#remember reading the Togami light novel?

[funishment-time]

🔵 Kodaka BlueSky Q&As: Misc DR & Multiple Characters

⚠️ DISCLAIMER: Please be advised! Translations of all Japanese answers derive from a combination of Google Translate and my manager's three-quarters-remembered Japanese. We've tried our best to work out what he's saying, but there will be mistakes here and there. Do not take this as gospel!

To avoid spreading too much misinfo, where we're completely boggled about an answer, we've decided not to even make an attempt. We'll still list the post, but mark it accordingly.

➡️ AN IMPORTANT NOTE FROM KODAKA BEFORE READING:

First of all, the questions answered here are not official. Everything that is official is what is said within the work. In contrast, this is simply what Kodaka, the creator, thinks, and it is not the correct answer. Use this as a starting point to enjoy the depth of each character, or to say, "That's not right!" and enjoy it with your own interpretation. I think of this as a way of communicating with the characters who live in fiction. This is important, so please spread the word.

💕 FEBRUARY 2024:

Q: Out of all the characters that have appeared so far, who is your favorite visually?

A: As a fan, Haruko from FLCL. Among my own creations...hmmm, Monokubs lol and Enoshima.

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Q: Sorry if this has already been said! I saw a tweet saying that Fukawa Toko's novel "Before the Scent of the Sea Disappears" was made into a short film by Kodaka Kazutaka! Is there anywhere I can see it?

A: I don't have it..! I have the data on my PC, but…lol

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Q: Are you interested in making games in the world of Ultimate Talent Development Plan? I would like to see all the characters together. (Sorry my Japanese is not very good. I am using a translator.)

A: It's too early to tell. I'll continue to make more and more characters.

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Q: I love Ultra Despair Girls, but it's sad that so few people are playing it 😢 Are there plans for a port or remake for the Switch?

A: It's an absolute masterpiece! I'm proud to say that it has the heaviest storyline I've ever written, and the friendship at the end will have you in tears. And it's also pretty fun to take down all the Monokumas in one fell swoop. The controls are a bit rough in some areas, so I'd like to tweak them and re-release it. But maybe that last possibility is impossible in today's world...

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Q: What is your favorite chapter in the Danganronpa series?

A: Hmm, Chapters 1 and 6 of 1, and Chapters 5 and 6 of 2. Maybe Chapters 1, 5 and 6 of 3.

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Q: I love Danganronpa Zero, and I'd like to ask if there were any particular things that you were thinking about when you were writing it.

A: At the time, it was my first novel in about five years, and although I said "I'll do it" lightly, I wasn't good at writing the narrative, and after pushing myself into scrapping it many times, I finally managed to get it done by writing the narrative from the protagonist's point of view.

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Q: I got hooked on the Danganronpa series when I was in elementary school and am now a working adult!! Danganronpa is my favorite work of all time! Of course I played Rain Code too!! I love how Shinigami-chan grows and becomes more human as the story progresses! I wonder if a sequel to Danganronpa is really possible...? I'm also waiting for a sequel to Rain Code I'll keep waiting until I die! I love you!

A: From elementary school to working adult…! Thanks to Danganronpa, you've become a fine adult! Neither sequel is impossible. I'd like to expand more, get results from other new works, and make myself more valuable, and do it when it's best for me.

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Q: Are there any characters that have a secret backstory in any of the Danganronpa works?

A: For the most part, there are still stories that we haven't talked about.

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Q: This may be a question that can't be answered (it may have been asked already), but in the bad ending of Danganronpa, Togami holds a portrait of Fukawa, and there is a child of Togami? Will the truth about that ever come to light?!

A: With the loss of Kirigiri, and the decision to live together within the school, everyone had a change of heart and decided to join hands. Fukawa stopped belittling herself, and Togami stopped being arrogant, and the two started dating, but the next day Fukawa died in an accident. She died after choking on a dumpling, and Togami was confused, believing it was a curse from Celes. As Asahina comforted the depressed boy, things just sort of happened and Togami's child was born. Asahina loves children, and decided that this was her mission and she would give birth to everyone's children. And since that was all there was to do in the boring school life, everyone did it a lot. After that, she gave birth to more than 10 children, and the school flourished.

NOTE: This is the worst thing I have ever read.

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Q: I can't help but wonder about the night that Asahina, Hagakure, Togami, and Fukawa spent in the gym in Chapter 5 of Danganronpa. What were they doing that night?

A: I think they were standing in the dark gymnasium, each at one of the four corners, going around tapping the shoulder of the next person in the corner...

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Q: The "motivation video" that appeared in V3 featured someone important to each character, but it wasn't revealed who was in the motivation video for the characters in the main story. Did you have a set idea in mind of "this character is this person", Mr. Kodaka? Some characters talk about family or special people in Free Time scenarios, but there are also some characters who don't talk about such things, so I'm curious.

A: I had it set at the time, but I've forgotten about it...

NOTE: ugh

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Q: What's your favorite romantic pairing in danganronpa?

A: Monomi and Monokuma.

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Q: I love the scene in Chapter 6 of the original Danganronpa where the mastermind and the scissors girl (I will not reveal her name for now) meet and politely greet each other. Mr. Kodaka, are there any funny or gag scenes from the Danganronpa series or Rain Code that you like?

A: There are heaps of gag scenes and funny scenes, but when I first saw Monokuma and Monomi's comedy routine in 2 with their lines incorporated, I felt something otherworldly that I'd never heard before. We record out of order, so after incorporating it with the game, I was surprised at how otherworldly it was.

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Q: I would like you to publish profiles of Danganronpa Zero characters! Please do so!

A: Let's ask Spikechun! Spikechun reserves all rights! Let's all protest and demand that these profiles be made public!

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Q: In the summary of the materials for Danganronpa 1, there was a detailed description of the non-killers' punishments, but I wonder if those will ever be made into a movie...? I've been dying to see it 🥲

A: It's not exactly a good idea to capture people dying on film…

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Q: Who is the most popular character in Danganronpa? I would be happy if you could tell me one male and one female!

A: My personal opinion is... For guys, it's Shinguji. There are girls who are attracted to weird guys like that. For girls, it's Iruma. There are boys who are attracted to weird girls like that.

NOTE: I believe this is IRL, not in-universe, as Kodaka later answers who has the most friends in-universe, and it's not Miu or Kork.

🍀 MARCH 2024:

Q: Excuse me for asking a question! Who is the strongest drinker among Munakata, Yukizome, and Sakakura? 🥹

A: It's probably Yukizome.

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Q: Among the BGM used in the original, 2, and V3, is there any that you particularly like, Mr. Kodaka? I absolutely love New World Order from the original, DANGANRONPA SUPER MIX from 2, and V3 Discussion - SCRUM - from V3!

A: The punishment music was created first, and it created a Danganronpa atmosphere, or rather a playful yet serious atmosphere, so it has a deeply cryptic vibe.

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Q: I bought Danganronpa again on Steam and had my ex-girlfriend play the whole series, and she got hooked. This may be mentioned in other media, but are there any characters who weren't meant to die but ended up dying?

A: While I was writing, some roles were switched, but I don't think there were many changes to the plot. I think it was Nidai and Kuzuryu who switched roles...

NOTE: His memory is correct. Beta designs show a Fuyuhiko-like character who was meant to the the team manager, and a mafia guy who was a big Nekomaru-ish dude.

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Q: In the Danganronpa series, you get underwear when your bond with a character reaches its maximum, but whose underwear do you like the most, Kodaka?

A: Personally, I'm not interested in underwear. They're dirty.

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Q: I know you didn't write or supervise Danganronpa S at all, Kodaka, but have you played it since its release? And if you did, were there any event conversations that you particularly liked?

A: [From @/genoskissors: "エアプ is slang meaning he knows about the games content, but has not played it himself." Thank you for the correction!]

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Q: [A longer question, found here, that comes down to: "i'm curious how your writing with your world evolved in ways you may not have had planed..."]

A: The scenario changes a lot when I write it. It is live. Try writing it, move the characters around, and it keeps changing. Because the characters are alive.

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Q: Yamada and Celes seem to have been quite close during their school days, but how did they end up like that?

A: "I've gotten better at making royal milk tea."

NOTE: This is probably Hifumi talking.

🥬 APRIL 2024:

Q: Will you ever make a V3 animation? That could be so cool I’d love to see it so much.

A: That is a matter for Spike Chunsoft to decide.

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Q: Who is the character with the most friends in each of the Danganronpa games: the original, 2, and V3?

A: I guess Yamada, Koizumi, and Angie. I'm not sure if I can call Angie a friend, though.

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Q: Chabashira Tenko and I have the same birthday and blood type, so I'd like to know how a character's birthday and blood type are decided. I'm currently studying Japanese.

A: It's decided by fate.

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Q: Tired of answering questions about Danganronpa?

A: I'm not bored. I love Danganronpa. However, I may forget some things, so I don't want to answer carelessly.

🌺 MAY 2024:

Q: I think Harukawa-chan had romantic feelings for Momota-kun, but did Momota-kun see Harukawa-chan as a romantic interest? Or did he just see her as one of his "students," like Saihara-kun?

A: "I didn't realize it at the time, so I wasn't even conscious of it. If I had realized it sooner, things might have been different..."

NOTE: This is probably Kaito talking.

☀️ JUNE 2024:

Q: I feel like there weren't any characters in the original Danganronpa who were definitely able to cook, so who was cooking at breakfast and the like? I'd also like to know if there were any characters who could cook in the original!

A: I think they basically just used pre-cooked food, but I think Fujisaki and Yamada seem like they can cook.

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Q: How did you decide the seating order for the class trial?

A: Intentionally in random order so as not to create any patterns.

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Q: Are there any characters in 1, 2, and V3 who are not virgins? Sorry for the really vulgar question.

A: A rough estimate is a quarter.

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Q: Is it decided how old the characters in works such as Danganronpa and Raincode are? If so, how old are they?

A: Of course, Danganronpa is mostly in their teens. Raincode has a wide range, but even Yakou is in his 30s.

NOTE: This is kind-of hilarious, because I'm pretty sure it's canonically stated Yakou is actually in his late 20s...in something that Kodaka himself wrote. I'll have to go find evidence.

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Q: I'd like to know the recommended menu items at Hanamura Diner!

A: Fresh tonkatsu.

NOTE: Tonkatsu is a fried pork cutlet.

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Q: Were the Love Hotel scenes also supervised by Kodaka-san? When Ouma says that he doesn't care what Saihara does to him, is that what he says to make it possible for him to have anyone in that space under his control?

A: I did supervise it. But I left that to people who are good at that sort of thing and refrained from interfering too much, and I still refrain from doing so now.

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Q: Is there any trick to Tanaka Gundham's chuunibyou dialogue? I'm curious to know how you think of the unique expressions used by Saionji Hiyoko and Iruma Miu.

A: The insults come out super easily, but Tanaka's lines were thought out thoroughly, based on the light novels I've read, so it's exhausting.

NOTE: A "chuunibyou" is a kid, generally 12-13, who believes they have secret powers or a grand backstory. Gundham's a bit old to be a chuuni by Kodaka's own admission in the DR2 artbook, but that was apparently part of the charm (and why it was so difficult to write him). It's spiritual Naruto running.

🎇 JULY 2024:

Q: I'd like to know what underwear your favorite Danganronpa character wears, Kodaka-san.

A: Monomi's panties. Diapers.

NOTE: This is how rumors get started, Kaz...

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Q: Do Rain Code and Danganronpa take place in the same world? Do any of your games and works have a shared universe with another? Or are they all separate? 🤔 💭 I'm asking because I just had a dream about Rain Code today!

A: I won't make a clear statement. I am not sure what will happen in the future. Anyway, please spread the Rain Code around the world.

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Q: If Hope's Peak Academy had regular exams, who would have the best overall grades?

A: It would have to be Togami. Kirigiri has clear strengths and weaknesses and doesn't seem like she'd be good at things like art. However, when it comes to multiple choice questions, Komaeda who relies on luck is the strongest, Ouma steals the answers in advance, and Ki-Bo tries hard and is average, but is bad at calculations.

🌭 AUG 2024:

Q: when i played danganronpa there were times where i wondered about how some characters got along with their family, have you written/thought anything about a character's family background that isn't mentioned in the video games?even if it's something small i feel like it would be interesting to read

A: I think, but the fact that I did not put it in writing means that I left it to the player's imagination.

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Q: If Sonia and Fubuki met, who would take the initiative in the conversation?

A: Even though they don't match up at all, they seem like they'd get along really well.

NOTE: Fubuki from Rain Code.

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Q: When all the Danganronpa characters are gathered together, who do you think has the most aura?

A: It must be Ogami. I think everyone would look at her first.

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Q: Thank you so much for making "Danganronpa"!! 😊💓💓 Many fans have a special feeling for the relationship between Komaeda Nagito and Hinata Hajime. Is there a possibility that the two will become lovers in the future?

A: I have no plans to create anything that takes place after Danganronpa 3.

🍁 SEPT 2024:

Q: Are there many undiscovered super-high school level talents outside of Japan?

A: You could make a Danganronpa World War. 150 students are locked in a school, about 10 incidents occur at the same time, class trials are held here and there, and punishments are handed out one after another.

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Q: Are you afraid of bugs, Soda? I'd like to know who among two people can stand bugs and who doesn't like them!

A: Soda is not good with insects that suddenly appear, fly, or move suddenly. Sonia is fine with insects.

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Q: I would like to know Ouma's first words and reaction upon seeing an armed Keebo-kun!

A: “This isn’t like you!”

[penguwastaken]

This is the review I wrote for my Danganronpa Togami fan translation that I am currently working on, which I figured I might as well upload to Tumblr.

In June of 2023, after reading Danganronpa Togami for the first time, I wrote a review of it on Twitter. I want you to pretend like that review doesn't exist. Completely disregard it because BOY was I wrong.

When I first read Danganronpa Togami last year, I absolutely despised it. I was miserable almost the whole time. But I'm not the same person I was a year ago, I was naive and stupid, but now I have an IQ comparable to Albert Einstein! So basically what I'm saying now is I'm smart enough to understand it now. I couldn't disagree with my original review any more as I am now a based and enlightened Danganronpa Togami enjoyer. That's right, ME, the person who for a year made fun of this novel trilogy, finally sees the light I would like to issue a formal apology to Danganronpa Togami for being so stupid and blissfully unaware of its peakness.

Jokes aside, the more the novel sat in my head, the more conflicted I began to feel about it. I felt pretty mixed about it when I first read it, but those feelings only grew. Were my criticisms warranted? Did Danganronpa Togami really deserve the treatment I gave it? I picked it back up and gave it a second chance, and I was surprised to discover that it was... really good? I thought you were supposed to be this edgy, nonsensical, stupid book, that's how I remembered it at least, so what happened?

I'm going to try to keep this review as spoiler free as possible, because something I realized is that Danganronpa Togami isn't something that can really be explained. It's something that has to be experienced, beginning to end. The summaries don't really do it justice, which is part of why I started this project in the first place. Though at some points I may dive into some minor spoiler territory, so I'll make sure to mark those parts. So consider this my apology and defense of Danganronpa Togami, because I have to admit that in my blind hatred for it, I probably did end up harming it's perception. So maybe, if just a little, I can rectify it here and maybe convince you to give it another chance like I did.

I will say, Danganronpa Togami is probably one of the darker entries in the series. It features a lot of sensitive content, such as graphic and violent imagery, assault, incest, and abuse. If that's enough to turn you away from it, that's fine and perfectly understandable, especially given Danganronpa's track record with those topics. And I will admit, there are absolutely times where Danganronpa Togami borders on being edgy. But I don't think it's without purpose, and it's handled with more severity than most entries in the series. Once again, if that's enough to make you not want to touch it was a 2000 foot pole, that's perfectly reasonable.

