#I never really got attached to Rantaro when I first played the game

[yaoigoddess9158]

Why is this actually so silly tho

[charlie-pippin-faraday]

my danganronpa v3 chapter 4 pre-investigation running commentary:

once again, i knew we weren't done with rantaro!

who did rantaro leave this message to? himself?

are we like, stuck in a time loop?

i am now suspicious that the tiny bugs gonta has been seeing are something else. surveillance cameras?

i'm so confused about the robot lab. keebo clearly hates it, and there was nothing i could even interact with in there. and why was it attached to miu's lab?

"do you want to live in a fictional world?" something about this line piqued my interest and made me suspicious

bro did tsumugi get me mocktail drunk?

that classroom set in tsumugi's lab looks suspiciously like the classrooms in the first game

oh it's my lab!!!!!!!! we finally got to my lab!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

why is the music here called "living in a lazy parallel world"? that feels incredibly suspicious

"this doesn't feel like an ultimate detective's lab. more like a criminal lab." is this implying that i am a criminal?

lmao didn't this game come out before covid? they're certainly predicting it in this flashback light bit

"the computer is surrounded by capsules big enough to fit a person inside." huh??? they didn't tell me that part before. what is this??? the plot of DR2 all over again??

bro WHERE is the caged dog village document??? i went back to kiyo's lab looking for money and it's not there anymore that is highly worrying

hm hang on. if we're following the structure from the previous games, chapter 4 murder is gonna feel sacrificial, isn't it? and then chapter 5 murder is gonna feel convoluted and heavily overarching plot-related?

shuichi was really judgemental that kaito's reasoning for becoming an astronaut was "because it's cool" but like i'm pretty sure that's the reason most people become astronauts

hmm so maki asked shuichi if he like-liked kaede, wondering if it's possible to like someone you didn't know after such a short period of time.......hmmm methinks someone is trying to sort out her OWN feelings

"then why did you bring it up?" because she's got it bad for kaito and she doesn't know how to deal with it

he did it, gang. after a couple failed tries, kaito FINALLY punched kokichi in the face

what did miu find in the computer?

the "training" scene with himiko and gonta and shuichi talking to tenko in his mind was really sweet. "you've reached her, tenko."

"that person has to be special. it has to be someone like kaito" "only someone like kaito could help me" shuichi plz

"i shouldn't be talking about another boy like that" hahahaha i knew he dug him. shuichi it's okay you can be bi

kokichi meeting privately with monokuma can only lead to good things

why was there a curtain that said "the end" after the morning announcement???

the reveal that himiko is a soap opera fan and actually was invested in the monokub drama/nonsense was the biggest twist of the game tbh

"we were completely unaware that an unspeakable malice was brewing" what an ominous start to free time!

i gave keebo a laser gun and he said "you understand me...i feel...happy" keebo i love you so fucking much

this free time event is wild. me and keebo are role playing as a caregiver out in the middle of the dorm hallway. and keebo threw out his back. keebo, i threw out MY back a few months ago, i understand you!

i love that in the final climactic free time event with kaito, shuichi tells him the story he already told kaede wayyyy back in chapter 1 lol

"he does so much for me...i could never turn my back on that. i will never break my bond with kaito!" bro shuichi just Kiss him you clearly want to

"kaito's smile was bright as starlight. i couldn't help but smile back" shuichi good lord keep it together

bro the way shuichi talks about kaito is so funny he is literally a teenage girl on his bed kicking his feet and giggling

this computer isn't the neo world program from 2, is it?

this virtual world is actually super cute ngl

of course the first thing kokichi does in the virtual world is punch keebo. when will keebo stand up for himself and beat the fuck out of kokichi? i've been waiting for it so patiently

okay that definitely said neo world program. and mirai falls? this is getting real fishy. and then all the references to murders/trials from the previous games, the gyoza in the shape of someone's face [i spend WAY too much time thinking about this particular object]. there gets to be a point when it stops being references to previous games and starts becoming incredibly suspicious

keebo is implying that we are ALREADY in a virtual world. i did have this thought previously

ah so kokichi DOES have a crush on me

MIU NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

i said i wasn't gonna handle it well when one of my faves died, and i was right. i'm not handling it well

also, after much running around looking for coins and grinding in salmon fishing, i did end up buying the key of love, but i think i bought it literally one free time slot too late. i was under the impression that when you go to bed that night after buying it it'll trigger the event. i knew i was on the last free time availabilities of the chapter, but if i remember correctly in the previous chapters we went to bed and then the murder stuff happened the next day. but this time these assholes NEVER actually WENT to bed. they just collected me to go to the computer room right after free time and we pulled an all-nighter in the virtual world like a bunch of freaks smh. and i don't have a convenient save file in this chapter i can go back to unless i wanted to restart the chapter, so i guess i'll wait and see if the key activates in chapter 5? or i'll have to wait and play this game again. damn, that sucks. ah well.

well, on to the investigation!

[angelicimagines]

Hello there! Love this blog! Do any of the mods have general headcanons on what the V3 cast was like pregame? Thanks!

I’m gonna let the other mods add to this if they want to, because I only have a few head-canons of the characters pregame.

Such lovely headcanons you have there mod Chihiro, I'd be a shame if someone wee to…add on to them.

–Mod Shuichi

Yes it would be

Wouldn't it

-Mod Kaz🔧

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Shuichi Saihara

Shy and reserved

He just likes watching anime alone honestly

He’s scared people will judge him, but he can rant about anime endlessly if you get him talking

Has a resting bitch face pretty much all of the time so it's very hard to read him

Will be more expressive when he's talking about his interests or you are sharing yours

Rantaro Amami

Slightly rude on the outside, but he has good intentions

Inside him there are two wolves, one that wants emotional connection and one that fears it, it's a constant battle

Has an arsenal of sarcastic comments at his disposal at all times

Vibes in a 7 eleven at the ungodly hours of the night and trauma dumps on the cashier, you have to apologize to the poor cashier

He gets very huggy sometimes but will deny everything to hell or say it's not a big deal and to not read into it

Very Forgetful. I mean he will not remeber your name for the life of him

Kokichi Ouma

Chill

He doesn’t really mind what other people think about him

He's a big daydreamer so he doesn't really see where he's going, he bumps into people and things a lot because of this.

Gets dragged around on some very questionable adventures with the rest of his friends and you and he just has the time of his life

He gets whiny when you don't hug him enough, he likes his cuddles man

Kaede Akamatsu

She means well and cares about her classmates but won't hesitate to kill a bitch

She's just done with everyone's antics, but if someone even looks at one of her friends the wrong way she won't hesitate bitch

Will die before she admits it but she likes flower crowns, make her one and she will be indebted to you forever

She's the class rep/president and thrives in that position, Kokichi is jealous

Shuts down when you compliment her genuinely, she doesn't expect it

Ryoma Hoshi

He is done, with everything tbh

Loves his classmates don't get him wrong, but they're just dumb as bricks

Basically everyone's tutor, he says he doesn't get paid enough for it

Sometimes indulges himself in some minor crime with you and it results in y'all running around town and almost crashing the car

Designated guardian of the class and hates his position, complains to Kirumi

Angie Yonaga

Really sweet and kind!

She loves to help other people accomplish things, but she can be a bit possessive.

Can be seen as a bit pushy, but will back down if you say you're uncomfortable

She wants to rant about her interest in religion but she fears being annoying since she's shut down a lot, if you indulge her she will love you forever and be your own personal cheerleader

She likes to bake cookies and will give you some if you're nice to her (they may or may not have her blood in them but who knows)

Kaito Momota

Dude's a dick, a fun dick but a dick nonetheless

Play fights a lot which usually ends up with him pinning you to the ground and saying some suggestive comment

Encourages the buffoonery that the class gets up to and is the self assigned leader of their misadventures

Show him genuine kindness and you will have a bodyguard, will even tone down the shitty attitude if you ask him nicely

He likes going out at night and just walk through town enjoying the stars and the night sky

Gonta Gokuhara

Scary dude, class transportation

Resting bitch face 2.0, but unlike Shuichi he will be more expressive

Likes nature and will take you outside for hangouts, he finds it peaceful and relaxing

Will infodump about his interest to the people he's close to and will in turn protect them from bullies and such

Do not bully Gonta's friends, that boy puts his muscle to good use and has possible rage issues

Miu Iruma

Less vulgar than in-game Miu but still lives in the gutter

She's smart in very specific and concerning subjects but won't remember what she read in her history textbook

Will tell you how to get away with murder in 5 steps or less but doesn't know when Japan got its independence

Second in command on the class's missadventures, has to be kept in check to make sure nothing blows up

Laughs like a 7th grader when you say something remotely suggestive, "that's what she said" following 90% of the time

Kirumi Tojou

Quiet, worried mom friend, partner in crime with Ryoma

Psychologically analyses her classmates for fun and calls them out on their bs, lovingly tho

Has a heart attack whenever a class trip is announced, contemplates buying leashes for them

Likes to make you tea as you two complain about your classmates to each other, sometimes others join

Tutor 2.0, teams up with Ryoma and Shinguuji and they are basically responsible for the class passing the year

If you insult her she'll Just insult you back until your begging for her to stop, most likely Captain of a debate club

Doesn't say a lot but when she does, She Talks

Tenko Chabashira

She's all over the place, all the time

She might look scary but she has the Mii theme song playing on loop all the time

Gets attached to the first person who shows her affection like a puppy

She likes plants and taking care of plants, I feel like they calm her down. She also likes green so she might be biased

Is on the hunt for the class cryptid because she's skeptic on the supernatural/paranormal

Himiko Yumeno

Resident cryptid

One time, Miu saw her sneaking into the dorm kitchen at 1 am and convinced the class that she saw a ghost/cryptid

Gets random surges of energy and starts like 5 projects that she almost never finishes

Really likes cotton candy, will make you buy her some whenever y'all go out (she shares it dw)

Is not opposed to cuddling but prefers headpats, she melts with em

Kiibo

Most forget he's even there because he's so quiet

Kind of rude and has little patience, so he buts heads with the more rowdy classmates

Basically a glorified babysitter, hates his job

Likes singing and has a decent voice actually, will sing to you to express his emotions

Very smart but refuses to tutor anyone because "google exists"

Korekiyo Shinguuji

He's a loner mostly because he's so off putting sometimes

Discusses philosophical and moral questions without prompting that lead to class debates, he thrives

Writes poetry when he's bored, it's surprisingly deep and well written

If he likes you, he will compare you to the 7 Wonders of the World, calling you the 8th one

Has very clean handwriting or writes in hieroglyphics, no in between

Maki Harukawa

She's quiet because she's kind of scared of her classmates

Has a lot of siblings and is the neighborhood babysitter, she gets along well with children

Gets adopted by Kaito and you and goes along with his antics, actually enjoys it

A regular in the class tutor service, taking care of her siblings takes up a lot of her time and effort

Is a cat magnet for some reason and that makes Ryoma give her discounts

Tsumugi Shirogane

Degenerate weeb (affectionate)

Also a regular at the tutoring service, she daydreams a lot and by the time she stops the lesson is over

Unspoken bond between her and Shuichi, takes a weeb to know a weeb

Likes doing people's hair and makeup, she'll make you look fabulous

Makes various origamis for her friends and you

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

-Mod Chihiro

[clanwarrior-tumbly]

I saw the alter ego scenarios, so could I request those by with Kokichi, Shuichi, and Rantaro? Thanks!😄😄😄

Kokichi

The usually deceitful and grinning supreme leader was quite serious throughout the trial, even letting his genuine emotions show anytime he spoke. It surprised most of his classmates, though they still remained wary of him.

But it was also strange not to hear you immediately call your boyfriend out on his lies...because, well..you weren’t there anymore.

Directly across from him was your empty podium, a portrait in place of where he’d see your smile, shocked expressions, or the determined glint in your eyes as you debated with everyone. 

Never again will he see any of those, because every time he looked forward--he was faced with the harsh reality: You were dead.

He kept trying to tell himself that it was just another prank, another lie.

However no amount of lies in the world could cover up the painful truth.

Kokichi only got angrier throughout the trial, and when the culprit was sentenced to their execution--he had to be held back as he tried lunging at them, crying and screaming about how stupid they were to kill you and not him.

But not even the execution could make him feel any better. He just shoved away everyone who tried to console him and ran away from the Shrine of Judgement, returning to his room where he cried until his chest ached.

This was the very thing he feared happening--yet he tried to play it off as some “fun game”, because he was scared to face the reality of you or him possibly dying.

And here that reality was..slapping him right in the face.

“God..fucking..DAMN IT!!” He shouted, face burning red as he kicked over a box in the midst of his temper tantrum.

Though as his Monokubs tablet fell to the floor, he noticed it turn on suddenly. And for a moment, he stopped and looked at it, before picking it up in confusion. “..h-huh? What’s...?”

On the screen appeared some kind of digital background, and then a chibi-like avatar of you appeared.

“Oh! Looks like I’m finally online!”

Kokichi felt his heart almost stop. It was your voice. But...it couldn’t actually be you.

“Wh-What are you?” He mumbled. “There’s no way you...can be [y/n]...”

“I’m an alter ego of them, to be more precise.” Your avatar answered. “[Y/n] created me in their lab, with some help from Miu!”

He chuckled in amusement. “I see, but..is this why they’ve been ignoring me sometimes?” A slight pout formed on his face. “I would’ve loved to know what kept them cooped-up in-”

“Kokichi? Have you been crying? Did..something happen to my creator?”

“Huh? Oh..no I’m not crying..s-stupid bot..” Somehow, hearing the concern in your voice got him choked up all over again, as he tried hiding his puffy eyes with his sleeve. “It’s called “getting something in your eye”, n-not that dumb AIs like you would understa-”

“I do have a lie detector installed, so I know you’re-”

“They’re DEAD, okay?!! [Y/n] is DEAD!!” He snapped angrily, glaring at the screen, though when he saw your avatar make a sad emoticon, his hands trembled. This time, he just let the tears stream down his face. “Did they know..th-they were gonna die? Is that why they made you and kept you hidden from me?!”

“No. I can assure you that wasn’t their intention,” you insisted. “They left me on your Monokubs device as a..surprise gift, you could say.”

“..a surprise? Heheh...” Kokichi set the tablet on the table, sniffling as he sat down on his bed. Then he rubbed his eyes. “They always had surprises for me...just like I did."

“I’m sure they wouldn’t have appreciated calling me a “dumb AI”, though.” Your avatar sweatdropped.

“That was only a lie.”

“...I detected that before.”

“Oh I’m suuuuure you did.” He took the tablet back into his hands, sighing. “You’re certainly more humanlike than Kee-boy, I’ll give ya that.”

.............

Shuichi

In the late hours following the trial, Shuichi couldn’t sleep at all. He was much too busy crying into his pillow, curled up as he sobbed so much it hurt to breathe.

You became another victim, another body for him to discover, and another portrait in the trial room. 

Only five minutes ago, before that body discovery, were you smiling and hugging him, promising that you two will escape this place together. But fate has decided against that. And his happiness was ripped out of his clutches.

The only good thing was learning that your death was a complete accident, and you didn’t suffer too much, according to the culprit--who was also in tears.

Yet those realizations did little to ease the ache in his heart...accident or not, you were dead and never coming back. Never again would you get to hold him when he started having doubts of himself.

The detective soon heard his doorbell ringing, but he had no will to train tonight. He didn’t have the will to do anything anymore..

Somehow, he managed to drag himself out of bed, not caring about his tearstained face or unkempt hair as he answered the door. “Sorry, I’m not r-really-”

Instead of finding a person on the other side, however, he instead found...his Monokubs tablet?

Confused, he picked it up and closed the door, returning to his bed and switching the device on. But what he saw on the screen nearly made him sob all over again:

It was you as a familiar chibi digital avatar. “Hello!” Your voice greeted, which made him cup a hand over his mouth as tears ran down his face. “Oh! Shuichi, right?”

“[Y/n]..y-you’re...no...you’re not actually, [y/n], are you?”

“You’d be correct. I’m an alter ego of them. My creator downloaded their avatar from Miu’s virtual world to give me this form, and they used technology from their own lab to install me onto this device. Are..they around?”

“I’m..sorry but..they’re gone.” He choked out, burying his face into his hands. “I-I’m so sorry..I..I failed them. I couldn’t protect them and it’s all my fau-”

“No..I’m sure they wouldn’t blame you for what happened,” your avatar comforted. “I know I can’t offer much comfort, but if I may try something----%$*%@#%^----”Shuichi, hun?””

Shuichi looked up after hearing your change of tone, seeing that your voice had become softer and more humanlike. “[Y/n]...I-I-”

“Listen, what happened to me isn’t your fault, so please don’t ever blame yourself. No one could’ve predicted my death. The important thing is...you found out the truth, and I can rest easy knowing that. I’ll always be watching over you. Please..keep surviving this game, keep fighting for the truth. I love you so much, Shuichi.”

He could only remain in shocked silence as you spoke to him, then your avatar glitched and its more robotic tone returned. “I’m sure that’s what they would’ve wanted to say. I may not understand what “love” is, but..it seems very strong between you two.”

For the first time since the trial, he felt a smile form on his face as he laughed softly, wiping away his tears. “Th-Thank you, Alter Ego.”

With this AI you created, he knew you weren’t truly gone forever.

........

Rantaro

‘Why did it have to be them? Why didn’t I go with them? Why, why, why?!’

Rantaro could only repeat that question in his mind as he clutched his head, sitting on his bed and staring at the floor with tearful eyes.

Just as this game had started, just as you two promised to end it together...a single shot put ball shattered that hope.

As another survivor of the previous game, you knew there was something suspicious about the hidden door in the library thanks to the perk on your Monopad, and you offered to investigate it in Rantaro’s place. 

He argued against it, but you insisted you wanted to end this nightmare before it began. And so you stormed off, the pressures of the time limit agitating you.

Who knew that argument would be the first and last one you ever had with him?

Just like that...it started again: the investigation, the trial, and the execution. But he came numb to it a long time ago, even though he tried not to blame the culprit..as they shared the same intention on stopping the game.

When he returned to his room, he discovered a note attached to your room key. He read it, and nearly cried when it mentioned how scared you were of the time limit coming to an end and everyone getting killed.

Though in the event that he somehow survived--given he is the Ultimate Survivor--and you didn’t, he can enter your room to retrieve a “special project” you’ve worked on ever since gaining access to your lab.

And he did exactly that, finding a tablet sitting at your empty desk. He sat down and switched it on, hoping the information would unveil something about the mastermind.

Instead, though, he was greeted by-

“Hello! I’m Alter Ego [Y/n]!”

“An..alter ego?” Rantaro blinked, looking at the digital chibi-like character on the screen in wonder. It looked like you and even had your voice. “Are you an AI they created?”

“Yep! But...if you found me then..that means-”

“[Y/n] is gone..” He bowed his head, feeling the ache in his heart returning. “I found their note and...you’re the special project they wanted to show me.”

“Correct.” You nodded. “I’m..sorry that they passed. I’m sure they wanted to see your reaction to me but..that no longer seems to be the case. I’ll do my very best to keep you company, Rantaro.”

“They did make an adorable avatar,” he chuckled. “I just...wish things didn’t start out this way. I miss them so much. But, as long as I have you, they aren’t truly gone, right?”

“Yep! And..I will also carry out their wish to find anything I can about the mastermind..i-if such a person even exists.”

“They exist.” His expression became determined. “We will find them and end this game...no matter what it takes.”

[its-nebula]

for the dr boys you simp for, what was the exact moment/scene you knew you started simping for them? like personally for me, i liked kokichis character from his intro interaction with kiibo, because i feel like you got a sense of his youthfulness so well. but it wasnt until the “its a lie!” scene that solidified my confidence, i was like...oh yea. this punk little shit gets on my fuckin nerves time to SIMP. i also liked nagis character from the beginning but ngl i did question if i rly did like him in or if i was just being influenced by the hype making me think i liked him bc i knew how many people loved him. but the final dead room sealed the deal for me when he played rr because i was like this mans really is so chaotic im kinda impressed? like??? big phat SIMP hours???

Nagi- I agree with you, I was skeptical because of how many people in the DR fandom love him so much, but like, this man was fine from the beginning. I'd say it was locked in when I found out he was dead and I literally wanted to CRY and I usually don't get so emotionally attached to characters like that.

Kichi- W e l l. Like I said, after playing the game I was still prreeeeeeetttyyyy ticked off about how he killed off my bug boy Gonta. Chapter 5 redeemed him a little bit, but the scales didn't really tip for me until after I started to really write for him. I'd say when I wrote "Self-Sabotage" is when the simpery was fully locked in. The reason I say this is because whenever I write, I like to get into the head of the characters; think about what they'd say, do, etc. Usually to do this, I open up a video of their voice files and free time events (it's kinda tough for me to write characters like Rantaro for example for this reason), and I started to understand him and his reason behind things better.

