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“You okay Shuichi?” A familiar, uplifting voice spoke out, lending his sidekick a hand.
It was over. The 53rd killing game has come to a close, and the last one for that matter. Three people used their lives to end Danganronpa and all the suffering, betrayal, and malice that came with it. No more hope, no more despair, none of it mattered. All that was left was the destroyed reality that came with it, but something was off.
Again, they gave their lives to end the killing game. They were presumably crushed by the rubble. Weren’t they supposed to die? No one was supposed to be left
Emerging from the rubble, the Ultimate Detective takes the Ultimate Astronaut’s hand and affirms, “Yeah, somehow.”
“We made it….but how?” Maki asked. “How are we still alive? Were we saved somehow?”
[Ah, that’s right. How are we still alive?
“You have any ideas, Shuichi?”
“I don’t know.” He replied, “We never planned for this to happen.”
[We were silent for a long while, staring into “the other side.” Where we continued to hope. Where they continued to torture us. The outside world. 53 times, hope moved forward. 53 times, the suffering continued.]
[The world on the other side of the fiction, the real world.]
They all just…stood there, thinking about all the things that went up to this point until now, but then Kaito breaks the silence, raising his fist up in victory.
They made a promise
“We should just go in now! Not like there’s much for us here with the rubble and all.” Raising his
“….It’s the truth.” Shuichi blurted.
“Huh?”
He reaffirms, “Even if it was a miracle, we survived. And that’s the truth.”
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“I still don’t get it though.” Maki says. “Seriously, how are we still alive? When this world was destroyed, shouldn’t we’ve gone down with it?”
Kaito goes back to the final class trial, thinking about everything that went down. He’s trying to think of a reason about how they could’ve survived.
“What was that thing Tsumugi said? Keebo being the will of the outside world and stuff.”
“What about it?” Maki asks, not really knowing where this is going.
Shuichi then chimes in, realizing what Kaito might be talking about.
“I think Kaito means that Keebo saved us.”
“But why?” Maki looks down to the ground, confused by this sudden revelation. “There’s no point in us escaping to the outside world… We’re just fictional characters…”
It then clicked for her. As if all three of their wavelengths synced at once, Maki now realizes and understands the revelation that she’s in. As she puts her head back out, she had a thought.
“Wait…Do you guys think he saved us…because he was acting on what the outside world wanted?”
To think that they came all this way. All that hope, all that despair, learning that all of it didn’t matter, learning that all of it wasn’t real and it was in this fictional world. The outside world wanted it to be real in the end? Did they want to make it right?
“Then maybe, just maybe…” Shuichi continues. “This, is what the outside world wanted.”
They all stood silent again. They went through a number of fictional hardships
“So, not only did they want to end the game…” Kaito turns back, looking at the rubble of the academy they once were in. Then he turns around, looking back to the gateway to the outside world.
“...they wanted us to live too?! This is incredible! We’re incredible!” Kaito exclaims, being happy about the good ending they’ve been granted by the people they went up against.
“That’s right.” Shuichi nods, “I suppose…they wanted this lie to become the truth.”
“Then let’s go! They’re probably waiting for Kaito Momota. Luminary of the Stars, with his trusty sidekicks by his side!”
“Hm.” Maki smirks, thinking about the man in front of her.
“You never change, do you?
——————————
[We decided to train one more time, moving some of the rubble to make some space. Not only to face the outside world, but for old times sake.]
[Old times, huh? Me just thinking about it shows how it helped us grow.]
“42….43…44…”
[We decided to do 50 push-ups and 50 sit-ups each. Kaito somehow wasn’t ill anymore, so he did them with us this time.]
“If we’re going to the outside world…” Kaito says while in between his push ups. “…then we better be prepared for what’s to come!”
Maki, making this look easy for them as per usual asks “Hey, how come the virus isn’t getting to you?”
Kaito stops for a minute, realizing that the virus was…gone? He remembers how he didn’t have much time left. Hell, he didn’t even expect to be by their side right now.
Regardless of all this, he shrugs it off. “Eh, guess it doesn't really matter now.”
Maybe it came with them surviving? I guess they’ll never know.
They finish up their workout, and decide to just sit and talk, thinking back to everything that happened up to this point, and how they’re going to take on the outside world.
“What’s the outside world like anyway?”
“A peaceful world with no fighting and no despair. That’s what Tsumugi said, right?” Maki questions.
“Yeah.” Shuichi affirms her question. “Ah, if she wasn’t lying of course.” He remembered how there were some inconsistencies with what she told them.
Then he asks, “Remember the last thing she said?”
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Tsumugi: “My plan was such a flawless copy, it even failed right at the end. So I should be able to hold my head up high as a cosplaycat criminal, right?”
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“She said copy…maybe she was copying someone or something.”
“Whatever that means, probably shouldn’t give it too much thought. She was the mastermind, wasn’t she? A good amount of those had to be lies.” Kaito suggested. As much at it was crazy to learn about this, he thinks that it shouldn’t overwhelm them to think about it.
“Well, you’re half-right.” The detective replies. “But I do have some theories.”
Maki chimed in once again. “And those would be..?”
“Well…” The detective continued, “Maybe Hope’s Peak Academy and the Remnants of Despair really do exist, and she was basing her performance on them.”