Everyone knows Danganronpa Togami is like, REALLY weird. Octopus suits, lightsabers, fortune telling human-cows, you name it. This all seems a little out of place, even for Danganronpa, but it starts to make more sense as you proceed with the story. These weird things aren't real, they're the result of an unreliable narrator. Contrary to what idiot me from 2023 says, I don't think having an unreliable narrator invalidates a story. Even with it, you can still piece together the events of the story and it creates what is honestly one of the best plot twists in the series that ties everything in the novel trilogy together.

If I have one critique of Danganronpa Togami, it's Byakuya's characterization. It makes sense in the context of the novel for him to be perceived as some kind of god due to circumstances and Blue Ink's POV and stuff, but that's not my issue. My main problem comes from the fact that some of his actions are just bad, plain and simple. He is NOT a good person in this novel. I guess it makes sense, this is before his character arc in Trigger Happy Havoc after all, but it just feels kind of weird and out of character sometimes. You could chalk it up to just "more unreliable narrator nonsense," but I feel that misses the point a little.

Danganronpa Togami takes full advantage of its medium, it's twists are something that you can really only put in a novel. It's difficult to explain without going into spoilers, but unlike something like Danganronpa Zero or Danganronpa Kirigiri, I genuinely couldn't imagine Danganronpa Togami as anything else. It's also filled with a lot of fun and witty banter full of references and charming characters.

Danganronpa Togami has some really interesting themes of identity and how one's past or situation can change their perspective. This is seen all throughout the novel trilogy, whether it be the protagonist whose a victim, an idol forced into a popularity debate, or its version of the despair disease, acting more as a placebo effect here. Its themes are a bit more subtle than other entries, not even I'm sure if I fully get them, but they're certainly interesting.

Unlike Danganronpa Kirigiri, which feels like a completely unrelated story with a few elements from the games and Kyoko (not saying that as a bad thing btw), Danganronpa Togami feels like it takes as many elements as it can from the games and stuffs them in. It takes place during the tragedy, features characters from not only the first two games but also the novels, has references to Ultra Despair Girls, brings back weird plot points like the despair disease from Danganronpa 2, and so much more. In a way, it's kind of like a big Danganronpa crossover (also featuring Kagami Family Saga because Yuya Sato couldn't help himself lol).

At some point, you've probably wondered: "is Danganronpa Togami canon?" Due to elements from in it and the divisive nature of Danganronpa Togami, you can't really find a straight answer about it online, so I figured I'd weigh in on the discussion. If you asked me back when I originally read it if it was canon, I'd probably give you a hard "no." But it's a bit more complex than that. It's a little more complex than just a simple "definitively canon" and "definitively non-canon." Disregarding the unreliable narrator, there are parts of the story that we do reliably know happened.

The closest thing to a reference to Danganronpa Togami in any other piece of media in the series to my knowledge is Byakuya saying "by the dignity of the Togami name" once in episode 7 of Danganronpa 3 Future Arc, however Byakuya swearing on the Togami name has been around before the novels even if it is prominently used in them. However, a more definitive piece of evidence towards its canonicity is in episode 11 of Danganronpa 3 Despair Arc, where you see Sonia leading an attack on Prague with a graph of a satellite in the corner. I think this is a pretty cut and dry confirmation in favor of Danganronpa Togami being canon, albeit told through an unreliable narrator's perspective.

And that about wraps up my review and personal thoughts of Danganronpa Togami. It's definitely one of the more weird, yet fascinating entries in the series. I don't think it's on the level of Danganronpa Kirigiri (I don't think any entry in this series is), but it has its merits and hopefully I could convince you to maybe check it or appreciate it a bit more.

[hopeymchope]

The post was a few years ago (or last year) it looks like, yes, but basically you said something about what you thought the end of ‘Danganronpa Togami’ meant, then @drmedicsgamesurgery chimed in in the reblogs to tell you that your interpretation was wrong/invalid, then said their interpretation in a way that felt like the vibes of one of those Reddit “Um actually” posts, and I kind of felt bad about it for you just to read it, like it’s a fandom, we can be nice to each other and respect each other’s interpretations. Good to @drmedicsgamesurgery as well though if the two of you are on good/much better terms now.

Ohhh, okay. Thanks for clarifying this to me!

I can find a post or two similar to what you're describing related to Danganronpa Kirigiri, and I can remember some other disagreements —I know we've always disagreed on the characterizations of Jin and Fuhito, though I largely blame Takekuni Kitayama for that. :P But I can't find a post related to the Danganronpa Togami light novels that contains any major disagreements? Or maybe I just didn't interpret any of the disagreements in those posts as anything major

Admittedly, my Tumblr has been actively posting since something like late 2016, so I'm just gonna go ahead and believe you if you say such a post exists, lol. Six years worth of a blog that posts damn near daily is a LOT of posts to sift through. As it stands, I probably just don't remember this particular incident. Sounds like it leans towards being on the more recent side of the Hopey history, but it still isn't ringing bells with me, and I can't seem to do a search good enough to locate it... sorry. But maybe that's for the best, y'know?

I don't exactly have a direct relationship with @drmedicsgamesurgery beyond A) us sometimes commenting on or reblogging each other's posts and B) us weirdly getting mistaken for being the same person for some inexplicable reason.... but regardless, no worries there — I have zero beef with them at this point. I believe there's two (?) people who operate under that name as a team? And personally, I feel like they've proven to be a knowledgeable resource on some of the deep lore — most especially when it comes to the side content/spinoffs. Hell, they were even instrumental in bringing us the translation of Kirigiri Sou, and I believe they're still a major driving force behind the DR spinoffs wiki.

But if they seemed to previously sound snippy or derisive towards me? I remember a long time ago, I once used this blog to vent about my frustrations with the main DR wiki's content, only for them to swing in to reveal that they're one of the major contributors there, which meant I now sounded like I was bitching directly about them, which made me seem like a gigantic asshole. So yeah, I'm sure I've come off as a snippy bitch in the past in my own right. I'm just gonna choose to assume it evens out, lol.

At any rate, there's a decent chance they'll chime in on this post later, so maybe check the comments/reblogs for more. Thanks again for the additional context, your intention of support, and your overall kind words :)

[ao3feed-danganronpa]

A Puppet No More

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/UD0ZhJ4

by TheDeathOmen

A Sequel/Continuation of Danganronpa IF.

Stepping out of the gates of Hope's Peak Academy, with her classmates that she saved from her sister's killing game. Mukuro must now come to terms with having spent nearly her entire life as another's puppet. Coming to terms with the manipulation and abuse while also juggling the baggage that comes from having helped to end the world alongside Junko Enoshima. While trying to stop the sister she swore to protect and keep happy.

With a world that remembers her for her atrocities, a world that would be more than happy to have her executed for her crimes, and the Ultimate Despair, who also wishes to see her dead for betraying Junko. Will Mukuro finally be able to atone for all she's done and find her humanity once more? Or will the sins and memories of the past engulf her whole in the depths of despair like the very wolf tattooed on her hand?

Words: 2966, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English

Fandoms: Dangan Ronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, Super Dangan Ronpa 2, Dangan Ronpa 3: The End of 希望ヶ峰学園 | The End of Kibougamine Gakuen | End of Hope's Peak High School, Dangan Ronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls, Dangan Ronpa Series

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Categories: Gen

Characters: Ikusaba Mukuro, Naegi Makoto, Kirigiri Kyouko, Enoshima Junko, Togami Byakuya, Ogami Sakura, Asahina Aoi, Celestia Ludenberg, Yamada Hifumi, Ishimaru Kiyotaka, Oowada Mondo, Fukawa Touko, Fujisaki Chihiro, Maizono Sayaka, Kuwata Leon, Hagakure Yasuhiro, Monokuma (Dangan Ronpa), Class 78 (Dangan Ronpa), Dangan Ronpa 1 Ensemble, Ultimate Despair Member(s) (Dangan Ronpa), Future Foundation Member(s) (Dangan Ronpa)

Additional Tags: Light Novel: Dangan Ronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc IF, Despair Era (Dangan Ronpa), Protagonist Ikusaba Mukuro, Ikusaba Mukuro-centric, Poor Ikusaba Mukuro, Despair Enoshima Junko, Enoshima Junko Being Enoshima Junko, Enoshima Junko Being An Asshole, Mastermind Enoshima Junko, He/Him Pronouns for Fujisaki Chihiro, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Past Abuse, Betaed

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/UD0ZhJ4

[gumidols]

So I was going through my notes app, and I saw this at like, the very bottom. I have no memory of writing it, but I kinda wanted to post it cause I kinda like it...? 👀

Ace Attorney AU {Danganronpa}

Danganronpa, Ace Attorney

In his first case as a defense attorney, 21 year old Makoto Naegi, with the help of his older mentor of one year, Chiaki Nanami, has to defend himself after being accused of the death of his childhood friend, Sayaka Maizono.

The culprit turns out to be pro baseball star Leon Kuwata, who’s name Sayaka wrote on the floor upside down after he accidentally killed her with a knock to the head with a bat. Realizing that the final message of 11037 was actually Leon, Makoto is able to prove his innocence and put the man behind bars.

During the second case, Chiaki Nanami is murdered and Detective Kyoko Kirigiri is accused of the crime. Makoto must clear her name while facing the infamous Byakuya Togami, a prosecutor known for his unethical tatics and need for perfection.

Makoto is able to prove Kyoko’s innocence, using his strange ability to see the dead and the help of the ghost of his mentor. The murderer however, isn’t found. Kyoko goes back to detective work, but stands by Makoto’s side as his co-council during most of his trials. Makoto vows to not let Chiaki’s trial end here, and that he will find her murderer. He tried to ask her ghost who her murderer was, but she disappears before he can.

Makoto and Kyoko defend Yasuhiro Hagakure in the third trial, who is blamed for murdering two victims, Kiyotaka Ishimaru and Hifumi Yamada, the latter uttering his name just before he died, making him the prime suspect.

Makoto is able to prove that it was actually Celestia Ludenberg, real name Taeko Yasuhiro, who killed the two men, and she’s put behind bars, getting Makoto another Not Guilty verdict.

Togami is accused of murder in the fourth trial of Makoto’s career, and Makoto must defend him against the cold and cruel prosecutor Kijō Togami, Byakuya’s father who somehow cares about guilty verdicts and perfection even more then Byakuya. While doing this Makoto must also go back and investigate ‘The Competition’, an incident relating to the Togami family that might just bring a lot more questionable things into light. Byakuya questions why Makoto is doing this, and Makoto explains that he knows Togami wasn’t the murderer, and that Makoto considered him a friend, much to the shock of Byakuya.

Makoto puts Kijō behind bars, and Byakuya disappears.

In Rise From The Ashes, after Kyoko leaves the country to go make amends with her father, first year university student, Kaede Akamatsu, is accused of Rantaro Amami’s death. Although claiming to have done it, Makoto agrees to take on her case nonetheless after being asked by Kaede's best friend, Shuichi.

The real killer turns out to be a woman named Tsumugi Shirogane, who framed Kaede and made the death look like an accidental murder. Makoto clears Kaede’s name, and the two 19 year olds thank him greatly as they take their leave.

Danganronpa: Justice For All

(Figure out everything for TLT) (lol I'm a such a lazy ass)

About a year later, Makoto goes out to visit a village far out into the country with Kyoko, that claims to channel ghosts, in hopes that he can figure out his condition. Before he can be seen however, two women, Angie Yonaga and Tenko Chabashira, are murdered. A girl named Himiko Yumeno is blamed. He takes to court, only to be faced by Shinobu Togami, Byakuya’s half-sister and Kijō’s daughter, at the prosecutors bench.

Makoto learns more about Kyoko’s detective family, and her grandfather and father. He also rebonds with Shuichi Saihara, the now 20 year old newly hired detective, and Kyoko’s apprentice. Seeing them together reminds Makoto of him and Chiaki, but instead of being spiteful, he’s happy that they’re such good friends.

Kyoko is surprised to see that the two know each other, and Shuichi tells her about RFTA, and thanks Makoto again for saving his friend. He tells him that Kaede is still in law school, and that Makoto inspired her to become a lawyer. Makoto tells him to stop talking to him so professionally, as the boy is only a year younger then him, and awkwardly accepts the thanks, feeling as though he didn’t do much to earn the man’s respect.

They find out that two girls were trying to summon Rantaro Amami’s spirit, before being murdered by Korekiyo Shinguji. Makoto clears Himko’s name, and the two stay connected, if only slightly to make sure she’s okay after her girlfriends friends death.

After a voice actor for an animated tv show is found dead, Makoto must defend Ryota Mitari. Things get sticky when Kyoko is kidnapped, and an anonymous caller tells him to get the man a not guilty verdict, or else, leaving Makoto with Shuichi as his co-council to try and figure out which is more important, the truth, or his friend.

Maki Harukawa, an assassin that Ryota hired, kidnaps Kyoko and shoots Shinobu Togami before she can go into trial, and Byakuya tells Makoto about Harukawa.

After realizing that Ryota was planning on betraying her, Maki breaks the contract, release Kyoko, and Ryota begs for the guilty verdict. Ryota claims that someone forced him to do what he did, but stays silent when asked who. The only thing Ryota says is that the person is the very same who killed Chiaki.

Shinobu is confused as to why Makoto is celebrating a failure, and Makoto claims to not care about verdicts in the end, but rather the truth, and justice. Shinobu leaves confused.

Danganronpa: Trials and Tribulations

2 years earlier, a 19 year old Makoto is framed for the death of a student at his school. A 20 year old Chiaki takes on his case, the loss of her best friends disappearance and failure to find the truth still heavy on her shoulders.

Makoto had been dating a girl at the time, fashionista Junko Enoshima, who Chiaki had met before. Nanami suggested that the real killer could only be one person, and that Enoshima was the only one who could have done it. Makoto however, denies this completely, seeing only the good in people.

Junko had previously been a suspect for the disappearance of Hajime Hinata, who had been Nanami’s best friend, a year earlier. No evidence for the claim was found however, and Junko walked away free.

In this trial however, Junko was proven as the murderer and Makoto was proven not guilty.

Makoto later became a defence attorney, and was taken under Nanami’s wing until her death.

2 years later, Enoshima was released under good behaviour, much to the anger of both Makoto and Chiaki.

After a folder of cases are stolen from the Kirigiri Detective office, Makoto finally meets Kyoko’s father, and defends him. Prosecuting the case is a cold apathetic man named Kamukura Izuru, who holds a strange grudge (Although it's only seen in short flashes) against Makoto for reasons unknown, which the judge remarks upon as the only emotion he’s ever seen the man make. Only a throwaway line he spills during the middle of the trial about how ‘He’ll never be as good as her’ leaves Makoto confused and with more questions then answers.

At the end of the trial, when Makoto manages to prove Jin not guilty and instead prove Kirigiri Fuhito, Kyoko’s grandfather as the guilty one, Izuru shows a true emotion, shock, and then interest, leaving with the brief line that he hadn’t predicted the outcome. He also says that he knew Jin wasn’t guilty, and that he was prosecuting against the truth because it was more interesting that way. He says Makoto reminds him of her, once again not disclosing who this her is, before disappearing.

...

And then it just ends! I never finished it! Past self where is the rest of this au you're leaving me hanging here-

[zenonaa]

'The smart thing would have been for Touko to retire to her room. Anyone could wear the mask of a handsome man, even a monster. Instead, she found herself following him, spurred on by her own curiosity, not only about what he offered to tell her but why he wanted to tell her something potentially so important. As she walked, she felt extra conscious of the holster of scissors hugging her thigh. Throughout her life, she had met many monsters that wore fake faces, but with Byakuya, she felt sure he didn’t wield a mask hiding his true self.

It was a gut instinct. No. Not gut. Her heart told her this.'

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Dangan Ronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Fukawa Touko/Togami Byakuya Characters: Fukawa Touko, Togami Byakuya Additional Tags: Togafuka Week, talent swap Summary: Talent Swap AU! Togami and Fukawa bump into each other and discuss what motive Monobear would need to provide to push them to murder. Also there may or may not be smooching.

