#cuz I refuse to believe that Himiko's really dead

[herbarimoon]

Timeskip tgchk with switched hairstyles!

[commentaryvorg]

Danganronpa V3 Commentary: Part 5.11

Be aware that this is not a blind playthrough! This will contain spoilers for the entire game, regardless of the part of the game I’m commenting on. A major focus of this commentary is to talk about all of the hints and foreshadowing of events that are going to happen and facts that are going to be revealed in the future of the story. It is emphatically not intended for someone experiencing the game for their first time.

Last time, as the Kaito rescue operation fell rather, uh, flat, Maki was totally not planning to murder Kokichi on sight, everyone decided Kaito was definitely dead except for Shuichi, Maki was even more sure Kaito was dead and also that him ever killing anyone was completely impossible, Kaito was very not dead and very a murderer inside the Exisal and had to have felt awful to hear his friends’ reactions to all this, and Shuichi was desperately clinging to a currently-baseless hope of Kaito being alive somehow rather than face the painful apparent truth, but at least this was better than Maki letting her despair win and twist her into thinking it’s okay to sacrifice all of her friends just to kill Kokichi and “defeat despair”.

Now, we’re here at the “Investigation Start”, which is to say, the moment the awesome music kicks in! I’ve always liked Danganronpa’s thing of having a metal remix of the investigation music for case 5 and onwards, since it hammers home that things have really gotten serious now – but it’s never felt more appropriate than this investigation here where Kaito may or may not be dead. Damn right the terrifying possibility of losing your best friend – and the feeling of desperately wanting not to – should be given that much importance.

It’s also incredibly appropriate that this version of the music is titled Hope Searching! The regular one is called Despair Searching, which makes a lot of sense when we’re searching for proof that one of our friends is a murderer. But this time, Shuichi’s not primarily thinking about the investigation in terms of finding the murderer. He’s searching for proof that his best friend is still alive. Damn right that’s hope.

And okay, since I insist on nitpicking the meaning of the word, technically he is not searching for hope – finding Kaito alive would be finding relief, as there’d be no need to hope for it any more if he’s right there. It is the act of searching for a positive outcome to this situation in and of itself that is hope. So it’s still a fitting title, as long as it’s parsed as “hope” being a modifier to describe the “searching”, rather than being about searching for hope.

Shuichi:  (There’s a sleeve sticking out of the press. It’s… definitely… Kaito’s coat sleeve. In that case… the victim must be…) “…”

I love how hesitant Shuichi is to even voice the idea in his inner monologue. His detective’s instinct is trying to tell him that obviously Kaito’s sleeve being visible means he should assume Kaito is under there, but Shuichi Saihara is digging his heels in and refusing to go along with this.

Shuichi:  “…I don’t want to see a crushed body, no matter who it is… but I have to do it. I… have to know.” (I made up my mind, took a breath, and pressed the button.)

Damn, Shuichi is showing some serious freaking courage here to be able to do this. Even if he was pretty sure it wasn’t Kaito under there, there’s still plenty of reason for him to never want to see it – but the thing is, he subconsciously does think it’s Kaito, so that’d be what he’s expecting to see, even if he can’t admit it to himself. It’s incredible that he can do this anyway.

Shuichi:  (In that case… we won’t be able to check the body. I’m honestly a little relieved, but I shouldn’t say that out loud.)

Shuichi, literally nobody would blame you for being relieved about this! I’m also incredibly relieved that it is a vital plot point of this case that we never see the body, yeesh.

(I wonder if Shuichi is actually feeling guilty about his relief because he subconsciously expects it to be Kaito and so he’s thinking of this as an excuse to keep running away from the truth for longer.)

Shuichi:  (In addition to the control buttons, there’s an ‘Emergency Stop’ button.) […] “Well… if the culprit were planning this murder, they’d have no use for it.”

Yep, that’s definitely never going to be relevant to this crime at all. (To be fair, the culprit never pressed that button.)

For some reason, you have to examine the sleeve again after trying and failing to raise the press in order to get Shuichi to notice the hole in it. I’ve seen a lot of people miss this and then not be allowed to leave the hangar yet and be quite annoyed when they realised what they were missing.

Shuichi:  “It looks like… the left sleeve sticking out of the hydraulic press.”

When first-time-me first saw the body discovery cutscene, I immediately assumed that the sleeve hanging down was the sleeve of Kaito’s that always hangs loose – in other words, his right sleeve, and he was (hypothetically, definitely hypothetically) face down in the press. That image got so stuck in my mind that I somehow managed to skim right over the part where Shuichi says here it’s his left sleeve and keep thinking of it wrong until the trial.

It’s honestly a little surprising to me that Shuichi can even tell it’s the left sleeve just by looking at it. Granted, there are buttons on the cuff that would be opposite on each sleeve, but speaking as a fanartist who has drawn Kaito countless times, I can vouch that I never freaking remember which way around the buttons are supposed to go and have to check again every time. Maybe Shuichi can only tell because he has his own jacket sleeves with buttons on to compare it to.

…Wait. Waaaait. My I-have-checked-the-buttons-on-Kaito’s-sleeve-way-too-many-times senses were tingling, so I went and checked yet again to make sure and…

…they’re not even the right way around in this shot of his sleeve if it’s supposed to be the left one! The game’s artists can’t even remember which way around the damn buttons go! Even though I didn’t consciously know this, that may well be why I was instinctively so sure it was the right sleeve at first – because I was right to be!

