Chapter Text
What did you eat today?
What book do you love?
Whenever you go out for fun, tell me, where do you go?
Haven't eaten anything, it's a secret, unknown
Any questions you're facing, always acting so vaguely
So unconcerned, although you brightly glow
Any seemingly unveiled secrets are as sweet as honey
Confusing, why, why, why?
Essential lie, lie, lie
So, what is your type of guy? Any partner? So, now, answer this
"I don't have any idea how I could love anyone"
"I don't seem to know what it signifies"
Cannot find out if it's true or it's a lie
Once again, there's somebody who's fallen for the words and cues
Made him lose his head over you
- Idol, YOASOBI
If there was one thing Sayaka would tell herself roughly three months in the past, it would be to decline the offer to go to Hope’s Peak Academy as the Ultimate Pop Sensation.
To summarize for those who don’t know, Hope’s Peak Academy was a government run school for the best of the best, the most talented teens in the world. The only rules for getting in? You had to be in high school already, you couldn’t apply as you had to be scouted, and you had to, well, be talented.
The majority of people would be excited out of their mind at the idea of going to a place so special, but Sayaka, even before everything, had her doubts. She was already worried about leaving her career as an idol behind, as she was the glue holding her group's fanbase together, and leaving, even for a short hiatus, could break everything her and her friends had worked for.
“Relax, everyone! It’ll be good for Sayaka to go on a hiatus and learn something other than dances, y’know.“ Satomi Aoba, her groupmate, reassured the others. Satomi, like a practical saint, was always there for not just Sayaka, but everyone. It was ‘ What good idols did! ‘ according to her.
“Seriously, Say’, you’ll be fine. What’s the worst that could happen?” Ayaka Haneyama pointed out, never looking up from her flip-phone. Ayaka was clearly trying to comfort the group as well, but her closed off nature and very obvious hatred and jealousy towards Sayaka and the other's hardly helped.
“...Uh-huh. Really helpful, Ayaka. All I’m saying is you said that about me getting a secret boyfriend and hiding it from our fans, and now I’m single, people won’t stop sending my ex death threats, and our incel fans think I betrayed them.” Hikari Watanabe retorted, passing Sayaka her bag.
“This might be the last practice we have with Sayaka for like . . . Two years!” She added after a moment. “Can’t we all just stop arguing over Sayaka having the heeby-geebies and say proper goodbyes?” The youngest pointed out.
“ . . . I hate how you’re right.” Mana Kase grumbled, wiping a few tears from her eyes. “Why are you guys acting like you’ll never see me again? I’m not even going on hiatus! Hope’s Peak has the same schedule our old high school did, the only difference is I will be living there! I’ll text you everyday when I’m there!” Sayaka reassured her friends, wrapping her arms around a very upset idol. Mana buried her face in the dark blue haired girl’s shoulder.
Hikari, Ayaka, and Satomi joined the hug after a moment, very obviously trying to hide their feelings. Sayaka smiled. “Seriously. Heck, I’ll call you guys tonight after orientation and everything!” She soothed. “OkAyyyyyy-” Mana cried out, voice cracking on the a. Sayaka almost laughed at that. Hikari closed her eyes. Ayaka turned her head away. Satomi seemed to be the only one not crying or at least close to it.
Sayaka smiled and waved them goodbye before rushing off with her bag. The sound of her boots making contact with the tiled floors of their practice studio rang through her ears, almost making a rhythm. As she stepped out into the sunlight, she raised her arm to block some of the light getting into her eyes. Maybe Hope’s Peak wouldn’t be that bad.
Yeah, so, about that,she would prove herself wrong. But she didn’t know that yet, so... She made her way to the school, staring at the gigantic building in front of her. It towered over the whole city, like it was a mountain and the city was just a small village with a population under 200.
The Ultimate Pop Sensation gripped her sleeve and stepped through the gate, walking towards the entrance when—
“Agh!”
“Ah-!”
She had bumped right into someone. The idol looked up and met eyes with a white haired boy. His hair was messy and faded into a dull red, his eyes were a gray color, and he seemed older than her, maybe by a year. He must’ve been one of her future upperclassmen from Class 77-B.
She immediately opened her mouth to apologize, but he spoke first. “I’m sorry.” He said quickly before walking away. Sayaka raised an eyebrow at his sudden desire to get away, especially from someone as famous as her, but she couldn’t be bothered to go after him, because, frankly, she had other things on her mind than weird upperclassmen.
She had to go to the Main Hall! Then they’d walk her to the gym and . . . Sayaka sighed and walked through the entrance. Her gaze wandered across her future classmates, trying to study each of them. She had done a bit of research the night before, but she hadn’t figured out everyone.