Comments: A (late) Day 5 for TogaFuka Week - Swap! Takes place in the universe from this fic I wrote in 2016. When I was a more optimistic Livi, I wanted to write a multichapter fic for this talent swap.

💗 Please like, share and comment if you enjoyed it! 💗

***

Ten students remained.

As Touko Fukawa sat at her desk, twirling a pen between her fingers, she passed over their corpses. She stepped over Yasuhiro and Kiyotaka. Skipped around Hifumi and Chihiro. Hopped across Sakura and Celes. Of course, she wasn’t really maneuvering around them. Her dorm obtained no bodies. In reality, they were tucked away wherever Monobear dragged them to once it had finished with them. What had been described was figurative, as could be found in a passage from a literary novel.

Not that Touko was a published author. The title of Super High School Level Writer belonged to her classmate, Byakuya Togami. Touko Fukawa was the Super High School Level Heir, not that her title was anything to scoff at. Already she had earned billions of yen, and she had survived more attempts on her life than anyone else here. Except perhaps Sakura, the Super High School Level Soldier. But she was dead so she didn’t count.

Other than Sakura, Kyouko was also likely to have fought off death, and Touko wondered whether the Fighter had participated in any deadly battles. Whether she had inflicted such pain onto others. Whether she had ever murdered an opponent before arriving at this school.

Touko had. Killed people.

Not in the way her alter had, puncturing the veins and lungs of corrupt businessmen, of perverts, of half-siblings, always with scissors, always with a signature written in the victim’s blood nearby. No, Touko didn’t need to do that. With victims working for other corporations, she struck them bankrupt. In her conglomerate, she confiscated jobs, leaving victims to drown in their desperation as they tried to stay afloat. She exposed fraud, blackmail attempts, human trafficking, and with nowhere for her victims’ darkness to hide, they withered in the light.

Memories dug into her skin like termites. Tasting bile, she looked up from her desk. The walls of her room lurched toward Touko before reeling back into place. If she stayed here any longer, the room would close its jaws and crush her to pieces. She stood up, her chair shunting backward with a grunt, and marched to the door.

Ahead of her lay a silent corridor. Most of the others were probably sleeping by this time. Touko stayed on guard as she wrapped her arms around herself and started plodding along with no particular destination in mind. The cafeteria would be shut, so she couldn’t acquire a cup of tea to try to soothe her jittering nerves from there. While she had glimpsed a box of teabags in the storage room a few days ago while searching for some towels, she still had no way to heat them up.

Then she remembered she had also spotted some chocolate in there, and chocolate was supposed to be able to help calm a person down. That was better than nothing.

Touko quickened her pace, moving with more purpose now. Maybe she was being reckless. Six of them had been slain and another motive dangled over their heads. Someone would surely attempt murder for what Monobear had on offer. Not her, but someone else would. All Touko had to do was ensure she wasn’t the victim.

By the time she entered the storage room, she hadn’t seen Monobear nor any other students. The idea of returning to her room, where the only sounds would be her own thoughts, made her stomach roll, so she decided to eat her chocolate in the library. Reading about another’s life ought to distract her from her own. Grabbing two bars, she left, and she soon arrived at the library. She managed a few paces forward before she heard rustling, turning her blood to ice, freezing her, rendering her immobile.

Moments later, Byakuya Togami emerged from behind a bookcase. His presence in the library wasn’t shocking in and of itself. He was the Super High School Level Writer and an avid reader. Touko just hadn’t expected him to be here so late. Though she had seen him here during the evenings, she usually stayed in her room after the nighttime announcement so never saw him in here after that. She would have thought he would have kept to his room at this hour, especially when one took into account the latest motive to murder.

“Which one are you?” he asked her. When she entered, she hadn’t made much noise - at least, she thought she hadn’t, but Byakuya seemed to have homed in on her as soon as she came in. “The abhorrent admirer, or the creepy loner girl?”

“I’m Touko Fukawa,” she replied.

“The latter then.”

She stayed where she was, and he stayed where he was.

“Have you come to murder me?” he asked. “Or is this just a regular stalker with a crush behaviour?”

Touko squeaked and shook her head. Her cheeks burned. “I... I came here to read, that’s all.”

“You’re rather jittery. Does my presence unsettle you? Do you believe that I intend to murder you?”

A gasp cracked in her throat. He sighed and pushed up his glasses.

“Compose yourself. I will not harm you right now. I intend to be the last man standing. The survivor who confronts and defeats the monster at the end.” Byakuya’s brow furrowed, his face darkening. “I refuse to yield to the pressure that Monobear tries to inflict on us.”

“... is that it?” Touko asked, her voice a pinprick. “You don’t plan on murdering anyone because two students will be allowed to leave? It ruins your envisioned ending?”

That was the motive. For the next murder, if the perpentrator was not voted out in their victim’s trial, they were allowed to choose another student to graduate with them.

“Not quite. I couldn’t care less if another escaped with me.” The bitter twist of his lips morphed into a smirk. “It’s simply too early for this to end. The plot has barely reached the halfway point.”

Even with such a wicked expression, he was still handsome. Touko’s heart raced watching him. By now, the chocolate bars in her hands had crumbled from the pressure of her fists. Not that it mattered, because her insides were writhing too much for her to keep any food down. She shifted her weight between feet.

“You don’t have to believe me,” he told her. He cocked his head to one side, his gaze as sharp as a knife. “I do wonder about you, though.”

“Even if I wanted to kill anyone, I couldn’t,” she said. “Everyone knows about my alter, so I would be the first person to be heavily scrutinised and suspected.”

His stare embedded deeper.

“Still. I must be on my guard. Your alter may wish to seek revenge on me for revealing her identity,” said Byakuya.

Touko hunched her shoulders. She should have hated Byakuya for announcing her secret in the last trial, even if the alternative was being framed by Hifumi and dying. After all, when a person shoved another out of a window on the top floor of a blazing building, the fall still left bruises.

And yet the sight of him still filled her chest with butterflies.

“My alter wants to survive as much as any of us,” said Touko.

“None of the motives so far seem to have impelled either of us to murder,” remarked Byakuya. “Not money... not the paranoia of another owning one of our secrets... not being forced to sleep in the same room, in the same clothes, and abide by the same rigid routine everyday.”

He trailed off. She didn’t offer a word to the silence, waiting to see what he was getting at, if anything.

“Tell me, what would drive you to murder?” he asked her.

“I told you - ”

“ - that you’re always going to be a suspect because of Genocider Syo,” he interrupted with a flap of his hand. “You already said. But is there nothing that Monobear can do to force your hand?”

Touko edged back a step, eyeing him. She found it hard to tell if the fluttering inside of her was still attraction, or fear. “What are you? The m-mastermind?”

He smirked. “That would be a twist, but no. Curiosity.”

“There is nothing that Monobear could offer me,” she said firmly, even if her legs were trembling. To counteract that, she clenched her legs together and further mutilated the chocolate bars in her tightening fists. “What about you? What would push you to murder?”

The glimmer in his eyes disappeared as he glanced away. “This isn’t the best location to discuss this. Monobear may be listening in.” He returned his gaze to her. “How about we continue this conversation elsewhere? The locker room by the baths will provide sufficient privacy.”

She was still processing his offer when he strode toward her. She stiffened. Didn’t breathe. He paused next to her.

“You may stay here, or hurry back to your room if you desire,” he said. “Should you wish to indulge me in more conversation, however, you know where I will be. I shall be there for the next hour, with an answer to your question.”

Touko stood motionlessly as she listened to Byakuya’s receding footsteps. The smart thing would have been for Touko to retire to her room. Anyone could wear the mask of a handsome man, even a monster. Instead, she found herself following him, spurred on by her own curiosity, not only about what he offered to tell her but why he wanted to tell her something potentially so important. As she walked, she felt extra conscious of the holster of scissors hugging her thigh. Throughout her life, she had met many monsters that wore fake faces, but with Byakuya, she felt sure he didn’t wield a mask hiding his true self.

It was a gut instinct. No. Not gut. Her heart told her this.

They arrived at the locker room together, slipping past the noren curtain.

“So what about you?” asked Touko once both were well inside. She had thrown away the chocolates on the way there and could now fidget her hands together. “What could convince you to deviate from your plot outline?”

He was already standing near Touko, but he took a step toward her, approaching like the swell of an oncoming wave.

“Perhaps,” he said, dragging up his glasses, then hers, “a love interest.”

Her breath caught in her throat. Byakuya dipped his head, drawing closer and closer. Touko could have pushed him away. Kicked him between the legs. But she didn’t. She didn’t want to. As their lips pressed together, and his hands rested against her upper arms, her heels creaked away from the ground and her hands latched onto his waist.

Byakuya withdrew first. Touko wobbled for a moment, feeling light-headed. Even though he had initiated the kiss, she still expected him to grimace and swipe the back of his hand across his mouth. He scraped his teeth lightly against his lips, wetting them. Tasting. Then he made eye contact again.

“Hm? Are you suffering from post-kiss catatonia?” he asked. She stirred, the fog in her head not yet fully cleared.

“I’m s-surprised.”

“That is what is known as a test kiss.”

Touko squinted. “Test kiss?”

“It’s a trope that means... I am testing to see if you would partner with me in murdering one of our classmates.”

Her head jerked back. “W-What?”

He held out his hand toward her.

“Would you commit murder with me, Touko Fukawa?” he asked like a marriage proposal. Touko’s eyes flickered.

“I...”

She didn’t finish her sentence. His fingers curled into his hand before retreating, coming to rest on his hip.

“It doesn’t matter. As I told you, I have no intention of murdering yet. This was really a test to see if you could be recruited for murder. Though as you have said, due to your alter, you are by default a prime suspect.”

A test. There was always some kind of catch. Touko nodded, gazing down at her feet. She should have hated him.

“That’s all,” he said. “You are dismissed.”

The room hummed.

“Goodbye, Fukawa,” he said. “Go to your room now.”

Touko turned away and trudged out. With her back to him, she didn’t see him bring his hand to his lips, not to wipe his mouth, but as if he could still feel the kiss lingering.

She should have hated him.

And yet... she was smiling as bright as a butterfly.

[drmedicsgamesurgery]

Danganronpa Togami Volume 3 Part 8 (Summary)

[0] See endnotes for a revelation about Haruki Murakami's relation to this novel I had while at the bookstore.

Thanks to @enoshima-pyon @shockersalvage​ @jinjojess​ @hopeymchope​ and the girl I met at the bookstore who recommended me ‘Kafka on the Shore’ out of sheer coincidence, for helping out! 

7.

"My kettle!"

"Get down! Be careful not to get hit by that rifle!"

"That’s a submachine gun. It’s not good to just think there is only one weapon type"

"Whatever, lay down!"

However instead of going prone, he stood up and went to the coat rack to take his hat. At the moment, K reached out, the hat was reduced to Swiss cheese "Why destroy the hat like a surrealist!?"

"Please, let's lie down!"

"Samsa, who transformed into a bug, moved around the room somewhat like this," K finally listened to me. He’s down. "Nevertheless, I do not want to sleep forever here. That guy with the submachine gun will  want to play close combat. He should soon be in the hut."

"Just what can we do?"

“Unfortunately, I can’t help you aside from wishing for the good times that I hope will find you.” says K “If you’re expecting me to say something like, ‘I knew something like this would happen so I developed ‘Borges Mark II’ which fixed all the weaknesses that the previous model had’...forget it! Don’t expect a development like that!”

With more bullets flying into the house and destroying items like paintings and tableware, K loses his temper and orders Shinobu to follow him. He then opens a hidden door in the kitchen that goes into an underground staircase that leads to the garage. An experience that caused Shinobu to remember when she read the Diary of Anne Frank [1], which left her speechless. Once they get to the garage there is an old Skoda car. K asks Shinobu if she can drive. She asks if he isn’t going with her and he answers that he’s living incognito, so he can’t go with her. Shinobu tells him not to die.K says they are going after her, so they won’t bother killing him. Thus, Shinobu gets in the car and prepares to leave.

I opened the window of the driver's seat.

"Thank you for creating Borges." she says gratefully to K’s surprise.

"Don't you hate me?" he asks.

"There are, of course, hundreds of complaints I would make, but...the world that Borges made me see was very beautiful."

"I hope the world you will see with your left eye will not be so bad either."

"One more thing……"

"What else?"

"I always wanted to know...the writer who you started to tell me about that got angry in the interview. Who is he?"

"Milan Kundera." replied K and I realized one thing.

Kundera. 

That initial letter is also K. 

Kundera is still alive, an old man. After the war, he fled to France, but he was born in the Czech Republic…

No, no. It couldn’t be- Could it? Was that really possible? I am eager to find out if K is also part of the false reality that Borges has shown me, or not.

"Kundera has written a very good sentence. I will quote it until the end." K said. "’Betrayal is to get out of your position. Betrayal is to get rid of the original position and cast it to the unknown’."

"I’m leaving."

I stepped on the gas pedal and the car suddenly slammed into the garage door, breaking it. I saw through the rearview mirror that K was calling, but from his previous words and deeds, he should not blame me for this little thing. 

I drove all the way and rushed down the mountain road. Back when I walked up on my own two legs, I was walking pretty hard.

Now I’m leaving this road at the speed of sound! I was extremely happy! Every time I was too unskilled to shift gears properly, the car squeaked and shaked. 

However, the vintage engine kept running like it has been operating for years now. 

All this means, I just had to keep at it with a smile...until those bullets finally enter my brain!

 8.

"I have finally arrived!"

I tried to say something that was not my usual style. As for the reason as to why, well, maybe it’s because I actually didn't have a ‘style’ at all.

The sound of the air smashed and tore open and with it a helicopter appeared. Since I no longer had Borges, I didn't know the name of the model. But even if I did know it, I couldn't stop it. 

The helicopter flew in the sky and followed closely behind the car. I came out from the window and looked at it. I saw Yuika Ketouin. Her face expressionless like a noh mask, and she was holding the joystick. That octopus was also attached to her head.

“Yuika Ketouin!"

I called out, but she did not respond. Yuika, was still being controlled by the octopus that Kasamori put on her. It’s her that probably killed Hiroyuki, too. I don’t know how to feel about a sister who killed her own brother, although perhaps she simply doesn’t have free will. Having said that, maybe they aren’t siblings at all. I don't know, I don't know anything, but this kind of thing is not important to me at all. I don't need to drink Bufferin anymore. I stepped on the gas pedal and thought about going down the mountain. No matter how destroyed the roof and the mirror were from the bullets, I still continued to drive forward. 

Shinobu decides that in order to make sure a bullet doesn’t hit one of her wheels, that she would jump out of the car and escape into the forest, with the helicopter shooting indiscriminately into the leaves that covered her body.

I held my breath and stayed in the same place. The sound of the propeller and the rain of the machine gun fire gradually drifted away from me. The opportunity came, I walked out of the forest and went back to where the car was.

It’s a trap! 

The helicopter is indeed in the air at a distance, but its body is facing me.

If Yuika Ketouin were to be holding a sniper rifle and waiting for me to come out of the forest, the dot should now be aligned right in the space between my eyebrows. 

I am going to get hit.

I am going to die.

At that moment, however, I suddenly saw something fly towards the helicopter. The thing flew up with a tail-like white smoke, hit the side of the helicopter, and, at the same time, caused an explosion. 

Fireworks bloomed in the blue sky. The helicopter lost its balance and fell toward the mountains. I heard the sound of the spiral wing sweeping the trees... 

Then the explosion. 

The sleeping birds that were in the shade of the forest flew away together.

"It's over..."

I heard the voice, but I didn't see anyone. I looked to the right and then looked to the left again. When I turned to the right again, before there was no one there when I looked that way. 

Now there is a girl standing in front of me. She wore the uniform of Hope's Peak Academy and there were tight muscles on her limbs that protruded from her uniform. She gave off the impression of a female athlete. She had a pair of squinting eyes which were filled with tension.

From the 78th Class of Hope’s Peak Academy.

Mukuro Ikusaba.

Super High School Level Soldier.