Chihiro- Alright, alright, alright, alright. So since I am bi, I already had kind of a crush on Chi when I thought he was a girl. Now mind you, this is the first DR crush I ever had and it's still going strong to this day! Unfortunately i had the reveal spoiled for me, but when I actually found out why he got killed and the moments leading up to it, my heart strings were TUGGED and I didn't want to leave my bed for the rest of the night. I respected him so much for wanting to become stronger, and I really FREAKING wish he lived at least a couple more chapters, god damn it. To this day, he's an inspiration to me, and I feel like we could all take a few notes about toxic masculinity from his trial. Real talk.

GUNDHAM TANAKA- when I heard his voice LMFAOOOOOO. Okay okay if we're being serious then I'd say during Chapter 4's trial is where I noticed that on the inside he's just a big softie and he rrally cares about his friends. He's more nice than he wants to let on, but he also wanted them to fight for their lives instead of telling them straight away. This struck me as he's a very complex character, much like his hard ass trial, and yeah.

Kiibo- His love hotel scene! Not much to say here, but, boy oh boy. It was just so ridiculously cute that like how could I not fall in love with this man immediately? I'm not going to lie, I find 95% of the DRV3 characters to be attractive, but he just stuck out to me (no offense Kee-boy, I'm not robophobic I promise ;w;). I also like how he took up responsibility in trial 6, even though that trial blows, but he was definitely my favorite part of it.

Shuichi- Not just the fact that he's my favorite protag of the 3, but I feel a lot more of a connection with him. After trial 1 I was pretty bummed about the whole Kaede thing, even though I did NOT see that coming, but Shuichi stepped up to the plate nicely. I think when I started simping for him officially is when he gathered up the strength in Ch4's trial to finally admit to himself and everyone else who the killer really was. I've never cried during a game, book, or movie, but that trial got me the CLOSEST to doing it because I felt a tear starting to form, seriously, and it didn't help that Razz was crying while I was watching the video as well. It was all around just an emotional moment and I'm happy Shuichi was able to keep himself together for the sake of everyone, even though everyone loved Gonta.

Honorable mentions-

Ryoma- Kichi took his spot in the top 6 lmfaooo but he is right behind them all at the #7 spot. When I learned his backstory my heart melted.

Rantaro- I can see why so many people guessed him, because as Ive said before and will say again, this man is FINE. If ik more bout him then yeah.

Kiyo- I swear to you all. This man was going to be my favorite in V3, but then they just had to to go anD FUCK UP HIS CHARACTER LIKE THAT- i'm fine.

Kaz- He's great, don't get me wrong, his obsession with pale blonde princesses is a little bit concerning, but we all have our flaws baby.

Kuya- i was simping for this man very very hard a couple months ago, but then I realized he would probably see me as a peasant and that made me sad. plus what he did in ch2 was kinda fucked up looking back.

[spectralreplica]

So I loved your response on who would be most likely to witch out in the PMMM/DR v3 au, but id love to ask, what did they all wish for? (Bonus: Also did those wishes backfire?)

So, these are my thoughts for right now, but if I actually planned more of the “story” for this AU, some of them might change. For some of them I kind of cheated and came up with the power first, but in my defense it’s hard to come up with wishes without having planned more of the plot, since Kyubey tries so hard to get people to make spur of the moment wishes during times of stress.

Kokichi: I see him as totally paranoid (rightfully so) over how Kyubey’s trying to trick him but still obsessing for weeks over the perfect phrasing for a wish just in case, and then suddenly a witch traps him and DICE in a Labyrinth and he ends up contracting with a totally spontaneous wish. Something like “saving my friends” or “being strong enough to protect my family.” For maximum irony, he’d end up with powers that get stronger when fighting with/to protect others but keep trying to fight alone anyway due to not trusting other magicals and not wanting to put DICE in danger. He’d also tell people he wished for other things like, “to rule the world from the shadows,” or “an infinite supply of scarfs.” As for backfiring, he does save everyone that one time, but they’re in more danger since other magicals end up targeting them when Kokichi poaches from their territories, plus they’re in the line of fire if/when he witches out.

Kaito: Like in the game, Kaito is terminally ill and wishes for something along the lines of “being healthy enough to achieve his dreams,” but he totally lies and says he wished for something like “being strong enough to help others.” He gets the power to temporarily boost other people’s powers and/or make their bodies regenerate from wounds. He kind of avoids using the healing part at first because it’s a little suspicious with his alleged wish and then pretends it’s a thing he’s been practicing. It doesn’t really go bad for him, and I don’t think he’d regret making the wish, even when he finds out about the Soul Gems controlling your body thing. Maybe when he realizes there are no witches in space? But even then I think he’d be in denial…

Shuichi: Shuichi ends up involved in a really serious case and just can’t find the piece that ties it all together even though everyone is counting on him. At the height of his anxiety, Kyubey approaches him, and he wishes to find the truth. He basically gets super intuition/lie detection with a (mental) visual interface sort of like the DR trials (truth bullets plus the mini games). This creates drama with certain other magicals who are hiding something (cough, Kokichi and Kaito) and makes him doubt his skills since he’s relying on magic to cheat.

Maki: Still an orphan, still approached by a cult, but then approached by Kyubey. She wishes that the cult would never bother anyone at the orphanage again, and they all end up arrested, dead, or mysteriously vanished. She basically gets the power to make things/people “go away” to a pocket dimension only she can access, and this makes other people sort of forget those things/people exist while they’re inside. She sees her wish as a necessary sacrifice, like her becoming an assassin in canon, so she is Not Happy when Kyubey approaches some of the other orphans.

Kaede: Honestly not sure???? She doesn’t really have anything in her backstory that would be a catalyst for Kyubey to approach her, so I see it as more of a random chance, situation-based thing, like Madoka healing the cat. Maybe she was trapped in a Labyrinth and wished for the power to fight survive, or to save a friend? Just know it’s not related to her piano playing. That’s all practice, and she likes it that way.

(Joke answer: Kaede gets super mad at someone from a distance and wishes she could slap them across the face for being an idiot. She gets the power to telekinetically smack anything around from across the room.)

Himiko: Intrigued by the idea of real magic but not intrigued by the idea of having to fight witches. Ends up wishing for her mentor to be more popular. Not as mind-controlly as Kyoko’s wish; basically, people just find him really cool and talented and can’t look away from his shows, but they don’t like, form a cult? Sort of derails her own career as a magician (both because the audience likes her mentor more and because she has to sneak off and fight witches) and doesn’t really fix the problems in their relationship, but he doesn’t leave and never return. Anyway, she gets the power to make herself and anyone she touches more or less noticeable/popular. Really good for stealth or drawing aggro. Also for convincing people to do her favors.

Tenko: She recently moved to the city after living in a temple since she was a child, and is finding it hard to adjust. One night, when she’s out acting as a “hero of justice” like her Master taught her and preventing a suicide, she ends up trapped in a Labyrinth and saved by Himiko. She ends up really, really attached and sort of accompanies her on hunts for a while until something goes wrong, and she ends up wishing to protect Himiko. She ends up with sort of a sense when Himiko needs help and is really good at putting up shields/barriers.

Miu: Still in a bad car crash leading to a coma, butthe surgery doesn’t go as well. Kyubey approaches her in the hospital right after she’s been told she’s facing permanent brain damage. She almost wishes to put her brain back to normal but then decides, why stop there? She wishes to be a genius with a super-brain that can solve any problem, and ends up with super inspiration, mostly aimed at turning any materials around her into an invention that will help her. She can use magic to substitute for missing materials and speed up the development time, but this uses a lot of magic at once, and the finished product won’t work for anyone else. Freaks out when she learns her body is now essentially hardware, but then she realizes the possibilities for improving things… Then everyone else freaks out.

Gonta: Still a feral child who got lost in the woodsand was sort of raised by wolves (not reptites, sorry), but this affects his ability to learn language and social skills much, much more severely than in canon. Wishes for the ability to understand others, which makes him fluent in all languages and sort of an empath. Also, because he sees animals as sort of on the same level as humans, this extends to animal languages in addition to human ones. Being able to speak and mimic “good manners” improves others’ opinions of him and his intelligence, but being able to feel how his birth family really feels about him is so upsetting that he eventually ends up running away and staying with Miu and Kiibo.

Kiibo: Lives with Miu. Does not remember his wish, but he has powers, so he has to have made one? Probably human. I’m still sort of torn over his backstory, but I’m kind of leaning towards a Hijiri kind of situation, where he was created by someone else’s wish. Or magic (cough, Miu.)

Ryoma: Wishes to get revenge on the mafia that killed his family and girlfriend. Basically gets enhanced strength and a sort of sense of where all of the members are. I sort of went over how his wish ends up in the other post…

Korekiyo: Wished to cure his sister’s illness and got healing powers. Currently traveling the world to observe other magicals. Like the other cult members, offers to use his powers for a price (usually Grief Seeds or information).

Angie: Starts out living on an isolated island andacting as a priestess/oracle, but begins to doubt her own abilities/connection to her god because natural disasters are getting worse and more people are leaving. She sort of interprets Kyubey as a messenger from her god and wishes to know what’s really going on/get a better sense of her destiny. She gets the power to predict the future as long as she is personally involved. She has to actively focus on a question (What happens if I do this?) or a goal (I want to achieve this) and she’ll see the most probable path. This really elevates her sense of self-importance, and makes it much easier to make others see things her way. It doesn’t prevent a tsunami from destroying her home and making everyone leave, at which point she meets Tsumugi and Kirumi.

Tsumugi: Her life isn’t bad, but she doesn’t like herself that much and feels empty and unfulfilled until she comes across the existence of actual magical girls (well, one in particular). Like an anime come to life! Tsumugi wishes for the ability to become someone else (yes, I know this was Rena’s wish too…) and gets the power to transform into other people. If they’re a magical, she can also copy a limited, weaker version of their powers.

Rantaro: Wishes to find all of his sisters and gets the ability to track people. He has an inherent sense where each of his sisters is and their general emotional state, but he can also apply this power to other people if he focuses. It works from anywhere in the world and can be based on a photograph, but it works best when the person is close by (from a country away he knows they’re alive and northwest from him, from a building away he knows they’re sitting in a chair in the back corner of the back bedroom and feeling excited but a little nervous) and he’s met them in person. He quickly discovers that tracking a sister down once doesn’t mean she’ll stay “found” and go home. Some of them also want to travel, others have bad senses of direction and always get lost again, some find his new knowledge of where they are and how they feel super creepy and avoid him, and at least one became a magical girl already… He probably finds out about the witch thing first…….

Kirumi: Part of a family that’s been serving animportant, rich family (maybe Rantaro’s? for maximum irony?) for generations. She’s been trained to dedicate her whole life to serving others and has no real prospects outside of eventually becoming head maid and training her own children to replace her. Meets Angie and Tsumugi and is immediately drawn in by Angie’s message. Wishes for the ability to instantly transport herself and others and gets the ability to teleport to any location she’s seen (photos count). It gets harder the more people she takes along, the longer the distance, and the less detail she knows about her destination. She tells everyone—and herself—that she lives to serve and wished for a convenient power to better serve the group’s needs, but she secretly wanted to escape really badly for her own sake too.

[murdertrialimagines]

V3 Boys finding their S/O Dead

“hello! i saw your request were open~ first i’d like to say your writing (so far) is great! if it’s not too much trouble, can you please do V3 boys finding their S/O dead. Their reaction, mood during the class trial and even their reaction to who murdered their S/O. ik this is a wild request but if it isn’t too much i’d be very happy if you can do so. if not i fully understand. thanks in advanced 💖 “

Of Course! This is such a good prompt, I’m glad you requested it! I hope you enjoy~ Full story under the tag

Imagine: V3 Boys Finding their S/O dead

Shuichi Saihara

Shuichi had been solving murders since they got trapped here

But he has been solving them with you

So when he went to the kitchen and found you on the floor, having bled out from a stab wound, he didn’t think he could do it

How was he supposed to go on without his best friend, his S/O, the only person he truly knew understood how he felt?

But he had to solve it for you

He wasted no time starting the investigation, choking back tears every time he had to examine your body

Letting a few slip as his fingers grazed over the wound on your chest, knowing he would never feel this heartbeat as he laid on you after a stressful day again

No one bothered him, knowing his silence would be broken if they asked how he was

The class trial came by swiftly, and everyone felt the air grow thick as they waited for Shuichi to start speaking

When he didn’t, Maki started for him

He stayed quite with everyone’s words, solving the mystery within his own mind.

When he finally pieced it all together, the words spilled out of his mouth, same with the tears in his eyes

He explained the whole scenario intensely, not letting anyone refute his words, voice raising when the culprit tried

Finally, voting time came around, and for the first time, he didn’t feel sad to push the button, sending the culprit to their doom.

He watched as Kaito was led to his doom, stone faced the whole time.

He immediately went to his room afterwards, crying as soon as the door closed

Everything still smelled of you

Kaito Momota

He didn’t expect to find you in your room, considering you liked to be around others more

Maybe that was what got you killed

He found you in the gym after a few minutes of searching, face down and your neck laced with rope

He immediately ran over, flipping you over and screaming

“Y/N! WAKE UP! PLEASE, WAKE UP!”

His screaming alerted others nearby, and soon the body discovery alarm was going off.

He started punching the floor, pleading for you to wake up as Gonta and Tenko dragged him away

He was crying the whole investigation, but trying his best to help

He couldn’t stand to help with the body, seeing you made the waterworks resume tenfold

When the trial started, he immediately began to yell for the culprit to give themselves up

When they didn’t, his yelling only became louder

He really tried his best to help, he really did

But his mind was so clouded up with thoughts of you and all the things he wanted to do with you

Shuichi carried the trial, exposing the culprit like he always does

When it became clear who it was, everyone expected Kaito to go into hysterics

It scared them even more when his voice rang out, low and soft

“Kirumi...why?”

As Kirumi began to explain, Kaito got angrier with every word

“Cut the crap! You could’ve picked anyone, and you picked her! Why did you pick her?! You should’ve picked me!”

Kaito charged towards her, but Maki held him back

“Y/n wouldn’t have wanted this, Kaito.”

Everyone could see Kaito physically restrain himself from pulling away from Maki and giving Kirumi what she deserved.

“Fine, let’s just get on with the voting.”

“Kaito, I apolo-”

“I said we’re voting!”

The execution went by quick, Kaito walking away before anyone could stop him

He skipped training that night, sitting in the courtyard, watching the stars through their metal prison

Oh, how he would’ve traded every star in the galaxy to have you sitting with him tonight.

Ryoma Hoshi

Ryoma knew your plans for that day consisted of working in your ultimate lab, he knew how excited you were when it was unlocked.

He was happy for you, you were the one who brought him to embrace living, after all

After spending the day playing tennis with himself in his lab, he opened his locker to put his racket away, when something came tumbling out

You laid there, wrapped in a tennis net with a slit throat

Ryoma felt sick to his stomach the moment he saw your dull eyes, wondering what your last moments of life saw.

He sat there for a moment, looking at you

He wanted to untie you, but knew that tampering with evidence would make him the prime suspect

He began to chuckle

Of course his luck led him to this! The world wanted him to have nothing

It still didn’t need to take you though.

After waiting for what felt like hours, he left his room to go alert the others

No one believed him at first, Miu telling him to “Cut that depressing crap!”

Gonta, being the sweetheart he is, still wanted to check on you

When everyone found you, they couldn’t believe it

Who wanted to hurt Y/n? Did someone have it out for Ryoma?

Once everyone started investigating, they kept some distance from him

He knew it was either due to pity or fear that he committed this crime

But he didn’t need their pity nor their fear

As Shuichi covered alibis and the murder weapon, it became clear that he wasn’t the culprit.

After all, you were there for at least half a day, and Ryoma was helping Kirumi with preparing lunch when it would have happened

Why wasn’t he suspicious when you didn’t show up for that? Was this his fault for not checking up on you?

When the trial started, Ryoma treated it just as the first trial that had happened.

First Rantaro, now his Y/n

The topic soon came to alibis around lunch time, and he started to notice holes in someones words

“Kiibo, you say you were in the gym, but Himiko was in her lab all day with her door open and never once saw you go in, nor did she see you leave.”

Kiibo let out a stutter of an answer, which was quickly refuted by Shuichi and his evidence

It quickly became clear, and voting time came silently.

Tsumugi was the one who asked him of his motives

“I-I’m sorry...I cannot say.”

Ryoma gave a hollow laugh.

“I guess that’s all we’ll get. Let’s get this over with.”

After they all saw Kiibo be executed, Ryoma spoke up first

“Let’s go, I plan on getting you all out of here.”

He left to his dorm, re-becoming the recluse he was before he met you

and he never stepped back in his lab again.

Rantaro Amami

Rantaro wanted to get all of you out of this sick game

He knew the door the mastermind had used, and planned to use it to his advantage.

But he wanted you out of the plan, he couldn’t stand to see you get hurt because of his actions

But his work was in vain

He wanted to find you before he carried out his plan, to either say his goodbyes or just make it seem like a regular day

As regular as you can get in a killing game

But when he found your door open slightly, he immediately tensed up.

He threw the door open to find you

You, laying on the floor, knife lodged in your chest with a note attached

He ripped it off, reading it

‘I warned her to stay out of this’

He crumpled the note, stuffing it in his pocket

He sat next to you, stroking your hair

“I’m so sorry Y/n, this is all my fault...”

‘But it’s not,’ he thought, ‘It’s the mastermind.’

Around dinner time Angie came for him, finding him with your lifeless body

She nearly passed out at the sight alone

After everyone came in and started investigating, he slunk to the corner

He watched the scene before him play out, Shuichi and Kaede discovering clues

He scanned everyone, wondering who could have possibly been on his trail enough to have to do this

‘The mastermind, that’s who’

The trial started, the first trial

And hopefully the last.

Throughout the trial he, Shuichi and Kaede refuted evidence thrown around, and made a clear path towards the answers he wanted

When someone accused him of possibly doing it, they almost died from fear from his glare alone.

Kaede calmed him down, telling him that she was sure something else would tell them the truth, and that whoever Y/n caught committing a crime would be found

That’s when he went pale, and asked Kaede how she knew that

She stuttered and gave a stunted answer

After berating her with facts and evidence, she caved

“She caught me setting up a trap, and threatened to tell everyone I was the mastermind! I wanted all of us to get out, but she wouldn’t listen!”

Shuichi and her had a one on one debate, Shuichi refusing to believe the undeniable evidence that had been laid before him

Rantaro cut in

“I hate to stop your conversation, but can we please vote now? I don’t want a murderer among us anymore.”

He felt a twinge of guilt when he saw Kaede flinch, but knew that what was coming was inevitable.

They all voted, and Kaede gave them an inspirational speech about getting out.

‘Why should she be giving this? She let one of the few good people here die.’

Rantaro left right after the execution, already planning out the next step of his plan to reveal the mastermind

But this time, he had nothing to lose.

Gonta Gokuhara

When the body discovery announcement went off, Gonta ran to the library with everyone else

Surprisingly, he seemed to be the last one there, and by the time he got there a circle was already formed around the body

He made himself known and went to look when Himiko grabbed his arm

“Hey...Gonta...why don’t you go and help Maki get alibis...outside of the room?”

He allowed himself to be dragged out of the library, helping Maki take down people’s alibis of where they were

Where’s Y/n?

He kept trying to see where Y/n was in the library, waiting for when he got to hear her alibi, when he saw the body

Y/n, laid on the floor, he could tell by her hair

He ran in before anyone could stop him, pushing Shuichi away from her

She laid, sprawled out on the floor, blindfold over her eyes and butterfly wings spray painted on the floor around her shoulders.

She looked almost angelic

He wanted to tell himself that she was sleeping, but he knew from the announcement and Monokuma’s laugh that he was wrong

He started sobbing, holding her body against his, hoping that she would somehow, someway, come back

“Please! Y/n! Come back!”

Shuichi had already finished with the body, so he let Gonta stay with her

It was the least they could do for him

As everyone shuffled out, Gonta laid Y/n back down, looking down at her wings

Angel wings would fit her so much better

He heard the body discovery go off again, and became confused

He already knew who died, why is it going off again?

He stayed with Y/n, saying his goodbyes to her before Himiko came in, crying, telling him that it was time to go to the trial

When he got there, he immediately noticed Y/n’s spot, a smiling picture of her crossed out by bug nets

He then noticed Tenko’s photo a few slots down

The trial began, but he didn’t do much to help

He felt bad, but he didn’t want to get in the way.

