#izuru kamakura ✎ sure is the risk made (verse)

[unrealization]

@more-than-a-princess said “you should have told me this was going on. i would have put a stop to it the second i heard about it.”

"Oh really? How, exactly?"

Izuru Kamakura, or Hajime Hinata as he used to be called, had hoped he could continue on with the facade that he had been cured, but he should have known the princess was not one to underestimate.

He doesn't mean to sound cruel, but he truly believed that if he couldn't restore himself under his own power, no one could.

He was Ultimate Hope. His efforts to use the Neo World Program to restore himself and the members of Ultimate Despair to their former selves was mostly successful. However, despite his memory of his time as Hajime Hinata returning, he was still Ultimate Hope. He was still twisted beyond recognition.

He had a feeling someone would catch on sooner or later that he hadn't really changed back.

"Don't waste my time and yours dwelling on what can't be fixed. I am what I am. Your energy is better served elsewhere, Sonia."

[unrealization]

My postgame Izuru verse involves the ending playing out the same, but the changes to Hajime's mind were done by physically altering him to an extent. His memories of being Hajime Hinata return. He remembers the Neo World Program, and he's learned to FAKE being back to his old self, but he can't undo the damage that has been done. He is still unable to feel. Unable to truly live as Hajime Hinata. He simply wears a mask of normalcy to cover the cold, calculating mind of Izuru Kamakura. His boredom and bitterness remain, and he keeps up a comforting front for his old friends, mostly for their sake, because he remembers caring for them. He remembers how far he was willing to go to save them during the killing game. And yet, he is not that person. From his perspective, Hajime Hinata died the second he woke up from the simulation.

His primary motivation is to setup the others so that they can make something of themselves, and to find a way to bring Chiaki back from the program after her reappearance at the end of the final trial.

[unrealization]

"... An interesting argument."

Her words gave him genuine pause. Was he truly the one dwelling on it? From his perspective he was simply a body. A shell filled with unbridled talent and the memories of his now-dead former self. Sonia could see him from another perspective, it seemed. How he longed to see himself as she did. To empathize. That was simply impossible for Izuru Kamakura.

In his own dispassionate way, had he come to hate Izuru Kamakura? Himself. What he was now. Maybe that was some remnant of Hajime Hinata clawing its way back. A shame the nothing in his heart was endless. His perspective would doubtless be useful. After all, that was the purpose of all of this, wasn't it? To seek his counsel. To put himself back together. He'd come to the conclusion rationally. Izuru Kamakura could not. Hajime Hinata could.

His eyes scanned Sonia's, trying to comprehend her expression's meaning. He could understand it academically, but to grasp any depth was beyond him. Still, he could see it. Her resolve. He knew Sonia when he was still Hajime Hinata. For someone as kind and righteous as her, surely realizing the depth of her crimes as Ultimate Despair must have been unbearable. To bear it must have taken an unimaginable strength of will.

Kamakura closed his eyes, truly considering her words. The princess had discovered a blind spot in him. True, he would likely never return to his old self, but the same was true for everyone. He had been considering himself uniquely wounded among the wounded. Everyone bore the scars of the tragedy. Not just the people on this island. Everyone who was still living.

He'd been feeling sorry for himself.

He opened his eyes, no expression ever appearing on his face. It struck him oddly, being seen for what he really was. He was generally good at pretending to be Hajime Hinata, but allowing someone to speak with him as Izuru Kamakura had actually given him a new perspective. In his body and mind, both versions of him remained.

Sonia Nevermind had somehow realized that even when he couldn't. He'd told her that there was no hope, and even so she pushed back. Even so she tried to reach out. Even so she had made him realize something he hadn't considered.

"I must concede. You may be correct. Perhaps there is more for me to think about, Sonia."

He doesn't notice the tear streaming down his cheek, nor would he understand why it was there if he did.

Dwelling was an interesting way to put it.

After the five 'survivors' had been revived, they'd had a monumental task ahead of them: make Jabberwock Island habitable, revive their unconscious friends, and all the while contend with The Tragedy and their part in it. The Neo World Program, the horrible murder game that prompted their friends to do horrible things, paled in comparison to the atrocities they committed in reality and the resulting trauma from it.

Sonia Nevermind wasn't immune to either, though perhaps it weighed on her more heavily than some. She'd lived a life before Junko Enoshima of wanting to always do the kind, just, and right thing by others, to support her nation, her family, and her friends alike. Little by little, through fragmented memories and irrefutable evidence of the horrors by her own hands, she was piecing together what Makoto Naegi and his friends rescued her from. The damage had been done, but she and the others had been stopped before it had gotten worse. And it could always, she learned, get worse.

That was why she kept busy, to the best of her ability and permissions: the kitchen was off-limits to her, as was the laundry room. It was safer that way, better to conserve their resources from someone whose attempts at domestic tasks were inedible at best. So she did what she could to contribute: organize projects, look after the animals on the farm, administer first aid  and other means of basic care, and look in on her friends when they needed one. Which was a bit redundant: they always needed one.

All of them, it seemed, except Hajime Hinata. The boy she'd met in the simulation had become different, changed, out of it: sure, he could put on a front and slip into the Hinata she remembered, but it wasn't genuine. It didn't register in his eyes, in his expressions: the multi-colored gaze of his instead looked distant, as if trying to place where he belonged. That was something she could assist with, even if his boundless knowledge brought along a similarly robust stubbornness with it.

She'd found him alone, as he seemed to be when no one sought him out for his help. Something that weighed on her conscience, as she chewed the inside of her mouth in contemplation: he was given the ability to do so much, and yet as a person he was overlooked.

"By reminding you, whether you see it or not, that you are both Hajime Hinata and Izuru Kamakura," She replied clearly, firmly. Sonia wished she'd had the foresight to slip a compact mirror into her pocket. It would have been helpful, there on the beach, to hold it up to him so he couldn't ignore his own reflection. "Maybe you cannot change back into who you were. Frankly, I am not sure if any of us can."

"But," She continued from her spot on the beach. As the sun set, the heat was far less oppressive and the sand and waves brought a little peace. Whenever she could forget that with the scent of salt water came death in their simulated school trip turned awry. "You can choose who you want to be and how to live your life. We have done awful things, and maybe we cannot be fixed, but we can decide how we want to move forward in our lives. And you, with all of your skills and talents, have the ability to choose. Maybe I cannot stop you from dwelling upon Izuru Kamakura's crimes, but I can be here to remind you that you are so much more than them, than any of the abilities that our school forced upon you."