One person Sayaka did recognize was Leon Kuwata, Ultimate Baseball Star. He stood a bit further from everyone, lightly tapping the floor with a black baseball bat, watching a video on his phone. She almost wanted to peek over his shoulder and see what the video was, but she didn’t. She figured that’d be a bit too invasive, considering how they had just met.
Instead, she turned her focus to someone else. Makoto Naegi. She met eyes with the shorter boy and immediately went flushed. The Ultimate Pop Sensation was startled to see him here. Of all people, why him! It wasn’t like she minded, not at all, but she had a massive crush on him back in Junior High, and she had never once gotten to speak with him.
It wasn’t necessarily cowardice, no, she had tried to talk to him, but they were in different classes and compared to her, he was completely average, so their social circles never mixed. Since then, she had tried to push her thoughts away from the brown haired boy and tried to focus on her idol career.
Untillll now.
“ . . . Is that Makoto Naegi I see ~ ?” Sayaka said, her tone almost teasing. “Wha-” Makoto looked up and jumped. “Sayaka?” He asked, confused. “Yep yep yeppers! Y’know, you don’t have to be so surprised I remembered your name!” Sayaka exclaimed, shooting him a peace sign.
She could just kinda tell he was startled that she knew someone like him by name.
“How’d you know I was thinking that?” Makoto asked, tilting his head. A small smile creeped up onto his lips.
“I’m psychic.” Sayaka proclaimed proudly. Makoto blinked. “Wha- actually?” He questioned. “Nope. Just kidding, Naegi. I just have really good intuition.” Sayaka smiled back. Makoto face-palmed.
“Right. Of course.” Makoto murmured. “Anyway. How’d someone like you get invited to Hope’s Peak?” Sayaka asked, leaning against him. Makoto didn’t protest.
“Oh. Uh… I’m. Just. Really lucky. I won the lottery, so they invited me to attend as the Ultimate Lucky Student.” The boy explained. “Ohhhh… That makes sense! You always did have really good luck.” Sayaka offered.
“... Have you been… Watching me or something?” Makoto asked awkwardly. Sayaka blushed. “Wha- WHatttt ~? Nooooo~? Why- Why would I do thatttt ~ ?” Sayaka exaggerated her words, looking away. Makoto nodded.
“Uh… huh.” Is all he said. “Anyway! Uh- Uhm. So... Wanna… hang out… with each other? It’d be smart to hang around people we know during this orientation thing, right? Plus, hanging around me will get you a good rep with our classmates!” Sayaka offered.
“Wha- Me? You’d wanna-” Makoto awkwardly fidgetted with his hands. “I mean… I guess that’s fair. Yeah,” He smiled. “I’ll stick around you.” Sayaka felt like she had won. Makoto was going to hang around her! It was probably because she was really famous, but still! And he was smiling at her!
"Alright everybody, follow me to the gym." A mature voice wrang out. Everybody turned to meet the eyes of Jin Kirigiri, the headmaster of Hope's Peak Academy.
A silver-purple haired girl glared at him before turning away. Everyone began to walk after the headmaster to the gym, already conversing with people around them.
As they entered the gym, the headmaster made his way up onto the stage and towards the podium. He tapped the microphone once and a sharp, piercing noise rang out, resulting in some of the idol's peers to wince or move to cover their ears.
And then they all heard it.
A sickening pop, blood splattering amplified by the mic, like a female mosquito that popped after latching onto a vein and being overfed with blood. Everyone stumbled backwards, save for one or two people Sayaka hardly recognized.
Their headmaster had just fucking exploded in front of them. His now headless corpse collapse down in behind the podium, the thud echoing in the microphone.
Sayaka reached up to her face and touched the blood coating it. She turned to one of her classmates, the silver haired girl from earlier, who had been standing right across from the podium, was completely soaked in blood, her gloved hands twitching as they slowly reached up.
A dark purple haired girl collapsed at the sight of the blood, her glasses falling off her face as a buff man(?) in a sailor uniform caught her.
Sayaka's eyes darted back to the blood, panicky and frantic, as if looking back and forth would make this all some weird dream. Some sick joke. Some—
Sayaka screamed.
"With that bastard out the way, let's get this party started! Good mono-morning my new students~!" Exclaimed a voice.
Everyone's eyes darted towards the podium, where a blur of white and black fur bounced up and sat there, licking it's left paw like a cat.
In front of them sat a monochromatic white and black fox, the colors separated by a split down the middle. It's right eye was replaced with a strange, red shape, almost like something a kid scribbled turned into a logo.
"A... a stuffed fox..?" One of her future classmates, short, light brown haired girl asked softly.