“So this whole world isn’t just fiction? Tsumugi lied?” Maki continues to question the reality of the situation. It’s still insane not to her, but to all three of them despite everything.
“I can’t exactly say for certain.” Shuichi declines.
“She could’ve lied about the “copy” part.”
“However, if she were telling the truth, then…it would make sense that that was a lie.”
“That.” Maki thinks back to the final trial. She remembers how Tsumugi said that everything about the game was fiction. Even down to Maki’s feelings. Looking past all that, she remembered how they weren’t like this before.
“That… Do you mean the thing Tsumugi showed us about how we got here?”
“Indeed.”
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Kaede: “H-huh? Wh-What am I wearing?”
Monophane: “Mm-hm! Looking good! Now you look more like Ultimates.”
Shuichi: “Ultimates…? Really?”
Monosuke: “Next up, the memory youse all been waiting for.”
Monokid: “Hell yeah! Get ready! Once the seal is broken, we’ll be in the domain of the killing game!”
[K-Killing game…?]
Shuichi: “You mean…we were selected?”
Kaito: “We got picked!?
Really?! Alright!”
Kaede: “Wh-Whoa, really!? I’m selected for it too?”
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“I still don’t believe it.” “I still can’t believe that any of us would want to volunteer for this.”
“About that…our original selves.” “I still can’t believe what you and I said.”
[Right. During the final trial, we saw what me and Kaito’s original selves were.]
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???: “Number 154… “My name is ⊗✮₡№.”
???: “I’ve always been such a huge fan of Danganronpa and…always wanted to be in one…”
???: “If I were a contestant, I would want to be…an Ultimate Detective.”
???: “I know there’ve been a few in the past, and I’ve always loved these characters…So I would want to be one of them.”
???: “Ah, but, I don’t *have* to be a detective. I’ll be anything to be part of the show.”
???: “And I mean that, anything. I’d do…anything to be apart of Danganronpa.”
???: “I promise, if I get selected…I’ll work as hard as I can!”
???: “I will come up with the best, most gruesome murders, I promise! Everyone will love it!”
???: “And an Ultimate Detective hasn’t been the blackened yet, so I’m sure I can do it!”
???: “I’m also thinking about…the perfect punishment for an Ultimate Detective…”
………………….
Kaito: I’m not just gonna be in Danganronpa, I’m gonna kill everybody and win!”
Kaito: “Once I’ve got fame and fortune, I don’t gotta worry about what’s impossible!”
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[To think we wanted to be in this torture, to think that that’s we once were thinking. It’s still haunting to think about.]
“Hey,” Maki says with a questioning tone. “We forgot everything about our old selves after the first Flashback Light, didn’t we?”
“Yeah.” Shuichi replies to her, “That’s what Tsumugi said.”
“Y’know, somethings been bugging me about that.” Kaito blurts out, thinking about how his “real” self wanted to massacre everyone and win.
Despite everything though, it was still him.
“I don’t like to think that might’ve been us, even if it was.”
“Yeah, I agree.” “I just…I can’t believe that. Even if there’s no logic behind it.”
The Ultimate Assassin then chimes in with a question.
“Anyways, there’s no way for us to check when we all applied back to the Academy, right?”
“Yeah…I guess we’ll never know.” Shuichi puts his head down in slight disappointment. Some things will forever be a mystery left unsolved.
“So in the end…we still don’t know what was true or not…”
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They all stand back up, looking back to the entrance to what’s supposed to be the real world.
“The fictional world ends here, and the real world lies out there. Perhaps just beyond here is the truth.”
“Of course!”
“But, maybe it isn’t. Maybe it’s still all fiction for what comes next. Or maybe the outside world is just the same as this world. A world filled with lies.”
“Yeah…but I feel like…there's not too much meaning in truth or lies.”
“Huh? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I mean that…even if something is a lie, even if it's fiction…If it has the power to change the world, then it must contain some kind of truth.”
“Go on.”
“Think about it, we’re living proof. In this fictional world, we overcame all these fictional struggles, but those things changed us. And we were able to change the world because of that. So it doesn’t really matter where the truth ends and where the lies begin.
“If lies can change the world just as well as the truth can, then lies are just another way of telling the truth.”
“Some lies can lead the world to hope…Some truths can lead the world to despair. So I don’t think anyone can really say which is more right in the end.”
“I guess you could say Kaito was right in the end. The impossible is possible, all you have to do is make it so.”
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“We stand with one foot in fiction and reality.”
“Only one way to find out if this fictional world changed the real world!”
“And what we can do from this point on…”
“Yeah, there’s no point in being here now.”
“We’ll take everything we earned from this world, and take it to the next! Let’s do this!”
“Right. We’ll see what this world gained, lost, and all the rest.”
“We’ll find out. Together.”
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[To the other side of this world…To the other side of fiction…we’ll find out together. It’s what we could accomplish.]
[Our story isn’t over yet. Even now, even on the other side, it lives on there as well. Was this lie about to change someone? Was this lie about to change something? Was this lie able to change the world?]
[Even if it was the smallest thing that’s changed, there’s only one way to find out.]
As they stepped in, a bright light consumed them all.
Their story continues.