I have to question, considering that Kokichi was lying on top of the jacket, how the blood that went everywhere didn’t also get all over the jacket sleeve. It should have soaked it to the point of completely obscuring the smaller stain of Kaito’s blood around the arrow hole, you’d think.

Regardless of which sleeve it is, the fact that there is a bloodstained arrow hole in it proves that Kaito was wearing it at some point prior to it dangling outside the press. First-time-me who’d convinced herself it was the right sleeve still didn’t budge at this and I instead somehow decided he must have inexplicably been wearing his jacket differently to how he always does when he was shot, then apparently switched back to wearing it normally before being in the press.

The swipe pattern bloodstain is entirely staged to give the impression that they fought in the bathroom and then the victor dragged the injured/dead loser into the press to crush him. Since that’s not actually what happened, I have to question how there’s no signs of bloodstains from where they actually got injured, all three shots of which happened in the hangar. Perhaps it’s simply because puncture wounds bleed most when the weapon is removed, and Kokichi’s arrows were removed in the bathroom after the antidote shenanigans – but Kaito pulled his arrow out while still in the hangar.

Himiko:  “The way you are now… you might start accusing people cuz you can’t believe Kaito’s death…”

Apparently Himiko took Maki’s words seriously about how Shuichi is acting like Kaito in Gonta’s trial and is now thinking Shuichi might accuse someone with no basis just to run away from the truth. I’m sure that red Exisal in the corner would really like to tell her that there’s no way Shuichi would ever do that.

Himiko:  “I don’t wanna hear your excuses! Or anything else! Just don’t talk to me!”

Himiko’s acting like this because she’s afraid of being suspected after having given the crossbow to Kaito, but she sure is just making herself look much more suspicious by doing so than if she’d just relax a bit about this.

Shuichi:  (The red Exisal is completely still…)

Himiko:  “Shuichi, it’s dangerous there… If you go near that thing, you might get torn apart.”

Nope. Not ever. In fact, if anything else happened to be trying to kill Shuichi right now, the vicinity of that red Exisal is probably the single safest place he could stand.

Shuichi:  “Ah, but… I suppose that if Kokichi was alive, he could move it at any time by remote…” […] (That is *if* Kokichi is alive…)

Shuichi is very quick to stress to himself that it’s definitely just an “if”. Definitely.

Shuichi:  “So this is how it looks on the inside, huh?”

As a Kaito fanartist, I would also like to personally thank the open green Exisal in this hangar for providing practically the only decent reference image for what the inside of an Exisal cockpit looks like. There should be plenty of Kaito fanartists who feel the same way, because Kaito fanartists should have plenty of reason to want to know what an Exisal cockpit looks like… but I might be the only one who does, and that makes me very sad.

(What I’m saying is, more Exisal Kaito fanart, dammit.)

Monokuma shows up as Shuichi is examining the Exisal to talk about the electronic lock on the cockpit that only the Monokubs could unlock. Which on the one hand is him providing relevant information that Shuichi can’t get just by looking at it… but on the other hand, I think he just wants an excuse to be here.

Monokuma:  “Of course I want attention! I’m the mascot for cryin’ out loud!”

…Because he also shows up, completely gratuitously, when you talk to Tsumugi. Which makes a lot of sense when you realise that an Electrobomb was used recently in order to break in here, meaning that Monokuma can’t watch the investigation without physically being here and seeing it himself. He’s not going to admit that, hence his usual nonsense as an excuse for showing up, but he definitely wants to see as much of the investigation as he can, especially since he still needs to figure out for himself who actually did it.

Monokuma:  “And yet, I’ve appeared fewer times than that Plain Jane Tsumugi over there.”

I like how he complains about getting less attention than the mastermind he’s beholden to.

Monokuma:  “It’d be false advertising if I didn’t appear as often as I can, y’know?”

Monokuma, you are not subtle! If you were more subtle then maybe Kokichi wouldn’t have figured you out and you wouldn’t even be in this mess!

(Kaito is probably hearing this and thinking “damn, maybe Kokichi really did have a point about this”, now that he’s aware of the possibility of an audience and can evaluate Monokuma’s words and actions in that light.)

Tsumugi:  “A-Advertising? What advertising?”

If you have a problem with him dropping hints like that, you should have programmed him not to, Tsumugi.

Shuichi:  “…Ignore it. Let’s just focus on the investigation.”

No, Shuichi, don’t ignore it! It’s actually kind of relevant to this particular investigation!

Upon examining the bathroom door, Shuichi doesn’t quite immediately head inside.

Shuichi:  (This is the place where Kaito was imprisoned. Kaito might have left some kinda clue here—) “Ah, no… he didn’t ‘leave’ anything… He might not be dead…”

Much as I love the denial from Shuichi that the writing is going for here, the wording doesn’t quite work for it like it should. “Kaito left some kind of clue” implies more to me that he left it deliberately and therefore most likely isn’t dead. (Which, as it turns out, is exactly what he did!) Maybe this worked better in Japanese, but even in English, “left behind” might be a slightly better way to imply the suggestion that it was done without intent and he’s no longer here.

Also, Shuichi spoke that last part out loud, and the bathroom door is close to the red Exisal, so even if he was speaking pretty quietly under his breath… Kaito probably heard that. He must be feeling such a mix of emotions at hearing Shuichi stubbornly deny that he’s dead like this – on the one hand he’d be happy that Shuichi wants him to be alive and proud that he’s potentially going to figure out the real truth, but on the other hand, Shuichi is clearly so afraid of the alternative, and the plan that Kaito’s going to give it his all to pull off will involve convincing Shuichi that he really is dead and making that fear seem to come true.