Shinobu asks her what is she doing in the Czech Republic and, after a bit of banter where she reads the wrong script in front of Shinobu (which leads Shinobu to comment on how she’s cute, yet rather useless) she answers that she was hired to escort one of the Council of Global Controllers members a day or so before the World Domination proclamation. She blames herself for not being able to protect him. Having failed her mission she tried to head back to the airport but since it was blocked, and she had no money, she was forced to camp out in the forest…

“It couldn’t be helped...so I camped out here,” admitted Mukuro,  “While I was here, I also hunted down a live bear and ate it...slowly.”

“Yep...that’s...good.”

“It was indeed.”

“...”

“...”

Trying to keep the conversation going, Shinobu remarks that Japan or, to be precise, the world is in rough shape at the moment. Mukuro asks how Junko is doing and Shinobu reports about her being in Hope’s Peak and her food request, to which Mukuro takes note she’ll buy before she leaves Czech.

Shinobu asks her help to save Byakuya, but she apologies saying that she isn’t very good with improvised plans, though notes she is supposed to help her, but the plan never says to what extent (she really wishes she had her script now). To make it up to Shinobu, she fixes a tire of the car that got damaged during the machine gun attack. They then part ways, and Shinobu gets out of the mountain with the old Skoda car.

I drove forward again in the car and finally got out of the mountain. There is no problem with the tires, and it was very light to drive. After driving for a while along the river, I was able to see the restaurants in the mountains. 

Mr. Hiroyuki Ketouin. 

Who is that guy? 

From his tone, he seems to know me, but I still can't remember. Thus, the emotions of anger, sadness, and compassion, I can't fathom these.

I am empty, and I blame the K2K system that drives Borges for that. My existence is extremely ambiguous and there is no difference to that of a newborn baby. 

Yes, I am a baby. I know nothing about the world, and I don’t know anything about myself. But, because of this, I can update all of them and move forward. 

Yeah! 

I tried to make a scream that was not like my usual style. Maybe it was because I never really had my own ‘style’ at all? 

But now things have changed! 

I must rely on my own strength to create my own style!

As Shinbou glances at the hotel she and Hiroyuki were at, she whispers that Yuika should be dead as a result of Mukuro.

It feels a bit funny, the world around me is so crazy, but the craziest is myself. I can't believe in any experience of my own. It’s only now that I feel this certain type of happiness. That no matter who is accumulating the past, with this recent freedom only I can create the present.  

In the whole wide world, only I have no original. Happiness that pushes forward like a beast or a bird without being noticed by anybody and with no need to worry about anyone's evaluations.

"Yeah!"

Even if it is not like my usual style of yelling, no one will ever say again that I am not acting out of my usual style. Yes, I have been reborn!  

Even still, I must still keep going towards the place where Byakuya is kept! 

I will move towards the freedom that will aid Byakuya! 

Oh, let the engine roar loudly...and may it run all the way towards happiness!

Translation Notes:

[0] So as it turns out Haruki Murakami has also written a book called “Kafka on the Shore” which is just another connection to the ‘K’ theme. However here is a conspiracy. So in Volume one of DRT the JDC and ER3 system get mentioned as you probably don’t recall. ER3 system form Zaregoto written by Nisio Isin (which in itself heavily inspired danganronpa) and the JDC primarily written by Ryūsui Seiryōin, but also many many spin offs written by Nisio Isin and Maijo Otaro. Now the writers isin, Otaro and Sato (DRTs author) are commonly compared to each other in the japanese fiction world as there style of writing and intricate details that only work in japanese (Pure Literature as the genre is called there), we can see they share a lot of similar ideas. In fact DRT and Otaro’s Jorge Joestar are commonly compared also, (which is a JDC book with a jojo’s Bizarre Adventure spin on it). Now in “Kafka on the Shore” one of the main characters is called Johnnie Walker and in Otaro’s new anime ID: Invaded the villain is called John Walker. What has this got to do with DRT? No idea but all im saying is that if Tsukumo Juku shows up in DRT at this point I wouldn't be surprised. These writers all share a common theme of some sort of force controlling the actions of the main character and the deceptive nature of the world around them. It’s very interesting to compare and contrast all these things.

[1] The Diary of a Young Girl, also known as The Diary of Anne Frank, is a book of the writings from the Dutch language diary kept by Anne Frank while she was in hiding for two years with her family during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. The family was apprehended in 1944, and Anne Frank died of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945. The diary was retrieved by Miep Gies, who gave it to Anne's father, Otto Frank, the family's only known survivor, just after the war was over. The diary has since been published in more than 60 languages. 

To be continued.

https://drmedicsgamesurgery.tumblr.com/GameSurgeryDRTranslations

[pyropsychiccollector]

Danganronpa: Another IF (Chapter 2, Part 2)

            The following morning, only eleven of the teens made their way to the cafeteria. Ishimaru had been attempting to rouse Togami, to get him to attend the breakfast meeting on time, but when he failed to get the Ultimate Affluent Progeny to answer his door, he reluctantly joined his classmates in the cafeteria. As a unified group, they all volunteered to split up to look for the suck-up heir. Even if he was a jerk, no one wanted to see another murder…

            It just so happened to be Naegi’s luck that he found the fearless Togami, as he went to check the library.

            “Togami?!” The Luckster let out a surprised yelp. The heir was leisurely reading a book by the light of a lamp, and he didn’t seem to give a damn that Naegi had been looking for him. “Wh-What are you doing?”

            “What, does it look like I’m fishing or something?” The heir rolled his eyes. “I’m reading��� Be quiet.”

            “Oh, sorry…” Naegi apologized out of impulse, before realizing the others were worried sick about him. “Wait, no! What the heck are you doing here? We were worried about you… We’ve all been looking for you! What on earth possessed you to do such a thing?! We all agreed… to have breakfast in the cafeteria, remember?”

            “I agreed to that?” Togami snidely replied. “Give me a break… I can’t even relax with a book around here?”

            Togami snapped his book closed and stood up in a huff. Just as he did so, Ishimaru and the others came running into the library as well. Apparently, Naegi’s conversation with the heir had been loud enough for the others to hear and get word out that he’d been found.

            “So this is where you’ve been, Togami!” Ishimaru accused the heir as he pointed at him in righteous anger.

            “The heck are you doin’, man?!” Leon grumbled.

            “We were worried…” Sakura frowned in disapproval. Togami just scoffed.

            “You had no reason whatsoever to worry about me. I was just reading a book.” He continued to cite that as an excuse, as if there wasn’t anything wrong with that. “I’ve never read such a pedestrian novel before, but I thought it might be of some use in this situation…”

            “What were you reading?” Asahina asked curiously.

            “A mystery novel…” Togami replied dully.

            “Um… D-Did you perhaps… intend to make use of one of its tricks…?” Yamada asked nervously.

            A few, like Naegi, stared at the otaku in disbelief, but as they all considered the Ultimate Affluent Progeny, and how he’d been acting, that indeed seem very… possible. Well… everyone except Naegi, the undying optimist, considered that possibility.

            “Don’t be stupid.” Togami scoffed. Naegi nodded his head.

            “What he said!”

            “I’ll just use them as inspiration.” Togami smirked arrogantly, catching Naegi off-guard. “When it’s my turn to play the game, I’ll use a trick of my own making. It wouldn’t be nearly as fun if I didn’t. It’s not every day you get the chance to participate in such a palpably intense game, you know… So there’s no point in not enjoying myself…”

            With this said, the Togami heir chuckled ominously. Mondo snarled at the blond’s attitude.

            “G-Game?! The hell’re you on about?! Enough crazy talk, you little bitch!”

            “A game is a game.” Togami sneered. “… and this is a game of life and death… where there can be only one victor… That’s all there is to it.”

            “A zero-sum game.” Celes mused. At Naegi’s confused glance, she elaborated. “The term comes from game theory… a branch of mathematics… In game theory, a situation like this is referred to as a ‘zero-sum game.’ When resources are finite, one person’s gain results in an equal degree of loss among the other players. Take poker, for example.”

            “Like a game of tug-of-war.” Sakura mused. Celes nodded.

            “Or a school entrance exam… A vast majority of social interactions can be described as zero-sum games. Each school admits a limited number of students, and your acceptance means another’s rejection… And the same applies to the situation we find ourselves in now, only in this case… the resource we’re competing for… is the singular title of ‘successful villain.’”

            “In other words, this was always meant to be a game of King of the Castle.” Togami condescendingly summed up Celes’s explanation.

            “This is just… a game of King of the Castle to you?!” Sayaka gaped at the heir in shock.

            Celes giggled.

            “That’s why I said we need to adapt. If everyone stops wanting to get out, then there’s no need to worry about getting caught up in the game.”

            Togami raised an eyebrow at the laidback gambler.

            “Why wouldn’t you want to participate in such a thrilling game?” He laughed, as he continued to smirk devilishly.

            Celes placed her hands on her hips.

            “The possibility of you losing hasn’t even so much as crossed your mind, has it?” At the heir’s arrogant denial, the gambler giggled. “That shouldn’t surprise me, coming from the successor of one of the world’s leading financial giants…”

            Junko rolled her eyes.

            “Sounds to me like someone is too cocky…”

            “And what happens if you die?!” Asahina distressfully asked.

            Naturally, Togami stayed consistent with his attitude.

            “I won’t die. Not a chance.”

            “The hell’s your problem?!” Mondo cracked his knuckles.

            “You know, I’m surprised…”

            “What the hell about?!” Mondo was getting angrier by the minute.

            “That the archaic breed of misfits you were plucked from hasn’t gone extinct yet.” Togami sneered.

            “I’ll fuckin’ kill you…!” Mondo roared.

            “I told you once, and I’ll tell you again. I will not be killed.”

            Leon sighed in aggravation.

            “We’re going in circles here…”

            “Say as much as you want, it’s no use. The concept of ‘losing’ doesn’t even exist for him…” Celes mused. “He’s the Ultimate Affluent Progeny, one of the elite, groomed to inherit the Togami group… From birth, he had it drilled into his head that he’s destined to succeed – and he’s accomplished that. Games, tests – to him these all exist for one purpose: to win. Even if it means putting his life on the line. Isn’t that right?”

            Togami chuckled in amusement.

            “I’m impressed…”

            “You and I are one in the same… I, too, believe that games exist to be won.” Celes’s smile was deceptively pleasant.

            Togami seemed personally by the gambler’s assertion.

            “Shut that filthy mouth of yours and don’t go comparing me to the likes of you.”

            “My, oh my. I beg your pardon~.” Celes was clearly amused rather than personally insulted.

            “Anyway, I do have one thing to say. I hope you all bring the same level of ambition. The game just won’t be nearly as fun otherwise.” Togami’s arms were crossed, and he gave off this dark enthusiasm that made Naegi and all the others realize he was not joking around.

            “N-No! You… You can’t!” Fujisaki cried.

            “What was that?” Togami ground out as he rounded on the programmer again.

            “This… this isn’t a game… Our lives… are at stake…” Fujisaki tried to make him see reason. “We’re all friends… We can’t kill each other… That’s not right!”

            “Friends? When did that happen?” Togami cruelly replied, confusing the programmer further. “We’re not friends. No, it’s the exact opposite. We’re opponents, all vying for the top spot.”

            “B-But… still…”

            Togami snarled.

            “’But’? Who said you could use that word? A plebian like you need only agree with me.” When Fujisaki continued to try and contradict him, Togami glared at her harder. “If you have something to say, say it. If you can’t, then don’t open your mouth at all.”

            Fujisaki looked down morosely.

            “I-I’m sorry…”

            This exchange did nothing to sate Mondo’s fury. If anything, he was more pissed now.

            “The hell, man?! You get some sick pleasure outta bullying people weaker than you?! You make me sick!”

            “And the buddy-buddy act has started again… How long are you going to keep this up?” Togami shot back.

            “Fuck you!”

            “’Fuck you’? Really? I can hardly believe my ears. It seems you’re only capable of spewing simpleminded, meaningless drivel.”

            Mondo cracked his knuckles again, bearing his teeth.

            “That’s it! You’re dead!”

            “H-Hey…! Calm down!” Junko grimaced as the biker began to advance on the affluent progeny.

            “I am fuckin’ calm!” Mondo roared.

            “Suuure…” Junko rolled her eyes. Togami turned his back on them.

            “In any event… I have no intention of continuing to work with you… I have no desire to waste my time on something so meaningless… as cooperating with my opponents in a game of King of the Castle. And don’t even get me started on those ‘friendly’ meals together. Someone could slip me poison…And I have no interest in consuming my last supper here…”

            “You’re nothin’ but freakin’ theatrics!” Mondo snarled.

            “You’re on your own from here. Count me out…” Togami deadpanned as he left the library, not looking back even once.

            “Is he serious…?” Sayaka wondered worriedly.

            “No doubt.” Celes rolled her eyes.

            “He ain’t gettin’ away with that…!” Mondo raged. However, he nor anyone else went after the heir. There wasn’t a point. No one was going to change his mind.

            And no one else voiced dissent. Togami was the only one who wanted to work alone; even Celes, who so easily compared herself to Togami, was still onboard with cooperation. Togami would be watched, but they would not restrict his freedom. They owed him a modicum of trust as a classmate, until such a time when that would become impossible.

            If they couldn’t do that much, they would be no better than Togami himself.

            ~*~

            “So, did ya hear, Naegi?” Leon asked with a lecherous grin as they encountered each other in the hall. The Luckster was without Sayaka for once, as the pop idol had vaguely said she had some plans with the other girls that afternoon.

            “Um… no?” Naegi scratched his cheek nervously, as he had a feeling that Leon was going to suggest to do something that Maizono wouldn’t… ‘approve’ of…

            “The girls are havin’ a pool day! And by girls, I mean Asahina, Sakura, Junko, and Maizono! Even Kirigiri might join ‘em for a dip!” The redhead’s face was becoming more perverted by the second. “We should totally check ‘em out! Not like there’s anything wrong with going swimming at the same time as them. It’s just a big coincidence~.”

            Naegi sweatdropped. No wonder Celes put him on the same level as Hifumi. And here he’d planned to stick up for the guy, if push came to shove… Oh well. Live and learn…

            “My apologies, but that simply will not be possible.”

            … Well speak of the devil.

            “Eh? What’s your problem?!” Leon grumbled at Celes. “We’re just doing some male bonding here!”

            Celes cranked up her intimidation tactics as she leaned forward menacingly.

            “I regret to inform you that Makoto has a prior engagement with me. If you must get up to your perverted shenanigans, you will simply have to find someone else. Like Yamada or Mondo.”

            Not needing to be told twice, Leon backed off with a nervous grin and took his leave. Naegi didn’t mind so much that the redhead bailed on him, but he was a mixture of nervousness and curiosity as he was left alone with the Ultimate Gambler.

            “So… um… What’s up, Celes?” The brunet somehow managed to keep from sounding too awkward. “Did you wanna hang out?”

            Celes averted her eyes slightly as she frowned.

            “In a manner of speaking. I mostly wanted to keep you from doing anything lowbrow, but it would be a shame to part ways so suddenly.”

            Naegi’s cheeks became slightly pink as Celes directly addressed the whole ‘pervert’ thing. It’s not like he was actually going to take Leon up on his offer! He’d feel… dirty.

            “W-Well… Thanks for worrying, I guess, but I was gonna pass on it, anyway. I want Maizono to make friends, too.” Naegi scratched his cheek and also averted his eyes in embarrassment. His blush deepened a little as Celes giggled and put on that pleasant smile of hers, folding her hands beneath her chin.

            “Oh, I had a feeling you weren’t vulgar. Call it protecting my own interests, if you will. You are… not like the others. I wish to see your potential, especially since our talents are so similar.”

            Ah.

            “So… you wanted to play cards or something?”

            Celes tilted her head slightly as she looked off to the side.

            “Perhaps another time. For now, let us adjourn to the cafeteria, where you can make me some tea, and we can talk.”

            Naegi sweatdropped. Didn’t she quench her thirst this morning, bossing Yamada around?

            “I take it you want royal milk tea again.”

