what I’d really be up against.”
“I have to remind you. Otherwise, you won’t see how much you’re not like that anymore. Yeah, you still like looking at the brighter side of things, but you’re not doing it so blindly now. There’s such a thing as being optimistic, yet sensical. And if there’s one thing all of us could use while we’re living here, it’s both of those.”
Kaede smirked, raising her eyebrow. “That’s two things, Shuichi.”
“If you correct me, then you know what I’m saying.”
“So… you really think we can do it? That we can work through this and end up sort of okay?”
“Hey. Things could be a whole lot worse.” Shuichi shrugged. “I’d just rather get past this with the people I care about. All of them, I mean.”
“...Me, too. Even if it’s a slow kind of healing, I’ll at least still have you and everyone through it all.” Kaede slid her hand towards Shuichi’s, winding up on top of it while very lightly gripping it as he turned his over and held it back. “And if that doesn’t make all of this worth the trouble, nothing will.”
Shuichi and Kaede smiled at each other, their peace only interrupted when a little girl toddled up to them with one question in her honest mind: “Is he your boyfriend?”
“Wha—? Umm!” Shuichi stammered, face a pale red when Kaede only leaned down and whispered something to the child that made her cover her mouth and run off giggling. “Wait, what did you say to her?”
“I’ll tell you… after we get back,” Kaede giggled, getting up from the bench and running off with Shuichi chasing her through his flustered laughter.
“Kaede! That’s not funny! Get back here!”
“You know what you have to do, so keep running for it!”
As if he had a choice otherwise. Shuichi and Kaede ended up chasing each other around the park for a good while, getting an unexpected break from their troubles. They knew that at some point, returning to the facility would have to happen, but there was no limit to how long they’d be away from it as long as it didn’t exceed a full day without permission. Even for just a little bit, they could pretend to be normal people, or at least the ones they’d been all along. No worries about the past, or concerns for a future that seemed unpredictable. The fears still lingered, of course, permanently in the back of their heads. But, maybe, just maybe… they didn’t have to seem so scary, at least not as much as powering through trouble all by their lonesome. A long, harrowing road awaited the surviving six, more to come soon. Yes, it may have been one born of all the lies they’d been fed so easily, but there was still one thing to be said:
They would all start living a life of real peace one day. They neither knew how nor when they would find it, but without a doubt, it wasn’t anything but a truth worth accepting.