Before I start examining any of the actual evidence in the bathroom, let me go off on a tangent: there’s still no toilet paper in here. There wasn’t when Shuichi was last here at the beginning of the chapter, either, but obviously Kaito would have needed some – for more than one reason, given all the blood he was coughing up. So probably the reason that it’s not here any more is that he took the remainder of it with him into the Exisal to keep catching all the blood he was going to keep coughing up while in there. This is definitely a thing that I’m supposed to conclude and not just the game developers not having thought about this at all.

Since Kaito was locked up, it would have been Kokichi who provided him with the toilet paper after shutting him in there. So, please imagine: Kokichi showing up at the bathroom door to awkwardly, wordlessly hand Kaito a roll of toilet paper, which, given what happened with Gonta, makes Kaito just kind of stare at him for a moment like “is this a fucking joke”. (It’s actually not, though, because Kokichi wouldn’t want to remind himself of the murders that were totally not his doing.)

{Later addendum edit: Uhhh, never mind, scratch that, turns out there actually is toilet paper in the bathroom: a whole stack of it here by the sink. I didn’t notice it for a long time because it kinda blends in, and because I was looking for toilet paper on the actual toilet paper dispenser, which is indeed empty.

This stack is here both during the investigation and also during the first time Shuichi explores the hangar in the Daily Life, so unfortunately this removes any real possibility of my silly hypothetical scenario I presented here. Which is a shame. I liked that idea.

(It also slightly lessens the chance of Kaito having some of it with him in the Exisal to catch all the blood he’d be coughing up? But, I mean, he didn’t need to take the whole pile, so this one could still be true.)}

Shuichi:  (A body discovery announcement… means the mastermind is still alive… But… I still… don’t believe… That Kaito… is dead.)

There’s a monitor in the bathroom, which you don’t need to investigate, but if you do you get some more delightfully forced denial from Shuichi.

The antidote bottle appears to be labelled “Poison”, but the blood obscures the rest of the label, which really reads “Strike-9 Poison Antidote”. This is a much cleverer trick in Japanese – the word “antidote” in Japanese is the word for “poison” but with a prefix, and that’s the part which is obscured by blood. Imagine if the English word for it were “antipoison”. It’s probably a little easier for a Japanese player to guess that perhaps this was in fact an antidote bottle.

It’s never made clear whether or not the label being obscured by blood to make it look like a bottle of poison was deliberate in order to confuse things further, but it probably was, since the blood ending up on it in this particular way by accident is pretty unlikely.

I commented on the swipe pattern bloodstain earlier, and the bloodstain in the bathroom is also way too neatly patterned, as if there was just one single injury sustained there and then the victim was dragged out. Apparently they managed to fabricate this after the fact, but I feel like there should have been more blood in more places in the bathroom given what actually happened, and that Kokichi’s two arrows were removed in here. Even if they wiped up some of the extra blood, there should still be traces that Shuichi should be able to spot.

Outside the hangar, Keebo is feeling better, which doesn’t actually make sense if you think about it, since the Electrobomb was triggered out here and so this should be the epicentre of the effect making him feel sick.

Keebo:  “So what I experienced was akin to an allergic reaction such as hay fever… So it could have affected a human the same way! Being a robot had nothing to do with it!”

Thinking of it as essentially an allergic reaction is a neat way of putting it that makes it equivalent to something humans experience. He doesn’t need to insist that it’s not because he’s a robot – obviously robots would be allergic to different things than humans because their bodies work differently, but it doesn’t mean their allergies don’t still matter!

Keebo recounts how he witnessed Himiko sneaking into the hangar carrying the crossbow case, shortly before he headed there himself to try and negotiate with Kokichi. Which means that Shuichi, Himiko, Keebo and Maki all entered the hangar on their own initiative yesterday to try and be helpful in some way (even if Maki’s idea of “helpful” was very questionable), despite that this wasn’t part of the plan they’d agreed on. The only person who did nothing of the sort is Tsumugi – and it’s quite telling that she’s the odd one out here. She didn’t care about doing something extra to try and help, and she knew Maki would be trying to kill Kokichi and didn’t want to get in the way of that.

Monokuma:  “Oh, at the time, the Exisals were on auto-pilot and directed to only observe me.”

You’d think that Shuichi would be able to figure out that they were never really “protecting” him based on the way Monokuma words this here.

Shuichi:  “…Why are you telling me all of this? This puts the person controlling you at a disadvantage.”

Monokuma:  “But we’re not talking about that… We’re talking about this.”

Shuichi of course thinks Kokichi is the mastermind and therefore that it’s odd for Monokuma to reveal information about what Kokichi did. Monokuma’s response drops a really big hint that Kokichi isn’t actually the mastermind, but it seems to go over Shuichi’s head.

Monokuma:  “The person who shared that info with me didn’t seem interested in sharing it with you guys… So you share it instead! That way, it’ll be fair to all participants!”

Meanwhile, here, Monokuma is supposedly referring to Maki, as will be brought up later in the trial. Which is kind of awkward, since I highly doubt this (and we still seem to be talking about the fact that the Exisals were observing him here) is something Maki ever stopped to tell Monokuma. I guess when he’s saying “shared the info”, he doesn’t necessarily mean directly, and it’s simply the fact that Maki hijacking one of the Exisals didn’t cause the others to attack her that let Monokuma realise what was up.