            “Oooh~. You are already a step above Yamada.”

            … Yep. He could tell that interacting with Celes was going to be interesting…

            ~*~

            “So… how does your ‘Luck’ work, Makoto?” Celes asked as she enjoyed her beverage – which she was pleasantly surprised to discover Naegi had gotten exactly right the first time. There was very little in the way of criticism she could give with how he prepared it, and she was seriously considering having him make her the tea from now on, instead of Yamada. “Monokuma has alluded to the fact you can be very ‘unlucky’, and yet our experiences thus far seem to indicate otherwise.”

            “Well… my luck’s a bit unpredictable.” Naegi rubbed the back of his head and laughed sheepishly. “Like, take how I got into Hope’s Peak. Or the day I got the acceptance letter, anyway. I decided to change my daily routine just one time, and take the long way home, but that wrapped me up in a bunch of unfortunate incidents…”

            As the Luckster regaled her, Celes looked more intrigued by the minute. By the end, Celes satisfyingly clinked her tea cup on the plate in front of her.

            “That all sounds very thrilling… But I wonder, do you think you were lucky that day, or unlucky?”

            Naegi scratched his cheek sheepishly.

            “I don’t think you can call that one day ‘just’ good luck, or ‘just’ bad luck… There was kind of… both.”

            “Mmm.” Celes hummed. “But you agree that luck can be good or bad, and that there is no in-between, yes?”

            Naegi rubbed the back of his head.

            “… I guess? That’s the whole point of luck, isn’t it? You’re fortunate or unfortunate.”

            “Then how about overall? Taking into account all of the events, how would you rate that day?” Celes seemed to have an opinion herself, but she appeared to want to hear Naegi’s first.

            Naegi released a small sigh and reflected on it. Sure, despite how “unlucky” he was that day, overall, the day turned out okay. A diamond thief was arrested, and Naegi got that letter from Hope’s Peak. Of course, he had no idea what he would be getting into by accepting, but… going strictly by that day…

            “I guess it turned out pretty well.” Naegi admitted with a wry grin. “Bunch of unlucky stuff happened, but it turned out well enough.”

            Celes seemed pleased with his answer as she folded her hands under her chin.

            “You see? Unpredictable your luck might be, it still suits you as the Ultimate Lucky Student. You might think you are unlucky at the time, but every single one of those moments add up into something you cannot foresee until you look back at them later. Perhaps our imprisonment here will be no different for you. If we are lucky, some of that fortune will spread to us as well…”

            Naegi sweatdropped as he took in everything Celes said. He honestly wasn’t sure what to think of “the ends justify the means” concept. He could hope that things would turn out okay, but Hagakure and Fukawa wouldn’t be getting that happy ending. And who knew if they would manage to escape with the remaining 13 of them? Monokuma obviously wasn’t done with them…

            Well, it wasn’t like him to dwell on the negative like that. He worried about the future, of course, but he had faith they could stay united.

            “Yeah… Dunno if I’d want everyone to suffer my bad luck, but I hope you guys can escape eventually because of it…”

            Rather than chide him about “adapting,” as Naegi was sort of expecting, Celes adopted a contemplative look.

            “… I think I will share my perfect gambling strategy with you, after all.” The gambler nodded, as if it was a foregone conclusion.

            “Perfect gambling strategy? Is there really such a thing?” Naegi couldn’t help but ask. The gambler smiled pleasantly.

            “Naturally. Strategy is important in whatever game you play, but there is always one factor that can even override the best strategies… and that is luck.”

            “Luck…?” Naegi parroted. This seemed more like ‘common sense’ than a secret, perfect strategy, but he’d listen to what Celes had to say.

            “As mentioned, luck comes in two varieties – good and bad. There is no in-between. From birth, our luck is built into us. Like a computer program. Some call it fate, but the bottom line is that luck is life.”

            “So you’re saying, the reason you never lose…” Naegi prompted her, having a feeling he knew what she’d say.

            “Exactly. I never lose because I’ve been programmed with good luck for gambling. And yet, you are the Ultimate Lucky Student, yes? I wonder if your luck exceeds mine… I am excited to find out one of these days~.”

            Naegi could tell Celes was amused, and that she really was looking forward to it. Though he himself was a bit nervous now, the two kept on talking like that for another hour, exchanging stories, before the girls returned from their pool outing. Despite not understanding Celes too well due to having to see through any lies she could be telling, Naegi felt like he got to know her better. In spite of everything, they bonded a little.

            After having dinner with everyone, Naegi would get caught up in a contest between Mondo and Ishimaru, as they tested to see who could sit in the sauna the longest. Mondo was particularly suicidal, as he went in there with all of his clothes on…

            Naegi never got to see the contest through to the end due to nighttime rolling around, but he would see the birth of an… eccentric and exuberant friendship the next morning… Quite the turnaround from how the biker and hall monitor were originally interacting…

            It was really too bad the peace wasn’t meant to last.

            ~*~

            “What could Monokuma possibly want with us at this late hour…” Ishimaru bit his fist nervously as they were all gathered in the gymnasium again. They’d had about a day of Ishimaru and Mondo’s buddy-buddy-ness, and many of them had been starting to think another murder would never happen. The new areas of the facility opened to them, as well as the strengthening bonds between them, was instilling them with hope.

            “I’m curious to see what will happen this time.” Celes mused. It wasn’t as if they were ignorant to the potential reason Monokuma had summoned them.

            “Just as I was starting to get bored…” Byakuya snickered. Hifumi just stared at him.

            “Why are you ‘bwahahaha’ing? Are you incapable of putting on a more pleasant face? Such as, say, the beaming smile shown at the close of each episode of our nation’s beloved housewife anime…?”

            “I’m more concerned about the fact that he can laugh at all right now…!” Asahina gritted out as tears pricked at her eyes. Togami just snorted.

            “Who is it you should really be concerned about?” At Asahina’s confused stare, he rolled his eyes. “Forget it… I was just expressing my amazement… You don’t want to live here, but you don’t want to kill anyone. You’ve rejected every option given to you… and are just wasting time away – without a goal. I’m amazed you can live with yourselves like that.”

            “I… I have an idea or two…!” Asahina defended herself. Togami rolled his eyes again.

            “Ah, yes… Weren’t you going on about how you were so certain the police would come and save us? How did that ever turn out? I don’t see any evidence of us having been rescued.”

            “W-Well, um…” The swimmer stuttered. “What is going on with that?”

            “It is rather strange.” Kirigiri concurred. “The police couldn’t possibly overlook something like this happening in a school in the middle of the city.”

            “The police are useless!” Yamada asserted.

            Celes held her knuckle over her mouth contemplatively.

            “Or perhaps the Puppetmaster has so much power he can control even the law enforcement…”

            Leon rubbed the back of his head and scowled.

            “Well… this might be totally irrelevant…”

            “If it’s ‘totally irrelevant’, should we really be talking about it?” Junko tilted her head. The baseball star huffed.

            “Just listen, alright? I was chillin’ in the entrance hall again, when I heard something. It was too far away for me to tell what it was, but if I had to try and place a name to it… I guess… it sounded like there was a construction site nearby? Y’know, like they were building or tearing down stuff…”

            Byakuya scoffed.

            “You were probably just imagining it… If our capture and imprisonment didn’t attract enough attention to Hope’s Peak, construction certainly would have done the trick…”

            “What? What? Whatcha talkin’ about~?” And just like that, the monochrome bear popped out from behind the podium, like he usually did. “Kuwata didn’t hear construction sounds… he heard explosions and stuff!”

            “Explosions?” Naegi echoed in disbelief.

            “Like machine guns firing… Upupu, they’re not unlike sounds you would hear at a construction site!”

            “Wh-What are you talking about…?” Maizono dreaded the answer. Monokuma just laughed.

            “My lips are sealed, and I’ve thrown away the key~. It’s classified! Top Secret!”

            “Then at least tell us what you can…” Kirigiri replied tersely. “Why did you want us all to come here?”

            Monokuma cocked his head at the mysterious girl.

            “You’re an impatient one! Gettin’ down to business! But first things first: I’ve got some complaints of my own… I’ve been feeling kinda blue lately… My stitches are comin’ loose, and I’m not as bright as I used to be… I think the problem is… I’m bored out of my mind! I need some excitement! Some danger! Some witty one-liners! If ya don’t mind me bein’ blunt about it… This sucks! We need another villain up in here, like, nowish! And it is for this reason I have decided to present you guys with your next incentive!”

            “I-Incentive?!” Naegi blurted out on impulse. Around him, the others were similarly horrified. “You mean like those videos? Are you saying you’re going to show us something crazy again to and try to incite another murder?”

            Monokuma shook angrily.

            “Incite another murder?! You’re makin’ me sound like the bad guy!”

            Ishimaru raised his fist in determination.

            “I-I don’t know what you’re plotting, but no one else is going to kill anyone! Try whatever you want, it’s not happening!” The hall monitor pointed accusingly at the monochrome bear, who just giggled.

            “Oh really? That’s nice. Give it your best shot. Well, I’m gonna get started here. Ahem. The theme of today’s incentive… is shameful memories and deep, dark secrets! Everyone who’s ever lived has accumulated their fair share of shameful memories and deep, dark secrets… So I’ve taken it upon myself to do a little digging and uncover all the skeletons in your closets!” The bear raised its hand proudly. “That top-secret information is right here in my hand, sealed within these envelopes… I will be distributing them in just a moment… so check out what I’ve dug up on you!”

            With this said, Monokuma threw the envelopes at the students, somehow making sure that each one landed at the feet of the designated owner. With a sense of trepidation, Naegi picked his envelope up and opened it…

            ‘”Naegi wet the bed until he was in fifth grade…” Really?’ The Luckster was truly dumbfounded. Out loud, he just exclaimed in shock like everyone else.

            “Wh-Why?!” Asahina exclaimed.

            “How did you… discover this?!” Ishimaru demanded to know.

            As gasps and grunts rang out all throughout the gym, Naegi couldn’t help looking Maizono’s way and seeing her clutching at the paper with an intensity he hadn’t seen since she watched her video… Just what had Monokuma dug up on her?

            “You’ve got twenty-four hours!” Monokuma announced. “If I don’t have a new villain by then, I’m gonna tell the whole world everyone’s deepest, darkest secrets! I might even get a bunch of people together and have them go door-to-door spreading the truth! Lions, and tigers, and bears! Oh my! The shaaame!”

            For a few moments, Naegi just stared in horror.

            “This is your… ‘incentive’ this time…?”

            “Darn tootin’!” Monokuma confirmed. “Y’all don’t want your dirty laundry out fer everyone to see, do ya?”

            Naegi sighed in aggravation.

            “While, yes, that’s not something I want people to know about… I wouldn’t kill someone just to prevent it from getting out!” The Luckster declared firmly. Monokuma reeled back in shock.

            “S-Say whaaat?!”

            “Exactly! And you’re a fool to think otherwise!” Ishimaru backed Naegi up. “No one would murder anyone over something so trivial!”

            Monokuma hung his head sadly.

            “W-Well, crap… I figured ‘memories’ was a great word to make you guys think about the outside world… And there’s also the fact you don’t want anyone to know about them… So I just thought this was a great way to – y’know!” The bear turned his back to the students morosely. “Siiigh… I guess this means no one’s gonna die! Laaame… Well, whatever. At the very least, I’ll enjoy what little satisfaction I can squeeze from revealing your secrets tomorrow… That awkward moment when you realize it was all for nothing… Gonna cry myself to sleep now… Bawww…”

            With all that said, Monokuma waddled off, but a number of people didn’t look like they bought his tactless display. He clearly was expecting one of them to snap from the pressure. Not everyone was that perceptive, though.

            “I was kinda scared at first… but it looks like we all dodged a bullet.” Asahina mused. She smiled sheepishly. “I mean, yeah, having our secrets spilled is kinda embarrassing… but there’s no way that’s enough incentive to commit murder… you know?”

            “Soldiers, I have a proposition…” Ishimaru announced tentatively as he crossed his arms in determination. “Let’s get this out of the way now and all reveal our secrets to one another! That way, this ‘incentive’ will lose its meaning! It’s a great idea, if I do say so myself! I’ll go first! My shameful memory is of when-”

               Togami cut him off right there.

            “Shut your mouth. No one wants to hear your rubbish.”

            “Wh-What?!” Ishimaru took a step back in shock.

            “It doesn’t matter if the rest of you want to have a share circle.” Byakuya continued snidely. “You won’t be hearing a word from me about my ‘secret’.”

            “Even if I wanted to share… it’s not possible.” Celes murmured. Yamada grinned.

            “And that makes us all the more curious. It’s human nature. So please, do tell…”

            “I will not.” Celes rebuffed him. Yamada started panting.

            “Come ooon, it’s not hard! Just tell us!”

            “Once again…”

            “Say it, say it, say it, say it!”

            “I said I don’t wanna talk about it, you fucking putrid sack of lard!” Celes roared as her switch was ‘flipped’. Yamada screamed in fright.

            Junko flashed a nervous smile and peace sign.

            “Y-Yeah… I don’t really feel up to sharing, either… Sorry, guys…”

            Maizono was covering her mouth and nodding in silent agreement. Naegi noticed how she was looking over at him the most; she probably wanted to at least tell him, but apparently, her secret might involve her career… She did mention how she’d done certain things she was not proud of, to get to where she was as the Ultimate Pop Idol.

            “A-And what about you, Fujisaki?” Ishimaru asked tentatively.

            Chihiro bowed her head.

            “Um… I’m sorry… I really don’t want to say anything right now… But… But… I can’t go on like this, so I promise I’ll tell you later… I’ll work really hard… so I’m strong enough… to tell everyone…”

            “If you don’t wanna, you don’t have to force yourself.” Asahina assured the brunette. “Truth is, I don’t wanna say anything either…”

            Mondo hung his head in shame.

            “As much as I don’t wanna admit it, Brozum… with this much resistance, it looks like you’re outvoted…”

            Kirigiri, Sakura, and Leon hadn’t said anything yet, but with at least half the class electing not to share their secrets, it looked like their votes weren’t going to make any difference.

            “W-Well… It is what it is…” Ishimaru appeared really conflicted. He shook his head back and forth. “R-Regardless, no one here is going to commit murder over something so trivial as this…”

            ‘Yeah…’ Naegi mentally agreed with the hall monitor. ‘No one’s got a past so dark, they’d go so far as killing someone… just to keep it hidden… Right?’

            Ishimaru stood at attention.

            “While the motion to reveal our secrets early has failed… I recommend you all prepare yourselves before the twenty-four hour deadline expires! Having our pasts out on display is shameful, but that shame weighs far less than another human’s life! So, uh… don’t make any hasty decisions…”

            “The more you stress the point, the more you stress me out, too…” Yamada grumbled.

            “O-Oh… My apologies… I know it’s unthinkable, but…” Ishimaru trailed off with a sigh. The nighttime announcement rang out, cutting out whatever he would have said. When the announcement ended, it was Junko who spoke next, cracking a reassuring grin as possible.

            “Anywho… It’s late… Let’s just call it a night, get some rest…”

            “I agree. We should all use this time to prepare for tomorrow.” Sakura concurred.

            Uneasily, they all dispersed. When Maizono quietly left without saying a word to him, Naegi knew not to expect a ‘sleepover’ that night; he didn’t take it personally – Monokuma had likely low-balled her again. On the bright side, she didn’t seem as distressed as she was when she watched the video of her friends… Still tense, but not distressed.

            Naegi was the second last to leave the gym. He’d stayed to watch Ishimaru try to reassure Mondo that everything would be fine, though the biker blew him off and said he’d just need time alone. The Luckster couldn’t help feeling bad for the hall monitor, who was just trying to keep everyone united. Mondo had been a little too forceful when Ishimaru tried one more time to at least share his secret with the biker; even though they’d gotten closer as friends, Mondo was just too wound up. Naegi felt bad for leaving Ishimaru just sitting there forlorn, but he assured Naegi he’d be fine. They all just needed to come to terms with this new incentive, and how it might affect their lives.