Every time someone was accused, he felt his heart sink

One of their friends killed two of the nicest people here?

Then it was revealed how it happened

A long promise to someone long gone

They voted, and Gonta looked at the culprit

“Korekiyo...why? Why kill Y/n?!”

After Korekiyo explained his motive, Gonta wept

And he continued to weep until the execution was over and Kaito had helped him to his dorm

He sat on the floor, looking at all of the photos of himself and Y/n, taken by the instant cameras in the warehouse

His favorite? The one where they bug hunted together, ending with them taking a nap in the sun

How he wished he could take more

Kokichi Oma

Kokichi refused to let anyone know any of his feelings, especially when they were involved romantically

So when Y/n came into his life, he kept their relationship very hush hush

He still clung onto her though, so everyone assumed she was his favorite to torment

So when the body discovery announcement rang, Kokichi gleefully strolled to the AV room, ready to make a big entrance with some witty one liner

But when he came in and saw Y/n’s body on the couch, the room a mess and a crossbow on the floor, he forced himself to smile

“So, the idiot finally got herself killed huh? Took long enough!”

He stayed in the corner liked he usually did, but this time he was hyper-fixated on his surroundings

A fight obviously happened here, so Y/n must have struggled. Who had a crossbow and could have had a motive to kill Y/n, here?

He already knew who it was, but he didn’t know how it happened

He had to know how it happened

When the trial started, he put on his facade and let everyone banter about the crime

He put in a few remarks here and there, but he never pointed them at Y/n

After he had enough, he made it known who it was

“Who else here has a crossbow besides Maki? I think this was a sloppy attempt at committing a crime.”

To everyone’s surprise, she didn’t deny it

What made him more angry, though, was when she told everyone what really happened

“Y/n, she tried to kill me. She wanted out and stole a crossbow from my room when her and Kaito visited a few nights ago. I didn’t want to kill her, but she left me no choice”

As Kaito and Maki talked, Kokichi resigned to his own mind

If he cried, they’d see it as fake tears, right?

He let his tears flow, when someone asked why he was crying he childishly blamed Kaito and Maki’s romantic final goodbye

Kokichi spaced out during Maki’s execution

As he left the trial grounds, he decided

If Y/n wasn’t getting out, then no one was.

Kiibo

Kiibo was sure he short circuited when he found you

Who wouldn’t panic, finding a lifeless body hanging in a classroom?

But this was Y/n

His Y/n

He didn’t know it was possible for a robot to feel human emotions, but when he met Y/n he realized that it was

He alerted everyone to the crime and helped as much as he could with the investigation, wanting to find out who did this

Gonta gently released the body from the ceiling, laying her down on the floor

Kiibo took everything in; the rope burn on her neck, the fallen chair, the hook on the ceiling that was placed specifically to kill his Y/n

When the trial started, he demanded the culprit to come clean immediately

When they didn’t, Shuichi started listing all the possibilities

They debated, clearing each suspect

Once the three prime suspects were cleared with strong alibis, Shuichi said the most likely answer

Kiibo lost it at his words

“Y/n would never commit suicide! She wanted us to get out of here! She wanted to get out of here!”

But the evidence was all there

Everything but the note

‘Why didn’t she leave a note?’

After the trial ended, executionless, Kiibo left to Y/n’s room

He needed to get away from Kokichi’s taunts

He let himself into her room with the key she had given him days prior

He sat on her bed, looking at everything she had

The poster on the wall, her closet, the shelf full of books on her ultimate talent

That’s when he noticed the note on the back of her door

He went over and gently took the tack out of the wall, reading the note. “Dear fellow classmates, I am sorry to have to be writing you this note. I was hopeful to get out of here with all of you, but when Tenko and Angie were taken from us, I couldn’t take it anymore. I am sorry that I am giving up at a time like this, and I hope no one was blamed for my decision to take my life. Kiibo, I am so sorry that you had to find my note like this. At least, I hope you found it first. I will miss you so much, and I hope that you get out of here, along with everyone else who still alive. I love you all, and I hope that you can work together and stop the mastermind!” ~Y/n

Kiibo held the letter tightly, crushing it slightly in his hand

‘Why?’ That was the only thing running through his head

‘Why did you do this, Y/n? we were gonna get out together!’

He wished he could cry

You may have taught him the feeling of love, but you also taught him despair.

________________________________________________________________

Ahh, I really hope this is how you wanted it! I’m sorry if it’s not, and thank you for requesting!

[commentaryvorg]

Danganronpa V3 Commentary: Bonus 2 - Demo

This is a commentary of the demo of DRV3 from the perspective of someone who is coming back to it after seeing the entire main game. There will be significant spoilers for the main story.

Welp, turns out that covering the demo is going to be more of a pain than I anticipated, because I didn’t already have it, and it’s no longer available in the UK store. So I’m going to have to use a Youtube video of it, which is a lot more annoying than you might think, because you have no idea how useful the game’s backlog function has been for this commentary.

I suppose I should preface this by mentioning that I did see the demo of this game before experiencing the game proper, but it was a fan translation of the Japanese demo something like a year or two earlier, so my memory of it by the time I saw the main game was pretty fuzzy. I only remembered a few things: that Kaede was the protagonist and the Ultimate Pianist, thinking it neat that we had a protagonist who was female, and who had a talent rather than being ordinary. I vaguely remembered Tenko, Himiko and Ryoma’s character quirks – I suppose thse were the ones that stuck in my mind. I remembered Kokichi being kind of a dick who kept trying to make the trial about himself and was therefore clearly this game’s answer to Nagito, because of course Kokichi had to try and be the centre of attention even in the demo and so that stuck in my mind.

And I remembered an astronaut dude who at least superficially seemed to have the kind of personality I generally like in a character – but I very firmly told myself not to get too excited about this, because this is Danganronpa and there is every chance that the narrative won’t give a fuck about how likeable he is and he’ll just get randomly, gratuitously killed off and I would regret ever getting attached to him. This, uh, may have partly influenced my belief during the main game that the narrative considered Kaito expendable and was totally going to kill him off at the slightest provocation, even after he started being very clearly important to the story.

It also very obviously did not stop me getting attached to him as the actual story progressed. I remember desperately trying to rein myself in throughout the first half of chapter 2 as Kaito became more and more adorable and good and Exactly My Kind of Character in his support of Shuichi. Then I got to the part during the investigation in which Kaito gave his speech about believing in people just because he wants to while acknowledging that there’s a risk to it that he’s simply choosing not to worry about so that he can believe wholeheartedly. This was so perfectly applicable to what had been going on in my own head with regards to getting attached to Kaito himself – I so desperately wanted to believe in him and care about him and get invested in his story, yet I was so afraid of what might happen if I did. But thanks to Kaito’s own words, I decided right then and there to not let that fear hold me back any more.

…That’s a first-time-me story that I really should have told at the time during chapter 2 but didn’t, so you’re getting it here instead. Anyway! The demo.

“Daily Life”

Kaede:  (My last name roughly means “passionate red maple tree”. It doesn’t really fit me, but… I still like my last name.)

Kaede starts us off with an introduction of herself, probably trying to make this reminiscent of the DR1 opening. They can’t exactly do that in this game’s real opening, what with the whole pregame-and-reset thing. It’s pretty awkward here that she’s telling us about her last name when nobody’s going to be calling her that in English, so it’s probably for the best that didn’t stay. I think “passionate red maple tree” suits her at least a little, though – she is very passionate!

Kaede:  (Huh? Wait, who am I even talking to?)

That’s a good question! There’s going to be quite a bit of sort-of fourth wall breaking in this demo. But… this is Danganronpa V3, in which a lot of what seemed like fourth wall breaking wasn’t really doing that at all. So maybe this is actually Kaede just being pushed into being all self-introductory in her inner monologue by the Flashback Light that created her, and here she’s having a brief moment of realising that makes no sense.

She finds herself waking up at a desk – again, like the original DR1 opening and less like the actual DRV3 opening. There’s no falling out of a locker and no Shuichi (not here, anyway).

“Makoto”:  “Oh, are you awake? Good morning, Kaede.”

Instead, there’s… Makoto.

So here’s the thing about this demo. Makoto, and later Hajime, are randomly in it. Going into the demo with the assumption that DRV3 is in a different universe from the Hope’s Peak story makes this just seem like a silly fourth-wall-breaking thing. It also wouldn’t work to imagine this is set in the Hope’s Peak universe, because then Makoto and Hajime should both be much older than high school age, not to mention whatever shenanigans should be going on with Hajime. So it’s easiest to assume that, oh, this is just some silly uncanonical nonsense because it’s a demo and it doesn’t need to make sense.

But! Having finished DRV3 and gone back to this demo knowing the truth of the V3 story, this actually can make some kind of sense within the V3 universe. Because this is a universe where Makoto and Hajime exist as fictional characters. This whole demo could in fact be some show set up by Team Danganronpa to build hype for their new series before it properly starts, including pandering to those genwunners and twoers in the audience by featuring Makoto and Hajime – which is to say, people cosplaying as them. Hence me using inverted commas for his name in the quotes here like I did for everyone Tsumugi cosplayed in trial 6. It’s not really Makoto Naegi at all.

(This still doesn’t totally work in the canon DRV3 universe, because, given the reset and the fact that they were accidentally their pregame selves at first, it seems unlikely that Team Danganronpa would really have done this “demo” in between the reset at all. This isn’t quite something that actually happened in canon before the story we saw began – it’s more just an AU scenario that could have hypothetically happened before the main killing game started, if things had gone a little differently.)

Makoto introduces himself as the Ultimate Lucky Student and even gets a proper Ultimate title card for it.

Kaede:  “Only one student in the entire country!? That’s amazing! You must be really lucky!”

No, Kaede, it doesn’t mean he’s always really lucky; that is not how luck works. He just got incredibly lucky this one time but is otherwise entirely ordinary. Luck as an actual goddamn superpower like it supposedly was for Nagito still grates on me (and there’s no convincing proof to me that Makoto also had that superpower).

Makoto mysteriously already knows Kaede’s name and talent. He explains that it’s because information about the students here is on public record – that is how the real Makoto learned about everyone in DR1, after all – but that’s probably not really the truth here, is it.

There’s a very genuinely-fourth-wall-breaky letter on the desk telling Kaede that to progress the story she just needs to come to the gym, but she can wander around and have the other students introduce themselves to her first if she wants. Obviously anyone doing this demo for the first time would want to do that – the whole point is getting to know the characters!

The layout of the school has been changed a bit in the demo to make things simpler and keep some locations a surprise. Kaede was in not Classroom B on the second floor, but Classroom A, aka the lookout classroom. Or what would function as a lookout classroom if only there was a basement, but the stairs to the basement have instead been replaced by a big red door that will lead to the trialgrounds. The stairs to the second floor are completely blocked off with an opaque shutter, so that all you can access is the first floor, and they moved the gym closer than usual to cut out the part of the corridor containing the locked things leading to Himiko and Kaito’s labs. Apparently they didn’t want to give any kind of tantalising promise of further areas that you’ll get to fully explore in the main game. Meanwhile, the front door that would lead out into the courtyard instead connects directly to the dorms, so that the demo never even shows us that they’re trapped inside a dome.

Everyone’s introductions are more or less the same as they will be in the main game, with Makoto filling in the part in the conversation that Shuichi would have played, if need be. Certain parts are left out if they were less about the character and more specifically about the main story in a way that isn’t relevant in the demo.

Rantaro is the first person we meet. Makoto says he doesn’t know Rantaro’s talent because it wasn’t on public record, but is still insistent that he definitely has a talent. This is totally because he’s just being good old hopeful Makoto and definitely not that he knows exactly what Rantaro’s talent is and why it’s being kept a secret right now, right.

Hajime is also hanging around in the corridors as if he’s a regular student. He gets “Ultimate ???” as well in his title card, even though he goes on to admit that he doesn’t have a talent. He doesn’t mention the Reserve Course, though. I guess the Ultimate Academy isn’t supposed to have one of those.

“Makoto”:  “Well, Hajime, we have seniority, but… She’s the protagonist this time around.”

Ahaha, here we go. One of the things the demo very gleefully does is make a big deal of how Kaede is the protagonist. Did you know Kaede is the protagonist of this game, guys? Because she is very definitely the protagonist of this game.

This would also sort of work with the whole fiction thing, except not so much, because the in-universe protagonist is supposed to be Keebo. So this is a thing that really is just out-universely here for the sake of the demo and doesn’t quite make sense in-universe with what Team Danganronpa are doing here.

Kaede:  (And also… what did they mean by ‘protagonist’?)

At least, for her part, Kaede is very confused by all this.

Shuichi is also just hanging around in the corridor like a totally regular student and not the actual protagonist of this game. I didn’t remember him from the demo at all until seeing him in the main game jogged my memory, because without him being Kaede’s investigation partner, he kinda just blends into the background like the introvert he is.

Shuichi:  “I don’t even remember enrolling in this academy. But it seems I did…”

Bonus dialogue you get from talking to him again after his main introduction shows that he’s very much thinking about the important questions, though. In the main game, while nobody remembered being kidnapped, everyone’s general assumption was that they were brought here against their will and forgot how. However, in the demo, it seems most people are assuming they somehow got enrolled in this academy and are just having a slightly odd version of a school introduction. Only a few people are questioning this idea.

(Kaede actually mentioned at the very beginning that she remembered being kidnapped, but then the writing apparently forgets about that, because she never mentions it to anybody else. Nor does anyone else mention remembering something similar.)

Since there’s no outside in the demo and therefore no wall to be thinking about trying to get over, Kaito is just in the dining hall here. Everyone whose introduction in the main game is in a location that doesn’t exist in the demo just gets put somewhere random instead. Kaito’s lines about getting over the wall are therefore also removed from his introduction, which means that we sadly don’t get as much of a sense of his unshakeable determination and philosophy about not complaining when you could be trying to make things better.

Kaito:  “But now that I’m thinking about it, why am I at this academy? I wanna blast off into space ASAP! Weird situations like this are only gonna slow me down…”

Kaito is also asking the important questions. Why is he doing this thing that isn’t working towards going to space? That doesn’t make any sense as something that he’d choose to do! He should be in astronaut training, not enrolling in some weird academy!

Maki immediately introduces herself and her cover-story talent rather than not wanting to do so at first. She also doesn’t have any of her lines about how she doubts they’ll be able to escape this and they shouldn’t be working together with strangers, so a lot of the hints towards her interestingness are gone from the demo, boo.

Maki:  “I don’t even remember enrolling in this academy, but… Do you know what’s going on?”

At least she’s asking the important questions, too! I wonder if that “but” is a hint at her thinking “but at least this isn’t as bad as having to kill people”. Or so she thinks.

As Kaede finishes meeting everyone and is about to head into the gym…

“Makoto”:  “Sorry, but this is where we part ways. I can’t go past this point. …Because you’re the protagonist now, Kaede.”

Kaede:  “What?”

“Makoto”:  “From here on, you’re the one who’s going to learn about this situation we’re in. You might feel despair… but I don’t want you to throw away hope!”

Oh man, the buzzwords. I’m pretty sure that even post-DR1-ending, despite literally being declared the Ultimate Hope, Makoto did not throw around these buzzwords as meaninglessly as this. This really is just someone desperately trying to sound like him, isn’t it.

It’s also very strange that apparently Makoto can’t be with her for the explanation of the killing game. You’d think, even if he already knew what was happening (which, fair enough, Makoto has done this before), he’d want to be there with Kaede to reassure her through the bad news. But he has to leave for no particular reason.

(Also, reminder, Kaede is the protagonist, you guys.)

Kaede:  (Protagonist? Hope? Despair? What does any of that mean?)

Heh, I like how she’s also bewildered by the sudden buzzwords and not just the protagonist part.

For some reason it’s only Kaede and not all the other students here getting this announcement about the killing game. I guess, since this is not remotely how it happens in canon, writing sixteen characters having new reactions to this would be too much of a pain for what’s only here to justify the demo having a trial.

It does also mean that most people – including Kaede herself, since Monokuma alone doesn’t count as a witness – don’t have alibis for the “murder” that’s about to happen.

Monokuma:  “While you live together, you’re all responsible for maintaining the harmony of the academy. But if someone was to disrupt that harmony…”

Geez, is this the game scrambling to justify the Killing Harmony subtitle again? I wonder what this was in Japanese. (But I’m not quite curious enough to actually check, because this is only the demo.)

Kaede:  “D-Don’t mess around with us! I would never… murder anyone!”

Hee, that’s also there even though this is the demo.

Monokuma:  “Don’t you see, Kaede? This is how your story begins.”

Kaede:  “‘My story’? What does that even mean?”

They really are dropping hints to the whole fiction thing even in the demo. Although, again, this doesn’t work so well in an in-universe sense because Keebo is the in-universe protagonist (and because Tsumugi was definitely planning to have Kaede get herself killed in the first chapter, probably largely for the sake of Shuichi’s story.)

Monokuma then tells Kaede to go and check out her room in the dormitory. It seems he already knows that she’s going to find someone dead in there.

Kaede’s door awkwardly has Makoto and Hajime’s portraits slapped onto it as well. Monokuma shows up to explain to her that this is the “Protagonists’ Room”, for all three of them! (Did you know Kaede is the protagonist.)

Once she goes inside, everything’s a mess, with slash marks all over the furniture and walls, kind of like in the first case in DR1.

And Yasuhiro Hagakure is dead in the shower with a kitchen knife in his stomach.

“Deadly Life”

Monokuma:  “Geez, this is like the second time he’s died already… Eh, you guys can just ignore that.”

As Monokuma cheekily alludes to here, this is an amusing little nod to the original demo of DR1. Apparently, to keep Sayaka’s death a surprise for the main game, they instead made Hiro the victim there. Looks like they decided to make him the victim again here!

Given the reality of the situation, this cannot really be Hiro, because he doesn’t exist. Which means that most likely, nobody is actually dead at all – this is just a Hiro cosplayer doing their best impression of a corpse.

Hajime is here to help investigate the dorm room. Kaito, Miu, Kirumi and Ryoma also show up in the room to investigate. (But apparently nobody else thought that confirming if a murder has really taken place and trying to figure out the culprit so they don’t get punished was important? Not even Shuichi?)

It’s also relevant to note that nobody looks very closely at Hiro’s “corpse” to confirm whether he’s actually dead.

Kaito:  “So does this mean someone believed that the only way to get out of here… was by killing someone?”

Ryoma:  “Hmph… The dead body is proof of that. There’s no way a body would end up quite like this by accident.”

Kaito:  “Damn it… why’d they kill him? Why didn’t they just talk things over with us?”

Kaede:  “Yeah, we haven’t searched the whole school yet. There could still be a way out of here.”

Kaito:  “Yeah, that’s exactly right! And they resorted to this, right off the bat… When we find the culprit, I’m gonna punch some sense back into them!”

I love how Kaito this is. He can’t get his head around the fact that anyone would give up so quickly. He realises that they most likely just did it because they were scared and wanted to escape and therefore it’s somewhat understandable, but even then, he can’t see why they would resort to it so soon without having tried every other possible option first, including talking to everyone else and trying to co-operate. He’s not angry at the culprit for being a cold-blooded killer, but rather for being so weak, in the sense that they didn’t even want to try and get stronger, and so they did something this awful out of cowardice.

And also look at him and Kaede clearly being on the same wavelength about working together to escape and not giving up!

Kaito doesn’t contribute any Truth Bullets to this investigation, but I’m delighted that he’s here in this room anyway so we could have this little insight into the way he thinks about things like this. This is nuanced enough that people playing this demo before the main game just to get a basic sense of the characters probably aren’t really going to think much of it – but it’s here anyway, because Kaito is this nuanced and complex of a character and he would react like this in this situation, regardless of how unnecessary him doing so is to the purpose of this demo. I love Kaito so much.

Ryoma:  “Going straight to an investigation? That’s pretty forward-thinking of you. Even if you’re used to seeing dead bodies, it’d be stupid not to feel anything.”

Meanwhile, Ryoma is already being perceptive and making observations about Kaede’s character, which is a very him thing to be doing.

Kaede:  “But we have to do this. I don’t want everyone else to die…”

Ryoma:  “Hmph… You’re rather motivated to stay alive. I wish I had… No, never mind.”

There’s also a little hint at Ryoma’s lack of motivation to live and desire to find one, which is neat!

(It’s a shame that, even though Kaito is also here and presumably overhearing this, he doesn’t comment. I’d have liked that a lot.)

