I don't know when it started.

"Hey…what do you think you're looking at?"

No. That's wrong. I know exactly when it started.

"That's right! The remnants of despair, led by that blasted girl…oh, how I hate her…"

"…but it's ironic, isn't it? This girl that I've come to hate and despise to the point where I curse and feel bile rise up in my throat at the mere thought of her…has driven me to do what's always needed to be done."

Swallowing thickly, I hooked my finger in my collar – the heat was getting to me. I've went over this with Kirigiri-san multiple times. If we are actually successful in locating the remnants of despair, there have to be a couple things that we must remember.

Look forward. Not back.

Toward the future, Naegi-kun. Kirigiri-san's voice echoed in my head. 'Toward the future.' What a precious sounding phrase, for something as admirable as the future. I took in a nervous gulp, staring at the real – Live..! – remnant of despair in front of me, traipsing back and forth with a drunken energy.

"…this hand of hers…serves as a reminder. I'm locked within a constant struggle between hating the fact that someone like her now lives on as a part of me, and worshipping the grounds she once roamed and the twisted ideals that she symbolized."

Komaeda Nagito. Though the remnants of despair attended Hope's Peak a year before our – Togami-san, Kirigiri-san and I's –batch, I'd heard of him, well enough. And standing here, so close, close enough to grab his head and force him to look at me, to beg him to snap out of this despair-induced trance that Enoshima had made him fall into (Kirigiri-san scoffed at me when I suggested that to the superiors – they had laughed at me and brushed off the ridiculousness of my words as a rookie's mistake – and said that words and this optimism that only I 'seem to possess' alone would not be enough to help these kids), it was easy to see.

He really was sickly, his body too thin to be healthy, thin face framed by unnaturally pale hair, eyes bulging out of his skull, wide and faintly green with manic energy. And yet with the energy and madness he danced around in, it seemed as if everything was fine.

"This is the result of despair…true despair…" The abysmal-looking boy in front of me grabbed onto the nearest pillar, and twirled around it, a twisted smile on his face. Burying his face in that hand that once belonged to Enoshima, a low, hoarse laugh billowed from within. Maniacal. Pathetic, almost. Wildly disconcerting.

Sinister.

"Ah, Naegi-kun! I'm sure someone like you knows…what true despair looks like…"

".."

Yes.

"…"

How could I have forgotten? The pain of watching your friends all fall one by one, by the hands of each other…

"…"

"…speechless, huh? Well, I can't say I expected anything more or anything less…"

"…Komaeda."

"…?"

"…You…must not lose hope."