Or Monokuma is simply using Maki’s secrecy as a flimsy excuse to give this information to Shuichi, because really he wants to try and hint at what Kokichi’s real plan was so that Shuichi can figure things out for him in the trial.

‘Exisals Protecting Monokuma’ has been added to the Truth Bullets section of your Monopad.

That’s quite pointedly not what Monokuma just told us, but okay.

Now to briefly head to Maki’s and Shuichi’s labs. Although going to Maki’s is practically unnecessary, since all it’s for is to confirm that there’s one less crossbow case there, which should already be evident from the crossbow in the bathroom.

Shuichi:  (I feel as though there are less weapons here than I remember…)

That’s because of Kaito’s Heroic Plan that never actually happened. His pile of weapons is probably still in the gym, alone and forgotten about.

Shuichi:  (Case files, lined up for me to read. There’s nothing off about them. They don’t seem to be related.)

What if you just… took a break to read them anyway. Just one? Just the first one? No? You might find it quite enlightening.

None of the other bottles of antidote have the word “Poison” on the label, making it a little bit of a stretch that the Strike-9 one did. Possibly it’s because the full name of that poison is literally “Strike-9 Poison” (the poison bottle on the shelf does say precisely that), but that also makes it harder for players of the localisation to realise the bottle in the hangar might be for an antidote.

Shuichi:  (According to the labels, each bottle is only one dose.)

It sure is convenient that these antidotes for completely different poisons happen to all work such that one dose is exactly the same amount and exactly enough to fill one of these bottles, and that the Strike-9 antidote therefore obviously also works that way. Buuuut the plot point of there only being one single dose of antidote is very important and fun, so I don’t actually mind.

Shuichi:  (…None of these antidotes are for the Strike-9 poison. They’re all for different poisons. What could that mean?)

Obviously this means the bottle in the hangar is the Strike-9 antidote. But there’s also the question of why some of the other antidotes are even out on the desk in the first place. The game never explicitly explains what this means, but it’s a delightful detail. Consider how Maki was very careful to put the poison bottle back once she’d used it to prepare her arrows, such that Shuichi only noticed it’d been used because it had slightly less in it. But the antidotes? Apparently she just haphazardly grabbed a handful in her haste to find the right one among them, and then afterwards, she didn’t even have the presence of mind to remember she’d left the other ones lying around and put them back to hide the evidence. It’s great how what’s seemingly just there to give the player the information they need to know also serves as a subtle sign of the huge difference in Maki’s state of mind before and after shooting Kaito.

Shuichi:  (I didn’t find any evidence to suggest Kaito isn’t dead… On the contrary, there’s plenty of evidence to suggest *Kokichi* isn’t dead. […] Which means… the victim must be…) “No, it’s too soon to be thinking like that. If I investigate a little more, I’ll find something.”

I love how Shuichi desperately tells himself that if he hasn’t found any evidence of Kaito being alive yet, it must be that he hasn’t investigated hard enough and definitely not just that maybe Kaito really isn’t alive after all.

Shuichi:  (Perhaps I missed something… I should check again.)

Yes, definitely. That’s definitely all it is, and he’s totally going to find some magical piece of evidence proving Kaito’s survival despite everything if he just looks harder.

So Shuichi returns to the hangar, where Keebo wants to show him something he found in the bathroom… but you can put that off and instead re-investigate everything in the hangar. If you do so, you get the usual text summarising what he deduced when he first investigated the thing, but then also…

Shuichi:  “That’s all that stands out to me right now. But I should keep looking.”

[the screen fades to black]

(…)

(…)

(…)

[the screen fades back in]

Shuichi:  (It’s no use. There are no clues here.)

…he does this, for every single item of note that he investigated previously… except for the hydraulic press and the sleeve. Shuichi is so desperate to find even the slightest bit of evidence he might have overlooked that could prove Kaito is alive – but deep down he doesn’t believe it at all, because he can’t bear to look too closely at the press for fear of finding incontrovertible proof that Kaito really is dead. (Which is ironic given that the arrow hole in the sleeve is the main thing suggesting that maybe it’s not really Kaito under there.)

It is also quite amusing that one of the things Shuichi can stubbornly re-investigate in this way is the red Exisal. That actually would give him precisely the miraculous, undeniable proof of Kaito being alive that he so desperately wants, if only he really did manage to investigate it as thoroughly as he could.

Maki is back in the hangar, but she won’t even look at Shuichi.

Maki:  “…”

Shuichi:  (Maki… Why is it so easy for you to believe Kaito is dead?)

Shuichi cannot understand how someone who is also Kaito’s friend isn’t just as desperate to deny that as he is!

Once you enter the bathroom, Keebo invites Shuichi to investigate Kokichi’s clothes that just turned up in the toilet… but you can still ignore that and re-investigate everything else. This time it makes a lot less sense that Shuichi would do that when massive evidence that might possibly prove Kokichi is dead is right there, but it’s still a thing; Shuichi does the same stubborn lengthy re-inspection of most things in here, which even somehow includes the bathroom window. Yes, Shuichi, that is definitely going to be secretly hiding a clue to Kaito being alive.

As I finally actually investigate the clothes…

Keebo:  “Is something the matter? Please, investigate!”

Shuichi:  “Ah! O-Okay!” (The Ultimate Detective can’t stop here! This *has* to be an important clue…)

Come on, Shuichi, you’re willing to stare at a window frame for three minutes in the hope that it might tell you Kaito is alive; you should not be hesitating about these having been found in the toilet if you really are that desperate.