"Not a 'sTuFfEd FoX' I'm a FALSE FOX! Get it right! We're a very unique group of six species belonging to the group of genus know as Lycalopex!" The fox— er... False fox bitched. "And my name is Monosune! He/him! She/Her! They/them! Neo pronouns! !I don't CARE!" It exclaimed.
"Anyway~! I—" Monosune paused and grabbed a pair of keys out of the actual headmaster's pocket. "Jingle jingle, jingle jingle! Pay attention! Listen up! Because I won't say it again! You are gonna be stuck here forever~! Just me and the sixteen of you!" Monosune explained.
"W- what the shit?!" Another one of her classmates, the one who's pompadour looked suspiciously like a corn chip and had far to much hair gel to keep it in place, lashed out.
"This can't be real..!" Squealed a chubbier one, his eyes wide behind his extremely small circle glasses, hands moving to grip at his bag just to realize it had, at some point, dissapeared.
Sayaka's eyes darted to her shoulder where she realized that, somehow, her bag had also been stolen.
Nonononono...
"This has to be like-! Some sort of weird like..! Entrance ceremony!" Exclaimed a blasian man with the worst hair Sayaka had ever seen. Usually, she wouldn't judge, but... it kinda looked like his hair strands were allergic to eachother and if they touched they'd fall out...
"Think again! This is noooo joke! I swear it!" Monosune exclaimed. "But, there is one way to get out! One! One special unique way!" Monosune declared.
"And pray tell what may this way be?" An arrogant looking, tall blonde teen questioned, his arms crossed across his skinny, twig-like chest.
"This way is... drumroll please?" When nobody did it, Monosune sighed and rolled his eyes. "... mngh... okay. Whatever! Your way out is to kill somebody in this room!"
"W- what?!" Makoto panicked, grabbing Sayaka's arm.
"Yep! I will provide you all with your E-Handbooks tommorow morning, but until then, I'll go over the rules verbally~! Fufufu..." Monosune giggled.
"EHEM?" Monosune began.
"—ONE! Students may reside only within the school. Leaving campus is an unacceptable use of time!"
"TWO! "Nighttime" is from 10 pm to 7 am. Some areas are off-limits at night, so please exercise caution."
"THREE! Sleeping anywhere other than the dormitory will be seen as sleeping in class and punished accordingly."
"FOUR! With minimal restrictions, you are free to explore Hope's Peak Academy at your discretion!"
"FIVE! Violence against headmaster, me, Monosune, is strictly prohibited, as is destruction of surveillance cameras!"
"SIX! Anyone who kills a fellow student and becomes "blackened" will graduate, unless they are discovered. And uh... seven..."
Monosune paused again.
"... Additional school regulations may be added if necessary." The false fox added awkwardly, pawing at his ears in an (almost) shy way.
"ANYWHO! Let me guide you all to your do— EEP!" Monosune was cut off by the classmate with the strange pompadour picking him up by the nape of his neck and strangling him.
"LET US OUT! OR I'LL FUCKING PUMMEL YOU—!"
Silence.
"Nothing to say? Tch... figures."
Beep.
Beep.
"... i- is he... beeping..?" Asked a tan girl with hair that looked like dark chocolate soft serve ice cream.
"DROP HIM, NOW—!" The silver-lavender haired girl, still covered in blood, screamed.
"Wha— who even are you?! You aren't my fuckin' mom, so—"
"TRUST ME!" She insisted.
The pompadour having delinquent tossed the false fox.
KABOOM!!!
Everyone stumbled backwards. Makoto began to cough aggresively, collapsing. "MAKOTO-!" Sayaka panicked.
"Asthma..!" Makoto wheezed, coughing brutally.
"I- is the fox dead-?" The cute, bunny-like girl with the short brown hair asked.
"FALSE FOX!" Monosune exclaimed, somehow popping out from behind the podium.
"AGH-!" Everyone let out a varying degree of panicked screams.
"Here!" Monosune set a inhaler in front of the still wheezing Makoto, which Sayaka snatched and gently put to Makoto's mouth.
Once the whole Makoto having an asthma attack from the smoke incident was over, Monosune rushed off excitedly with a pitter-patter of paws. Everyone stood in the gym, confused, including the now woken up dark purple haired girl.
"Uhm... we should... all introduce ourselves!" Sayaka exclaimed, trying to take control of the situation.
"Do you think I have to fuckin' listen to you?!" The delinquent asked before signing. "Sorry. I- I didn't process you were a girl until I finished speaking.-nevermind..." he grumbled.
"What is THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN?" Sayaka inquired, her long, dark blue hair flowing for a moment due to the brief motion of her putting her hands on her hips.