The lack of any hair in the room was a clue in this case in DR1, but this time, there’s a single short brown hair here, about the colour and length of Makoto or Hajime’s. This is despite the fact that Hajime claims he’s never been in the room before now and that Kirumi cleaned all of the dorms shortly before the murder was discovered. Kaede also notes during this conversation that it’s odd she hasn’t seen Makoto since she went into the gym. Hmmm.

Just as Makoto finally shows up and is about to help Kaede investigate everywhere else, the Monokubs appear. They have not been in the demo until now. Why did they need to be in the demo at all. It would be a more favourable advertisement of the game to pretend they don’t exist, you know, demo writers! They literally do not contribute anything of value to the narrative by showing up here.

Kaito:  “Buncha cowards… Trying to interrupt my investigation with their stupid crap.”

Oh, Kaito. This is basically chapter 1 Kaito, who has no sidekicks yet and is instead desperately trying to feel like he can make a difference by doing something. Hence him making a point that this is his investigation. He leans towards this kind of attitude a couple of times in the main story, too, particularly in chapter 1 when he has no sidekicks, and in chapter 4 when he’s feeling like his support of his sidekicks isn’t enough and wants to be more of an action-oriented hero. This is bound to be the reason he’s here in this room at all despite not contributing anything to the player’s investigation – because he’s trying to do something about this, even though he doesn’t really know how!

Kaito:  “Whatever… If I get serious, I can solve this case in no time flat!”

I don’t like this, though. It implies that he’s currently not being serious and would ever willingly slack off from something this important. That’s not in character. Kaito is always trying his hardest and always wants people to know he’s trying his hardest; he’d never use “oh but I just wasn’t really trying” as an excuse for the gap between how much he wants to make a difference and how much he actually can. It reads like some writer is superficially trying to get across the fact that Kaito talks big without backing it up, without truly understanding why he’s that way and keeping it in line with that. It’s odd, since the conversation just earlier showed quite a nuanced understanding of Kaito’s character, as opposed to this.

(If I were playing this demo myself, I would immediately talk to Kaito again after this to see if he has anything else to say on this matter, but because I’m forced to use Youtube, I can’t see if he does. There are words that Kaito said that could have been interesting that I’m unaware of dammit this is why I’m mad I had to use Youtube for this. Admittedly it’s most likely just him repeating those lines, or continuing to be written badly… but what if it isn’t.)

Kaede asks Makoto where he went off to, and he claims he was wandering around the school trying to find a way out or at least a map to help Kaede out. That does not properly explain why he insisted he couldn’t come into the gym with her in the first place, but okay.

Hajime stays behind to guard the crime scene while Makoto accompanies Kaede out of the dorm to investigate elsewhere. Makoto is getting a lot more screentime than Hajime in this demo. Still more genwunners than twoers in this audience, apparently.

Maki:  “The crime occurred in the Protagonists’ Room. Stupid name aside, that’s your room, isn’t it?”

Aha, good old Maki, always Done™ with everyone’s nonsense.

Maki:  “I don’t intend to just go with the easiest answer… But at the same time… I have no reason to trust you guys either.”

This is very Maki, not wanting to trust people without a good reason but also not being so stupid and hasty as to jump to any conclusions just because she doesn’t trust anyone.

Himiko:  “Kaede, is it true? Did a murder really happen?”

Apparently some of these people really didn’t actually go and check out the body for themselves. You’d think they’d want to confirm it… but to be fair, it is very believable that Himiko in particular wouldn’t.

Kokichi:  “Why’d ya kill him, Kaede? Did you really wanna escape that badly?”

Of course this is Kokichi’s immediate greeting to Kaede upon seeing her during the investigation. Of course.

Kaede:  “N-No! I didn’t do anything!”

Kokichi:  “So you’re saying the culprit has to be either Makoto or Hajime… Because if you didn’t do it, then that’s what you’re getting at, right?”

And of course he’d also think that she’d happily turn on the two people apparently closest to her and throw them under the bus to protect herself.

He really does (most likely, not that you can ever be sure with him) seem to believe it’s one of the three of them simply because it was their room. Look who is jumping to conclusions because he doesn’t trust anyone.

(I should point out that the room was unlocked the entire time and so there is literally no concrete reason to suspect the room’s owners above anybody else.)

“Makoto”:  “Did you see Hiro?”

Tsumugi:  “No, I didn’t. I think I’d definitely remember seeing hair like his.”

If the students who aren’t in the room right now didn’t see the body, how does Tsumugi know what Hiro’s hair looks like? This might be a very subtle clue as to the mastermind’s identity, because of course Tsumugi would know what Hiro’s hair looks like anyway.

(I’d say that actually she could have seen him from the Monokuma File, but based on Himiko’s comment earlier, I’m not sure if everyone necessarily has a Monokuma File to even know for sure that someone’s dead?)

Shuichi:  “One of us killed Hiro… That’s what Monokuma said… But… I don’t think that’s the only possibility.”

Indeed it isn’t. There’s also the possibility that nobody killed anyone.

…I still don’t know why Shuichi isn’t in the dorm room to actually confirm whether or not Hiro is dead and do a proper investigation himself. Then again, if he did, we’d immediately know this class trial is bogus, so.

Kaede:  “Shuichi, do you suspect me, too?”

Shuichi:  “Ah, you don’t seem like the kind of person who would kill somebody… But… until I find evidence that proves you innocent…”

Kaede:  “That’s true…”

Shuichi:  “S-Sorry, it’s not that I *want* to suspect you, I just…”

Kaede:  “No, it’s fine… That’s what the Ultimate Detective is supposed to do…”

Aww, Shuichi. He’s caught between the part of him that hates suspecting and accusing people (even when he has no particularly strong reason to trust Kaede in this universe) and the detective side of him that knows it’s the right way to deal with this situation. I complained about him not investigating, but maybe it’s simply because he’s afraid to thanks to his issues, and without the bond with Kaede that he has in canon, he can’t overcome that fear and manage to investigate anyway. Shuichi really does only manage to be a hero with others’ help.

Kaede:  “Don’t worry about me, just do your best to investigate. That’s what’s going to save us.”

Shuichi:  “… …Okay.”

Kaede:  (Huh? That was a dull response… What happened?)

Kaede is noticing that he doesn’t seem enthusiastic about the idea of investigating to save them! A tiny, tiny little hint at his issues, since for the most part this demo really doesn’t want to focus on Shuichi at all. (Kaede is the protagonist, after all.)

During a conversation with Kiyo, he notices something about the way Makoto is talking about the investigation and trial.

Kiyo:  “…You speak as if you are familiar with the process, yes?

“Makoto”:  “That’s… also something that we can talk about later.”

…

Kaede:  (Does Makoto know something…? I can trust him… can’t I?)

Of course, this reads perfectly innocently to anyone who knows Makoto is the protagonist from a previous Danganronpa game, but it genuinely must look pretty suspicious to Kaede. It’s a big testament to her general optimism and belief in people that she does still trust him even after all this.

One of the knives in the kitchen went missing while Tenko and Himiko were having tea in the dining hall. This is still really brazenly ripping off the first case of the first game.

And that’s the whole investigation, so everyone abruptly assembles in the trialgrounds which are right behind the red door, no elevator or Shrine of Judgement or anything.

“Hajime”:  “Monokuma… I don’t know what you’re scheming, but… I won’t let you do whatever you want!”

Monokuma:  “You’re an upperclassman protagonist… I think you can come up with a better line than that.”

“Makoto”:  “Hajime’s right! You can’t just do whatever you want with their lives!”

Monokuma:  “Geez, that’s basically what Hajime just said! You two need punch-up writers or something! Whether this demo is exciting or not depends entirely on you!”

Bahaha, this is such a deliberate attempt at pandering on the parts of Makoto and Hajime’s cosplayers, and is also so blatantly Monokuma calling them out for being kind of bad at this.

They have an awkward situation with this trial, given that there’s eighteen students here and only sixteen podiums. Obviously the game devs didn’t want to remodel the trialgrounds to have two extra podiums just for the demo.

Monosuke:  “I know! Let’s just pick two people at random and rip ‘em apart with the Exisals!”

The Exisals have not been shown or otherwise mentioned in this demo. This line must rather confuse people seeing this before the main game.

Obviously there is no actual Exisal-murdering and two people simply have to sit out. Kokichi decides out of nowhere that Keebo should sit out because of course he does, lol Keebo’s not a person or anything, and then it conveniently turns out that Rantaro was with Keebo the whole time so they can vouch for each other not being the blackened and both safely not take part. Rantaro not being part of the demo trial is probably because he’s not a part of any trials in the main game either. Keebo sitting out is… just because Kokichi is a robophobic dick, apparently. (In an in-universe sense, you’d think Monokuma would have more of an issue with this, because isn’t Keebo supposed to be the audience’s camera? More indication that he really isn’t the only camera they have, then.)

Rantaro demands that at least he and Keebo are each allowed to ask one question at the end if they don’t agree with everybody else on who the blackened is, and that in doing so they could potentially restart the discussion. This doesn’t ever matter because the demo’s going to end before the trial reaches a conclusion, but it does show that Rantaro is a very smart and cautious person.

Kaito:  “I’ll be carrying your lives, too! I’ll definitely do something about all this!”

But don’t worry, Rantaro and Keebo, Kaito is going to do something about this! You know, about this whole trial. Of course he is. Definitely. Even though it’s just the demo and it doesn’t really matter, his tendency to insist this out of his desperation to be able to make a difference is still here and it’s great. I also love the way he says he’ll be carrying their lives. Like he’s bearing that burden for them.

Kaito:  “And don’t worry! We’ve got the Ultimate Detective on our side!”

Also this!!! Kaito doesn’t seem to have interacted with Shuichi at all this whole demo, but that’s not going to stop him from believing in him, because with a talent like that he’s bound to be awesome, right? It is very delightfully reminiscent of the main story that Kaito says this immediately after his own bold declarations. Despite his big words and how much he genuinely intends to do his best to fulfil them (because Kaito is always trying), he knows that Shuichi’s really the one most able to save them in this situation. Kaito’s relying on and believing in Shuichi’s ability to be the real hero here. I love this tiny tiny nod to their delightful friendship dynamic in canon.

Shuichi:  “Huh?”

Shuichi is not used to people believing in his detective skills. Kaito really does mean it even though he’s only just met you, Shuichi!

Class Trial

In the trial, Makoto has Rantaro’s podium and Hajime has Keebo’s. I’m quite surprised that they didn’t do it the other way around – Keebo is after all basically meant to be Robot Makoto, and that would have been one reasonable excuse for leaving him in particular out.

Things start with people throwing out some baseless ideas. Tenko of course decides someone male must have done it.

Shuichi:  “We can’t rule out suspects that way… We need to look at all the possibilities.”

Shuichi, at least, is being rational about this. He doesn’t say much in this demo, but what he does say is always quite sensible.

Tenko:  “Kiyo looks creepy! That’s suspicious enough for me!”

Aaaaagh coming from Tenko in particular that’s just painful. Demo why would you do this.

By the way, fun fact: the English voicework for this demo was almost certainly recorded after that for the main game. How do I know? Because of Kaito’s voice. For the earlier trials in the main game, Kaito’s voice sounds a lot rougher and growlier, which becomes less of a thing as the game goes on. It’s gradual enough that you don’t notice it while it’s happening, but going from trial 4 Kaito back to trial 1 Kaito gives quite a noticeable difference. I assume this is because his voice actor started out consciously trying to emulate his Japanese voice, which is indeed quite gruff, but then as things went along he got more into the character and developed his own instinctive feel for Kaito’s voice, one which wasn’t as growly as it started out. And here in the demo, Kaito’s voice isn’t growly at all; it sounds like his lines from trial 4, not trial 1.

(The voice actor getting more into the role has to be the only reason for the gradual shift, because really, in-universe, Kaito’s voice should have been subtly getting more rough and growly as time went by, thanks to his illness getting worse. It’d have been really fun if that had been a thing. Alas.)

Kaito:  “He didn’t even have a chance to resist!”

Like in the main game, Kaito is the first person to be refuted. In trials where Shuichi is his sidekick, Kaito doesn’t tend to make any arguments at all and just sits back and lets Shuichi handle it (with the exception of trial 4, for chapter 4 reasons). But in trial 1 he didn’t have a sidekick and was instead trying to feel useful by actually contributing to the discussion despite knowing he might be wrong, kind of like in trial 4.

In the actual trial 1 in the main commentary, I explained why Kaito wasn’t being stupid even though he was wrong, but in this instance, he has simply been very rudely handed the idiot ball. Kaito was one of the people who investigated the dorm room! He saw the signs of a struggle!

Obviously, this argument is also mirroring the very first argument you refute in this case in DR1. But then they should have given this line to someone who actually wasn’t in the room and didn’t see the state of it, of which there are plenty of options. In DR1, the person who makes this argument is Chihiro, who didn’t investigate the room out of fear – and in fact, him making this assumption despite not knowing the facts was likely a sign of his issues about feeling weak, because of course he’d have been afraid of being killed by someone stronger without even being able to fight back, so he projected that onto Sayaka.

But Kaito making this argument here? Doesn’t make any sense or have any good reason for it. They’re apparently trying to have Kaito be the first person to be refuted like he is in the main game (and perhaps for similar reasons), while also having the first refuted argument in this case be the same as it was in the DR1 case. Either callback (or call-forward) alone would be fine, but doing both of them at once does not work and ends up very uncharitable towards Kaito.

Kaito:  “Okay, so that room wasn’t such a mess to begin with, then.”

They try and justify this by having it so that apparently Kaito thought the room was always that messy, but no, that doesn’t justify anything. Sure, I can potentially imagine Kaito as someone with a messy room himself (though if so it’s probably the “organised chaos” type in which he knows where everything is even if nobody else would have a clue), but this was more than just a messy room here. There were slash marks everywhere! Things were outright broken! Kaito is not stupid, and it is very rude of the demo to twist him out of character in order to give people a first impression of him that makes him seem like he is.

Kaede:  (The two people who fought in that room were…)

-      Kaede and Shuichi

It’s ridiculous that the demo is making us do a multiple choice to figure out that Hiro fought with the culprit, what the hell, that’s a Psyche Taxi level of stupidly obvious question there… but it’s interesting that this is one of the obviously-wrong answers. There’s been absolutely no indication of any kind of connection between Kaede and Shuichi in the demo, except for this.

Kaede:  “Of course, it was Hiro and the culprit.”

Kaito:  “Huh!? Really!?”

No! Stop it! Stop making Kaito seem like an idiot! He is not stupid! This one doesn’t even have any kind of excuse of trying to be a call-forward to the main game! There is no reason for this!

Kaito, I am so sorry you got handed this idiot ball, please just throw it away and pretend you never saw it, you don’t deserve this.

Miu: “Who else would it be, dumbass!?”

If that was supposed to be setup to give someone an excuse to call Kaito an idiot for the further bad writing that’s about to ensue, then, this is still uncalled for. When people call Kaito an idiot, they are not meant to be actually literally right about it!

Kaito:  “Who you callin’ a dumbass!? I’m Kaito Momota, Luminary of the Stars!”

…

Kokichi:  “Hey, you two idiots over there… Stop chit-chatting and keep this discussion moving.”

Miu:  “Hey! Don’t lump me in with that idiot! You’re talkin’ to the gorgeous girl genius, Miu Iruma!”

Kokichi:  “Yup, you two should be lumped together. Your statements are on the same level.”

No, they really, really shouldn’t be, and this is still doing a horrible disservice to Kaito. Kaito usually reacts strongly to being called an idiot, sure, but he does not do so by talking himself up, because he is not actually insecure enough to need to “prove” he isn’t one (unlike Miu, whose boasts always reek of insecurity). Comparing him to Miu like this is making it look like Kaito only talks himself up to save face for himself and protect his own ego when it’s being battered, like she does, and that he actually is just a useless idiot beneath these empty words, especially when he really just was one thanks to that undeserved idiot ball. That is so incredibly not even remotely the point of Kaito’s character, oh my god. Please stop, demo. How can you get some of the Kaito parts so right but others so horrendously wrong.

(It makes me feel better to imagine that Kaito’s actual main writers, the ones who created a very carefully-crafted character arc full of all of his delightful issues and principles and complexities, were just, I dunno, on lunch break or something, and some clueless intern with only a very superficial knowledge of Kaito as “an idiot who talks big” got to write some of his lines here while they were out. That clueless intern is probably also the one responsible for the tiny handful of Misogyny Bullets that hit Kaito and briefly forced him out of character for one line each throughout the main story, right?)

Moving on, Kokichi begins making a big point of how he suspects everyone whom the room belonged to, because of course he does. (Look at him acting all high and mighty and more intelligent than the two supposed “idiots” and then immediately turning around and jumping to unfounded conclusions. Clearly the smartest way to handle a class trial there.)

“Makoto”:  “The discussion won’t move forward if we all just point fingers. Like Shuichi said, we need to talk about all the possibilities.”

He may just be an actor pretending to be Makoto, but he’s got a goddamn point. Kokichi’s accusation flinging is never actually helpful.

Kaito:  “Yeah, what he said! No way Kaede’s the culprit!”

Welcome back, Kaito, it’s good to see you again! This is a very Kaito thing for him to do. He’s barely spoken to Kaede or seen much of her in the demo, but he did have that conversation with her at the crime scene where she agreed that the culprit should have tried to work together to escape before giving up and resorting to murder. His instincts are telling him that she really meant that and really is this kind of person! He has a hunch, and he’s right, because his hunches always are!

Kokichi:  “Kaito! This trial won’t go anywhere if you don’t suspect anyone!”

And this is a character dynamic involving Kaito that’s actually correct and relevant in the main game such that it makes sense to hint at it in the demo, thank you.

Shuichi:  “What we have to determine now… is the murder weapon.”

And of course Shuichi is the one who’s focusing on the actual logic and getting the trial back on track instead of arguing. This was a very trial 4 exchange we just had here.

Despite Shuichi’s attempt at being sensible, everyone else then starts arguing over whether certain people could have killed him with their bare hands, because it seems that nobody who saw the body feels the need to tell them it was a goddamn knife and also apparently no-one read the Monokuma File. I guess at least Kaito smashed his idiot ball into several smaller pieces and shared it around the group.

Shuichi:  “There was no indication the body was punched. I don’t believe fists were the murder weapon.”

Shuichi I know you’re hesitant about doing this detective thing and you maybe didn’t go to the scene but you clearly read the Monokuma File just tell them it was a knife please.

Ryoma:  “Then our murder weapon is… the knife stabbed into his gut?”

THANK YOU RYOMA I don’t know why you didn’t say this sooner but.

Kaede:  (I wonder… Was the murder weapon lodged in Hiro’s abdomen really a knife?)

Yes, Kaede, it was a fucking knife! But apparently the game wants us to be more specific about the fact that it was a kitchen knife. I don’t know if this works better in Japanese in that the word for kitchen knife doesn’t include the word “knife”, but even if so, it is still a type of knife! This is something else that was an argument made in the original DR1 case – someone says the culprit used “some random knife they had on them”, and Makoto counters that it was a kitchen knife because the more relevant point is where it came from. So really, to make this be even remotely sensible here, that should also be the question Kaede is asking herself. Not was it even a knife. What the hell.

This is specifically an excuse to demonstrate the Mind Mine minigame, which is a pretty bad example of it because the other two images that are options in it aren’t even knives. Not that Mind Mine is ever really a super justified minigame that doesn’t point out something rather obvious, but.

Another thing I remember about the fan translation of this demo that I originally watched was that this part apparently made the translator flip tables, because they broke immersion to have Kaede’s line announcing her answer also include something to the effect of “oh my god Kaede I can’t believe you had to do a whole minigame just to figure out it was a kitchen knife what the hell”. Same, though, random fan translator from years ago. Same.

Kaito:  “Yeah, I caught a glimpse of it too… That was definitely a kitchen knife.”

Oh hey, look who’s capable of observing and understanding basic facts! Yes, hello, we would like to apologise for our previous misinformation and inform everyone that Kaito is, in fact, not stupid, please disregard everything you may have heard in the past few minutes implying that he is, thank you.

Shuichi:  “A knife… I do remember seeing a knife in the kitchen. That could be it.”

Angie:  “I see, I see… An excellent deduction from the Ultimate Detective. Well done.”

Yes, clearly, Shuichi is the only person in this room capable of realising that kitchen knives come from the kitchen. I know I said Kaito isn’t stupid, but he still obviously pales in comparison to this detective genius right here.

Shuichi:  “Ah, it’s not because I’m a detective… I’m still in training…”

Shuichi is also apparently the only person sensible enough to realise that it wasn’t even a clever deduction. This is supposed to be a hint at his insecurity, but also he’s just making a very valid point.

