And Yet, We Live On
The fact that I was sitting in this classroom meant the situation was far worse than I'd first imagined. I had already spent two years at Hope's Peak Academy — which meant the single greatest, most despair-soaked catastrophe in the history of humankind had already come and gone.
The most despairing part of all was this: the seventeen of us — Class 78, myself included — had already had our memories wiped by Junko Enoshima. We had just been thrown into a killing game of mutual suspicion and murder.
What the hell had my past self even been doing? The me who'd swaggered around swearing that with my knowledge of the games from the real world, I could take on despair itself — take on Junko Enoshima — what had that guy actually accomplished?
Yeah... what was a guy like me ever going to do? I never should've gotten so full of myself just because I knew how some video games went. I should've skipped Hope's Peak entirely and holed up in a bunker somewhere...
My head was drowning in despairing thoughts, but the way I always did, I hauled something positive up from the bottom of the well, inch by stubborn inch.
The one silver lining is that only my memories of academy life got wiped. Everything from before I enrolled is still intact — which means the game knowledge from the real world is still sitting right here in my head.
My past idiot self might have failed to stop Ultimate Despair, but I still had a fighting chance. After all, game knowledge from the real world was the kind of thing that only started to shine once a killing game was already underway.
I know every chapter's culprit. Every motive. Every trick. If I use this knowledge right, I can stop this killing game and... I can stop Junko Enoshima.
Since things had already come this far, I steeled myself. I would stop the killing game. I would survive. With that vow burning in my chest, I opened the classroom door.
In a room lined with monitors covering every corner of the school, a girl stared at one of the screens with unblinking intensity.
On the monitor, a slight, somewhat gloomy-looking boy was opening a door, his face tight with tension.
"Heh... even the nervous look is cute."
The girl watching the screen wore a faint smile, a flush coloring her cheeks. Anyone who didn't know her might have taken her for a girl in love. The words that left her mouth, however, were anything but.
The moment the boy stepped through the door, the girl's expression went cold. She switched the feed. Sixteen students now stood on the screen.
The girl — Junko Enoshima — stared at the display, her face a blank mask, and whispered.
Silence settled over the room, and for a long while, nothing else moved.
I scratched at an ear that had suddenly started to itch and stepped into the entrance hall. Familiar faces waited there — familiar, and yet somehow strange.
"You're a new student here too?"
Faces I'd seen a hundred times playing the games. Students I'd probably spent two years of academy life alongside...
"Hey. I asked if you're a new student too."
And if things went the way they did in the game, most of them would die...
"You there! When a person addresses you, the decent thing is to answer! And arriving late, no less! That kind of attitude is entirely unbefitting of our school—"
"Ah— yeah... sorry. I was thinking about something else. Sorry."
Ishimaru's bark snapped me back to myself. I couldn't keep drowning in negative thoughts. I pulled myself together and opened my mouth.
"Hey... I'm Kei. I enrolled as the Ultimate Counselor... Nice to meet you."
I'd mustered everything I had for that introduction, but nerves had flattened my voice into something limp and lifeless.
"For someone calling himself the Ultimate Counselor, that voice of yours is pretty grating."
Junko Enoshima... no, Mukuro Ikusaba, taking a jab. A terrifying military-trained high school girl, playing at being a carefree gyaru — it was almost funny.
"More importantly, why don't we all introduce ourselves again? For our late classmate's sake!"
Asahina's bright suggestion kicked off a round of conversation among the students. I'd seen this scene play out more times than I could count in the game, but watching the Ultimates speak right in front of me was a strangely different feeling.
In the end, we all introduced ourselves again, and I exchanged greetings with every last student. When it came time to greet Kirigiri — my favorite character — I have to admit I was a little shaky.
The moment the greetings wrapped up, a broadcast crackled to life.
Ahem, incoming students... We'd like to hold the entrance ceremony now... Please gather in the gymnasium immediately.
The gym? Come to think of it, that's where...
Well then — we're counting on you!
"Wh-what was that just now?"
...That's where Ikusaba dies, isn't it?
The Mukuro Ikusaba currently pretending to be startled would, in a few days, be murdered in that gymnasium as an example. It had been one of the most shocking scenes in the game, and I remembered it vividly.
"I'll go on ahead. The rest of you can follow or not — do as you please."
Togami's words set the others murmuring, and one by one they started toward the gymnasium.
Damn it... I don't have much time...
In a few days, Mukuro Ikusaba would be turned into a human hedgehog in that gym. Should I even stop it...? Mukuro Ikusaba was Ultimate Despair too, wasn't she? What was I supposed to do?
Should I save Ikusaba and try to bring her over to my side? Or should I let a walking threat like her die...
Wait. In Danganronpa, the first one to die is Maizono. I should be worrying about Maizono before I even start thinking about Ikusaba...
I hadn't even been here that long, and I was already worrying about people dying. That, more than anything, made the killing game start to feel real — and the worry came flooding in right behind it.
Can I even save everyone? Do I even have the talent for something like...
"Kei! Planning to be late again, are you?! Stop slacking and move!"
"Ah— r-right...!"
Ishimaru's shout snapped me back to reality once more. Everyone else had already left the entrance hall. For now, I needed to get to the gymnasium.