Shuichi:  (It could mean that he was attacked. In that case… There’s a chance… Kokichi was the one crushed in the hydraulic press!) “Ah, Keebo, thank you! Thank you! This is a very important clue!”

Aww, Shuichi! He’s elated to find proof that maybe his best friend isn’t dead! He was so desperate to find some and he did!

Except… he really, really didn’t. If Shuichi were looking at this objectively and not with the mindset of someone desperate to find even the slightest indication of Kaito’s survival or Kokichi’s death, he’d realise this straight away. Because, sure, it proves Kokichi was injured – but if Kokichi was the victim, why wouldn’t the culprit just leave his clothes on him when they crushed him? That’d be a much better way to hide any evidence of a struggle.

What this really should be taken as evidence of is that Kokichi is very much still alive, and he wanted to hide the evidence that he was injured. That’s clearly precisely why Kokichi took his clothes off before being killed and told Kaito to flush them – to make it look like Kokichi wanted to get rid of them, while having it so that the evidence would eventually be found to make Shuichi (and Monokuma) come to the conclusion that he did that and is therefore still alive.

Keebo:  “Oh, I’m happy I was able to help, but I must decline shaking that hand of yours.”

Another testament to Keebo’s humanity – he seems to have a human’s instinctive aversion to germs, despite the fact that they’re not a problem for him personally.

(Also Shuichi was so happy that he just up and tried to shake Keebo’s hand, that’s adorable.)

Shuichi:  (But if Kokichi was the one crushed in the hydraulic press… Where did Kaito go? Why not show himself?)

That’s still the million-dollar question, isn’t it, Shuichi. He knows just as well that it’s not remotely like Kaito to hide at a time like this. And the fact that he’s only even asking himself this question now is another sign that he wasn’t nearly as sure that Kaito might be alive as he was trying to be.

Tsumugi:  “I wonder where he went off to…”

Shuichi:  (Did he disappear? He can’t still be in the hangar…)

In this conversation they’re assuming it’s Kokichi, not Kaito, but whoever the survivor is, there is one place in the hangar he could still be that hasn’t occurred to Shuichi.

(And Shuichi totally could check that place, if only it occurred to him as a possibility. There are still four fully-charged Electrohammers lying presumably somewhere near the entrance after everyone dropped them in shock upon seeing the body. Using one of them on that red Exisal would have cut this whole trial very awkwardly short.)

Tsumugi:  “Kokichi’s been manipulating us all from the start… I can’t believe someone like that could be killed by Kaito…”

Shuichi:  “…”

Tsumugi:  “Ah! Of course, I don’t mean to compliment Kokichi or make fun of Kaito or anything!”

I mean, for not having meant to do that, you sure were making Kaito sound kind of pathetic, Tsumugi. Why would he not hypothetically be able to kill Kokichi just because Kokichi has been manipulative?

Monokuma:  “It’s time for the class trial, where hope and despair meet head-on!”

Welp, now that we’ve opened up the connection to the original Danganronpas, Monokuma is going to be throwing those words around like confetti.

Monokuma:  “Everyone needs to be there, got it!? Anyone who’s absent will be swiftly and permanently punished!”

Monokuma has to know that the survivor is inside the red Exisal, even if he doesn’t have a clue who it is. He didn’t see anyone leave the hangar last night, and there’s only one place in the hangar he could be hiding.

You really don’t need to threaten him to get him to come, though, Monokuma. He has no intention of running away from this.

Monokuma:  “I wonder what kinda despair awaits you this time!”

Yeah, you definitely do wonder, don’t you.

Tsumugi:  “This isn’t everyone… right?”

Shuichi:  “…Kaito and Kokichi aren’t here.”

I think you mean “or”, Shuichi. You have at least managed to accept that one of them is definitely dead.

Maki:  “As the mastermind of the killing game, he’s waiting for us to arrive.”

Shuichi:  “… We… don’t know that yet. There’s still a chance Kaito is alive.”

Maki:  “…Cut it out. Do you want to die?”

Maki still cannot bear to hear Shuichi talk like Kaito might be alive when she knows he isn’t.

Maki:  “This is a battle between hope and despair. If I show any weakness like you are… then I know I’ll lose to despair.”

Maki, you’re already in despair! You’re losing to it right now! Shuichi is winning against it because he’s still managing to hope that Kaito might be alive!

This is still Maki being brainwashed by the wrong meanings of those words and the idea that “despair” is a person who can be defeated, specifically Kokichi. That “defeating despair” is such a necessary outcome that it’s even worth sacrificing all of her friends to do. The “weakness” she’s afraid of showing is the thought that she might hesitate to sacrifice them and in doing so let despair “win”, just because Kokichi will live and Kaito will have died for nothing.

Maki:  “Six of us will participate, and one of us will die after this class trial… Then only five will be left. Only… five…”

She means this the other way around: one will survive, and five will die. She’s trying to psych herself up for making this sacrifice by telling herself that she’ll be killing only five more people, trying to make it seem like a tiny number compared to the countless people she’s already killed, trying to think of it as just a number and not four of her friends. She’s trying to tell herself it’ll be worth it.

Maki:  “But we can’t lose to despair. Even if we have no future, we need to win.”

If we have no future, we have nothing to hope for and we’ve already lost to despair! Danganronpa 2’s thing of insisting that the “future” was somehow an entirely different concept to “hope” was also very silly and misunderstanding the words, considering that their whole concept of the future was simply something that the characters were hoping for.

Maki:  “That is… the whole point of this class trial.”

Guhhh. It is to her, and it shouldn’t be.