Maki:  “You really don’t need to be a detective to know that the knife came from the kitchen.”

Thank you, Maki, for being one of the only other sensible people here. God, Maki is always such a breath of fresh air.

Kokichi:  “Geez, who cares about the murder weapon?”

Kaito:  “What do you mean, ‘who cares’!?”

Kokichi:  “We can already guess who the culprit is. There’s a super-duper huge hint already.”

Yeah, who cares about actual concrete evidence when we can randomly sling accusations around based on completely circumstantial stuff! This is so very Kokichi. I also appreciate that Kaito’s the one to question him.

After some discussion in which the three protagonists insist it wasn’t them, led largely by Maki, who of course has no qualms about suspecting them even though she’s not going to conclude it definitely was them yet…

Kokichi:  “Ugh, I already told you it’s not Kaede. Suspecting her right off the bat is so mean!”

Of course, the demo’s got to also have some of Kokichi’s transparent two-faced insincerity in an attempt to make everyone else’s belief in and defense of each other sound hollow and empty. Wouldn’t be Kokichi without that.

Kaito:  “Hey! You’re the one who brought it up!”

And Kaito’s the one to call him out on that, because of course he should be!

“Makoto”:  “We need to talk this over more to uncover the truth. This is a test.”

Kaede:  “Huh?” (This is a test…?)

The way it lingers on that comment makes it seem relevant. Maybe this is just another nod to this being a demo, which is meant to “test” players’ skills in preparation for the main game. Which could also potentially be the idea in-universe, if this is indeed being done as a test-run before they wipe everyone’s memories of this and put them in the real killing game (though as I said before, this still can’t have been quite what happened in real canon given the whole pregame reset thing).

Gonta:  “Gonta not good at tough subjects… but Gonta will work hard for everyone’s sake!”

Kaede:  “That’s right! We need to work together so we can overcome this class trial!”

Yaaaay, Gonta. He hasn’t really done much of note in this demo but he’s still here and doing his best! And also here’s some Kaede being very herself.

“Makoto”:  “Everything’s gone smoothly so far, but…”

Kaede:  “Huh? Did you say something, Makoto?”

“Makoto”:  “No… it’s nothing.”

Hah, Makoto really is acting quite suspiciously now, isn’t he.

Ryoma:  “Either way, we’ve got three main suspects now…”

No, we haven’t, we only ended up on this topic because of Kokichi’s random accusation slinging, can we get back to talking about the knife, please. Ryoma, you are meant to be smarter than this.

Kaito:  “It’s not any of them! I believe in these guys!”

Oh, Kaito. I’m a little more surprised that his intuition is giving him a fully positive read on “Makoto” and “Hajime”, but he hasn’t interacted with them that much either and their acting has been fine so far and made them seem superficially heroic, so, eh, fair enough.

Shuichi:  “If we can determine who took the murder weapon from the kitchen… that would clear Kaede of suspicion.”

Yes, thank you, let’s talk about the evidence. Shuichi’s is always the most sensible voice in the room. I also like how he’s thinking of it as clearing Kaede of suspicion – he really doesn’t want to think she did it.

Kirumi:  “First, we should listen to Kaede and the others’ testimonies.”

This whole thing of awkwardly veering the topic onto these three suspects in particular (thanks to our convenient Kokichi in the room just wanting to be overly suspicious of everyone) is actually an excuse to demonstrate a Mass Panic Debate. Which is a horrendously bad example of one of these. They’re supposed to happen when people get so riled up at being suspected that they all talk over each other, but Kaede, Makoto and Hajime have been quite calm and level-headed about this, and each happily agree to Kirumi’s suggestion to let them testify. So they shouldn’t need to talk over each other!

And then, to make things even more confusing and distract even more from what’s supposed to be the point of a Mass Panic Debate, Monokuma and his cubs awkwardly interrupt to declare that Kaede can’t participate and they’re arbitrarily going to make someone else testify about their alibi instead of her. This is of course because Kaede is the protagonist and so can’t participate in a playable debate, and it’s also because the person they’re having testify instead is someone who actually has testimony about who took the knife and is therefore the relevant thing to shoot at. But my god, does this end up giving a completely unclear and misleading impression of what a Mass Panic Debate is even supposed to be for. When I first saw this demo, I remember being confused as hell and thinking it was pointlessly gimmicky to have three Nonstop Debates at once for no apparent reason. It completely fails to communicate the idea that these are supposed to be less about the gameplay and more about narrative tension (even if only one of the Mass Panic Debates in the main game really pulls that off to its full potential).

The third testimony in question is from Himiko, who was having tea with Tenko when somebody took the knife. Specifically, she was lecturing Tenko about the difference between real magic and a magic trick, because of course she was. It’s cute that Tenko was happy to listen to her.

Tenko doesn’t know who it was who came in, because it was a dude, and so, being Tenko, she didn’t pay him any attention beyond that. This jogs Himiko’s memory, though…

Himiko:  “Nyeh… now that I think about it, someone was in the kitchen. Someone who’s no longer with us…”

…and then she decides to tell us all who it was in the vaguest possible way instead of just saying “it was Hiro” or “it was the victim”. Which is in fact a very transparent way to shoehorn in, drumroll please, the actual stupidest Psyche Taxi segment in the game, for real this time! At least if you count the demo as part of this game.

Credit to them, they actually did put Kaede in the car and not Shuichi. I think  her car might be a little different, too? The idea of driving through Vegas to pick up sex workers is… basically just as out-of-character for Kaede as it was for Shuichi, given that she’s a huge piano nerd without many friends, not that that part of her character has been illustrated at all in the demo. (She’s still picking up women, but then there are a few comments Kaede makes that strongly hint she’s bi, so hey.)

The two (at least it’s only two; even they couldn’t stretch this out into three or four) questions asked here are: “Who is not here?” [Victim/Culprit] and then “Who is the victim of this case?” [Hajime/Hiro/Makoto]. Yup, they actually thought those were questions that anyone ever would have to think about at all.

…I mean, they probably didn’t really. And to be fair, this is pretty similar to how stupid actual Psyche Taxis are, so, uhh, representative demo gameplay???

Kaede:  “Are you saying Hiro’s the one who went into the kitchen?”

Because obviously Kaede had to drive a taxi through her mind to figure this out, and nobody else in the room figured it out in less time than it took her to do that. And she also couldn’t possibly have just asked Himiko to clarify who she meant in the first place.

But hey, the one who took the knife from the kitchen was in fact the victim. More references to the DR1 case! I wonder if we’re supposed to think that Hiro was secretly planning murder and not just taking it for self-defence. Honestly I wouldn’t entirely put that past him; if anyone would be the kind of coward looking for an easy way out that Kaito was denouncing back in the investigation, he seems a reasonable candidate for it.

Having realised that the one who took the knife isn’t the culprit after all, suspicion falls back on the three protagonists, particularly Kaede as she discovered the body.

“Makoto”:  “No, that’s wrong!”

“Hajime”:  “Yeah! You’ve got that wrong!”

Monokuma:  “Oh? The two leads just said their catchphrases! Finally, this is getting exciting!”

Man, this is apparently some genwunner-audience-shallowness worthy of trial 6 if they’re supposed to think that a couple of people just yelling “no, that’s wrong!” somehow makes things the height of entertainment. Admittedly the rest of the trial has not exactly been riveting, but still.

“Makoto”:  “Kaede… don’t give up hope. Keep going and you’ll be able to reach the truth!”

He can’t just tell her to not give up – he has to throw in that buzzword and make sure everyone knows that this is about hope. Look, guys, he’s totally Makoto.

Kaede:  “But, how do I prove my innocence?”

“Hajime”:  “That’s…”

…But neither of them actually know how to do this and are just spouting meaningless protagonisty lines.

Kokichi:  “Fine! I guess my decisive testimony will help us find our culprit!”

Oh boy, it’s Kokichi Making Everything About Himself time.

Gonta:  “You know who culprit is? That means everyone not have to get punished!”

Aww, Gonta. Look at him naively believing everything Kokichi says, this is totally not foreshadowing for anything important and tragic in the main game, not at all.

A couple of the other slower characters also go welp, great, this means the trial can be over soon.

Shuichi:  “Kokichi… if you had information like that, why didn’t you tell us sooner?”

Kokichi:  “Well, if I said something that important right away, that wouldn’t be much fun.”

But at least Shuichi is still being the most sensible and realising exactly what is so fishy about this. (This is also the question he has to worry about himself with regards to his own lies that he tells in canon.)

Kokichi’s response is “lol, for fun”, though, because of course it is, and that is exactly what he would do if this testimony he’s about to give weren’t a lie. Especially considering that that’s the usual reason why he really does frequently withhold important information from everyone else in canon.

Kokichi:  “Anyway… the culprit is Makoto.”

From just the text alone, this could seem like it’s deliberately being reminiscent of Kokichi’s “Well, then… the culprit is Gonta” line in canon. But alas, the delivery is completely different – which I guess is fair enough, since here he’s just lying.

Kaede:  “Huh? Wh-What are you saying?”

“Makoto”:  “…”

Interestingly, Makoto doesn’t immediately try to deny this.

Regardless, Kaede decides she’s going to believe in Makoto, and so she’s going to lie for him. Finally, a mechanic introduced in this demo that, A, is an actually interesting new mechanic and not a pointless minigame, and, B, is represented properly!

(There’s no Debate Scrum in this demo, sadly. I’d say it’s because they couldn’t come up with a proper excuse for one, but honestly they could probably have scraped together a short one about whether or not Makoto did it, similar to the one about Shuichi in canon.)

Kokichi:  “I saw Makoto leave that room by himself! I swear!”

Wow, that totally doesn’t sound like a lie at all.

“Makoto”:  “I didn’t go into that room even once… so Kokichi must be mistaken.”

“Kokichi is lying.”

There’s eight different white noise lines for this last statement, most of which are quite easily identifiable. Even though this one is less obviously so, I bet it’s Maki. It sounds like her.

So Kaede lies that she was with Makoto the entire time until the body discovery.

Kokichi:  “Hmmm… Kaede, you’d rather choose a lie than the truth, just to protect Makoto?”

Kaede:  “Do you have any proof to show that I’m lying, Kokichi?”

Kokichi:  “Nope, none at all. I lied about seeing Makoto.”

Welp, that didn’t last long at all.

Kaito:  “Why you…? Don’t mess with us!”

Again I love that Kaito is the one to call him out on this! He hates that someone would be this insincere and selfishly mess with their lives just for his own petty entertainment.

Kokichi:  “I just wanted Makoto to talk, so I simply tricked him into speaking.”

Kaito:  “Why beat around the bush like that?”

This is so Kaito – he’s not using the word here, but this is his concept of manliness! Don’t beat around the bush, just come straight out and tell people what you want from them! If he wanted Makoto to testify, he should have just asked him instead of being insincere and indirect and manipulating him into it.

Kokichi:  “Cuz it’s still not clear where Makoto was before and after the indicent, right? Aw maaaan… I totally thought Makoto would talk if we started accusing him.”

And your lie didn’t help us clear anything up any more than just asking him directly would have done, so good fucking job, as usual. It almost seems like Kokichi’s actually acknowledging here that his lie didn’t work, but really he’s probably telling himself it totally would have worked if Kaede hadn’t jumped in with her own lie, because Kokichi can never be wrong about anything.

Some of the others point out that Kaede is also lying because she was on her own shortly after the body discovery and it’s weird that she and Makoto would split up after finding a body. Since Kaede’s lie is so provably false, it’s surprising to me that Kokichi backed down so soon on his own lie rather than just trying to disprove Kaede’s. Maybe his actual intent was that he thought Kaede was the culprit and expected her to throw Makoto under the bus to protect herself, and then when she didn’t, he realised she’s probably innocent and backed off? Maybe? But then again, Kokichi expects people to throw others under the bus to protect themselves even when they are innocent, like he was trying to get Kaito to do to Maki in trial 2, so, eh, I kinda doubt he’d see anyone not doing that as actual proof of anything. There’s too much selflessness and trust involved in that idea.

Gonta:  “Huh? Kaede… tell lie?”

Aww, Gonta.

Kaede:  (I need to be more convincing if I want them to believe me. I’ll remember that next time I need to lie… Of course, I hope that time never comes.)

Heh, that sure is a rather transparently this-is-just-a-demo thing for her to be thinking.

Kaito:  “We just got dragged around by Kokichi’s lies… We didn’t clear a single thing up!”

Exactly! God I love like 80% of the Kaito in this demo. All of the bits that aren’t horrendously out of character are so wonderfully him.

Everyone awkwardly laments that they still don’t have any more of a clue who did it other than maybe the three owners of the room and maybe in particular Kaede for no good reason. (Come on, guys, the rooms weren’t locked, literally anybody could have seen Hiro wandering into that room and taken their chance to kill someone.)

“Makoto”:  “It can’t end like this. No one wants an ending like that.”

Wow, that is so hilariously trial 6 of him. I am very sure the demo writers are doing this on purpose at this point.

Hajime decides he can prove it wasn’t Kaede, so he starts talking in very vague terms about “it” that was on the floor in the dorm, and something off about the crime scene. I’m not sure what the latter thing he’s supposed to be referring to is – Kaede’s comments in the investigation suggested there was supposedly something suspicious about the blood on the knife handle, so it might be that, but I couldn’t tell myself what was off about it. (There might not even be anything off about it, because this is about to go precisely nowhere. Then again, maybe it was the fact that it’s actually a prop knife because “Hiro” wasn’t really dead? Although “Hajime” probably wouldn’t want that to be known, would he.) The former thing is clearly the short brown hair found on the floor after Kirumi had cleaned, which suggests it is not Kaede but is instead either Makoto or Hajime.

But before Kaede can actually properly mention either of these things Hajime is vaguely alluding to, Monokuma interrupts and declares that the demo is over, and the trial abruptly ends.

So we never actually find out who supposedly killed Hiro – but I think the clues make it pretty clear that it was supposed to be Makoto.

On my first time seeing the demo, I was certain it couldn’t be Makoto because I already implicitly trusted that he’d never kill anyone. But that’s only if it was the real Makoto. Since this is just a cosplayer, and this is just a show being put on by Team Danganronpa for some very superficial demo entertainment, anything goes. I can totally see them pulling out the shocking twist that Makoto murdered someone, just for the hell of it.

All the clues point to Makoto – the hair that’s either his or Hajime’s, his extremely unexplained disappearance, plus a couple of moments in which he acted quite suspiciously, such as the way he didn’t immediately fervently plead his innocence when Kokichi claimed he had proof. And even if it had actually been a real murder, none of the people here who are real people and not cosplayers just acting would snap and give up that quickly on getting out of here without resorting to such drastic measures, just like Kaito said.

Then, right at the end of the demo, over a blank screen, there’s this.

“Makoto”:  “Hey, how was… our acting?”

Monokuma:  “Puhuhu, it wasn’t too shabby! I especially liked how convincingly you wasted everyone’s time!”

“Hajime”:  “I was a little worried about the end there… Hope it was exciting enough. Welp, since we got through it smoothly, that’s it for today!”

Monokuma:  “Smell ya later!”

“Makoto”:  “Good job, everyone!”

“Hajime”:  “Good job! See ya!”

…………

“Hiro”:  “Heeey! Wait for meee!”

This sure is a thing. I’d actually forgotten this bit was here while coming up with my theory that the Makoto, Hajime and Hiro we see in this demo are just cosplayers and nobody died – and this basically completely proves that this idea really was what the out-universe writers were going for here.

On a first viewing of this demo without having seen the main game, Makoto asking about their acting would potentially just seem like him referring to how he and Hajime hid the fact that they’d already been in another killing game – and, perhaps, the fact that they knew Hiro wasn’t really dead and this was all staged. But even then, it’s kind of odd that they’re asking this to Monokuma, like they’re in league with him, which doesn’t seem right for them at all.

But it makes every single bit of sense after finishing the main game if you assume that they really were cosplayers just putting on this demo as a teaser for the in-universe audience. When “Makoto” asks about their acting, he’s asking if they were convincing enough as Makoto and Hajime in the first place. They work for Team Danganronpa, so of course they’re in league with Monokuma and having a casual conversation with him. And everything about the way they’re talking comes across like actors or directors being all “welp, that’s a wrap, good job out there on set today, guys, we sure made an entertaining show!”

This bit didn’t need to be in the demo at all, but it’s really fun that they put it here anyway. It’s a very subtle, cheeky little hint to the real truth of everything that nobody’s going to be able to piece together without already knowing the truth and is just going to assume is meaningless demo shenanigans until then.

Also, while obviously nobody actually died, Team Danganronpa was still presenting a fiction in which Hiro totally did die, and within that fiction they apparently still totally had it in mind that Makoto killed him. They didn’t really have to hint towards anyone having done it at all, but they still had Makoto’s actor go out of his way to put in deliberate hints that it was him. I wonder how many of the audience picked up on the hints, and how shocked they were if they did. Gasp, their precious Makoto did a murder!! How could he fall to despair like this!?

[shslstraws]

Hi, you don't have to answer this question! But I'm very curious, mainly cause I want to hear your opinion on them. But, what's your thoughts on Ryoma Hoshi? ^^

Heyya! I’ve been meaning to get around to this actually, I love questions like this! 

Ryoma Hoshi! I think he’s a great character! When I was about to start NDRV3, I saw Ryoma and went, “oh great, a small perverted character who is for comedy relief probably” like the typical ones you see in anime and stuff like that. Like Teddy from Persona 4, for example. 

BUT BOY WAS I PROVEN WRONG RIGHT AWAY 

And I’m glad they didn’t go that route and made Ryoma entirely different. Just goes to show; don’t judge a book by it’s cover. I would say the same thing for  Gonta, bc he looked very intimidating, but he’s just a gentleman. Gentle giant,, 

Before officially giving my thoughts on Ryoma, I spent a while researching and watching the free time events on him, so here’s my thoughts; 

At first, meeting Ryoma was surprising in the prologue; 1. he had a deep voice. 2. Ultimate Tennis Pro who states that he’s no longer that ultimate but “his empty shell” And me, being like, “dam, that’s edgy” and the more and more “edgy” he got for me as the story continued on, with him trying to sacrifice himself so everyone doesn’t get killed in Chapter 1. The whole argument in the cafeteria with Rantaro, yanno. But at that point, I stopped seeing Ryoma as this “edgy character” but as a character who is,,,just sad. Especially when this is his reason, HE should be the one to be sacrificed. 

Which no one should take lightly, and there is a reason this character THINKS he has no reason to live anymore. We go into chapter 2, and when Ryoma states he wants to see his motive video and Kaito gets angry bc he perceives Ryoma as someone who has no will to live. And interesting how Ryoma reacts to this as, “No will to live? Hmph. if that how you see me, then so be it”. Which is kind of a different tone to in the first chapter when he stated he had no reason to live. 

But, how I see it, there’s a difference between Ryoma’s REASON to live and his WILL to live. You get more into Chapter 2, and Ryoma shows signs of actually not planning to throw his life away, and you get more attached and understanding to Ryoma. He even states, “I’m not stupid enough to throw my life away.” and when Gonta spots Shuichi and Ryoma, Ryoma escapes before saying to Shuichi, “sorry, but there’s still things I got to do.” There is a WILL to live from Ryoma, but it’s often shadowed by his reasons to live. 

Now, we go into the backstory; Ryoma had a future bright ahead of him. With a promising career with the profession he loved, Tennis. And Ryoma even had a girlfriend when he was in America for “studying tennis” aboard. Ryoma says he never believed in love until her, so this relationship must have really meant A LOT to Ryoma. The mafia invited Ryoma to an underground tennis competition, where the rich bet on who will win, etc. He didn’t want to at first, but the mafia was just persistent, so he eventually accepted. The matches were fixed though and Ryoma won against the opponent he was SUPPOSE to lose to. Just to get the mafia ruin for their reputation. Ryoma states that he was VERY naive back then. Which makes sense for a young teen suddenly put in this frustrating position, where all Ryoma knows is to play tennis the way he knows how and loses. But he’s an ultimate, he’s not suppose to lose. But that doesn’t mean Ryoma did this intent bc he was salty or whatever. It was just very unfair and probably felt dirty to him, just no respect in tennis (if that makes sense), so of course he’d win on purpose just to resent the mafia. But due to lack judgement before making this decision, Ryoma would learn to regret this decision. As the mafia MASSACRED his family for revenge. Which is REALLY brutal. 