"Nothin'—! It means nothin'! I'm sorry!" Mondo stammered out. Atleast he... kinda respected women?
Sayaka sighed. "My name is Sayaka Maizono! I'm the Ultimate Pop Sensation..!" She introduced awkwardly, still panicking about the situation.
"Well... uh... my name's Makoto Naegi! I'm the Ultimate Lucky Student!" Makoto explained, trying to get the class introductions going like Sayaka wanted despite the situation.
"... my name is... Kyoko Kirigiri. I am the Ultimate detective." The girl covered in blood explained slowly, still extremely petrified.
"Oh! Oh oh oh! Uh! My name is Aoi Asahina! I'm the Ultimate Swimming Pro! My friends call me Hina..!" The girl with the hair that looked like soft serve acquainted.
"M- my name is... uh... Chihiro Fujisaki..! I- I'm the Ultimate Programmer..." The bunny looking girl stammered out, tears falling down her cheek.
"I'm Hifumi Yamada, the Ultimate Fanfic Creator!" The chubby one from earlier proudly announced, pushingnup his glasses.
"My name is Kiyotaka ishimaru!!! I am the Ultimate Moral Compass!!!" Exclaimed someone dressed very proper and... well... hall monitory. He was... very loud. Did he... know what an inside voice was?
"... tch... lower your voice, damn... my name is Mondo Owada. I'm the Ultimate Biker Gang Leader." The delinquent introduced.
"... if I must, my name is Byakuya Togami. I am the Ultimate Affulent Progeny." The arrogant blonde explained with a scoff.
"... he's so hot~!" The dark purple haired girl exclaimed excitedly. Everyone slowly turned to her.
"Pfft! My name is G-" A pause. She sneezed. "... w- what?" She asked.
"You were... introducing yourself?" Sayaka explained.
"O- oh... w- why do you care... b- but... it's... Toko Fukawa... I'm the u- Ultimate writing p- prodigy..."
A girl with black twin drills hummed and spoke. "I am Celestia Ludenberg, the Ultimate Gambler." She gave a small curtsy.
"Oh. I'm Yasuhiro Hagakure! The Ultimate Clairvoyant!" The blasian man greeted happily, but he was obviously shaking.
"Hiya~! I'm Junko Enoshima, the Ultimate Gyaru~! This is my stupid loser older by like five minutes sister who I love, Mukuro Ikusaba! She's the Ultimate Soldier." A tan blonde Gyaru girl exclaimed, leaning against a pale girl with freckles and a short black wolfcut.
"... Hello." Is all Mukuro said.
"I am Sakura Ogami. I am the Ultimate Martial Artist." The buff white haired man(?) greeted.
Wait...
No...
That was a girl!
Sayaka felt bad for not recognizing that...
"Oh. Uh. Guess I'm last? So like. Hey. I'm Leon Kuwata. I'm officially the Ultimate Baseball Star but that's a load of BS..." A ginger with a goatee introduced.
They all stood in silence for a moment.
"Are we gonna like. Address what just happened..?" Mondo asked finally.
"It's gotta be some sick joke..!" Yasuhiro exclaimed.
"... I... don't wanna alarm you all but... uh... l- look at... the halls." Chihiro stammered out.
Everyone rushed outside the gym and began rushing around the school.
Everything was barricaded or blocked or- or something from the outside and inside!
Sayaka ended up in what she assumed was their dorm hallways, Makoto walking beside her. "... oh! O- our dorms are... right next to eachother!" Sayaka exclaimed, smiling shyly at Makoto.
"Oh! They are..! I... I guess this... really is happening, isn't it..?" Makoto asked, his dangling polymer clay clover earrings shaking and jingling slightly as he looked around.
"... yeah..." Sayaka pushed open her door and waved Makoto a short bye. "I- I'm gonna just... sit in here and process this. Come get me if something happens." Sayaka told him before closing the door. She grabbed a small keyring off the desk and stares at it.
It had her name engraved onto the light pink plastic thingy, a room key, and a small keychain, a little blue jellyfish.
She locked the door and sighed, sitting down slowly on the bed. It was nice, for what it was worth. It was soft and the sheets were the same kind of material she had on her actual bed at home.
She laid down, still dressed, and closed her eyes, trying to drift off and relax. Because once she woke up, she'd realize that this was all just some strange dream!
And it was, at that exact moment, when the realization dawned on the now incredibly drowsy Sayaka.
'... I wasn't invited to Hope's Peak Academy to experience Ultimate Hope.'
'I was here to experience the Ultimate Despair!'
PROLOGUE END
16 STUDENTS LEFT