(But the real point of this whole class trial is so that somebody can have his final chance to make a difference and be a hero.)

Maki:  “I will defeat Kokichi, no matter what I have to sacrifice.”

Maki Roll! It’s not worth it! Even if Kokichi really was the thoroughly evil mastermind he claimed to be, it still wouldn’t be! She’s been so completely taken in by the bullshit from the Flashback Light and then broken by her despair over killing Kaito and it’s heartbreaking. You don’t really want this at all, Maki.

Shuichi:  (No matter what she has to sacrifice? Are you sure about that, Maki? Is that what you call ‘hope’?)

Right, Shuichi!? It’s not hope, is it!?

Shuichi:  (I wonder what Kaito would say at a time like this. What would he say to us? If it was Kaito…)

The first thing he’d say is that he believes in you, of course! That’s still true, even if Kaito really is gone. It’s adorable (and a little heartbreaking) that Shuichi depends on his support so much that he’s just instinctively trying to turn to Kaito for help even though he’s not there.

Kaito would also have a lot of emphatic things to say to Maki about her current state of mind, things which should be able to get through to her and stop her from doing this. But of course Maki has not and cannot let herself consider what Kaito would be saying to her right now and what he would want for her. Thinking about how much he’s done for her and how grateful she was to him just hurts too much when she repaid it all by killing him.

Shuichi:  (We had lost the will to live, knowing what we know about the outside world. But somehow… despite that despair, we had found a new reason to live.)

Yeah. Somehow.

Shuichi:  (To win the battle between hope and despair.)

The way he talks about it like it’s a “battle” is probably one of the best ways to illustrate the issue with the meanings that the Flashback Light has been giving those words for them. They’ve essentially just become equivalent to “good” and “evil”, and therefore obviously the good guys just need to defeat the bad guys, right?

Shuichi:  (We don’t know what hope means to us anymore.)

You sure don’t, but not for the reason you appear to be thinking of here, Shuichi.

Shuichi:  (What is hope…? A burden you bear?)

In a way, it kind of is. Holding onto the hope for something you desperately want to be true, but not being certain of it (because as soon as it becomes certain then it’s not hope any more, just relief and happiness) comes with the constant terror that it’ll never happen after all and you’ll end up back in despair. The fact that Shuichi is thinking of it this way suggests that he knows this very well himself – after all, he’s been feeling like this for this entire investigation.

But also, if we’re talking about “hope” as being the thing you inspire others to feel, like they’re all supposed to have done as students of Hope’s Peak… then maybe that’s a burden too. You have to live up to your image of greatness in order to inspire people, right? That pressure to do that is one hell of a burden, and you can’t share it with anyone because if they knew you were struggling then you wouldn’t be able to inspire them any more!

(Why yes I totally did just make this about Kaito’s issues; what did you expect me to do when Shuichi invoked the word “burden” like that.)

The courtroom décor this time is a deliberate throwback to the very first trial from Danganronpa 1. Which just goes to show that everyone really is a bunch of mindlessly nostalgic genwunners, because that was one of the weakest trials in the series!

Monokuma:  “Ahh, a battle like this takes me back. After all, hope and despair are natural enemies.”

Are you sure you’re talking about hope and despair, Monokuma, or do you just mean good and evil as well?

Monokuma:  “Yes, this truly is a magnificent theme. Puhuhu… Only esteemed works of fiction have themes as magnificent as this.”

Geez, you were obvious about this being made for entertainment, but you were never this obvious about it being fiction, not even when Kokichi was still alive to pick up on your hints.

(Also, turns out truth versus lies is a much more fun theme than hope versus despair, so, eh, not really, Monokuma.)

Maki:  “Anyway… where’s Kokichi? Why isn’t he here?”

Maki was probably still hoping she could just murder him to death here with her knife right away to avoid having to go through with the sacrifice. Even though she was most likely also imagining he’d be expecting that and would have some way to protect himself.

Keebo:  “Kokichi can twist and violate the rules all he likes, but we’ll never give up!” […]

Monokuma:  “Oh, for the love of… No rules have been violated on my watch, y’know?”

Yeah, definitely none, not even in the first trial. And you sure won’t violate any this trial either, will you?

Shuichi:  (Was the one who died… Kaito or Kokichi? I can’t say for certain… but I still believe. …Kaito wouldn’t die so easily. I… don’t know why I believe that so strongly…)

Because Kaito is stubborn and indomitable and ridiculous, and it doesn’t seem right that he could just up and die such a sudden, meaningless death, does it? It wouldn’t be a good story befitting of a hero like him at all to just die like that, right?

Shuichi:  (But I will fight to prove it.)

He’s not here to survive, or to find the truth, like in every previous class trial. He just wants to prove his best friend is still alive.

---

[Next post]

[lore-a-lie]

Chapter 1: Her Threads Dividing Heaven From Hell

Daily Life

Kaede opened her eyes to the sound of her door sounding on the verge of breaking rather than the announcement, so sleep must have won out after all at some point. She shot from the bed to open it while it was still in one piece and became smothered by something big and warm for her efforts.

“GONTA IS SO HAPPY KAEDE’S NOT DEAD!”

Well, that answers who has her trapped in a bear hug right now at least.

“Umm. Yes. I’m not. That may change in a bit if you can’t let go a little but I’m definitely alive right now.”

“OH. Whoops, Gonta is sorry. Gonta came by because he got worried, Gonta was asking the others why you hadn’t come to breakfast yet and Kokichi said it cuz you were too busy being dead.”