You find this out in Ryoma’s free time events, after getting a third friendship fragment. The only one in Ryoma’s life, was his girlfriend. But for her safety, Ryoma told her to run away, but the mafia found and killed her. At the end of the fourth free time event, Ryoma says that he should have stayed with her then that way “she wouldn’t have been alone.” Ryoma blames himself for the deaths of the people he loved and who ever loved him. And rightfully too, but it doesn’t mean everything was his fault. He just carries the burden and wanted to get revenge; which is why he killed the entire mafia. (Which I still find weird how he can with tennis but he is an ultimate) 

With more burden to carry with lives he took away, and Ryoma was on death row until he got put into the killing game. I can imagine all the hopes, dreams, or whatever leave once you’re told you’re set to die. And you wouldn’t even bother caring if there was “nothing to live for” which being Ryoma’s family and lover. No wonder Ryoma was willing to give his life away in the first chapter, Ryoma was told he would die before this and being put in a killing game?? He’s going to die either way, so he felt the need to sacrifice himself as something he can maybe repent or not be alone anymore. But whether Ryoma tried to push or suppress and even put on a mask, Ryoma still had a WILL to live. He still had the passion of tennis, but suppress those emotions as punishments for his wrongdoings. And that’s a lot to do to yourself. Ryoma denied this will to live, but maybe started to accept it. Especially after Kaede’s death and her hopes to escape with everyone. 

And later on, he sees everyone (including Shuichi, who Ryoma knew was the most affected by Kaede’s death) try to go on and escape. Then it’s a given that Ryoma starts to try and find a REASON to keep his WILL to live. That’s why he’s so desperate for his motive video as well. To find someone cares for him, it’s not like he had family ALIVE for the motive to give Ryoma “the most important IN HIS LIFE”. Because the most important people to him in his entire life have died. Perhaps he was just trying to find maybe one survivor of his family in the motive video, or maybe big hopes to see his lover there. But when he saw no one, it just confirmed that everyone he cared for is dead. 

Ryoma is a sad character when you go in depth, he’s a person who had everything and lost everything over one mistake. And blames himself, carries the burden, and is told he is going to die. There is a lot on this character’s shoulders, it’s a shame he went the way he did. But in the end, when he lost all hope, he still thought of others than himself. Kirumi had everything to live for, and Ryoma had nothing left. Nothing left that he saw anymore, but I believe he could have a reason to live. HONESTLY, IF THERE WAS NO KILLING GAME EVERYONE WOULD BE HAPPY, YEAH? But with Ryoma, these were friends that were starting to help him find importance in his life and I can definitely see everyone helping Ryoma get back into tennis. Something he loves. (Especially Kaito, I see Kaito really pushing trying to get Ryoma back into it if he can haha) 

Ryoma is definitely an interesting character with a tragic backstory. But still had strength left in him, and wanting a reason to keep his small bit of will to live. Ryoma deserves a lot of love,,, 

Oh!

Interesting take, Ryoma looks at Shuichi at a new light in Chapter 2. He goes on to even say this; 

“It’s like your eyes have stopped focusing on the past…” 

Perhaps Ryoma saw himself in Shuichi once Kaede died, someone who was close to Shuichi in Chapter 1. Shuichi lost someone he cared for, like Ryoma did. WOULDN’T SAY ROMANTICALLY BUT I KNOW THE GAME PUSHES FOR SAIMATSU. I do like Saimatsu, but I always like “whatever ppl ship him with here teehee” So for here, Ryoma just saw some resemblance, and probably figured Shuichi was going to lose hope like he did when losing someone. But Shuichi learns to move on for Kaede’s sake. (And the rest who died, in the upcoming chapter, he states that they should all live for the people who died, and amen. I’ll drink to that, Shuichi) Shuichi hasn’t fully stopped focusing on the past at this point of the game, Chapter 2, but Ryoma sees he’s trying. And probably gives him more thoughts on maybe,, he should let go of the past too. 

[natsumiheart]

100 reasons why I (personally) OTP Oumasai:

Warning: this is an extremely long post.

1. In the beginning of the game Shuichi normally didn't talk much during introductions, let alone be the one to start talking without being addressed to, but when Kokichi revealed his ultimate, he actually got curious and jumped in asking about his organization.

2. It is proven that he really was interested in it as he asks about it later in Kokichi's free time events.

3. Kokichi was interested in Shuichi at first because he was a detective and he wanted to see if he can see through his lies, but then got attached to him because "he couldn't figure him out".

4. Kokichi was probably amused by how nice he was to him (by actually approaching him and hanging out with him) compared to the others.

5. In chapter 2 Shuichi woke up to find Kokichi above him, saying that he's glad he's finally awake (makes me wonder if he got worried when Gonta came in with an unconscious Shuichi, and if he stayed by his side the whole time).

6. At multiple points in the game, Shuichi actually comments on how innocent Kokichi looks compared to his words, saying he can't get mad at him because he looks like he means no malice, then says "but that might just be another lie..."

7. During the free time events, Kokichi literally plays 100 rounds of Rock Paper Scissors with Shuichi because he wants to show him that he actually does not want him to die or to hurt him in general.

8. And probably because he genuinely has fun hanging out with him, even if it means playing the same game 100 times and getting the same result on purpose (and Shuichi did not stop either!)

9. The freaking fact that he hurt himself on purpose to lose and let Shuichi "win".

10. THE FREAKIN FACT SHUICHI IMMEDIATELY GOT WORRIED AND WENT TO TEND HIM FRANTICALLY.

11. The fact Kokichi was laughing "like he was having the time of his life" (as Shuichi said) the whole time Shuichi was taking care of him.

12. "I stole your heart so now I'm satisfied!"

13. The persona freakin vibes, the detective Conan freakin vibes. THE PHANTOM THIEF AU.

14. THEIR FREAKING DYNAMIC.

15. The fact that Kokichi's free time events were one big scheme to make Shuichi think about him.

16. When Kaede hung out with Kokichi, she got pissed in the end and the FTE ended with a warning from Kokichi. But with Shuichi, it ended with such a heartwarming note because Shuichi was patient with him and actually cared for him and worried about him.

17. Kokichi called Kaede and Rantaro his beloved once in chapter 1 after they were dead, but called Shuichi his beloved from chapter 2 onwards in front of him.

18. PROBABLY TO MAKE SURE THAT SHUICHI NEVER REALISES THAT HE MEANS IT CAUSE HE WILL THINK EVERYTHING HE SAYS IS A LIE.

19. Shuichi is the only one, and I repeat the only one who thinks twice about Kokichi's lies. And I quote him saying multiple times "he's lying about lying..."

20. Whenever Kokichi has evidence the one he always reaches out to is Shuichi. During trials and investigations.

21. Shuichi is onto him during the trials and acknowledges how much of a help he is. One time he said "maybe I should thank him later" but then backtracked.

22. In chapter 4 Kokichi referred to Shuichi with the phrase "Suki ni natta hito" "the person I fell in love with" while alone. and it's not even a bonus scene or event, the line is 100% canon and the player will come across it no matter what.

23.The👏angst👏starts👏in👏chapter👏four👏where👏kokichi👏decides👏to👏cut👏his👏ties👏with👏everyone👏including👏his👏beloved👏

24. But how does he do that? By trash talking the hell out of Shuichi's best friend in front of him, because he knows what pisses Shuichi off. Kokichi is not stupid, if he truly wanted Shuichi to trust him he wouldn't trash talk his friend. A part of him must have wanted Shuichi to be his ally, but it wasn’t possible after he told him to stop hanging around Kaito.

25.  His clinginess in chapter 4 was probably him trying to make use of the time he has left with Shuichi before it all crashes down. That’s why he talked to him after the murder has happened. He realized he didn’t want Shuichi questioning his actions.

26.  His worried face when he said he would cry if something happened to his Saihara chan.

27. The fact that their relationship wouldn’t be so pure because of the love hotel-

28. Kokichi was constantly worried about Kaito influencing Shuichi negatively and tried to drop him hints multiple times that sometimes believing in each other and working together might get them all killed.

29. The fact Kokichi freaking called Shuichi the Japanese sweet "Shumai" just like Kaito calls Maki "Harumaki" IS REALLY HECKIN ADORABLE AND VALID.

30. It just seems like they are both very interested in each other. Like they are each other's puzzle. They want to know more about each other.

31. And honestly, their relationship is just so very cute.

32. Kokichi's interest in Shuichi, says a lot about him.

33. And let's talk about something... Kokichi has always been treated like shit in the killing game by his friends. No one trusted him, everyone turned on him when Rantaro accused him of wanting to play the killing game because he suggested not doing the death road of despair. And he took all the blame to stop Kaede from basically torturing everyone by forcing them to try again and again. And he always brushed it off whenever they said anything mean to him. So why do you think he had such a strong reaction (for someone like Kokichi) when Shuichi said "you're alone and you always will be"?

34. Kokichi had planned to make Shuichi hate him cause he was planning to impersonate the mastermind, he needed to cut his ties with everyone. So when he did so with Shuichi, and with his best friend and probably the only person he can trust in the killing game getting killed. It became too much for him so he booked it out. Ah the angst.

35. Later in the game, Shuichi calls Kokichi his friend. And want do friends do? Stay by each other's side.

36. And then the salmon team ending comes along and wraps it all by making the ending theme "staying by each other's side"

37. "you want to know more about me right? Then you should stay by my side." "Kokichi's right... I want to know more about him."

38. In the ending of the FTE's Shuichi says "I reach out my hand to Kokichi, but he doesn't take it" but then at the end of the salmon team ending he says "I reach out and grasp the hand reached out to me"

39. "Kokichi can lie about a lot of things, but he can't lie about the warmth of his hand."

40. THE DATES ARE ADORABLE THEIR INTERACTIONS ARE ADORABLE THE FTES ARE ADORABLE THE SALMON TEAM ENDING IS ADORABLE.

41. "Maybe you and I were lovers in a past life!"

42. Pregame👏oumasai👏is👏beautiful👏 (when people don't make it abusive holy shit yall need Jesus)

43. "SAIHARA CHAN!" "SAIHARA CHAN!" "SASUGA SAIHARA CHAN!!!!" 😂

44. Kokichi saw Shuichi as himself in the love hotel, his ideal version of Shuichi is Shuichi himself, NO CHANGES.

45. And the game makes it pretty clear that he saw HIS beloved, by all the connections between stuff he said in the hotel and stuff he said out of the hotel.

46. In chapter 3 if you decide to talk to Kokichi before checking in on Kaito, There is a really interesting conversation between them. Kokichi saying he would rather have Kaede come back to life because it would make Shuichi happy.

47. He also says that he loves Shuichi and is always thinking about him, but then he says its a lie. But the funny thing is, in the love hotel he actually says the exact same thing- and he has no control over the love hotel, everything there is g e n u i n e.

48. Kokichi's love hotel scene had the most voiced lines, I wonder why? 👀

49. Kokichi literally pushed Shuichi onto a bed, in a freaking love hotel.

50. "that means, you can do anything you want to me, and that's the truth"

51. The thing that makes Kokichi's love hotel the most interesting isn't only because he literally was with the person he was in love with, but it's also because it is implied that Kokichi is playing Shuichi's ideal instead.

52. KOKICHI FREAKIN GOT OVERWHELMED OVER HIS OWN FEELINGS BECAUSE HE HAS A HARD TIME TRUSTING PEOPLE AND RAN AWAY FROM HIS OWN FANTASY OMFG.

53. "I caught myself wishing he would stay before I smothered the thought"

54. Kokichi has a hard time trusting people but had Shuichi labeled as "trustworthy?" on the whiteboard in his room.

55. His "will" was literally directed towards Shuichi, even Maki knew because she went to Shuichi and gave it to him saying "I think this is for you".

56. Shuichi was the one to clear Kokichi's name from ultimate despair.

57. He seemed really interested in what was going through Kokichi's head the entire game.

58. The fact that Kokichi helped Shuichi so much, with literally ending the game even after he's dead.

59. They would make an amazing investigation team together....

60. Their interactions in the drv3 comic anthology are really freaking precious.

61. They feel valid but not forced at the same time. Just showing that they get along really well, without any repetition.

62. The fact that the comic anthology confirmed that Shuichi tries to calm Kokichi down whenever he's fake crying even though he knows it's fake...

63. It reminds me of how in the game he stated multiple times "maybe I should make sure he's alright"

64. And that one section that focused on Shuichi and Kokichi, where Shuichi was trying to use a lie detector that Miu made to know when Kokichi is lying.

65. Kokichi let him use it on him for a while until Shuichi asked about the organization to get information XD

66. That just shows again how Shuichi is interested in Kokichi and his organization and wants to figure him out. The same way Kokichi finds him tricky and wants to figure HIM out.

67. They look really good together! The height difference for example! Its legit perfect, not too much and not too low.

68.  Kokichi wearing mostly white while Shuichi wears mostly black. and that’s a bit interesting cause normally white is given to represent the pure and helpful characters while black is normally given to represent the dark “evil” characters. but here Kokichi who is trusted by no one and paints himself as the bad guy is wearing white, and Shuichi who everyone blindly believes in and trust is wearing black, makes you think, doesn’t it?

69.  The dark blue and purple aesthetic...

70. Their characters are meant to parallel each other with the truth and lies theme, and the game makes that very clear to the player. but sometimes they step in each others territory, where Shuichi has to lie at least once in every trial to progress, and Kokichi hiding a lot of truths in his lies to make everyone confused and not trust him. to me this dynamic between them is very interesting.

71. The fanfictions and fanart are adorable fight me, some people can write their relationship so freakin well? What are you people???? Gods?? Because it sure seems like it.

72. It has the right amount of angst and fluff for a ship, it has everything I've wanted in a ship, I love it.

73. The thief and the detective... Lies and truths... Good shit.

74. Kokichi looks really freaking adorable in Shuichi's hat y'all.

75. Just imagine dice getting in trouble with the police and Shuichi finding a way to bail them out, since they trust the detective.

76. Kokichi, the embodiment of lying, CONSIDERED TO STOP WITH LYING BECAUSE HE WANTED TO GET CLOSER TO SHUICHI. WHY DOES NOBODY TALK ABOUT THIS.

77. "What should I do... If I wanna become closer to Shuichi... I probably shouldn't lie so much..."

78. When Shuichi said he will get to tolerate his lying Kokichi felt guilty at first with his despair sprite being shown.

79. But then got happy when he realized that meant that Shuichi will accept him for who he is. And when he saw that Shuichi understands him and can see through his lies anyway.

80. "Maybe I was born into this world just to meet you, Shuichi."

81. During Kokichi's FTE's they were playing games and spending time together right? Like the time they drank tea XD well during the love hotel Kokichi says "come, play with me, let's do a lot more together" and "I'll think of a better game for next time, so make sure you excite me too". Aka: Kokichi just told us his true feelings.

82. "I'm so glad I met someone who can truly understand me"

83. The fact that Kokichi is like a cat that constantly wants attention and keeps flirting with his beloved, notice me Saihara chan.

84. THEIR JP VOICES GO ALONG REALLY WELL TOGETHER WTF. I’ve also come to appreciate how Kokichi has the deeper voice in jp with Shuichi with the feminine lighter voice. but it’s the opposite in English.

85. It's kinda funny how Shuichi keeps trying to figure him out while Kokichi just keeps flirting with him 😂 probably making him even more confused.

86. To Kokichi who could predict everything, Shuichi's unpredictability fascinated him to the point he fell in love with him.

87. Unlike everyone, Shuichi is patient with Kokichi, but not too patient. He is the exact person Kokichi needs.

88. And it makes total sense why a trickster fell in love with a sweet detective.

89. "and I wanted your eyes to be on me..."

90. Kokichi deserves someone who would love him for being himself and its shown that Shuichi did fall for him in the salmon team.

91. SHUICHI'S BLUSH WHEN KOKICHI TOLD HIM THAT HE KNOWS HIS LIES NEVER BORED HIM.

92. Shuichi👏wants👏to👏know👏more👏about👏Kokichi👏

93. Kokichi👏wants👏to👏be👏Shuichi's👏everything👏

94. this is completely personal but I started off the game being confused about the ship, and became a hardcore supporter by the end of it. Which means its a heckin good ship if you ask me.

95. Pretty sure Shuichi is one of the only reasons for Kokichi to genuinely smile in a killing game.

96. This ship can make me cry from sadness because of the sad videos, or from happiness from fluffy fanfictions and fanart.

97. Kokichi is completely in love and is enamored by Shuichi it hurts. His love for Shuichi is valid, so freaking valid, 100% valid, more valid than my existence.

98. I love the bonus interactions between them hidden throughout the chapters, like the one where Kokichi tells Shuichi that everything he does is for everyone. It seems that he is only honest with Shuichi, but of course hides it as a lie.

99. Kokichi wanted Shuichi to join his organization, and called him interesting multiple times. Which is really important coming from someone like Kokichi who wasn't fond of most of the people in the killing game. 

100. Their relationship is very realistic, it is focused on how two characters try their best to understand each other, how even someone like Kokichi can come to trust in someone and want someone to trust in him, how he wants that someone to be able to understand him. Kokichi went from being interested in Shuichi to falling in love with him (literally referring to him as the person he fell in love with, using the same phrase that Maki says to Kaito later on), in a freaking killing game. he forced himself to cut their ties and died thinking the only person he cared about hated him. while Shuichi started off interested but wary of Kokichi, tried reaching out to him but failed due to Kokichi pushing him away, to getting mad from him for making Gonta a murderer and trash talking Kaito when he seemed in a really bad condition (after getting punched by Kokichi too) to hitting cold hard realization to what Kokichi has been trying to do the whole game after his death. and then appreciating his help, using the clues he left behind for him, clearing his name, calling him a friend, and grieving his death with the rest of his friends who died in the killing game. He then uses everything Kokichi gave to him and taught him, ends up understanding Kokichi and his lies, and uses the tactic he taught him where he said “sometimes you win a game by not playing it” to end danganronpa. then you’re left wondering how things could’ve been different if Shuichi didn’t already have so much on his back and tried harder to reach out to Kokichi. you start wondering what could’ve happened if Kokichi didn’t push him away, you start thinking about all these possibilities. and then salmon team comes along and wraps everything up with a ribbon. putting direct throwbacks to what happened in the killing game and the free time events, Kokichi BEING the one to reach out to Shuichi, asking him to stay by his side. Their relationship is like one huge arc that starts the moment they met to their graduation in salmon team, and it leaves you with the fact that after they graduate they will stay together and learn more about each other, just like both of them wanted but couldn’t do in the killing game. if this isn’t a beautiful realistic relationship, I don’t know what is. Honestly, everything about this ship is so very beautiful, and I will support it with my life.

[lore-a-lie]

Chapter 2, Act 8: Lives on the Chopin block

CLASS TRIAL- IN SESSION

Everyone went to their proper podiums again, with three new crossed out portraits filling up their ranks.

Miu’s was naturally the first that Kaede turned to, her eyes staring back at her from between the three crosses going across her face. She idly wondered if it was because of the girl’s lewdness or a comment on how “strong” her personality was, like alcohol, but it felt fitting in a darkly humorous sort of way. Miu still would have probably appreciated this little joke either way, if she were there to see it. But she wasn’t.

Reluctantly she turned from Miu’s face, past Shuichi’s, to see about those of her other lost friends. It was hard to avoid thinking about whose face would be joining these monochrome memorials after this too. But even that was more pleasant than to really see where Maki and Kirumi’s deaths left them.

Ryoma was alone now, flanked on both sides with dead faces. That of one of his closest friends in this prison, and the other the girl who threatened his life to escape it. But at least the latter’s absence made it easier for Kaito and him to share glances now, for what little support that could give each other.

Though these looks would also mean every time Kaito faced him he’d see the harsh reminder of Maki’s death looming over Ryoma. Kaede couldn’t imagine what seeing that must be like for either of them.

The red lines hardly looked out of place for Maki’s, but the cross was placed less like an X and more like a plus sign. Or more accurately a gun’s scope, given the circle around it. It was almost a blessing her cause of death wasn’t up in the air like Himiko’s initially was, since they at least knew for sure she wasn’t really shot.

Kirumi’s portrait was pretty bland in comparison. The lines were cleaner and crisper than Rantaro’s, but less artistic than Shuichi’s, just a plain formal X on the center of her face. Like checking off a box on a grocery list or a voting ballot. Not that anyone here ever voted for her to do anything.

But there wasn’t much time for contemplation. Their lives were all on the lines again.

“Aww, everyone seems so depressed this time. It’s okay! I’m sure it will be okay! We know what it’s like to watch as your number keeps dwindling one by one but you’ll bounce back. Just like we did!” Monophanie began, taking a triumphant pose with her paws where her hips should be as she looked up to the sky with Monotaro’s scarf blowing in the breeze. The source being the fan Monodam held for her.