            As he was on his way out, Naegi ran into Leon. The baseball star gave off a casual impression, but Naegi could tell there was an underlying current of uncertainty and nervousness.

            “Yo, Naegs! I know it’s late, but do ya mind hangin’ out for a bit?”

            “Uh… sure.” The Luckster blinked in astonishment. “Any reason you picked me in particular to hang out with?”

            “Well, everyone’s on edge ‘cause of those secrets.” Leon explained with a hand on his hip. “You and Ishimaru didn’t seem too bad off, though, and neither was I, y’know? If Monokuma was trying to get us to snap, he wasn’t aimin’ for us. I just figured, since our secrets are probably duds compared to everyone else’s, why not be upfront? Some of us have to get over ourselves.”

            The Luckster winced at the redhead’s choice of words. True, everyone was on edge, but some of them probably had serious stuff to wrestle through. Like Maizono. ‘Getting over themselves’ might have been going a little too far.

            “Sure.” Naegi agreed after a few moments. He had nothing left to lose, except maybe some of his dignity. “Wanna take this back to my room?”

            The baseball star shrugged casually.

            “I don’t really care either way. Did you wanna see if Ishimaru wanted to join us, though?”

            Naegi just shook his head sadly.

            “No… he and Mondo got into a fight, sorta. He’s gonna need some time on his own for now. If we run into anyone else, though, we can see if they’re interested.”

            It wasn’t much with just the two of them, but maybe if they could show the others some unity in the face of this new threat, they could come around before the deadline. They had twenty-four hours, that was more than enough time to reassure everyone.

            No one had to die.

            ~*~

            “……od………ing…” A voice stirred Naegi the next morning. “…Go……Morn…Go…od…..morning… Good morning!”

            As Naegi’s bleary eyes recognized the form of Monokuma on his bed, he couldn’t help it… He let out a scream.

[serahne]

Nagito and Hajime “You look really tired.”

“You look really tired.”

Hinata turns away from the computer he has been working on for three hours, trying to finish the assignement Togami gave him about the situation in Kyoto, toward his friend, offering him a ‘are you kidding me ?’ look.

“Do I ?” he mumbles, definitely too exhausted to pull off a witty come-back.

They are in the room they share since they started to work for Future Foundation, months ago. Strangely, they managed to get along pretty well during this time. Komaeda isn’t the worst roomate someone could have : he clean up his side of the room ( and Hinata’s when he is too busy ), he is  quiet, respectful of his private life, and is a formidable debater.

“Hinata” the white-haired boy calls him with a way-too-serious look on his face for the absurdities he is about to say “at this rate the bags under your eyes are going to eat your whole face, you know. I’m worried about it.”

This time Hinata doesn’t even grace Komaeda with an answer because this report needs to be perfect. And what if he barely slept these last three days ? What if the food has the taste of cardboard, just so that he can’t enjoy it and knows he has to hurry back to work ? What if each passing second is another moment of frustration for Izuru Kamukura, stuck forever with Hajime Hinata, boring reserve course student ?

Kamukura would have finished this in a few hours, he thinks, not really sure if that’s true or not, but it’s a thought that motivates him to work even harder, and he concludes that this is why it popped in his brain so suddenly.

“You really need to sleep” Komaeda says - so annoying, can’t he just accept that there is work that needs to be done. “You can’t go on like this.”

“Are you really giving me self-care advice ?” He replies, his voice a little colder than he intended to. “Do you think you are qualified for that ?”

The other boy falls silent after that, and Hinata tries to not feel too guilty about it. How does his well-being compare to the world’s safety ? If he didn’t use every minutes of the time at his disposal to undo the damages he…

Komaeda’s clear voice interrupts his thoughts.

“Then, I ask for a date.”

Hinata is so shocked that he taps on the letter ‘g’ instead of ‘h’ on the keyboard, and he raises his head to look at a determined-looking Komaeda.

“A date ?” he repeats, the word tasting foreign on his tongue.

“Yes” smiles Komaeda. “Do you remember that you promised me that we could always spend one afternoon doing what I wanted together in order to start to understand each others ? I called it a date and you didn’t say it wasn’t so…”

“It was ages ago”  Hinata rolls his eyes. “I said that when we were all on the island. Everyone was scared that you would try to poison us all or something, and I wanted to prove them you were okay.”

Well, more or less. He also liked how people seemed to avoid Komaeda back there, and thus how he could not be bothered by everyone’s problems when he hung out with him.

The white haired boy’s eyes shines with an amused light.

“You never decided on a expiration date for this promise, if I remember correctly. So, Hinata, I decided that this afternoon, we would have a date. A nap-date, more precisely. Our activity consists in napping. In a bed.”

“Are you kidding me ?” pleads Hinata. “I have this report to write and…”

“So are you backing down on your word ?”

It’s infuriating. Komaeda’s mouth is twisted in the shit-eating grin he always have when he is playing games, especially when he knows he is winning. He is right : Hinata is too tired to fight him, even with the part of his brain screaming at him that no one cares about this promise an that he has something to do. He is exhausted. So exhausted that the words on the screen are starting to get blurry - or, no, wait, this is because of the tears of frustration in his eyes.

“You aren’t even tired, why are you insisting on this nap-date so much ?”

Komaeda tilts his head in the direction of his own bed.

“I started an amazing novel this morning, about a young boy travelling all around the world with his loyal friends. I can do that while you are sleeping, I don’t mind.”

“That doesn’t sound like a date.” Hinata notices, half-defeated already.

“Well, really” Komaeda giggles behind his hand. “I’m the one who called it a date, you’re the one telling me we would do what I wanted. Between you and me, we both know who is the most sensible person here is, right ?”

“Right.”

He doesn’t say anything more, just looks blankly at the screen while the computer is shutting off, and doesn’t move from his seat until the ventilator stops rotating, drowning the room into a welcome quietness.

Komaeda looks at him with attention while he stumbles until his bed, almost moaning with pleasure when the soft matress welcomes his body, and he thinks he could fall asleep right now if his brain wasn’t screaming at him to go back to work, you weak, average, boring, uninteresting person, how dare you rest when people are dying by your fault everywhere and you could save them and…

“Komaeda ?” he mumbles into his pillow.

“Yes, Hinata ?” the other’s voice reaches him from the other side of the room.

“Could you read aloud, please ?”

“Of course.”

Komaeda can’t see him smile, in the position he is in, and he starts reading, his beautiful voice filling Hinata’s head with words of adventure and future, and all these wonderful things they are trying to make him believe in here, in Future Foundation, but only exist in the space between Komaeda and him in this moment, with this book.

He sighs, and lets the sleep take him far, far away.

[drmedicsgamesurgery]

Danganronpa Togami Volume 3 Part 2 (Summary)

Happy new year everyone! What better way to start it off then with a new summary?

Thanks to @enoshima-pyon @shockersalvage​ @jinjojess​ @hopeymchope​ for helping out!

WARNING: MAJOR DANGANRONPA KIRIGIRI VOLUME 2 SPOILERS AHEAD.

5.

After a while, they switched the helicopter for a train, and they continued their journey to the Netherlands, where the international tribunal is. Shinobu is separated from Byakuya, the Impostor and Kazuya and put in a prison-like-wagon. There are many UN and WHO soldiers guarding it. There, she eavesdrops a conversation between the Impostor, Ibuki Mioda and Gundham Tanaka by using Borges. 

"Hey--the number here is almost the same as the hall of Yokohama Stadium. Ooh, is this where they’re going to hold the New Year’s concert!?” [1] wonders Ibuki. 

"No matter how well these human beings work together, they can't stop the Supreme Overlord of Ice… mwahahahahahaha!"  which came from Gundham.

“Shut up. Because you two are so useless, we ended up being caught by such a boring group like the United Nations.” reprimanded the Imposter.

Shinobu asks herself how many people are working for the Super High School Level Despair, and since Ibuki, Gundham, Sonia and Souda are already working for them, she thinks that maybe her whole class/year has fallen into despair. She then asks herself why the Despair High didn’t ask her to join.

Although this idea is crazy, this reality is so crazy, I think that it is possible the reason is: because I belong to Byakuya-sama. I felt sad for a few seconds, before I thought about it. It didn’t matter. I have my God. Although, I don’t know who their God is, but they can’t be compared to Byakuya Togami.

A soldier brings Shinobu to a luxurious cell room, then leaves.

Fixed bed, fixed sofa, folding table, painting on the wall, good air conditioning... I have no interest in rail travel, it seems to me that this is just a luxurious single cell. After I sat down at one end of the bed, the door was locked. The soldier just gave me a drink, orange juice. I don't know who he regarded me as. I took a sip of orange juice with dissatisfaction. The long-lost water made my stomach irritated, and I found myself hungry. Speaking of which, I haven’t had a decent bite to eat since I was attacked in the Church of Bones. Although I may be irritated by Mishima Yukio, I began to want to drink hot miso soup and eat plum dry rice balls. [2]

Kazuya enters the room, holding a prosthetic arm.

"I’m finally able to be alone with you, my sister, after four years of being alone," he put the right hand on the table and sat down on the sofa. "The train is about to leave, just like our future."

"..."

"From the Czech Republic to the Netherlands will be a long journey. I originally wanted to fly, but we have to go through Germany on the way and they are not willing to give us a flight permit."

"..."

"Please, sister, don't tease me. Just because I wanted to see my sister, I wanted to hear my sister's voice, I worked hard to live up to today."

"...So, you think you have won."

"I’m not that conceited. I’m not the winner yet, but I will win soon."

"Let me see Byakuya-sama."

"That’s a scary thought, how could I allow that? I have to let my sister sit in the special seat to watch my victory... Hehe."

"What's so funny."

"Oh, of course it's funny, having to speak such villainous lines when I am clearly the hero."

"We don't have time to waste like this right now."

Kazuya responds by saying that she shouldn’t worry, now that everyone involved with the World Domination Proclamation have been captured, that she should just sit back and relax.

"You think you have won?" I repeated. "So far, all you’ve done is somehow come back from the dead, and reversed everything.."

"Oh no, I’m not dead. I have hands and feet and heart, but I have no hope."

“Where is Byakuya-sama?” I asked.

“Byakuya Togami, the Despair High School, Class 78, they are all locked up.”

Shinobu thinks that it regrettable that Sakura Oogami was captured, but at the same time if she can move freely there should be a way to get out of this situation.

The train started. The steel dragon started to move slowly, and then the speed gradually increased, as if to show that he was carrying our will, driving forward with violent momentum. The shock from under my butt was unexpectedly comfortable, perhaps because I was too tired and sleep came to me. 

However sleep could not come to her because Kazuya brings her a new prosthetic arm to replace the broken one. Shinobu knows that it’s for the best, so she takes off her shirt and extends her left arm from the elbow to him. 

"Sister... I’m sorry, I have not protected you."

Although the wound has healed, the skin there is very thin. I almost cried out to prevent it Kazuya from seeing it, and quickly said, “It’s not me that you need to apologize to.”

“Who else should I apologize to then, sister?” asks Kazuya. 

“Go and apologize to those you have murdered.”

“Those that I have murdered?”

His tone sounded completely confused. If this were an old-time novel, this sentence may be written with a very unsavory katakana.

Shinobu reminds him of the siblings that he murdered and the villagers that he killed. Kazuya believes that in the world of the Togami Family it’s “kill or be killed” to justify himself. Plus, it was his “big sister” that brought him into that world anyway.

This causes Shinobu to think back about the events of Kuchinashi Village. However, she can’t seem to recall the events clearly, most likely due to her young age. I suddenly had a question: At that time, which hand did I reach out to Kazuya, the left hand or the right hand? As such, she has to ask Kazuya details about it.

Shinobu asks "Do you remember when I saved you in the village?"

"Yes, for me it is a precious memory." he says

"Which hand did I extend to you at that time?"

"Of course, it was the left hand." he said confidently. With that said, Shinobu couldn’t say anything else and let her be at his mercy. After the installation of the prosthetic hand, I moved it a little. Compared with the latest prosthetic hand made by the Togami Conglomerate, it felt more like my own arm.

Kazuya explains to Shinobu his plan to conquer the world. He will spread the Despair Novel even more and make the world fall into chaos. Then he will accuse Byakuya of everything and arrest him. This way he will be acclaimed as the hero who saved the world from the Despair Disease.

Shinobu refused to accept this and declares that as long as her work remains unfinished, she isn’t finished and, by extension, Byakuya Togami will not be finished.

Even if Byakuya loses and disappears from the world, as long as I am writing “Journey Under The Midnight Sun”, Byakuya Togami won’t be finished. I won’t let him be finished.

Kazuya claims she’s just being arrogant and no one would want to read the biography of a “loser”. He asserts that as the main protagonist of this story, he’ll take back everything that was stolen from him and steal everything from everyone else. That way he gets to enjoy the world, while also being the center of it.

“You’re just an ordinary person,” Shinobu says quickly. “You are just a general staff member of the United Nations. They cannot allow you to have the ambition to conquer the world."

“It’s because I am a general staff member of the United Nations that I will arrest Byakua Togami and kill that Imposter who pretended to be Byakuya Togami. Once I eradicate Despair Disease, I will be hailed a hero by the world! Then, once I get the Kudan, I will become Byakuya Togami!”

Shinobu notes that if Kazuya was able to pull this off then it wouldn’t just be empty words. He would have really conquered the world and without the use of the traditional style like territories or nuclear weapons.

But would Kazuya really be able to do this?

Then suddenly, Shinobu feels like she’s being lifted up, as her glass of orange juice flies up in the sky and shatters on the ceiling. 

The next moment, everything around me seemed to be tumbling like a washing machine.

 6.

When I woke up, the whole world was reversed. The bed and sofa in the room were above, and I fell on the ceiling, now the floor.

Shinobu asks Borges what the situation is like and it answers that she was in a coma for three minutes and eleven seconds and she reported a few light injuries. The window of her room is broken and the iron bars covering have been bent from the impact so she is able to get out of the train.

There she sees countless dead soldiers and a group of “Tentacles Soldiers”. They are checking if all the soldiers are dead, and if they find someone who is alive they proceed to kill them. Shinobu looks around and sees the Uragan (#41908870) (which is most likely the cause of the train crash) and Taeko Kanai from the Hasegawa Research Institute.

“It’s no use trying! Resistance is futile! Hand over Byakuya Togami or we’ll keep up our bloodbath!” declares Taeko while playing her guitar atop the Uragan. The Hasegawa Institute seemed to be back...no the Kasamori [3] Drug Manufacturers were back again.

Borges = Search Results #21291600 

Item: Company

Title: "Kasamori Drug Manufacturers"

Was created by Kasamori, founded in the 32nd year of Meiji (1899). Mainly selling professional medical supplies, it merged with Germany's NEO GEHIRN in 1902, becoming the de facto number one in the pharmaceutical industry. After the defeat of the German-Japanese alliance in World War II, the company lost all of its foreign assets and equipment, and later achieved a V-shaped recovery through the manufacture and sale of the red-haired fern tablets 220, which were hailed as “epoch-making anticancer agents”. However, the drug caused many patients to die due to its side effects. The company lost the group lawsuit filed by the patient's family (Red-haired Fern lawsuit, 1998), not only to pay huge compensation, but also to damage the reputation. There are rumors. It is said that the current operating conditions of the company have deteriorated drastically.

Naturally, the WHO/UN soldiers refuse, causing both groups to fight. Kazuya suddenly comes out of the train and reaches to Shinobu. Both come to realize that their attackers are also after the Kudan. She asks him where Byakuya is and he reluctantly tells her that he is in the first wagon, but that the security measures of the train will protect him no matter what.

“A pharmacy actually dares to make life difficult for the WHO, the world is really hopeless. They were probably brought up by dogs, with the way they are acting.” Kazuya says.

“When did you discover Kasamori was posing as the Hasegawa Research Institute?

"What? Sister, what are you talking about?"

"Kasamori is posing at the Hasegawa Research Institute."