“... Excuse me?”

“Well Kiyo said you might be talking to Shuichi’s hat, but Kokichi insisted you were so sad you just died of loneliness. Like his bunny.”

“... What?” (Should I be happy Kokichi chose to make it sound less like I lost my mind or committed suicide over a boy I knew for only a few days or offended he put this idea in Gonta’s head at all?)

“Everyone will be so happy to see you fine!”

And with that and little that could be said to stop him Gonta “escorted” Kaede to the dining hall like a true gentleman should. If it was more socially acceptable to practically to carry the “lady” in question somewhere she wasn’t really going in the first place. Inside she found evidence of Kirumi in the kitchen, Kibo having an argument with Kokichi about his robophobia, and Korekiyo sitting further apart eating on his own. Somehow. Without taking off his mask or undoing the zipper. No time to get distracted though.

“Hello everyone! As you can see I’m not dead, nor have I lost my mind and taken to talking to inanimate objects. So what’s been going on?”

“Well Kibo’s here so you are still totally talking to an object right now but okay, we’ll pretend to believe you! It’s not like you’ve ever lied to us before or anything.” It was hard to tell if the grin on Kokichi’s face as he spoke was one of mockery or malice considering his words, but the reminder stung all the same.

“I am not an object! I just finished explaining that-”

“And I wasn’t listening. Obviously. We’re still just waiting for everyone else to show up, and I was thinking it was pretty weird for us to be up soooo early and ready to plan while our “Leader” moped in her room over some emo murderer some more.”

“Huh? That’s not what you told Gonta-”

Korekiyo chose to interrupt Gonta’s confusion to try and smooth over the conversation without Kokichi’s excuses or lies derailing things. “It’s good to see you are doing better at any rate. And as it sounds like my own suggestion has been misconstrued I merely offered that you had taken our friend’s hat with you with the intent to use it as a coping mechanism to help you through your grief. Briefly as we’ve known each other you two had connected rather strongly, what happened to him was very traumatic, and you were clearly distraught. Belittling any chosen methods to help you deal with your loss or questioning your mental health were never my intentions. There are far less conventional means of doing so after all and no one should judge you for mourning the loss of a life. Particularly one who helped save all of our own in a way.” Kokichi flinched a little at the cold glare Korekiyo directed at him as he finished.

“Are you feeling better this morning Kaede? Can I get you anything? Is there anything you’d like for breakfast?” Kirumi came out of the kitchen with a cart stacked with food and began to effortlessly lay out the filled dishes on the table without breaking her concerned eye contact with Kaede.

“No, I… Thank you for your concern but I’ll be okay. Maybe something simple like pancakes? Only if you’re already planning on making something, I don’t want you to feel you have to do anything.”

The pancakes helped give some sense of normalcy and were easily the best she’d ever had, but if grandma ever asked after all this was over she’d still have to say hers were the best. She took a seat between Korekiyo and Kokichi as she waited for the others to arrive. Miu arrived a few minutes later and made a beeline for Kibo’s side where they started animatedly talking about something. Hopefully work safe. It sounded like it might be about making upgrades to some of Kibo’s features, since for an Ultimate he is rather underwhelmingly normal and now they really have the time to help change that.

It was after Angie came springing in that Korekiyo had eaten enough to go back to “Professor” mode and give a lecture about the cultural trivia and origins related to their food, though only Kaede and Kirumi paid it any attention. Kokichi was more focused on trying to get a reaction out of Kibo and Miu over anything he could, which proved as effective as it was amusing for him.

Benefits of sitting close to the two creepiest kids of this hodgepodge group of friends: the not-so-local religious zealot can’t ask you to join her cult and both love the sound of their own voices so much there’s little pressure to do much talking yourself so you can just focus on eating and breathing and trying to get the images of that godforsaken trial or Rantaro’s corpse out of your head for a few minutes of peace.

After Angie came Kaito, Ryoma, and Maki. Kaito must have tried dragging both of them here, but since Ryoma is here he was likely only a token effort while Maki looked ready to kill something. (Maybe she’s so good with kids because she scares them too much for them to risk giving her trouble but not enough to the point she stops being “cool”? She does look kinda badass right now, in a scary sorta way.)

Tsumugi, Himiko, and Tenko were next, which was a bit odd for a girl as energetic as Tenko to be so late.

Once everyone was together it was time to start planning on what everyone was going to do. The day before everyone finished exploring all of the newly unlocked areas. Tenko even set up a little poolside date for most of the girls and Kibo. Maki wanted to stay in her lab again instead and Miu was too busy due to a project Kaede asked her about so she pushed for Kibo to go in her place. (No one really knew what to make of these memories about the Ultimate hunt either since Rantaro was no longer with us.)

“Has anyone else watched those tablets the Monokubs gave us? I tried to but when saw that I got someone else’s I stopped so I didn’t see the whole thing.” (What? More tablets? When? Why?)

“Kaito got one too? Atua said the one Angie got would mean nothing to her, so I just started trying to incorporate it into a sculpture instead for now. Since damaging it was said to be against the rules.”

“Wait what do you mean you got someone else’s? Mine had my name plainly written on it but it wasn’t anything special.” Tsumugi sounded very confused, almost concerned, by this turn of events. But even she knew what was being talked about, which was more than Kaede could say. (I better fix that then.)

“I didn’t see anything when Gonta got me this morning, what are you guys talking about?”