“Ya don’t need ta lie to 'em ‘Phanie, they know what they gotta do. Speaking of, youse all best ignore any of what our old paw sez capisce? He’s just an audience this time, we’re still running this show!” Monosuke followed.

“Yeah, yeah whatever. It’s almost nice to have a break for a change. I’ve been doing this for just soooo long you know? This should be so much less stressful, it’s gonna be great for my fur. It’s not easy to keep up this youthful complexion, with how much work I’ve had to put into these games year after year...” Monokuma dismissively replied from his throne, taking out a compact to play with some blush for emphasis as he slighted his most obnoxious son.

“Then-Don’t-Interrupt-Us-Anymore-Father. I-Shall-Do-The-Basic-Explanation-Of-The-Class-Trial.”

“I didn’t agree to that shit! You chumps know the drill by now, if you really don’t know how this works yet then just shut up and watch. Ya argue like a family at dinner over who sent your buddy ta go sleep with da fishes, and vote for “Howdunit”.”

“You mean “Whodunit” Monosuke. “Howdunit” or “Howcatchem”s are completely different types of mysteries. We don’t care how any crime was done, even a completely blind guess would be valid in this courtroom.” Monophanie corrected, again acting like this was some boring comedy routine.

As Monosuke distracted himself bickering with Monophanie over "embearassing" him for his mistake Monodam took over again. “But-If-You-Vote-For-The-Wrong-Person-All-Of-You-Will-Die. If-You-Vote-Right-Only-The-One-Responsible-Will-Be-Punished, With-An-Execution-Made-To-Best-Reflect-Who-They-Were-As-A-Person, Sins-And-All.”

“Oi, not everyone dies if they get the criminal wrong you bucket o’ bolts! If the innocent spotless can’t catch which of them blackened themselves with the blood of their “friends” the killer graduates! They can get the hell outta dodge and leave this place, no strings attached, even if they don’t want to.” Monosuke chimed, while he got his sister into some sort of headlock to "settle" their dispute.

And got an uppercut to his "jaw" for his troubles, as she proved victorious again so she could continue while Monodam nervously watched. (Honestly, with how distracting it is watching them squabble and how dumb they normally are I'm really impressed what they're saying is still coherent. And yet still somehow equally useless. We still know all of this already, so why put us through the entire thing a THIRD time?!)

“And no one is allowed to get out of this without risking bloodying their own hands either. As long as you’re in the minority a wrong vote won’t be held against you, but if you don’t vote we need to kill you. Well, Monosuke will if one of you decides to try, I want no part of it. We’d refuse if we could, I’m sorry.”

“But-I’m-Sure-None-Of-You-Would-Want-That-So-Let’s-Move-On!" Monodam rushed so Monosuke couldn't try picking a fight with their sister again. "Remember-To-Be-Respectful-Of-Each- Others-Thoughts-And-Feelings-As-You-Argue, Even-If-Some-Of-You-Need-To-Lie-And-Accuse-Each-Other.”

“Oh Jeez this is really gonna suck isn’t it? You tykes didn’t even bother trying to stick to your scripts!” Monokuma grumbled behind them, knocking his head against the back of his chair.

“Of-Course-We-Didn’t. What-Is-The-Point-Of-Replacing-You-If-We-Were-Going-To-Follow-Your-Orders?”

Kaito gladly took the opportunity to try and put things back on track.

“Let’s just ignore them for now you guys. Sorry if I can’t be of much help this time.”

“Not to worry, no one blames you Kaito." Kibo quickly dismissed with a sympathetic look. "Between the first victim and your illness this was expected.”

“My what? Who said anything about me being sick?! I’m not sick, I’m as hearty as a horse!”

“Suuure you are Kaito. You really want to admit you’ve just been scared shitless this whole time?”

“FUCK YOU KOKICHI, I ain’t afraid of-”

“No ghost?” Kokichi finished for him with a matching unnatural ghostlike grin on his face and a cackle. (How the fuck does he even make expressions like that?! Who even cackles anymore outside of movies?)

“Please don’t make this one long ghost joke you two, we already had a failed seance and no zombies.” Tsumugi said with a sigh, making Tenko nod her head in agreement.

“Does it count as a failure if we never got to start it?” Angie asked, the picture of utmost innocence.

“We ended up with more dead people than we had when you wackos started, hell yeah it counts!” Kaito shouted, looking appalled he had to point it out to her.

While Angie huffed, Kiyo took the chance to make his argument instead. “It wouldn’t have failed, someone just took advantage of the few of us isolating ourselves for that brief window of time to kill Kirumi. But we should answer the question of who attacked Maki first yes?”

“No! Kirumi’s the freshest so she should be the one we focus on." Tenko shot back, banging against the front railing of her podium with her momentum. "Besides, it’s obvious whoever killed Maki is the one who would have tried attacking you guys. Or BE one of you guys. So Kiyo’s the culprit!” She pointed at him.

Ryoma stepped in before Kiyo had the chance to defend himself though. “Easy there Tenko. Angie’s the one who had the gold on her hands from the gold katana that was used to kill her and it was Angie is who wanted to perform the seance, so shouldn’t she be our prime suspect? The only sources of gold leaf we have are that sword and the supply from her lab, Kaito and I checked.”

“Nuh-uh, Angie would never kill anybody! A degenerate like Kiyo’s way more likely, it was his katana. Besides if there was gold on the underside of all the handles in those rooms wouldn’t that make not getting any on him suspicious? I mean Kirumi wouldn’t since she never tried to leave before… You know.” Tenko trailed off as the memory of the horrifying scene made her lose steam.

“Anyone could enter my lab and take it, and not having gold on my hands still proves I could not have handled that Katana. And with the game’s “first come, first served” rule why should we assume one person is responsible for both crimes? As the only blackened we need to find is Maki’s killer should we not focus our efforts on that culprit first?”

“I agree with Kiyo, there will be time to go over Kirumi’s death later. We can even sort out who killed her outside of the court if we run out of time before we can settle it.” Ryoma said, giving Kirumi’s portrait a wary glance.

“Yeah! Besides Maki has more possible suspects too, so settling her death will take more time.” Kaito agreed.

“Why would the killings be unrelated though, aren’t they a bit too close together to be a coincidence? If we uncover Kirumi’s killer it may help narrow down potential suspects for Maki too, if the two aren’t one and the same. But Angie isn’t responsible for either of these, I swear by Atua’s name.”

“Is “Atua” really their name, or just what they are? Merely asking out of genuine curiosity I assure you.” Kiyo asked, and despite his claim the question had an unmistakable snark to it earning him a glare.

“Hush up you heretic, Angie need not speak His name. That's a higher member benefit.”

“I… I guess the two could be related? I mean Kirumi was the one investigating Maki’s body so maybe the killer chose to attack her just in case she noticed something in addition to wanting to stop the seance.” Kaede suggested, unsure of what else to say.

“Then Kiyo’s still the killer because he chose Kirumi to act as the Medium-”

“No, he didn’t Tenko! Kirumi ask him for job. Gonta may no be able to help but he still hear that right.”

“Exactly. And Angie was the one who chose the rooms we were going to use, I only said they needed to be dark. It would appear the katana used to cut off the head of our maid was hidden under those rooms. Had I been the one to kill her why wouldn’t I have simply used a weapon from Maki’s lab instead?”

“Why would anyone have used a katana in that poor condition then? It is most surprising it is able to cut as well as it is despite its current state. Maki’s lab would be a plain better place to take something like this from, wouldn’t it? It’s probably where the knife Kiyo found in Kirumi’s apron came from too.” Kibo pointed out.

“Oooh I know, I know! Angie had to use it because she’d be too short to reach Kirumi’s neck with anything else!” Kokichi said, hopping up and down as he raised his hand like a kid with a look that screamed he knew he was wrong and just merrily teasing them again. And so Kibo took the bait.

“Negative, that is both illogical and unlikely. While none of Maki’s weapons are as long as the katana’s blade the angle of the cut wouldn’t be this even if that were the case, there’d be a slope to it. Besides Kirumi may not have even been standing when she was attacked.”

“Umm, wouldn’t there need to be a lot of force behind the swing too? Angie isn’t sure why everybody’s only picking on her and Kiyo.” Angie said, looking a little confused as Kiyo only shrugged.

Seeing as it was easy to clear up Kaede explained this one. “It’s because of the announcement. It only rings when three people not counting the killer finds a body, and it didn’t ring until Ryoma caught up to us. Unless anyone thinks I could have done this too?”

“Ah, fair point. I hadn’t noticed. Are you sure that’s when it rang Kaede?" Kiyo asked as he, Angie, and Ryoma took a moment to mentally go over what happened. "Everything was rather hectic at that point of time I'm afraid. I hardly remember the bell ringing at all, and I wasn’t in nearly as much shock as you were at the time, my apologies.”

“Yeah, sorry Kaede but I don’t really remember hearing anything other than you screaming either when I caught up with you three." Ryoma reluctantly agreed, giving Angie a wary glance as she still seemed to be thinking it over and coming up blank. "It could have rang, don’t get me wrong, but I wasn’t really paying attention to that thing in the first place.”

… Am I sure? I mean a lot was going on and we’ve heard it so often now. I couldn’t really catch what anyone was saying either. And I don’t want to accuse either of them. Or is Kiyo trying to gaslight us, and just tricked Ryoma? Why would he kill Kirumi? He’d have to have blood or something on him right- OH!

“Hmm, maybe you’re right. I mean neither of you has her blood on you- well I mean Kiyo has some on his bandages now but only from touching her, he didn’t when he offered to help- and with how… Messy it all was that’s pretty unlikely, isn’t it? Especially since the killer also posed her.”

“But no one here got blood on them. Could killer have been under boards to stay clean? That why crosspiece cut?” Gonta asked, struggling to picture what might explain this.

“A killer attacking someone from under the floorboards you say? Oh, that sure is nostalgic. Not to mention that mask, or a knife and the same golden katana being present for a murder. So many memories~ Isn’t it lovely how violence keeps repeating itself like clockwork?” Monokuma drawled.

“I thought you weren’t supposed to talk this time! Besides, I think it’s more like an Endless Waltz-”

“Tsumugi don’t let his nonsense ramblings distract you! Just ignore him.”

“And keep your own nonsense nerdy ramblings to yourself too! You’ll just distract us and that’s waaay worse.”  Kokichi scolded, as if to parody Kaito, who gave him a scowl for twisting his words against her.

“Gonta does make a good point though, the cross pieces don’t seem to be related to anything. Unless it made Kirumi trip, to help set up the attack?” Kibo suggested, trying to get everyone back on track.

“No, had that been the case Kirumi would have most likely suffered at least a head wound. We saw Kaede nearly fall prey to it, and who knows what would have befallen her if not for Gonta’s intervention.” Kibo said, though he looked frustrated that this left the boards unexplained for this.

“Then how else would someone hide the blood? I mean there was so much of it and nobody found any sheets or anything to clean any of it up or block the splatter right?” Tsumugi nervously asked.

Let’s see… We ruled out using something to cover them since we didn’t find anything.

Even Angie’s lab doesn’t have a sink so there was definitely no way for anyone to wash the blood off.

… But hiding it UNDER something we’d expect a person to normally wear could work if it covered enough of them. Particularly if they were one of the three checking rooms for the seance, since no one would see them without it. Which would only leave one person.

But none of this is making any sense. What motive could he possibly have to do something like this?

“I think I know the trick to this now you guys. If you’ll let me explain my theory on how this happened…”

Kaede looked around the room, and everyone gave their approval. No one had any distinct ideas after all. So she began painting the scene for them with her words and the sound of her voice the best she could.

“First the culprit set up the three rooms sometime before today. Cutting through the crossbeams and applying gold leaf to the handles would take too long for this to be anything other than premeditated. I can’t explain the floorboard trap, but it could be to help distract anyone who found this by accident.

Today, when someone else suggested these rooms be used for the seance it was time for that premeditation to pay off. They made sure only one person went into each room, themselves, their victim, and the one they planned to frame for this. Ideally, their fall guy was the one who’d suggest this.

They wouldn’t need to do anything for their mark to set themselves up, since they’d likely touch the loose gold when trying to leave the room, making it look like they’ve touched the golden katana.

Not only would the culprit know to avoid the gold there, the victim wouldn’t have a chance to touch it either, so if we didn’t notice the handles we’d assume there was no other way for the gold to be there. They may have even originally planned to clean the other two handles, since they set it up so it wouldn’t matter who went into each room, but obviously they never got the chance so we weren’t fooled by this.

But that doesn’t explain how they kept their hands clean to start with. That ties into how they didn’t seem to get anything on them.

They went under the floor, where the three rooms are all connected, and took off their jacket. They already planted the katana in that crawlspace, so it was a vital area for them both to keep their weapon out of sight and provide a way to get into the victim's room without being seen.

Since there weren't any bloodied covers in this area that means whatever they used to hide the blood they'd get on them is still with them. Here there are two possibilities. They could have left their coat down there to make sure it'd stay clean, dropping it off when they got the katana or vice versa. Or they took off their coat, turned it inside out, and tied it around their waist like an apron to help keep any blood from getting on their legs. I think the latter's more likely here.

After that, they pick up the katana and go to the room they know Kirumi entered so none of the gold would get anywhere they couldn't explain later. They have to act fast because while the rooms are dark since there aren’t any candles it also means she’d be tempted to leave soon. Maybe they even said something to help make her pause or used the seesaw trap to distract her.

Ultimately they succeeded in decapitating her. It could be due to the killer having a light source on them or just the length of the blade covering a lot of the room but their goal was achieved. After doing so they moved her body to the wall near where they entered, posing her as if it was for a twisted tea ceremony.

With how general the pose is in practice even that could have been done in the dark, and I’m not entirely sure why they chose to move her like this at all. It could be to keep her away from the seesaw trap in the center of the room, but it's really hard to say.

To get rid of the gold and blood from their hands they remove the wrappings they put there. The cotton strips could then be used to help touch up any other clean up they need to do on the walk back to the room they’d be expected to leave from. But first, they’d stop to put the blood-soaked katana under the room their patsy was in to further implicate them of this crime.

With the katana gone and blood mostly out of the way they put their jacket back on, over their probably blood covered shirt, and stuff the soiled wrappings in one of their pockets while applying some fresh bandages so that we’d be none the wiser that they changed at all as we’d notice if they were missing.

That’s probably around the time I found Kirumi’s body, since everything happened so fast. It wasn’t hard to look like they were just worried about what was going on when they joined the rest of us, and if they needed to adjust anything else we’d all be distracted trying to find out what was going on even if the body was found sooner than they were planning on.

I wasn’t imagining the bell delay before either. Since they needed to see what I was screaming about as soon as they could to keep from being suspicious, they really were one of the first three to see the body.

So… The easiest way to for us to see if I’ve got this wrong would be for you to take off your jacket Kiyo. Otherwise, there’s no one else who could do it this way. No one could enter or leave those rooms without anyone else noticing, and at least Angie’s hands would still have blood on them if she tried my method.”

The room went silent as they turned to look at him. But despite the horrors he’s accused of he isn’t upset. Korekiyo doesn’t seem bothered by anyof this in the slightest. And that wasn’t the worst of it.

He’s smiling. There’s no doubt about the expression under that mask. He’s accused of murder and he looks like a child who just got a brand new set of toys to play with! Something isn’t right here. I know he’s kinda messed up but this is going too far! How can he possibly be so happy about this right now?!

“Nicely done Kaede! I’m most impressed, I’m sure that’d deductions would make even an Ultimate Detective proud. You’re always so full of such wonderful surprises. You are absolutely correct! But so there is no room for doubt here I will concede, and I do apologize if it is unduly upsetting to any of you.”

There really weren’t any doubts as he laid his coat along the railing of his podium. There’s so much blood his white undershirt could nearly be mistaken for Maki’s top, it’s even worse than his bandages were. He made no move to take off the bandages though, since considering everything he really didn’t need to. But even as he stood before them in his bloodied button down he didn’t seem the least bit nervous.

“Though I must also confess, the trick with the floorboards really is unrelated here. That was just a remnant of a plan I scrapped after seeing it might be too difficult to properly utilize. Though had I stuck with it Kirumi would have died all the same, during the caged dog seance. Any other questions?”

“... What the actual fuck?”

“Do be more specific Kaito. I can’t answer you if I’m not sure to which part of this you are referring to.”

“Are you giving up then?” Ryoma practically growled as he visibly struggled to restrain himself.

“For Kirumi’s murder most certainly! But if you think now is a good time for us to vote you’d be most sorely mistaken. Not unless your death wish has changed to wanting to have us all die alongside you. Because for the terms of this trial, as bloody as I may be, I’m still as “spotless” as everyone else. However, I am grateful you all have allowed me to experience something so close to what our true blackened must have all felt before their ends. It’s a most enlightening and intriguing sensation.”

“What are you talking about?! You killed Kirumi you bastard-” Tenko shouted at him, as if hoping if she got angry enough his confidence would crumble and see he was doomed. But he just wouldn’t stop.

“Indeed I did! But only Kirumi. Just ask Gonta or Ryoma, I was with them when Maki died. Unless you’d prefer I simply tell you all who our real blackened is, the one you all should have been seeking? Now I do understand if you don’t wish to believe me, but it won’t make my words any less the truth. I’m offering to reward you all for your fine work in order to keep the trial up to this point from being a wasted effort.”

What? So he just killed her because he knew he’d get away with it?! Is he telling the truth right now?

“Why did you even go so far then?! The posing, the decapitation, all of it! Why kill someone at all if you know you aren’t going to graduate from it?” Kaito snapped.

“Must you be so hung up on that? Her death has never mattered in this case. But fine. I only meant to cut into her neck enough to be fatal, to assure her a quick death, but I misjudged the sharpness of the blade. I hadn’t tested it enough so I didn’t notice the rust wasn’t an indicator of it being dull, so I put much more force into the swing than I should have. The posing was an attempt to give her some dignity after my mistake. I also thought it may suit an “artist’s” sensibilities, to buy me more time to prove I was not guilty of killing Maki should I have needed it. I do apologize for framing you Angie, I have no excuse.”

Angie’s smile was completely gone as she blankly stared at the monster standing beside her. The hate in her eyes was unmistakable. Had she been someone else she may have even tried to attack him, for the way his apologies as he faced her felt like a mockery. But her resolve was stronger than that so she just watched him in silence, refusing to dignify any of this with a response, until Kaito began shouting at him again.

“How can you say a person’s death didn’t matter?! Like hell we’d ever just let that be swept under the rug. We can’t just ignore what happened to them in order to protect ourselves. She was our friend! Besides, Maki Roll told me she was going to talk to you last night so you still could have done this.”

“And that is true, but she left my lab before I did and I still have my alibi. Gonta was even as gracious as to escort me back to my dorm, in accordance to the student council’s curfew Maki and I both broke. But given what happened I suspect she never actually left the fourth floor.” Korekiyo claimed.

“So what, you’re trying to pin your crimes on Kibo or Angie again?! We don’t need to waste any more time on your lies, I’m ready to vote!”

“And it’d be suicide Tenko, we still have a ways to go to prove anything. I saw both of them that night and if the Monokuma-” Ryoma began to argue before peanut gallery interfered again.

“It’s a Monosuke file you bastard!”

“Oh shut up Monosuke, let them work or I’ll gag you with my scarf!”

“Ohh, kinky.”

“She-Said-Be-Quiet! And-Why-Would-You-Even-Joke-Like-That-Father?!”

“... Fine. If the Monosuke file is to be believed I saw Kiyo at the time it said Maki died. I don’t see thing being some sort of trick he pulled either, she’s too quick to lose to someone like him in a fight.”

“Yeah. Gonta… Not really understanding why he do this but Kiyo not lying about Gonta escorting him. But… That means student council kill Maki? Why?! We… We protect all students. No exceptions!” Gonta said best he could through his confusion, sweat, and tears.

“Exactly! And Angie definitely didn’t see Maki that night. I was working in my lab, no visitors either.” Angie quickly claimed, which got a nod from Tenko and Monophanie to offer some support for it.

Not to be outdone Kibo also rushed to his own defense. “I didn’t see anyone, I was working in the computer lab the entire time! You can even check the log for the program I’ve been fixing, everything is time stamped so I have a solid alibi!”

Korekiyo almost looked bored as he shook his head at both of their panicked responses. “You all seem to be forgetting there was one other person on the fourth floor that night. Kirumi was the one patrolling the halls so Kibo had his time to work and help weed out any of Angie’s unwanted guests.”

“I’m not the culprit!” Kibo shouted over him.

“Angie’s not the culprit!” Angie said at almost the same time and volume.