Was I the only one to hear about this organization? What is this unspeakable emotion? I remembered that when the classmates in the previous class discussed "Sinking of Japan," [4] I thought they were talking about a very old movie, but soon I found out that they were talking about the remastered version of the movie. Although the plot is the same, it is different from the original version that I am familiar with. Having these almost similar plotlines described to me made me feel like I was transported to some Unreal parallel world. It wasn’t an easy topic for me to handle. For example, it is like an elementary school talent show. When I was performing a children's play at the show, I was about to come on stage. I suddenly found that only the script I had in my hand was different. At that time, I shuddered. 

"Well one thing is clear. It is Kasamori that blocked the road in Germany. Although their name is Kasamori Drug Manufacturers, most of the stockholders are German.”

Shinobu turned around, as to not show her anxiety.

"But aren’t their overseas assets all gone?"

"Just turned underground, and many of the high-ranking officials of Kasamori are now German political figures."

Kazuya explains that Germany likely didn’t give them passage by air, just so that they could stage this train attack on the UN and the WHO to get Byakuya and the Kudan. They will do everything they can in order to obtain the immense power of the Kudan.

"Where is Byakuya-sama?" Shinobu pipes up with.

“You might as well worry about yourself first. Byakuya was handed over to my army, with no problems."

"Where is Byakuya-sama ?"

"Just give it to me..."

"Where is Byakuya-sama?"

"Quit being annoying," Kazuya muttered under his breath. "Byakuya Togami is in the first car."

"I want to save him."

"No need for that, although things have developed to this point, but the physical security measures of the train are impeccable, the windows of the first car are all secured with iron bars, the door is locked from the outside with a padlock, and the outside world can't interfere with the inside."

"I want to save him."

"Are your ears blocked? I said that the safety measures are impeccable, but it’d still be dangerous for you to enter, sister.”

“But I still have to save him. This is the reason why I am alive. I want to look at him, write down his deeds, guarantee his safety. If not, then I will lose the meaning of my existence”

"What a silly fantasy. "

“If you are jealous then you can be quiet.”

“...If my sister must save him, then you mustn't care much for me then.”

“Stop worrying about me.”

Shinobu runs towards the first wagon, but Taeko sees her and several “Tentacles Soldiers” start approaching her.

“Found you, Blue Ink!”

The Uragan comes closer, creating a hole in the ground from the force, and Taeko asks Shinobu to choose between her life and revealing Byakuya’s position. Shinobu asks her about the Hasegawa Research Institute but Taeko has no clue what she’s talking about.

From the attitude of Taeko, she does not seem to be lying about herself. That is to say: she doesn't understand what I am talking about. What I said is very abnormal. I couldn’t believe it…

"Since you aren’t telling us what we need, then you are useless. We don’t have time for playing around anymore, so I will personally send you to hell!!" 

The jet engines began spinning. I was pulling Kazuya’s hand and was going to run behind the carriage to avoid it, but the carriage was blown away like paper.

"You have nowhere to run!"

Taeko’s words are quite right. I can’t find a place to hide. Because of the fierce battles around me, the bullets have now covered the whole area. 

Kazuya then calls all the surviving soldiers and now the two factions are facing each other while the Uragan is coming closer.

Can this be called fighting, isn't it just a matter of ending life without meaning? This is a mutual killing, until one side is the last man standing. A good image of Hell itself.

Then moving so lightly and skillfully, in the sky above such a hellish scene-

“Sorry to keeptcha waiting!!!!~”

Was my brother.

 7.

Suddenly a sightseeing bus jumps from the forest and over the hellish scene. It’s Suzuhiko Ootsuki, first off by singing a small nursery rhyme [5] and then ‘Ai wo Torimodose!!’.[6]

The former SHSL Hitman crashes the bus into the Tentacles Soldiers and the UN Soldiers, killing them and entwining the corpses within it’s wheels. 

"I have to get off at the next stop~! But this all night tour ain’t stopping since the breaks are broken!"

The bus then flew into one of the trains causing a large explosion. It seemed to be filled with gunpowder. Shinobu and Kazuya were blasted into the air by the giant explosion, like puppets whose strings had been cut. But after the crash, Suzuhiko wasn’t in the driver's seat anymore and there was a big hole cut in the bus door.

Then the sound of intermittent screamings stopped the soldiers from fighting and after a few seconds all the soldiers from both parties were on their knees, spilling blood from their necks of their chests. None of them were a match for the former SHSL Hitman.

Suzuhiko seemed to be tired of hide-and-seek, jumped out of the pasture, and rushed over to the Uragan in one breath. He stood in front of Taeko in the blink of an eye. Then everything is over.

"H-hey… "

Taeko spat out her last pitiful sentence, perhaps only because her neck was already cut to her vocal cords. Suzuhiko violently ripped away his knives and the body of Taeko was torn apart. Her hands, feet, internal organs and underwear fell like a ripe fruit from the Uragan. [7]

"Oh... Dahahahaha! I have to say that the gap between talent here is too big."

No one interrupted him because the "Tentacles Soldiers" and the United Nations Soldiers had been completely wiped out.

"Heeey, you can come out now. You are both still alive, right? Let's talk business." Suzuhiko said, with his knife gleaming.

Suzuhiko looks down on Shinobu and Kazuya from the top of the Uragan, then he gets off it and starts walking towards Kazuya and Shinobu. As Suzuhiko puts it they have a “family reunion”, which mostly consists of angry shouting and a recap exposition dump. Kazuya blames Suzuhiko for hindering his job, to which he responds he saved Kazuya's life so it's no good to talk to his big brother that way. He has saved it before and now he has saved it again. 

“I just said that what you did hindered me. I am the captain of the World Health Organization’s Infectious Disease Prevention and Control Committee. I am not who I was four years ago.”

"Are you going to rub your own ass? Oh, Dahahahaha! I’ll wait for you to wear a diaper so you can say that again!"

“I am no longer a child.”

They continue to argue, Suzuhiko bringing up the point that they are not blood related so he didn’t have to save him. 

"Why did you even come to the Czech Republic? Don’t tell me you are after the Kudan, too."

"Nah, I'm not interested in the prophecy your little cow girl, I just accepted the commission to the assassination of Byakuya Togami." 

“Who commissioned you?”

"Do you think I’m really gonna tell you."

"Are you lying, them?" Kazuya said. "You spontaneously came to the Czech Republic and spontaneously blended into this incident."

"Well~ why do you think so?"

"Intuition."

"Intuition alone can't refute someone, Kazuya. It's because of this reason that you were destroyed by that detective in that incident."

"Do you know what happened to that detective? I heard that he is dead, like a dog."

"I'm not interested."

"To tell you the truth, I'm not either. Once I heard Nanamura was dead, my heart didn’t even waver once. It’s really strange to say but, I hate him so much that I can’t ever forgive him." [8]

"It means you haven't let go from the beginning."

“I didn't expect that I actually understood my feelings after so long... Can you understand your own mood?”

"Then now, there is only one purpose for me here. That is to reconcile with you." Suzuhiko said as he jumped off of the Uragan, onto Taeko’s mangled corpse and came over to stand in front of us.

Suzuhiko recites an old japanese saying and continues with, “This is how it is. Our brothers and sisters are all dead, only us are alive. The Togami name can no longer bind us, and the Togami name cannot be the motive for us to fight. So, we should naturally reconcile.”

"Are you serious?"

"Of course."

"Then you are crazy, you just ruin everything."

"Do you really think so, Kazuya? Then you are the crazy one, you destroyed everything."

Shinobu believes that this fight will be the end of the relationship between them all. It will be ruined as both Suzuhiko and Kazuya have ruined her, and she them.

Obviously, if the three of us are together, the destruction will come again, but my brother’s can't understand this. It has always been this way.

Shinobu lashes out at the both of them, saying she will not go back to either of them, as they are no longer Togami’s. Suzuhiko Ootsuki, Orvin Elevator: Both of them are now outsiders to the family.

"What you said is really sad, my dear little sister," Suzuhiko was unmoved. "Our name is not important at all. The relationship between me and you is enough to surpass the name Togami."

"The Togami name is very important. I am a Togami, I am the 'Super High School Level Secretary', belonging to Byakuya-sama only. So I can't really say it’s good to see you again."

"Oh, haha, don't mention the small stuff, let’s forgive and forget, and become as close as we were before all this, sound good?"

"Don't you dare."

It’s Kazuya. Taking a step forward, he let the lightsaber appear on his right hand and stopped in front of our big brother.

"Come on, Kazuya, how could a younger brother be able to beat his older brother? Put away that dangerous thing, and play some easier games. What do you reckon. chess or poker? Or I guess we could play UNO but, with me, well..."

"I want to save my sister, let her get rid of your curse, and use my own strength to do it."

And with that, Kazuya’s lightsaber, shining like a fluorescent lamp, grazed his older brothers throat. However, Suzuhiko continued to smile happily, like some hippie. He screamed, "Oho, guess it’s a change of heart~" He raised his bloodstained knife.

At that moment I heard a sound. A large flame was burning around us, and the fire ignited by the incendiary bomb surrounded us. The heat was almost enough to burn my throat, the crimson-colored [9] fire wall appears around, and the surrounding is covered by a brand new hellish scene. Moreover, this does not seem to be having a positive effect on Kazuya. He looked at the sky with an incredulous look, and screamed "This can’t be-," and Kazuya-

"Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah ah ah ah ah ah ah"

He was shaking.

Borges = Search Results

#90908892

Classification: Symptom

Title: "Flashback"

Post traumatic stress disorder, a mental disorder caused by intense psychological stress due to disasters, accidents, emergencies, etc., causing psychological fake events or the situation which caused the trauma reappearing in the brain and, when the symptoms are severe, it may even cause confusion.

After two fires in Kuchinashi Village and at Touajou Castle, Kazuya was indeed insane. I didn’t know when his sword disappeared, and a shameful liquid flowed out of his eyes and mouth, making him lose the strength to support his body, and he fell on his knees. Kazuya is suffering, but I intend to use this gap to escape. I fully understood my indifference and ran away at the same time. Although it is not clear what happened in the end, there is only one thing I have to do, and that is to go to the first train car where Byakuya-sama is, and that's it.

Shinobu runs to the first wagon of the train, ignoring Suzuhiko who is calling for her. More incediary bombs fell, as she walked to the first car, but it was already burnt to a crsip. She tries to open the door of the wagon, but it’s locked by a padlock. Suzuhiko then steps forward and cuts a hole through the wagon door and Shinobu gets inside.

“Byakuya-sama!”

The train car had been burnt and the heat has reached dangerous levels. I walked quickly, but I couldn't see him anywhere. I thought he might have escaped from another door, but I tried to pull the door, it was locked by another padlock, but Byakuya-sama was gone. Byakuya-sama, Byakuya-sama, Byakuya-sama, Byakuya-sama... I called his name, but never found him. How could this be, he couldn't get out...

At that moment, I heard the roar of an engine. I suddenly had a strong sense of foresight and quickly jumped out of the first train car. I know, I know this, I know what will happen next, and after that too. Then, the Mercedes stopped at the side that I expected, and the window of the driver's seat did not open as I expected.

"Heyyy, rich kid! Need a lift?" [10]

The man in the driver's seat did not know why I looked so happy. "Hey, so where we goin’?"

There was no other choice.

I pulled the rear door and jumped into the Mercedes.

"Coming in!"

"Thank you, my pleasure, Miss."

The Mercedes darted forward as the throttle was pressed. I saw Suzuhiko run over at a frightening speed, but the man in the driver's seat said "BOOM-OFFFFF!"[10], pressed the skull button, and there was a jet engine behind the car increasing our speed. The landscape, the sky, the flames, and my brothers all disappeared in the violent acceleration, and I could not see anything with my dynamic vision or Borges.

While bumping about in the car, my memories felt like they were starting to see the Unreality of this situation.

<CHAPTER 11·End>

Translation Notes:

[1] Yokohama Station s a major interchange railway station in Nishi-ku, Yokohama, Japan. It is the busiest station in Kanagawa Prefecture and the fifth-busiest in the world as of 2013, serving 760 million passengers a year. 

[2] Kimitake Hiraoka known also under the pen name Yukio Mishima, was a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor, model, film director, nationalist, and founder of the Tatenokai. Mishima is considered one of the most important Japanese authors of the 20th century. He was considered for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968, but the award went to his countryman Yasunari Kawabata. His works in question here is Apollo’s Cup: a collection of many travel stories by Mishima in Europe, and lots about the food eaten there. Mishima's work is characterized by its luxurious vocabulary and decadent metaphors, its fusion of traditional Japanese and modern Western literary styles, and its obsessive assertions of the unity of beauty, eroticism and death Mishima's personal life was controversial, which makes him still a contested figure today. Ideologically a right wing nationalist, Mishima formed the Tatenokai, an unarmed civilian militia, for the avowed purpose of restoring power to the Japanese Emperor. On November 25, 1970, Mishima and four members of his militia entered a military base in central Tokyo, took the commandant hostage, and attempted to inspire the Japan Self-Defense Forces to overturn Japan's 1947 Constitution. When this was unsuccessful, Mishima committed seppuku.

[3] Wasn't sure if its Kasamori or Kasanori so we just went with Kasamori

[4] Sinking of Japan is a 2006 tokusatsu film directed by Shinji Higuchi. It is an adaptation of the novel Japan Sinks and a remake of the film Tidal Wave, both made in the year 1973.

[5] The title is something like “sitting on the bus” but I can't translate the names of the composer or lyricist, and can't find anything about it online either but it’s probably real.

[6] ‘Ai wo Torimodose!!’ is one of the openings to Fist of the North Star.

[7] RIP Taeko, you will be missed you glorious bastard.

[8] So Kazuya hates Suisei. All the more reason to hate Kazuya lol. Also RIP Suisei, you will be missed you glorious bastard.

[9] It translated as peridot not crimson but I doubt there was enough copper for that to happen.

[10] AAAAAAAA HIROYUKI IS BACK. The exact lines I changed a tiny bit to resemble two of his notable lines from the first book just for clarity. “Do you need a lift young master” and “I pressed it” honestly don’t do his character justice, so they were replaced.

To Be Continued.

https://drmedicsgamesurgery.tumblr.com/GameSurgeryDRTranslations

[zenonaa]

Read here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18318629/chapters/43362350

Comments: Day 1 for TogaFuka Week! The prompt is ‘Beginnings’

***

If anyone thought that somebody stacked a dozen books on a desk in Hope’s Peak’s library and abandoned them there, they would be wrong but the mistake would be understandable. Behind the barricade of books lay Touko Fukawa, her shoulders hunched as she scribbled in a small purple notebook. Her pen nib scratched against paper, paving a story word by word. The world around her faded away within the first few sentences, and all that mattered now was the fictional girl made of thoughts, paper and ink who recently transferred to a new school.

Much like Touko, herself.

While she had her own dorm here, where she could work and exist as she pleased, for her current project, she wanted to draw from her surroundings. For example, as she left her dorm, her eyes darted about the narrow corridors, where the cream flooring was polished so much that she could see her blurred reflection in it, and she noted the slight resistance from the wooden stair rail as she descended to the ground floor. Once outside, Touko listened to the hum of school life under a sky with clouds boasting grey stomachs, and she remembered the lazy tumble of an empty packet of crisps as she crossed a courtyard.

The library emitted a rich, booky smell, a blend of glue and aged must, with old books intermingling with newer ones, an aroma that Touko’s dorm hadn’t yet acquired since she moved in two weeks prior. In her pursusal of the library, she found books long out-of-print. When taking into account that the academy had been established hundreds of years old, that was to be expected. On opening a few books, just curious about their age, she discovered yellowing checkout cards, and she suspected several stamps had been pressed into them for people no longer alive, rotting in the ground somewhere.

Yes, Touko had been called morbid. A lot. One nickname of hers was ‘zombie’, and then there were others like ‘ugly’, ‘weird girl’, ‘four eyes’ and ‘Wednesday Addams’. However, at that moment, Touko existed only as a vessel for the character in her current work in progress. The girl was drinking in the sight of the old school building, gripping the handle of a secondhand suitcase that had a wheel that kept sticking, and her mouth hung open, tinged with the bitter tang of fear.