“What, really Kaede? We all get motives delivered beyond our doorstep and you can’t even get ahold of yourself enough to even notice? Jeez, some “Leader” you are-”

“OI, watch it you brat! Besides if these are motives it might’ve been for the best most of us didn’t fucking see ‘em.”

Kibo was quick to latch onto this idea. “I agree with Kaito! If they are truly intended as “motive videos” for us I think the easiest way to protect ourselves from this threat is to ignore them.”

“Oh come on, it’s because they’re motives that we need to know what’s on them all! If we don’t check ‘em we’ll have no idea what we’re up against. Especially if not all these videos have a one to one switch, who knows who’s seen what by now! Doesn’t take much to lie about this ya’know.”

“You are suggesting we all divulge the contents of whatever video we were given yes? Have we and the owners of their respective videos no right to privacy anymore?”

Everyone started arguing over what to do, some sharing who’s videos they had while others refused despite trying to find out who had their own. If Kaede didn’t do something people would probably leave to take matters into their own hands, and who knows what that could lead to. (Well Shuichi and Rantaro know now, don’t they?)

“Wait everyone! Kokichi might have a point here.” She tried ignoring the look of shock that quickly changed to one of smug superiority on Kokichi’s face, but she certainly had everyone’s attention now.  

“If we watch all of these videos together we’ll better know what’s being used against us. Depending on the contents of the motives it may also be good to have others to talk to about them too, rather than dealing with any stress they could cause alone. I don’t see anything Monokuma wants us to have being purely for our own benefits after all, and who knows if the contents of these are even true or not.”

Everyone quieted down to weigh their options. Ryoma was the first to speak up.

“Not all of these motives could even lead to a person trying to kill you know. I just want to know what reason Monokuma thinks would work on me.”

“Gonta thinks it could also help us get to know each other better! Gonta never watched movies with friends like this before.”

“And what of those of us who would rather not know? Or those who think their video could do more harm than good? Will you just force us all to participate for the sake of your own paranoia?” Maki’s deduction hit a little too close to home, but Kaede ignored that best she could. It was a fair point.

“Come on now Maki Roll, it can’t be that bad. And if you don’t want to know what your own video’s about you can just leave the room for a bit or something. If it’s because the idea scares you then at least we’ll be able to let you know if those worries were founded or not and help you through it either way!”

The look on Maki’s face was enough to reconsider how safe of a plan this really is. Or at least think twice about using that cutesy nickname for her as that’s when this glare started, not that Kaito noticed. (But this was the easiest way to regain some faith in my friends again. The easiest way to prevent another Shuichi.)

“Well everyone let’s just take a vote then! If we want to watch the videos we’ll find a way to hook them up to the projector in the AV room, and if we don’t we’ll just gather up all of the videos and decide on a safe place to lock them all up as a group. Since Angie mentioned destroying them isn’t an option for us.”

Ryoma’s hand was the first up when voting for the videos, followed by Kokichi, Gonta, Kirumi, Kaito, and Kaede. Tsumugi took a while before saying how since she already saw her own video it wouldn’t be right to vote any other way. It looked like Tenko was going to wait for the “no” votes but when Himiko raised her hand so did she.

Maki, Angie, Kibo, and Korekiyo voted against it. Miu said she wasn’t really interested either and already had other projects to work on so she just didn’t want to be put in charge of projector duty.

With the results in, 9 for it to the 5 against,  it was easy for Kaede to announce their decision. “So looks like that’s settled then! Think we could watch them all tonight, about when nighttime starts? It’ll be better to get this over with sooner rather than later to keep more of us from peeking early.”

“I guess I’ll take a look at the projector now and tell ya if it’ll look like I’ll need to make any adjustments to it for this to work, but sure sounds like a plan so far. Or ya’know even if it doesn’t we can just bunch together and use the tablets directly while we netflix and chill-”

“I’m fairly certain that’s not a program any of us have access to nor is “chilling” a part of neutralizing a potential threat on our lives.”

“I think it’s plainly obvious that’s not exactly what she had in mind Kibo.”

In an effort to keep Tsumugi from explaining the “joke” to the naive robot right now Kaede carried on. “So anyway I guess we’ll just have some free time for ourselves for now!”

As everyone left the dining hall at that implicit dismissal Kokichi took a moment to pull Kaede aside.

“What are you playing at here exactly?”

“I don’t get what you mean.”

“I suggested the video thing and you just agree with it? You even twisted my words to make it something easier for the others to swallow to help them see it “your way”. What are you trying to get here?”

“I’m choosing to trust your judgment on this, even if our reasons for both coming to this conclusion differ. While I may be the leader this is a role your talent’s better suited to and I think working together like this can benefit everyone”

“... Even though I’m a liar. A lying liar who lies. Who nobody really likes if they have two brain cells to rub together. How do you even know I’m not lying about my talent? Or that I’m not hoping you’ll mess up so badly this buddy-buddy thing you’re trying to foster between us crashes and burns?”

“Because you’re smarter than me, possibly all of us. And putting our lives at risk could be just as dangerous to your own. You caught onto what Shuichi was doing… Long before I did. You’re able to point out when I’m doing more harm than good, and unlike me, you aren’t afraid to play the bad guy.”

“Who says I’m playing? I’m the Ultimate Supreme Evil Leader after all. And getting everyone killed would totes be to my benefit for this game.”

“Well, I think you’re lying right now. Because if you were it’d be more to your benefit to keep all this to yourself, since I’m more predictable to you than you are to me.”

“... I’m not sure if this attitude is making you more interesting or just a total snooze fest.”

“Then I guess time will tell won’t it?”

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