“You’re both idiots is what you are.” Korekiyo bitterly countered them almost just as quickly.

It was hard to get a word in edgewise as the three kept talking over each other in their efforts to prove they weren’t the culprits. Well, the two were, as Korekiyo simply kept being drowned out as he tried to prove they were panicking over nothing. His argument seemed sound enough though, despite Kaede’s wariness.

Framing Angie for Kirumi’s death in order to make her a suspect for Maki’s would have only worked if he always planned on making her the person he planned to frame, which doesn’t seem like the case.

Kibo’s been completely unrelated to the case so far and has no motive to go to Kiyo’s lab to kill Maki.

But Kirumi’s a different story. She had been so ready to kill after her video she lashed out in front of everyone. Maybe Maki was able to pick up on that and confronted her about and something… Snapped.

“So Kiyo, what you mean to tell us is you killed Kirumi because you knew she was guilty of killing Maki?” Kaede asked, hoping to anything that would listen that this wouldn't blow up in her face.

“Precisely. That is why she put herself in charge of examining Maki’s body, much like how I examined my own victim in kind. Kirumi planted those ashes, not discovered them. I saw her do it since I knew to keep an eye on her already. It’s also when she took the knife Maki had when she fell, hidden under the pieces of the broken banister. I suspect Maki used it in self-defense, rather than the blood being Maki’s, given how its style indicates it came from Maki’s lab, when Kirumi would have likely preferred the equally easy to obtain kitchen knives as she had more experience with them.”

“So what? You mean to tell us you killed Kirumi to avenge Maki since you knew the two fought for some reason you’re not sharing? I’m not buying it.”

“Oh goodness no, if that was my motivation I wouldn’t have needed to do anything. Can you imagine the execution Monokuma would have had in store for her? Kirumi wasn’t the sort of woman who’d be content to go quietly into the night either, so her own futile efforts to elude her grisly fate would have only prolonged things even more. She’d never allow herself to die with dignity if she could help it. Survival was far too important for her. So I spared her that suffering, as beautiful as it may have been.”

“So… Kiyo kill Kirumi to… Protect Kirumi? Like killing wounded animal that can’t get better?”

“Very good Gonta! And not just her either. So far I’ve been the only one of us who hasn’t played a part in sending our friends to their graves, with voting to have them executed. Now I’m the only one with her blood on my hands, rather than having it divided amongst us all. I didn’t think anyone would mind that.”

The courtroom was nothing but arguing as they tried to decide whether or not Korekiyo was telling them the truth, and if he was if it would have in any way justified his actions. He wasn’t wrong in acting like Kirumi would have died either way, had she really killed Maki, but by taking things into his own hands he denied her the chance to defend or explain herself.

Even if that wouldn’t have changed anything in the end, she had a right to a fair trial, didn’t she? Except then they’d still have to see what living hell Kirumi would undoubtedly be forced through to die. But was the alternative Korekiyo made for them really better for anyone here but him?

Korekiyo still let them string themselves along like this, to watch them as they struggled to figure out what happened, when he could have ended things much sooner by just explaining himself. The only reason he could possibly have for this was his own entertainment. He’s already expressed similar sentiments so often pulling a stunt like this wasn’t really that much different.

He’s always been a sadistic creep, but they underestimated just how far he was willing to go with it. Kaede resisted the urge to put her head in her hands to try and block out Korekiyo’s twisted logic.

Head in her hands- Kirumi’s bloody head in her hands- Please I don’t want that image in my head- Wait.

Kirumi was only there because she didn’t want Kaede to be involved. Like Gonta said Korekiyo didn’t choose Kirumi like he was now claiming. So his reasoning for “picking” her must have been a lie too.

When I offered to be the medium before Korekiyo looked surprised but pleased.

Like everything was going according to plan without him lifting so much as a finger.

Kirumi wanting the role initially bothered him, before he adapted. Which means...

It was supposed to be ME in that room, not Kirumi. Kirumi just got in his way.

Korekiyo was trying to kill me.

Why on earth would he want me dead? I haven’t done anything wrong!

Why would he do that even after asking if I could be his sister’s friend when we got out-

… Unless she’s already dead.

That’s why he reacted the way he did during his motive video. That’s why the last words were about some promise between the two of them. The promise to make her some female friends on his travels.

It was reminding him he already failed. Not unless he wanted to try giving his dead sister some dead friends. Like those cruel burial rites where you kill innocents just to give the person who died company.

This is why Kokichi has been weird when he’s around Korekiyo. He realized what he was capable of. That’s why after we got the Necronomicon he’s been trying to make sure I’m not left alone with him.

Maybe it wasn’t just me either. The casino stunt helped keep Korekiyo away from any girls he might go after, aside from Maki. Maki would be able to protect herself though, and she had Ryoma and Kaito too.

Even if Korekiyo slipped away he wouldn’t have an alibi, and Gonta was between him and the school. Tenko was likely the first girl he’d be able to attack, and he wouldn’t stand a chance against her.

Why didn’t Kokichi just tell me? What was he afraid of? Being wrong? Tipping Korekiyo off? Scaring me?

Should… Should I tell them? If… If there is another reason Korekiyo wanted me dead this might really be an isolated incident. The stuff he’s saying is really screwed up, but he isn’t that wrong.

None of us wanted to see another of our friends be executed, no matter what they did to deserve it. And no matter how he did it a quick death would have been a lot less painful than what Monokuma planned.

Well not really Monokuma’s plans. The mastermind behind this game is the one to blame for all of this.

Maybe Korekiyo thinks I could have been the mastermind and he was just trying to end the game? If he gives that as a reason then I’m not sure anyone would be able to trust me anymore, even if I can prove he’s wrong or hiding his real motive. Would anyone believe me? Could I prove I wasn’t the mastermind?

But if he doesn’t think I’m the mastermind then he could go after someone else next. I’d probably be too risky to try killing again anytime soon, but Angie’s cult looks like it’ll be gone now and even if Tenko’s enough to scare him off Tsumugi’s in danger. Assuming he couldn’t just kill Tenko with some trap.

Either way, if I bring this up someone will probably want to kill Korekiyo even more than they already do. And whoever does will just end up being the next friend we execute, even if the victim definitely deserved it.

Which option is the more acceptable risk? Korekiyo killing someone else, or someone killing him? Having to recover from losing an innocent victim, or condemning a sympathetic murderer for protecting us? Can’t there be a third option? Could we really keep him in check without killing him somehow?

What do I do? I… I can’t breathe. I need to focus on breathing. I NEED to calm down. To think this through.

But I don’t know what to do.

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[shsldetectiv-blog]

lost

Character: Shuichi Saihara Genre: pure angst WARNINGS: this fic contains spoilers for drv3! if you have not played the game and do not want to see spoilers, then do not read this. Unless you are okay with spoilers than read to your heart's desire.  Word count: 1.2k A/N: this is my first Saihara fic and I feel like it turned out very well. I hope the ones who read this enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing this~

Enjoy!~

I feel lost.

I’ve always felt so lost. Even before the events of Danganronpa. Regardless if my memories given to me were real or fake. I know deep down I’ve always been oh so lost. But after meeting Kaede...that slowly started to change.

I don’t know if it was because she was the first person I interacted with when I gained consciousness, or if the welcoming aura she had drawn me to her. From the start I knew she was something special, of course being the ultimate pianist *is* pretty special.

She drew me out of the shell I was hidden deep within. I was so afraid to trust myself but, she believed in me. The touch of her hand on mine was enough proof of how loving and caring she was.

Spending time with her helped make me find my way and start believing more in myself. I was so blinded by her love that I didn’t see what was happening behind the scenes.

Before the first class trial, she told me to borrow the strength from others and have that be my strength. She believed I would find her mistakes and set everything right.

But it only made my heartbreak. I narrowed what strength I could from the others to fight Kaede being Rantaro’s killer. It was one of the many times I wish I was wrong. Oh, how I wished I was wrong.

That strength I borrowed didn’t actually give me strength. It only helped push me until the end. Monokuma executed her right in front of me and the others.

I’ve never felt my heart break more than it did in that moment. By that time all the strength, I borrowed ran out. I was so weak I couldn’t even stand or move. I fell to my knees and hunched over clenching my chest. I couldn’t even feel my heart beating. I finally thought I was lost forever.

I never ever got to tell her how deeply I felt for her. How sitting by her made my heart beat a thousand times more. How warm her touch was and how hot it made me feel, how hard I’d blush and hope she didn’t notice. I wish she could have filled my ears with the sounds her fingers made against the keys of the piano. I wish I could have told her how nervous she made me. I wish I could tell her all of this.

I gripped tighter onto my uniform feeling the tears roll down my face.

“HEY SHUICHI!”

I look up for a second to see Kaito’s fist heading in the direction of my cheekbone.

After feeling the impact of his skin against mine, I went into shock. My mouth hung open and my eyes widened. I felt everyone’s eyes on me.

“Are you going to sit here and continue to act like this?! Kaede left her wish to you, Shuichi! What kind of man would let her dying wish go to waste!?! Huh?!?”

I slowly lifted up my head, staring directional into Kaito’s eyes.

He was right. It was time to man up and face this. I can’t continue her wish if I don’t pick myself up.

I slowly picked myself up from the ground as everyone started to head there way back to the elevator, except Kaito. He placed a hand on my shoulder and apologize for punching me. Then told me he also believed in me.

I nodded, adjusting the hat on my head. Which only brought back a memory of Kaede asking about my hat.

I don’t remember how, but I found myself in her lab, looking about wishing more she was still here.

But then I realized I still had some strength left in me to continue to fight. I pulled the hat off my head. This is all for you, Kaede.

To my surprise, Kaito came around me a lot more. By dragging me out of my room and forcing me to work out sessions. At first, I thought he was just being weird, trying to help me cope. But that wasn’t the case at all.

Kaito helped change something in me. He picked me up off my feet and got me to see there is more than worrying. That I cannot hold myself back anymore.

Then I realized. I wasn’t lost.

Kaede paved the path I was meant to walk on, Kaito helped give me that extra push down that path.

He calls me his “sidekick” but I know he really meant his friend. My life wasn’t the only one Kaito was taking effect on. He started to change Maki.

The two of them helped change me in ways I can never explain. I was becoming happy. Our workout sessions helped me become stronger and to gain my own strength. My own strength that I can lend to others to help push them. I felt so brave.

But finding out Kaito was sick brought me to a holt. I knew Kaito was strong enough to push through. He was always smiling and encouraging everyone, mostly Maki and I.

But I never knew he would die quicker than I thought.

Once again I was brought down to my knees in pain. Maki’s tears wouldn’t quit streaming down her face as she confesses her love for Kaito, dropping down to her knees beside me.

How many times do I have to go through this? One by one I watched as my friends lied, cheat and murder each other. My heart couldn’t take any more hits. Not after Kaito.

I grew so attached to Kaede and him...losing them both was like losing my soul. I didn’t even feel alive. I lose the girl I loved...and I lost my best friend.

It was hard for Maki and myself to pick ourselves back up. But what made it easier was that we had each other still. And the fact we still had to fight, not only for ourselves but for Himiko’s, Tsumugi’s and Keebo’s sakes.

But the betrayal of Tsumugi and the sacrifice of Keebo was only more hits to my heart I couldn’t take. For me, there was no such thing as hope or despair. Neither was in my favor, anyway.

It was a big surprise that Maki, Himiko and myself survived it all. We pushed through the rubble seeing the light from the outside world.

We didn’t know what laid beyond that wall, but I sure as hell was terrified. I was shaking, feeling as if the ground below me was about to crack open and suck me in. Maki took her hand in mine, showing how much she was shaking as well.

“We survived this far, now we need to live. To live for Kaito. To live for Kaede...and for the others who’ve lost their lives.”

I nodded in agreement, glancing down at Himiko and how her eyes sparkled as she stared at the open world.

This path that Kaede and Kaito paved for me lead me here. When I should feel happy and relaxed...I feel scared and lost.

Oh so lost.

There’s no telling what will happen from here, but I pray I find my way, that we ALL find our way.

And that I stop feeling so lost.

[drv3imagines]

After three days, the task is finally complete! ^^;

Rantaro Amami * You admit, he is unlawfully attractive. * Heck, it should really be a crime for him to be this good-looking. * But this did not give him permission to allow girls to flirtatiously surround him wherever you went. * Not that it could be helped, but he literally said nothing to them???? * Um??? Did he forget??? He’s in a relationship with you! * Even worse these girls seemed to ignore the fact that you were right there! * This had to stop or your relationship would reach its end date. * Pulling him to the side one day, you confess your feelings about his careless attitude. * What?? Girls were flirting with him??? * You began to get upset. He was insightful about everything else, but he’d ignore something this serious? Really Amami? * But he really didn’t understand. He didn’t really focus on what the other girls seemed to be doing, especially when you were always on his mind. * It was like you were blocking out all their attempts at even trying to attract him * You blushed at hearing that, but he wasn’t getting off the hook that easy * He offers to pay more attention next time, and if you felt uncomfortable in the situation, he would immediately stop whatever was going on to appease you * Satisfied with this answer, you hugged him

Korekiyo Shinguuji * It was a long day of school and you so desperately wanted to plop down on your bed and sleep. * After getting off the bus, your irritated nerves had already reached its maximum. * The barrier of your day imploded when you saw the horrible sight before you. * Was this a prank? * Was a certain jerk dictator behind it all? * You regretted taking a step to the huge arrangement of roses at your doorstep. Every single one of them drained of life with hideous black petals, covering your porch almost completely. * There had to be over one hundred of them, but what made your heart shatter was the note attached to them: “You have graced me with your presence for over the number of days a year can last, now I gift you with a reminder of our relationship’s past.” * A dead relationship? * What kind of sick twisted game was Korekiyo playing?! * You wanted to cry, but not until you got answers. * Angrily dialing his number, you waited for him to pick up. And when he had, the tense feeling you held dropped like a water balloon. * You could only manage the word why, while the mysterious man tried to figure out what was happening. * There had to be a mistake right? He sent you the flowers representing his deepest affections for you, why would you be upset- * When he heard “black wilted roses” he immediately became angry. The flower shop must have messed up his order, there was no way he considered his feelings for you in any way dead. * He felt really bad about the scare and made it up to you by sending you a simpler bouquet until he could return to you to properly adorn you with his love.*

Kaito Momota * It was a curse, it had to be. * He should have fell to superstition and texted that fated message to 10 other friends. * Now a series of inconviences were shooting his way. * The worst of it was during homeroom. He could remember it as if it was yesterday, which it was. * His s/o was being as cute as usual and he just wanted to let them know. * So he began throwing paper airplanes with cute messages on them for you. * He only managed to throw one, before the teacher called him out for misbehaving. * Plan B: the telephone game. * Unfortunately, his classmates weren’t too happy with this conversation being passed back and forth, but the first message didn’t even get a reply before you burst out in tears. * He panics thinking his message must’ve gotten jumbled up somewhere along the line (Ouma…), but you weren’t exactly compliant when he tried to talk to you. In fact you practically ignored him for the rest of the day. * Poor Kaito didn’t think your relationship would end because he was too stubborn to send some superstitious “bad luck” text…but if it would get the occult off his back and win you back somehow… * The message had literally finished sending before you texted apologizing for yesterday. * You figured out what happened along the line from Kiibo, and felt bad about what happened. * You two made up, forgetting the whole incident, and now Kaito always sends those creepy, threatening texts to all of his friends.

Kokichi Ouma * You knew Ouma could take his pranks really far sometimes, but you didn’t think he could sink so low * Your video diary, which had TONS of personal information in it had just went VIRAL over the Internet. * He had never seen you so angry, it was almost scary. * But when he heard the words “we’re done” he completely lost it. He started fighting back, insisting it was your fault. Who keeps a VIDEO diary anyway? * But you were not having it, you told him to leave, but that made his fit worse. * He was an absolute mess, begging, crying, screaming for you to change your mind, but you were not joking with him. * You decided it would be best not to be seen in public for a while, desperately scrambling to remove the personal videos, but the Internet was a place of permanence. * One day as you cried for the hundreth time, the doorbell rang and for a moment you didn’t want to get up. * However something within you urged you to go see, and lo and behold Ouma was there. * He looked very depressing and unkempt, but worse of all his eyes were almost bloodshot from his relentless tears. * He told you that he was sorry for what he did; he actually hadn’t meant to upload those videos, he just didn’t want you to find out he watched them and he panicked, uploading them straight to the web. * He clung to you, begging for you to forgive him, and seeing him in this state almost made you cave in as well, but those horrible videos- * Taken care of. He tells you he had his most excellent members trace down every second of those videos and removed them forever. If they ever come up again, he’ll have the IP address of the jerk who did it and have them “dealt with.” * You told him that wouldn’t be necessary and thanked him for his efforts, taking him back.

Shuuichi Saihara * This wasn’t looking to good. * You were starting to become the primary suspect, despite your innocence in this case, but…what? * Shuuichi wasn’t defending you??? * Were you really alone in your defense? * After the real culprit was apprehended and executed, you just couldn’t get over the fact that for a moment your boyfriend doubted you. * You avoided him for a few days, but felt as though he was trying to do the same. * Finally after Kaito talked (read: beat) some sense into him, he carried himself to your room and with a heavy heart knocked on your door. * It was hard not to cry in front of him, but you stayed strong. * His betrayal hurt you deeper than you thought and seeing him stand here wasn’t making matters any better. * He begins rambling on about the trial and how he was only doing what he could to find the perpetrator. * He meant nothing by it, and he was extremely sorry. * He didn’t want to believe you would kill anyone, but- * You quiet him understanding the predicament you were in. * It was important to have alibis in this twisted game, and if you couldn’t explain where you were it would naturally seem suspicious…but next time he should try and defend you. * Laughing you say that you’ll just have to stick to him from now on to keep a solid alibi.

Kiibo * It wasn’t like him to avoid you. * Or maybe he wasn’t, but it defintely felt like it. * Kiibo never missed dates, and was never late to meet up with you. * However, you’d begun to notice your robot boyfriend had begun distancing himself from you more and more. * Deciding you’d confront him about it, you’d found the source of his distraction. * Miu Iruma. * They were friends sure…but friends don’t really do intimate things like slow dancing right? * It was heart shattering to see this. * All that time spent teaching him about romantic relationships went down the drain. * You stepped away from his research room and headed back to your own space. * About an hour later a knock interrupted your wallowing. * It had better not be- Of course. Speak of the devil and he will appear. * You gave the robot a hard glare, scoffing at his boldness to appear at your doorstep after being caught with someone else. (not that he knew you were even watching in the first place) * He seemed confused, but was oblivious to your sarcastic demeanor. * You wanted to slam the door in his face, but maybe now was a good time to get some answers before banishing him from your sight forever. * “Why?” * Why what? * He really seemed like he had no idea what was going on??? * Seriously?! How can you slow dance with Miu and not see anything wrong with that? * He says he was practicing for you- * Then why didn’t he just ask you? * It was supposed to be a surprise. He wanted to show you something he was learning so you’d be proud. Sometimes he’d try practicing on his own, so enraptured in getting it perfect, he’d lose track of time. * You feel bad for getting upset, but recover when he offers to show you what he’s learned so far.

Gonta Gokuhara * “S/o is still Gonta’s friend right?” * You froze. * Did he just drop the ‘f’ word? * You thought you were significant others! * Was he seriously breaking up with you? * You couldn’t believe it at first, so you cut him off, demanding an explaination. * He says it’s because you two haven’t been spending as much time together, which you would have told him it was due to an overload with school if it weren’t for this situation. * You couldn’t believe this was happening, he was subtly breaking up with you! * You demanded to know why he considered you his friend, but his answer was so intentional and straightforward you couldn’t believe you were upset. * Well of course as his significant other you were his friend too.

Ryoma Hoshi * You didn’t care who started the fight. * It was childish and unacceptable for him to behave towards your friend that way. Or any male in your life. Period. * He was being overbearing and you didn’t like being treated this way. * Ryoma said nothing, while he admits he did try to fight for you before, he realized it was all for nothing. * Now you would leave him like the trash he was and he wasn’t going to stop you. * It’s almost a month before you decide to call him for small talk. You definitely wanted to check on him since he wouldn’t do a fair job of caring for himself. * At first he doesn’t answer, but when you call a second time he seems annoyed. * You explain that you’re calling to check on him, which he doesn’t see a point in. He was overbearing for you and you needed your space. * You regret using those words saying that you just didn’t like how he always seemed so protective over you. * He says that those people deserved what they got for making lewd comments about you, especially when you two were dating. * You had no idea that was going on and don’t even allow him to finish before taking him back