She was about to take the plunge and go inside when she exploded in a cloud of dust, blown away by a single spoken word.

“You.”

That wasn’t said by the girl, or anyone in the book, or even Touko. She jerked her head up at the blunt voice that shoved her out of her zone and placed her back in a dim, musky library.

A male student stared down at her, his lips twisted with disgust, an emotion that Touko was well acquainted with. Narrowed blue eyes watched her from behind a pair of white framed glasses. His hand rested on top of one of the piles of books that she amassed. Even though she wrote fiction, it had to have some basis in reality. She acquired them for research purposes, though one stack consisted of paper folders with notes and plans for this particular story.

Touko tried to swallow as quietly as possible.

“Can’t you see I’m busy?” she asked tightly.

“You’re certainly doing something,” he said. He craned his neck, trying to see into her notebook, and wrinkled his nose. “Are you writing one of your romances?”

She wrenched her notebook toward herself and hugged it against her chest.

“W-What’s it to you? Why do you need to know? Do I need a permit to write here?” she snapped.

He clucked his tongue.

“That sure is a persecution complex you’ve got there. You’re giving yourself too much credit. You enrolled as a high school literary girl, and as an avid reader, and because you happen to be here, I thought I would investigate,” he said.

“Investigate?” She raised in pitch. “What are you, a detective?”

“That’s a side hobby for me. I’ve even solved a few cold cases,” he told her. Touko eyed him, trying to place where she had seen him before, because she was fairly sure she had somewhere. He turned his head to one side but kept his gaze on her.

A few seconds passed, then it clicked.

“You sit in front of me in class,” she announced. Yes. She recognised his blond hair from the one day she went to class. They weren’t compulsory, and she was a genius, so she preferred to spend that time writing instead.

If she could help it, she kept her eyes down in class, but she had to look up occasionally, and with him right there, glimpsing him was inevitable, though she usually only saw the back of his head. And, of course, she saw his face while researching her classmates prior to starting at the academy, but after reading his title, Super High School Level Heir, she hadn’t lingered on him for much longer.

“The answer to a question I didn’t ask,” he remarked coldly. Up to this point, he hadn’t taken his hand off the pile of books, but he did now, pushing up his glasses that hadn’t slipped at all far down his slender nose.

He folded his arms over his chest and regarded her again.

“As I’m sure you have as well, I researched my classmates before coming here,” said Byakuya, and she shoved her thumb against her gritted teeth.

She just thought about that - she needed to make her face harder to read, but she couldn’t stop clenching her jaw and scowling.

“When I saw your title, I was interested to see what sort of things you wrote,” he continued. “For you to have been handpicked by Hope’s Peak, you must have talent at it. Imagine my disappointment when I saw your bibliography comprised of romance novels...”

Heat rose to her face and she balled her hands into fists.

“What, do you think an ugly fatty like me can’t write about romance?” she snarled. He didn’t even flinch.

“That’s irrelevant. Romance in real life is repulsive, and I can’t see why anyone would want to read about it,” he said.

Touko bristled. The nerve of this guy! She was ugly, smelly and a bunch of derogatory terms, but to dismiss her livelihood... she wouldn’t stand for it. For a while, she couldn’t even muster up any words, and she could only see white hot anger.

Finally, she looked up and said, “How-?”

He was gone. Touko choked on her saliva and tried to return to her writing, but her narrative came out stilted, repetitive. She gripped her pen tighter and screamed in her head, not with words but filling herself with an internal prolonged, frustrated wail. Even when she stopped attempting to think what to write next, a fizzling sound still ate away at her.

A stubbornly long time later, she slammed down her pen. The nerve! Touko left the library books where they were - she knew librarians preferred putting books away than having visitors try to. She collected her folders and stormed out of the library, her skirt swishing wildly.

Despite the fluorescent lighting in the corridors, night fell some time ago, but she didn’t have a curfew or anything to obey. If she wanted to be out past ten o’clock, then so be it. As she blitzed through various corridors, tinted various colours by the lighting depending on the area of the school, the few people straying around her had sense to avoid her.

When she entered her dorm, she let the door swing shut with a bang, and she tossed her folders onto a small round table. She stood still, gripping her hair, and her ragged breathing eventually tired her out. The room speckled in her exhaustion, and her limbs weighed down as she sauntered to her bed. Not bothering to take her uniform off, she flopped forward onto her mattress and whined into her pillow.

What a pomposh, self-important fool! He must have felt so smug, leering at her and taunting her about what she wrote. Just because he was rich and handsome, he thought that made him better than everyone else, but he couldn’t fool her. Touko had met too many handsome men and they all turned out to be vile. They pinned love confessions onto noticeboards, asked her out on dates on dares or told her that she was more mature than her classmates, after class when everyone else had gone home.

Yes, they were the same as each other, and in her experience, ended up dead.

Touko fell asleep, thinking of comebacks and retorts that she should have said at the time. In the morning, she woke up early for once. Rather than sleep in, she heaved herself out of bed, sprayed herself in cheap body spray instead of taking a shower, and she gathered her things for the day. As soon as she saw Byakuya, she would slice him to pieces with her tongue, brandishing her arguments and superior intelligence. After all, she was intelligent, and him? He was just an heir, which required no work, no extra effort. Just rich parents.

Yes, as soon as she got her notebook containing her novel, she would...

... she sorted through her folders...

... as soon...

She stopped.

Then wailed.

It wasn’t here. Her notebook wasn’t here. Touko must have left it at the library the previous night, and it was all Byakuya’s fault because he flustered her so much. She ran out of her dorm, her school bag thrashing against her as she sped over to the library, ignoring the concerned looks aimed her way.

When she arrived, she could barely breathe, not just because she was so unfit, not just because she was so out of breath, but because that notebook held her precious story. Panting loudly, she checked where she had been stationed the previous night. The books had been reshelved, but her own notebook was nowhere to be seen.

“Did you see a notebook here last night?” Touko asked the librarian, who had cautiously drawn closer upon seeing Touko burst in.

“No, sorry. Everything I put away belonged to the library,” said the woman. She tilted her head to one side, looking upward in thought. “The only person who has been here since after you left and before I tidied up was that Togami boy who comes here a lot. He left after you yesterday.”

Him! Touko growled and without bothering to say her thanks, she left the library, heading toward their homeroom. As usual, she had skipped breakfast, but her stomach had hardened rock solid so she didn’t feel hungry.

She opened the door forcefully and looked inside. No one else was here yet, not even the student attending for being an elite public morals committee member. Classes weren’t compulsory, but Touko didn’t know the location of Byakuya’s dorm, and in this sort of mood, she wouldn’t be able to concentrate on her writing anyway, so she stomped over to her desk in the back corner of the room and flumped down on her chair.

Five minutes later, Kiyotaka arrived, his shirt tucked in, tidy as an esteemed committee member should be. He took a few steps before noticing Touko and hesitated, then raised a hand.

“Good morning, Fukawa-kun!” he called out.

She glanced at him. To her dismay, he stared, expecting a greeting back. How bothersome.

“It’s nice that you’ve decided to attend today,” he added, breaking into a wide grin.

“I can’t say the same back,” she said. His face fell, and he left her alone now.

A few more students spilled into the classroom soon after, such as a girl who wore a paperclip in her hair and seemed to bounce as she walked. She approached Touko with a donut bundled in kitchen tissue, and she had the audacity to put it on Touko’s desk.

“What is this?” asked Touko, turning up her nose at it.

“I’m Aoi Asahina,” chirped the girl, and she cupped the back of her neck. “I, um, thought... you might get hungry, so...”

Touko cringed. “I don’t want... your bribery!”

“What? It’s not bribery,” said Aoi, adopting a frown. “I noticed you never come to the cafeteria in the morning, so thought I’d get you something. I was wondering if we could be friends.”

Exactly. Bribery.

“You can’t fool me. Leave me alone!” Touko sneered. “You probably hid razor blades in it.”

Like those girls in her middle school had done with a cake.

“That’s horrible!” Aoi said, widening her eyes. “I would never...”

But Touko had learned otherwise.

“You... You big-boobed piece of beef jerky!” Touko twisted her body away from Aoi. “Go away. Moo-ve away from me!”

Aoi gasped and then stalked off to her desk with a huff, as Touko intended, leaving the donut behind, not so much intended. More people arrived after. A girl with long blue hair and skin as smooth as a doll’s, walking in with a boy with brown messy hair. A girl with violet hair and a small braid on her left side, the headmaster’s daughter. Every time the door opened, Touko peeked up, and upon seeing that they weren’t Byakuya, she would lower her gaze again.

With five minutes to spare, the door opened, and this time, when Touko perked up her head, the sight of Byakuya greeted her. She tracked him as he strode over to his desk, wearing a dark brown shoulder bag that cost more than it should, and as soon as he slid onto his chair, she spoke up.

“You. Togami,” she said.

He gave a hum, and she thought for a moment that he wouldn’t even bother looking at her, but then he turned around and held out a small purple notebook.

Her notebook.

“You thief!” Touko hissed as she snatched it back.

Byakuya blinked calmly and made no attempt to stop her or steal it back.

“You left it behind in your haste last night. That’s your fault,” he said.

She glared at him. He retracted his hand and pushed up his glasses.

“I planned to return it to you after classes today, but you saved me the effort of chasing you down by coming here,” he added. “Which I thank you for, because I have better things to do. A lot of them.”

“L-Like what?” she jeered. “Smelling your own farts? Getting everything handed to you?”

For the first time, emotion flickered in his eyes. An ignition, a spark, a flame within a case of ice. His nostrils flared.

“Is that what you think of me?” he asked sharply. “That I am someone who has not had to work to get to where I am?”

Her heart beated faster, but she didn’t pay heed to its warning, to its plea that she back down against someone raising their voice, even slightly.

“An heir is born,” she said, digging her nails into her palms. She could feel herself shaking.

“Usually, but not in my case,” he said, trying to keep his tone even, but annoyance made the baseline crumble a bit. Still, he lowered his voice, so Touko could breathe easier. “I had to compete against my siblings to become the sole heir. I, the youngest child, battling against people who in cases were decades older than me, had to prove myself... to everyone. They thought I would lose, but my hard work, intelligence and cunning made me victorious.”

The way he talked about it made it sound like some kind of competition. She bit her lip, not knowing what to say. What to think.

He saved her the trouble.

“By the way, I read what you wrote in there,” he said casually, pointing at her notebook.

Touko twitched. “You what?” she squawked.

She could have bitten his head off. Reading one of her works in progress...! Without permission...! He may as well have read her thoughts, or peeped in on her while she showered or got undressed.

“I have said that I abhor romance, as a genre and I object to it in life too, but you have a reputation,” he told her. “One of your books made fishermen popular with young women, and another with butlers. Pennyworth couldn’t leave the house with me without being inundated with admirers for months.”

He inclined his head, very slightly, not breaking eye contact.

“I admit I have read some of your works prior to enrolling, and this story here... You have not just talent, but an almost magical way with words. A gift. You could accomplish great things if you didn’t waste your time on a subject like romance. I don’t know why you’re throwing away your talent on something like that.”

Touko processed what he said and jolted with a spike of anger. She opened her mouth to retort but at this point, an older adult came in who Touko didn’t recognise as their homeroom teacher. For starters, she remembered their homeroom teacher to be a man.

This woman carried a comically large net over her shoulder that seemed to be holding an actual human being, and she straightened as she spotted Touko.

“Ah, you must be Fukawa-kun!” the teacher said with a smile, like she hadn’t just been caught kidnapping someone. “You saved me the effort of having to go find you.”

Touko ignored her. The teacher didn’t pursue the conversation further and walked over to a desk. She emptied her net there. Indeed, a human being had been in it, a tubby boy clutching a manga with a chibi girl on it that Touko suspected had been used as bait.

After he sat down, the teacher left the room, and conversations popped up again. No one paid attention to the two in the corner. Byakuya stared at her. Touko breathed in, aware that her heart was racing, that her face had grown hot.

He complimented her writing. Yes, he was unkind and a massive jerk, but she knew that he didn’t say that to try to win her over. His only intention was to say the truth. She trusted him... at least for this.

It had been ages since she received a compliment she felt was genuine.

“I’m... I’m not wasting my time,” she said. Her tongue struggled to cooperate, and she didn’t know what had come over her. Words turned into a mass of feathers in her mouth, clumped together by saliva. “Happy people write shallow novels, but the downtrodden, like me, see the world in its full spectrum and can vividly imagine an ideal world, envisioned in true beauty. Romance... is pure. It’s a source of hope and power.”

He grimaced.

“It’s a weakness,” he said. “A weakness to be exploited by others. People betray. Other people can’t be trusted. It infects you, taints your judgment. It’s idiocy.”

Her skin tingled, like grazed by fire. His honesty... burned hot.

“Love... gives you hope,” she said, tensing her shoulders. “It gives you purpose. In a book, even people who are ugly, smelly and stupid can experience it.”

But what he said about it... wasn’t wrong.

“That sounds delusional.” His expression didn’t change, and her heart sank.

They both continued to face each other. Byakuya’s gaze made her skin itch. She fidgeted, and noticing the donut that Aoi left behind, she picked it up and held it out.

“Here. Take this,” she said, not meeting his eyes. “You returned my book... and now we’re even.”

He scoffed.

“I don’t want that thing,” he said. “You could have poisoned it.”

She nearly dropped the donut and ogled him. “I...”

“I’ve survived assassination attempts from people more dangerous than you. I’m not an idiot,” he said. “Don’t think I trust you. I’m constantly on guard, analysing others’ tones of voice, lines of sight, minute changes in expression, posture... No one can be trusted. Not my former siblings, not my father and mother, and certainly not any of you.”

Touko couldn’t take her eyes off him. Earlier, she had seen him as a guy born into this position, with a silver spoon in his mouth and everything and anything given to him. Now, however, she didn’t see a spoiled brat who knew nothing of hardships, but someone who could see the world as she did, who must have seen things, been through things that people their age shouldn’t, that no one should. A coldness existed in his eyes, as cold as the surface of a mirror, as the shiver down her spine when she heard her door back at home creak open in the middle of the night.

But she wasn’t scared, no matter how much she trembled. He didn’t hide behind darkness, not like him. He didn’t hide behind lies, not like them.

Too soon, he faced forward, and something in her chest shifted. She put the donut down. At the front of the class, the teacher from before clapped her hands, having returned without Touko realising.

“We’re all here! Awesome. Right, I’ll be replacing your old homeroom teacher,” she said warmly. “Kizakura-san sends his warmest regards.”

She was replacing a teacher who they could only have had for a few weeks. This teacher wore a white apron over her blue dress. Her orange hair was styled in a ponytail with white ribbon, and her green eyes shone with determination, bright and young - she couldn’t have been that much older than them.

“Alright, so my name is Chisa Yukizome, and I hope to get close to all of you. Now, let’s do roll call,” said their new homeroom teacher, Chisa Yukizome, clasping her hands together.

As she called out names, Touko studied the back of Byakuya’s head. With a small smile and a wringing knot in her chest, she decided she might start attending classes more regularly.

[hopeymchope]

I, for one, have read almost all of the light novels that exist in English text form. That covers DR Kirigiri 1-2 (mostly... the copy of 2 that I read was missing like 10% of the book in the middle), DR Togami 1, DR Zero 1&2, DR IF, Ultra Despair Hagakure and... I think that’s it.

I know that DR Kirigiri 3 exists in English now so I need to look into that, but I kind of want to revisit 2 first. I only remember so much.

I believe Togami 2 and 3 exist as English audiobooks on your YouTube, but no text copy exists that I know of.

I bet the books would get more traction from fans if they were easier to locate or something. But you kind of have to dig around to find the various files in different locations.

One of the “Easy Allies” speaking on Twitter for all of us that are yearning for new content.