Prologue

Kuniko Ichikawa could not help staring at the building before her. It was taller, much bigger than she expected it to be; it appeared an almost menacing presence that made her heart beat faster and faster. Her stomach churned; clutching it, she recollected. Yes, she was nervous, but, of course, she had a right to be.

This was the prestigious Hope's Peak Academy, after all.

She was scouted a couple of months previous and did not have nearly enough time to prepare for her new life at the school – at least, in her opinion. She didn't even know whether she was good enough for this school, but maybe she was, seeing as now she was standing, feeling quite powerless, in front of the academy itself.

No, really, she couldn't quite believe the situation she was in. Tightening the grip on her case, she took a deep breath and sighed, eventually smiling. She forced the negative thoughts from her mind in an instant and decided to focus on the people she would meet here, as well as what she would learn. A Hope's Peak Academy student. Huh. As she said the words under her breath, a swell of pride spurred her to move forward and grasp the handle of the entrance.

She pulled so hard the door flew open and hit the wall. The impact echoed throughout the silent hallway. Grimacing, Kuniko couldn't help but shouting out: "Sorry!" and was expecting at least one person to arrive to chastise her; so she waited, patiently listening for some other sound to be heard than her own breathing. However, when no one did come, she wasn't more relieved than she was susipicous.

Ugh, stop it, Kuniko! You're doing it again! Shaking off her qualms, the young girl took a step forwards. However, when she did, her footstep sounded more like an explosion; the noise was distorted; loud but muffled. Her ears, fully assaulted by the unprecedented sound, started ringing loudly and Kuniko could not stop herself from impulsively from ducking her head down and covering her ears in hope of relieving the symptoms. Immediately blood rushed to her head and cut off her peripheral vision; when she looked up Kuniko could see that her surroundings were blurry and abstract. One shape folded into another and twisted into a kaleidoscope of colour right before her eyes. The pressured in her head increased rapidly. Spots began to appear before her eyes, and before her confusion could turn into outright fear, her body collapsed, hitting the hard surface of the entrance hall like a rag doll. Her eyelids fluttered and she could only see flickers of the seemingly never-ending hall before she blacked out completely.

When Kuniko Ichikawa woke again, her head was pounding with exquisite pain. She raised her head and immediately frowned at her surroundings. Where was she? On the floor, certainly, and cold. Using what little strength she had to push herself up so she could focus on what was happening around her, she could only guess, from the vast amount of bright pink lockers and, located directly behind her, gleaming shower heads, that she was in a girl's locker room. In Hope's Peak Academy? She had to assume so, unless she dreamt arriving here this morning, but why was she on the floor? Her skin prickled at the thought of a possible kidnapping - perhaps she was drugged - and blood rushed to her head once more, compelling her to remain cross-legged on the floor. Once she had slowed her breathing to avoid hyperventilation and cleared her head, she focused on trying to remember, well, anything. In vain; all she could remember was entering the academy, then pain unlike anything she had ever felt, and then next thing she knew she woke up in the locker room.

Kuniko could feel herself becoming increasingly frustrated the more she sat and tried to work out what had happened to her. Well, I can't just sit here and do nothing. She forced herself into a standing position and walked tentatively around the room; maybe there was anything in there that might help her situation. The room in general was astonishingly well kempt; in fact, it looked like it had not been used at all, but had been cleaned repeatedly anyway. The showers glistened and even the lockers were completely clean of graffiti or markings. She tried one of the showers. Yep, it worked; water gushed out powerfully, soaking Kuniko's shoes.

Well, at least students are kept clean here.

Tentatively, Kuniko approached the door and would have opened it if something had not caught her eye. It was a small key, laying solitary in front of the door. Picking it up, Kuniko noticed the pink tag and the numbers 004 engraved on it.

A... locker key?

Perhaps this was a clue. Curiosity was always Kuniko's biggest vice; finding the locker, she inserted the key. She didn't know what she had expected, but certainly it wasn't the pocket-book sized device she found. It wasn't a phone, because it was too small to be one; it certainly wasn't anything she had seen before. She picked it up and immediately the screen flashed alive, displaying the words: "Ichikawa Kuniko".

The young girl started at the sight of her name written on the tablet. Turning it over, nothing was special about it apart from a small, bear shaped icon plastered on the black material. She stared intensely at the small picture for a moment; she felt something resembling recognition. Of course, she couldn't figure out why she felt this, but it probably wasn't important anyway.

She gingerly tapping the screen, and immediately her name disappeared. Now, she could see a menu-like layout: "Report Card", "Profile", and "Map" were some of the options given. Tapping the "profile" button, Kuniko found herself feeling even more stunned that she already was, for it contained everything about her. Her name, her date of birth, her hair colour, eye colour, gender, weight, height... everything was correct. But how did this little device know all this information? She couldn't remember setting it up and adding her personal details into it. However, then again, she couldn't remember much. It was so frustrating! Returning to the menu screen feeling very, very perturbed, Kuniko Ichikawa tapped the button captioned: "map". Doing so revealed a layout of the building she was in. Each room was captioned. She was right; she was in the girl's locker room. She was looking at the map as she exited the room and looked up to see that she was standing in a hallway. Directly across from her was a large door; on the map it was labelled: "gymnasium".

Everything was silent. Not a sound could be heard.

Kuniko looked around her, beginning to panic; yes, this was Hope's Peak, that was certain. But where were all the students? Where were her classmates?

Metal plates kept out every leak of natural light. She tried to remove the plates, not they were secured tightly. It was like she was in a prison cell, or caged like an animal.

Just when Kuniko was beginning to sink into unadulterated, pure despair at the uncertainty of her situation, she heard four chimes and, after that, she heard a voice. A voice so utterly chilling that it made her stand still and begin to shudder despite herself, without having the explanation as to why.

"Welcome, new students! This is your headmaster speaking! Please meet in the cafeteria in ten minutes. I look forward to seeing all your wonderful faces reeeeeeal soon!"

This voice, as Kuniko was about to find out within the next couple of days, belonged to the one who would strive to make the lives of the 79th Class of Hope's Peak Academy a living hell. This voice belonged to the true face of Ultimate Despair.

Hello there, Danganronpa fandom! My name is BittersweetSympathy, or you can call me Hope. Yes, that's right - quite fitting for this fandom, don't you think? This is my first Danganronpa fanfiction and I would really love to make it a SYOC, so I need all your characters. I only have a few rules, so please bear with me.

1) Be creative! Please don't give me a Togami 2.0 (although I do love him. A LOT.)

2) Please send me submissions via PM, as this helps keep your OCs a secret from other people (apart from me, of course)

3) No Mary Sues or Gary Stus. Please.

That's it! The submission form is on my profile, so please check it out! I will be accepting seven girls and eight guys. That's all. So please make them great!

I hope you liked this chapter; please let me know what you thought, and what you think of our protagonist, Kuniko. Can you guess what her SHSL is? I'll be impressed if you can, so give it a guess!